Jeff blinked up at Nigel in a kind of inebriated shock. Nigel gripped the front of Jeff’s T-shirt and yanked him forward so his head fell back.
“Do you need to be hurled into a lake, or will this do for a wake-up call?”
“Roger that, Mr. Gasp.” Jeff lowered his eyes. This Nigel turned Jeff’s crank more than all the others combined.
Ah God, it’s hopeless. I’m Nigel Gasp’s bitch.
Nigel loomed over him, his chest heaving. “What are you going to do, Jeff?”
“I’ll talk to someone as soon as I can.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“I’m fine,” Jeff argued. God, his head ached. He would have to be on the early flight. His mother wouldn’t be leaving till late afternoon, but since he’d made last-minute arrangements, he’d had to take what he could get. “I’m tired and I have a headache, but I swear to you, I’m fine.”
Nigel glanced at the curb where Amil wrestled with Jeff’s bags. “I hate to leave you off curbside. Like…luggage.”
“It’s all right.” Jeff smiled at the ticket agent.
Nigel lowered his voice so only Jeff could hear him. “You scared the hell out of me last night, lover.”
Jeff leaned into his space and smiled. “Right back atcha.”
Why did that display of Nigel’s temper still turn him on? Godalmighty.
“Sorry about the glass. You made me angry.”
“It was only a dream.”
“It seemed horribly real to you at the time.”
“I’m used to them.” Jeff nudged Nigel with his shoulder. “You should get out of here. Someone is bound to spot you.”
Nigel had insisted on coming to the airport but wasn’t wearing much of a disguise—his jeans fit like a glove and the short-sleeved T-shirt he wore displayed his dragon tattoo. Anyone familiar with his most recent Rolling Stone cover would recognize him instantly.
Nigel put both hands on Jeff’s upper arms and gave them a hard squeeze. “I’ll expect you to take at least as good care of yourself as you do me.”
“Do I? I hope so,” he whispered. “I don’t know when I’ll get in. I’ll text you when the plane lands.”
“And call when you’re settled in at home tonight.”
“I will.”
“I’m counting on it.” Nigel smiled menacingly. “I’ll worry about you until I hear.”
“I’ll be all right, Nigel.”
Nigel slid his arms around Jeff and gave him a stiff good-bye. When had he become Manly Hugging Nigel with back-thumping action? “I know you will.”
Jeff nodded, but it was awkward. It was time for him to leave. He was only holding up the line of people behind him.
“Take care.” Jeff tried out a smile, but it probably looked as weak as he felt. “See you in Denver.”
“Mile High City.” Nigel put on an American accent and shot him a rock and roll salute. “We’re going to rock that town so hard they’ll have to change the name to Eight-tenths of a Mile High City.”
Jeff rolled his eyes and headed into the airport. “Talk to you soon,” he called over his shoulder as the doors slid closed.
Like security lines in airports everywhere, Atlanta’s were inconvenient, time- consuming, and teeming with irritable people. As someone who knew firsthand the damage one person with ill intent could do in a crowded transit hub, Jeff was more magnanimous than most. He even got a kick out of raising his arms and posing for the X-ray machine, giving the screener a little more jut of the hip than strictly required under the circumstances. Once he got all his shit back into his pockets, he took his pilot case and found himself a nice spot near the window to sit and wait.
He spent a few minutes watching planes taxi onto the runway. They took off, one after another. His flight wasn’t scheduled to board for another two hours, so he figured he’d kill time watching the crowds, watching the planes. Texting Nigel.
Or he could just sit there with his head in his hands, feeling like an asshole.
He’d certainly behaved like an asshole, even before he’d exploded out of one of his patented nightmares.
He’d had no reason to castigate Nigel for allowing Deidre to use his sperm, for keeping it a secret, or any of it. It was none of his business. Maybe that’s what bothered him. He’d come home to be part of his family, and they hadn’t let him in on the biggest news of all.
