Love Me Tenor

by Annabeth Albert

  “There are some people who really want to meet you. Let’s get some fan shots,” Arrow said, grabbing his elbow. “And after that we’re filming you guys doing taste tests from all the food court places for lunch.”

  Oh please, no. But like always, his prayers went unanswered, and he ended up stuck trying sugary and carb-loaded bites of a dozen different dishes, none substantial enough to pass for a real lunch.

  Around two, Keg Stand yelled, “First!” and banged on their now empty table. Trevor looked down at their own table. Surprisingly, they were down to just a few pieces of swag—a few buttons, a couple of postcards, and a single sheet of stickers.

  “Oh hey, I forgot to grab some stuff to send to my sisters. They’ll love this shit.” Jalen grabbed two buttons, the stickers, and a postcard and shoved them into his backpack. Trevor swallowed hard. No way was he sending rainbow-colored swag back home. He wasn’t even sure his parents would read an e-mail from him, let alone hand out gifts to the younger kids. He was smack in the middle of five kids, but he’d always been the outsider of the group, the one who didn’t fit in. He was never a part of his older brothers’ games, and the girls were so much younger that they didn’t have any use for him either.

  “That doesn’t count.” Dawn dropped extra swag on their table from a box off to the side. “Remember, we can leave once the last table is empty. Go work the crowd a bit. Make new friends.”

  The third group, Heat Loss, must have already had the pep talk because they’d moved to stand in front of their table and burst into an impromptu a cappella song. Damn. They were good. Really good, with sweet harmony and a mournful lead who sounded like he had a side of cheap cigarettes and Sylvia Plath poetry for breakfast every morning. He’d thought Keg Stand was their biggest competition, but this group’s polished sound was destined for making sound tracks to overwrought teen dramas.

  Not surprisingly, as soon as they ended the song they were swamped with people grabbing the last of their swag.

  “We need to do that,” Carson said. “Let’s do the Christina number.”

  Heck. Trevor still didn’t like that one. His stomach was revolting over all the food samples and his head felt all woozy. Now was not the time to ask him to deliver a song. But Carson and Carter were already moving around their table and Jalen followed them. This wasn’t a strictly a cappella competition—they had synthesizers and background tracks on some songs—but Jalen had a natural ability to lay down a bass line, while Carter and Carson provided harmony to give the song depth.

  Trevor did okay with the opening few bars, but the dizzy feeling intensified and he screwed up the first run, which got a few titters from people who had stopped to watch. He put a hand on the table behind him, but that didn’t steady him. He could not hurl midsong. He just couldn’t. The next few minutes became less about singing with any sort of skill and more about keeping upright and puke free. He missed some lyrics but couldn’t care because, hey, not puking. Or passing out. Somehow he got the final run out. There was some laughter in with the scattered applause as they ended, and no rush to grab their swag.

  “Can you screw up any worse?” Carter whipped on him. “Our next video, I’m taking lead. We need to try something else. Because you are so not working out.”

  “Babe—” Carson patted Carter’s arm, but Carter threw him off.

  “Just chill,” Jalen said. “You didn’t sound perfect either.” He turned toward Trevor. “Maybe Trevor hasn’t performed much with an audience? You ever think that?”

  “I have!” Hell. Jalen’s pity was worse than Carter’s scorn. “I was on Perfect Harmony. And my college group performed all over and did contests. I just fucked up, okay? Step the fuck off.”

  Oh great. Now he was going all Hulk Smash angry, but on him it was more like indignant chicken squawking. Even mad as hell, he didn’t have enough bass or muscle to pull off intimidating. He was what one of the diabetes books called hangry—so messed up and hungry that he was ready to bite off heads.

  “Can you repeat that without the cursing?” Arrow came up out of nowhere, camerawoman right behind him. “This is gold, but we need the fight scene with all that beautiful tension and none of the bleeped-out language.”

  “I can’t.” Trevor was quickly moving from hangry to borderline weepy. He needed a power bar like now. “I need to eat—”

  “Oh. My. God. Between your stupid phone buzzing all over the place and your snacking, I’m just done with your drama.” Carter flounced off, plenty of drama of his own in his disgusted hand gesture. Thank God the camerawoman followed him, as did Carson.

