Treble Maker

by Annabeth Albert

  “Here’s the other song.” Lucas brought up the Carrie Underwood tune.

  “It’s the wrong key for me. And her runs are terrible.” Cody grabbed the tablet from Lucas. Cody’s long fingers briefly brushed Lucas’s hand. An accidental touch, yet one that triggered tingles of longing through Lucas’s limbs. He shoved his hand into his pocket, resisting the urge to grab at those glitter-nailed fingers and hold on for dear life. The cold, too calm mask Cody wore was making Lucas want to bawl. He didn’t even know why Cody had gone into arrogant rock star mode—there were plenty of things about this day to inspire a diva fit. But Lucas did know his gut was churning with worry, and the nasty feeling wasn’t about impending bull rides and stupid cowboy songs.

  “Not to mention the lyrics. I don’t see you singing about moms and babies and car wrecks.” Ashley made a scoffing sound.

  “But riding cowboys? Surely you can find something to like there?” Lifting her head, Raven winked, like Lucas and Cody were supposed to be all over the humiliation of that option.

  “And get eliminated. Like without the other groups even needing to perform.” Ashley gestured at the clumps of other groups. None of them seemed particularly pissed. They probably got decent choices like “Life Is a Highway”—the M&Ms had done that one at their spring show.

  “I’m not sure I can deliver it as anything other than ‘Come to the big gay leather bar with me.’” Cody rolled his eyes.

  Jeff snorted. “No offense, man, but I’m not the Village People.”

  “Maybe if Jeff and I were the cowboys . . .” Lucas offered weakly. He found himself in the weird headspace of actually missing the pink tuxes from week two or the eyeliner from last week. “Or what if it’s the girls taking the lead? Yeah, that might work best.”

  “There’s an idea.” Ashley brightened. “We’d have to rekey it, but maybe—”

  “It’s not really a chick song.” Jeff spoke up.

  “Okay, what about the Carrie Underwood one?” Lucas cued it up again. “It doesn’t have to be this key.” He searched YouTube to see if he could find a decent version of a guy covering it. Nope. They all sounded like dying cats. “Or we don’t have to do the whole song—we’ve only got two minutes. We could sample and rearrange to grab what might work.”

  “What we need to grab is a new song.” Ashley’s dramatic moan was Hollywood worthy.

  “Yeah.” Cody nodded. He still hadn’t even looked at Lucas. His attention was directed across the room at where the PAs and crew were clumped together. A few of the directors were with them—including the one Cody was always flirting with. Shaun? Dean? Dane. That was it. Dane, the obviously out, older, slightly smarmy assistant director who Lucas knew had already granted Cody favors. Oh, heck.

  “If I ask nice, they might let us switch songs. Worked for the Divas a few weeks ago.” Cody rubbed his palms on his jeans.

  Lucas’s back muscles tensed. He didn’t want Cody anywhere near Dane, let alone asking for favors. Not when everything was all upside down between them. Not when he hadn’t had a chance to explain things to Cody. Not when the look on Cody’s face was an opportunistic smirk.

  “I swear the Divas’ lead is banging one of the judges, the way they keep getting called out first and getting the prime songs,” Jeff said.

  “Maybe they just know how to ask?” Ashley raised her eyebrows.

  “How about I catch you guys back at the hotel?” Cody’s eyes hadn’t left Dane. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Please. Go use your powers of persuasion.” Ashley made a shooing motion. “Maybe if you strike out, I can try later. Find out who the Divas have been sucking up to.”

  “More like just sucking. But I think Cody has that covered,” Jeff said. He and Raven followed Ashley toward the buffet line. The three of them laughed as they walked away, oblivious to the gaping hole opening up in Lucas’s chest.

  The rest of the group seemed perfectly happy to pimp Cody to get a better song choice, like they didn’t care about the rules that were supposed to prevent that sort of fraternization, like Cody using his in with Dane was just business as usual. Did you really think they were your friends? Or maybe they know he’ll do it anyway. They’re only encouraging him because they know it’s what he wants to do.

