Homecoming

*16*

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Swimming with Sharks

Brian

Well, fuck! I guess he's put it out there now.

Wriggle as she might, Lindsay's WASP ass is not going to be able to sit comfortably on the fence for much longer - not with little Sunshine shaking things up like a major earthquake.

Should I be pissed that he's sticking his nose into my relationship with Gus? Not to mention with Linds herself. Maybe I should be. Back in the day I certainly would have been. And I would have let the little twat know it in no uncertain terms. But the thing is - I can't have it both ways. Either he has a place alongside me in all of this, or he doesn't. If I want everyone else to recognize that and pay him the respect he's due, then it has to start with me. I have to show him that respect; which means I sure as hell can't pour shit on him when he's stepping up and claiming that place.

So instead, I walk over to him and wrapping my hand round the back of his neck, I turn to face Lindsay, so she sees how it is; how we are.

Together.

 

*****
 

Justin

It totally says where we are with each other that I'm not overly surprised that he doesn't turn on me for daring to say for once what I actually think about how this "friend" of his treats him. I just lean back against him a little, and watch to see how Lindsay reacts.

At first she seems stunned, then she flushes a little and gets that pursed mouth WASP thing happening. Guess what, Linds? Grew up with that look; my Mom owns the copyright. If she doesn't intimidate me with it anymore, it sure as Hell won't work for you.

"Justin, I know you mean well, but …"

Like we couldn't see that "but" coming.

"One of the things we're concerned about is that Gus might become even more attached to you, and then …"

As Brian tenses beside me, I say silkily, "And then what, Linds?"

"Well …" she looks from me to Brian, and although she's speaking to me, her eyes are on him when she says, "You'll be going back to New York soon."

I swear to God it's like she wants to watch those words hit home, wants to see the pain she thinks they'll cause him. So she's kinda thrown for a loop when I laugh.

"What makes you think that?" I ask.

She looks at me then, alright, her eyes bulging a little. "Well, of course you are! You have to!"

I just grin at her as Brian's arms snake around my waist.

"The program's not over yet!" she protests. "You can't just bail, Justin. You've signed a contract."

"He signed shit!" Brian cuts in. "He bailed on that asshole of a fucking program as soon as he got a look at their shitty contract."

He's right there. The "wonderful, once in a lifetime's opportunity" New Artists' program I'd put my future with Brian on hold to participate in turned out to be, as far as I could see, a major scam. If I'd signed, they would have held the rights to anything I'd created during the time I was with them. If they'd sold anything of mine, I would have received an "honorarium" of "up to" 25%.

Fuck that!

The only good thing about that fucking bullshit rip off exercise happened the first night. Because I was a last minute addition, I only arrived just in time for the introductory soirée - a total wannabe affair where they parade their new captives in front of some people who might conceivably be interested in buying the stuff they screw out of their "participants".

I'd just walked into the damned thing, after some incredible amount of time spent listening to some dickhead telling me that we'd "catch up with the paperwork in the morning", when I nearly crashed into Kellie McQuaid, the woman from Eyekonics who'd liked my "orange is the new blue" idea.

She did one of those "do I know you?" things, and since if there's one thing I learned from my time in LA it's that if you behave like you're nobody that's how you'll get treated, I introduced myself. She eventually remembered me, but hadn't put my face together with the newspaper stuff, which she'd seen and been interested in. She did now, and was really nice about it, joking that if she'd known that she'd had a budding genius working on her account, she would have been willing to pay Vance almost as much as his first quote for that campaign. Then she introduced me to her husband who is some sort of dealer, specializing in buying work by young artists cheaply and then selling them on later when they make a name for themselves. He'd actually bought one of my things from the Bloom Gallery exhibition.

Both of them seemed surprised to see me there. They gave me the impression that they thought I was kinda beyond this type of program, and ... something else, like there was something I should know about the program itself. I said I hadn't officially signed up yet, and they both acted relieved. Peter, the husband, gave me his card and said I should call him in the morning, that he could maybe introduce me to an agent I should talk to before I signed anything.

