Two days later, something changes among what seems like thousands of PR engagements off the back of the concert. I send my daddy update, and pretty much instantaneously I get a ping back. I’m almost too nervous to click on it, but I can’t not. After a radio silence this long, I really want to know what caused London to respond to me. I open the message to find a date and flight number: Sunday 14th 4:30 p.m., JFK, QF11. I later double-check this with Marko, and as I suspected, these are her flight details from Sydney. I guess she’d like me to meet her at the airport. She doesn’t need to ask me twice. In fact she doesn’t even need to ask once, which she actually didn’t—I would walk barefoot over a bed of white-hot nails to see her and Squirt. I’ll be there no matter what.

I can’t help wondering what’s changed, why she’s gone from zero contact to this. Part of me doesn’t want to question it—why look a gift horse in the mouth, after all? But another part of me remains ever cynical. This kind of reversal can’t possibly mean anything good, can it?

The next five days are the longest of my entire life, and possibly Hunter’s too. Definitely Hunter’s. While I feel like a mixture of a kid on Christmas Eve and a high schooler waiting for the results of their SATs, I get the impression that Hunter feels like a prisoner trapped in a cell with a deranged monkey. Midway through day three, he snaps.

“Listen, man, you know I love you, but you need to get the hell out of here. I totally get that you’re going through some shit, but I can’t see any benefit to both of us losing our fucking minds over here. That’s where this thing is headed if you stick around much longer climbing the goddamn walls.”

This is as close to pissed as I’ve ever seen this laid-back cat, so I take his objection seriously, but I don’t want to hear it. I need to be here “working,” or at the very least driving Hunter to his wits’ end with my pacing and sighing in lieu of working. I can’t be responsible for my actions if left to my own devices.

As if reading my mind, Hunter speaks up again.

“Man, why don’t you call the guys and arrange to do something… like… uh….” He seems to draw a blank. I guess he doesn’t care what I do, so long as it doesn’t involve getting stuck under his feet.

I take the hint and make myself scarce, calling Stevie from the car as I leave the club. It’s an odd feeling, contacting him in a situation like this. The old Stevie would have hauled my ass to a bar and helped me drown my sorrows in a bottle of vodka or six. The last thing I need right now is to wreck myself out drinking for hours on end, as tempting as that prospect may be. Thankfully, the new Stevie is more likely to be seen nursing a matcha latte or some other weird healthy shit than sinking a shot, so no danger of that. I still find it hard to wrap my head around the new status quo, but I guess I’m going to have to, as this version of Stevie appears to be here to stay.

He picks up after a few rings.

“Hey, man, what’s up?” Both Stevies are relentlessly cheerful. Fuck them.

“Nothing. Well, not much, I guess. Hunter threw me out.”

“What? You guys had a lovers’ tiff? I knew it! I always thought there was more to your friendship than met the eye. How long has this been going on?” He’s a dick. A chirpy dick, but still a dick.

I laugh despite my initially somber mood. He’s good at that—even sober he knows just what to say or do to lift someone’s spirits.

“Not like that, asshole.” I can’t even pretend to sound serious, I’m laughing too much.

“Oh, so you’re still together?” He joins in my laughter.

“We’re not together. Never have been. He wants me out of the club. London’s coming back from Sydney in a couple of days, and the waiting is killing me. Apparently I’m driving him nuts in the meantime, and today he finally lost his shit and told me to fuck off.”

“Oh man! I can only imagine the pain he’s been going through, the poor guy. You’re like a bear with a sore butthole on a good day, let alone over the past few months when you’re moody and moping over London. I mean, he’s pretty chill normally, right? For him to snap, you must have been real bad. You’re lucky it was him, not one of us. We probably would have pushed you into oncoming traffic by now.” I can just imagine his face right now as he laughs himself stupid.

“What? Fuck you! I am not moody and moping, and no fucker would be shoving me under a bus.” Maybe I’ve been a little… off my game, but who could blame me with what’s gone down? I’d defy any of them to go through the same and come through it with a smile on their face.

“Sure, you tell yourself that, bro. Meanwhile in the real world, we’re all over here having a party because you told us you were going to be more hands off on the final elements of the album, which incidentally was a false promise, because we then had to spend two weeks breaking balls to get it finished for the gig. I nearly cried when you told us you were back all hands on deck.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I kid you not. It had gotten to the point where we were drawing straws to see who would have to sit closest to you and deal with your sighing and huffing, and even worse, the side eye and death stares. We’ve nominated Hunter for a Nobel Peace Prize for dealing with you one-on-one every day. He’s a better man than me. I mean, there’s four of us, and we’ve been struggling. I can only imagine what he’s been going through with nobody else to take the pressure off. Poor bastard. Maybe we should all front up some cash to pay for counseling for him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s suffering from PTSD.”

“You’re actually serious right now?” He’s actually serious.

“Never been more so, dude,” he deadpans.

“You bunch of shit lickers.” I love-hate those numbskulls.

“You know it, but who else would have you? If we were nice, normal, respectable guys, we’d have left you for dead years ago.”

He’s got a point, but damned if I’m going to let him know that.

It’s at times like this that I realize how lucky I am to have these dickwads in my life. I tell people that music saved me when I was that angry kid who had just lost his dad. It’s true, but having them around was another huge factor in keeping my ass out of jail, or worse. The reality is that knowing the boys have my back is one of the few things helping me stay somewhat sane right now. They might annoy the shit out of me on a daily basis, but even when I want to all-out kill them, I love them still. And Stevie’s right—I know for sure if they didn’t have me, no fucker else would.

So often over the years, I’ve thought about the accident of us coming together as a group and how we just “worked” then and still do now. I don’t know exactly how or why, but I guess we’re united by our similarities and our differences. Fuck knows really, but it ain’t broke, so I ain’t looking to fix it.

Even though I’m only related to one of them, music, not blood, is the tie that binds us. Whatever differences we may have, when we’re on stage together or even just jamming in a hotel room or green room somewhere, magic happens. You can see, feel, and hear the bond between us, and it’s the main reason we’re still at the top in this business after all these years, still cranking out music the world wants to hear. It’s our differences that keep us together as friends too. Everyone brings something different to the group, so each of us has his place.