Chapter Sixteen
“Avery”
Alan Manzone calmly lifts the Marlboros from Graham Carson’s breast pocket as I gawk at this next unexpected what-the-fuck moment of the night.
“Did it go as planned?” he asks before putting a cigarette to his lips and cupping a hand to light it.
“Without a hitch, Alan. Exactly as we discussed. Exactly as you wanted.”
I watch Alan through the cloud of smoke, this iconic man who’s dazzling even in circumstances like this. He’s still dressed in the type of clothes he wears on stage and I wonder if he’s come straight from the Bowl and Ethan.
“Did Eric believe you?” Alan probes calmly.
“Every word. I don’t think he’d have left with Jamal if he hadn’t.” Graham Carson sounds vaguely disgusted. “I could see it in his eyes right up until I smashed the photos in his face. He thought we were doing everything he wanted and he couldn’t even commit to following through on that.”
Alan takes a long inhale from his cigarette and lets it gush from his lips slowly. “I have one son all want and no strength. And one all strength and no want. What the fuck did I do to these boys?”
Graham clutches Alan’s shoulders firmly, bringing his face close, his gaze intense. “Stay the course. It’s not your fault. It’s up to them the kind of men they are. And both those boys are lucky you’re the man you are. You did what you had to do. For them and your family.”
Alan shakes his head. “It should never have come to this. Eric has held my entire family emotionally hostage without care or awareness. Chrissie worries 24/7 about him. His sisters coddle him and make excuses for the shit he pulls. And Ethan—” His voice catches for a moment. “He’s so used to keeping his brother from hitting bottom that he doesn’t even have a thought of what he wants for himself anymore. Chrissie and I did too much for Eric. Gave too much. Loved too much. And it’s done nothing but cripple him and damn near destroy my family. I should have stopped it long ago. It shouldn’t have come to this.”
“But it has. And to correct things you have to deal with the conditions on the ground how they are and how we get them,” Graham counters confidently. “Tough love Manzone style. That’s what you asked for, Alan. No frilly forty-grand-a-month program. No comfort. No luxury. A hard-hitting bottom. A blank slate, a new start, and what happens next is up to him. You’re doing the right thing, buddy. That’s what Eric needs.”
Their words set my heart pounding, my pulse thrums loudly in my ears, and for a second I wonder if I’m hearing them correctly. Tough love Manzone style? Why is this sounding more like an intervention and not what Eric thought it was?
“I lied to both of my sons tonight. I’ve never done that before.”
“You did what was necessary, Alan. For both boys. Eric needs to pull himself up by his bootstraps on his own if he’s ever going to do it. And Ethan must be kept from going after him, stepping in, and pulling his ass from the fire. This won’t help Eric any other way but being completely stripped of every advantage he’s been given and his family.”
Alan’s mouth purses as he nods and crushes his cigarette beneath his shoe. “Where is Jamal taking him?”
“Not far. Seattle. There’s a boot camp rehab program about fifty miles from the city that’s going to take him and do as you asked. No contact with the outside. No phone. No way to leave. Nothing. And after ninety days they’re going to release Eric on the streets. New identity. No money. Just the backpack with bare survival necessities and the guitar you gave us. He’ll either sink or climb up by himself.”
They’re taking Eric to Seattle and a rehab center. Relief gushes through me even though I’m unclear what’s happening here.
Into their pause, I ask, “Eric’s not fleeing the country, disappearing? I don’t understand. I thought he was in danger. That Rochelle and Gray were part of a larger syndicate after him. Is he—are we—in danger or not?”
“Most of what you heard tonight was pure rubbish,” Graham explains. “Rochelle and Gray are small time grafters. Not even good ones, at that. No threat to anyone.”
My thoughts are snapping. “Why did you tell Eric all that other stuff? Make him think they’re part of the people who hurt his sister?”
“To scare the shit out of him and get in him the SUV, willing to do whatever we tell him,” he replies, uncontrite. “It was the only way, Avery, for this to work. Scare him sober and onto a different life path.”
Mr. Carson looks grim but very satisfied with himself.
“This was all a lie? A farce? Is that what you’re saying?”
“No, Avery, not a farce at all, ” Alan corrects. “It was an opportunity to make clear where my son’s life is heading and give both my sons what help I can.”
“Tough love Manzone style,” Graham adds cryptically. “It’s the only way to get Eric to stay put where we deliver him and keep Ethan from chasing after to rescue him.”
