A Summer Soundtrack for Falling in Love

by Arden Powell

  The timing sucked, but Kris was willing to take the blame for that. He should have figured out his attraction earlier; he should have admitted it the second that dream had come crashing through his subconscious. But just because Rayne had dragged his bisexuality over the threshold from a probability to a mouth-watering surety—right at the moment Calloway was due to enter the picture—that wasn’t cause for a crisis. It was cause for a plan.

  He had more than a crush, and it was only getting stronger as the days went on; that was fine. His plan could work with that. Rayne would do his stunt with Calloway while Kris worked up the nerve to come out, and if by the time the stunt was over Kris still wanted to sleep with Rayne? Then he’d tell him that too.

  Kris was itching to meet Calloway in person and get things underway. Neither Rayne nor Brian had announced anything about the stunt to the rest of The Chokecherries yet, but they clearly knew something was winding Kris up. Kris wasn’t about to admit to having feelings for Rayne and to depending on a publicity stunt with a stranger to get him over them, so they all circled around each other pretending everything was normal. It was exhausting, and he was strung so tight he might snap, but when he was a second away from flinging himself from the bus to pace the festival, Rayne beckoned him over. Dead Generation was ready.

  Kris headed across the grounds with Rayne and Angel, his nerves twisting around like it was his career on the line and no one else’s. Technically, he didn’t need to meet Calloway at all. Rayne was perfectly capable of making a decision about the stunt on his own. But Kris wasn’t going to turn down any chance to hang out, no matter how stressful, so he accepted Rayne’s invitation to tag along. Rayne looked brightly optimistic and Angel seemed amused by the whole thing, and Kris let them walk ahead while he pulled himself together.

  “You’re not slick, you know,” Angel said eventually, her voice pitched softly enough that Kris assumed she was speaking to Rayne alone. “You can’t stand publicity stunts. You’ve always said if somebody’s music can’t stand on its own, it’s not worth listening to.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Rayne replied loftily.

  “You talk to . . .?”

  “He told me I should go for it.”

  Angel glanced back at Kris, who wondered if he should hang farther back to let them talk in peace. He waved, and Angel smiled at him, then turned to Rayne and murmured something too low for Kris to catch.

  “If I were secretly pining for him, sure,” Rayne said, his voice light, and Angel didn’t seem inclined to push the matter further.

  The Dead Generation stage was easy to find, their banner a huge black-and-white thing with skulls and crossbones. Beside them, an androgynous creature with pink hair was rigging a banner that read Neurts and the Synthetic Skunks between two sets of scaffolding for the opening act. Calloway sat on the edge of the stage, kicking his sneakers against the side as he took a swig from his water bottle. When he saw them approach, he lifted his hand in an easy greeting and hopped down to meet them. He was even more attractive in real life: taller than Rayne, with strong shoulders and a vitality that infused his every movement like he was living entirely in the present, and keen to make the most of it. He was less of a twink than Kris—and Kris suspected twink was basically Rayne’s type—but that wasn’t a fair comparison. Kris was like, the Platonic Ideal of twinkdom. A few tattoos scrawled around Calloway’s arms and peeked out from under the neck of his shirt. Kris tried to imagine him and Rayne in glossy tabloid photos together, arms around each other’s necks and knowing smiles on their lips. They would look flashy like rock royalty, and the press would eat it up.

  “Hi,” Calloway said, offering his hand to whoever wanted to take it first. “I’m Cal. Nice to meet you.” He had an easy smile and his words lilted with a rough Irish accent.

  Rayne took his hand with an answering smile, turning on the same charm Kris recognized from his press interviews. “Rayne. Nice to meet you too. This is my guitarist Kris, and Angel, my makeup artist and . . . bodyguard?”

  “I’m a lot of things,” Angel said, taking his hand and flashing a smile. “Moral support and common sense, at the moment.”

  “Yeah, we could use some of that,” Calloway agreed, rubbing the back of his neck with a sheepish air. When Kris shook his hand next, his grip was warm and sturdy. Every inch of exposed skin was covered in freckles, peeking out from in between tattoos, and the hairs that dusted his forearms were gold from the sun. “I’ve heard about you, of course. You’ve been making quite a splash in the tabloids with your recent shows.”

