Instead, what he said was, “you may have a point. I guess it’s worth a shot.” He knew, even as he said it, there was no chance in Hell Luke was ever going to give him the opportunity to explain. The pain over his forced outing, and its fallout, plus thefact he felt betrayed by Mikey after all they’d shared together…it would all be just too much for Luke.
Well, there’s only one way to find out,he thought.
So he called Luke.
And called him.
And called him.
And called him again.
Mikey had known it was probably a waste of time, but even so, the fact he went straight to voicemail each time depressed him.
Fuck you, Luke,he thought after the umpteenth unanswered call.
Finally, when he still hadn’t heard from Luke by the next day, he had no choice but to go to NACA, in the hopes he might run into him there. Once he arrived, of course, he was greeted by Brenda just inside the front doors, her face a picture of concern.
As well she might,he thought.
He plastered on what he hoped was a convincing smile as he approached her. Before he could open his mouth, however, Luke came striding in the door, his face like a thundercloud, dressed (as was usual with him) in a plain white T-shirt and jeans.
This ought to be good,Mikey thought.
To the surprise of no one, Luke just ignored him and walked right up to Brenda.
“Hi Brenda,” he said. “Can we talk?”
“Sure,” she said, clearly uncertain where this was going.
For that matter, Mikey was, too.
“Do you want to go into my office, or…?”
Luke didn’t hesitate.
“No, no need for that. I just wanted to tell you that from now on my relationship with Mikey Smiles is going to be purelyprofessional. You have the set list, and so we’ll go off of that. I’ll be happy to be here for any rehearsals or workshopping of the material. But I’d rather you be there at all times.”
This was getting stranger by the second and yet, at the same time, it was pretty much exactly what Mikey had expected. Faced with pain and something he couldn’t quite cope with, Luke chose to withdraw.
What did you expect?He asked himself.He thinks you betrayed him in the worst way imaginable. You can hardly blame him for not wanting anything to do with you.
Unfortunately, feelings didn’t always listen to reason, and Mikey was feeling himself right then. He briefly toyed with the idea of telling Luke where he could stick his arrangement, but then he decided no, it was better to go along. If Luke was going to ignore his calls, if he was going to continue to not give Mikey even the barest chance to explain himself, then this was the way it would be.
Brenda didn’t say anything at first. Instead, she just looked between the two of them, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. Finally, though, she shrugged.
“If that’s the way you want it, Luke, then that’s the way it’ll be. Mikey, do you have any objections?”
A whole host of them crowded onto the tip of his tongue, but he forced them back.
“Works perfectly fine for me,” he said.
And then he turned and walked out.
It turnedout it was not fine.
At all.
For the first couple of weeks after the fateful encounter at the Center, things went okay. Luke and Mikey came in, they rehearsed and tweaked the songs, and then they wenthome. To an outsider it would’ve looked like they were cordial collaborators. Mikey, though, felt the difference in his bones. Every time Luke looked at him with that deadness in his eyes he yearned to just shout at him that he was being an idiot and all of this wasn’t his fault, but then he’d stop himself. If Luke was so determined to shut him out completely, despite everything they’d shared, then Mikey would leave him to it.
