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Almost Easy

Chapter Thirty-Six: Sex Eyes

“My head,” I groaned, rubbing at my eyes.
Brian cackled, still holding the curtains in his hands that he’d just ripped open, allowing the morning sunlight to flood our hotel room.
“Kill it,” I whined, pulling at the blankets over my head in an attempt to remedy my migraine.
“Shouldn’t have drunk so much last night,” he smirked.
“Fuck off, Brian.”
He sat on the bed and pulled the blankets from my grip. I stared daggers at him, despite how sexy he looked with his hair messed up and sticking out in every direction.
Between me, John, and Justin, we’d pretty much ran the bar dry. The only way to subdue your grief is to drown it. Drown it we did.
But now I was fucking paying for it.
Brian was not. Brian had hardly had a single thing to drink all night. I accredited this to his anxiety about me getting too rip-roaring drunk and losing my self-control. I preferred the time when Brian used to get fucked up with me. In time.
“Here,” he grinned at me, handing me two small pills.
I took the glass of water from the nightstand and downed the medication.
“Tell me it’s drugs,” I smirked. “Good drugs.”
“You’d have to hit Jimmy up for the good shit,” Brian laughed.
“Jimmy,” I sighed affectionately. “We should have brought him with us.”
“No,” Brian laughed loudly. “No, we should not have.”
“I feel like I’m dying,” I pouted, rubbing at my temples with my thumbs.
“You can die later,” Brian said. “For now, you have to get out of bed.”
“I’m on vacation,” I told him seriously.
He shook his head, “No way. You have shit to do today.”
He wasn’t wrong. On the docket was a trip to see Tyler’s parents, which Brian had agreed to tag along to. Beyond that, I figured I should stop in to see my aunt. Not that I’m sure she’d care about my visit—but it was probably safer to see her than to not. I didn’t anticipate being back in town for a very long time.
Go pay your dues, as it were.
“If I go to my aunts first,” I thought aloud. “Then you can hang here before check-out. Then we’ll go to the Brody’s and then to the airport.”
Brian made a face at me, “Why don’t I just come with you.”
“You don’t want to do that,” I moaned. “My aunt is not friendly. She is not good people.”
“I don’t care,” he shrugged. “I’m here to be with you. I want to come.”
To avoid an argument, I conceded. I dragged myself out of bed and washed off the previous night’s makeup. Then applied new makeup. Being a woman was weird. I ran a brush through my hair and changed into something clean—an Avenged t-shirt that Jimmy had gifted me and a pair of black denim jeans. That was as good as it was going to get.
We gathered our things and threw them back into our bags. Check-out was simple enough and no one referred to us as the Haners this time, so I counted it as a win. We hailed a cab and I reluctantly gave them my childhood home’s address.
The entire drive I was caught in a state somewhere between nausea and dread.
My aunt’s house looked different somehow. It still stood as tall as it ever did, the bricks the same colour as always. It was less intimidating this time, I thought. I was an adult now. This was not my permanency.
“Just nod,” I told Brian as we stood on the sidewalk, he was admiring the size of the house. “Anything she says to you, just nod.”
He looked from the house to me and furrowed his brows.
“And put on your sweater,” I instructed. “She hates tattoos.”
I wasn’t really sure why it mattered to me. I liked to believe that I didn’t require my aunt’s approval on anything; I liked to believe that I didn’t need her to like me or my choices. But here I was, trying to prep Brian so that my aunt might approve of him. I knew it was a long shot—why did I care?
Brian smirked, “Whatever you say, Crazy Lady.”
He pulled a black Avenged hoodie across his shoulders, effectively covering all of his ink. I grimaced at him which only made him laugh.
“Now we match,” I groaned, gesturing to my Deathbat shirt and his Avenged sweater. “That’s embarrassing.”
“Why don’t you have to cover your arms?” Brian eyed me suspiciously.
I shrugged, “She’s seen my tattoos. She’s yelled about my tattoos. We’ve moved past them. If she sees yours, that’s all she’ll talk about. Forever.”
He rolled his eyes playfully, “Can we go inside now? Massachusetts is fucking cold.”
“California baby,” I teased.
