Who Knows When (Joger/Dealor)

Chapter 62

Months went by with no other word from John. However, we did hear from the Sheffield brothers with news they finally found a label to release our album under. I should've been excited, ecstatic even, but not even the fact that all our hard work had paid off could take me out of the slump I'd fallen into after the disappointing call with John. I thought about it day and night, analyzing the conversation from beginning to end, trying to determine where it went wrong, where I lost him for good, but I couldn't figure it out.

I didn't have time to, because the album release threw the three of us into a whirlwind. Magazines and newspapers—both local and international—requested interviews, venues that weren't college gymnasiums wanted to book us for shows, and the public asked with every chance they could get for pictures and autographs. I was forced to put a smile on; to joke around and revisit my old, cocky, arrogant self, which was difficult because I hadn't had to play that role in a long time. The sheer fact that I viewed it as a role spoke for itself. I'd changed, and although it was almost necessary, going back to the way things were before seemed impossible.

Having truly lost my reason to do pretty much anything, I began to wither away, engaging in the exact opposite of what Freddie told me to, despite his sentiment that—not too long ago—motivated me to keep going. If I wasn't drinking, I was smoking, and if I wasn't smoking, I was drinking, or trying to get my hands on something stronger. It surprised me how easy stuff like that was to find now that the band was on the rise. All I had to do was ask, and two or three people would extend their hands out to me or invite me to follow them back to their place.

I didn't care, but I knew Freddie and Brian disapproved of my behavior. Their not-so-subtle eye rolls, their late-night chats with me like they were my parents and I was their child, and their infuriated searches for me whenever I disappeared from their sides said it all. I couldn't see straight most of the time, and coherent thoughts became a foreign concept. Shades disguised the bags underneath my eyes, and Freddie and Brian masked my inability to understand a single interviewer's question by diverting anything directed towards me back to them or the album. All they had me do was smile and wave, which worked out well most of the time, but I could tell they were getting frustrated with the situation I'd put them in, especially as the tour the brothers had scheduled for us drew nearer.

"Come on, Roger," Brian muttered, pulling at the blanket I had tightly wrapped around me, "Get up."

I murmured something incomprehensible under my breath and buried my face into the couch cushion. The light shining through the window gave me a headache, and Brian's voice sounded like nails on a chalkboard. I grabbed onto the blanket and pulled it over my head, only for the guitarist to laugh at my pathetic attempt in hiding.

"Nice try, Rog, but..." he yanked the covering away from me, the torn and tattered cloth that didn't do much to keep me warm betraying me in the worst way possible as it dropped me to the sticky hardwood floor like I meant nothing to it, "...we have that audition today." I groaned in pain as I rolled over and glared up at the giant towering over me, his twig-thin arms crossed over his flat, almost caved-in chest. "And you have to be there with us."

"Why? What good is me being there gonna do?" I snapped, my voice hoarse and my throat feeling like sandpaper. "I don't fucking care who plays bass with us on tour; I've told you that a thousand times already!"

"Well, for the thousand and first time, Roger, we're not making this decision without you," he replied, nudging me in the side with his foot, "Now clean yourself up. No one's going to want to play with us if you're looking like you just rolled out of bed."

"I didn't just roll out of bed!" I shouted after him as he walked away, sinking into the bedroom hallway that Freddie emerged from just a second before, "I rolled out of the couch! And...And it's the thousand and one-th time, not the thousand and first!"

The singer scoffed, staring at me from across the room and adjusting the collar of the black and white floral jacket he'd thrown on. "Say that again, darling. I dare you."

"Piss off!" I spat at him, tossing the blanket off me and struggling to get up from the ground. I latched onto the couch and coffee table I was pinned between like my life depended on it, one hand on each, but I didn't have the strength to lift myself up.

"Oh, dear," Freddie grumbled pitifully as he rolled his eyes and crossed the room to pick me up off the floor, setting me on my feet and grasping my upper arms to steady me. The hangover tugged at the ground beneath me, making it near impossible for me to stand on my own, and my face scrunched up at the sudden change in my surroundings.

Freddie frowned at me and reached over, while keeping one hand on me, to grab my sunglasses from the coffee table. He shoved them into my chest and I nearly stumbled back trying to grab them, the singer heaving a sigh before he said, "Just don't make this as miserable as last time, Rog, alright? That's all I ask."

"What do you mean?" I grumbled, slipping the shades on my face and instantly feeling a bit better.

"I mean, there's only room for one drama queen in this band, so get back to being you." He shoved his finger into my chest, eliciting a pained gasp from me. "At least for today, okay? Then you can go back to acting like your life is over because some guy broke your heart to a million pieces."

I folded my arms uncomfortably over my chest, hoping to prevent any further jabs, and muttered, "I can already tell you I'm not going to like any of them."

"You don't even know who's going to be there, love."

I narrowed my eyes at his remark. He sounded just like Brian. No wonder—they spent nearly every waking moment of their lives together now that things were picking back up for us. It was like they didn't even need me. Maybe they should be auditioning for a new drummer too.

"Precisely," Brian interjected, returning to the front room while fixing a tie around his neck. He tightened the accessory and met my gaze, wordlessly chastising me for still standing there and not being ready to go.

My shaded gaze flickered between the two of them, anger building up inside of me as I grew resentful of them and how well they were handling everything, all because they had each other. Who did I have? No one, that's who.

"You know what?" I shouted, earning a raised eyebrow from Brian and a tut from Freddie, who looked over at the guitarist as if to say Here he goes again. "This is stupid! Everything! This tour, this audition..."

"We need a bassist, Roger," Brian explained to me.

"We had a bassist, Brian," I snarled in return, "His name was John, and we all know we're not Queen without him, so why don't we just give up the act and call it quits? Save everyone the time and trouble of going to this stupid thing and tell Barry and Norm that it's over?"

The singer and guitarist stared at me with saddened eyes that supplied the responses their lips didn't. The two of them weren't ready to admit it, but I was right. They were too stubborn to give up pretending like everything was okay, that John never happened, and that, with this audition, we were going to find the bassist that completed our band. What they didn't seem to understand was that we already found that bassist, and without him, we were bound to fail. Why keep kidding ourselves?