I walked for maybe an hour, maybe two, mostly pacing. I went as far as I could comfortably go without getting lost. It was black as shit, everything was flat and looked the same, and there was no cell service.

The only light this far from the road was a half-moon and the stars; the car was a tiny little glint in the distance, and I stopped just before I lost sight of it. Some clouds were rolling around the sky and I didn’t even think I’d be able to map out any kind of pattern in the stars to find my way back.

I was a city kid. If I was tossed out here by myself, sad truth was I’d probably get eaten by a coyote.

I paced, wearing a fucking path on the desert floor, and I thought about a lot of shit. I thought about my addiction, all the shit I’d tried to convince myself I’d put to rest, and how I’d almost broken right the fuck down tonight. How badly I’d wanted to take a drink—and maybe I would’ve if Seth didn’t intervene.

And how badly I needed to get my ass to an AA meeting.

But mostly, I thought about Maggie.

I thought about how she’d told me she loved me.

And I knew, I fucking knew in my bones that she probably loved me all along. Which meant love was never our problem.

Because I’d definitely loved her all along, too.

I’d loved Maggie Omura with everything I had in my broke-ass heart of holes, for a long, long time. Seth was right; there were a shit-ton of holes in me. Holes left by my parents a long time ago. Holes with deep black roots, that I’d never known how to fill. It was like Swiss fucking cheese in there.

I used to think I could fill those holes with booze and pussy and the adulation of a few million fans.

But that was all bullshit.

All that shit just went through me like a fucking sieve.

What I needed was the love of this one woman. And I really didn’t need Seth to tell me I was never gonna get it until I started filling those fucking holes myself.

The signs were there all along.

I just didn’t want to see them.

So I kept fucking things up instead.

I loved Maggie, and yet the common thread through all our shit was me fucking it up.

According to her, I’d fucked up pretty much everything—right down to our wedding song.

She’d told me as much a couple of months after our wedding, when things were at their fucking worst between us. I’d stopped by her place one night to talk to her, but instead, we’d ended up in a massive fight. I knew any second she was gonna throw my ass out.

But then she paused to take a breath from reaming me out. And she sighed and said to me, I love this song.

I’d barely even noticed she had music playing. It was some acoustic song with a dude singing; I’d later found out it was Stereophonics, “You’re My Star.” But at the time, I didn’t know what song it was. Only that Maggie apparently loved it, and I’d ruined it for her.

I really hope something can save this song for me one day, she’d told me, because you’ve just ruined it for me. You know, I heard it for the first time a few months ago and I thought, now there’s a song I’d love to have play at my wedding someday. But I guess you ruined that, too. Lucky me… I got married in Vegas in some tacky theme chapel, to my dad’s bullshit “Schoolgirl” song playing on repeat.

Objectively, I knew that part was her dad’s fault as much as it was mine, but at that moment, I wasn’t gonna argue the finer points with her.

Married to a man who can’t keep it in his pants to save his life, she’d added. Or at least, to save his marriage.

And she was right. I didn’t keep it in my pants.

As a husband, I was a fucking failure.

Out in the world, I was a rock star. Like Seth said; I was a superstar.

I didn’t set out to be a superstar.

I set out to be a musician, and the rest was golden icing on the cake. I was never gonna say I didn’t want it. Far from it; I got a taste of the sweet life at twenty-two, when Dirty’s debut album hit, and all I wanted was more.

There was a time I’d fucking glutted myself on it.

And in that life, in the eyes of the world, I was a kind of demigod.

But in Maggie’s eyes… a failure.

A man who’d pretty much tricked her into marrying him, then failed to be any kind of decent husband.

Fact was, I didn’t know how to make her happy, and it fucking killed me. When it came to my relationship with Maggie, I felt like a fucking failure. Every time I looked at her and she looked back at me with those all-seeing gray eyes of hers, I felt like a fucking fraud.

And every time I disappointed her, all the ugly shit it stirred up in me… It was the kind of ugly shit that, when I was drinking, would’ve flipped me right into self-destruct mode.

I didn’t drink, but there was always weed and a lot of it.

And there were always women.

A lot of them.

I hadn’t been with all that many women since I’d married Maggie… but since when was even one okay?

According to Maggie, it wasn’t, no matter how bad things were between us.

According to my conscience, it wasn’t either. Which just made me want to drink.

Which made me want to smoke up.

Vicious fucking cycle.

It wasn’t like I wanted to be a failure or a fraud. Wasn’t like I’d accepted those fucking roles in Maggie’s life.