That made me wonder about exactly what I would be signing on for with this program, so I'd gone through the contract (which had only been given to me when I arrived) with a fucking fine tooth comb when I got back to my room, and in the morning I called Brian to discuss it with him. He agreed that it sounded like a rip off and said I should stall on signing until I'd at least spoken to Peter and maybe this agent.

Long story short, I'd bailed on the program and signed with the agent. She is a total shark, always on my case about producing more work, and being seen more and all sorts of shit, but she's also really good. Among other things she found me part time work at a small gallery, doing cleaning and other grunt work in return for studio space (which it turned out was a great deal - certainly a hell of a lot cheaper than paying for the space).

She also struck a deal with them that they got first refusal on anything I created, at a mutually agreed price. If they didn't want it, or didn't agree with the price I wanted and I could sell elsewhere at a higher price than they were prepared to offer then that was fine. So they hung an occasional painting for me and I sold a few things, more than I expected; enough with my Rage money to support myself.

I worked; I learned a lot about the business end; I created some things that I didn't hate; and by the time I left, I'd started in a really small way to get known, so I guess it was all worth it. But mainly I just missed Brian.

Which is why I am home now, and I can bask in the warmth in his eyes, and the quirk of his lips when he looks at me, and the feel of his arms around my waist right now. So I just smile at Lindsay and say, "Never got hooked into that shitty program, Linds. I've been working independently, and I can do that as well here as there."

I can do it better, in fact, since my main inspiration is here, but I'm not full of glib bullshit like Ethan, so I'm not going to say that out loud, not even to Brian.

"But Justin …" She sounds almost desperate to convince me that my future is in New York, which totally pisses me off and makes me wonder about a lot of the advice she and Mel have given me over the years. But this isn't about me, so I don't let her derail the discussion.

"Linds … stop worrying about my life, which is working out just fine, thank you. It's yours that we need to discuss. Or at least Gus'.

 

*****
 

Brian

Linds looks like someone just killed and skinned her pet rabbit. Someday I might have to have a little talk with her about just why she's so invested in Justin playing artiste in New York. But not today.

Justin's right. Today is about Gus, about us needing to find out just what the fuck has been going on up in Toronto so we can best work out how to deal with it; and as the pit bull is at Lindsay's throat, all I have to do is sit back and watch. Most people would find it totally un-fucking-believable but in this scenario, I'm the good cop. I just don't know if Linds has figured that out yet.

By the time he's finished with her though, she probably gets it - finally. Because despite her best efforts to dodge and evade and cry her way out of it, he keeps at her till it all comes out: the fact that she and the bitch queen actually fucking split up not long after they arrived in Toronto; that Mel got so abusive and unreasonable (one minute insisting that they didn't need any money from "that fucking asshole", and the next demanding Lindsay ask me to send more) while they both struggled to find work that Linds eventually moved out on her; that for the last couple of months Linds and Gus have been living in some bullshit shelter because Mel got so out of control over the break up that she kept coming round screaming and banging on the door and trying to break in to the shitty little apartment Lindsay had managed to find; that Mel has now apparently moved in with some dyke lawyer she met while she was trolling round trying to get work, and that the cunt was threatening to take Gus away from his mother because Lindsay couldn't offer him a proper home - which apparently Mel now could do courtesy of her new fucking bitch lover.

And that Mel has told Linds that she could move back to the States anytime she liked, but that Mel wouldn't let her bring Gus back.

Except, of course, that she has.

Fuck!

I'm about to call Ted to tell him to pull out all the stops in finding a fucking lawyer for Lindsay before she winds up on some sort of Federal kidnap charge, when a text comes through on my cell. He's not only found her an attorney, he's got her an appointment for this afternoon.

That's good in one way, bad in another. Our separate appointments overlap, so though I'd wanted Justin to come with me, he has to stay and look after Gus.

He promises to be careful, not to answer any calls except from me, and not to let anyone into the suite. And I head off to meet with my very straight female lawyer.

We discuss everything that's happened. She asks me over and over if I'd known what Linds was planning. Finally I lose it and tell her that I'd not only not known, I'd fucking paid for tickets for the she-bitch and her spawn to come down to Pittsburgh on my dollar, including hotel expenses.

