Off Stage

by Jaime Samms

  Stanley closed his car door as the older Learner returned to the house and Trevor turned to look at him.

  “I should not let you go,” Stanley said, drawing Trevor a step closer.

  Trevor nodded. “I didn’t think you w-would, actually.”

  “You need to tell them.”

  Trevor parted his lips, and then closed them again in a tight, puckered line. “Y-you said—”

  “I said I would explain why you’re not going straight in. I did not say I would explain everything.”

  “Y-you w-want me to tell th-them Lenny l-left….” He hung his head. “He left me.”

  Stanley cupped a hand gently under Trevor’s chin and lifted his face, waiting until those glassy green eyes met his. “First time you’ve said it out loud.”

  Tears trickled out the corners of Trevor’s eyes. “Not l-like w-we w-were anything.”

  “Best friends. That isn’t over, Trevor. Give him time, yeah? Give the whole thing time. Let me take care of this. Of you. For once in your life, let someone who knows what they’re doing actually be in charge.”

  “Y-you going to t-tame m-me?”

  Stanley smiled. Almost laughed, in fact. “Good God, I hope not!”

  That seemed to bring some life into the singer, even if it was a defiant set to his shoulders and an angry squint to his eyes.

  “You don’t want me under control? I thought that’s what all this was about.”

  “Yes, I want you under the kind of self-control that never results in you getting beat up by your best friend again.”

  Trevor’s eyes sparked angrily at him, and Stanley stood a little bit straighter, ready to take on the tiger if he had to. He was ready this time for the instant flight response Damian had when he didn’t get his way.

  “Or waking up in someone’s bed, and you don’t even know their name,” Stanley continued. No one ever did this man any favors by pretending his self-destructiveness wasn’t happening. All that ended now, as far as he was concerned.

  “Fuck off.”

  The quick jerk of his head might have freed Trevor if Stanley hadn’t been ready for it. But he was. He crowded closer to the singer, having just enough height on him to be able to lift his face and look down into his growing defiance. Bright rebelliousness glimmered under the tears, and Stanley felt the familiar, delicious tension inside that came when he knew he was about to get to the heart of things.

  “Or so high you don’t remember how you got there,” he said firmly.

  “You keep bringing that shit up.” The glassiness was gone from Trevor’s eyes now, though his cheeks were still damp from the tears, and there was no ignoring the way fatigue dragged at his features and dulled his skin. At least there was life and some of Damian’s boldness in his eyes and his words. If that was what he used to batter back the stuttering, it was a start.

  “When you acknowledge you’ve done those things, and they’re bad for you, I’ll stop bringing them up.”

  “No, duh. I think drugs and risky sex are actually good for me.” He pulled free of Stanley’s grip and squared his shoulders. “I’m not an idiot.”

  “I know you’re not. My goal is to have you stop acting like an idiot. Also, notice, you’re not stuttering.”

  Damian came very close to smiling, but managed to bite it back and retain the edge, turning it into a crooked flick of a sneer.

  Stanley couldn’t resist touching that fleeting curve of lips, though, encouraging it with a smile of his own. “You want to trust me,” he said. Trevor did. Stanley knew that. It was the rock-star veneer—Damian, his protector, who’d rise to the challenge Stanley threw out.

  “You think?” Trevor tried to pull away, but Stanley had no intention—now he was this close to the fire—of letting him back down from the anger or the resentment, or the reaching need the singer wanted so desperately to control.

  “I know.”

  Dark sparks shot at Stanley, flares of shadow like black light illuminating the brilliance smothered underneath fatigue and uncertainty. Somewhere in there, he was still Damian, still the dashing young man who’d sauntered into Stanley’s office months ago and changed the entire world. The defiant, glittering lights flew from dazzling green eyes and burned where they landed. He would be lying if he said that didn’t have an effect on him. An effect that would be showing in his trousers soon, if he indulged it. He managed to ignore it. For now.

  “What have you got to lose, Damian?”

  “What have I got to gain?”

  “Try it and see.”

  “You think it’s that easy.”

