by Eden Finley
“How are we doing this?” I ask.
“All of us against you and Ollie,” Damon says.
I count. “Six on two?”
“I’ve seen that porno,” Talon says.
“You’ve probably lived that porno,” Noah points out.
Talon and Miller smile.
They huddle in a group, but all the planning in the world won’t help them.
They’re not bad on skates, but chasing a puck? It’s laugh-worthy. Ollie and I basically don’t even have to try.
We could sit in the stands and watch these guys fall over themselves on their own.
Instead, we skate circles around them.
“Ready to admit defeat?” Ollie asks.
“Never,” Talon yells and then trips over his skates and hits the ice hard.
“Okay, yeah,” Damon says. “Before you guys break any of my players.”
“Hey, we didn’t even touch you,” I argue.
“We didn’t have to.” Ollie skates up to me and throws his arm around my shoulder. Then he starts singing “We Are the Champions” at the top of his lungs. Badly.
“All right,” Damon says. “How about you two play against each other?”
Fun fact: give an athlete an opportunity to kick ass, it’s impossible to turn down.
I nudge Ollie. “Oh, it’s on.”
The sun is setting, reflecting off the water on the boat ride home, the cool breeze is kicking in again, but the mocking and gloating don’t stop.
“Tomorrow, you two fuckers have to play football,” Talon says and rubs his shoulder where he fell.
Ollie doesn’t miss a beat before saying, “Bring it.”
“Why are you so smug?” Jet asks. “You got beat by an old man.”
“Hey,” I protest. “He got beaten by the better player, thank you very much.”
“Sure thing, Big Daddy,” Maddox says.
“No. That is not becoming a thing.”
“Would you rather still be called Canada?” Maddox asks.
Jet gasps. “Canadian Big Daddy.”
I can’t even be mad. He’s too adorable as he blinks at me and pulls that innocent face I can’t resist.
If only I could put my arm around his shoulders and pull him close to me.
“I have a question,” Maddox says. “When you’re talking, how do you decide if you finish the sentence with an eh or an ohhh!”
“First, your Canadian and New Jersey accents are still appalling. Two, SNL isn’t an accurate depiction of how we talk in New Jersey. And three, the answer is always eh … eh?”
Maddox laughs hard, but he’s the only one. Hey, it’s entertaining to him, so he can have at it. If I can’t laugh at myself with him, then I’m taking life too seriously.
Joni pulls the boat up to the dock back at our island. “Come on, Canadian Big Daddy.”
“You guys have even got Joni saying it now? I hate you all.”
But I’m lying. Outside of being with Jet, today’s been the best time I’ve had on this vacation so far.
Walking up the small pontoon and beach, I’m too busy looking back at Maddox who’s still talking shit that I don’t see Jet stopped in front of me.
I run into the back of him, and his body is stiff.
The rest of the guys notice and pull up short.
Standing on the pathway up ahead, there’s a tall guy in a business shirt and pants. Shades on, hands in his pockets, intimidating posture. Graying hair glints in the fading sun.
“Who’s—” I go to ask but am cut off by Matt.
“Is that the ex-boyfriend?”
Jet sighs. “Worse. It’s my manager, Luce.”
Chapter Sixteen
JET
“You’re a long way from home.” I feign my usual Jet-ness in front of everyone.
I have no idea why Luce is here, but I know it can’t be good. He knows everything about me and Harley and orchestrated canceling our part of the tour. If he’s here, it can only mean one thing.
Something’s happened.
Luce’s usual casual but firm toughness is missing and is replaced by fury. “You had one job, Jay. Lay low and stay out of the spotlight. Now there’s video of you in a gay bar, singing an Eleven song, for crying out loud—”
“Hey, that’s my song,” I correct. “And, wait, there’s video?”
I knew I shouldn’t have joined that band on stage the other night.
“It’s everywhere,” Luce says. “I’m surprised you haven’t seen it.”
“My brother made us turn off social media.”
I feel the shift in the group around us, but I ignore it. Whether it’s over the fact “Someone Else’s Perfect” is my song or because my manager is here and I’m in trouble, I don’t know.
“I don’t get what the problem is. I wrote that song, and if Harley is trying to pull some copyright bullshit—”
“He’s trying to pull you back on tour and back into the unhealthy grasp he has on you,” Luce yells.
“Dude!”
Luce knows about my NDA.
“Jay, you and Harley are about the worst-kept secret in Hollywood right now,” Luce says. “Hope your vacation was long enough because he’s making you come back.”
“Who died and made Harley the fucking pope?”
“Since when does Jet follow what the pope says?” Noah mumbles.
I ignore him. This can’t be happening.
Harley cannot do this to me.
“The label wanted us apart. They got their wish. There’s no way they want me to come back.”
“Harley is throwing a full-on diva tantrum about it. Says you’ve got to get your ass back or he’s walking. He’ll refuse to go onstage.”
“Oh, so he can threaten the label when it comes to having me as his side piece but not when it has to do with him coming out?”
“I can’t believe you were fucking one of the guys from Eleven,” Maddox says.
