Heartstrings (10 page)

T
he reply text
from Blake soothed Cal’s conscience over his morning disappearing act. He hoped Blake understood. Although if Cal was honest with himself, he hadn’t been fully truthful about his reasons for leaving.

Yes, it made sense to ensure they weren’t discovered sleeping together by the band’s manager after last night’s spectacular meltdown, but Cal was also a little freaked out. He’d woken wracked with guilt, worried he’d taken advantage of Blake’s emotional distress to fulfill his own base desires. Blake had been a willing participant, sure, but he was also under an enormous amount of pressure.

If—and that was still a big if—Cal was going to walk down this road again, he and Blake needed to do it right.

After panicking and removing all traces of himself from Blake’s bedroom, Cal went down to the hotel restaurant in search of comfort food, because apparently he was a walking cliché.

Lily and Erica caught up to him while he was pouring batter into the waffle maker.

“Morning,” Erica said. Cal turned and gave them both a smile and a wave. They were both dressed down for the day, no makeup, Lily still in pajama bottoms and slippers.

Cal, held hostage while he waited for his waffle, figured he may as well make conversation. Even though he knew there weren’t going to be any good topics to discuss.

“You and Blake are sharing a room, right? Is he doing okay?”

“I tried to call, but he never answers even on a normal day,” Lily explained.

Cal felt a little put on the spot. He checked his waffle, more for an excuse to have something else to look at than anything.

“His eye looks worse than it is. He says he’s fine. Went to bed soon as he got back.”

Well, that was almost the truth. And that’s what would have happened if Cal hadn’t intervened. When Cal’s waffle had browned, he pulled it from the machine with a fork and laid it onto his plate. He searched around over by the toast until he found some little one-serving plastic tubs of peanut butter, then took four.

“Peanut butter on a waffle?” Erica said from behind him.

“Not a huge fan of sweet stuff,” Cal said. “Syrup and all that, no thanks.”

The hotel’s restaurant was sparsely populated so early, the buffet all but untouched. A couple of groups of suit-clad men sat at some of the larger tables. A pair of women in lab coats sat at another. Cal always felt out of his element in places with that corporate whiff, that sense of
hello, we cater to conferences and probably not you.

An idea occurred to him.

“Care to sit with me?” he asked the girls, jerking his chin toward a small circular table in the corner.

“We already ate, but I’m going to the cafe across the street to fetch a real coffee,” Erica said. “You want anything?”

“Don’t drink coffee much either,” Cal admitted, a grin unwittingly working up his face.

Erica glanced sideways to Lily.

“You didn’t tell me he was a mutant.”

Lily and Cal took seats at the table. Erica waved and hurried off, brushing her dark hair off over a shoulder. When Cal glanced away from her and back to Lily, the other woman was staring at him, a knowing shine in her eyes.

“You’re about to ask about Rhett, aren’t you.” She didn’t sound judgmental, just matter-of-fact.

“I am, yeah.”

She just shook her head. “Haven’t seen hide nor hair.”

Cal cut a square of his waffle free and tucked it into his mouth. The peanut butter was the creamy kind, not his favorite, but he’d deal. Fresh waffles were pretty much impossible to fuck up.

“You think that’s a good thing?” he asked with his mouth full.

“Makes me nervous.”

Lily filled herself a glass of water from the pitcher on the tabletop, then took a sip. She hesitated before speaking again.

“I have to admit, it was pretty awesome watching you beat his ass.”

Cal let out a short, startled laugh.

“I did not beat his ass. I just had to get him off Blake. I’m sure all of you would have done the same if you saw.”

“Still, it was nice to see someone put him in his rightful place. On the floor. With the wind knocked out of him.”

Cal leaned back a little in his seat and forked another bit of waffle to his mouth.

“That guy is really holding the band hostage, isn’t he? Blake told me about the uh, the copyright thing. How he threatened to leave or whatever.”

“Yeah, that’s the thing about Rhett. He threatens all the time. It’s just usually worthless hot air, so we can ignore it.”

“Still.” Cal swallowed, licked peanut butter off his lip. “I can’t stand the way he throws his weight around like that. He was bitching about Blake treating him like an employee, but he treats all of you like he’s your asshole dad.”

From the time he was very young, Cal had an unwavering moral compass. He never could stand to watch people take advantage of others or bully anyone. He liked to think that’s why he was doing such a stand-up job at the bar, that it helped, his parents having raised him right.

Someone needed to look out for Blake and the others. This shit with Rhett, he couldn’t believe it had gone on as long as it had. He wondered how yesterday’s outburst between Rhett and Blake had changed the playing field.

