Page 17 of Vespertine

For the first time in years, he hadn’t woken in the night.He doubted it would become a regular thing, but he took it as a sign that hewas right to have come home after all, despite the memories, and despite Jazz.

Miriam disappeared into the walk-in pantry and returned withthe electric griddle just as his phone woke up. The bing-bing-bing announcingnew texts and missed calls went on and on. Nicky didn’t even want to look.

“Well, aren’t you popular,” Miriam said, winking at him.

“Not really. More like in demand.” He scratched his thumb alonghis eyebrow as he reluctantly pulled up a list of the alerts. There were threetexts from Ramona letting him know that Mick and Sez were supposedly doing welland asking if he was okay. He was grateful for those, but seeing all the missedcalls from his management made him anxious enough to crawl back into bed. Whichhe’d do if his mother wasn’t eyeing him while she counted out eggs.

As he thumbed in a short reply to Ramona, his phone lit upwith an incoming call. The area code was Los Angeles, and the picture on thescreen was T.J. Danvers’. Late-twenties and handsome in a fleshy sort of way,Danvers wasn’t at the top of their management team, but he wasn’t completelypowerless either. He was the friendly asshole the suits at the top enlisted todeliver their threats. Nicky hated him; always had. And yet, for some reason,he found himself taking the call.

“Nico, baby, how are you doing?”

“I’m alive.”

“And wasn’t that a close call there for a while?” Danverslaughed like that was actually funny.

Nicky’s stomach knotted. “Yeah, that’s hilarious.”

“Nico, my man. I’ve been worried about you. I just wanted tocheck in. See how you’re doing.”

“Whatever. Skip the bullshit. Why the fuck are you reallycalling?”

Miriam glanced over at him and concern crinkled her brow.

“What? I can’t check on my boys?” Danvers chuckled and Nickysnarled. If the asshole was in the same room, he’d punch him out flat. He’dalways wondered if Harry acted on Danvers’ orders whenever he’d fed Nicky cokeso he could perform. Though, in the end, he supposed it didn’t matter if itcame from Danvers or not. The suits were all the same.

Danvers went on. “You guys are important to me.”

“Important to your wallet maybe.”

Danvers ignored that. “So talk to me. How are you feeling?”

Rage prickling his skin, Nicky rose and moved to stand bythe living room window. He gazed out at the water glittering in the mid-morningsun and tried to remember that he was safe. He was home and he was safe. Fornow, anyway.

“Listen, there are a fuck-ton of messages on my phone fromyou. I’m on medical leave, asshole, so if you’re bothering me right now itbetter be for something fucking urgent.”

His mother broke eggs into the pancake batter and tsked athim for his language.

Danvers cleared his throat, his voice going rigid withtension. “Now, obviously I don’t want to put any pressure on you boys—”

“Of course you don’t.”

“It’s just that the higher ups don’t understand the delay onthe next album.”

Nicky’s vision went dark with anger, and he rubbed his eyes.“What don’t they fucking understand? We collapsed out there. I almost died.”His mother gasped behind him. Fuck, he hadn’t meant to say that. “Sezoverdosed. Mick fried his fucking brains on the coke your team pushed into us.Your endless motherfucking tour nearly killed the whole goddamn band, got it?”

“You exaggerate—”

“No. We’re getting treatment. You fucking know it takes timefor full-blown addicts to get fucking sober. And we’re going to take that time,you fucking asshole, so that when we get back to it we can make some goddamnmusic. What the fuck don’t you fuckers get about that?”

“Calm down, now. Calm down.” Danvers simpered. “Well, youknow how they are. They expect Vespertine back in the studio on July first.”

“July first? Are you fucking shitting me right now?”

Danvers went on like he’d said nothing untoward, “Sure. They’redamn keen on you all working hard this summer. They’re gagging for that newalbum. They know you’ve got some hits still in you, Nico. They want to push itthrough as a Christmas release.”

“Tell them to go suck their own cocks.”

“Nicholas Blumfeld…” Miriam waved her batter-covered spoonat him.