by Riley Knight
Somehow, he knew that the stranger had just left. Which was ridiculous. He could have walked away at any point while Julian was just wasting time talking to Ella.
The fact remained, the guy was gone, and Julian had no idea how he was ever going to muster up the courage to try to speak to him again.
Chapter Two
Luca
The truth was, Luca didn’t even particularly like jazz.
It wasn’t like he had anything against it, either. It just had never particularly been his thing. The only reason that he’d come to this crappy, tiny little hole in the wall jazz club in the first place was because of his best friend, Kiran. He probably never would have even known about this club if not for him.
The fact of the matter was, though, that Luca was coming to love jazz. He’d never given it enough time before, he realized.
Of course, he’d never heard the smoky, strong, whiskey-honey sound of the jazz singer’s voice before, either. If he had, he would have fallen in love with jazz a long time ago.
The dark haired man had been singing the very first night that Luca had walked in. Singing, his eyes mostly shut, his hands cradling the mic in a way that was just short of blatantly erotic. Crooning his song at the crowd.
It was strange, how no one else really even seemed to be listening. There was a low hum of chatter, not enough to really be rude, but enough to show that the patrons of this particular club seemed to be more interested in drinking and chatting with their friends than in playing strict, close attention to the man singing.
For Luca, it was completely different. From the moment that his eyes settled on the man, from the moment he heard the first note that the man sang, he was hooked. He felt like he couldn’t look away for anything. The world could end outside, the four horsemen could go galloping through the streets, and somehow, Luca knew that he still wouldn’t be able to look away.
On the street, Luca would have noticed the guy, just to start with. He’d never seen anyone that was so damn classically handsome. Like a man who is dying of thirst, Luca found himself drinking in every detail of the man as he watched him on stage.
Dark hair, short but slightly messy. Not exactly in a deliberate way, more like the guy ran his fingers through it habitually. Elegant hands, with long, slender fingers. The full, sweet pink lips that stretched into a wide smile and made Luca think that everything just might be okay after all.
And those eyes, when he opened them, those enormous, flashing dark eyes that seemed to hold every mystery known to mankind in them.
Those eyes. That was what captivated him the most on all of the visits since the first one, and there had been many. Enormous and soulful and sexy as sin, those eyes could see everything. All of Luca’s secrets, everything.
He was putting way too much on this stranger, and he knew it. Still, he couldn’t help but continue to admire him. He would never let the guy know, of course. He was fascinated, but he wasn’t a creeper. He never tried to see the singer outside of the bar, and he would never dare to so much as speak to him.
“I never thought that you’d be the one dragging me to a jazz club,” Kiran complained. Luca spared a quick glance for his best friend, who had joined him, once more, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of the small, compact, body of the man on the stage. Nor could he help but be distracted by the deep, dark, rich liquid of his voice.
“Shh.” Luca let his eyes slide back forward, back toward the beautiful singer on the stage. “He’s almost done.”
He’d been watching enough to know what would happen next. The man would put his mic away, and he’d go over to the piano. He’d play the slow, sweet, romantic song that secretly touched Luca in a way that he couldn’t remember anything ever doing before.
Luca was a guy who liked to have fun. Who liked to get around. He knew that about himself and had never made any apologies for it. So why did hearing that voice, watching the singer as he played, make him believe in things that he’d never much thought about before?
Things like devotion. Affection. Trust.
Love.
Not that he was in love with the guy. He would never claim that. He was just a fan of his music, and of him. But listening to him, he felt like things that he hadn’t thought would be possible for him somehow miraculously were.
“Yeah, yeah,” Kiran grumbled, settling back into his chair. “I know the drill. I exist again when the jazz singer is gone.”
Luca didn’t dignify that with a response. Besides, he didn’t want to pull himself away from the singer. The lights went low for a second, and the effect on the man on the stage was noticeable.
Oh, he kept singing, but he looked a bit startled. Pulled out of himself. Personally, Luca loved it when the guy got so wrapped up in his music that he might as well have been all alone. He’d never seen that level of devotion to anything before, and it made him feel curiously voyeuristic to watch.
The singer was pulled from that trance, and those dark eyes flashed open, confused. He kept playing, and he kept singing, but there was less passion in it. Just for a second or two, of course, and Luca doubted that anyone else even noticed the bobble.
And then those eyes, searching the crowd, seemed to fixate on Luca.
It wasn’t the first time that Luca could almost swear that the guy was seeing him, actually seeing him, not just interacting with the crowd like a good performer would do. At that moment, Luca could almost believe that the guy had noticed him, him specifically, but in the past, the singer’s eyes had always moved on, leaving Luca feeling strangely exhilarated, almost shaky.
Not this time, though. This time, that eye contact lingered, and a secret little smile curved the full, sexy bow of the singer’s mouth. At that moment, Luca could swear that the guy was singing just to him, the soft, sweet, old words meant for Luca’s ears only.
It felt like an acknowledgment, somehow. Like the singer was aware of the fact that Luca was the only person in the whole building who was listening with rapt attention. Like they were linked, for a moment in time, however short, by the singer’s music.
