- Black Gold 2 - Double Black (9 page)

Zap took two steps back and held up his hands in surrender. “Just got a call telling me to look. This shit’s going viral.”
With a please-don’t-hurt-me look, Zap turned up the phone’s volume so Jett could hear someone exclaiming about Cole’s resemblance to him. One voice asked if this was one of Jett’s relatives, and the other replied that maybe Goldie was trading up to a newer model.

When was the last time Goldie had gone anywhere with Jett, one voice wanted to know.

The other replied that it had been a while.
And it was right. They moved in different worlds.
Jett thought any establishment whose parking lot wasn’t bloodstained was too

highbrow for him, and Goldie rarely saw parking lots from the back of his chauffeured luxury vehicles. The denizens of Jett’s world would eat Goldie alive. The denizens of Goldie’s always watched Jett like he planned to steal the silver or piss in the potted plants.

To be fair, he’d only done the latter
once
, and it had been a joke.

 

The video and voices continued, but Jett heard nothing but static, saw nothing but a red blur.

Billy would never shame or hurt him by screwing someone else, would he? Even if Jett was going gray beneath the black dye and the lines were deepening around his eyes and mouth. Even if Jett never did stop drinking or getting high. Even if he went places it wasn’t safe for Goldie to go and came home late.

Billy understood, didn’t he? He knew Jett was just chaotic without him there to provide structure. He knew Jett didn’t look at the time or count his drinks unless Billy was there to do it for him. Billy knew how much Jett needed him, and he’d never…

Jett swallowed bile and tried to steady his breathing. Dark thoughts swirled like a funnel cloud inside his skull.

 

He felt old.

 

Looking at Cole and seeing himself half a lifetime ago—realizing it had
been
half a lifetime since college—brought home his mortality in a way nothing else had.

Billy wasn’t a sweet, homebody boyfriend. Billy was
Goldie
, and Goldie was a star. Goldie was a god, and Jett was a has-been with no band, no dates booked, and no sense of direction beyond making their label work. He’d gone from permanently touring professional punk to inept businessperson struggling daily to shut up the

corporate swine who, from Black Gold’s inception, had hoped it would fold.

“Pauly?” Jett’s voice cracked as it emerged from his parched throat. “Yeah, Jett?”
Jett turned his face toward the sound, but his eyes wouldn’t focus. “I gotta go.

Zap?”
“Yeah, Jett?” Zap sounded afraid Jett might shoot the messenger.
Jett wasn’t
that
much of an asshole. “Put this shit on my tab.”

After finishing his drink, Jett stood. He’d only had the one, he reasoned; he could still drive, and he needed the boost.
Time dragged like he’d taken too much ketamine. It was disconcerting, and not in the good way.
“Jett?” Pauly sounded far away. “You gonna be okay? Don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t look so hot.”
Jett laughed until he doubled over and slapped his thigh. Even as he laughed, he wasn’t sure why it was funny. When he pulled his shit together and straightened, Pauly was giving him a strange look, but at least he could see now.
Billy would never… Just gotta get home. It’ll all be okay if I can just get home.
Jett waved him off with a scowl and shambled downstairs to the sidewalk. The sun was still out, which he hadn’t expected. Its relentless heat beat his bare shoulders.

He’d left his jacket hanging on his chair. “Fuck it.” It wasn’t worth going back for. Defense exhibit one in the case of Jett versus smartphone ownership.
“Mr. Black?” The doorman recalled Jett’s attention, giving it a focus.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Just had the one. I’m good to go.” Jett rubbed his forehead as a headache started between his eyes. He retrieved his keys from the doorman, mumbled his thanks, and shoved some stray tens on the man.

I
have
been leaving him alone all day. Now I’ve left him alone with that overeager little cocksucker.
He started toward the nearby lot where he’d parked his bike, praying to no one that he wouldn’t get caught flat-footed by photographers today. Not right now.

Though he was spoiling for a fight, he didn’t trust that Cole kid not to do something sneaky if Jett spent the night in jail.
Billy wore that hat the night we met. Now he’s out with some kid he thinks is just like me. What would I have done with someone like Billy at that age?

“Little fucker.” Jett swung his leg over the beat-up saddle of his vintage cruiser and settled in. As he thought about the situation, about Cole clutching Billy’s hand like he had the right, Jett’s anger flared in his belly with a pleasure almost like arousal. It had been a long time since he’d felt it. He welcomed it as an old friend. Rage strengthened him to fire up the bike and head home.