  “How about you pretend I’m not every fucked-up one-nighter you’ve ever had, not another damaged sub”—he tilted his head and let his fingers grip hard to convey a force Damian would react to on a gut level, just through the touch—“not even your manager. Just someone you have no history with.”

  “Pretend I have no history, you mean. Pretend life hasn’t happened. Like I haven’t learned how brutal it can be?”

  “Pretend you don’t know how brutal it can be.” He smiled and let the edges show. He could be all the brutal Damian needed. “I’ll teach you.”

  Damian glared at him. Without the makeup and spiked hair, he looked younger than he was. Without it, the shimmering stare was all the sharper and more captivating. This was the naked, wild thing Stanley had waited to see. He was getting a glimpse, finally, of the truth underneath the glam, bad behavior, and stuttering. Right here at his fingertips was the velvety strength he had been so certain Damian hid below his layers and layers of defenses.

  “Better,” Stanley rumbled. He released the hard grip, testing to see if Damian would turn away as soon as he had his freedom.

  He didn’t.

  Stanley allowed a coolly approving smile and nod. “Much better. Shall we?” He motioned them forward and Damian swallowed hard before turning to lead him across the drive and the adjacent parking lot to the garage next door.

  21

  DAMIAN WAS glad for the semidarkness. Not because it allowed him to hide from Stanley. He didn’t think there was anything in the world that could hide him from that man’s penetrating gaze. He was glad of it because it hid the memories. Thousands of them, good and bad, waiting where the dusk was too thick to see through. This way, they couldn’t overwhelm him.

  He was glad too for the bulk of the man at his back. He was like a clean wind through the dusty attic of Damian’s childhood. It hadn’t been that long since the last time he’d sat at his mother’s kitchen table, his friends around him, his family offering boisterous congratulations on their shiny new contracts. But so much had changed. Everything he looked at here had shades and layers he didn’t remember, like he’d been gone for years instead of months. Everything was familiar but in that way childhood looked smaller when viewed from a distance.

  Strange to think that “childhood” was less than a year in his past.

  Damian glanced over his shoulder at Stanley, still looming close in the gray light. The urge to hurry a few steps away fought with his instinct to shy back and feel the heat and solidity of Stanley’s big frame.

  “Here,” he said, as they came up to the side of the building. “There’s a bachelor apartment above the garage.” He smiled a little. “Mom still tells stories about when she and dad and Wayne lived up here, before the house was built. I can’t imagine three people living there, even if one of them was a baby.”

  “So your family has lived here since the beginning?” Stanley asked.

  Damian nodded and slipped the key into the lock. “Dad opened the garage back in the eighties. He had a master’s in finance and he opened a garage. Everyone told him he was nuts, but he always said he wanted to make something more than money. He wanted to make something he could leave for his sons.” He petted the frame of the door and sighed. “His office manager lived up here for years after they moved into the house, then when she moved out, one of his mechanics lived here for a while. He was just a kid. Dad gave him a
break and a job when he caught him trying to break into the shop one night. He was the one who taught me and Lenny to play guitar, and he got his own place when he started dating.” He grinned softly. “Dad didn’t like the girls he brought around. Thought it was a bad influence on Lenny and me, twelve years old, seeing a guy kissing a girl he wasn’t married to. He didn’t quite get it, even though we already knew by then we’d way rather kiss each other than any girl.” He drew in a breath and steadied himself from those memories.

  “After that, Wayne moved in while he was going to college.” Damian swung the door open and led Stanley up the steps.

  The apartment hadn’t changed a lot since the last time he’d been here. He’d helped his cousin, Christian, move out after his wedding, he explained to Stanley as he flipped on the lights. “Only guy left on the planet who wouldn’t move in with his girl before he married her. Which he did because he got her knocked up. I love the guy, but he makes me wonder sometimes. He’d been sharing this place with Wayne, then off and on with Lenny, whenever Lenny needed a place in between foster homes and boyfriends. When Chris moved out, all he took were his clothes and his books.” He ran his fingers along the edge of the table in the entrance, along the wall, and over the neck of a guitar sitting on a stand just inside the living room doorway. “I really thought he’d come back up for this, at least.”

