Ace, Cole, JP and I are all piled into The Chick Magnet, the silver Honda minivan we bought for our very first tour. I don’t think it surprises anyone that JP came up with the name. We got the rusty, scraped-up 2002 model from one of his cousins, who was trying to sell it for parts. We had to let Atlas arrange a proper van for all the roadies and gear we can’t pack into a seven-seater anymore, but it just didn’t feel like an actual tour without hauling The Chick Magnet out for ourselves.

Not that this is even an actual tour. We’ve got a handful of midsized shows scattered around the area during the next three months, before we headline Metropolis back in Montreal and kick off the international tour.

Thinking about getting on a plane to Europe feels almost surreal as I sit in the driver’s seat, following the curves of a highway I’ve been driving my whole life. McDonalds’s wrappers are piled on the dashboard and The Black Keys are blasting so loudly we have to yell to hear each other over the noise. In this moment at least, it’s hard to believe anything has really changed.

“I can’t believe she’s the Café Cléo girl,” JP calls from the back seat, trying to talk around a mouthful of fries.

“Yeah,” Ace adds from beside me. “I was gonna ask if you went home with that girl. She was hot as fuck.”

“Agreed,” Cole comments. “Bet you wish you hasn’t missed that interview now, Ace.”

I just filled the guys in on the fact that the journalist who’ll be following us around for the next few months is the same one who was supposed to interview Ace, and the same girl they all saw me talking to at Youssef’s show.

“Uh-huh.” I try to sound nonchalant. “She’s pretty cute, yeah.”

“Wait.” I glance over and see Ace’s narrowed eyes. “Did you go home with her?”

“No!” I answer way too quickly. “It was another interview. She just had a few more questions.”

“About your dick?”

“About the band.”

Ace shrugs and goes back to his burger. “If you say so.”

“Well, if she doesn’t want the drummer, maybe she’ll go for the piano man instead.”

I can’t stop myself from glaring at JP in the rear view mirror. “Don’t you even fucking try.”

“There it is!” Ace crows. “You like her!”

I reach over and steal some of his fries. “If you say so.”

We make it to Ottawa in the late afternoon and get checked into the hotel. Usually we crash with a friend of mine when we play here, but since hosting four dudes is kind of a chore and we’ve got the money for it now, the label booked us two rooms.

Ace jumps in the shower after throwing his bag down in the room we’re sharing. I take the opportunity to give Kyle a call.

“Shouldn’t you be in school?” I greet him.

“Why are you calling me if you think I should be in school?”

The kid is getting sassier by the minute.

“Maybe it’s a trick call.”

Kyle snorts. “You’re a loser. Class let out like twenty minutes ago. I’m walking home.”

“How’d the project go?”

He had his music class presentation a few days ago, and I’ve been meaning to check in with him about it.

“Freaking awesome!” he shouts. “I don’t have my mark back yet, but everyone thought it was cool. The girls were literally sighing when I showed some pictures of you and me as kids. I’m gonna have like five honeys on my arms at the dance next month.”

Clearly academic achievement isn’t at the top of his priorities right now, but from what he told me about his plans for the project, I’m sure he’s going to ace the thing.

“You didn’t show them the matching t-shirts, did you?”

“Hell no,” he mutters darkly. “That shit is staying buried where it belongs.”

I let the curse word slide. He’s almost fifteen, after all.

“I’m surprised there even are photos of us as kids where we’re not wearing those things,” I muse.

“I only found three.”

We both laugh at that.

“But girls aside,” Kyle continues, “I didn’t think I would like doing the project as much as I did. I got really into it.”

“What do you mean? You didn’t think you would like telling everyone how cool your brother is?” I demand, acting offended.

“No I mean like, I didn’t think I would enjoy all the work I had to do, but it was kind of fun— building a story like that, talking about what music means to me. I liked thinking up all the questions.”

My chest tightens. I love seeing him get excited about stuff like this. I used to worry I was pushing the music world on him too much, but he took to it almost as much as I did.

“You remind me of someone, talking like that,” I tell him. “One of my...friends is a journalist. I should introduce you to her.”

“Her?” Kyle asks slyly. “Is she a Montreal babe?”

“You said it yourself. All the girls in Montreal are babes.”

