Blue Boy 1: Bullet (11 page)

“Mr. Ramone, do you believe it’s possible your mother was trying to…”

Urgent movement in the corridor cut the officer off. A nurse appeared in the doorway. “You need to come with me.”

Levi shoved his chair back and pushed past the officer at the door. He followed the nurse to Bella’s room, bypassing her when she trailed to a stop. He reached Bella’s bedside and took her hand. At first it seemed that nothing had changed, but then he heard it, the faltering stutter of her failing heartbeat. A doctor hurried in. The chick was young; she didn’t look much older than him.

“It’ll be quick now.”

He nodded, his gaze fixed on Bella. Her eyes were closed, her face smooth. They’d been saying for hours that she was beyond feeling any pain, and he believed them. She hadn’t felt much of anything in so long.

Transfixed, he squeezed her hand as her chest made a strange rattling sound, and he brushed her hair away from her face. Bella had been a beautiful Southern belle once, but now her features were ravaged by years of misery and alcohol abuse. Paper-thin skin and frail bones. He’d always known the booze would kill her, but he’d never imagined he would say good-bye to her like this.

She shuddered. He watched the tremor travel through her body. To him it seemed like an animal shedding its skin, like she was trying to wriggle out of her life and force her way into whatever came next. The thought almost made him smile; then he noticed her chest was no longer moving.

He watched her for a long while, though in reality, it might have only been moments. Sometime later, he felt the hand of a stranger on his shoulder, and he knew she was gone. His momma was dead, she was free, and for the first time in years, so was he.

* * * *

He drove back to Bella’s house in a daze. Her death had been quick and painless—for her, at least—but the formalities that came next had gone on for hours. Death certificates, funeral homes, donating her only fully functioning organs—her eyes—to be used for medical research—the list was endless. It was early evening by the time he pushed open her unlocked front door.

The house was just as she’d lived—chaotic and loud. It struck him as morbidly ironic that her last moments had been so quiet and peaceful. He passed through the cluttered kitchen and into the living room. The TV was still playing one of the quiz shows she’d enjoyed so much. He crossed the room in two strides and shut it off, exasperated. Why couldn’t she shut the damned thing off?

He turned in a slow circle, searching for a point of focus. His gaze fell on the bureau, half-hidden by the open door. It was beside the liquor cabinet. He swiped a bottle of bourbon from Bella’s stash and opened the first drawer.

It took a while, but he eventually unearthed a pile of official-looking papers and envelopes. He carried them, the bourbon, and a glass into the disused dining room and sat down at the table. Though he’d spent more time than he cared to remember toiling through Bella’s finances, the stack of paperwork seemed imposing. The first inch of hard liquor helped, but not much. Though he poured another, he knew he wouldn’t drink it.

He reached for the closest thick envelope. It was weathered and dog-eared, like it had been opened again and again and stuffed back in its drawer. Inside, he expected to find bundled-up betting slips or evidence of hidden debts he knew nothing about, but instead, his fingers closed around banded stacks of photographs. Bewildered, he pulled them out and set them in front of him. There were dozens and dozens of them, arranged in chronological order and spanning decades and decades of Bella’s life.

Levi shook his head. The tidy pile of memories didn’t fit with the Bella he knew, and he couldn’t remember a time when it did. He flipped through the first stack. Some were dated, some not. Some of them were labeled with names and locations; some of them he had to guess. He came to an old photograph of a trailer park in Nevada and paused, staring hard at the faded image. They’d lived in the trailer for a while. Bella had hated it and spent her days screaming at Ernesto to get a better job, but Levi had loved it. To a six-year-old boy, the tiny tin box on wheels had seemed almost magical.

Bella’s phone rang. Levi ignored it, setting the photo aside and reaching for another. The next image took him forward in time, back to LA and the home he’d spent most of his life in. The photo was of his father, posing outside his new workshop. Levi had been too young at the time to know what Ernesto’s dreams had been. By the time he was old enough to understand, the reality of the gang-affiliated chop shop had become normal. He didn’t know any different until his own dreams had lured him away from California.

