by Lucy Lennox
Fuck.
I took several long strides to get to him and grabbed him by the elbow. He jumped at my touch and turned to look at me.
“Inside, please. I need to talk to you,” I said in a low voice.
He followed me inside the house to my bedroom and stood in the semi dark while I closed and locked the door behind me.
Despite quick swipes of his fingers, his cheeks were still wet. His eyes searched mine and I could see furrows of confusion on his forehead.
“Please don’t leave me,” I whispered. My voice sounded foreign to me as the unexpected words came out on their own.
His eyes grew wide and he came toward me, reaching his arms out tentatively until I met him halfway in an embrace so tight it lifted him off the ground. Jude’s legs came up to wrap around my waist, and I turned to sit on the end of the bed, holding him.
We stayed like that for a while, faces buried in each other’s necks and wet eyes leaking onto each other’s skin. Our arms stayed tight around each other and I savored the familiar smell and feel of him.
Mine, I thought.
“I love you so much, Jude,” I whispered. “I’m terrified of losing you now that I finally found you.”
Jude leaned back and looked at me. “I’m not the one going anywhere. When and if this ends, it’s going to be because you leave me, Derek.”
His eyes. God, they were so desolate I could hardly stand it.
But he was right.
“I don’t want to leave you. Ever.” I tried to assure him, but I knew it sounded like the non-promise it was.
“I know you don’t, baby. But you’re not going to leave because you don’t love me. You’re going to leave because the media situation will wear you down until you just don’t have the energy to fight for it any longer. I get it. It’s why I was alone for so long before I met you. It’s why I told you from the very beginning I wasn’t sure if it was all worth it.”
I leaned toward him, kissing his damp cheeks softly and running my hands up under his shirt to the skin of his back. He allowed me to replace the difficult conversation with lovemaking and we treated each other with exquisite tenderness.
When we came together a little while later, his fingers traced the lines of my face and his eyes fogged over with desire. We didn’t speak with words. We used our hands, mouths and bodies to demonstrate just how much we loved and needed the other.
Even our climaxes were silent and we finished wrapped so tightly in each other’s arms that I wasn’t sure if he could still breathe.
Eventually, we took a quick shower and got back into bed, immediately wrapping our arms around each other again before falling asleep. I didn’t realize until later we hadn’t wished each other a happy new year.
It never occurred to either of us that Jude’s own bedroom door stood open in the hallway for everyone to see that he hadn’t slept in his own bed that night.
If anyone noticed the open door, they never mentioned it. I left Hawaii in complete denial of how tenuous our relationship was. Once home, Jude sat me down and broke my fucking heart.
“I don’t want to live like this anymore, Derek, I’m sorry.
We sat on the little couch in the kitchen with our jackets still on from the ride home. The flight back from Hawaii had been uneventful until someone recognized us in the charter terminal and people swarmed Jude. After wrangling him out to my car along with the right suitcases, I was looking forward to coming home and having stress-relieving sex with my boyfriend one more time before Mike showed up, and I finally began moving my stuff over from my old apartment.
Nope.
“Talk to me, Jude,” I said.
“This whole thing is just too much. The pressure. The media. I chose this life, but you didn’t. I think it would be better if we break it off now so we can move on and find other people.”
My throat felt like it was filled with sand, and I had to struggle to breathe.
“I don’t want to find other people,” I whispered. “I already found you.”
His eyes filled, and he looked away. “I know, Derek. But I want to be with someone who can be completely with me. I’m tired of hiding. Sitting there at my brother’s wedding was fucking brutal. I couldn’t touch you or kiss you or even look at you with the love I felt in that moment. It sucked. That’s not how I want to live. I’m going to come out.”
I felt my eyes sting and clenched my jaw tight to keep from yelling at him. It wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t asking for anything he didn’t deserve.
Jude looked up at me, the motion of his head causing the tears to overflow. I wanted to reach out and smooth them away, but I kept my hands to myself. Had I touched him, I would have dragged him onto my lap and refused to let go.