I fought them like hell, and I still failed.

I kept trying to please her, trying to give her what I thought she wanted so I could win her over, and all I did was fuck it up. I’d tried to win her over with sex about a million times, but just because she’d fucked me a handful of times didn’t mean it was any kind of victory. I knew that now.

She wanted me, and just like her love for me, that want probably went way back, too.

So she’d let me have her body.

She’d never let me near her heart.

She was protecting herself from me, and for good reason.

As I went over all this shit in my head, I knew she’d already told me all this stuff at some point or another. A lot of it, she’d told me repeatedly.

That she didn’t trust me. That she couldn’t give me her heart. That she couldn’t love me because I made it impossible for her to do that.

I’d just never heard her.

I didn’t want to believe her, because I’d convinced myself that all I had to do was get her between the sheets again and she’d come around to the inescapable truth that we were meant to be together.

But if we were meant to be together, I should’ve been able to get my shit together and treat her right, right?

I didn’t treat her right.

I treated her like every other woman I’d tried to get into bed. Like sex with her was some kind of currency. Something I could use to persuade her to open up to me.

Or something I could use to hurt her, by having sex with other women when she’d hurt me.

Sex was the most powerful tool I’d ever had when it came to women, and with Maggie, all my other shit was pretty much useless anyway. My talent, my fame; she took those in stride. Because of her job, and long before that, her fucking dad, she was surrounded by rock stars and all the bullshit that came with them. Unlike so many other women I met, none of that shit was gonna faze her or impress her.

I’d tried the money thing, maybe just a little, with the engagement ring and the watch. But I knew that really wasn’t gonna do it either.

Sex. Sex was the only thing that ever let me through Maggie’s wall.

If that really wasn’t gonna do it anymore… what the fuck did I have?

I was powerless.

Powerless, just like I was with my fucking addiction. And the only thing that ever worked to get me off the booze was to completely surrender to the fact that I was powerless. That I had a weakness. A destructive obsession that was wreaking utter fucking havoc on my life, that would destroy my life. That I needed help.

That I couldn’t overcome it alone.

And that no one else could fix it for me, either.

I had to do it myself—with help and support. Because I didn’t have all the answers. My sponsor didn’t have all the answers. As wise as his ass sounded, Seth didn’t have all the answers.

And as much as I would’ve loved to find them deep in Maggie’s pussy, she didn’t have all the answers, either.

The truth was I’d been living like I’d overcome all this shit, like I was done with it. I’d hoped I was done with it… but I’d never be done.

The path of recovery was a long and winding road, and one I’d just have to keep walking. Some people, for a time, would walk it with me. When I asked for help, and even when I didn’t.

I might fall down, and I might fuck up.

I had no idea what tomorrow would bring.

I only knew there was no cure for what I had.

It was part of me.

But in this moment, right now, the only moment I had, I wasn’t drinking. I wanted to drink, but I wasn’t gonna drink.

And I was always gonna walk this road.

Like Seth said in the song he wrote, it was the road to hell and back.

We’d both been to hell. We’d both hit bottom, young and fast. And we’d both be walking back from that place for the rest of our lives.

Seth, that fortunate bastard, had fallen in love with a woman who loved him enough to walk that road with him.

I just didn’t know if Maggie was ever gonna walk mine with me.

And if she wouldn’t… Was I ever gonna find a reason to do it, besides keeping air in my lungs, that would feel worthwhile?

Because at the end of the day, the music and the money, the fame and the fans and all the pussy in the universe didn’t make it worthwhile.

Nothing made it feel worthwhile, without her.

Because I loved her.

I wasn’t addicted to Maggie. She wasn’t some obsession, and I wasn’t gonna let her kill me. She could try, but it wasn’t happening.

I just wanted to love her.

* * *

As I made my way back to the car, the sky was lightening to a pale violet-gray in the east. Some clouds were bunched around the mountains on the horizon, the sun about to break through, a new day about to start.

Fucking Buddha of the desert had fallen asleep.

I kicked his snakeskin boot and he jolted awake. He straightened his hat and sat up with a shiver. “Fuck. It’s cold.”

“No shit.”

* * *

“I’ve got a bottle of Jack in my hotel room.”

Seth said nothing in response to my confession as he drove.

I raked my hand through my hair, clawing it back from my face. Not even a couple of hours of pacing in the desert had mellowed me out. If anything, I was more agitated than before.

And I was fucking jonesing.

