The next morning, we finally leave Tallwood. We’ve got a whole squadron of vehicles waiting for us in the parking lot: our tour bus, totally nondescript and black, two moving vans for our stuff, plus a couple of passenger cars, smaller vans with odds and ends.

Darcy and I stand there, in front of the Lodge, coffee in hand, surrounded by suitcases. The morning chill is still in the air, but it makes everything feel fresh and new, cleaned out. Like Eli’s late-night call was a dream aberration, a blip in the functioning of everyday life.

“Remember the van?” Darcy asks, taking a long drink. “How’d we get here from there?”

“I think this is what they call making it,” I say, looking over the hubbub.

“I do like the part where someone else carries my luggage,” she admits.

“I like the part where we sleep in beds, not the back seat.”

“You’re going soft,” she teases. “Next, you’ll lose your edge, get all sensitive, and before I know it you’ll be Michael Bolton Junior.”

“I don’t think my hair would look that good long.”

“You also can’t sing for shit.”

“So I wouldn’t be Michael Bolton at all.”

“Don’t start, this is my first cup of coffee,” she says, wrinkling her nose, and I laugh. I feel like right now I could put my arm around her, pull her in for a coffee-flavored kiss and it would all be perfectly natural. I feel like it would be so normal that no one else would even notice, that Gavin and Joan would skip right over it like it was part of the landscape.

I don’t point out that she started this in the first place by calling me Michael Bolton.

* * *

Our first show on the new tour schedule is in a Spokane venue called the Knitting Factory, across the state. Besides the few festivals we’re playing — like Grizzly — most of our shows aren’t in huge arenas, by design. They’re mostly in smaller venues, old theaters and spaces that only hold two thousand people, not twenty thousand.

We’d make more money playing arenas, but when we started planning out the tour we collectively decided that we fucking hated it and didn’t want to do it. It means tiny dressing rooms and hanging out in alleyways before the show, cramped quarters and air conditioning systems that can’t always quite stand up to the challenge of the place being at full capacity, but we’ll take it.

It goes almost perfectly. Even though Gavin’s mic kept cutting out during sound check and one of the amps was making the lights shake weirdly, it’s all fixed by show time. When we walk on stage it’s already hot and sticky in there, but the theater is packed to capacity, everyone is shouting, and it feels like we’re all just different parts of the same big musical organism.

After the show is the fans. All four of us are sticky, sweaty, and tired but elated, still buzzing from a show that’s gone well, and even though what I really want is to drink a gallon of water, maybe have a beer, then fuck Darcy and go to bed I’d be an asshole if I didn’t talk to the fans who make it backstage.

So I autograph what feels like a thousand ticket stubs. I autograph a beer bottle, a flyer about our show, some CDs — who knew they even made those any more — and even some guy’s acoustic guitar.

Toward two in the morning, when we’re all out back in the alley, finally just us and the guys loading our gear, it’s quiet, just the four of us standing with our backs against the brick wall.

“I’d forgotten how rough this all is,” Joan says.

“Weren’t you on tour last year?” Darcy asks.

“Yeah, but we tour like old people,” Joan says, laughing. “Three shows a week, maximum, and we come home at least a week a month. We’ve all got kids and spouses and shit.”

“Just tell us if you want to be sent to the hotel early,” Darcy teases.

“And miss out on all the fun? Someone asked me to sign a photo of her newborn. Never had that one before.”

“Please tell me she named it after you.”

“Oh, God,” Joan says, crossing her arms and laughing again. “I didn’t ask. I don’t want to know. That’s a bit much.”

“Someone asked me to sign her arse,” Gavin offers, standing next to them.

“Did you?” Joan asks.

“Was it a nice ass?” Darcy asks.

“How’d we miss that?” I say.

Gavin shrugs, leaning against the wall.

“You were all busy,” he says. “And the arse was only out for a moment.”

“That won’t do,” Darcy says. “You gotta let that ink dry so it doesn’t smudge all over your clothes. A couple minutes at least.”

