Star Bright

by Shelly Greene

  Before Julian could react, Rafi dragged him out of the path of the light, perhaps-unconsciously pulling him tight to his chest.

  “Hey, maybe they squeezed through here?”

  The flashlight beam swung around to a missing plank in the fence blocking off the alley. “Gault, maybe, but the other guy?”

  “Yeah, you’re right, that woolly mammoth’s not getting through anything smaller than a garage door.”

  Woolly mammoth. Julian was shaking against Rafi’s chest, laughter leaking out in tiny silent gasps. The fire escape rattled, right on the edge of audibility.

  “Shhh!”

  “Woolly…mammoth…”

  “Shhh!”

  “They must have gone the other way,” said one of the exasperated paps, and they ran out of the alley.

  With an amount of reluctance he didn’t want to examine, Julian tore away from Rafi’s chest and swarmed past him up the rest of the fire escape.

  “Julian? They’ve gone away, why are you still…” Rafi followed him onto the roof, where they could see the paparazzi’s flashlight beam bouncing around just below them.

  Julian had been hunted by paps many and many a time, dodging and ducking, frantic to escape. This time he’d be the one leading the chase. It would end when and where he chose.

  “That wasn’t much of a game,” Julian said, and picked up an empty paint can.

  “Julian—”

  And dropped it over the side, where it landed with a catastrophic shock of noise.

  Paparazzi jumped, swore, clutched their chests; one fell on his butt. Then pointed up at them.

  “Look! They’re on the roof!”

  They ran.

  * * * *

  They kept to the rooftops, leaping across multi-story chasms that made Rafi’s heart stutter. Their pursuers kept pace from the street but never had enough time to climb up after them. Julian, still in the grip of whatever charmingly insane mood he was experiencing tonight, exchanged taunts and obscene gestures with them, even posing for a photograph against the white wall of a rooftop shed, before apparently making up his mind to lose them in earnest. Rafi’s hat flew off somewhere along the way, which Julian was definitely going to pay to replace. He was tempted to throw the man over his shoulder and haul him back to the car. Did Julian have a destination in mind? Did he even know where they were? Rafi didn’t.

  “I think we’ve shaken them off,” Julian said at last.

  Rafi shook his head. “Not for long. They’re right down there.”

  “Ah?” Julian narrowed his eyes, then led the way down another fire escape to the ground and opened a side door. “Time for a change of venue, then.”

  “Here? What is this…place…”

  It was a strip club, and not an upscale one. Beneath the dim purple light, everything was dingy and battered, and no one seemed to have been watching the door where they came in. The crowd was thick and loud, though, so the place had to be doing something right. The music was terrible, in Rafi’s professional opinion, but the girls on the stages and tables were giving it their all, and a fine job they were doing of it.

  “Let’s find a seat.” Julian had to half-shout over the music, yet he still sounded as casual and unconcerned as if they had stepped into his grandmother’s parlor. He grabbed Rafi’s hand and pulled him through the crowd toward one of the few empty booths.

  Rafi glanced behind them, and saw the side door open, their pursuers’ heads poking in.

  “Julian,” he called, and pointed.

  Julian slapped Rafi’s hand down with a hiss, then shoved him into the nearest empty seat and climbed into his lap.

  Rafi could do nothing but stare as Julian whipped off his jacket and shirt, leaving only the scarf to obscure the obvious difference between himself and the other dancers. The movement dislodged his hair from its precarious bun, and he pulled it up over his head to waterfall back through his fingers.

  Rafi had the dim idea of asking what was going on, but words had deserted him.

  Julian had already found the beat of the music—music that seemed a lot less terrible with Julian dancing to it. The sway of his hips worked its way through his whole body, slow and graceful, reminding Rafi of a mermaid somehow. The little braid and its crystal swayed too, twinkling in the lurid light, completely arresting for reasons Rafi couldn’t articulate.

