5. Will
FIVE
WILL
Jesse is sitting up in bed when I get there, a notebook open on his lap and a pen flipping back and forth between his fingers.
He looks better than he did a few days ago.
There’s some color back in his face, and his green eyes are clearer than I remember them being.
But there’s still a flatness to him that feels intangible, like someone turned the saturation down.
“Hey,” I say quietly.
He glances up and flicks his eyes over me. The corner of his mouth quirks up. “You look like shit.”
Despite the sentiment, it’s good to see a real smile from him. It sets me at ease.
“Well, we can’t all make chronic fatigue and existential dread look as sexy as you do.”
He snorts, then shifts, adjusting the pillow behind his back to get more comfortable. I slump into the chair beside his bed and scrub a hand over my face.
“You wanna talk about it?”
I give him a look that suggests I’d rather castrate myself with my guitar strings. Jesse huffs out a laugh.
We sit in silence for a minute. It’s not awkward. Jesse’s always been good at this kind of quiet, even before everything went to hell. Except normally he’s making music, writing things down, or staring into space because his head is too full of ideas to know which one to let out.
I’ve always been fascinated by how Jesse’s brain works. But now he just seems blank. And too damn still.
Jumping up from my chair, I suggest going for a walk outside. It’s early enough that it’s not too hot out, and I think we’ll both benefit from not being confined.
Jesse agrees and slips his feet into a pair of slides. After a while, when we find ourselves on a shaded walking path that loops around the back of the premises, Jesse tries again.
“How’s Ari?” he asks, casual. Too casual to not know there’s something going on.
He’s always been observant in ways that most people underestimate.
He sees things and makes connections where other people might not.
This isn’t the first time Jesse has picked up on tension between me and Ari, even if it’s not the kind of tension he might be thinking.
“He’s fine,” I lie, and hate myself a little more for it.
Truth? I have no idea how Ari is this morning. Because my cowardly ass snuck out of bed before he woke up.
After what happened between us in the middle of the night, I wasn’t able to get back to sleep. Instead, I listened to the patterns of his breath, knowing the difference between when he’s pretending and when he actually falls asleep for real.
Last night won’t leave me alone. The heat of his body crowded into mine.
The way he looked up at me, so open and wanting, hopeful in a way that broke me.
I wanted to kiss him. God, I wanted to kiss him so bad.
It scared the shit out of me just how badly I wanted him in that moment.
How hungry I was for him. How hungry I still am, if I’m being honest.
Starving.
Starving for something that’s been building for half our lives. Something that would cross every line. Something that could ruin all of us.
I can’t do it to him. To any of them.
No one would ever understand it. They wouldn’t care about context or history or trauma and how it all collided, how we became what each other needed to survive.
All they would see are headlines. A scandal to feed the circling masses of people who live to watch others devoured by conflict and judgement.
So far Blake has managed to keep Jesse’s accident and rehab stay from getting out. The accident that put Jesse and Ari in the hospital was covered up by claims that Francis had been the one to collapse, and his health is why he needed to step away as manager.
No one, least of all Jesse, wants this kind of news to get out and overshadow our accomplishments or the music. Because if it did get out, that’s all anyone would talk about.
We already get plenty of bad press from conservative media for “corrupting youth” and having the audacity to speak out about politics.
If the media got wind of something happening between me and Ari— the brothers , as we’re known—it would all blow up in our faces.
All because I couldn’t keep my hands to myself.
“Are you two okay?” Jesse asks, pulling me from my thoughts.
“For sure,” I say, brushing it off. “It’ll all be good.”
Jesse raises an eyebrow.
“I told you, it’s fine.”
“You don’t look fine. You look like you’re overthinking your existence. And that’s kind of my thing right now, so…”
I almost laugh. Almost.
“Just the usual shit. I’m overbearing, blah blah blah …”
Jesse puts on an exaggerated, chiding tone. “Did you cockblock your brother again?”
Why does my stomach clench every time someone refers to us as brothers? Like if the qualifier isn’t there it makes this incestuous rather than just scandalous.
“I’m not trying to cockblock him,” I say, feigning incredulity.
That I’m an overprotective menace to Ari’s sex life has been a running joke since high school.