“Are you going to say anything?” Jude asked me.
“I want to tell you it doesn’t matter, but I’d be lying. I can’t handle the scrutiny, Jude. Being laid bare by the press. That’s the opposite of the kind of life I imagined. You know how private I am.”
He gave me a watery smile. “I know, babe. And that’s okay. I understand. And I would give it all up right this minute if I thought it would make a difference. But once you’ve reached a level of fame, you’re always going to be in the spotlight. Even if I retired from music tomorrow, I don’t think it would offer you any additional protection from gossip rags.”
Jude paused and looked away before continuing. “I’m not asking you to stay, Wolfe. I’m telling you to go.
A loud knock sounded on the door, causing me to jump.
I wiped my eyes and noticed Jude quickly exit the kitchen as I went to open the door. “Wolfe, I’ve been knocking for five minutes,” Mike said.
I cleared my throat. “Sorry about that. Hope you’re well?”
“Yeah, doing great. Happy new year,” he said with a big smile and a hug. I felt numb as he hugged me, and I wondered how it was possible he didn’t realize I was falling apart right in front of his eyes.
“I’m, ah, just going to find Jude to tell him I’m leaving,” I stammered.
“Yeah, no worries. I told my parents I’d give them a call, so tell Jude I’ll just be a minute if he needs anything, okay?”
I nodded and walked back to find Jude in his room.
40
Jude
I made it to my room and closed the door, crawling onto the bed and curling up in a ball. How the hell was I going to survive a life without Derek in it?
A few minutes later I heard the door open and didn’t look up. The bed sagged as Derek crawled over and spooned around me.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered in my ear. “I love you.”
I knew that to be true the way I knew that loving someone didn’t always mean you could make a life with them.
“I know,” I said. “I love you too.”
His arms squeezed me tight and his lips pressed kisses onto my neck before he climbed off the bed and out of my life.
I spent the next two days under my duvet and would have stayed longer if Ollie hadn’t intervened.
“What the hell, baby cakes?” she accused. “Did something happen with the Hulk? He called me and asked me to check on you.”
That sweet fucking jackass.
I pulled a pillow over my head and turned away from her.
“Aw, shit,” she muttered.
She sat down on the bed next to me, kicking off her shoes and rubbing my shoulder.
“What happened?” she asked.
“He’s gone,” I mumbled through the pillow. My voice cracked from disuse and I felt fresh tears immediately soaked up by my pillowcase.
“What?” she asked. “I’ll kick his ass. Why the hell did he leave you?”
“I told him to,” I admitted, pulling the pillow away and turning to press my forehead into the side of her leg.
“Aw, honey. Why? What happened?” she asked as she began to run her fingers through my hair. “Did you guys get into a fight or something?”
“No. I told him I
was going to come out of the closet. He doesn’t want to, and he sure as hell doesn’t want the media scrutiny of being with me.”
“Well,” she said, thinking for a minute, “I guess you can’t blame him for that. Are you sure you want to come out?”
“Yes, I am one hundred percent positive that it’s the right thing to do. At first I was doing it under duress.” I told her the truth about the stalker and the photos of me with Ari, and she listened carefully.
“But then I thought about the reasons I was hiding my sexuality begin with, the idea that country music wasn’t ready for a gay star. But that’s bullshit. Nobody’s ever ready. It takes someone coming out to help people change. What about all of the closeted youth out there who feel trapped because they don’t have role models showing them how to stand up and be proud of themselves? It’s the right thing to do, Olls. I just wish I could come out and still have Derek too. I shouldn’t have to choose.”
She stayed with me and eventually forced me out of bed and into the shower. I dressed and came out to the kitchen in time to see a strange man standing with Mike.
“There he is,” Mike said. “Jude, this is Kevin. He’s taking over for Derek as your primary bodyguard.”
I had known it was coming. There was no way either Derek or I would be able to be near each other without being together, but meeting his replacement was like a kick in the teeth.
