Saddled, chapter 33 (Patreon)

Clive parked and waited for John to come around the car so they could walk up to the hospital together. John did look more relaxed than he had the previous Friday. Clive’s mother had never understood him, not his drive to move into the creative end of the business and not his need for control. But apparently John’s mother knew him better.

If Clive weren’t contemplating a relationship with the woman’s son, he might be tempted to start a fan club for Beverly. Instead he was going to opt for a more hands-off, avoid-when-possible approach. He didn’t know how else to handle her. Normally when people were that manipulative, he just manipulated them right back. That wasn’t feeling appropriate in this case.

“Are you okay?” John asked.

“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

John studied Clive for a few seconds. “I have no idea, but you’re looking a little strained.”

Clive scoffed. “I’m always stressed when it comes to a new project. Get used to it.”

“Pretty sure I know how to un-stress you.” John pursed his lips and looked entirely too proud of himself.

Clive blushed. He was a man in his 50s. There’s no way he should be blushing over a reference to sex. He crossed his arms and glared at John “And I know how to de-stress you. In fact I was just thinking that your mother is right that you’re much less stressed after taking a weekend away.” Clive gave John his nastiest smile.

“Bastard,” John muttered before he headed for the front door.

“Why yes, yes I am. And frankly, at this age, I’m too old to change.”

John held the door open for Clive. “Good, he said. He then added, “Age before beauty.”

“And I’m not the only bastard in this relationship,” Clive said as he passed John.

As they headed for the elevator, Clive asked, “What kind of kid was Logan?” He found that he could usually understand the adult if he just knew what the person had been like as a child.

“Logan?” John shrugged. “He was a pain in the ass who pushed all the time. I suspect there were a lot of gay kids in that high school, but Logan was the only one who insisted on telling everyone he was gay and dressing like Boy George. He got in so many fights with my dad it wasn’t even funny.”

“I might admire him for that.”

“You would.” John’s snort made it clear he didn’t.

“It’s easier to admire his obstreperousness from a distance. I’m sure it wasn’t any fun to grow up with.”

“Well I’m just gonna warn you that Logan and Fawn have history. Everything Fawn got, from pink stuffed toys to lacy shirts, Logan wanted, too. And the fact that our father bought this stuff for Fawn and then smack Logan for wanting the same thing caused those two to pretty much hate each other.”

Clive frowned. His father might have been emotionally distant, but he couldn’t imagine either growing up with physical abuse or talking about it with such airy dismissiveness. “I get why that would cause Logan to hate his sister, but why would Fawn hate him back?”

“Every time she got something, Logan started a new fight with our father. It meant every one of her birthdays ended with Dad screaming at Logan.”

The 70s and 80s had been a different world, and Clive could just imagine how much drama a kid like Logan could cause inside a conservative fishing family. Even today Maine wasn’t exactly a hotbed of liberal ideas and tolerance. People had more sympathy for hoarders than for homosexuals. And knowing John, he had probably gotten in the middle. Hell, Clive it only met Beverly Michaud once, and he had a fairly good idea that she had sailed into the middle of more than one family fight, too.

“And then there was Kevin. When Logan wasn’t starting a fight, Kevin was,” John said with exasperation.

“So which of them was the black sheep of the family?”

“I don’t know. Both?  When they were younger, Logan and his habit of stealing Fawn’s Barbie dolls caused most of the drama. But then in high school, Kevin seemed to go out of his way to piss our father off. He stole beer, he siphoned off the whiskey and replaced it with water and thought our father wouldn’t notice. Of course when Dad did notice, he blamed me at first.” John rolled his eyes

“You don’t strike me as the sort that was breaking a lot of rules.”

“Oh I broke plenty.” John used a tone that made it abundantly clear that he considered his youth spend in flagrant rule breaking. “I just wasn’t stupid enough to get caught. I’ve no idea why Kevin thought that our father wouldn’t notice that his whiskey suddenly tasted like water. But that’s the thing with Kevin – he wasn’t smart about it. Ever. Sometimes it’s like he wanted to get caught.”

Clive didn’t say anything, but he figured that was a possibility. He’d worked with a lot of stars whose drug use got out of hand the second they left the public spotlight. For some, it was the fear of being a failure. For others, the drugs were just one more tool to try and get attention. If they couldn’t get enough attention from the award shows or the paparazzi, they just turned up the dial. John and Logan were such big personalities that Clive could imagine the middle kid getting lost.

However, after years of dealing with not only drug users but their families, Clive knew full well that John wouldn’t want to hear that possibility.

The elevator stopped, and Clive followed John down the hall to Beverly’s room. When John opened the door, the volume on the television was loud enough to make him stop. 

“John!” Beverly cried out in a joyful voice. Immediately the television went off.

John headed into the room and Clive followed. Beverly turned her smile toward him. She held out one hand to him. “Clive! It’s so nice to see you again.” Clive took her hand in both of his and held it a moment. “Did you two get away and have some fun this weekend?” Beverly asked. If Clive didn’t know better, he’d say she had a devilish twinkle in her eye.

