Chapter 3

Stevie McGabe

My alarm beeps incessantly in my ear, adding to the brass band that is already stomping around in there. My mouth is drier than the desert, and the little bit of sun that is peeping around my curtains feels like it is stabbing directly into my optic nerve. ~Stupid drunk Stevie. Should have stopped after the first couple of drinks…or definitely after the second and third couple of drinks.~

Moaning from the floor next to my bed indicates Rhea is awake. “Shut that fucking thing off!” Her voice is muffled by the arm she has lying over her face. Flailing my hand around blindly, I manage to find the button to silence the clock and groan as I pull the covers up over my head. “How did we even get home? I don’t remember leaving the party.”

I screw up my eyes, not sure I remember either. “Gray!” I exclaim as the hazy memory comes floating up from the hungover recesses of my mind. “How he manages to load both our drunk asses in the car, I don’t know.”

“With the help of Dad.” I can hear the smirk in my younger brother’s voice. Poking my head out a little, I see him with a shit-eating grin on his face, leaning against my door frame, one arm folded across his stomach and the other holding an apple that he crunches into loudly.

“Oh shit!” I cringe.

“Oh shit indeed, young lady,” my dad sports the same shit-eating grin as my brother as he throws his arm over Gray’s shoulders. “I hope last night isn’t an indication of how the two of you are going to behave when you go to college.”

I shake my head, immediately regretting it when it feels like my brain is sloshing from side to side inside my skull, grabbing my head and groaning. “Of course not, Daddy.”

“Now you know she’s lying, Dad.” Grayson elbows Dad in the ribs, his grin growing wider. “She only rolls out the Daddy when she’s lying to you.”

“Is that right?” My dad crosses his arms and raises his eyebrows at me. I give a sheepish smile and shrug my shoulders.

“Maybe?”

“Definitely,” Rhea’s muffled voice joins the conversation. “It’s a surefire way to get away with anything.”

“Rhea! I can’t believe you sold me out like that!” I exclaim, throwing my pillow down on top of her as my dad and Grayson leave, chuckling. A middle finger emerges from the pile of sheets cocooning my best friend. I sit up and grab my phone from the desk next to me where it is charging all night. I can’t help the frown of disappointment when I see no more calls or texts from Darryl. Pressing dial on his name, I’m once more met with his answer message. ~Where the hell is my boyfriend?~

***

Two days later, and we are loaded up with all our things in Rhea’s truck, winging our way across the country to New York. I’m not looking forward to the three days of non-stop Prince—Rhea refuses to listen to anything else, stating he spans enough different genres to fulfill all her musical needs—but it is an exciting start to our college lives.

The place we’ve found to rent is tiny. Technically, it’s a one-bedroom apartment, but we are sacrificing the living room to make it the second bedroom, leaving us with a cramped kitchen/diner as our sole living space. I’ve been looking forward to this day for ages.

I should be excited.

~I should be.~

But I still can’t get hold of Darryl, and it is causing a gray storm cloud over everything. Abi and Jake have told me they’ve spoken to Mikey, who has reassured them everything is going well, and Darryl is fine. They don’t seem bothered at all, so I guess I just have to take my lead from them, but something feels wrong to me.

“You know,” Rhea says slowly, “we’re going to be passing by Chicago at the same kind of time as the tour…we could always stay an extra day or two and surprise Darryl?”

As much as the thought lifts my heavy heart, I shake my head. “I can’t. I’ve got my placement starting on the twelfth, and I can’t miss that.”

I’m one of the freshman classes, chosen to spend the summer break doing an advanced writing course with Daniel Bryans, one of my favorite authors and the main draw to the English Literature course at the University of New York. We have been asked to submit a short story, and only the best five are chosen and asked to partake in the course.

Rhea has decided to come up with me even though her course doesn’t start until September like everyone else, choosing to work in her uncle’s Italian restaurant full-time until then. “You’re sure?” she asks, glancing away from the road to look at my face. I give her a tight smile and nod my head.

***

“Hello?”

~“Stevie! Hey, it’s Darryl!”~

“Darryl!” I sit bolt upright in bed, my phone pressed against my ear so hard it actually hurts a little bit.

~“Hey,”~ Darryl sounds as happy as I do on the other end of the phone. ~“It’s so good to hear your voice.”~

“Where have you been? Why couldn’t I get through to you?”

~“My fuckin’ phone broke,”~ in the background, I hear a girl laugh and say, “~you mean you broke your phone~” and Darryl chuckles. ~“Yeah, okay, I got pissed off and may have taken it out on my cell.”~

I decide to ignore the burning curiosity as to who the girl is that just spoke, and just to focus on the good things. “So, you have to tell me how it’s going, being a world-famous rock star.”

He chuckles again, and I can picture him exactly at that moment—his dimples popping as he grins, running his hand through his hair, slightly embarrassed. ~“Well, I wouldn’t claim to be world-famous just yet, but the crowds seem to like us so far.”~

“Tell me everything. I feel like I’ve missed so much of what’s going on in your life, not having spoken to you for the last few days.” I settle back down into the starchy sheets of the cheap motel we have chosen for the night and hear Darryl moving away from the gentle hum of other people talking.

~“It’s crazy, Stevie. I mean, I’ve been on tour with Ashes Within when I was a kid, but this, knowing these people are cheering for us, for me…it’s fuckin’ insane.”~

“It’s what you’ve always dreamed about,” I say softly. It really is. Even when we were kids, it was all he talked about. I listen as he excitedly tells me everything that has happened over the last couple of days—all the people he’s met, the places they’ve been so far, how awful the buses are. As I listen, I start to worry about our future together and how our visions might possibly mesh together. ~I really hope we find a way of making them work together.~