Off Stage

by Jaime Samms

  There came a point in every city where the throng of press seemed thicker than the last. The crowds were bigger. Wilder. Sometimes, they were almost scary. It got harder and harder to sneak out and be anonymous. Krane hadn’t been kidding when he had warned Damian to get used to the idea everyone he encountered would know who he was. Everyone did know, and usually, every one of them wanted something from him. A night of partying he could deliver, and if he had a band member along as chaperone, he even managed to stay mostly sober and out of the clutches of the groping fans. When he didn’t, he got sulky glares from Lenny, but no one else seemed to care much, as long as he showed up for sound checks and was on the bus when it was time to move on.

  The media loved him. He was a juicy sound bite as they followed his tantalizing trail across the country hoping for scandal. Whatever he got himself into, though, the worst bits never seemed to make it to the public. He wasn’t sure if he was just lucky, or if Krane was that good. He decided it didn’t matter, as long as he had this chance to sing and live how he’d always known they deserved.

  He could even forget, most of the time, how sickeningly difficult it was to take those first few steps onto the stage. That was one thing that never changed from city to city. Staring out at the thousands of fans from the wings made Damian want to go back to the hotel. He’d always had this strange reluctance, and Lenny always talked him through it, but it wasn’t getting any better.

  Every night. Every time. There was a point somewhere between glamming himself up for the performance and actually walking onto the stage where he was sure he was not going to be able to do it. He’d thought he would outgrow that fear as he got more concerts under his belt. More practice, and the fans got more demanding. If they loved him that much, surely he could give them what they clamored for without worrying he’d fall on his face. He could get used to it.

  He didn’t.

  In fact, the bigger the crowds, the bigger the fear. He began stuttering as he waited in green rooms. He kept his mouth shut, hoping if he said nothing, the feeling would go away. It took Lenny and his sexy/sweet cajoling to get Damian out there now, and all the encouragement the rest of the band could muster. He didn’t dare tell any of them how often he found himself tripping over his words. If they didn’t believe he could go out there and tame the screaming hoards, he’d never be able to do it. So he said nothing and fought back the fear that one of these times, the words to the songs wouldn’t come. All he could do was keep his faith that once behind the mike, with Lenny’s gaze on him, and that seductive smile and his blue eyes glittering through his bangs, the tight knot would ease. A few words spoken to the crowd, and the evidence they really did want him, and he would manage to get his tongue untied and eventually, the music came.

  But it was wearing. Keeping his secret got harder, and he spent less time with the guys. They would notice, he was sure. Not that he stuttered under any normal, everyday circumstances, but something could slip, and they couldn’t know. Damian, after all, was a player. A cocky bastard who finally had his world by the balls. He wasn’t about to give that up because he couldn’t sing, or because they thought maybe he couldn’t. They’d given him a year to prove himself. There was still the chance they could vote against him signing with them and Krane when it came time. He didn’t dare give them a reason to say no.

  The months passed, and he found himself slipping off alone more and more. He told himself it was because they were all exhausted. None of them had ever had the stamina for the clubs he had, and that was okay. Going out and dancing with his adoring public was part of who he was. It was what the fans had come to expect from Damian, and he’d deliver. As long as he kept the public happy, it meant they all had jobs, and the band would be willing to overlook the occasional hangover during a sound check or his scrambling to make the bus in the morning.

  No one chastised him, anyway, and if Lenny started getting more demanding, it was only because he knew Damian was having a hard time getting onstage at night. He was helping, taking care of Damian, like he always did. Those old patterns were somehow comforting. Everyone began falling back into their customary places within the dynamic, and Damian tried to tell himself this was a good thing. The traveling was hard, and knowing where they all stood with one another made the rest of it easier.

  It had to make the rest easier, because straining the band’s relationships any further would surely snap them apart.

  13

  STAN’S EYES narrowed as he watched the sound check onstage. Vance leaned on a light standard beside him, arms crossed over his chest. Stan was on alert. That much, Vance could make out just by his expression. Something he was seeing onstage had him worried.

