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Glenn wakes up, a hammer pounding against the inside of his skull and his t-shirt covered in sweat. Pretty par for the course for the day after his birthday. Or night, Glenn thinks after looking through the window across from his bedroom. He sits up, stretches, and then rubs his eyes to soothe the come-down headache. He tries to remember the night before, but only gets snippets.
His arm slung around Nick, slurring some tour story. Taking shots from a mostly empty bottle of tequila. Climbing onto the roof and getting coaxed down by Henry and Darryl while Ron holds his phone to his ear.
He swings his legs over the side of the bed, pulls his sweat-drenched t-shirt off, and throws it across the room. On top of the empty milk crate that serves as his bedside table, he spots a green Gatorade, with a sticky note and a couple of Tylenol.
“Drink this, meds next to it. At TJ’s. Don’t die. ~NICK”
He for once in his life follows some good advice. Throws the pills down, chases with some Gatorade, and heads to the bathroom. He does his business and walks to the sink. He washes his hands and catches a glimpse of his face. There’s a scape covering the left half of his jaw, a cut across the bridge of his nose, and a bruise on his chin. Glenn groans and goes to pull his phone out of the pocket of the jeans he realizes he must have slept in. It’s not there and he groans again.
He begins a functionally aimless trek around his house searching for his phone, after checking the sheets on his bed, on the floor around the bed, and the dresser pushed against the far wall, moves to the hallway. Sees all of the pictures hung on the wall are slightly askew. He makes a mental note to fix those later. Walks into the living room, and is somewhat surprised that it wasn’t trashed before remembering it was only the Dads and Nick last night and the usual 50+ people used to be whenever a party involved the Trio. Glenn walks over to the catch and after a cursory look at the various tables in the room, he rummages around in the couch cushions. He does not find his phone, but he does find 73 cents. He grabs the coins and walks into the kitchen, depositing them into the bowl next to the front door. He glides his hand over the countertops, he considers stopping and pressing his head against the coolness before thinking against it in lew of continuing his search for his phone. He walks out to the backyard and checks the barbecue shelf and the table next to it before holding his breath and looking into the pool and exhaling a sigh of relief at not seeing it on the bottom.
He stops to think before seeing some movement in his peripheral. He looks over to see a mockingbird land on its nest and duck down to feed her babies. He watches for a while before the bird seems to notice his presence and gives him a look that he decided meant it didn’t particularly want Glenn to be there any longer before turning around to head back inside. Just as he does he sees something reflect the streetlight into the grass. He walks over and picks up his phone, heading back into the house in triumph.
He tries to turn it on after settling onto the couch. The screen stays black so he leans over the side of the couch to grab the charger. He plugs it in and throws it down next to him. Grabs the remote off the console table, flips it on, clicks over to Netflix, and throws on the Great British Bake Off. He leans over and stretches, cracking his back, and follows it by cracking his neck. He half watches an episode, mildly zoning out to the buzz of the headache. Just as Paul and Prue are absolutely ripping apart some dude’s attempt at a pecan pie tart for the technical, he hears the sound of notifications coming through as your phone finally turns on.
Glenn reaches over and picks up his phone. He sees 5 texts from Henry, 2 from Darryl, and a text from Ron. He opens Ron’s text first, and it’s just a single question mark followed by a period. Glenn blinks for a second before snorting and sending him a single exclamation mark in response.
He opens Darryl’s messages next, he’s a bit more eloquent than Ron was.
-Hey, Glenn. Are you feeling okay?
-Stay hydrated, bud.
Glenn responds, “Will do o7”. He rolls his eyes before opening Henry’s texts.
-Hope you slept well and are drinking water! Text me when you wake up.
-Hi! It’s almost 3 o’clock, are ya awake??”
-Not to be a nosey Nellie, but I would really love a call from you soon! :)
-Hey buddy, you’re really starting to worry me. I’m gonna call you soon.
- T-minus 5 minutes and I’m calling you.
The last message is from 4 minutes ago. So Glenn decides to just wait until Henry calls him, and turns his attention back to Paul and Prue who are just beginning the critique of some truly impressive cakes. Just as Paul is complimenting the taste combinations in one of the entries, his phone begins to ring. Henry sighs in relief when he picks up.
“Yo.”
“Oh, gosh darnit, you had me worried, Glenn. I thought you aspirated in your sleep or something.” Henry says.
“That seems a bit dramatic, dude, it’s not like we were at a frat party last night.” Glenn laughs, “We had some drinks in my backyard.”
