Love on Stage

by Neil Plakcy

  It was a YouTube video of Gavin and his family singing “Apple Cider Time” the night before, and it already had nearly twenty thousand hits. It was a very professional video, not from someone’s cell phone, and it was strange for Gavin to watch himself on stage.

  When the song was over, he looked at Miles. “Where did this come from?”

  “I hired a guy,” he said. “He did each of the numbers.”

  They went through “Down in the Valley” and “Milking the Cows,” and Gavin marveled at each one. The hits were all around the same number.

  “Wait till you see this,” Miles said. He clicked on the last video, for “I’m Yours,” and as the music started, Gavin’s jaw dropped as he saw the counter at nearly a hundred thousand.

  “Oh my God,” Gavin said when the song was finished.

  “Fortunately my video guy has taped a few of Jason’s Mraz’s concerts, and he got permission before he posted the clip.” He looked at Gavin and smiled. “Mraz’s people liked your cover, and they’re willing to license the song. My video guy can pull the audio track from the video and create a high-quality MP3 from it. I just e-mailed everything to your dad for his approval.”

  “He has to approve it,” Gavin said.

  “I’m sure he will. And as soon as he has the paperwork vetted, I’ll put the song up on iTunes for download. We need to catch this wave as soon as possible.”

  Miles leaned back against the wall, his legs out in front of him. “It’s official,” he said. “You guys are stars.”

  Awesome Numbers

  Miles closed the laptop, and they walked out to the dock, where they sat, dangling their legs above the water. It had cooled down, and there was a full canopy of stars above them.

  “When I was a kid, I used to lay out here at night,” Gavin said. “I’d look up at the stars and wonder who else was out there, someplace else, watching those same stars, and if I’d ever meet them. I never left Wisconsin until I was about fifteen, and though I knew my grandma and her sisters had been singers and been to Nashville and to California, the rest of the world was so strange to me.”

  “That’s funny,” Miles said, taking his hand. “When I spent summers in Guatemala, I’d lay out on the tin roof beside my bedroom window and look up at the stars too. I never knew where I belonged—with my tio and tia in Chimaltenango, with my Goodwin grandparents in Chicago, or with my parents in Miami. I didn’t know who I was.”

  “Even in Miami? There’s such a range of people there.”

  “Back when I was a kid, there wasn’t as much crossover as there is now. Anglos were with Anglos, Cubans with Cubans, and there weren’t as many Latin Americans or South Americans. The Cubans spoke a different kind of Spanish than I did, faster and with more slang. And I used these words I’d learned in Chicago, like calling soda ‘pop,’ so the Anglos looked at me like I was a foreigner.”

  “When I was a kid in Eau Claire, we were very aware of ethnicity. The Olsons were Swedish and the Agnellos Italian. The Krogers were German, and my dad’s family was Polish, though so far back that nobody ever spoke the language. Then I got to Miami, and we were all thrown together as Anglos and there were all these ethnic groups I’d never even heard of. I met a model who was from Eritrea, and I had to ask him where that was on the map.”

  They stayed out there for a while, then walked back up to the house, hand-in-hand. Miles turned to him, his face illuminated in a shaft of moonlight. He took Gavin’s face in his hands and kissed him, slowly and with a passion that made Gavin’s blood race. “I just want you to know that I am very much looking forward to a life with you.”

  “Aw, you’re sweet.” Gavin leaned in and kissed him. “I feel the same way about you.” He took Miles’s hand and led him up to the blue bedroom.

  “What are we doing here?” Miles asked as Gavin opened the door.

  Gavin pointed to the bed. “Need an instruction manual? You sure didn’t last night.”

  “Last one naked’s a rotten egg.” Miles began to pull his polo shirt over his head.

  Gavin took a second to grasp what was going on, and then they were both a blur of shirts being tossed off, pants dropped, wiggling out of underwear. Miles made it to the bed two or three seconds before Gavin did, lying back against the pillows with his legs spread wide and his stiff dick waving like a flagpole.

