At a quarter to noon sharp, Kitty and I took the elevator down to the second floor and waited for Trevor outside his door. Luckily, we’d found the only place in the city that had two one-bedroom apartments open for sublet at the same time and weren’t obscenely expensive. Pete and Sam, the guys who made up the rest of Self Defense, shared an over-priced, tiny flat closer to downtown. Trev had wanted us to share a place, too, but that had been the easiest ‘fuck no’ ever. If I didn’t have somewhere to hide out in—just me, my guitar, and my dog—I would lose what was left of my sanity.

The hotels our manager had booked for Self Defense’s first big West Coast tour didn’t allow eighty-pound dogs, and saying ‘fuck no’ to leaving Kitty behind in a kennel for two months was even easier than saying it to Trevor. So, she and I had been sharing a thin, lumpy mattress in a converted bus every night until the tour had ended two weeks ago. As uncomfortable as it had been, the bus was still a step up from sharing a room with a bandmate who rarely came home before dawn. And I knew that if Kitty ever got drunk and brought a woman home to hump her leg, she’d have been subtler about it than Trevor would be.

Once Trev came out of his apartment, still wiping sleep from his eyes but already smiling, we took the stairs down to the lobby and then walked the ten blocks to the public basketball courts.

As the band’s bassist, Trev had decided that basketball would increase our endurance for shows. As my best friend since before puberty, he’d decided playing at a public court might get us women. Not surprisingly, he ignored me when I pointed out that women who hung out at a park in the middle of the day were either moms pushing strollers or addicts waiting for their drug pusher.

Trev didn’t care who they were, as long as they had breasts and recognized us from a gig or the band’s YouTube channel.

Me? I cared. I cared a lot. Especially when, every once in a while, a woman I didn’t know, and who definitely didn’t know me, would follow me on the street or show up at my door. Trevor thought it was something to envy, no matter how many times I told him it freaked me the fuck out. I didn’t even want to think about what would happen if the band ever got really big.

Even though Trevor joked that the occasional stares we got while walking down the street were directed at me and not us, he loved it. If it were up to me, we’d never have posted anything on the internet, strangers wouldn’t know who the hell I was, and life would be about the music, not the fame.

But it wasn’t up to me anymore. Thinking I was doing the right thing, I’d gone along with all of it, never imagining any of this actually happening. And who the fuck knew what the future might look like? All I knew was that there was no going back to the beginning when things were simple. When fame was so intangible I had no idea how much I would hate it.

But Trevor wouldn’t have understood, even if I’d laid it all out for him. The band and the attention it brought him were all he wanted in life, everything he could’ve wished for.

Unfortunately, I fucking loved the guy—when he wasn’t drinking. Since, at least lately, he started drinking immediately after our daily endurance training, I tried to stretch out our games for as long as possible. I swear it had nothing to do with me actually enjoying myself or even that Trevor’s current endurance needs consisted of standing absolutely still and plucking strings while I jumped, sang, and ran around the stage to get the crowd going.

---

We scored an open court at the back of the park, far away from the groups of guys who really knew what they were doing. I tied Kitty’s leash to a pole so she could wander around a ten-foot radius while we played. When she finished exploring, she usually watched us make fools of ourselves, scratched the occasional itch, and napped.

As soon as Trevor got winded and needed a break, he stopped to admire the other, better players. “Think we’ll ever be that good?”

“No. But if you really want to try, we’ll have to give up on music and devote all our time to the game.”

“That’s never going to happen. The only reason I get laid occasionally is because of the band. Self Defense is my golden ticket. Someday, I’ll write a tell-all autobiography and call it Trevor Finley and the Pussy Factory.”

“The only thing keeping my breakfast down right now is that I know you’re kidding.”

We both grabbed our towels to wipe off some sweat.

“You should’ve seen what my golden ticket almost landed Saturday night.”

“Almost?” I tossed my towel on top of my bag.

“Almost,” he grumbled. “I change my mind. ‘Almost’ is a much better title for my autobiography.” He shook it off—literally and figuratively. “But enough with the jealousy, loser. It just makes you seem more pathetic.” He didn’t even try to hide his sarcasm. “I posted a pic of Almost-girl on Instagram. If you knew what Instagram was, you could check her out and be suitably impressed. Or if you’d, say, actually still been at the club when I needed you, things could’ve turned out differently, and I would’ve invited you to have Sunday brunch with us. You’re a shitty wingman, you know that?”

“Sure, because me just being there would’ve guaranteed she went home with you.”

“Fuck, you’re probably right. If you’d been there, she definitely would’ve wanted to go home with someone. Except that someone would’ve been you, not me.” He finally put down his towel so we could start playing again. “Must suck being so damn good-looking. I can’t imagine how tough it must be to have to pick out which of your fangirls to take home. How do you do it? Oh, right—you don’t.”