“How are you going to introduce me if you won’t let me come visit you?”

Right. That’s the other reason for my call.

“I’ve been thinking, Kyle. Mom and Dad are on my ass about getting them tickets to our Metropolis show in June. They keep going on and on about how it’s their last chance to see me before the Euro-Tour. So I decided maybe, under complete parental supervision and with clear limitations in mind, you could come with them and spend some time with me and the band.”

There’s silence on the other end of the line, and then he starts shouting so loud I have to pull the phone away from my ear.

“BREAK OUT THE G-STRINGS LADIES, BIG K IS COMING TO TOWN!”

“Big K?” I choke out, once he’s stopped making noises that I think are supposed to be gunshots and cash register sounds. “Take a piece of brotherly advice and never call yourself that again.”

He doesn’t pay any attention. “We’re going to rock the world together, BB. Montreal won’t know what hit it!”

“Did you hear anything about my parental supervision requirement?”

More gunshot noises. I take it the answer is no.

Ace walks out of the steamed-up bathroom in a pair of boxers, and I glance at the clock. It’s time we headed over the college concert hall we’re playing the show at. I get in a goodbye with Kyle, who’s still at the height of his gangstah antics, and we meet the other guys in the hall.

“Hey guys, where’s your flannel?” JP jokes on the way over. “We’re all supposed to match, remember?”

He’s usually in flannel to begin with. Ace and Cole wouldn’t be caught dead wearing anything other than black, and I guess I kind of fluctuate between the two as far as style goes.

The hall is already buzzing when we get in. Our opener, an Ottawa band we’ve played with before, is up on stage doing their sound check. Despite the fact that we just ate our weight in McDonald’s, we all load up on food when the first thing we spot inside the doors is a catering table.

“Hey, that’s for the crew!”

Nico, our production manager, walks over with a tablet and a headset. He’s been helping us on the road since the days we occasionally had to sleep in The Chick Magnet. Besides everything it’s done for us personally, seeing how our career taking off has helped everyone else who makes Sherbrooke Station what it is has been pretty mind blowing. We used to not even be able to pay Nico, and now we’re taking him to Europe with us.

He tells us we’ve got twenty minutes until our sound check and then rushes off. We’re supposed to meet with Kay after that for an interview, and then we’re on at nine.

The sound check turns out to be a total shit show. We haven’t played a gig in weeks, and the time we spent slacking off on practice is coming back to bite us in the ass now. Nico tries to blame it on technical problems to help us save a bit of face, but we’re off our game and everyone knows it.

Ace nearly walks off stage after the fifth time Nico calls for us to restart, but Cole steps up and tells him not to be a fucking drama queen.

“This is bullshit,” Ace retorts. “We sound like shit.”

I drum my sticks against my leg, trying not to explode with all the accusations I want to throw at him. These days, Ace is like a pit of embers just waiting for a chance to flare up, and now is not the time to fan the flames.

“Then let’s just get through the next half hour and try not to sound like shit anymore,” I state through gritted teeth.

The asshole is in sore need of a reality check, but I put off giving him one. Just like I always do.

We manage to get ourselves on track enough that I don’t think people will be walking out during our first song, but by then we’re all ready to jump down each other’s throats. I feel bad for the college employee who shows up to take us to our interview. Truth be told, she’s pretty cute and seems so nervous to be meeting us she can barely get a full sentence out. She’ll probably be telling all her friends what assholes Sherbrooke Station turned out to be.

She leads us to a tiny room that looks like it’s usually someone’s office. There’s a few plastic chairs arranged in a circle and Kay’s sitting on one of them, wearing tight black pants and a jean jacket. She lifts her head up from looking at her phone and adjusts her glasses as we come in.

Her eyes immediately flick to mine before scanning over the rest of the group.

“Hey,” she greets us.

I didn’t think she’d have the same effect on me with all the worries about the show on my mind. None of us were really in the mood for an interview after the disaster on stage, but having her here in front of me, after she’s been hanging around in the back of my head for the past few days, seems to wipe everything else away.

There’s something calculated in her stare as she rests one elbow on the back of her chair and flashes that half smile I haven’t been able to forget. She takes the sight of us in like a poker player getting ready to call someone’s bluff.

“I’m Kay.”

