Love Will

  “No,” I tell her adamantly.

  “But I bet Tavo a blow job that you’d let me.” In my peripheral vision, I now see our drummer wildly nodding his head at me.

  “You what?” She frowns. “If you bet him that I know you’re too wasted for me. Absolutely not.”

  “So you’re gonna make me do it to him?” she asks me.

  “I’m not making you do anything,” I try to explain, looking across the room at Tavo just as he lets out a loud burp. “I didn’t make that inane bet. You did. And look. I mean, the mechanics are the same: two balls, one shaft. Once you get down there–”

  “He smells.”

  “Well… yeah, he doesn’t shower as often as the rest of us, but he says his sweat glands don’t produce as much perspiration… even though we all know they do… damn it, Julia,” I say, put out with her. She starts undoing my shorts and pushes my back into the wooden railing of the bunk. “No! Get away. Get over there,” I tell her, practically pushing her myself as I point to her friends. She finally goes to join them. “Tavo, come here!”

  “Yeah?” He rubs his hands together as he walks over to me. “I don’t mind your sloppy seconds, dude.”

  “What a completely asinine thing to say, first of all. Secondly, you don’t want head off a bet, Tav. Seriously.”

  “You’re fucking with me, right? You take head any way you can get it.”

  It’s literally hard for me to argue with that. “I know, but–no, Tavo, no.”

  “It was her idea.”

  “She’s a little past three sheets, man. Five sheets to the wind. It’s likely to activate her gag reflex anyway, and then you’ve got a serious mess on your hands.”

  “Worth the risk.”

  Reason doesn’t seem to be working this late at night–or early in the morning. “Man, you’re taking advantage of a drunk girl,” I whisper to him. “It’s not cool with me. And you’re not gonna do it in front of me.”

  “We were going to their limo…”

  “You know what I mean, Tav. I’m not shittin’ around. She hasn’t said no to you yet, but she will. I’m trying to save your pride and keep you from getting into a bad situation. She doesn’t want to.”

  “She told you that?”

  “Yeah. That’s why you don’t want head off a bet. You gotta work your way there. Start with a little romance. Kissing. Making out. Saying nice things to her. Giving her something she wants. The easiest way to get a ‘no’ out of a girl is to only offer her what’s likely to be pretty high up on her list of Most Repulsive Things To Do With a Guy.”

  “Fuck. I fucked this up.”

  “First, I shouldn’t be imparting my wisdom on a guy with a girl back home. Secondly, you should’ve broken up with her before we left because it’s never gonna last. Third, I’m just gonna pretend like you did, so live and learn, man. I’m here to teach. Where was Damon in all of this? He should have warned you.”

  “Limo.”

  “Oh. He started with kissing, right?” Tavo nods. “We know what we’re doing. Live and learn.”

  Chapter 4

  After two weeks of being on tour, I’m finally starting to get used to the schedule. My days and nights were so mixed up that I kept missing opportunities to call home, which was something that needed to be done. I’d spoken to Max many times, because I knew I could call him late without worrying about waking anyone. My youngest brother was doing well. He and Callen were getting along, going on dates in public, and Max couldn’t have been happier about it. His excitement made me want to be in love. The energy he put off invigorated me, and made me want to try harder to stay away from all the temporary temptations, the one-night stands that were always available to me.

  For two weeks, I’ve succeeded. Like, I can actually call it a success. I haven’t so much as kissed a girl. Fuck, I want to. All the time, I want to. When I’m on stage, I still number the girls in my head as I play. I pick out the ones I’d want to take home with me if I was back in New York. There’s no follow-through, though. Ben doesn’t ask. Damon doesn’t push the issue. I don’t pursue.

