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Ziggy’s rough voice came through. “Coleman. Uh, thanks for the message. The show was fine. But…I’ll be honest with you. I don’t think I am. Ugh!” I could picture him rubbing his handsome face. “I shouldn’t say that. I didn’t mean to. I’m struggling. I miss you. That’s all. I’ll be fine. Thanks for calling.”
That was all.
He was not fine. I heard that clearly enough. But nearly anything I could do would only make it worse. I sent a text message to Jinx.When you have a minute call me. Need to talk about Zig.
I knew he would call when he could. He was the leader, the caretaker, of the band. Jinx was the glue keeping it together. Justdon’t tell Miami that. But Jinx cared deeply about every one of his bandmates.
four
Pissed off in Atlanta
“You what?”
Jinx rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. “I talked to Coleman. Now calm the fuck down.”
“About me?”
“Yes, about you. He’s worried, and after soundcheck yesterday, so am I.”
“Figures,” I huffed. I was referring to Coleman calling Jinx instead of me, not Jinx being worried. I’d given them somethingto worry about. A little. “I’m fine.” I held up my hands. “I’m not going to tell you that this shit with Coleman doesn’t have me upset. If he’s worried about me, he should call me, not drag you into our mess.”
“He seems to think you’re not a couple anymore and the breakup was hard on you.”
I laughed, but it was a cover. I didn’t want Jinx poking around in my pain. “Breakup? We were never a couple to begin with.” Jinx glared at me so hard I actually felt it. “Seriously, okay? We were fucking around. That’s it.”
“Then why are you streaking across the stage and getting blind-ass passed out drunk before the show?”
“Because I’m Ziggy. That’s what I do.” I also escaped these conversations, but that was impossible to do in the back of a tour bus with him blocking the way. I could probably take him, but I’d have Miami and security on top of me. So no. I held my hands up, making light of the situation that felt anything but.
“Ziggy. I don’t want to get in the middle of things with—”
“Don’t. Okay?”
“But I do worry about you. I can’t sit back and watch you self-destruct. That’s not what we do anymore. Remember?”
We had all banded together to pull Miami out of a dark place. We re-established our group dynamics and agreed that we were family above all else. Brothers. I nodded, remembering. But I still didn’t want them wandering around in my dark quagmire.
“So, no, Zig. I’m not going to ignore it when Coleman calls me worried. If you don’t want to get real with me right now, that’s fine. But if you need to talk. Or if you need anything at all. I expect you to come to me. Don’t think I’m not going to understand, brother.” The seriousness of his golden-brown eyes hit me hard.
“I get it. I understand. But I’m fine. He called me and left a message asking about the show. I called him back, but it waslate, and I was tired. He took it the wrong way. I’m fine.” I needed a joint like nobody’s business. Thankfully, I had friends in Atlanta who would hook me up, and I’d already arranged backstage passes for them. Although, labeling themfriendswas probably stretching it. I licked my lips. That’s all I needed to set things right, a good strong doobie so I could chill. But Jinx wasn’t moving out of my face. “Jinx. If I do need to talk or whatever, you’re first on my list. Okay?” That would never happen, but I needed out of this conversation.
“Fine. Get some rest. We’ll be in Atlanta in about forty-five minutes to an hour, depending on traffic.” We had two shows there and would be getting hotel rooms. I was more than ready for that.
“Cool beans.”
Finally, he moved on, and I slid into my bunk. Tapping out a beat on my knees, I closed my eyes. What I needed to do was concentrate on moving forward. I needed to get through this show, this tour. Maybe I could figure out the rest of my fucking life after that.
The bus drove by the Mercedes-Benz Stadium with its huge silver falcon right in front of the modern geometric building. It was all angles and glass, looking more like a museum than a stadium to me, but inside would be more traditional. After circling around a lot of concrete parking lots and roadways, we could see a patch of green for about three seconds before we were inside the parking garage next to the World Congress Center. There was a Hilton there, and we’d be entering through the back as usual. I doubted we would get to see much of it besides elevators and hallways before hitting our rooms.
In fact, Marci got off the bus first and went inside with one of the security guards in tow. No doubt she would get all the key cards and direct us where we needed to go. Checking in ourselves at the desk would be too high of a security risk, and if word got out, fans could swamp the lobby pretty quickly. With social media so instantaneous, it’s not hard to get a ton of people to descend on a location pretty fast. Although, I’d seenthat more in places where major bands like Social Sinners lived. West Coast hype and all that. But we were getting bigger. Hell, we were playing huge stadiums again. We were fucking back!
And I was pretty sure I was going to fuck it all up.
When Marci came back to the buses, she stopped on ours first. Miami and Jinx shared this one with me. Wolf had one with his man and brother-in-law and Kay from our opening act, Bramble Punk. Still an odd name to me, but better than the last name, Lazer-fuckers or some shit. But Kay was odd, so it fit. The rest of his band was on the third bus. Roadies and Techs were on the fourth one, which was super full, with nothing but bunks. I was happy I didn’t have to ride there. The final bus had a couple of security guys, Marci, and the new creative director, Kai. I didn’t know much about him yet, but he was redesigning our logo, our websites, taking over our social media, and, oh, he designed the stage. Yeah. Coleman had hooked us up with him. Great. Each bus had a security guy as well. Ours was Drake. The equipment rode in two semi-trucks and parked inside the stadium fences to unload later.
Marci handed Drake a folder and said some shit to him, but all I heard was, “Get moving.”
That was all the cue I needed to grab my duffle and sling it over my shoulder. At the last second, I reached into my bunk and grabbed my beat-up old cowboy hat and a pair of dark shades. Incognito and all that mess. Which was stupid, because it probably made me look more like a rock star with my cropped T-shirt and ripped jeans than not. Whatever. It was Drake’s job to keep me safe, and I trusted him to do it.
