Out of the Blues (19 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

Mason and the clefs of insanity.

I could feel every eye in the ballroom on me, but one gaze seemed to bore a hole in me.
His
. I could feel Kilby’s eyes on me. I could see him, back at the back near the exit. He should be up at the front table with the wedding party, but he wasn’t.

I was nervous because of him. I’d written a fucking love song and I couldn’t stop thinking about him when I put the words down on paper. It was meant for my sister. I tried to make it as non-sexual as possible, but I couldn’t stop watching Kilby for his response when I sang it.

He sat quietly, drinking a glass of clear liquid. He seemed much like he had the other night at the bar, like he was on the verge of panic. I could tell the crowd of people was getting to him. Hunter had commented on his dislike of being trapped. Hunter was worried about him. He’d grown sullen as the day had dragged on and the interminable photo session had taken its toll on him. Not just him. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I didn’t have time to find him. I was shanghaied by my mother to go meet relatives and Doug tried to pull me aside and by the time I escaped my father I couldn’t find him.

I had no idea why I needed to find him.

Maybe because I’d seen so little of him since the night before when we sat out beside the fire-pit with the slobber monster.

I finished the song and looked up at my sister. When I looked back, he was gone.

I took my time packing up my guitar and I had to thank Kenny and Tyler for helping me on such short notice. God, I missed those guys. I’d never had close friends before them. I didn’t have any now.

I wondered what they would think if they knew I’d spent the last few days fucking a man.

I was forced to dance with my mother. Then my sister.

I had my guitar sent up to my room. I just wanted to get away and get something to drink and maybe some food…and to find him.

“He’s outside on the back deck,” Harper whispered to me as she kissed my cheek when our first dance came to an end.

“I wasn’t…” I tried to pretend I didn’t know what she meant, but she wouldn’t let me. She stepped on my foot and grinned that grin that told me I’d been busted lying.

“That song was for him,” she said and I didn’t want to have her heel dig into my foot again so I didn’t say anything. “Just pretend for a moment that you might be feeling something and go talk to him.”

“I’m not…” and the heel connected with my toe through my shoe.

“You don’t have to be, gay, to feel something for him…it’s fine, Mason, you can be bi or curious, no one is going to condemn you. Even Ethel thinks you make a cute couple,” she argued quietly, looking around at the relatives dancing to the slow song the dude on the stage was butchering.

“Except Doug,” I said because we both knew he’d blow a gasket.

“Well, Doug’s an asshole,” she agreed. “But you never gave a shit about what he thought about anything else. Hell, you just pretty much told everybody we know that Cody was your father. Why does it matter what he thinks if you don’t even think of him as your dad.”

“But I do.” I closed my eyes and tried not to let every little slight, or criticism from him come back to haunt me. “He loves those boys and he never gave a shit about me and it…makes me crazy, Harper. I’m fucking jealous of those little bastards.”

She nodded. “I know. You shouldn’t be…but…I’m…Cody was there and Doug wasn’t and when he was it was…strained. I love him, he’s my dad, you know…but he…he’s not Cody.”

“No, he’s not Cody. And that pisses him off. He pushed us away and another man stepped in to take his place and he can’t get over it. And I can’t get over…Cody loved me, Harper, Doug never did. It shouldn’t be that way and I hate them both for it. They both fucking left. They left when I needed them and I can’t forgive either of them for that.”

And that’s when it hit me. I was angry. I wasn’t grieving. I was angry and I’d been angry most of my life. Coming back here brought all of that up again. I was happy in California. I was happy.

“Then don’t forgive them, but Mason, you need to forgive yourself and you need to…”

I sighed and she stopped because there wasn’t anything she could tell me that I didn’t already know. “I love you, Harpie. I love the baby you have growing inside you. You’re mine, she’ll be mine, too. No matter what else, I will always be here for you.”

She hugged me and leaned her head on my shoulder as the second song ended. “Except you’re not here, not really. You’re just like our fathers. You left and you never came back.”

She left me standing on the dance floor. I felt the stab through my heart. I
had
left. She’d gone to school and she’d come back. I ran away and I never came back.

I avoided the aunt who was zeroing in on me and headed for the bar. I needed something hard to drink. I needed to get shitfaced. I needed…to not have to deal with my mother. I grabbed a glass of champagne off a tray and headed outside. I needed to cool down before I had to face any other unpleasant truths about myself.