  After every show, Peron and I grab a bite to eat, and then we write. Damon and Tavo normally stay at the venue, either in the green room, if they have one, or at the bar. By about three in the morning, I’m at least trying to sleep soundly. Peron has me listening to different new age music mixes in an attempt to shut down my overactive brain, but nothing has worked quite yet. Once I doze off, there’s no rest. I wake up feeling drained. Often out of breath. Thinking about something. I keep a notepad next to my pillow and write down whatever it was I had on my mind. It’s normally related to space or stars or black holes or quasars or dark matter or something mysterious that we just haven’t figured out yet. I can leave the job behind, but it’ll never leave me. Sometimes it’s just math. Normally a problem I can’t solve in my dream, but when I wake up, it’s something easy. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been dreaming more about melodies and harmonies and hooks and solos. Now I have to keep staff paper near me, too.

  Caffeine is a must for survival, but I also started taking some energy supplements, too. And I try to run every morning. That helps. It’d be great if I could get someone to run with me, but Damon’s the only other athletic type on this bus, and he won’t get up before noon most days.

  After my shower, I decide to get out and explore Athens a little. The birthplace of R.E.M. Just a twenty-minute walk from our stop is the site of the famous steeple from the church where they played their first show. It’s not on a church anymore, but at a place that supports musicians. The steeple itself was renovated, and is supposed to be surrounded by a garden and reflection area now, so it sounds like a pretty cool place to go.

  After following the directions on my phone, I easily find the landmark and take a few pictures before sitting down on a bench and enjoying the silence. I’m the only one here on a Monday morning. Probably too early for most musicians after a long weekend. It’s Labor Day.

  Labor Day. Which means Jon’s not working today. The thought of him makes me angry all over again. I pull out my phone and dial his cell. My legs bounce as I wait for him to answer.

  I start in as soon as he picks up. “Jon, it’s Will, and I–”

  “No, it’s Livvy.” The tension leaves my body immediately. “Jon’s rocking Edie to sleep right now, but I didn’t want him to miss your call because I know it’s important.”

  “Did Jon tell you to answer, or did you just answer?” I ask her.

  “He didn’t know the phone rang. He would have told me to, though, Will. He knows it’s important. He wants to talk to you.”

  “If he did, he would have called me,” I argue with her.

  “He was giving you time,” she explains.

  “He should have called me that night,” I say to her. “The night I left.”

  “I don’t disagree… but I’d told him you were busy writing when I left you on the bus, Will. You were… plus,” she says, then hesitates, “he was kind of preoccupied, and you can take that however you want.” She says the last part hurriedly, as if she really didn’t want me to understand her, but I did. I understood her words and her meaning. They were fooling around at the McNare mansion.

  “Oh, really? Hmmm…” I say, teasing her.

  “Oh, stop it, Will. I thought you didn’t think of me like that anymore since we got married.”

  My heart stops. “He told you about that?” I knew that conversation would come back to haunt me.

  A few weeks ago, Jon had taken me, Max and Livvy’s brother, Trey, out for ‘brother’s night.’ Somehow we got on the topic of seeing Livvy naked. Years ago, Max and Trey had accidentally walked in on her when she was getting dressed. She and my brother were newly engaged at the time–they were engaged for eight years. When Max came home, he wouldn’t stop giggling about something. I finally got him alone and got him to talk. I already thought my brother’s fiancée was hot. I won’t lie, I’d had fantasies about her before, but what hot-blood
ed teenage guy in New York hadn’t? She was front-page news and drop-dead gorgeous.

  Max was excellent with descriptors. Although he’d only seen her for a few seconds, he talked about curves and breasts (although he didn’t call them that) and other hair (which shocked my young brother). I made the mistake of telling Jon on brother’s night that I’d crushed on his wife before they were married.

  “He tells me everything,” Livvy says smugly.

  “Well, I lied to Jon,” I tell her honestly. “You know, just because you’re my sister-in-law, that doesn’t make you any less attractive to me. I’m still a man and you’re still attractive. So in the future, don’t tell me when you and my brother get it on. It puts images in my head you don’t want there.”

  “Will?”

  “Jon?” I have no idea how much of my admission my brother heard, so my lungs just wait to breathe until he says something else.

