Love on Stage

by Neil Plakcy

  Gavin loved the British-inflected lilt of Careful’s voice. “Have you ever been in love?” he asked.

  “Back in my country, many times,” Careful said. “There are many beautiful girls in Nairobi. I would be in love with a different one each day.” He looked at Gavin. “Like you are with boys here.”

  Gavin shook his head. “I don’t mean lust. I mean love, like your heart is going to break if you can’t be together.”

  “Yes, that is how I feel about my wife. She inspired me to come here, to make a better life for her.”

  Gavin had never talked to Careful about his background before. “Really?”

  “My brother is very, very smart. He got a scholarship to come to Florida and study. He worked hard and achieved his master’s degree. Then he began his job, and as soon as he had money saved, he asked me if I would like to come here.” He sat back in his chair. “I had just met Sindiya at church, and I knew she was the woman for me.”

  “How did you know?” Gavin interrupted.

  Careful smiled, exposing the gap between two teeth on the bottom row. “It is not something I could tell with my head. But with my heart, instead.” He picked up his cup of coffee and took a sip. “But I had no money for a wife. So I told Sindiya what my brother offered and asked her if she would wait for me to return.”

  “What did she say?”

  “That she would not wait for me.” Careful waited a beat, then continued. “She wanted us to marry then and come to the United States together, to make our future, even though it meant leaving behind her family and her friends, her country, and her culture.” He smiled again. “That is when I knew that she felt for me what I felt for her.”

  “That’s so romantic,” Gavin said.

  “It was not at first,” Careful said. “We shared a futon on the floor of my brother’s living room, and we both worked two jobs. Even now that we have our own place, we hardly see each other. It is like I am living with my sister. And not Beneficent, the nice one. It is like being with Charming, the one who is nothing like her name.”

  Gavin was confused. “But you’re still married?”

  “Oh yes, most certainly. We are still working hard to be able to buy a home and start a family. But we would not be together still if we did not love each other.” He sat back and looked at Gavin. “So, this mood of yours. It is because you are in love?”

  “I don’t know,” Gavin said, his voice sounding like a wail. “He won’t have anything more to do with me, and I feel awful.”

  “This is the man you call the Music Dude?”

  Gavin nodded. “Miles.” He spilled everything out—Starlit Lake, the concert, sex with Miles, then his stupidity. “So I can’t keep working here. What if he comes in for coffee?”

  Careful looked up at the clock. “Your break is over. I will finish your shift for you if you come back for the evening. Then starting tomorrow, you work at night instead of morning. How is that?”

  “That would be great!” Gavin said. He could keep his job, and he wouldn’t risk running into Miles.

  He’d have to see him eventually, but at least Gavin could have some time to think things through and figure out what to say.

  Merely Spectators

  Gavin went back home and crawled into his bed. He felt so miserable that he couldn’t stand to be awake. He set his alarm so he’d get up in time for the evening shift, but his cell phone woke him late that afternoon.

  “Gavin, it’s your father.”

  Gavin had long since given up trying to explain to his father that when he called on the cell phone, his name and number were displayed on the screen. “Hi, Dad.”

  “You sound like I woke you up. It’s five o’clock in the afternoon.”

  “I had to be at work at seven, Dad. I took a nap when I got home.”

  “Must be nice.” His father harrumphed. “Anyway I’m calling with bad news.”

  “Is everybody all right?” Gavin asked. “Mom? Gretchen?”

  “We’re all quite healthy. At least, I hope your sister is. She won’t talk to your mother about prenatal vitamins.”

  “Then what’s the bad news?”

  “I spoke with Miles Goodwin this afternoon. He has decided that he can’t continue to work with us anymore. The best that he can do is connect us to this songwriter friend of his in Nashville. He says that it’s because he has too many other clients, which I know for a fact—through Alan’s inquiries—is not true.”

  Though Gavin had expected that Miles would back away, hearing his father say it made his stomach cramp up again.

