A red tainted Silence (7 page)

“I -- I wasn’t sure.”

“Like I said, you’re young, Brandon. Plenty of time to figure things out, all right? I just don’t want to see you so upset anymore. I miss your smiles.”

“Sorry about that, Mom. And I didn’t mean for you to be embarrassed by that woman.” She laughed then. “Embarrassed? No. I told the bitch to mind her own business.” I wrapped my arms around her neck. “Thank you.” I kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you.”

She stood, pulling me to my feet. “Go find your singer, Brandon.”

“Adam won’t be too happy when I do.”

She grimaced. “I’ll take care of your brother. Just go. Keys are on the counter. But be home by seven, okay? And if you find him, bring him home, too.”

* * * * *

A Red-Tainted Silence

35

After ripping the pages for music stores out of the phonebook, I took my mom’s keys and walked out of the house for the first time in a week. It was a hot, sultry day and I was glad I had on shorts. I got into my mom’s sedan and began a long afternoon of hunting music stores. Each place I stopped at brought me no closer to finding Nicholas than I’d been the day before, lying like a lump in my bed. At one point I finally got hungry and stopped for a hamburger. I could only eat half of it, though the cherry cola tasted like heaven.

I sat at the table, my half-eaten hamburger pushed aside, and stared at the list. There were more music stores in Murrieta than I’d thought. I usually only went to one, Harrison’s, where I had my note for the stolen keyboard I’d only paid about half on. Hopefully the insurance would pay it off and I could get another soon.

Feeling tired and a little nauseous from the hamburger (I wasn’t used to eating much), I got back into the car and headed for Harrison’s. It’d been a long time since I’d gone in to see Andy, the store’s owner. So when I walked in and he looked up and saw me, he excused himself from the customer he’d been talking to and walked toward me, arms open wide.

“Brandon boy, how are you feeling?”

He wrapped me in a bear hug and I laughed. Andy is quite round and quite ...

affectionate. I’d always thought he might be gay, but I was too chicken to ask. “I’m okay.

Been sick.”

He pushed me back, arms on my shoulders, and peered at me closely, his dark eyes narrowed. “So I heard. The flu, eh? Nasty strain romping around Murrieta and it figures you’d catch it.” He chucked me under the chin and frowned. “Lost weight.”

“Almost seven pounds.”

He shook his head, patting his ample belly. “Maybe I should get the flu. Although I’d need it for a month to make a dent in this blubber.” He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and led me toward the keyboards. “Let me finish with this customer. Then we’ll talk. I know about that bastard stealing your keyboards.” At my gloomy expression, he grinned. “Don’t worry. We’ll fix you up again. Why not take a look at what I’ve got?”

“I don’t know when the insurance will pay off, Andy.” He waved me away. “Can’t have you stranded without keys, can we? That one you were buying wasn’t good enough for you anyway. Go on, take a look. Check out my new Rolands.”

I blinked, then nodded. Andy had already gone back to his customer. I turned and looked at the row of keyboards, my gaze drawn to the Roland section. Rubbing my fingers together in anticipation, I walked over and sat at one, wincing when I saw the price tag.

Twice and then some what I’d paid for the last keyboard.

It wouldn’t hurt to check it out, I thought, then pulled on the headset and flipped on the switch. I fiddled with the controls for a little while, playing with different sounds and effects. As I played, my excitement grew -- it was incredible! For the first time since learning 36 Carolyn Gray

my music had been stolen, I got excited. With keyboards like this, there was no telling what Nicholas and I could do.

I began to work out his song. I usually played it on the guitar, of course, but had started to figure out a version for the keyboards, too. I stopped now and then to adjust a control, change an effect. I was just settling in to play it through again when I felt a tap on my shoulder, then my headphones being pulled off. “We want to hear it, too, you know.” I grinned at Andy, feeling my face flush as I realized several of the store’s patrons were watching expectantly. “Okay.” I pulled out the headphone jack.

After a moment to compose myself, I began Nick’s song, pouring myself into it, losing all sense of my surroundings -- my favorite state of being. I stopped a time or two and adjusted the controls again, then poured on. After I was done, my impromptu audience burst out clapping. I laughed as Andy gave me a hug. I never did mind small groups of people watching me play, where I could see each face. It was the monstrous crowds that came later that would so often freak me out.

