Songs of Love : Books 1-3

by M J Calabrese

  Scott realized it was a small, two-bedroom place. David hadn’t mentioned any other brothers or sisters, so he guessed if he had them they were much older and already away from home. David’s room was a decent size with its own small bathroom. A queen-size bed took up one wall, but a computer, a keyboard and a rack for a guitar took up the rest of the space. David slipped his glasses on and sat down to boot up his computer while Scott hooked up the cord to download his photos from the memory card to the USB port.

  As the images started to appear, both boys got a bit excited. Neither boy heard David’s mother as she entered the room. She tapped her son on his shoulder and pointed to the photo on the larger screen. She signed to her son.

  “Mom says to tell you that you are very talented. She says I’m beautiful, but that’s what Moms say about their kids, right?”

  Scott looked up at this friend with a broad grin. “In this case, I think your mother is right.”

  A rush of emotion clouded David’s face. His dark eyebrows pinched together. “Are you making fun of me?”

  “No,” Scott answered him honestly. He wasn’t sure why David couldn’t see how good looking he was. “You’re very photogenic. You could be an actor or something. Maybe a model one day.”

  David blushed, staring down at this keyboard. “I only want to write and sing my songs.”

  “If that’s the case, then you’ll be beating the girls and boys off you with a stick.” Scott turned back to the screen, just missing the odd look of longing on his new friend’s face.

  Chapter Two

  August 31, 2019 evening

  “Scott.” The deep male voice behind him woke him from his revelry. “They want us to go home now and get some rest if we can. We can come back early.”

  Scott squeezed the cool fingers of his husband’s left hand. He hated that they’d cut his ring off his fourth finger. It didn’t look right. That ring had been a fixture for the past six years on that hand. Not many people knew the gold band with platinum inlay was a wedding ring. They decided to keep that fact quiet for the sake of Davey’s career more than his. As time went on, the secret about the ring was more about keeping this small piece of themselves private and that seemed important to them both.

  “I don’t want to go, Oscar. I’ll stay. I don’t want him to be alone.”

  David’s father, Oscar, leaned down and wrapped his arms around the younger man’s shoulders. “They said they are going to bring in some equipment for tomorrow. That we really shouldn’t be here for that. I don’t want to drive Betty all the way home, so I was hoping we could stay at the house.”

  Scott sighed before giving David’s hand a squeeze. He stood and leaned over the bedrail as he had for the past month to kiss his husband’s temple and whisper his plea.

  “Please, wake up, Davey. For me, for your Mom and Dad. Please, wake up, babe. We love you. Please.”

  Scott waited a moment, praying silently to see the flutter of an eyelid or feel the twitch of a finger, anything that would give him hope.

  Chapter Three

  September 8, 2000

  “Okay, you said you’d do this Davey if I entered the photo contest, you’d enter the talent contest. I’m not going to let you back out on this, dude.”

  “Scott, I don’t know if I can do it. What if they laugh at me?” David stared down at the floor of his room. “I…, I don’t think I could take it.” He stammered.

  Scott reached up and cupped his hand to the nape of David’s neck. At sixteen, David was already four inches taller than his best friend, but his insecurities tended to make him seem shorter with his slumped shoulders and bowed head. Scott leaned in, pulling them in until they were forehead to forehead. “Fuck them. Your songs are great. You’ve got a fantastic voice. You’ll slay it, dude.”

  “I don’t know.” David pushed back from his best friend, frowning. “I keep freezing up. I sing to you, my Mom and Dad, but the idea of performing in front of a group of people scares the shit out of me.”

  “I’ll be there. Right up front, man, just sing to me. Look at me when you start to feel nervous. I can even sign the words to you if you forget.”

  David laughed and shook his head, “You’re terrible at ASL.”

  “Hey, your Mom says I’m really good.”

  “She lies.” David turned and picked up his guitar for the fifth time since they started talking. “I wish it wasn’t me up there. I wish I could be someone else.”