  Julian closed his eyes, lost in the music, his hands drifting along Rafi’s chest, arms, the sides of his face. Every bit of Rafi’s skin was alive and tingling and he knew he probably looked like he’d been whacked with a two-by-four. His hands slid up Julian’s thighs to his waist—

  And Julian slapped them away, pinning them to the seat on either side. “Don’t touch me,” he said in a voice like the crack of a whip, his eyes open now and locked with Rafi’s.

  Rafi swallowed. “Okay,” he managed, barely breathing.

  Slowly, Julian trailed his fingers back up Rafi’s arms, watching him mistrustfully. Rafi was tempted to move his hands, just so Julian would pin them down again—but Julian didn’t look to be joking about this. He kept his hands down.

  Julian leaned in closer, still watching Rafi’s eyes, and wrapped his arms around Rafi’s neck. Rafi could feel Julian’s breath on his face, and then Julian slid upward, his throat and collarbone a mesmerizing expanse of creamy skin scant inches away, ready to be kissed or bitten—

  “They’re gone,” Julian said, coming down again to rest his weight on Rafi’s thighs, which were happy to take it.

  “Who?” Rafi said, before remembering—the paparazzi.

  Julian shot him an exasperated look, crystal swinging. “Try to think with your big head, Rafi.”

  “You’ll have to be more specific,” Rafi said with a crooked smile.

  Julian rolled his eyes and pulled him to his feet. Around them, several club attendees were staring; Julian paid them no attention whatsoever as he put his jacket back on over his bare chest.

  “Say, can I get one of those dances?” a nearby man called.

  “You can’t afford me,” Julian replied, and moved—flounced, Rafi could definitely call it a flounce—toward the front door of the club.

  Outside, they took perhaps twenty photographer-free steps in the direction of the diner and Rafi’s car, before the rain began.

  * * * *

  “My place is closest,” Rafi said as the doors of the SUV closed between them and the rain. Julian in the passenger seat, wet hands struggling with the seatbelt, was as water-sleek as a seal. Rafi didn’t figure it looked as good on him. He dashed water-logged curls out of his eyes and cranked the car.

  “Your place, then,” Julian said, flinching and turning off the air conditioner that had switched on with the engine. “Before we both die of pneumonia.”

  It was a silent drive; conversation would have taken too much effort, over the pounding rain, and Julian’s earlier high spirits seemed to have been, well, dampened. Rafi had had worse silences, though. This one didn’t teem with words and the debate over whether to say them; it just sat quietly in the car with them, catching its breath.

  The silence broke when they stepped out of the elevator into Rafi’s condo.

  “This is nice,” was the only thing Julian said, but he was looking around the place like Dorothy stepping into Oz.

  The walls were almost entirely glass, dark now and covered in rain, but Rafi could still see city lights through the waves and ripples. Turning on the overhead lights would destroy that, blocking the view with their own reflections, but there was enough ambient light coming in from the bedroom to make out the rest of the room; square white couches, hard-angled steel lamps, glass tables, the metal joists that divided the glass walls like frames.

  “I like it,” Julian said, “a lot. It’s very…clean.”

  “It has to be,” Rafi said, moving off toward the bedroom. “The slightest bit of clutter throws off the whole aesthetic. That’s probably good for me.”

  “Forces you to clean up after yourself?�
��

  “Forces me to hire a cleaning service,” Rafi said with a grin. “The shower’s this way. You can go first.”

  “That wall isn’t glass, I hope.”

  “What, you don’t want the entire city of New York to see your naked backside? You know you’ll end up doing a nude scene eventually.”

  “I will not,” Julian said, but with little heat, since the bathroom was now visible—an interior room with four solid walls.

  “Towels are in that cabinet. Toss me one, I’ll dry off a bit before I cause a slip hazard.”

  With Julian closed into the bathroom and the shower running, Rafi took off his sopping clothes, dried off with the towel, and changed into dry sweatpants and a tank top. Trying to avoid his own cold, wet footprints, he padded into the kitchen to make hot chocolate. Apparently Julian liked that, and they could both stand to have something warm.

  Assuming he had hot chocolate somewhere. And two clean mugs. Hadn’t he bought whipped cream sometime? Was the milk still good?