“Come on, kid, let’s go talk. Somehow, I knew you’d zero in on this one.”

“It’s fantastic, Andy,” I said, standing. “I can’t believe how much more it can do.” Movement caught the corner of my eye, a flash of red and black, a customer leaving, as were others. I hesitated, then shrugged and followed Andy.

“Come on in here,” he said when we reached his office, indicating I take a seat. “I talked to the insurance company while you were messing around out there.”

“You did? Why’d they call here?”

“Wanted to check up on your payment history, how much was owed, how much the keyboard was worth, etc.” He winked. “You can come pick up your new keyboards whenever you’re ready.”

I sat back, aghast. “What?”

“I want you to have them now.”

“I -- I hardly know what to say, Andy. Why?”

“Because, well, I’ve known you a long time, Brandon. You’re good, very good. Someday I have a feeling that I’ll be saying, ‘Yeah, Brandon Ashwood always bought his keyboards from Harrison’s Music.’” He beamed at me. “I believe in you.” Okay, so I had a real freak-out moment then. For the second time in one day, two people I trusted and cared about had told me they believed in me. What could I do but believe them? Andy sat across from me, his mirth barely hidden at my shock, and I knew protesting would be fruitless. “Um, thanks, Andy. I’ll try not to disappoint you.”

“You would never disappoint me, Brandon. You’ll succeed despite yourself.” He was right about that.

A Red-Tainted Silence

37

I got up to leave, still a little dazed. As we walked to the front door, I paused. “Wait, Andy, the reason I came in here in the first place was to ask you if you’d ever seen this guy I’m trying to find. He auditioned for us, and his resume ... it got lost. His name is Nicholas Kilmain, and he’s a little shorter than me, has black hair and blue eyes, really nice pale skin -

-” I blushed, but Andy didn’t seem to notice my slip.

He slapped himself on the forehead. “I’ve seen your flyers, but I forgot about them. I’m sorry, Brandon. He was just here.”

“What?” I grabbed Andy’s arm in my excitement. “When? Where?” I looked around, frantic.

“Easy, Brandon. He was watching and listening to you play.” Hope crashed around me. “What did he do? Just leave?” Was that who I’d seen from the corner of my eye?

Of course it was. He’d left. He’d heard me play and just left. My chest crushed in on me, and I sat down with a hard thump on a piano bench.

“He comes in here a lot before going over to The Book Shed. You’ll find him there.” I looked up. “Where’s that?” I said, unable to disguise my eagerness.

Andy peered at me. I could see the questions dancing in his eyes. But he didn’t ask them. At least, not then. “A few blocks east. Reads his poetry there on Wednesdays.”

“Is it Wednesday?” I asked.

Andy laughed. “Yes, Brandon, it’s Wednesday. Lost time as well as pounds while you were sick?”

I nodded, barely hearing him. Poetry. If you can’t sing your lyrics, then why not speak them?

“It’s almost seven. That’s when he starts. He’s a real hit, believe it or not, so it’s likely to be crowded.”

“I’m not surprised.” I stood and took Andy’s proffered hand, then checked my watch. I really had lost track of time. It was almost seven now. “Thanks, Andy. I appreciate it. I appreciate everything. Can I use your phone?”

38 Carolyn Gray

After calling my mom and letting her know I’d be late to supper and might have found Nicholas, I headed for The Book Shed. I parked my car a little down the street and followed some university students inside. It was packed, but I found a table toward the back, much to my relief.

I ordered a Coke and waited for the reading to begin, a hum of anticipation running through me. I could hardly sit still and began to make little towers out of sugar packets. I shook my head in disbelief as I thought about Nicholas and where two years had deposited him. Reduced to singing nursery rhymes, and poetry readings, while that remarkable voice lay unused.

But not after tonight. I was going to change his world as much as he’d already changed mine.

I settled down, as did everyone else (there were about fifteen people in all, pretty damn good for a poetry reading, I thought) when Nicholas walked out onto the stage. Wearing a red shirt and black leather pants. That had been who I’d seen leaving Harrison’s. I wondered if he had any other clothes -- it was the same outfit he’d worn to the audition, with one addition. He had on a Derby hat, which he flipped off his head as he fiddled with his microphone. His hair was mussed up by the hat, but he just shook his head like a terrier and set the hat upside down on the stage.