At that she sits back with what might on anyone less prissy look like a smile. "Excellent! I would strongly recommend, Mr. Kinney, that you do not under any circumstances cancel those arrangements.

I give her a look and her smile widens.

"Since you advised your office staff to refer any callers to me, I've already been contacted by lawyers representing Ms. Marcus. She is claiming that you conspired with Ms. Petersen to bring Gus to Pittsburgh without her knowledge. Your booking the flight and hotel accommodation for both her and her child refutes your knowledge or participation in any such plan."

I shift uncomfortably. I suspect that Linds could be in a shitload of trouble and I don't want to make that worse. But fuck it! Whatever games she and Mel have been playing have nothing to do with me and she's been keeping me in the fucking dark about them for months. I can't let their bullshit affect my relationship with Gus. If I have to choose between Gus and Lindsay, there isn't really any fucking choice. So I spill that I have all the emails to and from Lindsay in which we organized the trip - including my repeated offers to pick up the tab for Mel and JR, and Lindsay's fudging on whether or not they would be coming down.

This time there's a definite smile - which really does make her look like a fucking shark, no wonder lawyers have got that reputation - and she asks me to provide her with copies.

We'd already gone over the history of my parental rights - when I signed them over and why - when I first met with her, so this time we stick to what this whole mess will mean to my attempts to gain guaranteed access rights to Gus. She asks me if Linds and Mel went through a legal marriage ceremony in Toronto. From what Lindsay said today, I'm assuming not, but I promise to find out. She says that she can do that more reliably. It's a not so subtle reminder that I shouldn't be believing everything - or anything - Lindsay tells me. She asks when they went through the formal adoption process here. I don't know. She looks puzzled at that, and says that, parental rights papers notwithstanding, I should have received a notice from the court about the adoption hearing. Again, she says that she'll check it out.

She tells me that since Lindsay and Mel do not have anything close to permanent residence status in Canada, let alone citizenship, the Canadian courts will most probably be more than happy to resign any custody case hearing to the US courts, especially if the Munchers haven't legally married while they've been in Canada.

Then she asks me the killer question: whether, given the break up of the Munchers' relationship, I want to go for custody as Gus' primary caregiver.

Once, the answer to that would have been laughably easy; fuck! Once, I wouldn't have been here at all. But now the answer isn't easy at all. Not, as most people would probably think, because I'm afraid to take on that commitment. Hell! in some ways Justin and I are the most able to provide a stable home for Gus. (And isn't that a fucked up thought?) So part of me wants to say `yes'; yes, let those two cunts learn what it's like to have to deal with a gatekeeper before being able to spend time with Gus; and if they think Mel's tough, they are completely kidding themselves; they've yet to really meet tough - it comes in a small blond package that looks all sunshine and light but has more sharp edges than a food grater and is more immovable that the fucking Rockies.

But it's not about me, and I can't get caught up in playing games about this. It's about Gus and what's best for him. Lindsay has been the one constant in his life since he was born, and I can't just snatch that away from him to suit my own fucked up agenda.

I explain that as best I can. It's fucking hard to talk about this shit. My throat is as tight as a virgin's ass, and for some reason I find some fucked up part of my brain wishing Justin was here.

For one instant I think I see a gleam of something almost like sympathy - even approval - in the eyes of the shark, but then she's back to her normal waspish self - reminding me to have no contact with Melanie, and to insist that all communication go through her. And not to spill any details of what we've discussed to Lindsay either. Says that if, after further consideration, she believes there's any advantage in Linds and I mounting a joint case she will arrange a meeting with Lindsay's attorney.

I can hear the cash register ka-chinking in the background, but who gives a fuck about the money, as long as we sort out something that will ensure that no matter what fucked up hoops the Munchers jump through, Gus will always know that he has Justin and I to fall back on, that we can always be there for him.

That's what really scares me - not just that I might lose all contact with Gus, but that he might need me, and not be able to find me. He's only a fucking little kid, he has no way to fight for the right to see his father or his Dus when he wants to. I have to do that for him; I have to fight for his rights.

And I will.

No matter what it takes.

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