Star Bright

by Shelly Greene

  In the sudden silence, he forced his breath to even out, let the breeze dry the moisture at the corners of his eyes.

  “How did that feel?” Julian said quietly.

  “Good,” Rafi answered, more fiercely than he meant to. “It felt good to sing it the way it feels right now. And just let it feel that way instead of trying to divorce myself from it.”

  “That interpretation would never do for a radio single, I suppose.”

  “No. Too confusing. Ironic, since I know it sounded a hundred times better than what I recorded.” Rafi gave up on dignity and wiped his eyes. He didn’t think he even wanted to sing the song that way again, didn’t think he could bear to. Having done it once, though, felt like getting something out of the way, clearing the path for something else. Even if he couldn’t imagine what. Change what it’s about, Julian had said. “What did you think of it?” he asked. “Not…all that, just the bones of the song. What did you think?”

  Rafi had performed for sold-out stadiums of screaming people. He’d had women of all ages throw their underwear on stage, seen grown men trample each other for his autograph. Critics had described his voice as ‘caramel by candlelight,’ ‘the power of a rampaging bull, restrained just for you,’ and ‘the warm purr of your dad’s lullabies as sung by that boy your parents warned you about.’ He wasn’t sure Distant Kingdom had ever given a concert where no one fainted.

  “I liked it exactly the way it was,” Julian murmured, snuggling in closer to Rafi’s side to watch the rain, and he thought it might be his favorite audience reaction of all time.

  Chapter 7

  Julian Gault’s Magical Softer Side?

  Rafael Reyes Shares Video of His Boyfriend Comforting Crying Child

  A little girl named Brittany is going viral this week after glimpsing the softer side of actor Julian Gault. More often in the news lately for his feuds with co-stars, Gault is shown comforting and distracting the crying child in a video posted by Distant Kingdom front man Rafael Reyes.

  “Friends lost their home to a fire,” Reyes wrote alongside the video, in which Gault teaches the little girl a magic trick. “Sweet Julian helping them clean up, comforting little Brittany.”

  [embedded video]

  [3.3m views—8,212 comments]

  The child, shown in what seems to be the wreckage of her family home, has not been identified beyond her first name. “Her family is having a terrible time and the last thing I want is to violate their privacy,” said Reyes, in response to fans’ requests. When fans asked for a way to donate to the family, he set up a GoFundMe, which he has since stated will be donated to the Red Cross Home Fire Campaign per the family’s wishes.

  Reyes and Gault, dating since the beginning of the month, have been making frequent appearances in each other’s social media.

  —ET Online, 8/18/19

  * * * *

  Life goes up and life goes down

  But some things stay the same

  When you share blood, a past, a home

  A band, a life, a name

  There’s some things solid in this world

  Much sturdier than fame

  The people who will guard your back

  And help you play the game

  —”Brothers in Arms” from the Warrior EP by Distant Kingdom

  * * * *

  It was too easy to get carried away during phone interviews. Somehow, when Rafi was in the safety of his own home talking to a disembodied voice, it was hard to remember that everything he said was going to be in print (or pixels) all over the world the next day.

  Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing when the woman from Hollywood Reporter asked about the band; he’d probably been too tight-lipped about all that so far. “When three people’s lives have been as intertwined as mine, Bo’s, and Carlos’s, it takes a while to sort everything out.” That was nice and diplomatic. “DK is important to all of us; no one wants to let it go, but too much has happened for us to continue performing together. So it’s a tough situation.”

  “Does your brother’s baby make it tougher?” asked the interviewer.

  “I’m not making any statement on that topic,” Rafi said firmly.

  She gave a resigned huff. “Well, what about Julian Gault?” she asked, perky-voiced again. “Is he making things more complicated?”

  “Not at all. Julian’s been great. I don’t know what I’d do without him.” They were automatic words, the kind of thing he’d rehearsed saying to keep the charade going. It felt a little gross leaving his mouth. He cast around in his mind for something true to say, something real. “I know the way he comes across to people, but he’s—he’s actually very sweet.”

