And so it went. They were in top form musically, and Jesse was in the zone, doing his bantering-rock-star thing.
It was good for Hunter’s soul, as stupid as that sounded. He couldn’t be here and not smile. Not sing along. Hunter wasn’t a music person, or at least he hadn’t been before Jesse, but he felt every note slide through his bloodstream, better than any drug.
“This is the best I’ve ever seen them!” the woman next to him exclaimed to her friend, and Hunter had to agree.
He didn’t want it to end. And for a while, it felt like it wouldn’t. The band never seemed to tire. They didn’t take an intermission, just kept rocking.
But then it did end. The final notes of the last song faded, and the band came together at the front of the stage to bow. Hunter joined the audience on its feet, cheering and clapping. The applause continued even after the band left the stage.
“They’ll do an encore,” said the same women next to him. “They haven’t played ‘When You’re Mine’ yet.”
And as if she’d willed it to happen, Jesse appeared on stage again, but he was alone. He smiled and waited, and when the crowd didn’t quiet, he made shushing motions with his hands. “We have a little surprise for you tonight,” he said when he could finally be heard. “Sit down and be good, or you don’t get it.” He flashed a signature Jesse Jamison flirty smirk and the audience shut up—mostly. There was a catcall or two from people who just couldn’t resist.
“The video for ‘When You’re Mine’ releases tonight at midnight, but we’re going to show it to you all here first.” He gestured at a pair of video screens flanking the stage. They’d been blank for the duration of the concert, and Hunter had assumed they were superfluous, infrastructure left over from something else that they hadn’t been able to get rid of due to the impromptu nature of the show. “And then we’ll come back and play you a couple more songs before we say goodbye,” Jesse finished. “Sound good?”
The crowd went wild.
Hunter did not go wild.
If memory served, this was the video that Jesse had told him about, the one he wasn’t excited about. The one with Kylie Cameron in it.
All the fizzy joy that had been frothing through his thirsty body evaporated.
But it was a good reminder. He’d been living in this weird little bubble today, but bubbles were ephemeral by nature. He was resigned to salvaging his friendship with Jesse, and that meant he had to accept Jesse—all of him, including his limitations.
The video started with a shot of a funky, brick, warehouse-type building in the rain. The camera moved up and through a window. Inside an open loft-like structure a few floors up was Jesse, staring forlornly out the window.
The crowd got louder when he appeared. He did look broody and irresistible, singing and gazing out at the rain. It went on for most of the first verse, then there was a cut to a crowded restaurant. This scene was brighter, and as Jesse’s character walked into the shot, he was happy, smiling, walking toward someone off camera. This would be the flash to happier times, with Kylie.
Except, the camera widened and it wasn’t Kylie Jesse was walking toward with a grin.
It was a guy with a gray pompadour and black glasses.
The bottom dropped out from the balcony. Hunter was falling. Falling.
But then he forced himself to stop. To pay attention.
Oh my God. It was the ramen shop. The Jesse character slid into a table next to . . . the Hunter character? It wasn’t a replica of him or anything, just an actor about his age with gray hair. But there wasn’t any other interpretation, was there?
If he’d been unsure, the next scene sealed it. The action moved to a formal evening. People dressed up and dancing. Tuxedoed Jesse leading the Hunter stand-in onto a crowded dance floor and taking him into his arms.
Hunter took long deep breaths. If he hyperventilated, he would miss something, and that was unacceptable.
After a little bit more of the “happy” montage, the action cut back to Sad Jesse in the building. Then it moved up to a rooftop. Another day, because it wasn’t raining anymore. The rest of the band was there, playing the song. Then Jesse emerged from a door, walked over, and picked up a microphone and started singing along, coming in at exactly the right time. But he was still Sad Jesse, pensive and restrained. This coincided with the part of the song where things got quiet and subdued.
Then there was a great big streak of lightning as the rain started, and the Hunter character burst through the door.
