Paint It Black

by Amy Lane

Her skin had gone gray. “Humiliate him in front of his classmates and tell him his art has no passion?” she asked, self-recrimination in every syllable.

  “No, I fucking don’t!”

  She flinched from his voice and wiped her face with the back of her hand. “Where is he?” she asked, keeping her back straight. “I’d like to apologi—”

  Blake shook his head. “No. No. You want to apologize, fine. But the cuts in his wrist haven’t healed, and all it would take is one big pity party to blow a hole in his brain. You’re goddamned right some of this is yours to fix, but you’ll have to wait until he’s strong enough to talk to you again. Do you hear me?”

  She wiped her face again. “Believe it or not, I do,” she said, her voice rough. “I’m sorry, Mr. Manning—I wanted him to find his art. I didn’t expect him to break.”

  “We’re people, Professor,” he said, not sure how she knew his name. “We’re all broken inside a little. You step on us in the right places, we’re gonna fucking shatter.”

  “I’ve listened to your CD a thousand times,” she whispered. “I should know that by now, you know?”

  “You should—Mackey’s got a knack—”

  “Not just Outbreak Monkey,” she said, surprising him. “Your solo album. You know what they say about karma, how it’s a real bitch?”

  Blake stared at her. “Yeah.”

  “Trust me. She’s barking now. Excuse me. I need to….” She looked around Cheever’s room, then closed her eyes and shuddered. “I need to find a way to make this right.”

  Blake remembered something from his and Mackey’s stint in rehab. “A letter,” he said, throwing clothes into a suitcase again. “Those seem to be the thing to do.”

  “Sure.” And then she hurried away.

  IT TOOK him two trips to get Cheever’s stuff into the back of his truck, and when he was done, he moved on to Marcia’s rehab place, which was not anything like the place that had changed him and Mackey. This rehab was small and depressing and stank of cigarette smoke. The tile was chipped, and the inside felt more like a prison than a retreat.

  Blake looked around and felt grateful that when he’d done his bit, he’d been at the good place with Mackey, on Outbreak Monkey’s dime.

  Money. He’d found quickly that it couldn’t buy everything, but some of the stuff it could buy wasn’t bad.

  An orderly helped him gather her stuff, including a tablet and some books, and he got it into the back of the truck, rested his aching toe, and took stock.

  Between the two kids, it was such a pathetic reminder of home.

  He couldn’t go to Cheever’s mom and ask her for some mementos, and he wasn’t sure how Trav had managed to get ahold of Marcia’s parents, but he didn’t know them from Adam.

  He gnawed his lower lip for a moment and thought, and then pulled out his phone. Handy little computer here—it could give you the location of about any store you wanted between where you were and where you wanted to go.

  Trav called when he was in the middle of Target, getting adorable pajamas for Marcia instead of plain gray ones. At first, he thought he’d have to go to the kid’s section because she was so tiny, but it turned out they had tiny adorable pj’s for grown-up girls too. Blake had to wonder when the last time he’d actually been with a girl had been, because this was something he did not know.

  There he was, holding up some fluffy pajama pants with little banana people on them, trying to remember the last time he got laid, when his pocket buzzed.

  He picked it up and said, “September, last year.”

  “We were taking a break in the middle of the tour and you got laid. Twice.”

  Blink. “Oh my God, Trav? How in the hell would you even know what I was—”

  “Once by a girl and once by a boy,” Trav continued relentlessly. “The girl was sweet—we were rooting for her, until you brought the boy to the hotel room. He was amazingly hot, and the girls were rooting for him, but you left them both in Dublin, so nobody was happy. Why are you thinking about this?”

  “How did you even—”

  “How’s Cheever?” Trav asked, seemingly out of the blue.

  “He’s… he’s fragile,” Blake said, throwing the banana-people pajamas into the cart, along with a couple of T-shirts with Hello Kitty on them. And a pair of jeans with some flowers. That girl, in her gray pajamas, with her gray-and-beige clothes in rehab, sort of broke his heart.

  He moved on to men’s pajamas for Cheever, throwing in a couple of pairs of boxer-briefs for good measure.