I could feel him. I didn’t need to see him to know he was out here on the deck. I could fucking
feel
him.

He stood in the shadows outside on the far end of the deck well away from the windows, but not so far away that I couldn’t hear the music. I don’t know why I gravitated to him, but I did.

He leaned against the railing, I could see his face in the moonlight. “What do you do, Mason? Out in California.” He sounded sad. I wanted to…what? Wrap him in my arms and tell him everything was going to be fine?

I leaned on the railing beside him and sipped my drink. My throat hurt from singing. My fingers ached from the strings. I’d lost my calluses from years of not playing.

“I’m a lawyer,” I answered. “Or if you prefer I have a law degree and I passed the bar, but I’ve yet to do much more than clerk work because I don’t know if I want to be a lawyer.”

He was silent for a while, I could tell he was watching me. I could feel his disquiet. I wished he’d smile or, hell, I wished he’d do something…take me by the hand and lead me upstairs where we would undress each other and…

“Why don’t you play?”

I had to stop my brain from following the undressing fantasy to some conclusion. “What?”

“You are very talented. You have to know that. Maybe even more so than Cody Gillette ever was. You have a beautiful voice. Why don’t you…” I could see him shrug when words failed him.

Why didn’t I? “It’s not where my interests lie. That was Cody’s dream. I learned to play guitar to make him happy.”

“Where do your interests lie? What are your dreams?”

“I…” I tried to think back to when I was young and innocent and remember what I wanted to be when I grew up. I couldn’t find a single memory of what I thought my life would be like now, what I wanted my life to be like. “I don’t have…a dream.”

He made a sound between a grunt and a laugh. “I’ve always been a Marine. That was what I thought I’d be doing until I was too old…or didn’t come home again. I never wanted to go to school. I never wanted to be a lawyer or a doctor, or a football player. I had no dreams. I was a farm kid. I loved guns and when it came time, I chose the military over farming and school. I have no regrets. But you…you aren’t a lawyer. Because you don’t want to be a lawyer.”

I wasn’t following him. “I’m a rich kid who had everything handed to me, even an education. I went into law because it wouldn’t take as long as medical school. I was mediocre. I passed enough to make it through and…” It was my turn to shrug. I didn’t want to hear about how I was a disappointment. I heard that enough from Arden not two hours ago. I’d hear it from Doug whenever he finally caught up with me. I wouldn’t have heard it from Cody because Cody liked to sit around doing nothing but smoking pot and writing songs he never intended to sing. At least I gave up pot. “I have so much money that I never have to work. Is that what you want to hear? That I’m a disappointment…because I just don’t fucking care about making more money.”

“No.” He stepped toward me, he seemed to loom over me even as he looked up into my eyes. He seemed so much larger than me, and like that day back at Starbucks when he sat across from me to chew me out for cutting him off, I wanted to step back and move away from him. I was afraid of him, but in awe of him. And I still didn’t know anything more about him than I did that first day.

“Then what do you want from me?” I could hear the petulance in my own voice. I was pathetic and I hated myself for letting him know how pathetic I was.

“Dance with me,” he said, surprising me. He was in front of me, I couldn’t make out his eyes. His nose came up even with my mouth. I stepped closer and leaned my head onto his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around my waist and I clutched at his upper arms. We didn’t dance. Not really. We swayed together to the music in the dark. We were silent. I could hear him swallow.

The music changed to a slow song and he pulled me closer. I nuzzled his neck. “You smell so good,” I heard myself say. I could feel my heart pounding. I wanted this to last forever. I wanted him. He turned and our mouths touched. This kiss wasn’t like the others. There was no urgency. He simply kissed me and I kissed him back, soft nibbling kisses on closed lips. His breath was sweet like breath mints. I couldn’t smell any alcohol. I don’t know where I dropped my glass. We turned in the dark, his feet shifting between mine as we moved to the music and kissed.

“Mason,” he breathed my name and I felt my skin prickle. “I’m falling for you.”