  “They look good,” Vance ventured, wondering if he would be able to ferret out what had his old friend on edge. He didn’t usually have much contact with him over his new projects, but Vance had a vested interest in Firefly, so he made the effort to keep up with how the band was progressing on their first tour. All signs pointed to a meteoric rise that would lodge them somewhere in the stratosphere of stardom. It was happening fast, but Stan didn’t seem overly thrilled with the success.

  Stan shrugged.

  “You don’t think so?”

  “Something’s going on,” Stan replied. “I don’t know what.”

  “He’s hungover,” Vance offered helpfully, watching the way the lead singer carried himself gingerly.

  “Shocker.”

  “Not like you to let that kind of thing go, Stan. Has he been keepin’ up with that naturopath you sent him to?”

  Again, Stan shrugged.

  “You remember when I showed up to my first sound check with a rotten head? You nearly cleaned my clock.”

  Stan smirked at the memory. “Yeah, well, I’d seen the twink you brought in with you.”

  “You were jealous.”

  “You were being indiscreet.”

  Vance laughed. “True. God, I gave you a coronary, didn’t I?”

  Stan tried to scowl at him and failed pretty decisively. “Several.”

  “Well, I don’t see any twinks hangin’ around in the wings, and since Damian’s out anyway, it isn’t that.”

  “No.” Stan’s expression darkened and Vance studied him more carefully. “I doubt he’d be interested in any toys other than his guitar player. And—”

  Stan snapped off his sentence and looked at Vance sharply. That was Vance’s only clue he’d given something away. “What?”

  “Did you just growl?”

  Vance frowned. “What?” he mumbled. “Those two are goin’ to destroy this band. You need to curb that crap before it gets out of hand.”

  “There’s nothing to curb. As far as Beks says, they aren’t sleeping together. Just flirting a lot.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Vance straightened and began to pace. “Because somethin’ is goin’ on, an’ your singer is out every night gettin’ his ass plowed somewhere else. Only so long that can keep up before one of them snaps. He’s waitin’ for Lenny to make him stop, and I’m tellin’ you right now, it ain’t in Little Red there to make anyone do anythin’. Not until he explodes, and that, when it happens, will not be pretty.”

  “I think you’re making more of their relationship than there is,” Stan said. “They’re just a couple of kids feeling each other out.”

  Vance shook his head. “No, Stan. They aren’t kids. They’re just actin’ like kids, and that can only go on so long. Stop it now, before somethin’ bad happens. I’m tellin’ you.”

  He hadn’t noticed Stan move until he was blocking the path of his pacing. “What do you know?”

  “Nothin’.”

  “Don’t shit me. When have you ever showed even a little bit of interest in any of my other clients?”

  Vance drew in a breath, but Stan answered for him. “Answer: never. So why now? Why them?”

  “Look—”

  “You.” Stan poked a finger into his chest, challenging him. “Know something.”


  Vance shook his head, struggling not to rise to Stan’s bait. His gut told him he was right about the band, and more specifically, about Lenny. He just had to make Stan listen. He also had to curb his own temper before he decided to walk away instead of helping his friend fix it. Firefly had a lot of potential. They could be great. Or they could implode more spectacularly and publicly than any band in history.

  “All I know is you have a potential disaster on your hands, an’ the only way I see to stop it is to separate those two as much as you can.”

  Stan’s eyes narrowed. “Holy shit. You’re an asshole. Which one of them did you sleep with?”

  Vance actually laughed, feeling a twinge of relief. “Oh fuck you. Neither of them. And I’ll tell you right now, I would not touch Damian with a ten-foot pole.”

  “Because he’s a slut?”

