Homecoming Hearts Series Collection

by HJ Welch

  “I actually can’t believe you did all this in a month,” Bella said as she walked on Reyse’s other side. She was hand in hand with her new official boyfriend, Tony the tennis coach, who Reyse had to say he liked very much so far. “It’s incredible.”

  “Oh, I had a lot of help,” Reyse insisted, grinning at Kimmy. She was still acting like a big kid, skipping around looking at all the stalls still setting up.

  Kimmy’s people had reached out to him immediately after the botched interview, but Reyse hadn’t felt able to take the call until after he’d spoken with his family. Kimmy was distraught at what had gone down and was looking for any way to help make amends. When Reyse had suggested partnering up for the music festival, Kimmy had been beside herself with excitement. What was even better was her show had such pull at her network, her bosses had agreed to live-stream the main stage performances for them online, reaching audiences all around the world.

  “Ohh, look at all the little doll thingys,” Kimmy cried. “Oh, oh! And balloons! Ahh, who doesn’t love balloons? What’s that? Do those people just stand you in a booth and spray you with glitter?”

  Reyse looked to where she was pointing. “I think so,” he said. “Don’t worry, all the glitter here is eco-friendly.”

  “I love it!” Kimmy cried, punching the air.

  By the time they made their tour around the Coliseum, it was about time to open the doors and start letting the festivalgoers inside. The sounds of several bands doing sound checks drifted through the late summer’s day air. It was going to be a beautiful day.

  Reyse would have loved to have experienced the festival for himself, but that wasn’t possible. Still, he got to enjoy the VIP area behind the main stage where all the artists and other celebrities and patrons were invited to watch the various stages on projector screens. They also had their own bar and catering as well as trailers for changing and preparing things like hair and makeup.

  Reyse was kept company by Kimmy when she wasn’t doing any presenting work, as well as Bella and Tony. Reyse was deeply touched his mom and Aunt Evangeline (with Foofy, naturally) had come down to support him. Unfortunately, his dad wasn’t well enough for such an excursion, but Reyse knew this wasn’t his kind of deal anyway. It was sweet that he’d assured Reyse he was going to watch it on TV, though.

  Cautiously, they were starting to build up a bit of a relationship together. Reyse had made an effort to read up on the LA Rams and his dad had been surprisingly insightful in Reyse’s legal battle with Sun City Records. One of his ex-Army buddies had been a lawyer with the JAG corps, so hadn’t been able to help directly, but had come up with the names of several good firms, one of which Reyse had gone with.

  For a few hours, Reyse hung out with old friends from the music and entertainment industry, some of which he hadn’t seen for years thanks to his hectic schedule. He also did multiple interviews with various reporters and presenters from blogs, TV shows, YouTube, magazines and newspapers.

  He’d been very careful not to invite Dez Starr.

  But as the evening rolled in, a fizz of slight nerves began to build in his stomach. In some ways, this wasn’t any different to what he’d done literally thousands of times before.

  In other ways, he had never attempted anything like this in his whole life.

  He changed his mind on his outfit twice, fidgeted all the way through makeup, and had to be bullied by Bella into eating a taco. Reyse had been very careful to avoid any of the pizza trucks all day. Evangeline made him drink a Jägerbomb.

  Before he knew it, he was heading to backstage and being handed a microphone. It was so weird not having Kevin around, fretting over every last damn detail. As liberating as it was, it also made Reyse feel a little anxious. Had he forgotten something?

  He didn’t have anything to forget, aside from himself and the mic he was tossing from hand to hand as the current band finished up their performance. Glittergasm was a fierce pop-rock five-piece who had whipped the crowd into a frenzy with their energetic songs. The lead singer, Pearl, was a petite young woman with violet hair dressed like an anime character who simply exuded charisma. Reyse was able to relax a fraction as he watched them perform their last song, the enormous crowd singing along to every word of their biggest hit.

