by Beth Bolden
“Exactly,” Diego said, grinning. “Hey, what was this about a firepit? I haven’t had one of those on the beach in forever.”
“I was actually thinking of the ones we used to have, sneaking out late and crashing the older kids’ bonfires on the beach,” Caleb admitted wryly. “Those were good times.”
They had been. Diego had a whole bunch of fantastic memories from that time in his life, but maybe they weren’t really over, after all.
“We were really young and really stupid. There’s nothing like believing you’re invincible and nothing can ever touch you,” Diego said quietly.
Caleb definitely hadn’t been invincible, but then neither had Diego. While not struggling with addiction, he’d made a whole shit ton of mistakes over the last ten years. He couldn’t quite look at Vicky as a mistake because out of their relationship, they’d gotten the blessing of Ana, but it was hard to feel like he did about Benji and realize how much time they’d wasted.
“We should do one tonight,” Caleb said. “I mean I said we should, but we really should.”
Diego looked across the kitchen counter at one of his oldest friends. “Okay.”
———
Apparently, Leo and Caleb had bought a house on the ritzy part of the beach, where the HOA forbade actual bonfires.
“You’re kidding,” Diego said, watching as Caleb wrangled a mostly rusted old firepit out of the garden shed. “They don’t let you have bonfires here? What’s the point of spending all these millions if you can’t do whatever the fuck you want?”
“It’s not even the fines, we have enough money that I could care less about those,” Caleb confided, “it’s the fucking letters from the secretary. They’re so . . . annoyingly passive-aggressive, and then Leo gets all worked up. It’s just not worth it to even go there.”
Diego raised a dubious eyebrow. “You’re scared of the secretary of your HOA?”
“Well, not scared,” Caleb argued. “But yeah, she’s basically terrifying. I’ve never seen someone use the word, bylaws, and give it such loaded meaning. But it’s fucking there, between the lines. I didn’t believe Leo, but he’s insane and he kept the letters, probably because he was afraid she’d sue him, and yeah, he’s right.”
“I guess we really are fucking grown up now,” Diego said, shaking his head in disbelief. “I notice Leo doesn’t go around sharing that he’s scared of his HOA with just anyone.”
“No,” Caleb said, finally setting the firepit in the middle of the garden. “But I give you free rein to tease the shit out of him for it.”
Diego picked up two pieces of wood from the stack next to the house and carried them over to the pit. “We need kindling. Or something.”
Caleb’s eyes lit up in an unholy manner that Diego had fucking missed. “I’m going to go get those goddamned letters.”
Diego gave his friend a sharp nod. “And I’m taking this firepit down to the beach. I dare them to fucking take on Star Shadow these days.”
Ten minutes later, they were on the beach. Diego had taken off his shoes, and rolled up his skinny jeans, reveling in the feeling of the sand between his toes.
Caleb was leaning over the pit, shredding the letters into even strips. “Leo is going to have a heart attack.” He didn’t sound particularly concerned. “Which is really nine-tenths of the reason to do it. The other tenth is that we’re fucking rock stars, and if I want a fire on the beach, we’re gonna have a goddamn fire on the beach.”
The letters were great fire starters, and a few minutes later, they had the beginnings of a really decent fire. “If only we had some marshmallows,” Diego said regretfully.
“I was actually thinking it’s weird to do this without a beer,” Caleb said, and his voice was completely neutral. “I don’t even want one, but it feels wrong somehow to be standing here and not have a bottle in my hand.”
Diego remembered all those bonfire nights, when Caleb was right—they’d drunk their weight in Coronas.
“We don’t need it,” Diego said, tipping his head back to take in the beginnings of the starry night. “Though, I do think Benji left some of that god-awful fake beer here, when we were here before the tour started.”
Caleb laughed, and it cut right through the awkwardness. Exactly what Diego had hoped for. “Please give him continued shit for those. They were disgusting.”
“That’s Benji for you,” Diego said philosophically. “Always with his heart in the right place, but often imperfect execution.”