  Vance cringed on the singer’s behalf. There had been a time that moniker could have applied to him too, and Stan had always managed to keep a barrier between them during those unhealthy stints of bed-hopping. He’d been lucky, and he’d smartened up considerably over the years, mostly through realizing a few things about himself. Like all the sex in the world would never alleviate his need to be in control. He and Stan had come to some sort of unspoken, semigrudging acceptance of that need in their lovemaking, but Stan wasn’t the kind of person who would ever give Vance the unconditional surrender he craved. They both knew that, even if they’d never openly acknowledged either the need or the inability to fulfill it.

  “Because he’d fight me every time I touched him. He’s a scrapper.”

  Stan grinned. “And you like docile.”

  “Don’t, Stan. It isn’t a joke. I like what I like, an’ you like what you like. Damian might actually be good for you. Teach you a little bit of humility tryin’ to keep him reined in. But me? I’d break him.” He shrugged.

  “So it’s Lenny you want, then.”

  Vance could tell Stan had mixed feelings about that and if he was honest, his months of watching the band and especially the guitar player, made it impossible for him to deny that Stan might be right.

  “Look.” Stan stepped away and turned back to the stage. “You want to get in the middle of those two, that’s your issue. Don’t try and get me to do it for you.”

  “I just want this venture to work,” Vance protested. “Don’t forget, Damian still owes me a small fortune. If he can’t draw in the crowds, he can’t pay me back.”

  “It’s a write-off for you, Vance. I know how much you make. What you gave him is pocket change.”

  “To me. Not to him. Don’t think I’m goin’ to let him off just because I don’t need the money. He can’t waltz through life thinking people are going to hand him what he wants because he has pretty eyes and sings like an angel.” He laid a hand on Stan’s shoulder, forcing his friend to look at him. “Don’t you give in to him, Stan. However much you want him, do not give in. He’ll walk all over you just like he is Lenny.”

  “Thanks for that.”

  “I’m not tryin’ to imply you’re weak or a pushover. Only that he’s perfected it to an art. He can turn everythin’ around with a blink and a smile. Some people have that much power. He needs someone to control it, because he can’t. He does it and has no idea how dangerous it can be. How easily he can ruin the people he’s manipulatin’.”

  Stan made a face at Vance, his hackles clearly up, his eyes filled with the cold, angry light that told Vance he wasn’t walking away from this conversation unscathed. “What makes you think you know anything about him?”

  “You don’t want to know,” Vance replied.

  “Try me.”

  “I have tried, Stan. I’ve tried more than once to get you to see me, who I am an’ why I know this stuff, but you refuse.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Vance ran a hand over the back of his neck, gazing up at the darkened ceiling of the stage wings. He hated this conversation. Hated it with every fiber of himself, because Stan never let him actually say out loud what he needed to hear.

  “I’m a Dom,” he said into the overhead blackness, expecting an interruption, a joke, a snide comment any second. “I dominate people. In bed, an’ sometimes out of it, when I have the right partner.”

  Stan huffed and turned his back.

  “Not you, obviously,” Vance went on, surprised Stan hadn’t shut him up or walked away yet, as he usually did. “Because you aren’t a sub, but you cannot tell me, Stanley Krane, that you don’t get what I’m talkin’ about.”

  Stan took a few steps away from the light and noise of the stage and sound crew, deeper into the dim wings.

  “Is that what the shirt was about?” Stan asked. “That time?”

  “Stan—”

  “I don’t understand!” Stan whipped around to face him.

  “With you?” Vance sighed. “It was about kinky sex, mostly. An’ a little bit about getting my way and makin’ you stop for five minutes, and really look at us.”

  “What us?” Something sharp and dangerous invaded Stan’s gaze.

  “The us that fuck around knowin’ it isn’t going nowhere. That it’s just convenient. I love ya, Stan, but I don’t want that. I do want a man who will kneel at my feet and like lookin’ up at me. That ain’t you. Don’t worry. I’ve never fooled myself into thinking it would be. Not since I’ve known what I know about myself. You can judge me all you want for needin’ that in my life, but it ain’t goin’ to change me. An’ it ain’t goin’ to change the fact you’re my best friend, I love you, an’ that day, it was about lettin’ go of what I can’t have. I need room in my life for the real thing.”

