Stage Two

by Ariel Tachna

  They didn’t have to see him licking his wounds.

  BLAKE set down his phone and leaned against the back of the couch. That wasn’t the way he’d hoped their conversation would go. He’d hoped he could explain his situation to Thane and they could figure out a way forward. A hiatus, maybe, until school was out and Kit and Phillip were no longer his students.

  Mr. Williams already knew Blake was gay. For all that Mason’s parents tried to make that an issue, it wouldn’t have been one if Blake had been seeing anyone other than the guardian of the student their son was accused of bullying. Blake had tried explaining to the principal that he’d thought the case was resolved when he and Thane started dating, but it didn’t matter. He’d crossed a line, however unintentionally, and he was lucky to be removed from the case and not from his job entirely. At least he could go in to school tomorrow and tell Mr. Williams it was over. He’d have said it even if he and Thane had agreed on a break instead of a breakup, but this way he didn’t have to fudge the truth.

  He ought to be glad it had happened now. Thane had a temper, and Blake got enough of that at school. Better for things to end now while he was only a little gone over the man rather than a year or two from now when it would break his heart completely.

  And he’d be able to cross one thing off his list of unattainable fantasies. For a few short weeks, he’d been Thane Dalton’s lover.

  A few short weeks was better than nothing, right?

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “I CAN go back to school tomorrow, Uncle Thane,” Kit said when he came home from stage crew on Monday. “Mr. B. told me Mason’s appeal was denied. He won’t be back on campus for the rest of the year.”

  “That’s good. Are you all caught up on your assignments?” Thane refused to think about Blake.

  “Yes. I’ve had plenty of time to work on them during the day,” Kit said. “I know you’ve been worried about me, but everything’s going to be okay. Mason’s gone and none of the others bothered me after Mr. B. sent them to ISS before spring break.”

  “Good. And it’s my job to worry about you. Although I’m glad to know things are getting better.” Kit would be happy and safe, and that’s what mattered.

  “Are you going to talk to Mr. B. again now that it’s all settled?” Kit asked hesitantly.

  Thane smiled around the pinching in his chest that had to be heartburn. He wouldn’t let it be anything else. “I don’t know, Kit. We had fun together, but I’m not sure either of us is what the other wants or needs.”

  That sounded better than telling Kit that he’d lost his temper one time too many and Blake had changed his mind about their relationship. Some things were better left unsaid.

  “I think he misses you,” Kit said. “He looks sad all the time when he thinks we aren’t looking. He smiles whenever someone calls his attention, but we never used to have to get his attention.”

  Thane didn’t know what to say. Blake had been the one to end things, not Thane, but he couldn’t tell Kit that. He couldn’t do anything to damage Kit’s view of Blake, no matter how tarnished Thane’s opinion was.

  “Next Thursday we’re doing a special dress rehearsal and inviting family to attend. Will you come see the show?” Kit asked when Thane didn’t say anything.

  Thane nodded. He could do that. He could see everyone’s hard work pay off. He didn’t have to see Blake.

  “I KNOW it’s showtime next week, but you’re looking far more frazzled than usual,” Heidi said when they met for drinks on Saturday. He’d had to call her on Friday and tell her he wouldn’t be able to make it. They were still trying to get everything ready for opening night and they were all staying extra hours to finish up. “Did you work all day today too?”

  “Not all day, just a few hours,” Blake said. “I haven’t been sleeping well.”

  “Thane keeping you awake at night?” she said with a grin.

  “No. We broke up.”

  “What?” Heidi exclaimed. “You were head over heels for him. What happened?”

  “Getting involved with him was a mistake,” Blake said firmly. If he said it enough times, maybe he’d believe it. “We had fun, and the sex was good, but we’re too different. Plus I have to think about my job.”

  Heidi’s eyes narrowed. “What about your job? You said your principal supported you.”

  “He doesn’t care that I’m gay. He had a little more to say about me dating the guardian of two of my students, and he’s right. I knew better when I crossed that line.”

  “They won’t be your students forever,” Heidi pointed out.

  “No, but Thane will still think I can’t keep my promises. I can live with a lot of things, but I can’t live with someone who doesn’t believe in me.”

  “I’m sorry. From everything you said, I thought he was different.”

  Blake summoned a smile. “The right man is out there. I just have to keep looking until I find him.”

  If he’d started to think that man might be Thane, he had no one to blame but himself. He dealt with bad boys all day long at work. He knew what they were like. He should have known twenty years wouldn’t have changed the core of who Thane was.

  THANE slipped into the back of the theater just before the dress rehearsal was scheduled to begin. Kit and Phillip had explained that they would run it like it was actually a show, no stops, no interruptions, as if they had a paying audience rather than a volunteer one. The only difference would be that at the end, they’d have to stay and get notes from the director and from Blake on anything they needed to tweak before opening night. In theory they’d already tweaked everything, but this was their chance to make sure it all ran smoothly.

  Normally the boys walked home after stage crew, since it was just a mile to his house, but as late as it would be tonight, he’d stay and wait for them. He really needed to look into getting Phillip a car. Then he wouldn’t have to worry about staying and running into Blake.