  “Did you have anything to do with that decision?” his father asked.

  “I’ve hardly spoken to him since we left Wisconsin,” Gavin said.

  His father said nothing, and finally Gavin had to continue. “I think he’s mad at me.”

  “Why?”

  Gavin sat up in bed and pulled his knees close. “I don’t want to go into it.” Certainly not with his father, he thought.

  “Did you break up with him?”

  “Me? No. I…” he hesitated. “I think I might be in love with him.”

  “And he doesn’t feel the same way?” his father asked gently.

  “I think maybe he does, or did. But I screwed up, and now he won’t talk to me.”

  There was another long silence on his father’s end, but this time, Gavin had nothing more to say.

  “Your mother and I knew you were gay long before you told us, you know,” his father said.

  “I know you said so then. But really?”

  “You’re our son, Gavin. But we didn’t want to say anything until you did. And even after that, I’ve kept my opinions to myself. But more and more, I see that despite our difference in orientation, you and I are very much alike. I know you don’t want to hear that from your old father, but it’s true.”

  “I’m not ready to come back to Eau Claire and work at the dealership,” Gavin said.

  “Excuse me? I wasn’t aware I’d made that offer.”

  “Isn’t that what you’re getting at? That I’d make a good salesman, like you?”

  His father laughed, and Gavin was offended. He thought he could be a good salesman if he wanted, and he was about to protest, when his father said, “That’s not what I meant at all, though I see how much personal charm you have, and I flatter myself a bit that you inherited that from me.”

  “Oh.”

  “You’re a very handsome young man, Gavin. Of course you know that. But I was very good-looking in my way at your age.”

  “You were, Dad. I’ve seen the pictures.”

  “Well, what you might not know is that I—let’s say spread my affections around a great deal. Somewhat like you.”

  “Really?” A horrible thought jumped into his brain, and he said, “If you cheated on Mom, I don’t want to hear about it.”

  “Gavin! Of course not. Your mother is the love of my life. I was talking about before we…became a couple.”

  Gavin laughed. His dad had been quite handsome, in a buttoned-down kind of way. Even in casual photos with his friends, his hair was perfectly groomed, his clothes neat. He filled out his T-shirts nicely, and he knew—from childhood times at pool showers and so on—that his dad was pretty well hung.

  Yuck. He tossed that idea right out of his head.

  “So what’s your point, Dad?” he asked.

  “My point—and I do have one—is that I know what it’s like to be able to pick and choose your romantic partners and toss them away easily. It was very difficult for me to convince your mother that what I felt for her was different.”

  “She didn’t want to marry a player?”

  “We didn’t call it that back then,” his father said. “But yes, that’s the point.”

  Gavin swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. “How did you change her mind?”

  “I know that your mother and I have made it sound like we fell in love at first sight, that day out at Lake Michigan. But that’s no
t the truth. I had a group that I hung around with, and it wasn’t hard for me to convince them to include Natalie and her model friends.”

  He sighed. “That might have been a mistake. From my friends, your mother learned about my reputation. And to be honest, I thought she was pretty but too quiet for someone with a big personality like mine.”

  “But she balances you out, Dad,” Gavin said.

  “That’s the kind of thing it takes a while to figure out, Gavin.” He was quiet for a moment. “One day, a group of us were out at a picnic by the lake, and one of the men had too much to drink.”

  “Did you rescue Mom from his clutches?” Gavin asked.

  “Quite the opposite. Lenny started yelling at his girlfriend, a skinny little thing from farm country, and then he took a swipe at her. Your mother jumped up before anyone else could and positioned herself between the two of them. She told Lenny that if he hit either of them, she’d see that he was prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

  He could imagine his mother using just that kind of language. “What happened?”

  “Well of course everyone jumped up to intercede, but it wasn’t necessary. She had Lenny backed into a corner, and he knew it.”

