“The National Museum of Toys and Miniatures,” Mace reads off his iPad.

“You want to spend our first day off in weeks looking at Barbies?” Kyle snorts.

“Says the asshole who shaved his head last year to support the preservation of finger monkey habitat.”

“They’re called pygmy marmosets,” Kyle tosses back.

“You coming, Jax?” Mace asks, a look of neediness on his face.

My criteria are usually where can I get time outside and where won’t I be recognized. I’m guessing the toy museum is as good a place as any to go incognito.

So I trail Mace around the museum as he pops his gum and points stuff out.

“What’s eating you? Is it Grace and Annie?” Mace asks as we stop next to a glass case of wooden Disney toys from the 1930s. The paint on Mickey’s face is curling.

He’s the most perceptive person I know. Maybe that’s why he struggled so much with drugs. Because he sees things, feels things. Needs to numb out the world.

I shrug. “They used to come at least three times on a tour. In between, we’d talk almost every day. Now, I’ve been trying to get Grace to come for three months. Nothing.”

I brush past him, and we make our way through the last hall.

We go out for dinner, finding a patio to enjoy the summer weather. My ball cap is jammed down, sunglasses on, and even though our waitress looks a little too long, if she knows something, she doesn’t say.

“Once this tour’s done, we got another studio album to record.”

I bite into my hamburger, then wash it down with beer. “I know.”

“You really have nothing?”

I pull a sheet of paper from my pocket and hold it out to him.

“You need to get a phone from this century so you can write in Notes like a grownup,” he mumbles, spilling ketchup in his lap.

“Says the guy who puts ketchup on his calamari.”

“You can put ketchup on anything.”

But I wait as he reads the notes I’ve been making. Some are lyrics. Some are chords, which will get translated into vibrations, sounds, in his mind as easily as they do in mine.

“What do you think?” I ask.

“I think everything you’ve written since ‘Midnight Mass’ gets a little further from who you are.”

“I’m not that kid anymore.”

“This”—he holds up the paper—“isn’t who you are either. At least ‘Midnight Mass’ was the most honest shit you ever wrote.”

I take back the sheet. “You ever write?”

He shrugs. “Sure. Back before you picked me up. In the dark ages.” He grins.

“You ever think about whether you’re writing to affect people or just get it out? And when you do, where do you start? The music or the words.”

“Never thought about it.”

“It used to come to me like a storm. The riff. Then when it got too much, it’d rip through me. By the time I finished, the words were there.” I turn it over in my head. “Maybe that’s the problem.”

He studies me, a look of realization dawning. “Or the problem is you’re overthinking it. This is about Haley, isn’t it? I should’ve known there was something going on when I walked in on you. She was wearing your hoodie, man.”

It’s such a high school thing to say, but I don’t have a good explanation except she pulled me in by being genuinely interested in my ideas. The questions she ask challenge me in a real way, unlike the ones I’ve been fielding for years.

“She’s twenty.”

“It’s legal.”

“It’s not like that.”

“She’s pretty.”

I swallow the laugh. “So are a lot of women.”

“And I can’t remember the last time you looked at any of ‘em.” He shifts back in his chair. “Jax. You signed up to be a musician, not a monk. You can’t hold one mistake against yourself for a lifetime.”

“Haley’s not that kind of girl.”

“Not the kind you fuck or the kind you walk away from?”

I turn it over. “Either.”

For starters, Cross has rules about fraternization on tour, and they’re my rules too.

Plus, she’s too young for me. For anyone here. Haley’s off-limits on that basis alone.

Even if she wasn’t, there’s no way I could tug her down the hall and into my room.

She’d barely let me touch her hand.

Not to mention pin her up against the wall with my hips to fit her slow curves to my body.

If I lowered my mouth to hers, those big brown eyes would be as big as satellites.

If I kissed her, pressed the seam of her full lips with my tongue until she opened…

She’d probably bite me.

“You okay?”

I blink up at Mace, shaking off the daydream. “Yeah.”

Mace pops the last of his fried octopus into his mouth, making a noise low in his throat. “You remember that first tour?” he asks.

I push Haley from my mind. “We were fucking idiots.”

He grunts his agreement, draining the rest of his beer. “Best time of my life.”

I don’t remind him that what followed was him falling down the rabbit hole.

I knew his using had gotten out of hand before our second tour. But that was when we had our moment, when I told him he had to get clean or I’d cut him out. He begged me to reconsider. But I held firm in the face of my best friend, needle marks in his arm and his heart rate exploding.

We spend the next hour drinking beer and reminiscing about the good times. It’s dark when Mace glances at his phone, snorting. He holds it up.

“What the hell is that?” I ask.

“The bar Kyle’s at.”

“Wanna go see if he’s chained himself to the bar in defense of single-origin rye?”

“Nah, man.” He sticks the phone away. “I’m going back to the hotel.”

I consider it, then I decide I’m not ready to go back just yet.

Our car drops him off first, and my eyes fall closed as my head drops back against the seat. Instead of thinking about Annie or Grace or the next seven tour stops, I think about Haley.

Maybe she is in my head.

Yeah, she’s young. But she acts more mature than Mace most of the time.

When a smart woman tells you she wants to know you, she wants to keep your secrets and hear your problems?

It's damn hard to resist.

I know Jerry relies on her help, and she’s like a sponge. Some interns have this sense of entitlement. They try to avoid the shit jobs.

Haley’ll take on anything, so long as you tell her what it’s about.

I respect the hell out of that. Especially since I know what her life’s been like the last year.

I’ve been through it too.

The car pulls up at the bar, and I shake off the thoughts as I step out and start toward the open door.

The chords drifting from inside clamp down on my heart.

The closer I get to the entrance, the more my steps slow.

I can’t go in, but neither can I stop. The bouncer glances at my face just long enough to see I’m of age, then he holds the door for me.

The words reach my ears as I step inside.

“All the primary colors

Burn my eyes

I’m black and white

Encased in lies

And everything blurs in between

I'm lighter fluid and gasoline

Inside”

She’s there, on the stage with Lita and Kyle. Her jeans are ripped at the knees. Her tank top leaves miles of skin on display under the blue stage lights.

Not that she notices, because her eyes are closed as she sings my song in a voice as clear as a bell.

My fucking song.

As if she can feel me, her eyes open.

Long-buried hopelessness clashes with new betrayal, like waves from opposing tides.

I’m jerked back to a time when I was all helplessness, no control. I hate that she can make me feel this way.

Without a word, I spin and shove out the doors.

I need a car. But I can't wait that long to stab a number on my phone.

It’s my turn to get voicemail.

“Cross. Take her back. I don’t know why you sent her, but you’re going to take her the fuck back.”