“It’s good to have backups. It’s common sense.”
“Baby, I completely agree.”
“Go, go,” Scott said, jerking his head in the direction of his parents’ house. “Go pack up your shit and put some real clothes on. If the tow truck gets here, I’ll ask him to wait.”
“Okay, okay,” Carver said, jogging away back down the street. “See you in ten minutes,” he called over his shoulder.
EPILOGUE
George wasn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary to happen on this fine Monday. He was enjoying the lovely clear weather and the fact that he was currently free as a bird, momentarily in between consulting gigs and having just cashed a very fat check from his last one. He had five pounds of pork shoulder cooking in the smoker out on the patio, and the pain in his lower back that had driven him crazy all last week was finally fading. He was in a good mood. It didn’t faze him at all when Scott texted him,Should be home around 10:30 but I’ll be bringing someone with me if it’s good with you?He just texted back,All good! Does she eat pork
He heard a motorcycle rumble down the street at 10:35 and muted the TV so he could go say hello and welcome whoever this woman was. He stood on the stoop, shading his eyes with his hand, watching a wasp-yellow Yamaha roll past the brick townhouses that lined the narrow street and stop in front of his. He could tell it was Scott in the front from the hair that peeked out from under the helmet, but was that a woman on the back? It didn’t look like a woman.
Scott parked and cut the engine, and both he and his passenger took their helmets off. No, indeed not a woman — it was a man with a haughty pretty-boy face and an expensive haircut. George let out a breath of air in a low whistle. Nowhe was curious. He leaned on the railing and kept his eyes on Scott, who glanced up at him. He pulled his neck gaiter down and appeared to ask the pretty boy to hang on a second, then bounded up the stairs.
“Hey, man,” Scott said, unzipping his leather jacket and shrugging it off so he could hang it on the railing.
“Hey there,” George said amiably. “You said friend, I thought lady friend. What’s the story?”
Scott gave him a sheepish smile, then fluffed his hair up with his fingers. He looked nervous in a way he usually didn’t, like he was worried about George disapproving of him. Scott did seem to worry about that sometimes, which George was both flattered and bemused by. He thought Scott was a great guy and had never given him cause to believe otherwise. He figured it had something to do with his own status as an elder statesman of indie music; Scott mostly scoffed at authority, but the authority he respected he was very vulnerable to. A lot of musicians were like that — ego right there at the surface, behind a bravado the width of an eggshell. As a lover of music, George understood this and sympathized with it. Three decades in A&R had taught him how to use a feather-light touch.
“Uh,” Scott said, scratching his head. “Have we ever discussed the fact that I sometimes sleep with guys?”
Holy hell. George felt his eyebrows shoot up but otherwise managed to keep his reaction off his face and resisted the urge to peer around Scott and get another look at the gentleman loitering on the sidewalk.
“No, that never came up,” he said. “Really? Huh.”
“I’m kind of surprised you’re surprised,” Scott said with a nervous laugh.
“I won’t lie and say it didn’t cross my mind when I first met you, but we’re in the biz, you know? I mean, Prince lovedwomen. And you love women. We talk about women all the time.”
“I do love women,” Scott assured him. “I do. But, you know.”
George shook his head. “Okay. Well.” He blew out a breath. “So no lady friend, but that is a gentleman friend down there?”
“Yeah, it’s kind of, uh… you know how I went out there for a friend’s wedding?”
“Right, sure.”
“Well, it was his cousin’s wedding,” Scott said, jerking his thumb in the direction of the gentleman friend. “And, uh, he and I were kind of together in high school, in secret. And we, you know, got back… involved… this weekend, and he’s kind of — he was in this kind of fucked up, loveless marriage, and he just ended it with her, uh, yesterday, partially ‘cause he found out about this crazy family secret that changed how he, you know, felt about his life, and he just needed to get out of there and wants to crash with me for a minute —”
The more Scott talked, the more George felt his control over his face slipping, until Scott finally broke off and brought his fingers to his temples.
“Holy shit,” he said, his eyes wide. “This sounds absolutely fucking crazy, doesn’t it? This sounds so crazy out loud. Jesus Christ.”
“Hey, hey,” George said, touching him on the shoulder. He privately agreed — this shit did sound absolutely crazy — but he had two grown sons and understood quite well by now when it was time to reassure and when it was time to interrogate. “Scotty, listen.”
Scott made eye contact with him, his mouth a flat line.
“I’m smoking some pulled pork out back,” he said in a low, friendly tone, “and Lethal Weapon is on TV. This is a good guy, you vouch for him?”
“I vouch for him,” Scott said, nodding.
“Alright. Why don’t you all come inside and we’ll eat, relax, you can introduce me to your friend here, and don’t worry so much about the details right now.”
“Yeah,” Scott said, exhaling. “Okay. Yeah. Lethal Weapon one or two?”
“Four, but they’re doing a marathon on TNT, running them back to back. So the first one’ll be on in a little bit.”
