Love on Stage (28 page)

“Did you rescue Mom from his clutches?” Gavin asked.

“Quite the opposite. Lenny started yelling at his girlfriend, a skinny little thing from farm country, and then he took a swipe at her. Your mother jumped up before anyone else could and positioned herself between the two of them. She told Lenny that if he hit either of them, she’d see that he was prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

He could imagine his mother using just that kind of language. “What happened?”

“Well of course everyone jumped up to intercede, but it wasn’t necessary. She had Lenny backed into a corner, and he knew it.”

“And that’s when you fell in love with her?”

“Not quite. I asked her out to dinner to celebrate her strength, and she turned me down. It took me two more tries to wear her down, and by then I was intrigued. Girls didn’t say no to me very often. Your mother and I went to dinner and talked, just as friends. I kept pursuing her, taking her out for coffee, helping her with her studies. I called it my stealth campaign.”

His father was quiet for a moment. “She wouldn’t even kiss me for quite a while,” he said. “By then I knew she was the one for me. I wouldn’t give up until she admitted that she loved me, and then she agreed to marry me.”

It wasn’t quite the story that his mother had told. When he and Gretchen were in their early teens, Gretchen had been turned down by a boy, and their mother had comforted her. She had said that she’d spotted their father that day at the lake and fallen for his good looks, then insinuated herself into his life until one day he looked up and saw her there, waiting.
“One day a boy will see you, too, Gretchen,”
she had said.

Had Miles seen him? Or seen through him—and not liked what he saw?

“I have faith that your group can succeed, even without Miles Goodwin to help.” His father paused. “But from what I’ve seen, he cares for you, Gavin, and I’d hate to see you both throw that possibility away.”

“Thanks, Dad. But I’m not sure what I should do right now.”

“Follow your heart, son. That’s the best advice I can give you.”

Gavin hung up and realized he had to get back to Java Joe’s.

He worked the late shift, until closing at eleven. By then he was exhausted, from the disruption of his regular work pattern, his lack of sleep, and the pain radiating from the vicinity of his heart.

He locked up the back, then turned the lights out in the café. In the glow of the street lamps on Lincoln Road, he walked through the empty room to the front door, where he punched in the alarm code, then stepped out into the night.

Miles Goodwin sat at one of the tables in front of the café. He wore a white bowling shirt with a pair of tenpins knocking into each other on the breast and a porkpie hat that accentuated his hipster look.

“I came by when I thought your shift ended this afternoon, but your boss said you were working tonight,” Miles said. “I wanted to apologize to you for the way I acted last night. And to explain what I said to your father.”

Gavin sat down across from him. “I’m the one who owes you an apology,” he said. “I had my head so far up my ass I couldn’t see daylight.”

Miles laughed. “Nice turn of phrase.”

“One of my father’s sayings.” He hesitated, then plunged in. “I’ve been talking about you a lot lately. Your ears must have been ringing.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh. My roommates told me I was acting like a jerk because I didn’t tell you how much I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”

“I had my own agenda.”

“No, I’m not saying it right.” Gavin took a deep breath. “At first I couldn’t figure you out. I thought maybe you were using me to get to my family.”

Miles started to say something, but Gavin held his hand up. “Please, let me finish.” He knew that if he didn’t say everything he had to right then, he might never. “And I admit that at first I thought of you as just another guy for sex. The fact that you wanted to hold back was a challenge. I deliberately teased you to see if I could get you to break.”

His mouth was dry, but he had to continue. “These last couple of weeks, my emotions have been all over the place. I thought I was so excited because of the concert, the chance to be on stage, to make something out of my life that wasn’t just based on the way I look.”

He took a deep breath. “But somewhere in there, I realized that wasn’t the reason. It was because I loved being with you.”

A blonde in high heels walked by with a tiny, yappy white dog on a sparkling leash. Gavin waited until they had passed to continue.

“I felt something when I was with you. Something different. Like I was enjoying the sex more because it was with you, and I knew you, and I knew what kind of person you were.”

“I felt the same thing,” Miles said. “And I’m sorry I got so caught up in work when I first got back to Miami that I didn’t call you right away. I hated it when we argued.”

