Paint It Black

by Amy Lane

  “What? What was that look?”

  Well, hell. “You and Marcia will have your own rooms,” Blake said, worrying his lip. “But Mackey needs all sorts of equipment. He’s in a bad way, and even after the casts come off, he’s gonna need PT shit, and it’s gonna be all over the house. The studio house is only in use on the ground floor. I had the movers take my bedroom stuff over there—”

  “Then have them put mine there too!” Cheever burst out, taking a step back.

  “No, sir, you are there to reconnect with your family.”

  Cheever glowered. “That was pretty fuckin’ tricky, Blake. You planning on being home a lot this summer?”

  “Actually yes.” Dammit. “Me and the guys were going to replace a lot of the studio equipment and the instruments. Mackey usually runs around trying to do everything his damned self, but I have the feeling he’s going to be sitting and we’re going to be doing all the work. So don’t worry. I’m not planning to be on the other side of the state. Just next door.”

  Cheever nodded, wrinkling his pert little nose. Augh, yes, Blake had noticed. Mackey’s nose was small and pointed, Kell’s was large and square, and Jefferson (and Stevie’s) was perfectly normal, if a little aquiline.

  Cheever’s was a perfect button.

  Fucking adorable, that’s what it was. Blake wanted to smack him.

  “You’d be on the other side of the state if you could be,” Cheever muttered.

  “Well… yes! Sort of!” The kid looked at him with honest hurt, and he relented. “Just because you could hurt me, Cheever. And you could hurt yourself. But… but I get to be your first lover… I mean, you know. That is, if we make it till then without killing each other. That’s okay. That’ll be—”

  “If you say nice, I’m out of here.”

  Blake closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose. He didn’t know why people did that. It never fuckin’ helped.

  “I… I might not survive it,” he said with dignity. “And hopefully, it won’t be awful for you, because you’ve had enough of that. Great. But… but you are in a place to move on. I’m your… your stepladder lover, until you find the great guy you really care about.”

  “And you?” Cheever had moved forward again, and was searching Blake’s face avidly. Blake couldn’t stand that sort of scrutiny. He took a step back and then turned around, heading for the mess hall because Cheever really could stand to eat more.

  “You didn’t answer me,” Cheever said, skipping to keep up.

  “I don’t do casual anymore,” Blake said. That weird and wonderful week that he and Trav had talked about, when Blake couldn’t seem to lose in the hookup department, that had seemed like a sign. And he was tired of hookups on the road—he really was. He was tired of meeting someone and thinking “relationship” when they were thinking “fling.” He wanted permanent. He’d been thinking that way before the week of two hot hookups, and he hadn’t had a lover since, because he hadn’t been willing to settle. Not when he saw what his brothers were doing. Not when he wanted what they had too.

  “I do… I do serious,” he proclaimed, the first time he’d said it out loud. “So, you and me make it to bed, and I’m doing serious, and you’re doing the healing kama sutra, and I’m….” Where he always was—second first guitar. Last guy anybody saw. Which had always seemed good enough, better than Blake Manning deserved, actually. But looking at Cheever in the purple light of a summer night, it seemed like the final cut that would let Blake bleed out of the heart.

  “You’re what?” Cheever challenged.

  “I’m nobody important,” Blake told him. “Which is who I am, anyway. Go ahead and do what you have to, Cheever. I obviously don’t have the spine to stop you.”

  Cheever let go of his hand then and watched him walk away.

  HE CAUGHT up with Blake in the dining room as Blake was trying to wheedle two trays of food from the attendant, who had obviously been doing the last of the cleanup.

  “Aw, come on, darlin’, we’re sorry we were late.” Blake tried his best smile. “We were just walking outside to see the sunset. I mean, it sure is a beaut, right?”

  The woman serving—fiftyish, dyed chestnut hair, a kind, if worn, face—sighed. “You are being incredibly charming. I’ll see what we can do. Any food allergies?”

  Blake shook his head and managed to gesture to Cheever without actually looking at him. “Cheever?”

  “No. Anything you can manage would be welcome.”