  “Hey, the last of your swag is gone!” Dawn’s usual sunshiny voice sounded distinctly strained. “Let’s pack it up and head to the vans.”

  She got even more shrill when they were on the vans, alternating between lecturing him about getting along with Carter and giving him a pep talk about all his “natural talent.” Whatever. Her monologue gave him zero chance to grab one of his bars. By the time they arrived back at the house, he was downright ill. His eye sockets throbbed like someone was holding him under deep water and his vision kept getting blurry and then clearing.

  He tripped getting out of the van, and Jalen caught his elbow. “Hey, man, you okay?”

  “I—” Oh heck. Bile surged in his throat. He sprinted for the house, operating on his last reserves of adrenaline, terror carrying him all the way upstairs into their room, where he flung his backpack down and fell to his knees in their tiny bathroom and proceeded to upchuck his lunch. His hands shook and his vision was fuzzy around the edges. He crawled backward, dragging his backpack to him.

  He’d passed out at college last fall, in the middle of an Ancient Religions final, after skipping breakfast and messing up his medications, and that same blurry feeling was descending on him, making each movement feel like he was pushing through a roll of his mom’s cotton quilt batting.

  His mom.

  Oh God. He was sick and he wanted his mom, but his mom thought all this was a plague on him for being gay, and now his body couldn’t decide whether to sob or vomit some more or pass out, settling for shaking like someone had locked him in a deep freeze. His hands tried to work the zipper on his blood sugar case and failed—

  “What the hell?” Jalen rushed up behind him, tripping over Trevor’s feet because he hadn’t shut the door and now lay half in, half out of the bathroom. “Are you sick or tweaking or what?”

  Jalen fumbled for his phone, not sure if he should leave Trevor to rush back downstairs for Dawn or someone more equipped to handle this. What was the Canadian equivalent of 911? Trevor’s ghostly pale skin and trembling hands were seriously freaking Jalen out. He’d seen Trevor palming pills twice that day—once right after breakfast and again at the mall. It wasn’t the first time he’d acted weird either—he had a way of disappearing after meals, and his mood swings didn’t always seem under his control. Jalen had started suspecting an eating disorder of some kind, or maybe an oxy habit, like this one dude Jalen had known in foster care.

  “No. Don’t call.” Trevor’s speech was slurred. He messed with a case in his lap. “Please. Not drugs. Or sick. Just leave.”

  “Like hell.” Jalen took the case from Trevor before he permanently mangled the zipper. “What’s this anyway?”

  “None of your business—”

  “A blood meter?” Jalen got the case open and instantly recognized the supplies inside. “You’re diabetic?”

  Trevor’s mouth narrowed to a thin trembling line. He grabbed the case back. “It’s nothing you . . . need . . . worry about.”

  “Dude. I’m not an idiot. One of my moms has diabetes. I know what all that shit is. If you’re this sick, you’ve gotta let me get Dawn, see if you should go to the doctor—”

  “You can’t tell.” If possible, Trevor got even paler.

  “They don’t know? What about that disclosure form?”

  “They’ll send me home.”

  “You don’t seem the happiest he
re anyway. You sure that would be a bad thing?” It was probably crappy timing to point this out, but Jalen had yet to see more than flashes of Trevor actually enjoying himself. And if he was sick, maybe that explained his misery even more than Carter and Carson’s antics.

  “I . . . can’t . . . go back. Nowhere to go.” Trevor’s speech was still slurred, his eyes spacey. He messed with the blood meter, grabbing a lancet. He stabbed his finger with an unsteady hand and shoved it against the strip on his meter. “Gotta test. Can’t tell if I’m high or low.”

  “No kidding.” Jalen peered over Trevor’s shoulder. He knew from Mama Ivy what high and low numbers looked like—Mama Kern had made sure that all the kids knew how to help her in an emergency. “Fifty? How the hell are you still conscious? I’m getting—”

  “I got glucose tablets.” Trevor’s eyes drifted shut as he blindly patted the pocket of his case. Jalen took over and found the tube of tablets, looking at the directions before shaking out two and putting them in Trevor’s right hand.

