by Hanna Dare
They were all waiting for him now, these faces he’d grown up with. They were probably expecting some familiar songs, ones he’d sung on the show, words and melodies they knew. He could give them that, but maybe, too, he would give them something else. Something that was part of him. He was ready to share that now. He could tell them everything.
Conor stepped up to the microphone and he began to sing.
Six months later…
“This’ll never work,” Derek said.
Conor sighed. He’d made all the arguments before and was tired, but Megan plunged back in.
“I told you,” she said, her voice chipper despite the hour, “it’s nothing fancy. Conor walks, then he runs, we just have to stay in front of him, with the camera hopefully pointed at him.”
They were out in the desert, just before dawn. A vast, scruffy landscape stretched out all around, bounded by mountains. It was remarkable, both in its beauty and for its emptiness. But they’d driven a lot of hours in the night to find a remote enough spot.
Derek ran a hand through his hair, eyeing the narrow path stretching out in front of them. “You got no speakers, no way to play the song.”
“It’s not that kind of music video; he’s not supposed to be singing. We’ll put the music in after. Trust me, it’ll look good.” Her voice sharpened; she was, after all, the director. “And even if you don’t trust me, just pull the damn cart, Derek.”
Derek raised his eyebrows, but his smile was amused. “This is how you let your friends talk to me?” he asked Conor.
“She’s your friend, too, so just pull the damn cart.” He patted Derek’s shoulder. “We’ll get fish tacos on our way back.”
Derek had low opinions of the weather, traffic, and people in Los Angeles, but he had no complaints about the fish tacos. Mollified, he went to the front of the cart. “You’re lucky I work for food,” he said to Megan.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s hard to get such high quality labor,” she replied easily.
Megan had rented the fancy video camera and a bunch of equipment from her school. The plan was that she would be in the little wheeled cart, filming Conor while Derek pulled it ahead of him on the path. She didn’t have a lot of faith in the smoothness of the path or Derek’s pulling, so she’d attached the camera and herself to a Steadicam harness that was supposed to reduce some of the bounce. That harness had cost more to rent than even the camera, but Megan had been insistent. Conor was paying, but it was her project, too. Conor figured that even if the record company rejected it, Megan could still use it for school, and then at some point they’d leak the video on the internet. It wasn’t like he was going to get money for a music video otherwise, but Conor felt lucky that he had an album at all.
Early in August, just a few days after his nineteenth birthday, Conor had gotten on a plane with Megan and flown back to L.A. He’d left her to do much of the sorting out of their small, two-bedroom apartment, and started work almost immediately on The Drama. A few days after that, Derek had set out with his car stuffed to the brim with not only his things, but Conor’s and Megan’s, too. Conor had a few anxious days while Derek was making his cross-country drive, worried that the car would break down, or that he’d get in an accident, or even that Derek would change his mind.
“And start a new life with my secondhand pots and pans,” Megan had said, as they indulged Conor’s fears over late night ice cream.
“My grandparents bought me new towels, they’re in the car, too,” Conor had added.
Megan shook her head sorrowfully. “It’s too much temptation for one man to resist.”
But Derek did arrive, and they set to work figuring out their strange new dynamic. Conor’s part on The Drama was small, but even that made the amount of work that had gone into Singing Sensation seem easy. Each episode had several songs, usually with dance numbers, and even if Conor wasn’t singing any of the lead parts, he still had to rehearse and record backup vocals. On Singing Sensation they’d been happy if the contestants could remember simple choreography and manage not to fall off the stage—here, it was elaborate routines that had to be perfect, over and over, from different angles. And then there was the acting, which made Conor incredibly anxious. Just like the dance steps, every line had to be done again and again, and even if Conor had been okay, everything could be tossed out because there was an odd shadow or a hair out of place. Everyone was very nice and reassuring, but Conor was very much aware that he was working with people who, despite being only a couple years older than him, had been on TV or Broadway for years.
