Paint It Black

by Amy Lane

  Blake stood straight, which sucked, but then he pulled Cheever against his chest, which totally made up for it. “Yes, dating. For all I know, I’m the only guy you’ve looked at since you were a little kid.”

  “Not looked at,” Cheever told him, thinking about distant crushes, subtle attractions. “Just dreamed about.” For the last week, he’d woken up with an aching erection that made rooming with Marcia awkward in a way he hadn’t thought possible when they’d started.

  “That’s almost worse!” Blake groaned, but his arms tightened around Cheever’s shoulders, not loosened. “God. So, get settled, dinner with the family tonight—”

  “You’ll be there?” Please, Blake, please, still be family.

  “Yeah, yeah, don’t worry. Briony and Shelia have been planning this one. We don’t always do the whole family thing—I mean, in case you haven’t noticed, we’ve got three family groups living here. Mackey and Trav eat in Trav’s study a lot, unless Katy’s here.”

  Cheever nodded and studied Blake intently. “The house next door’s big. The twins could move their family there, and you’d probably still—”

  “Have a room and a sitting room and a bathroom,” Blake confirmed. He looked around him. “This house—man, when Trav first got it, it seemed impossibly big. I mean, Mackey moved Briony in here as a friend, and she just disappeared, you know? But now… it’s small. And that’s not bad. Just, you know.”

  “Shit’s changing.”

  Blake’s eyes were faraway and not altogether happy. “Bound to do that,” he confirmed. “Just… I didn’t realize until I moved, how much it had changed without me.”

  Cheever grazed Blake’s cheek with his knuckles. “Maybe it’s both of us,” he said. “Both of us living with our hearts in jars.”

  Blake stepped away. “I… yeah. So tonight, big family meal. Tomorrow night, uh, you, me, the movies. You like the shoot-’em-up stuff or the stuff with the subtitles?”

  Cheever thought about it. “Lots of special effects,” he decided. “The more alien life-forms, the better.”

  His reward was Blake’s smile, and he felt like he’d won the lottery.

  I Wanna Be Your Man

  THE TRIP home had been rough on Mackey—they’d taken the bus so he could have a full-fledged bed to stretch out on. He wasn’t cleared to walk for another two weeks and was going out of his mind.

  Blake spent the family meal with him, while Trav checked up on everybody, sort of a habit leftover from the days when Trav had taken a bunch of shiftless fuckups and helped to make them men.

  “Briony can cook,” Mackey muttered, taking a chicken-sized bite of the beans she’d sent up. “Man, I miss home cooking.”

  Blake looked woefully at the barely touched plate on Mackey’s lap.

  “You’re not eating,” he said bluntly, and Mackey grimaced.

  “I can’t fuckin’ move, Blake. I’m not hungry. And if I did eat, I’d gain weight and that would make moving harder.” He grunted and ate another bean. “You don’t have to stay up here, by the way. I mean, that was bitchy, what I said just now, and I’m telling you, it’s not getting better than that.”

  Blake smiled. “I’ve taken worse.”

  Mackey rolled his eyes. “But you shouldn’t have to. Jesus, I know I was a dick to you way back, but I thought we were past when you thought you’d earned that.”

  “I’m just saying—if you need to cut loose, I’m good for it.”

  Mackey set his plate aside. “As sweet as that is, no. Trav’s already offered himself up there. I take him up on it sometimes, but mostly? Mostly I don’t feel like ripping people’s heads off. I just feel… sad. Like I’m missing out. I mean, Katy’s downstairs and I barely saw her all day. Cheever hasn’t come to visit me yet, and….”

  It was hard for him to move, but he managed to swing his head around to meet Blake’s eyes. “How’s he doing?”

  “Good,” Blake said, happy to settle Mackey’s mind about this, at least. He’d had Cheever’s permission to tell Mackey everything, once Kell and the others had heard the story, and Mackey hadn’t taken it well. “He… you know. I mean, you remember, right? Once you actually said the thing that was wrong, once you got it out in the air, you could breathe again.”

  “But Cheever’s thing….” Mackey shook his head. “Mama cried on me all day yesterday, you know that, right? She fell asleep in that chair, just wrecked. I keep asking myself, how could we not know?”

