“What?” He yelped. “Oh, shit, I accidentally said…”
Ford tipped over, bending at the waist as he laughed at his younger brother. “You stepped in it now, little brother. Mom’s going to be beating your ass.”
“Ford Thomas Kendrick.”
Chevy laughed at both of his brothers. “She three named both of you,” he told them. “You might want to start running now.”
“That will just make it worse,” the little girl – who must have been Harley – said as she laughed at her siblings’ predicaments.
“You guys better remember the rules around here before I embarrass you in front of Chevy’s father,” Kendra threatened.
“Not to mention, you keep giving your mom a hard time and I’m going to step in and show you little shits some manners.” It was clear that the man meant it, but the mirth underneath the words wasn’t to be missed either. I had no doubt that he would help keep Kendra’s children in line, but he was also amused by their antics tonight.
“Damn,” one of them hissed under their breath.
“Seriously?” Kendra called out as she popped the back of Ford’s head, in a playful, albeit warning gesture.
It was all such a normal family interaction that it physically hurt to witness. I caught myself rubbing my hand over my chest, trying to massage away the ache that started to brew there. I never had this growing up. Neither did Kendra. It made me happy to see that she was able to give it to her children. To our son. But I was infinitely saddened and angered that I had been allowed no part in it because the heinous people we called our parents had deemed it so. My band’s manager was a part of that scenario that would soon be dealt with as well.
“Holy fuck!” Chevy yelled into the room, but to no one in particular.
“Chevy!” Kendra huffed, obviously exasperated with the language her boys used.
“Mom, stop. This is too much.” Chevy looked at me as he said the last. “This is a Byrdland,” his voice was full of awe and respect.
“1961,” I confirmed with a nod.
“I can’t. This is a lot. Too much. You can’t give this to me,” he mumbled, almost incoherently as his hand stroked over the natural finish.
“Is that really expensive?” Kendra asked, her voice shaky.
I simply shrugged my shoulders. “It’s just a nice guitar.”
Ford, Dakota, and Chevy all raised their eyes to level me with stares that said I was being absolutely ridiculous. “‘Just a nice guitar,’ he says,” Ford spat out as he looked on in awe of the work of art before him. “Can you just go ahead and adopt me too while you’re here?”
“Ford!” Kendra huffed. “You guys are going to make me regret the day.”
“Mom, I don’t think you understand,” Ford told her, a wistful look in his eyes as he admired his older brother’s guitar. It made me feel a tiny bit bad about the gift I’d brought for my son. It was obvious from what had been said at the cemetery that Hex was not the father of either of the other boys, which made me wonder what kind of dads they had if one was willing to sell his fealty to another man – a stranger – for a guitar gift.
“I had a birthday plus another 17 to make up for with that, but I won’t forget you guys when it’s your turn,” I told them. Kendra’s attention immediately shifted from her boys to me.
“You don’t have to…” she started to say.
I swatted her words away with a flippant gesture of my hand. “The kid’s right. If I hadn’t been so stupid and believed the lies everyone fed me when I was younger, he might have been mine too.” I winked at Ford then. “I gained one son this week, what’s a couple more in the mix?”
“Don’t let Andy hear you say that about his kid,” Hex laughed. I turned a curious eye toward him. “Dak’s father,” he elaborated. “Local sheriff and also another dipshit who couldn’t see what was right in front of him until it was too late.”
Jesus fuck. It was hard enough to swallow the pill that Kendra had a new man, though it was doable considering the amount of time that had passed. If Dak’s dad was different, that meant she’d had three different fathers for her boys, all of whom were apparently too stupid to hang on to the best woman on this earth before Hex came along and gave her the one girl she had. Instead of dwelling on that knowledge, I turned to Ford.
“Who,” I didn’t get to finish asking the question though before his eyes narrowed and he hissed out his father’s name with disdain.
“Mayor Brady Fucking Evans. My mom was good enough for him right up until he realized she was already a single mom and had Chevy in her life. When he left her with a parting gift, he didn’t much care since he had a son coming from the woman that he ended up marrying. Turns out he had been stringing them both along until he figured out which would serve him better in his future political aspirations.
What. The. Fuck. I turned to Kendra who simply shrugged her shoulder. “I had really bad luck for a few years there,” she admitted quietly.
“Until I came along and changed it,” Hex added with a big grin on his face. He wasn’t trying to flex in front of me that time though. His eyes and his words were all for Kendra and judging by the blush on her cheeks, they hit their mark. Damn if that didn’t hurt just a bit anyway.
I glanced away after that but didn’t miss the pitying looks the three boys threw my way. I guess my feelings had been written all over my face. “So, let’s hear a little something,” I called out.
“You want me to play? In front of you? Right now?” Chevy managed to get the words out, though each question came out more rapid-fire than the previous one. His hair was a little bit on the long side in the front and it flopped over into his eyes. It was the one thing he seemed to get from his mother rather than me. He had golden blond hair with lighter streaks from time spent out in the sun. His bright eyes were more green than blue, but still so light as to make me unsure. I’d have to move in closer to truly figure it out. The rest of him though, it was like looking at my much younger self in the mirror.