  Stan stared at him, silent. It was too dark to read his face or see properly what was in his eyes.

  When he finally spoke, he didn’t say any of the things Vance expected him to.

  “You think Lenny’s the guy?”

  “I think Lenny and Damian are dancin’ around each other, just like we were, only we dared each other to be the Dom and make the other submit. They are beggin’ each other to take charge, and neither one of them can. It’s a disaster waitin’ to happen, an’ the longer you let it go on, the worse the fallout is goin’ to be.”

  Stan studied the band, silent for a long time. “You want Lenny because you think Damian’s too broken to fix?”

  Vance laughed. “Hell no. Damian is a defiant, self-absorbed hedonistic train wreck. He’s way too much like me for anythin’ to work. Either he’d corrupt me, literally, to death, or I’d shatter him, break his spirit tryin’ to keep him under control.” He settled a hand on Stan’s shoulder and used the touch alone to cajole his friend to look at him.

  “What?”

  “It don’t even matter if I wanted him or not. He’s yours.”

  “He doesn’t belong to anyone.” Stan watched as the band launched into a song featuring Damian’s voice turning sweet to contrast with Jethro’s throatier harmonies.

  “You are more fool if you truly believe that.”

  As if knowing they were talking about him, Damian turned. They were probably too far back in the shadows for him to see them through the splash of the side lights flooding the front of the stage, but he seemed to fix on their location anyway. The words of the song came through clear enough, and Vance felt Stan shudder under his palm.

  Gotta have… what you got for me.

  Chain me… at your feet.

  It’s the ledge or your light I gotta have.

  “Shit.” Stan jerked away and scurried into the deeper shadows.

  Vance followed to find him leaning on the black-painted back wall, hands over his face.

  “Just a song,” Stan muttered.

  “Why would it be so bad to admit you want that?” Vance asked.

  “I can’t do it, Vance!” Stan said, trying to keep his voice at a stage whisper that couldn’t be heard above the music. “I can’t do what you do. I can’t be what you are.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Stan sh
ook his head. “You think it’s that easy? He trusts me to manage his career.”

  Vance smirked and crossed his arms over his chest. “So where’s the problem?”

  “His career, not him.”

  “He is his career, Stan, an’ before you tell me you have no idea how to manage him, let me tell you a thing or two. You managed me just fine, an’ I was certainly not predisposed to bein’ managed. You think I would be standing here, sane and sober after nearly twenty years in this business, if not for you? Don’t think for a second I don’t know how hard I was to manage. I know. I was as bad as he is. Sleepin’ around, the drugs, the booze. I know. Maybe we never talked about it, but I have eyes. I have a brain. I saw you pull it together when you wanted to walk away from me instead o’ deck me. You shook sense into me. You held me up when you wanted to turn your back. I saw how hard it was for you to say no to me when I wanted a fix, or turn me down when I wanted you. You hated it every time you had to bring me in line, but you did. Not for you, for me.”

  “Vance—”

  He held up a hand, not sure he could get through what he had to say if Stan stole any of his momentum. “I put you through hell, Stan. I know I did. I tried to buck you off, an’ you hung on. I got tired and wanted to quit, and you dug in the spurs. You taught me more about being a Dom than any mentor I have ever had, because you’re the one who showed me it was about lovin’ the person, not commandin’ them. I hated you for it sometimes, an’ Lord, resented the control, but you kept my head above water a long time.”

  Stan stared at him, eyes dark and confused.

  “I’m good now, Stan. I learned how to do all those things for myself, and I’m ready to let go. You deserve to find the guy who’s goin’ to give back all that fierce loyalty you have. Someone who will respond to it by being what you need.”

  “I’m just your manager.”

  “Fuck you.” Vance cuffed him lightly on the side of the head. “You remember when Blue Star died?”