“Is it?” Carver said. “Whatever, take it.”
“Wow, okay. Bet.”
Scott held the front door open for Carver, and a woman dressed for sunbathing shoved past them obliviously. It was an even more beautiful day now — clear, slight breeze, a vivid blue sky stacked with cumulonimbus clouds. “You in a good mood?”
“Yeah, weirdly, even though I feel like shit and my day is about to suck ass,” Carver said.
Scott got in front of him so he could help him carry the dolly down the club’s front steps. “I get it,” he said. “Like, the truth feels good.”
They sat the dolly down beside the trunk of the Maybach. Carver straightened up and produced the Red Bull, which he’d stuffed into his hoodie pocket. “The truth does feel good,” he said, cracking it open. “I mean, I’m not quite in the consequences phase yet.”
“Maybe there won’t be any.”
Carver laughed and took a sip of the Red Bull.
“I’m serious,” Scott said. “What’s the worst you’re anticipating? Pop your trunk.”
Carver dug his keyfob out of his pocket and opened the trunk. “The divorce could get nasty,” he said, “as I’m married to an advanced alien intelligence.” They bent to lift the amp together and heave it into the Maybach’s spacious trunk. “Uh, I could get slapped with bad leaver status, which would impact my carry, but more importantly it’s a big reputational hit. There aren’t, you know, a ton of people at my level.”
Scott started packing cords in next to the amp. “That’s why they pay you the big bucks.”
“And that’s why I’m easy to replace. A lot of guys want to do this job.”
“Good, let them.”
Carver laughed. “I wish it was that easy,” he said, as they walked back inside. “And I know you, like, do your art for a living, so you look at me and you think, what’s the big deal about giving it up?”
“I actually don’t think that,” Scott said.
Carver shrugged and sipped his Red Bull. Scott thought he looked hot again today, even though you could tell bylooking at him that he’d recently cried very hard and gotten very little sleep. It was starting to concern him that he never seemed to find Carver unattractive. He’d found him unattractive sometimes in high school, he must have.
“No, I get why it would be hard to give anything up, and this seems like it’s a big part of your life,” Scott said. “I’ve gone back and forth about leaving bands that I was in for six months and hated every other member of.”
“I’m pretty set on leaving, is the thing. I can’t stay there if I’m leaving Lillian, and I can’t stay with her. It’s just that actually leaving feels impossible.”
Scott tried not to be heartened by his repeated vows to leave his wife. He knew nothing he said mattered until he actually left her. “Yeah, I’ve been there too.”
As they stepped back into the reception hall, the idea kindling in Scott’s mind expanded and refined itself, and he couldn’t fight the urge to write it down anymore. “Sorry, one second,” he said, pulling a small notebook and pen from his jacket pocket and dropping into a squat so he could use his lap as a flat surface.
Carver stared down at him in confusion. “This can’t wait? I don’t want to get yelled at by that pain in the ass from before.”
“Just like ten seconds of silence, please.”
Carver paced while Scott wrote down words and some musical notation, then examined the page, crossing out laziness and improving upon it as he went.
“They don’t have an app to make this easier?” he said after a few moments had passed.
“Those apps all suck,” Scott muttered. “I’m almost done.”
“It’s been four minutes.”
“What? Bullshit.”
“I’ve been staring at my watch this whole time.” Carver didn’t sound annoyed, though, he just sounded amused. “This better be Grammy material.”
“Hey, maybe you should quit your job and become my manager, you already sound like one.”
“I think, actually, it’s now antisemitic for you to say that to me?”
