As Alicia had dreamt of, Dylan and she had gotten married on a beautiful Australian beach and so we weren't the only one using the break from touring to go on a honeymoon. They travelled around New Zealand for a month and when we eventually all got back home in London, we started rehearsing together again, even writing new material.
Indeed, we had decided early on that we'd continue touring the world in 2020. The gigs were going so incredibly well that we really wanted to please our fans and play in as many cities and countries as possible so we kept adding more dates when it was possible, knowing that we'd take a very long break from it all afterwards. We'd been offered four more gigs in Japan in late March which we accepted before embarking on our planned tour schedule in South America in April.
A few weeks before Jordan and I had been working out in the gym we'd had installed in the basement of the building we'd bought collectively all that time ago; the other three were in our studio working on a song we'd all been going through before lunch.
Jordan had seemed distracted, distant, not quite like himself as we'd trained and although I knew I had to wait for him to express whatever was on his mind, his attitude had got me worried.
I couldn't think of a reason why he'd be acting this way. There was a deeply thoughtful expression on his face that I couldn't read. I could only hope that it wasn't anything serious and that it didn't involve the tour. But what if it did? Did he not want to go back on the road? Had he had enough? - Maybe he was only tired.
"You ok mate?" I asked.
"Yeah," he just answered, not looking at me.
We were going through our post-exercise stretching with the quiet voice of Yasmine Hamdan playing in the background.
"You're awfully quiet, you've barely said a word for the past thirty minutes. Are you upset about something?"
"Uh?" he asked, looking at me, No, why?"
"I dunno, you seem thoughtful."
"Oh - yeah I guess I am, sorry."
He continued stretching but I stopped and just wondered what was going on with him with an annoying knot in my stomach.
After a couple minutes, he stopped, took a few deep breaths and exhaled loudly.
"Mark," he began saying then stopped as if he was hesitating, "do you remember the Dublin launch event for the album and tour?" he asked.
"Just about," I said, "we've been a bit busy since then," I chuckled. "Why?"
"Erm, well - there was somebody there who worked for the promo company. I'm sure you remember her cause we talked with her and she told us she was in some of Rachel's classes when she was in Trinity College."
I thought about it and quickly remembered who he was talking about.
"Yeah, sure I remember her," feeling relieved to hear him talk about a girl, "her name was," I thought about it for a moment, "it was typically Irish I remember."
"Grainne," he put in.
I nodded,
"What about her?" I asked quietly.
"Well, we really hit it off that day, like really. You probably don't remember this but I didn't leave with you guys after the event. I drove her home and we talked for like an hour in the car and then we had dinner..."
"Wait, that was back in January? Like a year ago! Why are you only talking to me about her now?"
He let out a small chuckle,
"We've been keeping in touch, while we were on the road I mean," he said and paused, "and then when you got married, we saw each other again; I didn't stay in Dublin just to see my mum and dad. I figured that it'd be a great time to really get to know each other."
"So now you're interested in getting to know the girls you sleep with?" I joked.
He shook his head slightly,
"C'mon, the whole trophy-girlfriend-syndrome antics I think I was only doing it because it's what's expected 'cos one of us had to," he sniggered, "I was just waiting for the real thing. I want someone who gets me and Grainne does."
"Holy shit!" I thought, knowing my jaw had dropped, this was so far away from Jordan's usual love-'em-and -leave-'em behaviour I could've believed it was Dylan I was talking to.
"I think there's a but in there, am I right?"
"Not exactly, well sort of, look," he dropped his head and huffed, "we've pretty much done all our growing up doing what we do, this, our crazy life's become normality for us, including Rachel - and Grainne sort of works in the business, I mean she's worked with Muse, Snow Patrol and a boatload of others so it's not like fame, or rather dealing with famous people would be a new experience for her," he paused.
"But doing what she does doesn't put her slap bang in the middle of the craziness you mean," I put in to tell him I understood what he was trying to say.
"Yeah, exactly and she sort of knew us when we'd just left school, but that was twelve years ago. She needs to get to know me, us, the way we are now. How do you think the rest of the guys'd feel about her travelling with us when we go back on the road?"
"Wow! Didn't see that coming bro'."
"I really think her coming with us would show her that actually, most of the time, being on the road is hours, days, of boring travel to nameless hotels in places we rarely get to explore with a sudden, exhausting, explosion of energy to cap it off every couple or three days."
"Hey, carry on talking like that you'll put me off touring for good," I laughed.
"S'true though, isn't it? And I need to know that she fits in with all of you guys, don't want to create a so-called Yoko Ono situation." he looked away so I waited for him to sort his thoughts, "When you think about it the people Dylan and me marry are actually marrying into our band-family not just our genetic ones aren't they?"
"When you put it like that yeah they are. Looks like Rach, Damon me and himself got off lightly," I chuckled.
"Do you recall what Dylan said to you, the night of your wedding before we went on stage, about the opening lines of
"Green Eyes"
I mean? Well he was right, you two are the rock this band stands on."
"Wow, that's - it's," I stammered, hearing him repeat Dylan's words - it had clearly made a big impression on him.
"So do you think the others will go for it?"
"Gets my vote dude, if she can handle being around us, especially on tour, without losing her marbles then she's definitely a keeper. But what about her job?"
"She's asked about taking a sabbatical and they're ok with it."
I'd heard his reference to marriage but hadn't commented on it, Dylan and Alicia had got married barely more than two months before so maybe he'd been thinking of them when he'd said it.
Maybe.
I thought about the fact that the round of major promotional events had been a year before, way back in January 2019, and I wanted to ask when their relationship had officially started, before or after our wedding, but then I remembered something.
"Hang on, when we went to Madeira," I paused then smiled at him, "now I remember, Rachel told me that you were gone the whole time and told no one where you went. You went somewhere with Grainne didn't you?"
"Yeah," he laughed, "as soon as you let the rest of us in on your proposal plans, I asked if she'd be able to get the time off work immediately after it."
"Where'd you go?"
"Well, like I said, I really wanted to spend time with her so I surprised her and we went to Florence for a day and then from there, we went where the mood took us. We rented a car and just drove around the country. We ended up in Croatia. It was fun."
I laughed,
"You drove from Italy to Croatia?"
"Well, yeah, through Slovenia."
"Dude, that must've been great. And come on, if she's willing to take some serious time away from her work it's gotta be significant bro'."
"We, um, we missed each other," he mumbled, looking at his feet again.
"Know how that feels," I said quietly, "and Rob was only gone a few weeks, you two have already survived being apart for longer than that."
"Not quite," he grinned mischievously.
"What d'you mean 'not quite'? We were on the road for months last year."
"Remember the parties I was going to on my own? Me buggering off to go skiing or rock-climbing? Me doing stuff none of you were interested in at the time whenever we had a couple or three days down-time?"