  The house lights went down, the stage lights came up, and Thane smiled despite his black thoughts. The street scene looked fantastic, just the way he’d imagined it would when they’d been working on it. He didn’t know the music from the show to pick the various pieces out of the overture, but the high school orchestra did a great job. He didn’t have to know the songs to tell that much. The cast came onstage in groups, crossing and recrossing the scene in complicated choreography, and then one of the horns announced the start of a horse race and three of the boys began singing.

  Thane lost himself in the show, as number followed number and set followed set. He’d seen them all in pieces and parts, but this was the first time he’d seen them put together in all their finished glory. He couldn’t help a burst of pride at having been part, however small, of their creation. He’d have to make a fuss over Kit and Phillip after the show tonight. They’d done far more than he had, and they deserved to know how fantastic he thought they were.

  The actors came out at the end of the show to take their bows, followed by the stage crew. Thane hooted for the kids he’d worked with for the past few months. Regardless of how things had ended with Blake, the stage crew kids were amazing. They clapped for the orchestra, and then the two leads disappeared backstage to pull Blake and another adult onto the stage, both of them laughing in protest.

  Thane drank in the sight of Blake onstage. He looked tired beneath the bright spotlights, although that could’ve been his lack of makeup compared to the actors who were heavily made up for stage. It made sense, the hours they’d been working the past two weeks to get everything ready, but Thane hated to see it.

  The other teacher called for everyone to settle in for notes. Blake sat down with the kids, and Thane had to look away when he saw Kit and Phillip sitting on either side of Blake. Maybe it was coincidence. He certainly didn’t think Blake had pulled them there with an eye to reminding Thane of everything he’d started to dream of wanting and now couldn’t have. Blake was many things, but not even in the worst of his temper would he h
ave said Blake was cruel.

  That only make it hurt worse. Everything he wanted was sitting together there on the stage, and he only got to take two-thirds of it home. Why couldn’t Blake have been the man Thane thought he was?

  He slipped out of the back of the theater to wait in the truck. Kit and Phillip would find him, and he wouldn’t have to worry about running into Blake.

  BLAKE surveyed the empty stage. The run had been a complete success. All four public shows plus the two for the student body had played to packed houses—they’d actually had to turn people away on Saturday night—and the students were high as kites on the elation of it all. Tear-down had only taken a few hours despite the complexity of the sets.

  He hadn’t seen Thane once. Not at the family dress rehearsal, not at any of the shows, and not at tear-down. He hoped that meant he just hadn’t seen him. He couldn’t imagine Thane didn’t come to at least one show to support Kit and Phillip. As strongly as he had supported them through everything else, he had surely come and slipped away at the end before Blake made it out to thank everyone for attending.

  That hurt, but he would have to deal with it. He’d reacted badly to Thane’s accusations and had ended things instead of trying to find a solution. It was probably for the best. He didn’t want to be with someone who would always doubt him, but oh, how he missed Thane!

  He’d gotten used to having Thane around, working beside him with a joke or a smile or a snarky comment. It didn’t even matter which one. They all made Blake laugh. He missed the simmering tension just beneath the surface, wondering when the next touch would come to stoke those fires a little higher. For a few short weeks, Thane had made him feel attractive. More than that, Thane had made him feel worthy of that attention.

  It hadn’t even been the sex—as good as that had been. It had been the way Thane looked at him, like he was a treasure to be held on to, no matter the cost. Except that Thane hadn’t held on to him. He hadn’t even listened when Blake tried to explain. Granted, the cost of Blake’s failure at school had been his nephews’ safety, and Blake knew better than to think he could ever compete with Thane’s love for them, but when he’d done what he had for the same reason, it hurt.

  He was better off this way. He knew that, but his heart hadn’t caught up yet. He’d just have to give it time.

  “THIS is ridiculous,” Kit said the weekend after school let out for the summer. “Uncle Thane is miserable. Mr. B. is miserable. We have to do something.”

  “You realize they might not thank us for meddling,” Phillip said, taking the seat across the patio table from Kit. “Right now they’re unhappy, but they’re not mad at us.”

  “Yeah, but why are they unhappy?” Kit said. “It’s because of us. Or because of me, anyway.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I overheard Mason’s parents talking about how Mr. Barnes was biased because he was dating Uncle Thane, and how they could use that to get the case against Mason thrown out,” Kit said. “You know Mr. B. would never let them use him against me, and he and Uncle Thane stopped talking the day I met with Mr. Williams.”

  “That doesn’t mean they want to get back together,” Phillip said. “Even if it isn’t coincidence, things haven’t changed.”

  “Sure they have,” Kit said. “We’re juniors now. Even if we have trouble or get in trouble, we wouldn’t go to Mr. B. We’d go to Ms. Calhoun. That means nobody can use their relationship to try to hurt us.”

  “That’s assuming the problem was us and not that Mr. Barnes is gay,” Phillip said.

  “Everyone knows he’s gay. If that were the problem, he wouldn’t still be at Henry Clay,” Kit insisted. “We just need to lock them in a room somewhere until they stop sulking and talk to each other.”

