Divorce?
Maybe I misunderstood him yesterday. Maybe he was just joking or something.
It also made things marginally easier for him.
Mevi took a deep breath and focused on Doyle again. “I won’t leave the room,” he said. “Thanks for doing this at the last minute. I’m sorry I was a dick last night. And I apologize in advance for any dickishness on my part in the future.”
Doyle smiled. “Thanks. I appreciate that. I don’t expect perfection from you, I just expect you to make an honest attempt to work with me.” He left, hanging the Do Not Disturb card on the door. A moment later, Mevi heard the SUV start up and pull out.
Now he could relax for a few minutes.
Didn’t mean he wouldn’t still fantasize about the guy in the shower, but it was a little stress off him if the guy was straight after all.
He’d never been with a guy before, even though he’d known since before graduating high school he was gay. Wasn’t smart in Wyoming to reveal he was gay, and once he’d moved to LA and gotten involved in the music scene, he’d been too busy building a career and image to do anything about it.
Not even Bonnie knew that about him.
I owe her a huge apology.
He dragged himself out of bed and over to his bags, where he dug out the small notebook and pen, taking them back to bed. He eyed his guitar, but it probably wouldn’t be very smart to play it in a hotel with paper-thin walls. He could get his iPad out and hook it up to headphones and screw around like that with one of his guitar apps, but hopefully Doyle would be back soon.
Without looking at the stuff he’d already jotted down, much of it several months old, he turned to a clean page, dated it, and let the point of his pen hover over the first line for a moment before he started writing.
Into the valley, into the city,
Down from the mountains
Nothing looks pretty.
Rolling along on a winding back road
Nothing I’ve done came
Out as I’d hoped.
He stared at it for a moment. Right now he was doing what he considered “spitballing.” Screwing around, letting words flow to be edited later. All of the best lines and riffs from their biggest hits started out like this. Actually, all his lyrics started like this, or jotted into his iPad, and refined later.
The music, sometimes he collaborated on that with Troy and Bonnie after he’d roughed out chords and the basic melody. Pasch had come up with some brilliant drum backings to fill in the songs and give them a heartbeat, a pulse. Add those to Garth’s basslines, and it was magic when Mevi finalized the arrangements.
Literally creating something out of nothing, from thoughts.
Weaving a spell.
They all worked well together.
That’s why he knew he had to make this work, no matter how much he craved a drink right now.
* * * *
Doyle was able to shop at Walmart to get all the stuff he’d need to dye Mevi’s hair, as well as trimmers and other supplies to give him an impromptu haircut. Generic cheap sunglasses would help complete the look.
While he pushed the increasingly full cart along the aisles, his phone chirruped with an incoming text message from Tate Markham, a celebrity business manager based in the UK whom he’d worked with several times over the years.
Desperate. Need you NOW. How soon can you get to London?
That figured. When it rained, it poured. He stopped and replied.
Sorry. Just took on new client. 2-4 months, possibly longer.
Tate must have been really desperate, because he replied almost immediately.
I’ll double it. Name price.
Doyle stared at the phone. That was very tempting. But…no.
Sorry, I can’t.
Tate wasn’t giving up. She just went into rehab. Voluntarily. 2 months, max. How soon can you get to UK then?
Poor Tate. Doyle hated having to say no to him since Tate’s clients had made him a lot of money. I can’t. Under contract NOW. When job ends, I’ll let you know.
He wouldn’t mind a UK job. He hadn’t been there in a while.
Bollocks. Fine. If ANYTHING changes and you can get here sooner, let me know ASAP.
Will do. Doyle tucked his phone back into his pocket and hurried to finish his shopping, hitting a drive-thru for their breakfast.
When he returned to the room, he found Mevi sitting cross-legged on his bed, earbuds in, intently staring at the iPad in front of him and a small notebook propped on his right leg. He didn’t even look up when Doyle walked in. Considering he looked like a man on a mission, Doyle didn’t interrupt him.
Only after Doyle had finished unloading his purchases did Mevi apparently save whatever it was he was doing on the iPad and then pop his right earbud out.
“Sorry. First time I’ve felt like working in months. Thanks for not interrupting me until I was ready. I appreciate that.”
Aaaand we have acceptance. There wasn’t a trace of snark in Mevi’s tone.
“Your work comes first. Scratch that. Your sobriety comes first. Work comes second to that. As long as it’s not jeopardizing your sobriety, I’m not going to interrupt your work. If we were farther from LA, I’d even consider staying here for the day to let you work.”
“Thanks.” Mevi stared at the iPad for a moment. “I think I do need to get out of here, though.”
Doyle made him take another test before they ate breakfast. Then, into the bathroom, where he had Mevi sit on the closed toilet lid while he used the longest clipper set on Mevi’s hair. That left very little silver on the ends. He trimmed the remaining to neaten it up. Not the best haircut ever given, but far from the worst.
When Mevi stood and went to look at it in the mirror, Doyle gathered the hair from the floor, flushing it.
“Why’d you do that?”
