Off Stage

by Jaime Samms

  “I’ll bring these out to the barn, then,” Len said quietly, eyes still downcast.

  “Here, darlin’.” Vance took one of the mugs and moved it to Len’s other hand so he had a hand free. “Take some food.” He placed a piece of toast, a hunk of scrambled egg, a couple strips of bacon and another piece of toast on Len’s open palm, pressed them all together firmly and held it so Len could get his hand around the thick sandwich.

  “Thanks.”

  “Git.” Vance swatted his ass as he walked by. “Promise we won’t plan out your life till you get back.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “You’re welcome, darlin’.”

  Len looked back from the front door and made a face. “Sometimes it’s really hard to tell when you’re being serious, you know that?”

  “You are so right,” Stan muttered, and Len shot him a look, part conspiratorial, part indignant.

  “See you, Stan.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  “Take your damn hat!” Vance called, and Len balanced the coffee cups on the windowsill to don the Stetson hanging on its hook by the door. He was just reaching for them again when Vance spoke.

  “Boy.”

  Len started, as though a hard shiver had gone through him, and he looked at Vance.

  “Have I ever lied to you?”

  Len shook his head. “No, Sir.”

  “Then why on earth would I start now? Come here.”

  Len moved, seemingly without thought of disobeying, and turned his face up to look at Vance.

  Tangling his fingers in Len’s hair, Vance bent and kissed him, hard, with a lot of tongue, until Len groaned and swayed, then Vance broke the kiss. “Okay?” he whispered.

  Len nodded.

  “Say it. You know the rule.”

  “I’m okay. I know you’re not going to arrange my life without me.”

  Vance smiled and Len relaxed, tension flowing out of him in a wave. “Good boy. Now go shovel some real shit, will ya?”

  The grin that spread over Len’s face lit up Vance’s life. “Yes, Sir.” He wheeled to the door, was halfway out when he remembered the coffee and grabbed it, shooting another happy grin at Vance before he disappeared and the door slammed behind him.

  “You have got it so bad for that kid,” Stan said.

  Vance turned back to the stove and picked the rest of the bacon out of the pan before he poured in the second bowl of scrambled eggs. “He ain’t a kid.”

  “Don’t say ain’t.” Stan’s correction was automatic, and Vance automatically ignored it. “Don’t you have a woman who does this kind of thing for you?” Stan waved a hand at the disordered kitchen.

  “Margarita. Her daughter just had a baby. I gave her the summer off.”

  “The whole summer?” Stan’s smile was wicked. “And what about that boy, Alex? The one who dusts and vacuums?”

  “Moving his girlfriend out to Calgary. I expect he’ll be a few weeks before he gets back.”

  “He’s coming back?”

  “That’s the plan. Still has a year at Ryerson, so I imagine he’ll come back to work to help pay for that.”

  “So, no household staff at all?”

  “How is that any of your business?”

  “Just curious.”

  “Yeah.” Vance stirred the eggs in the pan. “Managed just fine without staff for the first ten years. Don’t know why you think I’d be helpless without them now.”

  “How many days in a row have you eaten scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast?”

  Despite trying to remain peeved, Vance grinned. “Supper too, some nights.”

  “Get a cookbook, Vance! For God’s sake, you do all this work on the boy, and he’ll end up leaving you because you only know how to cook one meal.”

  A snort escaped, and Vance laughed. “He did mention something about me letting him at the kitchen.”

  “So why don’t you?”

  “I don’t want him catering to me. That ain’t the kind of sub I want or need.”

  Silence greeted that as Stan got up and poured himself more coffee.

  “That ain’t decaf, you know. Going to give yourself a bitch of a headache if you keep that up.”

  “I forgot how dense you can be. I need it.” Stan leaned on the counter next to the stove where he had a better view of Vance’s face. “What if that’s the kind of sub he is?” he asked at last.

  “I thought of that.”

  “And?”