We all turn and look at her.

“I did refuse,” Gavin points out. “I’m not signing some strange bird’s rump, but if you’d like to elaborate on how the ink ought to dry, please do.”

“It’s not important,” she says, not making eye contact with any of us.

“Bon Jovi’s drummer signed my tits when I was seventeen,” Joan offers.

“Bon Jovi?”

“Seventeen?”

“I’m from Jersey,” she says, her voice calm but amused. “And you can’t tell me you don’t like Livin’ on a Prayer.”

“I don’t, really,” I say.

“It’s a good karaoke song,” Darcy admits.

“Did it rub off the moment you put your shirt back on or were you wandering around backstage in the buff for several minutes afterward?” Gavin asks.

“I don’t exactly remember,” Joan goes on. “The whole thing took some liquid courage. It’s gone now, though.”

“I should hope so,” Gavin says.

There’s a long pause. Two guys load amps into a van, and I’m glad it’s not my job any more. Setting up equipment, playing a long show, and then moving it again is exhausting as fuck.

“Anyone ever signed a dick?” Darcy asks.

“That might be hard,” Gavin says.

“I think it would have to be.”

Joan snorts, and Darcy grins.

“I’ve signed tits,” Joan says.

“We’ve all signed tits,” Gavin says, and Darcy nods in agreement.

I frown.

“I’ve never signed tits,” I say. “I’ve never even been asked.”

“Seriously?”

“I’ve signed lots of arms,” I say. “I signed a bald guy’s head once.”

I look around at the other three. Gavin looks faintly puzzled, Joan’s got one eyebrow raised, and Darcy’s trying not to laugh.

“Do I have ‘don’t show me your tits’ written on my forehead?” I ask.

“Maybe you just don’t seem like a tit-signer,” Joan says.

“All right,” says a voice behind me, and I turn. There’s a burly bald guy wearing all black and sweating slightly standing there, his hands on his hips.

“We done?” Gavin asks.

“All packed in,” the roadie confirms. “Locked up tight, ready for Missoula.”

Joan rubs her hands together.

“Thank you,” she says. “Let’s all go to bed!”

As we get on the tour bus to head to our hotel, Darcy holds me back for a moment.

“You can sign my tits if you want,” she says, and winks.

* * *

A week later, we’re in Minneapolis, still playing shows almost every night in small, hot, crowded theaters, not that I’d change it if I could. The grind of the road is starting to feel familiar again, the same routine of play-sleep-drive-repeat, though this time it’s different.

This time, Gavin’s sober. We play a lot of Scrabble on the tour bus.

Liam’s not there, and instead we’ve got Joan, who’s lovely and a good drummer and wonderfully pleasant to talk to, but she’s not Liam.

Oh, and Darcy and I are fucking. We still haven’t told the rest of the band — we haven’t told anyone — and I don’t know if I get to use the word girlfriend about her or not, but I don’t really care. She’s in my bed every night and we’ve spent a couple hours on the bus perfecting the art of throwing popcorn into each other’s mouths, so I don’t care what word she calls me. I’ll be her dinglehopper if things can stay like this.

Eli doesn’t call again, either.

The shows go beautifully. There’s usually some hitch — the lights don’t go down quite properly, a mic doesn’t work and we have to switch it, the AC’s on the fritz — but there’s always going to be some minor problem. It’s life.

In Minneapolis, there’s a bar right next to the theater, and around one in the morning, Darcy and I head over there through the back door to escape the crush of people that always follows a show, especially somewhere small like this.

They’re mostly fans, but sometimes not. There’s reporters, there’s people who just want to sell your autograph, there’s drunk guys who want to tell you how you should really play guitar, and sometimes I just need to fucking leave. So we do.

The bar is smallish, cozy place, mostly empty because it’s a Tuesday night.

“Do you miss it?” I ask.

“Minneapolis?”

I nod, taking a sip of my beer. Darcy shrugs.

“A little,” she says. “I miss the people sometimes. I joined my first real band here after I hitchhiked from Madison.”