This time, the connection didn’t last only a few seconds. This time, the dark-eyed man kept looking at him through the whole rest of his set. It might have been a few minutes, it might have been half an hour. Luca didn’t know and didn’t care.
What he cared about was when it was over. When the singer had taken his bows and disappeared backstage again. Strangely exhausted, Luca fell back into his chair. He’d touched something, however briefly, that was nearly divine. Coming back down from those heights was an odd experience, it was like he’d been speeding fast on a train or a plane, but now he had to stop. He could feel the deceleration already.
He became aware that Kiran was looking at him. Had probably been watching him with a bemused expression the whole time that Luca had been staring at the singer. What had happened between them, was that obvious to anyone other than Luca? Including the singer himself?
“Dude,” Kiran breathed, and he wasn’t even smirking. He was just looking at Luca in wonder. “You have to talk to the guy. You have to.”
Luca shook his head. He felt like he was already a bit creepy, just because he came and watched the guy perform more nights than he didn’t. He felt more of a connection to the guy than he really should, given that he’d never met him before, and he didn’t feel like he exactly wanted to cross over the line into stalker mode.
“No way. I don’t want a restraining order,” Luca said, turning to smile at his best friend. But Kiran didn’t smile back, and there was something very much like wonder in his almond-shaped dark eyes.
“That was … that was eye fucking,” Kiran said quietly. “I just watched you eye fuck that guy, and it wasn’t one sided. If he comes out here, you have to talk to him.”
Sometimes, the singers did. The particular singer that had gotten Luca’s attention even had done it a few times. He had, of course, never come up to Luca’s table. Luca had deliberately picked the most unobtrusive ta
ble in the whole place because he wanted to be overlooked.
On the stage, someone else came out. A short, cute looking woman with gorgeous skin the color of mahogany and a figure that, honestly, might have interested Luca, if he hadn’t been so filled with thoughts of the singer before her. He liked curvy women, and she definitely qualified.
As it was, though, all that Luca could think about was the man who had gone before her. The way his eyes had widened just slightly as they locked onto Luca’s. It was almost like the guy had felt what Luca had felt, the energy running between them.
Actually, Kiran was right. It had been quite intimate, a meeting of eyes as intense as any sex that Luca had had before. Maybe more. But that didn’t actually mean, he was fully aware, that the jazz singer had felt the same thing.
“Luca, man. Come on,” Kiran urged softly. “I’ve never seen you react to anyone like you do to that guy. You have to at least try. Even just tell him something like that you like his singing and see what happens.”
Luca snorted. Liked his singing. That was kind of an understatement, wasn’t it? But if he tried to tell the man anything else, if he tried to tell him how … how damn near transcendent he found his music, the guy would probably smile politely and back away. If Luca was lucky, and he didn’t just stumble over the words until the singer departed at top speed.
He could see far, far too many things going wrong with that plan, and yet, now that Kiran had put it to words, he found that he was strangely reluctant to let go of it. His mind kept returning to the idea, playing with it, like a cat pawing at string.
“I couldn’t,” Luca murmured, more to himself than to Kiran. “He’s so … he’s so damn pretty. How am I supposed to …?”
“Hey. You’re not exactly hideous yourself,” Kiran chided, and there was sympathy in his voice. “Just talk to him. Say something nice. Don’t spaz. It’ll be fine.”
Kiran’s dark eyes wandered over to the stage again and then widened. He’d just noticed the pretty girl on the stage, and Luca let out a soft sigh of relief. It seemed that he’d been distracted quite nicely, actually, giving Luca time to think about what it was that he actually wanted. What he would dare to try to get.
After a moment, though, he became aware that Kiran was watching the stage with more than casual interest. Actually, as he looked at his best friend, he thought that he probably had some idea how he himself had looked as he gazed at the handsome singer before.
If Luca said Kiran’s name, Kiran probably wouldn’t have even noticed. He was staring with fixation at the stage, and Luca shook his head, amused. Weren’t they a pair, the two of them, ogling pretty jazz singers in an old, shabby, dying jazz club. A pair of idiots, really, but Kiran seemed transfixed, and Luca figured he could do Kiran the same service that Kiran had done for him and stay through the pretty girl’s show.
Finally, she disappeared off stage, and Luca shook his head. He’d half decided that, if the dark-haired singer did appear, that yes, he would try to talk to him. He’d even gotten a few starting comments ready, just in case. But he hadn’t appeared, and it had to have been at least two hours since he’d disappeared backstage.
“Come on. Let’s go,” Luca said, and he stood up, stretching muscles that were sore and stiff through the disuse of the last four or five hours. He’d barely moved that whole time, though he only realized it belatedly.
Kiran let out a long exhalation like he had barely been breathing the whole time that the girl was on. Luca sympathized fully, but it was getting late, and he knew that Kiran had work in the morning. Kiran looked at him, and his eyes were far away for a moment like he didn’t even see Luca’s face at first.
“Yeah, I guess so. She’s probably not going to come out, not this late,” Kiran admitted. Luca smirked and shook his head. He might be shy when it came to talking to people that he found attractive, but Kiran had no such compunctions. Sometimes, Luca wished that he had even a fraction of his best friend’s confidence.
