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Truth is, Alex’s Sunday nights are solemnly spent at his family’s church services like the band thinks — for years, now, since Sunset Curve was known as Whisper Cats and Luke and Alex were the same height, as far as the other guys knew, Alex hadn’t been able to rehearse on Sunday evenings because he was busy at vespers. Usually, this just meant that the other three would spend one evening a week coming up with lyrics for new songs together — it’s a blessing in disguise, really, because Alex is sure he’d be driven crazy listening to them fight over Luke’s soul lying with rock and Reggie’s with country, anyway.
This arrangement worked out well enough until a handful of months ago when he began telling his family the excuse that since he was beginning to take the band more seriously (which wasn’t technically a lie!), they needed more time practicing with him to score more gigs. Surprisingly — albeit begrudgingly — they agreed and let him off the hook for Sunday vespers, so long as he continued to come to Sunday lauds.
He’d take it if it meant both his blood family and his found family were both off his back for a few hours a week.
Don’t get Alex wrong, okay — he loves the guys. They’ve been through hell and back together, the four of them; they’ve been like family to him every time his real family has let him down. Bobby’s garage may as well have a sign on the front declaring, The Shaw Family's Garage for Wayward Social Outcasts with how much time he, Luke, and Reggie spend there together in solace from their own miserable homelives. They may as well have matching blood oath scars in the shape of a setting sun.
That being said — Alex has been living quite the double life. Or triple life, maybe.
It almost makes him feel bad. Almost. The long drive down to the HGC — an underground gay bar that’s located in a dingy alley downtown, where the waiters almost definitely know he’s underage, but still accept his fake and let him in every time he goes, so long as he doesn’t drink too much — every Sunday night, he debates whether he should come clean to them, confess to the elaborate ruse, but every night still without fail, the moment he steps inside the doors and spots him from across the floor, the guy with long, dishevelled hair and offensively high cheekbones who damn near ran him over all those months ago on a clear-his-head type of walk after a particularly frustrating rehearsal with the band, the guilt all washes away.
The night came and went all too soon, just like it does every Sunday. It’s bittersweet having to say goodbye each week, but Alex has always known that all this is was something he could have a taste of, but never have the real thing. He could allow himself to have glimpses of what his life could look like someday, but it would never be something he could have long enough to hold. Each week, it slipped through his fingers.
Willie offered to take him for a cruise down Hollywood Boulevard, windows down with the radio up and hands collapsed together over the console because the air in the bar was a little too stuffy and cramped. Alex agreed.
Despite the radio airing rock turned up, their wistful drive was spent in relative silence conversation-wise — as per usual, Alex’s mind was rather preoccupied. Exceptionally, it seemed like he’d taken a page — literally — out of Luke’s book, because tonight his heart had been about to burst at the seams, and he had to get it out somehow.
Hence, lyrics. His mind was preoccupied from the moment he saw Willie across the dance floor to the moment he dropped him off back at the club to drive himself home with lyrics.
Take me out tonight, where there’s music, and there’s people, and they’re young, and alive.
It wasn’t completely unlike Alex to indulge in songwriting sometimes. He was the drummer of their makeshift rock band — strong, steady, reliable. He was stable; he was never the touchy-feely emotional one like Luke was. While Luke was their leading man with charisma for days, Reggie their affable magnitism, and Bobby their quiet undercurrent, Alex was the epitome of Sunset Curve’s beating heart. His guitarists would lose their rhythm without him.
Despite the role he’d been slotted into as the glue to hold everyone else together, he was infrequently given the chance to explore songwriting, which was never the worst thing in the world to Alex. Even though Luke insisted nearly every rehearsal to write in more solos for him, he was always more than happy to stay firmly backup, back of the stage. Surely he’d have to sing if the band ever decided his own lyrics were good enough to use — hence why, for the most part, he kept it a secret from the others, besides occasionally chiming in whenever one of the others asked for his opinion on some lyrics they were having trouble sorting out amongst one another. Really, it was just a whole can of worms he’d never found the desire to open. Out of fear or otherwise, he supposed.
That didn’t mean he didn’t keep his own matching black songbook just like Luke and Reggie and Bobby all did — they just didn’t know, and in fear of having to sing solos up onstage, he’d like to keep it that way, thank you very much.
