It didn’t sound like a long time, but Travis had lived, breathed, and eaten music since he was six years old. Never had more than a day or two passed before he was jotting down a lyric, a set of chords, or a beat on the nearest surface. But ever since he’d ended his career—quite dramatically, he might add—he hadn’t had a single note, a single verse, a single line carry through his brain.
There was just… nothing.
“You’ll be okay, just give it time,” Jake assured him, hunting for the TV remote through the cans and bags of chips littering the coffee table.
Travis’s nose chose that moment to get a good, strong whiff of himself.
“Oh my god,” he exclaimed, cheeks flaring up. “I smell awful. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I can’t smell anything other than alcohol on you, if that’s any consolation,” Jake replied bluntly.
“That’s not any better.”
“If you shower, I’ll order pizza.” Jake’s brown eyes cut to Travis’s blue ones with a hint of a smile.
Travis sat up, wincing at the stench that followed him. “You’d be a god.”
“And you’ll be clean. And maybe a little more sober. Then you can straighten this mess up. Time to stop moping.”
“I’m not…” Travis trailed off under the direct stare of Jake.
Jake, the bodybuilder, best friend, and hardest critic of Travis’s music. He was also very much married—to a woman.
Speaking of… “Why are you here again?”
With a heavy sigh, Jake turned up the volume on the TV with a pointed look. But he answered a few seconds later. “Liz was worried about you. Basically demanded I come over here or she was gonna cut me off.”
“Aw, I love her,” Travis gushed.
“Yeah, we love you too, buddy.” Jake grunted. “Now shower and let’s get something solid in you before you waste away.”
“I am not wasting away,” he argued.
“I bet your scale begs to differ.”
Okay, fine. So Travis hadn’t really felt like eating a lot the past few days. Far off from wasting away.
And Jake thought Travis was dramatic.
“Lies. I’ll prove it to you.”
And yet when Travis stepped on the scale, he waited until after he’d showered, and his curly dark hair held the weight of the water, he gulped.
So, he’d lost a couple pounds that week, what of it?
Glancing in the mirror, he groaned, blue eyes hazy and shot through with red from his lack of sleep. Travis was lean but far from lanky, with muscles in all the right places. His arms showed that he wasn’t one to let the crew handle all the loading and unloading for shows, and his ass proved he was no stranger to a squat.
But his hip bones were a tiny bit more prominent, or maybe he was just looking for proof of Jake’s words, and therefore finding it anyway. His usual five-o’clock shadow had grown out a bit since he hadn’t bothered shaving, and the mess of it all made him wince. He looked every bit of his twenty-nine years and then some. With shaky hands, he managed to shave, and once he’d revealed his jawline, he felt more like himself than he had in a while.
The smell of pizza distracted him, and his head whipped toward the living room like something out of a cartoon. If he was Scooby-Doo, all four paws would be floating into the next room on a cartoon drawn wave of pizza scented air.
Donning a fresh pair of boxers, sweats, and a t-shirt, Travis made himself walk slowly to the next room. Damn, how long had it been since he’d eaten?
His eyes widened at the number of beer and whiskey bottles on the table.
Fuck.
“Told you that you needed to clean,” Jake called out from the kitchen.
Travis refrained from answering as he followed the smells and the sound of his friend’s voice. The pizza box was already open, beckoning him closer with the promise of pepperoni, sausage, and bacon.
He was a meat guy, sue him.
His mouth watered as he pulled a piece from the box, forgetting a plate, and brought the floppy, cheesy heaven to his mouth.
Travis moaned. Loudly.
“Whoa, man, I know the pizza’s good, but put your dick away.” Jake laughed and shook his head, but beneath the joke and the sarcasm, Travis recognized good, old-fashioned worry pinched between his brows.
And here we go in three…two…
“So how are you holding up? Really?”
To avoid his gaze, Travis leaned into the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water.
“I’m fine,” he lied.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t be honest with Jake, but the man was married with his own problems. Travis didn’t need to dump all his worries on his lap, too.
Maybe back in the day, when they were both single and miserable, Travis would have been comfortable enough to unleash all his worries on the man beside him. But now Travis was basically a washed-up rock star, and his best friend was married and settled. He didn’t need Travis’s sob story to worry about.
Jake wasn’t very convinced by his answer, if the eye roll was anything to go by. “Alright, whatever man. If you ever wanna talk, you know I’m here. Always.”
“Thanks, Jake.” Travis stared at his pizza awkwardly, but he was too hungry to pretend he’d lost his appetite.
“So what are you gonna do now?” Jake inquired with his mouth full.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, are you gonna try to find a new label?”
Travis looked at him as if the man had gone crazy. “Hell, no.”
Frozen with a slice of pizza lifted to his lips, Jake’s eyes widened at the frustration in Travis’s tone. “So, wait. Are you giving up on music?”
Shuffling in his seat, Travis looked away from the mix of concern and disbelief in his friend’s gaze. “No. At least, I don’t think so. I’ll always be writing, playing, but I don’t know if it’s realistic to expect it to be on the same level it was before.”
“So, that’s it? You’re just giving up?”
“Would you blame me?” Travis blurted, and tossed his pizza back into the empty space of the box sloppily. All the emotions he’d been drowning in liquor came swimming to the surface. “My label, management, agent—everyone fucking left, dude. Maybe I should’ve seen the signs, but maybe I didn’t want to see them. I mean, it was bad enough being outed by the fucking media, but they didn’t stand beside me, they wanted to shove me back in the closet and lock the damned door.”
Out of steam, Travis slumped into the hardness of the bar chair and pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes. “I don’t know, man. Maybe I need to get away from the city for a bit. Away from… everything.”
Jake was quiet for a long moment, but it wasn’t until Travis dropped his hands that he spoke. “Are you gonna go back home?”
“I don’t know yet. I don’t think so.”
“I’m sure your mom would love to see you though. And maybe being home would be good for you.”
Travis wasn’t so sure about that and shook his head. “I’ll think about it. I don’t know yet.”
“Well, what do you know?” Jake teased.
“I know I want another piece of fucking pizza.”