Love Songs for Every Day

by K. L. Noone

  “Your father—” Justin cuts himself off. This, coming from someone who moments ago forgave the head of Aubrey Records for his own firing, speaks volumes. Whole five-act plays. With elaborate cover art. “It was fun, though. I got to play tourist. We found the street corner where the Beat Poets Society filmed the video for ‘Love, Love, Love.’ And I ate my body weight in chocolate.”

  “Not quite,” Kris decides. “If we’d stayed another day or so, maybe.”

  “You might’ve missed the time you were doing sound checks and your lighting crew wanted to see how many biscuits a demon could go through in fifteen minutes.”

  “How many?”

  “I lost track. Also there might’ve been beer.”

  “He’s kind of a lightweight,” Kris confides to me. “Too thin. But then again, he can cure his own hangover, which is every kind of unfair.”

  “You and my stepmom,” Justin complains, not seriously. “I am not too thin. I eat. Anyway, we saw your request, and we felt like…”

  “Like we wanted to.”

  “So we agreed we would, when we got back. This one, this magazine, with you.”

  Thanks, again.

  “No problem. As far as thoughts…” He glances at Kris. “Sometimes dreams can come true. That’s not a guarantee, no promises, but the possibility’s real. And that’s important. Even if you’re a lonely scared kid, getting lost in music, knowing you’re not like anyone else—literally not human, in my case—and you’re looking at a poster of a rock star and pretending you might be friends…even if you get hurt, or you lose yourself for a while, and you have to find your way back…even then, you might end up right in the middle of all those dreams. Coming true. I did. I’m living mine. Every day.”

  Kris turns into a puddle of affection, arms around his demon, eyes huge and dark and touchingly astonished by this avowal.

  “I love you too,” Justin says to him, even though nothing’s been said aloud.

  Kris clears his throat. “Can I add something?”

  Sure, I say. Of course.

  “I told you once—” This you means Justin, not me. “—that I believe in love. I do.” He’s looking at me now, making sure this gets heard. “I don’t mean his love magically makes me a better person on the spot or what the fuck ever. It doesn’t work like that. I do want to be a better man. I try. But it’s not because he loves me. I decided that before the whole demon scandal came out, before the night he—before any of it. He needed a friend. I just wanted to be someone who could—someone he could lean on. So I tried to be. That person.”

  “You are,” Justin whispers. “You always were.”

  “That kind of love,” Kris says to me, to both of us, “that makes a difference. That sort of…trying to help someone. It matters. For someone else, and for the—the person you want to be.” He’s oddly vulnerable, saying this: a young man falling in love, and every day astonished to discover that, yes, that love’s returned. “If any of that makes sense. Give me a fucking guitar and a week to think of decent lyrics and I can say it better.”

  That’s what the album is, I say. You said it earlier. For him. About love.

  “Yeah,” Kris says. “Every song on there. Every day.”

  “Yes,” Justin breathes, gazing at his rock-star other half. His human. “Every single day. All the days. Kris, do we have time to—”

  “To stop by home?” Kris’s fingers walk up along his arm. They wrap around the nearest slim wrist. Justin catches breath and shivers with delight at this evidence of belonging.

  “I think,” Kris concludes, “I think we need to, right now, don’t you? For a minute.”

  “Only a minute?”

  Kris considers this while rubbing a thumb along the inside of that wrist, leisurely and with purpose, over the pulse-beat under delicate demon-skin. “At least five.”

  “Ten?”

  “Depends on how worn out you’d like to be for this photo session.”

  Justin’s eyes get even wider and more enthusiastic.

  Kris switches hands so that he can hold out one to shake mine, and takes over the conversation, since Justin’s become lost in those small deliberate caresses. “Thanks.”

  For talking to you? Isn’t that my line?

  “For…” He gives a one-shouldered shrug. “Letting us talk. Listening. Making him smile. I need to take him home and toss him into bed now, but if you want another coconut latte or whatever, it’s on us. And call me if you’ve got any follow-up questions, we’ll talk to you, we don’t mind doing that more.”

  Go, I say. Have fun. Take the last scone with you. He can have it after you tire him out.

