He disembarked, thankful to escape his seatmates, and walked to the taxi stand, wishing he’d had the foresight to hire a limo. One of the things he loved most about Toronto was how, for the most part, people left him alone to get on with his business. In L.A. they were hounded by paparazzi as soon as they set foot in the airport terminal, but nobody had bothered him today. Traffic on the 427 and Gardiner Expressway cooperated, and he arrived home forty minutes later.
Dred dropped his bags in his room, grabbed his lyrics notebook, and went to the kitchen for some hot water. The dry air on the plane had aggravated his throat. He followed the low rumble of music coming from the recording studio in the basement. The soundproofing had cost them a small fortune, but it meant they could record individually or as a band whenever the mood struck, without worrying about their neighbors.
The music stopped as Dred approached and pushed the soundproof doors open.
“Yo, yo.” Lennon called out from behind his session kit.
Dred lifted his favorite Fender Stratocaster off the rack. The black and white Eric Clapton Signature model would play the perfect kind of tones he was in the mood for. “You guys making good progress?”
He sat down on his usual stool, placing the notebook on the small table next to it.
“Yeah.” Elliott jumped in. “What about you? Did you make good progress?”
Lennon sounded the classic bah-dum-dum on the drums.
Dred rolled his eyes as Elliott laughed. “Pix is coming to visit in a week or so.”
“No shit. That’s . . . unusual,” Jordan said.
“Yeah, it is,” Dred replied.
He wondered if he was being unfair to Pixie. The more time he spent with her, the more he found to like. So naturally caring, and surprisingly funny. But the timing was off. Hell, the timing might never be right. He had no intention of taking his foot off the career gas until he was at least thirty-five. At some point, he’d move into the place he owned, an incredible Rosedale home that looked over the ravine. Not until Jordan could deal, naturally. And Pixie lived in Miami, the most impractical place for someone like him who split his time between L.A. and Toronto. Oh, and someone who also filmed a reality TV show eight weeks a year. And toured. What the fuck am I thinking?
He wondered if he should call her and bail on their plans, give her some reason about last-minute gigs. Given the logistical nightmare that surrounded them, it might be better to call it quits before he was even more into her. The idea eviscerated his insides.
“You want to talk about it?” Nikan asked.
Dred shook his head. “What the fuck is this, therapy?”
“Well, if that’s a no, maybe we should show you what we’ve been working on today.” Nikan hoisted his guitar back over his shoulder.
On Lennon’s count, the guitars came in. The sound was dense, the notes tight. The fuzzy distortion of Jordan’s base an anchor to Nikan’s aggressive slides.
It was different from their usual style, arguably heading toward heavy rock instead of true metal. He liked it. A lot. But he wondered what the record label would think. Not that he’d change anything about the sound his brothers had created. Fuck that. They’d always agreed the music would come first, the deal second. They’d need Sam to sell it though.
Lyrics started to filter through his head, and he mumbled along to the chorus. He’d been waiting for the right music to go with some lyrics he’d been holding onto for years. He grabbed his notebook. Every time he got a new notebook, he transcribed those lyrics to the front.
Reading them, he was taken back to the night his mom had overdosed in front of him. He still didn’t get how a woman smart enough to name him after a Tolkien prince was so fucking stupid she OD’d on heroin. Without access to a phone, he’d run out to the street and yelled for help. Six hours later, he’d been taken to his first emergency care foster home.
The ideas from the notebook started to fall into place like lyrical Tetris. Feelings from back then wrapped around him, squeezing him like a vise. He felt suffocated. Choked. Cold. His hands shook at the idea of putting something so deeply personal out there. Jordan would understand, having gone through the same process when he gave them the lyrics for “Dog Boy.” It was simply one more thing to survive.
This was why he needed to focus on his career. He could never go back to that place where there wasn’t enough food or a safe place to sleep. Where he was taken away from his mom, only for her to carry on as if nothing had happened when he was returned to her. She had never seemed overly happy to have him back. Numerous were the nights he’d lain in the spare room of a stranger’s home, wondering if they would hurt him if he fell asleep, or if he’d ever see his mom again.
He glanced at the lyrics, cursing them because they were the reason he couldn’t allow Pixie to distract him from his path, no matter how desperately he wanted her to.
*
“What about this?”