It took them a few minutes to settle their tab, and the whole time, it had to be said, Luca was watching. Just in case. The chance of the beautiful singer coming out was pretty slim, at this point. The guy was probably long gone. Back home? Where he had a boyfriend, or maybe a girlfriend? Or a spouse?
It was none of his business. He would probably never even know. The best thing for him to do, he realized, was to stop coming here at all. To stop feeding this growing addiction before it became a ravening beast that consumed him whole.
“Let’s go,” Luca said, and he headed for the door, his shoulders set in a resolute, firm line. He didn’t even look back, ushering Kiran out ahead of him. He even told himself that he didn’t want to look back. Let it all end right here and now, before he made a complete and total idiot of himself.
If he had waited five more seconds, and if he had been looking back, he wouldn’t have been able to avoid seeing it when the beautiful jazz singer walked out into the room.
* * *
When Luca had made the resolution to leave that club alone, he hadn’t actually imagined that he would be able to keep it. It wasn’t the first time that he’d been determined to stop this before he messed everything up. Before he opened his mouth and babbled at the beautiful stranger and ruined everything before it could even get started.
There was something missing from his life. Call it beauty, though that wasn’t quite accurate. In his job, he saw a lot of beauty. A sense of purpose, maybe? It was vague, but nevertheless sharp in its intensity.
That was what brought him back to the club. A desire to hear that beauty, to see it, to feel like maybe everything wasn’t all pointless. It was stupid, and he knew it, to put everything on one person like that, but as long as he never opened his mouth, as long as the man never knew, what harm could there be?
As it was, though, that resolution became easier to keep rather abruptly. The very next morning, Luca got a call from the editor of one of the newspapers that he freelanced for, asking him to go up to Seattle for a few weeks, to stay at a resort just outside of town.
These were the jobs that he liked the most. He worked for all sorts of newspapers, when he could get the work, and wrote about everything from food to travel to fashion. Plays and movies and concerts. Anything and everything. It kept his life different enough that he never got bored.
This one, though, sounded like an amazing deal. He would get to stay in a small cabin that was actually built up in a tree, take pictures, and relax. Do some hiking if he wanted to, maybe some swimming. It was, he was surprised to note, actually getting fairly warm out.
It felt like the winter had lasted forever, but it was, inevitably, coming to an end. The summer was approaching rapidly, and this job was the perfect chance for him to start to celebrate it.
Not that he wouldn’t like more stability. There were weeks where he went hungry when he couldn’t find any work. Far too many of them, really. But who else had the sort of job where they were actually sent to someplace so beautiful? From the pictures, it was a remote, forest heaven, green and cool and fresh.
He didn’t even hesitate. He needed some space, really, to let his mind fixate on something else. The gorgeous jazz singer, wasn’t it possible that it was just a crush? If he got that separation, maybe he would find that what he was feeling wasn’t as big a deal as he felt like it was when he was right there at the moment.
Luca had expected to think about the singer often, but only for the first couple of days. It actually surprised him, the depth of the intensity with which he found himself missing the man. He’d never spoken to him. Never even heard his spoken voice, only singing.
The whole time, every word he wrote, every moment, on all of the hikes and the swims, and especially through the long nights, Luca thought about the man. It was, if anything, more intense on the last day than it had been on the first.
So much for getting distance.
That voice, like smooth honey, but with a smoky whiskey kick underneath it. Those dark eyes that
Luca swore could see into his soul. The body, slender but something about the way he filled out a suit made Luca think that there might just be some pleasant surprises when that suit came off.
He was back for less than an hour, long enough to drop his luggage off at home, before he called Kiran and arranged to meet him back at the jazz club.
Chapter Three
Julian
No matter how many times Julian looked at that corner table, the handsome man refused to appear. It was the same as it had been night after night, ever since that night about two weeks ago that Julian had actually screwed his courage up enough that he had dared to think that he might talk to the man.
‘About’ two weeks ago? Who was he kidding? It was two weeks exactly, and he’d been achingly aware of every single day that had passed. Hell, every hour. Each night, when he’d come into work, he’d been convinced that this was it. That he’d look over into that corner, and he’d see the guy there.
After two weeks, though, he was starting to think that he’d missed his chance. He’d had that one opportunity, and he’d wasted it.
No. It was worse than that. He’d had opportunities that had, at the time, seemed endless. That was the whole problem. Hadn’t he wasted the chances that he’d gotten because he was too shy to talk to the guy? Maybe he wouldn’t get another chance, and he would deserve it if that were the case.
There was a tiny kernel of hope in him still, however. There shouldn’t be, since, for all he knew, the guy had gotten bored with the club and had sought out a whole new place to drink. Or wasn’t it possible that he’d gotten bored of waiting for Julian?
It seemed egotistical to say, but Julian could swear that the guy had been interested in him. He’d certainly watched him with great attention, and according to the other performers, the handsome dark-haired man had never looked like that at anyone else. Maybe he’d been sending out signals, and Julian had been too stupid to realize. Or more like, he just couldn’t believe that it was true.