  Superhero pj’s in fleece—score!

  On the other end of the line, Trav waited patiently.

  “What made you call?” Blake asked after a moment. “Is Mackey okay?”

  “He’s in pain and he’s worried. Same shit, different day. Is Cheever settled into the rehab center yet?”

  “Yeah.” Blake blew out a breath. “I don’t think drugs are really his problem,” he said after a moment. “He… I think they were a way out this once. He was trying to get high enough to….”

  He couldn’t even say it.

  “To follow through.” Trav spared him the dirty work, as he did so often for the boys. “I get it. What… do you know what’s eating at him?”

  Blake thought of those horrible, nauseating paintings. I haven’t been kissed as a grown-up. Considering that Marcia said he lived like a monk, it seemed odd that he thought he’d had that painful assault coming.

  But Blake didn’t want to say it. It was part of Cheever’s story. One thing Mackey had taught him had been respect for a person’s story.

  “I have an idea?” It came out as a question because it was really only something gut-level. “Not something I can share right now. But… but he doesn’t want me to leave him alone. Especially at night.”

  Trav sucked in a breath. “Shit. Are you okay with being his human woobie?”

  “Were you okay with being Mackey’s?” Blake retorted and fumbled the T-shirt he’d been grabbing with the Avengers on the front.

  Mackey and Trav had a very adult relationship now.

  The silence on the other end of the line was deafening.

  “You wanted to know how I knew that’s what you were thinking,” Trav said.

  “Yeah.”

  “You haven’t been with anyone for a long time.”

  “I figured that out.”

  “This kid’s looking at you like a hero.”

  Blake swallowed. “Doesn’t happen that often.”

  “You’re wondering if you’re responding to that or to the celibacy I just mentioned or to the fact that you’re suddenly intimate with someone, but not sexually.”

  Blake squeezed his eyes shut, remembering Trav and Mackey in the early days. “It’s like you’ve been here.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, you’ve been here?”

  “Yes, you’re responding to all of it. Now see, if this had come up with the brothers, they might have lost their minds. But it’s come up with me, and I know you wouldn’t do anything to hurt this family, and I’m not crazy like everybody else.”

  Blake smirked, glad Trav couldn’t see him. Sure, Trav claimed to not be crazy, but they’d all been there when Trav showed how protective he was over the guys. All the guys—Blake, Kell, the twins. Hell, even Shelia, Briony, all the kids.

  Trav was no one to fuck with, and that went double for his family.

  “Absolutely, sir,” he said, hoping he kept his voice in line.

  “Don’t be an asshole.” Trav let out a breath. “And I know that’s hard with this family, so I’ll go you one better. We will still love you even if you are an asshole. I know you wouldn’t deliberately hurt Cheever. Do what you have to, but make sure you’re both okay inside. How’s that?”

  “That sounds like I should keep my distance until he’s fixed up a little.”

  “It’s not always as easy as it sounds,” Trav said, sounding baffled. Blake took in the contents of his cart and grimaced.

&nbs
p; “No, sir, it is not.” He wasn’t putting any of this shit back. In fact, he was going to a nearby art store and getting more.

  “I’ll tell everyone to cool their jets.”

  “That is probably a good idea.”

  “You got three days to get him ready to see his mother. She’s almost hysterical.”

  Blake knew Heather, and knew that was probably true. “I’ll talk to her if you need—”

  “No. In fact, don’t answer any phone calls from her either. That woman’s been your mother for ten damned years. You think it’s going to be easy for you to tell her no? Even in Cheever’s best interest? Let me deal with the family. You take care of your end. What are you doing, anyway?”

  “Buying adorable pajamas, a fuck ton of Oreos, a sack full of paperback books, and some art.”

  Trav’s low chuckle was worth more to him than gold. “You’re a good brother and a good friend. Carry on, Blake.” His voice lowered. “Be easy on your own heart here, okay? Take it from someone who’s been there.”

  “Like you said, not as easy as it sounds.”

  Trav grunted and hung up, and Blake finished shopping. As care packages went, it wasn’t high-end and it wasn’t fancy, but he was going for comfort here.