“I think you made your feelings known yesterday,” Lily said at length. “Not that I don’t agree, but now might not be the best time to antagonize him further.”

“I wasn’t gonna storm his hotel room and start making demands.”

Cal hated the uneasy peace that seemed to have settled over the Sinsationals. It didn’t feel right. He felt like they should be fighting for their lives, putting their foot down. He tried to remind himself that as strongly as he felt about things, he was still an outsider. They knew more than he did. And besides, if he took this problem up as his cause, his hill to die on, didn’t that imply he didn’t trust Blake to handle it?

That thought was what calmed him into silence. He did trust Blake. Blake would never, ever act without his band’s best interests at heart.

“Suppose we’ll see how the day shakes out,” Cal said. They waited in silence until Erica showed up with coffee. Cal only finished half his waffle.

While his mouth may have been silent, Cal’s brain was firing on all cylinders. He pulled up a music streaming app on his phone and looked up the Sinsationals’ last two albums. Since they were going by bus to Las Vegas, he’d have plenty of time to study up on material.

And if anyone heard him practicing Rhett’s lead guitar parts—just in case—he’d come up with some clever excuse.

B
lake spent
the morning in an emotionally haphazard state. He returned all the missed calls—Palmer and publicist—but couldn’t bring himself to head downstairs and socialize. Cold dread had crystallized in his stomach. He couldn’t stop thinking about the band’s future.

Waking up to find Cal had pulled a runner didn’t help. Cal’s reasoning was sound, but Blake wondered if the stated reasons were his only reasons for scurrying off so quickly.

Damn it. They needed to hash this out. Cal had had to be dragged kicking and screaming into talking about his feelings on the rare events it had happened in the past. Was this going to be another uphill battle? Was Blake being too optimistic when he wondered if five years had hopefully given Cal a lesson or two in emotional availability?

He couldn’t afford to freak out about Cal. Not now. Not with the band on the precipice.

Palmer confirmed via phone that for the moment, things were still hanging together. By the thinnest, most gossamer of threads. Rhett was pissed, but he wasn’t threatening anyone or making demands. Blake explained how the fistfight went down, how Rhett had struck first, then confirmed he wasn’t interested in pressing charges. They’d ended the call with Palmer repeatedly saying that as of now, the tour was still on.

There was going to be a meeting in Las Vegas, though. Blake and Rhett would again take separate buses. It sounded like things were going to be in fragile stasis while everyone traveled.

Palmer’s words did little to alleviate the choking tightness in Blake’s chest.

He was packing up his things when Cal returned, carrying a plate. He’d put on jeans, but he was still wearing that threadbare navy t-shirt. Blake wondered if he’d ever be able to see that Rockies tee without imagining Cal lowered down, between his thighs, that dark fire in his eyes...

“Didn’t see you at breakfast, so I brought you some bagels.” Cal tilted the plate Blake’s way, then set it on the kitchenette’s countertop.

Blake, who was busy folding and cramming things into his suitcase, didn’t get up from the floor. He aimed a winsome smile at Cal, then curled a finger, beckoning.

“Seriously?” Cal sounded unimpressed.

“I’m packing!”

“You’re a grown adult, too,” Cal said. “But don’t let that stop you.”

All the same, he gathered up the plate and set it down beside Blake on the floor. Blake looked over the two bagels on the paper plate. One appeared to be smoked salmon and cream cheese, the other peanut butter.

“You put peanut butter on everything, don’t you?”

Blake opted for the salmon bagel, starting to chow down right there on the floor.

Cal didn’t defend his condiment choices. Instead he flipped Blake a middle finger—albeit with a grin—and headed into his own room.

By the time Blake had finished his bagel, Cal returned, his pack over his shoulder.

“You’re packed already?” Blake wiped cream cheese off his mouth.

“I didn’t bring much. And I don’t...
nest
like you do.”

“If I leave stuff in my bag I forget it’s there.”

“So you spread it out all over the floor like you’re holding a garage sale?”

Blake narrowed his eyes. This repartee between them felt so natural, as though no time had passed. Almost suspiciously so. Cal tended to get witty when he was avoiding something. His deflection-by-way-of-humor was endearing, but not when this much weighed on Blake’s mind. So he changed the subject.

“We should talk,” he said. Cal straightened up a little, canny to the change in Blake’s voice. His dark eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.

“About?” He sounded cautious.

“Us. What happened last night. What happens moving forward.”

To Blake’s surprise, Cal didn’t try to laugh it off or change the subject or insist there was nothing to discuss. Probably because he could tell Blake wasn’t going to go along with it. Instead, he nodded and dropped his pack on the floor. When he settled down on the floor, it was beside Blake, their knees almost touching.

