Homecoming Hearts Series Collection

by HJ Welch

  Elion scoffed. “I know who Joey Sullivan is,” he said, like he hadn’t obsessively been Googling the band since he’d bumped into Blake last week.

  That brought back a small smile. Blake nodded, sipping his coffee. “We were buddies. I bet you two would get on, actually.”

  He said it with a hint of wistfulness. But of course Elion had to spoil the moment. “Yeah,” he said, unable to help the irony that slipped out. “Because we’re both gay, right?”

  Blake arched an eyebrow at him. “No,” he said firmly. “Just because he’s gay doesn’t mean you’re his type.”

  Elion pretended to prickle, brushing imaginary dust off his shoulder. “How do you know I’m not his type?”

  Blake leaned in closer. There was a sparkle in his eye Elion hadn’t seen before. “Because he likes adults. Grown men.”

  “Hey!” said Elion. “I’m an adult. I have a job, and a car. Sometimes there’s even gas in it!”

  Blake continued to laugh. It was a quiet rumble, but the more he did it, the more his body loosened up. It was addictive to watch.

  “Okay, alright,” he said. “Seriously though. He’s really passionate, never does things by halves. Full of life.”

  He held Elion’s gaze for a second, then looked down with a frown as he swirled what was left of his coffee.

  In an attempt to gloss over the strange moment, Elion held his wrist out, showing Blake his tattoo. “Carpe Diem,” he said. “Seize the day. I know it’s cheesy, but, yeah. Life is for living. I think Joey and I can agree on that.”

  Blake put his coffee cup down and lightly touched Elion’s wrist, turning it over to get a better look at the tattoo. His fingertips were warm from where he’d been holding the cup. Elion did his best not to shiver.

  “Good philosophy,” Blake murmured.

  He let go of Elion, returning his hand to him, and Elion immediately felt the loss.

  “I think I could learn to embrace the day a bit more.” Blake scrubbed his face. “Be more grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given.”

  Elion wasn’t sure what to say to that. The worry lines were back on Blake’s forehead. “Yeah, but you’ve got to look after you too, right?”

  Blake smiled. There was no dimple. “Thanks so much for the coffee. It was really nice to see you again.”

  That sounded an awful lot like he was leaving. Elion panicked. “Oh, hey, any time. Seriously, if there’s anyone who knows how it is to feel out of place around here, it’s me. We should, you know, do it again sometime?”

  Like that would actually happen. But Blake’s face lit up. “Um, sure. If you’re sure?”

  Elion waved his hand around at the shop. “I think I can fit you in to my hectic schedule,” he said dryly. “Here, let you give you my number.”

  Relieved, Blake went to reach for his phone. But before he could, Elion mirrored his action from earlier and grabbed his wrist. He pushed the sweatshirt sleeve up, then nabbed a pen from his pocket.

  “Um, what are you doing?” Blake asked. At least he sounded amused.

  Elion waggled his eyebrows at him as he started scrawling the cell number up his arm in black marker. “This way you won’t forget,” he said with a wink. “When you’re cursing my name later, scrubbing this off, you’ll remember to send me a selfie.”

  So much for not flirting. But for real, how many opportunities was he ever going to get to make friends with a popstar? And Blake didn’t seem to mind. He was grinning and shaking his head as Elion finished up the last digit.

  “Fine. But I’m getting you back for this.” He held up his graffitied arm, then rolled the sleeve back down. “People are going to think I got attacked by a rabid fan.”

  Elion patted him on the knee. “You can assure them that I have much better taste in music than that.”

  Blake smacked him off with a laugh then rose to his feet. “Catch you later, man.”

  Elion tried not to stare after him as he walked out. The way his jeans clung to his toned thighs and ass, though, made it difficult. Especially when he stopped for a little girl who ran up to him to ask for an autograph. The way he smiled down at her and then crouched so she could clumsily take a selfie with him was downright adorable.