“I did it as much for one son as I did the other, Avery,” Alan states, anguished, and I’m nowhere near being able to understand what that one means or what he hopes to change by lying to Ethan. Ethan doesn’t need help. He’s the best guy I’ve ever known.
“What happens now?” I try to dismiss the less positive ramifications from my mind.
“Eric won’t be out of our line of sight,” Graham says. “My husband, Lee, has an associate in Seattle. A good man. He’ll shadow Eric after he’s released from the program in case things don’t go how we hope.”
“And what then?” I inquiry hotly. “Invent another lie? It doesn’t seem to me the right way to try to help someone. Have you considered what Ethan and Eric might think or feel over you lying to them?”
Alan fixes me in an unwavering stare. “Everything else has failed, and this is all Eric’s left me. This situation. This crisis. Addicts are masterful truth benders. Sometimes bending it back is the only way to get through to them.” His black eyes begin to shimmer. “But you already know that, don’t you, Avery? Or have you admitted to Eric that you told me everything about Houston and the blackmail weeks ago?”
My cheeks hotly flush. “That’s not the same thing. He wasn’t thinking rationally, making good decisions. I was trying to help him. Not manipulate him.”
“It’s exactly the same thing as what we did tonight,” Graham points out harshly. “You went behind his back so we would know about his problems then lied to his face you were keeping his secrets. And you also lied to Ethan.”
“That’s not true. I would never lie to Ethan. I didn’t tell him, but that doesn’t mean I’ve lied to him.”
“Omission is a lie of sorts. Probably the one people use most often. The lie of omission.” Alan steps to the SUV. “I need to get home. My wife’s waiting to hear how this went.”
“That’s it? We’re all just going to go back to our night like nothing happened here?”
A husky laugh passes from Alan’s lips. “I hope not. That would make what we’ve done pointless.”
“I’ll drive Ethan’s car back to his house,” Graham says.
“Thank you, Graham, for everything.” Alan stands watching over the top of the door as Graham Carson climbs into the Chevelle, and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do now. Half of me wants to run to Ethan and half of me is afraid that this part of my life has been changed by tonight’s events.
What will Ethan think of me when he finds out everything I’ve kept from him and my part in this?
“Get in the car, Avery,” Alan commands.
I’d rather not since I’m unsure how I feel about everything, but short of calling an Uber, I don’t have any other way out of here.
“My wife is going to want to speak to you. To know that Eric’s all right, and you’re the last one to see my son.”
My indecision must have shown on my face. I follow Alan Manzone into the SUV when I’m sure I should be heading to Ethan instead. From what I heard from Graham, E’s had a terrible night, being put through his own version of Manzone tough love.
The car door is closed behind me, and as we maneuver down the road, Alan reaches for a bottle of scotch and fills two glasses.
“No, I don’t want that,” I say when he offers me one.
Alan smiles and leans back in his seat. The minutes tick by in silence as he sips his drink and assesses me with a thoughtful expression on his face. I want to grab my cell and text E, but what’s radiating from him keeps me from doing it.
“I have something for you to do tonight for Ethan,” he announces abruptly, startling me. My brows hitch up. “Do you know how to post something to the Internet with a false date and time stamp?”
My eyes flare wide. It’s a strange request, one I wasn’t expecting, and even stranger how he said it, conversationally as though of no importance yet somehow not. “Excuse me?”
“You’re a blogger. I thought you might have other skills.”
“No. I don’t even think it’s possible.”
“Your father Skyler is a tech wizard and hacker. I bet it’s something he knows how to do,” Alan presses thoughtfully.
I tense, sensing I’m not going to like where this is going. “I don’t think it’s possible to do.”
“Would you find out if Skyler knows how? Ask him to post a few things on your blogs and elsewhere? To help Ethan?”
I stare down at my fingers folded in my lap. His request floors me almost as much as my unsureness that I’ll refuse. Would I do something like that to help Ethan? No ethical request could possibly follow such an unsavory question. It’s tantamount to cyber fraud. And why do I get the feeling this has something to do with Ethan’s dose of Manzone tough love via Alan?
I meet his gaze evenly. “I don’t know. It depends on the circumstance.”
“Ethan was put through his own charade tonight. Basically, the same story we fed Eric, minus the harsher element of thinking Rochelle is tied to what happened to Krystal. He thinks he pretended to be his brother on stage tonight to help him get a head start on running. I pushed Ethan to a limit I believed he wouldn’t cross. I never thought he’d do it. But I assumed wrong. And maybe it’s better that he did. Perhaps now he’ll realize it isn’t good how far he goes enabling his brother or that he shortchanges himself each time he puts Eric first before him.”