  “Sweet, huh? I always heard you preferred spicy.”

  “Well, he’s that, too.” Rafi laughed, and shivered a little as he remembered a crystal swinging from a slender braid, Julian dancing in his lap. “Have you ever seen him? In person, I mean; the screen doesn’t even do him justice. We’re talking the kind of beauty men would clash swords and burn cities for.”

  “How poetic!” And quotable, Rafi could practically hear her say, and wondered if he was laying it on a little thick.

  “Hazards of dating a songwriter,” he said, and managed to bring the interview to a close.

  * * * *

  “Wait, you’re taking him to the family dinner? For the love of—why are you even going to the family dinner?” Amber had to shout over the sound of the gym shower. There was no one else here, so she’d followed him into the men’s locker room, the better to criticize his choices without interruption. “You could barely handle running into Bo and Carlos at the Planetarium and now you’re going to spend a whole evening at the same table?”

  Rafi admired his new bruises in the mirror; Amber hadn’t pulled her punches in the boxing ring. Rafi would not have thanked her if she tried. “We have to figure out how to coexist sometime, Amber.”

  “No. You don’t.” Amber shut off the water. “When one’s brother poaches one’s fiancée, he gives up any right to coexist with one in any way. Likewise one’s fiancée, having left one for one’s brother, cannot expect to ever again inhabit the same room—”

  “Would you stop calling me ‘one’?”

  “You’re right, you are definitely Number Two in this situation, in every possible meaning of the term.”

  “Poop jokes. Pretty shitty of you.”

  Amber shoved the shower curtain open with a shriek of metal rings and stomped past Rafi to his locker, shamelessly stealing clothes. “Well you know what, Rafi, one doesn’t have to be mature all the time. Sometimes one has every right to scream and fight and refuse to make nice with the people who have hurt and are still hurting him.”

  “Amber…” Rafi ran his hands through his wet curls. “My dad’s expecting his first grandchild. He wants to celebrate that. He deserves to celebrate that. He told me I didn’t have to come, but I want to. I’m not going to let them bully me out of my own family.”

  Amber was quiet, but clearly working up to saying more, as she toweled off and started dressing. “You are going into a lion’s den, Rafi. Not one of them is truly going to be on your side, not even your dad, not this time.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m taking Julian.” He threw a dirty sock at Amber. “Stop with the look. You don’t know him.”

  “Do you? I mean it. Do you have any idea what kind of reputation this guy has? I’m pretty sure he has to sleep under a heat lamp.”

  “His reputation is largely managed by his uncle, and there’s…weirdness going on there.”

  “Weirdness? What do you mean by that?”

  “I don’t know the details. But frankly, if I’m picking up on it, it must be pretty intense.”

  “…Point.”

  “And you know what, all else aside, we have an arrangement, and he has no reason to switch sides on me.” Rafi pulled a shirt over his head, realized it was inside out, took it off again. “So he’s coming to dinner, and he’s going to be my mo
ral support when Carlos does his best to skewer me. Or were you wanting to come instead?”

  Amber grimaced. “If you needed me, dude, you know I’d be there for you. I just can’t promise your brother wouldn’t come away with a broken nose.”

  “Not the drama I need. Thanks for the offer, though.”

  “Hey, I’m happy to wade in and screw up your life any time, but you don’t usually need my help.” Amber, now dressed though with water still sparkling in her hair, stepped closer and cuffed Rafi on the shoulder. “How’s the new material coming?”

  “Not as fast as you want it, I’m sure, but it’s coming,” Rafi shrugged, glad she wasn’t pushing him on Footsteps for now. He’d managed to turn The Emperor’s Beck and Call into something that wouldn’t be absurd on an album, and he had pieces of several other things, though it was hard to know whether all, or any, of them would coalesce into full songs. “It’s hard to focus sometimes, you know?”

  “Especially when you’re spending all your time with a new boyfriend.”

  Rafi smiled. “No, he’s…if anything, he’s helping. Giving me something else to think about.”

  “The fake boyfriend is the new muse.” Amber raised her hands, brushing off Rafi’s protests. “Hey, whatever works. I hope it doesn’t bite you in the butt, that’s all.”

