by Jaime Samms
Damian struggled to find words other than obedient or wimpy to explain. “I don’t need you to look after me.
“Who said you did?”
“I can look after myself,” Damian insisted.
Krane chuckled. “Ever notice the only time you tell people that is when you’ve screwed up so bad you can’t fix it by yourself?”
“That isn’t—” Damian clamped his mouth shut.
“True?” Krane stopped his ministrations to wrap both arms around Damian and clamp their bodies together. “Is that what happened last night?” Krane asked, his voice a whisper of encouragement next to Damian’s ear. “Did you tell Lenny you could look out for yourself and proceed to do the exact opposite?”
Damian said nothing. He wanted to struggle out of that suffocating embrace, and he wanted to sink into it until everything else, all the pain and confusion, disappeared, and Krane was all that was left for him.
“Tell me what happened.”
Damian shook his head. “Can’t.”
“I’m not really giving you a choice.”
“It isn’t mine to tell.”
“Trevor.”
Damian stiffened. Only Lenny was allowed to call him that. Only Lenny, who had let him fall apart last night, then beat him up because of it.
“I can’t.” Damian’s insides twisted. His hands throbbed remembering the incident.
“Do you really think not saying it out loud protects him? We all know you aren’t going to blame him for this. But he did it. How does it help either one of you to let him get away with it?”
“He was angry.”
Krane’s arms tightened. “He. Hurt. You.” Krane’s chest heaved. “Whatever justification either one of you think he had for what he did, the fact remains. He hit you. Hard enough to put you on the ground. He deliberately tortured you.”
“No.” Damian barely whispered the denial. Another truth he couldn’t say out loud, and couldn’t argue against.
“Yes.” Krane pushed Damian upright and slipped around to kneel on the floor in front of him. He proceeded to unwrap Damian’s left hand. He didn’t take his time, or be gentle.
“Look at what he did to you, Trevor.”
Damian turned his head so he wouldn’t see the mess or the scratched-out tattoo.
“Look.”
“You d-don’t know him like I do.” He couldn’t get his voice above a whisper, even now.
“You know him so well you anticipated this?” Krane gripped Damian’s wrists and lifted. “If you know him—” He dragged in an audible breath and tempered his tone. “If you know him this well, then why? Why push him? Why let him do this?”
“I didn’t let him!” Damian’s skin crawled as he tried to pull free. The beginning of a bone-deep shaking started in his hands, but soon spread through his entire body. “I made him.”
“Trevor.”
“Don’t try and tell m-me it w-wasn’t my fault. I g-got him th-that mad.” He twisted his hand, hunched his shoulders, but there was no making himself small enough to hide from this. “I b-b-broke him. Should have b-b-been h-home. N-n-not h-high.”
Why could he not get a single word out, suddenly? Like there was a tennis-ball sized knot of phlegm in his throat and he had no control over his own tongue.
He squeezed his eyes shut, but that only sharpened everything else: the stink of antibiotic cream and celery juice, the scent of Stanley’s aftershave. The feel of him there on one knee in front of Damian, watching. Waiting. Becoming something other than his manager. Something he had no intention of admitting he needed.
“Trevor,” Stanley said softly.
Damian tried to wipe the back of one hand across his face. It only reminded him of the implacable hold the other man had on him. It made him wince at the sharp pain of his cuts and kept him aware of how the other man was watching him, seeing him fall apart. Seeing how he couldn’t blink back the tears fast enough. Seeing the snot running over his top lip.
“L-let me g-go,” he croaked. He could barely hear the words over the roaring in his head.
“Trevor.”
Stanley shuffled closer between Damian’s legs. He gently put Damian’s hands down and took his face between warm, huge palms.
“Wh-wh-what?” Damian glared at him through the dampness.
“Whatever you did that you think was deserving of this, Lenny very deliberately ruined that tattoo. He purposely caused you a great deal of pain. Why?”
Stanley’s face kept wavering in and out of focus no matter how hard Damian tried to zero in on his features. He shrugged. “Bec-cause I h-hurt h-him f-f-first, I g-guess. T-t-too many t-t-times.” He swallowed convulsively. “F-f-f—”
“Shhhh.” Stanley pulled Damian to him, cradling Damian’s head against his body.
