CHAPTER TWO HUNDRED and TWO
(part six)

Monday mid-day — 11:55 p.m.

“Hey, where is everyone?” Jeraine asked.

He held the front door of the penthouse open for the movie’s music director.

“They’re downstairs,” the young man said. “I wanted to speak to you. Do you have a second?”

“Sure,” Jeraine said. “I was just getting lunch together. I thought we could eat while we go through what we’ve done so far.”

The man nodded and followed Jeraine into the penthouse.

“What’s going on?” Jeraine asked.

“I want to get a few things straight,” the young man said.

“Okay,” Jeraine smiled. “You’re making me uncomfortable.”

“It’s about…. Well…” the young man blinked a few times, then swallowed hard.

“Listen, man, just lay it out there,” Jeraine said. “Whatever you have to say won’t be the worst thing I’ve heard, even if it’s about me.”

“Seth really laid into us then kicked us out of his house Saturday night,” the young man’s eyes bugged out a bit.

“I’ve seen him on a tear,” Jeraine said. “It’s not pretty.”

“Pretty? No,” the young man swallowed hard. “He sent us to Aspen to sober up and think about what we want to do with our lives.”

Jeraine chuckled.

“This is no joke,” the young man said. “He can block us from ever doing movies again. We already have a couple producers crawling up our asses. Seth is… well, Seth. What he says is gospel and if he tells the producers we’re a bunch of drugged out scum? We’ll never work again.”

“Then why you…”

“Because you called us ‘vestal virgins’ the first time we worked together,” the young man nodded.

“I did?”

“You screwed every woman in the building,” the young man said. “While you were high and you still mixed the music perfectly!”

“Oh,” Jeraine blushed.

“We just wanted to…”

“Be cool?”

“Not be made fun of. I mean, we’re geeks. We don’t have women hanging on us all the time. They only came because we were going to be working with you. And… Anyway, we heard you’d quit but we thought it was a ploy. I mean, we work in Hollywood where most marriages are fake and… well, we didn’t believe it until…”

The young man cleared his throat.

“Until what?”

“We met Tanesha,” the young man shifted uncomfortably. “I’d give everything I had for a woman like that. She’s, I mean, no disrespect, but she’s funny and nice and smart and…”

Jeraine smiled.

“How could you possibly screw that up?” the young man asked.

“I met her when I was two. I didn’t know what I had until… I got out in the world, and then…” Jeraine shrugged. “I knew enough to marry her, but not enough to understand how special she is.”

“You’re going to screw up again?” the young man’s voice raised to indicate he hoped Jeraine might. Jeraine smiled.

“Not if I can help it,” Jeraine said.

“I’m supposed to apologize,” the young man said.

“I think I need to apologize,” Jeraine said. “It sounds like I set all this up.”

The young man nodded.

“Is that why the guys are in the car?”

“We don’t mind getting yelled at but it’s kind of your fault,” the young man said.

“It’s totally my fault,” Jeraine said. “I’m an asshole. I mean I can recover from the addictions and maybe from the brain damage, but the asshole is probably a permanent feature. At least it is in my father. Is that going to work?”

“Can we call you on it like Tanesha does?”

Jeraine squinted at the young man and he swallowed hard.

“Sure,” Jeraine laughed. “But you can’t have her. No one can. Miss T belongs to the sole property of Miss T. And for as long as she’ll have me, she’s my wife. No fake.”

The young man gave Jeraine a sly smile and Jeraine laughed. Taking out his phone, the music director called the guys downstairs. When the men came up, Jeraine repeated his apology.

“Ready to work?” Jeraine asked.

“Did you say something about lunch?”

Smiling, Jeraine went to get lunch ready.

Denver Cereal continues on Monday…

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