Exquisitely Hidden: A Sin City Tale

by M. Jay Granberry

  “Would you stop that?” She twines her fingers with mine, where they pull at my hair, and lowers our joined hands to the top of her belly.

  I let out a shaky breath. “How? Tell me how to let him go,” I say, searching her eyes for something, anything that will ease the emotion constricting my chest and burning the back of my throat.

  “I’m not the right person to ask,” she says quietly. “I tried for years to let Jake go, you know that.” She squeezes my hands meaningfully. “It was especially easy after he cheated because I didn’t have to acknowledge the role I played in the disintegration of our relationship. I got to put all the blame on him and walk away the heroine with my head held high. But it wasn’t just him. Now I can admit that I wasn’t the perfect partner. That . . .” She takes a deep, fortifying breath. Her slender fingers rub the back of her neck before she continues.

  “I always chose the band and the music over him. That I didn’t know. For him, together meant every day, face-to-face, in the same house, waking up together, going to bed together. And I didn’t need that. In my mind as long as I had him at the other end of a cell phone, I was fine. Being gone on a tour that was supposed to last six weeks but turned into months was awesome to me, but it fed into his insecurities.”

  The husky rasp that dwells in her tone becomes pronounced scraping over the syllables, grating over emotion.

  “But when we got back here, to Vegas, and I saw him again after four years, I was like, damn, he really is as fine as I remember. Whoa, damn, he’s a tomcat in the sack. Oh wow, we’re really doing this thing, I can’t do this. Not with him. What will people say? What will they think? But he kept coming. Jake was relentless.” She tosses her head back, laughing at the memory.

  He really was. I remember when we first left Vegas after the residency to go back on tour and Jake showed up in London, middle of the night, to convince Sin that they could have it all.

  “I needed that,” she says, the smile slipping from her sobering face. “I needed him to remind me that, although he’s my opposite, he’s my counterpart. He’s the element I need for life to make sense. And yeah, he fucked up but regardless of his fuckups, and his mom, and his very different upbringing, it was always him for me. Jake is the rhythm of our life; he holds it all up, carries the beat. I’m the melody that helps that beat make sense.”

  She pauses for a second to let that sink in. “But you gotta decide what works for you. If you want Seth, you have some hard decisions to make. What are you most afraid of?”

  Looking stupid. Being rejected. Losing my career.

  “Losing . . . everything.”

  The skin between her eyebrows crinkles in exasperation. “You wanna break that down for me? Everything like what?”

  “Dan . . . Miles . . . they . . .”

  She holds a palm to my face. “Boy, bye. They love you and could care less who you screw. Next.”

  “I don’t want to be the gay guy, you know? The one that people whisper about. The one that people stare at.”

  “People have always stared at you and whispered behind your back. How would this be any different?”

  “Because it’s never been about who I’m fucking. Because I promised myself when we left that goddamn house in the middle of the fucking sticks that I’d never put myself in another situation where I was weak or powerless,” I say thickly, voice straining around constricted vocal cords.

  I turn my face away from the compassion and understanding in her eyes. It’s too much. Those eyes know me and have no problem exposing the emotion bubbling just under the surface, primed to overflow.

  “Ah, sweetie, being in love doesn’t make you a victim. Those assholes who tried to destroy you, who wanted you weak and powerless, they didn’t win. Look at me, Adam.” She leans into me, wrapping her slender arms around my body, her pregnant belly pushing into my side. Her face is right in front of mine.

  “You survived,” she whispers. “Do you hear me? You’re not anyone’s victim. Not anymore. There are good people in this world, and you found one of them.”

  I finally look up and find her eyes brimmed with tears, one blink from rolling down her face. It’s only when she runs a thumb over my cheekbones, collecting the tears on my face, that I realize I’m crying too.

  Crying for the boy who I was and the man who I want to be. I’ve overcome the lack of food and money. I own a home and I no longer have to stand in line to receive handouts, but it all seems surreal. I feel like an imposter. Like at any moment the curtain will drop and everyone will see past the music, past the perfectly styled hair and carefully chosen clothes.

