A roomful of elderly women in pastel clothes and tinted hair beamed at him.
“Mrs. Kelley,” Dean said, trying to keep the panic from his voice, “Nobody kept any of the sheet music Mr. Robinson used—”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. The dear man willed his entire estate to the Springhaven Historical Society. He was all alone in the world, you know. Well,” she added with a coy smile, “he found companionship, to be sure….”
There were several giggles around the room. Dean really didn’t want to know what that was about.
He tried again. “That’s only a few weeks away—”
“Six weeks.”
“—and the band members haven’t rehearsed in almost two years. George Thompson moved away last fall. And Rick Wallace and I… well, let’s just say there are some issues there. I’m not sure whether the others would even be interested.”
“Oh, Dean,” Mrs. Harper said with a wide smile, “we know you’re more than up to the task. You’re such a capable young man. If anyone can manage this, you can.”
“But….”
He wasn’t quite sure how it had happened—he left Mrs. Harper’s house in a daze, an uneaten chocolate chip muffin still sitting in his left hand—but somehow he’d promised to contact the members of the old Springhaven Septet and convince them to put on a performance of Mr. Robinson’s stock repertoire. Even though the “septet” was now only five people, minus George and Mr. Robinson himself.
Why the hell can’t I ever say no to those women?
Of course, few people in Springhaven did. They were experts at surrounding their quarry, finding the weak spots, and then swooping in like a pack of wolves wearing floral perfume.
Did he even know where his clarinet was? Dean wasn’t sure.
But that was something to worry about later. Right now, he was twenty minutes late for his job at the Scotts’.
AIDEN felt the arpeggios of Brahms’s “Intermezzo No. 2 in B-flat Minor” rippling under his fingers, doing his best to ignore the occasional twinge of pain. If he could train himself not to notice them, perhaps his hands wouldn’t hesitate in certain passages. Pain was his body’s way of telling him something was broken or in the process of being injured, but he knew it was lying. The doctors—and there had been several—insisted there was nothing physically wrong with his hands. The bones and tendons had healed. If he could just learn to ignore the alarm signals, to push through them….
After his third iteration of the piece, he gave up. The frustration was too great. He could no longer focus.
“That was beautiful.”
Startled, Aiden turned toward the voice. A handsome man with short ash-brown hair was out on the porch, leaning in through the open window. He was dressed in gray overalls and a white T-shirt that was damp under the armpits and streaked with dirt. The bare, muscular forearm he rested against the window frame, pressed against the screen that separated them, was covered in tattoos.
Aiden softly closed the fallboard over the piano keys, as if that could prevent the man from hearing what he’d just played. “I was just… practicing.”
“Well, it sounded pretty damn good.”
He didn’t want to accept praise for those awkward passages, those moments where his timing had slipped, but Aiden knew a layman wouldn’t have been likely to notice. He stood and said, “Thank you.”
“So… you’re Aiden?” the man asked, eyeing him curiously.
“Yes.”
“You probably don’t remember me,” he said, giving Aiden a shy smile that was kind of adorable… and disturbingly familiar. “Hell, I probably wouldn’t have recognized you—not if I just bumped into you on the street. But you’re staying at this house, and you’re the right age….” He looked at Aiden intently with soft brown eyes, and Aiden felt a thrill of recognition.
Oh God. Of course. Aiden had expected he’d run into him eventually, but he wasn’t prepared for it. Not right here on the front porch.
“Dean” was all he could say.
Shit.
Dean Cooper didn’t exactly look the same. He’d put on muscle, and of course he hadn’t had all the tattoos when they were in high school. He’d also had long, unruly hair back then. His hair was short now, and he had a heavy—and sexy as hell—five o’clock shadow thing going on.
Aiden laughed nervously. “Sorry. It took me a minute.”
“No problem. It was a looooooonnng time ago,” Dean said. “I can barely remember what I did last week.”
Bullshit. You remember.