The drive home — almost home — after Willie drops him off back at the club for his car is spent humming a short and melancholy tune, over and over and over. It’s well past midnight when he pulls up outside his family’s house. He can hear vague lyrics spiralling in his head.
I never, never want to go home.
Alex grips the steering wheel a little tighter.
I haven’t got one anymore.
Alex parks the car and takes his key out of the ignition as he stares up at the quiet, white suburban house with all the lights off and two pristine cars parked in the drive.
It’s not my home, it's their home, and I'm welcome no more.
He pulls a sour face and inserts his key right back into the ignition, putting the car back in gear and pulling right out down the street toward his route to the studio. Usually, it doesn’t hit him this hard — sometimes, though, some days are heavier than others, more suffocating.
The short drive to Bobby’s house where their studio is assembled in the garage his family doesn’t use anymore is filled with low humming and muttering to himself lyrics that catch his brain, over and over and over again.
To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die.
Alex’s heart pounds in his chest as he thinks about Willie, who’s all dark hair and strong cologne and firm hands and calamitous eyes; the way they’re all darkened hookups in the back of his car and lies and sneaking around because they’ll become their grades two biggest rejects if they don’t and terribly unholy thoughts on the Lord’s day when they’re together.
He throws off his seatbelt from over his shoulder and reaches behind the passenger seat, grabbing his bookbag, and hauling it over his shoulder.
Alex saunters up the driveway and quietly pushes the door to the garage open, making double sure not to let it slam shut behind him in case Bobby is still awake inside the house. He exhales a relieved breath he didn’t realize he was holding that all of the lights are down — this must mean everyone’s gone home, and no one else will be here tonight.
He flicks on the overhead light, and deposits his bookbag onto the couch — his songbook spills out the top, of course, which he grabs and sets it down on the coffee table, sitting down on the floor in front of it as he scrambles for a pen. He needs to write these lyrics out, have a solid cry, then a scorching shower, and finally raid the guys’ mini fridge of their worst junk food, all exactly in that order, before heading up to the loft and passing the fuck out.
Unfortunately, he only gets three-quarters through with his list before he’s bone-deep frightened by someone standing in front of the coffee table holding his songbook where he left it open — it takes him less than a split second to recognize that it’s Luke reading it. Poor oversight on his part, he’ll admit it, but…what’s Luke even doing here in the first place tonight? Why did he feel the need to be so nosey as to read his songbook?!
Can this kid never just mind his own business?
Alex’s overgrown hair, still almost completely soaking from his shower, drips onto the carpet he’s standing on, and Luke peers up at a sopping-wet Alex with wide eyes like he’s a deer caught in buzzing headlights. “What is this?” Quietly Alex hears him ask, and he’s pretty sure his heart sinks straight from his chest down deep in his stomach. He doesn’t even have a feather of an answer. “Dude, since when do you write music?”
“Give it here,” Alex says lowly as he approaches Luke with his hand flat out, palm up. “Why are you going through my things? Why are you even here tonight?”
“I had a fight with my mom tonight, it’s nothing,” Luke shrugs, and any other day, Alex would’ve butted in to ask him if he was okay had he not been pissed beyond belief right now. Not today, though. “I don’t know, I thought you were writing in mine, and you left it open on the table! They literally look the same!” Luke exclaims as he keeps the book that perfectly matches his firmly in his hands, open but tucked close to his chest. “Why have you never told us you write music?”
“‘Cause it’s nothing! ‘Cause I don’t!” Alex exclaims, lunging to the open book once again. For someone as tiny as Luke, he holds it up impressively high. “Seriously, give it.”
“No, seriously, you,” Luke says gravely. “Why did you keep it from us? We don’t ever keep shit from each other. You guys always get to know when shit’s gone wrong with me and my folks, or when Reggie’s are fighting again. Is it ‘cause you're scared we’ll think it’s bad? ‘Cause these lyrics are killer, dude, and I’m not just sayin’ that. To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die. I mean, who even writes that? Who’s it about?”
Alex is frozen for a moment, dead silent, before he swears he feels something snap in his chest. “Why are you always so nosey, Luke? Why do you think I didn’t want to tell you in the first place? You just keep prying, and you can never leave well enough the hell alone, and you always have to make everyone else’s business yours, you just—” Alex cuts himself off and takes a deep breath. The gravity of what he’s just said to his friend — his best friend, his brother — finally hits him, and he widens his eyes — sometimes his mouth moves faster than his brain does.
