Page 78

Beckett sighed, running his hand through his hair. “My knee hurts all the fucking time, Jackie. I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”

Jackson fell back against the back of the sofa. “Well, fuck me, then.”

“We’re here now. We should enjoy this moment. Don’t worry about what comes next,” Logan said.

Jackson drained the last of his drink and got to his feet. “I need a refill.”

They watched as he stepped around the stanchions cordoning off the VIP area and made for the bar until he disappeared into the crowd, Rodney trailing behind him.

“I guess we never really talked about what happens after this tour,” Logan said.

“I just assumed…” Nico trailed off.

They all had. But not Jackson, apparently.

Beckett got to his feet. “I’ll talk to him.”

“Give him a few minutes to calm down,” Zach said.

But Beckett knew that look on Jackson’s face. It was the same one he got when they were nine and his dad told them they weren’t going to Disneyland that summer after all. The same look he got the first time the band broke up, when the pressure and the partying got to be more than they could take and they decided to take a step back. He hadn’t wanted to end it then either, but he’d been outvoted. Four to one.

Last time, the band’s decision to part ways had sent Jackson into a years-long party binge, continent hopping with B-list celebs, doing God knows what.

“I still think he’d be less grouchy if he got laid,” Zach said.

“Sex doesn’t fix everything,” Logan said.

Nico shrugged. “It wouldn’t hurt.”

“That’s not—Midnight Storm is Jackson’s entire identity,” Beckett said. “It’s all he’s wanted since we were kids. It’s all he’s talked about since we stopped touring last time. ‘Gotta get the band back together, Becks.’ I thought he realized this might be it.”

“He’s never going to be ready for it to end,” Nico said softly.

Beckett’s gut twisted. Nico was right. And if Jackson was never ready, if it never felt like his decision, what would happen when the time came that it actually was over?

“He’ll come around,” Zach said. “You know how he is. The tour will end and some influencer will invite him to their private island in the Caribbean. He’ll spend a week partying like he always does and by the time everyone sobers up, he’ll have forgotten why he was even mad in the first place.”

That was exactly what Beckett was worried about.

Logan cocked his head to the side and gave him a questioning look, as though he could read his thoughts. “You think it’s more than the usual partying?”

Beckett pressed his lips together. They didn’t talk about this. Not when Jackson started adding more and more liquor to their venue riders, bottles of whisky and vodka appearing alongside the usual beers. Not when his brother got caught on film stumbling around a private club in Paris with a woman half his age, a woman who gave a detailed interview to the press about exactly how many shots they’d taken that night and exactly how many women he’d invited back to his hotel. Not even when Jackson crashed that car and Beckett ended up in the hospital with a bum knee. They laughed it off, called him a party boy, quietly cleaned up the mess, instituted rules like ‘no phones in the party suite.’ Moved on.

And maybe that was part of the problem. Maybe it was time they started talking.

“I think it’s been more for a while now,” he finally said.

Zach frowned. “Jackson likes to party. He always has. Even when we were in high school, the guy was always looking for a good time.”

Logan scratched the back of his neck the way he did when he was thinking. “Can anyone remember the last time he went a day without a drink?”

“I haven’t been keeping track,” Nico said. “But I can’t think of a day of this tour that he wasn’t partaking.”

“It’s not like he’s hammered all the time,” Beckett said.

“He’s not sober either,” Logan countered.

The crease between Zach’s eyebrows deepened. “You really think he has a problem? He’s not drunk when we perform. He shows up when he’s supposed to. Does what he’s supposed to.”