Jesse’s face changed, even as the rain picked up, transformed itself from resigned and morose to . . . overjoyed. Even more amazing than the video itself was that the song was different. They’d recorded a different ending. Instead of ending on the sad note, the song swelled again as Jesse dropped the mic and ran to the Hunter actor and kissed him. A great big Hollywood kiss with the cameras revolving around them and the storm raging overhead. It went on and on as the smiling band played and the rain fell.
With perfect music video coordination, the kiss ended just in time for Jesse to retrieve his mic and sing the last lines of the song. The final shot of the video was him looking directly into the camera, breaking the fourth wall with his signature Jesse smirk, as if to say, This is me, and I dare you to object.
Holy shit.
The lights went out. It was utterly silent in the theater.
Then, after a painfully long second, the crowd lost its collective mind. Rose to its feet and screamed and whooped and whistled and clapped.
Hunter’s mind was stumbling. Moving slowly to try to process what had just happened. “This video is releasing tonight at midnight,” Jesse had said. A video wasn’t made overnight. He had been planning this. Was going to release this video even though he’d thought Hunter was gone.
Hunter jumped when the lights came back on onstage. The band filed out and took up their instruments. They were, to a man, smiling.
Jesse came last. Calmly put on his guitar, but then slid it around so it was hanging off his back, and approached the mic.
Smirked. “So, in case you didn’t get that, that was kind of a personal song for me. A love song. Because you see, what happened was . . .” He lifted a hand to his forehead, shielding his eyes from the bright stage lights. “Can we have some house lights, please?”
The theater went from darkness to light, a reverse dimming. Jesse scanned the crowd. He must have known where Hunter was sitting because it only took a few seconds for his gaze to land on its target.
“What happened was, I fell in love with my best friend.” He grinned, an aww shucks grin like he was a teenager at a school dance, and Hunter’s eyes started leaking.
“His name is Hunter,” Jesse went on, “and this song’s for him.”
He swiveled his guitar into place, turned, and nodded at Rob, who banged his drumsticks together to count them in, and the band played Hunter’s song.
“How do you feel?” someone asked Jesse as the band spilled offstage. He wasn’t sure from whom the question had come, but everyone looked to him for the answer.
“Like I should have done this years ago.”
It was the truth. He wondered now what he had been so afraid of.
It was like he’d been running a marathon, out of breath and exhausted, struggling forward at any cost, and he’d suddenly . . . stopped running.
There would probably be blowback tomorrow, but right now, he was undaunted by that prospect. The disapproval of the wider world, or the internet, felt like a bug on his clothes he could easily brush off.
But he couldn’t let himself rest fully, couldn’t enjoy his victory, until he knew if his Hail Mary pass had been successful. He’d been so focused on pulling off the insane stunt of an impromptu concert, working furiously all day alongside Amber and Tony, who’d flown in from LA to secure the venue, get all their shit there, and release ticket info, that he hadn’t thought about what would happen . . . after.
He tried to socialize, to pay attention to the pe
ople surrounding him, to be gracious in the face of their good wishes, but he kept scanning the crowd, looking for that familiar flash of gray.
After fifteen minutes, he started to panic. The show had been last-minute, and they didn’t have the usual meet-and-greet obligations, so the backstage crowd wasn’t very big—just the band and crew and a few friends.
He caught Amber’s eye. She’d been unsettled too, perusing the crowd. When her gaze met his, her brow knit in concern. Shit. If Amber was giving up . . .
But then something happened. Her face changed so quickly, it would have been comical in other circumstances. The furrowed eyebrows sprang in the other direction, climbing her forehead as her mouth fell open. She came running over.
“Oh my God, Jesse! I gave him a ticket, but I forgot to give him a backstage pass!”
Something exploded inside Jesse then, something insistent and delirious that was too big for his body to contain. He whipped his gaze to the door. Instead of one of their usual security guards, a beefy stranger stood in front of it.
