My bassist and best friend, Gabe, pretty much fell over the second we walked into my hotel room. We’d just come back from lunch and he was so tired he was practically slurring. He sprawled into an armchair with a sigh and looked like he fell asleep right on the spot.
I laughed.
After the show last night, my band decided we needed to celebrate my birthday by staying up all night. Nothing unusual, but we’d really tied one on, birthday style.
And then another one.
And another.
I’d insisted on buying Gabe a drink for every one he bought for me, though now I wondered if maybe I should’ve cut him off before the sun came up or something. I got to pass out for a while this morning, but it wasn’t so easy for Gabe.
He’d been having trouble sleeping again.
Sometimes I kinda forgot that my best friend was mortal. Since I was the one who always needed holding up, I forgot that even he could fall down.
“Good thing we don’t have a gig tonight,” I mused, sipping my black coffee.
He said nothing.
I studied him, sprawled there with his legs spread in his faded jeans with the pocket chain, wearing the same brown leather bracelet he’d had forever and his beloved blue T-shirt that announced WOMEN RULE in big letters, and for some reason, only one shoe. The other one had only made it halfway across the room with him. His curly brown hair was all askew. Like me, Gabe was twenty-eight, but he looked about fifteen when he was asleep, other than the stubble on his jaw.
I plucked the takeout coffee cup from his hand and set it on the table before he spilled his double Americano all over himself.
“Are you asleep?” I said sorta quietly, in case he was.
“I wish,” he moaned, not opening his eyes. “Do I have time for a power nap before this interview?”
I checked the time on my phone. “Nope.”
He made a long, incoherent, grumbly noise but didn’t get up.
Shit.
We were months deep into this tour and it was taking a toll on every member of the band. We’d never lived this fast or this large, and the four of us were all holding on tight—to each other—so we wouldn’t blow apart at the seams. It was the only way we knew how to survive it: stick together. We were in uncharted territory now, and as it turned out, the waters were wild and rough.
Especially for someone like me.
There was literally no way I’d be surviving daily life right now, much less the endless performances and the general overwhelmingness of life as a rock star, without him. Gabe Romanko had been my best friend since we were just kids. He’d been my partner in music since the day I could (barely) strum a guitar. He was my other—and arguably better—half in pretty much every way other than the romantic and the sexual. If it weren’t for Gabe, I’d still be playing guitar for myself in a basement somewhere, instead of on a major record label, headlining a world tour with our band, Alive.
Come to think of it… I probably wouldn’t even be playing guitar at all, since Gabe was the one who’d gotten us into music in the first place.
And all of the above meant that I should really step up here.
“Why don’t you just let me do the interview?” I forced the words out, even though my heart was already thumping harder than normal just thinking about it. I knew he’d do it for me, without question. He had done it for me, too many times to count.
His eyes cracked open.
“Then you can sleep.” I started thumbing through messages on my phone. “And we’ll meet up for dinner.”
“It’s your birthday, man. I can’t do that to you.”
“My birthday was over at midnight.”
“You hate interviews.”
“So? What else am I gonna do today?” I had the whole day off for my birthday, since we’d had a gig yesterday, on my actual birthday. But with Gabe scheduled for an interview, our drummer, Xander, doing a drum demo at a local music store, and our lead singer, Dean, half-pickled and useless, as usual, I had zero plans.
“You can’t go alone, Cary,” he reminded me.
As if I could ever forget.
“I’ll drag Dean with me, so they get two rock stars for the price of one.”
He eyed me skeptically with half-open eyes. Granted, Dean was no replacement for Gabe, but he was better than no one.