Keys to Love (27 page)

By hurting it, they’re hurting you.”

Julian closed his eyes. He rubbed his forehead with one hand.

“I don’t understand why this is happening.”

Morgan wrapped him in a tight embrace. “We’ll find out when we catch them. Until then, I’m not leaving your side.”

Julian nodded. He managed a weak smile and looked up at him. “My hero.”

Morgan chuckled and bowed his head to meet Julian’s lips.

Julian felt Morgan was intending to keep the kiss chaste. He took Morgan’s head in both hands and pushed his tongue into Morgan’s mouth before he had a chance to fully part his lips.

A groan from Morgan reverberated in his mouth as Morgan quickly matched his own passion. Julian felt desperate to be close to him. He needed it like never before with the threat lingering over them.

Too late he caught the sound of voices on the other side of the door. The door flung open. His lips still on Morgan’s, Julian’s gaze met Jesse’s.

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Jesse froze in place, even his smile didn’t move. He held up one index finger as if about to say something, then dropped it and backed out of the doorway, forcing Evan back as well, and closed the door.

Morgan slowly glanced over his shoulder. “Was that who I think it was?”

“If you think it was Jesse, then yes. Yes it was.”

Morgan took a step back. “I guess he knows for sure now.”

Julian slapped a hand to his forehead. “This wasn’t exactly how I wanted everyone to find out.”

Morgan placed his hands on Julian’s shoulders. “Just settle down and be calm.”

A knock came from the other side of the door, followed by Jesse’s voice. “Since it sounds like you both have your tongues back in your own mouths, is it safe to come in now?”

Julian took a deep breath and a couple steps toward the door, putting himself in front of Morgan. “Yes, come in.”

Jesse opened the door enough to peek his head through, then looked back at the others. “Okay, you’re safe, Kenny. There’s no man-loving going on in here to burn your sensitive eyes.”

Julian huffed. “Will you just get in here?”

Jesse stepped in, followed by Evan, Brad, and Kenny. Evan locked the door and moved to Jesse’s side. Jesse stood with his hands on his hips, his gaze moving from Julian to Morgan and back to Julian. “Well, it’s not every day I get to walk into my dressing room and find two boys making out.”

Julian moved toward Jesse, his voice leaving him in a rush of words. “I know what it must look like and I’m not even going to deny what it looks like because it’s exactly what it is, but it’s also more than what you’re probably thinking. You’re probably thinking you caught me in a fling, but that’s not true. I love him.

I’ve loved him for a long time. Not that we’ve been together all that long, but certainly long enough.

“He’s shown me things I never saw before. We went camping
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and I peed outside! And we had sex outside, too! Have you ever had sex outside? Of course you have. Look who I’m talking to.

But I never had and it was amazing! But all that aside, I know it’s not his fault about my piano. He secured it. He told me. So it’s someone else and we need to find out who!”

As Julian ended his rant, Jesse silently stared at him. Julian heard Morgan chuckling behind him. He glanced at him, only to have Jesse’s voice bring his attention back to him.

“There’s just one thing I want to know.”

Julian nodded. “Anything.”

“When you peed and had sex outside, it wasn’t at the same time, was it? Because that’d be really nasty.”

Evan snickered. Morgan laughed harder.

Julian took in Jesse’s smirk. “You’re not angry,” he said more than asked.

“No.” Jesse’s smirk dropped away. “I’m hurt, just like I think all of us are.” He gestured toward Kenny and Brad.

“Jess…”

Jesse held up his hand, stopping Julian’s words. “You’ve had your say, or whatever that speech was, now it’s my turn. First off, let me admit I’ve known about you and Morgan for a while, because I knew he won the auction for you.”

Morgan stepped forward. “How? I gave the money to a friend. I didn’t even go to the auction because I wanted it all to be a surprise.”

Evan looked at Morgan. “But you
did
show up to collect your prize and I had security to make sure it wasn’t a nutcase who won.

They informed the head of security that Julian sent them away and gave your description as a precautionary measure, including your first name because they overheard Julian say it. The security head wasn’t comfortable with what happened, so he contacted me that night asking if I wanted his guys to tail Julian, just to be on the safe side. When I learned who you were, I told him there was nothing to worry about since I remembered meeting you at Keys to Love
221

the arena and Julian’s obvious crush on you.”

