“Great show,” Mira says.
“You and JD are reading from the same script tonight.”
Mira ignores my comment and opens the portfolio on the folding table, pushing aside a tray of rolled turkey slices that have gone translucent at the edges. She pulls out a single sheet of paper and taps it with her index finger.
“Got a call from Pinnacle Touring. They want to put together a package for next spring. Reunion circuit. Classic rock acts, heritage bands. Two months, thirty cities.”
She pauses.
“They’re calling it a legacy tour.”
The word lingers in the room, heavy and uninvited. Legacy. I roll it around and taste what it means, which is a nice way of saying the thing you built is behind you.
“No,” I say.
“You didn’t even let me finish.”
“You finished when you said legacy.”
Mira lifts both hands, palms out. “It’s good money, Liam. Really good money. And the routing is clean. Amphitheaters, sheds, and a few arenas where the package is strong enough.”
“Amphitheaters we used to headline on our own.”
“That was ten to fifteen years ago.”
“I know when it was.”
Harrison lowers himself onto the far end of the couch. He doesn’t comment. He presses his thumb into the meat of his left shoulder and holds it there, eyes half-closed.
JD keeps scrolling.
Mira watches me for a long moment. She’s managed this band through four albums, two lineup changes, and one tell-all book written by a journalist via the diaries of our formermanager who I don’t think about anymore if I can help it. She knows when I mean no and when I mean convince me. I can see her trying to figure out which one this is.
“There’s one more thing,” she says. “Different subject. A producer named Bex Alderman reached out. Indie label, boutique operation in New York City. She does these stripped-down records, raw production, very lo-fi. She heard ‘Ordinary Ruin’ on a podcast and wants to pitch you a collaboration. Not a 4225 West project. A solo thing.”
“I’m not a solo act.”
“She didn’t say solo act. I did,” Mira corrects. “She said different.”
“Different how?”
Mira shrugs. “She wants to meet and explain it. I told her I’d pass it along.”
I take a long drink and feel the mineral water sting the back of my throat. Through the wall, I can hear the local crew breaking down the stage, truss pins clanging into road cases, the whine of a forklift backing up.
“Pass it along,” I say. “Consider it passed.”
Mira closes the portfolio. She knows better than to push two things in one night.
The bus is parked behind the venue in a lot that smells of diesel and fryer grease from the burger place next door. It’s a forty-five-foot Prevost, the same model we’ve leased for the last eight runs, and the carpet inside smells of coffee and the cedar air freshener. Our driver, Paulie, sits in his seat and bumps my fist with his as I pass by down the narrow pathway, to the room at the end of the bus.
It’s times like this when I wish we were traveling by jet. We own one. We should use it. But Mira thought it would be a good idea to show our fans we care about our carbon footprint. Plus, the tour bus being decorated helps with social media content.
I call Josie. My wife. The love of my life. The woman who I will always grovel to because of what I did to her when we were younger.
She picks up on the second ring. “Hey, Rockstar.”
My body tightens. The way she says “Rockstar” soft and low, is such a fucking turn-on. She knows it too.