  Vance shrugged. “Haven’t quite worked it out in my head yet.”

  “Don’t you think you should?”

  “No. Really, Stan? Ya think?”

  “I think you’re burning my eggs.” He pointed to the pan with his mug before taking a sip and going back to the table.

  “Fuck!”

  Stan laughed at him as he scooped the jumble out of the pan onto their plates and threw some bacon on each. He set them both on the table, fetched the rest of the toast from the oven, and sat down across from his manager.

  “Don’t reckon sausage is that much of a stretch from bacon, do you?” he asked, glancing up.

  “And I don’t reckon it’d kill you to let the man into your kitchen enough to make you a decent meal now and then, if he wants to.” Stan took a bite of his food and made an appreciative noise. “Though you are getting better at the eggs.”

  Vance smirked. “Yeah. Len added spices one day when I had my back turned.”

  “Ah.” Stan gave him a significant look. “So he does have a thing or two to teach you.”

  Vance conceded the point with a shrug. He was proud of Len. If Stan couldn’t see that, it was Stan’s problem. They made it more than halfway through the meal before Stan started again.

  “You going to tell me what happened to your face?”

  A chill washed through Vance, and he kept his eyes on his plate. “Ornery critter,” he mumbled. It wasn’t a lie. Stan would probably think he was talking about a horse, and that was okay. He didn’t need to know more than that.

  “You know, if your fans get wind that what you do on your off times could get you killed, they’d freak the hell out.”

  “Imagine a lot of ’em are going to freak out eventually anyway.” He did look up then, because now was the time to broach the subject he suspected was at least part of the reason why Stan had come. “When they figure out about Len an’ me.”

  The media already had their teeth into the story of Len staying at the ranch for the last month. It was getting harder and harder to get off the property without attracting the attention of the paparazzi as it was.

  His cook, Maggie, had called him only a week after she’d gone home to Kingston and her daughter and new granddaughter, asking what she should tell the press who kept calling her for a scoop. He had directed her to Stan, because that was Stan’s job. Since he hadn’t heard back from her, he assumed she’d been happy with the spin Stan had told her to put on things. In the meantime, she’d e-mailed him pictures of the baby and her pretty young daughter, Janet, and he’d been enchanted by both children. Because Janet was still a child, only nineteen and halfway through university.

  When Vance had spotted some suspect discoloration on a wall behind Janet in one of the pictures and insisted on seeing what it was, Maggie had also shown him the dump the girl lived in. The baby’s father had done a runner on her, leaving her with a scant amount of maternity leave income and no place to live but a grubby, damp, basement apartment in an old house. Maggie had asked him to advance her vacation pay to her daughter’s account, to help her find a safer place. He’d done better.

  He’d deposited enough for the summer’s groceries and rent—in a much safer part of the city—into the account he’d been directed to and offered them all a place in the sprawling ranch house if they wanted it. As far as he knew, Maggie was in the midst of convincing Janet it was a good idea to leave the city, at least for a little while, and move to where she had some support to raise her daughter in a safe, healthy environment
. University credits could be transferred, and Vance had the means to hire a nanny, if needed. He didn’t have a lot of family. What he did have hadn’t been averse to letting him disappear and take his gayness with him. Not that the gayness had stopped them reaching for his coattails when he’d made it big. He’d been more than willing to ignore them in favor of the family he’d made for himself a thousand miles away. Maggie had been with him almost a decade now. She took good care of him, and it was the least he could do to help her family out in this desperate pinch.

  Besides, everyone knew living in the middle of a media circus with a music star was healthy and safe for a baby.

  “Vance?”

  “What?” Vance scooped cold eggs off his plate and shoved a forkful into his mouth.

  “Are you ready for that?” he asked, as though it wasn’t the first time he’d voiced the question.

