Stage Two

by Ariel Tachna

  He dressed quickly, determined not to delay anymore now that he’d made up his mind, and called Uber for a ride. He wasn’t planning on getting hammered, but this way he didn’t have to stop after one drink if someone offered to buy him another one.

  Who was he kidding? If Thane was there and offered to buy him another one. Not that Thane would. He’d only bought the one last weekend because he hadn’t realized who Blake was until after he’d ordered the drink.

  Blake shook himself mentally as he waited for the car to arrive. If he went out with this kind of self-defeating attitude, he wouldn’t enjoy himself no matter who was or wasn’t at the club. He was better than this.

  The driver dropped him off at the Bar Complex with a nod and a smile and nothing more. Some Uber drivers were chatty, but this one hadn’t been. Blake would have appreciated the distraction. He paid the cover fee and went inside, stomach jumping as he scanned the room looking for any familiar faces.

  Looking for Thane.

  Damn it, he was not going to do this! He was here to have fun, not to spend the whole time searching for Thane like a teenager at a high school dance, hoping his first crush would show up—and not with someone else.

  His lips twisted wryly as he appreciated the irony of that statement. It might not have been a dance, but Blake had spent many a lunch break his freshman year of high school hoping to catch a glimpse of Thane somewhere in the cafeteria. Heidi had teased him mercilessly.

  He made his way up to the bar and ordered a whiskey sour. He didn’t recognize the bartender, but the staff changed with some regularity. As he took a sip, he turned to face the dance floor again. He was going to do this. He was going to enjoy his drink, dance with some cute men, and call the night a success.

  And damn Thane Dalton for ruining this pleasure for him too.

  Chapter Twelve

  “GO on out to the truck,” Thane said as they wrapped up with stage crew on Tuesday. He tossed Phillip the keys. “I’m going to stop at the bathroom. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Thane detoured by the restroom, took care of business, and headed out toward the parking lot where he’d left his truck. He’d just stepped through the outside doors when he heard shouting. He walked a little faster, because that sounded like Kit’s voice.

  He rounded the corner in time to see Barnes wade into a group of boys and grab one by the ear. He couldn’t hear what Barnes said—he didn’t seem to need to raise his voice to silence all of them—but the boy caught in his grip grimaced and squirmed. Seeing Kit and Phillip hovering directly behind Barnes, Thane broke into a run.

  “What’s going on?” he demanded when he got close enough to be heard.

  Kit and Phillip retreated to his side immediately, but Barnes didn’t turn his head. “I’m explaining to these young men what is expected of athletes and gentlemen at this school and what the consequences of forgetting those expectations are going to be.”

  Thane looked down at Kit and Phillip. “Are you okay?”

  “Mr. B. stopped them before they could do more than shove us a bit,” Kit said softly.

  Thane looked back toward Barnes. He had let go of the one boy’s ear, but he hadn’t released any of them from his gaze. “I’m going to ask you one more time,” he said, voice even, but Thane heard the steel beneath the tone, steel he hadn’t realized existed until now. “Why did you shove Kit and Phillip?”

  Silence greeted him.

  “Nothing? That’s fine. I don’t need you to say anything. I saw what happened and that you were the ones who started it and that Kit and Phillip did nothing to provoke it. But nothing is all you’re ever going to say to them again,” Barnes went on. “Because if I hear even a whisper that you approached Kit or Phillip for any reason, I will have you all suspended from school and from athletics. As it is, you’ll be in in-school suspension and ineligible to practice or play for the next three weeks.”

  The offenders moaned and protested, but Barnes silenced them with a look. “Are you adding insubordination to your offenses? Because I’d be happy to add to the time if that’s what’s going on.”

  “No, sir, Mr. Barnes,” one of the boys—Thane couldn’t see who—said.

  “That’s what I thought.” Barnes took a step back and turned toward Thane. “Mr. Dalton, it’s your nephews they were harassing. Are you satisfied with the consequences they’ll be receiving?”

