Pieces of Truth

[Billie Joe]

Our first stop post-Grace's incident was in Salt Lake City. We pulled into a gas station in some tiny town to fill up the bus, and the guys and I got out for some air. Grace came out a few seconds later and walked over to me.

"Can I have some quarters to call my dad?" she asked, nodding toward the payphone.

I gave her all of the change in my pocket and in return, she gave me a quick kiss before heading to the phone booth. The only thing I heard her say was, "Hey dad, it's Grace," then she shut the door of the booth.

"Do you guys think she's alright?" I asked Mike and Tre as we leaned against the side of the bus.

"I can't really tell," Tre told me in an unusually serious voice.

"She's hard to read," Mike agreed.

We watched her sit on the floor of the little box, cradling the phone between her head and shoulder as she played with the ends of her rather long hair.

"She's probably just homesick. Give her some time," Mike said before getting back on the bus, followed by Tre.

I went over and tapped on the glass, motioning to the bus. Grace nodded, quickly saying goodbye and 'I love you' to her dad before I opened the door and helped her up. She hung up the phone, then returned her hand to mine and we walked back to the tour bus.

"So how was your dad?" I asked quietly as she sat next to me at the kitchen table, staring out the window.

Her eyes flashed to meet mine and she shrugged.

"He's been better. He sent Jeff to rehab six months ago, but he got out.. Then dad sent him back three months ago and all seems okay for now. But I'm tired of everything being so gloomy. I want to think about something fun for a change," she smiled slightly.

"Monopoly?" Tre asked excitedly. He had been waiting for weeks to ask her to play.

"Yeah, that sounds awesome! As long as Mike is banker!" she told us, "He's the only one I trust not to cheat."

Mike smiled proudly and we all set up, starting an intense game of property, money and treason.

[Grace]

Playing Monopoly with the guys was just what I needed to relax, even though the game was extremely heated. I had the upper hand; owning over a third of the board with hotels sprouting up every turn I got.

"Fuck, not again!" Billie yelled as he rolled an eight, landing on Marvin Gardens.

"Let's see. Marvin Gardens with a hotel? That'll be twelve hundred dollars," I giggled. This was the third turn in a row he had hit one of my properties.

"Uh.. I only have five hundred dollars.. Can I pay you some other way?"

"And how would you plan to do that?" I asked, now wearing a slight smirk.

"Want me to show you now or later?" he asked seductively, coming closer to me.

"Hey! No paying off debts with sex!" Tre shouted.

"The rules don't say I can't," Billie huffed, "Banker interprets the rules."

"Sorry dude. Mortgage some shit. No one lands on fucking Baltic anyways," Mike advised his friend.

As soon as Billie mortgaged his hotel on Baltic, along with several other properties, I landed on Baltic.

"God fucking dammit," he yelled, jumping up from the table and pulling at his hair.

"Relax, it's just a game," I held back a laugh.

"Sit back down, right here," I motioned to the spot beside me.

Billie returned to his seat and I handed him the $2 rent.

"Here ya go, Two Dollar Bill," I winked and he crossed his arms over his chest.

As Mike rolled, I watched tentatively, discreetly setting my hand on Billie's thigh. He shot me a heated glance and I rolled my eyes.

My turn came and I pulled my hand away to roll, then heard Billie let out a sigh. We played well into the night, then when we decided to go to bed, we put our money and properties in plastic baggies to keep them safe and wrote down what places had hotels.

Let's just say we wanted a clean game. We hid our respective bags and then went to bed.

"Gray, can I come in?" Billie asked, standing outside of my bunk in his boxers and a black t-shirt.

"Sure," I nodded, sliding over so he could lay with me.

"Was your dad glad to hear from you?" he asked casually, covering us up in the blankets.

"He was ecstatic... He thought I had died or something, and I'm being totally serious," I told him.

"Died? No way.."

"Yeah. I never told him that I had left you or had moved, so he just assumed the worst when I never called or came home to see him. I felt horrible," I tried to convey my distress accurately and Billie understood.

"You told him you're on tour with me, right?"

"Yeah, and he was glad that I'm safe.."

We talked a bit more about my dad, then he brought up m birthday again.

"It's two days away, you know," he told me and I laughed.

"I'm aware of that."

"We're playing that night, but you and I can do something during the day," he suggested, which made me think that he had something planned already.

"Okay, that sounds good."

My 21st birthday quickly arrived, and Billie took me out to a nice restaurant in Dallas, Texas, and at the gig that night, Billie played a few of my favourite songs for me.

After, we all decided to go to a bar near our hotel, which was extremely exciting for Billie. He wanted to get me as drunk as humanly possible.

"Hey, I'm gonna run to the hotel. I need to get my ID, yeah?" I told the guys, and Billie shot me a look.

"You forgot your ID?"

"We came straight from the show, and I usually don't bring it."

I went back to the hotel and got my ID, credit card, as well as some cash I had in case of an emergency.
Slipping the items into my pocket, I caught a cab to a tattoo parlor I had seen on the way to the gig. Tre mentioned that he had gotten one there and that they were great.

I walked in, noticing the weird looks I received from everyone, but one person recognized me from the show.

"Hey! I saw you selling merch at the concert I was at earlier," a girl said as she motioned for me to sit in a chair, "How can I help you?"

After getting my tattoo, I went back to the bar, but they weren't there. So I went to the hotel.

"Have you seen the guys in room 738 tonight?" I asked the desk clerk, who said he had seen them about an hour ago.

Not knowing what else to do, I went back to the bar and had a few drinks. At three, I paid my tab and feeling quite sober, I walked back to the hotel, running into Billie, Tre and Mike as they were walking up to the hotel too. They all had some pretty angry looks on their faces, and I figured I was in trouble.

[Billie Joe]

It had been a while since Grace had left, and I was getting anxious.

"Guys, lets go back to the hotel and check on Gray. We can't get drunk without the birthday girl," I suggested.

At the hotel, we didn't find Grace, but we did discover that her ID, card and cash was gone.

"She couldn't have left.. Her stuff is still here," I gaped, now seated on the bed.

"Maybe she went out to the wrong bar," Mike said, trying to keep me calm.

Panic attacks are not good when I'm on tour.

"I knew something was up, I had a feeling she was homesick. What if she went home?"

"Billie, come on. Let's get on the bus and just go look for her," Tre told me and so we did.

We were out till nearly 3:30 a.m., then came back to the hotel. As we walked up to the entrance, I saw Tre stop out of my peripheral.

"Come on Tre. I want to get some sleep so we can go find Grace."

"I think I already found her," he said, pointing to the girl walking toward the hotel from a cab.

"What the fuck?" I muttered under my breath as we walked over to her, noticing that she was totally fine, minus a big white bandage on the inside of her left wrist.

"Where in the fucking hell did you go?!" I seethed once we were face to face and she stared at me, carefully pulling off the tape of her cloth band-aid.

I looked down and saw my name spelled out in beautiful black cursive across her wrist.

"That's where I was. Where were you?" she asked, obviously a little buzzed.