Page 11 of Songbird: Black Kite
After shit fell apart at the Grammys five years ago, we all agreed thatBlack Kitewould go on hiatus for an indeterminate amount of time.
And while I couldn’t give less of a shit what Lewis was up to, I knew that both Alex and Gavin had been offered other projects, lucrative offers that I wished they’d accept.
Instead, they languished right along with me, wasting time and wallowing in what used to be.
At least Gavin was still playing, sitting in as a session drummer at a few studios around town when he could score a gig. I was glad; that guy wasn’t good at sitting still.
“Hey,” Alex said, coming to stand beside me. “I know it’s been shit, man. I didn’t mean to pressure you. You know Gav and I are here. Always. I just thought you might be ready. No shame if you’re not.”
I nodded, not speaking, but the way my guts were knotting told me that it might be past time to be honest with my friends.
My brothers.
The only people in the world, besides Harry, who stood by me through it all. When I was at my very lowest, and the line was drawn in the sand, Gavin and Alex hadn’t hesitated to choose a side. They’d picked me, even if it would eventually cost them everything.
“Now, tell us what’s so special about these boxes.
I blew out a relieved breath, grateful that he was letting me off the hook. Turning back to the boxes, I picked up the next one in the stack and took off the lid.
“I was checking out the attic over my garage last week—” I began, but Gavin cut me off.
“There’s an attic over your garage?”
“Right?” I laughed. “I had no idea. Anyway, there’s a ton of shit up there. Old tour merch, a bunch of our instruments from when we were kids. It’s a fuckingBlack Kitegoldmine. And tucked behind all that stuff was all these fuckin’ boxes. Like, dozens of them, all full of our fan mail.”
“Fan mail?” Alex asked, reaching in and plucking a letter off the top of the pile inside. “I didn’t think we got any fan mail? Like, didn’t the label handle all that shit?”
“They did. Their way of handling it was to box it up and shove it in my attic. I guess we musta told ’em to at one point or another, but no one ever brought it up again, so the boxes have just been piling up.” Tossing the lid aside, I grabbed another letter, this one in a black envelope with our name and information scrawled across the front in silver ink. “Harry has been helping me kind of catalogue them, because they are mostly boxed up by year. Then we see who they are to, and sort them again.”
“And that’s where the demos are coming from? The letters?” Gavin asked, tapping the letter rhythmically against his thigh.
“Exactly. You should see the kind of stuff people have sent us, man. There’re a ton of art, like drawings of us and our logo and shit. There’s poems, and songs, and a fuck ton of love letters and marriage proposals.” Gavin laughed, but Alex physically recoiled at the thought. He’d never been shy about his desire to stay single for life.
Especially after witnessing the disaster that was my marriage.
“You want some help?” Alex asked, jerking his head at the box. “Like, we can hang for a bit. Give you a hand with the sorting and shit.”
I blinked, a bit stunned. It had been so fucking long since we’d had something to do together.
Something that actually mattered, anyway. We’d spent a fuckton of time getting drunk together over the last five years.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice rough. “That’d be great.”
We settled in, the guys getting a kick out of reading some of the ridiculous stuff that we were sent, laughing and sharing the best parts together before sorting it into the bins for later.
We’d just finished the delicious lunch that Harry had brought us when Gavin reached into the box, pulling out another envelope, this one catching my eye.
“Wait!” I practically shouted, my hand latching onto his wrist.
“What?” he asked, suddenly panicked as he dropped the envelope back into the box. “Is it anthrax! Do I have anthrax now?”
“What?” I cocked my head at him. “No? What the fuck, man? There’s no anthrax.”
“There could be,” he muttered sullenly. “It’s like you guys never watch the documentaries I send through the group chat.”
“Because they suck,” Alex and I said in unison, causing Gavin’s pout to deepen.
“I just need this one,” I said, plucking the envelope from the box, my pulse racing when I spied the blue glitter ink on the front.