“Uh, hi, Kevin. Nice to meet you,” I said, taking his offered hand for a shake. “This is my assistant, Ollie. She lives over the garage.”
Kevin’s face notably lit up at the sight of my beautiful best friend.
“Hi, Ollie,” he said. If I wasn’t mistaken, he blushed as he spoke to her.
“Hey there, cutie,” she said with her usual flirty smile.
After Mike left, I excused myself from the room, telling Kevin and Ollie I was going to go into my sound room and work on some music until it was time to fix dinner. I knew Ollie would stay and appreciate the chance to flirt with her new(est) victim.
I hadn’t picked up my guitar in days, and it felt strange in my hands at first. Within the first few chords, however, my hands settled back into their rhythm and the instrument became an extension of myself.
Music flowed from my fingers while my mind floated away.
At some point Ollie came to find me for dinner. We ate quietly, Ollie and Kevin carrying the conversation. Apparently Mike had told Kevin I was sick, which, let’s face it, was the truth. I was heartsick.
The following day I called Clint and asked him to come to my house for a meeting. He was worried about me since I’d skipped work at the studio immediately after being gone for a week.
The meeting with Clint sucked. He seemed almost giddy with the news of my sexuality. Not surprised, just excited. I told him about the stalker and the threats, but I didn’t tell him about Derek.
“Clint, you seem happy about this. Why?” I asked when he wouldn’t stop bouncing his leg under the table.
“I know you’ve heard it before, but it’s true. There’s no such thing as bad publicity, Jude. Plus, I think the fact that you’re playing the Super Bowl will bring you even more into the mainstream music scene than you already are. Once you’re there, the critical mass will support your coming out. The good old boys will be in the minority. I think it’ll be fine.”
“Okay, how do we do this? I need to tell my family first, and I can’t do that until Sunday.”
“We schedule an intimate interview with one of the big names on a major network. I think it would actually work out well if you were seen out in public before then doing or wearing something that hints at your sexuality. The media speculation will begin and the news will hit softer.”
“What about the timing with the Super Bowl?” I asked. “Do we do it before or after?”
“For sure before. If anyone’s turned off by your news, they won’t be able to help falling back in love with you on Super Bowl Sunday.”
“Okay. Well, I’ll let you set it up. I’ll tell the band in the morning at the studio.”
The next day the band took it in stride like I knew they would, and afterward, damned if Beck didn’t pull me aside to tell me he was bisexual. What the hell?
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” I asked him incredulously. We’d grown up together and known each other for decades.
He shrugged and laughed. “I thought you might be bi or gay. I assumed if you were keeping it to yourself, you had a reason. That’s when I decided just to stay low key about my own shit. It’s not like I’ve ever been in a serious relationship.”
“That’s because you sleep with everything that moves,” I said before thinking. “I mean, what I meant was—”
He laughed. “It’s okay. It’s true. Why be in a band if you can’t sleep your way around the world when you’re on tour? I fucking love my life, man. And it’s all thanks to you. I just wanted you to know there are no hard feelings about any of it. In fact, let me know if you want to go try out a gay club, and we can bust that cherry together.” He winked before walking off to take a phone call. What in the world had just happened?
When Sunday came, I arrived at my parents’ house to find absolute chaos. Simone was screaming at Pete for setting her up on a blind date with a moron, Thad was teaching my two nieces how to make paper airplanes that currently littered the whole house, Blue and Tristan had brought their dog, Piper, who kept jumping up to try and catch the airplanes out of the air, and Aunt Tilly had brought her two raunchy best friends, Tristan’s granny and her wife, Irene.
My brothers Griff, Maverick, and Dante sat at the kitchen island laughing with Pete’s wife, Ginger. My parents were nowhere to be found.
Blue asked where Derek was and I explained he wasn’t with me that day.
I sensed Kevin shifting on his feet behind me.
