chapter nine

 

“Pass the pepper,” I say to Reese around a mouthful of eggs. She’s a good cook, but she’d be better if she’d use some damn pepper once in a while—and I don’t miss an opportunity to remind her of that. She hands it over, and I wink as I point my fork in Ashton’s direction where she lies in a bouncer on the table in front of Reese. “You’ll love pepper someday, kid.”

Ashton responds with a cooing sound and smile that’s probably actually gas as Reese rolls her eyes.

“Did you decide on a place yet so we can get rid of you?” she asks.

I laugh. She’s ribbing me, as she does a lot these days. She gets as good as she gives, though. It’s been three months since I moved in with my brother and his family, and they’ve been nothing but hospitable. I think I’m about ready to spread my wings in a place of my own, though.

I started looking at houses and apartments a week or so ago when the final sale of my Vegas home went through. I did everything remotely, and I didn’t even meet the new owners. Mark paid for a moving company to get all my shit, which is currently being stored in a container in Los Angeles. Becker and Jason never responded to the single email I sent, and I’ve pushed Vivian to the far recesses of my mind even though she’s still fully in my heart. I’ve largely neglected my personal life in favor of some alone time. My one night with the girl whose name I can’t even remember after Vivian left was a mistake on an otherwise spotless record, but the drought is starting to get to me if I’m really honest with myself.

I’ve spent my days working at the record label and my nights giving opinions on lyrics and bridges and riffs when Mark invites me to accompany him to band practice. I’ve gotten close with the other guys in his band, men I’ve known for years, and somehow I’ve been immersed in the world of my rock star brother. It’s not something I ever planned for my life, but I find I’m enjoying the challenge. There’s still a business angle to it, so I can use my area of expertise and combine it with everything I’ve learned about music from my big brother.

“Not yet,” I say, answering her question about whether I’ve found a place. “There were two I liked, but I’m not sure if either is quite right.”

“Good,” Mark says as he walks into the kitchen. “I have a proposition for you that might change your mind about getting your own place right now.”

I raise a brow.

“Seriously? We’re about to get rid of him!” Reese says. I’d be offended, but she winks at me when she says it.

Mark laughs, too. “Okay, so you how Keith is both our booking agent and our tour manager?” he asks.

I nod.

“And you know how Keith’s wife is pregnant?” he asks.

I nod.

“And you know how Keith planned a six-week US tour starting at the end of October?”

I nod again as he mentions the tour slated to start in just over two months.

“Well Keith’s wife’s is having twins, and the doctors just scheduled her C-section a month earlier than they were expecting. He’s going to miss the back half of the tour. We want you to come on the road with us. You know the band and you can learn management quickly under Keith during the first couple weeks. You can still do the analytics from the road, or you can start training someone else now for when we’re on the road. Your call. We’ll pay you for both, obviously.”

My jaw drops. “You want me to go on the road with Vail?” I ask. I went on the road with them during their very first tour. It was summer and I was in college. I worked as a roadie, and while it was hard labor loading and unloading equipment at every venue, it was also the best summer of my life.

Mark nods. “It was Steve’s idea, actually,” he says, naming the band’s guitarist. “When Keith announced he’s going to miss half the tour, we knew we needed someone with a business mind who we can collectively trust. Someone who’s familiar with our personalities and who knows a little about life on the road. And we came up with you.”

I realize what a huge responsibility he’s offering me, and I also realize what an honor it is to even be asked. It’ll be a challenge, but it’ll be the best sort of challenge. People dream of following Vail on tour, and I’m being invited onto the bus. “I’m all in,” I say. I’ve got nothing to lose and everything to prove.

“Great. I’ll let the guys know and we’ll hammer out details this week. We’ll need you at every band meeting from now until after the tour. You free?”

I glance around me as if I’m thinking it over. “Yeah. I’m free. I gave up my entire life when I left Vegas, remember?”

Mark chuckles. “Well, we’re about to transition you to an entirely new life.”

“I can’t wait.”

 

* * *

 

After I put in a solid nine hours at Ashmark the next day, I head with Mark to Steve’s house for the band meeting. Steve lives on the outskirts of Los Angeles in Pacific Palisades, an easy thirty-minute drive from the Ashmark office and on the way to Mark’s place in Malibu. I’ve been to his house before, but it never fails to impress me with its gorgeous ocean views that rival Mark’s.

Steve’s wife answers the door, and Mark greets her with a kiss on the cheek. She holds their almost three-year-old daughter on her hip, and the little girl’s blonde curls bounce with her mother’s movements.