“It wasn’t that obvious,” Julian grumbled.

Jesse continued for Evan, his gaze on Julian. “So of course Ev told me. He also told me he heard you guys fighting one morning in your hotel room.”

Julian and Morgan glanced at each other, then down at the floor.

“And I knew fully when you didn’t come back to Chicago with us and missed my birthday,” Jesse said.

“I didn’t want to miss your birthday,” Julian said softly. “It was the only time I could get alone with him.”

“I’m not upset about that. I understand why you weren’t there. What I don’t understand is why didn’t you tell all of us from the start you guys were seeing each other?”

Julian slowly looked up at him. “I was afraid of someone not approving because Morgan works for us. The first day you met him, you said, ‘it’s too bad he’s a roadie,’ and brought up the incident between those women. I couldn’t stand the thought you might not want Morgan to work for us because of the tensions it could cause among the staff.”

“And it’s caused tensions regardless judging by your shattered piano.”

Julian dropped his gaze.

Jesse sighed and shook his head. “And this is where the part of me being hurt comes in. You put way too much meaning into my words. I was just talking that day. It’s not like I knew how you felt about him. And I can’t believe you’d think I wouldn’t want you to see the man you’re so clearly attracted to, just because he’s staff. It was the same thing with my brother.”

Julian snapped his head up. “You made it very clear to me and Brandon you didn’t want us seeing each other.”

“I joked around with you guys about it. Yeah, given the choice, I didn’t want you in a relationship together because I knew it wouldn’t last and I didn’t want to see either of you hurt. But if
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you guys really wanted to be together, I wouldn’t have stood in your way. Not that it mattered. You both figured out on your own you guys weren’t a perfect match. Granted, it took you screwing each other a few times—ow!” Jesse flinched and whipped his head toward Evan. “Why’d you pinch my ass? Other than it being so cute and irresistible.”

“That was the biggest part of it, but I also don’t think we should go into details about Julian’s past right now.” Evan’s gaze flicked to Morgan.

Jesse nodded in understanding, then looked back to Julian.

“Sorry, but I was just trying to say, you should’ve just come to me. To all of us for that matter.”

Julian took a tentative step toward Jesse. “But if you knew about me and Morgan, why didn’t you say anything? You acted like you didn’t know him when the string was cut.”

“I pretended I didn’t know him because you were still acting like he wasn’t important to you. How was it my place to act any different? And why would I come to you about a relationship you hadn’t talked to me about? Just like I minded my business and waited for you to come to me about Brandon, I did the same thing now. And just like back then, you didn’t confide in me, and now we have a major problem.”

Jesse’s expression turned wounded. “What have I done to make you feel like you can’t come to me, Jules? I know I’m not the most silent when it comes to my opinion, but after all our time together, I thought you’d know you can always talk to me about anything. If you want to be with Morgan, do you really think I’d let some pissy attitudes from other people keep you guys apart? I love you like a brother.” He glanced away. “I didn’t realize until all this happened my feelings were so one-sided.”

“They’re not!” Julian moved to stand in front of Jesse. “I do look at you as a brother and love you like family.” He glanced at the others. “All of you. You’re better to me than my own family is. I was wrong to hide my relationship with Morgan from you.

And I realize I underestimated and misjudged all of you, but I was so blinded by wanting to keep Morgan safe.” His voice Keys to Love
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hushed. “I’ve made a few other poor decisions since Morgan and I have been together. I’m just fortunate he’s very patient as I try to figure out the whole complicated dealings of a long-term relationship.”

Jesse met Julian’s gaze directly. “I can understand that.

Wanting to protect the person you love most makes everything and everyone, even family, seem secondary.”

Julian’s relief, and also sadness for having not spoken to anyone sooner, took control of him. He wrapped his arms around Jesse. “I truly am sorry, Jess. I should’ve known you more than anyone else would understand.”

