Love on Stage (18 page)

A Wonderful World

Sunday afternoon, Miles was busy working on a client project, Archie snuck away to see Mary Anne, and Erica went out on the lake with a college friend who had stopped by to visit. Gavin’s father and grandmother were out on the porch, but when he tried to join them, his father shooed him away. His mother was in the kitchen on the phone and looked like she’d been crying. Even Aunt Ida and Aunt Myrtle had their heads together in the living room, talking in low tones.

He gave up and went for a run, down the long driveway and out along the country road that wrapped around the lake. It felt good to exercise; he’d been neglecting his workout since he’d come to Starlit Lake, and he didn’t want to get out of shape. He’d need to go back for modeling calls as soon as he returned to South Beach.

The smell of barbecue wafted past him as he ran, staying to the shoulder of the road and out of the way of lumbering RVs, pickups, and three-wheeled all-terrain vehicles. As his feet pounded the dirt, he heard kids laughing, people splashing in the lake, the distant sound of an outboard. They were the sounds and smells of his childhood, and he felt comforted and sheltered by them.

He got back to the house to discover that his parents had left and the grannies had retired to their rooms. He found some cold chicken in the refrigerator for dinner and took it to Miles’s studio, where they ate, and then he read a book on music theory and Miles fiddled around with music at his keyboard. Around eleven, Miles gave up and came to join Gavin on the bed, where they snuggled together. Gavin thought things couldn’t be going any better.

Monday morning, Archie left for work and Miles took the grannies into the studio. Erica and Gavin both sprawled on sofas in the living room. Erica put in earbuds to listen to music, and Gavin picked up the book Miles had lent him about music theory.

Shortly before lunch, Archie stormed into the living room. “I don’t need any of you messing with my life!” he shouted at Gavin and Erica.

Erica pulled out her earphones. “What crawled up your butt?” she asked.

Archie turned to Gavin. “What did you say to Uncle Richard?”

Gavin cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

“I mean he called my boss this morning and told him that I needed some time off so we could practice.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” Erica asked.

“I didn’t ask him to do that. One of you must have.”

“I told him that it was tough to get enough practice time with you,” Gavin said. “That you were working hard and then you were tired by the time you got up here.”

“He had no business going behind my back!”

Gavin held up his hands. “Hey, take it up with him, not with us.”

“You should be happy, Archie,” Erica said. “Some vacation time to focus on the concert.”

“I don’t want to focus on the concert!” he shouted. “I just want to have a job. Now my boss is going to think I’m not serious. What about after the concert, when Gavin goes back to Miami and you go to grad school, and all I’ve got is that job?”

“What did your boss say, exactly?” Gavin asked. “Is this like, leave without pay? Or are you taking next year’s vacation now?”

“It’s unpaid leave,” he said. “But he went on about how great it would be for the bank if we did well at the concert, that maybe they could use some of our music in an ad or something and they could brag about having me there.”

“That’s not bad,” Erica said.

“I’ll bet my dad put him up to that,” Gavin said. “He’s the one who controls all the music business, you know. He probably made a trade with your boss.”

“You think?” Archie asked.

Gavin nodded. “You know my dad. He doesn’t do anything without thinking it through all the way. He sees that we need you here, and he was willing to make a deal.”

“It shows how much both of them think of you,” Erica said. “If your boss didn’t think you were a good employee, he could have just fired you.” She put her arm around his shoulder. “Just remember, Mary Anne thinks you have a dreamy voice.”

Archie frowned at her, but Gavin could see he wasn’t serious.

Miles came out to the living room then. “Good, I thought I heard Archie’s voice,” he said. “The grannies are ready for a rest. Why don’t you three come in, and we’ll do some work together.”

They rehearsed for an hour, and then Erica failed to hit a high note and began to cough. “Sorry,” she said between coughs. “This happens to me sometimes. My throat closes up. I need a cup of tea to relax it.”

“Take a break, then,” Miles said. “I’ve got some other work to do. Come back when you feel better. But don’t take too long.”

Gavin led the way toward the kitchen, but when he heard raised voices out on the porch, he motioned to his cousins to stop.

Aunt Myrtle’s voice floated through the heat. “I won’t be made a fool of on stage,” she said. “What if I forget my lines? Frances, can’t you hear the way your voice wavers? And Ida wouldn’t know A above middle C if it ran her over with a truck.”