  Once Blake was finally out the door and had vanished from sight, Elion lingered a moment and finished his tea. He wanted to tell himself that Blake wouldn’t text. He was a boy, after all. But the way he’d lit up at the suggestion of taking Elion’s number gave him a bit of hope.

  Maybe he really did want to be friends with a small town nobody like him? Stranger things had happened. He’d come back for that coffee, after all.

  “You owe me eleven bucks,” said Devon as he returned to behind the counter.

  “Jesus, this place is such a rip-off,” Elion grumbled. He added it to Devon’s running tally she kept on a notepad by the sugar, then looked up to find the owner Lily glaring at him. Some of her greying hair had escaped its bun and was hovering around her head like a static cloud. “I mean, check out all the quality, organic produce!” Elion tried to cover.

  She narrowed her eyes at him, then shuffled away to rearrange the sandwich display counter.

  “Hey there,” said the next customer in line cheerfully.

  He was a small guy in his early thirties with dark hair. He looked to be with the big black guy next to him. The taller dude was staring intently at the phone in front of his face as his thumbs twitched over the screen. The smaller guy’s eyebrows were raised and he looked excited.

  “Was that Blake from Below Zero?”

  Elion shrugged. “Yeah, it was.” He didn’t particularly want to talk about Blake with a stranger. That felt like going behind his back, gossiping. But he couldn’t really lie when the guy had obviously seen for himself.

  “Wow, that’s awesome,” he said, rubbing his chin. “Oh, we’ll take a couple of flat whites to go.” Elion nodded and grabbed the cups. “So, do you guys like, know each other?”

  Elion flicked his eyes over the small guy. It seemed a bit unusual that he’d be a Below Zero fan, but then, some people were just celebrity obsessed. Elion was one to talk though. He was only interested because he thought Blake was sweet and hotter than hell. Maybe this dude had his own crush?

  That made Elion more sympathetic. “Yeah, kind of,” he admitted. He didn’t know anything incriminating enough to let anything slip anyway. “We went to high school together.”

  “Perryville High?” the guy asked. “That enormous place that looks like a prison?”

  Elion chuckled. He must not be local. “Most schools in Ohio look like prisons. But, yeah. We were just catching up.”

  The guy leaned in. His friend was still totally wrapped up with his phone. Elion guessed he must have been playing Candy Crush or something. The level of concentration and the fact it was right in front of his face suggested he was defending a high score.

  The smaller guy looked around, but there weren’t any other patrons hovering at just that moment. “So, are you two, like, together?”

  Elion couldn’t help but laugh. At least the guy didn’t sound totally disgusted at suggesting such a thing. It added to Elion’s crush theory.

  “Uh, no, he’s not my boyfriend,” he said quickly. He knew he was probably smiling a bit too much, still dizzy from his and Blake’s chat before. He tried to tone it down. “He’s just getting settled back in town, you know?”

  The guy looked thoughtfully towards the door. “Is he cool in real life? Or is he one of those guys who turns into a jerk when the cameras are off?”

  “Oh no,” said Elion hastily. “Nothing like that.”

  He slammed the coffees down with a bit too much force. After causing Blake grief the last time he came in with fans, Elion would hate to let this guy leave with a bad impression. Just in case he said unflattering things to other people.

  “Yeah, he’s a really great guy, totally genuine.” He carefully mopped up the coffee he’d spilled. “I’m so glad we had a chance to rec
onnect.”

  The smaller guy nodded. “Good to hear. It sucks when people turn out to be douchebags, you know?”

  “Oh, completely,” Elion agreed. He pressed lids onto the coffee cups and eased them over to the other side of the counter. “There you go, sir. That’ll be nine-fifty.”

  “Thank you,” said the guy with a smile. He paid with his card and dropped some change in the tip jar. “You have a great day now.”

  “You too,” Elion responded automatically.

  The guy took the drinks off the counter and headed towards the door, the bigger guy following, still glued to his phone.

  Elion shook his head. “It must be nuts being famous. Having people talk about you like that. Don’t know how Blake copes with it.” Devon smirked at him. “What?” he asked with a scowl.

