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“Come on, let’s get you dried off and into bed before Colby comes back,” I said, breaking the moment because I knew she’d been in danger of going into herself again.
“Yes, dad,” she replied, and I snickered because I had sounded bossy when I said it.
* * *
A couple of days before I had to leave for the tour, I had cold feet about going away. What kind of husband or father was I if I did this? It felt as if I’d decided to put my bandmates before my family, when Billie, Colby, and my unborn babies should have been my priority.
At seven months pregnant Billie had looked exhausted and as if she’d been ready to give birth any day. Waddling around with swollen ankles, her back and legs ached from the weight of her belly. But for all my wife’s reserved nature, she was one stubborn fuck when it came to me wanting to drop out of the tour.
“You can’t do that to everyone. You made a commitment.”
“That was before all of this,” I reminded her, pointing to her abdomen, but she wouldn’t budge.
“All you’ll be doing is moping around here because I’ll still be going to work three days per week at the office,” she said, more forcefully than I think I had ever heard her. “Look, I’m having babies, Sawyer, not heart surgery,” she insisted, when she saw the dark look I gave her. “Go on your tour. Life here will continue as normal until you get back.”
“What about Colby … school … baseball—”
“James,” she said, cutting me off. “He said he’d take care of those duties while you’re gone, and Logan needs to step up too.”
“I don’t want him getting in your head while I’m gone.” She sat on the couch and stared up at me like I’d given her terrible news.
“Getting in my head? Who James or Logan? What exactly does that mean? Two of the three weekends you are gone Colby is with his dad, and Tricia has already marked those dates off on her calendar to come and stay with me.”
Despite her reassurance I had a knot in my stomach, but she kept explaining that other wives did this when their men went to work away from home.
“If you were a traveling salesman and we needed the money you’d still go to work,” she argued. But I wasn’t and we didn’t need money. The RedA band tour was fourteen dates, and for the first time in my life I hadn’t wanted to make music because I felt sick about leaving her behind.
The dichotomy for me was leaving James and Tricia in charge of ensuring Billie’s and Colby’s safety, as it had been less than a year since I’d begun to learn I could trust James, but I did. I was no fool, but knowing he was there for her to lean on if necessary, had given me a small amount of confidence I’d never have expected to have about him.
When the day finally came for me to leave, it had felt heart-wrenching. By the time I met up with the band in Cleveland after leaving my family behind, my mood rested between feeling pissed off and don’t fuck with me.
I’d left to tour with my band many times over the years, but this was the first time I had felt truly emotionally fragile. I was leaving people who needed me, but had another commitment to my band who also needed me.
I was thankful for James and oddly enough, despite our past relationship, I couldn’t think of any one person I trusted more to take care of Billie. And in the short time we’d been talking again I had realized we were more alike than either of us had known.
“Cheer up, you look like you need a good hard fuck to pull you out of those doldrums,” Wiggy said, by way of a dig.
I scowled. “I just want to get through this tour without any issues and get home to my family,” I informed him.
“Fuck me, I remember a time when being in a band used to be fun,” he shot back.
“And I remember a time when you weren’t such a dick, now get the fuck out of my face while you’ve still got one.” Wiggy’s shocked eyes went huge and round, as he wasn’t used to me losing my shit with him. His head looked left and right as he stood and eyed the door like he’d been planning to run away at any second. I sighed.
“Just … leave it, Wiggy. I’m not in the mood for wisecracks today,” I muttered in a more measured tone.
“Wiggy,” Hammer called out, and I knew immediately he was distracting my annoying bandmate in the hope of defusing the situation between us. Luckily, Wiggy took Hammer’s cue and slowly wandered away from me, but this still hadn’t stopped him from mumbling a curse to himself.
Ignoring him, I had been in no mood for his crass immaturity, and I felt relieved we’d elected to stay in hotels for most of the time, because I’d had a feeling my patience with him had run out.
The tour arrangements by Valerie Docherty’s team were excellent, and we were well taken care of transport-wise. We had been scheduled to fly to most cities or had short helicopter hops for journeys to the next gigs within the same state. This had taken a lot of the stress out of the logistics of the tour for us, and we knew this would make us far more accessible for sound and equipment checks.
Being an opening act to a band like RedA had given us access to much bigger audiences and more time in one place than we’d previously had, due to the transport arrangements already made. It had also afforded us more space from one another, which in my case wasn’t a bad thing, given how I felt about missing home.
Being with the guys felt different. Strings appeared distant for a start, and his avoidance of Wiggy at every opportunity, gave me a vibe our days as a band had been numbered by Wiggy’s stint in rehab. The first four days had been full-on with us settling into our supporting role and there had been some time for a little socializing between RedA and our band.
It wasn’t only Strings who’d been nervous about us doing well, we all were. This was due to Wiggy who had drawn attention to himself from the moment we’d set foot in the first venue in Cleveland. Even by rock star standards he made a show of himself, and I saw something I thought I’d never see during this time, Hammer’s patience with our bandmate had worn thin.
“We need to talk,” he barked after I’d let him into my hotel room that evening after the gig.