“You’re right. We should.”

Blake leaned forward, resting his elbows on his legs. He stared up into Cal’s face, trying to get a read on him.

“So is this—” he started, paused, couldn’t quite phrase it the way he wanted to. “Are we...?”

Fond crows’ feet wrinkled at the corners of Cal’s eyes. He hitched up one shoulder in a modest shrug.

“I wasn’t sure,” Cal started. Blake’s face fell, a completely reflexive reaction, but Cal immediately put a hand up to stave off any distress.

“I wasn’t sure at first,” he started again. “Things seem like they’re kind of tense right now. I want you to know I’m here if you need me. But don’t feel like just because you’re leaning on me, it needs to go... back to how it was.”

Blake was beside himself. He understood the individual words Cal was saying, but as a whole they made little sense. Why on earth would Cal say all that after he had been more than willing to take things to the next level the night prior?

“I don’t understand.” Blake kept his voice level, trying not to sound frustrated. “If anything you sound like you’re trying to convince me
not
to move forward with you. But you were sucking my dick last night, in case you forgot.”

Just a hint of red suffused Cal’s tan cheeks. Well, some things never changed. He’d always been a bit of a prude. Cal didn’t speak up for a long time. He stared off toward the door, almost as though lost in thought. But he looked back to Blake eventually.

“I worried I was taking advantage of you,” he finally said. “You were upset last night. Hurting. I just wanted to make it better any way I could. But now I worry that was a very selfish thing for me to have done.”

The tightness in Blake’s chest migrated to his throat. A warm swell of affection took the place of his anxiety. He took a deep breath, then reached out and put a hand on Cal’s thigh, brushing his fingertips over the denim.

“Cal, holy shit.” His voice came out a little rough, which surprised him. “You could never
take advantage
of me. That’s not how it works. You were trying to help because you’re a good person, a good friend, and that’s... that’s what we do for each other.”

He gave Cal’s leg a squeeze. Cal’s expression softened, though his lips still pressed together a little too hard, a hint that something unspoken still troubled him.

“Relax,” Blake insisted. “Last night was amazing. I missed it. I missed being with you. And not even just because of your... hmm... talented mouth.”

That cracked a tiny laugh out of Cal, who brushed his thumb over the knuckles of Blake’s hand. He still didn’t look
okay.
But Blake supposed that he didn’t feel okay, either. They just weren’t at a place where they could achieve complete okayness yet.

Unless there was something else troubling Cal that he wasn’t bringing up.

C
al almost said it
. He was on the verge of saying it. But there were some things he just couldn’t drop casually into a conversation without worrying he sounded like a severely lovestruck idiot.

I worried I was taking advantage of you because you needed comfort and I was all too eager to provide it. You know, on account of the fact that I never stopped loving you.

It was true. And Cal felt that on some level, Blake probably knew that. But putting it into words was another beast entirely. So instead he just gave Blake his most reassuring smile and leaned forward, pressing a brief, chaste kiss to his cheek.

“If this is something you want, something you’re serious about, then yeah. Let’s do it. Fuck it, what do we have to lose?”

Cal tried to sound encouraging, but it came out with a hint of desperation around the edges.

“You make it sound like we’re on the Hindenburg crashing inevitably toward the ground, man,” Blake said. “But I get what you mean. I just... I don’t want to call it a condition or an ultimatum or anything, you know I’m not like that, but I have to get this out.”

Cal steeled himself. He had a feeling he knew what was coming.

“I just have to make sure you aren’t going to disappear on me again.”

When Blake looked up next, there was a hint of a glimmer across his eyes. Emotion, moisture, something. He looked at Cal, jaw taut, and nodded once after speaking, as if to drive the point home.

All the air whooshed out of Cal’s lungs in a great sigh. He let himself topple backwards, stretching out over the plush rug that sprawled across the lounge’s floor. He stared up at the ceiling, unable to meet Blake’s wavering eyes.

“I’m sorry about that,” he said at length. “I shouldn’t have done it.”

Thinking back to those days felt like kicking himself. It still caused a reaction that bordered on physical pain. He could recall the sting of it with breathtaking clarity, the night he realized while standing in a shadowed corner at some random house party that Blake meant way more to him than he’d ever mean to Blake.

To Blake, Cal was a friend. A friend with benefits. A musical collaborator. But Blake had no problem swanning off with a different man or woman every other weekend. Sure, he always came back to Cal, but Cal knew in his gut that would never be enough.

The hardest truth to face was that Cal was too chickenshit to just ask Blake to stop. To grab him by the shoulders and look him in the eyes and say
please stop this, I need you, I need you all to myself or else I’ll go crazy.

