by J. P. James
Jameson inches closer to me, probably in an effort to get closer to Fyre without upsetting him.
“I could wring Percy’s neck for this,” Jameson says abruptly. The air shifts as Fyre flings his head up, eyes glaring at us.
“Why? Because he leaked your secret?” Fyre hisses.
“Fyre,” Jameson tries again. “Percy assaulted you. You could press charges if you wanted. Hell, you should press charges.”
“So that’s your big plan, send another troubled queer teen to jail?” Fyre asks, his voice dripping with disdain. He crosses his arms over his chest and huffs like a child.
“Let’s find Percy,” Jameson says, more to me than Fyre.
“That would be an invasion of his privacy,” Fyre notes.
“Just like he invaded yours,” Jameson fires back.
“Stop it, both of you,” I say. “You both make fair points.”
“That’s bullshit!” says Jameson. “Percy tried to hurt Fyre. We need to come down on Percy and come down on him hard!” He balls his hands into fists, imagining what he’ll do if he ever sees Percy again.
“If you hurt Percy,” Fyre says quietly. “You’re no better than him. It only perpetuates violent behavior.”
I put my hand over Jameson’s, and he unclenches his fists. “Fyre’s right.”
I turn back to Fyre. His eyes still throw daggers at us.
“What do you want to do, Fyre?” I want to know his solution, if there is one.
He thinks for a moment, then he shakes his head. “Nothing. I think he’s misguided, that’s all. He’s not a threat.”
Jameson explodes. “I can’t believe this!”
I can feel Jameson’s body tremble next to me. I try to comfort him, although I’m not in much better shape. My head feels like it’s spinning down a drain.
“Fyre, he’s a threat to you,” I implore. He needs to hear reason, needs to remember why Damon brought us on as bodyguards.
“Queer kids need support,” Fyre retorts, “and there’s hardly any out there. I know his intentions are in a good place.”
“You can’t mean that,” Jameson says, both worried and incredulous.
“What does it matter to you now anyways?” Fyre asks. “I have a new security team. My creative team, my fans, everyone has to go through them first. Don’t worry about it.”
I place my hands on the ground and push myself a foot closer to Fyre. Fyre straightens, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
“But we do worry,” I tell him. “You aren’t thinking about this with a clear head.”
“Whose fault is that?” Fyre seethes. “Who had my trust in their hands and crushed it with lies?”
He can’t take it any more, and Fyre pushes himself up to his feet. He glares at us, his chest heaving with every heated breath. I’ve never seen so much hurt and anger in Fyre.
“What do you want us to do?” Jameson asks, his hands gathered in his lap, his shoulders hunched forward.
Fyre walks to the kitchen without a word. He grabs a glass and fills it from the tap. He gulps it down, and then he rests his head in his hands. He says nothing, turned away from us. All we hear is his breathing, coming in rough and haggard.
Jameson and I eventually stand, but we don’t move from our spots. If Fyre needs time, it’s the least we can do.
“I love you,” he says over the hand clutching his face.
He turns to us, his gaze hard. He says he loves us, but why does he look so devoid of emotion?
“We love you too,” I tell him.
Fyre takes a deep breath and puffs it out like a gust of wind.
“We need a break,” he starts. “I need a break.”
“What?” The question leaves my brain before I realize it.
He looks at us, his eyes welling up again.
“No matter what happens with Percy, he outed us. Not just me. The Department will know about you guys soon too.”
I feel the blood leave my face as my eyes glaze over. In all the worry about Fyre, I completely forgot about us. Our careers, all of it.
“So what?” Jameson shouts.
I turn to him, his face red with anger.
“What do you mean ‘so what?’” I ask. “He’s right. Our careers are on the line now. They might get the fire marshal involved.”
Jameson balls his hands into fists again. “Shit,” he hisses.
Fyre’s face is impassive, and the tears have stopped falling. “We can’t be together,” he says. “Not while all this shit is going on. My career, your career, Percy, the lies. It’s too much.”