He and Luke have that in common.
Unfortunately, this shared vice has led to many an explosive fight between them in the past. Clearly, tonight is no different.
Luke scrunches up his nose in disdain. “Seriously, Alex?”
Alex’s heart properly stutters — he’d bet it skipped a beat or two in the wake of his soliloquy. He didn’t mean any of that, not a word — he knows he didn’t mean it. He’s getting defensive over this — over Willie — and he knows it, and Luke just happens to be the unlucky one on the receiving end. “Please, just give it back,” he pleads. He’s desperate. “Please.”
“Fine,” Luke says faintly as he finally shuts the notebook and presses it up against Alex’s chest. “Take it then. Didn’t realize brothers kept shit like this from each other.”
“Thank you, my god,” Alex huffs, snatching it from Luke’s grip on his chest and chucking it onto the nearby sofa. He runs a hand through his dampening hair and sighs. He pointedly avoids Luke’s piercing eyes.
“I just don’t get why you’re so damn protective out of nowhere,” Luke continues to push. “I know you don’t like to sing solos — even though you really should be — but, I don’t know, I don’t get it. Is it something we’ve done wrong, to make you…I don’t know, not trust us? ‘Cause the other three of us bare our damn souls in front of each other all the time, in front of you, and I really don’t see what the big deal is about one measly love song. I let you read Emily and I didn’t act all….”
“All what?”
“I don’t know, defensive? Paranoid? Terrified?”
“It’s different and you know it!”
Luke scowls a little, but he takes a step backwards and sits down on the sofa behind him. “I have no idea what I know!”
“Stop being facetious,” Alex chastises.
“I’m not!” Luke exclaims, animated, as he waves his arms around. “I just…I don’t know. I feel guilty. I don’t know why you don’t trust us, but I want to…make it better? Is that super corny? Are you going to do your Alex-cringes-his-face-off thing? I didn’t even know you were dating somebody.”
Alex rubs at the back of his neck — one of his worst nervous tells — and slowly approaches the sofa Luke has resumed himself upon. “That’s kind of the point. I’ve never told anyone,” Alex says softly, almost unsure. “And we’re not really dating. It’s not…it’s really not important. You don’t need to feel guilty.”
Luke steadily watches Alex as he sits down opposite him, and scoots a little bit closer. “Those lyrics say otherwise, though,” he prods. “I mean, if I died by your side, it’d be such a heavenly way to die or whatever it was isn’t exactly something I’d write for a chick I’m, quote, not really dating.”
Wordlessly, Alex just shrugs a little. He brings his legs up onto the couch and tucks them underneath his body. It sucks having to diminish Willie’s importance to him — besides the band, he’s easily the most impactful person he’s ever met, and they’ve barely known each other for a whole season yet, but he’s not entirely sure he’s willing to make himself the band’s one and only pariah tonight, either.
“Dude,” Luke says quietly. He scoots a little closer to Alex, almost shoulder to shoulder with him, now, and nudges him. “You could’ve just told us. You could bring her here and let her watch one of our—”
“I haven’t gone to vespers in months, Luke.” It’s almost like it’s ripped right out of Alex’s chest.
Luke quirks an eyebrow as he shifts his whole body to look right at Alex. “Isn’t that your Sunday night church thing?”
Alex nods, gnawing down on his lip. Another bad nervous tell of his. “I tell my parents I’m here, and I tell you guys I’m at church. I haven’t been there for…”
“Why?” Luke nearly laughs. He can’t say he’s exactly surprised Alex skips church given how many times a day he says the Lord’s name in vain, but he’s not sure why Alex would feel the need to lie about where he is once every week.
Alex takes a stabilizing breath. Is he really about to do this?
Is he about to be stupid enough to potentially risk his whole life, his band — his brothers, his family — and everything he dreams about, everything he’s worked so hard for, for a boy he sees once a week for a couple of hours at a dingy club that he’s known all of a few months?
“Wait, is it to see her?”
Alex chokes down the nausea that’s threatening to rise in his throat. “Uh huh,” he hums, hardly above a whisper.