  “Nothing,” she said. “I’m just sure you’ll find out soon enough.”

  Elion huffed and went to go bus tables. That was nonsense. He’d be lucky if he ever spoke to Blake again. Sure, he was here for now. But he was made for bigger things in this world than Perryville. That was partly why Elion had felt confident enough to give him his number. It wasn’t like it was going to lead to anything. But the thrill of being so bold still had his whole body tingling.

  Exciting things very rarely happened to him. So he wasn’t going to overthink it. He was just going to enjoy it while it lasted.

  7

  Blake

  The first hint Blake knew something was wrong – really wrong – was the shriek that resounded through the house on Thursday evening.

  His mom was having a screening party as the first episode of Feet of Flames went live. Several women in their forties had invaded the house a couple of hours ago and had been getting progressively tipsy since. Blake had had neither the desire to watch the car crash of a show, nor to be groped by unhappily married middle aged women. So he had kept, far, far away.

  He honestly had no idea what the actual quality of the show would be. He knew it would be a disaster for him personally, because he’d never wanted it to be made in the first place. Also, he hated reality TV with a passion. Nothing about it was real.

  Given that he knew that, he probably should have been more prepared.

  “BLAKE!” his mom’s hysterical cry resonated against the walls.

  He knew better than to keep her waiting. “Coming!” he bellowed back. He rolled off his bed and jogged down the stairs towards the den with an increasing sense of dread.

  A rapid re-evaluation of everything they’d filmed that week gave him no clue as to what he should have be worried about. Episode one had been all about the auditions and who had made it through. He’d dutifully done his talking heads and basically said what Kala had told him to about each of the kids.

  The only time he knew he’d messed up was storming off during the casting session. But even then, when he’d sheepishly returned after seeing Elion, he found out his tantrum had apparently given them a nice storyline.

  Kala had met him on his return. She had calmly informed him that walking off set still wearing his microphone was technically invalidating the insurance. However, the footage of his mom’s hissy fit about it afterwards had apparently been gold. So she didn’t seem to really mind.

  For a second Blake had panicked about being accidentally wired for sound while going to see Elion. That was definitely nobody’s business except his. But there had to be a receiver in range for them to pick anything up, so he figured it was fine.

  It had to be the hissy fit his mom was pissed at. She was most likely furious that he’d made her look ugly, or something. This was ridiculous though. He wasn’t going to slink into his own living room like a scolded child. He was an adult. Resolutely, he gritted his teeth and straightened his spine.

  “Mom, is everything okay?”

  He walked into the spacious den. The room was dominated by the enormous custom-made couch that lined three sides of the square well in the center of the room. On the fourth side hung a TV on the wall so large it essentially turned the space into a movie theater. His face was paused awkwardly on the screen.

  He cringed and turned his gaze away from it to focus on his mom. She was dressed in three-hundred-dollar skinny jeans and a bedazzled tank that read ‘Princess’ across her pushed-up boobs. In one hand, she sloshed a crystal goblet of rosé wine. In the other, she wielded the TV remote like a weapon.

  The pink spots on her cheeks told him how much trouble he was in. If any blemishes could make it through the layers of foundation she wore, things were biblically bad.

  Of course the film crew was there, led by Kala and the big guy Marcus. All of Blake’s mom’s friends were ridiculously attired for sitting around watching TV. Some of them were even in cocktails dresses. They were obviously all hoping to appear on next week’s episode.

  For some reason Seth was standing in front of the camera. For a guy with such small stature, he still managed to radiate an air of authority. It was something about the way he positioned himself with his arms folded and head high in the face of Blake’s mom’s undeniable wrath.

  “Somebody,” she seethed, flinging her hand with the remote towards the TV. “Needs to explain this. Now!”

  She pressed play.

  Unfortunately, Blake had to stand and watch the tail end of his part around the casting table. There was a small bit of him that was proud of the way he’d stood up to his mom and Seth. But they cut it to make it look like he’d stormed out over Tyler, the other dancer they’d accepted on the elite team. Not Mercy the average, overweight dancer. Sure enough, the show then cut to Nessa talking about how Blake needed to get over his insecurities.