Shiiit. I turn to the guys. “You guys can’t say anything. It’ll be both our asses if it gets out to the public.”
The whole group looks at me as if I’ve offended them in some way.
Talon gestures between them all. “Kid, you think we don’t know how to keep a secret, thank you very much?”
Oh. Right. All have been closeted athletes at some point. “Sorry. I just—”
“I’m sorry for overstepping, but I assumed you told your big brother figures.” Luce turns to them. “Hi, I’m Luce. I’m the one who keeps him in line while he’s away from you guys.” He assesses each of them. “You have to be Matt.” He shakes my brother’s hand. “I’ve seen photos.”
Meanwhile, I’m seething. “This is bullshit.”
Luce turns his attention back to me. “This is serious, Jay. They’re talking breach of contract.”
“Because he sang two whole songs in a bar?” Soren asks beside me, seemingly as pissed off as I am.
“No. Because there are photos of him partying, drinking, singing, and doing everything he wouldn’t be doing if he had serious nodes. I gave you an out, and now we both have to go groveling to the label and Eleven. Not to mention Benji and Freya have both called me asking me what’s going on.”
My bandmates know about Harley, just like I know they’re on and off together, but we don’t talk about it. I feel bad for running away without an explanation, but I needed out. I needed away from that environment where Harley kept coming to me and I kept taking him back.
As much as I didn’t want to continue after he decided to marry a woman for show, I was scared that I didn’t have the strength to say no if I stayed.
“I can’t … I can’t go back.” Tears pool, threatening to fall, and fuck that guy for making my eyes leak. “I’ll pay to get out of that contract.”
Luce scoffs. “You can’t afford it. Even with ‘Someone Else’s Perfect’ royalties.”
Matt steps forward. “Then we’ll pay.”
“No,” I snap.
Noah grips my shoulder.
“Don’t let your pride get in the way here. If you don’t want to go back on tour, we can make that happen.”
He’s right that it’s my pride not letting them bail me out. I’ve never wanted to take advantage when the rest of our family does it to Matt so often. But it’s not just the money. I also don’t want Harley to know I had to get my big brother to protect me from him.
“It’s my mess,” I say. “I’ll … I … I need a minute to think.” I walk away from all of them without so much as a backward glance.
Of all the footsteps to follow me, there’s only one person I could see right now without losing it, and I hate to say it, but Soren’s not him. It’s Luce.
I’ll never admit it to my manager, but he knows how to handle me.
It’s a relief when it’s Luce’s voice behind me. “Jay …”
“Come on. You can lecture me all you want. I just need to get away from them.”
“Aren’t they all like family?”
“Exactly.”
Luce laughs. “Ah. Gotcha.”
We enter my hut, and I close the screen door behind us.
My chest is heavy, my brain foggy, and every inch of me vibrates in frustration. “What are we gonna do?”
“Well, first, how about a proper hello?” He holds out his arms for a hug, and I go willingly.
Luce is more than the guy who keeps us in line. He’s also my friend. His partner is too.
“How mad is Marty?” I ask after I step back.
“He understands. Though I was pissed our sudden vacation lasted all of five days.”
“Fucking Harley.”
“About that.” Luce puts his hands in his pockets and looks down at his feet.
“What is it now?”
“I found something out. About his fiancée.”
“What?”
“She’s in on it. We thought … well, I thought he’d picked some random fan and decided to play this whole charade without clueing her in, but it turns out, she knows. Like you, she has a full-on NDA in place, and she knows he’s gay. It’s completely fake.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better? Is it supposed to make me go running back into his arms only to watch him in public with her? No. I’m not gonna do it.”
Luce leans his large frame against the desk in the corner of the hut. “I’m not suggesting you do. But I thought it might be easier to see him knowing he’s as miserable as you are because of something out of your control.”
This is when I get mixed feelings about the whole thing. It’s not Harley’s choice to stay closeted. The label threatens his career, convinces him he won’t make it as a gay solo artist, and then they go with the threat that brings nearly every artist to their knees—breach of contract.
It’s enough to pull anyone in line.
I love music, and I love having fans, but I’ve yet to meet a musician who’s one hundred percent happy with their label. Although, that could be because most of the artists I meet are with Joystar too.
They’re a big fat corporation who only looks at the bottom line—how we can fill their pockets with millions of dollars.
“I don’t get it,” I say, exasperated. “There’s five of them. Why can’t Harley come out? There are four other guys in Eleven that girls can be obsessed with. Let the gay kids have someone. Please.”
“Oh, wow, you really have had Harley goggles on. You think he’s the only queer one of those boys?”
My immediate response is to protest that, but what am I basing my opinion on? The endless tabloids of each of the boys, putting them with the latest it girl. I’ve hung with all of them, and they’ve all played the part. Well, except for Ryder, but that’s because he has his baby on tour with him most of the time, so whenever he’s not on stage, he’s with her.
“My gaydar is on the fritz. I used to be able to pick out a straight gay guy with one look. Even in a strip club with tits in his face.”
“Why would you be in a girly bar?”
“Tennessee.”