He spent the drive torn between hoping Cole was his so Billy couldn’t fuck him and hoping Cole wasn’t his so he could beat the shit out of him.
Robbie’s SUV stood in the driveway when Jett pulled up. He dropped the kickstand and left his bike out in case he made a rapid exit.

As he started toward the door, he noticed another car belonging to the concierge doctor they sometimes used. Worry spiked the anger-and-jealousy cocktail Jett was tripping on. He raced up the walk and barged into the house, shouting, “Billy! Robbie? What the fuck is going on?”

Robbie intercepted Jett in the foyer. He couldn’t remember seeing Robbie in the video, but Billy wouldn’t have left home without him.
Robbie wouldn’t let some other guy fuck my Billy, would he? Robbie’s Billy’s guy, but he likes me, right? All this time, I’d know if he wanted me gone, wouldn’t I?
Would I?
“He’s upstairs in the bathroom. He’s all right, Jett. Just a little banged up.”
“Oh God.” Jett’s gaze froze on Robbie’s bloody shirt. Was Cole some psycho fan who duped his way into the house? Had he hurt Billy?
Jett took the stairs three at a time, hurling forward with the sense of falling. Somehow his boots found the steps and power to spring up and onward. He reached the second floor and bolted toward their bathroom.
“Billy? Billy, I swear to God…”

Robbie shadowed Jett, steering him by the shoulder when his momentum faltered. Billy sat at the vanity with his shirt off and half his long hair shorn. Thick locks pooled at the bottom of the stool like spun gold spattered with blood. Butterfly stitches held together a gash across the side of Billy’s head. There were scratches and bruises on Billy’s back and arms that Jett knew he hadn’t left.

Despite Jett’s dramatic entrance, the doctor remained focused on the fine work of stitching another cut above Billy’s ear.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jett spotted Cole sitting on the side of the tub—their tub—glaring at him like this was Jett’s fault.
“You,” Jett growled, advancing on Cole. “What the fuck did you do to him?”
“Me? I saved him!” Cole jumped to his feet and darted forward mongoose-quick.

Jett raised his fists and adopted a fighting stance, ready to drop Cole like a bar of soap.
Robbie’s meaty arm crashed between them like the bar on a castle door.

The expression on Robbie’s face stopped Jett’s protest. He swallowed his pride with a fury chaser. “Get him out of here.”

What Jett wanted to do was knock the glare off Cole’s face, because it was too much like looking in a mirror.
Instead, he disengaged and hopped onto the counter to get a better view of Billy as Robbie herded a protesting Cole out of the room.
“Jesus, look at your hair.” Jett felt sick.
Didn’t Billy understand this was why Jett went places alone? It was too dangerous for Billy to mingle with the plebs. It wasn’t like Jett
wanted
to spend every goddamn day alone, and no matter who was with him, he
was
alone if Billy wasn’t there. No one else counted.
Jett thought of the hate mail that Sarah, their business manager, kept from Billy, homophobes threatening his safety. The more the media exalted Goldie, the more virulent the hatred from benighted corners. Jett always demanded to see those letters, but neither he nor Sarah wanted to scare their sensitive, sweet Billy.
Don’t end up like John Lennon, baby. Please, please don’t get yourself killed.
It was bad enough that Billy went out with so little protection, but that he’d done it for
Cole
was beyond bearing.
Jett’s fear fed into his anger and ramped up faster than he could rein it in. “What in the name of shit happened? You went to Kmart to canoodle the boy toy, and then what? You were attacked by a herd of feral Los Angeles wildebeest?”
“
Canoodle?
What are you talking about?” Billy looked both astonished and hurt by the accusation.
The doctor tsked at Billy’s movement and gave them both a look. Jett shrugged in apology.

“Cole wanted clothes, so I got my hat and…” Billy looked at the hat sitting beside him on the counter. Below it, dried blood had flaked off onto the white marble. He let out a shaky breath and reached for a damp wad of flannel. “It was all fine, and I’d never been to one before, but then people started recognizing me, and they all crowded around. One of them took my hat, so I had to go after it.”

Jett could imagine what that meant by the way that Billy’s eyes filled with tears. He wanted to interject, to rant about how idiotic and pointless a shopping trip like that was in the first place when Billy had a dozen people who’d jump to procure anything he desired.

When it wasn’t for you at all, baby, but for that little shit who suddenly seems so goddamn important to you. Who’s suddenly living in this house, talking you into sneaking out with him and wearing that hat.