  “How are you?”

  “I’m uh… good,” I say, exhaling away from the mic. Dodged that one. I wonder how much Livvy heard, though. “You?”

  “I’m glad you called.”

  “Yeah, about that.”

  “I was going to call you–”

  “Don’t start with that, Jon. Don’t start with a lie. You’re better than that.”

  “But I was,” he continues. “I didn’t know if you’d want to hear from me after everything I said to you.”

  “If it was an apology, yeah, I’d want to hear from you.”

  “Then I should have called.” I wait for him to continue. “I’m so sorry, kid.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Will. I’m so sorry, Will. You have to know what’s best for you. I don’t know that. For so long, growing up, you and I were so much alike. When I moved back to the States earlier this year and was faced with… with twenty-four-year-old Will, I didn’t know what to think. All I could think was you weren’t like me anymore, and I had to get you back on track.

  “It never occurred to me that we were meant to veer off on different paths. That we had similar interests but we weren’t really ‘so much alike.’ I never bothered to look for differences between us. Differences divide people. I was always struggling to keep our family together.”

  “The way you live your life isn’t the only way to live, Jon,” I tell him.

  “I know that. That’s what I’m trying to say. Come on, man. Max has opened my eyes to that. He’s already mapping out a whole new life for himself. Unchartered territory, and I’m excited for him.”

  “It’s not so different from your life,” I tell him. “Kid falls in love with wealthy socialite at sixteen. Sounds very similar, actually.”

  “Right now, sure, but the future won’t be… traditional, that’s all I’m saying. If they want kids, it’s not as easy as making love and having a baby. There’s paperwork and choosing the right genetic donor or child… that’s different. And bigoted people will always be a part of this world, making problems for them. Did you know someone actually went and vandalized Mom’s house and the McNare’s gate on Saturday night?”

  “No… what’d they do?

  “Spray-painted the word ‘QUEERS’ in rainbow colors.”

  “On Mom’s house?”

  “Yeah. And the white gate outside the McNare estate.”

  “That sucks.”

  “Jack, Matty, Nolan and I went and painted the house yesterday and installed some lights and cameras. That landlord of hers is the worst. He said he couldn’t send a painter out for three weeks.”

  “Well, good. Thanks. How’d Max handle it?”

  “He took a selfie with it in the background and posted it on all his social media sites. You know, doing a thumbs-up sign.”

  I start laughing. “Sounds like Max.”

  “Yeah,” Jon laughs, too. “That stuff doesn’t get to him.”

  “And Callen?”

  “He’s annoyed, but fine. His dad has cameras, though, and the police are looking for the vandals. He’s going to press charges.”

  “Good for him.”

  “Anyway. We kind of got off-topic. I know we’re different people, Will. I know the way things played out in your life shaped you differently than the way I turned out, and that’s cool. I don’t want a clone for a brother. The way your mind works, Will? It’s like mine on steroids. And your discipline, too, has always been much greater than mine. You’ve always pushed yourself so hard that… that I understand the need for balance. For a… release.” I can hear him swallow. “I just wish–”

  “Let’s just stop there,” I suggest.

  “All right,” he agrees. “This reminds me of the Newton’s Law conversation we had in Utah. Do you remember that?”

  “Of course I do. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. You were equating it to love, though.”

  “Yeah, I was. Now, though, I just see you getting wound up so tightly in your work and your other scientific pursuits that it just takes an extraordinary effort to get you to unwind. And it honestly doesn’t seem like you’ve found what does it completely yet.”

  I’ve never put it into words so succinctly myself, but that’s exactly it. “Yeah.”

  “And that’s what you’re trying to do now?”

  “Yeah,” I tell him.

  “Music gets you part of the way there…”

  “Most nights.”

  “And sex takes you further,” he suggests.

  “Pretty much.”

  “And then you get up and you wind yourself back up again the next day. I can see how this has become cyclical for you. It’s clear as day now.”

