Page 17 of Not the Punk

“I see. Hmmm. How do I know what that is?” Trent was the only other experience I had with long-term relationships.

“You communicate with your Daddy. Duh…”

Marci opened the bus door and stuck her head in. “Come on, let’s go.”

We stepped out of the bus, meeting up with the rest of the band and some of the management team and our techs, which made about a dozen people. Alden and Brax were on either side of the group, walking us to the door, but that was a lot of people for only two guards to cover. It wasn’t my job to worry about those details, but I was. I couldn’t help it. The what-if scenarios wouldn’t stop, and I was on the verge of a panic attack before we even got inside.

Kay put his arm around me. “You okay?”

I nodded. “It’s fine.”

But I caught a hard look from Jinx as we headed down the hall and figured we had a talk coming later.

I always liked sound checks, and today’s got my mind off of missing my Colten. My Daddy. I was trying it out in my head, and I didn’t hate it.

Kay ran through a riff, and Laz made some adjustments, while on the other side of the stage, Dylan and the new assistant, Lance, were working with Dave and Matty. When Pierce saw we were mostly finished, including Randy and his tech, June, he grabbed the mic from Rowan. “Let’s run through one, dudes.”

Of course, he chose Mr. Neighbor, the one he mostly wrote himself and pushed onto us during recording. He had a way of sneaking at least one song in like that, but after Jinx helped me rework some of it and Wolf added a decent, if subtle, bridge, it didn’t sound too bad.

Randy kicked it off with a fast, pounding bass, and we jumped in at the right time before Pierce started belting out the words.

I’m beginning to dream, more and more

Of moving out to the country

With all these threats

Lurking at our doors

Black threats of war

People can be so mean

And living back-to-back with your neighbors

So close that their sweat drips

Into each other’s minds

And the skies are gray again

And you can still smell him

Mr. Neighbor – Mr. Neighbor

And his kin

Even pushing out to the suburbs

Is a sin…

Mr. Neighbor – Mr. Neighbor

“Okay, guys. That sounded pretty good, huh?” Pierce jumped and kicked all David Lee Roth style and gave out a high-pitched yowl.

Kay nodded and handed his guitar back to Laz. “I’m happy.”

Everything wrapped up quickly after that and we were herded back to the buses.