  Scott flopped down on David’s bed, grabbing an issue of Men’s Health magazine from on top of the bed covers. He started to thumb through the pages. Suddenly, he stopped on a full-page photo of a man with tight speedos and nothing else. “Check this guy out.” He held the magazine up. David glanced over and shrugged, “Nice dick.”

  Scott frowned and looked at the picture again. “Is that what you noticed first? His dick?”

  David froze mid-strum. “Um, well, yeah. I mean, like he’s half-hard and all. That swimsuit doesn’t leave much to the imagination.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Scott kept flipping the pages. “Who are you taking to Homecoming?”

  “No one. I asked Cindy Cramer, but she turned me down. Says she’s got some college guy who’s going to take her. You?”

  “Same.” Scott paused, then looked up at his friend. “You want to be my date?” He turned, looking over at this friend. He noticed that Davey flushed an interesting shade of red as he was gripping the neck of his guitar so tightly it looked as if he was planning on strangling it.

  “Won’t people talk? I mean, you know, two dudes?”

  Scott grinned, “What? I don’t care what other people think, do you?” He cocked his head, “You worried that people will think you’re queer?”

  “Uh, no.” David started to strum his guitar. “I thought maybe you’d be, kind of, put off. I mean, you’re, sort of, a jock. You play basketball and football. What will your teammates think?”

  Scott rolled onto his back again and studied the photo of the man in the speedo. “He’s a jock and he’s queer.”

  David looked down, dropping his hand over the strings as he strummed them lightly with his thumb. “I have a hard enough time in school because they know my Mom’s deaf. You hear them tease me? All that crap I have to put up with. If they thought I was gay as well….”

  Scott watched his friend as he flopped down on the bean bag in the corner and sprawled out. He didn’t know what to say to Davey. He’d seen the looks his friend gave him, especially when he didn’t think he was looking. He knew Davey liked him as more than a friend and he could understand where all this was coming from. There were a few guys out at school, but most of them didn’t look like him and Davey. Tall, muscular, awkward, and shy Davey. Scott thought about telling his best friend how he felt and how it didn’t matter if Davey was gay, but he didn’t. With the contest and all, he seemed to be stressed out enough.

  “I still want you to go as my, well, non-date then, to Homecoming. I’ll bet we won’t be the only ones. I think it’s kind of unfair that girls can go together and no one bats an eyelash, but two guys? Well, screw ‘em. Come with me.” He gave Davey his best puppy dog eyes. “Pleaseeeee.”

  David shook his head. A shy grin formed on the young man’s lips, then he looked up through thick dark lashes at Scott. “Okay, if I win the contest tomorrow, then I will go with you. Hell, I’ll even give you one slow dance, but if I lose, we stay here and play video games.”

  “No way, you’ll deliberately lose. No, if you lose then you’re my Homecoming date. If you win, you’re coming as my non-date. Deal?” Scott got up off David’s bed and walked over, holding out his hand, “Shake on it.”

  With a long-suffering sigh, David took Scott’s hand and shook it.

  *****

  The auditorium was jam-packed. Any reason to get out of class guaranteed a crowd. Ten other acts had gotten up on stage and all but two had been booed. Scott had to admit both acts deserved it. Scott saw David peek out at him fro
m around the curtain at the side of the stage, but as he had promised, Scott sat front and center.

  Angela Quezado was sitting next to him and she started flirting. He smiled at her and laughed at some lame joke she told. Again he caught David’s eye, but there was something there in the hardened, almost angry expression on David’s face that he didn’t understand.

  “So, who are you taking to Homecoming?” She leaned closer, rubbing her shoulder against his. “Because if you don’t have a date….”

  Scott concentrated on the stage, but he shook his head. “Sorry, I’ve got a date.”

  The girl shrugged and looked away. “Oh, okay.” She put a little distance between them and started to text her friend.