“Housekeeping. Can’t be too careful.” He got the package of hair dye and donned gloves to work it into Mevi’s hair. He’d gone with a dark, nearly black color, afraid that anything too brown might show up as reddish or even orange on the ends, although he could take another pass at Mevi’s hair with the clippers.
Once it’d sat long enough, Mevi hit the shower.
While he’d been doing that, Doyle was busy prepping the cooler. He took it down to fill it with ice from the hotel’s ice machine before loading drinks and snacks into it.
So far, Mevi hadn’t shown any diva ’tude.
When Mevi emerged from the shower, Doyle had to admit he wouldn’t have recognized Mevi at first.
Doyle also was extremely glad he’d had one of his bags in hand, hiding the erection that sprouted. With Mevi’s hair shorter and neatly trimmed, as well as dyed closer to his natural color, combined with those killer ice-blue eyes, Mevi was a knock-out.
Wow.
“Well?”
Doyle nodded. “Look for yourself.”
Mevi turned and stared into the vanity. “Shit. I look ten years younger.”
“Yep. If you don’t mind me asking, why the silver, anyway? It’s not very flattering.”
Mevi didn’t turn from the mirror. “Early on, a stylist suggested it because we kept getting snide comments about how young we were. Made me look older. Then as we got famous, I went to that silver color.” He fluffed his damp hair with his hand. “It became my trademark and I never stopped doing it.”
“You look closer to thirty than forty.” Definitely made him look like a different man.
He also looked infinitely more handsome.
* * * *
Mevi had hated his silver hair. Not just the color, but that it had made him look older, and that it was a pain in the ass to deal with while out on tour. He’d also hated that they’d felt they had to do that to be taken more seriously at first. The only good thing about it had been not seeing if he had any real grey hairs.
Maybe I’ll keep it like this.
He ran his hand through it. Having it shorter would mean not having to waste time styl
ing it, either. Another timesaver.
When he shifted his focus just a smidge and met Doyle’s gaze in the mirror, a jolt of liquid heat shot through Mevi. “Maybe it’s time for a bunch of changes,” Mevi said.
“I’ll start packing the car and then get us checked out. Once we’re ready to roll, you can get in and we’ll leave. The less time you spend out in the open right here, the better.”
“You don’t want help loading the car?”
“Not here, no.” He headed out with the cooler.
Mevi stared at himself in the mirror. A different man looked back at him.
One he hadn’t seen in years.
Hello, stranger.
Chapter Seven
After topping off the gas tank, they headed east. Doyle had dug his iPod out and now had a much larger selection of music at his disposal.
He started off with Hamilton, wanting something up-tempo to help wake him up and get him in a driving mood.
When “My Shot” finished, Mevi reached over to the iPod and hit the button to replay it.
“What is this?” he asked.
Doyle thought Mevi was pulling his leg. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No, seriously. This is really good.”
“Where have you be—” He stopped himself, realizing exactly where Mevi had spent the last sixty days. The soundtrack had only just been released two months ago, even though the show had been around longer than that. “It’s Hamilton? The Broadway show? Most of the cast are people of color? Won like pretty much the whole Tony Awards show all by itself? Really?”
Mevi didn’t answer. Mevi’s furrowed brow as he bobbed his head in time with the music would have been adorable and gotten the man fucked by Doyle under nearly any other circumstances.
By the fifth time Mevi had replayed “My Shot,” however, Doyle’s patience was waning a little.
“You do remember my rule about the driver controlling the music, correct?”
“I just…that’s amazing. I’ve never heard anything like it.”
“When we reach Florida, I’ll see if I can find the PBS documentary about the show online. It’s really good. It’s about Lin-Manuel Miranda and writing the show, and some about the life of Alexander Hamilton, the founding father. But for now, let’s listen to the whole thing through at least one time, okay?”
“But the lyrics are—”
“Really good, yeah, I know. That’s why I enjoy listening to it. The whole thing.” Doyle reached down and started the album over from the first song.
Instead of leaning back in his seat, Mevi still sat forward, intently staring at the iPod with his head cocked, listening.
Hell, he was being quiet, at least.
Doyle drove, singing along with the songs he knew.
He was almost afraid to play The Hamilton Mixtape album for him.
* * * *
Mevi had broad musical tastes, but between their last album, then a tour on top of it and all the promotion and publicity tours, then coming home to find out what David had done to him—and his own collapse—he’d not been keeping up with what was going on in that arena. Yeah, now he remembered hearing about a hot musical that was a phenomenon and being wildly praised across a wide variety of platforms.
But he hadn’t paid any attention to that world because he’d been too caught up in his own, followed by being caught up in his troubles.
And then trapped by his addiction.
From the music to the lyrics to the theme, he knew this was an album he’d have to buy and put on his own iPod to listen to on repeat. Some composers didn’t like to listen to other music when they worked, afraid they might accidentally plagiarize someone else’s work in the process.
He was the exact opposite. Not when he was composing music, but when he was writing the lyrics, he absolutely loved listening to music, and usually set his iPod to shuffle so it would play the most random of stuff at him.
Bonnie always joked it was his audio version of Tarot cards.
And sometimes, that was the truth.
