Page 82 of Hamartia
He laughs louder and makes a show of looking for it. Between his legs. Up his ass. Then I’m laughing harder, stupid ridiculous laughter with tears in my eyes and I’ve never felt so fucking…light. Not as a kid or as an adult. Maybe it’s just that post orgasm, come-drunk high. But I feel filled with possibility, hope, anticipation.
I’m…happy.
My next thought drags me back to Earth.
Now that I know what this is, surely I need to call Camille. Tell her it’s over.
Tell her it’s very fucking likely I’m in love (love?) with someone else.
“How was Colarado?” Cleo asks, pulling me into a hug. She’s cut her hair, a short pixie-looking style which suits her. “Your mom good?”
“Good. Really good. Your hair looks great.” I deflect, scared if she looks too long she’ll see something on my face. LikeI fucked a guy is nowprinted on my forehead.
She ruffles a hand through it and beams, saying she wishes she’d waited until summer since LA is so cold. We shoot the shit for a bit before Zeke struts in, sporting sunglasses and a full beard. He looks well-rested and eager. Crawf is next, looking like shit. When Mase is nowhere to be seen an hour later we start without him. Jamming mainly, relaxing back into it. My SG sounds like a fucking dream. Clean and pretty, the strings cool under my fingers but the body warm and familiar against mine. It’s not as good as Jae feels against me, but it’s a close second.
It’s another hour before Mason walks in the door. He picks up his guitar without a word and joins in. He too looks like shit, like he’s lost weight and has spent the last fortnight hiding from the sun. He doesn’t even look at me. Barely looks at any of us actually. I cast a look round at Crawford who just shrugs and plays on.
I play through a couple of the songs I’d come up with, though really they’re just words with the barest suggestion of tune behind them, letting the guys fill in the blanks. It’s as effortless as ever. First Zeke lays down a beat, Cleo filling in the bass to complement. Crawford then layers his guitar over mine, giving the riff some structure. It’s Mase that brings it all together though. With a little modal alchemy, some well-placed grace-notes and a few backing vocals, what sounded like nothing twenty minutes ago now has fuckingwings. I still get goosebumps from how easily we do this. Sayonara had been a fucking nightmare, but we still pull this stuff together like we were born from it. It just works. Each strand coming together perfectly every single time. Jeff calls through to tell us there’s food, but we keep playing, not ready to stop quite yet.
Crawford pulls some insane chord progression out that he says he dreamt about and we’re lost to it for another hour. Cleo and I finding some lyrics from nowhere that fit perfectly, Mase adding a section that elevates it further. I just watch him for a bit, envious but proud. He’s one of the greatest guitar players on the planet—Guitar World had called him that in 2020 and he just fucking shrugged it off, like it was nothing. Hendrix was in the same fucking list. But it’s true. He makes it look so fucking effortless and there’s always this moment in the studio when it’s like we all remember just how good he is and stop playing just to watch him. His voice is incredible too. Rougher and lower than mine but with a perfect pitch. He’s not half bad on the drums either. He was almost our front man and sometimes it’s clear why. There are still videos of the guys before I joined with Mase out front, but he’d said he hated it. Said he’d just wanted to play guitar. One night he’d been too wasted to perform and I’d stepped up. Mase said it was the best gig we’d ever done and that he’d never stand out front again. No one had argued.
Watching him now though, I wonder if he ever regrets it. Letting me take this from him. I hadn’t meant to, didn’t want to, but a front man is just that. The front and center. It’s my name people hear first. My face they see first. And sometimes, I wonder if he might hate me for it.
I think of Jae then. Of his band, of how it’s always Kai front and center during interviews and press but how when they perform they somehow look like equals on that stage. I think I’ll talk to Jae about it at some point. Maybe it’s a genre thing, I know bands like his are designed in such a way so that people gravitate towards a favorite. Bands like mine are formed around a front man, and maybe if he’s exceptional, a guitarist gets to lead sometimes too. But it’s the front men of rock bands in the west that are treated like messiahs.
Finally we stop for food, and after wolfing down two slices of pizza, Mason disappears outside. The others look at me pointedly as he goes. I’d been planning on talking to him anyway, so I finish my slice and follow him.
“Hey,” I call out, watching his back tense.
He’s sat on the low wall, smoking a joint with his eyes closed and his face turned up to the setting sun. He says nothing as I sit down next to him, only holding the blunt out as an acknowledgement of my presence. I take it and inhale deep before handing it back to him. I try to remember the last time I got high and think it was the night before I went to Jae’s apartment. It hits me a little harder than I expect it to for that reason.
“Guess we should talk, properly, huh?”
He looks down at his hands and shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.”
I know it’s not all my fault that Mase and I are in this weird place right now. It was his attitude about Cleo’s brother, and my guess that it’s how he would talk about Jae too, maybe even me, that shoved this wedge further between us. But hating him isn’t gonna change his attitude, only gonna harden it.
“Look, I appreciate you reaching out in New York,” I start. “But that shit about Asher, made me feel really uncomfortable. He’s Cleo’s brother, and Cleo’s a good friend.” I look at him. “To both of us. So yeah, it was…not cool, Mase.”
He swallows, looking guilty. “Yeah, I know.”
I think he’s not gonna say anything more but then he sniffs, wiping his hand over his face.
“I was in a dark place that morning, Rapha. But you were right, I was out of line.”
We’d just won a Grammy and he was in a dark place? Concern makes me study him a moment. He looks the worst I’ve ever seen him look. Eyes, red from the blunt, shadows underneath them, his skin dry and sort of pale. He looks fucking haunted.
“Mase, you doing okay, man?”
I feel him tense slightly. “Yeah, man, you know. Same old shit.” He laughs but it’s completely hollow. “Hate fighting with you.”
I sling an arm around him and pull him closer. “I hate it too.” He nods but doesn’t relax into my hug, his body still tense. So I let him go, ruffling a hand through his hair instead. “Don’t worry about it.”
“So, what about you and Cam?” He doesn’t look up as he asks this. “You gonna be okay?”
“Yeah, we’ll be okay.” Not together, not married, but as long as she doesn’t hate me then we’ll be okay.
He nods, his shoulders dropping slightly. I sit with him while he finishes his joint in contemplative silence. When he’s finished he stands and looks down at me. “Let’s go back in,” he says, as he wanders back toward the building.