Caleb shot Diego a look. “I thought we weren’t talking about Benji tonight.”
“We’re not.” Diego dug his toes into the sand. “But if we were, I’d tell you that sometimes it feels like everyone, including Benji, blames Benji for us not getting together years ago. I realized the other day that I don’t think that’s true. It was me too, just as much as him. He . . . scared me. That’s why we weren’t as close before you left. It was like getting too close to the sun; I didn’t want to get burned.”
“And now you want to get burned?”
“I don’t think anyone wants to get burned,” Diego scoffed. “And there’s a risk of it . . . maybe a little less now, since we’re both older and supposedly more mature. We know what we really want now, because we know what it’s like to have the lesser version. But yeah, part of me is still fucking terrified.”
Caleb glanced over, the flames lighting his face, showing just how much he understood what Diego was saying. “Because if you fuck it up, you’ve fucked it up,” he said quietly. He’d had to face that possibility—knowing he’d love Leo forever, and Leo would never be able to forgive what he’d done. Diego still didn’t know how he’d accepted that, and still come back.
“I guess you’d know more about that than me,” Diego said, shrugging. “But it was just so much easier to let the blame slide on to Benji. He’s more nervous about people knowing he’s bi. I don’t really give a fuck, mostly because I don’t give a fuck about what anyone thinks. But he does, he wants everything to be right and awesome and wonderful and successful, more than anything.”
“And you don’t?” Caleb asked.
Diego gestured around them. “We have this, isn’t this enough?”
“For some people, maybe,” Caleb pointed out. “But you know it’s not enough for Benji. It’s never going to be enough.”
“Did you ever listen to his solo album?” Diego asked, tossing another log onto the fire.
“Yeah, not when it came out, but later.” Caleb was using that tone of voice he always did when he was trying to be diplomatic. It was always obvious because diplomacy was not his strong suit.
“It wasn’t very good, but there were parts . . . I was reworking one of the songs off it, and he could barely sit through it, wouldn’t talk to me about it at all. It was like it was poisoned and he wouldn’t even touch it, not even to reconsider it.”
“You and Benji are really different people. You have some similarities, which is why you liked each other so quickly when you first met, but the differences? Those have kept you away from each other. And they’re not going to be easy to overcome. But then I think you know that.”
Diego chuckled. “An understatement.”
“It was ‘Violet,’ wasn’t it?” Caleb asked. “The song you’ve been working on?”
“How did you know?”
Caleb’s voice was wry. “It’s the song off that album that’s the most obviously about you.”
“It’s that obvious?” Diego had thought he’d been so smart to figure it out. Also repeated listenings had surely helped.
Caleb laughed. “For people who know you two, yeah.”
When Leo came home an hour later, they were sprawled around the burning embers of the firepit, making sand angels.
“You’re gonna get us in trouble,” Leo said, putting his hands on his hips and attempting to make a frown stick, even as his smile kept peeking out.
“Yeah, that HOA secretary is gonna come down like a ton of bricks on you
r asses,” Diego said with a chuckle. “Better watch out for her.”
“You told him!” Leo squawked in outrage.
Caleb shrugged. “It is dumb that we have all this power and it’s not even like we want to use it for bad stuff. I just want to have a bonfire on the beach. We’re not even hurting anyone.”
“You can take her phone calls then,” Leo announced darkly.
“I will,” Caleb said stubbornly.
Leo leaned down and wove his fingers through Caleb’s gingery waves. “God, your hair is full of sand.”
“Take a shower with me?” Caleb waggled his eyebrows in an exaggerated gesture, and Diego rolled his eyes. This was supposed to be the heartthrob of a generation? He was so . . . lame. But Leo didn’t seem to notice either, only making embarrassingly goo-goo eyes at his boyfriend. Was that the way Diego looked whenever he was with Benji?
God, he hoped not.
“You could probably persuade me,” Leo said, primly sitting down next to him. “What did you boys talk about while I was gone?”
