Page 33 of Guitars and Cages

It might not be a bad idea, really. Hell, if we all lived over the bar I might actually get to ride my Harley every once in a while since I wouldn’t have to take the kid every damn place I needed to go. I was pretty sure he’d be grateful not to be dragged to the gym each day, or along to all my band practices.

My eyes widened as I thought about the band and why I was playing with them in the first place. If we moved over the bar, I wouldn’t need to play with them anymore. I wouldn’t be expected to get up there night after night. I could go back to the weekend gigs with my old band and fight for the rest of my cash. I preferred fighting anyway.

I’d never admit to anyone else, but I was starting to hate to play. My wrist had never healed good enough to let me play the way I’d played before, or maybe it was all the fighting that made it painful to work those strings. Either way, my hands on the guitar had grown clumsy over the last year, and I struggled at times to play things that used to come easy. Better to give it up now than keep on playing even after everyone else could hear how bad I’d become.

Yeah, living over the bar would be good for us all—and no more random run-ins with Conner, either; that would be a plus.

So why didn’t it feel like a plus? Why did I feel as if I’d be missing something if I never saw him again? God, I hated my fucked-up life; hated how many hours I spent talking to myself, too. That would be another benefit of living over the bar: I’d have someone to talk to every now and again. Maybe I could even sit with Morgan and watch football and hockey the way we used to when I was a kid. I missed those days. I missed when I didn’t have to hide so much from him, when I could just be me, and he thought I was awesome and told me so.

No one’s said that to me for a while. A long while.

“Awesome job, kid!” I could hear the echo of his words ringing through my head, praise earned for a good play on the field, or the hard work I’d put in training one of the horses. He always said I had a sixth sense with them, that I could charm even the ones no one else could. I still didn’t see how. It had been years since I’d been on horseback, let alone worked with one, and I doubted I could charm shit these days, surly bastard that I’d become. At least I could admit it.

I took one last drink, and then tucked the bottle in my room for later. Living over the bar would be good for me. Good for Rory, too; he’d have more people around to interact with. Maybe then he wouldn’t feel like he was being ignored. I checked the date on the calendar; the new month was gonna start in a couple of days. I wouldn’t have to pay the rent if I moved by then, as long as Morgan agreed to have us there. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t mind Alex and the kid, but me, well, I was gonna have to do a whole lotta promising to stay out of trouble.

It was settled, then. I’d talk to him when he brought Rory home.

The decision made, I leaned my head against the back of the couch and closed my eyes, letting my thoughts drift away, trying for oblivion, but landing in a nightmare...a memory.

Shirts off, sweaty from fixing the corral fence, we’d climbed into the hayloft with the lunch my mom had made, eating it without hardly tasting it, desperate to taste one another instead. His hand skimmed over my ribs; my hand was tangled in his hair as we kissed. I don’t remember who dragged who closer, who deepened the kiss more. Our bodies pressed tight, delicious friction building as we rubbed against one another, feeling how hard we were through our jeans. Neither of us heard him on that old wooden ladder, despite the fact it creaked like hell. That goes to show how into one another we were.

“What the hell is going on here?” my old man thundered, and I shoved Gage away from me hard, my eyes wide, panicked, my breathing wild and out of control from that kiss and the fear that shot through me as I saw the anger in my father’s eyes. My first thought was that he was gonna beat me, and not just with his belt this time but with the horsewhip, the way he was always threatening to. He’d only used it on one of us boys once, and that was the night Michael accidentally sunk the pickup in Shaman Creek. Mike moved out the day after, and it had been harder and harder to see him since.

I remember shaking in the face of all that wrath, and Gage reaching out his hand for mine, reaching out for me. I batted him away. Rough, angry, the lie already spilling from my lips about how I hadn’t been doing anything and that Gage had been the one to kiss me. I sat there in shock when my dad attacked him, when he tore into Gage with fists and feet; and later, when Dad held Gage up and told me to hit him, I did, trying not to cry because crying would have gotten my ass kicked, too. When it was over, Dad drove Gage home and dumped him on his father’s porch, screaming at Gage’s old man about the dirty little faggot he had for a son. All the while I huddled in the passenger seat, shaking at the hate and fury I could hear in my father’s voice. Gage’s old man finally ran my dad off with a shotgun. A part of me wished he’d have shot him, would have saved me the beating that I got anyway, and yeah, despite all my pleading he used the horsewhip. I’ve got some pretty wicked scars from that, too.

I moved back in with Chase after that, knowing I never should have left. Of course that didn’t last long, and I’d run again, and again and again and again. Guess there was no place far enough that I could run to ever forget what I did. I sat up on the couch, shaking my head, my face wet with tears I didn’t even remember shedding. On the TV the fight was still playing, violent and bloody, but I couldn’t stomach it, so I switched it off. I could hear my old man again in my head, laughing and calling me a fuckin’ pussy. Funny how I could still hear his hate from a thousand miles away.

I hoped he rotted in that place. I hoped he never saw the light of day again, that bars were the only view he’d have for whatever remained of his miserable life. I got off the couch and headed into the bathroom, found the shiny little sliver of silver I kept tucked away, and cut until I couldn’t hear him anymore; cut until the memories went away.

Chapter Fourteen

“Hey kid, come on, you need to get up. Rory’s getting worried.”

“Don’t wanna,” I mumbled, startled that Morgan was here. When the hell had he shown up...and why?

“Well, that’s too damned bad. He said you gave him cereal for dinner after I dropped him off last night, and now he’s had cereal for breakfast and lunch today. You know better than that; you used to hate it when your mama treated you boys that way. Outta the bed, Asher; it’s time you shake off whatever the hell is bothering you and be responsible.”

“Can’t.”

“Why?”

“Just can’t,” I told him as I pulled the blanket more securely around myself and shivered.

A warm, callused hand brushed the hair back from my forehead. “You coming down with something?”

“Leave me alone,” I muttered, curling inward, knees drawn up tight.

“I can’t do that,” Morgan told me. “I need you to talk to me so I can figure out what’s going on.”

“Just fuck off and leave me in peace, Morgan.”

“When have you known that tone of voice to work on me?”

“One can always hope today’s the day.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“No, you ain’t.”

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