by Arden Powell
They carried on until well after midnight. The stars peeked out one by one until the sky was a dazzling array of rhinestones against the black, and the desert air grew cool and sharp. Somewhere beyond the festival perimeter, a coyote howled intermittently. Gradually the bus quieted until everyone had retired save for Kris, Rayne, and Calloway. Cal didn’t drink, and outstripped them in terms of sobriety by miles, but seemed happy to keep them company. Finally, when Passionfruit had returned to their bus and the rest of The Chokecherries had lost the battle with consciousness, he stretched and got to his feet, gesturing to the door. Rayne nodded and drew them both outside, leaving the others to sleep.
“I should head back to my bus,” Cal said, his voice soft in the night.
“We’ll walk you.” Rayne put his arm around Cal’s waist and leaned into him, looking back expectantly at Kris. “Coming?”
“Don’t want to get in your way,” Kris said.
“I don’t think there’s anyone around worth putting on a show for,” Calloway said. “Come on, walk with us.”
Kris walked a pace behind them, cataloging how their arms looped around each other’s bodies and how Rayne leaned against Cal, his boots scuffing through the dust as he walked, remarkably sure-footed, through the maze of tents and stages. Kris was pleasantly drunk and getting sleepy, though the sharpness of the air canceled out some of the haze. Rayne and Cal complement each other nicely, he thought blurrily. Rayne’s slender, darker figure bent flower-like toward Cal’s broader, sun-kissed frame. When they reached the Dead Generation bus, they paused, three points under the vast night sky.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Calloway said. “Take care of yourselves, all right?”
Rayne darted in to press a kiss to his jaw, his curls brushing Cal’s face for a second before he pulled back. “We’ll be fine. It’s just us and the stars out tonight.”
They let go of each other and Calloway nodded to Kris. “Good night.”
“Good night,” Kris echoed as Cal disappeared into his bus.
Rayne swayed back to him and dropped an arm over his shoulders. “Okay?”
“Do you like him?” Kris asked, his heart in his mouth as he waited for Rayne’s reply.
“Sure I like him. Don’t you?”
“No, I mean—Cassie said he propositioned you last night.”
Rayne broke into a smile. “Yeah, he did. I have to say, he made a very tempting offer.” The night cast his face in shadows of blue and violet and his expression turned thoughtful. “The possibility’s there. He asked if I wanted to do more, since we were already—for the press, you know? I didn’t say yes, but I didn’t turn him down, either.”
“Do you want to?” Kris asked, biting the tip of his tongue. If Rayne said yes, Kris was done. If he said no—
“A lot of things seem like a good idea on MDMA,” Rayne said vaguely. “I might . . . I could like him. Or more than like. But I don’t, not yet.”
“Is he a good kisser?”
Rayne grinned and pulled Kris tighter, so Kris tripped over his own sneakers and stumbled against Rayne’s side. They both laughed in hushed voices as they righted themselves.
“Yeah, he is. We had fun.”
“A better kisser than me?” Kris pushed, not entirely joking.
“Course not. You’re my favorite, baby. Always will be.”
Rayne pressed a kiss to Kris’s temple, sloppy and a bit off the mark as he laughed, but Kris closed his eyes and hummed, warm all the way through. He knew Rayne was only teasing, but that didn’t mean he was lying. Kris tilted his head back to take in the stars. The sky looked infinite, and he found a weird comfort in his own insignificance. Gazing up at the stars like that, it didn’t matter what he did or didn’t do; the universe didn’t care.
“Hey, Rayne. Remember what I told you last night? When I was high?”
“About the peacock?”
“No, dumbass, about you.”
Rayne bit his lip. Kris looked away. He had the whiskey bottle by the neck, dangling loose from his fingers, its glass catching the scarce light left to them.
“You want a nightcap?” Kris asked. “Come on, come back to the stage.”
The festival never slept, even if individuals had to. Kris and Rayne wound through music tents and raves and drum circles until they reached their stage, which was dark and empty for the night, and crept through the back to their tiny makeshift dressing room, where Kris set the whiskey bottle down on the table and took a minute to consider how drunk he was. Drunker than Rayne; they were evenly matched for consumption, but Kris’s size had always made him a lightweight. Drunk enough to do something reckless, like tell Rayne how he felt for real. Maybe not drunk enough to regret it in the morning.
