by Holley Trent
“Sometimes people do.”
“Just sometimes?”
The man shrugged. “You know how it goes. People don’t talk to learn anything. They talk because it makes them feel seen. They don’t try to absorb or remember.”
“I think that’s a hugely overreaching statement.”
“My experience.” He shrugged again. “People don’t like hearing about it. Look.” Suddenly he grabbed Raleigh’s arm and leaned forward, pointing at the stage. “That guy right there? See him? In the skateboarding shorts checking the mics?”
“Mm.” Raleigh stared down at the hand clenched around his arm, half repulsed by the stolen familiarity in the gesture, and half satisfied. Delighted, even, and he tried to force that thought out of his brain. His hunger for intimate touch was fucking with his common sense. “What about him?”
“Can’t hold down a damn job. He’s worked for at least six different bands in a year.”
“How do you know that?”
“Subscriber. I see a lot of shows. I remember faces.”
“Oh?”
He sat back and spun his rings again. “Yeah. Call it a curse.”
“Fine. It’s a curse.”
The corners of his mouth inched up again and Raleigh’s gaze followed. “Sometimes people agree with me.”
Raleigh filled his lungs and held his breath until his pulse slowed. “I’m starting to see why.”
Chapter Three
Raleigh.
That was his name.
He had a face Bruce Engle hadn’t been able to forget, and by virtue of his career, Bruce encountered a lot of faces.
Whenever he got a new idea and decided to start a new venture, he did deep dives into research, only taking a break when his body demanded he feed or rest it. He needed to know who all the movers and shakers were. He didn’t like waiting around. Bruce had emailed him, he thought. He couldn’t remember what publishing house he worked for, but he’d certainly contacted him. He hadn’t responded, but apparently, that was the norm. No response meant no.
Raleigh, he mused as the band retook the stage.
Bruce didn’t recall the picture on his staff bio page being so flattering, but perhaps that was because the man had been head down at his desk with a phone pressed between his ear and shoulder and was semi-glowering at the camera.
They ought to redo it.
Or maybe it didn’t matter to them.
Mattered to Bruce, though. He could take a better picture.
He patted his pockets for his phone and remembered he didn’t have it. He actually didn’t know when he’d last seen the thing.
Was it silver or black this time?
He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t even remember the brand, only the configuration. The thumb thing seemed farther from the edge than it’d been on the last phone.
He gave Raleigh a nudge.
Raleigh’s brows snapped together as he turned to him.
He had one of those looks—like one of those stuffy and starched dukes on romance book covers, but Bruce didn’t see redheads on book covers very often. Red hair perfectly brushed back. Moss-colored eyes. Aristocratic nose. Extremely white teeth. Chiseled chin.
He was starting to suspect that whoever had taken that picture had wanted it to be as unflattering as possible.
How gauche.
“What brand is the phone with the thumb thing? The circle?”
Raleigh’s eyes narrowed.
Bruce tended to evoke that response a lot.
“The thumb thing?” Raleigh asked.
“Yeah, you tap it.” Bruce demonstrated on his wrist. “Like this.”
“I think they pretty much all do that now.”
“Oh.” He slumped. That was going to bother him—not knowing what it was.
He’d figure it out later, though. He wouldn’t be able to sleep if he didn’t.
“Let me have yours.”
“My phone?” Raleigh asked.
Bruce extended his hand.
“What for?”
“Want to take a picture. I don’t have my phone.”
Raleigh reached slowly for the phone, casting a speculative look in Bruce’s direction.
Bruce got that a lot, too. He couldn’t say he was used to it. It was just the way things were.
He worked out how to open and focus the camera and pointed it toward Raleigh.
“What are you doing?”
Bruce took the picture, tapped the shot to view it, and nodded appreciatively.
Much better.
He handed Raleigh back his phone, and for some reason, the man seemed to deflate with relief. That was not a common reaction. Usually, people didn’t breathe easily until Bruce had walked away. He was a lot. That was what his sister always told him.
“You should use that one,” Bruce told him.
“For what?”
“Everything from now on. I like your face.”
Raleigh laughed. “Oh?”
“Yeah, it’s a good face. I’ll remember it.”
“Like all the others.”
“No. Not like them.” Bruce hadn’t been interested in them.
The band was cranking a familiar baseline that had the crowd whooping and leaning into the act once more, Raleigh included.
Bruce had already been in that audience countless times. Same band. Different venues. They were reliable, but predictable. He already knew what they were going to do.
Raleigh was new.
He was catching the rhythm in his body and letting it back out through his tapping foot.
Bruce peered down at it.
Brogues. He was wearing brogues.
Bruce supposed those were respectable, but he’d always been a poor judge of that. Being in the business he was, he didn’t have much experience with respectable. The music industry was full of talented people scrambling to make a buck any way they could and too many people in it lost their souls.
He wasn’t going to lose any more of his. Refused to.
Some people thought he never had one to start with—the guys in his own band, for instance. He’d screwed them over, they said.
He didn’t understand that.
All he’d done was asked for a little air.