  They’ll see the boy who spent more time in foster care because his drug-addicted mother couldn’t stay clean. They’ll see the young man who was always on the run, always hiding to stay safe, to be cared for, to be loved. They’ll see a man broken, scared by an ugly past, and reticent to move into the future. They’ll see me.

  “Adam, Seth loves you,” she says just above a whisper. “If I were you, I wouldn’t let him go. I’d figure out how to get him to stay. What we know for sure is that coming out is a hard line for him. So, what are you going to do?”

  That’s the million-dollar question: what am I going to do? Maybe the better question is: what can I do? I know the night of the wedding meant just as much to him as it did to me. I felt it in every look we shared, every kiss that invaded my mouth and overtook my senses. It was clear in the tender hands that mapped my body, and the fingers that explored every crest and ridge, but I woke up alone, twisted in sheets that still smelled of his cologne, my body deliciously sore and depleted from his passion.

  There have been no calls, no text messages, no fire signals, no messenger pigeons. It’s been silence and distance and time where he can pretend I don’t exist.

  Separated, one miserable without the other, is the solution to him but it’s not for me. Not anymore.

  I’m that asshole who didn’t miss my water until the well ran dry and that drought was real. After not seeing him for a year, and finally getting the chance to be with him again, it was like his presence flooded over me. Drowning out the what-ifs and worry. I don’t want to go back to being nothing to him but to even have a shot I have to change my shit up.

  “I’m going to do it. Come out, I mean. But it’s gotta be big. A grand gesture.” And I think I have the perfect idea.

  I wrap an arm around Sin’s neck and pull her into a hug.

  “Have I ever told you that you’re a genius?” I smack a wet kiss on her cheek.

  “No, but you don’t have to, I already know.” She laughs.

  “Why couldn’t it have been us? We would’ve been perfect,” I say only half serious because in a parallel universe where we weren’t best friends, this connection we have could be the basis for something great. Hell, even in this reality it is the basis of something great. That I found her in this world is a miracle for which I will be forever grateful.

  “Did he just ask my pregnant wife ‘Why couldn’t it have been us?’?” Jake says from across the quiet room, making both Sin and I jump. We turn toward the sound of his voice and find him halfway across the room but closing in fast. His skin flushed in irritation. He strides until he’s standing in front of us.

  Sin looks up at him with big eyes filled with love, scoots her body back onto her own cushion, and holds out a hand to him. Their fingers twine as he slides on the cushion behind her, placing a kiss at her temple and resting his hands on her belly.

  “You look like you’ve been crying,” he says, concern tingeing his voice.

  “I was.” She shrugs. “Sometimes tears are necessary.”

  His lips twist in a disdainful smirk, and he shoots me a threatening gaze over her shoulder. I already know I’m going to get an earful.

  “Jake, stop glaring at Adam.”

  “You can’t see me, babe. How do you know I’m glaring?”

  She leans back into his chest, placing a hand over his on her stomach. “Because I know you.”r />
  “Plus, Sin isn’t exactly my type. Doesn’t have the necessary parts to keep me happy.” Where in the hell had that come from? It just kind of tumbled out of my mouth, but he doesn’t seem surprised. Why isn’t he surprised?

  “I don’t give a damn you like dick. What I care about is my pregnant wife, being up at”—he flips his wrist to see the face of his watch—“two in the morning, upset and crying.”

  I stare at him. “You knew? How?”

  “Does it matter?” he asks pointedly.

  “I . . . I guess it doesn’t. Then why all the hostility?” I search his hazel eyes, genuinely perplexed. Since the day we met there’s been tension, an underlying beef that’s never been squashed. We’ve learned to play nice over the last couple of years and tolerate each other, but the hostility is never far from the surface.