Hypnotized, the world melted away around him as he listened, absorbed the story of the immigrant who helped shape America and became one of its founding fathers. Overcoming adversity by sheer tenacity and strength, his fall from grace, tragedy, and the lifelong battle of wills and wits between him and Aaron Burr, which led to the deadly duel that ended Hamilton’s life.
By that time, Doyle had pulled over for gas and lunch outside of Flagstaff and they’d listened to the entire album twice. Mevi was ready to delete the rest of the contents of Doyle’s iPod just to keep listening to the album.
After going to use the bathroom, Mevi returned to the car, grabbing his iPad and little notebook out of his bag, and furiously jotted down some notes. He felt like his brain was going to explode from the input. In good ways. Like he’d spent the last two months in sensory deprivation and he’d suddenly burst into the world, freshly scrubbed and raw and receptive.
He barely paid any attention to Doyle when he returned to the car and made him take another drug test, except to start the album over as soon as Doyle cranked the SUV before Mevi went back to jotting down more notes.
* * * *
Doyle knew listening to the album might be an…odd coping mechanism, but he wouldn’t interrupt Mevi’s progress. Clark had also confided to him that he thought Mevi might be creatively constipated after everything that had happened, and not just from the drinking, either.
If this was the mental roughage Mevi needed to kick start his creative juices, then Doyle would allow it.
They’d attracted no attention at the store, and he’d actually followed Mevi inside and watched from a distance to make sure he went to the bathroom and came back out again.
He hadn’t even cruised past the beer cooler.
Whatever listening to the album was doing for Mevi, if they had to listen to the thing all the way to Florida, Doyle would let him despite his initial “driver rules the radio” position.
Mevi’s sobriety was more important. Working was critical to his success.
Doyle could be gracious under the circumstances.
They were east of Albuquerque when Doyle finally pulled over for the evening, the interrupted sleep from the night before catching up with him. Mevi hadn’t asked to stop anywhere, either, totally withdrawn into his head and the music filling the cabin.
Doyle had gone ahead and activated the Repeat All setting so he didn’t have to touch the iPod’s music controls.
He imagined Mevi might growl at him, maybe bare his teeth if Doyle tried to change music.
But Mevi had retrieved a larger spiral notebook from one of his bags at a gas stop and had switched to furiously writing in it. He didn’t even ask about food, and Doyle suspected that his worries about Mevi trying to sneak away before they reached Florida were completely baseless now.
Mevi didn’t even want to stop writing in his notebook, much less get out of the car.
Once they were parked in front of their room, with Mevi still absorbed by his notebook, Doyle knew the man needed dinner. “What do you feel like eating? Pizza? Chinese? Subs?”
Mevi looked up, confused. “Huh?”
“Food. You need food.”
Mevi stared down at his notebook, then looked around, as if finally registering that they’d stopped moving. “Holy crap,” he muttered. “What time is it?”
“After nine local time.”
He took a deep breath and finally stared at Doyle for a long moment in which Doyle was very glad for the fact that they were still sitting in the car so his erection wasn’t as noticeable.
“Sorry. I get like this sometimes when I’m working. I tune everything and everyone out.”
“No apologies.” He’d hoped to use the ride to talk, but if Mevi was going to work, that was nearly as good.
Mevi stared out the windshield. “Where are we?”
“Place called Moriarty, New Mexico.”
“Huh. Where’s Sherlock?”
/> Doyle smiled. “Probably hanging with Watson. Let’s get unloaded and I’ll find us food.”
“Okay.”
The room was clean and bedbug free, but not as nice as the one in Barstow. Doyle thought for a moment Mevi might balk, demand to turn around and go back to a better hotel in Albuquerque, but he eventually took the innermost bed without complaint.
They got settled, Mevi agreed to Chinese for dinner, and Doyle headed back out for it.
There were still a few things they needed to take care of, like he and Mevi needed to exchange cell numbers. But so far, so good. While they hadn’t talked, meaning Doyle was behind on figuring out his approach with Mevi, at least Mevi wasn’t actively resisting him.
Although Doyle had hoped to stop at least a couple of places along the way.
When he returned to the room, Doyle felt a brief moment of panic when he opened the door and didn’t see Mevi there.
Until he realized the bathroom door was shut and he heard the shower running.
Setting their order on the small table, he walked over to the door, listening. Wouldn’t be the first client who tried to shake him while pretending to be in the shower.
Except he heard Mevi humming, maybe singing so softly he just couldn’t make out the words, and irregular sounds like someone showering.
If the guy was faking it, he was faking it well.
He was still standing there when he heard the water shut off and the shower curtain get pulled back. Doyle quickly stepped over to the table and started setting their food out.
Mevi emerged, a towel wrapped around his hips, and for a moment Doyle had to remember who this guy was.
Client.
Duh.
His shorter hair stuck up since it was wet, and now Doyle could see the guy apparently didn’t have any ink, unless they were hidden by the towel. He wasn’t bulky, but he wasn’t a skinny twink, either. Slender, muscles not so harshly defined it was a turnoff, with just a hint of softness about his build.
He walked over to his bags on the bed and started rooting through them. “Thanks for getting dinner.”