  He had located a box of instant mix and two probably-clean mugs (one was definitely clean, he’d give Julian that one) and had just decided that the milk smelled okay when he heard Julian’s footsteps enter the kitchen. He turned around.

  Julian was flushed from the shower, damp-haired and clean-smelling, and wearing nothing but a white V-neck sweater of Rafi’s, barely mid-thigh and threatening to fall off one shoulder.

  Rafi dropped the milk.

  “Oh, crap—”

  “I didn’t mean to startle you—”

  “No, it’s fine, everything’s fine—”

  “I think you’re just spreading it around.” Trying not to laugh, Julian put a hand on Rafi’s arm, bringing him to stillness. “I’ll clean this up if you’ll go find me some pants. I’m not putting wet leather back on.”

  No. Denied. No pants for you. Rafi cleared his throat. “Sure thing. There’s paper towels right there. I’ll—I’ll be right back.”

  When he did come back, bearing a pair of elastic-waist yoga pants that might not fall off Julian’s smaller hips, it was to find Julian on his knees on the kitchen floor, getting up the last of the milk. The sweater was even shorter in that position, revealing creamy thighs and the first curving hint of…cheeks. Rafi closed his eyes and prayed for strength.

  “There.” Julian got to his feet. “It’s still going to be a sticky disaster until you take some kind of cleaning fluid to it, but it’s not a puddle everywhere.”

  Unlike me. “Thanks. You go put these on and I’ll finish making the cocoa. With water, I guess.”

  Cocoa accomplished, he found Julian sitting outside, of all places. The broad stone balcony was well-shielded from rain, if still chilly, and Julian was curled on the wicker-frame couch with a lantern flickering warm rosy light from the table beside him. It was some kind of battery-powered thing left over from a party, but it made for a nice ambience.

  “Let me get us a blanket,” Rafi said, setting both mugs on the table. When he came back from pulling the top blanket straight off of his bed, Julian was sipping his cocoa and staring into the distance.

  “The idea was to warm up, you know,” Rafi said, tucking the blanket around them both. “Not sit in the cold with wet hair.”

  Julian blinked and shook his head, reverie breaking. “This is an astonishing view. I couldn’t pass it up.”

  “Can you pass up hypothermia?” Rafi reached around behind Julian for his own mug.

  Julian smiled at him, a soft expression that Rafi wasn’t sure he’d seen on him before, and leaned against his shoulder, knees drawn up to his chest.

  For a few companionable minutes, they watched the rain on the Hudson River, their sheltered corner growing slowly warmer in the light of the fake lantern.

  “You should google yourself,” Julian said eventually.

  “Is this the new euphemism?”

  Julian dug an elbow into his side. “Do it.”

  “Okay…” Rafi set aside his almost-empty mug and pulled out his phone.

  “Sort the results by most recent. There, see it?”

  Rafi shook his head. “News travels fast.” There were already four sites of varying respectability running the newest photos of himself and Julian. “‘DK lead singer visits new honey on set,’” he read aloud. “‘Julian Gault keeping Rafi on tight leash? Rockstar delivers coffee to set of Freaks.’ I like this one—’Getting their Freak on!’ Oh, then they had to get homophobic with it.”

  “I’ve seen worse.”

  “I don’t doubt it. I suggest you don’t go looking for it, though. There’s nothing of value down that hole.” Rafi swiped past the photos of their liplock and found one where they were simply standing together, talking to Lyle. “Huh.”

  “What?”

  “Just…we look happy.”

  The words were impulsive and ill-thought-out, but Julian remained relaxed beside him. After a long pause, Julian said, “We do.”

  Another long silence. Julian set aside his empty mug and pulled out his napkin-wrapped leftovers from the diner. Where had he been keeping those?

  “Were you and Bo happy?”

  Rafi almost asked him to repeat the question, the words were so low and quiet. But he didn’t really want to hear it again. It took him several minutes to decide what, and whether, to answer.

  “I thought we were,” he said at last. “At the time. Looking back…maybe not. Obviously something was going on that I didn’t know about.”

  “Do you miss her?”