  Reyse chewed his thumb. For the millionth time over the past month he wondered if this was a bad idea. Not that there was any chance to back out now, but he still fretted. Was this going to cause more trouble than it was worth?

  Making a snap decision, he vowed that was going to be the last time he considered jumping through hoops for other people. That was what had gotten him into so many problems in the first place. He wouldn’t be fighting with Sun City for the rights to his own damn back catalog if he’d demanded to be allowed to come out in the first place.

  He wouldn’t have lost Corey if he hadn’t been forced to pretend he was straight.

  But then…he would never have met Corey. If Reyse’s past had been so different, their paths would never have crossed. He couldn’t stand there and wish for a different life. He had to take control of his future and make it what he wanted. No more jumping through hoops.

  The crowd cheered their hearts out as Glittergasm wrapped up their last song and took their bows. Pearl and the girl playing bass walked off the stage hand in hand. Reyse remembered reading somewhere that they were a couple. Pearl stopped in front of Reyse as the crew raced out of the wings to clear the stage.

  “We haven’t met,” Pearl told him.

  She sounded remarkably calm considering she had just done an hour-long, full-on set. Her glittery, shiny makeup still looked remarkably good, too. Reyse was impressed.

  Pearl let go of her girlfriend and offered her hand out to Reyse to shake, which he did despite his nerves making him a little clammy. “That was amazing. You guys killed it,” he said.

  “Yes, thank you,” Pearl said, nodding and looking out over where the crew was working as fast as they could. Glittergasm’s drummer was hovering anxiously, presumably making sure they treated his kit with care.

  Reyse smiled. He’d expected modesty. People liked to tell him they were terrible in comparison to him or get all shy. Pearl’s confidence was refreshing.

  “I’m glad you put this festival together,” she told Reyse, drinking from a bottle of water her girlfriend had fetched for her. The two girls leaned naturally into each other as Pearl spoke to Reyse. It made his heart ache a little. They made a cute couple. “I’m sorry you were forced to come out, but I think it will be good for you in the end. Are you nervous about going out there?”

  She jutted her chin out toward the crowd. There were no more performances scheduled for the rest of the evening on any of the other stages. So pretty much the entire festival was cramming in front of the main stage and the massive screens set up halfway down the field.

  Reyse rolled his mic between his hands. “Uh,” he said. This wasn’t the biggest crowd he’d faced. But it was his first time performing as an openly gay man.

  What if they turned on him?

  “Oh, you are nervous,” Pearl said, raising her eyebrows. “Don’t be. You’re phenomenally talented. Everyone here loves you. Here”- she thrust her water bottle into his free hand -“rehydrate. I’ll get another one. Good luck.”

  Reyse blinked as she threw her arms around him, kissed his cheek and patted his arm.

  “Bye,” Pearl’s girlfriend said with a wave and a sweet smile before they melted into the hustle and bustle of the backstage madness.

  Reyse took a long breath in then slowly released it. He followed Pearl’s advice and sipped his water. He didn’t want to get bloated or have to find a bathroom before going on stage, but he didn’t want to get a headache either.

  The changeover didn’t take all that long. The set had been the same for all the artists all day: two raised circular stages either side of the main stage, a catwalk out into the crowd in the middle, and a white backdrop behind the band. But the instruments had been cle
ared, leaving the stage relatively empty.

  Reyse could go out there now, but he wasn’t scheduled for another fifteen minutes. So he just ran over what was going to happen in his mind, visualizing it again and again, attaining that Zen-like state he preferred for performances. By the time the clock ticked around to seven, he felt like he was almost floating, like the good kind of tipsy where you’re slightly out of your own body but still in control.

  This was where he lived. This was the thing that Sun City couldn’t take away from him. For all his doubt and regrets and anxieties, it was in this state he was finally able to admit the truth to himself.

  There was only one Reyse Hickson in the world.

  He could do this.