  Kris grins in approval, accepts food, nudges his demon. “Love?”

  “Hmm?” Justin’s eyes have gone huge and dreamy as sugarplums, made of sugar and spice and surrender to voluptuous thoughts. “Oh—sorry. Distracted. Your fault. Are we done?”

  “For now, yeah. Home?”

  “Yes, please. Now?”

  “Now,” Kris echoes, tender and amused, desire scorching the air, gentleness underneath like rain over scarred ground: Kris loves Justin Moore, and will take him home and will take such care with him.

  They vanish while kissing. It’s a quick, almost anticlimactic snap out of presence. Inconspicuous but for the faint dry breeze, the scents of cinnamon and bonfires, the wisp of smoke that fades. It mirrors the fog outside, curling like kitten-fluff along windowpanes.

  I’m rather warm. I adjust my shirt-collar. I cross my legs.

  After a second I notice that our coffee detritus, mugs and plates and so on, has also vanished. Meghan, making an espresso, calls over, “Yeah, Justin also does the dishes. Magic super-heating demon thing. Every time they come in. Not just theirs, either. All the dishes. He’s like the World Champion Demon of Politeness. But they’re both great, aren’t they? Kind of disgustingly romantic, sometimes I have to throw a dishtowel at their heads, but they, like, totally deserve all the romance.”

  Yes, I agree. They do.

  I flip back through notes about the New York Demon and Kris Starr. I think about that upcoming prestigious music-industry awards ceremony and Justin’s I know something smile. I order another coconut latte because Justin’s introduced me to temptation and I can’t resist. Outside clouds gather up and spill over peacefully into long silvery ribbons, pattering drops that fall between sky and glass and brick and city pavement. The drops form a tune. A song.

  Love songs, I scribble down as a possible title. Love songs, for every single day.

  THE END

  Author’s Note

  Any soundtrack for this story has to include Def Leppard’s “I Wanna Be Your Hero” and Buddy Holly’s “Everyday,” and quite possibly Phil Collins’ “A Groovy Kind Of Love,” because both Kris and Justin know all the lyrics. They’re not embarrassed about it, either.

  Hopefully you’ve enjoyed seeing the nods to other characters—Adam from “Lightning in a Bottle” gets a name-drop, and Justin’s friend Anna from A Demon for Midwinter, and a few others! And you might’ve noticed Kris thinking about a certain question to ask Justin in the future—that question will come up very soon, in the next bonus story in fact! In which we’ll also finally get to see events from Justin’s perspective…

  For anyone interested in the history of coffee and coffee-shops, Antony Wild’s Coffee: A Dark History is fascinating, and Brian Cowan’s A Social History of Coffee looks specifically at the development of coffee-houses in Britain—imagine Kris and Justin finding historic coffee-shops on their trip!

  Love Justin and Kris? Start reading A Demon for Midwinter today! Available from JMS Books LLC.

  * * * *

  A Demon for Midwinter

  Chapter 1

  Kris Starr stepped out of the recording booth, decidedly did not swear under his breath, and found his manager waiting for him. As usual, Justin’s not-quite-human cinnamon gaze held only cheerful amusement. Any critique stayed hidden behind that effortlessly casual pose, long
legs stretched out and one shoulder casually propped against the wall.

  Kris sighed, “That was hideous, wasn’t it?”

  “Hardly hideous.” Justin handed over lavender-infused Earl Grey tea, Kris’s scarf, and Kris’s phone, which he’d left in a taxicab that morning and had more or less written off for good. And, being brilliant and competent and properly organized in all aspects of Kris’s life, added, “Three inquiries about possible shows—none paying you enough, we can do better—one message from someone by the name of Tiffanie asking whether you remember her from the Gardens, backstage, in nineteen-ninety-two, and also your father called asking for money again. I handled it, I just thought you should know.”

  Justin technically worked as an A&R person—Kris had never been sure of his exact title, only that it involved artists and repertoire and contracts and signing of new talent and development of albums—at the legendary Aubrey Records, but as the newest and youngest hire, he’d been essentially shoved into the role of managing the aging rock-and-roll disaster that was the latter half of Kris’s career, and had never once complained. Had stuck with him even as the fans and the performances and the music dwindled into shadows. Had bounced into their first meeting with wide eyes and impressively fluffy violet-edged hair and a grin: I grew up on your music, my dad loves Kris Starr and Starrlight, I wanted to sing like you when I was younger, is it true you wrote “London Always Comes Too Soon” about Nick Peters of Smokescreen?