  “He plays?” Stanley asked.

  Damian nodded. “He used to p-play with us, actually. Before Lenny was official. Or when L-Lenny’s asshole boyfriend w-w-wouldn’t let him come to a g-gig. Christian always filled in. He was good.” He flicked the strings of the instrument, sending a quiet thrum through the room. It echoed the aching vibration of memory in his chest. “He works in the garage for Wayne.” Turning, he met Stanley’s gaze. “Maybe I’ll c-call him tomorrow. He knows our st-stuff.”

  Stanley nodded. “Maybe. Right now, you’re going to rest.”

  Memories gave way to a flash of heat at the command and Damian lifted an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?” He placed a hand on Stanley’s chest.

  Stanley closed his eyes as he clasped his fingers around Damian’s wrist, but he couldn’t hide the wash of desire that cleaned every other emotion off his face for a moment. “Tempting,” the big man whispered. He lifted Damian’s hand and kissed his palm before opening his eyes again and pinning Damian with just a look. “But yes. Rest.”

  “You’re no fun at all.” Damian sidled closer, craving the warmth of the other man’s nearness, hoping to flirt his way inside the circle of heat. It was so easy to ignite this—whatever it was—between them. Stanley’s flame seemed to burn so close to the surface, and Damian was so volatile lately, not catching on fire just being in the same room was a struggle. “Why not release a little tension?” he asked, flicking his lashes and peering up at Stanley through them. “We both want to.”

  Stanley’s fingers tightened. His stance shifted. The glare he cornered Damian with intensified, as though at any moment, he was going to whip Damian around and bend him over something.

  “See?” Damian goaded. “You want to fuck me.”

  “And you’re looking to get a good whipping,” Stanley countered, pulling him in until their chests collided and Damian felt the heat of the other man’s breath on his face and his hand was twisted around where Stanley could hold it at the small of his back and press their bodies together.

  “N-no!” Damian struggled to free himself and move back, away from the power and the threat. A wild surge of panic made his guts heave, and he whimpered. And dammit, if Stanley didn’t grin at that. The expression only sent more waves of alarm cresting over Damian’s desire, threatening to tow it under and drown it.

  “That’s your problem, though, isn’t it?” Stanley asked, backing Damian deeper into the apartment one slow step at a time. “You get away with this shit all the time. No one ever calls you on it.”

  “On what?”

  “You want to goad me into fucking you, brat, I will fuck you. You won’t be allowed to get off on it.”

  “You’ll stop me having an orgasm?” Damian almost snickered through his discomfort. As if even Stanley could control his orgasms.

  Stanley clamped fingers around his jaw, so there was no way for him to look away. The grip didn’t hurt, but neither did it compromise, and Stanley seemed to know already how it melted Damian’s ability to resist. “You have a lot to learn about how this works.” With his free hand, he stroked gently down Damian’s arm and over his wrist. The light touch sent a shiver up to clash with the heat of Stanley’s unbreakable hold on his jaw. “You asked me to hold on to you, did you not?”

  Damian swallowed and managed the infinitesimal nod that hand on him allowed.

  “Then don’t expect me to let go now, Damian. My hold?”

  Damian agreed.

  “My rules.” He closed his fingers in a ring around Damian’s wrist. “Agreed?”

  His mind screamed for him to demand what the rules were. He needed to know. He shivered, felt tears sting, and acquiesced, hoping Stanley would let him go before they fell. Before he noticed.

  “Good boy,” Stanley whispered, so close the words were merely a breath over Damian’s cheek. Stanley’s lips touched his face at the corner of his eye, and he blinked, dampening his lashes with the tears that didn’t quite fall.

