Heartstrings (13 page)

E
very muscle
in Blake’s body felt tight and contracted. Tiny trembles wracked his shoulders and arms. Were it not for the sudden, careful hug that Cal swept him up inside, he might have lashed out and thrown the closest object across the room.

But he didn’t. Because Cal was there. Instead he just breathed in harsh, grating gasps against Cal’s chest.

Cal telling him that everything was going to be all right felt like a fucking joke. There was no
all right
anymore. The best Blake could hope for was a resolution that didn’t quite resemble full-on nuclear war. The worst part of it was that Rhett had stormed off in an ambiguous way. Was he taking Blake’s silence for a sign that he was still welcome in the Sinsationals? Or was he taking it as a sign that Blake had sided with Cal?

Truth be told, Blake’s silence didn’t stem from anything further than pure rage. He was so blindingly furious that he couldn’t force words out anymore.

The gentle stroke of Cal’s fingers down his back was all that kept him grounded. He clung to Cal as though his sturdy body was a lifeline, the only thing holding him in place.

“I’m sure what he’s trying to do isn’t as easy as he says it is,” Cal murmured into Blake’s ear, fingertips threading through his hair. “And if it is, we’ll come up with something.”

“It might not be easy, but it is possible. Rhett knows this shit inside and out. He wrote songs for other bands before we took him on. His publishing company owns the rights to most of the last two albums. He’s not bluffing.”

“I know he’s not.” Cal’s voice was calm and monotonous and quiet and all the things Blake wasn’t feeling right now.

“I haven’t felt this hopeless since you left,” Blake whispered. That confession slipped out almost without his consent, a breathed collection of syllables Blake never expected to hear aloud.

Cal went still against him. The room was silent save for the slow rhythm of their breath. Then Cal was stepping away from him, pulling back, and panic rose like bile in Blake’s throat. He didn’t mean anything by the statement. He knew Cal wasn’t going to abandon him again—

Rather than exploding in offense, Cal gently guided Blake toward the sofa. He sat down, then pulled Blake with him. Blake drifted like a man in a dream, pliant to Cal’s requests. He wanted to turn off his brain for a while, all the way down to his bodily autonomy. Even the act of keeping himself awake and alert and standing felt like a monumental task that he wasn’t sure he could fulfill.

Cal pulled Blake down and stretched the length of his body along the sofa, winding their limbs together. Blake nestled into the cottony warmth of Cal’s towel-wrapped torso, fingertips brushing the bare skin above, and normally the sensation would have been shiveringly erotic, but right now that was the furthest thing from his mind.

“Shh,” Cal whispered, holding Blake close. “Just let go for a while if you have to.”

“I want to.” Blake’s protest came out in a thin, tight voice. “But this is our future, Cal. The band. My life. Everything I’ve worked for. I have to fight for it.”

“Weren’t you just telling me hours ago about men in suits whose job it is to look after the band’s future?” Cal’s fingertips traced over the crest of Blake’s hipbone, over the fabric of his towel. “Let them do their job. If you don’t step back, you’re going to fall off the edge here.”

Blake exhaled. Then he inhaled. He focused on breathing, on the subtle thump of Cal’s heartbeat near his ear.

“I just don’t understand how it got so bad,” Blake said at last.

“I wasn’t here for all that, so don’t ask me. But unless time travel is a thing and nobody told me, it doesn’t matter anyway.”

Blake let out the faintest, most feathery hint of a laugh. Little by little, Cal was winding him down. The low rumble of Cal’s voice, the soft brush of his hands, the solid presence of him nearby—God, Blake had missed it all so much. How did he cope with anything at all after Cal left?

“You’re so good at this,” he whispered, lips brushing the soft skin over Cal’s collar bone. Cal twitched just a bit beneath his mouth. His arm slid tighter around Blake’s waist, anchoring him in place.

“It’s because I know you.”

“You really do.”

“Better than anyone else.”

“Yes.”