  Thane stared at Barnes mutely for a moment, trying to reconcile the decisive man in front of him with the hands-off nonleader he was in the theater. “They’re fine, thanks to you. Your decision seems fair.”

  His voice sounded off to his own ears, but he couldn’t do much about that. Barnes turned back to the bullies who had made Kit’s life miserable. “I will be notifying your parents this evening. You are to report directly to ISS every morning. If you do not, you will be charged with trespassing and removed.”

  “But the baseball scouts will be at the games next week.”

  “You should have thought about that before you tried to pick a fight,” Barnes said. “You’re aware of the expectations of behavior for student athletes. Every one of you signed the code of conduct before you were allowed to put on a Henry Clay jersey. You’ll be lucky if the coaches let you back on the field after your mandatory suspension is over. And just in case you have teammates who share your opinions on the matter but who didn’t happen to be here today, I want something made very clear. Kit and Phillip are under my direct supervision, and if anything happens to them, I will find out who did it, and I will make the perpetrators sorry they ever thought about it. Am I clear?”

  The menace in Barnes’s voice should not have been the least bit attractive, but right at the moment, Thane had never heard anything more arousing in his life. He’d been ready to write off his fleeting interest in Barnes after seeing him at the club a little over a week ago, but this… this was something entirely different. This was Barnes standing up for his boys, defending them in ways Thane would never have imagined he would be willing to do. This was Barnes claiming them as his, wrapping his mantle of authority around them to protect them. It wasn’t the way Thane would have defended them—his way would have involved fists—but the boys in front of Barnes looked plenty cowed. And even if they forgot at some point, Barnes would be there to remind them. Whatever doubts Thane had on that matter had been thoroughly put to rest.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You have five minutes to get off campus before I call security.” Barnes planted his hands on his hips and waited while the boys scattered. Thane stayed where he was, watching with barely contained impatience as Barnes continued to stand as a barrier between them and the disappearing athletes. Only when they were gone did he turn around.

  The moment he moved, Kit and Phillip bolted toward him, throwing their arms around him. “You were amazing, Mr. B. I thought he was going to pee his pants when you grabbed his ear like that,” Phillip said. “Did you see that, Uncle Thane?”

  Thane took a step forward to join them. “I saw it. Very impressive, Mr. Barnes. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  Barnes shrugged. “I would have done it sooner if it wasn’t Kit’s word against theirs. They can’t deny it this time, not when I saw them myself.”

  Thane hadn’t seen what happened—probably just as well since he couldn’t punch them the way he would have when he was in high school—but he didn’t need to have seen to guess. It didn’t matter, though. Barnes had beaten him to the boys’ defense, no matter how satisfying Thane would have found it to punch them all. Barnes leveled the boys with a fond look. “Take your uncle home, boys. Kit has a science test to study for, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “I’m ready for it, Mr. B.,” Kit said. “I’ve been studying all week. It’ll be another A for sure.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” Barnes ruffled their hair each in turn. “Have a good evening. I have parents to notify. I’ll see you at stage crew tomorrow, boys.”

  “Night, Mr. B.,” Kit and Phillip cho
rused. They started toward the car, leaving Thane alone with Barnes.

  “Thank you,” Thane said again. “I know we didn’t get off to the best start, and I know a lot of that was because of my attitude, but you’ve done exactly what you said you’d do.” He offered his hand. “Friends?”

  Barnes shook it with a rueful smile. “Friends.”

  Thane smiled all the way home.

  BLAKE let himself back into his office and flopped down in his chair with a heavy sigh. His heart still hadn’t stopped racing from the adrenaline of breaking up the almost fight and then dealing with the bullies and with Thane.

  Friends.

  Thane wanted to be friends.

  What was that supposed to entail? Blake couldn’t even begin to imagine how he was supposed to navigate those rocky waters. They had nothing in common except Kit and Phillip. And the fact that he’s gay, the annoying voice in the back of Blake’s head whispered.