  Justin Moore was fifteen years younger than Kris Starr, who’d once been Christopher Thompson, born on a council estate in a far-off dreary corner of England. This thought occasionally depressed him. Mostly it made him smile, in a kind of distant wistful way. He couldn’t dislike Justin for it; no one could, anyway. Like disliking rainbows, or kittens, or cloudless sunshine.

  “It was hideous,” he said again. “Not…clicking.”

  Steve wandered out from behind sound-mixing equipment. Gave him a critical once-over. “You’re not wrong, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad.”

  Steve Rosen owned the near-mythical New York City recording studio he’d borrowed for this session. Steve was also an old—emphasis on the old, Kris’s brain noted—friend. This meant that, yet again Kris did not swear at him for unhelpful commentary. Not out loud, anyway.

  Steve suggested, “Maybe you can come back tomorrow?” and turned lights off with a wave of his hand. Like most people, Steve had a bit of magic, in his case more kinetic: enough for localized gestures, nudges, coaxing of the world in his immediate vicinity, which because of his size tended to be a lot of vicinity. “Go out. Get drunk. Get laid. Whatever inspires you, man. Get that fire back.”

  “You could call Tiffanie,” Justin said helpfully. His expression was exquisitely noncommittal, though they’d known each other for four years and Kris knew perfectly well that he wanted to laugh. Those otherworldly eyes, made even wider and prettier by coal-black eyeliner, said so.

  He grumbled, “We’re not calling Tiffanie. Or Tammy. Or Tyler. Or anyone,” and ducked outside. Leather jacket like armor against the world. Elderly armor. Bruised. Hands clutching a to-go cup with tea in it, because Justin thought of things like that.

  New York City glittered like a fairytale beyond the studio walls. Tall buildings and the offices of dreams: recording studios, publishing houses—the familiar baronial spires of the Randolph House media empire spiked upward like runaway arrows—and vibrant museums and festive parks. Statues and bas-reliefs on buildings. George vanquishing the demon-worm. Hannah Clarence, the weather-witch who’d helped build the city’s harbor. Various unicorns. The unicorns looked smug, in the way of magical creatures who knew their own value. The ones on the bank down the street’d been decorated with ornaments.

  Holiday season had landed upon them, unicorns and all. In eye-watering color. Barreling down like a runaway train made of tinsel and spruce and harvest pies. Not everyone celebrated Midwinter the same way, of course, in this twinkling mosaic of a city, but most did. Reaffirmations of life in the midst of long nights. Joyous riotous bonfires and roasted apples and dancing. Thanks to God, or the gods, or whatever higher power someone believed might’ve once given mankind the gift of magic, to make it through the night. A woman on the corner was selling chestnuts, a sweet drift of roasted scent through oncoming evening lights.

  He kicked a small pebble on the street, just because. It landed in a puddle left over from the afternoon’s drizzle and glared at him reproachfully. No patience for aging rock stars and their existential discontent.

  Justin appeared at his elbow. “Leave the poor earth elementals alone, would you? I’m sorry about mentioning your exes. Not the right timing.”

  “Not an elemental. Only a rock.” He finished off the tea. Slumped against the recording studio’s blank stone. Let the wall hold him up. Forty-three years old, and he felt every one of them. Plus more. Double. “Am I being ridiculous? I’m being ridiculous. Ridiculous holiday album idea. I’m turning ‘You Light My Fire’ into ‘Light My Midwinter Bonfire.’ It doesn’t even work with the rhythm.”

  “Well,” Justin considered judiciously, “I won’t say I’m complaining about you recording anything, but ‘Baby, It’s Harvest Time’ did seem a little confused as far as metaphors…”

  “I’m a failure. I’m a washed-up ancient relic, and I’m a failure.”

