Authors: Mimsy Hale
The crowd applauds politely, some cheering and raising their glasses as Liam strums his guitar and brings a rousing edge to the music. One hand curled around the mic, locking eyes with Jake, who is slowly pushing his way through to the front of the crowd, Aiden begins to sing.
His voice soars over the music, the lights burst into life and Hugh joins in on the drums. And now his true rush begins. He grins at Marcie as she provides his backing vocals—she sounds fantastic, and her young and soulful voice lends the song an added depth.
Aiden spreads his arms wide again and circles his hips, making love to the song and the crowd throughout the second verse and chorus. Performing comes to him like breathing, and whenever he finds himself on a stage, he morphs into the best possible version of himself: free, unencumbered and purely in the moment. He lets go of Aiden Calloway and all of the issues he has with himself, and grabs hold of the only thing that’s left: the music. He only experiences a similar feeling when he’s directing, watching the action come together right before his eyes and knowing that he’s witnessing creation.
The audience is jumping by the time Aiden sings the final refrain, his feet spread, hands beckoning them closer. He circles behind Marcie and nudges her toward center stage for her trumpet solo, clapping his hands over his head as she brings the house down and the song to its end.
Applause erupts, and after taking a brief bow, Aiden picks a slip of paper from the handful he was given by crowd members during the latter half of the song. Handing the rest to Marcie, he says into the mic, “The first brave soul we’re welcoming to the stage this evening is going to give us his take on AC/DC’s ‘Thunderstruck.’ Please give it up for Mark!”
He’s practically carried through the crowd after he hands over the mic. Jake and April flank him all the way to the bar, where he drinks deeply from the bottle of water shoved into his hand and pauses to throw an arm around Jake’s neck and kiss him firmly on the mouth.
“How was I?” he asks, voice raised over the none-too-shabby singing.
Jake’s eyes glitter under the bar lights, and his smile is just as bright. “Dan, you were
amazing.
God, I’ve missed watching you perform.”
“Seriously, Aiden. Pure sex,” April agrees, nodding furiously. “If both of us weren’t gay, I’d tell you to watch out.”
Aiden laughs, and they settle onto stools at the bar to take in the evening. He probably won’t sing again until the time comes to close the show, and he has at least two hours to convince Jake to sing. Now is the time to sit back, catch his breath and continue nudging.
After five more songs, including a truly awful version of “Livin’ On A Prayer” that makes Aiden wince, Jake grimace and April lament the fact that she can’t magically turn her water into wine, Marcie takes a break and approaches them almost shyly, her eyes trained downward. When she reaches them, Aiden pulls her close.
“What can I get you?” he asks her, trying to catch the bartender’s attention over her shoulder.
“Oh, um… I’m good, thanks, I have water onstage,” she says, glancing up at him from under her thick brown bangs. “You were
so
good up there, Aiden. Did I do okay?”
“Are you kidding?” Jake interjects. “You were fantastic! And not just your trumpet solo—which was
incredible,
by the way—but that voice! Why haven’t I ever heard you sing before?”
“I don’t know,” Marcie says, twisting her fingers together. “I mean, I’m the trumpet girl, right? No one looks at me and thinks I could be a singer.”
“I’m just sad that
I
was the one singing lead and you had to be backup,” Aiden tells her. “You should be front and center.”
“You really mean it? Because I’ve been thinking that maybe I
could
sing a whole song by myself.”
“Do it. Oh my
god,
you have to do it,” Jake says.
“Is it that song I heard you practicing with the guys this morning? Is that why they wanted you to sing?” April asks, and when Marcie nods hesitantly, she adds, “Then get up there and tell Hugh. Right now.”
“I just… it’s
terrifying!”
Marcie exclaims, though her voice barely rises. “I don’t know how you guys can do it all the time.”
“Honey, if you bring even a fraction of what you brought to the song we opened with, you’ll blow everyone away,” Aiden assures her, squeezing her shoulder, until at length she smiles up at him and nods.
“Okay, I’ll do it,” she says. “Although… April, will you come up onstage with me? Like, not to sing… I’d just feel better if you were there.”
“Of course I will. Hey, maybe I can give Liam a break and take over guitar,” April says, looping her arm through Marcie’s. “Come on, let’s go tell the guys.”