  “Fine, boys.” She reached under her counter and handed them both plastic tumblers. “Go get some soda. I’ll be back.”

  Blake took the tumblers. “Preference?”

  “Root beer,” Cheever said promptly, and Blake nodded, still not looking at him. He couldn’t stand to see hurt, if that’s what he’d put there, or sadness, or the “You’re right, we shouldn’t do this” that he knew was coming.

  Blake got them both drinks, and they settled at a table. Cheever picked one by the window, still overlooking the grounds.

  “You ever going to look at me again?” Cheever asked pleasantly.

  Blake managed to raise his gaze to Cheever’s chin before he looked down again, and Cheever swore.

  And then he moved so they were no longer across from each other, but kitty corner, close enough for Cheever to grab his hand.

  “God, you’re stubborn,” he said, sounding like it was a big discovery or something. “I mean, you seem so mild mannered. ‘Yes, Cheever, yes, Trav, yes, Doc Cambridge. I’ll do whatever you want. I’m just here to help.’ But one relationship gets deeper than you planned and boy, you don’t give us any help at all, do you.”

  Blake glared at him. “I am doing what you want,” he said, but the words grated like tinfoil on his teeth.

  “No, you’re not. Because I want you to hope!”

  Blake took a big gulp of his root beer and then belched because that’s what you did when you ingested too much gas in one swallow. Cheever held his fingers in front of his lips and tried not to giggle. God, he was unsettled.

  “Cheever—I’m thirty-two this year, you know that right?”

  “Blake, can’t you even try? I mean….” He waited—Blake had to give him that. Waited until Blake looked up and saw that his eyes were kind, and he was biting his lip provocatively, and he didn’t look like somebody who would dick with Blake’s heart like that.

  “Mean what?” Blake asked, fighting his own smile.

  “It was a pretty good kiss, wasn’t it? You’re the only person I’ve ever kissed that I wanted—but that was a pretty good kiss.”

  “You got a lot to learn kid,” Blake said, and then, before Cheever could deflate, he added, “and that was a great kiss.”

  Cheever’s eyes crinkled in the corners again. “So why the gloom and doom? C’mon, Blake, let’s at least plan to date.”

  Dating. Okay. Fine. Blake could date. “Okay. Good. I can take you to dinner, we can go to clubs and museums—that sounds fun.” It’s what he did with the guys anyway, and what he’d done with the few relationships he’d had since he’d gotten out of rehab. Dating was nonthreatening. It was neutral. It was neither good nor bad; it was just an experiment.

  “We can kiss some more,” Cheever said, unrelenting. “We can make love.”

  Blake sighed. “If that’s where it goes.”

  “You could sound more excited about that,” Cheever said mildly. “I mean, it’s a pretty big deal to me.”

  “It should be a big deal to anybody,” Blake said. “Even if it’s just for a night. It’s when you don’t remember the person’s name, or what they were doing there with you, that you know you were doing it wrong.”

  “I didn’t phrase that right,” Cheever said, and his shoulders drooped just a little. Blake suddenly remembered Cheever’d had a truly, truly awful day, and Blake wasn’t making it any easier for him.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he told Cheever, being kind, he thought. “Look, we’ve got time to do it right, you know? Y
ou’ve got a few weeks here—” He frowned. “You do, right? You were going to stay with Marcia?”

  Cheever grimaced. “I’ll be honest. I’d love to just come visit the doc once a week, starting next week. He said that was an option. But….” He looked behind him, as if his waifish, lonely friend would suddenly appear in time to hear him talk about her. “But yeah. I don’t want to leave her here by herself. She was so alone in the last place. We texted every day, and… and I don’t think she would have made it if things hadn’t….” He blew out a breath. “I didn’t think it was true, when people said something was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it seems like it’s taking a helluva time to recover from practically blowing a gasket. But on the other….”

  “You realized you have a true friend and you want to do right by her,” Blake filled in.

  “Yeah. So, yeah. If you guys don’t mind footing the bill—”

  “We don’t.” Blake winked. “In case you missed it, we’re making rock star money. We’re good.”