Conor’s solution was to approach his new job like the way he’d learned guitar or piano, which meant practicing endlessly. He took acting classes for a month on weekends, and then when that finished, he signed up for a dance class for two hours Saturday mornings. Most weeknights he came home late to find Derek having dinner or watching TV with Megan, and Conor didn’t have the energy to do much more than say hi to both of them before crawling into bed.
Fortunately, and miraculously, Derek and Megan seemed to get along. It turned out they both liked horror movies. Megan had even taken Derek with her and some of her classmates to a film festival about some old Italian horror director. Derek had shrugged and said it was an okay night, but Megan had been wide-eyed afterwards.
“He got into an argument about the movie with this guy from my film theory class,” she had told Conor.
“Oh no.”
“No! He didn’t punch him or anything—he used his words, Conor. It was an intellectual disagreement.”
Derek had rolled his eyes when they’d both turned to stare at him. “You guys are assholes.” He shrugged. “And I don’t care what that thematic resonance bullshit means, if it don’t make sense, it’s not a good movie.”
Still, Conor felt guilty about how much his crazy schedule kept him away from Derek. On his days off from the show, he was in a recording studio. A few weeks after arriving in the city, he’d gone into a meeting with George and three other record company executives. He gave them demos for eighteen songs that he’d written, and had roughly recorded, either with Singing Sensation equipment or the crappy microphone on his computer. George had pursed up his lips in a way that Conor remembered well, and said that they might be able to get eleven usable tracks out of it, and then offered Conor a contract and an experienced producer to work with. Conor was surprised, even though Matt and his manager had told him to expect it.
George had waved off Conor’s shock. “I’m willing to bet there are enough people in the world who want to creep into your sad, teenage bedroom and listen to folk-pop to make this worth my while. Don’t prove me wrong, Conor.”
Conor was trying to make good on George’s bet. He knew that he was getting a fraction of the money that Jesse, or even Emerson, were getting for their record contracts, but he had a lot more creative control, something his manager had fought for. Less money and more control made for even more work, though.
“I’m sorry,” Conor said to Derek over Thai takeout one night. Megan was at school, and Conor had come home early enough to have a rare dinner alone with Derek. “I know this isn’t what you signed on for.”
“What d’ya mean?” Derek had been hunting in the drawer for a fork. He’d discovered a fondness for Thai food—most kinds of food really—but hadn’t mastered chopsticks yet.
“Me being gone all the time. You having movie nights with Megan and her friends. Barely any sex life.” Conor would have never thought he’d be too tired for sex, but just the other night Derek had given him a massage that he’d clearly been hoping would lead to sexy times, and ten minutes in, it had only led to Conor sleeping for a solid eight hours. “And your job.”
Derek had not had an easy time of it at first. He’d wanted to get a job as a mechanic, but his lack of any real credentials or training beyond his uncle’s garage had resulted in echoing silence from every place he’d applied. His backup plan of being a bouncer in a bar hadn’t worked out either.
“All the guys here are jacked,” he’d told Conor, frustration in his voice. “On what, I don’t know. And they’re looking to be stunt men or personal trainers. I look like a frickin’ ballerina, standing next to them.”
“A pretty ballerina,” Conor had said, looking to tease him into a better mood, but Derek left to drive around for a while instead.
At the end of the second month, Conor had spoken to Matt. He knew Derek would hate Conor telling his problems to a stranger, but Matt was turning into a good friend to Conor, taking him for dinner every few weeks to gossip and give advice. A week later, he passed on a name and number. It was a sign of how desperate Derek was that he called it.
Matt’s connection was to a garage that specialized in vintage motorcycles. It was a serious operation, catering to an expensive clientele, and Derek had been hired to sweep up. If he did a good job, after three months he’d be allowed to hand tools to the mechanics. Three months after that he might—might—be allowed to actually touch a bike.
“Bunch of pricks,” Derek would say when he came home from work. “Like they know engines any better than me. And they’re fixing ’em with fancy new parts—half the stuff I had to work with at my uncle’s was stolen. No quality control there, but I made it work, even if it was held together with spit and duct tape.”