  Trevor crunched them up, making a face at the taste. “I’ve been this low before. No biggie.”

  “No biggie? You’ve got a serious disease and you’re lying to everyone—including my sister—and you could have passed out at the mall and no one would know why—”

  “But I didn’t.” Some color was returning to Trevor’s cheeks. “I just messed up today. That’s all. I’ll do better in the future. I’m still figuring out when to eat and when to time my meds. Jalen, I can’t go home.”

  “Still figuring this out? How long have you had diabetes?”

  “About eight months. I got sick in the fall on campus. Went to campus health.”

  “So it’s not type one?” Not to be stereotypical, but most of the people Jalen knew with type two diabetes, like Mama Ivy, were older and a bit . . . rounder than Trevor.

  Trevor shook his head. “Doctor at student health said it’s type two and I don’t need insulin yet. Said he’s seeing more young people with it. And half my family has it—all four of my grandparents and a bunch of aunts and uncles. ’Course that doesn’t stop my parents from thinking this is a curse from God for being gay.”

  “Seriously?” A lot of Trevor’s more bizarre behavior started to make more sense—if his family was that conservative, it made sense that he’d have some major issues around sex and relationships. “Do they even know you’re here?”

  Trevor shook his head. He dug one of his bars out of his bag, and for the first time, Jalen realized that they weren’t garden-variety protein bars—they were diabetic meal replacement ones. Mama Ivy said they tasted like cardboard and almost never bought them, but Jalen should have recognized the beige wrapper sooner than this. Trevor swallowed. His shaking was gone, and each bite brought more strength to his voice.

  “They kicked me out of the family in the spring, when I was stupid enough to tell them about the gay thing. They knew about the diabetes in the fall. My mom even came down to see me when I was diagnosed, but as soon as I was stupid enough to tell them about being gay . . .” Trevor’s voice broke, and he waved his hand like he was trying to get rid of pesky emotions. “Anyway, not like they can disown me any more than they already have. Thanks to student health I’ve got enough meds to make it through the summer, but I’m serious, I don’t have anywhere to go if I don’t do this show. And if you tell Dawn, they will kick me off.”

  “I’m not so sure. She’ll definitely be pissed, but filming’s already started. They might just make it a story line.” Jalen knew his sister, and she wasn’t about to kick a nearly homeless sick guy to the curb. But she also loved drama and what she called “angsty feels” with the same rapture Jalen reserved for championship winning basket.

  “Oh my God, no.” Trevor’s head hit his knees. “That might be even worse.”

  Jalen couldn’t disagree. Dawn was also in the precarious position of having power but not all of it. This was her big shot just as much as his and Trevor’s. “And it might not be her call. It would depend on what the higher-ups said.”

  “I don’t want to be a freak starring in some sympathy plot. You know how reality shows always handle stuff like this—either I’d leave under some big cloud of drama with lots of reaction shots of you guys, or I’d become the poster child for diabetic singers with every darn segment being about my condition. I don’t want that.” His voice was getting stronger. “Heck, they might even ask me to pretend to pass out at some point for ratings.”

  “You pass out for reals and I am telling someone.” Jalen channeled some Mama Kern and made his voice all stern.

  Trevor’s face brightened. “So you’ll keep it a secret for now?”

  Jalen sighed. He didn’t want to be in a position of keeping secrets from his sister. That wasn’t how his family rolled. But on the other hand, he got where Trevor was coming from—and Trevor going home wouldn’t exactly endear Jalen to Dawn if it came to that. “On a couple of conditions.”

  “Anything.” Oh man. Trevor with a dopey, expectant smile on his face was too damn cute. He should not be finding a guy who’d just hurled his guts out and almost fainted attractive in any way, but Jalen wanted to hug him almost more than he wanted to shake some sense into him.

  “One, you have to do a better job of managing shit. You get sick again and I’m telling Dawn, because I’m not going to let you do risky stuff. And two, you let me help. No more acting like I’m the enemy.”