I feel light-headed, and my knees are close to giving out. I rub at my forehead absently, but there’s no pain to rub away. Numbness climbs through my body, threatening to consume me.
“You can’t mean that,” Jameson pleads.
I turn to him and see everything I wish I could feel right now. His eyes are glistening, close to tears, but he tries to keep them away. He’s struggling for air, gasping between his words. He loves Fyre, and the thought of not being together is crushing him.
Me, on the other hand, I’m trying hard not to feel anything. I can’t let this crush me, because I don’t know what I’ll become if it does. I don’t know if my heart can take it.
My heart becomes a steel fortress in seconds, protecting myself from whatever the future brings. I don’t know what will happen with Fyre’s career, or ours, or Percy. I don’t know if our relationship can survive the lies, let alone the shit storm around us.
Fyre moves towards the door, but Jameson has his hand on him before he makes it.
“Stop,” I tell Jameson.
Jameson and Fyre both turn to me. Neither can believe me.
“You’re going to let him walk out?” He barks.
I suck in air, but I don’t feel better.
“Let him go,” I say.
Jameson struggles for a moment, but drops his hand. I hear Fyre break out into another sob. His heart is broken, and I don’t blame him. We broke his heart, but so has his world. We made him believe he was safe, and that we could protect him from everything, but we were wrong. He throws the door open and slams it shut just as fast, taking all the warmth out of the apartment with him.
Silence devours the room. There’s nothing but Jameson’s harsh breathing beside me. Nothing but the cold, lifeless walls surrounding us. It feels much like my heart does now, like a fortress meant to guard us, but really, it’s just a prison keeping me from feeling anything at all.
15
Fyre
Lucky for me, Damon added me to his list of guests at his apartment building.
“Evening, Mr. Connell,” the doorman says as I walk past.
“Evening, Miles,” I tell him as cordially as possible.
He can’t tell that I’m on the verge of a complete breakdown. I can’t make the elevator move fast enough, but I still don’t know exactly what to say to Damon. My mind is running a mile a minute. Will I yell at him? Break down and cry at his feet? Will I walk out of his life forever? I don’t even know which of those things I really want. More than anything, I just want the truth.
It feels like I might beat the door down, my fist coming at the wood like I’m a lumberjack.
“Damon!” I shout, knocking firmly on the door before I step back.
The door opens slowly. Damon is gobsmacked.
“What the hell, Fyre?”
His body blocks the entry, but I don’t give a rat’s ass. I shove past him, but he doesn’t put up a fight. He’s big enough that he can easily stop me, but obviously, something is wrong. I’m coming in guns blazing, and he needs to know why. He closes the door behind us and follows me into his living room.
“How could you?” I scream, turning on the spot and pointing my finger between his eyes.
“Do what? What happened?” He’s angry, of course, but I can hear him hurting too. He cares about me. If something’s wrong with me, then something’s wrong with him.
I shove my phone into hi
s hand. Damon gasps as he reads Percy’s accusations.
He shuffles until he’s sitting on the couch, pulling his hand through his hair as he scrolls farther down. Meanwhile, I pace the room, moving along the line of his window.
“I’m sorry, Fyre,” he tells me after a few minutes. “I was ashamed. I told them not to tell you about our conversation.”
I whip around, blood boiling in my veins. I’m across the room in two seconds, standing in front of Damon. He’s bigger than I am, but he’s never looked so small under my wrath.
“So they lied for you,” I say. “Has everyone been lying to me?”
I sit on the couch, putting space between us as I ty to calm down. I hate anger. It’s an ugly emotion, and I like to move past whatever’s troubling me as quickly as possible.
I don’t know how to get past this.
“You made me think they were honest men, while you had them lie to my face. This was only ever about money, right? First this companion shit, and then the bodyguard business. I was only a job and nothing more.”
Damon turns on the couch to face me. He doesn’t put his hands on me and doesn’t shift any closer. I can feel his eyes on me. Good. I hope he sees the pain radiating from my skin.