  Vance shrugged. He didn’t give a rat’s ass what anyone thought about his life or who he chose to live it with. He didn’t need to perform another concert or cut another album to keep food on his table; he was stupid rich, and the ranch was profitable. He paid his staff out of the ranch’s income, with enough left over to keep a comfortable cushion in the bank against lean years when the weather didn’t cooperate.

  So the question wasn’t even about him. It was about Len. Was Len ready to be fully out of the closet? Speculation was already rampant about him, and had been for years, since he’d been living with Trevor for most of Firefly’s rise to the top of the charts and the rock pyramid.

  “I’ll talk to him.”

  He knew Stan was staring at him. He could feel the man’s irritation from across the table. “You really don’t care what this does to your career, do you?”

  “Ain’t going to change my music none. If I have to play smaller venues to fill ’em up, then I will. Least I’ll know the fans who come are the loyal ones who care ’bout the music an’ not who I’m fucking.” He looked up and caught his friend’s attention. “You’ve made a lot of money off me over the years, Stan. We’ve done good together. Do you care that much what it does to the income stream?”

  Stan lifted that brow again. “Seriously?”

  “I am serious. Because if this is about how much you’re goin’ to make off us in the next little while as things settle out, then for the sake of you bein’ the best thing in my life since I can remember, maybe this is where we part professional ways.”

  Stan nodded. “That’s all I wanted to know, Vance.” He reached over and patted Vance’s cheek. “You picking him over me tells me where you stand, so now I can go to work figuring out the next move. For the record, I don’t give a flying leap what it does to your income stream. We both have enough to spare and other ways to make what we need anyway. I wanted to know where you stood, and now I do. You want to make this a go, I will find a way for you to do that.” He picked up his fork again, but before he finished his meal, he offered a genuine smile. “Believe it or not, I do want you to be happy. I think this thing with Len is a fucktastic way to achieve that, but you seem committed, so I’ll do what I can—what you need me to do—to make it work.”

  “Len’s a good guy,” Vance said after some time.

  “I know. He’s got a good heart and a fucked-up head. If anyone can help him figure his shit out, it’s you.” And here, he speared Vance with a look. “But if I find out he’s pulling the same shit with you he did with Trevor, I reserve the right to kick his ass into next week. He’s done enough damage to the people I care about. I won’t stand for him doing any more.”

  Vance ignored the faint throb in his jaw as he smiled. “Noted.”

  The look he got was enough to tell him Stan wasn’t convinced he understood the threat, but he did. Since he’d chosen Len over his professional relationship with Stan, there was no way in hell Stan would choose their professional relationship, or Trevor’s love for Len, over the deep-seated need he had to look after the people he loved. So far, Len was not on that list.

  Vance couldn’t blame the man. Stan was so deeply in love with Trevor, so invested in making his relationship with Firefly’s lead singer work, that he put that at the top of his list of priorities. Vance completely understood how that went. It didn’t mean the road ahead was clear, that it would be easy, but at least they knew where the other stood on it, and for the time being, it looked as though they were both travelling in the same direction.

  9

  LEN VERY quickly realized his sore body was not going to thank him for the hard work it was being told to do. Horse manure wasn’t light. Neither was hay, despite the fact it seemed to float on the still air and work itself into every crack and crevice it could find. A few places Len hadn’t, until that morning, been aware of.

  “How the hell do you stand this?” he asked, stopping to rest on his pitchfork and scratch under the collar of his shirt.

  “You’ll get used to it.” Kilmer watched him as he propped his weight on his shovel and sipped his coffee.

  “Like I’ll get used to getting up at that godforsaken hour of the night?”

  Kilmer laughed and took another draft of his still-warm coffee. “Ain’t nighttime anymore if the sun’s on the way up. Ask me, you’re doing a damn sight better’n a lot of the help we have come through here. Most kids we hire don’t last more’n a week or two at best. It’s sad, the way kids these days don’t actually get that shoveling shit for a few hours every day is good for ’em.”