  A long, painful breath. “Not as much as I thought I would.” Time for a subject change. “Speaking of her, um. Day after tomorrow is the monthly Reyes family dinner. Bo and Carlos are both going to be there. My dad and stepmother are determined it’s going to be…I don’t know. That we’re all going to make nice and pretend none of us are actively stabbing each other in the back.”

  Julian let out a low whistle. “Any chance you can get conveniently ill? Scarlet fever, perhaps, or an emergency appendectomy.”

  “I wish,” Rafi said with a huff of laughter. “But I don’t want to cede them the territory. He’s my father too, and I want to eat dinner with him.”

  “I’m glad to hear you’re willing to fight back for something.”

  “Did you miss the lawyers I’ve been complaining about? If I weren’t fighting them for DK, I’d be having some much more restful brunches.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I’m allowed to bring a plus-one.”

  Julian went still next to him. “Oh. Well, that’s…only fair. Part of the deal was making Bo jealous.”

  Which she would be, but Rafi was startled to realize he hadn’t thought of that at all. He’d only been thinking that he would like to have someone on his side, someone looking out for him. And that he trusted Julian to be that person.

  “So yes, of course I’ll go with you.”

  “Thank you,” Rafi said. “Can I have some of that sausage?”

  “Mooch,” Julian said, and held out half of it. He went still again when Rafi leaned forward and ate it out of Julian’s hand.

  “Speaking of family,” Rafi said, “have you heard from Helen Rhodes?”

  “Yes, in fact. Nothing of consequence—the investigation is ongoing, they’re looking for an apartment while they rebuild the house, that sort of thing—but it’s…nice to hear from her.”

  Rafi smiled, relieved. Now that Helen had her godson back in her life, she wasn’t going to let him get away. Good.

  Julian had opened his mouth to say something else, but a burst of light from beneath the blanket cut him off. Julian drew out his phone, its buzz inaudible over the rain. On the screen was the word Uncle, with no picture.

  Rafi had thought Julian was still before; now he turned to a marble statue of a man, expressionless, only a flicker of throat as he swallowed betraying any feeling.

  Do not imagine, Rafael, that you understand anything about my family, Julian had said once. And for God’s sake, don’t trust my uncle. The uncle who
had lied to tabloids about Julian, and lied to Julian about whether Helen Rhodes made any effort to contact her orphaned godson.

  Julian shouldn’t look like he was facing the gallows when a supposedly loving relation called him.

  Rafi pulled the phone from his hand, giving him plenty of time to protest, and pressed Ignore.

  “It could be an emergency,” Julian said faintly. “Something with Christian.”

  “Then he’ll leave a message.”

  They waited. No message.

  Julian’s marble body slowly returned to flesh, and he relaxed against Rafi’s side. Rafi dared to slip an arm around his shoulders, which he permitted without comment. Rafi’s hand came to rest against the opal bracelet on Julian’s wrist.

  “Sing to me,” Julian said.

  “And what would my lord like to hear?” Rafi said, amused.

  “The new one, the recording you scrapped. Sing me that one. You get to feel however you want while you sing it, too.”

  “My lord is generous.” Rafi took a slow, strength-gathering breath, his fingers brushing absently back and forth along Julian’s wrist. Then let his voice spill out, soft and undecorated, into the first verse of “Footsteps.”

  “It hasn’t been a good day

  The sun is cold, the sky is grey

  Everything is walls, no doorway

  I’m alone and you’re so far away…”

  By the time he reached the chorus, his throat was tightening up. He forced his voice through it, hoarse and painful.

  “But I know we’re close together

  Even when we’re far apart

  I know you walk beside me

  Though I can’t see you in the dark”

  It was supposed to come out sweet, confident, faithful. It wasn’t. It was coming out bitter and grieving, almost pleading. A man saying what he wished was true, when he knew it wasn’t.

  “I can feel your hand in my hand,

  There’s no doubt, no question mark

  Your footsteps are the beating of my heart”

  Anger crept in there around the start of the second verse, but by the end he’d worn through it, worn past it. By the time he ended the chorus for the last time, he just sounded tired. Sad. Relieved to be done.