  “Because you had her first.” His words are soft, a hurled accusation landing at my feet. “Because the secrets I had to fight and earn, you were always privy to. She’ll stop the world for you. Turn it on its axis. Open our door in the middle of the night to talk you off the ledge and it stings. You have something with her I don’t and I hate it.”

  He doesn’t look away; his eyes hold mine, unflinching.

  “Jake,” Sin say delicately. Sitting up to maneuver her body around to bring them face-to-face. “What can you possibly think I have with Adam that I don’t have with you?”

  “You have the music. You create . . .”

  She places fingertips over his lips, stopping the flow of words. “Every melody, every lyric, is you,” she says meaningfully, leaning down to brush his with hers.

  “And what do you call this?” She drops a hand to her belly, patting gently. “If not creating together?”

  A smile tugs at the corners of his lips, and he splays his wide palm on her baby bump visible under the tank top. “We did that, huh?”

  “We so did that.” They kiss again; this time there is nothing sweet. It’s claiming and owning and way too much for me to be witnessing on the sofa right next to them. I clear my throat loudly, twice, before they pull away from each other.

  “Yeah, hi. Still here.”

  “Why?” Jake asks, irritation thinly veiled in one word and a smile.

  “Would you stop it?”

  “No.”

  He stands, pulling Sin to her feet. His hands slide up her arms and around the curve of her shoulders to grab her waist. “Bedtime, baby,” he says in a low, suggestive voice.

  “Don’t pick me up, Jacob.” She squeals. “I’m more than capable . . .” She gasps when his arms slide around her back to lift her up and, with an exasperated roll of her eyes, she wraps her arms around his neck, resting her head on his shoulder as he begins to walk toward their bedroom.

  “Adam?” she calls over his shoulder.

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t even think of leaving this house tonight.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’m serious. We’ll call the boys over in the morning and . . . you can . . . we can all talk if you want.”

  “Sounds like a plan. And Sin . . . ?”

  Jake stops walking at the sound of my voice suddenly tight with emotion. “Family . . .”

  “Ain’t never been blood.”

  Seth

  I roll over on the air mattress my new apartment. The shit is hell on my back and every morning I end up on the floor because the damn thing has deflated over the course of the night. I blink up at the dark ceiling, trying to force my brain to shut off and . . . Nope, not working.

  My phone illuminates the room, blue light almost blinding me in the dark. The vibration from the ring moves the phone in slow motion across the hardwood floor. I grab it and rub my eyes several times to make sure I’m seeing the name right.

  Sin? What is she doing calling me at . . . three in the morning? I tap on the green circle.

  “Hey, Sin. Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, but I just put a wasted Adam to bed in the guest room.” I can only imagine how that whole thing played out.

  “Jake must’ve loved that,” I deadpan.

  She chuckles. “He’ll get over it.”

  He will because he loves Sin, and Sin loves Adam. So, by default he inherited a brother whom he didn’t want and doesn’t like but has to tolerate. Jake still can’t comprehend that every male in the world doesn’t want Sin the same way he does. With her pregnancy he’s even more protective than normal. At the wedding he was hovering like a helicopter.

  “I shouldn’t have called.” She blows a breath into the phone. “Adam is going to be so pissed, but . . .” There is a long pause on the other end of the phone before she continues, “He told me everything.”

  Everything. That word is all encompassing yet so incredibly vague. Everything as in for six months we were hot and heavy? Or everything as in our relationship won’t work because I join him in the closet?

  “He did, huh?” I sit up on the mattress and then stand when the sides start to annoyingly curl around me. “That still doesn’t explain why you’re calling me.”

  “I’m calling because he’s my best friend, and because he’s miserable, and because he can’t or won’t call you himself. And . . .” I hear a deep inhale. “I think you might be miserable too.”

  Categorically fucking miserable. What’s it to you?

  “I know you mean well, but he’s a big boy. If he has something to say to me, let him do it himself. You can’t fix this.” I stalk out of the small master bedroom, moving through the darkness into the kitchen. I place a hand on the cool metal surface of the refrigerator handle and yank it open just because I need something to do with my hands.