  “Ha-ha.” Cheever looked around at the vaulted ceiling, the nice carpet, the heavy-duty furniture, the flowers on the table. “You know, we started having money when I was a kid, and it didn’t really occur to me how much easier it could make life. All I could think of was my brothers went away. But… but if I’d done what I did back in Tyson/Hepzibah—”

  Blake shuddered. “Please don’t,” he said, his voice hard. “I just…. Please don’t.”

  “Yeah. I know.” Cheever caught his gaze then, made sure it held. “You too. If you hadn’t made the money, and then stopped doing the drugs—”

  Blake’s stomach went cold, and he thought that maybe eating was going to be a work of optimism. “I’d be dead in a shitty trailer in Lancaster,” he said. He knew it. “It’s like that sunset, maybe. I’m grateful, grateful for every day I’ve been given.”

  Cheever kept eye contact. “Me too. Can you believe that I’m grateful for the days I’ve been given with you? All that time, you were sort of this orbital part of my life, and I never saw you. But now I do. And you’re really beautiful. And I really want to keep you right here, front and center. Can we have that kind of faith, Blake? Please?”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  That head tilt—the one that called bullshit, pure and simple, was going to be his undoing.

  “Yeah,” he said again, in good faith. “Yeah, Cheever. Let’s call it a thing. Let’s treat it like it’s real. You get out of here, we’re dating.”

  Cheever nodded. “When’ll we tell my family?”

  Blake had to laugh at that. “You know, Trav and Mackey just moved in together….” But then he saw the hope on Cheever’s face and shut that down, right quick. “We’re going to dinner,” he insisted. “We’re going to do stuff. Maybe we’re better off as brothers—”

  “I don’t want to kiss my brothers like I want to kiss you!”

  “But if we don’t work out, we still gotta be brothers, do you understand?”

  Cheever rolled his eyes in what was probably the youngest expression Blake had seen on him that day. “That sounds gross.”

  “Well, take it like it’s meant, not like it sounds,” he muttered, feeling grumpy. At that moment, their friend the dining room attendant came in with chicken fried steak and green beans.

  Blake stared at the food, surprised and touched. “Darlin’, this is some seriously good karma here. I cannot thank you enough.”

  She winked girlishly. “My kids and I just love Outbreak Monkey,” she gushed. “Just wait until I tell them I saw you today—they’ll be so excited!”

  “Tell them he was here to see his boyfriend,” Cheever said, a gleam in his eye, and the woman didn’t bat an eyelash.

  “Well, my fifteen-year-old will be a little crushed. He’s always had sort of a thing for you, Mr. Manning, but it’s good to see you’re dating Mackey’s little brother. He’ll think that’s the most romantic thing ever.”

  She giggled—honest to God giggled—and then gave a little wave and disappeared, probably to finish cleaning up.

  Blake took a bite of his steak to fortify him for whatever havoc that “Mackey’s little brother” bombshell was going to wreak and then looked at Cheever—who was eating his own meal and not looking much put out.

  “What?” Cheever said after he swallowed.

  “Nothing.”

  “I’ve lived in Mackey’s shadow my whole life,” Cheever said. “First time ever it’s something good. Don’t crap on my parade. I’ve got a boyfriend and dinner. Like you said, it’s the little things in life. They just keep looking better and better.”

  Blake shrugged. Okay. Fine. That’s what they were doing.

  He could think of worse ways to break his heart.

  Get Off My Cloud

  “OH GEE,” Marcia said, her voice dry as the dust motes in the sunlight. “Let me guess. It’s… oh wait… Blake.”

  Cheever looked up from his sketch and rolled his eyes. “No, smartass…. Look again.”

  “Oh.” Marcia’s arid voice warmed a little. “That’s pretty. Thank you, Cheever. It’s nice that you see me that way.”

  “Not every picture I’ve done has been of Blake,” Cheever said, but he sounded defensive and he knew it. In the two weeks since their first “date” watching the sunset and eating chicken fried steak, he’d started a campaign to draw Blake as Cheever saw him—not as Blake obviously saw himself.