  As he watched Dane’s lithe body and slick smile from across the room, Lucas’s stomach turned to glue, the heavy scent of sausages and eggs clogging his throat, making him want to hurl. Lucas hadn’t needed Sherlock-level skills to figure out Cody and Dane had something going the first week of the competition. Which was why it was so stupid to be angry about this—he’d known what Cody’s MO was and he’d told himself he didn’t care. Heck, it had been part of the attraction. Except now it felt like the hole in his chest had broken clean through him, and if anybody bothered to look his way, they’d see all the way to the other side of this stupid, stinking bar.

  “Wait.” He caught up to Cody. “We can make the songs work. You don’t need to—”

  “Those songs are beyond terrible.” Cody shook his head. “I am not going home this week.”

  “Cody.” Lucas clamped down hard on the impulse to whine or grab at Cody. He refused to sound needy. “Don’t. Just. Don’t.”

  “It’ll be okay.” Cody sounded distracted, his body still too tense and far away from Lucas’s. Lucas had grown so used to Cody’s casual touches that their absence felt like little wounds.

  “No.” Screw sounding needy. He wasn’t letting Cody walk away this time. “We need to talk.”

  Did they really have to do this right now? Cody had limited options to try to catch Dane and ask for a favor. He really didn’t need Lucas throwing his shit in Cody’s direction.

  After all, Lucas seemed fully capable of doing his own thing, acting on his own. He’d made plans with Trevor, with his folks. He hadn’t told Cody about any of that shit, and there was no reason why he’d had to. You’re fuck buddies. Not even that. Jerk-off buddies with a side of oral. He wasn’t ever going to be anything different to Lucas—he wouldn’t fit with whatever white-bread plan Lucas had for pleasing his parents. He didn’t want to fit in. He didn’t come anywhere close to the ideals Lucas’s dad went on and on about. Jesus, why would he want to? Dude didn’t know shit about being gay but acted like his fancy degrees made him some sort of authority on who should stick their dicks where and when.

  Cody didn’t need that sort of grief. And he really didn’t need whatever half-assed apology Lucas was about to try to make.

  “I can arrange any of those songs into something that might work.” Lucas’s voice sounded all tight. And apparently there wasn’t an apology forthcoming, only more complaints. Cody’s neck muscles locked up as he tried to push down any disappointment he felt.

  “You know, if you could give Ashley most of the lead, we could work something for the group—”

  “This isn’t about getting something that might work—” Cody didn’t want a song they could maybe wrestle into a decent performance. With three groups going home, they couldn’t afford the craptastic song choice. “I am not going home this week. Not before the live shows. Not when it’s obvious someone wants us gone and is trying to fuck with our songlist. Not when I am so damn close to finally getting the sort of exposure I need.”

  “Sorry. Should have remembered—it’s not about the group for you, is it?” Lucas’s voice had a nasty tone Cody hadn’t heard before. “Regardless, you don’t need to go . . . ask for another one.”

  “I’m sorry, did I miss the part where you get a say in who I talk to?”

  “No. Obviously,” Lucas huffed, looking like a put-out twelve-year-old. “And not like there’s really going to be that much talking going on. Why should I care?”

  Oh, shit. Understanding bloomed, and with it a steady thrum of anger. Of-fucking-course Lucas had believed Ashley and Jeff’s stupid teasing.

  “Is that your issue? You think I’m planning to fuck him?”

  Lucas turned a mottled shade of red, his eye
s darting around.

  Might as well send us home now. Sighing heavily, Cody grabbed Lucas’s arm, hauled him behind a display of Rebel Army–branded fishing gear, complete with fake fish leaping around, looking thrilled to have hooks in their mouths. Stupid fish.

  “I know you did. The first week, I mean.” Lucas’s words came out in a breathless rush, and Cody had to strain to hear him.

  Cody briefly considered letting him keep his assumptions. “He blew me. I blew him. Quid pro quo, but no fucking.” He shrugged. “Nothing worth getting worked up over.”

  “Oh, right. I guess anything short of anal doesn’t count for you, right?”

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” Cody said, and Lucas blanched, but Cody didn’t care. “What? Do you want me to apologize for all the guys I’ve done over the years? Because I’m not sorry.”

