Paint It Black

by Amy Lane

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Tat’s free,” she muttered, and then she went back to work before Cheever could even ask what Blake had done for her.

  It didn’t matter.

  What mattered was that this was the man who thought he wasn’t good enough.

  Very carefully, Cheever texted Briony about putting off the press conference.

  It was time somebody made the grand romantic gesture for Outbreak Monkey’s second lead guitarist.

  It was time Blake knew he came first.

  2000 Light Years from Home

  BLAKE GOT off the phone with Cheever and thunked his head against the hotel bathroom wall.

  “You doing blow in there?” Kell called, and Blake grimaced.

  Not that he hadn’t been tempted in the extreme this past day, but no.

  “I was on the phone!” he called back. “You gotta go?”

  “I blew up the one in the lobby. If you’re not naked, get the fuck out of there. I’m worried, and we need to talk.”

  Without the wives on this trip, they shared a room like back in the old days, and Blake hadn’t minded. He and Kell had a rhythm, a language. They could sit in the same room for hours playing games on their phones if they just needed to chill out, or they could hook up a computer and watch super-violent movies. Kell was particularly fond of the Taken franchise, and Blake had a thing for Mission Impossible and the two Equalizer movies.

  Comfort flicks.

  Blake was going to need one of those once they got on the bus. He always slept like shit on the bus, anyway.

  “What are we talking about?”

  “The economy and the next election. You know what we’re talking about. Now get your ass out of the bathroom, you big coward, and let’s talk like men!”

  “I was going to use the show—”

  Kell broke into the room.

  One minute, Blake was sitting on the toilet seat, fully clothed, and the next, he watched as Kell Sanders—built like a lean tank from all the working out they did—shattered the bolt through the door frame, and then had the nerve to look at it in surprise.

  “Holy God,” Blake said, staring at the splintered wood and twisted metal in awe.

  “I need to take a picture of that,” Kell said, reaching for his pocket. “Briony will never believe me.” He finished his snapshot and then turned to Blake, who was still staring at the door. “Now, are we going to face this situation like grown-ups or do I have to ship you home to my little brother in a monkey cage?”

  “Cheever’s gonna meet us in Portland,” Blake said, his stomach roiling. “I tried to talk him out of it, but—”

  “Good. Not that you tried to talk him out of it, but I’m glad he’s showing up. You need him. Now let’s talk about you.”

  “What’s to talk about?” Blake asked bitterly. “Sometime in the next two days, Trav’s gonna get up in front of a camera and tell the entire fucking world that I sold my ass for rent. And your kids and Jefferson and Stevie’s kids, and Katy, and your mother, and….” He swallowed. “And Cheever—you’re all going to get to see it in the tabloids for a news cycle, and the little kids will hear it at school, and then it will go away, leaving a—” He shuddered. “—a greasy, filthy residue that they just won’t be able to wash off.”

  “And that’s what we need to talk about.” Kell poked the doorknob with his finger. “Because it’s bullshit.” The doorknob fell onto the tile with a clatter, and Kell picked it up and snagged the one from the other side before it could fall too. “I’m keeping this,” he said with conviction. “It’s a trophy. It’s going down in the weight room with the other stuff on our fuck-me shelf. It’ll go right between Trav’s bongo drum and that seat from Denny’s that collapsed when Jefferson sat down too hard.”

  “You do that. Just let Trav know about the deposit.” They hadn’t trashed any hotel rooms since their prerehab days, but the guys did seem to leave a trail of havoc in their wake—there was a lot of stuff on that shelf.

