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He grunted, came, and leaned over me. I felt his face press against my back, between my shoulder blades. “Jack, I love you.”
“Fuck, Cole. You play dirty.”
He slid off of me, and I flopped on my back. Of course he leaned over me, looking into my face. “That’s your name, right?”
I gave him a quick nod and squinched my eyes shut. “Nobody calls me that. I mean, other than you, the last people to call me by my real name were my biological family. And they’re all shitheads.”
“What do you mean?”
I did not want to talk about this. My family? Those people who go by Braswell were fucking crazy. “My parents did the whole kick me out cuz gay thing. But when Hunt hit it big, suddenly they want me back? Imagine that.”
“Woah. I did not know that.” I didn’t see pity in his eyes. Only understanding and concern.
The only other person in the world I felt I could be open with was Miami, and I’d never told him this. Only that I didn’t get along with them. Miami Hunt was my family, and when we were broken up, I drowned myself in dope and alcohol. But maybe that could change. “My sister, Livia or Liv. She was cool, you know, and she wanted to get to know me. For me. But she’s crazy fucked up too. She’s in an arranged marriage, for crying out loud, and her husband, the pastor, wanted nothing to do with me and my devil music.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Arranged marriage?”
I nodded. “I told you. They’re all crazy. I mean. I’m crazy, right, but not crazy like that.”
Coleman flopped on his back with a huff. “You’re not crazy. Just fun-loving.”
“No. Not really. I think I’m bat-shit crazy. I just hide it better.” Not to mention all the self-medicating. But I didn’t want to bring that up, either.
“Zig…” Thankfully, he was back to the nickname. When Miami had originally thought of all of us going by the nicknames, I thought it was fucking brilliant. “I want to make this better for you, but I don’t know how.”
“I don’t think you can.” I had noodled over that for a long time in my past and eventually came up with the only solution. “I don’t have anything to do with them. And they don’t bug me. I think they call it compartmentalizing. Yeah. Whatever. It works.”
“I don’t know what to say. I don’t know if that’s healthy, but I get it.”
“What’s your family like?”
“Normal. Well, for Californian people. My folks are hippy throwbacks, but I had a good childhood, and I still talk to them. I don’t see them much.”
“Why not?” Now, I sat up and leaned over him. “I think if I had folks that were cool, I’d be there all the fucking time, man.” His gold-specked eyes flickered. “What are you thinking?”
“They live in California, and I live…” He laughed, but it was forced, and not happy at all. “I live everywhere. But when I’m not traveling around, I have a house in Colorado.”
“Yeah, I knew you lived in Denver, but you’re always with me. I kind of assumed you had a place in Miami, too.” I’d never been to either. When we were in Florida, he always came to mine.
He shook his head. “No. I did a short-term rental on a condo when you were recording.” He looked sad, but before I could ask him what was up with that. He jumped up. “Oh shit. We have to get to the airport.”
“Didn’t you book a private jet? They’ll wait for us.”
“Yes, but you still have obligations and a soundcheck to get to.”
I was one hundred percent not worried about that. “Eh. If I don’t get there, I totally trust Simon to get it set up.”
“That’s not the point.”
Whether it was or not, under Coleman’s command, we picked up clothes, packed them, got dressed, and rushed out. Coleman called for the car on the way down the elevator.
nine
We’re Late to New Jersey
We finally arrived during the middle of the soundcheck. Ziggy jogged over to the stage and up the steps, and I followed him up. While he beelined toward his kit, I found an out-of-the-way place to watch. I was getting good at that, and most of the time, I didn’t think they remembered I was there.
But as Ziggy got over to Simon, who was sitting behind his kit, tapping the drums randomly, everything else going on stopped. Miami strutted over to face the kit. “What the fuck, Zig?”