  Blake pushed that thought aside. It didn’t matter if Thane was straight, gay, bi, or something else entirely. He was the guardian of two of Blake’s students. He couldn’t get involved with Thane beyond the boundaries of a professional relationship. Maybe they could manage friends, but even that ran the risk of crossing a line and calling into question Blake’s impartiality. Tonight there hadn’t been any question. He’d seen Kit and Phillip come out of the building heading toward the parking lot. He’d seen the bullies change direction to come toward them. He’d already been moving toward them when the ringleader pushed Kit, nearly knocking him down. The taunting hadn’t gone beyond trying to get Kit and Phillip to fight back, which they hadn’t done, fortunately, before Blake had gotten there to intervene, so it had been cut and dried.

  He hoped he’d put an end to it, now that the bullies had been caught and punished, but he wouldn’t know that for sure until after they were out of ISS and back in the student body. If they started up again, Blake would act, but he needed to be able to do so unhindered by questions about his relationship to the boys. In some ways being their stage crew sponsor already crossed lines, but he didn’t regret that for an instant. Having any kind of relationship with their guardian outside of school would complicate matters even more.

  And yet….

  All he had to do was close his eyes and Thane’s face floated into his mind. He had hints of gray at his temples now, silver woven into black with his hair pulled back into a ponytail at his nape. Blake wondered what it would look like out of its confines, falling around his shoulders. Even in high school, Thane had almost always worn it pulled back. He hadn’t worn a beard in high school, another change from Blake’s memories. His beard covered his chin and jawline but did nothing to hide the line of them, neatly trimmed as it was. If anything, it drew attention to his cheekbones and eyes, adding strength to his features. Or maybe time had done that rather than the beard. No matter how much Blake had thought of Thane as grown up in high school, he’d only been eighteen, still more boy than man in hindsight. None of the boy was left now, just man. He didn’t think anyone had caught him watching, but he’d seen Thane moving lumber, flats, even platforms on set. He’d drunk in the sight of his thick muscles flexing beneath the T-shirts he wore while working despite the temperature outside.

  He shook himself out of his daydreaming. He had work to do before he could go home, and it was already after six. The thought of going home to his apartment didn’t appeal at all, but he didn’t go out on work nights. Maybe Heidi would want to grab takeout and come over. She’d be a good distraction, if nothing else, although she’d probably see right through him. No, he’d be better off eating alone.

  He wondered what Thane and the boys were doing for dinner. He could easily imagine them crowded into a kitchen somewhere, having a family dinner. It would be loud, even a little boisterous, but his comment to Thane about how much the boys looked up to him had only grown truer over the past few weeks. They adored their uncle, and from the way Thane had come running tonight, it was clearly mutual.

  Damn it, why did Thane have to be perfect underneath his initial surliness? It made Blake want to forget propriety and throw caution to the wind.

  None of this was getting him any closer to being done and going home. He grimaced and booted his computer back up. He wasn’t looking forward to the phone calls, but the sooner he got them done, the sooner it would be over and he could move on to other things.

  Like figuring out how to be friends with Thane without jeopardizing anything else.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “HEY, Derek,” Thane said as he walked onto the construction site the next morning. Derek grunted at him from over his cup of coffee. Thane just smiled and peeled off his coat. They’d closed in the addition they were working on yesterday, and without the wind whistling through the open space, he wouldn’t need the coat.

  “You’re in a good mood,” Derek observed.

  “I am. The bullies who were bothering Kit and Phillip got caught red-handed last night. You should have seen Barnes come swooping down on their asses. They’ll be regretting they messed with my boys for a good long while.”

  “I thought you said the guy was an ineffective stuffed shirt who’d just make things worse,” Derek replied.