  “’Course. Now, back to bullshit. You think we see you any different? I mean, you told us. We know. The kids don’t, but then, the kids don’t know we did all the fucking drugs and women back in the day either, ’cause you don’t tell your kids that shit and you hope they never find out. But you know something? Even that’s bullshit. ’Cause what if Kyrie comes home high one day? What’m I gonna do? Yell at her like I never did that shit? Or tell her how bad it got, and how much I don’t want that for her? ’Cause parents aren’t perfect. That’s one thing that saved us all—the fact that Mom knew we weren’t. She knew we weren’t perfect, and she let us know she wasn’t either. All she could do was love us for who we were. And that includes you, you dumbass! My mother met you in rehab, and not once did she ever think, ‘Hey, here’s a guy my sons love like a brother—I should tell him we’re better than him.’ So this… this thing you’re carrying around on your shoulders, like you don’t deserve love, like you don’t deserve us, you need to drop that thing quick. It’s like that play, the one with the play inside. If every man gets treated like they deserved, every man would deserve to get beat up. Don’t treat people like they deserve, treat people like we want to be treated. I want to be treated like my fuckups don’t define me, and that’s how I want my brothers to be treated too.”

  Blake stared at him, his mouth open. “Kell, did you just paraphrase Hamlet?”

  Kell wrinkled his nose and juggled the parts of the door. “Maybe?”

  Blake swallowed. Kell Sanders just mentioned Shakespeare and broke a door for him. It was possible, just possible, that Cheever knew exactly what he was doing with Blake Manning and loved him for real.

  “I’ll think about it,” he said softly. “I’ll… I mean, he’s coming out tomorrow. He’s your brother. It’s not like I can refuse to see him.”

  Kell snorted. “Oh my God. Like, he gives you one look from those moon eyes of his and you’ll be, like, ‘See you all later, I’m going to get laid!’”

  “Not this time,” Blake said, not even bothering to deny that’s how it usually worked. “This time, he needs to see me for who I am!”

  “’Cause you do such a good job of that? You’re the worst at seeing yourself for who you really are. Now just do us all a fucking favor and let him love you!” Kell sighed and set the doorknob on the counter. “Let us love you. What part of ‘you were young and alone and fucked-up’ do you think we don’t understand?”

  “Have you seen him?” Blake asked helplessly. “He’s so pretty… so young. He could be on a yacht, painting billionaires or something. He could be sleeping with royalty. What the hell is he doing with me?”

  Kell grimaced. “Well, do you want to sleep with royalty?”

  Blake thought about it. “Not really.”

  “Who do you want to sleep with?”

  Blake scrubbed his face with his palms. “Cheever.”

  “Go figure.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Yeah, well, fuck us both. I wouldn’t trade Briony in for an entire club full of bunnies. ’Cause when the tits and ass are over, what the fuck would I talk about with them? Briony, she’s my life.”

  Blake’s phone buzzed, and judging by the way he jumped, so did Kell’s. They checked their messages in the sudden silence in the bathroom, and Kell said, “Fuck me. I gotta talk to Trav. Who’s on your phone?”

  “Cheever,” Blake lied. “He’s got a flight.”

  “Awesome. Start packing. I’ll start hauling shit when I’m done with Trav.”

  Kell stormed out of the motel room—after snagging the doorknob—and left Blake staring at his phone.

  He didn’t recognize the number, but whoever her sources were, they were pretty fucking accurate.

  Just pay up, sugar, and I’ll hand over the film. I’m not trying to make your life hard, just need a little green to be flush.

  Needed a little green to feed her coke habit. Blake hadn’t picked up self-medication on the streets. No, he’d practiced it there and had gone o
n to perfect it in the hotel rooms on the road.

  He’d picked it up when he was a kid, watching his mother’s nose bleed over a frosted mirror. The last time she’d tried to contact Blake and ask for money, Trav had put a restraining order on her, and it had worked. Blake had been afraid of her, and she was never far from his mind. But when he didn’t hear from her for a long time, somehow, he’d managed to convince himself she’d passed away between then and now.

  The thought hadn’t troubled him much, honestly.

  He needed to put her off, though—at least until Trav made his announcement. Talking to my manager. He controls the cash. Will let you know tomorrow.

  I know where you’ll be.

  Well, it probably wasn’t hard to figure out. They had a sound check tomorrow morning at the Zoo Amphitheater (Outbreak Monkey—get it?) for one of the venue’s last concerts of the season. The concert was at seven, and they had a green room call at six. He and Kell were going to a nearby coffeehouse around one to hear a band that had been getting big in LA over the summer and had come home to roost. So, again, no big surprise.

