I've been working on Mike and Hannah's story. On 7/23, I posted "Just wrote a chapter of the whole band hanging out and giving each other crap."
Here's a sample of that. It's a Sunday and the band has a rare day to chill. Mike's POV:
The guys were
coming over for the basketball game, if they could pry themselves from their
women long enough. Aaron showed up
first, a rarity since he was chronically late.
“’Sup, bro. I
brought the beer!” He was the youngest
of us at twenty-six and still talked like a skater kid. Or surfer.
I wasn’t from California .
“Counter.” I shut the door.
“Awesome, you
already got pizza.” He made a beeline
for the box.
“Hands off,
vulture. You’re the first one here.”
“You got
plenty.” He bit into a slice of
pepperoni. “And dude, that’s why I’m
never getting married. Bet you they bail on us again.”
That would
suck. “Jake’s the only married one.”
Aaron
shrugged. “Bob might as well be. Red
snaps her fingers and he comes runnin’. She must be some piece of ass…”
“Dude. Manners.
Celeste is family.”
“Pfft, Bob
wouldn’t mind. He’d say ‘damn right!’”
“I wouldn’t mind
what?” Bob asked, coming in. My
bandmates didn’t need to knock.
“Aaron’s just
being himself,” I said. “Beer?”
“Always.” Bob grabbed a bottle and planted himself in
front of the TV.
“I was sayin’ it
ain’t great odds for you formerly-single guys to show up,” Aaron said.
“Like I’d miss the
NBA playoffs.”
“See?” I said.
“Okay, I’ll grant
you that one, but Dylan and Jake will bail.”
“Nah, Dylan will
make it,” Bob said.
“Bet you he’s in
Big Bear.”
“They both texted
me today that they’d be here,” I said.
“And that means so
much when Flaky Jake is on daddy duty,” Aaron said.
“I’m gonna tell
him you said that.” Bob grinned. Jake hadn’t been unreliable in three years
and hated the old nickname. Though he
had canceled on a lot of invites since becoming a father a year ago.
The door opened
and Dylan walked in. The bassist was
freshly shaven.
“See, he did go to
Big Bear!” Aaron said, pointing at Dylan’s face.
“What are you on
about, twerp?”
“Aaron’s just
jealous of all the sex we’re having,” Bob said.
Dylan shook his
head and set a bag on the counter. “The
wings you ordered, good sir.”
“Thanks.” Yeah, we were millionaires, but we were still
regular dudes. We just ate better
quality pizza and chicken wings now.
It was halfway
through the first quarter when Jake burst in—with a baby carrier.
“Aw, not the kid!”
Aaron said. “Dude, this is supposed to
be bro time.”
“Beth woke up sick
this morning, so I promised her a few hours of uninterrupted sleep.” He dropped a diaper bag. “I can set her in your room, right?” he asked
me.
“Yeah…sure.” I didn’t mind the kid, but Aaron had a
point. We didn’t get to hang out as just
the band much these days, and now we’d have to keep our volume down to not wake
her.
“The munchkin is
out cold, so she won’t be a bother,” Jake said, shutting my bedroom door. “You didn’t let Aaron eat all the pizza, did
you?” Aaron flipped him off.
Once all five of
us were settled on the sofa, it was like old times, with food and beer and
good-natured insults. The Coachella
Festival had been our first big gig since Jake became a father. He wanted to be there every day for the
baby’s first year of life, so where our lead singer went, so did we. Sure, we’d still been busy, but Jake insisted
on tucking his little girl into bed every night.
It meant we hadn’t
toured since January 2012, and even with all our success through the years, the
record company was getting antsy.
Everyone knew Jake had been writing new songs, so there’d been constant
pressure to get back in the recording studio, and two years later, everyone
wanted to know when they’d get the new album.
We all got asked about it, but he always took the brunt of the pressure
as the face of the band.
It said how much
Jake had changed that he didn’t give a fuck.
Bob was a
workaholic, so he’d always had side projects.
Dylan spent more time on his English degree. Aaron did what single young rich guys
do.
I played in some
sessions, dated some, and organized these game nights, but honestly, I’d been
bored. Maybe another reason I’d
gravitated to chatting with Hannah.
“Hey. Earth to
Mikey. We need more beer.”
“So get off your
ass and go to the fridge.” Aaron was our
annoying little brother. Could you tell?
“Mama?”
“Shit,” Jake
muttered, and went to the bedroom. Well,
at least it was half time.
He came out a
minute later for the diaper bag, then went back in.
“Uh-oh, you’re
gonna need a gallon of Febreeze for your bed, Mikey. That kid lays bombs,”
Aaron said. Bob smacked him upside the
back of his head. “Ow, what?”
“I hadn’t hit you
yet today.”
“Fucker.”
“All the time,
man. All. The. Time,” Bob replied with a grin.
“We’re well
aware,” I said. Bob and Celeste had been
caught having sex in public more times than I could count.
Jake came out of
the bedroom and shut the door. “Just a
wet nappy.”
“The rockstar that
changes diapers. You’re so whipped.”
“Sod off.”
“We all know Beth
and the pint-sized princess are the best thing that’s happened to him,” Bob
said. “Our boy’s a hopeless romantic.”
“Damn straight.”
Since we all had a
sweet tooth, I served brownies in the second half. Starbucks’ double chocolate chunk type was
epic and I bought out all they had this morning.
“It’s going to be
hell in the gym this week,” Jake said.
“Okay, old man.”
“I’m thirty-one,
wanker, not over the hill.” Thirty-two
on June 1st.
“Shut up and watch
the game,” Bob said. He was the most
into basketball of all of us. We just
used sports as an excuse to hang out and get indigestion.
Jake still
couldn’t get us Americans into soccer.
“Daddy!”
“Sorry.”
He came back a
minute later with the yearling and her stuffed lamb. Once he sat down, she scooted onto Dylan’s
lap. Odds were good he’d be the next to
have kids. The bassist was a sucker for
any tiny thing in pigtails.
Aaron sighed.
“Not a word,” Jake
said. “And watch your language.”
“I know, I
know.” He still flipped Jake off,
though.
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