  Besides, sleeping in Cheever’s room until Cheever could sleep by himself, this was as good as it got.

  THEY’D TAKEN off Cheever’s handcuff by the time Blake got back and had moved him to a double room with Marcia installed as his roommate.

  “Girls and boys happen a lot here?” he asked Doc Cambridge on his first of many trips in with boxes of crap. He struggled a little with the guitar because he was also carrying the box of books. Cambridge took pity on him and grabbed the guitar.

  “Not ever. But Cheever is gay, and they seem to have a rapport.” Cambridge grimaced. “And frankly, you caught us by surprise. We’re actually full up. I had to do some juggling to allow them both in.”

  “Well, I dropped by that other place where the girl was at. Better she have a room with Cheever here than her own room there.”

  “Believe it or not, I volunteer at other places. I wish all my patients could be here.”

  Blake heard the weariness and hoped the doc could take one more Sanders kid and his friend before he retired.

  “You’re a good guy,” he said ruminatively. “Wish more people in the world could be you.”

  Cambridge grunted. “I wish Cheever would talk. Right now, he and Marcia seem content to sit and watch movies on their phones.”

  Blake grinned. “No worries there, Doc. I’m bringing in shit that’ll have them bitching for days.”

  “STARRY NIGHT?” Cheever asked, looking at the cheap reproduction print. “Doesn’t everybody—”

  “Water Lilies?” Marcia was much less judgmental. “I love Monet!”

  “And Lautrec.” Apparently, Cheever approved of Lautrec. Good for him.

  “Chagall—ooh, I like!”

  Blake smiled at Marcia. She seemed easy to please.

  He’d pretty much bought one of each painting that looked famous and figured they could decorate their room like they wanted. He picked up one print—not someone famous—of a gaggle of kids at the ocean, and ran his finger along the beveled edge of the matting. This one he’d grabbed because it made him happy. He figured when Cheever and Marcia put it in the discard pile, he could put it up in his room somewhere.

  “Thank you, Mr. Manning!” Marcia threw herself into Blake’s arms, and he gave her a surprised hug. “Thank you! This—the pj’s and T-shirts—this is just so much… so much happier than the last place.” She looked shyly at Cheever. “I mean, I know it’s gonna sort of suck being here, but trust me, Cheever, putting this up will make us feel better.”

  “Seems like a shame to decorate for just a month,” Cheever said. But he was grabbing some of that mounting putty too, and dammit, the picture of the kids at the ocean that Blake had set down.

  “I wish I’d done it when I stayed here,” Blake admitted. “But me and the guys were so used to living on the road, in hotels at that point, bringing in our own stuff and making the place home didn’t even occur to us.”

  Cheever grunted and looked at the box of projects Blake had brought in last. “You can throw that shit away,” he said brutally, ignoring Marcia’s little gasp.

  “I will not,” Blake said, his voice mild. “You worked hard on that. If you don’t want it here, I’ll send it to the big house. You can go through it when you’re done here.”

  “That’s not where I live!” Cheever protested, because it was true—he stayed with his mother during vacations. But Blake was done with that noise.

  “It is now,” he said, not argumentative, just like that’s how it was. “Family’s staying out of your grill now, Cheever, but don’t expect that to last. In fact, I think it’s long past time. You’re gonna be with us in the big house until you remember whose kid you are.”

  “If my brothers wanted that much to do with me, they wouldn’t have left,” Cheever snapped, and then clapped his hand over his mouth like a guilty child.

  Blake’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh, now we’re getting somewhere.”

  “That was dumb,” Cheever mumbled. “That’s not what happened—”

  “But it’s what it felt like to you,” Blake said, hating the reason in his voice. “Be honest. You were a kid, your brothers were your world, and they left. Hell yes, it hurt. We didn’t say it shouldn’t. We asked that you not be an asshole about it, but being hurt is just fine.”

  “See? I’m fine!”

  Cheever had changed and showered once Blake brought clothes—directly into the new superhero pajamas. He’d needed help putting plastic around the bandages on his wrists, and at the moment, he looked like a sneeze would blow him through the window. He had bags under his eyes, a face almost shock white, and eyes that didn’t track.

