Page 34 of Broken Chorus

What the hell is a gender reveal?

Hell yeah you can do the gender reveal.

Will one of you two fuckers please tell me what a gender reveal is?

Aaron, educate my brother, will ya, I gotta go spoil my wife.

Staggering out of the memory, Hawk hit the wall beside the music room, a lump in his throat both choking him and bringing him to his knees. Man had they celebrated, first privately, then with the rest of the band after they’d hauled their drunk, hungover asses onto the bus. They’d celebrated as a family. So many events over the years, so many moments that no one else knew but them. They’d shared massive success and devastating failures as a unit, well once they’d gotten past the shit in the early days when Ethan, Hawk, and Aaron had struggled to figure out who was going to play which guitar parts. In the end, lead had fallen to Aaron, while Ethan had become the rhythm guitarist and backup vocalist. Hawk had been relegated to frontman with the occasional guitar solo to keep his fingers sharp, but that had been fair, when the two of them were the better guitar players. Aaron was the better singer too, even if the fucker wouldn’t admit it.

He dropped the key twice before he got the door open, barely managing to get inside with the door closed behind him before he lost it completely. The only thing that should have changed when he’d been unable to return to the band was that they went from a five man group to four. Instead everything hadfractured, the kids had lost two uncles along with their folks and Hawk….was terrified that he was going to fuck all of this up and those kids would wind up hating him the way his ex-bandmates did.

How the fuck had it been so easy for Just an and Ethan to cut ties and turn their backs on him? And when the fuck was Aaron going to go ahead and get it over with? He needed to do it already, before there was no way in hell Hawk would ever let him go.

Fucking hell, he was already to that point. He fuckin’ needed him here. Right now. Right this minute. So he could lay in Aaron’s arms and sob his soul out over ever shred of unfairness that had barreled through their lives. Those kids needed their parents. Hell they needed people who knew how to be parents and Hawk clearly didn’t have a fucking clue. He loved them, he could provide for them, he could try to help with homework, dry their tears and protect them with his life, but would that be enough?

He was gonna fuck this to hell and everyone would know it when years down the line, when they were old enough to walk away, they turned their backs on him too and there were no calls, no visits, no touching base or checking in. Even Kelly only hit him up when there was something going sideways with the band, which was damn near every night theses days and it was always Aaron at the root of the problem and Kelly hoping Hawk would say something to Aaron that would turn things around. Sure Kelly asked about the kids, in a fleeting way that was more cursory than interested, so Hawk always told him everything was fine and left it at that.

His brother should have been here to sign Ella’s report card this quarter, six As and three Bs. He’d have been so proud of her. Spelling was something she’d struggled with in the first few weeks, but Hawk had gotten in the habit of quizzing her on theway to school. In the process, Liam had learned how to spell several words and Dani had become her cheerleader, celebrating whenever they got one right. It was nice to see them coming together as a family in yet another way.

If tragedy had to strike, then why hadn’t it hit him instead of his brother? He’d had nothing but the music and the band. No one who’d truly depended on him for anything. Arden and Lynn had been those children’s whole world. Hawk couldn’t fathom being that for anyone. Only he was and he wasn’t equipped for it.

Caught in the grip of fear and pain, he rocked on the floor with tears soaking his face and his chest so tight he could barely draw in air. He knew he needed to get up. He knew he had shit he was supposed to be doing, but he couldn’t pull it together. After a while, he was so exhausted he just lay there in the silence, fingers dug in the carpet as the only means of grounding himself.

Blip

Blup. Blup.

He heard his phone, but he couldn’t make himself reach for it until after several more chimes. His hands were shaking so bad it took effort to get it open, and when he did, what he saw was several voice recordings under Aaron’s name. Like a drowning man lunging for water, he hit play on the first one and took his first full breath when Aaron’s voice filled the room.

Can’t sleep. What else is new, right? So I’m down at the neon gardens, wandering and thinking about that time we fucked around and got lost trying to win that corn maze race ‘cause someone decided we should take a shortcut, knowing even you weren’t tall enough to see over those stalks.

Groaning, he played it again, because he did remember. They’d been so far off course when Hawk had finally gotten the brilliant idea to put Aaron on his shoulders, that there had been no way for them to win. They’d made it fun though. Aaron trying for an Ausie accent while pretending they wereexplorers trudging through the bush, looking for the elusive Corvus Spiritus, otherwise known as the Ghost Crow. He’d woven a whole fuckin’ tale on the way out of there, that had been both creepy and creative as hell. Hawk just wished they’d been allowed their phone, because he would have recorded it and kept it along with the rest of the footage they’d shot over the years.

Hey, they’ve added a whole new section! Check this out. Holy shit! And that does not count towards the swear jar, fucker, you can’t blame me if you played it where the kids could hear.

In an instant he was laughing, especially when he scrolled down and spotted the photos of Aaron wearing several glowing bracelets and necklaces, a trippy caterpillar behind him trailing smoke. Hawk wasn’t certain, but it looked like there were words written in it. In the next shot, Aaron was standing beneath a neon hat with rabbit ears sticking up out of it, and in the next, it looked like he was sitting in a stone teacup covered in glow paint. The last shot was the best though. It was Aaron with a wide grin trying to match the brilliantly colored Cheshire Cat smiling beside him.

Hawk’s fingers flew over the keys, erasing, changing, pouring his heart out about the memories and the anger and the helplessness, then hitting the backspace button before he could hit send. Three times he tried to express what he was feeling, finger poised over the video chat button for a moment, because it wasn’t enough to see Aaron’s face right now. He needed to hear him.

Only Aaron was having an awesome time and the last thing Hawk wanted was to drop a load of emotional baggage on him. Finally, he settled for brief message that lacked any of the emotions he felt.

“Looks awesome, now go get lost in it for both of us and remember this moment the next time you think you’d be better off here.”

He’d gotten the music room locked up and was halfway to the kitchen when a response came, only it was the last one he’d expected to see from Aaron.

Go fuck yourself.

What the hell was that for?

What is your issue?

Hawk typed back before dropping the phone on the counter so he could try to get some of his work done.

Every few minutes he want back to it though, despite the lack sound of announcing a text. Fucker had left him unread.

What the fuck?

He tried calling and it went straight to voicemail, so he hit the red phone icon before he said something he might regret.

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