  The results had been some of the shittiest art Cheever had ever made. He’d actually ripped up most of the sketches because he thought if Blake ever saw them, that would be it. It would be over. No more Blake coming by in the evening and going for walks—and kisses—and no more texts during the day.

  No more promise of going home next week, no more laconic banter. Blake would take one look at those sketches and think Cheever was like… like everybody else. Every person who had ever made him feel second. Every person who had made him feel less. Blake Manning’s life had made him feel like he was backup and nothing more, and it was Cheever’s job to make him realize he was Cheever’s star attraction. Those pictures weren’t going to do it.

  “No, honey, not every picture has been Blake, but it has been sort of a thing.”

  Cheever looked at the sketch of Marcia, done as she listened to music in the room, and smiled a little. “Apparently, I’m better off drawing you,” he said, ripping it off the pad and handing it to her. “Here.”

  “Thank you,” she said primly. Then, ever perceptive, she added, “You need to actually finish a drawing of him, first. You haven’t let me see any of them before you rip them up.”

  “They’re crappy,” he grumbled.

  She grimaced. “Maybe they’re really good, Cheever. Even the best picture, drawn with the best heart, isn’t going to see what you see. He’s not a movie star. Objectively, he’s sort of plain—”

  “He is not!”

  “I’m an animator!” she protested. “Or at least, I was gonna be. But I know those features—they’re not beautiful. But that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t rather look at him or listen to him talk more than almost anybody else in the world. Maybe the problem is, you have to see him warts and all. Maybe he’ll be even more beautiful if you draw him as he actually is.”

  Cheever tilted back his head, bumping it gently against the wall. “Why am I so shitty at this?” Well, besides the fact that he was starting to see Professor Tierce’s point, really.

  She regarded him levelly. “Because you’ve kept your heart in a glass jar since middle school. It has some growing up to do.”

  He opened his mouth to tell her that he couldn’t afford for his heart to keep growing up—Blake had to see him as an adult now—when they both heard a clatter down the hallway and Doc Cambridge’s exasperated voice raised in admonition.

  “Look, I know you boys mean well, but we have regular visitor hours and—oh hell. Whatever. I’m retiring next year anyway.”

  The door to Cheever’s room crashed open, and Cheever gaped.


  “Hello Outbreak Monkey.”

  “You look okay,” Kell said, the scowl perfectly at home on his blunt features. “Blake’s been going on about how you need food and color. I thought you were dying.”

  “Hug him, idiot.” Stevie Harris was not technically their brother—but he and Jefferson had been friends since kindergarten, and Cheever had never not known him as one. He and Jefferson had sandy hair and the same anonymous white-boy features and could pretty much pass as twins in any company.

  “I’m hugging him,” Jefferson said. Except Jefferson was the family truth teller, the one quietly unafraid of emotion, and Cheever found himself in his big brother’s embrace and happy about it.

  “Good to see you,” he said, comforted beyond measure by his brother’s warmth. Suddenly his eyes burned. “Good to see all of you,” he said, in wonder. “God, guys, I missed you.”

  And then it was Stevie’s turn and then Kell’s, and Cheever was crying because this was what he’d missed when his heart had been in the glass jar, and God, it was more than he’d ever imagined.

  The hugging ended, and Cheever introduced Marcia, and then asked the obvious question.

  “How’s Mackey?”

  The looks his brothers traded could be described, at best, as grim exasperation. “In a lot of pain!” “Stubborn as fuck!” “A complete pain in the ass!” came the chorus, and then they all took a deep breath and calmed down.

  “He’s trying to do it without painkillers,” Kell said, then looked around himself and grimaced. “And it’s not that I blame him. It’s just that….” His face fell. “It’s hard to see him suffer.” And then, with a perceptiveness Cheever wouldn’t have credited him with, he added, “It was hard to know you were in pain, little brother. Why didn’t you… I don’t know. Say something?”

  Cheever pulled back and sat on his bed, and the guys—oh God, the guys gathered around him like they used to do with Mackey. This was story time.

  “I…. You guys left,” he said baldly, and when they merely looked back and nodded and didn’t get defensive, he realized… they loved him. That they’d missed him too.