“Nope.”
“Didn’t figure you would but I had to try. Goodbye Tavis.”
He didn’t wait for a response, he just hit the disconnect button and tossed the phone in the fruit bowl. “You can come out now, he’s off the phone.”
Tripp was just about to get back to his cutting board when Winter sauntered into the room humming the same god damned tune Tripp had specifically told him he was sick of.
“You need to grow up!” Tripp snapped. “We’re not getting any younger, yet you act like we’re still back in high school, playing games with guys, switching places, pretending we’re each other so we can tell someone we’re trying to ghost that we’ve never met them before.”
“It’s none of your concern.”
“It’s all of our concern when the issues between the two of you mean we may not be able to go on the road until you fix them.”
“Did it ever once occur to you that I might not want to go back to living out of an RV? That I might want to spend a couple years just living, or else what are we making music for? I want to travel and take the time to see things, go off the beaten path, get lost in a forest or desert for a little while.”
“Are you trying to say you’re tired of making music?”
“I’m trying to say that I’m tired of that being the only thing I do. There are six of us, pare down the tone of the next album, go with five, we’ve performed that way plenty of times. Truth be told, we should have cut down to five a long time ago. Now you can consider it done. Problem solved.”
Sputtering, Tripp leapt up from his seat, the sweeping motion of his right hand sending an onion and his garlic bulb flying across the room.
“Did you just quit our band?”
“Yes.”
“The band we put together all the way back in high school?”
“Yup.”
There was zero expression on Winter’s face. It was like he was bored, and they were talking about which fast food place to order from. Not only did he look completely indifferent, but Tripp was beginning to get the sense that his brother didn’t care what he thought of his little declaration either.
“So, you are seriously standing there telling me that you are pitching twenty years of music and memories into the ether on a fuckin’ whim.”
“Not a whim,” Winter shot back, confirming yet another suspicion Tripp had been in the middle of forming. “I’ve been thinking about it since right after our last album. I just don’t love it the way I used to. I thought it would get better, it didn’t. If anything, it’s gotten harder to do this.”
“Is that what you and Tavis had a falling out over? Did he know what you had planned?”
“Nope, you’re the first to know. “
“Did you ever intend to tell me?”
“Yup.”
“When? Were you waiting for us to pack up the RV or were you holding out until we backed down the fuckin’ driveway?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a part of me kept hoping I’d feel different. Maybe I knew you’d be pissed, and I wasn’t ready to deal with that.”
“Oh, I am beyond pissed right now, Winter. I’m done! You want to quit? Go! Get your shit and kick rocks.”
“Tripp…”
“Did you hear a question or any sort of opening for conversation in anything I said?”
There was a time when locking eyes with his twin was like peering into his own soul, now those glittering hazel eyes looked like they belonged to a complete stranger, someone Tripp wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
Chapter 2
Reckless, Regretful Words