Page 96 of Feuds and Interludes
He blew out a breath and seemed to lose steam. “They want to release the first single from the album next week and theyjumped at the chance to get us on TV. They got us booked to go to New York forSaturday Night Livea week later. Then they have a plan for us to go to Europe for six weeks, we’ll be gone for the holidays, and that’s all followed by Australia, Japan, and then dates in the U.S.” He blinked his big blue eyes at me. “They’ve got us out until the end of February.”
He sounded tired just telling me all that.
“You’ll be back for the gala,” I offered. “You need to do this. Don’t worry about anything. I’ll help Vera Jean and Pops with the gala. We’ll handle it.”
A tear ran down his face and he blew out a breath.
“Part of me hoped the label would hate the new material.” He gave a humorless laugh. “I thought, if they hated it, we could just put it away and then you and I could… I don’t want to leave.” The last part was a whisper.
I went to his side and put my hand over his on the counter.
Thirty-Two
Boone
Ididhave to leave, and Shane and I only managed to partially process what had happened. That meant spending the three nights I had left before I had to embark on a three-month-tour lying next to him in bed, where we only managed awkward conversation and chaste kisses good night. Gone was our easy way, our funny banter, our combustible chemistry. I could only imagine what was going on in his head. Had he just panicked and ran? Did he really not want me after everything we went through? Neither of us seemed brave enough to talk about what was really going on.
My assumption? It finally hit him that his band was over and he was left adrift, wondering what to do next. Me going out on tour was a reminder of what he didn’t have, and he wasn’t ready to put into words how he felt about that. And whatever his mother said to him in that hospital room really threw him for a loop. Shane seemed to be a stewer, and that’s what he was doing. Stewing. And until he was ready to talk about his feelings, there was nothing I could do. Except yell at him, or beat him overthe head with the reality that we’d found something incredibly special and that we could survive this setback.
That didn’t seem to be the best option.
So instead, on day four, I packed up my shit, left him a note as he’d been gone when I woke up, and I drove over to Gran’s.
“How long will you be gone?” she asked.
“The next three months. There are a few dates where I can come back if you need me, but our schedule is pretty tight.”
She nodded and smiled sadly.“And what about Shane?”
“I don’t know about Shane. I know he loves me, but I don’t know if it’s enough.”
“I do believe in the saying ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder.’ Give him some space to figure out what he wants to do next. He’s had the rug pulled out from under him, and men tend to need a bit more effort to bounce back.”
“Tell me about it. I feel like I just got my numbers under control and now I’m going out on the road. I’m afraid. I don’t want to be sick like I was before.”
“What can you do to make a difference?” She was always good at making me think through things.
“Let the tour manager know about my dietary needs. Keep up with exercise. The twins won’t let me go off the rails. Now that they know, we’ll face it like a team.”
“Then you’re already in better shape than you were when you were out on the road last time.”
“Yeah.” My chest just hurt all the time. I missed Shane already and I hadn’t even left yet.
“Come on, then. Chin up. Tits out. You can do this, dear boy.”
So that’s what I did. For three months solid. I sold Stellar to the world. I took the stage beside my two best friends and poured my heart out to audiences four to five nights a week. We traveledto more places than we had before, and conquered the hearts of fans around the globe.
But I took time for me. I ate the best I could. I worked out at every opportunity and when there was no hotel gym, I walked for miles with Annie and Bran.
And every stop of the tour, I bought postcards and wrote to Shane. Sometimes I sent three or four at a time. I didn’t know if he’d care, but I had to get them out. Sometimes they were angry, sometimes they were about something I wished he was there to share with me. But I signed every one of them, “Yours. Still. Boone.”
A month into the tour, I got a call while we were on a ferry heading from Helsinki to Stockholm.
“What do you mean, I twitch in my sleep?”
I barked out a laugh. One of the postcards I’d sent to Shane had been a diatribe about my adventures sleeping next to a puppy.
“You’ve heard of restless leg, right? You’ve got restless body, Shane. You twitch. Sometimes it was cute, sometimes you pulled my hair, and one night you even managed to knee me in the nads.”