Still, he’d eventually got his shit together, and he and Nigel made love until he thought they’d catch fire.
Then he’d gone and ruined everything with his damned dreams.
He’d been sitting like that, with his back to the terminal for about forty-five minutes when he heard the shuffle of feet and a body dropped into the chair next to his.
“Had a hell of a time finding you, mate.” Nigel wore a UGA ball cap and cheap aviator shades that covered half his face. He must have bought them in the airport somewhere. “It’s a bloody big place, you know?”
“What are you doing here? How’d you get past security?”
Nigel grinned widely. “I went to the ticket counter and said, ‘I’ll take a ticket to anywhere,’ didn’t I? It’s a romantic cliché because it works.”
“So where are you supposed to be going?”
“I’d love to say Hong Kong, but it wasn’t that grand a gesture. I got a ticket for Miami.” Nigel waved his boarding pass. “That’s where we’re headed next anyway. I wonder if Dee would kill me if I just took off.”
“Why’d you come back?” Just to see him off? Surely not.
“I want to hold your hand, why else?” Nigel laced their fingers together and began to sing the Beatles’ song softly. “Oh yeah, I…”
Jeff took a quick look around, but no one was paying attention. Maybe since they faced the tarmac, no one would notice. Maybe no one even cared anymore. It felt good, holding hands like that. Hearing Nigel’s voice. It was the kind of thing he could get used to. That he wanted to get used to.
“You don’t have to sing,” Jeff said quietly, and Nigel cut the song short. “But thank you.”
“For what?”
“Worrying about me.”
Nigel picked at a worn spot on his jeans. “I am worried. I’d like to know you’ll see someone as soon as you get home.”
Jeff pretended to misunderstand. “You want me to go out with some other guy?”
Nigel gave Jeff’s hand a playful slap. “About your dreams.”
“Ah.” Jeff nodded. “Not carte blanche to go on a sexual odyssey, then.”
Nigel’s voice rose. “Do you need a sexual odyssey?”
“I’m teasing.” Jeff made himself behave. “Everyone has nightmares.”
“Not like your nightmares, they don’t.”
“I admit that was”—Jeff searched for a word—“alarming.”
Nigel rubbed his thumb over the back of Jeff’s hand. “You can’t keep everything locked up inside you.”
“I don’t exactly have anywhere else to put it.”
Nigel nodded. “Look for someone who can help you find a place, yeah? Because from where I stand, you’re not going to be able to keep everything you’ve experienced inside you. It’s too big.”
Jeff knew that was true. “I thought I was doing fine.”
“But maybe you were wrong?”
“If I was wrong about that—if I’ve been so wrong about how I feel—how can I trust myself to be right about anything?”
Nigel gave his hand a sharp squeeze. “Give yourself time. Trust me. You’re going to be fine.”
“I’m supposed to trust you with my mental health?” Jeff found that absurdly funny. “I look forward to my padded cell.”
“What does one do when one’s lover is sectioned, I wonder?”
“Maybe you can jump out of a cake wearing nothing but a set of lock picks.”
“Perfect. I’ve got your back, darling. Vanilla or chocolate?”
“Surprise me?”
“I always do.”
“Yes, you do, Red Chie
f. You always do.”
Whatever Jeff might have longed for, the embrace they shared before he boarded his plane was sweet but inadequate. After he waited in line and got checked in, he turned back to wave. A few more observant people had already noticed Nigel Gasp in their midst, and some took out their cell phones to take pictures. Nigel shrugged and greeted his fans warmly as Jeff headed down the Jetway to go home.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Good thing it was a slow night,” Mac joked while he closed out the register. The place had been packed to the rafters because one of the regulars was having a fortieth birthday party and he had about a hundred guests. “You weren’t exactly on your usual game.”