  “You’re the voice—and face—of arguably the most successful and most sparkly band of the last several decades.” Justin took away the empty to-go cup, tossed it—accurately—at a trash bin, and then held out a small white paper bag. “Chestnut? And yes, present tense. People know who you are. You had an impact. You made a difference. For a lot of fans, and for people who love you.”

  Kris stared at the bag. Wondered when chestnut acquisition’d happened. Justin hadn’t left his side, right? Or had he been too busy wallowing in self-pity to notice, and Justin’d had time to wander down to the corner, buy seasonal delicacies, and come back?

  He was, he concluded, a terrible, self-absorbed, melodramatic person. He accepted a chestnut. “Why do you put up with me? You have other people to work with. Less pathetic. Less old.”

  “I get paid to be here. And more importantly I can tell friends that Kris Starr buys me cappuccinos at Witch’s Brew Coffee. Which you do.” Justin tossed him a smile. His hair was growing out of shorter fluffy length and into sapphire-tipped tumbles, these days; black and blue fell next to one eye in a shining perilous swoop. Kris had always found him beautiful in a sort of abstract far-off way, like admiration of modern art or morning dew: young and exquisite and untouchable.

  Right now, oddly, he wanted to touch. Wanted to reach out and brush that fall of blue-black out of sparkling cinnamon eyes.

  A connection. A stretch across a void. That smile.

  Which he’d seen before, and somehow had never seen before, not quite this way or under this light, something he didn’t understand that shifted the world under his feet. That world became one in which he could want to run fingers through Justin Moore’s hair.

  Tangible. Physical. Messy.

  The fact of sudden inexplicable lust wasn’t exactly new. He knew himself and all the desires of his past.

  What was new was Justin. And the way Kris wanted to keep looking at him. As if, out of nowhere, he’d seen his manager for the first time, brand new. Another ordinary evening on a city street, the taste of chestnuts lingering on his tongue, a glance, and suddenly—

  And suddenly what?

  Nothing. Couldn’t be anything. Never could be.

  Age. Depression. A business relationship in the way. He didn’t even know whether Justin liked men. He didn’t know who or what Justin liked, in fact, other than now-classic rock—which he’d gotten from his father, oh hell—and slim-fit jeans and bright colors and eyeliner and mascara. He guessed that the eyes were a nod to some pixie or sylph in the family tree, but Justin didn’t talk about himself in any detail, and he’d never seen any evidence of actual magic.

  W
hich, he realized belatedly and also for the first time, was strange.

  Most people did have touches of magic. The lamentable Nick Peters of the infamous Starrlight song had been able to conjure fire: not much, only tiny sparks like firecrackers, but it’d made for great displays on stage. On the evening’s New York street a little girl, holding her mother’s hand, was levitating merrily while getting chocolate on her face. And Kris himself…

  Justin, not keeping up with this distracted sideways train of thought, plainly felt that circumstances required more reassurance. “Honestly, it’s not hideous. It doesn’t feel like you’re happy, which is a problem, yeah, considering it’s you. But it’ll sell. People love Midwinter sentimental fluff, and Starrlight’s still a big name.”

  “Me,” Kris said, and sighed again. His brain seemed to be stuck on questions about Justin today. About the fact that apparently he liked chestnuts, and brought along hot tea without being asked after a recording session, and also had very touchable hair.

  “I don’t feel the happy,” Justin explained, evidently assuming that clarification was required, “and you know your empathy has trouble anyway when it’s not live, and I’m pretty sure you don’t want to depress everyone at their Midwinter parties, so maybe we can work on that? Not calling yourself hideous would be a good start.”

  “I’m not sure I’m even an empath anymore. Tired. Worn out. Antique.”

  “You were always a better projective talent than you were receptive.” Justin put his head on one side. Stray curls of hair met the breeze and drifted happily upward. His jacket was also leather, but punk-rock stylish, more form-fitting, and above all newer; Kris hid a wince. “You could make crowds laugh, or cry, or hold their breath, or sing along…we all felt what you feel.”

  “You shouldn’t’ve even been at those concerts. You’re a kid.” He started walking, mostly to be in motion. Heading half-consciously for Witch’s Brew. More of those hazelnut cappuccinos. Habit.