Page 4

TWO

M ick is a dick. An arrogant, self-centered, son-of-a-dick.

There, I said it.

Mr. Famous Superstar is a dick. Who would’ve guessed?

The fucked-up part? He likes me. Yes. He abso-fucking-lutely likes me.

Like get-into-my-pants likes me. Not that I can do shit about that, because he’s Mick fucking Heart, the lead singer of the world famous band Six of Hearts.

Which we’re opening for. And I have to get along with Mick fucking Heart, because me and my band that just peeped around the corner of the music scene? We need him.

We need his fame. We need his band. And we need to keep opening for them so we keep our momentum going and can get big on our own.

Jodie's orders? The label’s orders? Play nice.

And. I. Hate. It.

I really hate it, especially when he insists on accompanying me on my jogs when the buses park somewhere for longer than a quick break.

Like right the fuck now.

He’s a seasoned rock star, for crying out loud; the only thing I saw him do the first couple of months was banging his way around the female and male population of America, snorting more coke than the motherfucking Wolf of Wall Street, and then wake up with a major hangover to do the whole thing over again.

Now, he’s here, wearing running shoes and complaining that I have to slow down.

Yes, I run while on tour. I have to. Because it turns out that being cooped up inside a bus for days and nights on end is not good for my mental state.

I’m a very active, outdoorsy kinda guy. Having nothing else to do but sit around on my ass all day and watch how my fellow tour colleagues play on the Xbox and smoke weed gets boring after a while.

I can only write so many songs; my notebooks are filled to the brim, and even though I really want to inundate him with texts and reels all damn day, Tyler has stuff to do as well.

Therefore, at every stop, I try to get out and run , to get all this bouncing energy that’s piling up out of my system. Being on stage helps a lot to get the tension out, but it’s not enough, not with how active I used to be.

I miss soccer. I miss surfing. And I especially miss jogging every morning with my favorite person in the entire world. And my favorite view.

Most of all, I miss him . And not even the sex—which is amazing— but just him. Gah .

Thank fuck, at least we have our own bus on this prolonged part of the tour. Don’t get me wrong, I love this experience; it feels like I’m on some sort of all-the-time high since leaving college. The shows, the music, the fanbase that’s exploding right now . It’s been out of this world. Really is.

But turns out, being holed up in a tour bus with sixteen people is not all that it’s cracked up to be. Since at first, the label put us with the roadies, who are outstanding and amazing people, they really are, but having no personal space or privacy gets old after a while.

Even more so when you try to have phone sex with your hot as fuck quarterback boyfriend.

Fortunately, after the first three months we got rewarded with our own freaking bus because we signed on with the damn record label, produced our own album in the few weeks we were back in LA, and have become a permanent fixture of the second part of Six of Hearts’ tour.

It’s a million times better.

We still have two roadies slash drivers and our brand new manager—Jodie—in our new digs with us, and they’re cool, but beside them, it’s just me and my three band members.

It’s the best. There’s more room to sit, the bathroom is fancier—and cleaner— and since there are fewer bunk beds, there’s room for doubles instead of the small cots they dared to call beds on the old bus.

We all have our own little place to fuck off to when we need to be alone and starfish the shit out of it.

Not that Asher and Ava use theirs to sleep in, since there’s also a small bedroom in the back that they claimed, which makes sense because they’re still a couple.

And after three months of them trying to be quiet, and me sleeping with earplugs in, I’m happy they’ve fucked off.

Literally. Even though I know Missy’s in the bunk beside mine, and there is a roadie in the one beneath me, when the curtain is closed, I can at least pretend that it’s just me and enjoy some solitude.

Doesn’t mean Mick can’t find me whenever he’s pining for my attention. He’s everywhere, and I can’t outrun him, no matter how hard I try. And I don’t mean physically, because I’m beating his famous ass as we speak.

“Jesus, dick. Can you just try to slow down?” Mick yells from behind me.

“What? Can’t keep up with the young ones anymore?” I shout over my shoulder.

“Fuck you, I’m only thirty-five.”

I scoff and push harder instead of replying, my feet pounding against the pavement, heart beating in my throat, determined to keep ahead, even if it means leaving Mick in the dust.

