Elias had booked a room in a castle for the weekend to celebrate her birthday. He was the most wonderful man ever. And he was all hers.
That afternoon, she danced in the garden and sang The Sound of Music (terribly).
Elias watched her with a big grin on his face.
She leapt into his arms. “I love you more than air.”
He chuckled. “In my language, we call soulmates our medias naranjas—our half oranges.” He cupped the back of her neck. “Sos, mi media naranja, mi cielo. You are my half orange.”
She closed her eyes and listened to the sound of love. Romantic love. Soulmate love. Birds soaring and swans paddling. Trees rustling and flowers blooming. The sound of his hand stroking her tear-stained cheek. And the sound of his heartbeat in sync with hers.
“Flaquita?”
“Yes, lover?” she said without opening her eyes.
“Still with me?”
“Always.”
Afterwards, the complete orange strolled hand-in-hand together, back to the castle and made soulmate love for the rest of the afternoon.
“Alice looked at it with great curiosity. ‘I see you’re admiring my little box,’ the Knight said.”
Soundtrack “Die Entfurhung aus dem Serail,” Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
They napped until sundown. When Elias woke up, he didn’t look the slightest bit refreshed. His olive skin had paled to a sickly green.
“What’s wrong, baby?” She touched his forehead. It was a million degrees. “You have a fever.”
“I’m fine.”
She snorted. There was that word again—fine. “You are not fine. Just rest. We don’t have to be anywhere.”
“Actually, I have something special planned for tonight. Go look in the closet.”
She ran over and whipped open the door. Draped on a hanger was a blue lace gown, covered in plastic. She clapped her hands over her mouth. “You bought me a fairy princess dress?” She spit-leaped her way back to the bed and smothered his clammy face with kisses. “It’s beautiful. I’ll wear it when you’re not sick.”
“I’m fine,” he said. “After a shower, I’ll be good as new.” He weaved toward the bathroom and turned on the faucet. “Get dressed. I’ll be out in a sec.”
Surely, he wouldn’t go out if he were seriously ill, she told herself. The man was an adult. He had to know his own body’s limitations.
She yanked the dress off the hanger and pranced over to the mirror. She studied the smiling person in the reflection. “Hello Effie,” she said. “How are you enjoying your new fabulous life?”
She stepped closer and stumbled over Elias’s pants. She reached down to pick them up, and a tiny velvet box fell out of the pocket. A ring box!
Her heartbeat shot up to 200 BPM. He was going to ask her to marry him. Oh, no! It was too soon.
Panic-stricken, she grabbed her phone and ran out to the balcony.
Callie answered on the first ring. “Happy birthday,” she said.
She cut her off. “Yeah, yeah, listen, I’ve got a big problem.”
“Happy birthday to you, too, dear sister,” Callie said with ample snark.
“Cut the crap. Elias is asking me to marry him tonight.”
A long stretch of silence poured through the phone.
“What am I going to do?” Effie said. “I haven’t told him everything. If I tell him now, it’s—”
“It’s what?”
“Over.”
“You really believe that?” Callie asked.
She answered with a sob.
“I need to meet this guy,” her sister said. “He sounds like a total fuck-wad.”
“He’s not a fuck-wad.”
“This is your first relationship. Therefore, your judgment is severely impaired.”
She closed the balcony door. “Shut up, and tell me what to do.”
“I can’t.”
“You can and you will.”
“No, assface, I can’t. Find your own way out of this rabbit hole. But if it were me . . .”
“Go on.”
“Shit, I don’t know. What I do know is I wasted way too much time not opening up to Hot Cock.”
Walker groaned in the background. “Don’t call me that in front of your sister.”
Callie blew him off. “Anyway, if I’d been real with him from the get-go, we could have gotten down to business a lot sooner.”
“Amen,” Walker said.
The shower shut off.
“He’s coming. I have to go.” She hung up and ran back inside.
She stuffed the ring back in his pocket right as he opened the door.
He shivered and hugged himself. “You’re not dressed?”
“Sure you’re feeling okay?” Please say no. I’m not ready.
He slapped her butt. “Hurry up. I’ve got a big surprised planned for tonight.”
Her stomach churned. She had a big surprise for him too.
47
Accelerando
Soundtrack “Die Immer lacht,” Stereoact, Kerstin Ott
In the balmy summer night, dressed in a tailored black suit, Elias shivered and sweated at the same time. He was freezing and burning. His hair hurt, and his stomach was on fire. And he hadn’t even made it through dinner, let alone the concert and the proposal.
He wasn’t going to make it. Effie was the only thing keeping him alive.
He smiled as he watched her roam through the Mozart Museum with childlike wonder, touching stuff that said ‘don’t touch.’ She pressed her face against the glass case containing the composer’s violin and stared at it for five minutes.
The museum director, an ancient man with a cane, hobbled up to her. “Your boyfriend tells me you’re a violinist.”
“Not really,” she said.
He pointed his cane at her case. “Is that your violin? That’s an unusual case. Did it come with it?”