  Not if I see you first. Not original, but it got the point across.

  Don’t you want to see me and catch up?

  I’m blocking this number now. Talk to Trav.

  God. God fucking dammit. But Kell was right in some ways. Blake deserved better than this. Deserved better than to have her as his past. He might, someday, deserve to have Cheever in his life.

  He might even deserve to have him now.

  Easy words, but they were harder to believe after sleeping in the bus all night and pulling into Portland feeling numb and cranky. The twins went on a coffee run, coming back to the Zoo Amphitheater with a jumbo-sized thermos of something that tasted exquisite but had enough caffeine to kick you in the balls. They also brought Voodoo Doughnuts, including the bacon maple one that Blake craved.

  Blake thanked them absent-mindedly and went back to making sure the equipment was online. They’d discovered that Nigel, their lead roadie this time around, wasn’t nearly as detail-oriented without Briony running around backstage.

  “That’s all we get?” Stevie asked, threatening to yank the bacon-maple bar out of his hand. “A thanks guys.”

  Blake purposefully keyed his expression down from “Fuck with me, I dare you,” to “You’re family, so I can’t eat you.”

  “I’m sorry, guys. I was distracted. It was real nice of you to go out for—”

  “Spare us,” Stevie said, letting go of the doughnut. “You need to calm down, you know that, right?”

  “I was expecting Trav to make the announcement last night. Why today? Kell and I have that scouting trip—”

  “Don’t worry. He’s called the reporters to meet us across the street from the coffeehouse—there’s a little park. It’ll happen right after the band plays,” Jefferson said, as bored as usual. “Just, you know, be in the now. We still gotta play a gig tonight.”

  Blake grunted. “Don’t I know it.”

  Mackey accepted no excuses, but then, neither did any of them. Music was the fucking thing. The only thing. Blake took a bite out of his doughnut and pulled himself into the present.

  There was no place else for him to be.

  THEY MANAGED a nap and a shower before their scouting trip, but there was no word on when Cheever’s flight got in.

  “What if he gets here while we’re onstage?” he asked. “She’s out there, Kell—I mean….” He shuddered. “I just don’t want her to talk to him, is all. Like she could—”

  “What?” Kell demanded. “What could she tell him you probably haven’t drawn in excruciating detail? You know something? When I was fifteen, I got a giant zit on my back.”

  “Ew. Gross.”

  “It hurt like a motherfucker. My mom had to pop that thing. It was disgusting. She almost threw up.”

  “Is there a point to this, Kellogg, ’cause you are straining the bonds of friendship right here.”

  “Yeah. Until this moment right here, not another soul knew about that, because my mother’s a decent person and would have let me erase that from my memory right there. That’s her fuckin’ job. The only dirt your mother’s got is the filth on her nicotine-stained fingers, you hear me? You been living right these past years. She can’t touch you. She can’t touch Cheever. She can’t fuckin’ touch us. So let’s go scout this band and hope they don’t suck, and then we’ll play the gig, ’cause every gig we play gets us one step closer to home. And I gotta tell you, I miss my wife, I miss my kids, and I can’t wait to settle down for a couple of years. You?”

  “Missing the fuck outta my fish,” Blake said, and Kell smirked.

  “Missing the fuck out of my brother’s big fish, that’s what you’re missing.”

  Jesus. “Please go back to mangling Shakespeare.”

  “Buddy, you wish. Now let’s go hear a baby band!”

  They walked out of the hotel with some speed on their heels, and Blake was surprised to find Mackey, Trav, Stevie, and Jefferson waiting to follow them when they got outside.

  “The hell?”

  “Shut up,” Mackey said companionably. “We’re not talking about this.”

  “About what?”

  “That’s the spirit. Trav says this place is known for baby bands and coffee. Please God, let there at least be coffee.”

  “Who are we listening to again?” Stevie asked.

  “Lasagna Kid,” Kell supplied, looking both ways and then leading across the street. Blake noted that their security force—a fiftyish, super-fit woman named Deborah and her son, Crane—had attached themselves at the intersection.