  “I don’t read the tabloids,” Kris said.

  “Neither did I, till quite recently.” Cal looked back to Rayne. “So, how do you want to do this? Your manager said you were still thinking it over, and I understand your not wanting to jump straight in. Or at all.”

  “Well, I thought I’d come and meet you, and we’d have a chat,” Rayne said easily, “maybe get to know each other a bit. See if we get along well enough to fake a relationship for a week.”

  “Right, right, that won’t be awkward at all.” Calloway smiled again, and Kris could see why the label wanted to keep him around. A pretty face went a long way in the industry, if Rayne’s stories were anything to go by.

  “Let’s head to the picnic tables and grab some food,” Rayne suggested. “Talk things out. Angel? Kris? You want to join us?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” Angel said, and Kris nodded along agreeably.

  They grabbed some food and took a seat in the picnic area, Rayne sitting between Angel and Kris with Calloway across from them, as if they were in an interview. Rayne still had his press face on, the one that made him look perfectly at ease, but which Kris knew to be a carefully constructed mask. He thought about the first time he met Rayne and they’d gone to that burger place—that had been an interview too, of sorts, but he was sure Rayne had been nothing but genuine the entire time. The thought helped melt some of the nerves away.

  Calloway isn’t replacing me. It’s a stunt to boost album sales, and it’ll be over as soon as we leave Purple Sage.

  “A lot of Dead Generation fans love The Chokecherries,” Calloway said. “If I have to pull a stunt like this, I’m glad it’s with you, at least. Though I’m surprised you’re considering it at all—I thought you and Kris had a thing going on.”

  “I haven’t agreed to anything yet,” Rayne pointed out before Kris could say anything, “and no. Kris is straight.”

  “Are you?” Calloway asked him. “My god, that’s dedication. I’d never have guessed.”

  Kris swallowed the panicked lump in his throat—this was his perfect chance to say otherwise—but by the time he opened his mouth, Cal was talking again.

  “I assumed the label was pushing you into this to cover up you and Kris, actually, though I couldn’t figure out why. But this is cleaner. And hey, if things go well, who knows what could happen?” He winked.

  Kris glanced at Rayne and tried to detect any glimmer of interest behind the perfectly professional veneer. Rayne just looked amused.

  “We’ll see how it goes,” Rayne agreed, and Cal grinned wider in response. “So how did you get outed? Not to pry, but if the press comes up asking me about a sex tape or something, I’d like to be prepared.”

  “Now that you mention it— No, they caught me at a gay club with a friend. The label said if I got a girlfriend and laughed it off, it would blow over fast enough, but I couldn’t bear the thought of lying, only to come out on my own years later.”

  A rush of guilt burned through Kris, and he laced his fingers together on the tabletop until his knuckles went white. Angel glanced at him behind Rayne’s back, her brows knitted in concern, but he shook his head. If Rayne or Cal noticed anything amiss, they pretended not to, for which Kris was grateful.

  “So they set this up instead,” Cal continued. “It really wasn’t very scandalous at all, I’m afraid. I’d at least have liked a good story out of it.”

  Cal
loway was charming enough; he wasn’t obnoxious like some front men could be, and he had an easy air to him, like he wasn’t inclined to take things personally. If Rayne turned him down, Kris guessed they could all still be friends. Beside him, Rayne relaxed, likely reading those same signs.

  “Tell you what,” Rayne said, and Calloway brightened and sat up straighter. “I like what I’ve heard of your band, and you don’t seem like a serial killer. I’ll do it. Give me one of your Dead Generation shirts to wear for my next show—that’ll be enough to start the rumor mill on its own.”

  Calloway grinned and leaned over the table to take Rayne’s hand again. “This’ll be fun,” he promised. Up close, his eyes were a dark, sparkling blue, and when he turned his smile on Kris, Kris forced himself to smile back. His inner turmoil wasn’t Cal’s fault, after all.

  “You should come meet the rest of the band,” Angel said. “And you three should have a talk about what this means for The Chokecherries’ shows, with the kissing and all that.”