  They hadn’t used the hidden entrance in the floor all day. So when it was time Reyse jogged under the stage and stood on the platform that would rise up once the trapdoor had slid to the side. He gripped the safety rail with one hand and the microphone with the other. People all around him patted his shoulders and told him ‘good luck,’ ‘you’ve got this,’ ‘break a leg.’ He had sort of expected his mom and Evangeline to be there, but they must have been elsewhere. Reyse’s mom had never seen him perform live at a gig of this magnitude before. It was childish, but he’d been really looking forward to her watching from the wings. Hopefully she was close by. At least Kimmy and Bella were there to see him off.

  Reyse could tell when the lights changed as the crowd started going nuts before his head even rose above stage level. Background intro music thrummed dramatically, like a heartbeat in a storm.

  “Good evening, Los Angeles!” he bellowed as soon as the platform became flush with the stage floor. The roar of the crowd would have been deafening if Reyse didn’t have his earbuds in, feeding him the output from the speakers so he got all the levels evenly. He grinned, adrenaline pumping through his body as he stepped forward. He could see the people nearest the front of the sixty-thousand-strong crowd jumping, clapping, punching the air and crying. They were covered in glitter and rainbows and were waving flags from all corners of the LGBT spectrum. It was one of the most joyous sights Reyse had ever seen. “How are you doing tonight?”

  Their collective screams and whoops made him laugh.

  “I gotta say,” he told them, stopping front and center, “this has probably been one of the best days of my life. This festival happened so fast, I had no idea we would be able to pull together so many LGBT and allied acts together. I had no idea the tickets would sell out at lightning speed. I think it shows what our community can do when we put our minds to it.”

  The screaming was becoming fever pitched. Reyse looked out at the crowd – really looked. There were people of all ages and colors, parents with kids on their shoulders, butch lesbians, sparkly twinks and leather daddies. This wasn’t his regular crowd. These people weren’t here for him and his music like a normal concert. They were here for each other.

  “None of this would have happened without you awesome people and your support,” Reyse cried, throwing his free hand out at the sea of people before him. “I wanna hear you scream for each other! I want you to make some noise for all our amazing artists and vendors and sponsors and the charities that work so hard for our community in this beautiful city. I want you to yell and cheer and stamp your feet for all our LGBT family across the world in spirit here with us today!”

  The wall of sound was overwhelming. Reyse resisted the urge to step back as he looked over the excited, happy faces stretching out into the distance.

  The sun was setting in a glorious blaze of oranges and purples and pinks and reds, reminding Reyse of the final night he and Corey had spent together. In a strange way, it was like Corey was there, right by his side. Reyse smiled, blinking back tears.

  Maybe Corey would see this night on his TV and feel through the screen how much Reyse desperately missed him. Reyse didn’t want to mention him by name, but he thought maybe he’d tell the world that he loved that man from those photos. Evangeline was determined that the universe would bring Corey back to Reyse, but Reyse didn’t see the harm in maybe giving the universe a helping hand.

  “You guys,” Reyse said with a grin. He shook his head as the heartbeat music continued. “I love you.” A chorus of ‘we love you too, Reyse!’ boomed back at him. “Well, I guess you might have heard, I’m in a bit of trouble right now with a certain record label we won’t mention by name.”

  The boos made him chuckle. Yeah, Sun City deserved that. He would have felt bad for any artists still stuck with them, but he’d offered to take on anyone who jumped ship for Reyse’s label, no questions asked. He wouldn’t make anyone come out if they didn’t want to as much as he wouldn’t force anyone to stay in the closest like he’d had to. But queer or straight, Reyse would take any refugees from Sun City. So he felt okay dragging them as much as his lawyers had told him he could.

  “Yeah,” he agreed, nodding and walking a few paces to the left of the stage. “They did a bad thing, for sure. But so did I.” He continued before they could protest too much. “No, I shouldn’t have let them bully me. I should have stood up for myself. Because I know there’s nothing wrong with being gay or trans, right?” The crowd cheered again. “I also know there are people all over this country – the world – kids in particular who need people to be brave and say ‘screw you, this is me!’ Because I also know that LGBT values are family values. When it comes down to it, all of us deserve to love, to be loved, and to be free.”