Levi turned the picture over with a heavy sigh, shoving it and the rest of them back in the box. He was stalling, using the masochistic trip down memory lane to avoid the arduous task of trolling through Bella’s papers. There were things to be done—burial arrangements, notifications for creditors and insurance companies, and bank accounts to close. He wasn’t going to bother with her personal belongings. There was nothing in the house for him but bad memories, and with no siblings or surviving family, who really cared? Not him.

He spent much of the night pulling together the paperwork he needed and compiling a list of calls to make in the morning. The sun was beginning to rise when he came across a stray photograph he’d missed. The image of Bella cradling a swaddled infant in her arms was grainy and smudged, but the words, printed neatly in blue ink on the back, were legible.

Levi, 6/9/1985. My love, my life, my world.

He swallowed, blinking hard, but the words blurred away to nothing. The numbness evaporated, and the hard cast protecting his heart cracked open a wide fissure. He cast the photo aside, buried his face in his arms, and wept for the mother he’d lost more than a decade ago.

Chapter Twelve

Mr. Draper woke him sometime later. Levi sat up and rubbed his face, taking in the tidied paperwork and photos on the table. Even the untouched bourbon had been cleared away.

“Doing okay, son?”

Was he? Levi wasn’t quite sure. He stretched his arms over his head and shrugged. Mr. Draper nodded, understanding like he always had.

“There’s a lot to do, eh? No need to do it all at once, though. Go home, get some real sleep. All this will still be here tomorrow.”

The old man shuffled around the room, plumping dirty cushions and straightening dusty ornaments. Levi watched him for a while, still somewhat asleep and detached from reality. He knew he’d cried; he could feel the dried tears on his face and the alien tightness at the base of his skull, but somehow, the last twenty-four hours seemed like they’d happened to somebody else. He glanced around him and shivered. He felt like he was in the wrong place. He wasn’t supposed to be here; he was supposed to be somewhere else, but where?

His head ached as he thought hard enough to burst a blood vessel. Then Sonny’s face flashed into his mind. “What time is it?”

Mr. Draper checked his watch. “Eleven thirty.”

“Eleven thirty?”
Shit
. He shoved back his chair. “I gotta go.”

An hour later, he pushed open the familiar, blacked-out glass doors to the studio. The chick on the desk was on the phone. Her eyes widened when she saw him. She put her hand over her mouthpiece and started to say something, but he didn’t stop. He made his way straight to the bathrooms, stripped off, turned the water as hot as he dared, and stood under the shower until he felt cleansed of the sweat and grime of two hellish days away from home.

The scalding water left a heated flush over his tanned skin. He glared at it, scrubbing with a towel, but the pink blotches stayed put. Short of scouring his skin right off, there wasn’t much he could do. He went to his locker, searched out a clean pair of jeans, and pulled them on. On the shelf above the locker, a crew member had left a stack of T-shirts to go with his trademark loose, scruffy jeans. They were all white. Irrational annoyance burned through him. He dropped the shirts on the bench and retrieved his own shirt from the floor. It was crumpled, and the faded black material showed up the damp patches on his skin, but he didn’t care. He pulled it over his head, jammed the rest of his stuff into his locker, and slammed the door shut.

It swung back open. He slammed it again, and again, but to no avail. Damned thing wouldn’t close. Furious, he drove his fist into the flimsy locker door. The hinges snapped, and it fell to the floor in a heap of battered, twisted metal. He stared at it, seeing nothing but Bella’s shattered body. She’d been dead a little over twenty-four hours, but he could still feel her cold, lifeless hand in his, could still smell the stale odor of her favorite gin on his skin. Goddamn it! He clenched his fists, ready to punch out every locker in the row, ready to tear the whole fucking room apart, ready to…

“Hey.”

He spun around, startled. Though the studio was often a hive of activity, the three-way was scheduled as a closed shoot—essential cast and crew only. Aside from the chick on the desk, he hadn’t seen another soul. He hadn’t even heard the dressing room door open.

Of course it was Sonny. Who else would it be?

He found his tongue. “What?”

Sonny stepped forward, letting the door swing shut behind him. He glanced between Levi and the broken locker. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothin’.” Levi averted his gaze and bent to pick up the mangled door. “Locker broke.”

“Broke? Looks like someone beat the shit out of it.”

