A few months after we agreed to do the charity calendar shoot, we’re in Boston where they’ve snagged us the amazing courtyard of the public library in the Back Bay. It should be a fun, easy trip, but there’s always a snag and this time it’s a biggie.

“What do you mean there are only four rooms available?”

The woman behind the desk in her very neat suit with the scarf tied around her neck and the too-big earrings looks alternately apologetic and annoyed. With Teague rapping his knuckles on the counter like he’d knock on a door, her perfectly red lips purse in a more definitive commitment to annoyance.

“I’m very sorry, but there was an error in our system, and we’re completely booked due to the holiday. It was luck that we were able to accommodate you in the first place because we had a few cancellations. I have one room with a king-sized bed, two with queens, and one with two double beds.”

She looks at me, eyes wide with pleading, because apparently I look like the reasonable one. She’s not wrong. But I’m also least likely to pipe up. Maybe Benji will take this one. I wait a beat, willing him to, goddammit, say something, anything, and finally he rolls his eyes and speaks up. Thank you.

“So if there are four rooms, only two of us have to pair up. I’m going to go ahead and say Zane and Rowan can have the king room, because none of the rest of us want a piece of that.”

Nicky yells, “Speak for yourself!” at the same time Zane does a fist pump, and then we all groan and punch Nicky. He doesn’t mean it, but he cannot even help himself. I’m glad Rowan’s not here to be skeeved out by his joking. Her flight should be landing any minute, and Zane’s going to take a car to Logan to pick her up. Not knowing Nick as well as we do, the receptionist’s nose wrinkles. Yeah, I can’t blame her.

But more pressing is who is going to get stuck doubling up. We all know there are people who definitely can’t stay together. Nicky and Teague don’t get along in small spaces for long periods of time. Nicky and Benji might get drunk and trash the place if left to their own. Me and Nicky…I love the guy, but too much time with him and I start to feel like I can’t breathe. He’s smaller than Teague by some margin, but he sucks all the air out of a room by being loud and brash and over the top and not being able to turn it down or shut it off, hardly ever. He’s exhausting.

“I vote Nicky gets his own room.” Teague and Benji both make faces, but they don’t argue. They know I’m right. If none of us wants to share with the guy, this is the reasonable thing to do, even if it feels like rewarding shitty behavior. We’ve been trying to mellow him out and dial him back since…well, forever, and it’s not like we’re going to get him to change in the next half an hour. So he snags a key card from the poor receptionist who has the misfortune of dealing with a grumpy boy band after a long day of travel and heads on up to his room.

Benji, Teague, and I look at each other. In all honesty, any permutation of the three of us would be fine. So we do what any three grown men would do and rock-paper-scissors the shit out of this dilemma. First round takes all, because we’re beat and things get way too complicated way too quickly when people try to do stuff like best two out of three.

So standing in the lobby of probably the nicest and most expensive hotel in Boston, we count off in unison because we’ve totally done this a million times.

“Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!”

Benji and Teague both bash the hell out of my scissors with their rocks, and then they’re facing off between the two of them. It doesn’t matter—truly—but I find myself silently hoping Teague will come up short, and he does. A rock to Benji’s paper.

And while Benji is collecting his keycard from the relieved woman behind the counter, Teague smiles at me. “Looks like it’s you and me, partner.”

My smile back is wan, and I hope he chalks it up to me being tired and not that I’m disappointed. Because he’d think I was bummed at getting stuck with him, when in reality, I’m delighted to be sharing a hotel room with him. I just wish there was a chance in hell of us making good use of it instead of sleeping like bros on our respective full-sized beds. Clearly he thinks nothing of it, because he slings both our duffels over his shoulder like they’re filled with feathers. After I’ve hefted my backpack, he snares me with his other arm across the yoke of my back and points us in the direction of the elevators. I really should’ve known to go with paper. Of course, he and Benji would choose rocks. Assholes.

Christian is silent on the way up to our room. While I’m used to him being quiet, especially when he’s tired, it doesn’t feel like he’s only tired. I feel like there’s something else going on, but maybe that’s me being paranoid. Paranoid about what, though? I’ve got nothing to worry about.

He lets us into our room, and it’s not so bad. We’ve stayed in places a million times crappier than this. Good-sized room, and it’s in a fucking nice hotel. Yeah, we’ve gotta share, but hell, we’ve shared a bed before. More than once. At least this way we get our own space.

Christian likes the dark, so I drop his bag on the bed farther from the window. He plops down beside it and sits staring straight ahead until he jumps and grabs his phone from his pocket. Takes a glance at the screen, and then he’s on his feet, putting the thing to his ear and heading toward the bathroom.

“Hey.”

That’s all I hear before he shuts the door and then his words are muffled into a murmur. I try to play it cool because Christian’s allowed to get phone calls, obviously, and he sure as hell doesn’t have any reason to report them to me, but I am curious. Who’s calling him? I mean, not just who, but like calling. Who does that? Even my parents text. It’s someone he knows too, because the way he sounded when he answered was a lot like how he sounds when he answers my calls. I’m not…jealous or anything. What would I have to be jealous of, anyway?