Rather than watch the girls weave their way toward the stage, Aiden watches Jake: His eyes follow Marcie with a look so wistful it makes Aiden’s stomach churn. For the first time, he wonders if he’s doing the right thing or if he should just let it drop. He doesn’t need to push Jake even further, not when he’s been making so much progress on his own… but there’s an itch under his skin, an almost primal need to hear Jake sing, see him completely let go, and he can’t help but bump Jake’s hip with his own when Marcie takes her place front and center.
“I bet you the next three tank dumps that you could never get onstage and do what she’s doing,” Aiden says carefully. He inclines his head toward Jake, but his eyes are fixed on Marcie as she slips almost visibly out of her own skin and into that of a performer, as if she’s becoming her costume.
“I bet you the next three tank dumps and a week’s worth of cooking that I could,” Jake replies, his tone holding the merest edge of a challenge.
“Prove it,” Aiden says.
“What?” Jake asks, turning to face him. “No, I… you know I can’t sing.”
“It’s not that you
can’t,
it’s that you
won’t,”
Aiden says, and points to Marcie. “Five minutes ago she was shaking, and look at her now.”
The song is a bouncy Ella Riot track with an eighties vibe, and Marcie bounces with it as she sings her way into the chorus. Aiden snakes an arm around Jake’s waist and says, “Come on, let me pick a song for you.”
“Why are you pushing this?”
“Because ever since we left Brunswick, it’s like I’ve been watching you wake up again. We both know that you’ll feel better if you do it, and I think you
want
me to push you.”
Slowly and deliberately, Jake raises his bottle to his lips and takes a long drink, his eyes on Marcie as she dances and spins and jumps across the stage. Holding his breath, Aiden waits him out.
“Sometimes I really hate that you know me so well,” Jake finally says, leaning into him. “I… okay. What song did you have in mind?”
“‘Payphone’ by Maroon 5,” Aiden says, exhaling, barely able to believe his plan has worked. “Do you know it well enough to sing it?”
Jake nods once, promptly downs what remains in his bottle and walks off in the direction of the restroom, leaving Aiden by turns excited and confused. Thinking better of following Jake right away, Aiden grabs a slip from the bar and scribbles:
Jake Valentine, Payphone by Maroon 5
He walks to the stage and hands the slip to April. Her eyes go wide as she reads it—she obviously didn’t think the plan would work, either—and she gapes openly at him. Aiden simply shrugs and heads to the restroom.
Jake is washing his hands, the sleeves of his jacket rolled to the elbow. He’s clearly stalling, and Aiden suddenly wishes that he’d thought to bring him a shot.
“I stopped singing,” Jake says quietly. “And you know why.”
Aiden crosses his arms and leans against the wall. “Because she wasn’t around to sing with you anymore.”
“After she was gone, it… I could always talk; that was fine. You
kept
me talking. But whenever I tried to sing, it just… nothing came out,” Jake says, and heaves a deep sigh. “What if I’m terrible? It’s a
really
hard song.”
“You’re going to be great, I know it.”
“Will you sing backup for me?”
“Of course I will. Come on, Twentieth Century Boy. Let’s go.”
Jake freezes and looks at him, something unreadable in his eyes. “What did you just say?”
“I… let’s go?”
“No, no, before that.”
“Twentieth Century Boy,” Aiden replies, regarding him curiously.
For whatever reason, the new nickname seems to light a fire under Jake and he grabs Aiden’s hand and runs out of the restroom with him in tow. Marcie has just finished her song and is taking a bow, her audience applauding, whooping and catcalling. Jake breaks away, makes a beeline for April and whispers something into her ear. Her face lights up, she spreads the message to the rest of the band and before Aiden knows it, she’s at the mic. “We’ve got a
very
special Halloween treat for you. I’ve known this next performer since my first year of college, and while I’ve always had my ideas about him, I’ve never heard the little fucker sing. Ann Arbor, about to rock the house with T-Rex’s ‘Twentieth Century Boy,’ please give it up for Jake Valentine!”