Jett didn’t know how to articulate how it hurt him that Billy wore that hat for someone else.
Billy pressed the flannel against Jett’s chest. “I got you this. Well, I didn’t buy it exactly. I think I may have shoplifted.”

As the doctor finished his work and began to pack up, Jett slipped off the counter. He wrapped his arms around Billy, squishing the flannel between them as he kissed Billy’s damp eyelashes. The flannel fell onto his boot as he shifted to allow the doctor to pass.

When he was gone, Jett picked it up and shook it out, revealing a shirt. He stared at Billy in wonder. “You shoplifted a lumberjack shirt for me?”
Jett draped the shirt over his shoulder and reached for the hat, biting his lip as he remembered the skinny boy hanging around backstage in Berlin. Jett closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. He could still feel those nervous fingers on his face trying to fix his guyliner with spit.
Even before he learned Billy’s secret superhero identity, he’d known the softspoken young man was special. There’d been longing between them from the start, and over time Jett had grown to appreciate why. Without Billy’s patience, tenderness, and willingness to overlook Jett’s myriad faults, he’d have self-destructed not long after he barged into that Manhattan penthouse looking for corrupt music mogul Roger Feese.
In the red velvet behind Jett’s eyelids, blossoms of color formed and shifted like a kaleidoscope. He squeezed them tighter and shivered as he thought of where he’d be if Goldie hadn’t been there, if Goldie hadn’t wanted him, hadn’t kept him. Maybe the band broke up because of Jett’s impromptu media coming-out party, but if it hadn’t, it would have broken up over his alienating Roger Feese and every media backer in the world just as Barker and the other boys in his band were pushing Jett hardest to whore himself.
Instead, Jett went on to write, in collaboration with his boyfriend, the most visceral and powerful music of his career, had the most successful tour of his life—filling
stadiums
, not the Troubadour—and moved into a Mulholland mansion with a studio in the basement.
Rather than trying to change Jett, Billy changed. He grew up before Jett’s eyes until no one doubted Goldie was his own man.
The boy who’d once worn that hat would have been torn apart in a Kmart riot, but this grown-up Billy was a fighter.
Jett opened his eyes to see his beautiful man looking so helpless and hurt, and his heart swelled like it would burst. Whatever stupid risks Billy might’ve taken for Cole, his heart was still with Jett if he stole him a shirt, right?
It wasn’t like Billy had sowed wild oats. If he wanted a playmate, Jett would suck it up. He could do that. Cole probably wasn’t Jett’s son, just some hot young thing who was very much Billy’s type. It wasn’t unforgivable if Billy wanted his stay to drag on, right?

Angry and confused, Jett stood, set the hat on the counter, and walked out of the bathroom to clear his head. It was better than saying something hurtful, better than throwing the goddamn hat in the toilet like he wanted to.

Insecurities rarely plagued Jett. He waltzed through life to music of his own making and didn’t second-guess his instincts. Right now, his instincts told him that he didn’t know his boyfriend as well as he thought he did. There were important distinctions between Goldie the star and Billy the boyfriend Jett didn’t know how to account for.

If Jett stayed there thinking about how much Billy had risked to please Jett 2.0, he’d shit himself with fear that he’d already lost this war. At that point, one battle hardly mattered.

“Jett?” Billy’s voice sounded sad and plaintive. “Are you leaving?”

Guilt yanked at Jett’s guts and tangled with the wrath he felt at his helplessness, but he kept walking.
Billy wouldn’t admit to Jett that Cole was trying to come between them, and if Cole
was
Jett’s son, this was officially the most fucked-up situation of Jett’s life. Before he’d seen them cuddling in public, he could believe this was about doing the right thing for an unfortunate young fan, but now he wasn’t sure.
Robbie stepped in front of Jett, barring him from leaving the bedroom. “Your man just got attacked by a crowd. You really gonna leave him alone right now?”
Jett ground his teeth. Picking a fight with Robbie was dumb as shit, something Jett knew on such an instinctive level that even his famous self-destructive streak didn’t override it. He wanted to punch the big man, though, wanted to scream in his face and ask why Robbie didn’t stop this from happening. Jett wanted to beg him to make Cole go away, to talk sense to Billy, to tell Jett that he was good for Billy and not the reason he seemed sad so often these days.
“No, just going for a smoke.” Jett nudged Robbie and ambled toward the balcony, already digging in his too-tight pocket for a cigarette and lighter.
Robbie followed.