Page 23 of Touch in the Dark

“All good, man. We’ll all discuss it tomorrow, you want a break, let’s take a break.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It is in my world.”

“Shit’s simple in your world,” he scoffs. “Yeah. Right.”

I don’t rise to it. He’s made some remarks about Elsa since the party, I’ve chosen to ignore him. Especially when he called me a fucking idiot for letting her slip through my fingers over my own pointless insecurities. I never realised how much he saw through me. And don’t want to discuss it.

“You want my help or what?” I ask.

“You gonna withhold it if I call you out on your shit.”

“You know I won’t, but I will deck you.”

He laughs again but decides to call it a night and heads off to his room. It’s after midnight but I can’t sleep. I head to my room and take a shower, then sit at the end of the bed, thinking about what could happen if we float this idea. It’s not even about floating it. I need the others on board. Arch is struggling.

Despite the hour, and knowing he is probably busy with Jenna, because those two are a pair of horny animals, Adam answers the phone after five rings.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, his voice laced with concern due to the late hour, he knows I’ll never ring at this time unless it is important.

“We need to talk about Archer.”

I tell Archer we’re meeting at Jordan’s at eleven but get there at ten. I want to talk to them before Archer arrives. More because I want the heavy shit out of the way so they can bitch and moan before he arrives and has to listen to it.

There are signs of Alessa all over Jordan’s place. Although they don’t live together, they might as well. The indiscriminate piles of stuff lying around are going to give Archer hives. He’s a little OCD about cleanliness, I’ve learnt during my time living with him. The place is cosy though, for a huge half penthouse apartment. Adam has the other half across the hallway.

He literally picked room decor from an Ikea catalogue, given who he is, they sent over one of their designers to make sure Jordan got the best.

I have to admit, he got the high-end stuff and despite myself, I like what he’s done with the place. It’s not like a typical New York penthouse, he’s managed to make the place look like a cosy home. I never would have thought a royal blue sofa could look good until I saw what the designer did with this place. And it makes me happy to see a whole wall of bookshelves.

Jordan comes out of the kitchen with a giant tray holding three mugs of coffee and some biscuits. Adam stares at him like he’s lost his mind.

“All you need is a frilly apron,” I joke, picking up a coffee and sitting down.

“Oh, I have one, you wouldn’t want to see me in it. That’s reserved for Alessa, and my bare balls.”

“Fucking hell,” Adam groans. He grabs a biscuit and shoves it whole into his mouth.

I burst out laughing. We can always rely on Jordan to keep shit light. He bounces into the matching royal blue chair opposite me and props his feet up on the coffee table.

“Okay, so tell me why we’re having a pre-meet,” Adam asks.

I fill them in on the conversation I had with Archer and my concerns on how he’s been over the last few months.

“I kind of noticed a few things too,” Jordan says, his face creased in a frown.

“Why didn’t he say something?” Adam asks.

“Don’t get all butt hurt,” I say. “I practically had to drag it out of him last night. He wouldn’t have said anything otherwise.” I can practically hear Adam’s inner voice, wanting to know why his best friend didn’t come to him. “Doesn’t matter how we found out, what matters is what he’s feeling, and I genuinely don’t think he’s up for this tour. Or another album. Right now,” I tack on. Archer never insinuated he was done with BreakNeck, in fact, I know he isn’t.

“But the ball got rolling a couple of weeks ago, there’s shit happening.”

“Nothing has been set in stone yet,” I point out. “Look, I only got here early to give you the backstory on this. I didn’t want there to be any arguments in front of him.”

“We aren’t arguing,” Adam leans back in his chair.

This is really troubling him and not in the way Archer thinks it will. This is where Arch is wrong. He believes we’re all gonna be pissed at him for wanting this break when it’s the furthest thing from the truth. Me, I’m easy, I could go on the tour, no issue but I can see it from his point of view. Adam’s too, with Jenna involved in all of his decision making lately.

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