  Rayne elbowed her and she elbowed him back harder, still smiling brightly at Cal.

  “Kris and I agreed to tone things down while you and I are together,” Rayne said. “No more kissing, but we want to keep a little teasing, if that’s cool with you. The crowds are into it, you know?”

  “For sure,” Calloway agreed, grinning between the two of them. “It’s all for the fans. Definitely nothing else going on.”

  Kris bit his tongue to hide his wince and managed to keep his smile in place.

  Rayne sighed. “You’re going to be trouble, I can tell. Come on, come meet the others. Let’s get this rolling.”

  Calloway detoured back to his stage to grab a shirt for Rayne, and Angel looped her arm through Rayne’s as they waited. Kris stood, leaning his hip against the table as he soaked up the sun.

  “So?” Angel asked. “What do you guys think? You like him?”

  “I agreed to go out with him, didn’t I? Or pretend to, anyway,” Rayne said.

  “You think he’s cute?” she pressed. “Maybe hit that thing for real? He clearly wants to.”

  “Stop it, you.”

  “It could do you some good,” she said with a shrug, then glanced at Kris, who kept his face carefully neutral. “This is your perfect chance to unwind and have some fun, and you don’t even have to hide it from the press. Hell, you get to flaunt it!”

  “You’re a terrible influence.”

  “What do you think, Kris?” Angel asked pointedly. “If they’re both into each other, can you think of one good reason why they shouldn’t give it a shot?”

  Kris remembered their inebriated conversation in the White Rabbit—how he’d told her he liked kissing Rayne, and how he’d never declined her offer to find him a label other than “straight” to encompass that. She would never out him without his say, but he wished she would, just to get it over with, since he was clearly having trouble doing it himself. Before he could form a semicoherent reply, Calloway came loping back, waving a black T-shirt with the Dead Generation logo sprawled across the chest. He tossed it to Rayne, who shrugged out of his old shirt in a single smooth movement. As Rayne changed, Kris’s and Calloway’s gazes met and Calloway grinned knowingly before turning away.

  Kris had seen Rayne shirtless a thousand times by now—privacy was a foreign concept on tour—but the sight was affecting him more and more. He’d have to be less obvious about it if Calloway could see through him so easily.

  Fully clothed again, Rayne put his arm around Cal’s shoulders and pulled him along as the four of them walked back to The Chokecherries’ stage. Cal fell in line easily, matching his longer strides to the group’s.

  “So what did you do before your band?” Angel asked.

  “Oh, this and that. Dropped out of university and traveled around. Bit of a vagrant, really. Had a brief fling with a cult; that was exciting, I can tell you.”

  They all made an inquisitive noise.

  “Yeah, not my wisest life choice, but it served as a wake-up call. I cleaned up my act, and now I’m here.”

  “Wait, you’re not joking?” Kris demanded.

  “About the cult? Nah. It’ll make a good chapter in my memoir, if I ever get big enough to write one.”

  Angel darted in, her eyes fixed on the arm Calloway had slung around Rayne’s waist. “Those tattoos . . .”

  “Ah, yeah, I’m covering most of the older ones up. I’m a work in progress.”

  She frowned and took his hand, bumping Rayne aside with her hip to swap places and walk next to Calloway instead.

  “I’ve seen designs like this before,” she said, turning his hand over and examining his arm in full. The tattoos were unintelligible, a million miles from what Jiao Fang and her ilk could do. There were bits of writing in languages and alphabets Kris didn’t know, scrawled pictures of flowers or strange animals up and down his arms. There was the outline of an eye on the back of his left hand.

  “Yeah,” Cal said, “I don’t know what most of them are either.”

  “Where did you get them?” Rayne asked.

  “A guy I knew had his own kit. I’m lucky I never got an infection, but I was an idiot kid. He explained what they all were at the time, but it never made a lot of sense. I can barely remember, now. That was years ago. It all feels like a dream, honestly.”

  Angel dropped his hand and stared at him. “Did you have your head shaved back then?”

  He blinked. “Yeah, actually. We all did.”

  “What?” Rayne asked, glancing between the two of them.