“Hey, Mark,” Angelique says. She looks past him to me. “Good to see you again, Brian. Sounds like we’ll be seeing a lot more of you?”

I nod. “That’s the plan.”

“Welcome aboard.” She opens the door and we step past her. Mark leads the way, and Angelique takes baby Adelaide to a completely different section of the house.

The other guys in the band are already there when Mark and I walk in. The drummer, Ethan, is pouring himself a tall glass of whiskey in the kitchen while he talks on the phone, and the bassist, James, sits with Steve at the kitchen table. They’re looking over some document together.

“The party can start now,” Mark announces upon our entrance, and all three men look up at him.

“I gotta run,” Ethan says, and he cuts the call.

Mark commands every room he enters, but it’s not because he induces fear through intimidation. He’s simply a charismatic, larger-than-life presence people can’t help but be drawn to. The guys in his band have mad respect for him, and when I see the way they all look up to him even though they work as a unit, I can’t help but feel a little starstruck by my own big brother.

Most of the time I view his celebrity as either a pain in the ass or something I can use to my advantage. Sometimes I forget how he got to the level he did. Hard work, determination, trial and error, and a fuckload of good luck. There’s no magic formula for success, but somehow everything Mark touches turns to gold. It’s been that way his entire life, and half of me is envious of that fact while the other is thankful we were born into the same family. Unfortunately, envy wins over gratitude most days.

Mark slides into a chair at the kitchen table across from Steve and James and motions for me to sit. Ethan takes another seat at the table, and Steve opens his laptop and connects a video call. The screen lights up with Keith’s face first, and then Vail’s publicist, Penny, fills the other half of the screen.

Mark taps a few keys on his phone and pulls open what looks like a meeting agenda. He clears his throat. “Item one. Keith, talk to us about the tour.”

Keith glances down and reads us the schedule. “Twenty-one stops in six weeks. October twenty-eighth through December seventh. A four-day break around Thanksgiving.”

“So that gives us three to four shows a week?” Mark asks.

Keith nods. “Yeah. It’s a tight schedule but I’ve got buses and drivers worked out as well.”

“We’ll need an extra bunk in crew for Brian,” Mark says.

“I’ve got it covered. I rented four crew buses with ten bunks each. No master suites. Memory foam mattresses, video game consoles, and each bunk even has a private HDTV.”

“Jesus. What’s that shit gonna cost us?” Ethan pipes in.

Mark rolls his eyes. “Does it matter? We need our crew comfortable so they’re rested to do the job we’re paying them to do.”

“Besides, dude,” James says. “Have you seen your own bus?”

Mark laughs, and Ethan shrugs as if to concede. Keith starts talking about merchandise and guests lists. I’m starting to get a little lost as he delves into the particulars of what he calls the tour book, which is basically a book every band member will receive with an itinerary of events for all six weeks. Penny seems to be half-listening as she taps away at her own computer, and then she suddenly interrupts Keith.

“I’ll need to look at the tour book before you pass it out this time,” she says.

“Why?” Keith asks.

“Last tour you passed it out before I had a chance to add to it and I had all sorts of interviews scheduled. It was a pain in the ass to track these guys down every time they had an in-studio performance or interview. No skipping me this time.”

“Sorry, Pen. You’re right. Brian, I’ll need to meet with you to start going over everything I do. It’ll be easier to just shadow me for the first few weeks, but in case anything happens and you need to take the reins earlier, I’d rather have you ready to roll.”

“I can meet whenever is convenient for you,” I say.

“I’ll drop by Ashmark tomorrow morning and we can get started.”

I nod, and Mark moves to the next agenda item.

The meeting only lasts an hour, but by the time it’s over, I feel like I’m part of the Vail family again, just like I was nearly fifteen years ago when I worked as their roadie.

I’m excited for the prospect that lies ahead. Managing a worldwide phenomenon like Vail was never on my bucket list, but now that it’s on the horizon, it finally feels like things are headed in the right direction.

I just wish the hole in my heart was starting to mend. It’s been months of mourning what could have been, and the pain is still as fresh as it was the morning we woke up and her words shattered my heart.

Time heals all wounds, right?

So far, time doesn’t seem to be healing this one. It might be because I’ve finally resigned myself to the fact that I had my chance and I missed it. I had two great loves of my life, and both ended in basically the same way. Some people only get one, so I guess I should count myself lucky I found it twice.

It’s just too damn bad both had to end the way they did. Everyone deserves to love and be loved in return...but no one tells you that just because we deserve it doesn’t mean it’ll last forever.