  “Do we, uh… need security?” Oh my God.

  “Press meeting afterward,” Trav told him crisply.

  Well, yeah, but security? This wasn’t right before a concert, or when they were trying to fight their way onto the bus after. This was, well, a coffee shop in Portland.

  “Overkill,” Blake muttered.

  “You’re the one who was worried about her coming to see you,” Kell muttered back.

  “Oh God. Yeah. Okay. I gotta remember Trav’s got it covered.”

  “Right?”

  He was unaccountably nervous.

  They got to the coffee shop, though, crowding around the table that the proprietor—a dapper, graying man in his fifties with a “Dad” smile—had reserved for them as gracefully as possible.

  “I didn’t know you all were coming until the last minute,” he apologized. “Our Saturday coffee hour is usually pretty full—I’m sorry.” He looked apologetically at the table next to him that had an extra chair and snagged it.

  “Me and Kell can go stand in the back,” Blake offered, embarrassed at the attention.

  “No, we can’t,” Kell said with uncharacteristic brusqueness. “Jefferson, you and Stevie—”

  “You’d have to pry us away with a crowbar,” Stevie said flatly. “Nope. Trav, can Deborah and Crane maybe…?”

  Trav rolled his eyes. “They can stand at the door with me. Mackey, you stay put, but save that seat.”

  Mackey did as ordered, sinking gratefully down into the surprisingly comfortable basic square-backed chair.

  “Yeah,” he said to the owner—his nametag said Callum and the place was called Callum’s, so the odds against him being the owner were nonexistent. “Sorry, we’ll smash. We know each other.”

  “Yessir,” the man said. “Who are you saving the seat for?”

  Mackey didn’t look up, which was telling in itself. “My mother. I reckon she’ll be here about the middle of the first set.”

  “Oh yeah—okay. I got it.”

  “We can’t stay for both sets, Mackey,” Blake said hurriedly. “Kell and I only promised—”

  “We’ll stay,” Mackey said mildly, and then, only then, did Blake get the feeling something else entirely was going on.

  Still, he was not prepared.

  Lasagna Kid was actually a really wonderful band for a coffeehouse. T
hey’d never play a coliseum, and they’d probably work best with a monetized YouTube channel rather than a big-time record contract, but Kell and Blake had some contacts for them to help them cut a decent CD at a bargain basement price and an agent who made a living on small bands, because the world needed all the music, not just the kind that played to stadium seating. They finished an enjoyable set, and Kell tapped Blake’s knee and stood to go over to them as they broke down their equipment. He was talking quietly to their front man—a stunningly gorgeous, androgynous person dressed in a crisp white dress shirt and black slacks—offering cards and a smile and a handshake and encouragement. At one point, the singer looked over at Blake and nodded. Kell looked at him and back, nodding too.

  Right then, Heather Sanders walked into the room, and Blake’s attention was called to the door in surprise as she greeted Deborah and Crane and then hugged Trav.

  “Your mom’s here,” he said out loud in general.

  “Yup.” Mackey didn’t move.

  “Wait—where’s Cheever? She must have come up with—”

  Three things happened at that exact moment.

  Heather came to sit down with them, putting her hand on Blake’s shoulder first and kissing his cheek warmly.

  Another woman—the same age as Heather but dressed in fuchsia-and-eggplant-colored leather, with spikes around the wrist and neck, and sporting far more bitter wrinkles—tried to get through the door, only to be turned away by security, who had apparently been briefed on Blake’s mother, including the last known photograph.

  And the lead singer for Lasagna Kid set a stool down in front of the mic and spoke to the rest of the coffeehouse.

  “We appreciate you all not leaving,” they said in a modulated voice between alto and tenor. “But maybe that’s because you saw our famous audience.” They led a round of applause, and Blake and the others all waved sheepishly. It was inevitable, but then that’s why they were here.

  “So, Outbreak Monkey came here to give unselfishly of their time, and we understand their newest member, Cheever Sanders, is here to give us a little show of his own. Everybody, welcome a one-man act, Cheever Sanders is Monkey Shines.”