She nodded.
“Would you mind showing me your instrument?”
She shrugged and lifted it from the case.
He put on a pair of white gloves and examined the inside. “Where did you get this?”
“My mother gave it to me,” she said.
“Your mother was German?” the director asked.
“Yes,” she said.
That was the first time she’d mentioned her mother. Elias thought maybe her mother had died or something.
“Remarkable. The Nazis destroyed the maker’s workshop. As far as I know, you have the only one of its kind. Few works of art survived that terrible era.” He handed the instrument back to her. “Would you consider selling it to the museum?”
“No, I don’t—” She waved her hands. “I . . . I can’t.”
The director nodded and gave her his card. “Think it over, and if you change your mind, call me.
“Okay, yeah, sure.”
“Ah, your dinner has arrived. I’ll let you enjoy your meal in privacy. Guten abend.” The director bowed and limped away.
While the caterers piled food in front of him, his Elias’s vision blurred, and his stomach tightened. He covered his mouth and rushed to the bathroom.
After heaving his guts out, he cleaned himself off, then staggered back to the table.
Effie touched his forehead. “Oh, Elias. Let’s go home.”
“Eat up. The concert’s in fifteen minutes.” He tried to smile, but it was too much effort. He swallowed a belch and puffed out his cheeks.
She threw her napkin on the table. “That’s it. We’re leaving.”
“But my surprise . . .”
“Forget your surprise! Now get your butt up.” She wrapped his arm around her shoulder. “Lean on me, so you don’t fall.”
They wobbled outside, where the horse and carriage he’d hired awaited them.
“Is that ours?” she asked.
“You didn’t think I’d take you to see Mozart on a Moped, did you?”
She blinked away her tears. “I can’t believe you did all of this.”<
br />
He kissed her hand. “I’d do anything for you.”
She wiped her face. “Let’s take it back to the castle.”
He was too weak to protest.
Halfway there, a horse let out a steaming pile of shit. The scent punched him in the gut, and he hung his head over the edge and threw up.
Effie held back his hair. “Oh, baby. I’m so sorry you’re sick.”
“I’m fine,” he groaned then threw up again.
No way could he ask her to marry him with vomit on his face. After the tour, he’d plan something even more romantic.
That is, if he didn’t die later.
48
Presto
Munich, Germany
“And Alice began to remember that she was a pawn, and that it would soon be time for her to move.”
Soundtrack “Hailin’ From the Edge,” Apparat
Despite Elias’s terrible condition, there was no way they could cancel another show. Not only did they lose millions in revenue canceling the concert in Geneva, the Swiss also slapped them with a heavy fine.
She waited as long as she could then rented a car and drove them to Munich.
The whole time, he lay in the back, vomiting into a trash bag.
At the base of the Bavarian Alps, in a villa just outside the city, they rejoined the band, or rather, what was left of them. Everyone except Cato had been hit with the same plague.
She put Elias in bed and tended to the others. Twice, Hal cried for his mother. Griffin passed out on the bathroom floor in front of the toilet. Missy curled up in her bed and didn’t move. Even Annie, the band’s nursemaid, was a pale and sickly mess.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” Cato said. “I can’t take the smell.”
Elias let out a hoarse moan. “Take Effie. I don’t want her to see me this way.”
“I’m not leaving you,” she said.
“Go have fun,” he croaked.
“Only for a little while,” she said.
On their way out the door, Elias stumbled out of bed. “Where are you going?”
Cato had begged her to go dancing at a gay club, but she didn’t tell Elias that. He worried too much about his friend’s reputation. “Shopping. Then we’ll come back. Right Cato?”
He scratched the back of his neck. “Yep. Just gonna check out the mall or wherever-the-fuck they buy shit here.”
“Take Hal,” Elias moaned.
“Dude, Hal’s dead,” Cato replied.
“Go back to bed,” she told him. “We’ll be fine.” At least that’s what she’d thought.
Half an hour later, they sauntered into Munich’s hottest gay club. Tall, half-dressed blond men crowded around the bar. German house music pulsed hard beats, and lasers shot neon lights on everyone’s faces.
“Are we in paradise?” Cato shouted.
“I’m the only woman here,” Effie shouted back.
He surveyed the club. “I’m the only black guy here.”
“Should we go?”
“Hell no.” He pointed to the bar. “Mind if I get a drink?”
She gave him a little shove. “Go get ‘em, cowboy.”
“You’re not going to tell Elias?”
She zipped her lips. “Your secret’s safe with me.”
“Want anything?”
“Yeah, I want to see you dancing with that blond stallion over there.” She threw a glance at a stunning man who looked like a centerfold in an Arian gay male magazine.
Cato rolled his shoulders back and put on a sexy smirk. “I’m going in. Wish me luck.”
She blew him a kiss. “Meet you on the dance floor.”
He swaggered over to the bar. The model guy checked him out from head to toe, and a minute later, they had their arms around each other.