Aiden tried to think of an appropriate response, but he was momentarily at a loss for words. Dean was treating it as if they’d just been casual friends, but they’d been inseparable that last summer before Aiden went away to Interlochen. They’d never quite gotten brave enough to do more than grope each other while they made out in the gazebo, but it had been… wonderful….
And, as Dean said, a very long time ago.
When the silence between them grew uncomfortable, Dean said, “Anyway, I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”
“No,” Aiden said quickly. “I was just finishing.” He hadn’t been in the mood for company, but…. Christ. Dean Cooper. “I can come outside. Would you like some coffee?”
“I need to get to work. Your parents hired me to replace these torn screens.”
“Can you talk while you work?”
“Sure.”
“Then I’ll bring my coffee out and sit with you.”
Chapter Three
DAMMIT. Mr. and Mrs. Scott hadn’t warned Dean their son was back in town. Not that he would’ve refused to come over, but… dammit. And of course he’d have to run into Aiden while he was in grubby clothes, after the warm weather had already made his pits damp.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if Aiden had put on a paunch or gone bald or something. But no. Aiden Scott had grown up to be fucking hot.
He still had that tall, lanky frame, but he was no longer at all awkward. Even just sitting at the piano, he’d held himself with the confidence of a performer used to being onstage in front of hundreds of people. His jaw had grown more defined, and his misty gray eyes peered out from under a strong brow. With his chestnut hair swept rakishly to the side, like the hero of an old movie, he reminded Dean of Cary Grant or perhaps James Bond. He just needed a tux to complete the image, and Dean could easily imagine him wearing one as he performed with an orchestra in the background.
Aiden wasn’t wearing a tux as he joined Dean on the porch, but his gray slacks and pale blue polo shirt were neatly pressed and looked expensive. He’d obviously been doing very well for himself.
“Mom insisted I bring all of this out,” Aiden said, setting a large platter holding a pile of croissants, a butter dish, and a coffee carafe with accompanying cups, sugar bowl, and creamer on the small table between the love seat and matching rattan chair.
“Thanks,” Dean said, “but I already had a muffin on the way over.”
“Coffee?”
“You go ahead. I need to replace the screen and stick it back up there before every bird in Springhaven decides to roost on your porch.” He’d managed to pry the frame out of its casing while Aiden was still in the house. That had been the hard part, since it had been more or less painted in place. Now he had the screen laid out on the porch floor as he pulled the rubber spline out.
Aiden sat in the love seat and poured a cup for himself, adding cream and sugar. The cream was in a silly-looking creamer Dean recalled from their teen years—one shaped like a white cow. The cream poured out of its mouth, so he and Aiden had dubbed it the “barfing cow.” The lid on the butter dish was likewise shaped like a cow. He wasn’t sure if it was comforting or disturbing that these little details hadn’t changed at all in the seventeen years they’d been apart.
“You look good,” Aiden said, settling back in the seat with his coffee cup in hand.
Since Dean was on his hands and knees and his backside was aimed in Aiden’s direction, he stopped w
hat he was doing a moment to look back over his shoulder, one eyebrow cocked.
Aiden smirked. “I didn’t mean your ass. I just noticed you’re in good shape, for an old geezer.”
They were both thirty-two, so Dean didn’t take offense at that. He turned back to his work, trying not to read too much into Aiden’s observation. He was probably just making polite small talk. “Yeah, well, the kind of work I do keeps me active.”
“Do you like it? This kind of work?”
Dean shrugged. “It suits me.” He doubted Aiden was really interested in hearing about hammering nails and patching screen windows. “I hear you’ve been living in New York City, playing piano with some big-name orchestras.”
The silence that greeted that comment was so long, Dean looked back over his shoulder. Aiden was looking at his right hand, flexing it slowly. “I was.”
“Not anymore?”
Aiden took a sip of his coffee, then replied distantly, “No. Not anymore.”