  “You make it sound so easy,” Phillip said. “We don’t exactly have a lot of locked rooms around here, and even if we did, how would we get them both there at the same time?”

  “I never said it would be easy,” Kit replied. “Just necessary. I know it’s meddling, but they were happy. I didn’t imagine that, did I?”

  “No,” Phillip said slowly. “You didn’t imagine it.”

  “Then we have to fix this. You’re working with Uncle Thane. See if you can get him to tell you what went wrong. That’ll help us figure out how to fix it.”

  Phillip snorted. “You really think he’s going to talk to me about his love life?”

  “You’ve got a girlfriend. Use Darcy as an excuse to bring it up. Something about how you don’t want to make the same mistakes with her that he made with Mr. Barnes. Only… nicer.”

  “Yeah, that’ll go over really well. The last time I tried to ask him for advice, he told me where he kept the condoms. I don’t need a repeat of that. I do not want to think about Uncle Thane having sex with anyone, especially not Mr. Barnes.”

  “Come on, Phillip. You have to help.”

  Phillip sighed. “Fine, but if I get another safe sex or enthusiastic consent lecture, you have to do my chores for a month.”

  Kit grinned. “Deal.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  BLAKE’S phone buzzed, dragging his attention from the end-of-the-year report he had to finish before he could begin his vacation. The students had gone home for the summer almost two weeks earlier, and he was close to being done too. He didn’t recognize the number, but then, he got a lot of calls from parents and didn’t save all their numbers in his phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Mr. Barnes. It’s Kit. Kit Parkins. Do you have a minute?”

  “Of course, Kit. I have all the time you need.” He switched off his monitor so he could give Kit his undivided attention. All the stage crew kids had his number, just in case, but Kit had never called him before.

  “I had some questions about next year and classes and stuff. I was hoping you could give me some advice,” Kit said.

  “Your counselor might be the better person to talk to,” Blake said.

  “Maybe, but I don’t know her very well. I’m not sure she likes me. I know you’ll give me good advice.”

  Blake smiled, although Kit couldn’t see him. More than one student had made comments like that about the school counselor, but Blake had never known her to turn a student away. It didn’t matter, though. Kit had asked for his help, and Blake wouldn’t refuse.

  “I’m happy to help. Do you want to come up to school so we can talk? It’ll be easier to do in person than over the phone.”

  “We could get lunch,” Kit suggested. “At Newk’s or somewhere close by.”

  Blake should’ve said no, but he had to eat, and getting out of the building for a few hours would be good.

  “Okay. Do you want to meet today?” Blake asked.

  “Can you make it tomorrow instead? I’m supposed to have lunch with Uncle Thane and Phillip today,” Kit said.

  “Tomorrow it is,” Blake agreed. “I’ll meet you at Newk’s at noon.”

  “Great. See you then!”

  Blake ended the call and hoped he wasn’t making another colossal mistake. Thane wouldn’t approve of their meeting, but Blake didn’t care. Kit needed help and Blake could give it. Thane could just stuff it. If he couldn’t see that Blake was helping, it was his own damn fault for being so stubborn.

  MR. Barnes said yes. Noon tomorrow at Newk’s. You have to get Uncle Thane there.

  “Uncle Thane, can we get a real lunch today?” Phillip asked a little before Thane was ready to call for lunch break. “I don’t really want sandwiches again. I’m hungry an hour later.”

  “You should have said something,” Thane replied. “We could have packed a bigger lunch for you.”

  Phillip shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. So can we?”

  “Did you have somewhere in mind?” Thane asked.

  “Newk’s isn’t far away, and I like eating there,” Phillip said. “And I can talk to you there without worrying about anyone overhearing.”

  “Is there something we need to talk about?”
Thane asked, paying more attention now. He remembered being sixteen and always hungry. The only surprise there was how long it had taken Phillip to say anything. Needing to talk was something different. In his experience, teenaged boys didn’t talk if they could help it, except to the girl or guy who’d caught their interest.

  “Yeah. It’s nothing bad. I just… well, we’ll talk about it when we get there, okay?”

  Thane arched an eyebrow at Phillip, but he nodded. It wouldn’t hurt to leave the site for an hour, and he could get to the bottom of whatever was making Phillip squirm like a kid caught with his hand in the candy jar.

  THANE followed Phillip into Newk’s a little after noon. The hostess took down their names for a table of two, and Thane settled back to wait, enjoying the air-conditioning blowing on his face. That was one amenity the work site couldn’t provide.

  “Look, it’s Mr. Barnes,” Phillip said. “We should go say hello.”

  The last thing Thane wanted was to be anywhere near Blake, but he’d promised himself he wouldn’t drag Kit and Phillip down with him, so he pasted on a polite smile and followed Phillip into the restaurant. He got halfway to the table and froze when he saw Kit sitting across from Blake.

  “What are you doing?” he hissed at Phillip.

  Phillip ignored him and tugged Thane behind him. Thane could have shaken him off, but he really didn’t want a public scene.