“It does,” I agreed. “Okay…yeah. Let’s go for a…run,” I said a little bit breathlessly. I needed to get his mouth off of me or else we’d end up doing our cardio right here in bed.
A few minutes later, we were dressed in workout attire and on our way to one of the running trails along the lakeshore. The thing about Chicago was that its massive size meant that we actually had to drive to a place to go for a run – a notion that boggles the mind. But we couldn’t exactly run around Luke’s neighborhood, lest we trip over the hordes of people lazily strolling the sidewalks searching for brunch destinations.
At the lake, Luke and I stretched and then started to jog. We’d never run together before and at first I was afraid that he was going to smoke me, mostly because his legs were so much longer than mine that I had to take two steps for every one of his. Plus, my running style was more like that of the proverbial tortoise: slow and steady. But soon we found a comfortable rhythm for us both and with my headphones on, I slipped into that focused world that existed only when I ran.
A mile or so later, Luke tapped me on the arm to get my attention. When I looked up at him, I found a satisfied little grin staring back at me. He put his hand on my sleeve to indicate that we should stop, so I did. I also pulled my headphones out when I saw that Luke’s were already dangling around his shoulders.
“What?” I asked, winded. He didn’t answer, but rather kept the same smile plastered across his face. “What?” I asked again.
“Lyssa Lyons, are you listening to my album?” he asked amusedly.
Busted. I was. I’d actually been listening to it almost nonstop for the past few weeks. Narcissism aside, I just really liked the music. It made me feel happy and thoughtful and emotional all at once. So even though I’d heard each track at least a hundred times by now, I still wasn’t sick of it. I found new things to love with every listen. Even so, I hadn’t announced to Luke that I was going to put it on while we jogged. I’d thought that it might weird him out. But now that I’d taken my headphones out, I could hear how loudly I had it cranked up. Of course he could hear it. Oh well. What could I say? I felt like music just wasn’t worth listening to unless it was loud enough to blow out my ear balls.
I lifted my eyebrows and shrugged innocently. “Maybe,” I replied.
He smiled even more broadly. “Just when I thought I couldn’t like you any more than I already do.”
I returned his smile, not sure how to respond to such a kind compliment. We turned and started to walk down the path at a speed more conducive to conversation.
“We’ve never really talked about what you think of it,” he said. “Of the album, I mean.”
I had to take my time formulating my answer. “Honestly?” I asked. “I had mixed feelings about it when it first came out.” I was alluding to the fact that Luke and I hadn’t been together then and, consequently, I hadn’t been too keen on listening to anything that reminded me of him. “But now,” I continued, “I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever heard.” I hoped he knew that I really meant it.
“I’m glad you think so,” he said. “Because I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever written.” He turned toward me and we both stopped walking. Then, right there on the running path, he bent down to kiss me. He smelled like sunshine and sweat and I wanted to drink him in. Even with bikers and rollerbladers zooming past us, it felt like we were the only two people on the planet.
Luke pulled away. “Okay, well I think we’ve fulfilled our activity quota for the day. Are you ready to head back?” he asked.
“Yup,” I nodded.
“Good. Race ya!” he yelled as he took off running.
I rolled my eyes and chased after him. After only a few steps, he let me catch up. But instead of falling into pace with him, I took a running leap, latched onto his back, and wrapped my legs around his waist. This was one of those times when being short and light really had its advantages. Soon, though, he lowered me back to the ground and clasped my hand in his. Then, side by side, we talked and laughed the rest of the way back to the car.
Over the next few weeks, promotion for Luke’s album really started to ramp up. Unlike before, it was the kind of promotion that he needed to be personally involved in all the time. It seemed like every other day he was doing a different interview or radio show or appearance. He was putting on a lot of small venue concerts too. At least once or twice a week, he did a show somewhere in Chicago. Then he spread out to even more venues across the state. He even went up to Milwaukee for a few nights to play some stages up there. I went with, and it was such an experience. Even though it was only about ninety miles north of Chicago, I’d never been to Milwaukee. I quickly discovered that I’d been missing out. It was the greatest city. It was basically like Chicago, except quainter and the people were nicer. I loved it.
Maybe it made me seem like an obsessive fangirl with a bit of a vanity problem, but during this time I went to every one of Luke’s performances. I couldn’t help it. It was like I was addicted to watching him play. Every time he sang, it was the same, yet different. He’d emphasize a word here or a line there and I’d hear the song in a whole new light. I didn’t think that I’d ever get tired of hearing his tracks.
Plus, it was so enjoyable to watch Luke work. At these small venue shows with local crowds, Luke Davies was in his element. He was funny and charming and engaging. He took requests and told amusing little anecdotes about each song, mercifully always referring to me as “this girl.” Like a true entertainer, he fed off of the room’s energy and made every single person feel like he was singing just for them.
