“They were mostly a cover band, but I told them I wrote music, too. We didn’t have time for them to learn anything new, and it was easier for me to learn their songs on short notice. We worked well together, and…” He sighed. “It snowballed.”
He took another bite of his taco.
“When did you realize it was going to get big?”
“Tom was in computers. He did their website and stuff. They weren’t even Portnoy’s Oyster then, they were Carouselacious, which I personally thought was a stupid name. Plus, it was nearly impossible for people to spell right. Turned out the band’s domain name was registered to the creep who’d been popped, and he refused to turn it over to them since he’d been the one to come up with the name.
“So the next week, we’re all at Tom’s place, trying to come up with a new name and stuff. I’d been reading Portnoy’s Complaint. Don’t laugh, I love to read. We’re sitting there, trying different names of bands, Bonnie’s brother looking them up on the Internet and iTunes to see if anyone’s already got it. After an hour, Pasch groans as we come up empty again and said it’s like trying to find a damn pearl in a pile of oysters.”
Doyle smiled. “Ha.”
“Yeah. Well, and I figured hey, the world’s our oyster. And Bonnie’s brother said searching stuff on Google—we were thinking ahead, all of us—‘Portnoy’s’ comes up pretty easy because of the book. And it’s not hard to spell. So we became Portnoy’s Oyster.”
Mevi thought back to those days as he took another bite of his taco. Hardscrabble times for them, but still fun. Like having a family.
“We recorded six of my original songs and released them. Took a couple of months, but they suddenly went batshit on sales overnight. Turns out a DJ in LA had been sent our website link by his sister, and he loved them and pimped them on his Facebook page.”
“And history was made.”
“After a shit-ton of hard work, yeah. Bonnie’s brother was our sound engineer at first, and did all our early recordings himself because no way we could afford real studio time. He had a Mac and could borrow or rent equipment for us to make demos and production material. Layers of old Goodwill blankets stapled to the walls and door in his garage. That kind of bare-bones stuff. He busted his ass in his free time to learn sound software and researching how to process the files to make us sound really good. He posted them for sale for us, ran the website, all of that, in addition to his day job, and having a wife and kid. He deserves the credit for our discovery. He engineered the shit out of our website’s SEO terms so that we came up a lot. People would e-mail us that they found us while looking for someone else. He ran our Facebook page, too. Twitter account. Everything.”
“He still with you guys?”
Mevi shoved away the wave of pain that tried to wash through him. “Cancer. Five years ago.”
“Oh. I’m really sorry.”
“So am I. But, ironically, his older daughter followed in his footsteps. She did go to college, because all of us ganged up on her, along with Tom and his wife, and insisted. But she grew up sitting in Tom’s lap and working on stuff on the computer with him. She’d be in practices with us with her earmuffs on to protect her hearing while watching her daddy work the software. Her younger brother is head of our publicity department now. So it’s still family.”
When they finished eating, Mevi headed downstairs with his laptop, guitar, iPad, notebooks, and pen. He wished he had music and guitar stands and made a note to ask Doyle to order them.
Doyle followed him down and sat on the bottom step, the door to the stairs open. “Mind if I listen for a while?”
“No, doesn’t bother me.”
“Can I leave the door open when I go back up?”
“Sure, but why?” He smiled. “To keep an ear on me?”
Doyle shrugged. “I’m interested in this. I love music. This is fascinating, to get a look behind the scenes at the creative process. I usually work with actors. I don’t get to work with many musicians. And the few I have worked with were singers, not composers.”
Mevi hoped his face didn’t heat too much, secretly pleased that Doyle was interested in this. “Sometimes this part’s boring.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
Mevi started by tuning his guitar. He’d tried playing it in rehab and hadn’t been able to. Mentally, his head wasn’t there.
Then he ran through a few scales to loosen his fingers and get used to the strings again. Even the calluses on the pads of his fingers had started to soften. He knew he’d need to play every day from this point forward to build them up again, or the tour would be misery. He could get by without playing every song on stage, but the audience expected at least one or two acoustic numbers from him toward the end of the night.
Then he started playing “Sunset Sights,” one of the first songs he’d written for the band, which had appeared on their first album and had spent weeks as a number one single.
One of the first songs Tom had recorded for them. That old version was still for sale in digital format and still held Mevi’s heart.
* * * *
Doyle immediately recognized the intro riff to “Sunset Sights,” one of his favorites. A melancholy song about a man on a beach and watching the sun disappear, but having also seen life slip through his hands and facing a choice to try a different path or give up and “slip into the night” with the sun.
Mevi didn’t sing with the music, but the emotion in the chords, in every strum, spoke to Doyle.
This was obviously a personal song for Mevi.
Let. Me. In.
It was tempting to try to press, to manipulate Mevi into opening up to him, but that was selfish on his part and he knew it.
The guy’s straight, for starters. And let’s not forget, oh, a client.
When Mevi finished playing, he stared at the guitar for a long moment without speaking, and Doyle didn’t break the silence.
