When it looked as if Aaron was about to ask Baz to help him fix it, Giles tripled his pace to close the distance.
“Here, let me help.” He claimed the fabric boldly, not waiting for permission to wrangle it around Aaron’s waist.
Aaron wilted in relief and stood obediently still as Giles worked. “They don’t give us enough time for this. Our bus to the community center leaves in ten minutes, someone just said.”
“You’ll be fine.” Giles fussed longer with the cummerbund than necessary, finishing with an equally useless but delightful brush of imaginary lint from Aaron’s shoulders. “God, you look good enough to eat.”
He let that out deliberately, a gentle lob over the wall to gauge Aaron’s reaction—in public, where a rejection would have to be cooler and easier to digest. No rejection came, though. Aaron stilled, cheeks coloring, blue eyes softening. “Th-thanks. You…you too. Though—here.” He fussed with Giles’s tie, straightening it and puffing it out.
Giles held still under Aaron’s ministrations, loving every second of them. “You sitting with anybody on the bus?”
It took Giles’s breath away, how bright and blue Aaron’s eyes were when he smiled. “No—I mean—nobody…” His smile fell as he got embarrassed.
So fucking adorable. “Let me get my coat and my instrument, and we’ll head out.”
They walked close together on the way to the shuttle. Giles would have done some subtle elbow touches, but he had to clutch Henrietta to his chest all the way to keep her warm because the air temperature was now two degrees, negative ten with the wind chill. The bus wasn’t warm yet either, so when he sat, he put her between his legs instead of in the overhead compartment. He considered giving her his coat but settled on wrapping his scarf around the outside of the case instead.
Aaron watched him. “Do you wrap her up because the cold affects the wood?”
“Yeah. It’s fussier than I need to be, but I wasn’t kidding when I said Henrietta was expensive. Twenty grand.”
“Wow. Is she a Stradivarius?”
“Greiner. I’d love a Strad for sentimental reasons, but blind studies have shown there’s no real sound difference between a good modern one and the antiques. I’d been bugging Mom and Dad to get a higher quality violin for a while, but to get a Greiner we had to order it, and they balked.”
“Eventually they caved, let you order one? Wow, so cool.”
Giles brushed his hand over the top of the cloth case, swallowing as he remembered. “I’d had a…tough year. I think they were trying to make up for things they couldn’t change.”
He dared a glance at Aaron, whose face was hard to read in the early evening shadow. “Cool. I mean, not cool something bad happened, but that your parents tried to make you feel better.”
Something about Aaron’s comment bothered Giles. Of course parents would attempt to make their child feel better anytime he was sad, not just when he’d been beaten into hamburger. Something told Giles, though, this wasn’t the case for Aaron. “How are things with your dad?”
It was the closest either of them had ever come to acknowledging the night at the lake. Aaron fixed his gaze on his lap. “He’s been out of town since October. Won’t be back until after Christmas.”
“Oh—I’m sorry.”
Aaron’s sad laugh broke Giles’s heart. “Don’t be. As soon as he shows up, I have to confess I dropped all the pre-law courses he signed me up for. He’s going to have a fit.”
Giles frowned. “I’m sorry, but I can’t see you as a lawyer.”
“Tell me about it.” Aaron looked so miserable. “I want to do music. Performance. But he’d kill me.”
“Not literally, I hope.”
“Yeah, well—he’d come close. My dad…doesn’t do shades of gray. Only his way or the highway.” His gaze, no longer bright, shifted to the window. “My mom didn’t like how often he traveled. Said she wasn’t sure she wanted to be married to someone gone so often. It took a lot for her to go there, because she doesn’t speak up much. The confession was her way of saying it hurt her, how often he was gone.”
“What did he do?”
“Served her divorce papers before he went to bed.”
Giles drew back. “Are you kidding me? You’re not, are you. Jesus, what an asshole.”