“I know as well as you, that you mean so much more to them than just a job.”
I turn to him, wondering if I heard him correctly.
“You knew?”
Damon nods and looks at the empty space between us.
“I didn’t know for sure, but I guessed as much. Whenever they gave me updates, they spoke about you the way I talk about you. There was love and affection behind their words and more.”
“More?” I question, shifting on my cushion a bit.
“Trust me. I know when a guy wants someone. They wanted you so badly,” he says. “It was like listening to wolves howl for their partner.”
A wave of sadness rips through me. I fight the tears back, not wanting any more of that for tonight. If anything, I want to numb it all.
“Mind if I get a drink. You want one?” He asks me.
I grip the cushion under my seat and nod. Damon brings two glasses filled far too high with whiskey, but I won’t complain. If I ever needed to drink away my sorrows, now is the time.
“They turned me down, you know,” Damon says as he sits. He takes a thoughtful sip of his whiskey, and clears his throat. “They said they weren’t hookers, but I felt like there was more to it.”
“How so?” I ask him.
Damon looks at me, and a small smile crawls into his lips.
“I don’t think it was about hooking up, even though I said you wouldn’t want to. I think … I think they were saving themselves in a way. They were waiting for the right guy to come along.”
Damon holds his glass out to me. I meet him with a gentle clink, before we sip. The burn soothes me in a way, gives me something to think about while I wrap my mind around Damon’s story.
“Are you going to tell me I’m that guy?” I say sarcastically, but Damon’s stern face tells me everything.
“Of course you’re the guy, Fyre. Don’t be stupid.”
Damon downs his drink and sets it on the coffee table before us. He looks so smug. I can’t stand it.
“Don’t call me stupid. I feel like the people I care about most have jerked me around. Jordan and Jameson, and now you.”
Damon glares at me, but it’s not because he’s angry.
“I messed up, but I am always on your side.”
His eyes gleam like cool fire, and he reaches his hand out to me. It rests gently on one of mine, but it doesn’t move. There’s no soothing circles or firm squeeze. He’s just letting me know, as always, that’s he’s here for me.
“Damon,” I choke on his name. I bury my face in his shoulder. His hands move, instinctively wrapping around my shoulders, holding me close to him. “How did this go to hell so fast?”
“Luck of the Irish?” He says against my head.
I laugh. I can’t believe how this night has gone, that I’m actually laughing. But I am, and even though it hurts, it helps release some of the anger overflowing in me.
“Have you ever wanted someone so badly it hurt?” I ask him.
Damon shudders against me. He doesn’t say a word though. I peel myself out of his embrace to face him dead on.
His fixes his gaze on the cushion, but even from this angle, I can see the fear prickling behind his eyes.
“I’m gay.”
I lean back, but keep my hands on his arms. All I can do is search his face. Every line on his face stands out. He’s tired and scared, but as his gaze meets mine, I can see it again. There’s that faint smile. I miss it. Another question pops up and has my mind itching with uncertainty.
“Do you like me, Damon? Like, like me?” I wonder, half-pleading for his answer.
Now it’s Damon’s turn to laugh. It’s a beautiful sound though, and it finally pushes a single tear over his eyelid.
“God no.” Another laugh barrels out of him. “I mean it. You are the brother I never had. I trust you, and I wanted to tell you.”
After the heaviness of the night, the anger and pain and sadness, I just want to bask in this glorious confession. I launch myself at him, burying myself in him again as I cheer.
“Damon. Thank you so much for telling me. I’m so proud of you.”
He squeezes me until I’m sure there’s no more air in my body, but it’s worth it. Damon has always been by my side, but this is the first time he’s really, truly trusted me with something serious. Something so deeply personal.
“I’m not ready to come out. Not yet,” he tells me.
“Your secret is safe with me.”
We sit there silently, nothing but the occasional siren blaring in the distance. I’m still upset. I still have pain and probably a few more hours’ worth of tears to shed. But right now, I just want to enjoy Damon’s coming out. This is his moment to shine.