“I sometimes wonder,” Mevi finally said, “what the other choice would have yielded.”
“How so?”
“If I’d walked into the sea that night.”
A chill washed through Doyle. “Do you think about killing yourself a lot?”
Nothing about suicidal ideations predating the discovery of the theft and the snowballing of Mevi’s drinking had been mentioned anywhere in his files. If that was the case, it would drastically change how Doyle approached this.
And he would be chewing out the rehab center for not stating it clearly in the file notes. It was something that should have been heavily flagged.
Plus, it would mean finding a local psychiatrist or GP who’d be willing to write scripts for Mevi to help control those feelings.
“No.” He met Doyle’s gaze. “Not really. Not seriously. I guess I was that night at Bonnie’s.” He dragged in a deep, shuddering breath. “I don’t want to die. I just need to figure out how to start living.”
Chapter Ten
Doyle eventually headed back upstairs. Mevi stayed down in the office, playing for nearly two hours. Some old stuff, some new stuff, some experimentation, to see how things he’d noted in his iPad sounded when played with a real guitar.
Finally calling it a day in the wee hours of the morning, he headed upstairs. All the lights, except for one over the stove, were turned off. He walked down the hall to his bedroom, passing Doyle’s door as he did.
He didn’t pause to look inside, the dark room beyond not allowing him a glimpse of the man.
Going to his own room, he left the door cracked open and, despite feeling exhausted, he still couldn’t sleep. After retrieving a few things, he sat in bed, earbuds in and listening to a nature sounds zen tape. No vocals, just soft instrumentals.
Notebook on his lap, pen in hand and working on lyrics and chords for an idea.
He hadn’t felt like this in years. Since the good days.
The best days.
The days after ending up in LA, despite all the hard work involved, and then hooking u
p with a band that sent him straight to the top.
The days before he realized he’d totally bricked himself into a corner, but good, and his only recourse was to keep putting up a denser wall to protect his truths from prying eyes.
That’s not the man he wanted to be.
And the man he wanted to be with lay on the other side of that wall behind him. Except…he couldn’t. Even if he could finally admit how he was feeling, Doyle would shoot him down because, duh, counselor.
Still…
Baby steps, right? Just like facing down his addiction was a series of baby steps?
Admitting to someone else he was gay was that first baby step.
But could he force himself to tear down his own walls?
The thought of living the rest of his life not being authentic ripped at his soul. It would only be a matter of time before he sought the bottle again if he didn’t change. He knew that. He could only change so much about his life before he wouldn’t be able to ignore that fact any longer.
He had to change.
Except…it wasn’t just him. What would coming out do to the band?
How much would Bonnie hate him? Not that he’d blame her.
Finally exhausted, he set everything aside, turned out his light, and tried to sleep.
* * * *
Doyle had dozed, waking up when Mevi returned upstairs. Then he’d seen the glow of Mevi’s bedroom light as the man apparently worked. At one point he’d quietly walked down the hall, peeking in through the ajar door to see Mevi sitting there on his bed, head down and working. The ear buds meant Mevi hadn’t heard Doyle.
Immediately retreating, he returned to his own bedroom and pushed the door mostly shut. Enough he could still easily see the hallway.
No, he wouldn’t disturb Mevi while he was working, if he could avoid it.
Hoping it meant he could go to sleep now, he lay in bed and closed his eyes.
Unfortunately, sleep wasn’t coming, despite his exhaustion.
And once he’d gone back upstairs he hadn’t rubbed one out in the shower, either.
Fuck it.
Closing his eyes, he pulled the sheet and his sleeping shorts down and fisted his cock. It didn’t take him long to milk pre-cum and slick it down his shaft for lube. Knowing it wasn’t a good idea, he envisioned Mevi, on his knees in front of him, naked and sucking his cock.
Yeesss.
It didn’t take much to get him over, either. Especially when thinking about Mevi.
Which ethically wasn’t good on a number of levels, but if he wanted to sleep, he had to do something.
Once he’d exploded and lay there catching his breath, he swore to be even more cautious around the man. The last thing he wanted Mevi thinking was that he was perving on him.
Even though that was exactly what he was doing.
After going to the bathroom to clean up, he once again settled in bed, and this time, he felt sleep tugging at him.
* * * *
When Doyle awoke Monday morning, he had to look at his phone to check the time. Eight in the morning, which, translated into LA time, would actually be about the normal time he woke up on a work day at The Compound.
He didn’t hear Mevi moving around.
After using the bathroom, he walked down the hall and listened. Inside Mevi’s room, he heard soft snoring and quickly turned around so he didn’t awaken the man. Instead, he started the coffeemaker. While waiting for it to do its magic, he walked into the living room and started his tai chi form.
Wasn’t as good as doing it at the beach, but he wouldn’t complain. It was the first time in the better part of a week that he’d been able to do it and it felt good to stretch his muscles. In fact, he did it a second time before returning to the kitchen to pour his coffee. After a few sips of the hot, brown sanity juice, he headed to the shower. And he had his first good shave since leaving California.