Goddamn, but everything about the man was so warm. Steady.
“F-fuck,” Damian whispered. His throat ached. His eyes stung and his lashes stuck together. He thought his head might explode, and he was sobbing like a little kid all over Stanley’s powder-blue dress shirt. The one that matched his eyes and hugged every plane of his chest just so.
“You’re going to be all right,” Stanley assured him.
“I’m f-f-f—” Damian growled. “F-f-f-fuck!”
“Calm down.”
Damian pushed free of Krane’s grip, ignoring the pain of shoving the comfort away.
“I am c-c-ca.” He banged a fist on his thigh in frustration. The pain eclipsed everything. A white-hot sheet of flaming agony sizzled through him and he thought the top of his head might blow off.
“Breathe.” Stanley had him by the wrists again. The hold anchored him. Stanley’s voice steamrolled over Damian’s frustration and finally, he managed to draw a deep breath.
“I’m c-calm,” he muttered, cheeks flushing with heat.
“You’re stuttering,” Krane pointed out.
“I d-d-d-don’t—”
“Don’t stutter?”
“D-d-d-on’t f-f-finish m-my w-w-w-ords!”
“You’re right.” Krane nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” He stroked a thumb along Damian’s palm. “I’ve never heard you stutter before. Not even when you’re drunk.”
“I d-don’t st-st-st….” Damian slowed, concentrated. “I do n-not stutter,” he said. “Anym-more.”
He wrung his hands, not so much in an attempt to get free, as to feel the way Stanley’s fingers tightened ever so slightly when he did. “I outgrew it. T-took v-voice lessons wh-when I w-was ten or s-so. To get over it. It w-worked.”
“So what’s going on here, then?” Stanley released one wrist, but before Damian could find a way to complain, Stanley cupped his face instead. “Talk to me.”
“T-t—” Damian bit his lip. “T-talk to you ab-bout m-my stutter?” He tried to smile, but it was a limp effort. “Wh-why?”
“Because if you haven’t done it since you were ten, and clearly, you’re doing it now, and you can’t control it, then something is going on in there.” He tapped the side of Damian’s head. “And I want to know what.”
Damian wanted to know too. He met Stanley’s—Krane’s—gaze and shook his head. “It’s better now.” He hesitated, but what the hell? At some point, Krane had stopped being his manager and begun to be something else. Someone else. He lifted his captured wrist and a flush of warmth wended through him when Stanley’s grasp firmed. “Why does this make it better?” He glanced at the containment Stanley’s grip offered.
Stanley didn’t look away. His gaze was so steady, so serene. So very, very soothing. “You have to work that answer out for yourself. I can ground you, Trevor, but why it works, what you really want it to be, that’s something only you can figure out.”
“Grounded.” Damian nodded. “That’s how it feels.” Because grounded sounded so much better than safe or kept, even in his own head. He closed his eyes and drew a smooth, deep breath.
Stanley’s fingers tightened to just this side of painful and Damian shivered, deep
down where no one could see it.
“Look at me, Trevor.”
Damian kept his eyes closed. “I can’t,” he said honestly. Stanley would see what that grip did to him if he opened his eyes. He’d see inside to that quivering part of him, the secret no one was allowed to see.
“Trevor.”
“Fuck, I hate it when you say my name like that.”
“Why?”
“Because. It sounds….” Like Stanley already knew his secret.
“Why?” Stanley asked again, insistent.
Damian smiled. “You do hang onto things until you get answers, don’t you?” He tried to make light of it as he finally opened his eyes, but Stanley wasn’t smiling.
“I want to hear you say it, Trevor.”
Damian twisted his hand, frightened, suddenly, that Stanley would never let go, and terrified that he would.
Stanley released him.
“Please.” Without thinking, Damian scooted forward.
“Please what?”
Damian held his hands up between them. They shook, but he couldn’t help it. “Don’t let g-go.”
Stanley smiled. “I have to clean those hands,” he said. “And bandage them now.” He ran his fingers down Damian’s cheek. “I am not letting you go.”
