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“Hey, Will, over here!” a shout comes from my left.
“Oh my God, it’s Will Ashton!” comes from my right.
“Will!”
“Will!”
“Will!”
All around me, people are shouting my name and trying to reach through security to touch me. The noise turns into a buzz and the people turn into a blur. I’m hot, my head is pounding behind my eyes, and I just need out of here. I pull my hat down a little lower over my face and focus on walking.
I miss the days of the small town bar. People came out because they enjoyed the quaintness and realness of listening to original live music. The people here at these concerts? I'm not so sure. The piercing screaming of the girls night after night has drilled into the base of my skull, giving me a headache that can only be relieved by a six-pack in dead silence, along with some ibuprofen and sleep.
I weave my way past those who’ve somehow managed a backstage pass. Rudely, I don't stop for any of them, and I just don't care. That seems to be my motto tonight, not caring. Whatever. Clay and the other guys will handle them.
Out of nowhere, a tiny blonde girl steps in front of me, forcing me to stop.
“Great show tonight, Will.” She draws out my name, looking at the ground and then back up through her eyelashes. If I've seen this look once, I've seen it a thousand times.
I look her over from head to toe and can't help but smirk at her in disgust. Sure, she's cute and all, but at this point, they all look exactly the same, and easy girls have never been my thing.
My eyes shift to Frank, the head of my security team, and he knows I want her gone. Moving past her, she grabs on to my arm to stop me. Frank immediately pulls her off.
“Hey, aren’t you going to say anything?” She sounds desperate. How did she get back here and out from behind the barricades anyway? I glance behind her and see Brian, our self-appointed ass monitor. Why this guy thinks he knows what I need and want, I’ll never know. I glare at him with complete loathing and he takes a step backward.
Gritting my teeth, I walk straight past the rest of the guys from the stage crew and out to the tour bus. I’m done with this shit. No more lights, no more screaming, just no more.
By the time I have my bag packed, I already know where I’m headed. Grabbing the Gibson, and with Whiskey by my side, we hop off the bus and start walking.
“Ash!” Clay’s voice echoes from behind me.
I close my eyes for a brief second before turning around to face him. I shake my head at him, and we stare at each other from across the parking lot. His eyes are locked onto mine and he sees the desperation. He knows not to come any closer and understanding widens the space between us. No words are said—they aren’t needed. He understands. Instead he lifts his head and throws me a cocky grin. That’s his way of saying, “I’ll see you soon.”
Clay clears his throat and I’m pulled from the memory. “You look like shit,” he says, eyeing me from head to toe.
My hand automatically goes to my chin, and I rub the full beard that’s grown in. I haven’t bothered to shave or even brush my hair really. I stocked up on groceries on the drive in and I’ve only gone out a few other times. I haven’t seen anyone; there’s been no need.
My tongue rakes across my teeth—yep, at least I remembered to brush them today—and my smile grows bigger. I’m so freaking excited to see him. I didn’t realize how much I missed him. I’m trying to think of another time when we’ve been apart this long, and I can’t come up with anything.
Clay and I met the summer I turned thirteen, just after my grandfather died.
Up until then, my grandfather raised me. I have no idea what happened to my parents, and he refused to talk about them. I don’t remember them at all, but I don’t miss them either. Can’t miss something you never had, right? Out of curiosity, I asked him once, and a pained expression crossed his face before one of anger. He looked right at me and said, “Do you see them here?” I shook my head no. “Exactly, so no point in talking about what doesn’t exist.” I hated making him upset, mad, or whatever—he was always so happy—and I never wanted to see him like that again. So I let it go.
I ended up in foster care when he died, and bless the day I was assigned to Clay’s family. The first few months after losing the one and only constant I ever had in my life was devastating, unbearable. To me, my grandfather was larger than life. I idolized him in every way, and felt so lost and scared without him. But I got lucky. Instead of ending up another foster care horror story, Clay became my best friend, and his family eventually became mine.
“So?” he finally asks, breaking the silence, his eyebrows raised in annoyance. What he really wants to know is, “Are you at least going to tellmewhat’s going on?” and honestly, I’m not sure.
I love being a musician, but something’s got to give. I miss the quiet days Clay and I used to have when we were writing music and just being ourselves. The originality, the level of talent, and the heart that poured out of us was what I lived for. Not this. On our last album, of the fourteen songs, only two of them were ours, and they were so patched together I didn’t even want them. They were forced by the label, and that lack of control has also been eating me up.
“So, what?” I smirk at him. Whiskey circles around the room and then curls up at my feet.
His eyes narrow. “Really?” But what I actually hear is, “After all these years, that’sallyou’re gonna say?”
Looking away from him, I pick up the guitar pick that’s lying on the table next to me—it’s an old one from the days ofBlue Horizons—and I begin to roll it up and down over my knuckles. “Honestly, I’m trying to figure it out. At the end of the show in Phoenix, at that moment, I was so over it and couldn’t think of anything but getting out. God, we’ve been going at it for five years. I’m tired; aren’t you?”
I look back to him, his eyebrows furrowed while he considers what I’ve said. Shrugging his shoulders, he walks over to the large floor-to-ceiling living room windows and resumes drinking his beer. The sun has dropped behind the mountains, but it’s still dusk, leaving a gorgeous view across the lake. A good ten minutes pass before he finally turns back around to me.
“This last tour has been rough,” he concedes, letting out a sigh and then moving to flop down on the couch. Fireflies have started to rise up out of the grass, and together we watch them float by and into the trees. “Are we done then?” he asks quietly. He doesn’t look at me, but continues to stare out the window.