JP doesn’t waste any time striding forwards to shake her hand.

“Oh, we know that.” He gives me a painfully obvious side-eye and I remind myself to kick him later. “Bon soir, Madame. My name is Jean-Paul, but you can call me JP.”

He sweeps his trapper hat, which he’s been wearing all day, in front him before replacing it back on his head.

“Everyone calls him JP,” Cole clarifies. “It’s not a special privilege.”

“Nice to meet you, JP.” He lets go of her hand and she gestures for us to sit in the rest of the chairs. “You’re Cole, right? And you’re Ace?”

“Yeah, and you’ve already met Matt. We heard all about that.”

I’m starting to regret ever bringing her up with the guys. Subtlety is not their strong point.

Kay just moves the interview along. “I know you’ve got to be on stage soon, so let’s get right into things. You’re all okay with me recording?”

She pulls out some kind of microphone from her bag and hooks it up to her phone, setting both down on one of the extra chairs and moving it into the middle of the circle. We all nod and she starts with her questions.

“How are you feeling about the show tonight? It’s a pretty big venue.”

“Pretty big venue to fuck up at,” Cole grumbles.

Kay turns to focus on him. “Do you think you’re ready for something like this?”

“Yeah, Cole,” Ace taunts, “do you think we’re ready for this?”

“We would be, if you hadn—”

“Guys,” I warn. “Not now.”

An awkward silence descends until JP steps in to fill it.

“We opened for another band here once.” He shrugs his shoulders. “Feels pretty crazy to be coming back to headline.”

“You’ve been doing that a lot lately— headlining. What do you think has led to your recent jump in success?”

JP answers again. “Our last album really got things going for us. I think people just really responded to the music, and it took off from there. It’s been like an avalanche, you know? Just a bit of snow fell, and then it was like WHOOSH!”

He makes a sliding motion with his hands and I see Kay straining to hold back a laugh. She glances around to see if anyone else has something to add. All the group interviews we’ve done so far have been like this: JP talks the reporter’s ear off, I add something every now and then, and Cole and Ace sit there looking too cool for school.

“What about Atlas? How much of the ‘whoosh’ are they responsible for?”

I might be the only one who feels it, but the tension seems to rise another notch. I read Kay’s article in La Gare, and for some reason it left me feeling uneasy. I tried not to take the bait when she asked about how things were going with Atlas, but it seemed like she picked up on all the doubts I’d been having anyways. I don’t know why, but the whole article seemed like a warning. I just couldn’t figure out if it was meant for me.

“En fait, a lot of the ‘whoosh,’” JP tells her. “They’ve been pretty great so far. We wouldn’t have our big tour coming up without them.”

“Do you feel prepared for that?” Kay asks. “After what just happened on stage?”

I see the guys go from surprised to annoyed as they process what she just said. Even I’m kind of pissed at her for mentioning it. She picks up on the reaction and starts to backtrack.

“Look, I’m not here to critique your performance.” She pauses to laugh to herself a bit. “Well, I guess that’s exactly what I’m here for, but that’s not what I’m interested in right now. What I really want to know is how you recover from something like that. What makes you keep getting back up there even when things get rough?”

The question catches me off guard. I’m used to reporters asking me how many pull-ups I can do or if I’m dating anyone. Kay just made me stop and actually think.

What’s the reason we’re going out on that stage tonight? I know it’s not the contracts, or the ticket sales, or the threat of Shayla coming after us with a big stick. Those are reasons we have to do this, but why is it we’ve been down and out so many times over the past few years and still keep coming back for more?

“Girls,” JP jokes. “We do it for the girls.”

I glare at him and turn back to Kay. We must seem like idiots right now, like we don’t deserve any of this, but I want to show her that’s not true. I want to show myself it’s not true. I think of Kyle talking to his class about me. He deserves someone worthy of that honor.

I can’t leave the room without making Kay understand why we got this band together in the first place.

“We get back up there,” I tell her, leaning forward so the microphone picks up every word, “because nothing else is worth it if we can’t. You could cut off both my arms and rip out Ace’s vocal cords. You could break all of Cole’s fingers. You could burst JP’s eardrums, and we’d still crawl our way back on that stage. For us, that’s all there is. This band is who we are.”

I swear I see her tremble.