So things were all around good.
Deke was working. I was in my music room a lot, fiddling with a variety of songs, all of them not songs I was going to sell.
All of them songs I was considering recording.
Deke knew this and he listened a lot to things I was doing.
He liked it all but then again he would. He was my guy and I hadn’t come up against there being anything he didn’t like about me.
We talked about it, not a lot but more than a little, and Deke listened. Through all this, he made it clear he was with me whatever way I went, back in the biz or just Jussy on the back of his bike.
Yep, he’d take me either way. He’d be beside me either way. He’d champion me either way.
That was Deke.
More good in my life, I had Dad and Granddad’s collection on display. I had their things on the walls and shelves. Dana and Joss had sent all my belongings to me.
So I was nested.
I was home.
And Christmas was coming. Deke would meet Lacey. And Dana said sometime in February she was coming out for a visit.
“I hate to say this, baby brother,” I spoke into my phone, my eyes still on Deke, “but I don’t know the answer to that.”
“Fuck,” he muttered.
“I know who does, though,” I shared. “And that would be Gordon. He’s lived the life. Been at that job for decades, Mav. So if he’s advising you go on the road, he wouldn’t fuck you with that advice because he wants a good assistant. He’ll look out for you.” I took a deep breath, watched Deke sign for something and finished, “And if you still have concerns, the person we both know that knows the business inside and out and can advise the right path is Mr. T.”
“I’m not his favorite person, Jus,” Mav pointed out.
“He might have been angry at you, but you’re a Lonesome and he’ll take care of you until the day he dies.”
I watched Deke accept something, nod, move out of the door and close it, turning carrying a stunning spray of Christmas greenery. So wide it had to be four feet across, thick and downy in both depth and breadth, decorated in pinecones, rusted bells, with a big rustic star in the middle that had etched in it the word Believe.
As Deke moved to me, I could smell the scent coming off it, filling the big space with the aroma of Christmas.
When my eyes lifted to him, I saw him looking at me.
I drew up my brows in question.
He gave a one shoulder shrug, so I looked back down and caught sight of one of those plastic fork things with a little white envelope stuck in the piece, the opening of which Deke was obviously going to leave to me.
“I’ll take Gordon’s gig,” Maverick said in my ear, and when he did, I noticed he’d been silent. Thinking. His voice was softer when he finished, “But I’ll call Mr. T. Ask him if he thinks that’s the way to go.”
Maverick doing that, going so far, extending that olive branch, that made my decision for me.
“Right, good,” I said. “Think that’s smart, Mav. And just to repeat, this tour of Gordon’s starts in the New Year. I got a room open. Joss and Rod and Lacey will all be here. We’re having a big New Year’s Eve party. Would love to have you for Christmas and New Year’s.”
Deke’s face got soft because he knew I’d been struggling with this decision, and in starting this conversation again, knowing that Mav had earned the end of that struggle. He also knew what the way that decision had swung meant to me.
“That’d be cool, if Joss and Rod are down with that,” Mav said, his voice still soft. “But, Jussy, like I told you last time, got some gigs happening to keep me going, don’t think I can swing heading out that way.”
“Christmas present,” I shared. “Plane ticket and someone will be at the airport to pick you up. You’ll have to make do with Granddad’s truck, if I’m not using it, you wanna get around town.”
“Jussy, I can’t do presents and—” Mav started.
“Having you with me the first year we don’t have Dad, Mav, will be the only present I need. Hell, having you with me anytime is a present for me. Seriously.”
He was quiet.
Deke set the boughs aside, took the big cylindrical glass bowl filled with layers of limes, cranberries and oranges with their array of pine boughs coming out the top that I got in town at Holly’s Flower Shop to the hutch, came back and put the centerpiece where it should be.
In the center.
Through all this, Mav stayed quiet.
Then he said, “Let me think about it.”
He’d have to give up his mom on Christmas, this was a concern. They might not be speaking but I had people. As far as I knew, Luna didn’t have anybody. Mav would feel that.
And Maverick was beginning to understand how it felt to stand on your own two feet, so accepting a plane ticket from his sister when he’d have no problem doing that a year ago was a hit to the manhood he was seeking.
But he was figuring shit out.