He’d have to wait and find out.
“When I told you I loved you,” he said, “and you said you loved me too. You said I was beautiful.”
“Yeah?”
“I meant it.”
“You were so high,” Rayne giggled.
“And now I’m so drunk,” Kris agreed. “Tell me I’m pretty?”
“God, you’re the prettiest.” Rayne reached out to pet Kris’s hair and Kris leaned into it, his eyes fluttering closed for a second at the feeling. “Even without the makeup, your face— I love that you wear it, though. I love that you don’t care what anybody thinks.”
“I care.”
“Not enough to stop.” Rayne carded his fingers through the tufts and down the back of Kris’s neck to hold him there, warm and steady. Kris blinked up at him.
“Fuck, Kris,” Rayne breathed. “You don’t know what you do to me.”
“You and Calloway—”
“We’re just friends, I don’t know if we’ll ever be anything but friends, I don’t even know if I want to be more—fuck, it’s not like you and me, you know that—”
With more coordination than the drink should allow, Kris pulled Rayne in for a kiss. He closed his eyes, expecting the roar of the crowd; his heart skipped a beat when it never came. The only sounds were their own hurried breathing, the wet sound of their mouths meeting, and the rustle of their clothes as they pressed together. Kris threw himself into the kiss like he was dying for it, and Rayne returned with equal fervor. They only broke apart when they had to pant for breath, their foreheads touching as they held each other’s faces, eyes wild and chests heaving.
“I want—” Kris began, but he didn’t know how to finish. The booze swam in his head, dizzying and pushing him off-balance. Rayne hadn’t let go: he stood with his eyes closed, his hair falling in his face. His lips were dark and swollen from the kiss, and Kris darted in to nip at them, pulling a desperate moan from Rayne’s throat.
“Kiss me,” Kris said against Rayne’s skin. “Just kiss me—”
Rayne kissed him. He started at Kris’s jaw and bit and sucked his way down Kris’s throat until Kris was panting breathless syllables into the dark, one hand knotted in Rayne’s hair. By the time Rayne reached his collarbone, mouthing at the bend where his neck met his shoulder, Kris was aching for it. He wound his arms around Rayne’s neck and buried his face in Rayne’s hair, breathing in the smell of his shampoo, needing to feel and touch and taste nothing in the world but him.
He didn’t know which of them moved first; maybe they moved at the same time, an inevitable collision of bodies and wants. The first touch brought the best kind of friction, relieving and desperate both at once, and Kris bucked his hips forward, instinctively seeking more.
When their hips met, they both froze.
“Okay?” Kris asked, not raising his face from Rayne’s hair.
Rayne stroked his hands up and down Kris’s sides. “Fuck,” he whispered. His voice was rough. Kris shuddered and twitched forward again, a fraction of an inch.
“We’re really drunk,” Rayne said.
“Is that a no?”
“No, god, no. Please don’t stop.”
As far as sex went, it was the least sophisticated Kris had had since his adole
scence, but he didn’t care. Burning up in the wake of Rayne’s touches, he was too drunk for anything more complex. He finally had Rayne and Rayne wanted him back. He couldn’t believe he’d wasted so much time.
They made out like teenagers, rubbing up against each other fully clothed, stealing kisses with every breath. Kris went into it harder and faster than he’d meant, crashing up against the edge of orgasm without any finesse, wanting to draw it out longer but too desperate for Rayne’s touch to manage. He came without even undoing his jeans, gasping out a curse in the dark and clinging to Rayne like a lifeline. Rayne pressed his open mouth to Kris’s neck, muttering a steady litany of fuck, fuck, fuck against his skin, and followed a second after.