  Scott frowned, suddenly aware of what he had said to her. He’d turned down a date with a girl to go to Homecoming with Davey. Before he could think about this anymore, the principal got up and introduced David and what he would be singing. After making about 500 choices, David had decided to go with an old Beatles song. Scott had disagreed with his friend, but he wasn’t the one who had to sing it.

  Scott looked around the auditorium at the other students, most of whom were looking at their cellphones not at what was happening on stage as Davey came out, dragging a chair with his guitar slung across his chest. He could see the nervous tremble in his hands when he adjusted the microphone and then cleared his throat.

  The noise in the auditorium rose to a crescendo, but Mrs. Lawley of the theatrics department had the good grace to come out and quiet everyone down. A couple of people toward the back still talked and a few booed and whistled, but all in all, it was quiet when David began to strum the intro to the song on his guitar.

  And then he started to sing.

  The words at first were so soft, but there was a quality to the sound that made some of the girls in the audience pay attention. As he got more confident, the strength of his voice grew. Scott looked around at those in the auditorium and realized the room was silent as David’s voice reached notes even he didn’t know his best friend could hit. The song grew in power and as it grew so did his voice. Scott felt himself begin to smile as he looked down at his hands and simply allowed himself to listen.

  He glanced at Angela and was awestruck at the tears cascading down her cheeks as she was so moved by what she was hearing. Her hands clasped tightly around her forgotten phone. As the song drew to its close, Scott looked up. Davey’s eyes were closed, his head cocked with an expression of bliss on his face. Here his friend was in his element and in that instant, Scott knew that this is what he was meant to be. He vowed to himself to help David to achieve this goal no matter what.

  With the last lines of the song, Scott saw David look at him as he sang the words, and I love you more. The last chord strummed on the acoustic guitar faded away in the vast hall and then David looked up. There was silence.

  Scott watched as David looked out over the crowd and his blissful expression devolved into the insecure visage of a sixteen-year-old. The clapping began, slow and deliberate at first, quickly building in timbre and volume, with cheers and whistles added to the cacophony. When David glanced down to the front row, there was Scott cheering and clapping the loudest. Students stood and stomped their feet demanding more. Scott remembered seeing David look at Mrs. Lawley and she nodded, encouraging him to go on.

  That was the day David found his niche. He was no longer that tall, uncoordinated kid who was terrible at basketball. He was no longer the kid everyone made fun of because he was so shy. A light had turned on in David Niewitski. He smiled finding in himself confidence that he didn’t know he had. David grabbed the microphone and stood, taking command of a room by speaking over them, saying the words for the first time. “Thank you all. Do you want more?” The room exploded and David strummed his guitar, but this time he stood, pulling the microphone up with him. “This is a little something I wrote.”

  *****

  David’s status at the high school changed overnight. Girls were all over him, but he didn’t seem to care. The night of Homecoming, David picked Scott up from his house. His parents had gotten him a new Toyota when he got his driver’s license and from that moment on, his best friend became their main source of transportation. They had to go back to the Niewitski’s for Scott to change because the Newlands didn’t like the idea of spending the money on formal evening clothes that this special event demanded so the Niewitski’s treated Scott to a rented tux without his parent’s knowledge.

  Showered and shaved, all Scott had to do was change. When he walked out of David’s bedroom, there stood David and his best friend’s parents, Oscar and Betty, beaming with delight as they insisted on capturing the moment David pinned a boutonniere on Scott’s lapel before they posed the two young men side by side. Neither boy could stop their blush and grin when David put his arm around Scott’s waist and pulled him in close for the photograph. In the scrapbook David’s mother created for those teen years, Scott remembered she labeled it, David and his first boyfriend. It was years before either of them saw what she wrote.

  They laughed the whole way to the Homecoming dance and when they got there, just to cause trouble, they held hands as they walked in. Scott noted a few stares, but the vast majority of people didn’t seem to notice or care. He knew the rumors would be flying on Monday about the two of them being gay. Half the student body would claim they already knew that and it was nothing new. They met up with friends then started to dance with anyone and everyone who wanted to. The night passed in a blur. Both of them were running on high.