Because he was too terrified Blake would say no.

If there was even a sliver of a chance that Blake wouldn’t return Cal’s feelings with equal intensity, it was best to walk away. So he did. And he had spent every day for the next several years struggling to convince himself that it was the right thing to do.

How was he supposed to put all that into words? How was he supposed to package those feelings in a tidy manner and present them to Blake without tearing open old wounds? He couldn’t.

“Things are different now,” he said instead, a vague cop-out. He hoped things were different with Blake, too. The entire time they’d been on tour, he hadn’t seen Blake take off with anyone. There had been fans—ostensibly some groupies—hanging around before and after gigs, but Blake paid them no mind. Maybe he’d changed, too.

Cal wasn’t sure how to bring that up either. Not without sounding like a jealous maniac.
Hi, I know we only just started to reestablish ourselves as a couple, but I’m already frothing with jealousy about something that may not even be happening.

“I hope someday you’ll be able to tell me why that happened,” Blake said. “Whatever it is, the fact that you can’t even look me in the face right now says a lot. Just know that I trust you, Cal. I’m handing you my heart, here.”

Cal felt sick to his stomach. But now just wasn’t the time. Blowing the dust off all that old hurt while Blake’s band was falling down around his ears was a dick move. Cal slowly sat up, then pushed himself up to his feet.

“Come on,” he said. “We’re rolling out soon and your shit’s still all over the floor. You’re a hot mess.”

He offered a hand down to Blake, a gesture that he hoped conveyed more than the simple pick-me-up that it was. Blake took his hand and Cal hauled him up. As Blake found his feet, Cal stepped boldly forward. He encircled Blake’s waist with his arms, then pressed a slow, careful kiss against his hairline.

“You can trust me,” Cal murmured against Blake’s crown. Blake just nodded, his bangs brushing against Cal’s chin.

* * *

T
heir stolen
moment ended too soon, the bus was set to depart at eight in the morning. After helping Blake corral the last of his wayward belongings, Cal soldiered into the parking lot. He had yet to set eyes on Rhett, which was probably a good thing.

He tried not to think too much about the future, because the next few days were entirely out of his hands. Whatever happened with Rhett was up to Rhett, who seemed given to mood swings, to put it mildly. And whatever happened with Blake, well, that was a more long-term thing to consider.

God. Blake. Being so close to Blake again was intoxicating. For all the creature comforts of the state-of-the-art coaches, Cal resented the shit out of them for their lack of privacy. All he wanted to do was roll Blake over into his bunk and suck on his bottom lip and kiss him until his lips were bruised and run his hands all over every square inch of skin he hadn’t had a chance to touch yet.

Instead, he and Blake and Jake and the girls all crowded together on one coach while Carlo, Rhett, Palmer, and his wife took the other. It was close quarters, even if the drive from Salt Lake to Vegas wasn’t terribly long.

In his present mood, Cal found socializing difficult. So he sequestered himself away at the back of the bus, watching out of the narrow slits in between the blinds. The landscape outside gradually shifted from urban to suburban to rural until finally the characteristic red-brown tint of the Southwest desert took over.

“Starting to feel a little cooped up?” a voice said from over Cal’s shoulder. He shifted to look behind him. Erica stood with her sketchbook under an arm, offering him a half-smile.

“I can see how this could get repetitive,” he said neutrally.

“Yeah, that’s why I draw. I never drew before we started touring cross-country, which is why I’m not that good yet. But it fills the time.”

For a moment, Cal felt a twist of pity in his stomach for the Sinsationals. For all the success and glamor of their current lifestyle, it seemed bereft of hobbies and chock full of unnecessary tension. Cal wondered if the money was worth it. Money had never mattered all that much to him and Blake, back in the day. Blake did it for the adoration and Cal did it for Blake, that was all there was to it.

He wondered why Erica did it. But he wasn’t sure he knew her well enough to ask yet.

“I wouldn’t say your drawings aren’t good,” Cal said instead.

Erica hoisted herself up onto her bunk, then peered down at him, the long waves of her hair dangling.

“What do you do back in Denver?”

“I manage a bar, actually. It’s a bit of a dive, but it pays the bills.”

Erica’s mouth twisted into a brief, rueful smile.

“I meant for fun.”

“Oh.”

Cal sat back and thought about that for way too long. When he’d left the band, he had quit playing guitar almost immediately. It was too painful. And his father took their fish tank with him when he moved to Florida. Cal would have to squint real hard to come up with a list of anything he did that could be construed as solely for fun.

Erica watched his face for a moment, then frowned.

“That bad?”

Cal let his head fall back against his pillow. This bus trip was giving him way too much to think about.