  “That’s great,” I tell him, feeling myself start to tear up a little. “Now why couldn’t you try to do that weeks ago?”

  “I don’t know. Can’t you just cut me a little slack and be happy I’m figuring it out now?”

  A singing bird catches my ear and draws my eyes up to the tip of the steeple. “I can try.”

  “I appreciate that.” I continue to watch the bird. “Did you make it to Athens okay?”

  I smile, realizing he’s keeping up with my tour. “Yeah, we got in at about eleven last night.”

  “Have you done anything cool there yet? I guess it’s still early.”

  “I went for a run, and I’m sitting in front of a musically-historic steeple right now. Matty’d probably blow a load if he knew where I was.”

  “That is not an image I wanted to think about this early on a Monday morning, but thanks,” my brother says to me.

  “No? Don’t like thinking about Matty in a sexual capacity? What’s the matter, Jon?” I taunt him.

  “What’s this steeple?” he moves the conversation along.

  “Just tell him when you see him it’s the steeple from St. Mary’s in Athens. He’ll know its significance. And I got pictures.”

  “Will do.”

  “So when you see Matty, just think steeple. It’s kind of an erect structure-”

  “Damn it, Will!”

  “Oh, you’re an architect. You know all about that.”

  He starts laughing. “When’d you get to be funny?”

  “I’ve always been funny. I was just always too busy trying to be smarter than you to show you my humorous side.”

  “You didn’t need to try. You were. Are.”

  “I know that now.”

  “Yeah. Hey, uh… I was going to wait to bring this up, but I need you to start thinking about it, at least. I don’t know if Max talked to you yet, but he came to me the other day with a legal issue.”

  “Legal issue?” I ask him, going over the conversations I’d had with my baby brother over the past few weeks. “No, no legal issues have been brought up.”

  “He wants to change his name.”

  “What? To what? If ever a kid has fit the name Max, it’s that kid. He’s as Max as they get.”

  “His last name.”

  “Oh,” I say, feeling my stomach drop. Max and I are the only two in our family with th
at last name. We inherited it from the asshole. He was insistent on having it put on my birth certificate. His criminal history made him an intimidating figure to my mother, and when I was born, she was so guilt-ridden about their relationship that she would do–and did–anything he told her to.

  When Max came along eight years later, it just made sense to keep our last names the same since we had the same biological parents. “To what?”

  “Scott.” I smile. Of course he’d want Jon’s last name. And Mom’s. That, too, makes sense. “I’m consulting a lawyer and getting the process started for Max. The law says your dad has to give consent in writing since he’s a minor.”

  “Good luck getting that. He won’t talk to Max.”

  “I’m hoping he’ll talk to Mom. You don’t think he’ll have a problem with the name change thing, do you?”

  “He disowned us both,” I tell Jon. “I would think it would make him happy.”

  “That’s what we were thinking.”

  “Good, yeah. I think it’s a good idea, then.” Max Scott. Sounds weird. “Oh, fuck,” I say laughing. “We just got our little brother a genuine nickname: Mascot is born.”

  “Oh, no,” Jon laughs with me. “I knew something sounded familiar about it when I said it… Mascot. No, I like that.”

  “I think I like it better than Max,” I tell him.

  “Yeah,” he agrees, still chuckling. “It’s cute.”

  “Totally fits him.”

  “Absolutely.” I’m proud of Max for taking this step. He should disassociate with the asshole, and sever all ties. I probably should, too. “So, ummm… what about you?” he asks, interpreting my silence like some creepy psychic… one who’s known me all my life, and now that he’s taken some time to step outside his bubble and see me for who I am, probably knows me better than anyone.

  “What shitty nickname does my combination make?” I ask him.

  “If your name was Wayne, you might have a problem, but Will does nothing for us. Will Scott. It just makes you sound more like my brother. That’s it and that’s all.”

  “Yeah, you’ve thought this through, haven’t you?”

  “Little bit, yeah.”