One Wicked Lick from the Drummer (The One 3)

Abel put both hands to his head and curled in on himself. “I’m not blocked. We had to discuss the studio booking, the new merch, the—”

“We didn’t have to discuss any of that,” Grip said, not unkindly, but this was all bullshit if he couldn’t get Abel to talk it out.

“So I’m blocked,” Abel said.

“You couldn’t have just said that two hours ago,” Oscar griped. He had his phone in his hand, so Grip gave him a don’t even think about it glare and that phone disappeared like money.

“That’s how blocked I am,” Abel said. “I didn’t even see it. I can’t write. Everything I do write is dross. We don’t have enough material for a new album and we’re on the hook for it with the record company.

“But we have time,” said Isaac.

“Not enough,” Abel got up and started pacing again.

“You always pull it off,” Oscar said.

Grip slapped a foot on the floor in frustration. “You always sit on your arse and expect him to.”

“He loves it,” Oscar said.

Abel tore at his hair, making it stand up all over. “I don’t love it. This, me, melting down, is not love, dipshit.”

He was wrong though. Abel loved all of this, even panicking like he was now that he couldn’t write a new hit and torturing himself that he’d never measure up to Jay. This was just his version of seasonal affective disorder and his brothers were beyond humoring him, but Grip had his back like always. It was how they worked.

If only he’d figured out how he and Mena worked.

The four of them hashed it out, brainstormed some new ideas, wrote some hooks, went to the pub for steak sandwiches and then talked some more and when Abel got a glazed look in his eyes and his mouth lost that pinched look and he stopped listening to them as his brain switched gears—ta-dah, problem solved.

Wasn’t like they had a new song, but they were hovering over the landing pad of one.

It was late afternoon when Grip got the chance to look at his phone. Nothing there amongst the icons and logos he wanted to see. He even checked email, because the last time he thought Mena had blown him off that’s where she’d been hanging out. But nothing.

Mena was busy, that’s all. She was in her work mode. She had deadlines and clients and responsibilities that had nothing to do with organizing their next mutual orgasm.

He hit the gym and after a solid workout and some aggressive lifting, still nothing from her. And later that night, after he’d exhausted himself at his drum kit and shifted to the piano to play all seven minutes of Lionel Yu’s “Fires of the Revolution” till his fingers cramped and his arms ached. Still nothing.

He was blocked.

That had to be it. Friday night after eleven, she couldn’t still be working. What was she doing that she couldn’t take five minutes to message had a great time, or even thanks for making the bed, tidying the kitchen and locking up? Yeah, he’d take cookies for basic courtesy over dead air. Which was a low point in his evolution as a human being.

Fuuuck, what was up with him? He was a good study of people. Could see through the games and fronts. It was a point of pride, earned the hard way, mucking things up over and over and learning to do better and apologize often. He’d known how it was going to be with Evie and Jay before either of them had. If they were ever going traditional and tying the knot, he was a frontrunner for a combo bridesmaid best man—bridesman, bridesbest? Whatever, he was dragging Evie up the aisle and giving all the speeches.

He didn’t get like this. Confused. Mopey. Needy. Wasn’t normal. He was usually the one doing the ghosting. Especially touring, where he literally disappeared. It was better that way. No expectations. No complications. This shoe on the other foot thing was a raw rub.

When he’d made the call to give up groupies, one-night stands and random hook-ups, he didn’t count on how crap it would feel if the object of his craving wasn’t reading from the same sheet music.

But there was nothing about Mena that had said one blistering night and done. She’d agonized about it, then she’d taken him home, not insisted on some bland beige hotel. And she’d been into it, not a reluctant bone in her delicious body. As passion-blasted as it was, it’d also been a deliberate thing. They’d broken the rules knowingly, together.

And now she was deliberately sidelining him.

Do not like.

It was even more ego-smashing the next day. Everything that wasn’t a message from Mena was spam. And Mena was a Mariana Trench of silence. Since he’d not been ready for this, it made him feel like one of those strange transparent fish that lived down in the darkness where the sun never penetrated. He was all globular jelly and neon spikes.

He trained, lifted. He had brunch with Jay and Evie and he moped about making pacts with himself about not looking at his phone. He could look after he’d changed his drum heads, then after he’d replaced the skin on the bass, then after he untangled leads and cords. He had techs to do this for his onstage gear, but he liked to keep the kit in his music room in good shape himself.

Hours passed. No Mena.

He was not in good shape. He was twitchy and hangry and annoyed with himself for being twitchy and hangry and annoyed. He ate a whole box of BBQ Shapes. Then drank a reservoir of water to unglue his tongue. He played “Fires of the Revolution” again and couldn’t think about Mena for a whole seven minutes. He had