Even admitting such a tiny thing felt like it took more energy than Blake had left. He fell limp against the rock-hard planes of Cal’s body, letting himself go. Soft and noodly was how he
wanted
to feel. And, maybe later, soft and noodly and a little drunk.

But there was a gig between then and now. The idea of getting up on stage in his current state filled Blake with dread. He must have tensed against Cal reflexively, because Cal squeezed him one more time, murmuring another soft “shh” into his hair. Blake went still, obedient and quiet. Cal had a calming effect on him that nobody else could ever hope to match.

“You need to sleep before the show tonight,” Cal said, matter-of-factly. “Just sleep. I’ll be here.”

“Only if you sleep too,” Blake said, nudging one of Cal’s feet with one of his own. Cal let out a laugh that was mostly contained in his chest, then shifted slightly further onto his side, trapping Blake between the warmth of his body and the fabric of the couch.

“Deal,” Cal said. Blake nuzzled closer in against him, seeking the junction of Cal’s shoulder and neck. Once he found it, he breathed in once and let himself drift away.

C
al shelved
his concerns and stayed with Blake right up until the moment he, too, fell asleep. He woke not long after, jolted awake in the midst of some tense dream he couldn’t remember. Blake slept obliviously against him, snoring lightly into the crook of his shoulder.

They stayed that way as long as they could.

With minimal time to spare, Cal extricated himself from Blake, woke him gently by kissing his temple, a slow brush of lips over his hairline.

Preparing for the concert felt like bracing himself for war. He changed into his last clean pair of jeans and an old Denver Cutthroats shirt, the fish logo just about washed off the fabric. Once he’d changed, he loitered outside Blake’s room, just in case.

Rhett was nowhere to be seen.

They caught up with Erica, Jake, and Carlo in the lobby. Lily was already at the venue doing an interview for
Bitch
magazine. Who knew where Rhett had gone. Management and the other crew? Who knew. The fleet of vans that followed their buses from gig to gig had already begun carting their accoutrements to UNLV’s arena.

Jake’s face curled with a wince when he looked Blake over. The black eye Rhett had given him was a brightly-blossomed purple now, darker along the crest of his cheekbone.

“You sure you’re good?” he asked, studying Blake’s face.

“It looks worse than it feels,” Blake said. He sounded convincing enough that Cal believed him. Another concern Cal could tuck away for examination later.

They climbed into a van for the short drive to the venue. Nobody said a word. Cal watched out of a window, the strange spectacle of daytime Las Vegas entertaining him on the ride to the university. Everything on the Vegas strip looked so fake during the day. At night it was gorgeous, but with the shine and the sparkle missing, so many of the casino facades just looked... sad.

Cal’s tension untwisted somewhat when he didn’t see Rhett backstage anywhere. The group filed into catering at a languid pace. Their opening act was sound checking now, the sonorous trill of string instruments sounding through the arena’s halls. Was that a cello? Cal wasn’t familiar with all the local acts supporting them.

Prowling through the dressing rooms, he was taken aback by the sheer amount of
stuff
in them. Back in the day when he and Blake used to play for free drinks at their favorite bars and a scant handful of cash if they were lucky, a bottle of Jack Daniels and some Coke was about all that was on offer. The spread in the Sinsationals’ dressing rooms was, by contrast, ludicrous.

Cal stood there for some time trying to figure out what he even wanted to drink. Mixing himself a Jack and Coke seemed like a woeful under-utilization of the resources at hand. Even if that was all he really wanted to help settle his nerves.

In the end, he went to catering first and acquired a roast beef sandwich, then opted for beer. There were bottles of Alaskan Amber ale on offer, and the idea of drinking a beer imported all the way from Alaska just for his silly band was too much for Cal to pass up.

The beer was great. Crisp, refreshing, chilled to the perfect temperature. The sandwich wasn’t bad either. Pity the atmosphere backstage felt like the Parisian catacombs.

Everyone was on pins and needles waiting for Rhett. And he still hadn’t showed.