“What,” I fired at him, “you just spewed more words at me in that desert than I’ve probably ever heard out of your mouth, and now you’ve got nothing to say?”

He said nothing.

I sighed, but it came out an aggravated growl.

“Okay. Fuck, you’re an asshole. The truth is, I do this sometimes. Most of the time. No. All the time. I have a full, sealed bottle on me. On the road. At home. Everywhere.” I glanced at him. He just kept his eyes on the road ahead.

Nothing.

Seth said not one thing.

I sighed again.

“You ever hear that thing about Gandhi,” I asked him, “how he slept surrounded by naked women to prove he could resist temptation?”

Fucking finally, he spoke. “Sounds like bullshit.”

“Maybe.”

“So you got a bottle with you, what, to prove you can resist the temptation?”

“I tell myself it’s this monument to my sobriety, that I can resist it, that it doesn’t have control of me anymore. But in reality, it’s there to assure me that I can have it if I break the fuck apart and need it.”

Seth didn’t say anything.

“I’ve never told anyone that.”

“Even your sponsor?”

“Even Rudy.”

“Then here’s what we do. We get back to the hotel, we get rid of that bottle. Then you call Rudy and you tell him.”

I wasn’t gonna argue with that. And I knew what I was in for. Rudy was pretty much Seth, still sober and twenty years into the future.

“There’s this thing Rudy always says. Something about fame and fortune… how it gives you the means to have a fantastic life, or to fantastically kill yourself.”

Seth gave a dry laugh. “True enough.”

“I don’t know what the fuck I’d do without him. If it wasn’t for Rudy, I think I might be dead.” There was a weird lump in my throat as the truth of that sat, heavy in my chest. “If it wasn’t for Maggie…” I didn’t even finish that sentence. “You know, I got sober a few months after I met her. She was a big part of that. I mean, she probably doesn’t know it. But she was.”

“There were plenty of times I would’ve killed myself,” Seth said, “if it wasn’t for someone saving my ass. Elle, finding me on the floor after I’d OD’d on that tour bus. Jude, getting me into rehab, over and again. My foster father, giving me a home and a name and some pride. You,” he said, glancing over at me, “picking me up off the street and bringing me home, bringing me into the band. Jessa and Jesse and Dylan… there were a lot of people over the years who cared about me.”

“Yeah.”

“You need people in your corner, Zane, but you can’t get clean for them.”

I didn’t say anything.

“No one wants to be your reason,” he said. “Maggie doesn’t want to be the reason you drink, and she doesn’t want to be the reason you stay sober. Don’t put that on her. This is all you.”

I sighed and rubbed my hands over my face.

I don’t want to be the reason you don’t fuck other women, and I don’t want to be the reason you don’t drink, or the reason you don’t end up in jail.

That’s what she’d said to me.

We can’t just keep having sex.

I can’t handle more.

She’d said that, too. Admitted she couldn’t handle what was between us.

And I couldn’t handle anything. Not like this.

I definitely couldn’t handle losing her.

Jesus and fuck. Were we seriously doomed? Because we were both too fucked-up to keep a relationship together?

“What do I do if I can’t fuck her?” I gave Seth a sharp look when I felt his response to that. “Don’t laugh. I’m serious.”

“Okay.”

“What the fuck do I do if I can’t touch her?”

He looked at me, a few times, before answering. “What were you gonna do, just fuck all your problems away?”

Silence. I didn’t fucking answer that.

And maybe it slowly dawned on him that that was exactly what I was gonna do. I’d been fucking away my problems with women for years. Thing was, that approach had always been sufficient before, since I never wanted any of those other women to stick around after we fucked.

“Have you talked to her?” he asked me. “You know you can actually talk to her, right?”

“Uh-huh,” I said, but mostly just to get him to stop talking. Was already sorry I asked. “Stop fucking laughing.”

“I’m not.

“I can hear it in your head.”

Silence.

Then he burst the fuck out laughing, until I punched him on the shoulder and he reeled it in.

“Okay,” he said, biting back his shit. “So try this. Next time you feel like fucking Maggie, keep your pants on, sit on your fucking hands, and talk to her instead.”

“About what?”

“About the weather and the state of the economy. What do you think?”

“I’ve already told her how I feel about her. She doesn’t even want to hear it. And by the way, for a nice guy, the level of sheer dickheadedness that comes out of you is stunning at times. Has Elle seen this side of you?”

“Never claimed to be a nice guy. And unfortunately, Elle’s seen every side of me.” He said that in a way that made my stomach turn.

