by Jaime Samms
Clive approached and rapped Christian’s knuckles with his sticks. “Git.” He tipped his head toward the door and the stage and settled on the stool next to Damian once Beks had given him a peck on the cheek and they had all filed out.
“What does he do for you that we can’t?” Clive asked.
Damian shrugged. “He’s just there. H-he kn-knows.”
“Tell you what I know, buddy. I know I let you down. I let his manipulation and big, sad past blind me to what was really going on, and you got hurt because I didn’t pay enough attention.”
Damian turned from the mirror to look at Clive and was surprised to see too much brightness in his drummer’s eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about.” He touched a drumstick to Damian’s wrist near his healing scars. “He had it tough. He got beat up. A lot of bad shit happened to him. He had no right to pass it on to you, and I—we—should have noticed. I still love the guy. He’s still family, but he screwed up. I’m glad you’re free of him and I hope he’s getting his head on straight. But I don’t have to worry about him, because he’s got what he needs. I have to worry about you. Your life is out there on that stage, and I will not let him take that from you. I won’t. Because you deserve everything you’ve worked for to pay off. You can do this.”
“Wh-what if I c-c-can’t?”
Clive smiled. “If you stutter, then you stutter. We’ve worked around it in practice and we’ll work around it onstage. We are not going to leave you behind out there. I promise.”
Damian swallowed, feeling like he was holding in a bucket load of puke, but he nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay.” Getting up, Clive batted him on the shoulder with his sticks again. “Don’t keep us waiting.”
“You can do this,” Stan assured him now. He pressed a kiss to the side of Damian’s neck and gave him a little shove. “Go.”
And that was so unfair. He couldn’t go and he couldn’t refuse an order from Stan. He glared at the man, but received only a smug smile as Stan slipped his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels.
He didn’t really have a choice, though. Accepting the cover they offered, he slipped onto stage, caught Christian’s eye, and nodded. Seamlessly, Christian handed the harmony over to him and a wave of ecstatic noise rose from the crowd as his voice blended into the song. He brought his own mike, supplied by a stagehand in the wings, and though he did trip over a syllable or two, no one seemed to mind as the crowd got louder the closer he got to center stage. His voice blended with Jethro’s buttery-smooth bass and the fans ate it up.
By the time the song ended, Damian was ready to take his place behind his mike. Jethro retrieved the loose mike and tossed it off to a waiting roadie as he relocated to his customary place to Damian’s right. If the other band members joined him up front more often tonight, the fans didn’t care. In fact, they went wild whenever it looked like Jet might sing again, and in the end, Damian cajoled him to sing the one other song he claimed to know, one that the fans knew intimately, since it had been their first radio single. Truthfully, Damian thought Jet had a better voice for it anyway.
Besides playing a mean guitar, Christian’s clean-cut good looks sparked something with the women in the audience. He got a lot of attention. Stephie was going to have a field day teasing him over it. Glancing around, Damian counted himself lucky. As the concert wore on, even though every song sounded different to Damian’s ear, he was struck by the fact that missing Lenny wasn’t as painful up here as he had expected. He could feel his friend’s absence. But he could feel his own presence, as himself, out on his own, more than he’d ever felt it before. It was like their first forays onto the stage together. Like starting new again.
He glanced to the wings and thought he saw Stan’s tall outline beyond the wing lights. He couldn’t be a virgin again. Onstage or off. But he could be something he’d never been before.
24
THINGS HAD changed. Stanley stood in the doorway between his office and the workout room, watching. Trevor breathed strong through the lift and carefully controlled the descent of the weights as he rounded out his last set. Had it really been only six months ago he’d struggled through half a set with a third of the weight he pumped now?
“Almost done.” Trevor glanced up and smiled. “Just one more round on that torture device over there.” He pointed to the machine designed to strengthen the difficult-to-isolate muscles of his lower back. It had always been his worst “event” as he liked to call them. All the singing had toned his abdominal muscles, but done nothing for his back, and he’d paid for it in the past six months of trying to even out the balance.