“If you have a spare,” I nodded to the wall where a few guitars were lined up, “I’ll play with you. Just name the song, and we’ll jam for a minute.
“Holy shit!” Ford coughed out again. “Jamming in our music room with THE Gabe North.”
“Just Gabe. And if you want to be accurate, it’s Gabe Northman.”
“How the hell did you luck out with the Viking, rock star dad and I got pansy-ass Mayor piss-his-pants as mine?”
“I’m sure there’s a story behind that name,” I laughed.
“Oh, there is,” Hex mentioned casually, though from the look on his face, I’d guess he was the reason the Mayor had been dubbed anything with piss and pants strung together.
“I still owe you for that one,” Ford told him before he handed me an older Gibson from the stand that had been nearest him. “Sorry, we don’t have anything fancy like you got Chev.”
I laughed. “I started out with my beautiful Betty Lou.”
“You really called your guitar that?”
“She was already named when I got her, but the sassy bitch that she was, I couldn’t change it and she never did me wrong.” I shrugged my shoulders again as I got comfortable sitting at the edge of their couch with the Gibson in my hands. “What are we playing, kid?”
“Simple Man,” he called out. I immediately turned to Kendra. It had been a favorite of hers.
“Good choice,” I told him as I started in a couple notes behind my son, who quickly became one with the guitar I got him, as if they were meant to belong to one another all along. At one point, I stopped playing along and just listened, taking in the tonal quality of his voice.
I thought he would sound just like me, but there was a cry to his voice that mine had never possessed and it would take him so much further in the music world as a result. Once the rest of the world got a listen, I had no doubts they’d never let him go. The idea both filled me pride and scared me shitless, because the music world I wanted so damn much that I e
nded up selling my soul, my love, and as it turned out, my kid for… it could be a rough fucking road to travel down and a fucking ridiculously lonely one at that.
As the final notes to the song dwindled into nothingness, Chevy glanced up and actually blushed a little bit when he noticed we were all just enthralled by his performance. “Upstaged on our first meeting, how about that?” I called out as I smiled at my son.
“Nah,” he tried to deny.
“You have something really special there, don’t ever talk yourself out of what you know deep down. That was phenomenal.” I glanced down at my watch then. “I actually have some friends in town that would love to jam with us later, if you’re up for a concert tonight. I can probably get everyone in to see them and backstage passes too.”
“No way! Are you talking about Fourth Down and The Infinite Everything?” Ford’s eyes didn’t know where to land as I answered. They kept bouncing back and forth between me, Kendra, and Chevy, damn near imploring everyone to allow him to tag along too.
“I am.”
“I’m going to jump right in before she gets any ideas,” Hex stated while glancing toward his daughter. The raven-haired beauty had been silently watching from over by the doorway instead of coming to join everyone. I noticed a camera in her hands as she stood there, but she never once aimed it at me directly, except when I first handed Chevy his gift. “You’re not going backstage at any concert until you’re older, baby girl.”
She rolled her eyes, obviously already anticipating that response. “It’s fine,” she huffed. “When my brothers make it big, I’ll be their tour photographer and I’ll have to be backstage anyway.” She stuck her tongue out at her dad and then got up and walked away.
I couldn’t help laughing because she reminded me of her mother when we were younger. I glanced over at Hex. “Good luck with that.”
He laughed. “She’ll be fine. Harley knows what’s good for her.”
“How about the rest of you?”
“I really think this should be something that Chevy gets to do with his father alone this time, guys.” Kendra addressed the other two boys. Disappointment weighted Ford’s shoulders down, but Dakota gave me a different kind of look. He seemed to have already been resigned to what Kendra was saying, but there was a warning to his glare as his eyes met mine. ‘Don’t hurt my brother.’ I’d bet anything that’s what he was trying to convey with the look.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said while still watching Dak. “Next time, I’ll have all of you boys tag along and we’ll make a whole day of it, if it’s okay with your mom.” I tacked the last on, remembering that she would have the final say on whatever happened in the future too. Chevy was mine, but the other boys weren’t. I couldn’t push for too much where they were concerned, even though I knew it would be important to Chevy that they were included too.
“It kind of sucks that you guys can’t come,” Chevy told his brothers.
“Nah, man. You two will probably be talking through all the good parts anyway, trying to get to know one another. It’s cool.” Ford answered him. “Next time though, we’re coming!”
“That’s the plan,” I told him.
~*~
Three hours later we were watching as the boys from the Fourth Down opened the show. “That’s going to be me one day,” he mentioned, but I didn’t think he meant for me to hear.
“I believe you,” I yelled back so he could hear me over the insane drum beat. Chevy smiled at me then, as if I’d just given him something far greater than the guitar that he received from me earlier. I’d given him hope. I knew what that felt like because I’d once allowed my vision to be clouded and my priorities and reality to be skewed just enough by someone’s belief in me and my gifts that I ended up losing out on something far more precious. My relationship with the woman I loved and the life I could have had with my son.
