Cross My Heart

Ronnie

Muscles rippling like the North wind as it ploughed through the Pacific like a monster from one of Brent’s nightmares, Brian hauled up the last few loaded cans of paint into the guest bedroom of my home, a light sheen of sweat breaking out over his forehead. His shirt quickly removed itself from his body as he wiped up the droplets of salty water from his body, determined to get rid of the excess fluid before finally, he threw it into the corner of the bedroom and stalked over towards the windows, throwing them open wide to let a little of the cool air inside. As the breeze took over the both of us, my hands immediately reaching for the sweater that I had kept tucked beneath the sheets of white that would protect all the furniture.

The tour had come to a final close just a week after Brent had been found in the back of the tour bus, and defying every expectation I’d ever had of the little man, he’d loved every single second of being out on the road.

The Berry Brothers had enlisted him as their third man, and every morning while I was briefing the five men in either the freezing cold or the burning hot sunshine, depending on the state, I would see his tiny little legs rushing to catch up with them as he held the box of Jimmy’s drumsticks, the only thing his small muscles could carry.

He’d stood at the side of the stage every single night, without fail, wearing the smallest shirt that Matt Berry could stock in his merchandise, dancing around by my side as he listened to his five uncle’s play their little hearts out. His headphones were always huge and fluorescent and covered his little elfish ears as he smiled and sang his jumbled words along with Matt onstage.

“I’m totally getting paid for this, right?” Brian chuckled as he grabbed the nearest screwdriver, kneeling down onto the white sheet and digging the sharp point into the edge of the lid. Smirking, I slipped the ratty pair of overalls over my shorts and t-shirt, tying the ends in a loose note by the nape of my neck before I reached for the nearest set of brushes, prepared to do the rest of my son’s brand new bedroom justice.

It had been Johnny’s idea to have Brent move into our home, the beach house that I had slowly made my home in the eight months that the pair of us had spent living together. It was enough for spats about everything from dirty laundry to unruly tour schedules to ricochet through the house, but at the end of it all, it was nice to crawl into bed beside someone each night, safe in the knowledge that he would still be there when I woke up. My hands found my hips and I offered the infamous Haner look of ‘in your dreams’, quirking one eyebrow up in his direction.

“Yeah, in lemonade and fucking snickerdoodles. Seriously Bri, you’re a millionaire- can’t you just pay yourself and be done with it? This is your nephew’s bedroom,” I retorted, watching as he poured the blue paint into two separate trays and lifted them up with the steadiest hand I had ever seen him hold, pushing one towards me and resting it on one of the dressers.

“Your snickerdoodles suck. I can’t believe Grammy wasted a whole afternoon teaching you how to make them,” he grinned, placing his tray next to mine and dipping the roller brush into the vat of paint, slamming it against the wall with a triumphant shout as the pair of us began to paint over the boring white beneath it.

“I can’t believe you still call her Grammy- you’re nearly thirty years old and you have a girlfriend who actually has sex with you. Without you having to pay her!” I gasped, hiding back my giggles as I rolled the long strip of wet paint along the wall, determined to make it look perfect for my baby boy. His eyes rolled and yet, he remained as he was, painting, rather than flicking potentially damaging liquid in my face.

“At least I’m not dating a gnome,” he replied, the inside of his cheek being bitten as he waited for my retort.

“Well, at least Grammy doesn’t call me Baby Boo Brian. I got stuck with Pumpkin and I am perfectly fine with that.”

“That’s cause your head is shaped like one.”

My hand immediately reached out and slapped his taunt bicep, only to hear him chuckling as though a feather had simply brushed over his arm. There were many disadvantages to having a gym nut for an older brother and the first was by far that he could beat in every kind of physical contest there was, bar ‘how many Oreos can you stuff in your bra’. And with enough tequila in him, he could almost beat someone like me.

For a moment, silence fell over the breezy room, and as the sounds of voices came floating up through the open window, my heart clenched slightly as Johnny’s low pitched chuckle was accompanied by Brent’s much higher ramble. It had been Johnny’s idea, after the fights we’d had over keeping my son with the pair of us and how he would react to having another man in the house, that the pair of would spend some quality time together. He wanted to get to know the son of his girlfriend and Brian would have enlisted the help of the other three guys in the band in beating the crap out of him if he’d said no to even trying.