After he emerged from the shower, he heard the toilet flush next door. He was coming out of his bedroom with the test kit in hand as Mevi emerged from his bedroom, looking half asleep, and wearing only a pair of shorts.
Without a word, Mevi held out his hand for the tester and Doyle handed it to him before going to the kitchen to top off his coffee.
Mevi followed. With that out of the way, Mevi poured his coffee and slid onto a barstool at the counter.
“What’s on today’s schedule?”
“Grocery shopping. After that, nothing.”
“Am I allowed to go with you?”
“If we do it early enough, sure. Less chance of someone recognizing you if we do it early. Monday morning, people are probably at work and the store won’t be crowded.”
“Then let’s do it.”
“Did you want to eat breakfast first?”
Mevi shrugged.
“Are you all right?”
“I didn’t sleep well. Lots of stuff rattling around in my brain.” His smile looked forced. “It’ll pass.”
“Then I guess we can go whenever you’re ready.”
They were in the car twenty minutes later, Mevi wearing sunglasses against the morning glare. “It’s bright out,” he muttered.
“It’s Florida.”
“I thought California was sunny.”
Doyle laughed. “It’s Florida,” he repeated.
There was a Publix nearby and as Doyle grabbed a cart in the parking lot and walked it in, Mevi fell into step beside him.
“Any restrictions?” he asked Doyle.
“I think you know the answer to that.”
“Just checking. And I meant food, not booze. Duh.” He let out a sigh that sounded so sad Doyle almost stopped to talk to him right there. “I’m going to tie a knot in my rope and hang on, no matter how hard it feels. I can’t fail.”
“That’s a good attitude to have. Just don’t forget I’m here. You’re not alone.”
“I know, but you can’t be with me for the rest of my life so I need to learn how to deal with this.”
I wish I could be.
Doyle swept that strange, random thought out of his brain almost as soon as it popped in.
Where the hell did that come from?
That would teach him not to fantasize about a client while masturbating.
* * * *
Mevi wasn’t yet ready to admit to Doyle why he’d had such a hard time sleeping last night. He wasn’t sure how the man would react if he learned Mevi was gay.
Or how the band would react.
At least if he didn’t reveal that, he could lean on the man more without Doyle thinking it was getting weird.
Couldn’t he?
They roamed the aisles, filling the cart and Mevi admitting he really liked the store. Usually, grocery shopping was a necessary evil, to be finished as quickly as possible. In and out.
It was obvious Doyle liked to cook from the things he added to the cart. Mevi couldn’t claim cooking as anything other than a bare necessity.
Maybe he can teach me.
Back home, he helped Doyle put everything away before getting his iPad and notebooks and heading down to the office. He’d been working on a still untitled song last night before he finally gave up and tried to sleep. He wanted to see if he could finish it today. It was a song he’d started months ago, ideas for it hitting him during the drive to Florida until he was distracted by new lyrics forcing their way to the front of his brain.
Something about the way Doyle had listened to him play “Sunset Sights” last night had jiggled something loose in Mevi’s mind and directed him to work on it again.
Footprints behind me, clear sand ahead
And for the time being my heart feels dead.
Too much to hope for, yet too much to gain
There has to be some way out of this pain.
No one, nobody, alone in my mind
Searching and working, all just to find
That nothing I’ve done can be called the truth
When my reality’s been held aloof.
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But you, you’re what I need.
You’re what I feel, and I’m incomplete
Until I tell you all that resides
In the deep, dark recesses where my truth likes to hide…
Maybe this would be as close as he’d ever get to confessing to anyone. It was easy to interpret the lyrics as a man’s love song to the woman he can’t admit he loved.
That it was also an admission of his own hidden truths might be missed by many people.
He was still working on it when Doyle walked downstairs at one point while he’d stopped playing and was notating chords.
“You feel like lunch? You never ate breakfast.”
He was going to say no but then his stomach rumbled. “Yeah, I guess I should.”
“I’ll get it for you. Sandwich okay?”
“That’d be great, thanks.”
He couldn’t keep his eyes off Doyle’s ass as the man mounted the stairs again.
Shit.
Okay, so denying he was attracted to Doyle would be a bunch of bullshit. But how did he live the rest of his life pretending to be someone he wasn’t?
That, ironically, triggered another idea for an extra verse, and he grabbed his pen to add it to the notebook.
* * * *
After Doyle took Mevi a sandwich and two bottles of water, he left the man alone. He dug his Kindle out and settled in on the couch, the TV on but muted, so he could listen to Mevi downstairs.
Sometimes, he heard the man muttering to himself. Sometimes he heard him picking out chords and notes on the guitar. Over the next few days, he’d leave Mevi alone and let him settle in, unless the man seemed open to talking.
When Doyle’s cell buzzed with a text, he grabbed his phone from the coffee table.
Tilly.
You there yet?
He smiled as he typed his reply. Safe and sound. No problems.