My heartbeat went crazy. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I wanted. No, I didn’t want. I tried not to…but I did…panic…this was panic. He’d said the words that were in my head. He’d said them. I looked up to find my father watching us from a doorway. I was dancing with a man…and falling in love…and… “I can’t.” I heard the words tumble out of my mouth. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I could barely speak. “I can’t, I’m sorry, I can’t.”

He caught my hand and looked up into my eyes. We’d danced our way into the light coming from the ballroom windows. I could see the pain in his beautiful eyes. “I know,” he said and he let me go.

I stumbled once and without looking back I ran. I fucking ran and I didn’t stop running until I hit the Florida state line. I didn’t even say goodbye to my sister. I couldn’t, not when I was leaving her again because my father had caught me falling in love with a man. Because I was ashamed of not standing up for myself and what I wanted when what I wanted fell into my lap out of the fucking blue and I didn’t know what to do with it, so I threw it away.

I threw away everything that might make me happy. It’s what I did. It’s what I was good at. Not being happy. I was fucking awesome at being miserable.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Mason and the come to daddy meeting.

I noticed two things simultaneously. I was freezing, and my head was pounding.

I rolled off the futon and glared at the pale layer of fog that obscured my view of the ocean. When had the sun come up…correction, attempted, the sun had only attempted to come up.

I stumbled over papers and empty bottles and god, I think something dead had taken up residence in my mouth.

The pounding started again. This time there were chimes to go along with it.

Not my head.

I needed caffeine. I couldn’t even remember if I had coffee in the house. I couldn’t remember the last time I drove down to Starbucks. I’m not sure if I knew where the nearest Starbucks was.

When did I give up coffee?

Oh, yeah, when I took up alcohol…again.

Somewhere around Texas.

That was about the time.

Texas is a big fucking state, especially when driving. Took me three damned days to cross the fucking state, the two extra days were because I was too drunk to drive.

I bought the Charger somewhere in Texas.

They kept calling me asking if I would be returning the car to a rental location. I’d made love in that fucking car, I wasn’t ready to give it back. So they made me an offer and I had a title sitting around here somewhere.

Texas was two months ago.

I think.

“Mason Douglas Foxworth open the fucking door.”

Jeezus, the doorbell knew my name.

It sounded suspiciously like…my fucking father. I groaned. Doug was standing on my front stoop pounding on the glass that surrounded my door. He was looking right at me.

There was too much fucking glass in this fucking house.

“Open the door, Mace.”

“Don’t fucking call me, Mace,” I opened the door mid-scream. I’m pretty sure all he heard was ‘me, Mace’… “And what the fuck are you doing here? How the fuck did you find me?” He looked surprised and actually backed up a step.

Could be he was reacting to the stench that I think had become a permanent part of me.

“It’s not exactly like you had anywhere else to hide. After I eliminated the apartment in Napa, and the house back in Georgia, all you have left is Cody’s house. So, I’m here. And you fucking reek. When did you last shower?” He stood out in the foggy morning cold and looked like fucking Doug, all golden and gorgeous football player with green eyes and great teeth. Fucking asshole. Couldn’t age badly, could he? Nooo, he had to stay a fucking jock hunk.

I turned around and walked back to the large room next to the kitchen where I’d made camp for the last several weeks. “Yeah, don’t care,” I said, picking up a whiskey bottle and looking down the barrel accusingly. “Empty.”

“Jesus, Mace.” I’d forgotten he was behind me. I turned and flipped him off.

“My name is Mason. You gave it to me. Use it, not fucking Mace. That’s Arden’s name for me because she hated you. She hated you. Ha. How’s them apples,
Dad
?”

“Mason.” He tried again, his voice less disgusted this time. “You’re drunk.”

“Nope. Not even close. Tried. Fucking can’t get drunk. I blame you and her. And fuck, I blame everyone for that. Can’t even fucking get shitfaced to make it all not fucking…never mind, what did you want, I’m busy.”

I pushed papers around with my toes. I had no idea what I was looking for; something I was writing last night when I finally passed out from lack of sleep, something about hating the world and wanting to watch it burn.

Doug shuffled the notebooks and papers off one of the two arm chairs that were left in the room. He set them neatly in a stack on the floor and sat down.

“I came to make sure you are okay,” he had the gall to say. He didn’t take off his coat or his hat. Or his gloves. “It’s colder in here than it is outside.”

