Every Night

Chp.12

I slowly open my eyes to see daylight peaking through the blinds of the common room. I pick up my head, yawning, and turn to see I had accidentally fallen asleep on Wayne's lap. He's still sitting there, snoring away. It's good to see him actually getting some sleep, I know things get hard on him when he can't sleep. I can't help but to begin to feel guilty that he stayed up and watched over me when I passed out, both times. I walk over to the drawer and pull out a pad of paper and a pencil. I sit back down, and I just begin to draw. I'm not particularly good at drawing, but I try. By the time Wayne stirs awake, I've finished my sketch. He rubs his eyes and stretches, "Good Morning." He tells me with a big yawn.

"Morning bud." I smile back at him.

He looks down at the pad of paper in my hands and asks, "Whatcha got there Dan?"

"Nothin' much." I tell him with a goofy smile on my face. I stand up and wobble my way back over to him. I take a sit next to him and show him the paper.

I turn when I hear him give a small gasp to see him with a smile and tears streaming down his face. "Dan.....Dan...... I love it." He stutters out.

On the small paper I have drawn a bit of a cheesy drawing. It has us standing together on stage, holding hands and smiling, and behind it I wrote "My best friend till the end. Forever and always."

I carefully tear the page off the pad of paper and hand it to him. He just looks at me with a ear to ear grin plastered on his face. "I love it Dan, it's perfect."

"Are you sure," I ask, "I mean, I'm not that good at drawing, soooo...."

"Your drawing skills don't matter bud, the fact that you made this makes me so happy." He says as he leans over and gives me a big hug. "Now come on, let's go make this last show awesome."

He helps me stand up and puts his arm around me and we walk down off the bus. I'm so happy to be playing a familiar place again, we get to do our last show of the tour at The Joint, it feels so good to be home. As I step out into the light of the Vegas sun, I breathe a sigh of relief, I'm finally home.

Just for fun, we sneak our way through the front entrance to the hotel. I shove my phone in to Mac's hand and I have him take a few pictures of all of us goofing around in front of our display case. We make funny faces, we jump in the air, we turn in circles, and just generally be giant goofballs (I almost fell a few times, but Wayne caught me). A few people walk past us as we're doing this, but none of them recognize us, even though our faces are right on the screen behind us. It just gives us a good laugh.

We walk into the venue and just stand in the middle of the floor. "It's so good to be home." I say.

"Agreed." Everyone else responds in unison.

We look around for a few more minutes and make our way into the green room.

We get back there to find some snacks The Joint left for us. It's nothing too elaborate, but it's nice. I get another headache so I don't eat much of anything, but the others pig out. I just go take a seat on the couch. Wayne finishes up a little pack of candy and comes to sit by me. "What's up?" He asks with a concerned voice.

"Oh, it's nothing...."

"There's gotta be something bugging you Dan, I know you, and it isn't going to be nothing."

"Okay...." I sigh out, "I've just got another headache and I'm just scared what I'm going to do when the tours over, you won't be right by my side..."

"Dan....." He says in a sad, cracking voice, "come here bud."

I scoot over and place my head on his shoulder. He slowly rubs my hair and looks at me. "What have I told you over and over these past few days?"

"What?"

"That I will NEVER, ever leave you alone. I'm always going to be there for you. Just because we won't be next to each other directly doesn't mean I'm not there. Look at your wrist, what do you have there?"

"The bracelet you gave me...."

"Yes, that's it, you'll always have that and I'm always just a phone call or text away buddy. Remember, 'forever and always.' You got that?"

"I got it." I say with a smile.

"That's it Dan, that's the smile I know."

He stands up and brings me some medicine and one of the packages of candy. He hands them to me with a smile on his face. I quickly take the meds and eat the candy, then he helps me get up and we walk out on stage for one last soundcheck this round.

The soundcheck ends up going relatively quick today, I still have the chair but I'm making work even if this stage is a tad smaller. We get through everything and Wayne helps me walk backstage.

We pass through the curtains of the stage, and I just stop and begin to cry. My wife and daughter are here, I haven't seen them in at least three months. I wobble my way over to Aja, and give her the biggest hug I can, and she walks me back to the green room. We take a seat on the couch and Arrow just crawls up onto my lap and smiles. I pick her up and give her a great big hug, I've missed the both of them so much. Arrow point to the bracelet on my wrist and says, "what that, it pretty."

I point over at Wayne and say, "daddy's friend over there made this."

She bounces up and down and claps saying, "bow-piggy?!" (That's her name for Ben.)

"No no," I shake my head, "not bow-piggy."

I call Wayne over and tell Arrow, "This is Wayne." He smiles and gives her a high five.

She immediately comes up with a name for him that she can say, and she says confidently, "Waywo!"

I look over to Wayne and give him a big grin, "okay then Waywo...." He sticks his tongue out at me with a laugh which I promptly return.

It starts to get close to show time, so I hand Arrow back over to Aja, and stand up with Wayne's help. Even with support I still wobble as I walk and Aja asks me, "Are you sure you can do the show like this Dan?"

"I'm positive," I tell her, "I've done it before, what's one more night?"

Wayne takes my hand and we head backstage.