Page 8 of Dedicated
Chapter 7
Icame to nine hours later, mummified by the sheet on my bunk and drenched in sweat. After unsticking my phone from where it had gotten wedged against the side of my ribs, I held it in front of my eyes until the blur in them cleared and the numbers swam into focus. Two hours until showtime.Shit.
My head pounded like an out-of-control kick drum, and my stomach was a sour, empty wasteland. I’d missed the fat stack of pancakes. Hell, I’d missed the day. When I pulled back the curtain on the bunk, twilight greeted me, along with a view of the empty parking lot outside the bus. Familiar scenery. It used to be more exciting. It used to be a prelude, like an appetizer to the night. I’d get pumped up imagining the lot as it filled up with cars crowded with fans who’d paid money—good money—to listen to the words that came from my head. Today I looked out the window and just saw an empty parking lot I didn’t remember arriving at.
I shot a text to Blink, our front-of-house engineer, telling him to get his ass to the bus. He arrived ten minutes later, slipping inside soundlessly. He was a compact force of nature and could fix any sound glitch in the blink of an eye. Hence, Blink.
“Fuck, dude,” he said when I slid out of the bunk and pooled in the center aisle of the bus at his feet. “You may be beyond my capabilities.”
“That’s bush league, Blink. Gimme something that’ll make opening my eyes less like medieval torture.” I gazed up at him with my best rendition of puppy dog eyes.
“Could whip out my cock,” he suggested.
I managed some raspy, dry-throated laughter that hurt. “I need a pick-me-up, not something that makes we want to gouge my eyes out.”
“Harsh, dude.” And he sounded like he meant it. “What’re you thinking? I wouldn’t go hard.” He fidgeted and searched through his pockets while I considered.
“Probably just the Never Better.”
Blink nodded, his fingers darted through the pockets of his jacket and cargo shorts, plucking out pills. The guy had a tool or a combination for everything. And he named all of them. The Never Better was his best hangover cure that wouldn’t leave a person with another harsh comedown: a combination of a joint and B vitamins followed half an hour later with a thin rail of Adderall. All were acceptably within the limits of the no-hard-drugs rule.
He fired up the joint immediately and passed it over to me. My stomach unclenched after the first deep inhale, like it knew relief was on the way. Then, he assembled the B vitamins, dumping them in my left hand. He turned to the counter, popping the Adderall into a tiny baggie and crushing it with the side of a coffee mug. “Remember, half an—”
“Hour, I know. I’ll be right as rain.”
“That one’s definitely not for you today.”
We chuckled. The last time I’d asked him for a ‘Right as Rain,’ I’d ended up at a twenty-four-hour rave in the Arizona desert dancing until the sun came up before crashing for two days straight.
“How about an Act Together,” a low voice said over Blink’s shoulder. “Can you get one of those?”
Blink shot a look over his shoulder at Evan, letting out some tentative laughter. They didn’t get along as well as they used to. Evan thought Blink enabled me. Which… was not entirely untrue. But he was also one of the best sound guys out there, and he’d been with us from the start. And besides, in a week’s time, I’d be cut off in the cabin with plenty of time to detox my body and get my act together. So why rush it?
“Fresh out of those, dude,” Blink said.
“No shit.” Evan thumbed at the door. “They need you out there. Something’s off with the amps.”
Blink frowned and tossed the baggie to me as he jetted. Then it was just me, Evan, and the whole big awkward world of unsaid dangling between us. I hated that it was like this more often than not lately. I hated knowing it was probably my fault. And I hated the fact that I couldn’t seem to fix it, mostly because I wasn’t sure what exactly needed fixing.
I waited for a lecture or some serious side eye, but Evan only uncapped the water bottle he was carrying and took a few backward steps to drop onto the couch while I pinched out the joint and tucked it in my pocket for later.
I must have looked pretty pitiful, because with a sigh and another long look, he handed me his bottle of water. I tossed the vitamins into the back of my throat and washed them down before handing the water back.
He studied the set list for the night, then set it aside and rubbed at the fine blond stubble on the side of his face. “You ever come up with anything last night? That bit you had the other afternoon was good, about the canyons.”
“Yeah?” It was pathetic how even the smallest praise from him streamed through my body like sunlight.
He nodded, but I couldn’t read much more from his expression aside from a general wariness. “Seemed worth expanding on.” He was talking about a verse I’d come up with the other day. One I should’ve worked on last night. Hell, maybe I had. I couldn’t remember what I’d written last night. I couldn’t remember getting on the damn bus.
I must have said that aloud because Evan pulled a face at me.
“You didn’t get on the bus. Mars dumped you inside. Then you basically told me to fuck off and threw the coffee I made you in the sink. Mug and all.”
I’d become mostly immune to shame, though I knew if ever there was a moment I should feel it, it was then. I was too hungover to muster it, though. “Sorry,” I said lamely. It was an empty apology, and he knew it.
There was a flash of something moving across his features, and I couldn’t tell if it was concern or pain, or closer to disappointment, but it landed on me like a weight and settled heavily in my stomach, undoing the calming effects of the weed.
“Les,” he said, that same expression taking hold and etching deep into his face. It was earnest and so raw it hurt to look at. For a second, I thought I’d finally done it: he was going to give me the big fuck off and leave me behind. He could do it. He was the more talented of us, the more ambitious, the more versatile. The more everything, really. The things he could do with a guitar and his voice didn’t just make people dance. It was breath and movement. His music was alive in a way that endlessly fascinated me, like he’d peeled the notes from his soul or the collective consciousness, somewhere deep and primal where everything resonated in harmony together behind the cloud of iPhones and universal disconnect and self-created loneliness. He didn’t think his lyrics were as good as mine, but he was wrong. And besides, music without lyrics was still music, but lyrics without music were just words.