“Yeah.” Aaron leaned his forehead against the window. It had to be cold, but he didn’t so much as wince. “I keep thinking maybe I should declare music therapy because there’s a slim chance he might say it’s okay. But it’s not what I want. Everybody says to ignore him, but—he pays for school. My mom lives on alimony.” He grimaced and pushed off the window, shaking his head. “It’s a stupid idea. What job will I get with music performance?”
“All kinds of them.”
“You’re the one who said ‘I’d like a job, thanks’ when I asked if you were majoring in music.”
Second acknowledgment of the lake.
Giles shifted Henrietta, pressing his knee against Aaron’s so he could look him full in the face. “That was me. You, Aaron—God, you have to do music. I can’t imagine you doing anything else. I don’t think anybody who hears you can. Hell, if I could get a job doing nothing but listening to you sing and play, that’s what I’d major in. You making music is the most perfect, beautiful part of the world. Don’t let your dad get in the way.”
Aaron stared at him, surprised, moved…naked.
He wants me to kiss him.
I want to kiss him.
I’m going to kiss him. Right here on this bus. Right now.
Giles leaned forward, heart pumping so hard it hurt, soul caught in the tractor beam of Aaron’s gaze.
The bus slowed, lurched, then stopped abruptly. “Ten minutes to warm up,” someone called, and the overhead lights came on.
Giles and Aaron broke apart.
The near-kiss hung over Giles as they set up their dinner performances, making everything appear surreal. When they performed with Salvo, every note felt charged. So did the ride to the church, Henrietta pressed between Giles’s legs, Aaron’s knee boldly along his own.
Kiss him, kiss him, kiss him—the mantra burned in Giles’s brain, but people were too loud this time, too close.
After, he promised himself. After.
Except when he tried to cross to the choir bus for the ride back to Timothy, Mina caught his arm. He was about to shake her off when he caught sight of her face.
She was upset. Really upset. He stopped cold. “Min?”
She shut her eyes and hung her head. “Please—don’t. I just…I can’t talk, I…I need—”
When she broke off to swallow a sob, Giles pulled her to him. “Come on. Let’s go grab our seat.”
He cast a sad glance of longing across the parking lot and put Aaron out of his mind.
Mina never told him what was wrong. She curled against him the whole way, and when he invited her to stay the night in his room, she ignored the futon and got right into bed with him. Giles held her close, heart breaking as she sobbed quietly into his T-shirt.
“Mina,” he began, when he couldn’t take it anymore.
“Don’t.” She pressed her hands to his chest. “Please—I can’t. Not yet.”
While he appreciated that in the abstract, in the specific his mind was concocting all kinds of insane scenarios. “Did…somebody hurt you?”
Her sad laugh broke him more than the sobs. “Not like that.”
Oh, Min. “Someone broke your heart.”
She shut her eyes tight, nodded. This time the sobs weren’t silent.
He held her all night, and in the morning he took her to IHOP for breakfast because he knew it was her favorite. She still looked a little hollow, but by the time they went back to Timothy, he had her laughing occasionally.
She, however, had him nervous.
He tried to di
stract himself by guessing which guy had made Mina cry, but his rabbit brain kept yanking him back to the terrible possibility of him being the one sobbing his heart out over rejection. As sure a thing as Aaron had seemed the night before, Mina’s tears made him pause…and kept him once again from riding into the Cities on the choir bus. He told himself it was to keep an eye on Mina, but the truth was, he’d chickened out.
Saturday’s setup was a little less stressful—they still arrived in downtown Minneapolis by noon, but rehearsal was more relaxed, as the State Theater was an actual theater and did this sort of thing every day. They had time for a late lunch/early dinner—Aaron and Giles and the rest of Salvo went in a great herd through the skywalks to Buca di Beppo. They walked together, sat beside each other at the restaurant, close because they’d crammed twelve people at a table for ten.
Because everything was so loud, they kept leaning close when talking to one another. Aaron told Giles choir stories, surprising him with tales of the chorale’s weird game of passing things around while they sang.
Giles had no idea. “I’ve never seen anything.”