“Maybe don’t mention that at work,” Conor suggested. “The spit, the tape, the stealing. Any of it.”
Derek still went to work every day without fail, but Conor wasn’t sure if he was happy as he sat there at the kitchen counter eating noodles. Conor didn’t like the thought that maybe Derek regretted being here. Being with Conor.
“I’m sorry,” he’d said again.
Derek put down his fork and the container of pad Thai to look at him in genuine surprise. “Are kidding me? Conor, you fucking saved me. I know exactly what would have happened to me if I’d stayed back home: knocking around looking for whatever job I could find, stealing in between. Maybe I’d get some girl pregnant just because I thought I had to prove something, and then I’d make her life miserable, and a kid’s. After enough years and enough booze, maybe there’d even be a day when I’d think it was okay to raise a hand to my family, to people who trusted me. And that would be my last day. Because then I’d be him and I swore I’d never live with that.” His eyes were bright and fierce. “Being with you— it’s everything. It gave me my life.”
Conor didn’t know what to say. Derek took his hand. “So yeah, it sucks that I hardly see you. But it’s okay; we’re supposed to be busy and working hard right now, we’re not fucking old. And once all this probation shit at my job is done, I’m gonna show them how good I am. Give me another six months and I’ll be the top mechanic. I’ll be the one clients come in and ask for. It’ll be good, because then I’ll be able to pay my share of the rent and everything else.”
“That doesn’t bother me,” Conor said quickly.
Derek looked from Conor’s hand to his noodles. The noodles won and he gave Conor’s hand a final squeeze and picked up his fork again. “Sure, I know you’re covering me now,” Derek said around a mouthful, “but I’m thinking long term, right? Next year, when you’re in college, we’ll need the money. And by then, you’ll have to do a second album.”
“Oh, will I?” Conor was already stressed enough about finishing the first; it was both gratifying and terrifying that Derek was thinking about his second.
Derek went on eating, eyes looking off into the distance. “Four, five years down the road, when you’re done school, I should have enough put away that we can get a place, just the two of us. I know you’ll have to go on tour a lot, and maybe sometimes I can go with you, but it’d be nice to have a house to come back to. Y’know, with a yard and a dog—shit like that.”
Conor felt like he was reeling. “A dog?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t like dogs, Gillis.”
“No, I like dogs, it’s just that—” Conor swallowed against the tightness in his throat. “It sounds like you’ve really thought this through.”
Derek had shrugged like it should be obvious. “’course I have. When it comes to you and me, I got plans.”
Derek stood in front of him now, with Megan, the sun just starting to come up behind them in the desert. “Magic hour” is what Megan said the time around sunrise was called, when the light was soft, but still bright enough that they could see the way ahead. In this light and this wide open space, it seemed like everything was clear.
Even though they weren’t playing any music, Conor could hear the song in his head, feel the beats. It was the one Conor had been working on that day, more than a year ago, when Derek had found him by the riverbank. Of all the songs he’d written, this one had taken the longest to finish, mainly because Conor wanted to get it right.
“C’mon already, Gillis,” Derek yelled. “We’re burning daylight here!”
Megan gave the signal, and she and Derek started to race ahead.
Conor looked at the path in front of him and he started to move forward. When the moment was right, he began to run.
THE END
About the author
A writer-for-hire for more than ten years, Hanna Dare now writes what she loves to read: well-written, character-driven stories of men exploring their identities and discovering their own unique kind of happily ever afters... usually through sexytimes. Find Hanna on the internet enjoying pretty pictures, procrastination and caffeinated beverages.
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Books by Hanna Dare
Sing Out, a new adult romance series:
Life in a Nowhere Town
California Schemin’
The Man Who Told the World
Chasing Cameron, a steamy contemporary novella series:
Confused (at the conference)
Bothered (in the boardroom)
Experienced (in several fields)
Committed (in theory)