  “Can you just stop for a minute?”

  “I’m trying to be respectful because I know your heart is in a good place, but this isn’t high school. I’m way too old to be getting a note from someone’s best friend that he likes me. So, you and me? We can’t have this conversation. Not now. Not ever.” I slam the refrigerator door with enough force that all the contents clatter in the door and extinguish the light, once again plunging me into darkness.

  “I get that he fucked up, Seth. I do,” she says in a rush. “I’m totally not blaming you for walking away. I know that I’m completely overstepping all the boundaries right now. But do me this favor. This is me asking. Not for Adam, but for me. When he comes to you, just hear him out.”

  “Sin . . .” I say with warning. Adam and I have an understanding, a tentative truce of sorts. I agreed not to be a needy bitch, begging for attention and time he’s unwilling or incapable of giving, and he agreed not to pursue me until he’s out of the closet and living life on his terms.

  Our agreement isn’t spoken. It’s not a contract. It’s an understanding between our minds and hearts and bodies. It’s as fragile as a single thread of spun sugar and only as strong as our willpower. When it comes to Adam, I have little. The wedding proved just how diminutive. One kiss, one kiss and the press of his body against mine was all it took for my resolve to crumble into unrecognizable pieces composed of pride, control, disgust, satisfaction, and a myriad of emotions that paled to him. I laid it all at his feet and for those hours I drifted on a cloud and touched the heavens.

  Adam and I in the same space for any amount of time is a taut wire primed to snap. It’s me, raw and at my most primitive. It taps into the part of my brain that craves the chase, the meeting of wills, and purrs like a motherfucking kitten at the idea of a man strong enough to conquer me.

  It’s for those reasons I all but fled the wedding. Looking at him in the light of day, emotions intensified, after the hours spent fucking . . . No, loving. What we did that night of the wedding was making love. We used our bodies to communicate the most elusive, most coveted human emotion. Without the self-imposed boundaries, the rules that have dictated our relationship since day one, we made it to that subterranean level of connection. That place where I don’t exist. Where I was him, and he was me, and we were a world in and of itsel
f.

  I love a hard fuck just like any man, but that? Allowing him to construct a home at the very heart of me, letting him hold and massage every dream I had, every hope I was too afraid to voice, every fantasy he helped make a reality took us to the realm of possibility, and I started to imagine the impossible. Sitting on the edge of that bed before I left, I wanted to give him my . . . everything.

  To let it all go.

  To tell him unequivocally I don’t care how dark the closet, how small the space, as long as there is us, in the dank, dark space together, it would be enough because he’s enough. The reality is . . . I’m claustrophobic, and that closet and those scraps he likes to dole out leave me a hollowed shell of a man.

  I left that hotel room with the intention of licking my wounds and gluing the broken pieces of my life back together. I was going to do the impossible. I was going to figure out how to get over Adam Beckham.

  Sounds simple enough, right?

  I thought so until I couldn’t stop him from crossing my mind every second of every day.

  It was everything from the mundane, like seeing a T-shirt with a picture of Ice Cube mean mugging that camera, the words TODAY WAS A GOOD DAY in bold red letters stamped across the back, and thinking, Adam would love that. It was as complicated as pulling out my phone and scrolling through the pictures we took on our way to Acapulco and being jealous of the two of us, heads close, grins wide. It was as primal as fisting my cock and jerking myself to completion to the memory of his tight ass.

  I have failed at getting over him. I guess that saying is true, the heart wants what it wants.

  Sin calling is a paddle to the chest and a shock to my heart. Asking it to give one more beat, one more try, one last-ditch effort at life.

  “Just listen to what he has to say . . . please,” she utters around a stifled yawn.

  Her demand is an overreaching request from an overly concerned friend. A friend who might have the best of intentions but can’t begin to process the personal cost of that request.