“Your music inspires me, you know,” I hear him say as my ear presses against his chest.
“You mean that?” I ask coyly, but he just squeezes me tighter for a moment.
“No matter what happens with your career, Fyre, I know you’ll always influence people for the better.”
I settle deeper against Damon’s chest. Even if my career tanks, it’ll be okay. Hell, if Damon stops being my agent, he’ll still be my brother.
“There are plenty of kids like me, Damon,” I start, still sniffing to keep the snot at bay. “Kids who are just as talented as I am, but aren’t represented in the industry.”
Damon hums thoughtfully. “I remember our first meeting. The executives thought you were a huge risk.”
“Really?” I say incredulously. This is news to me.
Damon laughs. “I didn’t want to worry you. Your job was to make great music, and you did that. You proved them wrong. So, so wrong,” he says with a smile in his voice.
“I got lucky, and I need to pay it forward,” I tell him.
He tries to look me in the eye. “And how do you want to tackle that?”
I bury deeper into him. “I’m not sure yet. But I know I can do more. You’ve always looked out for me. Even though I’m angry with them, Jordan and Jameson looked out for me too. I think it’s time I start looking out for others.”
Damon gives me another squeeze. “If anyone can mentor the artists of tomorrow, it’s you.”
For once, I don’t want to argue with Damon over a compliment. He’s right, and I will find a way to help other artists like me. I’ll find a way to make the world a safe place, whether it’s through music or art, or anything I do.
Jordan and Jameson made me believe that too. My heart hurts, thinking about how I left their apartment. I can make all the plans I want for my career, but I still don’t know how to soothe a broken heart.
16
Jameson
A month later
“He’s on his way,” Jordan says, reading the text.
I h
aven’t stopped pacing the room since we got here. It’s been close to an hour, but we had to secure the perimeter ourselves and make sure everything is in place. We arranged the four chairs around a small table, two on either side facing the others.
“Good,” I say over my shoulder.
Jordan stands up from his chair to pace on the other side of the hotel room. What took him so long? My hands have been sweating all day. Nervous doesn’t even begin to describe how I’m feeling. Anxious, excited, and terrified are bouncing around my mind too.
This is it, I think to myself. Whatever “it” is, I can’t begin to understand, but we’re here. We’ve done our part, as much as we can. No matter how this goes, we have to face this head on. No more secrets, no more lies.
The knock at the door startles Jordan so much that he jumps backwards, almost knocking the microwave onto the floor.
Answer it, I mouth. He nods, but buys himself a bit of time by adjusting his suit. He’s just as nervous as I am. With a final deep inhale, he swings the door wide open.
Fyre is just as beautiful as the last time we saw him, but his style has changed a bit. He wears a beige turtleneck, matched with a brown suede jacket and pitch-black denim jeans. His hair is styled to perfection, and he’s even sporting a nose ring. If he ever talks to us again, I’ll be sure to ask him when he got it.
“Hello, gentlemen,” says Detective Martins as he steps in front of Fyre to shake Jordan’s hand. Martins is one of the best private investigators in the city. He used to serve on the police force, but from what our cousins tell us, he always prefers working alone.
“Mason and Logan send their regards,” the detective says with a wink and a flash of his pearly white teeth.
Fyre walks behind him. Instead of sitting at one of the chairs, Fyre heads right for the bed. He sits on the edge, staring out the window. I watch his fingers play absently at the fabric of the comforter. He’s nervous too.
It’s a strange feeling, but I sort of like that we’re all nervous. For the first time in a month, Fyre, Jordan, and I are in the same room, feeling the same thing. We haven’t reached out to him at all, but a day doesn’t go by that I don’t open his contact info. I’ll find my thumb hovering over the “Call” button, before I throw my phone against the bed. I’ve written and erased and rewritten dozens of text messages. Versions of I’m sorry, and I hope you’re doing well, and sometimes a desperate I miss you so damn much.