  Gavin jumped on top of him, and the old bed’s springs groaned, squeaking and rattling as they wrestled around on top of the covers. Gavin discovered that Miles was ticklish, and they both laughed as they squirmed around. When they finally ran out of steam, they collapsed together. After a moment, though, Gavin popped up and straddled Miles. He slapped his stiff dick against Miles’s stomach a couple of times and felt Miles’s dick beneath him.

  Miles just lay there and groaned.

  “What?” Gavin demanded.

  “What are you, sixteen?” Miles said. “I’m twenty-nine, and you have at least twice as much energy as I do. You’re like a little puppy.”

  “And you’re a big dog,” Gavin said, stroking Miles’s dick. He flopped beside Miles. “But we can just cuddle for a while if that’s what you want.”

  “Just till I catch my breath.” Miles turned on his side and faced Gavin.

  “Do you think we should have waited to get started until now, until after the show was finished?” Gavin asked.

  Miles sat up beside him. “I did think that at first. But we’ve worked so well together that I guess I was wrong.”

  He turned quickly, pinned Gavin to the bed, and leaned down to kiss him. This time there was no wrestling or squirming, just long, slow kisses. Miles explored Gavin’s chest with his hands and his tongue, and the raw emotion coming from Miles knocked Gavin for a loop. He’d had great sex, but he’d never before felt what he felt with Miles.

  The lovemaking was equally slow and sensuous. Miles rubbed against Gavin, took Gavin’s dick in his mouth, licked and sucked. Gavin felt like he was swooning with ecstasy. Miles grabbed a condom, suited Gavin up, and then ever so carefully began to lower his ass down.

  For Gavin, it was incredibly hot seeing Miles’s face as they fucked. Sweat dripped down the side of Miles’s tanned skin, and a stray black curl fell over his forehead. Gavin pushed up into Miles’s ass, saw his mouth contort into a grimace and then relax into a smile.

  He picked up the pace, lifting his ass up off the bed and driving upward into Miles, and Miles welcomed the intrusion, squeezing his muscles around Gavin’s dick, driving him crazy with lust and emotion. Miles didn’t even have to touch himself; he spurted onto Gavin’s chest as Gavin pushed against his prostate, and then Gavin spasmed and shot his load into the condom.

  Miles collapsed again beside Gavin, and they both fell asleep. Gavin woke to sun streaming in the east-facing window, and the rest of the morning was a blur of action. He did one final load of laundry, made sure the water was turned off and all the toilet seats were down, and then squeezed his bags into the back of Miles’s already stuffed SUV.

  Neither of them spoke much as Miles drove away from Starlit Lake. Gavin’s brain was filled with so much, from the performance to Miles to wondering about the future. They rode past acres of farmland, cows in fields, iconic red barns, and silos. Gavin felt an odd sense of homelessness—was this his home? Or Miami Beach? Where did he belong?

  Miles pulled up in the departure zone at the Milwaukee airport. “It’s going to take me about two days to get back to Miami,” he said. “But I’ll call you when I get in.”

  “Coolness.” Gavin leaned over, and Miles turned his head for a kiss. “I’ll miss you.”

  “You too. See you soon.”

  While he waited for his flight, Gavin played back the YouTube video of “I’m Yours” and once again felt that weird sensation of watching something separate from himself.

  “I love that song,” the girl next to him said. She had black hair, black nail polish, and wore a black sweater over knee-length black nylon capris.

  “Yeah, I do t
oo.” Gavin shifted the screen of his phone so the girl could watch too.

  “I especially love what that group did with it,” she said when the video was finished. “Very cool sound.”

  Gavin was tempted to identify himself, but he thought it was sweeter to keep the secret. When he got back to his apartment, though, he insisted on playing all four videos for his roommates, along with a running commentary about the rehearsals and the performance.

  “You’re a star, Gavin,” Larry said, leaning back against a kitchen chair. “What else can we say?”

  “Congratulations,” Manny said. “So what do you do next?”