But it’s only funny if you don’t know the truth of it.
That I’m a possessive asshole who gives him just enough to keep him tethered, while pretending I’m not the reason he never really lets go.
“Maybe you two need a break, too,” Jesse says.
My gaze snaps to his, wide eyes betraying just how offensive I find the suggestion.
Jesse holds his hands up. “I’m just saying—some space might give you both some clarity.
My therapist told me I deserve to stand on my own, to know what I’m capable of without a crutch.
” He shrugs. “We all deserve to stand on our own. And Ari needs to grow and figure himself out without his scary big brother hovering over him all the time.”
“I don’t hover.”
Jesse’s expression is pointed and unimpressed. I exhale, allowing my ego to deflate some.
“I think Ari relies on you for a lot, and that gives you something you need, too. But you can’t be all each other needs forever, Will. It’s not sustainable. What happens if or when one of you wants a real relationship in the future?”
Seems like a problem for future Will and Ari , is what I want to say. To make jokes and brush off the truth of what he’s saying. It hurts because I know he’s right.
But that ugly feeling coils up inside me at the thought of Ari ever leaving me. Of choosing someone else.
I change the subject before I do something I’ll regret, like spill the whole truth about how I really feel about Ari. Obsessive. Possessive. Compulsive. Everything that turns my love for him into something twisted and dirty.
“Have you been writing at all?” I ask.
Jesse sighs, pushing his hair back from his forehead as we start walking again. “Trying. It’s all a mess right now. A lot of jumbled thoughts and feelings that are more like trauma dumping without melody. Not really good song writing material.”
“Do you have a guitar or something here?”
Jesse shakes his head. “No. I thought about asking for one, but I was being a weenie about it.”
I huff out a laugh. “What does that mean?”
He shrugs, but I can tell he’s trying to brush off something deep. “What if I don’t have… it anymore? What if all my creativity was tied up in being high or horny?”
“Hey,” I say, feigning seriousness and pointing at him. “No one said you’re not allowed to be horny.”
Jesse chuckles, then gets quiet again. He’s pensive for a few long moments before he talks again.
“Have you ever wished you could go back and fix something you did in the past? Like, one memory that you can’t let go of, where it all started to go downhill?”
I’m assuming he’s talking about whatever memory he has of when his party habits turned into coping habits. Whenever he thinks his spiral started.
I think about his question for a long time.
The first memory that comes up is from high school, when I kissed Ari.
It was only supposed to make him feel better, but it muddled things inside me.
Or maybe the first time I let him sleep in my bed, when we were way too young to understand how unhealthy coping mechanisms start.
It’s interesting, and yet also unsurprising, that all my thoughts go to memories I have of Ari.
You’d think I’d want to go back and prevent my mom from leaving, or my dad from getting himself killed, or beg any of my relatives to take me before I entered the system.
“I suppose I’ve thought of it,” I answer carefully. “I think everyone has. But when I think about it really hard, I don’t think I’d actually change anything. Because even though things are hard right now, we wouldn’t be who we are or have each other without every moment that brought us here.”
Jesse’s eyebrows meet his hairline. “That’s deep.”
“There’s more to me than just a pretty face, Jesse Moore.”
“Yeah, like a smart mouth.”
I spend the rest of the day being useful.
And by that, I mean doing anything to help anybody but myself or the one person who means more to me than anyone else ever will.
I call Blake to discuss getting not just a guitar, but an electric drum set, bass, and keyboard, too.
Anything to help Jesse fill his time and untangle the knots in his head.
In the beginning of his treatment, he needed to separate himself from his rockstar persona to find his sober self.
But even the therapists at the center agreed that the one healthy coping mechanism Jesse has always had is music, and they also think the rest of the band coming for jam sessions would be good for him as long as it’s casual and not about work.
Blake makes some calls and is able to get most things delivered. Then I make a few runs to the store to get cords, strings, extra notebooks, and a few things we need sooner than they can be delivered, because I’m impatient.
I’m coming out of a store off Capital Blvd. when an unpleasant reminder of my past calls out behind me.
“Well, I’ll be damned, I thought that was you.”
My spine locks before I even turn around.