I lead him up to the door where I was unsure if I should knock or not. After all, this had been my home for eleven years…but it wasn’t my home anymore. So, I knocked.
My aunt looked genuinely surprised to see me. I waved at her sheepishly and said hello. Her eyebrows fell but she let us in, closing the door firmly behind her. She lead us into her ‘sitting room’, taking up a seat intentionally across from us.
“To what do I owe the pleasure,” she sort of asked, her face dead-pan.
Of course we weren’t greeted with enthusiasm. Brian wasn’t acknowledged with a hand shake. We weren’t offered coffee or any sort of typical host to guest gesture. I was immediately reminded why I hated growing up here so much. Even if the house was beautiful.
“I’m assuming you heard about Tyler,” I said simply.
She nodded, “It was on the news.”
I nodded too.
Brian’s discomfort was strong. I could feel it.
“Suicide?” she asked.
I nodded again.
“Too bad,” she replied lamely. “Is that what brings you to town?”
I scoffed loudly at her dismissive nature. To be fair, I hadn’t anticipated a whole lot of consolation from her about it but I wasn’t totally prepared for how cold she was in her soul. Oh, well.
“Yeah,” I replied, squinting at her. “His funeral was last night.”
“You came for a funeral?” she mocked, her perfectly eyebrows raised up. “Excessive, no?”
It was Brian’s turn to scoff.
The sound averted her attention from me to him. He shifted in his seat.
“Who’s this?” she asked coolly.
“Brian Haner,” he said, almost stuttering.
He extended his hand to her over the coffee table; she looked at it and then at him and grimaced, “What am I to do with that?”
He bit at his bottom lip and pulled his hand back into his lap, “Just look at it, I guess.”
I giggled.
She looked back to me, “You’ve never brought a boyfriend home.”
I shrugged.
She looked back at Brian, “What do you do, Brian? Do you work?”
“I’m a musician,” he answered weakly.
She rolled her eyes, “Of course you are.”
“Carolyn,” I warned lowly. “Can you be pleasant?”
She rolled her eyes again, “I heard your song on the radio.”
“What station?” I choked a laugh.
I couldn’t imagine my aunt listening to any stations that played my band’s kind of music. There was no way that she just happened upon it. Maybe she was proud. I doubted it, but maybe.
“I’m not sure,” she told me but she was obviously lying.
She’d totally sought it out on purpose. How cute.
“You will be touring soon?” she asked me pleasantly, her hands folded in her lap. “I believe I read that somewhere.”
“Yeah,” I shrugged. “We leave next month.”
She nodded once, “And you, Brian?”
Every time she said his name, I could almost see the venom dripping from her teeth. She hated him. It was hilarious.
Brian looked uncertain of how to answer. She sighed loudly. Brian cringed.
“Does your band tour?” she asked more clearly.
“Oh. Yeah, we do,” he hesitated. “I’ll be playing on Blair’s tour though.”
She pushed her eyebrows down so low that they touched her skinny nose, “Why is that?”
I tilted my head at her like some kind of appalled fucking owl. Did she seriously not know why?
“Because we are without a guitarist,” I said through grit teeth. “You know, because ours fucking died?”
“Blair,” she scolded. “You don’t need to use that kind of language. A simple response would have sufficed.”
I looked at Brian with a ‘see?’ kind of look. His face lightened a touch.
“So,” Brian tried. “You raised Blair?”
My aunt sighed, “I suppose that’s right.”
There was no supposing. She did. She did raise me. Maybe she didn’t consider anything past eight years old raising? Like, was I just done? Stick a fork in me at eight?
Brian obviously hadn’t given any thought to the conversation after her response. He tapped his thumbs against his thighs, pursing his lips as his gears smoked they were turning so fast.
“How’s work?” I opted to save my poor, poor boyfriend.
“What did you come here for, Blair?” she asked impatiently. “Did you need something?”
“I—um,” I tried to find a reasonable reaction.
“Don’t use um” she groaned. “It’s impolite.”
“Wow,” Brian muttered under his breath with a smirk.
“What was that?” my aunt called him out, her stepford face unflinching.
Brian smirked, “You’re just kind of a bitch.”
“Excuse me?” she demanded, clearly appalled.
I couldn’t help it. My seams ripped apart as my body erupted with laughter. There was that cocky son of a bitch that I knew and loved. He was looking pretty pleased with his choice of words.
“I just,” I tried between laughs. “I just thought I should visit. Brian wanted to meet you.”