Gavin sat back in his chair. Lincoln Road was still busy, people walking, dogs barking, salsa music playing somewhere in the distance. “The thing I hate about being a model is that nobody ever asks your opinion, and if you try and say anything, like this position hurts, or the clothes don’t fit right, they just shut you up. That’s the way I felt when it looked like you and my dad and Alan were all working behind our backs.”

Miles laughed. “That’s funny. I got so caught up in the work because I was doing it for you. And then when you didn’t call me for a couple of days, I felt hurt, and I mixed what’s going on with us up with what’s happened to me in the past.”

“Seems like we both made some mistakes,” Gavin said. “But we can put all that past us, can’t we? And move on?”

“You’re very talented, Gavin. And you have a great stage presence. I’m sure you’ll be a successful artist.” He stood up. “That’s what I came to say.”

“Wait, Miles!” Gavin felt suddenly frantic. “Please, sit down. I’m not finished.”

Miles hesitated, but he sat.

“I’ve been a selfish jerk,” Gavin said. “I see that now. I kept treating you like you were the means to my success, when I should have realized that I don’t care about any of that. Whether I go on stage again, or stay a barista, or go work at my dad’s dealership. What I care about is being with you. Because you’re an amazing person, and I love you.”

There it was, the L word again. This time, though, it wasn’t part of some postcoital conversation but thrown out there on the pavement for the world to hear.

Gavin thought getting it all out would make him feel better, but he felt worse instead. What if Miles stood up again and walked away? He couldn’t blame him; he knew that he had acted like a jerk. “Please?” he asked in a very small voice. “Can I have a second chance to show you that I care about you, for yourself?”

A car rumbled past on one of the side streets, blasting hip hop so loud that the table between them shook. Gavin felt like he was holding his breath, until Miles reached out for his hand. In the light of the neon twinkle above them, he looked into Gavin’s eyes, and Gavin could sense the turmoil going on inside Miles. He squeezed Miles’s hand, hoping to convey how much he felt in that small bit of contact.

“When I was a kid, I had this piano teacher,” Miles said slowly. “Senora Rodriguez. She told me that I was playing too much from my head and that I had to learn to let the music flow from my heart. That’s always been a problem for me. But when I heard you sing and I played with you and sang with you and coached you, the music was coming from my heart, and I understood what Senora Rodriguez was trying to tell me, all those years ago.”

“Would it be too corny to say that we can make beautiful music together?” Gavin asked, feeling the warmth and strength in Miles’s grip.

“Corny, yes,” Miles said. He stood up, still holding Gavin’s hand. “But true.”

He pulled Gavin up to his feet and then moved closer to him. His lips touched Gavin’s, tentatively at first, then with greater pressure. Gavin wrapped his arms around Miles, and they kissed under the neons, with the parade of Lincoln Road after dark going on behind them, almost as if they were on stage and the rest of the world merely spectators.

Loose Id Titles by Neil Plakcy

Guardian Angel of South Beach

Love on Site

Love on Stage

Mi Amor

* * * *

The HAVE BODY, WILL GUARD Series

Three Wrong Turns in the Desert

Dancing with the Tide

Teach Me Tonight

Olives for the Stranger

Under the Waterfall

The Noblest Vengeance

* * * *

The Jasmine Hero

(a “Have Body, Will Guard” story only available at Loose Id)

Neil Plakcy

Neil Plakcy is the author of the Have Body, Will Guard adventure romance series:
Three Wrong Turns in the Desert
,
Dancing with the Tide
,
Teach Me Tonight
,
Olives for the Stranger
,
Under the Waterfall
, and
The Noblest Vengeance
, published by Loose Id.

His other M/M romances are
Mi Amor
,
The Russian Boy
,
The Buchanan Letters
,
Love on Site
, and
Love on Stage
, and the novella
The Guardian Angel of South Beach
.

He is an assistant professor of English at Broward College in South Florida, and has been a construction manager, a computer game producer, and a web developer—all experiences he uses in his fiction. He cannot sing and has only been a model once.

His website is
www.mahubooks.com
.