My Misery Muse (13 page)

I knew Sam was right, Devi had always gotten me.  She’d always known how much I loved music, just like I had understood her love of art, then as she got older her love and passion about tattooing.  Hell, I was the first person she’d given a tattoo. Her mentor had insisted she used something from flash, but she had refused. Instead she had drawn up a bass that looked exactly like my first bass then had a banner wrapped around the neck that had the notes of my favorite song.  It was gorgeous and exactly me, she wouldn’t let me see it for the first time until she had the stencil on my arm, and was getting ready to start. I was shocked by how much thought she had put into it.  Her mentor had been shocked by her quality of work from the beginning, but I never doubted her abilities. She had practiced and practiced for months, on top of going to school, I knew she was ready.

“I have to fix this,” I said, thinking back to this morning and how quickly things had gotten screwed up.

“Well, with any luck she’s had a few margaritas by now, bitched about you to the girls, so maybe she’s calm enough to listen,” Drake said.

I snorted, “Yea sure, if she even answers the door.”

“Ah, but she has too, she has your car keys and you have the kid,” Sam said with a smile.

We were all all sitting outside on my back deck laughing at the stories Eli was telling us about some of Cin’s more outrageous antics. We were on our fifth pitcher of margaritas and I had a good buzz going. 

“So my door was thrown open and this naked guy was shoved into my room and his clothes were tossed in after him, one of his shoes hitting him in the head, looking completely confused,” Eli was saying. “Then my door was slammed and I heard Cin say ‘hi daddy’ in her sugary sweet voice that always seemed to fool my parents.  The guy just stood there staring at the door completely baffled about what happened. I went back to playing with my guitar and a few minutes later Cin comes back in and starts whisper yelling at the guy about how he’s not dressed yet, shoving clothes at him,” he trailed off looking at my back door, I glanced up and saw Drake standing there grinning.

“And your parents were worried about us corrupting her?” he asked shaking his head. “Dev, if you ever would of tried that stunt, I would of beaten your ass.”

He stepped out onto the deck walking up to Eli and doing their manly fist bump thing.

“Hey Eli,” Drake said. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Babysitting,” he said giving a meaningful glance at Cin.

Drake laughed.

“Hey Devi,” Seth said, I hadn’t noticed him standing there holding Jaks until he spoke.

“Hi Seth,” I said looking past Seth I could see Max, Sam and Xavier. “Uhm, I don’t think you all know each other, this is Cin and Eli, Drake and my cousins and this is Jules, she’s our shop tech,” I said. “This is Seth, Sam and Xavier, you all know Max and Mags.”

Seth sat a squirming Jaks down who then took off towards Eli.  “Hey,” Eli nodded in their direction before snatching Jaks up and tickling him.  Jules gave a shy wave, and Cin eyed them like they were covered in chocolate.

Everyone made their way on to the deck, Seth’s eyes still on me; I was doing my best of ignoring him.  “There’s beer in the fridge and new pitcher of margaritas on the counter,” I said.

“I’ll get the beers,” Xavier said and made his way back into the kitchen.

“Hey Mags,” Seth said.

“Hey Seth, I was wondering if I would see you while you’re in town,” Mags said then with a wink at me, “Looking good Sam.”

I laughed as my brother growled, god that man had it bad, and Mags loved to play with him.

“So, what have you boys been up too?” Mags asked giving me a worried glance, guess I wasn’t hiding my emotions as well as I thought.

“Working in the studio,” Sam said. “We decided to take a break and come and get Seth’s car.”

“The keys are by the door,” I replied still not looking at Seth.  Everyone shot me a look, guess that sounded rude, but I didn’t know what else to say with everyone here feeling the tension between Seth and me.

Eli, Drake and Sam started talking music, Cin started flirting with Xavier. Mags, Max and Jules started talking about the latest gossip at the shop.

“Can we talk?” Seth asked.

“Sure,” I said glancing over at Jaks who was curled up in Eli’s lap almost asleep, both Drake and Eli caught my look.

“He’s fine,” Drake said. “We played hard at the park, and grabbed dinner before heading over to Xavier’s; he’s going to pass out soon and be out for the night.”

I nodded and got up leading Seth into the house.  We walked into the living room where I went to my stereo looking through the CD’s.

“Why won’t you look at me, Devi?” Seth asked, he was a lot closer than I realized.

I looked at him over my shoulder, “The CD is almost through, looking for something else to play.”

“Leave it, look at me, and let’s talk about this morning,” he said.

I stood and looked at him, “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Yes there is, and you know it,” he growled. “I didn’t mean what I said this morning, Sam and Drake came over telling me the guys wanted to talk. I made a guess and I was right, they wanted to talk about what my plans were. I said what I said because I knew what Alex wanted me to do, give you money and walk away,” he explained. “That has never been my plan, Devi, you have to know that, I want the three of us to be a family.”