* * *

T
he Sinsationals went
through their sound check shortly after eating. Zak filled in on lead guitar again, Cal still playing rhythm. Afterward, Palmer pulled them all into the green room for a closed-doors meeting. Nobody sat.

“All right,” Blake said, first to break the silence. “Palmer and Patty already know this, but just so everyone else is clear: today Rhett broke into my hotel room and threatened to quit. He threatened to take his copyrights with him and leave us up shit creek. I called his bluff.”

Blake was leaving some things out, but that made sense to Cal. He folded his arms tightly, giving Blake the briefest of encouraging smiles. Blake deferred to Palmer, who stepped into the center of the gathered circle.

“Since Rhett’s almost two hours late for the second time this week, I am pulling weight and formally barring him from participating in this show. I hate to do it, but whatever feud he thinks he has percolating with Blake doesn’t matter in the scope of the band’s future and y’all’s mental health.”

Palmer took a deep breath, his barrel chest inflating.

“If Rhett shows up, I’ll handle him myself. None of you are to confront him or hopefully even interact with him. We’ve contacted the label in Nashville and let them know. If Rhett’s serious about getting lawyers involved, I want you all to know that I will fight for this band’s best interests.”

Great to see you take a stand, finally,
Cal thought, just a little bitter.

Palmer turned to fix a heavy look on Cal, almost as if he’d read Cal’s mind. But instead, he asked a question Cal hadn’t anticipated.

“How much lead guitar do you think you can handle tonight? Do you think between yourself and Zak, you can make this work? Be honest.”

Cal didn’t have to stop and think. He’d practiced a few of the riffs just in case. He didn’t know a lot of the Sinsationals’ last two albums, but the older stuff? It was burned into his brain forever. His hands couldn’t ever forget those melodies.

“We’ll make it work.” Cal spoke with the supreme confidence of a man well aware of his own abilities.

“Get some practice in before curtains if you like,” Palmer said. “There’s a booth in the basement, soundproof. You and Zak can have the run of it all the way up ’till the openers are done.”

Clearing his throat, Palmer stepped back to the room’s periphery. Blake spoke up one last time.

“Everybody. I’m sorry this has happened. I know things haven’t been easy with Rhett and I feel partially responsible for it. If anything I’ve done has aggravated any—”

Erica butted in.

“Blake, shut up. Everybody knows this isn’t your fault.”

Cal watched relief break across Blake’s features like dawn.

B
lake had never been so simultaneously
overwhelmed with gratitude and terror at once. It meant the world that his band was behind him. But the prospect of facing the crowd with their lineup incomplete? If he was being honest with himself, it terrified him.

Cal and Zak disappeared downstairs to practice. Blake knew this was necessary, but the unrestrained selfish id in him whined at the notion. He
needed
Cal. He felt as if he was losing his mind without Cal.

A frenetic bundle of nerves, Blake paced the darkened halls of the arena, desperate for something to do. When nothing presented itself, he wandered back to catering and had a third plate of potato salad. Then he chased it with a third Red Bull. Minutes later, his bladder gave him an excuse to get up and wander around again.

He found himself in the arena crew men’s room rather than the plush outfit inside the dressing room. Gray-painted cinder-block walls, exposed pipes in the ceiling, concrete floor. It kind of felt like pissing in a jail.

When Blake went to wash his hands, he turned the tap and immediately yelped, jumping back. A spindly-legged brown spider fell from the faucet into the sink’s basin, legs scrabbling madly. Once Blake’s initial surprise subsided, he peered downward.

The spider scrambled in a mad circle around the sink, little droplets of water clinging to its hairy legs. It spun around in circles in its panic, trying to escape the torrent from the tap.

Shit, it was drowning!

On pure instinct, Blake scooped a hand into the sink, trying to corral the spider with his fingers to ease it up and out of the spray. Its spiny legs brushed against his palm, but that sent the spider into another panic, bolting in the opposite direction.

Blake, being no arachnophobe, chased after it. But in its scramble to get away from him, the spider skittered into the flow of water, its legs losing traction, twitching and curling as it was carried around and around and then down the drain, all before Blake could intervene.