Aaron’s eyes danced. “That’s the point. People hand you oddball items, and you pass them on without breaking eye contact with Nussy. Whoever has it last has to carry it off without being seen. And of course someone has to bring it to start with.” He paused to chew a breadstick. “Thursday night I got a banana—whole, and later it had come back peeled, which had a lot of people pissed because it was so messy. I got a condom, a huge purple double-ended dildo, a Barbie doll, a can of Fresca and a coat hanger. Things were tamer Friday for the church, but it still happened.”
“That’s crazy.” Giles watched Aaron’s profile in the warm light of the restaurant. Their chairs were so close their fingers touched. “What if they got caught?”
“Remember, Nussy was in the choir too, back in the day. Someone tells stories about a couch cushion in the nineties, but I can’t believe it could happen. Even under a girl’s skirt it would be noticeable. Though this has been going on since 1965 or something.”
Giles was going to make a comment about the Dark Ages, but Aaron’s fingers closed over his, and Giles forgot to breathe.
With the din of voices and clanking plates in their ears, they stared at each other. Aaron looked terrified, but hopeful.
Giles felt…crazy.
That night as they set up for Salvo at a venue a few skywalks over from the State Theater, everything felt intimate. When their bodies brushed, Giles felt a spark. When their gazes met, Giles forgot his own name.
I have to kiss him this time. I have to.
He started to believe if he didn’t, Aaron would.
Tonight the whirl of performing didn’t abate his euphoria, every moment and glance heightening both his excitement and his arousal. By the time Aaron joined the Ambassadors and Giles got ready for his quartet, Giles was hard. He calmed down while he played, but when he retired to the wings and Aaron sang, he was up to almost full mast.
It was hours until the bus ride home. Tonight was the last night before break. If something else interrupted them, he’d have no other chance.
I have to tell him now. The thought burned in Giles’s brain as Aaron hit the final note and the Ambassadors took their bow.
As they exited, Giles saw Baz’s hand linger on Aaron’s back, inspiring white-hot waves of jealousy.
Seriously. I have to tell him right now.
Wild-eyed and high from singing, Aaron crossed to Giles and jerked his head toward the exit with a grin. “Ready for the skywalk dash to Salvo’s venue?”
Kiss him. Tell him how you feel. Something, anything. Right now. “Sure.”
Aaron started for the door, but when Giles didn’t hurry after, he came back to snag his hand. “Seriously, we have ten minutes, tops.”
Giles felt so out-of-body he could barely move. Tell him now, tell him now, tell him right now.
In the middle of the skywalk, he lost it. The scent of Aaron, the warmth of his hand, the light in his eye—it was too much. All Giles’s feelings churned inside him like a storm he couldn’t control. All he could think about was how much he wanted Aaron. Not just to have sex with him—to have him, be with him.
Shaking, he tripped, losing Aaron’s hand, almost dropping his violin.
Aaron stopped running. “Are you okay?”
No, he wasn’t. Giles’s chest felt tight, his head spun, and he had to let Henrietta clatter to the floor so he could grip the glass wall.
“Giles?” Aaron put his hands on Giles’s arm, his shoulder, his face full of concern. “What’s wrong?”
Drowning. I’m drowning. “I can’t,” he whispered.
Aaron’s grip tightened. “Are you sick? Do you need me to call 911?”
Giles tried to say no, but his whole body trembled, and the shake of his head probably just looked like a spasm.
He had to tell him. He couldn’t be scared anymore. He had to tell him.
“Giles.”
Giles opened his eyes, saw Aaron staring at him—and his heart leaped.
“Aaron—Aaron, I—love you.”
He stopped shaking, too terrified by what had fallen out of his mouth to move.
Aaron stared back at him, equally frozen.
Mina’s sobs of rejection echoed in his ears, and Giles felt tears spring to his eyes. Please—please.
Aaron kept staring. Giles died, seconds at a time. Surrendering to fear, to inevitable pain, he shut his eyes and waited for the fall.
Soft lips pressed to his own.