“You’re right, I’ve been to frat parties that didn’t involve people climbing onto rooves.” He can almost hear Henry’s dad frown through the phone.
“Well, that’ll explain the bruises.” Glenn touches the scape on his jaw.
“Actually you got those from falling into the pool before you got onto the roof.”
“Yeah, that’s not as cool, I think I’ll tell people I jumped off the roof.” He yawns, “You convinced I’m not dead yet.”
“Consider my mostly convinced.” He pauses, “Just make sure you eat something.”
Glenn makes a non-committal noise and says bye before hanging up the phone. He walks into the kitchen, grabs a slice of pizza out of the fridge, and starts eating it while he walks back to his bedroom. When he opens the door, he notices a brown book on the floor, that was apparently knocked off in the trip to bed last night. He picks it up and flips it over. The cover says “Our Son” in gold engraved letters on the front. He sits on the floor, leaned up against the bed frame as he props the album onto his knees, carefully turning through the pages.
There are so many pictures from before he was 12 and his parents got divorced. After that, the photos are dated farther and farther apart. He notices that there are still a decent amount of pictures from the times he was with his dad. More than there really should have been. His dad was never really home. His mom always tried to act like Bill had actually put effort into being around. Even after they split. He comes to a picture of Glenn and his dad sitting with knees almost touching, guitars on their laps.
Glenn pinches the bridge of his nose, eyes shut tight. He loves his dad. He was doing the coolest fucking job, that means he couldn’t be home. He did his best.
“He loved me, he did his best, we’re good,” He whispers to himself, digging into the skin around his thumb. He pauses, claps a hand to a fist, and stands up to put the album back in its place on the shelf.
He flops onto the bed, shutting his eyes. He thinks of being a kid, and of coming into dark, empty houses for weeks on end. He thinks of his son. He thinks of the mockingbird and her chicks in the backyard. He thinks of Christmases and Thanksgivings, eating pizza on the couch alone. Bragging to all of his friends about how cool it was to live alone at 13.
“He loved me, he did his best.”
He thinks of Nick calling him the “cool dad”.
“He loved me, we’re doing our best, we’re okay.”
He thinks of his mom calling on his birthday with a song and love. He thinks of his dad telling him he wouldn’t be making it home that night. He thinks of Nick’s 12th birthday when he forgot to call him because he got high with the band.
Glenn feels like the air is getting squeezed out of his lungs. He presses his palms into his eyes, takes a deep faltering breath. He has a passing thought to some spiel Henry had on generational trauma before he’s flinching off of the thought. Trauma isn't part of this situation. It’s not like his dad abused him. He got to live the life every teen wants. Getting to do stupid shit and not have to come home and explain it to their parents. It was awesome, and he’s giving the same gift to his kid. He’s not fucking up Nick. He’s not.
He scrapes his hands through his hair. Doing this is cool. It’s fine. Nick likes all the freedom. He’s an awesome kid, he loves it. Loves it like Glenn did when he was Nick’s age. Made him sound cool to his friends in middle school, and made it way easier to hook up in high school when he could promise a house with no adults around.
He hears Henry’s voice in the back of his head, “I think you’re trying to lie to yourself, rewriting history to make you feel better about the fact you’re doing the same thing to Nick too.” he thinks he should stop talking to Henry for a while and get away from all the psychobabble.
He picks up and just as he’s about to send a text to Nick to check up on him, he hears the front door open and gets out of bed to see Nick.
“How hungover are you?” Nick asks, almost keeping the laugh out of his voice at the sight of his dad walking out to greet him.
“Not as bad as it should be, thanks for the drink this morning, dude.” Nick nods at that, pulls at his backpack strap, toes his shoes off to the side of the door, and heads to his room. Just as he’s about to open the door, Glenn stops him.
“Hey, Nicky, you like crashing here by yourself, right?”
“Yeah, dude, obviously. It’s dope as hell.” Glenn thinks he sees something in his son’s face that almost looks like pain before it settles into a lopsided smile.
“Okay, cool. I love you, kid.” Glenn nods, it’s good. He’s doing good. His father did his best.
“Mm-hm, love you.” Nick walks into his room and closes the door. Glenn sits back on the couch. He looks over at Nick’s door. He’s doing good. They’re both good. He presses continue playing on the Bake Off and grabs a pipe and a lighter off the console table.
He tries to remember when he leaves for his next tour.