Almost Easy

We pulled up to the studio, the sun was causing me to have an aneurysm. I’d drank way too much the night before—and now I was paying for it.
But I’d scored a boyfriend out of the deal so it wasn’t a total loss.
Brian had his eyes tucked behind a shiny pair of sunglasses, his hair slicked back to make him look like some ultra-cool rock star. I guess he was.
“Ready?” I asked, smashing my cigarette into the ashtray in my car. “They’re like vultures so prepare yourself.”
“I’ve met them,” Brian waved. “It’s fine, Blair.”
“You’ve met them briefly,” I corrected seriously. “There is a big difference.”
“If I can handle the guys in Avenged, I can handle anybody,” Brian smirked. “I handle Jimmy daily.”
“That’s dirty,” I grinned.
“Get the fuck out of here, Peterson,” he laughed. “Let’s go.”
As we closed the car doors, I had to retort, “Don’t call me that.”
John was elated to see Brian—err, Synyster Gates—walk through the door. We was on his feet within seconds, bounding toward us with glee scribbled across his face.
“As if!” John cried happily. “No way you’re here!”
Brian grinned, extending his palm to shake John’s hand, “I’m happy to help.”
“That’s great of you, man,” John was in awe. “Really. Mind if I steal him, Blair? Get him up to speed on what we’re doing?”
I shook my head with a smile, “Take him.”
Brian disappeared into a booth with John, who was still shaking with excitement. Justin and Chris waved me over, both seated atop a set of amps. Chris was picking away at a guitar absent mindedly.
“Bagged Synyster Gates, huh?” Justin gestured toward Brian with his chin. “That’s pretty cool.”
I sat myself cross-legged on the floor before them, picking at the chips of nail polish left on my nails, “Yeah.”
“Austin’s going to be thrilled,” Chris chuckled.
“Fuck Austin,” I groaned. “We should really think of sacking the son of a bitch once this album is done.”
“He’s not all bad,” Chris shrugged.
I raised my eyebrows.
“He’s kind of a cunt,” Justin agreed with me with a laugh. “But we could have ended up with worse. Let’s just focus on the tour first and revisit the Austin issue later, yeah?”
“The tour,” Chris scoffed. “Like that’s still happening.”
“We’ll have to start auditioning for a new lead, I guess,” Justin shrugged. “We should start on that soon.”
“Body’s not even cold yet,” I grunted. “And we’re already replacing him.”
“What would you prefer, Blair?” Justin hissed. “You want to just cancel the tour, lose all chances of establishing a real fan base? It’s too fucking risky. Ty left us in a tight spot.”
I nodded slowly, pursing my lips, “I know that. Just seems fucked up.”
“It is fucked up,” Justin screeched. “The whole situation is fucked up. We need to deal with it as best we can—and hiring another guitarist would be dealing with it.”
He wasn’t wrong. I really wanted him to be wrong…but he wasn’t. I mentally apologized to Ty as I agreed that we should start looking.
And then I heard Brian’s guitar. It was the sweetest sound that I’d ever heard. His tones were as beautiful as they were unique.
“Your boyfriend’s fucking cool,” Justin said seriously, also admiring Brian’s talent.
I smirked, “I know.”
“There’s no better way to honor Tyler than that right there,” Chris said, pointing to Brian with his guitar pick. “He fucking loved Synyster Gates. It’s just—it’s awesome.”
It was funny to me the way that people talked about Brian like he was a thing and not a person. They used Synyster Gates like they would a table or an instrument. He was an object to them and while maybe it should have annoyed me, it only made me laugh.
Maybe there was a difference between Brian and Synyster Gates. The difference was the human element. One was a real, wonderful person. The other was an image.
Interesting.
“How are you holding up?” Chris asked me, turning his focus back to our little group.
I shrugged, “About as well as anyone, I guess.”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I hear you.”
“We’re going to be fine, right?” I asked awkwardly. “As a band? Us as people? We’re going to be fine?”
He tilted his head and shrugged his shoulders, “Who knows.”
“We’ll be fine,” Justin interjected. “Just don’t play into it and you’ll be fine.”
There were so many things that I wanted to say to Justin then. But I figured that there was no point—he was who he was. He had always been stubborn and blunt with his ideas. He was no less blunt in their verbalization.
Brian stopped playing whatever it was he’d been playing and switched into our music. It was an undeniably weird sensation to hear Tyler’s riffs being played by anyone but Tyler. This was one of those life changes that I’d have to get used to; if he hadn’t died, it wouldn’t be weird to hear it. But now it was. Not it was heart-wrenching.
Because he wasn’t here to do it himself.
“You should ask him for lessons,” Chris teased John as he neared us, perching next to Justin.
“Fuck you,” he laughed. “Were there no chairs around to rest your tired asses on?”