“You mean you’re planning not to tell Ethan what you did to Eric?”
“No, I intend to tell him. Eventually, but not at first. I don’t want him to get it into his head to chase after Eric. Not until Eric’s stood on his own feet for a while. It’s critical that doesn’t happen. It’s equally important you don’t tell Ethan what you know before the time is right to tell him everything. That secret is better kept between us for a while.”
I’m tired—beyond tired—confused, and I don’t want to hear more. Not if it’s additional things I’m going to have to keep from Ethan, not if it pulls me deeper into this dishonest web Alan’s weaving around his sons, and not if it’s something that might hurt the relationship I hope to build with Ethan.
“If what you’re going to ask me to help you with involves lying to Ethan, I don’t think I can do it,” I mutter, unable to look at Alan. “It’s already making me queasy that you expect me to hold back the truth from Eric and Ethan of what you and Graham Carson did. I don’t want to add more lies on the pile. It’s too much as it is.”
“I know you’re an honest person and an ethical blogger. I’m also aware you care for Ethan—quite a bit, I think, unless I’ve gotten too old to read accurately what I see on a girl’s face as she watches a guy on stage.”
The way his eyes gleam brings a blush to my cheeks, and Alan laughs. “You shouldn’t be embarrassed or surprised. It’s not a look from a girl I’m unfamiliar with and it’s not hard to see. Honest people wear honest emotions on their face and in their eyes. Ethan does, too. I’m confident how you feel about him is returned, and I couldn’t have asked for someone better than you being close to Ethan as he adjusts to not having Eric around sucking the oxygen out of his life.”
The compliment floods me with warmth—and makes my head spin. Am I really alone in a car with Alan Manzone telling me he likes me and giving me an odd sort of blessing to date his son? This strange day seems determined to get stranger by the minute.
“Ethan and I aren’t really anything yet. We’re only starting to figure out things about us.”
The rumbles come louder and fuller from his chest. “That sounds like Ethan. But I take you for a girl who figures out things quickly, what she wants, and doesn’t let anything stop her.”
The heat on my cheeks amplifies, because before this day, wanting Ethan never amounted to anything, and the second we began moving in the same direction together, the unexpected stepped in to stop it.
I frown. “I don’t always figure things out fast. I haven’t figured out what you want from me.”
“Nothing awful, love,” he assures charmingly. “I wouldn’t ask anything from you that compromises who you are. I like you who you are. But to do the right thing at times you have to do a little wrong.”
“Like you did tonight with Eric?” Apprehension makes my voice sharper and more critical than I intend, but if Alan notices that it doesn’t show on his face.
“Like I did with both my sons. I tossed Ethan into the fire earlier and I need you to pull him out quickly so only the lesson’s learned and remembered and no harm is done.”
My brows furrow deeper. I still don’t know where he’s going with this and I’m reluctant to give an impression I’m on board. “And you want me to help you with that?”
He takes from his pocket a flash drive and hands it to me. “My daughter Kaley is an excellent blogger. She reads your blog. She knows your style. She’s written some posts for the Roaming Redhead and a few press releases to be uploaded to the band website and tour PR firm. But I want them posted with the time stamp noted in the files. Not the actual upload times.”
I take the thumb drive and stare on it. “Do I want to know what’s on this? Or just give it to my dad and see if he can manage what you want?”
That amuses him. “These aren’t top secret government documents. No need to look so apprehensive. It’s the standard sort of press release announcing that Eric has gone into rehab, that tonight Ethan replaced him on stage with Black Dawn, an offer for a ticket refund should anyone think it deserved—though I doubt anyone will with how Ethan tore up the stage in Eric’s place—and some fluff about how excited the management is over the change. On the off chance someone figures out the boys switched places, I think it’s in the long-term interests of both that those get uploaded now and back time-stamped. We didn’t actually lie to anyone tonight. But I did omit having an announcement made, and that should probably be fixed.”
My mouth drops as I put together what he hasn’t said, and before I can decide if I should or shouldn’t do this for him, the SUV is parked in front of the Manzones’ sprawling estate in Pacific Palisades.
One of the security guards opens my door, and I spot Chrissie Parker standing on the stoop looking anxious as she waits for her husband to take her in a firm embrace. The way they hold onto each other is both beautiful and heartbreaking, like a couple madly in love weathering an unbearable storm together, but seeing it doesn’t help me one iota to do what I know I should and, to my own disbelief, not to do what I’m considering.