“I haven’t been sleeping.” Jeff hadn’t been anywhere near his game. He hadn’t broken anything, but he’d been slow and forgetful, which forced Mac to get behind the bar and help him out. “I’m sorry.”
“You all right?”
Jeff chose his words carefully. “Maybe not. I’ve been having some disturbing dreams.”
“Yeah?” Mac’s brows drew together. “What kind of dreams?”
“What do you think?” Jeff said sourly. “The kind that seem real enough I roll out of bed and go for my weapon.”
“And?”
“The VA moves on glacier standard time. I’ve got a peer counselor from Vets Helping Vets, and he’s talking me through some things.”
“That’s good. You should take all the help you can get. You’ve earned it.” Mac counted bills for deposit while Jeff cleaned. “I’ll bet that Atlanta concert was something.”
“Yeah.” Understatement of the year. “Have you ever seen Nigel live?”
“Your mom took me when he did that benefit concert for New Orleans after Katrina.” He frowned. “It ain’t my kind of music, but it was a good time. Your mom’s a bit of a groupie, you know? Most of the time she’s too much of a lady to let it show, but you should have seen her at ZZ Top. She had on this flowery shirt and she—”
“I do not want to know.”
“Yeah. I guess not. No one wants to know their mom will flash her favorite—”
“Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.”
Mac shrugged. “Your mom say anything about me when you were together?”
Jeff glanced up from where he was wiping down the bar. “She plays it pretty close to the vest.”
Mac sighed. “She does.”
“Look.” How did a guy apologize for something like that? When his mother kept the man who loved her dangling by his heartstrings. When she refused to bag him or cut him loose. “I’m sorry if—”
“Don’t be.”
“No, I’m really sorry. I know she likes you. She always lights up around you—she did even before my dad died. Maybe that’s it. Maybe she thinks she—”
“That’s not it.” Mac put a stack of twenties down and made a note on the deposit slip he was filling out. “I understand your mom better than I used to. Did you know she went straight from her folks’ house into wedded bliss with your dad? When he got sick, I wanted so badly to help out financially, but she wouldn’t let me. She took two jobs and still came home and took care of your family.”
Jeff wasn’t proud of how much he’d resented that at the time. “I know. She worked her ass off.”
“She pushed her way up through the ranks with the goal of getting ahead enough to quit one of those jobs.”
“And all I did was complain.” Jeff had some regrets, and his reaction to her being away from home all the time was one of them. “When she finally quit that second job, I told her I wished she didn’t cook. I missed the fast-food burgers she used to bring us. Christ.”
“So maybe now she goes home at night and looks around and says, ‘I earned this.’” Mac smiled. “How can I blame her for enjoying her independence? Her pride’s part of what I love about her.”
“That doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to share her life with you. I know there’s no one else. She gets this secret smile when she talks about you.”
“She does?”
“Of course she does.” Jeff shook his head. “In a million years I will never understand the women of my family.”
“Yeah. Me neither. I thought women were supposed to want hearth and home. At least women your mother’s age.”
“God, don’t let her hear you say that.”
“I value my balls too much for that to ever happen. But you know what I want? I want to come through the door at night and see the person I love on the other side.”
“Yeah.” Jeff pictured that, and the face he imagined was Nigel’s. Big surprise there. “Or to wake up in the morning together.”
Jeff liked waking up with Nigel. It didn’t matter that Nigel seemed to sharpen his toenails and claw him to death or that his feet were ice-cold when they landed on Jeff’s shins. Jeff missed him when he woke up alone.
“Yeah.”
“I seem to need that. Are we whipped?”
“Guess so.” Mac pulled his private whiskey bottle out from under the bar, and Jeff automatically set up two shot glasses. “You and me both.”
“Did you ever tell my mother that?”
“Tell her what, that I’m whipped?”
“No, man. Did you ever just say, ‘I want to see your face when I come home at night and when I wake up every morning’? Did you ever tell her that would make you happy?”