  “I go back to Java Joe’s,” Gavin said. “Miles is going to release an MP3 of our version of ‘I’m Yours,’ and then we’ll see what happens. But this whole concert thing was really just a one-shot deal, for my grandmother’s sake more than mine,” Gavin said, though he knew in his heart that he’d been the one pushing it forward. “Erica’s in grad school now, and Archie’s back at work. We couldn’t do anything else even if we wanted to.”

  That night in bed, though, Gavin wondered if there might be other opportunities. Maybe at Christmas, when Erica and Archie would both have vacation? They could fly down to Miami, and maybe the three of them could get a gig or two. He’d have to ask Miles.

  Tuesday morning Gavin was back at work at Java Joe’s, returning the coffeemaker Careful had lent him. On his break, he checked his iPhone and saw that the YouTube views of all four videos kept climbing. He checked his Twitter feed and saw that the hash tag #singingsweethearts was gaining traction. He added a tweet of his own.

  He was just about to go back to work when his phone buzzed with a text from Miles. Miss u. Call me when u can.

  He stepped out into the back garden, quiet while the bar was closed, and called Miles. “Where are you?” he asked.

  “Just left Nashville. I’m going to drive straight through to Miami. There’s a lot percolating, and I need to be back in the studio.”

  “I hope you’re hurrying because you miss me too,” Gavin said.

  Was it his imagination, or did Miles take an extra couple of seconds to answer? “Of course,” he said.

  Gavin saw Careful peering through the back window. “I’ve got to get back to work. Drive safe.”

  “See you soon, mi amor,” Miles said.

  Gavin felt a tingling all the way to his toes hearing those words in Miles’s throaty Spanish. “You too,” he said and then ended the call.

  He worked out at the gym after his shift, and one of the big-screen TVs was playing the YouTube video for “Milking the Cows.” One of the guys was making lewd gestures to accompany the song, and people were laughing. He slunk off to the side, hoping no one would recognize him.

  Miles called him that night. “There was an accident on I-475 outside Valdosta, so I’m running late,” he said as soon as Gavin answered. “Do me a favor and go to iTunes. My guy says that he uploaded all four songs.”

  It took a minute for everything to load.

  “Have you got it yet?” Miles demanded.

  “Keep your shorts on. It’s working.”

  “I’ll wait to take them off until I see you. Is it there yet?”

  “You must have been a real pain as a kid,” Gavin grumbled. “Hold on. My laptop has to load iTunes first.”

  He had never felt his Internet connection be so slow before. Finally the iTunes app opened and began to connect to the store. “Here it comes. Holy shit, we’re in New Music!”

  He was astonished to see a photo of all of them, taken at the dress rehearsal, as the thumbnail for each of the songs. “This is awesome!”

  “How are we doing?”

  “Almost all the little bars are filled in for ‘I’m Yours.’ The other songs are maybe like half that.”

  “Shit!”

  “What’s the matter?” Gavin asked anxiously. “Isn’t that good enough?”

  “Not the music. I just swerved on the highway.”

  “Well, focus on driving. You can’t produce a whole album for us if you’re in the hospital or dead. How soon will you be home?”

  “I’m on the turnpike just south of Orlando. A couple of hours. I’ll call you tomorrow morning.”

  Gavin hung up and realized what he’d said. A whole album? How could they do that, with all of them spread around, with Erica in school, Archie working, and the grannies in failing health?

  Climbing the Charts

  Wednesday morning at work, Gavin kept pulling his phone out whenever he had a moment, watching the rankings as “I’m Yours” climbed the charts, with the other three songs trailing behind it.

  “You’re going to be famous now,” Careful said, looking over Gavin’s shoulder. “I hear that song everywhere.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Gavin said. He was desperate to talk to Miles but figured that he had been working late in the studio, and he knew that Miles was going to need caffeine sooner or later.

  It was still hard to fight back the urge to panic or to chase after him, and he marveled at how much his attitude had changed since meeting Miles. By the time his shift ended, Miles hadn’t come into Java Joe’s or called.

  Gavin stood on Lincoln Road in the shade of one of the café umbrellas, debating whether he should go over to Miles’s studio. He didn’t want to go to the gym, in case people were still watching “Milking the Cows” and laughing. And he knew if he went home, he’d just sit there and brood.