  Blake just stared at him, until he sat down heavily on the bed behind him. “Maybe fine is an overstatement,” Cheever admitted.

  “Fine is a lie,” Blake said flatly. “And I don’t blame you for telling it—the family’s been buying that lie for eight goddamned years. But we’re not gonna swallow it anymore.” His pocket buzzed, and he grimaced, hitting Ignore without even looking to see who it was.

  “Mackey?” Cheever hazarded a guess.

  “Or Kell. Or your mom. Probably your mom. Trav said he could buy me three days, which means you got three days to figure out why you’re not fucking fine before I tell that woman where you are so she doesn’t gut me like a flounder.”

  Cheever scowled. “My mother loves you.”

  “Maybe.” She’d been the only real mother he’d ever had. He’d die for her. “But she loves you too, and right now, I’m the asshole who isn’t giving her info on her baby boy. I know you think you’ve been an island all these years, ‘baby boy,’ but you’ve been fooling yourself. You’re no more an island than I am an artist, so suck it up and sort out your shit.”

  They glared at each other, the tension in the air thick as dust, and then Marcia said, in a small voice, “You are too an artist, Mr. Manning. Me and Cheever listened to your solo album. It was real nice.”

  Blake closed his eyes. God, he kept trying to forget about putting his heart into that, and how the pitiful sales had made him feel like he’d let his brothers down. “Thanks, darlin’. That was a bad metaphor. Suffice it to say no man’s an island, and neither is Cheever. How’s that?”

  “That’s true,” she said, considering. “Islands get drowned and covered by the sea.”

  Blake managed a small smile her way. “You and Mackey need to talk. He likes poetry too.” He shifted to Cheever. “But did you hear that? You’re not a fucking island. You’re going to need to talk to her.”

  Cheever looked away.

  “Just talk to somebody,” Blake said softly. “Someone, baby boy.” Cheever wasn’t a baby—Blake hadn’t been seeing him that way. But the endearment gave him power somehow, like he could pretend t
o be old enough or wise enough to tell this man what to do. “They left because they had to. Because they wanted to get their whole family out. They didn’t get you out in time. That’s not on them, but it doesn’t mean you don’t got scars.”

  “How would you know that?” Cheever asked sullenly, and Blake’s bitter laughter surprised them all.

  “Because I saw your fucking art, Cheever. Because I knew you eight years ago—not well, but you were going through something. The boys were going through something too. I wasn’t your person then. I am now.”

  “Maybe it’s too late,” Cheever said, and he was trying to be spiteful, but what came out was pathetic. “Maybe I’m just broken. Nothing can fix me. Might as well bleed out.”

  “You ain’t even fuckin’ tried!” Blake screamed, the sound so raw that if his throat didn’t suddenly ache, he wouldn’t have been sure he made it.

  Cheever and Marcia both stared at him, and Marcia made a little “buh-bye” wave before scurrying out of the room.

  Blake found himself kneeling before Cheever as he sat on the bed. Cheever’s enormous eyes were bright and shiny and filling with tears. Without even thinking about it, Blake took Cheever’s hands in his, and realized his own hands were clammy and shaking.

  “Boy, you don’t know it, but you really are still a baby. You’re amazingly fucking young. Don’t write off the rest of your life like that, okay? There’s some stunning, gorgeous moments waiting for you. Don’t make a plan that’ll make you miss out on them.”

  Cheever swallowed and nodded, looking away like he always did, redirecting whatever roil was beating his heart to pulp under that cool reserve.

  It would never fool Blake again.

  “Look at me!” Blake demanded. “You fucking look at me, Cheever Justin Sanders. You ain’t even tried yet. How do you know you can’t fix what’s broken if you ain’t tried? And nothing fixes without scars—you hear me? You think my insides aren’t a mass of scars trying to make way for the good parts of me? But you won’t know if you can heal if you can’t take off the old bad patches on the wound and clean it out!”

  Cheever nodded, and turned his head to wipe his face on his shoulder.