“Hank and his crew are on tour with Bieber!” Amber said, reading his mind. “These rent-a-cops don’t know Hunter.”
He was already at the door. “You see a guy with gray hair here?”
“Sure did,” the guard said. “Persistent little fucker kept trying to get in. Finally had him removed.”
“Where? Which way?”
He pointed. “Out the backstage door.”
Jesse went barrelling down the hallway, his heart pounding in time with his feet. The door was manned by another big dude. He must have sensed the urgency, because he stepped out of the way in a maneuver that was half solicitous doorman, half taking cover.
Jesse flung the door open so violently it banged against the exterior wall of the building.
And there he was. Leaning against the bricks all tousled and gorgeous. He’d been typing on his phone, but he looked up when the door opened, his eyes wide.
The security guy came to stand next to Jesse on the threshold. “Threw this guy out a few minutes ago. He’s insisting it’s a free country and he’s allowed to loiter in the laneway if he wants.”
“It’s okay.” Jesse eyes latched on to Hunter. “He’s with me.”
Hunter had pushed off the wall but hadn’t otherwise moved. He seemed stunned. They stared at each other.
“You are, aren’t you?” Jesse asked, suddenly entertaining the stomach-dropping possibility that his big declaration had been too little, too late.
The question seemed to unstick Hunter. A slow smile blossomed. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”
And Hunter’s smile, in turn, unstuck Jesse. He’d intended to have Hunter come inside, but that would have required more talking, and right now his priority was to get his hands on Hunter.
They crashed into each other in a tangle of arms and laugher and relief.
Their lips found each other. And it was different, this kiss. Like always, Hunter lit Jesse up, a thousand firecrackers exploding inside him. But knowing the beautiful man in his arms was his—for real this time—made everything bigger. Hotter. More.
He needed more leverage, so he planted his hands on Hunter’s hips and walked him backward, never letting up on the kiss. When Hunter’s back hit the brick wall opposite the theater, Jesse let his hands float up to Hunter’s face, tilting it back so as to deepen the angle of this kiss he never wanted to end. Their bodies lined up perfectly. He ground his hips against Hunter’s, relishing the low moan that ripped from Hunter’s throat.
Hunter tore his mouth away and panted, “This is just like that picture.”
“What picture?” Jesse moved his mouth to Hunter’s neck and nuzzled. If Hunter wanted to talk, Jesse was willing to listen, but he still needed his mouth on some part of Hunter’s body.
“That picture from that gossip website.” He whimpered a little, and Jesse loved it. Loved that he had the power to summon those sounds from Hunter.
“The one you showed me on the train,” Hunter added, breathless.
Jesse’s response was to grunt and move back to Hunter’s mouth, to sweep his tongue deep inside, working it over mercilessly.
It was like that picture on the train in that they were making out against a brick wall, but in every way that mattered, this was different.
This time, he wasn’t hiding.
Hunter pushed against Jesse’s chest. He seemed to be trying to talk again, damn him. “What?”
Hunter nodded at something behind Jesse. “We’re, ah, not alone anymore.”
Jesse looked over his shoulder. A small crowd had formed. The guys and Amber were watching from inside the still-open backstage door, grins on their faces—even Colin’s. The laneway itself had filled with a dozen or so people he didn’t know. They were watching, rapt. Some of them held their phones aloft, taking pictures or filming, no doubt.
He turned back to Hunter. “Well, we’d better give them a good show, then.”
And Jesse bent down to keep kissing his man.
One Year Later
Jesse Jamison stepping out on his silver fox boyfriend?
Thanks to a tip from a reader in London, we can confirm that Jesse Jamison, whose band is touring Europe, was seen in the company of this unknown blond beauty. The leggy lady and Joyride front man were seen, heads together, smiling and laughing, in Bond Street.
Jesse rolled his eyes and stuffed his phone into his pocket without finishing the article. Fucking gossip rag was going to dog him the rest of his natural life. He returned his attention to the people emerging from the customs hall in the international arrivals section of Heathrow’s terminal two.