  “That’s where I saw these tattoos before, on those skinhead guys I ran into earlier,” Angel said. “They all had them. You’re not joking about the cult. They’re here.”

  “Are they?” Calloway looked around like he expected them to leap out from behind the nearest tent. “I’m not surprised. I met them at a music festival in the first place. They like these sorts of places. They’re not so bad,” he added. “They’re not like some ritual death cult or anything. They just go around on their bikes and talk about the universe, really. Like big leathery hippies.”

  “I’m . . . a bit lost,” Rayne admitted. “Angel? You met a cult?”

  “I missed that part too,” Kris said.

  “Yeah, I ran into them earlier. I didn’t know they were a cult, but I got a weird feeling about them.” She eyed Calloway. “You sure they’re all right?”

  Calloway shifted uncomfortably. “They were never dangerous when I was with them,” he offered. “I don’t think they know I’m here. It’s not like we’ve kept in touch. My manager knows about them, though not the details. I never even mentioned it to the label.”

  The Chokecherries’ stage came into view and they all slowed.

  “Okay,” Rayne said. “Just . . . try not to mention it to the rest of the band? Definitely don’t mention it to Brian. That’s the kind of thing that’ll give him an aneurysm, and we like Brian. We need to keep him around.”

  Calloway nodded sheepishly. “Right. Sorry. Pretend I never said anything.”

  They headed backstage to where the rest of The Chokecherries were waiting, and Kris took a deep breath. They were committed to the stunt. As long as he didn’t interfere, it would go off without a hitch. Brian and the label would be happy, Rayne and Cal would be happy, and he would have enough time to settle his nerves before coming out. And hopefully his feelings for Rayne would dissipate too. He had this covered.

  “Hey, guys,” Rayne said, tugging Calloway forward to make introductions. “This is Cal, from Dead Generation, and we’re . . . seeing each other?” The Chokecherries immediately broke into catcalls, and Rayne rolled his eyes at them. “It’s not too late to call everything off, you know.”

  “Nah, you’ve got this,” Kris said. “It’ll be great.”

  “Course it will,” Cal agreed. “So, since the paparazzi have been so keen on making up stories about your stage kisses, would you prefer rumors of cheating, or a threesome now that I’ve butted in?”r />
  The catcalls went up again, led mainly by Stef.

  Rayne glanced at Kris with an exasperated smile. Angel scowled at all three of them like she wanted to smack some sense into their heads, a line of aggravation between her brows.

  “We don’t need either,” Kris said firmly. “We’ll quit messing around, like Brian suggested, and we’ll remind the press that the show stuff was just for the fans, like we’ve been saying all along. All three of us can tell them at once, if they want. No cheating, and no threesomes.”

  “A little speculation is unavoidable, but I’m not worried,” Rayne said. “The rest of you,” he added, addressing Stef, Len, and Maki, “no stirring the pot. It’s only while the festival is running; you can give me shit for it later.”

  “We will,” Stef assured him.

  “Nothing personal,” Maki told Calloway. “He needs to be kept in his place.”

  “You’re all terrible,” Rayne said. “Cal? Second thoughts?”

  “No, no. If everyone’s happy to go along with it, I think it should be fun.” Calloway caught Kris’s gaze. “Assuming everyone is happy?”

  Kris put on a smile. “It’s cool.” He almost believed it, too. Calloway and Rayne looked good together, and that was the most important thing as far as the paparazzi were concerned. And Calloway seemed amiable: maybe a year or two older than Kris, sure of himself without being arrogant, and quick to smile. “I’m happy for you guys. I hope you have a great fake relationship.”

  Calloway didn’t stay long, citing the need to go back and prep his band for the incoming press. Rayne went with him, flashing one last smile back at The Chokecherries before he and Calloway disappeared into the festival, their arms around each other with the same casual intimacy Rayne showed everyone in his chosen group.

  Kris sat on the edge of the stage and watched them go. The rest of the band dispersed, flitting out between the tents to see different attractions, and Kris leaned back as the clouds drifted through the bright-blue sky. Angel joined him a moment later, dropping down at his side and mirroring his position.