  “And that’s when you fell in love with her?”

  “Not quite. I asked her out to dinner to celebrate her strength, and she turned me down. It took me two more tries to wear her down, and by then I was intrigued. Girls didn’t say no to me very often. Your mother and I went to dinner and talked, just as friends. I kept pursuing her, taking her out for coffee, helping her with her studies. I called it my stealth campaign.”

  His father was quiet for a moment. “She wouldn’t even kiss me for quite a while,” he said. “By then I knew she was the one for me. I wouldn’t give up until she admitted that she loved me, and then she agreed to marry me.”

  It wasn’t quite the story that his mother had told. When he and Gretchen were in their early teens, Gretchen had been turned down by a boy, and their mother had comforted her. She had said that she’d spotted their father that day at the lake and fallen for his good looks, then insinuated herself into his life until one day he looked up and saw her there, waiting. “One day a boy will see you, too, Gretchen,” she had said.

  Had Miles seen him? Or seen through him—and not liked what he saw?

  “I have faith that your group can succeed, even without Miles Goodwin to help.” His father paused. “But from what I’ve seen, he cares for you, Gavin, and I’d hate to see you both throw that possibility away.”

  “Thanks, Dad. But I’m not sure what I should do right now.”

  “Follow your heart, son. That’s the best advice I can give you.”

  Gavin hung up and realized he had to get back to Java Joe’s.

  He worked the late shift, until closing at eleven. By then he was exhausted, from the disruption of his regular work pattern, his lack of sleep, and the pain radiating from the vicinity of his heart.

  He locked up the back, then turned the lights out in the café. In the glow of the street lamps on Lincoln Road, he walked through the empty room to the front door, where he punched in the alarm code, then stepped out into the night.

  Miles Goodwin sat at one of the tables in front of the café. He wore a white bowling shirt with a pair of tenpins knocking into each other on the breast and a porkpie hat that accentuated his hipster look.

  “I came by when I thought your shift ended this afternoon, but your boss said you were working tonight,” Miles said. “I wanted to apologize to you for the way I acted last night. And to explain what I said to your father.”

  Gavin sat down across from him. “I’m the one who owes you an apology,” he said. “I had my head so far up my ass I couldn’t see daylight.”

  Miles laughed. “Nice turn of phrase.”

  “One of my father’s sayings.” He hesitated, then plunged in. “I’ve been talking about you a lot lately. Your ears must have been ringing.”

  “Really?”

  “Uh-huh. My roommates told me I was acting like a jerk because I didn’t tell you how much I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”

  “I had my own agenda.”

  “No, I’m not saying it right.” Gavin took a deep breath. “At first I couldn’t figure you out. I thought maybe you were using me to get to my family.”

  Miles started to say something, but Gavin held his hand up. “Please, let me finish.” He knew that if he didn’t say everything he had to right then, he might never. “And I admit that at first I thought of you as just another guy for sex. The fact that you wanted to hold back was a challenge. I deliberately teased you to see if I could get you to break.”

  His mouth was dry, but he had to continue. “These last couple of weeks, my emotions have been all over the place. I thought I was so excited because of the concert, the chance to be on stage, to make something out of my life that wasn’t just based on the way I look.”

  He took a deep breath. “But somewhere in there, I realized that wasn’t the reason. It was because I loved being with you.”

  A blonde in high heels walked by with a tiny, yappy white dog on a sparkling leash. Gavin waited until they had passed to continue.

  “I felt something when I was with you. Something different. Like I was enjoying the sex more because it was with you, and I knew you, and I knew what kind of person you were.”

  “I felt the same thing,” Miles said. “And I’m sorry I got so caught up in work when I first got back to Miami that I didn’t call you right away. I hated it when we argued.”