  “No. I should have known.” Lucas shrugged. “I mean I did know—”

  “That I’m a manwhore. I know. But I’m not going to apologize for liking sex. Or for sometimes using it to grease the wheels.” Cody pushed hard against one of the stupid fake fish, rattling the display.

  “Do you hear yourself?” Lucas’s eyes went wide, full of judgment and condemnation. “Quid pro quo. Grease the wheels. You might as well get an MBA in hookups. Doesn’t it bother you to use sex as currency?”

  “Frankly, no,” Cody lied, keeping his face blank. He wasn’t going to give Lucas the satisfaction of knowing how he’d changed because—or hell, in spite of—him, how the way he used to roll felt all weird now. The fact that he was over here with Lucas—that said more than anything how fucked-up his priorities had become. “And if we weren’t together, yeah, I’d be up for that, but I told you—”

  “So that’s the only thing keeping you from not? That you told me you weren’t hooking up with anyone else? So, like if I gave you permission, you’d go for it?” Lucas’s scoffing look said he assumed Cody had been about to blow Dane regardless of what he’d promised Lucas.

  Fuck this shit. Cody didn’t need Lucas’s—or anyone else’s—per-mission. He’d been planning on asking—nicely, but breaking his promise to Lucas hadn’t entered his mind. But apparently, Lucas had already decided what kind of guy Cody was. Screw him. “Sure. What are we talking? Hand jobs? That doesn’t even count for a lot of people. And if it gets us a better song—”

  “It means that much to you?”

  Didn’t he know? Cody had thought Lucas understood, that Lucas got that success was everything to Cody. Each of Lucas’s insults stung like a BB, like Cody was one of the soda cans his friends used to shoot up after school.

  “Not that you care, but I also want a better song for us—what the hell do you think happens to us if we go home this week?”

  “Let me try to understand this—you’d be willing to . . . pimp yourself to get a better song so that we could keep . . . whatever this is between us going?” Lucas swallowed loudly, gulping like he’d just downed a bottle of Drno.

  “Don’t you get it?” Cody hated how his voice sounded as raw as if he’d performed two back-to-back sets at a solo show with no breaks. Hated how his hands wouldn’t stay still—shaking against the slick fabric of his pants. “We lose and . . . what happens? You go home, right?”

  “Well, I kind of do have to finish up—” Lucas blinked.

  “See. That’s just it. You have Mommy and Daddy waiting for you. Grad school if you want it. A job if you need it. A soft place to land. Me? I have a twenty-year-old van, two guitars, and a whole lot of lost chances.”

  “You could come with me.” Lucas’s face was red and mottled. If he cried, Cody was toast. Burned black. Just go ahead and throw him in the fucking trash, because no way could he deal if Lucas cried. He had to look away.

  “And what? Hang out while you finish? Because I’m sure the fine people of Austerity would love that—”

  “My folks—”

  “The same ones you’re so fucking eager for me to meet?” Cody finally gave voice to the anger tearing up his insides. “Oh wait—they want to meet all your new friends, right?”

  “Yes. No.” Lucas scrubbed at his hair. “I mean, yes, they want to meet the people I’ve met and the group. And no, I haven’t told them about . . . us. But I was going to.” His eyes were big blue puddles of need, but Cody didn’t trust it. Didn’t believe him.

  “Uh-huh.” He shrugged.

  “I was.”

  “And I’d damn well rather meet them as the guy who’s just landed their kid a record deal than as the heathen loser with no marketable skills who’s going to be sleeping on their kid’s couch.”

  Worthless. The thought hit him like a slap. Even if Lucas was interested in something serious with him, he didn’t have anything to offer him—not the virginity Lucas put so much stock in, not a future, not even a place to hang out. Without this success, he had nothing.

  “Is that really why you’re in such a hurry to go catch Dane? Why you’re willing to do . . . whatever? Because you’re pissed at what Trevor said—”

  “Oh. My. Fucking. God.” One of the display fish broke off in Cody’s hand, plastic fins digging into his palm. “You’ve already decided I’m going to fuck around with him, haven’t you? It doesn’t really matter if I do or don’t. In your head, I’m always going to be the slut who would, and nothing I say will change that.”