Jesse hugged Julian in return. “It’s alright. Since your intentions were good and it was all for love, I can easily forgive you. In fact, I already did a long time ago. I just needed to talk to you about it. Everything you said is what I already thought. Or actually, it’s what Ev thought. He and I have talked about you both a lot, we all have.” He looked at Kenny and Brad. “You might not have been ready to confide in us about you guys, but since we all care about you, we’ve talked amongst ourselves about what was going on with you. But really, you need to thank Ev, because he’s the one who said you guys would talk when you were ready. Even if I was trying to trick it out of you on the bus earlier, and he stopped me.”

Julian chuckled and drew back to wipe grateful tears from his eyes. He looked to Evan. “Thanks, Evan. I owe you an apology, too.”

Evan waved his words away. “There’s no need for thanks or apologies.” He put his arm around Jesse’s waist. “It was my pleasure to distract him.”

Jesse laughed. “And it was
my
pleasure to be distracted by him.” He focused his gaze on Morgan. “And then there’s you.”

Morgan laid his arm over Julian’s shoulders. “Hey, I told him I wanted to be honest with all of you from the start.”

Julian nodded. “He did.”

Jesse extended his hand to Morgan. “Yeah well, here’s a
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belated welcome to the family.”

Morgan clasped Jesse’s hand. “Thanks.”

As Morgan attempted to pull his hand back, Jesse held on. “I just want to inform you of one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ve gotten really attached to your dog.”

“I know! I told Julian this past week I was jealous of your relationship with him.”

Jesse laughed. “And one other good thing came out of this, Jules.”

“What’s that?” Julian asked.

“I told a convincing lie! You had no clue I knew about you and Morgan, and really believed I didn’t remember him the night the string was cut.”

Evan grinned as his kissed Jesse’s cheek. “I’m sorry, gorgeous.

It was still pretty obvious you knew. Jules just didn’t see it because he’s couldn’t see three feet beyond Morgan.”

Kenny nodded. “He’s right, man.”

“You know,” Morgan said, smiling at Jesse, “not being able to lie isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”

“True, but I have ambitions of perfection in all things I do,”

Jesse said.

Brad broke the moment by stepping forward, waving one hand to get everyone’s attention. “Whoa, hey! Listen, it’s great Jesse and Evan are cool, but on my end, I’m more than a little hurt. How many times did I try to get you to open up to me, Jules?

Even today! It’s just like I said to the guys, I thought you and me were tighter than that. But you have something big like this going on in your life and you don’t even come to me?” He laid his hand over his heart. “That really hurts. I mean, if nothing else, even if you didn’t want to tell everyone else, I thought you would’ve told me. But you get him,” he flicked his hand at Morgan, “and suddenly you don’t need anybody else.”

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Julian shook his head. “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t come to you because I wasn’t sure how you’d react. In the past, you’d always criticize every man I saw. And even without knowing Morgan, you were criticizing him.”

“What else was I supposed to do when you wouldn’t talk about him and you weren’t acting like yourself? I was worried about you! And through everything, you kept saying, you knew you could come to me, when obviously you didn’t! You misjudged me more than anyone else!”

Evan laid his hand on Brad’s arm. “Cool it, Brad.”

Brad turned on him. “No! It’s not right how he hid this from us!”

Evan glared at him. “Don’t make me tell you a second time.”

Brad huffed and stomped away to flop down on the couch.

Evan’s gaze remained on him. “Julian hiding his relationship from us isn’t much different from when Jesse and I hid ours from the world. I understand why he did it, Jesse understands why he did it, and you should too after having known me for years and watched all that Jesse and I went through before we came out.”

“I get why he did it, wanting to protect Morgan. I just think it’s pretty shitty everyone else was put in second place because he’s got a new man.”

“That’s what happens when you fall in love with someone,”

Kenny said. “Everyone else gets knocked down a notch. And that’s the way it should be, especially if you see yourself spending the rest of your life with that person.”

Jesse turned shocked eyes on Kenny. “You just totally freaked me out. I can’t believe you’d say something like that. Krista is really rubbing off on you.”

A dreamy little grin graced Kenny’s lips. “I know.”

Julian turned to Kenny. “How do you feel about Morgan and me?”