Clive was very proud of the fact that he kept a straight face. “We went up north. It was nice to see the seashore and the forests. I got a little work done on a script Logan sent me.”

“Oh?” Beverly turned toward Logan, and so did Clive. He’d expected either chagrin if Logan had sent him the script as a joke or hope if he recognized the potential. Instead Logan seemed busy staring at a middle-aged woman with a few streaks of gray in her hair. Clive assumed that was Fawn. Clive assumed that Logan and Fawn were the reason why Beverly had turned the television up to deafening levels.

John ignored the mutual glares and asked, “How are you feeling, Mom?”

“I’m a little nauseated after the medicine this morning, but they told me that’s normal.” Beverly sounded upbeat, but when Clive turned back toward her, he could see the difference. She was in bed and sitting awkwardly as if about to grab her stomach. And she was paler than she had been on Friday. Even her smile was smaller. “Your sister keeps bringing me popsicles to suck on. I’m pretty sure that if I beat the cancer, I’m going to end up with diabetes.”

“I just want you to keep your strength up, Mom.” Fawn had deep worry lines between her eyebrows. Clive couldn’t imagine what any of them were feeling. He had lost his parents so fast that there’d been no time for anything other than mourning. Mourning and a simple burial. Most of the people of the funeral had been the guys his father worked with, and Clive remembered looking out at the crowd and wondering why he’d never noticed that his mother had had so few friends. It had inspired a cascade of guilt for not calling her more often. Maybe if she’d had some lingering illness he could have made amends with her, but neither life nor death allowed for story editors.

But maybe he could ease a few of the tensions in Beverly’s room. It seemed a small comfort to offer the woman. “I was actually hoping to steal Logan for a few minutes, to talk business.”

“Absolutely!” Beverly said with a bit too much enthusiasm. “Get him to go do something more interesting than stare at an old woman.”

“You’re not old Mom,” Logan immediately insisted.

Beverly rolled her eyes. John took after his mother quite a lot, which was one more reason for suspecting that she was hiding her pain. He turned his attention to Logan. “Come on. Let’s discuss Fishing World. By the way, that is the worst title I have ever heard.” Clive headed for the door.

“I’m pretty sure most of the people who got the script never got past that title. It sucks,” Logan agreed. He gave his mother one last concerned look before following. Clive held the door open and gestured for Logan to head out into the hall. 

As the door started to close, Clive heard Fawn ask Beverly, “Who was that?”

Clive didn’t want to get in the middle of that explanation so he followed the signage arrows that pointed to a visitor lounge.

“Do you like this script?” Logan asked.

Clive gave an honest assessment. “The setting details are all wrong, the plot pacing most closely resembles rabbit sex, and I’m not entirely sure what the author was doing with the ending other than trying to tack on a third grade moral.”

“Yeah, but other than that it’s great,” Logan said with a grin. “It’s not a documentary which is why I passed on it, but he’s got something special there. You want to care about the characters, even when they’re doing stupid shit.”

Well that answered one of Clive’s questions. Logan had one hell of a good eye for characterization if he could spot the potential inside the rough trappings. Clive found the archway that led into a sitting area done in soothing blues and grays. “Do you know the author?” he asked as he headed for a pair of chairs.

Logan shrugged. “Not really.” He sat next to Clive and swiveled his chair to look out the large window.

That didn’t entirely make sense because Logan was a documentary producer. The only way he would’ve gotten a fiction story is if the author thought he had some sort of an in. Clive raised an eyebrow and waited.

Eventually Logan turned his focus back to Clive. “Look, I might’ve slept with him once or twice. He’s a free agent. I’m a free agent. We agented together, but it wasn’t serious.”

Clive hadn’t expected that, but it did explain why the author would have sent his script to Logan. “What sort of guy is he?”

Logan swiveled his chair around to face Clive. “Are you considering his story?”

“Maybe. But I am not getting into this if he is going to try claiming that he wrote a good script. His script is terrible. I’ve read better on the backs of bathroom doors.”

“Hey don’t slam the back of bathroom doors. I get some good material off of that.” Logan’s smile was too large. “Go to the right gay bars, and the bathrooms are like an archaeological record of homosexual drama.”

Clive crossed his arms. This was business, and he did not need a smalltime documentary producer playing games with him. After a few seconds, Logan lost to the grin.

“He’s a nice kid. He’s clingy and insecure, but he deserves a chance.”

Clive suspected he was probably more insecure after he got into a producer’s bed only to be kicked out without any of the legendary benefits of the casting couch. Clive would have to make his lack of interest clear up front, particularly since people on set were likely to gossip about him having a relationship with John. He didn’t want the kid to think he had any chance at getting into Clive’s bed.