They had been carrying towels out into the backyard, intent on swimming in our ridiculously large swimming pool, despite the slightly chilly temperatures. Though I had slightly disagreed with it, it meant that the pair of them would finally get a chance to bond together, to learn a little more about each other. As a loud splash echoed through the air, Brent’s childish laughter squealing as another splash joined his, Brian tapped me on the shoulder.

“So, Brent and Johnny are hitting it off OK then?” he asked softly, reaching up on his tiptoes to brush over the very edges of the wall until finally, just the skirting was left beside his tall legs. I shrugged my shoulders, rolling the brush up and down the wall for the second time. It was strangely therapeutic painting the walls, watching as the neutral colour danced it way along the white and slowly transformed into what looked like an aquarium for my son to sleep in.

“Apparently so. We had a couple of fights over it, but he’s ready to start acting like a big boy and take on his responsibilities,” I replied.

“Who, Brent?”

“Nope, Johnny. I don’t know what it is about him recently, but he took it really hard when Brent got left with us. It’s almost as though he’s terrified of kids,” I mumbled thoughtfully.

The thought had struck itself into my brain and firmly lodged itself within the squished curves of my head until finally, it had replicated like an echo until it refused to leave my thoughts. Johnny had never exactly been the biggest fan of kids- in restaurants he would always seem to grimace at them whenever they made the right amount of noise to destroy the ambiance. He avoided anywhere that was kid-friendly like the black plague and though he would never admit it, when I’d told him that I had a son, I had watched his face turn a ghostly white right before my very eyes.

“They’re the same height as him, he probably feels like his power is being compromised,” Brian replied. Suddenly, I slipped down to the floor, the brush falling into the tray as my knees wrapped up against my chest and I took a long, deep breath. Something was making me terrified, something was striking panic within the very pits of my heart and what didn’t help was the sound of my lover and my son swimming outside.

For the briefest moment, Brian continued on with his painting until finally, he’d noticed that I had stopped. And when he turned around, his brush dropping into the large vat of paint beneath him, his expression dropped softly as he spotted two identically shaped tears trickled down along the curve of my cheek, the fear beginning to take over. Brian dropped everything, sliding into the position next to me as his arms wrapped themselves firmly around my head, pulling me in as close as he could without suffocating me, rocking my fragile little frame as though I were one of his puppies or a little baby.

“Why are you crying? There’s no reason for you to cry, Sis,” he murmured, his voice softer than the feathers in the pillows we were stacking up for my son to sleep on for the rest of the night.

“What if he’s only doing all of this so I won’t get mad, Bri? What if one day he can’t cope and he just walks out on our lives? I can’t raise Brent on my own- he needs a Dad. And God only knows where Alex has fucked off too,” I whispered, biting the inside of my cheek to try and stop myself from crying like a big girl. It wasn’t in my nature to appear so damn weak and yet, I was sat on the floor of an unpainted bedroom pretending as though my problems were the only things in the world that mattered.

“Ron,” Brian soothed softly, his hands scrabbling for the little skin on my arm that wasn’t covered in brightly coloured ink that seemed to replicate that on Brian’s bulging arms, “If he does that, Matt and I will not only bury him six feet under, but we’ll do it on an island somewhere. I know you think that Johnny’s going to act like this but look outside- he’s really trying. Don’t fret about it OK? Things are going to be just fine.”

His promises seemed to be just what I needed to lift that spirits just that little bit higher, not matter how horrible I was feeling, and with the little energy that I had left, I lifted up my head and pressed a kiss to the side of his jaw, the front of which was now free of the little animal that had once sat there beneath his chin.

“Thank you Bri. Now, if you want those damn cookies, we need to get this room done,” I smiled, picking myself up off of the floor and grabbing my paintbrush, turning back towards the barely painted wall. He was dubious, but he joined me nonetheless.

And yet, I couldn’t help but hear the gnawing feeling in my stomach grow as more of my soul was digested, convinced that Johnny wouldn’t be around much longer at all.