  He gave them a second to cheer while he walked back to the center of the stage, warmth filling his heart to hear people agreeing so wholeheartedly with his words.

  “But I’m here today, I’m free and I’m feeling pretty loved,” he said with a smile. “And I’ve got so much love for you guys. I’m so lucky to have, like, the best people in my life, you know? A lot of them are here today. Let’s give them a cheer as well.”

  The crowd obediently did, but he could tell it was fractionally less enthusiastic than before. Time to move things along.

  “So, I bet you guys are wondering what the hell I’m going to do today if all my music is tied up in legal battles, right?” Again, the mass of people booed and Reyse grinned in appreciation. His heart rate was picking up in anticipation too. He licked his lips. “Yeah, it’s a bummer,” he said with a chuckle. “I’m not allowed to sing any of my songs.” He snapped his fingers and frowned. “If only I knew some people who could sing them. Oh…wait…”

  That was the cue.

  He could tell when the lighting changed because there was a sudden, deafening boom that echoed across the park. It took the audience about half a second to work out what was going on before the hysterical, frenzied screaming started.

  Because the white wall at the back of the stage wasn’t a wall at all. It was a screen. And right now, Reyse knew without looking behind him there were silhouettes of four guys being projected against that screen.

  The first notes of Hearts Bound came through the sound system and the crowd got impossibly louder. Reyse fought the tears in his eyes as he heard the screen being pulled up, the crowd losing their minds when, for the first time in almost four years, the four men stepped forward, joining Reyse in the center of the stage.

  Below Zero finally stood together once again.

  29

  Reyse

  Four years. And Reyse didn’t just mean on stage. He hadn’t even stood in the same room as all these incredible men since Sun City had dumped Below Zero. It seemed right that this should be their big reunion.

  The song had a few bars of introduction, so Reyse took a second to look to his left and right, taking in his brothers. They all looked just as fucking stoked as he was.

  Blake rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck. Joey grinned like a maniac and danced on his toes. Raiden opened out his arms, egging the crowd on. TJ saluted to the rest of the band, then bowed to the audience.

  Reyse wasn’t sure how this was going to go. They had only managed a few rehearsals over
video conference calls. But there was a reason they’d been bound together all those years ago. As soon as they were all back on stage, the chemistry was undeniable.

  Reyse deliberately stooped down and placed his mic in the box that had been left in front of one of the speakers for him, then waved his hands at the audience to show they were empty. Yes, he couldn’t perform any songs still technically owned by Sun City. But hell would have to freeze over before he could stop himself singing along with the guys. He would just be doing it for himself, with no mic to capture him. The other guys had split his solos between them. But Below Zero was one hundred percent singing together today.

  “Hey, girl,” the first line began with some simple choreography. “You know what’s on my mind. Hey boy,” they sang and the crowd gave them an extra loud cheer for changing ‘girl’ to ‘boy.’ All the guys had agreed that it was important to make their lyrics more inclusive if they were taking them back from Sun City anyway. “It’s just a matter of time.”

  “It’s the – the way that you look, and the – the way that you touch. You’ve got me falling. It’s the – the way that you smile, and the – the way that you love. It’s our calling. Ohhhhh!”

  “Come on, LA!” Joey yelled at the top of his lungs. The guys all had their mics on headsets, so he held his hands up to his ears. “Let me hear you sing!”

  “Heartbeat. Time’s stopped,” the park sang along with Reyse and the guys. “Take heed. My love. Endless looooove, underground! In our truuuuuth, hearts bound! Oh oh oohh!”

  They’d stuck with the choreography they’d done for this song almost since its release. So it was easy for Reyse and the guys to bust it out for the crowd, despite not having blocked it for this show, or any show in the last four years.