Page 138 of Vespertine

@NicoBlueLives, when will the new albumbe out since Mick is dead?

Nicky blinked at that Twitter message, and Jasper put a handon his shoulder. “You don’t have to reply to them. You did what you needed todo by letting them hear from you and that’s all you really owe them, all right?”

Nicky nodded. He wouldn’t know what to say.

After dealing with the immediate issues of trying to correctthe damage done from the mistakes of the day before, Nicky and Jasper decidedto face the next hurdle head on. They put in a call to Nicky’s parents. It wastime to tell them everything. Nicky was surprised by how easily his parentsaccepted the news of his relationship with Jasper. “Well, of course you loveeach other, sweetie,” was all his mother said. “You always did.”

“But, Mom, that’s not all of it. What I’m telling you isthat we’re lovers. Jasper left the priesthood.”

There was a short pause. “Well, if that makes him happy, andit makes you happy, that’s all I care about.”

And his father added, “He’s a good man. You’ll be goodtogether.”

Adrian and Miriam had actually been much more worried abouthow he was dealing with Mick’s death, suggesting he contact his therapist assoon as possible, and curious about what losing their bassist meant for Nicky’scareer.

“I guess I should talk to Ramona next,” he said,disconnecting the call.

Jasper sat close to him on the sofa with Dizzy on his lap.Nicky reached out to pet her and she abandoned Jasper to curl up on Nicky’slegs instead.

“I’m here with you, Nicky. Go ahead and call her. We canhandle it together.”

As it turned out, Ramona was, as usual, two steps ahead ofhim.

Her voice was a controlled growl through Nicky’s cell phonepressed to his ear. “They actuallygavehim the shit.Can you believe it? Danvers decided that all Mick needed was a littlepick-me-up in the studio to get back on game. So he had a dealer stop by Mick’splace with enough coke and China White to blow him to the moon and back.”

“Why’d he go to the Beverly Hills Hotel? He lives in Laguna.”Lived. Lived in Laguna.

“You remember how paranoid coke made him? He’d get violentand kinda out of his mind. Punch people. Decide people were spying on him. Justoff his fucking nut.”

“Yeah.” But then he’d been off his nut too, and hadn’treally given a fuck what was going on with Mick.

“Apparently he told his landlord there were bugs in thewalls. Surveillance type of stuff. Was convinced the FBI and the motherfuckingterrorists in the Middle East were after him. He told the guy at the desk ofthe Beverly Hills Hotel the same thing. So he took off with hisDanvers-supplied stash to hole up somewhere ‘safe.’ We know his next stop.”

“My place.”

Jasper’s lashes shone in the golden light of morningslipping through the curtains. He watched Nicky intensely while he waited forhim to finish the call. Nicky touched Jasper’s lower lip with his thumb, andJasper kissed the pad softly. His stomach twisted knowing that Mick would neverhave a moment like this, and probably never had. Had anyone ever loved Mick theway Jasper loved Nicky? He doubted it. Would it have solved anything if someonehad? Would Mick have ended up on that tile floor?

Nicky refocused. “Danvers told you this himself?”

“Flat out. He’s soulless.” She growled again. “So I toldDanvers to take a message to his fucking boss. I said, ‘Tell him that Irecorded our little conversation and uploaded copies to multiple cloudlocations. So unless they let us out of our contracts, I’ll send the file tothe authorities and the news outlets.’” She laughed. “Yeah, pretty boy. Fromnow on? We’ll make our own rules. We’ll design the tours. We’ll decide when enoughis enough. And we’ll fucking crowd-fund our albums if we have to, but we are noone’s fucking slaves.”

Nicky didn’t know what to say. He was overwhelmed by theidea of freedom from the contract that had bound him so tightly. “What did hesay?”

“He screamed and cursed and I hung up on his sorry ass. Fuckhim. Fuck them all, Nicky. We don’t need them. We never fucking have, butespecially now. We’ve got a huge fan base. They’ll support us. All we have todo is ask.”

“We’re really done with them?”

“We could not be more done. Not if they know what’s good forthem. It’s over.”

Nicky sat in stunned silence. He wished Mick had lived tosee this moment. Of course, his death is what had bought their freedom. Howhorrible. How absolutely wrong. “We have to make sure we earn this, Ramona. Wehave to make good music. Be good people.”

She was quiet. “I hear you.”

“We have to pay him back for this.”

“We will. Stay clean. Make music. Do Vespertine albums withme. The real kind, like we used to do when it all started… only with lessfucking miserable lyrics, maybe. That’s all I want.”

Nicky scratched his eyebrow with his thumb. He could agreeto that, but there was one more remaining piece to the puzzle that wasVespertine. “How about Sez?”