Page 101 of Sky Full of Stars

“I think my dad would be happy for me to be nearer.”

“Seriously?” Jordan leans forward glaring at Archer. “You’d be down with this? Moving?”

“Like Ad says, it’s not concrete, it’s just something to think about and being closer to my dad, when we’re not off touring, which can be a lot of time out of the year I might add, then yeah, it is something I might consider.”

“Nick?”

He looks at Jordan, then me but doesn’t say anything.

“Look no one needs to decide right now,” I tell them.

“Not the way I see it,” Jordan says and pushes his fingers into the top of his cast trying to scratch his arm irritably. “If it’s a possibility, even a small one, we need to talk about it.”

After a few minutes Arch finally speaks up. “I’m down with going out East to work on the album. It’ll be good to work with Kono and Jasper again. Spend time with family. Beyond that…I don’t know. I guess we all need to think about it before we make any decisions.”

He is trying to be the voice of reason but he isn’t totally on my side. I can’t expect him to be, not dropping it on them like this. A knock at the door breaks the tense silence. Nick goes to the door and lets Bianca in. She glances around at the four of us, suspicion in her eyes. The last thing I need is for her to get wind of this and I quickly cut my eyes to Archer and see him giving Jordan a subtle head shake. Jordan scowls and gets up, going to the bar to get himself a drink. It’s not even eleven AM. Bianca watches him, her eyes narrow.

“What am I missing?”

After a long beat of silence Jordan looks over at her. “Nothing. I’m just pissed about not being able to play,” he says.

“Well whose fault is that?” Bianca shakes her head and goes to sit in the seat Jordan vacated. I look over at him and give him a chin tip, letting him know I’m grateful for him taking this hit. “There are some changes to this afternoon,” she gets down to business. “The radio interview is happening today, they’re going to pre-record instead of using it live.”

“Shit,” I groan.

“It’s better to pre-record, that way they can bleep out anything they need to.”

“Why are you looking at me?” Jordan asks and adds angrily. “Officially I’m not here.”

“Well you are here, and you’re perfectly capable of using that mouth, if not your arms, so you’re coming.”

“That’s what she said.” Bianca scowls at Jordan’s comment. “What about Dex?”

“He can come too but the whole band is here, so that is what people are going to want to see, or hear,” she mutters. “You need to be prepared to answer questions about your stupidity,” she tells Jordan.

“We get free time after though right?” Nick asks after giving me a look.

I know why he is asking and I’m grateful for it. Bianca made it clear she isn’t happy I want to spend time with Jenna. It was down to her I left without Jenna last night, I wasn’t about to forget that. It was a conversation I still needed to have with her, privately, seemingly my situation with Jenna could cause a lot more stress than I’d thought.

“We were supposed to get the day and night off.” Nick reminds her.

“Yes, it’s just this one thing,” she says.

We all agree to the change, even if its reluctantly.

“And here,” she tosses me my cell phone. “Don’t lose it again.”

“Where did you find it?”

“Someone else found it, gave it to me,” she says waving her hand as if it doesn’t matter.

They just happened to find my phone this morning?

“Any news on the other thing?” Archer bravely broaches the subject before I can question Bianca further on my missing cell phone.

“Nothing new from the police,” she says without looking up from her iPad. “They’re not overly confident though.”

We all watch Nick. He’s been holding up better than we thought he would, he’s been quieter than usual and he has nothing to say now. After Bianca leaves, Arch gets to his feet and looks around at each of us, spread out across the room.

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