“Welcome to crazy town. This is the Marian family. I have eight siblings and they’re all nuts. This isn’t even all of them if you can believe it,” I told him.
Aunt Tilly noticed fresh meat and came toward Kevin. “Hey, Jude, what happened to Hottie #1? And helloooo, Hottie #2.” She held out her hand to the bodyguard so he could kiss it. As if she was royalty. Kevin looked at me for a hint about what to do and I shrugged.
“Derek changed security details and now Kevin is watching me,” I told her.
Tilly’s face lit up in a devilish grin. “Is this the Kevin? As in the imaginary Kevin who’s been sleeping with your dad for years?”
I felt my face flush as Blue barked out a laugh and Kevin looked like he wanted to go crawl under a car somewhere.
“Ah, no,” I stammered before turning and beginning a futile attempt to explain the family inside joke to my new bodyguard.
Before I could explain, Mom and Dad appeared from the direction of their bedroom looking recently, um, exercised. I sighed and looked away, trying to mentally bleach the thought of what they’d been doing from my abused brain.
“Hey, honey, where’s Derek?” Mom asked.
Jesusfuckingchrist with the questions about Derek.
“He’s not here. Kevin took over for him,” I said again.
“Welcome, Kevin,” Mom said sweetly. After exchanging pleasantries, she glanced worriedly over at me.
Griff stood up and raised his voice to be heard over everyone. “Well, now that Mom and Dad are finished banging, and we’ve all met Dad’s long lost boyfriend, we can eat. Everyone grab your plates. Let’s go.”
Dad’s face flushed the color of Christmas and Mom swatted at Griff’s shoulder as she walked by him.
“Nothing wrong with a healthy sex life, Griffin Marian. From what I’ve heard, you’ve been getting lucky with some sweet-talker out at the clubs lately. I think you should tell us all about it at dinner.”
Now it was Griff’s turn to blush. “Never mind. Forget I said anything.”
“Oh hell no,” Dante piped up. “Ask him who the newest sweet-talker at the clubs is, Mom.”
Mom’s eyes twinkl
ed. “Thank you, Dante. Griffin, care to explain?”
Griff kept trying to weasel his way out of telling the story as we took turns filling our plates. I used the distraction to pull Blue aside to ask for his help designing a new T-shirt.
By the time we all sat at the big dining room table, he was forced to begin.
“A magazine wants me to write the article about the sweet-talker, so I started a little experiment to get some funny stories,” Griff began hesitantly.
“Tell us about it,” Dad said with a smile.
“Basically, I take a seat at the bar and try to pick up whatever guy happens to sit on the stool next to mine. Obviously if he’s there with someone or in a relationship, I leave him alone, otherwise he’s fair game.”
He took a sip of his beer and continued. “I start with, ‘Hey, foxy, can I buy you a drink?’ When the drinks come I just start flirting, but every sentence I say includes a term of endearment of some kind. I time how long it takes to get them to ask me, ah,” at this point he looked at our young nieces, who seemed oblivious, “how long it takes them to ask me over for dinner,” he finished.
Simone choked on her beer. “Dinner, right. And do you enjoy several dinners a night, baby brother?”
Griff glared at her. “No. No dinner with them. I eat alone when I get home. Depending on how hungry the experience made me, sometimes I eat two or three times.”
Now it was my father’s turn to choke, and Aunt Tilly lost her shit. Tristan’s granny’s dentures came loose, and Granny’s wife Irene flushed a pink deeper than Ollie’s hair.
Tilly couldn’t very well be left out of a conversation like that so she piped up. “Too bad you don’t eat out. Granny and Irene have been begging me to try it with them. Speaking of eating out, Rebecca, your taco is delicious,” she said as she bit into the crunchy shell, causing juice to drip onto her plate.
And that was when I gave up trying to eat my dinner.
41
Derek
The weeks without Jude felt like they’d never end. Every day took forever and I did everything I could to stay busy. After work in the office, I went straight to the gym and worked myself to the point of exhaustion.
