“He’s got a point, Tate. One night won’t kill us. And when we get back, we can sit down and figure out a solid plan for this.”
He didn’t respond, but I knew he’d come with us to the gig.
The day of the show we dropped Cara off at his mother’s. She was her usual excited self to have her over.
“Nene and Cara are going to have a girl’s day,” she giggled, taking her from Tate’s arms. She had just woken up from the car ride over.
“Nene?” Tate grimaced. She frowned.
“What? I wanted something different. And it’s easy. You can keep making that face all you want, but I’m Nene now and I’m taking my granddaughter for a spa day.” She kissed the infant’s chubby cheeks.
“She’s barely three months old. What do you plan on doing with her?”
“Oh, stop worrying. She’s going to sit in a bassinet while I get my massage and nails done. I’m just teasing you.”
“I’m already on edge about this whole thing. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t make it worse,” his voice was terse with her. She rolled her pretty eyes and looked to me for assurance.
“He really is worrying about nothing. Your parents did this, didn’t they? Traveled while you were growing up?”
I nodded.
“Our entire lives. They’re actually on tour right now. It sucked sometimes, but you kind of get used to it,” I lied. Well, half lied. You did get used to it when it was happening, but you still missed them when they were gone.
“See,” she looked back at her son. “It’s fine. It’s normal to be nervous, but your daughter is in safe hands. I can video call you later before and after your show if you want. This is the just the thing you need to start adjusting. Start off slow, one night here, a weekend there.”
“I’m not leaving my daughter here for someone else to raise.” he snapped at her. She blinked, stunned at his words. I was too. Her red lip trembled and before an argument broke out, I pushed him towards his car.
“Thank you, Mrs. Whitlock, we’ll call you in a few hours,” I said, shoving him away from her. The car ride back to our apartment was awkward at best. He gripped the steering wheel tightly and said little. I was already dreading the next twenty-four hours. He was going to be worse than Dallas.
The rest of the band was ready and waiting besides Ronny’s new van. Tate was unamused at the sight of it. He had just gotten it. We’d been borrowing Travie’s van, but that was for local gigs. We needed something for longer distances.
“We’re all driving in that?” Tate grumbled.
“Yes, we talked about this,” I reminded him. He didn’t say anything as he climbed in after me.
The longer I spent with him today the more I was so completely over his mood. I understood why he was bothered. I really did, but this was our careers. We chose this life, and all the good and bad that came with it. If he couldn’t handle it then he needed to bow out. We would simply have to figure out something else.
“I’ve played this place before with Hip Friction. It’s a pretty cool venue. I think it’s gonna be great exposure.”
“I think I’ve been to a show there before. I wished I remembered what the bands were. Nothing huge I don’t think, but it was a fun night,” Cash added.
Tate didn’t say much during the trip up, which we were all expecting. I tried not to let it bother me. I ended up drinking a bit to relax. By the time we stepped on solid ground I was a little tipsy.
Cash went to talk with the manager and we started loading out equipment. Things were so tense I began to get nervous about the show. Would we screw up just because everyone was on edge? Or could we put all of our problems away for an hour so we could perform our best? Tate had never showed us anything but professionalism so my head said he could do it. But the glares he was giving everyone made my heart doubt him.
Since we didn’t bring anyone extra along, I ran the merch booth with Dallas as the opening bands played. We were here only because the original headliner had to back out at the last minute. Word of mouth and our viral fame had been spreading our name around the state, making the manager of this club reach out in search of us.
I was pleasantly surprised when we sold out of most of our gear before we even took the stage. That had never happened before. All we had left were posters to sign.
“Your husband’s on the verge of pulling a Ronald,” Dallas mentioned while we were holding down the front at the table. I turned to him in confusion.
“What?”
“A Ronald. You know, making a giant scene on stage, causing your career to implode and get us all blacklisted.” He crossed his arms. I sighed. I wanted to argue and tell him that was ridiculous, but Tate had been in such a bad mood I wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t going to pull aRonald.
“I’m going to ask Mom and Dad how they did it for so long. Remember when Mom was gone for like, a year?”
“Psh, longer I think. It sucked. It was always so weird when they came back too. The awkward small talk they’d try to make as they caught back up with things.”