But the part where Luke was on stage was only a small percentage of the fun. The real entertainment took place behind the scenes. Every show was like a little adventure that Luke and I got to go on together. Since everything except the Milwaukee stint was fairly local, Luke and the rest of the band were in charge of getting themselves to each performance. But that didn’t mean that they showed up five minutes before curtain, played, and then went back home. No sir. Instead, the pre-concert ritual went something like, meet at a bar around happy hour, drink, go to a restaurant for dinner, drink some more, head over to the concert hall green room, have one more drink, play for ninety minutes, then go out for a nightcap. For the boys, having three or four drinks before a show barely got them buzzed, but for me, it was like I was getting slightly sauced on a series of fabulous little pub crawls with an intermission for live music. I was having the time of my life.
And all the while, Luke and I were together, holding each other’s hands and making memories. It was without a doubt the most pleasurable few weeks that I could ever remember. And if the whole experience never ended, well, then that was just fine by me.
Late one evening in April, I walked in the door from a long day at work. I had like five different deadlines coming up for one thing or another, so I’d been putting in a lot of hours. That, combined with my new moonlighting gig as a professional Luke Davies concert attendee meant that I was épuisé. I liked to use the French word for exhausted because I felt like it had more gravitas if I said it in the dramatic tone that defined that language. Thank you high school language requirements. I dropped my bag on the floor and kicked off my shoes as Luke came walking out of the back bedroom. He was on the phone.
“Okay, that sounds good,” he told the person on the other end of the line. He leaned over and gave me a quick kiss on the forehead before he stepped into the living room. “I’ll email you tomorrow and we can set something up. Yep. Okay. Bye.”
I shrugged out of my jacket and tried to roll the stiffness out of my neck before I turned to face him.
“That was Max,” Luke said. Hello dear, how was your day? Mine was fine, thanks for asking. “I need to meet with the label to start planning the tour.”
Ah yes, the tour. I figured that word would start getting thrown around at some point. “Amazing. That’s exciting. Another tour,” I said, although my tired tenor didn’t quite match my words.
“Yeah. And it’s looking like this one’s going to be a lot bigger than the last one,” he said. “With album sales the way they’ve been, we’re going to hit way more cities along the route.”
“That’s cool, yo,” I said on a yawn. Apparently fatigue made me start talking like a ’90s hip hop artist. I was sincerely happy to hear that his label had that much confidence in him, though. “More people hearing your music. That’ll be great for you.”
“I know, it’s going to be the bomb,” Luke said. I guess the ’90s were making a comeback in the Davies-Lyons household. “So which days are good for you this week? I want to make sure you can come to the meeting.”
“Really?” I asked over my shoulder. I’d walked over to the kitchen and begun rummaging around in the fridge for some leftovers to heat up.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m sure we’ll be discussing some important details. We should have your input.”
How long has this spaghetti been in here? Eh, it’s probably fine. I tossed it into a bowl and stuck it in the microwave. “Uh, alright sure,” I shrugged. “I’ll come. If we do it in the morning, I can be there pretty much any day. I don’t have interviews then.” I didn’t know if Luke thought that I had some sort of expertise in music tours by virtue of my job, but I most certainly did not. Or maybe my invitation to the meeting was just another part of Luke’s master plan to include me in more aspects of his life. Either way, I wasn’t complaining. I liked that he was thinking of me. But I also just kind of wanted this conversation to be over. I was worn-out and I didn’t want to think about his tour right now. I hoped that agreeing to his request without delving into the purpose behind it was the most efficient way to bring the topic to a close.
Beep, beep, beep. The microwave timer ended. Yessss food. I grabbed my bowl and sat down at the kitchen counter.
“I also have some change of address forms that I want you to fill out,” Luke said from behind me a few minutes later.
“Oh yeah?” I asked distractedly. I’d thought that we’d finished talking so I’d pulled my notebook out of my bag and started to leaf through the pages, making sure that I’d written down everything I’d wanted to during my last interview while it was still fresh in my mind. “Am I going somewhere?”
“I’m hoping not,” Luke said as he sat down next to me with the papers. “They’re for here. For this address. I’ve been thinking that it’s time you gave up your apartment and made this your permanent abode. What do you think?”
My heart stopped beating and my hand froze mid page flip. I eyed the government forms that had been placed in front of me on the counter. Then, very slowly, I closed my notebook and looked into Luke’s expectant face. “What’s that now?” I asked nervously.
“I want you to make this your residence,” he said. “Move all the rest of your stuff in here. We can either donate your furniture or put it in storage, whichever you want, as long as you make this your home.”
“Umm, there’s an idea,” I deflected. Why oh why was Luke hell-bent on discussing things that I wasn’t ready to discuss at 9 p.m. on a Monday? I’d already had a long day of adulting. I just wanted to eat some pasta without having to think about any more grown-up things. And unlike the tour planning, this wasn’t a request that I was just going to agree to in order to avoid a dialogue. It wasn’t that it didn’t make sense for me to let my apartment go. I was never there, which meant that I was throwing away rent on something that I didn’t use. Plus, Luke and I were in a really great place in our relationship and we already knew that we lived together well. But still, the thought of not having my own apartment, somewhere I could go back to if I ever felt the need, made me very uncomfortable. I knew that I wasn’t ready for that step yet.
