Page 27 of Echoes of a Muted Song

“Why didn’t you two ever form a band together?” Draven asked.

“Because we figured no one would want to be part of a band with two singers, neither of whom could play an instrument,” I admitted. “So we went our own way when it came to the people we played with. When we started talking about putting bands of our own together, so we could sing the songs we’d written, we agreed that we wouldn’t poach from one another, or let it turn into a competition between us, especially when we shared the same friend group. The problemwas that we only knew one guitarist. I asked Rebel first, and that was that. Jagger was asked to join a cover band a few weeks later, and he accepted, since he couldn’t find anyone who was as serious about making music for a living as we were. Rebel knew Ozzy, and Ozzy brought in Dash, after we tried a handful of other bassists that didn’t pan out. Between me and Jagger, he was the first to play a paying gig, but I was the one who was lucky enough to make a real band stick. Sometimes I feel shitty about that, and how long it took before things worked out for him. If I hadn’t asked Rebel, maybe he and Jagger would have built something back then.”

“Why feel bad, when you’d struck a deal with one another?”

Sighing, I let him stroke my thigh several times before I answered.

“Because Jagger had a thing for Rebel and that’s why he didn’t ask him,” Johnny admitted. “He wanted to go out with him but he didn’t want to fuck up a potential band in the process. I had a thing for Rebel, too, and figured making music with him would be the perfect in to something more.”

“Wait, you and Rebel were a thing?”

“For half a minute, more than a decade ago,” I admitted. “Turns out that the music trumped things for me after all.”

“And Jagger?”

“Never told him. Never said a word. Just didhis damnedest to make things work with the cover band and when that fell apart, he found another one to join and another when that one imploded,” I said, feeling lower than low when I really thought about it all.

Despite having paved the way for Jagger to join Damaged Saints, there was no denying that I’d done it as much because I owed him as wanting to help my friends out of the shitty spot their former roadie had left them in.

“What we’ve done, the success we’ve had, the tours, the albums, the festivals, the fame, that was always the dream,” I admitted. “Now that I have it, I’m terrified that it’s all going to be taken away when this case goes to trial. That’s not how I saw the whole thing turning out for me.”

“So, how did you see it playing out?”

“As just one long, never ending party, I guess.”

“Aren’t you tired of parties yet?”

I chuckled at that and slid my hand down to squeeze the one he had resting on my knee.

“Yeah, I ran out of love for them years ago,” I said, making a shushing sound. “But don’t tell the others that. I’ve got a reputation to uphold.”

“Why not just forge a new one?”

“Working on it,” I admitted. “That’s the real reason I was late to the party the night of the accident. I kept stalling and dragging my feet about getting there. I just wasn’t in the mood for more screaming and flirting and all the effort it would take to look happy to be there. On the wayover, I kept thinking of things I’d been meaning to pick up. Made three stops before hitting the Dairy Queen drive threw and grabbing a cone. I stood outside the venue finishing it and debated saying fuck it and going home without making an appearance.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I kick myself for it and other times I’m glad I went inside, because Rebel was shitfaced by then and ranting about something that didn’t even make any sense, not even to him when I asked him about it later. I still have no clue what triggered him that night but no one was keeping track of how much he was drinking. People just kept handing him another whenever he demanded one. I told him that I had a bottle of tequila back at my place that I hadn’t even cracked open yet. That’s what got him to hand over his keys and get in the car.”

“Sounds like it’s a good thing you went in, then, no matter what happened afterwards.”

“Yeah,” I muttered, rolling to face him. At least those slashes of light were good for something. I could see his eyes, sparkling like there were tiny fireflies flittering through all that green. “I just don’t get how a lifelong dream can be on the verge of coming to an end because I made the right choice? How is that fair when I’ve never once broken any of the rules my uncles laid out when they’d been teaching me to drive!”

He hugged me to him, in part to stifle theraising pitch of my voice, but the rest was pure comfort.

“What were they?” he asked, his words taking a moment to sink in.

I’d been so ready for him to say what others had said countless times since my accident. That life wasn’t fair, that sometimes shit happened. I’d been poised to jerk away, twist out of his hold and scramble out from beneath the blankets. Now it took a moment for my brain to reset.

“Don’t get behind the wheel if you’ve been drinking or smoking up,” I recited, the echo of my uncles’ voices in my head helping to keep me focused. “Don’t let your friends get behind the wheel, either. They always said that the worst time to play who’s the soberest fucker in the room was when no one was sober.”

“No shit.”

“Right,” I replied, draping an arm over him and resting my head right over his heart. “So they told us to pick up the damn phone and call home or fork over the damned money for a cab if we were gonna get shitfaced, and if all else failed, and no one answered and we were short on cash, to walk our asses home. At least then we’d have a better chance of getting there safely.”

He crushed me to him then and pressed a kiss to the top of my head.

“No matter what, no one can take the music from you,” he murmured against my hair.

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