“You really should’ve just said something, dude. I mean, Bobby probably would—”
“His name’s Willie,” Alex nearly falters, but he gets it out. It’d almost be a relief if he didn’t feel one sudden movement away from throwing up. He glances up at Luke, who he’s fully expecting to jump up and get away from him, get as far from Alex as he possibly can, but then the moment quietly passes, and then another one does, and another, and Luke is still sitting in the same place right next to Alex that he had still been a minute ago.
“Huh,” Luke says, almost smug, if Alex had to guess. “Is that why you…” Luke trails off, trying to find the right words to say while he furrows his eyebrows as he turns to look right at Alex. “I mean, you wrote in your song about how you can’t go home anymore. Is that…well, did your parents…”
“No,” Alex shakes his head, “I mean, not really. More like a…metaphor. They have no idea — and I’d like to keep it that way.”
Luke nods a little — honestly, thank god he doesn’t have to share the loft with Alex. “Do you…like, want a hug, or…”
Alex’s nose wrinkles up, “so you’re not, like…”
“Don’t even bother finishing that thought out loud,” Luke says, shaking his head. “Now, are you going to be all Alex-weird or are you going to let me just give you a damn hug for once in your life?” He finishes as an ardent smile pulls at his lips. He eyes Alex — who’s pale in the face and shaking, though he kind of doubts Alex even realizes it — and sits up straight so he can wrap his arms around his friends’ broad shoulders, regardless of his answer. Luke hums into the embrace that Alex still isn’t reciprocating, “see, isn’t it nice giving your friends hugs? We need to do this more often.”
“We absolutely will not be doing that,” Alex concludes, finally awkwardly patting Luke on the back. He’s sure he looks sick, but he supposes that’s preferable to actually being it. “Thanks, Luke.”
“Some of us aren’t secretive maniacs, Alex. What are you thanking me for?"
“For…I don’t know. Not being weirded out. Letting me stay your friend. Not kicking me out of the band, whatever.”
Luke pulls back from their embrace, just enough to look Alex in the eyes, “you thought I wouldn’t stay your friend?”
“Well, I don’t really know what I thought you’d think, because I planned to never tell any of you in the first place. I guess in, like, a roundabout way, yeah. Normal people aren’t…”
“Who said anything about Sunset Curve was normal? Sunset Curve defies music and friendship and, like, space and time, dude.”
Alex ponders a little and squeezes Luke a little tighter. Luke grins as he resumes his spot tucked, right into the nook of Alex’s shoulder. Okay — he’s never, ever going to admit this out loud, but maybe hugging your friends isn’t as bad as Alex once thought it to be. “Okay, Luke.”
After a handful of moments longer, Luke pulls away properly this time. “So, do we get to meet him?”
Alex’s eyes flit over to Luke right next to him and he squawks, “you want to meet him?”
“The guy who made our l’il Alex fall in love for the first time? No shit we want to meet him,” Luke says, grinning. “I didn’t even think it was possible. I was starting to think you were emotionless.”
Alex gives Luke a glare at that but drops it and falters a bit. “Do you think the others will be cool?”
“I just said Sunset Curve defies the laws of friendship, man. They’ll be fine. And if they aren’t, we’ll kick ‘em out. No biggie.”
Alex laughs skeptically. “Dude, you can’t just kick them out.”
“Wanna bet?”
“Um, yes?!”
Luke just shrugs. “They’re my best friends too, but you’re, like, my best friend, you know? You come first, and if they want to be asses about you being…well, I don’t know, whatever you decide to be, then we can just replace ‘em. You know how many rhythm guitarists there are in Los Angeles? Plus, just between us, I feel like Reggie might be a little…”
“You can’t say shit like that,” Alex warns, frowning a little.
“What? It’s true!”
“It’s not, Luke.”
“I wouldn’t lie! Have you seen the way he stares at me sometimes? How he gets all up in my face at the mic?”
“Pretty sure that’s just your own inflated ego talking, dude,” Alex ribs, “and you do the mic thing to him just as much.”
“What can I say? I have chemistry with everybody,” Luke grins, wagging his eyebrows at Alex, then collapsing in a fit of giggles against Alex’s side. “Let’s just say I’m glad we went with Sunset Curve instead of Whisper Cats.”
“Luke, that’s not…okay.”