  “You are a truly sadistic bastard,” Len muttered. But he bent and forked the new straw loose in the bottom of the stall he was working in. Once he was done, he fetched the gigantic, pregnant mare he’d cleaned it for and led her in as Kilmer had shown him. She nuzzled his hair, and he patted her nose briefly before leaving and closing the door securely behind him.

  “Why’s she still pregnant when the others all have month-old foals or more?”

  “She took late. She’s always been a bit off with her rhythms. Sometimes it happens. Normally, we don’t breed her because of it, but that’s just one more example of how hard it is to get good help these days.” He shook his head in disgust. “That was the last hand we fired. He left her in the wrong paddock with Landsend, the black Friesian stallion, and his herd.”

  “I thought you didn’t let the mares in with the stallions.”

  “We don’t when they’re in heat, like she was. Normally, though, we like to let them mingle, as long as they get along and the mares aren’t ready to breed. Lettin’ ’em do things the natural way isn’t necessarily bad, but she and Landsend aren’t used to one another, and that can be the best way to ruin a good horse. That asshole’s damn lucky neither of ’em got hurt. It could have been a disaster. As it was, by the time we realized what he’d done, they’d been corralled together long enough there was no point separatin’ ’em. She was a bit beat up from the mating, but nothing permanent, thank God. And she took, which we thought wasn’t in the cards for her.”

  “She’s a beautiful horse,” Len said, rubbing along the underside of her jaw again. “And so gentle.”

  Kilmer nodded. “Which was why it was a shame we thought we wouldn’t be able to breed her. As it stands, it’s going to be tricky with a foal coming as late as this one will. He’ll be at the small end of his age group, and lots of places won’t buy a horse so late out of the gate.”

  “So what will you do if you can’t sell her baby?”

  Kilmer grinned. “Foal, not baby.”

  “Whatever. What will you do with it?”

  “Depends. Add to our breeding stock, if it turns out well tempered and pretty and trainable. Maybe just have another saddle horse if we can’t breed it. Or maybe sell to someone who wants a pet. There’re plenty of options for the horse. A lot fewer for the fool who nearly ruined its mama. I’ll tell ya, he ain’t gettin’ a glowin’ recommendation from us.”

  Len smiled at the big mare. “No worries, baby,” he whispered to her, touching his cheek to her soft nose briefly. “I got you covered, yeah
? You and me’ll take real good care of your baby. It’ll turn out all right. You’ll see.”

  She nickered softly and touched her nose to his cheek this time, as though she understood exactly what he was saying.

  “What kind of horse is she, anyway?” he asked, picking up his tools and moving on to the next stall.

  “Clydesdale. Gentle giants, I like to call ’em. She’s an ideal saddle horse, actually.”

  “I thought they were for pulling beer wagons.”

  Kilmer laughed. “If I said I thought a guitar was for making country music, what would you say?”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  He laughed again. “Come on. Next stall. I can educate you while you shovel.”

  “Slave driver.”

  “It gets better, I promise.”

  Len was not inclined to take that promise at face value, because he was pretty sure his idea of better and Kilmer’s were at opposite ends of the work spectrum.

  He didn’t complain, though. The heavy work kept him from thinking too much about what Vance and Stanley might be talking about without him, or about Trevor, and what he might be doing if he wasn’t with Stan. Where was he? Was Stan staying or making the hours-long drive back to the city as soon as he’d dictated the next phase of Len’s career?

  If there was a next phase. Maybe that was why he was here. Len had signed a contract, after all, and the past month without a note of music written, concert played, or track laid down was probably him breaching that contract. He hadn’t read the fine print all that carefully. It had been enough for him that the rest of the band had signed, and that Alice had deemed the contracts worthy of signing at all. For him to have struggled through all the legalese would have taken a week anyway. He trusted Alice not to steer him wrong.

  Maybe he should call her and find out if he was in trouble. He was just reaching into his back pocket for his phone when Kilmer cleared his throat.