I let him laugh. We’d been in these roles since we were teenagers. He made fun of my looks. I made fun of his intelligence. He was one of the brainiest people I knew—he just preferred to not let it show. At some point his brain had turned off just long enough for him to have the backwards realization that being seen as fun was better than people finding out he was smart.

“Where’d you disappear to that night anyway?” he asked.

“I grabbed a drink on the way home.” With an amazing woman who liked me so much she didn’t give me her number.

Trevor and the boys had stayed at the club after our set was done, enjoying the low-hanging fruit that came with being what the San Francisco Examiner had called “a promising new sound on the Bay Area music scene.” Bizarre, since we were actually from Southern California and had never officially lived in this area until two weeks ago. If anyone doubted that, they could read the apartment subletting contracts we’d signed for only three months because we weren’t sure how long we’d be here. Staying in the city had been our new manager’s idea. Booking gigs was easier for him because this was his home. Plus, San Francisco had enough live-music venues to give us exposure while not being as jam packed of up-and-coming indie bands as cities like New York and LA were. Or at least that’s how he sold the idea to Trevor and the guys.

Since landing the new manager, Self Defense was now touted as “a mashup of Green Day and The Kinks.” The praise was both bullshit and nerve-wracking. No way were we that good, and no way would we ever be as huge as those bands. Honestly, being internationally known was pretty much my worst nightmare. I was already uncomfortable with people recognizing my face or my music. I never thought it would get this far, let alone far enough to be compared to two amazing bands that’d broken records, relationships, and lives.

“Heads up.”

He was staring at his phone when I tossed him the ball, so it bounced right by him. I took the opportunity to disentangle Kitty from the pole I’d tied her leash to and let her explore more of the terrain.

“Seriously, did you take someone home or not?” Trevor asked, eyes still stuck on his phone. “Because if you bailed on us to go home and cuddle with your mutt I’m going to be unhappy.”

“If that’s what determines your level of happiness these days then you should be very, very happy right now.” I wasn’t trying to gloat, but I had a lot of confusing thoughts floating around my head, and it might help to hear what he thought I should do. And then do the opposite.

Kitty and I jogged over to get the ball, and I lobbed it back to him one-handed. Again, he didn’t even reach for it.

“Nice.” From the way he drew out the word and the slightly lecherous expression on his face, I knew he was referring to me getting laid, not my NBA-quality pass. “From the club we played?”

I shook my head. “I stopped by a little place just to check it out, you know, on my way home to cuddle with my mutt.” I glanced down at Kitty and grimaced, so she knew I wouldn’t have chosen that word if I weren’t quoting him. “I met her there.”

“First off, I’ve decided that from now on, ‘cuddling your mutt’ is my new expression for jerking off.” He slowly wandered over to the basketball and picked it up. “Second, since I got nothing but blue balls after you left me wingman-less, I deserve to hear everything that happened with the girl who pity-fucked you.”

“Pity fuck, huh? If that was her version of a pity fuck, I don’t think I could handle her respect.”

“Seriously? You’re such a fucking tease. Tell me everything.”

“I’m not telling you shit if you keep looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re going to be fantasizing about whatever I tell you the next time you cuddle your mutt.” Knowing he was jerking off to it would ruin all my memories of the best night I could remember having with the most amazing woman I could remember having.

He stood at the free-throw line and took a shot. It wasn’t even close. “Trust me, you’ve never, ever made an appearance in my head when my mutt was in my hand, bro.”

“That’s reassuring,” I muttered. As if I were going to thank him for mentioning a possibility that had never entered my mind before now. I released Kitty’s leash and let her go push the ball around the court a little. “Fine. I’ll tell you. But only because it’s the only way to shut you up about your puny, little mutt.”

“It’s incredible how well you know me. Start at the beginning and then skip to the good part.”

He’d better be satisfied with the PG-13 version. “When I want to pretend like none of this is happening and my life is still a little normal, I go somewhere no one will ever recognize me. So, obviously, it has to be a place that plays different kinds of music—country, blues, jazz, even show tunes. But not rock or alternative because…you know.”

“Because someone might know who Declan Hollis is? Oh no!” He opened his mouth up wide and slapped both sides of his face. “You’re such a freak, man.”

“Thank you, my friend. Means a lot.”

“Just keeping you humble. Okay, besides still not understanding why you’d ever not want to be recognized, I guess it makes sense.” Trevor called Kitty over, knowing she’d bring the ball with her. “Although, you could try wearing a big, furry mustache sometime.”

I got the hint when he took the ball away from Kitty, grimaced at the amount of drool she’d left on it, and shoved it into his bag. Game over. “If you quit this early, you’ll never get better.”

“True. But more importantly, if I quit this early we can get to the donut place before all the good ones are gone.”

I shrugged. “At least your priorities are sound.”