The tour bus rolled steady down the interstate, somewhere between Missouri and their next booked venue. The world outside was all blurred farmland and gray sky, but inside the bus, things were unusually quiet.

Jonah sat at the little dinette near the kitchenette, his usual chaotic energy gone. He wasn’t tapping his sticks. He wasn’t juggling energy drinks. He wasn’t even humming. Just… staring out the window, eyes distant, fingers idly tracing the rim of an empty cup.

Mark watched him for a while from across the lounge. At first, he said nothing—just sat there, arms crossed, brown eyes quietly observant. But when Jonah passed up his usual third helping of mid-afternoon snacks and let the coffee pot beep without jumping for a refill, Mark stood up.

He dropped into the seat across from Jonah with all the subtlety of a falling amp.

“You’re too quiet,” he said flatly.

Jonah blinked, startled. “Huh?”

“You haven’t annoyed me once today. I’m concerned.”

A ghost of a smile passed across Jonah’s lips, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Just thinking, that’s all.”

Mark didn’t reply. Just waited. The kind of silence that invited honesty without pressure. Jonah sighed and leaned back.

“It’s just… this life is amazing, y’know? The bus, the fans, the shows… but I keep thinking about home. Columbus. My old block. My buddies who never got out. We used to bang on trash cans and plastic tubs just to pretend we had drums. Now I’ve got a kit worth more than my old apartment, and they’re still there—same clothes, same jobs, same problems.”

Mark was quiet for a beat longer than usual. Then he nodded.

“You feel guilty.”

Jonah looked away. “Yeah.”

“You shouldn’t. But I get it.”

Mark didn’t say much else. He just stood, gave Jonah a firm clap on the shoulder, and walked straight to the back of the bus where Thane and Gabriel were sitting over a shared muffin.

“Jonah’s off,” he said bluntly. “Thinking about Columbus. Missing his people. Blaming himself.”

Gabriel’s ears perked up immediately. “What?”

Thane looked up too, his brow furrowing. “How bad?”

“He’s not tapping.”

Gabriel’s jaw dropped. “Oh, that’s serious serious.”

There was half a second of shared silence before Gabriel slapped the table. “Okay. Change of plans.”

Thane blinked. “You wanna reroute the entire tour?”

Gabriel nodded. “Damn right I do. We’re playing Columbus.”

Thane raised a brow. “You mean schedule a future show?”

“No,” Gabriel said firmly, already reaching for his phone. “I mean we go now. Screw the routing. We’ll find a venue near Jonah’s old neighborhood, we’ll comp every single one of his friends, and we give that boy the most chaotic, heartfelt, homegrown, boot-stomping show of his life.”

Mark crossed his arms and nodded once. “He’ll never see it coming.”

A few days later, the tour bus pulled into Columbus under cover of night. Jonah thought they were en route to Chicago. He didn’t even realize they’d gone off course until Gabriel dropped a folded map in his lap that just read “Welcome Home.”

Thane was already at will-call, handing over a folded list of names. “All-Access passes and VIP wristbands. Make sure every single one of them gets the red carpet.”

When Jonah finally stepped onto the small stage tucked into the heart of his old neighborhood rec center—draped in lights, packed with screaming locals, and the smell of hot food and cheap beer wafting through the summer air—he just stood there for a second, overwhelmed.

Gabriel stepped up beside him, whispering, “We didn’t just bring the music. We brought your people too.”

Jonah swallowed hard, then nodded.

And then, with a wide, shaky grin, he raised his sticks… and brought the house down.