  “Don’t,” Blake said, his voice sharp. “’Cause that’s all of us. And the truth was, we could barely wipe our own asses back then. It’s… Cheever talks about not wanting to share his hell. Like we all have our own world, right? And he didn’t want to trap you on it. We didn’t know—you and me, we were barely learning back then that letting someone see your world is what sets you free.”

  “Pretty,” Mackey grunted, trying not to yawn. The pain was exhausting, and they’d had the physical therapist in there for over two hours, trying to work Mackey’s back out so he could walk with the cast. Even more than that, Mackey hated being helpless. Struggling to just accept he was stuck there was probably the most exhausting thing of all. “Why don’t you write more, Blake?”

  Blake startled. “Cheever been saying something to you?”

  “No.” Mackey settled back against the pillows. “I told you, haven’t seen him. No—I just missed you on the bus ride back. Listened to your CD a couple of times. It did decent, Blake. You should try again.”

  Blake remembered when Mackey couldn’t say a good word about Blake with a knife to his balls. This was way fuckin’ better—but embarrassing.

  “I’ve… you know, been writing songs.”

  “Mmm. Well, while we’re sort of in limbo before we go back out on tour, maybe you should work those up. I mean, you used studio musicians last time, and I got your reasons. But you really love playing with the guys. Maybe that’ll make it fun.”

  “As long as it doesn’t cut into—”

  “Blake, brother. I am laid the fuck up. I can barely pick up a guitar. It would fucking do me good to know you could make this your chance to shine. You do surely deserve it. We got the studio—after we replace the equipment, it should definitely get some use, right?”

  “What about Cheever?” Blake hated himself for asking.

  “He’s crazy about your CD. Let him help. Hell, ask him for cover art suggestions—maybe some sketches of you guys practicing. It would be great if he could be part of it.” Mackey grunted. “It would be great if I could be part of it. Jesus, I’d play backup guitar for you if I could just get out of bed.” He brightened fractionally. “Maybe I could produce. That’s fun.”

  “But we’re going back on tour in September—”

  “Well, yeah. But maybe we could use some of the songs this time, sort of pimp it up. I mean, last time, you did it all yourself, and you wouldn’t let us talk it up or anything. Let your brothers help you, ’kay?”

  Blake sighed. “Yeah. Okay. I’m not sure how excited Cheever’ll be, but—”

  Mackey frowned at him. “You and Cheever got really tight the last few weeks, didn’t you?”

  Blake could feel the burn of embarrassment as it washed his face. “Uh, yeah. I was… you know. The only family besides your mom and—”

  “Blake.”

  Mackey’s gray eyes were searching his face, and Blake wanted to hide. He remembered when Mackey hated him—really hated him, because Blake hadn’t been Grant Adams—and when Blake pretty much wanted Mackey dead.

  God, he’d give anything not to go back to that. But would he give up Cheever?

  “What?”

  “My family has done this before, remember?”

  “I have no idea—”

  “Except I was the younger brother in love with Kell’s best friend.”

  “There’s been nothing about lo—”

  “And the thing is, it wouldn’t have been a bad thing, really. But it was back when gay was a bad word and Kell was a fucking
Neanderthal—”

  “Your brother’s chan—”

  “But what cut Kell up the most was that nobody told him.”

  “Fuck.” Blake buried his face in his hands. “It’s not even… we haven’t even gone on a date yet, Mackey! Don’t make me come out to your brother when we haven’t even gone out on a date yet!”

  “You kissed?”

  Blake peeked at him between his fingers.

  “Was it good?”

  Oh geez. That kiss in Cheever’s room had been the closest to God Blake had been since that one time he and Mackey had tried heroin, right before Trav showed up and cleaned their sorry whoring asses the fuck up.

  “Life changing,” he muttered, because for once, Mackey was shutting up and waiting for an answer.

  To his surprise, Mackey reached out and pulled on his hand. “Look at me, brother.”