“Oh, enough said. Well, yeah, the entertainment industry skews anyone’s gaydar. The obviously gay ones are straight and the straight ones are gay, and don’t get me started on the ones that swing every which way. We need to come up with some sort of codeword like back in the day where they’d ask if you’re a friend of Dorothy’s.”
“Like when you were a teenager?”
Luce ignores my jab. He’s really good at that. It’s why he manages the band so well. “My point is, we both know Harley’s the most popular. He writes some of their songs and is the main focus in their videos, so out of all the boys, he’s the one they least want to come out because he’ll make them money long after Eleven splits. Which we know is inevitable.”
“The only reason Harley is the most popular is because he’s an attention whore. He wants to be the Justin Timberlake. The Robbie Williams. I’m surprised Harley and I even worked as a couple. Two egos as big as ours shouldn’t even be in the same room let alone share a life together.”
“I know when you’re using humor as a defense mechanism, hon.”
See, Luce gets me. Where Matt and all his friends are like big brothers to me, Luce is more like the father figure I never had, even if he’s only eleven years older than me.
“Damn you.”
“You love me.”
“I love Marty more.”
“Oh, you’re lucky he couldn’t come here to drag your ass back to the States. You know how blunt he can be.”
It’s true. He’s unapologetically blunt. Though, unlike me, most of the time, Marty doesn’t mean to be.
“I’m sorry I almost gave you a vacation and then took it away from you.”
“We still had a good break. Went home. Saw family. It was more than what we were supposed to get, so …” He shrugs. “But we do have to go back.”
“I know we do, but how’s this for an option? We don’t.”
“Hmm, decent idea, but I think I have a better one. We do.”
“But we could not.”
“Jay … you know what will happen if we don’t. We’ll be sued, your career will be over, and all that money you’ve earned these last few years? Bam, tied up in lawyer bullshit.”
“I don’t want to leave Fiji. I don’t want to leave …” I almost say Soren.
He makes me forget. He distracts me. Takes care of me. Doesn’t take my attitude.
“Don’t want to leave what? Or is it a who?” Luce asks.
The sound of someone coming up the steps of the hut has me lighting up. I already know it’s him without looking.
I turn, and he’s standing there, all tall and Soren-like. Soft features and strong body. Stubble because he hasn’t shaved since we got here.
“Hey,” he says through the screen door. “I’ll leave you to business, but I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
See—he takes care of me. Actually cares if I’m upset.
I try to hide the stress Luce showing up has caused. “I’m fine. Thank you. We, uh, you and I … we’ll have to talk and stuff—”
Soren puts up his hand. “It’s all good. Take your time.”
“I …” I glance at Luce and then back at Soren, and that must tip Luce off because he moves in behind me and whistles.
“Whoa. Yeah, I can see why you don’t want to leave.”
I elbow Luce in the gut. “Ignore Luce. He drinks.”
Both Luce and Soren laugh. They know I’m lying.
“I’ll swing by your hut in a bit.”
Soren nods and leaves.
“Damn, his ass is even better than his face,” Luce says, and I elbow him again, while I hear Soren chuckle on his way next door. “Quit it.” Luce rubs his stomach.
“You have a man. Leave that one alone.”
“Can I point out you’ve been mocking me for my age? That dude can’t be far off …”
“He’s still younger than you, gramps.” Even if it’s only by one year. I don’t say that though.
“Who
is he?” Luce asks.
“Who is he? Who do you think he is?”
Luce’s eyes widen. “He’s ‘Someone Else’s Perfect’ and ‘Hat Trick Heartbreak’?”
“Yup.”
“I’m screwed here. There’s no way you’re gonna come back on tour with that kind of baggage hanging around.”
“That kind of baggage is nothing. We’re just having fun. It’s not serious.” And maybe if I keep saying it out loud, the twenty-year-old romantic inside me will quit telling me it could be so much more.
“You wrote two songs about the guy. Two highly emotional songs. You haven’t written any about Harley.”
“That you know of.”
“Have you?”
“Well, no, but not for lack of inspiration. More like because I know the label will never go for ‘Romeo and Julien, locked in a cage. Ripped apart by fucking labels, watching me drown on stage.’”
“Okay, yeah, they’ll never go for that.”
“Exactly.”
We both stare at each other with the same question in our eyes. How am I going to handle seeing Harley again?
“Do you want to hire a bodyguard to babysit you so you don’t fall into Harley’s trap and keep letting him back into your bed?”
“I’m not that weak.” But even my protest sounds weak. I’d like to think now that everything has changed—Harley getting married, me and Soren … being me and Soren—that I wouldn’t fall into old patterns, but I know from experience how easy it is to fall when it comes to Harley.
“Jay …”
“Luce,” I mimic.
“All I’m saying is if the asshole is forcing you to go back, the least you can do is make sure he doesn’t get to use you anymore.”
“I know that’s what it looks like to you, but Harley and me … we’re not like that. What we had was real.”
“Yeah, really toxic. You couldn’t be together, but you still wouldn’t leave each other alone. You both need to move on.”
“That’s why I’m here. I want to move on, but how can I when he keeps dragging me back in?”
I can’t believe this is happening.
I’m going back.
I have to face Harley again.