Afterward, neither of them spoke at first. On the other side of the room, the mirror stood like a silent witness. Rayne’s pupils were huge, blown out with lingering lust and a look so fond that Kris’s heart leaped giddily in his chest. He was less drunk than he’d been a minute before, but drunk enough to dare to run his finger over Rayne’s face, from his brow down his nose to trace the curve of his lips. Rayne smiled against his fingertip and Kris smiled back, helpless and glowing.
“Good?” Kris asked, before he could stop himself.
“You’re perfect,” Rayne said, catching Kris’s hand. “How are you even real?”
“Magic.”
Rayne kissed his knuckles, a wet press of his lips, and led him down the steps and past the stage, back into the night. The air caressed Kris’s skin like a lover. He felt on top of the world, and when they returned to the bus and he crawled into his bunk, his eyes drifting closed as the last of the whiskey chased itself through his blood, he could still taste Rayne on his tongue, like cinnamon hearts and sea salt. He fell asleep promising himself that it wouldn’t be the last time.
Kris woke with a hangover so bad he thought he might die. He hadn’t drunk enough to black out so there was no reason he should feel so close to death, but maybe there was something in the whiskey that did it; he didn’t know. He got up as slowly as he could, his head throbbing, and resolved to never accept a drink from Jay ever again. Playing that afternoon was going to be a nightmare. He’d be lucky not to puke halfway through the set. He settled one hand protectively over his stomach while the other groped blindly along the bus as he staggered outside into the sun.
He instantly wished he’d stayed in bed. The sun was blinding and his head protested with a scream so shrill he actually flinched; he forced his eyes open and found Freddie staring at him judgmentally. He flipped the bird off and stumbled his way to the picnic area, dreading solid food but hoping a Gatorade might fix him. He hadn’t had enough water the night before, and felt like he’d been keelhauled fifty miles down the desert highway.
Despite feeling like death, there was an undeniable spring in his step, and he gave a bright wave to Cassie and Stef breakfasting together as he passed. He’d finally gotten with Rayne and it had been amazing, and no amount of alcohol-induced misery could take that away from him.
Rayne was sitting at a picnic table beside Calloway, nursing a coffee and a quiet conversation. He looked bleary and barely able to keep himself upright, while Cal appeared healthier, but vaguely apologetic about something. Kris couldn’t hear their words, but they seemed intimate. Cal straightened and nudged Rayne in the side at Kris’s approach, and Rayne let whatever he’d been saying trail off.
“Morning,” Calloway greeted. “Coffee?”
“Morning,” Kris said, “and yeah, I need it.”
“I’ll get you one,” Cal offered, his hand on Rayne’s shoulder. “Anything in it?”
“Just black, thanks. Extra-large. Extra-triple-large. Or bigger.”
Cal nodded and headed off to the vendor, glancing over his shoulder as Kris leaned one hip against the table.
“Morning, sunshine,” Kris said to Rayne. “How’s your head?”
Rayne grunted and tipped nose-first into his drink. “Probably not as bad as yours. About last night . . .”
Kris broke into a stupid grin. “Yeah?”
Rayne patted the table. “Sit.”
Kris slid onto the bench on the opposite side. Calloway returned a second later with the coffee, and reclaimed his place beside Rayne. That was where Kris wanted to sit, pressed up close beside him to leach his warmth in the morning sun, but they were in public and Cal and Rayne had appearances to keep up.
“You look miserable,” Cal said to Rayne. “There’s a guy with a camera just over there—give us a smile?”
“I am miserable,” Rayne complained. “I’m hungover, among other things.” He smiled anyway, and Kris doubted anyone else would notice how it seemed strained around the edges. He wondered what the “other things” were.
“Listen,” Cal said. “Why don’t you two go someplace private for a chat? I’ll come find you later and we’ll do lunch.”
Rayne nodded and beckoned for Kris to stand.
“Okay, sure,” Kris said, glancing between the two of them in confusion. They had obviously been talking before his arrival—about the night before? Rayne wasn’t meeting his gaze, but Calloway carried an air of sympathy. “Thanks for the coffee,” Kris said, at a loss for any other words.
Rayne led him back to the dressing room, closing the door behind them and leaning against it. He did look miserable, the tension etching lines between his shoulders like he was expecting a blow. Kris couldn’t imagine from whom.
