before the tour.”
I wanted to argue with him, but that last part caught me off guard. “Wait, what? Why?”
“Dante called to tell me. Guess being a shit bassist earns you an involuntary vacation,” he said in a wry tone, but beneath the sarcasm, I knew he was fucked up. Maybe he was sober now, but the look in his eyes scared me even more than before.
“That’s bullshit. You’re an amazing bassist. Whatever Dante said, I’m sure that’s not what he meant.”
Dante hadn’t said anything about that to me earlier, which pissed me off. He at least could’ve run it by me first.
“Come on, Raf,” he snorted. “I only started playing in the first place so I could hang out with you guys.”
“So? I started playing because I wanted to impress a girl whose name I can’t even remember now. It doesn’t matter how you start, it’s who you are now that counts.”
“Who I am now is a shitty bassist,” he answered without missing a beat. “I appreciate you trying to defend me and everything, but don’t bother.”
As I struggled to come up with something to say he wouldn’t just dismiss as me being kind, I realized that was going to take a lot more effort than a few words of reassurance on a porch. That, and I wasn’t ready for him to go yet.
“Come inside,” I pleaded, getting out my keys. “We could both use a drink.”
I regretted the suggestion immediately, but it was automatic. That was just what we did when we got together, and while I’d trained myself out of it with Dante, I was starting to think maybe I should take the same approach with Chaz.
Then again, now was hardly the time for an intervention. He didn’t need me calling him an alcoholic when his self-esteem was already in the dumps even more than usual.
He eyed my door like it led into some hidden lair and not the unremarkable apartment he’d been in a million times before. “I don’t know. It’s getting late.”
“Isn’t now about the time you usually wake up?” I scoffed, putting an arm around his shoulders to drag him inside. He followed me in, but I didn’t really give him a choice. “What do you want? Soda, coffee, beer?”
I hoped throwing a couple innocent options in there would be a good transition.
“Nothing, really. I’m not staying long.”
He usually would’ve been lounging on my couch in his boxers by now, ordering shit on my pay-per-view, but he was just standing in the living room like someone who’d just gotten pulled into a stranger’s apartment.
“Coffee it is,” I said, deciding for him. I could use a little kick myself, so I put on a full pot. This was beyond the Keurig's pay grade.
I finally managed to pressure him into a seat, and when we were each settled in with a mug of coffee, I decided to try again. “So. What are you gonna do with the time off?”
He shrugged, staring into the coffee like it was a scrying mirror. “I don’t know. Keep running the band’s social. Get caught up on Judy, I guess.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You are not gonna waste the next couple of weeks watching Judge Judy reruns. You’ve probably got half of them memorized anyway.”
“Only the classics.”
“Come on. I’m sure you can think of something better than that. My part for the album’s gonna be wrapped up in a week anyway. We could go somewhere.”
“What, like a vacation?” he asked doubtfully.
“Sure. We’ll go on one of those cheesy ghost tours you’ve always talked about.”
He perked up a little. He was even more of a horror junkie than I was, so anything that would’ve made my mom cross herself was totally his jam. “I guess that would be cool.” He frowned. “You sure you can take the time off?”
“Of course.” I wasn’t sure, but they’d just have to deal with it. “Pick where you wanna go, and I’ll take care of everything else.”
“Okay,” he said, sounding more like his old self than he had in weeks. “We could stop by and see your mom on the way. I’m sure she’d love to see you before the tour.”
“What are you, her minion?” I teased.
Chaz grinned unapologetically. “Yep.”
I didn’t realize how much I’d missed that smile until right then. Chaz and Dante had practically lived at my house back in the day, so Mom always called them her other sons.
“I probably should anyway. She called this morning and said my brother’s getting into shit at