Love Will (12 page)

Damon’s in much better spirits after the show, but no one sticks around looking for a hookup tonight. We all just want to get to our hotel for the night and turn the heater on full-blast. I had been sweating from the exertion of playing and the spotlights, but anytime the lights went off for just a few seconds, I could feel the chill in the air. I understood why the fans stayed huddled together in front of the stage.

It takes Ben three tries to turn over the engine on the bus.
Not feeling confident about this drive to the hotel
. After we finish loading our gear, I walk around our transportation once to see what we’re dealing with. The damn thing is packed in the snow. I have no fucking idea how we’re going to get out of the drive. Ben parked in a fucking snow drift.

I step onto the bus and call out to him. “Hey, uh, genius! In fact, all of you… get out here.” Tavo groans and stays behind, but the rest of the guys come out. “Just, uh… are we imagining this isn’t here, and hoping we can somehow fly our magic bus to the hotel?”

“What?” Ben asks.

“The, uh, I don’t know… four feet of snow on three sides of the bus?”

“It’s snow,” he says, blowing me off. “We’re driving a bus.”

“Hey, Ben? You see those street lamps you parked under?”

“Yeah.”

“They give off this thing called
heat
.”

“So?”

“Heat makes the nice, fluffy snow into this thing called ice. And more fluffy snow falls down on top of that, melts, and makes more ice. Have you felt this snow?” I walk over to the front of the bus, dust off the fresh layer of snow and smack the compressed ice that’s already worked its way into the front grill of the bus.

“Fuuuuuck. How long do you think it’ll take for the engine heat to melt it?”

“Seriously?” I ask him, and as if the gods are out to make fools of us all tonight, we hear the engine sputter out and die as all the lights go off inside.

“Tavo!” Damon shouts. “Please tell me you did that.” When we don’t hear a response, our singer climbs on the bus, and we hear our drummer frantically yelling from the back of the bus.

“Stop fucking around, guys! I’m on the can!”

“Shit,” Peron says. “Shit, shit, SHIT!” We all climb back on the bus and shut the door to escape the continuing onslaught of snow, turning our phone screens on for light. Ben finds a flashlight that doubles as a lantern in the glove box. He tries to start the bus again, but to no avail.

“Where’s the hotel, Ben?”

“Six miles west.”

“Okay. That’s not gonna work. There aren’t any closer?”

“I’m sure there are. That’s just the one I liked.”

“All right.”

“Here’s one,” Damon says. “Two blocks from here.”

“We can’t leave our gear on the bus, man. Guitars don’t like sub-zero temps,” I tell him. “Basic laws of thermodynamics…”

“Oh, shut up, Will,” Ben says.

“We carry whatever we can,” Damon interrupts. “We’ll make two trips if we have to.”

“Hello?” a woman’s voice calls to us from outside. “Ben?” I step away to see who’s there.

“Lola? What the fuck?!” I stare at her, wondering how she got here.

“Lola?” Ben stumbles over Damon as he makes his way to the door. “Well, let her in, for Christ’s sake, Will!”

“Come in…”

“What are you doing here?” he asks her, pushing off her wet coat and embracing her in a warm hug.

“I was going to surprise you… I’ve been traveling all day. I didn’t think I’d make it.”

“How… did you make it in
this
?”

“I hitched a ride from the airport on a snow plow.”

“You
what
?”

“Don’t be mad!” she squeaks, planting a firm kiss on his lips. “I did it for you,” she whispers.

“Oh, my sweet Lola-pop. I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

“Oh, fuck,” I groan, disgusted at the nickname.

“I’m good now,” she says, going back to sucking his face off.

“Guys, we don’t have time for this,” I say.

“You’re just jealous,” Ben comments. Lola’s eyes meet mine briefly. I really was hoping I’d never have to see her again.

“I’m cold, and we need to try to get a room, because I bet quite a few of the fans didn’t even attempt the drive home, and they’re probably enjoying the warmth and hospitality of that hotel right now.”

“Good point.”

“I’m on the phone with them now,” Damon says. “They have two rooms. One with two twin beds and a pull-out couch and another with one double bed.”

“We, uh…” Ben says, looking at Lola.

Damon orders a cot for the bigger of the two rooms as I glare at Ben and his girlfriend. She couldn’t have shown up at a worse time.

“What?” our manager asks. “It’s probably bigger than this bus. You act like it’s a problem… it’ll be fine. It’s one night.”

“Peron, let’s grab our guitars,” I say to him, looking over at him as he sits on the couch. I hadn’t noticed how quiet he’d been since we got back on the bus, but I can tell from the glow of his cell phone screen that he’s swiping at tears running down his cheeks. “Man, what’s wrong?” I ask him, sitting down next to him. He hands me his phone.

- - Peron, we need to talk.

- Answer your phone, Brooke.

- We just got done with the show.

- - I’ve met someone else.

- Please answer your phone.

- - I’m not in love with you anymore.

- What the fuck?

- Do not break up over text.

- I deserve a conversation.

- Brooke?

- I love you, Brooke.

- I’ll quit the tour now.

- I’ll come home tonight.

- I’m stuck in a snowstorm, but I will find a way home.

- ANSWER YOUR FUCKING PHONE!

- ANSWER MY FUCKING TEXTS!

- - Good luck, Peron.

“Oh, shit, Peron.” I don’t know what else to say to him. I put my arm around him. “Come on, let’s get to the hotel, and we’ll try to call her from there. We’ll try to figure this out. You’re right, she can’t do this with texts. No way. No fucking way.”