Giles’s eyes flew open—Aaron’s face was right in front of him. Eyes wide open. Full of terror—and hope.
With a shudder, Giles shut his eyes once more—and surrendered to the kiss he’d been dreaming of for six months.
Giles gave Aaron the soft, sweet kiss he’d wanted to give in the car outside Aaron’s house. The one where he tilted his head to the side and caught Aaron’s lip gently, shyly with his teeth. The one where he didn’t grind his cock against Aaron but put a tentative hand on his hip.
The one where he sighed, where his whole chest peeled open and his heart whispered, I really like you, Aaron, and I want you to stay.
The one where, when Aaron kissed him back, his heart soared up all the way to the sky.
Aaron melted into him, leaning against the glass of the skywalk so bonelessly Giles had to press him to it to keep him upright. Blood rushed like fire through Giles’s veins as he took Aaron’s face in his hands and kissed him deeper.
I love you, I love you, I love you, he said over and over, without saying a single word.
When the door to the skywalk opened, the sound cracking like a gunshot, they broke apart, but only just.
“Guys, we’re—” Jilly stopped in midsentence as Giles dizzily met her gaze, Aaron still in his arms. “Oh.”
Aaron sagged, his hands tight on Giles’s waist.
Shuddering with pleasure that rang to his bones, Giles brushed a kiss across the top of Aaron’s head. “We’ll be right there.”
Jilly lingered. “Okay—so you know, there’s dead silence right now while they wait for us to take the stage.”
Stifling a groan of disappointment, Giles brushed a last kiss across Aaron’s cheek as he bent to pick up Henrietta. “After. We’ll talk after.”
Aaron took hold of his hand.
They ran together the rest of the way over the bridge. But this time Giles’s chest wasn’t tight at all. In fact, if he jumped through the glass right now, he was pretty damn sure he could fly.
Giles loves me.
Aaron went through the second half of the dinner performances in a dream, glad he knew his synth parts well enough to go on autopilot. His brain refused to function, would only relive that moment on the sky bridge over and over and over. When Giles had looked him right in the eye, nake
d and tortured and vulnerable, and said, Aaron, I love you. And kissed him.
Soft, spicy lips closing over his, strong, delicate hands cradling his face.
Aaron skipped a note, startled and yanked himself into focus.
Walter and Kelly were at this dinner—they sat in the front row, waving at Aaron as he entered. The performers were encouraged to mingle for a few minutes after their last performance, and so of course Aaron went up to their table after, but he felt like he drifted over on a cloud. He could barely see where he walked, too busy watching Giles packing up the double bass.
Walter drew Aaron into a hug. “You were great. I love the girl group. That’s your arrangement, right?” Walter glanced around. “Where’s Giles? I want to finally meet this guy.”
“Walter.” This warning tone came from Kelly, who watched Aaron carefully. “Aaron, hon, are you okay?”
Finished with the bass, Giles searched the room. When he saw Aaron, he smiled, his expression a soft echo of the moment on the sky bridge. As Giles came over to their table, Aaron felt as if the world was underwater. When Giles arrived, Aaron introduced him.
“Walter, Kelly—this is my…Giles.”
Walter stuck out a hand. “Pleased to meet you. Walter Lucas. This is my fiancé, Kelly Davidson.”
Giles shook their hands. “Good to meet you.”
Walter chatted Giles up, asking him the usual questions—where he was from, what he majored in. Through it all Aaron tried not to stare.
Giles kissed me and told me he loved me. Giles kissed me and told me he loved me.
Kelly pulled Aaron down beside him and whispered in his ear. “Do you need a doctor?”
Aaron shut his eyes and pressed his lips almost up to Kelly’s ear. “Giles…kissed me. Just now. Before the—now.”
And told me he loved me.
Somebody loves me.
Kelly beamed at him. “Honey, that’s wonderful.”
Aaron felt so dizzy. “I don’t know what to do now.”
“You be yourself. You talk to him, tell him how you feel.”
Fever Pitch Page 18