“About last night?” Kris prompted.
“We were really drunk.”
“Yeah.” Kris frowned. “You don’t think it was a mistake, do you?”
“No,” Rayne said quickly.
“Because I don’t regret it. I regret the timing, and I regret drinking that much, but I needed some liquid courage to—you know. It might get messy with us both being in the band, and I never want to compromise that, or your stunt with Calloway, but I meant what I said, Rayne.”
“What you said when you were high on molly.” Rayne raised his hands before Kris could protest. “I believe you. I just— We had a good thing going on, onstage, didn’t we? It was all for the show. And now I don’t know what you want from me.”
Kris floundered. It had never occurred to him last night that they weren’t communicating on the same level. “I want . . . more. Of what we did. I liked it. I thought you did too?”
Rayne raked his fingers through his hair, tousling it up as he looked away. “Kris, when you joined the band, you told me you liked girls. You said you were straight.”
“I do like girls. Back home, I always said I was straight, but that was different.”
“And when we were messing around, we said that was for the fans. No strings, no complications.”
“Last night wasn’t for the fans,” Kris pointed out.
“Last night’s why we’re having this conversation. Kris . . .”
“I said that I’d only ever been with girls, which was true. I never got a chance to explore anything in Kansas, and I didn’t want to accidentally lead you on, or let you lead me on, because we’re in a band together and I didn’t want to fuck that up. And I still don’t, but I do want . . . more. Of everything. From you.”
“You’ve never even been with a man.”
“I’m trying to be with one right now,” Kris said.
Rayne sighed.
Kris’s heart dropped like a rock. He folded his arms like he could keep it from dropping any farther, and gnawed on the inside of his lip. “This isn’t how I imagined this going,” he admitted. “I know you’re into me. I know you were into me last night.”
“I’ve tried it on with straight guys before,” Rayne reminded him, “and it’s not something I want to do again. If you’re bi, or pan, or . . . whatever else, that’s great, and I’m happy for you. But I don’t want to be the person you experiment with to figure it out.” He raked his hair back from his forehead and finally met Kris’s eyes. Kris couldn’t make out his expression in the shadows, but it seemed like it might be one o
f regret.
Kris cast around for any way to drag the conversation back on track. “We had fun though, didn’t we?” he tried. “It was good—”
Rayne’s expression shuttered and Kris knew he’d fucked up.
“Wait, that’s not—”
“I’m sorry, Kris. I can’t go through another scenario like Fink where I get dragged through the mud for someone else’s entertainment, especially if they don’t even feel—” Rayne took a deep breath. “It’s not fair to me—it’s demeaning, and I can’t—I won’t do it.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Kris finished in a small voice.
“We were drunk,” Rayne said. “And I’ve got a chance with Cal. I like him and he likes me, and he’s openly gay, Kris. He knows what he’s about, and he told me so right from the start.”
“You and Cal are just a publicity stunt.”
“So are you and me,” Rayne said gently.
Kris swallowed. “Fine. I’ll see you onstage.”
Rayne nodded and slipped from the room. As soon as he was gone, Kris leaned back against the wall, his head throbbing from a hangover and from grief. He couldn’t figure out where he’d gone so wrong.
“What did you do?” Cassie asked bluntly.
They were waiting for their parents to come by and take them for brunch; the sun was sweltering and the highway asphalt was hot enough to melt rubber.
Kris shuffled around and didn’t answer. Cassie rolled her eyes.
“I know something happened,” she said. “You got up this morning like you were on top of the world, and now you’re all mopey. What’s up?”
“Me and Rayne,” Kris finally said.
Cass whooped.
“No, no whooping. I fucked up and now it’s all weird.”
She quieted, but it took visible effort. “But you two did get it on,” she confirmed. “Like, offstage, in private, just the two of you? How far did you get? Third base? Homerun?”
“I hate sports metaphors. We, uh.” He made a gesture. Cassie screeched. He sighed and covered his face with his hands. “We were so drunk, Cass. It was such a mistake.”
“Is that what he said, or are you having an identity crisis because you got off with a dude?”