“Uh…” Mac frowned. “Maybe not in those exact words.”
While Jeff pondered Mac’s problem, he held up his glass. Mac automatically raised his and clicked them together. When Jeff sipped the smoky, rich single malt, it burned all through him, down his throat and chest and up into his sinuses. The second sip always went smoother than the first and cleared his head.
“Maybe you should use those exact words.”
Mac snorted. “Yeah, cause nothing stirs the loins like a needy old man.”
Jeff gave up on cleaning and made his way around the bar to sit on the stool next to Mac, who’d refilled his glass.
He took another long, thoughtful sip. “It seems to me if you know exactly what you want, you should ask for it. Especially when it comes to my mom or Deidre. Working for Deidre has been some eye-opening shit. Maybe we’ve got to treat them like they don’t speak our language. Get them a dictionary so they can look up what we mean.”
“Find a translator.” Mac nodded as if he was finally onto something. “You probably need one for Gasp too, huh? A cultural go-between. Who do we know that speaks rock star?”
“Deidre translates for Nigel.”
“But then you’ve still gotta get someone to translate for Deidre.”
Jeff shot the rest of his drink and held his glass out for more. “Yeah.”
Mac poured him another. “Have you figured out what you want? Or does asking for what you want exactly only apply to me?”
“What do you mean?” The next sip of whiskey slid down his throat like butter. Rich and delicious. Like liquid gold. Pretty soon everything would be happy, happy and he’d have to call someone to drive both of them home.
No big. Worth it, to feel that relaxed again after the busy night.
“I can’t help but notice that you’re going home to an empty studio apartment in Austin while your rock star is probably in the best hotel in Miami.”
Jeff’s fingers tightened on his glass. “He’s on tour. I wanted to come home.”
“My question for you, my Padawan learner, is this: what is home for you? You’re living in a brand-new apartment with nothing but a bed and a card table because you think this ought to be home, but is it really what you want?”
Jeff blinked. He thought maybe he needed a translator for Mac now too. Whiskey was a funny thing. Sometimes more could help, and it wasn’t like at this point he could drink less. He took another big sip and said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I think while I’m piecing together exactly what I want so I can tell your mom, you should be asking yourself what home means to you. I
s it an actual geographical place? Or is it the opportunity to be with the people you love, who love you in return?”
Jeff squinted at Mac. For some reason Mac looked pretty proud of himself. Maybe Mac should be proud. “That’s a damn good question.”
“Austin’s cool, and your mother loves having you around. But if home for you is about the people, you’re in the wrong place, brother, ’cause it’s seems like most of the people you love are on the Nigel Gasp Express.”
The phone rang earlier than Jeff thought it would. He wasn’t expecting a call from Nigel until close to dawn. He rolled over and checked the time on his watch, clasping it on as he picked up the call. Only half-sober, he purred into the phone when he answered. “Back already? I thought you’d be partying all night.”
“I would be ordinarily, but the weather’s gone south and it’s coming down in buckets. Miami is currently on storm watch. Besides…it turns out, I’d much rather hear your voice. I miss you.”
“Who did you say is calling?”
“Shut it, you.”
“I miss you too. Work was relatively uneventful, but I got drunk with Mac after. How did the crowd treat you?”
“It was brilliant. Great audience, and of course I was magnificent—if I do say so myself.”
“Humility looks good on you.”
“God, I know. And I must be the humblest person ever to have lived, don’t you think?”
“I’m sure of it.” Jeff grinned into his dark apartment.
“Still…tonight felt different somehow.”
“It did?”
“The show went off all right, but ‘Light a Candle’ was off.”
“Yeah?”
“I got emotional. I’ve been singing those words—‘light a candle, I’ll find my way back home’—for over twenty years, and this is the first time I really felt…”
“What?”
“The words felt true.” Nigel sang part of the chorus, “It’s only ever been you, who can see me through… Light a candle.”
Gasp! Page 20