Reminded me exactly what she’d seen.

I’d seen the aftermath of it, the medics hauling Seth’s lifeless-looking body out to the ambulance on a stretcher, and that was bad enough. Elle was the one who’d found him unconscious, covered in puke and blood.

“And by the way,” he said, “the amount of women you’ve been with, the lack of shit you know about the female gender is stunning.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I thought I had a hard time understanding women…”

I stared at him. Then I took off his hat and pulled it down on my head. “I’m keeping this hat.”

A grin flickered over Seth’s face, dimple and all. “Look, if I can tell you’re in love with Maggie, I’m pretty sure Maggie can tell you’re in love with Maggie. She probably doesn’t need to hear how you feel about her as much as she needs to hear all the other shit.”

“What other shit?”

“You know what shit. If you’re trying to be a rock star for her, trying to be that guy who only exists on the album cover and on the stage, that’s never gonna last.”

I slid down deeper into my seat and crossed my arms, tucking my hands in my armpits. The sun was up now; we’d been up all night. But I was still listening to every word Seth said.

“She needs the shit you don’t wanna say, brother. The shit you don’t talk about with anyone else. Your addiction, your demons, whatever it is. You can’t talk to her about that shit…” He shook his head. “Might as well burn that marriage certificate they gave you two in Vegas.”

* * *

When we got back to the hotel, Seth cracked open my bottle of Jack Daniels and flushed it down the toilet, along with all my weed. He rinsed the bottle and took it with him when he left, so I wouldn’t even have to smell the fumes. He also took my rolling papers and my lighters.

As soon as I was alone, I sat down on the bed and called my sponsor. It was early, but Rudy was already up, having his morning coffee with his wife.

I told him everything.

I told him about the bottle of Jack. I told him about the wedding and everything I’d fucked up with Maggie. And he listened, because that was what Rudy did best.

At the end of the call, I told him I’d check in again later. And he actually said to me, “Proud of you, son.”

Rudy never told me he loved me, but truth was, over the years he’d become much more than my sponsor. I looked to him like something of a father figure and we’d crossed a line there that probably wasn’t ideal, but I didn’t care.

Fuck it. I loved the guy.

“Give Laney my love.” Laney was Rudy’s wife, and while I never told him I loved him, either, I’d tell his wife, which was pretty much the same thing.

When we got off the phone, I texted Shady to let him know I was back. I was planning to call Brody to ask him if we could talk—but according to the texts he’d sent me, he was up.

And he was here in Vegas.

I scrolled through the many, many text messages on my phone. Apparently, right after the giant scene I’d caused in the diner—on the heels of that other scene I’d caused with the TV crew the day before—Jude had been on the phone to Brody in Vancouver, and Brody had flown straight out.

Which meant they were worried about me.

Fuck me.

As it turned out, they’d been up all night. Brody, Jude and Maggie, who were all in Brody’s hotel room.

I had missed calls and voicemails from all of them.

Jude: Hey, brother. Shady says you just took off with Seth in my rental car. No idea where you’re going, but check in, alright?

Brody: Hey, Zane. I wanted to talk to you and Maggie, but no one can seem to find you, so… Call me or send me a text, yeah? Let me know where you are.

Maggie: Hey. Where are you? Everyone’s flipping out. It’s almost dawn and they all think you’ve gone off on some bender and maybe Seth has, too. Elle’s being the voice of reason here. She’s trying to convince Brody that there’s no way Seth would do that, and they’re, uh, calming down. But… can you please call someone and just let us know you’re okay?

Maggie: Zane. Everyone’s worried about you, okay? Please call.

Her voice sounded so small and faraway. She was fucking worried about me, and who knew what the guys had put in her head if they were flipping out about me going off the deep end in Vegas.

I would’ve liked to believe that she’d know I wouldn’t, but shit. Wasn’t even gonna kid myself that I’d ever given her that kind of faith in me.

There were more messages, but I stopped listening and got my ass over to Brody’s hotel room.

Brody opened the door, but I barely saw him.

Maggie was slumped in a chair clutching a takeout coffee cup, and she didn’t even look at me. But I saw her give a kind of sobbing sigh as Jude pulled me into his arms. Her eyes were pink, but not like she’d been crying. She looked miserable.

I’d never seen her look like that.

“We were worried about you, brother.” Jude slapped me on the back and I hugged him back.

“Yeah. Sorry. Didn’t even think about that. Just had some shit to deal with.”

