Page 191 of Silver Sweet

Phoenix slings an arm over my shoulders and pulls me into his side. “Would your best friend walk with you to soundcheck like this?”

“I think my best friend would tempt it. He likes testing limits.”

He ruffles the back of my hair, then walks ahead of me, turning around to say, “I heard he also likes keeping you off-balance, nepo baby.”

My face hurts with a crater-sized grin and laughter while I follow him to soundcheck. Nothing can bring me down. Until I’m stage right and grab my guitar off the rack—my stomach plummets.

“What the fuck,” I curse. “Seriously, what the fuck.”

All the strings on my guitar are missing. Not one. Not two.All of them.Phoenix is on stage behind the drum kit, impatiently waiting for me to take my spot at the mic. He’s tapping the cymbal like he’s antsy, not noticing the absolute conundrum occurring stage right.

Hannah Venturi, our backline tech, bounds over. She’s a petite brunette who always wears her hair in a top bun and paints fake freckles across her cheeks.

She normally goes on tour with girl bands, but she said she owed Delia Shaw a favor and made an exception. Hannah isnice. Like too nice to get mad at. Too nice to even blame her for a single damn thing. She’s in charge of tuning all the instruments, checking the cables and pedalboards, and handing me my guitar before I go on stage. It’s the job Phoenix did on crew with Nothing Personal, so he has an even softer spot for Hannah.

“What’s wrong?” she asks me.

I hold up the guitar. She shakes her head in confusion. “Uh…that wasn’t like that twenty minutes ago. I can re-string it.”

“I don’t mind doing it,” I tell her. “Can you just get me strings?”

“Of course.” She starts talking into her walkie-talkie and rushes backstage. Phoenix cranes his neck, trying to see what’sgoing on from his drum kit. He must get annoyed because he leaves the drums and walks over.

I explain the situation, and he says, “It’s a prank.”

“What?” My face twists.

“Evening Glory just pranked you, man.”

“As someone who has pulled many pranks in my life, this is a stupid fucking prank. I’m running out of time for soundcheck.”

“Yeah, they don’t care, Tom. Bands like Evening Glory love pulling pranks on tour. It’s just what they do.”

“Sorry, I’m still stalled out onthey don’t care.” Irritation has crawled under my skin.

Phoenix tilts his head. “Still want to be best friends with them?”

Yeah, I’m rethinking that one.

Later after the show,Gunther laughs off the prank. “It was funny, right?” he asks me.

“Yeah, yeah.” I nod. “Hilarious.”

I complain all night on the phone to Eliot and Luna. Literally cannot shut up about it. I’m lying in the back lounge on the U-shaped couch, the phone pressed to my ear. The tour bus bumps along the road on our way to Salt Lake City.

“I’ll fly out to your next stop and help prank them back,” Eliot offers.

“We can wrap the interior of their tour bus in Christmas paper,” Luna adds. “That’s always funny.”

“Thatisa classic. Butno,” I say. “They’ll just escalate, and I don’t want to keep the pranks going. There’s a time and place for them. My job is not it.”

“Do they not take the job seriously?” Luna asks.

“Phoenix says it’s normal for bands to prank each other. More abnormal not to be doing them.” I rub at my eyebrows. “Am I…a…buzzkill?” I feel lightheaded even saying the word. Holy fuck, I’m no fun. I am the opposite of fun on tour. I’m like a grouch.

I splat a hand to my face.

“No,” Eliot says. “No, you are definitely not a buzzkill, brother. Don’t even utter the word again.”