“So?” Levi straightened up to find Sonny right in front of him. The urge to lash out and hurl him across the room warred with a deeper, more desperate need to pull him close and hide away in all that was Sonny—his bright eyes, sarcastic grin, and hypnotizing smell. “What do you care?”

Sonny raised an eyebrow, unfazed. “You’re about to stick your dick in my ass. I’d rather you weren’t thinking about killing someone at the same time.”

His choice of words stung. Levi’s breath caught in his throat, cutting off his defensive reply. Sonny frowned. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I…” Levi broke off. He couldn’t do it, couldn’t find the words to explain how his whole world had tipped on its axis since the last time he’d seen him. He stumbled backward, colliding with the lockers.

Sonny reached out, alarmed. “Hey, hey. It’s all right. You don’t have to do this, Levi, okay? Go home. I’ll tell them you’re sick. I’ll tell—”

The dressing room door opened, cutting him off. Jon stuck his head in without looking at either of them. “Good, you’re both here. We’re ready to start. Come on through when you’re ready.”

He let the door close without another word, but the brief interlude was enough to break the tenuous hold Sonny had over Levi.

Levi sidestepped him and headed for the door. The three-way had been the last thing he wanted to do for weeks, but now it was all he could seem to focus on. He had a job to do, and he was going to damn well do it.

“Levi, wait.”

He stopped with his hand on the door. Sonny’s voice was low, gravelly with an emotion he didn’t understand. The fractured, weathered shield on his heart threatened to give way.
No
. He clamped down the feeling. If he fell into Sonny’s arms now, he’d never get up.

“Come on,” he said without turning round. “Let’s get this bullshit over with.”

* * * *

The set was silent. Levi sat on the back of the perennial L-shaped couch with his eyes down, avoiding Sonny’s wide-eyed concern to his left, Jon’s sharp gaze in front of him, and Cam’s appraising stare from right at the back of the room.

What the fuck is Cam even doing here?

He chanced a glance down at Rex slouched on the sofa between him and Sonny, with one heavy arm resting on each of them, and considered him. Rex was tall with wide, thick shoulders and sandy-brown hair, but though he was blandly attractive, he did nothing for Levi. Big musclemen weren’t his thing.

Rex shifted and leaned back. His posture mirrored Levi’s, relaxed and casual, though Levi suspected his demeanor was sincere. After all, what did he have to worry about? He had two dudes to fuck. He was gonna have the time of his life.

Sonny let out a soft sigh. It echoed in Levi’s ears.
Sonny
. Damn it. He could feel his presence just a foot away, and a strange current crackled between them. Most days, he found Sonny’s energy exhilarating…thrilling, but today it disturbed him, taunted him almost, like it was the one thing that could push him over the edge.

Jon clapped his hands, as though calling for quiet on the stony, silent set. “Okay, the general plan is to keep it short—fool around, get each other going, then finish up with some hard fucking. Nothing cute, please, guys. We’ve got a brief to work from, and this is a raw scene. Everyone clear on what they’re doing?”

Levi met his gaze and nodded. A few days ago, there’d been a tiny rebellious part of him looking forward to the shoot, curious as to what it would really feel like to take another man inside him. Now, though, all he felt was a short, sharp shock of disgust. The warmth of Rex’s arm on him felt wrong, all wrong, in a way that no shoot ever had before. He just wanted to get it done and go home.

Warm fingers slid over his. Sonny tugged on his hand, leaning over to whisper in his ear, “It’ll be okay, I promise.”

Levi kept his eyes down, hardening his heart as anger rumbled through him like simmering lava. How could Sonny say that? What the fuck did it even mean?
“It’ll be okay.”
What the hell was that? The stupid kid had forced his way into Levi’s life and now thought he had the right to tell him that? What the fuck did he know?

Sonny squeezed his hand, his grip strong and sure, like a buffer to Levi’s anger. He held firm, and the fury surging through Levi’s veins evaporated, leaving him hollow. He felt the urge to laugh,
really
laugh, like he'd never fucking stop.

He didn’t. Instead, he turned away, leaving their hands entwined, and before he could reconcile himself with his whiplash-inducing mood, Jon raised his hand to give out his final instructions.

“When I call action, skip the preamble and get right into it. We can record some preshow banter later if we need it. Okay? Have a good fuck, guys. Let’s get to it.”