Roman pushed himself out of the empty bed. It was large enough to it him and three or four other people. Girls, generally, if he filled it. He’d lost the taste for that kind of morning a long time ago. But one girl might have been nice. Though, he didn’t know if she counted as a girl any more.
He’d promised no funny stuff, and no funny stuff was what he’d stuck to. It was the best outcome, in some ways. All the morning regrets in the world didn’t really add up to squat compared to keeping his word at least once in his life.
He looked at the clock. Eight. Jesus. It was too early. Yet, he knew that he’d probably slept later than most people. Later than Mary, he guessed. It didn’t make him feel any less tired. But he padded into the bathroom and set about showering regardless. It was the only thing there was to be done at that point, and it would help wake him up.
He wanted to squash the rumor about a new album. It was on the horizon, but it was a long way on the horizon. He was going to give himself a month off this time. If he couldn’t get a month off, well… he’d talked about retiring before. It wasn’t like he couldn’t afford it.
There was something about the road life that continued to call to him, though. He liked the energy. Liked the movement. And there was nothing to stop him continuing to keep it up. Nothing but his failing body, his flagging interest, and Mary Ayers.
The notion occurred to him for the first time in a long time that he knew exactly how he could keep pushing. There was plenty of chemical assistance that would give him all the motivation in the world. He hated it. He’d always hated it, even when he used it. It squashed his creativity, made him feel… wrong.
The shower turned on when he turned the knob all the way to the hottest setting. As he started to strip he took the phone out of his pocket, and turned it on. The screen was filled with notifications from a thousand different services. He clicked through them one after the other, trying his best to find anything of special interest.
Twitter was filled with people asking about the new album. It was a hot rumor. According to Tommy, it sold the old records. That made sense, in a limited sort of way. But at the same time, didn’t everyone just use streaming services these days? Who bought albums? Particularly hard-copy?
He set the phone back down. It was too tempting to try to get people to start actually listening to him. Too tempting to stop being Roman Townsend and show the world who Roman Townsend really was, after all these years. Twitter was a dangerous tool for a man living a double life. So he avoided it like the plague when he could.
The water was scalding when he reached in to try it. He turned the cold up a little. There was a lot to think about. The number one being how he was going to convince Tommy to let him actually have the month off that he’d been promised.
Even if Mary didn’t decide that he was exactly who she’d always believed that he was, actually having a break was a far cry from being told verbally that he would be given a break. The distinction was one that wasn’t lost on Roman’s manager, in spite of the fact that he continually promised that things would be different this time.
Instead, it turned out that every time, it was just keep going five more minutes for the rest of his life. Eventually, he’d retire, and who knows what Tommy would do when that happened. Maybe he’d finally get married and let his nagging out on them. But that would require finding someone who could stand him long enough to stand at the end of the aisle.
In that sense, at least, Tommy and Roman were made for each other. They pushed away anyone who got within a mile of each other except the other, and then only because they were both too stubborn to tell the other to sit and spin.
Roman hated the schedule but loved the money, in theory at least. Tommy hated the fact that Roman appeared not to be a golden goose, but in fact a person with real feelings. Or at least, a very convincing facsimile of a real person with real feelings. It was something that Tommy couldn’t understand. After all—he managed to be a robot without any trouble. Couldn’t everyone?
The water was still screaming hot when Tommy stepped under the spout. But it felt good, so even though it stung, he left it. Who cared what it did to his skin? Everything else he did ruined his skin worse. What was a little hot water going to do that ten years of sleeping three hours a night didn’t do?
He was almost finished when his phone actually started to ring, rather than the gentle buzz of the world going on around him and reminding him every two minutes that he answered to it.
And it wasn’t a call he could ignore, in spite of the fact that he sorely wanted to. He let out a long breath, rinsed what remained of the soap on his arms, turned the water off and reached out in time to catch the call just before he missed it entirely.
“What do you want?”
“Roman? Bad time?”
“Always,” he growled. Tommy ignored the tone just like he always did, and always would.
“I’ve got a producer lined up and a studio booked for tomorrow, and Sony’s offering a ten-thou bonus if you get started on this thing sooner rather than later. I told them you’d think about it, but I know what you’re going to say.”
“No?”
Tommy’s voice was low and lecturing. “I know you better than that, Roman. Now come on. We’ve got to go over these lyrics before we can start recording tomorrow. I’m in the lobby. Five minutes.”
Roman sucked in a breath and closed his eyes. “Five minutes. Yeah. Let me get dressed.”