The band was on tour with a new album, and the European leg had been tough. Six endless weeks since he’d been home. The North American leg hadn’t been so punishing. They’d scheduled it with breaks every two or three days so they could return to Toronto, but of course that wasn’t possible overseas. Nightly FaceTimes with Hunter—which were frequently nightly SexyTimes—were not enough. Not remotely. His hands itched. He had to get them on his man. Now. Hunter was joining them for the last two weeks of the tour. And then they’d go home together. A frisson of excitement ran through him, and a dirty slide show started in his head.
He was lurking in a corner where he could see everything but still be somewhat sheltered from the crowds—he’d be damned if he missed Hunter’s arrival because he was signing autographs. Since he was semihiding, he saw Hunter before Hunter saw him. Hunter emerged, and Jesse’s breath caught. That silver hair, those fitted jeans and slightly dressy button-down, and, when Hunter finally spotted him, that incandescent smile.
It was always like this, every time he clapped eyes on Hunter after they’d been apart. He was suffused with a mixture of love and gratitude and disbelief.
Also lust. There was definitely some lust in that mix.
He started forward. Hunter was holding a magazine in his hands. He shook it at Jesse as he approached. The latest issue of Rolling Stone. The one Jesse was on the cover of.
Jesse grinned. He couldn’t not. It had been his heart’s ambition for so long, so it was a sweet victory. An ironic one too, because they’d wanted to talk to him on the one-year anniversary of his very public coming-out.
It was also a smaller victory than it would have been for his former self. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate it, just that there was so much more important stuff in his life now.
Like the guy holding the magazine.
So he waved it away in favor of enveloping Hunter in a hug. He wanted to fucking pick him up and twirl him around like they were in a sappy movie, but he settled for a long, hard embrace. Followed by a long, hard kiss.
“I hear you’re cheating on me with a mysterious blond woman,” Hunter teased as Jesse picked up his bag, slung an arm over his shoulder, and started propelling him toward the exit.
Hunter was kidding—they were solid and they both knew it—but Jesse rolled his eyes and leaned down to whisper in Hunter’s ear. “I have
a six-week case of blue balls that says otherwise.”
“I’d like to see that.” Hunter laughed. “Purely as a medical curiosity, you understand.”
“Oh, you will.” Jesse wagged his eyebrows as he held open a taxi door for Hunter. “You will.”
There was nothing like having an international rock superstar for a boyfriend to cure a man’s workaholic ways, Hunter reflected as said international rock superstar boyfriend tried to steer them through the lobby of the Four Seasons London.
In the last year, Hunter had taken all of his vacation days, flying to join Jesse for little stretches of his tour. And when Jesse was home, Hunter was out of work the moment his shift was over. And not always to spend time with Jesse, even, but because Gavin had a school performance, or Beth was making dinner for them. And when Jesse was away, he made himself go to the Maple Leafs viewing parties. Worked with the Canadian organization he’d helped found to bring war orphans from Syria and elsewhere over for treatment. Just generally tried to have a life. He didn’t want to be one of those guys whose entire life was his boyfriend.
He laughed at himself as he watched Jesse deftly deflect fans as they aimed for a bank of elevators. Who was he kidding? Still, it was important to make an effort, so: Go Leafs!
There was a bit of a crowd assembling. Jesse took Hunter’s hand. He was always doing that, like he was afraid they might be separated.
Hunter fucking loved it.
This was what had been missing in his life. He didn’t need grand public declarations—though that night in Toronto had been magical—but to be claimed by small gestures like this one, on an ongoing basis, made his heart ache with joy.
With the help of a bellman who kept other people out, they managed to get into an elevator alone.
Jesse dropped Hunter’s hand like a hot potato, dropped his bag like another one, then grabbed his ass and kissed him.
Infamous Page 25