“Promise.” Damian mouthed the word, unable, yet, to give voice to the need opening up inside him.
“Is that what you really want?”
Damian lifted his hands another inch.
Instead of taking him by the wrists again, Stanley lowered both Damian’s hands to his thighs, cupped his chin, and kissed him.
“Soon,” he said. “You’re not ready yet. But I will keep you safe while you figure things out. That, I promise. Even when you don’t like it or want me to.”
Damian frowned. “Okay.”
A smile touched Stanley’s lips and this time, his eyes. “Good boy.”
That made Damian chuckle. Anyone who knew him, even a little bit, knew that was patently untrue. It seemed to make Stanley happy to think it, though, so he didn’t argue.
DAMIAN SAT in the chair opposite Stanley. Their manager sat quietly at his desk, reading through papers as though nothing unusual was happening. Clive hadn’t arrived yet. He wasn’t a morning person to begin with and he’d been nursing delicate guts for a while, now, and Alice had apparently flown into Boston when they got here a few days ago, though no one had mentioned that fact to Damian. He couldn’t think of a good reason for her to be there. Maybe they just missed each other. She sat on the couch with a magazine, occasionally flipping pages she didn’t appear to be looking at and watching the door. As usual, Beks sat on the periphery, in the window seat, silent and watching. Jethro paced, which was so out of character for the laid-back bassist that it made Damian uneasy.
“Will you sit!” Alice snapped at last, and it was like they all let out a collective breath that finally, someone had said it. “You’re making me crazy,” she said, more calmly as Jethro slowed and finally leaned on the console in front of the television.
“Does anyone know why we’re here?” he asked. He ran a hand flat across the top of his head, as if to smooth down his locks, and began to chew on the side of his thumb. “Only time that kid ever called me before was to go with him to identify Ace’s body.” He lifted his gaze to Damian. “Or ask if I know where you are.”
“I’m r-right here.” Damian dropped his gaze. “He knows that.” He waited, but if anyone noticed the slight hesitation in his words, they didn’t say so, and he almost let out a sigh of relief. He glanced at Stanley, but their manager seemed absorbed in the file open in front of him.
Jethro glanced around the room. “Where’s Clive?”
“He’s coming,” Alice said, staring intently at her magazine.
“No one needs to identify any bodies,” Beks assured him. “Just relax.”
Jethro shrugged. “Maybe he’s gonna quit.”
“He won’t,” she said. “He has a contract.” But she glanced at Krane, who didn’t look up from whatever he was doing.
“He’s n-not going to quit.” Damian pursed his lips and glanced around at them.
Jethro looked at him oddly. Maybe he’d heard Damian pull his n’s out too long. If he had, though, he kept his mouth shut and tapped a finger on Krane’s desk.
“Do you know what’s going on?”
Krane shook his head without looking up. “I haven’t spoken to Mr. Stevens since practice on Thursday. He was out of the building by the time I managed to get backstage after the show that night. Afraid I’m as much in the dark as all of you.” He flipped a page of his file and continued reading. “He’s a grown man. If he chooses to spend his free weekend elsewhere, that’s his business.”
Damian couldn’t decide if he sounded tense or not. “But he does have a contract,” he said, stirrings of panic churning in his gut. He pulled at his sweater sleeves and shifted in his seat, hoping the bandages weren’t obvious. No one had asked about them yet. Maybe they hadn’t noticed. “So he can’t quit, right?”
“You all signed the same contract.” Finally Stanley lifted his gaze, only to fix it, cold and hard, on Damian. “At your insistence, Mr. Learner. You know as well as I do there is nothing in it about any of you playing for Firefly if you don’t want to. You all agreed to my representation, and I agreed to make sure you have work. Firefly is a convenient way to accomplish both, but by no means a requisite for any of us.”
Damian squirmed in his seat. He wanted to get up, but Stanley had pointed to this chair earlier, when they’d heard the first knock on the door, and told him to sit. So he’d sat. Besides, it was the closest chair to what felt like stability. A stupid reason to want to keep it, but one he couldn’t deny was true.