“No,” Chris and Justin said in unison.
“Thanks for bringing Synyster Gates,” John said to me then.
I made a face, “His name is Brian. Can we just call him Brian?”
They all looked at each other and then at me, “No.”
I laughed, “Did you guys rehearse that?”
“No,” they said again before breaking off into different versions of ‘quit it’.
Austin had joined the room at some point but seemingly had no interest in us. He was watching Brian intently as he and the guitar tech chatted about shit I didn’t understand. Brian looked so incredibly perfect inside the booth.
I walked over to Austin; I’d never turn down a good opportunity to watch Brian.
“You did a good thing,” Austin said to me, still watching Brian. “This is just what we needed for the album.”
I didn’t say anything. The only thing we needed for the album was Tyler. This was, at best, a back-up plan.
“See if he’ll agree to have his name featured on the track, would ya?” Austin continued, endlessly scheming.
I rolled my eyes but maintained my silence.
“Blair, are you awake?” he snapped his fingers in front of my eyes.
“Can we not?” I groaned, finally looking at him.
Austin laughed and it annoyed me, “Testy this morning.”
“We were talking this morning about hiring a new lead.”
Austin looked perplexed, “You agreed to that?”
I nodded.
“Well slap my dick and call me Shirley,” he grinned. “I never would have thought you’d agree to something like that.”
“I know as well as anyone that we can’t cancel the tour,” I said simply. “It is what it is.”
“Huh.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” he smiled for a quick second. “You just never stop impressing me, do you?”
“I literally never impress you,” I said flatly.
He laughed hard, “Oh, Blair.”
Brian was looking at me then with his big, beautiful brown eyes. I smiled like an idiot, waving sheepishly. He smirked, breaking our eye contact to go back to his recording. God damn was he sexy.
“You’re okay?” Austin asked suddenly. “You’re hanging in there?”
I eyed him suspiciously, “Why?”
“What do you mean why?” he snickered. “I know what it’s like to lose people. I’m not always a monster, you know.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.”
He sighed—it took me off guard, “My wife died a couple of years ago. So, I get it.”
“I didn’t know,” I hesitated. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” he said seriously. “Listen, I know I give you a lot of flak but I really do have your best intentions at heart here. I know that Tyler was important to the group and I’m feeling the loss too. I’m not fucking dead inside.”
“Okay,” I said awkwardly because I didn’t know what else to say.
He smirked, “All I’m saying is that if you ever need an ear, I have two.”
“Thank you for the anatomy lesson,” I half-teased.
It wasn’t going to be that easy for him to make me forget everything he’d ever done to make me despise him. He could try to appear human to me; it wasn’t going to happen.
“Hey, B,” the audio engineer beckoned me, “Can you come here for a quick sec?”
“Duty calls,” I shrugged to Austin before taking my leave.
Call it empathy—which I don’t think it was, but I suddenly felt kind of bad for being so dismissive of Austin’s offer. If I was stuck with him for the next while, maybe I owed it to myself to try and make steps toward a better working relationship. Not that I particularly cared or wanted to. But maybe if he liked me, he wouldn’t make me do things like press interviews immediately after my friend’s death.
“Thanks,” I turned around to say. “For the offer.”
He winked at me which immediately grossed me out.
The sound tech, Avery, handed me a pair of headphones. Brian’s strings immediately filled my ears—in all of their power and all of their glory, I was swooning. It was beautiful. It was almost as incredible as if Tyler had played it himself.
There was something magical about hearing my friend’s music come to life. It was almost as if, for one tiny second, he was still with me.
I swallowed down the feeling before handing back the headphones, “Sounds awesome.”
“He’s awesome,” Avery grinned from ear to ear, pointing to an approaching Brian.
“Get anything good from it?” Brian asked humbly.
Avery nodded, “Oh fuck yeah.”
Brian looked pleased with himself.
“Sounds incredible,” I gushed.
“Fancy doing some vocals?” Avery wiggled his eyebrows at me.
I threw my head back dramatically, “Do I have to?”
“You are a delight to work with,” Avery laughed before turning his attention to Brian, “She this whiny all the time?”
Brian nodded with a grin.
“Fuck off, I am not,” I giggled.
“Help a brother out,” Avery reasoned with me. “Get the fuck into that booth.”
I flipped him the bird but obliged. Laying down vocals overtop of Brian’s guitar was an exhilarating experience—I was suddenly very jealous of Matt. He got to do this shit all the time.
But I got to do it with Tyler for years—and it was just as exhilarating.
I really, really missed my friend.
Brian was a pretty good replacement though—in the studio anyway. There was no replacing Tyler in any other aspect of my life. There would always be a hole where Tyler used to be.
I just had to hope that the hole didn’t swallow me up one day.

Notes