Catch My Breath (41 page)

“We’ll make this right, okay?” Danny said quietly. “We’re gonna figure something out.”

A
S
MUCH
as they’d all protested it, being back in the studio felt really damn good. For the most part. They came in every morning, sang, rehearsed, laid down vocals. A lot of it felt as if he’d gone back in time to that place where he used to be happy and full of crazy, bright, shiny hope for the future.

And then there were the parts that didn’t. Like him and Elliot. It was the most they’d been forced together since they got back from the tour, and it was torture. Danny and Elliot smiled and joked with the guys, learned their parts, gave input into lyrics. Danny knew he, for one, wasn’t feeling it. But they deserved
Danny
and not some bruised, brokenhearted shell. Danny kept that part inside. He also kept hiding how much he wanted to touch Elliot, how much his body still drifted toward Elliot’s like a magnet, how his hands still wanted to seek out flesh and make that essential connection.

When Danny stood in their corner of the sound booth, he remembered the little surreptitious touches. When he walked by their old make-out closet, it felt like a knife in his gut. They’d waged a very polite and silent battle over the recliner they used to share in the break room. Danny let Elliot win. He didn’t want the damn chair without Elliot sitting in it anyway. It wasn’t about the chair. It was about missing the weight of Elliot’s body on top of his. Danny tried. Elliot tried.

It almost felt like old times. In the same kind of way relentless slicing knives almost felt like Elliot’s touch. At least they were making music again. It was something to concentrate on other than how much everything hurt.

Chapter 21

“W
HADDYA
think, Webbinator? Is it intervention time again?” Reece raised his eyebrow at Elliot, who’d been crouched in their old recliner in the studio’s break room.

He and Danny used to share the recliner, in those early days that felt like they were years ago. He remembered how they’d cuddle up on it, barely an inch of their bodies separated. They’d been like little love pods back then. Elliot knew he’d never be that person again, that innocent kid who had no idea what was coming his way, but he wanted at least some of that back. He just didn’t know how to get it.

“What do you mean?” Danny asked. “We’ve been fine. We’re not making anything awkward.”

“Oh, yeah,” Tate snorted. “You’re fine. You two are smiling and laughing and trying really hard to act like nothing is wrong, and you’re doing it for us, aren’t you?”

“Of course,” Danny said quietly. “We promised.”

“But you’re not okay, are you? Either of you?” Reece glowered at Danny, then at Elliot. Elliot didn’t know what the other guys wanted them to do. They were both hurting, and things were weird, but they’d been trying not to let it show. Both of them.

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Reece,” Elliot muttered. “Things aren’t good, but we don’t want it to affect you guys. We’re doing our best.”

“Yeah, if it’s easier I can bow out. You guys need Elliot. You don’t need me.”

Elliot’s heart sped up, thunking and pounding in his chest at the thought of Danny disappearing. “Are you crazy? You hold everyone together. I was the last to come, I should be the one to go.”

Reece rolled his eyes. “Neither one of you dorks are going anywhere.”

“This intervention isn’t about us,” Webb said. “We’re fine. It’s about you. Look at you two sticking up for each other. Can’t you assholes see how in fucking in love you still are? We just want you to be happy. Stop the bullshit.”

Elliot didn’t bother to protest. It wasn’t like that was a mystery to him. He’d already kind of figured he’d never stop loving Danny, and yes, he was anything but happy. He looked at the scuffed white rubber on his shoes. Didn’t make eye contact with the three pairs of eyes staring his way.

“Jesus,” Danny finally said. “Of course I still love him. I never wanted this in the first place.”

“I didn’t either,” Elliot finally said. “Everything just got so complicated with all the pressure and the lying….”

“So fucking stop,” Reece said with his typical lack of beating around the bush. “Nobody’s saying you have to make an announcement on the news, but let’s just stop.”

“What are you talking about?”

Tate spoke up. “We’ve been going over the appearance clause on the contract.” He gestured at Webb and Reece. “It doesn’t say either of you has to be dating someone, it only says you can’t be openly dating each other. As long as everyone keeps it as platonic as possible in public, they really can’t touch you. And they can’t force any more fake girlfriends on you.”

“Are you serious?” Danny asked.

Tate nodded. “Yeah. Reece and I took it to my lawyer.”

“But so did I!” Danny protested.

“And your lawyer told you the clause was iron-clad. You and Elliot had to appear straight and not together, right?”

“Well, yeah. That’s what it said.”

“But did it say you’d be forced to date a girl? We
looked
, D. There is all this complicated language up the wazoo, but as far as specifically stating that you have to have a beard at
all
times? There isn’t anything. Nothing that we could see.”

Elliot shook his head and turned to Danny. “How could we have missed that?”

“You were scared,” Webb said gently. “We all were. Scared and new. It was stupid not to look further into it, but it’s hard to know what to do when you’ve got your dreams staring you in the face and big official people telling you what to do.”

Elliot wasn’t sure what his dreams were anymore. Only thing he knew for sure. One dream had never gone away.

Danny.

Sometimes when he looked at him long enough, he could nearly feel the magnet pulling him Danny’s way, his whole body a twisted mess of hurt and confusion, of
DannyDannyDanny
and
Grab him you fool before he gives up and finds somebody else
. Elliot’s belly fluttered. He felt giddy, scared, happy, worried… too many things, to tell the truth.

“What do you think?” he asked Danny quietly. Now that the possibility was staring him in the face, everything that was at stake if either of them stood up to their management made him shiver. But the idea of not being with Danny for the rest of his life scared him about a million times worse.