By the time Bruce looked up again, the amphitheater was clearing out around him. Raleigh stood at his side, arms folded over his pressed blue shirt. He was looking at Bruce like he was a vagrant who’d decided to lie down for the night just behind his car.
“I’m not asleep,” Bruce said preemptively. “Or drunk or stoned or whatever. I was just thinking.”
“For forty-five minutes? In a place this loud?”
“I’m good at that. Lots to think about. Chord progressions and such. I think they mixed up a few. Rhythm guitarist is new.”
“I see.”
He may have said that he did, but he didn’t sound like he did.
Bruce was used to that, too.
Raleigh was starting to leave.
That got Bruce to his feet. He was reaching without thought, grabbing Raleigh’s hand and shaking it as though the introductions had already gotten started. “Theo.” He nudged his sunglasses up. His eyes were clear and white. He was sure they were. He wanted Raleigh to see. There was nothing wrong with him.
Raleigh was slow to return the shake. His gaze was fixed on Bruce’s, lips pressed into a tight line.
Sober as a saint. See?
He never touched that shit. No one ever believed him.
“Raleigh,” Raleigh finally said. He extricated his hand from Bruce’s, though the gesture seemed to be more out of self-preservation than disgust. Sometimes Bruce came on a little strong. He couldn’t help it. When he had ideas, he had to act on them or they’d run away.
Bruce tilted his
head toward the nearest exit. “May as well wait a minute. You’ll get to your destination at exactly the same time. No use running into the crowd.”
“I take it you spend a lot of time watching theaters empty.”
It was more fun than waiting in a parking lot with a silent chauffeur. Gary didn’t talk to him anymore, beyond good morning, good evening, yes sir, and no sir. Not that he’d ever said much in the first place. He’d gotten weary just like everyone else. They said Bruce talked in circles. That was what his manager told him, anyway. All the bullshit streamed through him before making its way to Bruce.
“Where are you going after this?” Bruce asked.
“Staying with a friend. Gotta head home tomorrow. Need to be back at work by Friday. I’ve got projects to see to. Packages to ship.” Raleigh’s lips tightened at that statement.
Bruce was curious about those projects. He wanted to know what they involved and maybe if his name had ever come up, but that wasn’t important at that moment. What was important was Bruce wheedling a few more words out of the redhead about anything at all substantive.
He was dead curious about the buttoned-up executive who snarled at his phone and wore brogues to a rock concert.
“Hey. Did you know that it’s illegal to lick a toad in Los Angeles?”
Raleigh’s brow creased.
Bruce nodded. “Strange but true. Don’t go licking any toads. Bad for your criminal record and probably your health. Hey. You know Mel Blanc?”
He couldn’t tell how old Raleigh was, but he would have been pleasantly surprised if he recognized the old Looney Toons icon’s name. Most people looked forward to the next thing. The future didn’t have facts yet. The past had plenty.
“Yeah,” Raleigh said. “What of him?”
“He’s buried in LA. His tombstone says ‘That’s All Folks.’”
Raleigh cracked a smile. The creases at the outside corners of his eyes deepened.
Thirty-five. Forty.
Old enough for brogues and belts and tucked-in shirts.
Bruce couldn’t remember the last time he’d tucked his in. His nan’s funeral, maybe, and that hadn’t lasted for long. He tended to gravitate toward chaos whether he was trying to or not.
There was something irresistibly compelling about Raleigh’s brand of orderliness. The erect posture, his careful phrasing, his...discipline, perhaps. He was enviably finished in a way Bruce wasn’t and likely never would be.
He’d never liked that sort of polish before, but maybe that was because everyone else he knew who bothered to shine their shoes and iron their collars didn’t have voices so velvety.
“Does it really say that?”
“Ayeeeeyes.” Bruce cringed. He always lost track of what country he was in. If he devolved to his natural speech patterns, no one would ever understand a word that came out of his mouth. That was what his mother said, anyway. She tried to be kind, but her idea of kindness had been to ship him off to a tiny village in remote Scotland so his grandmother could deal with him.
Patient saint that she was, his nan hadn’t dealt with Bruce so much as let him run amok, which was exactly what he’d needed at the time. He’d been sad when that had ended.
His parents had been sad, too, because Bruce hadn’t been reformed into the biddable schoolboy they’d hoped for.
No, he’d been messy at four and he was still messy at fourteen when they showed up in their posh car to pick him up. For some reason, their disappointment had pleased his nan. She’d always been enigmatic. She hadn’t said one word when they’d returned him right back where he was at fifteen—back to the wild place with all its ewes and geriatric widows who wore tan orthopedics.
“Rest in peace,” he murmured, making a hasty sign of the cross.
Raleigh’s brows crept together again. Even that act was elegant. He could probably make a thing as crude as spitting look like fine art.
“Hey,” Bruce blurted anxiously. “Beverly Hills used to be a farm.”
“Really?”
“Mm-hmm. Beans.”
“Interesting. Anything else?”
“No. Just lima beans.”
Raleigh almost smiled. Bruce could tell he wanted to, but he was probably afraid Bruce would keep talking if he did.