When he released me, Brody’s hands were at his hips. He shook his head. He was pissed, obviously, probably because of that look I’d put on Maggie’s face.

“Fuck, you’re an asshole.” He sighed and swept me up in a hug, then released me. “Sit your ass down. Please.”

I sat in a chair across the coffee table from Maggie. Brody sat down on the couch and Jude stood.

“You gonna tell us why you took off?” Brody nodded at Maggie. “You had Maggie worried.”

I looked at her. She still wouldn’t look at me.

“I… uh…” I cleared my throat; kinda felt like I’d tried to swallow a whole, live frog. “I wanted a drink.”

No one said anything.

“So Seth took me for a drive.”

“Where?” Brody asked.

“Out of town. Into the desert.” I knew what they were all probably picturing. Me going hog-wild at some strip joint. “We talked for a bit.”

“You alright?” Jude asked.

“I will be.”

“Did you drink?” When I looked at Brody again, he was staring at me, hard and direct. “You know I’ve gotta ask, brother.”

“I didn’t drink.”

When I looked at Maggie again, her eyes finally lifted to mine. Gray and soft, raw and pink. She blinked like she was holding back tears. But I saw the relief in her shoulders as they softened a bit.

Then she kept staring at me, and I had to look away.

“I had some time to think,” I told them all, staring at the coffee table, “and I talked some shit through with Rudy just now. The way I see it, I’ve gotta cut myself some slack, but not too much. So I’ve given myself two choices. I can leave the tour right now and check myself into rehab before I actually drink, or I can get my shit together right here, on tour, before I drink. Because drinking is not an option. I’ve decided, after talking to Rudy, that I’m giving myself one chance. Just one. And if I break, if I fuck up and take a drink, I’m asking Jude to take me to rehab.”

“Yeah, brother,” Jude said. “Whatever you need. You’ve got my support to stay on the tour. You know that. I’ve got your back and Shady’s got your back, and the second you need anything to change, you say the word. You need me to take you to rehab, I take you, no questions asked.”

I glanced up at Jude. He was standing there with his big arms crossed and his dark eyes leveled at me. I nodded, swallowing around the lump in my throat.

“Same goes with the weed,” I said. “I’m done with it.”

The expression on Jude’s face didn’t falter. Whether he believed I could hold up my end of that or not, he didn’t show any sign of doubt. “Okay.”

I glanced at Brody, and he nodded too. “We’re all onboard,” he said. “Whatever you need.”

“Good. Because I’m gonna need you guys to work out a new schedule for me, keep me busy during the day. But no interviews for a while. And no meeting fans backstage. We can tell them I’m saving my voice for the shows. I need the shows. But I can’t handle the people in my face right now.”

“You’ve got it,” Brody said.

“And I need no booze or drugs backstage.”

“Not a problem,” Jude said.

“It’s not forever, just for a while. Seth’s gonna be around when I want to talk. I’m gonna need support.” I felt Maggie’s eyes on me, and I couldn’t even look at her. “I know it’s not her job, but since Talia won’t be as tied up with my promo shit, I thought maybe she could find me AA meetings to go to, each town we hit. You know I don’t want all that Betty Ford shit. I like going to regular meetings with regular people in whatever church basement. I don’t care.”

“Yeah, Zane,” Brody said, his voice soft. “We know.”

I lowered my head. I was getting fucking teary-eyed, but I didn’t want to cry. I just couldn’t believe I was having a moment like this, when I’d convinced myself all these moments were behind me now. That I had all my shit under control.

Seth was right, though. I was out of control.

And I was falling apart in front of the people who loved me most.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and my voice fucking broke. “I’m sorry I’m putting this on you all right now, when I should’ve dealt with it before the tour. I can see that now.”

Someone moved in, and I saw Jude’s boots in front of me. He pulled me up into another hug. “You know we’d do anything for you, brother,” he said, quietly, right in my ear. “Anything you need.”

When he released me, Maggie was right there. She reached for me and I scooped her into my arms, hugging her so tight I almost couldn’t breathe. I wasn’t expecting her to come anywhere near me, but she was hugging me right back, tight.

She didn’t say anything, and when she started to let go, I let her go.

Brody was looking from me to her, as we stood side-by-side but not touching. “And what about this… uh… marriage?” He looked uncomfortable, if anything, so I figured they didn’t talk about it without me here.

But someone had definitely told him what I’d said at the diner.

Got the feeling it wasn’t Maggie.

I didn’t even have to look at her now to know what she’d want me to say.