  “I don’t . . . Okay. Maybe I do, but it’s not that I don’t like you.”

  “Yeah, I know. You don’t like anyone.”

  “Do too. I like you too much.” Trevor moaned. “And I can’t believe I just confessed that. My blood sugar must still be messed up.”

  “Nope. No taking that back.” Jalen reached across and ruffled Trevor’s hair. “I like you, too, sparky. When you’re not biting heads off and shoving people away.”

  “I don’t . . .” Trevor sighed. “Yeah, I do. And I didn’t used to be this bitter. The last year’s been kind of a bitch. And I’ve got no idea what I’m doing here.”

  That makes two of us. Jalen nodded, chest heavy with an emotion he couldn’t name.

  “Well, what you’re going to do right now is nap. They’ve got some movie deal for us later tonight, but I think you should rest,” Jalen said. Whenever Mama Ivy had a bad blood sugar episode, she always wanted to sleep. He held out a hand to help Trevor up. Trevor nodded wearily, then accepted the hand. “You’re going to need some real food, too. Maybe some juice and something with protein?”

  “Protein. Small amount of carbs. I’ll retest before I fall asleep, too.”

  Jalen stuck close by Trevor as he made his way to the bed. Trevor still wasn’t all that steady on his feet, and he brought his meds kit with him. He tossed it onto the upper bed before putting a foot on the bottom rung and leaning heavily on the ladder.

  “Whoa. No way are you climbing up there. I feel bad enough that you’re talking me into keeping quiet about your diabetes. I’m not coming back to find your head split open. Sleep on my bed.” Jalen didn’t wait for Trevor to agree, instead grabbing the med kit and Trevor’s pillow and pitching both onto the mattress below.

  “Okay.” Trevor didn’t protest, which meant he probably still felt like ass. He lowered himself gingerly to Jalen’s mattress. “I really will be fine. After I sleep and get some food, I’ll be good as new.”

  Jalen had to hope so because he was about to take the biggest risk of his life and trust that they both lived through it. Make no mistake, Dawn would kill him for not telling her. A strange sensation bloomed right below Jalen’s rib cage, like a new tender space had opened inside him and he didn’t know how to protect it. Or Trevor. That’s what this really was. He felt all weirdly protective about him, had from the very start. He wanted to keep Trevor safe—safe from the stupid cameras that were everywhere, even in the kitchen when he went to look through the snack options for Trevor, safe from the family that had kicked him out, safe from this disease th
at Jalen knew all too well could be life-altering.

  He fingered his phone. He wished he could call Mama Ivy. Tell her about Trevor. But she’d tell Dawn. No, for better or worse, it was just him and Trevor in this thing.

  Chapter Eight

  @NextDirectionShow Thanks to all who came out to see us! It’s movie night tonight! Who wants to guess what our guys are watching?

  @CarterNCarson Looking back over some of my favorite videos of singing with my guy. Back when it was just us two.

  @StandOutJalen Your past mistakes are meant to guide you. Not define you. Can’t wait to make new music this week.

  Trevor woke up from his nap to the smell of chicken. Which was good, because otherwise he might be distracted by how Jalen’s bedding smelled like him, and how he was under Jalen’s covers and more than a little hard. Still on his stomach, he stretched. Okay. Forget chicken. No food could compete with the subtle smells of coconut and mint and something cinnamony. And no, he was not going to get off in the guy’s bed, but that didn’t stop his hips from rolling against the bed, giving him a little friction—

  Cough. Cough.

  Eyes springing open, Trevor opened his eyes to find Jalen standing in front of the bed holding a plate of food.

  “Think you could eat?” Jalen asked. Trevor struggled to sit up, keeping the blankets around his waist. Good thing, too, because Jalen sat on the side of the bed next to him, handing the plate over once Trevor was upright. “You slept through dinner. It’s chicken and some rice and a whole lot of salad. I put the dressing on the side because I’ve noticed you’re picky about sauces and stuff.”

  “You’ve noticed?” Trevor’s chest got warm and tight. He wasn’t sure his own mother knew he’d rather eat lettuce plain than gag on ranch dressing.