“You,” Diego said at the exact same time Caleb declared, “Benji.”
Diego shot his friend a half-hearted glare. “We did not.”
“We sort of did,” Caleb said, grinning. “And that’s okay.”
And, Diego realized, as he brushed the sand off his feet and shoved them back into his shoes, it really was. He’d expected that it would be so hard to let Caleb back into his life, but he’d slid back into the same place that he’d always occupied. Diego had also worried that he’d feel like a stranger—five years and the struggle he’d been through to get sober would change anyone—but honestly, he was more the same Caleb than he’d ever been.
That person had been Diego’s friend then, and it turned out that he was still Diego’s friend now.
“I’m glad you texted,” Diego said, putting a hand on Caleb’s shoulder as they stood in the back garden, having climbed back up the stairs from the beach. “We should do it again sometime.”
“Yeah, we should,” Caleb said, nodding. “And don’t be too hard on Benji for being ambitious. He can’t help it.”
“Are you going to give me that bullshit advice about us balancing each other out?” Diego asked, and Caleb laughed.
“I wasn’t, but it applies. I have faith you’ll figure it out.”
And it turned out, hope burning in his heart as Diego drove home, he wasn’t the only one.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Normally, Benji loved an industry party. Everyone dressed up, circulating with a drink in their hand, congratulating themselves on having made it.
It always made Benji feel like he belonged, that all the hard work and the burning ambition inside him had paid off.
But tonight? He couldn’t help but wish he’d stayed in LA instead of flying to New York for this party.
“You’re hiding in the corner, which is stupid,” Jay said, walking up to Benji, a disgruntled expression on his face and a few new diamonds decorating his fingers. “You’re big news again. Let’s spend some of that Star Shadow capital.”
It would be pointless to tell Jay that any Star Shadow capital that Benji had accumulated over the last year wasn’t his to spend. Besides, if it had really been about that, Benji had a feeling that Leo and Caleb would be here instead. After all, they were the ones with so much burning interest in their lives that the paparazzi was following them around in a diligent, dedicated pack.
Benji was just sort of riding their coattails at this point, trying to corral everyone together to optimize the sensation they’d re-created.
“On what?” Benji asked. “We’ve got new representation. Leo and I are producing the album ourselves. We just got back from a tour. I think we’re good for right now.”
But Jay hadn’t gotten to where he was, or his clients to where they were, by sitting back and resting on their laurels. He always wanted more, bigger, better, brighter. And while Benji wanted it too, he was ready after a long, sometimes fractious year, to take the victory lap.
“Rochelle is here tonight, by the way,” Jay said. Anyone else might find this a change in subject, but Benji knew what Jay was really saying. Go talk to her, go make her laugh, go get some people talking about you and her together.
“Ah,” Benji said noncommittally. He still hadn’t figured out a way to tell Jay that he had no intention of pretending to date anyone, especially Rochelle Andrews. The problem was until he did, and actually convinced Jay that he meant it, Jay wasn’t going to stop. He was the very definition of persistence in action.
“How is it going with Diego?” Jay asked casually. That was just like Jay. Didn’t want to cooperate with him? Be prepared for him to carpet bomb you until you relented.
“It’s going,” Benji said, nervously tapping his foot. He really didn’t want to talk about it in the middle of this crowd, which Jay knew perfectly well—and why he’d brought it up in the first place. To make a very direct point that if Benji wasn’t even prepared to talk about it openly, then he wasn’t ready at all to go public.
Benji told himself he was thinking of Diego, too, and the expression he’d gotten on his face when they’d discussed the pack of paparazzi that was always following Caleb and Leo around. He didn’t want to live his life under the microscope of public opinion, and he definitely didn’t want his relationship to be conducted that way. Diego liked things as they were; living in his gated community, protected from anyone who might “accidentally” wander in.
“It would be just as good publicity, if not better, than Rochelle,” Jay pointed out. “But then you know that because you’re so close to Leo and Caleb.”