“The Screaming Zombies?”

“That’s who I was with when we met,” she says, also taking a sip. “This was Doll Limb Factory.”

“How could I forget?”

She laughs.

“We weren’t very good,” she says. “But we were fun. And mostly we were loud.”

“That’s what’s important.”

“It was for us, at least,” she says. “And I guess it worked, because here I am with someone else loading my gear into a truck.”

We hang out for a little while, bullshitting about nothing, because somehow our relationship hasn’t really changed.

Well, it has. Fucking obviously it has, but not like I was afraid it would. The parts where we talk and joke and spend time together like we’re best friends stayed almost exactly the same, and it’s great.

After a little while, Darcy hops off her stool to go pee, and I pull my phone out and aimlessly check Twitter. I’m reading dumb shit on the internet when a woman’s voice interrupts me.

“Hi,” she says. “Can I get your autograph?”

I put my phone away and look up, forcing a smile. Even if I just want to be left alone with my secret-girlfriend-or-whatever, if you’re rude to one fan they post it on Facebook and then fucking everyone thinks you’re a dick.

“Sure,” I say. “I haven’t got a pen on me, though.”

“Oh, I brought one,” she says, and hands me a Sharpie. She’s blonde, fair-skinned, and cute in a midwestern kind of way.

“What am I signing?” I ask, because she doesn’t seem to have anything.

The girl pulls up her tank top. She’s not wearing a bra, and for a second, I’m so surprised I’m speechless.

Then I think: I finally got asked to sign someone’s tits.

“Do you have anything else I could sign?” I ask.

I’m trying not to stare, but it’s surprising. They’re pierced, a little barbell through each of her nipples, and if I’m being really honest they’re nice tits.

I’ve got absolutely no desire to touch them, but I’m only human. I notice when tits are nice.

“Come on,” she says, and I flick my eyes to her face. She’s pouting, her pink lips in a sad little bow. “Please? You’ve always been my favorite member of Dirtshine.”

“I don’t sign body parts,” I lie.

“I watched you sign a guy’s arm earlier.”

They’re still out, her shirt still up, and I wish she’d put them away.

“If you’ve got a piece of paper or something, I’d be glad to sign that,” I tell her. “How about a bar napkin?”

She takes a step closer. Still pouting, and now she’s really invading my personal space with her perky, pierced nipples.

“You could think of it as foreplay,” she purrs, or at least tries to purr. “I’m sure you get lonely on the road and you could use something to remember Minneapolis by.”

She runs one fingertip across a nipple, and I lean slightly backward on my bar stool, away from her because I’d really like this girl to put her shirt back on and stop touching herself in public.

“I’m not thinking of it at all,” I say, still trying to be nice, especially because we’re starting to get looks. I grab a bar napkin and take the cap off the pen. “Look, this’ll last you much longer—”

“Oh, did you want an autograph?” Darcy’s voice says behind me, a little brighter and harder than usual.

The girl in front of me falters slightly, because it’s fucking obvious she thinks this is between me and her.

“Sure,” she says anyway, her voice notably not sure.

“Great!” Darcy says, and snatches the Sharpie out of my hand. “Totally happy to sign whatever our fans want! Now just hold still, this might tickle.”

She grabs one breast and just about stabs it with the Sharpie. The girl with her tits out clearly didn’t have this in mind, but before anyone says anything Darcy’s done and steps back to admire her handiwork.

“Perfect,” she says. “Make sure you keep those out for a few more minutes, otherwise it might smudge. Great piercings. Hope you enjoyed the show!”

With that, she tosses the Sharpie at the girl, turns on her heel, and walks out of the bar’s back door.

Yeah, she’s pissed.

I quickly scribble my signature on a cocktail napkin and shove it at the girl.

“Thanks for coming out,” I say automatically.

“We can still—”

“No,” I tell her. She’s still standing there, looking like a confused puppy dog with her tits out, when I turn and leave the bar behind Darcy.