“No hurry.”
Trevor tipped his head to one side. “You’re thoughtful.”
Stanley pushed a hand into his trouser pocket. “Got a call this morning while you were at practice.”
“Oh?” Trevor seated himself on the last machine and waited for Stanley to elaborate.
“Vance,” Stanley said.
As he anticipated, Trevor immediately made busy, focusing his attention on the machine and adjusting the weight that was already set properly. He didn’t meet Stanley’s gaze or stop to position himself properly, or breathe, Stanley thought.
“Trevor.”
Instant obedience. Trevor stopped what he was doing and turned so he was facing Stanley, even if he was only looking at his naval. His arms moved restlessly, and his right leg began to jump.
Stanley smiled grimly. “Still?”
Trevor shrugged. His thumb made a pass over the back of his left hand. The scars distorting the tattoo still stood out, pale against the rest of his bronzed skin. He rubbed a hand over his restless thigh, stopping the motion, but only momentarily.
“Look at me, Trevor.”
He did. But his gaze was elsewhere, shrouded in comparison to the way he looked at Stanley when he was getting what he wanted.
“Look at me.”
Trevor focused, eyes dark, haunted.
“If you don’t want to see him, you don’t have to.”
“I-I don’t kn-know if I do.”
Stuttering. Stanley hurried into the room. “Stand.”
Trevor did. He was obedient. He tended to be, lately, but it was stiff obedience. Fragile still, and Stanley didn’t know how to break down this last barrier between them. The one that kept everything so proper. Sterile. Safe.
The man who gave Stanley instant compliance was a different animal from the one who got up onstage at night and sang his heart into his microphone, into his audience. Stan had every ounce of Trevor. Not one molecule of Damian. Trevor was safe, gentled, and presumably happy lying chastely in Stan’s bed, clothed in another new set of pajamas for every visit home from the road. Damian was locked up somewhere inside, only allowed to prowl the stage, glare out at the screaming fans, share breath with his band, and sing so it broke every heart in the room, or drove them to a frenzy and left them all panting for more.
“They are both on their way to the office.” Stanley placed a hand on Trevor’s cheek. “Do you want me to call the car round? Do you want to leave before they get here?”
Again the shrug, and Trevor’s left hand fumbled, knuckles against his thigh, like he was feeling for the scars, just to see if they were still there.
“They’ll be here in half an hour. Get cleaned up.”
Trevor nodded and turned away, his pace indecently quick as he headed for the shower. He had only just emerged when there was a knock at the door.
Everything had changed. Vance had never once knocked on his office door before Boston.
But protocol dictated. One Dom did not invade the territory of another when there was a fragile sub around. It simply wasn’t done. Stanley glanced toward the workout room. Trevor stood in the middle of the room where he could see the desk and the windows behind it, but not the door. He caught Stanley’s eye and smiled faintly, nodding with the slightest dip of his chin.
A si
gnal, Stanley supposed, saying he was okay. Ready to greet the best friend and almost-lover he hadn’t seen or spoken to in six months. The one person in his journey toward sanity he hadn’t wanted contact with. The only one he never talked about.
Stanley opened the door. “Vance. Len.” More protocol.
Vance nodded and held out a hand for Len to precede him into the room.
He was not the waif he’d been when they left. His hair was just as wild, but there was color in his cheeks and a spring in his step.
“Hi.” Vance smiled at Stanley. “Good to see you.” His eyes narrowed slightly as he studied Stanley’s face.
Stanley had no doubt he was reading there every line of tension and worry Stanley hadn’t managed to work through.
“Trevor’s through there.” He waved to the exercise room. “He just finished his workout.”
Len nodded, recognizing dismissal when he heard it, but he didn’t move until Vance nodded once and kissed him, then he sauntered off toward the door.
“You sure about that?” Vance asked.
Stanley shrugged and wandered to the window to look out over the city. He pushed both hands into his pockets with a sigh. “No.”