There was a story there, but it wasn’t Dean’s place to pry into it. They were no longer the close teenage friends who could talk about anything, who’d come out to each other and had begun to explore their sexuality together. Too much time had gone by. They were strangers now.
Dean finished pulling the spline out of the frame, freeing the old worn screen. He pulled that off, and then unrolled the new screen on top of the frame.
“Would you like some help?” Aiden asked.
“You shouldn’t crawl around on the porch in those pants.”
Aiden snorted. He stood and walked over to Dean, then dropped to his knees beside him. “I don’t give a fuck about the pants, and I’m not so dainty I can’t fix a screen window.”
“Okay, Rambo,” Dean told him, handing him the roll of duct tape. “Tape it down in the corners, and maybe a couple other places.”
They worked together in silence—fixing the screen in place, using the spline roller to push the screen into its channel, laying the new rubber spline down on top of it and pushing it down to wedge the screen in, then finally cutting away the excess screen material. After Aiden had helped Dean lift the window back into place and screw it in, he touched Dean’s forearm gently. His fingers felt hot against Dean’s skin.
“I like the tattoos,” he said.
Dean wasn’t sure if Aiden was flirting or not. “Thanks,” he said cautiously. “I got a bunch now.”
“A bunch?” Aiden smirked again and pulled his hand away. He went to pour himself a fresh cup of coffee and poured a cup for Dean without asking. Every movement was graceful, not the slightest motion wasted, as if he were dancing. As if his music is part of his body now. “Should I ask where?”
Dean held his arms out to either side, so he could see both arms clearly. “Arms, legs… I got one on my back too, between my shoulder blades. And another….” He stopped himself. Aiden didn’t need to know about that particular tattoo.
THE temptation to ask Dean to take his shirt off was strong, but Aiden resisted. He’d already gone further than he should have, touching Dean and complimenting him on the tattoos. They did look good. They were sexy as hell. Aiden wanted to see them all.
But he was bordering on being flirtatious, and maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. He’d come to Springhaven to get away from the complications of his life in New York. He didn’t need to complicate things here by rekindling something between him and Dean—assuming Dean was even interested. For all Aiden knew, he might have married and fathered a half dozen children by now.
“Did you go to prison or something?” he asked. When Dean frowned, he added quickly, “Sorry. That was a lame attempt at humor. I used to watch a lot of Oz.”
Dean flopped down in the chair on the other side of the table and picked up the coffee Aiden had poured for him.
“Like my life would ever be that interesting,” he said, quirking his mouth up on one side.
Aiden laughed. “You want to go to prison?”
“Nah. But I ain’t never been out of New England. I envy you.”
That stung, though Aiden knew Dean couldn’t know anything about why he was back in Springhaven, licking wounds that would never heal, his dreams and plans for the future dead. Perhaps someday Aiden would come to appreciate the taste of success he’d been given. After all, he’d achieved more than most. But that thought did little to console him now.
He searched for something else to talk about, and the only thing that came to mind was, “So… are you seeing someone? Married?”
“Dude. Just how many gay men do you think there are in Springhaven?”
“I… have no idea….”
Dean waved a hand dismissively. “Okay, that’s not fair. I’m not the only gay guy around. These guys, Jack and Sean, just moved here last summer. They’re a couple, though, and they live way out in the woods on the edge of town. No one hardly ever sees them. And Phil Grant—”
“Mr. Grant?” Aiden gasped. “The gym coach?”
“He’s moved away now.”
Aiden leaned forward over the breakfast tray, pinning Dean with his gaze. “Did you… did you sleep with our gym coach?” Mr. Grant had been pretty good-looking, admittedly. And he’d been fairly young, as teachers went—maybe late twenties when Aiden and Dean were in high school.
Dean squirmed uncomfortably. “Well, not while I was still a student, for fuck’s sake. It was just about four years ago. And only for a few months.”
“A few months?”
“Shut up,” Dean said, rolling his eyes. “He was only forty-one. And he’s still sexy as hell. It just… didn’t work out.”