  Thane flushed beneath his beard. He probably hadn’t been that polite about it. “Turns out I misjudged him a bit. We don’t go about things the same way, but he got the job done last night, and in the end, that’s what really matters.”

  “Does this mean you’re going to start pulling your weight around here again?”

  Thane flipped Derek off. “I work harder in the time I’m here than most people do in two weeks, so don’t give me that shit. I was actually thinking I might go help out more. Barnes and the kids are doing a great job, but they tackled something huge with this show, and every pair of hands helps. I’ll work Saturdays at the jobsites to make up for it.”

  “Hell, Dalton, I was giving you shit, not asking you to work extra hours. You own the company. If you wanted to spend all day in the office shooting spit wads at the ceiling, nobody would say a word. You don’t have to give up Saturdays with your nephews.”

  “I didn’t build this company by shooting spit wads at the ceiling,” Thane said defensively. “I’ll bring the boys with me. It’ll be good for them to see the difference between what they do at stage crew and a real work site. They’re learning a lot, but they can take shortcuts on the sets that they could never take for real. Someday, I’m going to want to retire, and one of them may want to take over. If so, they should know what it entails.”

  “That’s the second time today you’ve complimented Barnes, however backhanded it was. You feeling all right?”

  Thane grinned despite his best intentions. He tried to cover it by taking a sip from his thermos, but Derek knew him too well, the bastard.

  “What’s up with Barnes? You’ve got a shit-eating grin on your face.”

  “He’s a nice guy,” Thane said. “He stood up for Kit and Phillip. I’m done thinking of him as the enemy.”

  “Uh-huh, tell me another one. You like him.”

  “I just told you he’s a nice guy. That implies I like him.”

  Derek gave him the stink eye. “You like me. You’re interested in him.”

  Thane opened his mouth to deny it, but the flash of attraction he’d felt the night before when Barnes stood up for Kit and Phillip hadn’t felt like friendship, no matter what he’d said aloud. “I don’t know him well enough to be interested in him.”

  “Bullshit. You don’t have to say it out loud, but you aren’t fooling me. Yourself, maybe, but not me. You’re interested in him. Is that why you didn’t want to go to the school the day you hurt your hand last week? You figured it out but didn’t want to admit it?”

  “Drop it, Derek.”

  “Is he gay?” Derek asked.

  Thane was tempted to throw the thermos at Derek, but that wouldn’t solve anything. “Yes. I ran into him at a bar Saturday a week ago. And then he stood up for t
he boys yesterday. And yeah, I like him. I just don’t know what to do about it.”

  “Ask him out, of course. You like him. From everything the boys said, they adore him, so they aren’t going to care. It’ll do you some good to get some regular action. Maybe you’ll be less of a bastard around here if you’ve got a honey to go home to at night.”

  “He has to say yes first,” Thane said, “and after the way I’ve been acting, I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t laugh in my face.”

  “I’ve watched you on the prowl. Turn on the charm. He’ll say yes sooner or later.”

  Thane scrubbed his hand over his face. “If he says no, I’m blaming it on you for convincing me this was a good idea.”

  “If he says no, you’ll figure out why and convince him to change his mind,” Derek replied. “You never take no for an answer. It’s how you built this company.”

  “Personal relationships are a little more complicated.”

  “Only if you make them complicated. He’s gay, he’s single—he is single, right?” Thane nodded. Barnes hadn’t been with anyone at the club. Surely if he had a boyfriend, he wouldn’t have been there alone. “Good, so he’s gay, he’s single, and he’s attractive enough to catch your eye. What else do you need?”

  For him to be interested in me.

  “MR. Dalton. I didn’t expect to see you today,” Blake said when Thane walked into the theater that afternoon.

  “I think you can call me Thane now,” Thane said. “Friends, remember?”

  “I remember,” Blake said with a small smile that warmed Thane all the way through. “I’m afraid I have to ask you to keep calling me Mr. Barnes if there are any students around, but please call me Blake if it’s just us.”