He just sits there like he’s comatose.

“I’ll get our gear and pack some shit for you. Okay? But you can’t bitch if I don’t pack your favorite skivvies, okay?”

“I’ll pack my own stuff,” he finally says, getting up and taking the phone back from me.

“Good man. I’d pack for more than one night if I were you.”

Hurriedly, we throw stuff together in our suitcases after Ben tries once more to get the bus going. Tavo goes inside the venue and finds a few bartenders are still hanging around, drinking. He hires them to help carry his drums to the hotel.

“Why do you have three fucking guitars, anyway?” Ben asks me as I settle my electric on his shoulder. “Didn’t I tell you to pack light?”

“Because Livvy’s parents gave me one the night we left, remember? I wasn’t going to leave it with them.” I hand him my less expensive acoustic after he helps Lola off the bus with her luggage.

“But I should be carrying
her
luggage. Did you see the shoes she has on?”
Yes, I saw her stripper heels. Not an ounce of class could fit in them.

“You should be acting as our
manager
, not as her
boyfriend
right now. She shouldn’t even be here, Ben. You got everything?” I ask, looking at my equipment.

“Yes.”

“Thank you.” Picking up the priceless guitar gifted to me by Emi and Jack and my own suitcase, I motion for Peron to head out the door first. Damon follows, carrying both of the two gaming systems we brought along.

He obviously thinks like I do–that this is
definitely
going to last longer than one night.

Chapter 7

My eyes fixated on the frozen tree outside the bedroom window, I strain to block out the noise. A closed door, earplugs and two down pillows should be doing the trick, but no, I can still hear them arguing.

“I told you to go
over
the brick wall!” Tavo yells.

“You said to go
around
the wall,” Damon argues.

“Going
around
it gets you killed, fucker,” our drummer states pointedly. “Obviously. Like you didn’t learn that the first three times you did it!”

“I just did what you said!”

I can’t take any more of this. The news has talked about power outages all over the city. Why can’t we have one here–just for a few hours, so we can all have a break from this obnoxious Xbox game? I toss the pillows down with too much force. One of them skips off of my bed toward the other one, narrowly missing Peron as he texts Brooke. It knocks his phone out of his hands.

“Damn it, Will, watch it!”

Ripping out the rubber plugs from my ears that I normally wear for shows, I apologize with little empathy. My nerves are frayed after two and a half days of confinement with the band. “Sorry, man. This is too much.”

“Have a beer already. Or a smoke,” he suggests.

“No, thanks.” I can’t say I haven’t considered taking up drinking over the past forty-eight hours. And shit, after seeing how relaxed Damon and Tavo were last night after sneaking away to the broken-down, freezing-cold bus for some snacks–aka
weed
, which they got from the guys who helped Tavo with his drums–I envied them. I wanted relief from this anxiety.

Really, I just want to get back on the road. I want to get back on tour, and back to the music. Since Peron and Brooke broke up, it’s like his soul has died, and he has no desire to write with me at all. He’s been bitching about me playing my “sappy ass songs” for the past two days, so I finally put my guitar away this morning to put him out of his misery. In doing so, I’m even more miserable.

“Where are you going?” he asks me.

“I have no idea.” I pull on my Vans and a hoodie, then dig through my suitcase for my Yankees cap.

“You’re going out?”

“Yes.” I open the door to our room, smelling an unpleasant odor from the living room of our hotel suite. “It smells like shit in here, guys. Open a window or something.” Peron follows, then agrees with me.

“What is that?”

“Tavo spewed in the pizza box this morning,” Damon explains nonchalantly, as if leaving vomit sitting next to him in only semi-closed containers is something everyone does every day.

“Well throw it the fuck away! And let housekeeping in, please! We have no idea how long we’ll be here.” I head toward the door.

“Where ya going?”

“Damon, I gotta get out of here.”

“To where?” he asks, laughing.

“There has to be some place open.” I glance around at my bandmates, no doubt looking about as desperate as I ever have.

“Shit, man,” Tavo says, “if you find a place, call us.”

I shake my head. “I’m not calling you if I find a place. I’ll call you if I find
two
places.”

Shop after shop, restaurant after restaurant, I’m greeted with locked doors and dark buildings. It’s as desolate as a ghost town here, with good reason. I’m trudging through a foot of snow on top of probably three inches of ice. There’s not a car in sight, much less another human as foolish as I am walking the streets. It’s well below freezing, and I’m not dressed for a casual stroll around this unfamiliar town. Luckily, the wind has died down, and the sun peeks out between buildings when the clouds allow it. The sun. My friend.

Please let me find a place. I can’t go back to that room yet.
I’d rather risk freezing to death on the bus at this point, so I turn the corner, carefully walking up the next street back toward the venue where the bus was abandoned the night of our show. A blinking neon sign catches my attention out of the corner of my eye as I pass it.

OPEN.

I look up at the sign to see what kind of establishment it is.
Mrs. Livingston’s Kitchen
. And right beneath the name is a white banner with large red letters:
CLOSING
.

Open. Closing.
I trust the neon sign over the banner and try the handle, feeling a welcoming whoosh of warm air hit my face. If I wasn’t standing on a sheet of ice, I’d jump up and down. This may be the happiest moment of my life. I tentatively step inside, not going beyond the cloth mat, aware of the fact that the bottom foot and a half of my body are sopping wet. I look around until I see an attractive young woman with golden brown skin behind the counter, welcoming me with a smile.