“How can you forget a song you’ve been singing all your life? And how can you be so awful?”

Aunt Ida’s high voice sounded more strained than usual to Gavin. He shared a glance with Archie and Erica. Were they working all three of the grannies too hard?

“Maybe Myrtle’s right,” Grandma Frances said, and Gavin’s heart sank. If she agreed with Aunt Myrtle, then the whole act was sunk. “We’re too old to do this again.”

Aunt Ida said, “We have one last chance to perform, and you’re ruining it. And I’m just the baby, so what I want doesn’t count. It never has with you two. Ida’s the silly one—she’ll do whatever we say. Well, I’m tired of it.”

They heard the creak of a rocker as she stood up. Despite Gavin trying to hold her back, Erica rushed for the porch, with Gavin and Archie behind her. “Are you all right, Grandma?” Erica said as she walked out.

Gavin saw that his great-aunt’s careful makeup was streaked with tears. Aunt Myrtle sat stonily beside her, looking like that farm wife from the Grant Wood painting. Grandma Frances looked the way she did when she’d forgotten to drink her morning prune juice.

“My sisters are ruining everything for me again,” Aunt Ida wailed. “But that’s nothing new.”

“No one is ruining anything,” Grandma Frances said.

Archie sat on the porch beside his grandmother and asked, “What’s the problem?”

“We can’t do this, Archie,” she said. “We’re too old, and our voices aren’t what they used to be.”

“We sound good together,” Gavin said. “I know I’m the least musical one of all of us, but I think we’re great, and we’ve improved a ton since we started working with Miles.”

“I think so too,” Erica said. “I want to do this, with all three of you.”

Archie surprised Gavin by saying, “So do I.” He reached up and took his grandmother’s hand.

“What if we only sing ‘Apple Cider Time’ together,” Gavin suggested, “and Archie, Erica, and I do the rest of the numbers?” He looked at Aunt Myrtle. “Do you think you could manage that?”

Myrtle looked at Frances, then at Ida, who was still standing by the door, teetering on her heels and clutching Erica’s hand. “I think we could manage one number,” Aunt Myrtle said. “What about you, Frances?”

“I would like the chance to sing again with the two of you,” she said to her sisters. She looked at her grandson. “What do you think Miles will say?”

“He’ll say that he’ll take the best that we can give him. And if that’s just one song together, then that’s all there is.”

Ida sat back down in her rocker, and Myrtle handed her a tissue and a compact. “Fix your makeup, dear. You’re all streaky.”

Erica led the way back to the kitchen, where she put up the water to boil for tea. “Crisis averted,” she said. “For now at least. You think we could get away with that, Gavin? Just singing one number with them and the other two on our own? Or should we just do ‘Apple Cider Time’ and be done with it?”

“I like ‘Milking the Cows,’” Archie said. “It would be fun for the audience.”

“And maybe the grannies could join in with the harmony,” Gavin said. “So they’d still be there, but they wouldn’t be stressed.”

They talked over various permutations as Erica drank her tea, and then they walked back to the studio.

“Small problem,” Gavin said once Miles had finished what he was working on and taken off his headphones. He explained the situation and the options.

“I’m glad the sisters figured this out themselves,” he said. “They just don’t have the vocal chops anymore to do three numbers. But I couldn’t figure out how to tell them that without breaking a few hearts.”

“Do you think Archie, Gavin, and I could carry the other numbers?” Erica asked. “Or should we tell the concert people we’re cutting back to just one?”

“You guys can manage, if you work hard,” Miles said. “But we only have two weeks. Erica, will your voice hold up?”

She nodded. “I’ve sung a lot harder than this in the past. I have to pace myself.”

Miles looked at Archie. “How about you? You ready to commit?”

Archie nodded. “The last couple of times my group performed, we had these marathon rehearsals. It was fun.”

“Good,” Miles said. Then he looked at Gavin, but before he could say anything, Gavin held his hand up.

“I’m the weakest singer,” he said. “Can you change some of the orchestration so that I’m not always singing the lead?”

Miles shook his head. “You don’t need that. Your voice is a lot better than you think. I’ve been riding you hard because I want you to be better. Truth is, you could walk on that stage right now and do all right.”

“All right isn’t good enough,” Gavin said. “I want to be great for my grandma and my aunts. And Archie and Erica too.”