He didn’t realize there were tears in his eyes until the first one fell onto his cheek. Everything he’d poured his heart and soul into for the last five years was burning to the ground and he couldn’t even save a goddamn spider in a goddamn sink.

Worse, the more he thought about it, the more he identified with that spider than anything or anyone else. That desperate struggle, legs scrambling but finding no purchase, the tide carrying him away toward the inevitable...

He burst out of the bathroom on the verge of a full-blown panic attack.

* * *

W
hen Blake returned
to the green room, Cal was waiting for him. They had only minutes left.

The thing about Cal that never ceased to amaze Blake was his perceptive nature. Or maybe more accurately, he just knew Blake so well that he could read Blake’s face like an open book. Either way, Cal sensed his distress and immediately slung an arm around his shoulders.

To everyone else in the band, it was a familial bro-hug. To Blake, it was his tether to planet earth. He swallowed, trying to banish the tightness in his throat.

“All right,” Blake said. “We’re doing this. Anyone have any last words?”

“Yeah,” Carlo said. “Good luck, Zak. We’ve got your back.”

From her seat, Lily thumped the butt of her beer bottle against the table in agreement.

“Damn right,” Blake said.

Zak, the Sinsationals’ long-term guitar technician, just laughed. He was ten years older than almost anyone else in the band, a career professional. Blake had no doubts whatsoever in his capability.

“Didn’t you tour with Willie Nelson once?” Blake asked the question with a big, toothy grin.

Zak coughed and looked away, suddenly reticent. The back of his neck went red.

“Yeah, you modest son of a bitch. This guy toured with Willie Nelson. This shit’s a cakewalk to him.”

For the first time in as long as Blake could remember, the Sinsationals whooped and hollered and cat-called each other as they filed out toward the stage. And all despite the fact that a vital cog in their machine was missing.

* * *

T
he good news
was that Zak got through their first two songs flawlessly.

The bad news was that sooner or later, Blake was going to have to explain why Rhett was gone. Ripping off the Band-Aid nice and early seemed like a good way to do it.

“So, you may have noticed a couple new faces up on stage with us tonight,” he said. “But I want to correct that misconception, because neither of ’em are new. Cal here used to play with us back when we were a little outfit based out of Colorado Springs, then Denver. You might have heard of us. Keys To The Old Horse.”

A modest smattering of applause and cheers broke out in the front few rows, and then more further back. Blake squinted up into the darkened rafters of the arena.

“And this glorious ginger fella here, Zak Kenner, he’s been touring with us for four years now. Any time our guitars are actually in tune, you have him to thank.”

The cheer that broke out this time was larger. In Blake’s experience, everyone loved to cheer the unsung heroes of tour crew, so long as you prompted the audience to do it.

“Unfortunately, Rhett couldn’t be here tonight, so Zak and Cal are going to be walking you through the six-stringed portion of our narrative. Zak knows this stuff so well that he practically deserves a credit on our albums.” He paused for effect. “Cal, well. He tries.”

Blake shot a massive, shit-eating grin over toward Cal. The spotlight over him brightened a moment. Cal openly flipped Blake the bird, then laughed, his shoulders shuddering. Blake wanted to leap across the stage and kiss him until their faces went numb.

It was just like old times. Ribbing the shit out of each other on stage.

See?
Blake told himself, keeping the wolves in his mind at bay.
You can do this. You can do this.

They launched into “Choke,”
Zak on lead and Cal on rhythm, and, in Blake’s ear, it had never sounded better. Rhett could jump in a lake for all he cared. Somehow, whenever Blake and Cal played together, they managed to make it work.

A cunningly adjusted set list gave them some wiggle room, favoring older tunes just a hair more than usual. Cal had his time in the sun. He played like he’d never stopped. And Blake hoped with every ounce of himself that now that they were together again, now that they were under the same spotlights again, Cal would never again have reason to put down his guitar.

The next time Blake noticed the corners of his eyes welling with tears, it wasn’t from panic.