  Stanley came away licking his lips and smiling softly. “You’ll do as you’re told and go to bed. Tonight, you sleep. Tomorrow, you be with your family. Talk to them. Let them help you. After that, we’ll set some ground rules about what you think you want and what you’ll be allowed to have. In the meantime, I promise you this: I will not let you run off to get drunk or laid. You want a drink? You ask me. You want to get laid? You wait patiently until I say you’re ready. There will be no drugs, and no running. Do I make myself clear?” He released his hold on Damian’s face to slide fingers down his cheek, touch his lips gently with his thumb, and compel Damian with his gentleness not to look away.

  “I th-thought you didn’t w-w-want to t-tame me.”

  “I don’t. But even a wild bird needs quiet and calm, if his broken wing is going to heal. When he can fly again, he goes free.” Stanley touched his lips to Damian’s, so lightly Damian wasn’t sure if it could even be called a kiss, but he still felt it was too brief. “If he wants.” His thumb once more slipped over Damian’s lips as though to seal in the tiny intimacy. “Understand?” he asked again.

  Damian nodded. “I understand.”

  “And trust me, Damian, if you break the rules, you will not get away with it. I will always come after you when you run, and I will always”—he smiled that slightly frightening smile again, but his fingers circling Damian’s wrist shifted softly, warming him with the contact—“always discipline.”

  Damian stared at him. He had no idea if he should be frightened of that promise, or comforted by it.

  For what seemed like a very long time, they stayed that way, watching each other from opposite ends of the bargain they’d struck, measuring. How far could Damian push? How much rope would Stanley give him, and exactly how many knots would he tie around Damian should he break the rules? There had been a time Damian would have tried to find out. When he wouldn’t have really cared what happened. It had always been so much easier to give himself away to a stranger and take what they offered. Let them push him, and see how much he could take. It didn’t matter when he didn’t know them and didn’t care. If it hurt, he walked away.

  Now, here, it mattered. Because Stanley kissed him, soothed him, protected him and nursed his wounds, and to blatantly break a rule to see what the consequences would be was to throw that back in the other man’s face.

  Just as he’d always thrown it back in Lenny’s.

  “Oh God.”

  “Damian?” Stanley cupped his face as he tried to turn away. “Talk.”

  “N—”

  “No is not an option. Talk.”

  “Lenny,” he whispered.

  “What about him?”
>
  Damian shook his head. “I wanted him to be….”

  “Be?”

  Damian straightened. “I won’t break your rules,” he said, his voice miraculously coming out even and smooth. He met Stanley’s eyes again and even managed a thin smile. “And not just because you have the power to make me regret it if I do.”

  “Understand something. There is a great deal of difference between discipline and play. You will never, ever wonder which one is happening, I assure you. I like play.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “I would not enjoy it if I had to punish you any more than you would.”

  Damian nodded. “I know. I get it.”

  “I hope you do.”

  “I do. Lenny… I pushed him. He could never stop me, and never make me regret it. Not really. I ignored his hurt because he never let me see it, never turned it back on me at the time. Only when he couldn’t stand it anymore and then….” He dropped his gaze.

  “He never punished you for breaking his rules, over and over?”

  “Breaking his heart, more like,” Damian replied, gaze following the lines of the floorboards to their inevitable end at the wall. “I was vile to him. Vance was right to get him away from me.”

  “Vance didn’t just do it for him. He did this for you both. Without any other distractions, you can focus on you. On what you need to do to get your life together. I will help you. I want to help you, but I will not turn the other way when you start to slide.”

  “Because my backside will meet your boot?” Damian grinned, slightly crooked and more than a little uncertainly.

  “Damian, I hope it never comes to that, but I do hope you understand, really understand, if you push, I will push back.”

  “I’m starting to.”

  “Good.” Stanley drew him close and planted a smacking kiss on his forehead. “Now. We should see if there’s a place for you to lie down.”

  In fact, it was obvious when they had turned on more than the entrance light, that Trevor’s mother had been through the apartment with all the vigor of a bored matron. It was spotless. There were clean, pressed sheets on the bed and neatly folded towels in the bathroom. A few of Damian’s old T-shirts and sweat pants had been laid out on the foot of the bed. He could have kissed the clean clothes. He was more than ready to get out of the travel-stinking clothes he’d had on for too long.