“I think are you kidding me?” Danny stood from the chair that had become his over the past few weeks. “This has been awful. I’d do anything to have you back.”

Yes
.

Elliot couldn’t make himself stay away from Danny a second longer. It had been a mistake to ever try. He held out his hand. “Come here,” he said quietly. Danny took it with a slow-growing smile. Elliot pulled gently and Danny toppled into his lap, back in the chair they’d always shared. He wrapped his arms around Danny’s middle and shuffled them around until it felt just like it always had. He wanted to kiss Danny, hold him as tight as he could. It felt so fucking
good
to touch him again.

“Um, we’ll give you two a minute,” Reece muttered with a smile. He grabbed Tate and Webb and hauled them out of the room.

As soon as the others were gone, Elliot didn’t know what to say, what to do—for maybe two seconds. That’s about as long as it took him to haul Danny against him and slam their mouths together. Danny groaned into the kiss, tangled his fingers in Elliot’s hair and twisted so his knees were straddling Elliot’s hips. They kissed and kissed; Elliot couldn’t get enough of simply being allowed to touch. He ran his hands up under Danny’s shirt, over his hips, down the sides of his thighs. Everything still felt like Danny, who fit him so perfectly. He never wanted to let go, never wanted to stop kissing.

“I missed you so fucking bad. I don’t wanna ever do this again,” Elliot breathed against Danny’s mouth when they finally had to tear apart.

Danny choked on a laugh and dove in, burying his face in Elliot’s neck. “Are you kidding me?
Never
. I’m handcuffing you to me permanently. I swear.”

“
Okay
,” Tate said from the doorway. “I’m guessing that means you two are okay. More kinky than I wanted to know about, but okay.”

Danny burst into laughter but didn’t make any effort to move from Elliot’s lap.

“Are we good?” Webb asked.

“Yeah,” Elliot said. “We’re good.” He felt the blush rise up the back of his neck, but he didn’t care how embarrassed he was. He was happy. And it might have been the worst idea in the history of time for him to take Danny back and get them right back into the mess they’d been in for all those months, but the world didn’t feel right without him.

“Sweet. Now can we make some goddamned music?” Reece asked.

Everyone laughed, real actual laughs, including Danny and Elliot. It might have been a recipe for hurt, but Elliot was relieved to be back where things were supposed to be.

“H
EY
, guys,” Elliot said quietly an hour or so later. They’d gone back to the sound booth, but he and Danny hadn’t left each other’s sides. They’d squished together like they always had back at the beginning, not even room for a sheet of paper between them, as Reece used to say. “Chris and I have been working on something together the past few weeks. What would you say to putting that on the album?”

Keller, who Elliot had missed when they were on the road, shrugged with a smile. “If it’s good, why not? I’d love to see this album sound more individual than the first one did.” Reece had already been giving his input to the songwriters, changing lyrics and chords and even contributing a song he and Tate had written together on the road. Already the album sounded more like them than the first one had by far. They felt like they’d slipped quite a bit past Sasha. Elliot hoped for one more song.

“Is Chris around today?” Keller asked. “We can bring him down.”

Chris shared the others’ relief when he heard Danny and Elliot were back together and everything was cool again. He texted, “about fucking time” and said he’d be out the door in five minutes.

“I’m glad you two are getting along again,” he said when he arrived, cuffing Elliot over the head gently. He hugged Danny as well, then the rest of the guys. “Maybe now Elliot can stop moping on my couch.”

“I wasn’t moping!” Elliot protested. He had been, but he didn’t want to sound like a total baby.

Chris laughed. “You’re right. That was about fifty steps beyond anything that could generously be called moping.”

Elliot glared at him, but then he smiled. Wasn’t like it was a big secret how unhappy he’d been.

“Let’s hear this song you two have been working on,” Keller said, always ready to get to business. He’d taken on more of a producer’s role for this new album, and the boys were all happy to be working with him again. Elliot only hoped Sasha would go for what he and Chris had come up with together.

Chris gestured for Elliot to talk. Elliot felt his face heat. All that time in front of the world, and he still didn’t like being on the spot. “The song’s called ‘Catch My Breath’. It’s a ballad, but something that would be just acoustic. Nothing too produced.” Just like they’d always wanted. Elliot cleared his throat. “I, uh, think it’ll be pretty damn obvious what it’s about here in a second.”

He gestured for Chris to get his guitar out. Elliot couldn’t believe he was shaky. He’d sung in front of these six guys so many times there was no reason to be—other than the fact he was singing lyrics he’d written himself. About Danny. Elliot cleared his throat and nodded. Chris picked out the intro and Elliot just went for it. Too late to back out anyway.

“The day we met seems like a distant, long-lost memory….”

Danny’s eyes went wide at the first line and only got wider. Elliot couldn’t help smiling as he sang. Danny knew. Hell, the whole room had to know.

“Of you and of me and how it always worked out perfectly….”

Danny reached out and touched Elliot’s lower back, that comforting gesture, the one he’d always known.

“When your hand first touched mine I knew that you could see,

The flutters in my heart and what you’d come to mean to me.”

Elliot’s voice caught a little on that last line, but Chris grinned encouragingly.
Keep going. You can do this.

“Spinning, flying, dreaming, falling,

Running when I hear you calling

Even when you’re far from reach

I still can’t catch my breath.”

They sang another verse and then went through the chorus one more time before Chris strummed a few quick chords on his guitar and stopped.

“So we still have to write the bridge and probably another verse, but what do you think?” Elliot asked.

For a second nobody said a word, but then the room erupted in talking and the boys clapping Chris and Elliot on the backs.