  “We haven’t tried that sort of thing yet.”

  “You’re disgusting, Rafi Reyes.” Amber smacked Rafi in the face with her wet towel, and left the locker room.

  * * * *

  When his interview ran the next day, Rafi was startled to see himself quoted as saying Julian had “the kind of body men would clash swords and burn cities for.” That was a bit…less poetic, in his opinion. But it was probably a genuine mishearing, not worth making a fuss over.

  Or so he thought, until he got a call from Julian.

  “I don’t appreciate having my legs spread for the entire readership of Hollywood Reporter,” Julian spat without so much as a hello.

  “What?”

  “When does the auction for my virginity begin? Am I to be permitted to bid?”

  “Whoa, whoa, Julian!” Rafi put aside the guitar he’d been noodling around on. “First of all, she misheard me—it was supposed to be beauty, not body, which is at least a little classier—”

  “Oh, I’m sure you would never sell me cheaply.”

  “I didn’t sell you at all! It was a compliment!”

  “Perhaps some people find it flattering to have every tabloid-reader in the country paw over their body in their minds. I don’t.”

  “Julian—”

  “Perhaps some people enjoy the implication that they are a prize to be fought over and handed off to the winner. I don’t.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way!”

  “If I permit you to see me, touch me, give you access to my privacy in any way, that is not permission for you to share that access with a thousand of your closest friends!”

  “Julian, please!” Rafi drew breath to apologize, or at least, he hoped that’s what was about to come out his mouth. He had to admit that the words ‘you’re an actor, people objectify you all the time, you put your own body on display as a career choice’ were also churning around in his brain. Whether Julian was being rational right now wasn’t the point; if he felt hurt and betrayed by what Rafi had said, then apologizing had to be the next step.

  But it was too late. The phone at his ear gave a little disconnect chime as Julian hung up on him.

  Julian didn’t respond to his texts or calls the rest of the day, not even when Rafi asked if he was still coming to the family dinner that night. Rafi texted him the address of the restaurant and said he hoped he’d see him soon.

  * * * *

  Rafi sat in his car outside the restaurant, gathering his nerve. Baserri was a jewel in his father’s crown, regarded as one of the finest Spanish Basque restaurants in the world, and a frequent choice for their family dinners. Rafi had always loved it almost as much as his father did, but today, looking up at the red doors with their traditional thistle pattern in stained glass, it felt like infiltrating an enemy fort. The lion’s den, Amber had called it.

  He hadn’t spoken to his brother or Bo in person, much, since everything went down. Most communication had gone through lawyers, or Amber, or his father…but there was no getting away from them now.

  The valet waiting to take his car was shifting his weight awkwardly. Rafi checked his phone; no word from Julian. He got out and let the valet take his SUV.

  “Good evening, sir! Right this way,” the hostess said as soon as he entered—all the staff knew the family by now—and led him through the maze of tables and rough timber columns, up the stairs to the private dining balcony they’d reserved.

  Hushed conversations, clinking dishes and the faint strains of traditional Basque music drifted up to the balcony where their table stretched out too long for six people. Except for Julian, he was the last to arrive; either that, or Julian’s absence, or who knew what else, made Rafi’s stepmother’s mouth thin as she glanced up at him. A handsome dark-haired woman whose frown lines were settling in with age, Minnie sat at the right hand of Rafi’s father Ted, whose hair had gone a distinguished silver years ago. Carlos sat beside Minnie, and then Bo. The other side of the table was empty, apparently left for Rafi and Julian.

  It was Bo that Rafi’s eyes snagged on as he walked toward his seat. She wore a white cocktail dress that shimmered with crystals, hair loose and flowing and streaked with baby pink; she had gained just enough weight to glow like some kind of fertility goddess. She smiled at him, tiny and warm and a little rueful. Sorry about all this, the smile seemed to say. As if the situation were an inconvenience that she would make up to him later. Beside her, Carlos did not smile, only looked balefully at Rafi through his eyelashes. He’d seen that sulky expression a hundred times, when Carlos had been caught doing wrong and was about to double down on it instead of learning anything. Carlos put a hand in Bo’s lap, grabbing either her hand or her thigh; she gave him a scolding yet indulgent smile, as if he were a misbehaving puppy.