When Clive didn’t say anything, Logan continued. “He has an eye for people. He watches them, and he has his ability to create characters that are rich and flawed and interesting. I had him do some script doctoring on one of my pieces, and the characters were a thousand percent better after he was finished. He’s talented.”

“How does he take criticism?”

Logan leaned back. “Too seriously. He’ll try to hide it, but it cuts him to the quick. Sometimes it causes him to overreact. If you tell him to trim down a scene, he’ll take a weed-wacker to it instead of a pair of pruning shears. But he’ll never ignore you. He’ll never accuse you of ruining his art or disrespect your opinion. He’ll work with you.”

Clive pursed his lips and studied Logan. “You like him.” And unless Clive missed his guess, Logan felt more than a small share of guilt over their failed relationship, if a person could call a few nights of sex a relationship. Maybe they could. After a few nights of paying for John’s company, Clive had been ready to throw caution to the wind in order to protect him from Robinson.

“I don’t like him enough,” Logan said softly, “which was a problem for him. We definitely did not communicate well about our expectations.” His gaze skittered away to the city laid out on the other side of the window. “But I respect his abilities, and I really think he could be great. He just needs someone who can rein in some of his illogical plot moments and let his character shine.”

“So you really were hoping this is the one I’d pick.”

Logan frowned. “I thought you were looking for something that you could give John so he had some busy work to do.”

“You know your brother. How long do you think he would be fooled if I had him working on a project that never happened?”

Logan huffed. “I do know my brother. If you lie to him or scheme, even if it’s for his own good, he will never forgive you.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” Logan leaned forward. “Because I got the feeling that you hoped to pull one over on him, that you hoped to use this project to funnel money to him for work that you didn’t need done.”

“Maybe that thought crossed my mind,” Clive admitted, although the truth was more complicated. He would have told John the truth, but given Elena a new cover story for funneling the money into John’s account. However, Clive would never tell Logan any of that. “I know lying wouldn’t work long-term.”

“Oh it would do more than not work. John would shut you out so fast…” Logan hesitated, a miserable grimace twisting his features. It took him a few seconds to continue. “That man has an emotional door in his head. When he feels like somebody has crossed the line, he closes that door and you are on the outside forever.”

“Are you trying to get me to break up with your brother?”

Logan sighed. “I’m trying to avoid getting caught in any fallout if you two happen to have a grand and glorious blowup. I’m not stupid. I recognize the opportunity I have here. I could never produce Peter’s script, and under normal circumstances I could never get someone with your kind of resources to even look at it.” He rubbed his neck and for one second, Clive could see the family resemblance. John and Logan projected fear the same way, although John tried harder to hide it.

“I don’t want to get caught in the backlash if John blows up at you,” Logan admitted. He pressed his hand flat against the small end table between the chairs. “I’m good at what I do. If you want to do something the documentary realm, I want to be one of those people you think about in Hollywood. And I don’t want this opportunity that I’ve been given to turn into bad blood between us.” He tapped the table, but he didn’t make eye contact.

Clive appreciated the honesty, but he hated that Clive’s supposed power was driving Logan’s reactions. “Since you’re being honest, let me return the favor. I worked with my first wife, and I know full well that working together could break this relationship faster than anything. I also know myself and John well enough to know that if we do break up, our anger could level small cities—”

“And not-so-small nation-states.” Logan’s glare dared Clive to argue with that.

“Possibly,” Clive admitted. “However, business is business. You have an eye for characters that I admire, so I will always read your emails, even if I decide to delete them unanswered.”

“Fair,” Logan said. “It’s more than I get from most producers at your level.”

“Don’t,” Clive said as he stood.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t act like I’m somehow wonderful because I don’t act like an asshole.”

Logan stood and gave Clive a quizzical look. “I thought you cultivated your reputation as an asshole.”

“With people who deserve to be knocked off their pedestals, absolutely.” Clive closed the distance between them and poked Logan in the chest. “I delight in knocking an arrogant actor down a peg or three. I thrive on eviscerating shit stains like Brandon Robinson who lie and threaten people with less power. I will go toe to toe with anyone in Hollywood or New York, and I will win that fight. But I would never attack an up-and-coming producer for being related to someone I have a problem with.”

Logan’s smile was incandescent. “I’m an up-and-coming producer?” he asked with delight.

Clive rolled his eyes. Before Logan could start fishing for compliments, he started back toward the room. “Those are my secretary’s words. I haven’t seen any of your work, so I wouldn’t know.”

“No, you just know I have an eye for talent.” Logan sounded obnoxiously pleased about that. Clive was starting to understand why John found his siblings so damn annoying.

Chapter 34: https://www.patreon.com/posts/saddled-chapter-21913468 

Chapter 35: https://www.patreon.com/posts/saddled-chapter-22204867 

Chapter 36: https://www.patreon.com/posts/saddled-chapter-22342250 

Chapter 37: https://www.patreon.com/posts/saddled-chapter-22436580 

Chapter 38 (Epilogue): https://www.patreon.com/posts/saddled-epilogue-22779789