Love Will (38 page)

Neither Max nor I wish to document the existence of this man on his homework.

I caution you when assigning such a project in the future. It’s not simply that some children may have multiple sets of parents these days, or that some parents may have left, which is also a painful situation for many kids. Some adults are just cruel people and don’t deserve to be mentioned at all.

Thank you for your time and thoughtful consideration of this matter.

Sincerely,

Will Rosser (soon-to-be Scott)

I lied. I lied in the message, and I’m sure it shows, but I
am
still angry with him. I
do
hate him. I wish I could simply be indifferent, but I can’t fathom how anyone could treat Max the way he treated him. I’ll never forget what he’d said in the voicemail he left me:

“Will, you got some nerve. And tell your queer brother to stop leaving me messages. I don’t have no sons no more.”
I’d never felt like his son, but the words still cut through me. When I let Max hear the voicemail, I regretted it instantly.

The look on my little brother’s face was pure devastation. I’d seen hints of that look more than I’d wanted to over the summer, but this was a low point for him. He’d tried to make his relationship with my father work–all his life. The second he found out Max was gay, that was it.

But then Max, in true Max-fashion, worked up the nerve to call him from my phone and gave him more than a piece of his mind. He was fucking
brilliant
.

I was so proud of him. But shit, I’m always proud of that kid.

Chapter 17

“The guys aren’t gonna miss you tonight, are they?” Jon asks me on the way to the fancy hotel twenty-five minutes south of the concert venue in San Diego. He’d asked for some time to talk in private–which I thought was a good idea–so he booked a suite for one night in between the two sold out shows at the House of Blues.

“Peron’s gonna miss me horribly,” I tell him, scratching my head, “but everybody’s gotta learn to stand on their own two feet someday.”

“What have you been helping him with?” he asks.

“I’m a good wingman.”

“Ahhh…” my brother says with a chuckle.

“What’d you think of the show?”

“Phenomenal. You guys have really pulled it together since I last saw you. The sound is much tighter, I guess.”

“Yeah. There’s this weird, amoebic quality in a band,” I tell him, hoping he can relate to the visual I have in my head. “We just seem to start learning everyone’s nuances and moving in the same direction after being so close to one another.”

“One mind,” he says.

“One goal, one mind… one tiny fucking bus.” I grin at him.

“That
Where Your Horizon Meets Mine
song, Will. You wrote that?”

“Yeah.”

“Max has played it for me a few times… some bootlegged copy or something.”

“We recorded it on the bus and sold some EPs. They got leaked online, yeah.”

“It pales in comparison to seeing it live. I was…
moved
… by it.”

“Pussy,” I say to him, nudging him with my shoulder.

“I saw your eyes tear up, asshole. I was close enough to see that.”

“It’s a sad, fucking song. What can I say?”

“She die at the end?”

“Yeah.”

“Why’d you go and kill her?” my brother asks me.

“I didn’t deserve her. I didn’t deserve to be happy.” I have to clear my throat.

“Well, that got serious real fast.”

“That was just my thinking when I wrote it. That’s all.”

“All right,” he says.

“Anyway, the studio says
Horizon
has the potential to be nominated for Song of the Year once we record and officially release it. I know I’m not supposed to care about those things, but uh… that’d be pretty cool.”

“Would people still buy it when they can get it for free online?”

“Oh, it sounds totally new. We have a string part in the middle that I helped write. Not overproduced at all. It’s amazing, and they hired much better background singers than me. They said they were gonna release it ahead of the album–probably at the beginning of the year, so it’ll be good. I can’t wait to see the reaction when it’s officially out and getting airplay on all the stations.”

“Sounds like you’re having a good time,” he comments.

“Time of my life.”

“Are you happy you did it?”

“I would not change a thing,” I admit to him, thinking of all the opportunities I’ve had since this tour began that would not have come to me had I stayed at my job in New York.

“I’m glad you didn’t listen to me.” I would have expected it to have been harder for him to say that to me, but it flowed easily off his tongue.

“I’m glad I didn’t, too.”

“Listen, the lawyers say that the contract looks sound, Will. I had Jack look it over, too. The only thing I have questions about is the quantity. Is fifteen too many songs?”

“No… I’m surprised they asked for so few, actually.”

He nods his head, thinking. “And you could do all that from the road with Damon?”

I glance at him out of the corner of my eye. “You saw the start date was after the tour ended,” I press him, wondering if he’s digging for more info from me.

“He’s getting bigger and bigger, Will. You think I don’t know they’re planning to lengthen the tour? There are rumors about it all over the internet. Europe, Asia…”

“Asia, too?” I ask him. “So, yeah, they’re planning.” No point in hiding it.

“I know the lure of international travels. I couldn’t turn down Brazil when I got the offer, either.”

“Well, had Livvy not had an offer, too, you would have.”

“Yeah,” he admits. “I would have considered it, but I wouldn’t have left her. You’re right.”

“I’ve always wanted to go to CERN. Literally, that’s all I’ve been thinking about since I found out about Europe. How many days could we park it in Geneva, and would they miss me if I just disappeared for awhile?”

“You’d probably have a better chance of going there if you went back to your old job,” he says.

“Exactly,” I agree. “Which is why I’m gonna do that.”

I hurry down to the hotel restaurant after I’ve showered and rested for a half hour. The hostess takes me to a booth near the back of the place where Jon’s nursing a beer.

“You didn’t have to dress up,” he says to me, reaching across the table and tugging on my tie.