Krane hadn’t given them the answer any of them wanted to hear, but at the same time, they all knew the difficulties of inflexible contracts. In making sure they didn’t make the same mistake again, they’d known they were leaving the door open for the band to disintegrate, poisoned by bad blood. Damian supposed they’d all hoped it wouldn’t happen.
“You going to tell us what happened to your hands?” Beks asked.
“Nothing.” Damian tugged at his sweater again.
She swung her feet to the floor and leaned toward him. “Right. Because people bury ‘nothing’ in an inch of bandages all the time. Try again.”
To his relief, a knock at the door saved Damian from having to tell them anything else. All heads turned to Krane, but he looked directly at Damian and nodded once.
Damian’s lips twitched with a smile and the rush of realizing he knew, without having to be told, exactly what the man wanted from him. He dipped his chin, got up, and hurried to the door.
As soon as he touched the handle and his knuckles twinged at the slight use, the rush vanished. Dread sluiced in to replace it, and his heart pounded. He pulled the door open anyway. For whatever reason, Lenny had called them all here, and the air needed to be cleared.
And there he was, freckles livid against pale skin and half his hair pulled back from his face, the rest tumbling around his shoulders.
“Lenny!”
Vance Ashcroft’s wide hand clamped down on Lenny’s shoulder, fingers peeking from under his red curls.
“Hey, Trev.” Lenny’s smile was thin and ragged around the edges. He nibbled at his lower lip and took a half step back when Damian approached. His gaze fell on Damian’s bandages.
In that split second, seeing Lenny standing there, Damian had forgotten about his hands and the constant, pulsing ache of his knuckles. The second the injuries caught Lenny’s attention, that all came back.
Damian took a step back. “D-don’t w-worry ’bout it.” He tried to dismiss the bandages and the entire incident with a small wave, but Lenny’s head snapped up at the hitch in Damian’s speech.
“Did you just stutter?”
“N-n-n.” Damian shook his head and waved them into the room.
“Come in.” Stanley came to h
is rescue, inviting them inside so Damian didn’t have to further trip over his own tongue.
Lenny shuffled into the room, glancing uncertainly between Damian and Vance.
“All the more reason to do this,” Vance said quietly to him. “Yes?”
Lenny nodded, but he didn’t look happy.
Clive walked in behind the others and sprawled on the couch next to Alice, running a hand over her back.
“I’m fine, Clive,” she whispered. “Relax.”
“Anyone care to tell us why the hell we’re here?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Lenny wrapped an arm around his middle and began chewing in earnest on his lower lip. “I will.”
Vance stood behind him, towering over him, and once more placed a hand on his shoulder. He held an air of almost menacing authority, but at his touch, Lenny immediately let his lip go and stood a little bit straighter.
Damian had never been able to get him to quit that lip-chewing thing once he got started. Not without resorting to kissing him stupid and that rarely ended well these days.
All Vance Ashcroft had to do was touch him.
Damian couldn’t help glancing at Stanley, but his manager was staring intently at Vance. Damian’s gut twisted.
“I—” Lenny drew all their attention with that one, aborted word. “I guess you’re all kind of freaking out. I’m not usually the one who disappears for days at a time.” He glanced at Damian and flushed. “And I guess you know Trev got in a fight.”
Jethro shrugged. “So what, man? What else is new with that douchebag.” He shot Damian a crooked grin. “Who didn’t want to fuck ya this time, Damian?”
Damian opened his mouth, ready to feed the bassist a line, anything, willing to make up a scenario in which some irate would-be lover had kicked his ass, but Lenny beat him to it.
“Me.”
Jethro laughed. “No way!”
Lenny stared at the floor and flushed red.
“I-it w-w-w-wasn’t l-l-l—” Heat invaded Damian’s face. “F-f-f—” He hit the back of the couch and stuttered out a new curse over the pain.
“Stop it, Trev,” Lenny said, voice still low, but not hesitant or wavering in the slightest.
“N-n-no. Y-you st-top.” Damian clenched a fist, focusing on the pain of opening scabs on his knuckles so he could get far enough out of his head to get the words out clearly. “J-just don’t say anyth-thing else.”