Page 87 of See Her
“Miss, you can’t be back here,” a roadie crew member in a headset says gruffly down at me.
Shit. I forgot my lanyard.
“Oh – no, it’s okay, I’m actually with Jack,” I point out towards Jack, who still has his head bowed over his guitar, conferencing with Matt.
“Yeah, I’ll bet you are,” he retorts sarcastically. “That’s what they all say. Let’s go,” he barks and puts a hand on my back, trying to lead me away.
“No, you don’t–”
“Back off, man.” A voice comes from behind the roadie-douche, and he turns to reveal Josh approaching, actually pretty close to getting in his face. The asshole falters, drawing his bushy eyebrows together at him. “She’s married to Krasinski,” Josh continues, nodding a head in Jack’s direction. “She belongs here.”
The man sputters, looking back and forth, and I feel the weight of all the apprehension leave my shoulders. I admit I’d been carrying around some nerves about the next time I saw Josh.
“Speaking of which,” Josh adds, eyeballing the man’s hand on my back. “That guy does not take kindly to other men laying a hand on his wife,” he finishes with a quirked eyebrow.
Roadie-douche clears his throat as he drops his hand. “My apologies, Mrs. Krasinski,” he mutters as he scurries off, and I remind myself to breathe again.
After he disappears to go look important somewhere else, I turn back to Josh and offer him a small, tentative smile in thanks. He presses his lips into a faint smirk and shoots his eyebrows up at me, as if to sayanytime,before backing towards the stage to join the rest of the guys.
The guys bring the house down that night, with Jack playing harder than I’ve ever seen him, thrashing his guitar in front of an extremely receptive crowd. Afterwards I accompanied them to a rooftop after party that I have to say was fun and lively in the balmy night air. Despite that, however, Jack and I make an early exit.
That night we made up for a lot of lost time, but we also talked about a lot.We decided on future tours, I would stay home for the first two weeks.We learned from this experience, but it took some convincing on Jack’s part. After some reasoning, he finally conceded that it was important for him and the other guys to focus on being a band during that time, and get a road routine down before I join them. Even though it was hard, it was an important test for our relationship, too.And though the separation was rife with challenges, we passed.Now we know we can do it, and the next time won’t be as painful. He didn’t like the idea, but agreed it was better than going through the same thing again.
Next, we agreed on only doing after parties a max of three nights a week while on tour.The other nights, the other bands and managers would just have to understand that we needed our time together.
And finally, we decided not to pay attention to any gossip stories, and talk to each other when something was printed that had been blown out of context. If we’re always communicating, then we always know what’s going on.
The next morning, Jack and I sit in the window seat of the bus for most of the trip, plotting our ink.We still haven’t gotten tattoos together, and we thought we’d find a place at the next stop in Atlanta and use his free time to go get it done. Our wedding date was September 9th, so we’re thinking of getting something with 9/9 integrated into it.
That following afternoon, we go into a tattoo parlor to get our tattoos: a 9 together with a backwards 9 so that they form a heart, with the wordsOnly Ours, from the song Jack wrote me in script below it – both on the inside of our wrists. Call me cliché and cheesy, but there is something about the painful sting of etching our connection into our skin together that brought our intimacy to a new level, a sentiment that was brashly interrupted when we came out of the parlor to find a horde of photographers waiting for us.
Cameras click and questions are shouted, and I’m thankful for sunglasses as Jack puts a protective arm around me, taking us in brisk strides towards the waiting SUV.
“Jack, is this your wife or another groupie?” one of the idiots yells as a sizable bodyguard is all of a sudden at my other side, shielding me. He hustles us to the back passenger door of the SUV that’s already open for us, and I slide in quickly, with Jack right behind me.
With a good block between us and the photographers, Jack and I both let out a breath as his head drops back on the head rest.
“It’s only going to get worse,” the driver informs us, glancing in the rearview mirror. “Any place that’s not New York or L.A. is going to be crazy for you guys.”
I take a moment to absorb that dose of reality. “So… back home?” I look to Jack to help me out with what we’re going to do here. We live in a little house on a crowded street, while his band gains more crazed fans by the minute. “Jack, I don’t want to move, not yet. We just stunned our families by getting married to someone both sides barely knew, and then took off to come on tour. I don’t want to just up and leave across the country on them, too.”
“Me, neither.” He looks at me solemnly and reaches his hand across the seat to thread his fingers with mine. “We’ll figure it out, baby. In fact, there’s something I was waiting to tell you until later,” he straightens up.
I give him my eyes so he knows I’m listening.
“Our first royalty check came in,” he softly announces. “It’s… big.”
I feel my lips part open at this new piece of information.
He draws in a breath and crinkles his forehead. “Big enough to put a down payment on a piece of property – back home – that might offer us some privacy. It wouldn’t have to be obscenely big, but enough that we wouldn’t have neighbors right on top of us.”
“Are – are you serious?” I feel my next breath stall in my chest.
“I know it’s going to take some getting used to.” He shakes his head and stares off for a second before looking back to me and lifting his eyebrows when he sees the pinch between my eyebrows. “We’ll be smart, baby, don’t worry. But this money could help us if we want to stay near family.”
I absently nod. “Just… wow.”
“Tell me about it,” he chuckles while looking out the window for a minute. “And apparently it’s going to keep coming for a while.”