Fuck him. The only one that I want accompanying me on these runs is miles away.

I don’t even know where I am right now. Somewhere in Massachusetts, that’s where my topography of this part of North America ends.

It’s not too hot in the mornings, which is ideal for running.

In Florida last month, I couldn’t go for a run unless I wanted to drown in my sweat.

Being on stage there was a bitch as well, but with half a gallon of Gatorade to keep hydrated, we managed.

Lost my favorite shirt at that show, though. I only performed in a pair of shorts, wearing nothing else and still have no clue where it went. But hey, I can buy a new one since it turns out that if a label believes you’re going to be the new it-thing in the biz? They pay well to sign you on.

Not that I’m in this for the money. So far, it’s a nice benefit, but I do this for the very thing that makes me me : the music. For the intoxicating rhythm that pulses through my veins, for the way it speaks to my soul like nothing else can.

The only feeling that might top my love for music is my love for Tyler, my honest-to-god boyfriend . I never expected that I could miss something so much as I miss him. As much as I crave him, need him, and long for him.

I just never had something to miss like this before.

That’s a reason I’m pushing hard on these runs as well, I have to let it out . The missing, the pining, the overwhelming need sometimes to just say fuck it, fuck this, and fly back to where my heart is.

But I won’t do that. It will not be fair to the band, to us. To him. To me. I know that. He was right. We both have our lifelong dreams we have to follow, and we can make this fit in our lives somehow, some way. We just have to try .

And up til now, we were doing great. But we haven’t seen each other in ages, and it’s coming to a point where I know I have to make something happen soon.

Because I can see it in his eyes whenever we FaceTime, how the light has dimmed these past weeks, how his smile wavers more and more. I can even hear it in his broken voice, especially after I called him yesterday with the news that I can’t make his birthday tomorrow.

He might decide that it’s not worth it.

That I’m not worth it.

I can’t have that. If there’s one thing I learned while on this tour, it’s that if I’d have to choose between Ty and the music?

Ty would win.

Hands down.

So, I run , clear my head, think of solutions, since there is a solution, I’m sure of it. I just need to work out the details and I do that best when I push myself. Plus, it’s also a perk that dumbass Mick can’t keep up.

Taking pity on the seasoned rock star, I slow down to a walk and shake my arms out when I see the stadium in the distance where we have to play tonight, towering over the beautiful, lush green landscape. It’s still early, the sky a gorgeous mixture of pink and blues.

When he has caught up, Mick jumps on the low, stone wall next to the dirt path we’re on, arms out for balance, and walks along it.

With his dark hair hidden under the hood of his sweatshirt, he reveals a multitude of tattoos on his hands and fingers, peeking out from under his sleeves.

I know that if he’d turn around and pull down the hood, I’d also see them on his neck.

As he stumbles and laughs at himself, it’s easy to forget how this moron is actually one of the biggest rock stars alive, a legacy in his own right.

To me, he’s just meddling Mick. But that wasn’t the case at the start of our weird acquaintance.

Nope. He might act all nice and cocky and flirty now, to me at least; he was every bit the arrogant ass he’s famous for the first time we met, when me and my band flew in as an emergency opening act to join the tour that had already started and had to get on stage within an hour.

Because the flight was delayed and we arrived hours later than we were supposed to, it was a hectic, chaotic mess.

I’ve been on stages before; I’ve performed before. I played in dive bars, at weddings, in gay bars, in normal bars… Even in some of the bigger venues back in the Netherlands.

But the first time I had to go on stage opening for Six of Hearts, in a fucking stadium, I swear I almost vomited right over my shoes.

Mick the Dick laughed at my discomfort, poked his bandmates and proclaimed way too loud that he would bet a hundred bucks we wouldn’t make it until the end of the set.

But we did. Of course we did. We celebrated our asses off with that fucking hundred bucks. I think there might be a picture somewhere of me and Missy pressing said asses against a window of the bus, mooning whoever drove by on the deserted highway in the middle of the night.

The high of that first concert is something I’d never encountered before, and I think I never will again, because each time it gets a teeny bit easier.

It still is the best thrill, though. The gush of adrenaline that floods through my veins is the ultimate goal.

It’s why I do this. It’s what I live for.