“I’ve been watching his shows, Stan. I can’t see anything to worry about.” He joined Stanley at the window and they stood, side by side, Vance with his thumbs hooked through his belt loops. “He’s as good as he ever was. Better. Voice is strong. The crowd loves him. The band is 100% behind him.”
“All true.” Stanley glanced over his shoulder to the other room, but he couldn’t see either of their lovers from where he stood. “Offstage, he’s a shell. One I can’t crack.”
“Nightmares?” Vance glanced sidelong at him.
Stanley nodded. “He says he doesn’t remember them, but, every time they happen, it’s days before he’ll get his hands wet, and he wears gloves, and….” Stanley sighed. “Like they ache all over again.” He shook his head. “He won’t admit it, but I know he’s dreaming about it. Nothing I do takes that away for him.”
“You got that right,” Vance agreed.
“Helpful.”
Vance shrugged. “What would you like? A magic pill?”
Stanley chuckled, but only to hold back another sigh. “I want to help him. I want to make it better.”
“You think being there, night after night, to hold on to, to tell him it’s going to get better, you think that isn’t enough?”
“Seems to be for Len.” Once more Stanley glanced toward the other room.
“Len was ready.” He snorted softly and glanced sideways at Stanley. “I didn’t have to break him down, first. He was already broken, an’ he knew it. He was desperate for someone to take the reins, and I did. And I’m not doin’ it alone. He sees a therapist. He responded because he was already goin’ where I was leadin’ him. It won’t always be this easy.” He lifted a shoulder and turned his attention back to the view. “Or maybe it will. Who knows?”
“Must be nice,” Stanley muttered.
“You want to know what’s different, me and you?” Vance asked.
“Do I have a choice?”
Vance grinned out the window. “Have you ever?”
Stanley didn’t have to answer that.
“People call what I do when I’m not singing ‘breaking’ horses. I don’t break ’em. They come to me broke. I fix ’em. I gentle ’em and love ’em and make ’em what they should have always been. I save the ones other people threw away. You.” He turned a little bit, forcing Stanley to give him a little bit more attention. “You see the wild things in people. You don’t tame it or shape it. You nurture it and feed it and make it….” Vance waved a hand in the air. “Dangerous. And beautiful. And scary. But I never felt scared when I came down from where you threw me up on that stage, because you always knew exactly how to call me back to civilized when I was on the edge of goin’ too far.”
Stanley snorted. “You’ve been writing lyrics again.”
That brought forth a loud belly laugh from Vance. “I have. All I’m sayin’, Stan, is you do what you do, and you get bitten, over and over, because you won’t tame us. You love us and keep us safe, but you refuse to break us. It takes a lot longer to earn the trust of a creature when you keep tossing us out into the wild and expecting us to stay sane out there.”
“You kept coming back,” Stanley said quietly.
“Because I trust you. And he will too. But it takes time, the way you do this. An’ not many can outwait the really wild ones, Stan. That’s how they get broke.”
“But he is broken,” Stanley said after a few minutes. “He just can’t see it, and he keeps trying to pretend otherwise. I don’t know what to do with broken.”
Vance knocked his shoulder against Stanley’s. “Bullshit, my friend. You know. You’re just too afraid to do it.”
“What are you talking about?”
Vance turned to face him. “Keep him, Stan. He can’t go back to the wild. At the end of the day, the world is a scary place, and you’re the safe haven, only he’s on the outside, lookin’ in and tryin’ to figure out how to get you to open up and let him inside.”
“Now I know you’re full of shit.”
Vance was silent for a long time, once again turned, side by side with Stanley, gazing out over the city with him. Shoulder to shoulder. Something they’d never really done before.
“He’s not me, Stan. You let him in. He ain’t goin’ to go fey on you again over and over. He ain’t ready to bite you like I always did.” Vance smiled, but the expression was aimed inward. “I’m not built like you need, Stan, but he is.”
He turned, strode to the doorway of the workout room, and looked in.
“HEY.” LEN stopped just inside the doorway.