  Where was Miles? Why hadn’t he called as soon as he’d gotten to town? That’s what a boyfriend would do, right? And after all the time they’d spent together and all the sex they’d shared, shouldn’t Miles be considering Gavin his boyfriend? Hadn’t they both said they loved each other?

  What if Miles had changed his mind on the long trip south, though? He’d made it clear from the start that he wanted to produce an album for the Singing Sweethearts, that he had seen it as the ticket to his own business success. Suppose he’d reverted to his original thinking, that a producer and an artist couldn’t be together?

  Gavin was getting himself worked up into what his mother called “a state” when he spotted Miles coming down Lincoln Road toward him, his Bluetooth in his ear, talking rapidly to someone.

  He was determined to play it cool, but as soon as Miles arrived, ended his call, and kissed Gavin on the lips, he fell apart. “Have you talked to my father? Have you heard what’s going on?”

  “Give me a minute, Gavin,” Miles said. “I need some caffeine. I’ve been so busy I barely slept last night.”

  Gavin was so full of questions he was ready to explode, but he said, “Fine. Sit down and I’ll make one for you.”

  He rushed into the café and slipped behind the bar.

  “You’re off, Gavin,” Careful said.

  “I just need to make two drinks. I’ll pay for them later.”

  He scooted around the other baristas and made two Jumbo Joes—one for himself, and one for Miles—and then carried them to Miles, who was sitting at a table by the window, talking on the phone again.

  Miles spoke first. “The numbers for your videos are awesome.”

  Gavin’s head was spinning. “What does that mean?”

  “It means you and your cousins are recording artists,” Miles said. “Alan was pretty pissed that you guys sang ‘I’m Yours’ without permission and then that I posted the videos under the name Singing Sweethearts, but that’s all water under the bridge.”

  “But we’re cousins, not sweethearts,” Gavin said.

  “And your grandmother and your aunts? Were they some kind of lesbian trio? No. They were America’s Sweethearts. And now you, Archie, and Erica are following in their footsteps.”

  “How come you didn’t think to ask us before you put up those videos? We could have come up with our own name.”

  “This is business, Gavin. The Sweethearts already have an identity. And this way, we can put out the collaborative songs between generations under the same name.”


  This was what Gavin hated about modeling. At least there, he understood why he was treated so casually. The client didn’t care about his opinion on the clothes or the pose. But shouldn’t it be different now that he was a performer?

  “We’ve got another conference call scheduled for this afternoon,” Miles said. “Your father, Alan, and I need to get a clear idea of who the Singing Sweethearts are now, what market they’re aiming for, and so on.”

  Gavin could see he wasn’t going to get anywhere with Miles. Miles had already commoditized him and his cousins, and his eyes were full of dollar signs. “I should let you get back to work,” Gavin said. He stood up.

  “I’ll be in touch,” Miles said as he picked up his cell phone.

  You’ll be in touch all right, Gavin thought as he walked out to Lincoln Road and turned toward his apartment. It’ll be a cold day in hell before you touch me again.

  As he walked, he called his father at work. Kaz Cars had new hold music, he discovered; instead of the usual Muzak, he had to listen to “Milking the Cows.”

  “What’s up, Gavin?” his father asked. “We’re launching the new Avalon, and I’m busier than a one-armed paperhanger.”

  “Not too busy to make deals for the Singing Sweethearts,” Gavin said. “Or just too busy to ask me what I think?”

  “You’ve never taken an interest in business before. Why start now?”

  “Because I’m not a little kid you can move around to suit you.” Gavin mimicked his father’s voice. “Gavin, you have to play Little League because I sponsor the team. Dress up like an elf at Christmas, Gavin, and stand by the front door of the showroom handing out flyers and candy canes. Go volunteer at the hospital, Gavin, because once those people get well, they’ll want to buy cars from us.”

  “I know, you had a terrible childhood,” his father said. “Like something out of Dickens.”

  “I never said my childhood was terrible. But you treated me and Gretchen like employees. And it’s clear neither of us are following the paths you set out for us, Dad. Or should I start calling you Grandpa?”