Philautia || Amour Éternel Series BOOK ONE ||

Three - SHANNON

JULY 2014

"Welcome to Saint-Tropez, boys," Shannon said, taking a sip of the coffee he had hunted down when he woke up.

Jared was already awake and functioning while Tomo stumbled onto the stage bleary eyed. Two ends of the Tour Life spectrum. Shannon caught Tomo's confused stare.

"What?" he asked. He raised his arms to let his drum technician run wires up his t-shirt.

"Why are you so chipper?" Tomo asked. He picked up his guitar but dropped the pick on the floor. "What's in your coffee?" He stooped to pick it up with a curse.

Jared looked over at Shannon at lightning speed, suspicion tinging his face.

"Nothing," Shannon answered quickly. He picked up his drum sticks mutely.

Ever since he had been picked up on a DUI right before they left for Italy, things had been tense. It was all just a bunch of bullshit. He had been driving back from The Grove and his car broke down. The piece of shit didn't even give him any warning either. Just up and died in the middle of Fairfax during rush hour. The cop had been ticket happy and wanted to arrest him. It didn't help that his mother had purposefully left him in jail even though he could post bail. Because of the case, he had basically missed a month of the tour. Needless to say Jared was frosty toward him at best.

"Can I get a bit more bass please?" Jared asked the sound engineer. He was all business and no play, despite being on top of a cliff looking across the ocean. "Shannon, drums please."

Shannon sat down behind his kit and played a quick rhythm, testing out each drum. Tomo played a guitar riff and adjusted his pedals on the floor. Their sound checks were never usually raucous occasions, but they definitely spoke more than this. He knew everyone was pissed at him for the arrest. They couldn't cancel dates and there was too much uncertainty on the timeline to reschedule. He wasn't allowed to leave the country until it was resolved more, so the band had to go on without him. Fans were pissed because he wasn't at shows or meet and greets. Jared was pissed because he had to handle all the negative attention and perform without him. Shannon was fucked four ways up the ass regardless of who he turned to for support. Even Tomo had gotten a little chilly toward him.

"Let's run through the set list just to get a feel for how everything sounds," Jared announced. He adjusted the straw hat on his head and picked up the microphone. "Let's do Night of the Hunter first and go from there."

Shannon didn't even know why he was behind his kit. They were playing a bunch of songs acoustic or stripped down that night because heavy percussion could cause issues with the building. He was only playing a fraction of the time. Part of him wondered if Jared was trying to give him an easy way back into playing, but one look at him and Shannon knew Jared cared more about the architectural integrity of the building than him.

The one good thing about the evening was that Callie was coming. Somehow, she happened to be in Saint-Tropez at the same time and he had asked if she wanted to come watch the show before she had to head back to Los Angeles. The issue was that Jared didn't think he should have guest privileges at venues at the moment and he'd had to basically bribe the touring staff to give him All Access credentials against Jared's orders. It wasn't a secret that pissing Jared off was never a good thing to do and Shannon had paid dearly for the passes, promising multiple favors and handing over a decent amount of cash, too.