  “Listen, I’m going to hit the can before we head over to Angela’s house. You okay?” Scott turned to head down the hallway.

  “Yeah, go. I’ll wait.”

  The crowd in the men’s room was larger than usual and it took him a few minutes more than he’d anticipated. He turned the corner to the main hallway. David was standing near the entrance with his head down. Scott could see the tenseness in his best friend’s body as he pulled himself inward. Scott remembered he’d hurried a little and the second he touched David’s shoulder, his best friend turned into his arms with a sob. It was then he noticed the red, raised mark on his face. With two fingers, he tilted David’s face up, so he could see what was wrong. David’s boutonniere had been ripped from his lapel with such force that it tore the material. The white rose lay crushed on the floor nearby.

  “Who did this?”

  David shook his head, refusing to tell him. “I just want to go home, okay? Please, Scott.”

  They walked side by side to the parking lot. Loud voices, mostly male, but there was one very distinct female who stood off to one side. Scott saw David glance over nervously, then away.

  “Hey! Scott, you and your boyfriend going home to fuck?” Cindy Cramer shouted and laughed, “Disgusting queers!”

  Scott remembered he didn’t even stop. He headed for the group. Anger outweighing common sense, he came up fast and got into Cindy’s face.

  “You stupid bitch!” He roared at her. He remembered he shouldn’t have used his 10-inch height advantage to intimidate her, but he did. “What? You jealous because my date’s better looking than yours?” He stepped closer and she stepped back. Her eyes wide, mouth agape. Scott looked back on that night and he never really understood why he said the next thing he said. He remembered he stepped back and looked at the other boys who suddenly seemed unsure of what to do and he took advantage of this. “Well boys, at least I’m going to get the blowjob of the century. All you guys are going to get is a bad handjob and a well-used pussy.”

  David heard every word as he stood near his car. Stunned, he watched Scott cross the parking lot at a fast walk.

  “Get in the car, David and get it started. Quick! Come on, dude!” Scott remembered he rushed back toward David’s car because he knew time was short and if they wanted to get away unscathed, they needed to make a run for it. The guys with Cindy just might get it into their heads to uphold her shaky honor. The moment Scott opened the pas
senger side door he heard Cindy Cramer scream.

  “Fuck you, Scott Newland!”

  “Well, I already fucked you, Cindy,” He shouted back, unable to stop himself “and it was bad enough to make me gay.” Scott shot them the bird and wasn’t really surprised to see the other boys in the group defending themselves as they laughed at the furious young woman.

  *****

  The drive down the 210 freeway was a quiet one. Leaning back in his seat, Scott had spent all his anger-fueled energy on that confrontation and he had nothing more to say. He’d had to stand up to people all his life and he could take it, but seeing Davey so devastated, he couldn’t let it go.

  “Did you fuck her?” David’s voice was almost too soft to hear.

  Scott waited a moment before answering. “And what if I had? Would you care?”

  David kept his hands on the wheel and his eyes straight ahead, but his shoulders seemed to droop a little. “Do you want to go home? I don’t. I want to go to the beach.”

  “Sure, let’s hit the beach.”

  They drove all the way to Ventura, then took Highway 1 back toward Malibu. There was a stretch of road between one city and the next where the highway had fallen victim to a landslide. Instead of removing the debris the department of transportation had cut through the rock hard dirt and now that part of the old road sloped off to one side and into the ocean. People liked to stop there because the pseudo-hill created by the landslide and a curve in the road blocked the lights from Ventura and Malibu. Here you could park, climb through the chain-link fence to watch the shooting stars over the Pacific ocean. This was where they had ended up. The darkness protected them from the others they knew were there, but couldn’t see. David led the way, taking Scott’s hand at one point to get over a deep crack in the broken asphalt in the dark. David sat and Scott plopped down beside him as they breathed in the cool, clean air coming off the water. The sound of the waves drowned out the voices of the shadow people around them. Neither had really spoken since they left Silverlake.