She headed out to the testosterone-laden dance floor and stationed herself in the middle of a bunch of sweaty bare-chested men. Then she proceeded to dance her ass off. We’re talking hair-whipping, tit-jiggling, twerking, aerobicizing, twirling around, split jumping, moonwalking, and just generally getting the fuck on down. She owned that dance floor. She was in love, baby, and she was celebrating.
But after an hour of boogieing, she started missing her sickly lover.
Sweat-soaked and tired, she searched everywhere for Cato, but he was nowhere to be found. He probably went home with the Arian model, she told herself.
She wandered out to the street, scratching her head. Did cabs just roll up to the curb like they did in New York?
Right then, someone shouted “faggot” then “nigger” in German.
Fear shot through her veins. Cato!
She ran to the back of the club and found five men with shaved heads, kicking two lumps on the ground.
Without a second thought, she grabbed a broken beer bottle off the ground and ran straight for the attackers.
She kicked and punched and stabbed them with the bottle, screaming, “Get the fuck off him!” What was the German word for help? “Hilfe! Hilfe!” she shouted. “Help!”
A group of men rushed to her side, and the attackers fled on motorcycles.
She sank to the ground and laid Cato’s head in her lap. His eyes were swollen shut and he had a deep gash across his nose.
“Are they gone?” Cato said.
“Shh. Don’t talk. “Someone call a fucking ambulance!”
“Is he okay?” someone asked in English.
“Call the police!”
A siren approached. By that point, the entire club had gathered around the scene. Camera phones flashed.
She threw the bottle into the crowd. “Get the fuck out of here!”
The other victim’s friends helped him to his feet then rushed him off in a car.
The paramedics arrived and lifted Cato up on a stretcher.
The next scene went by in a blur—the hospital, the doctors, the police, the reporters . . . But she didn’t cry once—not until Elias walked through the emergency room door—then she crumpled to the floor.
Sobs spilled out as she tried to explain the inexplicable, that Cato had been beaten by skinheads and outed in the worst way possible.
Elias gripped his forehead, looking sad, angry, sick, and confused all at the same time. At the end of her story, he got up and left.
49
Ostinato
“‘You are sad,’ the Knight said in an anxious tone: ‘let me sing you a song to comfort you.’”
Soundtrack “Coming up for Air,” Philip Selway
Machines beeped and whirred around Cato while he slept. His face was black and blue and stitches zigzagged across his forehead. A bandage covered his nose and his wrist was bound up in a splint. And those were just his visible injuries. He also had two broken ribs, a bruised lung, and a bruised kidney.
But he was alive, thank God. And the doctors said he would recover in no time.
The police had arrested two men after they’d been admitted to another hospital for stab wounds sustained from Effie’s broken bottle.
It was bad, but it could have been much worse—he could have lost his best friend and the love of his life.
Cato’s injuries seemed minor in comparison to the damage done to his career and family. Some puto had taken a picture of him outside the club and sent it to the news.
It was like junior high all over again. Every day after school back then, bullies beat the shit out of Cato.
One day, Elias caught them in the act and beat the shit out of them. It was the first time Jun’s karate lessons had come in handy and the last time the fuckers ever bothered him again.
After that, Cato followed him home from school every day. Elias didn’t want friends though, especially friends that attracted attention. And Cato was attention whore.
But he wouldn’t give up. He kept on bugging him. One day, Cato challenged him to a game of hoops.
“If I win, will you stop following me?” Elias said, figuring it was an easy bet.
“All right,” Cato said. “If I win
, you have to sit by me at lunch.”
They shook hands. Then Cato spun the basketball on his finger like an NBA All-star. “What? Think a gay boy can’t shoot hoops?”
“Mierda,” Elias said.
They played ten games, and Cato beat his ass every one of them.
“You don’t say much, do you, white boy?” Cato said at lunch the next day.
“And you don’t shut up, do you, black boy?”
He shot him a big-ass grin. “Your mama sure liked my talking,”
“Aren’t you gay?”
“Vagina-challenged, not gay.”
“My mom’s dead.”
Cato’s smile vanished. “Sorry, man.”
He punched his shoulder. “I’m fucking with you.”
Cato jerked back. “She’s not dead?”
“She is, but I’m still fucking with you.”
They became best friends after that. In high school, they started the band together.
Cato’s parents were their biggest fans back in the day. His dad worked two jobs just to pay rent on a warehouse practice space. And when they went on their first tour, Cato’s dad loaned them his beat-up locksmith van.
Now, Elias had to call up his dad and tell him his son had just become the latest statistic in a hate crime.
He hung his head between his knees and rubbed the tears from his eyes. This was his fault. He should have hired security for them.
A small hand curled around his neck.
He met Effie’s teary gaze and pulled her into his lap.
She buried her nose in the crook of his neck and cried. “They were monsters!” she said.
“Cato’s out for the night. Let’s get out of here. I’ll send Annie back to check on him.”
The second they got home, Effie passed out cold.
Head-Tripped: A Sexy Rock Star Romance (Ad Agency Series Book 2) Page 22