Trevor remained where he was in the center of the room, wet hair dripping onto bare shoulders, a towel forgotten in his hands. He had on track pants, and his feet were bare.
“You look good,” Len said. And he meant it. Trevor had bulked up. He’d always been lean, and he still was, but where before his muscles had wound over bone in long, ropy tendrils, looking barely there enough to hold him together, now he’d filled out.
Whatever Stanley did for him, it was slowly filling in all the hollow spaces. At least on Trevor’s body. His cheeks were still a little pale and sunken, and he had circles under his eyes, like he didn’t sleep very well.
“Hey,” Trevor said. “You too.” He shook himself, as though rousing from the frozen shock of prey about to be devoured. He grinned. The expression was the same as Len remembered, except for the way the darkness in his eyes swallowed the joy of it. “Not so skinny as you were.”
Len returned the grin, forcing himself not to give away that he’d noticed anything. “Vance is a good cook.”
“Huh.” Trevor turned abruptly and walked, stiff-legged, over to the windows. It was a long way down. Len knew he wasn’t a fan of heights, but he stood there, gazing out, back ramrod straight.
Len followed and stood beside him. “So, the tour’s going well.”
Trevor nodded.
“Alice called. Said the baby’s getting to be a pain, keeping her up with all his kicking.”
“Yeah.”
Len swallowed and watched the way Trevor rubbed the towel he was holding over his hands. He seemed to drag it over the backs of his hands more than anything else.
“At least she’s got good timing, with the due date being when it is. Two weeks after the last show. Gives Clive time to get home and settled, and then there’s, what? Two months’ break before you hit the studio?”
Trevor jerked slightly. Len could feel the vibrations coming off him.
“Yeah,” the singer said absently, his hands moving a little more quickly.
Len reached and gently freed the towel from Trevor’s grip. He tossed it on the floor and took Trevor’s hand in his. “Hands are healed up nice.”
“Yeah.” Trevor yanked free, but Len only took the other hand and studied the
ruined tattoo. It was unrecognizable. He hadn’t gotten it fixed.
Trevor hauled in a quick, hard breath. “Are you coming back? For the new album?” Finally, he looked Len in the eye.
Len pursed his lips and let Trevor’s hand go. “I don’t know, Trev.”
“We have to know—”
“I know. And I’ll let you know as soon as I do.”
“Do you even want to come back?” The question was so heavy with bitterness and resentment, Len could barely stand it. He couldn’t stand to keep this shoulder-to-shoulder stance, pretending they were just two old friends, catching up on bullshit.
He shifted his weight, leaning it on Trevor, and wrapping an arm around his waist.
“I miss you guys, Trev.” He squeezed. “I miss you.”
“So…?”
Len rested his head on Trevor’s shoulder and after a few minutes of that silent proximity, Trevor’s arm draped over his shoulders.
“Miss you too, Lenny.”
“Len.” They both turned at the sound of another voice intruding on their quiet.
Vance stood in the doorway, a soft, indulgent expression on his face. He held out one hand and Len squeezed Trevor one last time, kissed his cheek, and went to Vance, placing his hand in the singer’s big mitt.
“See ya round, Trev,” he said, glancing over his shoulder with a smile.
“Yeah.” Trevor flashed a broken smile. “See you.”
TREVOR WATCHED them leave, trying not to feel the bands of restriction tightening around his chest, or the involuntary spasm of his shoulders. He was about to turn back to the view when Stanley appeared in the doorway.
“Okay?” Stan asked.
Trevor let one of those out-of-control spasms lift his shoulder. “Whatever.” He turned his back. He was so tired. Not physically. Just… tired.
“Trevor.”
He didn’t turn right away. Stanley would have some other thing. Some small task to help him feel more in control. Some meaningless chore or perfectly reasonable idea, and he’d do it. Because it was at least something to watch the way his shoulders relaxed when Trevor said yes and did what he was told. It was soothing, at least, to know he could do a small thing that would meet with that tiny, silent approval, and make Stanley happy.