Confession

Secrets

"Bourdie, what the fuck is this?"

From his seat at the bar in his kitchen, Rob looked away from the notes he was reading to see Brad waving a box of fruity pebbles at him. "Ah... those are Chester's." The narrowed eyes and pursed lips of the guitarist told Rob he wasn't buying it. "Well... I may have... um... had a bowl. Just one, though."

Brad sighed and opened the box, smelling the fructose and dye and non-organic rice, his eyes closed. "You know you shouldn't be eating this stuff. There is absolutely zero nutritional value in these. I can't believe he lets his kids eat this crap." It looked as though Brad was about to stick his hand in the box before he found his restraint, closing the box and setting it back on the counter in the spotless kitchen where Chester had left it earlier that morning. "And he just left this sitting out? Aren't you tired of them yet?"

Rob shrugged. "It's not so bad. They do at least try to keep me from hearing them... in bed with each other every night." Even with his back facing the drummer, Rob could see the flush on Brad's face, creeping up to his ears.

"Every night? Jesus. It's not like we're teenagers," he scowled, knowing his face was red, unwilling to turn and face his friend.

"Well, look at it this way. At least they aren't lying to us about it anymore. They definitely aren't hiding it well... though they never really did." As always, Rob was trying to be diplomatic about everything. Sharing the house with his best friends really wasn't an issue for Rob. They were clean, Chester particularly a neatnik, and they all had things that took them out of the house and out of each other's hair most days. Sometimes it was fun to have Mike around when he was up in the studio playing around with new ideas. It was even fun to have the kids over and get to be cool Uncle Rob for the weekend before sending them back to their respective mothers' houses and regaining his peace. Really the only thing Rob missed was falling asleep without his white noise machine on... in the past it was used only on nights he was having trouble falling asleep. Now it was necessary to drown out Mike's low giggles and Chester's moans, because no matter how hard they were trying, Chester Bennington did not know how to be quiet. Ever. "They'll be gone soon enough, Brad. It made sense for them to stay here.... what else were we going to do with them?"

Pulling a bottle of kombucha out of the refrigerator, Brad shrugged. "They could have just, you know... stayed married."

Rob finally put the notes he was looking at down and looked at Brad intently. "I thought you were okay with all of this." He pointed to the ceiling above them, where Mike and Chester were still upstairs in their bedroom. "They're really happy, Brad. We're supposed to be supportive. I don't understand you, you've been hot and cold about them from the very beginning. Just because it's not the path you or I would have chosen doesn't mean it won't work out for the best."

"There's just a lot of children involved in their mess, not to mention Anna and Talinda. I don't know Bourdie, I just feel sorry for their families. If they were going to do this, they could have done it a long time ago and saved everyone a lot of heartache. They've been hot for each other for years. No reason to bring all these kids into this disaster." Setting the bottle down on the bar, Brad plopped down next to Rob and picked up the notes, glancing at them before frowning and looking at the drummer and sighing. "Sorry. It's just been a lot to take in."

Nodding, Rob reached over and slung an arm around Brad's shoulders, pulling him over for a sideways hug. "It's all going to work out. And today's about the band, not about them. It will be good for us to start planning for the summer, thinking about something other than their drama. Why don't you go ahead and take my notes into the den, I'll go drag them out of bed. I swear, they're so lazy when the kids aren't around."