She was looking less than impressed.
“Lesson learned,” Brian leered.
“What a match you two are,” my aunt hissed.
As much fun as the whole experience was chalking up to be and since my aunt clearly was falling in love with Brian, I thought it best to create some separation. Three minutes and I was already willing to throw in the towel.
“Before you go,” my aunt said to me, sensing my impending departure…or maybe it was the polite way of telling me to get the fuck out… “There are a couple of things upstairs that belong to you. I was going to mail them out to you but since you’re here, you can just take them now.”
“As long as they’re small,” I said thinking about my small carry-on bag.
“I would like it if they’d leave my house,” she replied with her eyebrows raised again.
I gestured with a nod of my head for Brian to follow me. We climbed the original dark wood staircase and down the hall to my former bedroom.
It was surreal. It hadn’t changed at all. My bed set was still plastered with stickers and scribbles. My bed was made with my purple sheets and black comforter. Hell, there were still pictures stuffed into the edges of my full-length mirror. I had never really thought about how quickly I’d left. It was clear to me then that I’d bailed out hard.
“So this was your room?” Brian asked stupidly as he plucked a picture from the mirror and studied it with a smile.
“Mhm,” I said.
There was a photo album placed perfectly at the edge of my bed. Atop of it was a CD. The CD hardly seemed like something my aunt should feel the need to send me, but then I saw that it was Hybrid Theory and I was grateful she hadn’t thrown it away.
The album was dusty. I pulled it open to find a plethora of pictures of my mother. Pictures of her as a child, as a teenager…she had unmistakably dynamic eyes that I could pick out anywhere. Toward the back of the book were pictures of my mother with my father. I smiled fondly at them both.
My aunt was a terrible, terrible person. There was no question about that. But for her to save this for me and then to gift it to me…I was touched.
“Hey,” Brian said as he neared me. “Look at you.”
He handed me a picture. It was of Tyler, Justin, and me. We were shitfaced. But we looked happy. I remembered, sort of, this picture being taken. It was the night we decided to collectively move to the coast to pursue our careers.
I stuffed it underneath the photo album cover and tucked it under my arm.
“This place is haunted,” I told Brian with a laugh. “We need to get the fuck out of here.”
“Your aunt is a gem,” Brian said to me, signaling with his hands to the effect of being perfect.
I laughed, “I told you!”
“Honestly assumed you were exaggerating,” he smirked.
I hit him lightly.
“Quickie?” Brian teased, wiggling his eyebrows at me.
“Shut up,” I laughed. “Let’s go.”
With a short wave and a sincere thank you (that was totally blown off) to my aunt, we left. Without a vehicle and without the foresight to call one, we walked up the block to a coffee shop that I used to terrorize. From there, we called a cab and waited patiently with fresh java.
“Tyler’s parents are better, right?” Brian asked me from behind his coffee. “Your aunt is a fucking nightmare.”
“They’re the best,” I smiled. “They’re going to love you.”
“Your aunt loved me,” he smirked.
I rolled my eyes, “Uh-huh.”
“She did,” he insisted. “She was making sex eyes at me the whole time. If you’d have left for even one second….who knows what would have happened.”
“You can have her,” I laughed.
He looked at me fondly. I was, at the end of it all, glad he’d come. Maybe my aunt had been less than appropriate but it was a part of my life that now Brian understood. It was a piece of my past that had helped to form me into who I was by time he found me.
“Thanks for coming,” I mused aloud. “I’m happy you’re here.”
“Any time,” he winked. “But if your aunt comes on to me again, I’m going to have to leave you. I hope you understand.”
I shook my head with a smile, “Shut up.”

Notes

Comments

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RamonaFoREVer RamonaFoREVer
6/18/19

@LostinDreams77
Oh!!! I'm so glad!!! <33

fyction fyction
5/13/19

Only on chapter 6 but I bloody love it already lol

LostinDreams77 LostinDreams77
5/13/19

@kiss my sas
Omg!!! Lol

fyction fyction
3/27/19

Ok, time for a re read on this one now :D
Baby Blair, come at me!!!

kiss my sas kiss my sas
3/27/19