  Blake dropped his hands and his pretenses. “I won’t hurt him. I mean, I’ll do my best to not—”

  “Don’t let him hurt you,” Mackey said softly. “And tell Kell as soon as you feel it. Don’t be afraid. Kell won’t hurt you. Cheever might—he’s young. You remember us at that age. We weren’t great at considering other people’s feelings.”

  “Cheever’s better.”

  Mackey nodded and dropped his hand, wincing. “Good. Because if I could set you up with someone, I’d set you up with someone older. Someone who’d be kind.”

  Blake realized it then, that Mackey only had memories of Cheever—cool, aloof, breaking Mackey’s heart when Mackey was trying to get to know him.

  “Mackey, you think I’ve changed these last years?”

  “Both of us have.”

  “Your brother has changed the same way. Don’t worry about—”

  “I always worry.” Mackey yawned again. “Shut up with that noise. Always worry.”

  “Like I’m worried that you’re not eating,” Blake said pointedly.

  Mackey didn’t even open his eyes, but he smiled.

  “Yeah, but I’m not worried about stupid shit. Go downstairs, Blake. Make him feel good. Tell him you’ve got a summer project he can help with. Introduce him to the kids.” He took a deep breath, then another, and Blake knew he was done.

  He stood and kissed Mackey on the forehead. “Get some sleep, brother. You’ll be running us off our asses soon enough.”

  Blake met Trav on the way down, and Trav grimaced when he saw the plate. “Goddammit.”

  “He’s worried about getting fat.”

  “I’m worried about him, period.”

  Blake hated to ask, but he’d been gone for the last three and a half weeks. “What does the doctor say?”

  “He says… says he’s in a lot of pain. And the thing with pain is that it can bring on depression. Mackey doesn’t do drugs, period, but….” Trav shook his head. “Except what he’s doing is just like drugs. He’s so damned stubborn about accepting help of any kind…. Augh! It’s good to know he can still make me crazy, right?”

  “Runs in the family,” Blake said weakly, and Trav gave him a sharp look.

  “You about done with Cheever?” he asked.

  “No! No. Just… the making crazy. I mean, we been doing it for what? Ten years?”

  “Yeah. You have. I been here nine.”

  “We didn’t count before you,” Blake said loyally, although his crush on Kell had been going strong for that first year.

  “How are you and Cheever?”

  Blake had to remind himself that Trav knew—had known almost from the beginning. “Going on a date tomorrow,” he said with dignity.

  “Movie?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re done for then. Movies will either make you hate each other or make you fall in love. Gotta say, I don’t see you hating him—not with the way he’s talking about you like you’re the Second Coming.”

  Blake shrugged. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, his throat clogging. “Too much….”

  “Too much rests on the outcome.” Trav nodded. “I hear you. Anything else I should know before I go up there?”

  “He wants me to put out another CD, this time with the guys backing me. He thinks we can do it this summer, before he’s ready to go out on tour. What do you think?”

  Trav brightened. “Hey, he can help produce it. He won’t have to move around so much—it’ll be great. Good idea!”

  “All Mackey,” Blake muttered. God. All these people and their fucking faith in him.

  “What’s wrong? Heath’s been asking about you. He thinks you could have a little solo career when the guys are off-season. Is that bad?”

  “Heath knows my name?” Blake joked weakly. He sometimes thought the only reason their producer had let Blake put out a solo album was that he and Trav knew each other from way back in the military.

  “Shut up. Are you worried about that whole band-breakup thing? I don’t think so. The bomb could go off and you guys would form radioactive dust that would get back together and play. What’s wrong with you doing your thing?”

  “It’s… I mean, I’m not Mackey. He gets on the stage and plays on his own and…. Never mind.”

  Trav let out a sigh. “Blake, you have your own talents. Mackey can do that for a stadium of twenty thousand people. We both know it. But you can do it for an intimate club, and that’s a different sound. Not a worse one. Don’t… don’t put yourself down because you’re not Mackey. I think we’ve established you’re Blake.”

  Blake nodded. “Let me put this in the kitchen,” he said, gesturing to the plates in his hands. Truth was, he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. The reasons that doing the solo album made him feel naked and vulnerable and completely inadequate were his own.