3 – Running on Empty
Three months. That was how long my son had been in my life. The scheduled stops I still had to make started to feel like a burden when I realized it would mean time away from getting to know not only Chevy, but the rest of his family. Since Chevy had finally graduated, and was free to do what he wanted, we made plans for him to come to New York since the band was heading into the studio for a bit.
I wanted for him to see what happened behind the scenes when we started laying down tracks. Selfishly, I also hoped I could convince him to play on one of the tracks with me. It wasn’t something that I broached with Chevy or his mother yet. It would mean that the rest of the world would look into who he was and there wouldn’t be any hiding that the boy was mine.
The first thing I did after leaving my son in Georgia, for the first venue I had to head to, was to contact my new lawyer and send him my contract with my manager. It was up for renewal in a year’s time, but I wanted out of it immediately. He assured me that due to the gross negligence and abuse of his position I wouldn’t have an issue making that happen. He also informed me that I had the right to sue for a monetary claim on the loss of time with my son. What the fuck would a number like that even look like? I had no clue, and no desire to do such a thing as it would drag my son through the mud the press would dredge up and I wasn’t willing to go there.
What really got my goat though was not being able to go pick my own son up from the airport. There were some places where I would be readily noticed though, no matter how well I tried to hide my identity, so there was no choice. I sent a trusted bodyguard to go pick Chevy up and he understand why the precautions were being taken. We had also had a Facetime sit down with Kendra and Hex about what they might expect when people put together who Chevy was to me, which was bound to happen since he favored me so heavily.
I tried to hire security for their family, for while Chevy was with me in New York, but they declined. Hex explained that it would most likely be friends of his that I would hire anyway, so it didn’t matter. As it turned out, he wasn’t wrong. We had been working with Redemption Inc. for concert security for a few years and they were owned and operated by a female motorcycle club. They were also associated with the Aces High Motorcycle Club, which as it turned out, was the club that Hex belonged to. They weren’t bad guys. I knew a few of them, and that made me a feel a little better.
Things smoothed out quickly once Chevy arrived. He had been introduced to both the band and the production team. We had started to lay down tracks on a song we actually cowrote together, and vocals would be added later in the week.
Chevy was on cloud nine because his girl was finally able to fly up to see him. As we had done with my son, someone from the security team would be picking her up and bringing her here though. Speculation had already begun about the fact that I had a son and that he’d been seen going in and out of the studio with me. We were scheduled to do a live morning news show the next day to officially announce things.
That was tomorrow though. “Hey, I’m headed down to go bring Opal in,” Chevy called out to me as I listened to the latest mix that had been done on one of the band’s newest songs.
“Careful, Chev. Take security with you, just in case. They’ve been getting pretty wild out there on the street the past couple of days.”
“I know. I’m taking Ray and Jericho down.”
“Don’t let Jeri hear you call him by his full name,” I admonished with a laugh. The minute he heard the older man’s full name he refused to call him Jeri like the rest of us. My son explained to the old roadie-turned-security man that he had too cool of a name for it to be shortened. That was the first time I saw the old geezer blush.
I nodded my head at Ray before they took off. He knew what to do and would keep my boy safe from harm. He’d also make sure Opal got the star treatment without getting hurt. It was good that my son would have a foothold in this world that I didn’t when I first started out. It came with trusted people who would have your back no matter what. That wasn’t always they case when we were and up and coming band.
My producer,
Mick Martins, and me sat there with the rest of the band going over what we had be recording or possibly re-recording tomorrow after mine and Chevy’s appearance on the morning news show. We got swept away with work for a bit before I glanced down at my watch and realized 45 minutes had gone by and Chevy had not made his way back up to the studio yet. I tried calling him. No answer. Then panic set in and I attempted to call Ray to no avail. About that time, Jeri came bounding in the room.
“We have to go, Gabe,” he shouted to me between heavy breaths.
“What the fuck is going on? Where’s my son?”
“Ambulance. We need to get you to the hospital.”
My heart stopped. “Where is my son?” I asked again.
“Come on man, I’m sure Jeri will fill us in on the way to the hospital,” John Dormier, my best friend and the band’s lead guitarist, said to me as he put an arm around my shoulder and started herding me out of the production room. “Take deep breaths, Gabe. He’s fine. Everything is going to be okay.”
“I just found him,” I whined, not even caring how it sounded. I couldn’t lose my boy now. I’d never forgive myself for inserting myself into his life if that happened. Hell, Kendra would never forgive, nor would anyone in their family. This could not be happening.
It took almost thirty minutes in traffic to get to the damn hospital. Once we were there, I had to get past hospital security and nosy nurses, which required me to call Chevy’s mother and let her know what happened too. Why? Because the staff new exactly who I was, and no one had ever heard that I had a son. One more day and the whole world would have found out through us, now it would be leaked by the end of the day amidst a tragic accident story.
“If I’m told one more fucking time that I can’t see my son or find out how he’s doing, I will fucking sue this entire hospital and…”
“Mr. North, if you could calm down and follow me, we received proof that you are indeed the patient’s father, and we’ll be more than happy to speak with you and then take you to see him. He’s being transferred into his own room as we speak.”
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