“Then we’ve got a lot of work to do.” Miles put his headphones back on and motioned them to the microphone. “Let’s take ‘Milking the Cows’ from the top.”

They sang until dinner, then sang again afterward. It was close to ten o’clock by the time Miles dismissed them.

Gavin hung back. “What you said earlier,” he said, not sure how to phrase what he wanted to know. “Was that just to make Archie and Erica feel better?”

Miles shook his head and smiled. “You’ve come a long way since the first time I heard you, Gavin,” he said. “Back then, I thought, ‘cute guy, decent voice, but can’t really sing.’ Since then, though, you’ve improved hugely. You just needed somebody to tell you what to do.”

Miles stood up, walked over to the microphone, and motioned Gavin to join him. “Come on. Let’s sing something together. I want you to hear yourself the way I do.”

Miles began to sing the Louis Armstrong song, “Wonderful World,” and Gavin was impressed at how even his tone was, how much emotion he could put into the words. When it came to the second verse and Gavin jumped in, singing about skies of blue, even he could hear how much better he sounded than he might have a couple of weeks before. He seemed to know the right notes to sing and how to blend with Miles on the chorus.

As they repeated the last line together, Gavin turned his face toward Miles and saw that Miles was looking right into his eyes. After the last notes left his lips, Gavin leaned forward and kissed Miles.

Miles pushed back, reaching into Gavin’s long hair and grabbing fistfuls as their mouths mashed together. Gavin’s pulse accelerated, and he grabbed Miles’s butt. They kissed like it was the last time they’d be able to, nipping at each other, neither giving up the relentless search for connection. Within minutes they were both sweaty, their hands constantly touching skin.

Gavin leaned his head back, gasping for breath, and Miles attacked his throat like a vampire. “I want to eat you up,” he said into Gavin’s skin.

Hearing the raw lust in Miles’s voice only made Gavin harder and hornier. Miles rubbed his goatee and his five o’clock shadow against Gavin’s tender flesh. Every rasp sent an electric jolt to his dick, and he was afraid he’d come in his shorts if Miles kept that up.

He backed away from Miles only long enough to pull his T-shirt off and drop his shorts, and Miles did the same thing. Gavin dropped to his knees and began licking Miles’s hard dick through his boxers, and Miles whimpered—in the key of E, Gavin thought. He stopped sucking for a moment to laugh, and Miles said, “What?”

Gavin didn’t answer. He popped Miles’s dick out of the slit in the boxers and gobbled it down. But that wasn’t all Gavin wanted. He sucked Miles for a minute or two, then stood up. He focused on Miles’s eyes and shimmied his boxer briefs down over his hips, licking his lips as he did.

“Dios mio,” Miles groaned.

Gavin turned and faced the bedroom wall. He put his palms flat against the plaster, spread his legs, and looked around at Miles. “You know what to do.”

He closed his eyes and waited. He could hear Miles fumbling in the dresser drawer, heard the rip of the condom packet and the squirt of the lube. Then a single long finger penetrated his ass, and he shivered.

“You all right?” Miles whispered into his ear.

“Never better. More, please.”

“Happy to oblige.” Miles fed a second finger in, and Gavin thought of those slender, talented fingers playing the piano or strumming a guitar. It was as if Miles was moving to a rhythm only he heard, pushing in and out, whispered Spanish endearments into Gavin’s ear as he did.

“Enough,” Gavin panted. “Fuck me, please.”

Miles didn’t say anything, but he removed his fingers, and then Gavin felt the blunt nose of Miles’s dick poking at his anal ring. Gavin took a couple of deep breaths as Miles pushed forward, sliding into him with a quick starburst of pain.

It was all pleasure from then on, enjoying the sensation of fullness, of feeling Miles in him, connected to him. Miles’s tempo increased, and Gavin could feel his lust like an electric current. Miles reached around in front to begin to jerk Gavin, and he closed his eyes once again and focused on the sensation.

Behind him, he heard Miles’s breathing quicken and then his yelp as the jism squirted into the condom’s reservoir and heat filled Gavin’s ass. That was enough to push him over the edge. He gasped and inhaled sharply and then came in Miles’s fist. Miles sagged behind him, and Gavin remained there against the wall, holding his own weight and his lover’s. Miles began to sing softly, something in Spanish that sounded like a love song, and Gavin turned around so his back was to the wall. Miles squirmed into his arms, rested his head on Gavin’s chest, and continued the song.