  It was all Rafi could do not to leave the room. He forced himself to take a seat instead, at his father’s left hand.

  “Weren’t you bringing a friend, Rafi?” Minnie said.

  “Boyfriend,” Rafi corrected. They’d been through this already when he was dating Cory; his stepmother would never be so gauche as to openly reject his orientation, but she did her best to minimize and ignore it. He suspected it was more a general disapproval of everything Rafi did than any actual feelings about homosexuality. “Julian’s…been delayed. He’s not sure if he’ll be able to make it after all. He said not to wait on him.” He opened his menu, desperate for something to look at, but his father touched his arm.

  “I’m so glad you could make it, son. Carlos was just telling us about, er…” It seemed to occur to Ted belatedly that whatever Carlos had been saying was not something Rafi would want to hear. What, after all, could they talk about? The wedding? The baby? The band?

  “We were complaining about the housing market,” Bo said, “in time-honored New Yorker fashion. But that’s a tired old subject. Rafi, I hear you got to visit a movie set recently. Was that interesting?”

  Was Bo following him in the tabloids? Rafi wasn’t sure what to make of that idea. He managed to come up with a few remarks about the filming, which, after all, had been interesting to watch. Some zombie-form of a conversation limped into being.

  The hostess brought someone else to the door.

  Rafi, glancing up hopefully, blinked in confusion at the appearance of a wild-haired, wild-bearded old man instead of Julian. Uncle Max.

  “And here we all are!” Uncle Max boomed, grinning like a Cheshire cat. “Get us started with some zabor, won’t you, dear?” he said to the hostess. “I think we’re all going to need it.”

  “Of course, sir,” she said with an uncertain look at Ted, and hurried off.

  “Uncle Max,” Ted
said, gathering himself enough to smile. “What a surprise.”

  Uncle Max waved a hand. “Yes, I know I seldom make it to these shindigs, but you did say I had a standing invitation. Ah, it’s so good to see everyone!” He plopped into the seat beside Rafi.

  “Begging your pardon, sir,” Rafi said. “That’s my boyfriend’s seat. You’ll need to move down one.”

  Uncle Max’s eyebrows rose, but he moved down. “Oh, your boyfriend is coming too! You see, Ted, I couldn’t miss this dinner for the world.”

  Ted rubbed at his temple without replying. Rafi wasn’t sure how to feel, personally; Uncle Max treating his relatives’ lives like a soap opera wasn’t new, and at least with him here, a certain amount of liveliness was assured. If Julian did come, he realized with a small sliver of glee, he was going to hate Uncle Max.

  A waiter arrived with glasses and a bottle of zabor, the reeking rotgut “family brew” that no one actually liked except Max. “Are we still waiting on anyone, Mr. Reyes, or would you like to order?”

  “We should wait a few minutes for Mr. Gault.”

  “If he deigns to show his face,” Minnie muttered.

  Rafi slapped his menu down on the table. “Julian is coming as a favor to me, Minnie. I’ll thank you to treat him with all the courtesy due to a guest.”

  “Of course, Rafael,” Minnie said with a tight smile. “There’s just…so many guests tonight. I suppose I was expecting a smaller family gathering.” Her eyes flicked to Uncle Max—and then Bo.

  Well. So his stepmother wasn’t a fan of Bo and Carlos’s relationship either. Not that she’d been especially warm to Bo when she was Rafi’s fiancée, but she’d tolerated her without particular malice. Rafi would have liked to believe Minnie disliked Bo for hurting him. More likely she felt that Bo was good enough for Rafi but not for her own darling boy.

  “So it’s a boyfriend for Rafi now,” Uncle Max said. “Bo, whatever did you do to put our boy here off women? Other than the complete and utter betrayal thing.” He poured himself a full glass of zabor.

  Bo looked down at her menu, cheeks burning.