Comforter

Homesick

Billie scurried off to the tour bus when we had finished playing while Mike, Jason and I were left to talk to fans, other people that helped with the music and the technicians.
I managed to slip past them all to get to the tour bus to look for Billie.
When I walked onto the bus he was sitting on the small sofa and staring at the floor.

"Hey, everything alright?" I asked cautiously, sitting on the sofa next to him.

"Yeah, it's..." he sighed, "it's just been a long week."

"I saw you on stage, I wanted to stop but-"

He shook his head quickly, "don't be silly, I wouldn't want you to stop playing, if anything that would have made it worse."

"Made what worse?" I looked at him sideways and saw the look of pain on his face.

"I've been thinking about my dad a lot lately... We were talking about him the other day at the bar and... I guess it's just been on my mind."

I could see him welling up again and I put my arm around him and squeezed his shoulders, "hey, don't be like that, Bill, he wouldn't want you to be upset about it, would he?"
That seemed to make him worse and his face crumpled as he tried not to let himself cry.
I rubbed his shoulder and we both jumped when Mike walked in.

"Everything okay?" he asked, eyeing Billie and making his way over to us.

Billie nodded and his face cleared. He looked up at the bassist and smiled, "everything's fine."

We got on the road as soon as everyone was ready and Mike went to lie down. I returned to Billie (I had made myself a coffee) and sat beside him again.
"No one noticed."

"What?"

"No one noticed it on stage, they still loved you." I smiled, hoping that he might feel better knowing that he didn't make an idiot of himself.

"Oh." he looked at his lap. I wasn't really sure what to say after that so patted him on the back. "Thanks, Tré." he leaned his head on my shoulder and I rested mine on his. His hair was sticking out at all angles and was tickling my face but I tried to ignore it. It smelt like a mix of coconut and vanilla-the smell of the shampoo that was in the hotel we stayed at last night-and was really quite pleasant.

"Don't mention it" I smiled warmly, "are you sure you're okay?"

he shrugged half heartedly, "I dunno, I miss the family a lot... Not that I can really talk about these things to them... They just don't get it." he sighed.

"You can talk to me about anything, you know that don't you?"

"Of course I do, thanks. I appreciate it... today has just been... I just feel like crap."

"Well Mike is going out tonight with his friends, isn't he?"

"Yeah I think so"

"Well we can chill out in the hotel room. We can order pizza, drink a few beers and watch a movie. Sound okay to you?"

He didn't look very enthusiastic but agreed and I left him to it, thinking it would be better to give him space and time to himself before I was with him for the whole evening.