Page 19 of Echoes of a Muted Song

“It is,” Sully replied. “But you guys know your band members better than I do, and right now I’m torn about who to pick for a few of these assignments. So, let’s figure it out over some food. Maybe we’ll get lucky and The Rustic Revelry will have a blues band tonight. Nothing helps sort a problem out better than the blues.”

“Fuck, that place is awesome,” Mickey replied.

“You know it?” Sully remarked, looking impressed.

I felt like a third wheel as I watched their interaction, and didn’t feel a bit bad about it, either. Mickey had always been slow to warm up to people and I’d never seen him do anything that came close to flirting, even from the stage. Rightnow he was staring at Sully like he wanted to get to know his life story, and Sully was staring back like he was, at the very least, intrigued by our blue-eyed bass and keyboard player.

“Know it, we’ve played it,” Mickey said. “Both bands have.”

“Since we’re dropping in, I’ll touch base with their manager and see if they’ve got any openings we can fill,” I typed. “It’s always good coming back here. It’s our west coast home.”

“I grew up twenty miles south of here,” Sully said. “Soon as I was old enough to have friends with licenses, we spent all our free time in Portland, looking to get into shit. The recruiter’s office I eventually enlisted out of is less than a dozen blocks from here. So come on, get off your asses and let’s get some food.”

I could eat. As if to remind me that I hadn’t since, damn, six hours ago, my stomach chose that moment to rumble as I stood, tucked my device in my pocket and made sure I hadn’t left my wallet back in the room. Mickey had to run to the one he was sharing with Ozzy to collect his, while Sully stepped outside to confer with the team watching the door. I didn’t even have a vehicle there, but before I could worry about how we were going to get where we were going, Sully stepped back in and announced that Christine was bringing the SUV around. I should have expected he’d have a contingency vehicle around somewhere. The man was a beast when it cameto staying on top of things.

A compact, fierce looking guard named Zyon was going to remain behind to make certain the suite stayed secure, but Sully promised to bring him back a meal and the man cracked a smile and told him not to be skimpy about the horseradish sauce. I could already tell that Sully cared about his people and looked out for them like my band brothers and I watched out for one another, which just added to the trust I had in him. Sully took the passenger’s seat while Mickey and I got in the back, Mickey passing me his phone the moment we were settled.

“I’ve been working on layouts and slogans for the next batch of pins,” Mickey said as I stared down at the first image. We’d always used a broken Celtic cross as our band logo, a nod to the Irish ancestry each of us carried in our family tree. The one in his drawing was crafted out of glass shards splattered with blood and crumbling at the edges. Around it were the wordsBroken Pieces Still Shine. It was a powerful message, one I could see us using not only on pins, but t-shirts, stickers and even guitar picks.

“Fuck, man, that’s gonna hit different when people see it,” I typed, letting my device carry on the conversation for me. I knew I could have managed a few minutes of speech in the silence of our SUV, but it was finally starting to get easier to rely on the device that was intended to make things easier for me. It really did. I’dnoticed the guys start to go silent whenever I started typing. Their patience with me erasing any lingering fears I’d had about being able to do this job without being able to shout down the band the way I had when I’d been its frontman. I should have had more confidence in my ability to adapt. I’d never let anyone or anything silence me before, even when I’d been outnumbered.

“That’s what I’m hoping for,” Mickey said.

I scrolled to the next one and started down at a Celtic cross guitar, mid explosion. Words poured out of the center instead of flames, the line one from our latest single.We’re all children of the stars.

“Jagger’s gonna love that,” I typed.

“Dude’s got some serious chops when it comes to song writing, why didn’t you tell us what was in that notebook?”

“I wanted him to. Figured if he couldn’t do it on his own terms then he would never feel comfortable singing the words. That wasn’t in the book I read, though. Turns out Keegan had gotten ahold of an old one, not the one Jagger had been writing in when he joined the band. If I’d known he was that good at it, I’d have pressed harder.”

“He and I have been working on something,” Mickey said. “I know we don’t do a lot of ballads, but I’ve been trying to put into words all the shit I’ve been struggling with as I watch you guys falling in love, and Jagger really gets it. Someof the conversations we’ve had, it’s like we’re different sides of the same coin, both searching for the same thing but in different ways.”

“Johnny knew he’d be a good fit, even while Jagger still doubted that he could enthrall a crowd the size of the venues we’d be playing.”

“Johnny’s smart that way.”

I finished looking at his designs as we pulled up to the pub, but when I went to touch the door handle Sully spoke up, halting my movements.

“Hang on a sec, let Christine line us up a booth and let their security team know we’re here,” Sully said.

Next to me Mickey flushed, his hand on the door handle, too. “Sorry, old habits,” Mickey said.

“No worries. You’ll get the hang of things the longer we’re with you. It’s gonna take time before we all move like a well-oiled machine.”

Despite the seriousness of his tone, his face lacked its usual fierceness when he looked at Mickey.

“We’re good,” Christine said when she came back, then she opened Mickey’s door and Sully opened mine, the two of them falling in beside us as we headed inside, where security and the hostess waited to see us to one of the balcony booths opposite the stage where a band was warming up.

“When you said that maybe we’d get lucky and there would be a blues band tonight, you knew luck wouldn’t be involved, didn’t you?” Mickeysaid once we’d settled into our seats.

“I wouldn’t say I knew with one hundred percent certainty, but Wednesday were always blues night when I lived here, so there was reasonable expectation that they’d hold to the tradition,” Sully admitted.

“All the years we’ve come here, this is the first time I’ve ever been upstairs,” I typed as I took the time to look around and appreciate the rich mahogany of the wood and the hand carved images gleaming from their glossy surface. This place had a history that echoed even when the stage was silent. It was the kind of place that was slowly disappearing, and the kind of venue we’d be proud to play again.

“I’ve been up here once before tonight,” Sully said, pointing to a nearby booth. “Right over there. My brother and I sat across from one another before he shipped out. That was two weeks before I did. He went Coast Guard, became a rescue swimmer. Now he trains the next generation of rescue swimmers.”

“What branch did you serve in?” Mickey asked.

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