Don hasn’t changed much. His gut’s a little heavier than it was before, straining the buttons of his stained t-shirt.
His hair’s thinner and greyer, and there are a few more veins noticeable in his bulbous, red nose.
But his eyes are the same—glossy but still sharp, always taking inventory of how he can take advantage of a situation.
He grins like we’re old friends, equals despite all the times he tore us down. “I heard you boys made it big. Saw your faces on TV, plastered all across the magazines, and on a billboard and everything. Almost didn’t recognize you at first. Thought, no way that’s my ungrateful kids.”
“We were never your kids,” I say evenly. “You made sure to remind us of that every chance you got.”
“And yet I still let you sleep under my roof, eat my food, and kept you even when no one else wanted ya’. I could have thrown you out on the streets when you turned eighteen, but I didn’t.”
“Did you collect checks for that? And if I remember correctly, I paid you rent from the time I was old enough to mow lawns. And you only let me stay because I threatened to report you.”
Don scoffs and looks down at his fingers, rubbing them together as if there’s something caught between them.
He sucks his teeth. “Always did have a mouth on ya. Both of you did. Ungrateful brats. And that little—” he waves his hand dismissively, “What do they call them now? Twinkies? In my day we called them what they were, f?—”
My vision blurs white at the edges. Don was always an asshole, but he was cruel to Ari in a way I could never stomach. “Finish that sentence, old man. I never was afraid of you and I’m certainly not now.”
He chuckles. “Still got you wrapped around his little finger, eh?” He steps forward. “I bet that’s not all he’s got you wrapped around.”
“Careful,” I warn quietly.
“Or what? Gonna hit me? That’d look real good for you. Bet the papers would eat that up. I know I’m not the only one that sees the way you look at Ari, either. Always fawning over each other. Wouldn’t be a far-fetched story to sell about catching you two fucking.”
I roll my eyes and try to play it cool. “No one would believe an abusive, manipulating piece of trash like you, Don. You don’t scare me.”
“Maybe not you…”
That does it. Rage rushes through me from my face to my feet, and it takes everything in me not to beat his face in. But I don’t swing, and I don’t shout.
I reach into my wallet, pull out a thin stack of bills, and slap it into his chest hard enough that it knocks him back a few steps.
“That,” I seethe, my voice barely above a growl, “is the last thing you will ever get out of me. If I ever see your face again, if you come near Ari or so much as breathe his name, I will come after you with everything I’ve got.”
His laugh is thinner this time.
“I will fucking end you,” I hiss with finality. Then I step back and walk away, not looking back when I hear his low chuckle.
I have a feeling this isn’t over, but hopefully I’ve bought myself some time to make a plan to deal with him without getting Ari involved.
We’re able to get everything set up pretty quickly—the benefits of fame and fortune. We jam for a while, playing around with old stuff and favorite covers. I put the encounter with Don in the far recesses of my mind and focus on the harder thing to avoid.
Every hour that passes is another excuse, delaying the time I need to go home and confront Ari. I tell myself I’m giving him space, like everyone says he needs, but I know better. I’m a fucking coward.
By the time I leave, Jesse is more animated than he’s been in months. His smile gives me a little hope for the future.
Up until I’m pulling onto the street where our shared rental is and all the breath is sucked from my lungs.
Ari is getting into a car with a glowing rideshare logo in the front windshield. It’s not even one of our car services, and it’s pretty obvious he doesn’t have anyone from the security team with him. He never thinks he’ll be recognized, but dressed like that, he’s bound to be noticed.
He’s wearing low-cut, dark skinny jeans that hug every curve, a thick studded belt that accentuates his waist, and a black cropped tank top I recognize.
I can’t read it from here, but I’m pretty sure it says “fuck toy” in holographic script.
His hair is down and styled, and I’m pretty sure his eyes and lips are done too.
I love it when he wears makeup. He’s beautiful every day, but the way his eyes pop with just the slightest bit of smoky eyeliner and the sinful pout of his lips with a touch of color is flat-out seductive. Tantalizing. Dangerous, even.
It’s got my blood pressure up from here. Though I can’t really say if it’s from the way he looks tonight or the fact that he’s clearly going out somewhere.
Without me.