But I didn’t have the heart to slap Luke with a definitive “no” when he was looking at me so hopefully. So instead I picked up my notebook and said to it, rather than to him, “Let me think about it.” Then I got up from my stool. “I really need to finish reviewing these notes,” I said. I bent over to kiss him before I fled to the back office to avoid any follow-up questions.
Thankfully, after that, the topic was shelved while we embarked on a long series of tour planning meetings. I actually couldn’t believe how many people had to get involved and how many details had to be ironed out during the process. I mean, it wasn’t like Luke and the guys were putting on a stadium show with pyrotechnics or anything. They were just four dudes with fairly portable instruments. I’d have thought the extent of the tour planning would be, step one: rent a bus, step two: get on the bus and drive to shows. But no, there was the scheduling, the promotion, the ticket sales, not to mention all the sound equipment and trying to confirm opening acts. And that was only after they figured out which venues they were playing and the route that they were going to follow to get there.
I’d never had any part in planning a tour before, so I really had nothing to contribute during these meetings. The first time we all got together, I just sat in my designated seat next to Luke around the giant conference table and enjoyed the complimentary coffee. I sort of listened as they went over some preliminary stuff, but I also sort of just scrolled through Instagram on my phone. After that, I started bringing my laptop with me so that I could use the time to get some work done. The music scene in Chicago really picked up in springtime, which meant that I always had a deadline looming. Plus, I’d been asked to write a couple of guest pieces for SPIN that I really wanted to knock out of the park. So I was generally pretty preoccupied during most of the planning process.
Not that I minded being there or anything. If Luke wanted me to attend these meetings to support him, then literally just being physically present in a place once or twice a week for a few hours was a pretty easy way to do it. But at the end of the day, I honestly didn’t care whether the tour bus took one day or two to drive from San Francisco to Seattle, so I didn’t feel the need to pay very close attention to the conversations that were taking place in the room around me, especially when I had so much else to do.
On the bright side, though, being a fly on the wall during all of this was somewhat beneficial from a career standpoint because it gave me amazing insight into just what bands went through when they were touring. I was beginning to understand that there was virtually no part of it that was glamorous or comfortable. Since I only saw singers and bands when they were passing through Illinois, I would sometimes get a little annoyed if they were late or maybe a bit short when they were answering my questions. But in the future, I’d definitely be cutting those performers way more slack. I’d be cranky too if it’d been weeks since I’d slept on a surface that wasn’t simultaneously barreling down a highway.
At long last, Luke, the rest of the band, and the cavalry of people that surrounded them seemed to get the final tour details worked out. Or at least I assumed they did because I stopped having to sit around that conference table staring at a map of North America. From the handful of times I’d actually focused in on the discussion, I gathered that they were going to zig and zag from north to south as they made their way from California to Montreal before heading across the pond to Europe. And they’d start the whole journey at the end of May. So it was only a matter of weeks before the Luke Davies Roadshow officially headed out of town.
Huh. I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about that.
Signal Fire
“Max booked me one of the late shows out in L.A. next week,” Luke had called to me from the couch after he’d hung up the phone with his manager. Now that I was sitting backstage in the green room of that very same late night talk show, I was reminding myself of how this little adventure had started.
“That’s awesome,” I’d replied from the kitchen where I’d been trying to figure out how in the hell to set up the fancy new espresso machine that I’d talked Luke into buying earlier that afternoon. “My man is sooo famous,” I’d said as I’d pulled yet another weird knob thing out of the box. Why is it necessary to have a degree in mechanical engine
ering to put one of these stupid things together?
“So we fly out Tuesday, bright and early, spend the night there, and then we fly back first thing on Wednesday,” Luke had said while he’d scrolled through his phone.
The pronoun usage happening on his end of the conversation had just caught my attention. Even though Luke played with a band, he usually referred to himself in the first-person singular when he was talking about his music-related endeavors, like “I’m going to be in the studio all day, I have a meeting with the label execs,” etcetera. “We” was reserved for references to both him and me, like “We have dinner reservations tomorrow night, We really don’t need to buy this espresso machine,” and other things of that nature. So, looking up from the jumble of parts on the counter, I’d cautiously inquired, “When you say ‘we’ you mean…?”
“The royal ‘we’ obviously.”
“Oh.”
“No princess, I mean you and me. Plural. Max will make sure you’re on my flight,” he’d explained.
“Oooh,” I’d said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that I was invited on this little field trip.”
“Of course you’re invited. My woman,” he’d said, mocking the term I’d used to refer to him, “travels with me. You should know that by now.”
I’d smiled, his statement making me feel all warm inside. But then I’d had to come back down to reality as I’d tried to think of my schedule for the next week. Let’s see, I don’t have to interview any bands until Thursday, so sneaking off for twenty-four hours on Tuesday might be a little tight, but I can make it work. I have some vacation days I can use too. Or I guess I could just call in sick. I scolded myself. Employee of the month over here. Oh well, it’s just this once, I’d reasoned.
“Hmm, alright then,” I’d said. “We’re going to L.A.” At the time, I’d been completely unaware of how that one simple agreement would turn into the most unbelievably surreal day of my life.
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