Bruce was used to people scurrying away. He never got to the conclusion fast enough. Perhaps, for a change, he’d said something right enough, or short enough.
Or perhaps, Raleigh was simply a more patient sort.
Bruce didn’t know many of those. Sometimes, he forgot that those existed.
He shifted his weight, pondering, and slid his sunglasses back up his nose. The past hour with Raleigh was the closest thing to a real date Bruce had been on in ten years, and Raleigh didn’t even know he was on it.
Could change that, maybe?
He snapped his fingers, but when no genie appeared to make his wish come true, he opted to take matters into his own hands. Magic was unreliable, anyway.
“Hey.”
Raleigh straightened his already-straight belt and glanced Bruce’s way.
He had hazel eyes, or something like it. Gray that gradated to brown near the pupils. Enchanting.
“You got more about lima beans to tell me?” Raleigh asked.
“If you want. I could talk all night.”
Raleigh really did smile then.
Bruce changed his mind about the picture. He needed a newer new one. A better one with the smile. Bruce liked the smile because it felt personal. Tailored for him, in a way.
“Talk all night. Is that a euphemism?”
“No, unless you want it to be. I’m open either way.” Bruce was out of practice with flirtation, if that was even what he was doing. He couldn’t tell. Usually, if he wanted someone to go home with him, his name was enough. But Bruce hadn’t given Raleigh his name. He’d given him a lie because sometimes lies were more honest.
“Do you sleep with men?” Bruce asked. “Since we’re on the subject.”
Raleigh’s smile vanished.
Shit. I broke him already.
It was hardly a record. Still, Bruce was optimistic that he could turn things around. Raleigh was standing there with his head cocked and brow furrowed. That probably meant he was thinking. Thinking was more positive than fleeing.
Bruce checked his watch. Normally, that amphitheater cleared out in a predictable amount of time. Sometimes, he liked to guess how long it would take and see how close to accurate he was. About eighty percent of the concertgoers had filed out already.
“I like to know upfront,” Bruce explained, shifting his weight. “Saves me angst. Attraction is an energy sucker.”
“You’re attracted to me?”
It sounded more like a rhetorical statement than a question so Bruce didn’t respond.
He didn’t know how to explain himself, anyway. Bruce could certainly get a stiff cock just from having the man look at him in a certain way long enough, but at the moment he was more stimulated by the discussion, the reactions, the responses.
Just by having him stand there that long.
Fucking would be perfectly fine, and the more Bruce thought about it, the more he wanted it. Brogues or not, Raleigh looked like he’d be good at it. A man that haughty had to have the pipe-laying skills to back up the attitude. But it wasn’t Raleigh’s attractiveness that was compelling Bruce, really. It was his attentiveness.
“Don’t misunderstand me,” Raleigh said. “I’m always flattered when someone shows interest, but people aren’t generally so forward.”
“Like I said—”
“Yeah. Saves you angst.” Raleigh snorted and turned his focus to the stagehands dismantling equipment and set pieces. “I know a little about angst.”
“Shifty exes?”
“Those, too.”
“You don�
��t pick well.”
“You really do speak your mind, don’t you?”
“Whether I want to or not.”
Raleigh’s gaze pivoted back to Bruce. “Yes.”
“So, you...”
Raleigh performed a shrug. A graceful one, of course. “Yes.”
“Oh.”
Oh oh oh oh.
Bruce clapped his hands with triumph and gestured excitedly toward the exit.
It was as though the pesky little id imp in his brain had shouted “Green means go!” into his skull to get Bruce moving, and he did. “Shall we?”
“Shall we what?”
“Can get a car. I’ve got a place.”
Raleigh laughed then—an honest, genuine laugh, not like one of those dry ones people who were just being polite tended to do. “I think you’ve skipped some steps. Generally, introductions are made, there’s some song and dance meant to assess compatibility, some will-he-won’t-he, and then we’re supposed to pretend we’re doing anything but heading out to fuck. You’re supposed to ask me if I’d like to go someplace for a drink so we can continue our conversation about the band or something.”
Bruce didn’t drink, and he didn’t see the point of pretending he wanted anything except what he’d stated. He didn’t know how to do that. That wasn’t a lesson his nan had taught him. Mostly, she’d just taught him when to back off. Usually, he got that right.
“I did say talk, aye? We can talk about the band if you want,” Bruce said. “But if you’d prefer, we could just get down to it and come back ’round to critiquing the performance later. It’s unavoidable, in my experience.”
“This is highly unusual.”
Bruce shifted his weight again. Some people could picture how the scales of probability balanced, but he’d never developed that ability. That part of his brain simply wasn’t flexible enough. So, he panicked. “Is that a yes or a no?”
“I don’t know. I need more information. You could be some sort of predator. How do I know you’re well intentioned?”
Bruce scratched his chin. He didn’t know if he’d ever call wanting to be forcefully topped well intentioned. That didn’t sound right in his head, but he suspected he was getting caught up on nuances that didn’t matter. “Are you asking me if I’m harmless?”