I launch myself onto my own bed that I don’t quite fit on, because of course I don’t, and snag the remote from the night table, turn on the TV, and crank it up loud enough that I can’t hear Christian’s voice leaking out through the bathroom door. Then I’ll be less tempted to eavesdrop.

It’s a whole episode of Hoarders before he comes out again, looking less out of it than when he went in.

I very deliberately keep my eyes on the screen, which isn’t easy, because this dude’s house is honest-to-god pretty disturbing. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine.”

His words are totally innocent, but his tone has a smudge of…giddiness stuck to it. There are very few things on this earth that can make Christian A-Blink-Is-Worth-a-Thousand-Words Vogel giddy.

“Are you dating someone?”

He blinks at me, his eyes round and owlish, but recovers quickly, raising an indifferent shoulder. “No. Why?”

“Because you’re…” I don’t mean to flop my hand around like a fish out of water, but that’s what happens. Because I’m cool like that. “You never talk to anyone on the phone.”

His cheeks get pink, which is not the best way to convince me that he is not, in fact, seeing someone new. It’s been a while since he broke up with what’s-his-face. Who wasn’t even close to good enough for Christian anyway. No loss there. He seems to search for an excuse and comes up with a decent one. “I talk to you on the phone. We’re not dating.”

No, we’re really not. I mean, I don’t date at all, so there’s that. But he’s trying to distract me. No, man, I want the info. “But that’s, like, a utility thing. I call you when I need a ride.”

The small muscles around his mouth contract to make an expression I can’t quite identify. “Oh, I’m aware.”

I sit up, swinging my legs over the side of the bed, and jab the remote in his direction. “Oh, no. You are not going to distract me. Who were you talking to?”

“Why do you need to know?”

That is a perfectly reasonable question, and yet one I don’t have an answer to. Aside from being a nosy sonofabitch, but that’s not really a good excuse. If that were it, I would’ve dropped it the second it was obvious he didn’t want to share. My need to know isn’t more important than Christian’s need to dispense information as he sees fit. His parents have always been up in his grill about every detail of his life, and it’s made him squirrel away everything in order to have some goddamn control and not be so subject to other people’s opinions.

“I don’t. I’m just curious. I’ll drop it, okay?”

He nods, cautious, which I don’t like. Yes, I can be a dick sometimes, but not usually to him. We have an understanding. Christian flops onto his bed, fingers laced behind his head and propped up against his pillows.

If I’m going to drop my inquisition about the phone call, though, it’s going to be for something he wants to talk about even less than who he was on the phone with. Probably.

I turn down the volume on the next episode of Hoarders, which is just as well, because the woman’s got twelve cats and zero litterboxes. How do people live like that?

“So you keep putting off talking to me about your plans.”

If he rolled his eyes any harder, they’d probably shoot out of his head and onto the Common below. That’d be super gross.

“Then maybe you should take the hint. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Thanks, Captain Obvious. I know you don’t want to talk about it. I know you don’t want to do anything about it. But you know what’s a terrible idea?”

“Sharing a room with my nagging friend when there’s probably a perfectly nice bathtub in Benji’s room I could sleep in?”

Well, that calls for throwing one of the fancy-ass pillows on my bed at his face.

“No, I think your subconscious was rooting for that outcome because deep down you know you have to do something about this, and I’m the dad who’s going to bug you about it until you do.”

I put on my best dad voice, which is pretty damn good if I say so myself. Any kids I might possibly have in the future (which is looking increasingly less likely) are going to be so horrified by me. “Son, you need to make a plan for your future.”

It’s possible I shouldn’t have thrown that pillow at him because he pulls it over his head. Right about when I’m ready to stalk over there, take it back, and beat him with it, he pulls it down and hugs it to his chest.

“Not right now, I don’t. Nothing is changing right now. Zane is still here, we’re working on the next album, and we’re going to go out on tour. Same as always. Yeah, now we’ve got Rowan hanging around, but she’s cool and I like her.”

People usually think Christian is the most mature of us, which is maybe true. At least as far as appearing like a grown-up to people on the outside. He doesn’t eat like he’s twelve, and he knows a lot about art and some obscure shit. What he’s not good at is practical stuff. For example, knowing how this business works.

“It’s not the same as always, though. Do you understand that things don’t happen overnight? I know you kinda fell into LtG, but most stuff doesn’t work like that. If you want a career after this is over, you have to start branding yourself. Not as the mysterious and goth-lite drummer of LtG either. You need to differentiate yourself as a separate entity, even if you’re going to be part of another band. You want to Ringo Starr it. Make people want to know what you’re going to be up to, not just what’s next from us.”

Somewhere deep down, I know Teague is right. But it’s hard and it’s icky, and I don’t want to think about it in this mercenary way he and the other guys seem to. I know they’ve all been talking to Stan separately and trying to come up with strategies and branding—I hate that word—and product launches and blah, blah, blah.

