“It’s freedom,” he says, turning the ignition, “to be exactly who I am without constantly having to apologize for it.”
“You honestly think you’re that toxic? This isn’t healthy.”
“Never said it was.” He pulls a cigarette from a pack on his dash and lights it up.
“So you divorced her to protect her? This is bullshit, man. She could help you.”
He shakes his head impatiently and glares at me. “All right, you want the skeletons? Here they come,” he says, taking a long drag of his cigarette before looking at me pointedly. “The day after I destroyed our house, I went on a coke bender and snorted lines off a whore for two days while I fucked her bareback. So, you tell me, Boy Scout. Is that a good enough reason to set her free?”
“Jesus Christ, Blake.” I’m sick thinking about it.
“Thought so,” he says, tearing out of the parking lot. He makes a hard right, and the rev of the engine draws heads our way. Paparazzi who were ready at the curb manage to get a few shots in. Blake is oblivious as he glances my way. “You love me with the same blind fucking eyes, Lucas. I’m never going to change, no matter how much I need to. She couldn’t change me either, that’s why I’m divorced,” he says, wiping at his face trying to hide the hurt that’s leaking from his every pore.
“This is destroying you, man. You just shot off your own fucking foot.”
“Whiskey…I think this is a whiskey kind of day,” he mutters before speeding down Sunset. It’s a different dynamic now than what it was for us years ago. We used to use our looks to try to charm our way into A-list places, and now we reign over them. Despite Blake’s bad boy rep, he’s still invited regularly to the old hot spots to further desecrate his image in the public. The street is a wasteland now in that respect, at least for me. The irony strikes me that while my life had completely changed, Blake is still working the same circuit, hanging with the same people.
A few minutes of silence ensue before he speaks up, his voice thick with a mix of guilt and hurt before tossing his cigarette and reaching for another, but the pack falls to the floorboard. “You don’t have to agree with me, bro, that’s the beauty of it. But you do have to drink with me, to her freedom.”
“Blake, if you need help—”
“I’m not using, and I haven’t since then.”
“Then why?”
His voice is gravel with his next admission. “Because it was just a phase,” he says, swallowing thickly. “I’m just a phase,” he adds darkly, “a phase everyone in my life eventually outgrows.”
“Bullshit. Come stay with us for a couple of months. It would be good to have you around.”
He shakes his head. “Your wife isn’t a fan of mine. I’m good, I’m covered.”
“We can—”
“It’s done,” he cuts me off, resigned. “Let’s outgrow this conversation and catch up.” He leans over and roughly runs knuckles through my hair. “It’s been a while.?
?
Rolling my eyes, I slap his hand away. “If that’s what you need.” He ignores the grudge in my voice.
“Yeah, it’s exactly what I need. Thanks, man.”
“Anytime,” I say, pulling the pack from the floorboard, fishing out a cigarette and lighting it for him. He takes it, and we exchange a look that expresses our clear difference of opinion but garners no more conversation. It’s an understanding that passes between us. And as usual, I give him the last word.
Looking back, it’s the one time I wish I wouldn’t have. From there everything went downhill. He was in the process of making nice with his demons, letting them take over and having more fun while destroying what was left of himself. The conversations that followed—after Mila had to drag me from his hotel room that night after berating us both—had been few and far between. Our phone calls felt like an obligation on both our parts. I couldn’t be where he was, and he’d tossed me collectively into a group of people he’d have to answer to. Whether it was concern or his need to be able to act out without the voice of reason or consequence, either way, he’d dealt my sentence.
I’d never once told my brother how much I needed him. Not once had I said those words, though I was sure it wouldn’t have made a difference. But what if it had? What if I had slain just one of the demons he’d embraced and dwelled with? What if I’d just taken the time to introduce myself to a single one of them and made it harder for them to exist within him?
What if I had told him just once that he was more than the sum of the shitty things he’d done? That he was a gifted actor and good friend. That what I saw in him wasn’t a result of blind faith, but a truth he couldn’t see for himself.
“Lucas,” I hear Jeremy, the assistant director, mutter as he guides me through the action Wes has in mind for the next scene. “You’ll pull the gun out, and as soon as you see him roll and reach, you fire twice. Once at a distance and then again when you approach, get him point-blank, got it?”
I nod, looking around the set.
“You with me?” Jeremy asks unsure. “You want to repeat that back?” he says, with a hint to his voice that hits a raw nerve.
I tug at my collar as the heat from the lights bears down on my scalp.
“You all right?” Jeremy asks, eyeing me without a fucking ounce of genuine concern. I’m just a hired monkey.