“Feel free to contribute to my waistline,” he said with a grin, patting his stomach.

One of the girls obliged his request by tossing a handful of coins inside the hat. He blew her a kiss, then joked and laughed with the university students for a few minutes longer. I watched with a stab of longing as he hugged and kissed a couple of the girls and, to my somewhat jealous amusement, one guy. The guy smacked Nicholas on the butt and retook his place in the audience.

A Red-Tainted Silence

39

“Thanks for coming, everybody,” Nicholas said. “I appreciate you making me feel less lonely tonight.”

“How can you be lonely with that pretty face?” the butt-slapper called out.

The grin on Nick’s face was a sad one -- but I wondered if I was the only one who realized that. “You’d be surprised, Richie, you’d be surprised.” He readjusted his mic, then licked his lips and said, “Welcome to my strange little world.” Then he opened the door to that world, and I walked in.

He was almost as mesmerizing reciting his lyrics as he was singing. As he spoke, I could hear strands of music playing through my mind, accompanying his words. It was all I could do not to grab a napkin and borrow a pen and start jotting down what I was hearing in my head. I couldn’t wait to hear him sing again, hear that voice perform a different sort of magic than what was woven now -- magic defined by me.

But this was good. Very, very good.

I watched, fascinated, and filled with hungry anticipation as he moved comfortably in front of his small audience, charming them with the elegance and cleverness of his words, drawing out their emotions. In between readings, he talked to his friends and money was good-naturedly tossed into the hat. He earned every coin, every bill. Amazing, just amazing, and my inner conviction that we were meant to work together intensified. I could hardly sit still.

He hadn’t lost any of his stage presence, that was for sure, though finally he faltered.

When he looked up and saw me.

Our gazes locked. Held. Heat flashed through me and my longing for him intensified, my body responding to the first stunned, then comprehending wicked look in his eyes. I got that hard, that fast. From just a look. If ever I worried I’d imagined his effect on me, I was reassured at that moment.

He had me, and he knew it.

I tried to look cool and unaffected, but that was blown out of the water when I nervously took a sip of my drink and spilled some of it on my shirt. I brushed it away and smiled at him sheepishly.

For a long moment we were lost in each other’s gazes until one of his friends in the audience yelled, “Wake up, Nicholas!”

He broke his gaze from mine then and laughed nervously. “Sorry.” He looked at me again and I smiled, feeling a little more at ease. He wiped a hand across his face and said,

“Okay, now where were we, class?”

I settled back, and for the rest of the hour he continued, but now he directed his reading toward me, bathing me in his words. My excitement intensified, but man, how I relished the little bit of painful heaven he was giving me.

40 Carolyn Gray

I put my hand under the table, an action he didn’t miss as I adjusted myself in shorts grown too tight, failing to find a more comfortable arrangement. The pressure of my hand on my dick only made it harder to bear. I feared a major explosion any second and removed my hand again, wrapping it around my Coke, trying to think cold thoughts as I squirmed in my seat. But Nicholas continued his verbal lovemaking to me and I just got hotter.

After a little while, a rather astute girl in the front began to notice something interesting was going on. She turned in her chair, stared at me with an amused smirk on her face, then whispered something to one of her friends. That girl’s gaze flickered back and forth between me and Nicholas, and she nodded, then whispered to the person next to her.

And on that went. I blushed, drank some more Coke, then realized just how full my bladder was getting. I’d not gone all afternoon and had been plying myself with drinks the whole time.

And now Nick’s liquid eyes, braver as he too realized the audience had caught on to what was going on and loved it, devoured me. The smiles, the glances, the growls -- geesh --

he threw in were designed to drive me insane, and it worked. Oh, how it worked. And every damn person in there realized Nicholas Kilmain was courting the blond guy sitting alone at the table in the back. Me. I wanted to run from the embarrassment of it even as I enjoyed every second. Besides, I couldn’t move lest everyone see exactly what state he’d put me in.

I think Astute Girl had it figured out.