“It’s not . . . I don’t want it to be like that,” Benji said. How many celebrity relationships had he personally witnessed crash and burn under the hyper-aware gaze of the public? Once he and Diego finally got on the same page, he didn’t want their relationship to deal with that sort of strain. But how to be honest and avoid that? Benji didn’t know, and the last person he was going to ask on the subject was Jay, who would’ve sold his grandmother for extra publicity.
Jay patted him patronizingly on the shoulder. “That’s what everyone says, at the beginning. You’re both members of one of the biggest bands on the planet right now. And your two bandmates have forged the way. You should talk to Diego about it. I could even manage it. You know I’ve rolled out alternative sexualities before, and even relationships. We could re-align your branding a little, and it would work like a charm.”
“No, thanks,” Benji muttered. He didn’t want to stand here and listen to how slick of a production Jay would make their coming out and relationship reveal. Maybe talking to Rochelle, who was an admittedly beautiful woman, for five minutes would be a better alternative. It wasn’t like he was ever going to agree to fake date her, and even Jay couldn’t do much with a single conversation.
“Just offering,” Jay added smoothly.
Benji stared down at the contents of his glass, and then tipped it down his throat, the whiskey burning as he swallowed. “Where is she?” he finally muttered.
“Over by the bar,” Jay said. “Good luck, I know you’ll do great.”
Benji wasn’t worried about doing anything at all, because this was a few meaningless sentences exchanged back and forth, and he’d been schmoozing the rich and famous long enough that approaching someone like Rochelle Andrews didn’t faze him anymore.
Rochelle was wearing a short, blue spangled dress, her long, dark hair, swept across one bare shoulder, contemplating her drink with the same look of boredom that Benji knew he’d been wearing earlier.
They’d never met before, but it was still very easy to lean down on the bar, and shoot her a quick, relaxed smile. “These things are always brutally boring, aren’t they?” Benji said, pushing his empty glass toward the bartender and nodding for another round.
Her eyes slid his direction, and she didn’t seem less bored, exactly, but she did give him a practiced smile. “You’re one of those Star Shad
ow guys, aren’t you?” she said. “But not one of the gay ones.”
It was hard to keep the pleasant expression on his face after that particular comment, but Benji had spent a lot of time being nice to lots of people who didn’t deserve it. This wasn’t even the worst thing he’d ever heard, by far.
“That’s right.” He held out a hand. “Benji Schmidt.”
She shook his hand languidly, that pasted-on smile never changing. “Rochelle, but then you already knew that, didn’t you?”
“Is it wrong to admit I had a poster of you in my room when I was growing up?” It wasn’t true, but Max had, and Benji figured he wouldn’t mind if he appropriated it.
In fact, Max was going to be eternally jealous that he’d not only met Rochelle Andrews, he’d actually gotten to talk to her. Okay, flirt with her, if Benji was being painfully honest.
“Only if you never, ever tell me how young you were when you had it.” Her fake smile slipped, and he saw the beginnings of genuine amusement underneath it.
“Cross my heart,” Benji said, leaning a little further in. No doubt Jay was on the other side of the room, watching this exchange while salivating at all the cross-promotional opportunities. It made Benji sick, but the idea of Diego being dragged into all this made him even sicker. Diego could barely stomach the Star Shadow promo they did for albums and tours, and during those events, the attention was divided five different ways.
“You’re cute,” she said, leaning over and resting a hand on his shoulder.
The bartender slid over a fresh glass of whiskey and Benji tried to ignore the fact that the last time he’d drunk whiskey had been with Diego. This wasn’t a betrayal, because he had no intentions of doing anything with Rochelle past this conversation. Still, there was a part of him that hoped Diego never found out about this, because the chances of him understanding were slim.
“So I’ve heard,” Benji said. “But now it’s supermodel-confirmed, so it must be true.”
She laughed, and the action brought warmth and joy into her face, making Benji finally understand why she’d captivated a whole generation with her beauty. It had been cold before, almost disdainful, but her laugh changed everything.