“Is it? I haven’t been out in…” I looked around at the room trying to remember. “What day is it?”

“Friday.” He looked at me with pity in his eyes. I didn’t want his pity. I didn’t want anything from him.

“Fuck, Friday. It was a Friday. Pretty sure it wasn’t today. I don’t know.” I stared at the kitchen wondering if I had anything to drink.

“When was the last time you ate something?” He asked me.

“Stop asking trick questions.” I reached for my pen. I swear I left it in my pocket. I found a guitar pick, but no pen. There was blood on the pocket of my robe. I looked at my fingertips and the scars on my hand. I heard the tune I was trying to get down on paper. Where the fuck was my pen?

“Mason?” He shouted my name and I turned to look at him.

“Doug,” I said, blinking. “When did you get here?”

“Jesus, kid, what the hell are you on?” He started going through my shit and it pissed me off. “Fucking drugs. Cody was always on something. Fucking pissed me off. He never fucking listened to me and he got you hooked. If he wasn’t dead already, I’d kick his ass.”

“Don’t you fucking talk like that about my dad.” I was so fucking tired of all of his shit. “You don’t know shit about Cody, you don’t know shit about me. Just get the fuck out and leave me the fuck alone.” I shoved him away from my work and ended up lying on my back on the floor with my damned father leaning over me with a whole lot of pissed off in his eyes. He had my hands held tightly in his big damned scarred paws and he’d just simply flipped my ass and that was it. I was so pathetic a fifty-year-old man just fucking floored me.

“Because I knew Cody better than anyone. Because I couldn’t get him off the drugs. Because I loved him but I couldn’t have him. What was it you said, how’s them apples? Back at you kid. You didn’t know shit. You still don’t.”

I lay on the floor where he left me and tried to figure out what nightmare I was living in this time.

“I’m going to ask you again, what are you taking? If you don’t answer I’m throwing your ass in the car and driving you to rehab.” He didn’t go through my things anymore. He sat on the floor beside me and breathed heavily. “I always loved the view from this room.”

“What do you mean, you loved Cody?” I lay there because I was too tired to get off my back. “And I’m not on anything. I forgot to sleep for three days. You woke me up. I don’t mess with drugs.”

“Just whiskey?” he said quietly as if he was humoring me. I expected to be tossed over his shoulder and carried out to his car and knowing him, probably dumped over the cliff into the ocean somewhere. My body would probably wash up in Mexico or Japan knowing my luck.

“It’s the only drink I can feel. I can’t get drunk. I’ve tried, so many times. Figure I was a drunk before I was ten, guess I’m immune. I smoked Cody’s pot when I was a kid. Pissed him off, but I never got into the hard shit, Doug.”

He looked pained. “Cody did love his pot. Nearly got me banned from the contact high I got from being around him. God, I miss him.”

“What the hell are you talking about? You didn’t know Cody. You couldn’t stand him.” I was so tired I couldn’t even process what I was hearing. “You’re a homophobic asshole. Sounds like you had a thing for a dude…must piss you off.”

“Shut up,” he growled at me, but he didn’t move from where he was sitting on the floor staring out at the fog rolling around the back deck.

“My house. I can say what I want and what I want to say is it was nice of you to stop by. You’re about a decade too late. Don’t make these little father and son visits a habit. Later, Doug.” I just wanted to go back to sleep. I wanted to find the notes I’d made just before I started seeing the furniture walk around, but I really wanted to sleep for a week.

“You’re gay,” he said and I jumped. I’d forgotten he was here.

“Not gay. Thanks for being an asshole. Why are you still here?”

“I’m bi-sexual.”

I didn’t say that. I was pretty sure I never even thought those words. Especially not about myself. “Oh…kay…wait…what?”

“I am bisexual, Mason. Cody Gillette was the love of my life. He cost me my marriage, he cost me my children. He damn near cost me my career, and I still fucking love him and you’re not the only one who is still grieving for him.”

I’m pretty sure I was hallucinating. I am pretty sure my father was telling me he was tumping my stepfather…which made me give him my patented
fuck you sayin’
look because I was pretty damned sure I had no response. “Where’s the whiskey? I need to work on the drunk thing. I’m not doing it right or something.”

“Jesus, kid,” he said, wiping his hand over his face as he leaned back against the nearest wall.