I don’t want to be a product. I want to make the kind of music I want to make, and I don’t want to have to set out miles of fucking breadcrumbs to have people tag after me. They’re probably not going to like my new stuff anyway. It’s not the fluffy cotton-candy pop LtG does, and it’s not a slightly edgier version of it like the direction Teague and Nicky will probably go in or the coffeehouse makeover that is Zane’s take. It’s really fucking different, and no one is going to follow me from here to there because there’s no direct path. Experimental electronica is on a different planet as far as most of our fans will be concerned. I won’t even be playing the drum kit, for fuck’s sake. Not that I was ever up for Best Drummer Ever anyway. I’m solid, but not groundbreaking.

Teague is good at this stuff, but sometimes I feel like he’s maybe too good. Like could he not try so hard to schmooze with industry people and not be so up on the latest in social media strategies to create buzz? He acts as though it’s as important—if not more important—than making the actual music. Which I find so depressing.

I don’t want to have this discussion with Teague right now, because not only do I not want to talk about it, but even if I did, I wouldn’t want to hurt his feelings by telling him, essentially, that I’m out of here. No, right now there’s only one person I want to talk to, because he’ll understand. And I’m not going to go into the bathroom again so I can get interrogated about it afterward. As much as I’d like to chill with Teague like we used to—hell, as much as I’d like to climb onto his bed and lay beside him, our body heat mingling, and maybe some limbs casually touching in a way he’d think nothing of but that would make me ache with want for more—that is not in the cards.

So I get up, grab the keycard from where I tossed it on the desk, and head for the door, telling him I’ll be back later. I don’t miss the hurt expression on his face as I close the door.

Even in the elevator I’m impatient, tapping my foot because I want to get out and make my call.

Finally busting out into the humid air of downtown Boston, I cross the street into the Common, pull my phone from my pocket, and press my most recently added favorite.

He picks up after two rings, and it’s almost too long to bear.

“Christian? You okay? I swear we talked like—”

“Like fifteen minutes ago, I know. And I’m sorry. You probably have shit to be doing, but I…”

“No worries. I mean, it’s late, but you know that’s not a problem for me.”

I can practically see the crooked grin on his face. His friendly, welcoming, understanding, excited face, which elicits zero sexy feelings from me. Nah, I am super-grateful for Dylan. He’s probably the best thing I’ve ever found on the internet, and I’m including porn. I love talking to him—have spent kind of an excessive amount of time over the past few months talking to him, actually—but I’ve never wanted to be more than friends. And collaborators. He’s probably the closest to a musical soulmate I have. That’s how we met in the first place, in a group dedicated to our odd brand of electronica. I know the rest of the LtG guys probably feel that way about each other and assumed I always felt the same, but I never have.

“So…?”

Right, should probably explain myself since we did talk not all that long ago.

“Teague wanted to talk about my future.” I use air quotes around “my future” even though Dylan can’t see me, because surely he’ll pick up on the verbal cues.

“And you didn’t want to.”

“No, you know I hate that.”

“Is there a reason why you won’t tell him about what we’re working on? Would that really be so bad?” There’s the tiniest note of defensiveness in Dylan’s tone, and at the same time I don’t like it, I can’t blame him. He doesn’t like being a thing I keep secret.

And here comes the guilt. For making Dylan feel like he’s not good enough or cool enough or talented enough for me to tell the guys about, when he is, in fact, all of those things. It’s…complicated, and Zane starting up his solo career made things more so. On top of that, there’s also guilt for maligning Teague. I wouldn’t have a hypercritical shithead for a best friend, and yet I’m making him sound like a judgy asshat.

“Probably not? But you don’t understand what it’s like. These guys have been my best friends and the only people I’ve made music with for, like, ten years. They’re all making grand plans that will keep the money pouring in, and I…” Way to go, jerkwad. “That’s—that’s not what I mean. I’d love to think that what we’re doing will get all kinds of interest and play and attention, and maybe it will. But I’m also a realist. It’s not likely to make us any kind of serious bank.”

I don’t even want to mention the whole I’ve-been-crushing-on-Teague-since-forever thing since it’s relevant, yeah, but not something Dylan needs to worry about and not something I feel like sharing. But I shouldn’t have worried about leaving that little tidbit off, considering it’s way less shitty than what I actually said.

“Maybe not to you.” Dylan’s voice is quiet, and yeah, this is a point of awkwardness between us. He lives in Shitsville, western Pennsylvania, because he can afford it. Even if we pull in a fraction of what I’m used to making, it’ll seem like striking gold to him.

“Dylan, I’m sorry. I called because I was freaking out, and I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. I’m, like, ridiculously excited to be working with you. You’re one of the few people in my life who I feel like I’m on the same page with, and I can’t wait until we get to tinker with our stuff in real life. I’ll get out there as soon as I can, okay? Or bring you out to LA so we can get a demo together and shop it around? Even if we can’t find a label, we’re gonna be okay.”

“Okay.”