  “You could not go—”

  “Because you don’t trust me to ask without getting on my knees. No, thank you.” He rubbed his neck, his shaky fingers doing nothing to ease the knot of muscles. “Look, I get that I’m not the guy you bring home to your parents. But I’m also not some trash you go slumming with—”

  “I never said you were. . . .” Lucas yanked at his hair hard enough to come away with a few strands. “You want to meet my folks? You want to be a real couple? Because you’ve never really acted like that.”

  “No.” Cody was honest again. “Because it’s always going to be in the back of your head that I’m the guy who sleeps around, that I’m the guy who destroyed whatever fantasy you’ve held, that I’m the guy who can’t be what you—or your folks—really want.”

  He didn’t believe for a moment that Lucas had been planning to tell his parents about them. No, he’d been planning on heading home and keeping Cody as the dirty little secret of what he did on his summer break. If he’d allowed himself to believe otherwise, Cody was ten kinds of fool. Didn’t matter how sweetly Lucas kissed or how right he felt . . .

  “You could be.” Lucas’s voice was small, his shoulders tucked in.

  Cody wanted badly to wrap his arms around him. But he didn’t. His sanity was a thin thread, quickly unraveling.

  “If you tried.”

  “See, that’s the thing.” The fish broke apart in his hand, leaving only the fake lure intact. “I shouldn’t have to try. I should be enough right now. And I shouldn’t have to give up a chance to win to meet your paranoia—”

  “Is it really paranoia?” Lucas had found his claws again. “Are you ever going to put someone—anything—ahead of singing? Does anything come before your music?”

  You. The word was right there, burning Cody’s tongue, making his teeth ache, but he couldn’t let it out, couldn’t let it be the truth.

  “Tell me that if I gave you permission, if you thought you could get away with it, you wouldn’t go there.”

  “Even if I did, it wouldn’t change a thing about how I feel about you.” I love you, you stupid, crazy bastard. And my heart is breaking. What he had with Lucas wasn’t even on the same level as anything else he’d done. He could screw a dozen guys and it wouldn’t change what was in his heart.

  But he hadn’t considered fooling around in weeks. Hadn’t really considered it when he’d walked away to go talk to Dane—but then Lucas came at him with all these assumptions. And Cody didn’t like the person he’d become. Soft. Ready to try to be what Lucas wanted—even if that meant losing the only thing that had ever mattered to him. And he couldn’t do it. Not when it
was so clear he’d fail.

  Lucas’s face was practically a sneer. He’d labeled Cody the first time they’d met, and nothing he could do would ever change Lucas’s judgment.

  “I get it now.” Lucas pushed past him, clearly not getting it. His face was mottled red and his shoulders were up by his ears, his head bowed.

  Cody had no comfort left to give, no more words he could say. Hell, he didn’t even have enough for himself.

  And then he was gone, leaving Cody with pieces of his soul scattered all around him. Across the room, the directors were eating, still lingering over coffee and what looked like Tex-Mex eggs. He took a deep breath, trying to collect his pride. He might have lost Lucas—if he’d ever really had him—but he didn’t have to lose the show. And hell, if Lucas was going to assume the worst about him, he might as well give it his best shot.

  Somehow Lucas made it back to the hotel. He wanted nothing more than to go up to his room and hide under the covers for the next week. But the others were expecting him, and he couldn’t let them down. He wasn’t going to be the one to sell the group out. It didn’t matter that they’d egged Cody on; Lucas had signed on to help them, and he wasn’t going to let—

  Heck. He had to duck into the men’s room. He locked himself in a stall and fought a losing battle with his lungs to get a breath in. He’d heard his sisters talk about broken hearts, and every chick flick he’d been forced to watch always made it seem like a girl thing. But his body was proving him wrong. His chest felt as if it had been bashed in with a wrecking ball.

  The worst thing was that Cody was right. Lucas hadn’t wanted to tell his folks about him, about the stuff Lucas had been up to here in LA. But not for the reasons Cody assumed. Sure, at first he hadn’t thought he’d need to. He hadn’t planned on this being anything more than a one-time experiment. He hadn’t planned on Cody changing everything for him. But somehow he had.