Page 10 of Not So Goode

“I ain’t askin for you, I’m askin’ for me. For the world. Talent like yours oughta be shared, man.”

I went to work packing up the rest of his guitars. “Well, you and the world are gonna have to suffer without me, because I—do—not—perform.”

He leaned against a stack of sound equipment cases. “I’ll figure it out. One of these days.”

“You been tryin’ for years, Myles. Give it up.”

“Never.” He laughed. “I did get you to play once, remember?”

I snorted. “Yeah, once, and look how that turned out.”

“Hey, that wasn’tmyfault. You were shitfaced.”

“I was so shitfaced it was a miracle I could walk. I’ll never forget that, by the way. Most embarrassing day of my life. One of those days I wish I’d blacked out.”

“Thank god for us both it was in a dive bar in the middle of…where the hell was it? Kentucky? Alabama?”

“Fuck if I know, man,” I said. “It was a couple years ago, and we were both obliterated.”

“I think it was Alabama. Tuscaloosa, maybe? Honestly, it’s a wonder there’s no video of that. I keep expecting to pull up Twitter or YouTube and see someone’s posted some grainy-ass footage of that night.”

“Well, let’s pray that never happens, because you fell on your ass, as I remember, and I couldn’t even see the strings enough to manage a basic chord. Crowd laughed their asses off, though. They were as drunk as we were.”

“Good times, man.” He gestured out at the dispersing crowd as he guzzled another bottle of water. “Far cry from that, these days, huh?”

I finished snapping the last guitar case closed, and then began arranging them in their dedicated storage box. “Yeah, it sure is. You’ve come a long-ass way, brother.”

He grabbed me and I straightened; the jokester, the charming Texas grin was gone, a rare serious moment with Myles. “We’vecome a long way, Crow. You’ve been with me since the day this shit started blowing up for me.”

“I got your back, Myles. You know that.”

He shook his head, frowning. “I couldn’t have done any of this without you. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.” A pause. “Literally.”

I sighed. “The bridge doesn’t remember waters long passed, Myles.”

He laughed. “The fuck does that mean, Confucius?”

“It means that shit is history, man. Not worth remembering.”

“Yeah, it is. It’s well worth remembering, to me.”

I started coiling cords. “Myles…” I just turned away, went about my work. “What’s our next stop?”

He consulted his memory, glancing up and to the right, grinding the toe of his boot against the floor. “Um. Illinois, I think. A festival near Chicago.”

“Who’s all there?”

“Everybody, bro. Sam Hunt, Luke Combs, Dustin Lynch, Kane Brown, Miranda Lambert, Old Dominion, Parker…somebody new on the scene, can’t remember his last name, but he’s pretty good. Single is ‘Pretty Heart.’ Shit, who else? Fuckin’ a bunch of acts. Gonna be a good time. We go on Friday, and don’t have to be in Denver till Tuesday. One of the little breaks we’ve got built into the schedule.”

“Nice.”

I had the last of his personal guitars, cords, and amps stowed away the way I liked them, and that was it for me—the rest of the crew would break everything else down. We’d been doing this together long enough that Myles was already heading for the bus as I clicked the latches on the last of the crates, knowing I’d be right behind him.

He stepped up onto his bus, and I was only moments behind him. We splayed out side by side on the couch, and just sat for a few moments, soaking in the silence.

This was a ritual.

After the setup and mic check and rehearsal, after the opening acts and the side-stage drinking and bantering, after the show was over and the crowd was largely gone, we both needed a few minutes of just…quiet. Stillness.