  Gavin sat back in his chair. Lincoln Road was still busy, people walking, dogs barking, salsa music playing somewhere in the distance. “The thing I hate about being a model is that nobody ever asks your opinion, and if you try and say anything, like this position hurts, or the clothes don’t fit right, they just shut you up. That’s the way I felt when it looked like you and my dad and Alan were all working behind our backs.”

  Miles laughed. “That’s funny. I got so caught up in the work because I was doing it for you. And then when you didn’t call me for a couple of days, I felt hurt, and I mixed what’s going on with us up with what’s happened to me in the past.”

  “Seems like we both made some mistakes,” Gavin said. “But we can put all that past us, can’t we? And move on?”

  “You’re very talented, Gavin. And you have a great stage presence. I’m sure you’ll be a successful artist.” He stood up. “That’s what I came to say.”

  “Wait, Miles!” Gavin felt suddenly frantic. “Please, sit down. I’m not finished.”

  Miles hesitated, but he sat.

  “I’ve been a selfish jerk,” Gavin said. “I see that now. I kept treating you like you were the means to my success, when I should have realized that I don’t care about any of that. Whether I go on stage again, or stay a barista, or go work at my dad’s dealership. What I care about is being with you. Because you’re an amazing person, and I love you.”

  There it was, the L word again. This time, though, it wasn’t part of some postcoital conversation but thrown out there on the pavement for the world to hear.

  Gavin thought getting it all out would make him feel better, but he felt worse instead. What if Miles stood up again and walked away? He couldn’t blame him; he knew that he had acted like a jerk. “Please?” he asked in a very small voice. “Can I have a second chance to show you that I care about you, for yourself?”

  A car rumbled past on one of the side streets, blasting hip hop so loud that the table between them shook. Gavin felt like he was holding his breath, until Miles reached out for his hand. In the light of the neon twinkle above them, he looked into Gavin’s eyes, and Gavin could sense the turmoil going on inside Miles. He squeezed Miles’s hand, hoping to convey how much he felt in that small bit of contact.

  “When I was a kid, I had this piano teacher,” Miles said slowly. “Senora Rodriguez. She told me that I was playing too much from my head and that I had to
learn to let the music flow from my heart. That’s always been a problem for me. But when I heard you sing and I played with you and sang with you and coached you, the music was coming from my heart, and I understood what Senora Rodriguez was trying to tell me, all those years ago.”

  “Would it be too corny to say that we can make beautiful music together?” Gavin asked, feeling the warmth and strength in Miles’s grip.

  “Corny, yes,” Miles said. He stood up, still holding Gavin’s hand. “But true.”

  He pulled Gavin up to his feet and then moved closer to him. His lips touched Gavin’s, tentatively at first, then with greater pressure. Gavin wrapped his arms around Miles, and they kissed under the neons, with the parade of Lincoln Road after dark going on behind them, almost as if they were on stage and the rest of the world merely spectators.

  Loose Id Titles by Neil Plakcy

  Guardian Angel of South Beach

  Love on Site

  Love on Stage

  Mi Amor

  * * * *

  The HAVE BODY, WILL GUARD Series

  Three Wrong Turns in the Desert

  Dancing with the Tide

  Teach Me Tonight

  Olives for the Stranger

  Under the Waterfall

  The Noblest Vengeance

  * * * *

  The Jasmine Hero

  (a “Have Body, Will Guard” story only available at Loose Id)

  Neil Plakcy

  Neil Plakcy is the author of the Have Body, Will Guard adventure romance series: Three Wrong Turns in the Desert, Dancing with the Tide, Teach Me Tonight, Olives for the Stranger, Under the Waterfall, and The Noblest Vengeance, published by Loose Id.

  His other M/M romances are Mi Amor, The Russian Boy, The Buchanan Letters, Love on Site, and Love on Stage, and the novella The Guardian Angel of South Beach.

  He is an assistant professor of English at Broward College in South Florida, and has been a construction manager, a computer game producer, and a web developer—all experiences he uses in his fiction. He cannot sing and has only been a model once.