“Well, you were, so…” I shrug my shoulders. “Plus, look at this place.”

“Get comfortable, Will. Yeah, this place is fancy, but I don’t want you to feel like you have to be someone you’re not. Here.” He takes off his tie and sets it on the table.

“Okay.” I follow suit, then unbutton the top button of my shirt, taking a deep breath. “Better.”

“Good.” I take a drink of the Coke that’s already waiting for me.

“Hungry?” he asks, checking his watch. “It’s late.”

“Starving,” I tell him. “I don’t eat much before shows. We go out a lot after.”

“Let’s order something then.” I settle on a steak, while Jon orders the sea bass. While we wait, we both look at each other nervously for a few seconds before he speaks. “Are you
sure
I’m not cramping your style by making you come here tonight?”

“No, Jon. If Peron and I aren’t trying to find him a date, we’re at a late-night diner, talking about the show before we head back to the bus or hotel to write. And we just did three weeks of intense writing. Plus, now with these offers on the table, it’s weird to know what song belongs to whom… it’s kind of weird until we hash all that out.”

“That sucks… but, uh… going back, and I hope you don’t mind me asking, but you didn’t mention trying to find
you
a date.”

“No, I didn’t,” I say, breezing over it. “Just focusing on Peron right now. He just got dumped, remember?”

“I do remember.”

“Speaking of cramping styles, what about
you
? I’m not keeping you up too late, right?”

“Are you kidding? I’m out with another adult and I can sleep as late as I want tomorrow. There’s no chance a baby’s waking me up in the middle of the night. I’ll stay up as late as you want.”

“I thought you had meetings in the morning,” I remind him.

“I lied,” he says. “I just wanted to see you, and I’ve been wanting to check out this hotel. I’m just here for you.”

I fold my hands in my lap and nod toward him. “Well, thanks for coming. That really means a lot. And it really is good to see you–not just because you’re a little bit of home, but to actually see
you
. I don’t feel like it’s just been a couple months.”

“I know,” he says, looking sad. “I kind of feel like I’m seeing you with fresh eyes today, Will. And I’m so glad to see my little brother. I’ve missed you so much.”

“So,” I say, trying to segue into something less emotional, “can we get some business out of the way? Max didn’t send me my bills and I asked him to give them to you.”

“Right, yeah, I’ve got them right here.”

“I guess that’s what I get for putting my sixteen-year-old brother in charge of FedEx-ing my shit to me.”

“Why didn’t you let me handle that? I could have done it from the office.”

“I don’t know.” Honestly, I don’t want him to know exactly
how many
bills I have. I don’t think Max has any reference point, which is why I asked him.

“Here you go,” Jon says, producing an unsealed manila envelope and pushing it across the table to me.

I take a peek inside. When I see that everything has already been opened, I pull out all of the unfolded and neatly-organized statements. Standing them upright, I continue to stack them on the table, creating a tiny barrier between my brother and me. “Do you have any idea why everything’s been opened?”

“Yeah,” he says simply. I glance up at him and blush, embarrassed that he’s seen the mess that I’ve gotten myself into, and set the pages face down on the table.

“Why?” I try to temper my frustration and building anger.

He picks up the stack and starts to go through them. I tug at my hair, unwilling to see his reaction to the amounts I owe on each of them. “I spent my afternoon here in the hotel paying off your credit cards.” It takes me a second to process what he said. When I look up, he’s setting the pages down, one by one. “Paid off, zero balance. Zero balance. This one, too. Zero balance. You owe nothing. You were so close to having this one paid off on your own, but it’s all gone now, too. Zero balance. Zero balance. And that one, as well. Even this one. Zero balance.”

“What?” I ask him, looking at him like he’s lost his mind.

“Yeah,” he says.

“Why would you do that?”

He takes a drink of his beer and signals for the waitress to bring him another. “Hmmm… do you want the long version or the short version?”

“Short, please,” I tell him, my heart pounding.

“Long it is,” he says.

I roll my eyes, then scan all the bills in front of me, quickly calculating how much money he just gave me today. About twenty-three-thousand dollars. “Holy shit,” I mutter. “Go on.”

“So last week, I was asleep on the couch. I’d been watching the History Channel–something interesting about President Truman–but I couldn’t keep my eyes open, like most nights. All of a sudden, Liv woke me up.

“My first instinct was that something was wrong with Edie, but no, the baby was fine. She told me that Max was on the phone. It appeared that he and Callen and Trey and Zaina had all gone to a party, and Callen and Trey were
wasted
. The four of them needed a ride home since Trey had taken them all there.”

“Again?” I ask.

“Apparently, this is the second time that Trey and Callen have gotten drunk at a party, so this is Trey’s
third
time… which is why Livvy wanted me to bring him back to our place instead of sending him home, where he’d be grounded indefinitely. She thought we might be able to talk some sense into him.

“Anyway, I took a cab all the way out to White Plains, which was where this party was, so I could drive Trey’s SUV back to the city. Poor Zaina was so pissed off that she was crying. Max was trying to calm her down. And Trey was just worrying about what Jack was going to do to him. I didn’t bother to tell him he was getting a free pass from his sister.

“But oddly enough, Callen started mouthing off, saying shit like, ‘If this was
Max’s
dad, you wouldn’t have to worry. He’d be buying us the beer. William bought me beer all the time when I was there. Said it was the closest he’d ever get to having a beer with his sons.’”