Saturday, December 7, 2019

Halfway to Someday Interview: Kyle




Good afternoon Kyle and thanks for taking the time out to come chat with me.

Pretty sure you weren’t going to give me much choice in the matter so might as well get it over with.

Okay, seriously, is there something in the air around here or what? First Justice unloading with all the snark, and now you’re kicking things off by being a smart-ass. Just once I’d like to have a conversation with one of you guys that didn’t start with you grumbling at me.

You love us and you know it. Besides, you have Jesse and Ryker if you want a few warm and fuzzy moments or you could jump on over to those shifters you’ve been dabbling with. Oh wait, those are some prickly, sarcastic little bastards too.

Maybe one of the bodyguards should have tossed your ass in a snowbank after Winterfest, sheesh, can we just get on with the interview now?

Your wish is my command.

Keep it up, and I swear, I will write you out of book two!

Temper, temper, now, we wouldn’t want to disappoint my adoring public now would we?

I’m pretty sure that when the public reads this story, they’ll find little to adore or even like about you. Maybe I’ll include a poll in the back of the book to allow them to vote you off the island for book two.

You wouldn’t!

Try me!

Umm, well, about those interview questions….

Yes?

I’m ready to answer them now.

I thought so. I’ll even be kind, and start with a simple one, like why you didn’t warn Ryker there would be someone else at the cabin when he got there?

‘Cause I figured he wouldn’t go and I didn’t want him to be alone. He wouldn’t come out to Tacoma to stay with me, and from what he told me had turned down an offer from that bodyguard friend of his, Keegan, to hang out at his place, so I decided to leave one little detail out when I told him about the cabin.

I’d hardly call not telling him that your best friend was up there for the same reason Ryker wanted to be, solitude, a little detail.  

Yeah, well, neither one of them needed it and you know it. It might have ruffled a few feathers, but I did a good thing.

I’m pretty sure several messes could have been avoided if you’d taken the time to truly find out what was needed in a situation rather than making mass assumptions and pissing people off. Charging in guns blazing might work out well in some situations, but in others, you might as well shoot yourself in the foot and call it a day. Oh wait….you did that. Repeatedly, might I add.

Okay, I screwed up, but my intentions were good.

Heaven save us all from fools and their good intentions. Moving along now. In talking to Ryker, he indicated that he had a ton of embarrassing moments he could share from your younger years and some of the things you managed to get into. I figure its only fair to ask you to share once, since I posed the same question to him. So, most embarrassing moment, spill.

I’m not giving you the be all end all most embarrassing one, but I’ll give you one, if only to keep you from asking Jesse about it.

What makes you think I won’t ask anyway?

I don’t like you.

Where have I heard that before? You’re stalling, don’t make me start dialing.

Okay, okay, sheesh. So, about a year after we released our first album, we were booked to perform in Hawaii. Sounded like the perfect opportunity to get some downtime too, a little mini-vacation before the second half of the tour started up, so, we jumped at the opportunity to explore. Man, that place is beautiful. Well, we’d had these drinks the night before, served right out of a halved coconut, sooo good. Well, as we were out walking I happened to notice some growing up in a tree. I loved to climb trees growing up and it wasn’t that far off the ground, so I figured why not go up and retrieve a couple, bring them back to the hotel, crack them open that night, and pour a little rum in while we were sitting out on the balcony watching the sunset. Most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen, let me tell you. Of course, Jesse, who’s only climbed like two trees in his entire life, suggested it might not be a good idea, and why not buy a few coconuts from the local market if I was so determined to make fresh drink. Well they were right there and it was the principle of the matter, so up I went. Man, those things do not come off easy like an apple or peach. I’m twisting, I’m pulling, I’ve got like this cluster of three and the ground isn’t that far away so I figure, I’ve got enough mass that if I swing out from the tree while holding on to them, they should come down with me.

How did that work out for you?

Oh they came down.

And…

A wasps nest came down with them.

Ouch!

Tell me about it. Those things had a vicious sting and they were persistent too. Once they were all riled up, they didn’t care who they went after. Jesse took off running after the first sting. I grabbed the cluster of coconuts and tried to do the same. It took me nearly a dozen more stings to realize they were following me because their nest was attached to the clump. In the meantime, some people were snickering, others were staring, a few pulled their cell phones out and had their cameras pointing my way, while I was swatting with my free hand and yelping every time I got stung. Needless to say, I eventually left the coconuts behind and ordered my drinks from the bar that night. Several might I add, and not a single one with coconut anything in it.

Now that’s funny!

Yeah, yeah, laugh it up.

Oh I will, as will our readers, I’m sure. Okay, so, one last questions, and then you can get out of here.

Fine.

What was Jesse like, when you guys were kids?

Quiet, shy, even when it was just him and I hanging out, he never said a lot. He was content to listen to me ramble on and on about whatever, but when he did interject something, I could always tell that he’d put a lot of thought into it first.

I know you were adventurous, but, was Jesse that way too?

He wanted to be. It was just that he didn’t have very many opportunities to indulge when we were growing up, so once we were out on the road together, there was this laundry list of things he wanted to try. Like literally, he had a list. Escape rooms, amusement parks, climbing walls, jet skies, you get the gist. That first tour, he would take every opportunity to try something new whenever we had even the tiniest sliver of downtime. And he was happy. Like, in a way he never was when we were kids.

And how many of those things did you help him cross off?

A couple, but, I mean, I’d done them all before, so there was other stuff that had my attention. Griffin, though, he went with Jesse everywhere, but then, he’d missed out on that kind of childhood too, so they got to share in those firsts together. By the third tour though, we were all doing our own thing. Looking back, I wish things had stayed the way they were when we first started.

Sounds like a lot of good times were shared, at least in the beginning. I hope you can find your way back to those times again.

No one hopes for that more than me, Layla. No one.

Halfway to Someday

Coming January 27, 2020


No comments:

Post a Comment