TONIGHT WE'RE GOLD

FOURTEEN

It was a while since the last time Frank visited LA.

But nothing has really changed.

The traffic is still a nightmare, and it's fucking hot. And he suddenly remembers he hated everyone here.

When the Mercedes Benz pulls over to pick him up from the airport, he knows there's something weird. Then an hour later, they drop him off at a nice house in Beverly Hills – it's small, but definitely not cheap.

He's supposed to meet with James and someone from the label later in the afternoon, so he has enough time to call Gerard and maybe a nap before taking a shower. 'Hey, love,' Frank said, trying to contain his excitement as he walked around the rental house.

'Frank! Babe!' He had already texted him when he made it to the airport, but hearing his voice is different.  'I miss you already!'

'Oh, I fucking miss you more!' He checks the rooms, the closets, every little detail. 'So – here's the thing. It seems like James didn't tell me the whole thing, and I got a fucking chauffeur drive me to a fucking house in Beverly Hills. You have any idea the kind of money we're dealing with? This isn't just a favor I'm doing for a dear friend. This is serious.'

Gerard is laughing on the other side of the line.

'I'm meeting them later, so I don't know anything yet.' He pauses and sat on the couch, and starts going through Netflix. 'So – how are you?'

'Besides lonely and missing you? Bored. All I can do is sleep and write.'

'It's only been eight hours.'

'The longest eight hours of my life.'

'Maybe you can finally write without me distracting you.'

'But thinking about you and missing you is distracting me more,' Gerard says, and he sounds sad.

'I know what you mean. It's going to be the longest two months ever.'

***

James picks him up at four p.m. to get to the meeting. 'Frankie!' he yells in excitement when he arrived. 'How long it's been?!'

'Five years? Six?'

'Wow! Such a long time? What's up?!'

'Well – I'm sober and I have a boyfriend, and I moved in with him recently.'

'Wait, what?'

'What? It's not like you didn't know.'

'I mean – yeah. But it's like that serious? Like you're out and like in a serious relationship?'

'Yeah. It's that serious, and I've never been this happy.'

'I'm happy for you, man!' James says, and wraps him in a tight hug.

'Thank you.'

They make it to the café, and a tall man in a suit is already waiting for them. 'Chad Stevens, he's with Warner,' James introduces him.

'Warner? You're with a major label?' Frank says, surprised. How did James convince Warner to back up one of his crazy ideas, and how he convinced them to hire Frank to produce the album, he doesn't know, but he's happy for his friend, so he congratulates him.

'Who do you think hired that chauffeur and rented that house for you?'

They soon start going over the business details, as well as James explaining both of them what he wanted out of the album. 'It's like you took LSD and it's a whole trip with electronic music as background.'