“You keep saying that. Pretty sure I’ve never been to Jesus. Is this that come to Jesus meeting thing people talk about having with their kids? Because if it is…I really don’t think…you’re real…and I’ve finally hit that point in my life when reality tips and I’m hanging upside down with blue people sniffing daisies or something. Smurfs, you’re a fucking Smurf aren’t you?” I laughed because I really didn’t know what else to do. “Oh hey, there’s a crack on the ceiling… Papa Smurf…that’s funny.”

“Mason!” He shouted my name and I jumped to my feet because…he scared the fuck out of me most of my life, and when he bellowed my name I always had the instinct to run.

“You did not just tell me you and Cody were lovers. I dreamed that right?” I think I wanted to puke. I think I was going to toss my cookies. “Cookies would be great right about now.”

“Okay, that’s it, let’s go.” He was on his feet and striding toward me before I could remember what I’d been about to say.

“I’m not going to rehab. I don’t have a drug problem.”

“And you’re not sober either, as much as you think you can’t get drunk, son, you are fucking drunk off your ass.” He grabbed me by my elbow and tried to drag me toward the door. I slipped out of my robe and left him holding the thing. It stunk anyway. I was wearing only a pair of flannel pants and it was fucking freezing in here.

“I’m not going to rehab. I know my rights. You can’t make me go if I don’t want to. I…”

“Just shut up, Mason.” He tackled me. My dad fucking tackled me. I felt his shoulder hit me in the stomach, then my feet left the floor and I was flying up the stairs. A minute later I hit the floor of the walk-in shower in what had once been Cody’s room. He turned on the shower and left me sitting there in freezing cold water. “Wash the stink off yourself. Don’t you come downstairs until you’re clean and fucking ready to talk because I’m not leaving and neither are you…not until we talk.”

“Fuck you,” I yelled about the time the water got hot. Because, just fuck him… “and the horse you rode in on.”

There was no answer. I was shivering and my stomach hurt in a way that started to scare me. “Fuck I’m wet.”

A bottle of shampoo hit the floor beside me followed by a bar of soap. He was back. “I think I might be drunk,” I told him. Because this was starting to get fucking funny.

“I know the feeling, kid, I’ve been there before.” He squatted down to look me in the eye. “Look, Mason. I’m going to be here. I just want you to shower and put on something clean. I’m going to go downstairs and see if I can find something to eat. I’m betting you don’t have any food. Give you time to clear your head.”

“I’m not a druggie,” I tried to tell him.

“I know, Mason. I know heartbreak when I see it.” He sighed and with one last glance at me he was gone.

“I’m not heartbroken either.”

Why did anyone think what happened back in Georgia had meant anything to me. “It didn’t,” I answered my own question. “Didn’t mean a thing.”

‘
You protest too much, Macie.
’ I heard my sister’s voice in my head. ‘
He was good for you and you just threw his love back in his face…you should be ashamed of yourself.’

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” I screamed at the voices in my head. “It didn’t mean a thing. Not one thing.”

I leaned back in the corner of the shower and let the spray hit me in the face. I was crying. I knew I was crying. I wanted to hit something. I could only hit myself. I was the only one around…who’d fucked up.

I reached for the shampoo and started trying to get the crud out of my hair. I’d let it grow too long, and couldn’t see past it now, should take a pair of scissors to it and cut it all off. I ran my hand over my face. When the fuck did I grow a full beard? I didn’t know I could grow a full beard.

I washed my face and my body. My legs were covered with wet pants so I had to strip those off to get to my balls. And then I sat under the shower and let it rinse the soap off while I finished feeling sorry for myself.

I wasn’t sure how long I sat in the shower, minutes, hours. The sun had finally burned a hole in the fog when I came downstairs. I couldn’t find any clean clothes so I was wearing a towel.

Doug took a look at me and scowled. He went to one of the suitcases that sat on the floor in my now de-cluttered camp site. He tossed me a pair of sweat pants and a shirt. “Here, looks like all of your clothes are in the washer. Seriously, Mason. What the hell are you doing to yourself?”

I glared at the Bears logo that spanned the front of the sweatshirt. I hated that damned logo. That damned logo had stolen my father from me. I put it on because I was still freezing.