“Me and Maggie,” I said, forcing the words out, “we’re not together.”

When Brody’s gaze flicked to her, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Maggie give a little nod of agreement.

“Who else knows about this?” he asked.

“My dad and his girlfriend,” Maggie said softly. “They were at the wedding, but they won’t tell anyone.”

“Flynn was there, too,” Jude said.

“Shady knows, and so does Seth,” I said. “I told them. And Rudy.”

I felt Maggie looking at me, and I met her eyes. I shrugged a little and she rolled her eyes.

“Fuck,” she said, sighing, and she looked at Brody. “I told Jessa. I’m sorry, Brody.”

Pretty sure we both read the look on Brody’s face at that one… as he realized his woman knew about our secret bullshit and never told him.

Jesus. I did not want to be there for that conversation.

“I asked her not to tell anyone,” Maggie added gently.

“Anyone else?” he asked. And I knew Brody; he was trying not to be pissed off, but he was pissed off.

“Not that I know of,” she said.

I shook my head. I didn’t think anyone else knew. Suspected something was up, maybe.

“We all need some sleep,” Brody concluded with a heavy sigh. “I’m gonna be in touch with Alec, let him know we’ll roll out to the arena a little later than usual today. And let’s call a band meeting for tomorrow night, when we get into Salt Lake. Lay a few things out for everyone.” He looked at me. “The whole band needs to know what’s going on so we can all be on the same page about your sobriety.” Then he told Maggie, “Let’s circle tomorrow before that and go over some things.”

“Sure.”

“I’m assuming we want to keep the whole marriage thing under wraps?”

“Yes,” Maggie said.

“And I’m assuming Rudy is tight?” he asked me.

“He’d never tell anyone my shit,” I said.

“You want to talk to Flynn and Shady?” Brody asked Jude. “Make sure they know to keep their mouths shut?”

“They know,” Jude said. “But yeah, I’ll talk to them.” He glanced at Maggie, then nodded at me, patting my shoulder as he left.

“I can clear Zane’s promotional schedule and have Talia help,” Maggie told Brody. “I’ll get her on top of mapping out some open AA meetings in advance of each city, and coordinate with Zane whatever he needs. We’ll have the other band members cover his interviews. Everyone’s wanting to talk to Matt and Elle and Seth right now anyway, about the baby and her being off the tour, and what it’s like for Matt filling in for her, all that stuff. We can definitely make it work.”

“Good,” Brody said.

“Can I go now? I have some calls to make.”

“Yeah. But make sure you get some sleep, Maggie.”

Maggie nodded, then glanced at me. I really couldn’t read that look, but it was somewhere between sympathy and uncertainty.

I wanted to reach out and pull her into my arms again.

But then she left.

Brody looked me in the eye as soon as the door had shut behind her. “Anything you need. Whatever it is. I don’t care what time it is. I don’t care what it is or where you are or how bad it is, or what you think I’m gonna think. You call me, and I’ll get you what you need. No judgment. I’ll make sure you have whatever you need. As long as it’s not booze or drugs. Or anything that’s gonna make Maggie kick me in the balls.”

I would’ve laughed at that, but I wasn’t in the laughing mood. “Thank you,” I forced out.

“I mean it. The tour doesn’t go on without you. That’s not pressure, Zane, that’s fucking reality. We went on without Seth for years. We all felt the loss, but we went on. And it sucks, but we’re doing a whole tour without Elle. We could go on without Jesse or Dylan, have someone fill in for them for a while. Wouldn’t be the same, but we’d make it work. But we can’t do it without you. We’re never gonna do it without you. You’re our frontman, and it doesn’t work without you, without your voice. Everyone in the band knows that. We’ve already discussed it.”

What? When?

He held up his hand to silence me, like he knew what I was gonna ask. “We already talked about it, years ago, when you went into rehab. The show doesn’t go on without you. Dirty isn’t Dirty without Zane Traynor, and we all know it. You need this tour to stop, you need everything to stop, then it stops.”

I just nodded. I couldn’t get any more words out. I moved toward him and he pulled me in for another hug. He hugged me for a while, and when he let me go he said, “Proud of you, brother.”

I headed for the door before I started crying like a baby. I was fucking exhausted. Emotionally tapped out.

“And this Maggie thing,” he said behind me, all the softness leaving his voice. I paused and glanced back at him. “We’ll talk about that later, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Then I went to my room to try to get some sleep, because I had a show to do tonight. My band was counting on me, and fuck if I was gonna let Dirty suffer because of me.