“Why not?”
“Why do you think? As soon as people figured out what was goin’ on, everyone started gossiping about it. I got teased by my friends for sleeping with an ‘old man,’ and everyone was givin’ him the stink eye around town for still being a high school coach and fucking one of his former students. I mean, come on! I was like twenty-eight by then! But he couldn’t hack it, so we broke up.”
“I’m sorry. I was just teasing. If I’d known how much shit people gave you, I would have kept my mouth shut.” God, I’m an asshole. Twice in five minutes, he’d managed to insult Dean without even trying.
Dean sighed and put his coffee down on the tray without having taken a sip. “It was kind of winding down by then, anyway. We didn’t have much in common, except being desperate for companionship and a good fuck now and then. Phil got a job at a high school somewhere in Maine, last I heard.”
They were silent for a minute, until Dean said, “So, yeah. I’m single. What about you?”
“Me too. My last boyfriend ditched me when… I decided to move back here. Not a huge loss, really.”
Another long silence.
Then Dean gave him a sidelong glance and said, “So…?”
Christ. Is he going to ask me out?
“So?”
Dean shrugged. “You think you might be interested in going out sometime?”
Fuck.
Not that the thought wasn’t tempting. Dean was hot as hell, and he still seemed pretty much the same down-to-earth guy Aiden had been drawn to in high school. But Aiden had come home in the hopes of retreating from the world for a while. If Dean was just looking for a quick fuck, that might be fun, but it sounded as if he needed more than that. He was lonely and wanted a boyfriend. Aiden couldn’t be that for him.
“I’m sorry….” Aiden stopped himself from saying the dreaded “I’m flattered.” “To be completely honest, I came back here to get away from people for a while. My life kind of went to shit in New York.”
Dean held up both hands, as if to ward off further explanation. “Shit. That was coming on way too strong. I apologize.”
“No, that’s fine.”
“I don’t ask guys out very often. Like I said, not a lot of opportunity for that here.”
“It’s okay.”
Dean stood up. “I really need to get my ass in gear. I’ve got three more screens to do, and
then I’ve got a job over at Maida Gordon’s place.”
“Of course,” Aiden said, trying to give him a sympathetic smile. But it was pointless. Dean wasn’t looking at him anymore. “I’ll stop distracting you.”
“You don’t have to go. I’m just—”
“No, that’s…. I’ve got some things of my own to do.” Aiden stood and offered his hand. “It’s good to see you again, Dean. Really.”
Dean shook his hand and almost smiled at him, though not quite. Aiden left the tray on the porch, in case Dean wanted to grab a croissant, then went inside.
Chapter Four
DEAN avoided thinking about the septet for a few days. He had more than enough work around town to keep him busy, and fortunately none of it was on Lilac Lane. But on Saturday he bucked up and drove to the convenience store at the end of Androscoggin Street. Then he drove down the street and pulled into the driveway of a run-down trailer that occupied a patch of overgrown lawn.
He sat there for a couple of minutes, trying to psych himself up. It wasn’t that he had a problem with Ben Tyler, specifically, but he really didn’t want to deal with any of this. Even if all the members of the septet still living in Springhaven agreed to do another performance, they were short a piano player and a drummer. It would be a pretty lame jazz band without drums!
The door to Ben’s run-down trailer opened, and the old man stepped out onto the small square of cracked concrete that served as his front porch. He was shirtless, but perhaps due to the little incident last September involving the police and a hefty fine, he’d at least taken the time to grab some pants. “What the hell are you doin’ sittin’ in my driveway?”
Dean sighed and opened his door to step down onto the gravel drive.
“Hey, Ben. I wanted to talk to you for a minute.”
“Did you bring me anything?”
“’Course,” Dean said, reaching under the seat of his truck for the bag he’d picked up at the convenience store on his way over. He closed the door and carried his offering to the porch.
Small Town Sonata Page 2