  “Blake—we’ll talk tomorrow. In fact, we’ll meet in the studio. Tell the guys. Eleven o’clock, after everyone’s gone running and worked out. We’ll have a band meeting. Ask Cheever if he can stay with Mackey. It’s a thing.”

  “Great,” Blake muttered, and not even he could tell if he was being sarcastic or enthusiastic.

  “Jesus,” Trav muttered back, starting up the stairs again. “This shit never fucking ends.”

  DOWNSTAIRS, CHEEVER and Marcia had already finished eating. They were in the family room, Cheever with a tablet of paper and some special pens, Marcia with her tablet, and they were taking Blake’s advice.

  They were drawing.

  “Blake!” Kyrie, Briony’s oldest, was a sturdy little girl with bright red hair and brown eyes, who was hell on the soccer field and heaven in a pink dress pretty much all the other times. “Look! Cheever is drawing us in a characterater—”

  “Caricature,” Katy corrected gently. Grant’s daughter was beautiful—golden, with wide-set eyes, Grant’s unique, straight-bridged nose, and an oval face—but the most beautiful thing about her was her joy in her cousins. “Cheever just told me it’s a special kind of drawing.”

  “Yeah!” Kyrie kept going, undaunted. “Anyway, Cheever makes ’em, and Marcia scans ’em and makes ’em move. It’s great!”

  Oh! One better than drawing pictures. A multimedia production—just the thought made Blake smile.

  “I’ll come back in and watch in a sec,” he said. “I gotta put the plates in the kitchen.”

  Cheever looked up from drawing and winked at him. He managed a smile back, but he also managed to flee the room before anything else happened.

  Briony was waiting for him when he got there, arms crossed, staring from the plates in Blake’s hand to Blake and back.

  “What?” he asked, feeling defensive. He moved to the sink to scrape the plates into the garbage disposal.

  “Don’t you fuckin’ dare,” she told him. “Which one of those plates is Mackey’s?”

  Blake stared at them both. “I, uh, honestly can’t remember.”

  “I thought so. Sit down.” She pointed imperiously to the kitchen table and took the plates from him. “This one’s yours. You like avocado on your burger, and he thinks it’s fr
om Satan. Now I’m going to cut this burger up, like I do with the kids—”

  “Briony, you don’t need to—”

  “And then I’m going to add some fries right out of the oil, because they’re delicious and bad for you—”

  “I’m fine, sweetheart—”

  “And then add some bacon beans. And then you’re going to sit at that table and eat. And then maybe tell me what’s got you so fuckin’ weird you wouldn’t eat my cooking.”

  “This family really is fucking extra,” he muttered. “Seriously, darlin’—”

  “I am completely immune to any charm you ever possessed.” She ignored him for a moment, getting to work on his plate and minding the big vat of homemade chips on the stove. “Shelia!” she called. “Shelia! Do we have any more burgers out there?”

  “We got some brats!” Shelia called, wandering into the kitchen barefoot, wearing shorts, a tank top, and a giant apron to protect her from the grill. Where Briony was tall and strong, with a sweet round face and a lithe, athletic body, Shelia was tiny and buxom, sort of everybody’s idea of a brainless blond bimbo. Except Shelia had a kind of sweet good sense about her. She was never going to write a novel, but she might write a cookbook or a child’s picture book, and she’d do a good job at it and charm everybody’s socks off. She was an amazing, if slightly flaky mother, and Jefferson and Stevie worshipped her.

  She presented Briony with the plate of brats, and Briony wrinkled her nose. “Any burgers working?”

  “Yeah, done in five. Last batch.”

  “Good, this burger’s a little rare. I’m gonna toss it and make Blake eat sides until it’s done.”

  Shelia looked at the two plates and frowned. “Him and Mackey not eating?”

  “Oh dear God,” Blake muttered.

  “Mackey’s sad,” Shelia continued. “I get that. But Blake and Cheever are in love. He should be fine.”

  Blake put his head in his arms and groaned. “Oh dear God.”

  “He’s all worried,” Briony told her. “You heard Marcia—he’s worried because Cheever’s so young and he’s got that ‘tragic dark past.’”