I looked away blinking back tears, god that’s what I wanted too, the three of us as a family, but I knew it couldn’t happen.  I looked back at Seth, and I knew he could see it in my eyes that it wasn’t going to happen, a look of defeat I had never seen before in his eyes caused the tears to finally spill over.

“I can’t Seth,” I said simply.

“Why?”

“I can’t go through it again Seth.  I can’t watch you walk away again and survive,” I said my vision blurry.

“What about Jaks?” he asked. “Doesn’t he deserve us to be a family?”

“Jaks deserves us to get along, it would be best for all of us if we stayed friends, and that’s it, Seth”

“That’s bullshit Devi!”

“No, that’s reality Seth,” I bit out.

“Fine, for now,” he growled out. “What are we going to do about Jaks?”

“While you’re in town, you can see him whenever you want. Pick him up from daycare, spend Saturdays with him, I only ask that you let me have Sundays since it’s my only day off.”

“And when I’m not in town, when I’m on tour?”

I shrugged, “You can come here when you have a break, we can work out me and Jaks flying to you for weekends every now and then.”

“That’s not enough time with him,” he bit out.

“Do you have a better plan?”

“Yea, you and Jaks moving to LA with me, coming on tour with me.”

“Sure Seth, I’ll leave my life, my career, and follow you around?”  I bit out.

He shoved both hands into his hair, “That’s not what I meant.”

“It’s what you said,” I replied. “And I can’t do it Seth, I refuse to do it.”

“Fine Devi, whatever, you have it all worked out, we’ll do it your way,” he said then grabbed his keys and stormed out the door.  I heard his car start and him squeal away from the curb, that’s when the tears started pouring in earnest.

“Girl, you fucked up,” Mags said from the doorway.

I ignored her, knuckled away the tears and went to put on my son to bed.

¯¯¯

It had been a month since Devi and my blow out in her living room. We only saw each other when we were switching Jaks and only spoke about Jaks or our schedules.  I was miserable, and Devi didn’t look much better.  No matter how hard I had tried she wouldn’t talk to me, so eventually I stopped trying, it wasn’t doing any good, and it only frustrated me.  So we went with a schedule that worked for all us, I picked Jaks up most days from daycare then either took him to the studio with me, or back to Devi’s. I didn’t see much point taking him to my place, all it had was a couch, a bed, a stereo and a 50 inch flat screen, not much to offer a two year old, and I wasn’t there enough to worry about it being sparse.

Things were going great with the album, I was writing a ton of lyrics, Xavier had gotten his shit together, Alex though was worse than ever.  Everything was sounding fucking sick except the drums, he rarely showed and when he did he looked like he hadn’t slept in days.  On top of that his playing was off, and his attitude had gotten to the point that one of us was going to deck him soon.  We all knew we had to do something about him, but none of us knew what.  We didn’t want to drive him off. When he had his shit together he was a killer drummer, but he didn’t have it together and he was dragging us down.  It had gotten so bad though, that we didn’t see much choice but to confront him.

“Hey,” I said when Devi walked in the door; I got up from the floor where I had been playing with Jaks.

“Hey,” she said back, not looking at me which had become the norm.

“Do you think your brother could pick up Jaks tomorrow?” I asked.

“Shouldn’t be a problem, I’ll give him a call tonight, if he can’t I’ll work it out.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I don’t know how things are going to go tomorrow, and I don’t want to be caught up and not able to leave, and I definitely don’t want him there if Alex is.”

“What’s wrong with Alex?”

“Not sure exactly, but we think he may be strung out.”

She looked up at me, “You can’t be fucking serious.”

“Unfortunately, I am, we can’t keep going the way we are with him, so were planning on talking to him tomorrow, that is if he even shows.”

“Oh damn, I’m sorry Seth,” she said quietly.

I shrugged, “Not your fault, I’m just worried he’s going to bolt on us, and if he does that I don’t know what we are going to do.”

Devi walked over and wrapped her arms around me, I couldn’t help but pull her in tight and hold her, god I needed this, it had been hard with Alex the past few weeks.  He was like a brother to us, and we were all hurting watching him slowly destroy himself.

“Let me know if you need anything,” she said before she stepped out of the hug.

I had to bite back saying “you.”

“I will, not much you can do though,” I said. “Unless you happen to know a kick ass drummer.”

She quirked up an eyebrow at this.

“What, do you?”

“Maybe,” she said. “I don’t know if he would be interested in going pro or not though.”

“Who?”

“Eli.”

“Eli?” I said confused and starting to get a bit pissed at the thought I had already been replaced.

“My cousin Eli,” she said. “You met him a few weeks ago; he’s the drummer that jams with Drake and them.”

“I’ll have to keep that in mind, hopefully we won’t need it and we can work things out with Alex.”

“I hope you do too,” she said softly.

“Ok I’m going to head home, I’ll call you and let you know what my schedule looks like after tomorrow, “ I said then leaned down and gave Jaks a kiss. “Love you buddy, be good for Mommy.”