  He ground his teeth together. It was obvious by his mom’s expression they hadn’t got to what had upset her yet. Even when they showed her shrieking about him up and leaving when he had a job to do.

  The next shot threw Blake completely. Someone had evidently captured his exit from the house and even storming down the road. How had he not noticed that? How far could these camera lenses zoom?

  But then it just kept getting worse.

  “So, I was out in town with my girlfriends,” a new talking head chirped.

  That was Karyn. The protégé dancer who Nessa had marked out as trouble. The tween had come across as shy and reserved when Blake had watched her audition. Like she wouldn’t say boo to a goose. But now she was doing her segment like a pro.

  They interviewed everyone in different places for their talking heads. He recognized where she sat as one of the corners of the dance studio, although they’d moved a houseplant around. She was looking at whichever producer was to the right of the shot like they’d all been told to do. Her makeup was heaped on way more than any thirteen-year-old should have, and a smirk was on her lips that Blake found alarming.

  Then the shot cut to the exterior of the Cool Beans Coffee House.

  Icy coldness washed over Blake’s entire body and he swore his heart stuttered its next beat. It wasn’t like he had anything to hide, he quickly assured himself. But still, what the fuck were they doing there? He’d gone there specifically to see Elion and escape this shit!

  “I wasn’t that surprised to see Blake show up,” Karyn carried on. The picture showed her and a couple of other Barbie-like tweens all perched on a squishy armchair together. They were slurping smoothies in a picture of teenage innocence. “He comes here all the time.”

  “That was the second time I’d been there,” he couldn’t help but protest out loud.

  Several scandalized voices shushed him.

  Then Elion’s face appeared. Blake wanted to cry out ‘What the fuck?’ but his throat clamped up.

  There was a shot of Elion smiling from behind the counter, a reaction from Karyn and her pals, some cut-aways of coffee being made, then…

  Then someone had filmed Blake and Elion sat together around the small table. Except the very first shot was of Elion’s hand on Blake’s knee. “I didn’t think you’d come back,” he said while the i
mage lingered on their touching. Blake shook his head in horror, that wasn’t how it had happened, was it?

  Elion hadn’t been wearing a mic, obviously, but the sound had been captured via Blake’s and they had subtitled his murmured words for the show. The picture cut back to Karyn and the girls craning their necks to ‘look’ at them, but they hadn’t been there! Blake was absolutely certain. The crew must have gone back and filmed the girls another day.

  But the way it was edited made it looked seamless. “It’s so great to see them together again,” said Karyn’s talking head dreamily. She clutched her hands to her chest, then the shot went back to her ‘watching’ Blake and Elion.

  There was a second of them smiling, then it cut to a wide shot of the coffee shop. It was just long enough to make it appear like they were gazing longingly at each other. Another shot of Karyn, then Blake and Elion laughing as Blake batted Elion’s hand away from his knee.

  They unmistakably looked like a couple.

  Blake was stunned speechless. This was a total fabrication.

  “Did you miss me?” Elion asked.

  The words didn’t sound natural, but maybe because that was because Blake knew Elion hadn’t said that. They were barely friends, for fuck’s sake! The camera was focused on Blake smiling though, and the subtitles made it come across more like a real sentence. What had they done? Picked out words from the rest of the conversation and strung them together?

  The Blake on screen nodded, Karyn and her buddies swooned, then the shot cut back to Elion writing his number up Blake’s arm in the marker.

  It had taken him twenty minutes to scrub that thing off. He’d sort of loved it in a strange way, laughing as he’d texted with Elion throughout the ordeal. That was the only time they had spoken since the coffee house, but it had been fun.

  The actual number had been blurred out during editing, but Karyn’s talking head was there to explain everything to the audience. “Elion wanted to make sure Blake didn’t lose his number this time,” she said with a big wink.