Taking his place at the backup mic with Marcie, Aiden grins—he should have known. Jake glances at Aiden over his shoulder, his face set in a stoic expression tinged with defiance; as April begins playing the song’s dirty, catchy intro, Aiden watches Jake grab the mic in one hand and the stand in the other.
When Jake starts to sing, arching his back and twisting to the side to look straight at him, Aiden stutters over his backing vocals. Jake practically growls into the mic; his lower register is unpracticed and throaty but strong and raw. If Aiden made love in his performance, Jake is laying himself at the foot of an idol.
He takes the mic from its stand and stalks toward Aiden like a predator with its prey in sight. Jake sings the last line of the chorus right into Aiden’s ear—then he’s gone with a shake of his hips, strutting across the stage in those obscenely tight leather pants, turning back just once to blow Aiden a smug kiss. He looks alive, more alive than Aiden has ever seen him, and he’s never been so sexy.
Jake picks out a member of the crowd, to whom he sings a line or two, before moving on and doing it again. By the time he reaches the final chorus of the song they’re all begging and screaming for him, even some of the guys. Aiden watches them with a tight ball of possessiveness in his gut. He wants nothing more than to grab Jake, run with him back to the RV and spend hours showing him that he, Aiden Calloway, is the only one who knows how to undo him.
Jake belts out the final chorus, one arm raised and a foot stomping in time. Marcie steps up for her trumpet solo to close the song and Jake begins to thrust his hips to the beat—if it were anyone else it would look ridiculous, but this is Jake Valentine: tall, beautiful, yoga enthusiast, incredible in bed and, apparently, secret rock star. Aiden sends up a silent prayer of thanks that he’s wearing such tight jeans, because he’s nearing the uncomfortable stage of hard and the last thing he needs is a roomful of strangers seeing exactly what Jake does to him.
As the song ends, Jake punches the air. The crowd cheers louder and longer than they have for anyone yet—they want sex and Jake has given it to them, pure and undiluted.
Feeling suddenly exhausted and needing a moment to collect himself, Aiden scrambles from the stage and pushes his way to the bar, where he asks the bartender for two glasses of water. As surreptitiously as possible, he reaches down to adjust his jeans just enough to relieve some of the pressure. One way or another, Jake is going to be his end.
Drinking deeply from his glass, he catches a flash of pink and blond in his peripheral vision and turns to see Jake rushing toward him with a dazzling smile lighting his face.
“Jake! Holy hell, you were—”
Jake reaches forward and grabs Aiden by the front of his jacket, hauling him into a fast and crushing kiss; when he pulls back, hands trembling, he whispers “Thank you” over and over again against Aiden’s lips.
Heart clenching in his chest, breathing heavily, Aiden cups the back of Jake’s neck. Jake presses his forehead against Aiden’s temple, and all Aiden can dazedly think is,
Mission accomplished.
5,569 miles
Day Forty-six: Indiana
Much to Aiden’s dismay, Pawnee does not exist in the state of Indiana.
Wanting to preserve as much of the magic as possible—as much magic as there is to be found in Indiana, at least—Aiden had declared a rule about the state: Neither he nor Jake were allowed to plan what they would do when they got there. They would simply visit the town of Pawnee—the setting of Aiden’s favorite TV show,
Parks & Recreation
—and figure out the rest later.
When the GPS told them, however, that there were towns by that name in Illinois, Oklahoma and Texas, but not in Indiana, their lack of plans proved to be something of a problem for Jake. He took control of the navigation and located a campground in Portage before setting about finding them something to do nearby.
“Have you ever thought about directing a post-apocalyptic disaster movie?” Jake had asked, scrolling through an article on his phone.
“Only always,” Aiden replied; and so Jake had decided to program the GPS to direct them to the derelict Union Station in Gary.
The station is a husk. Boards block the main entrance, but getting inside is a matter of simply walking through a large gap. Jake finds himself in awe of just how much wreck and ruin can exist inside a single building while its exterior shows only blemishes. The main hall is littered with debris, obvious—yet old—fire damage lines the walls near the roof, and a lone armchair sits off-kilter in the center of the room, its powder blue upholstery shredded.
He and Aiden separate to walk opposite sides of the perimeter—or as close as they can get to it given the thick scattering of wood and metal. Halfway along, set into the wall and almost indistinguishable from the dirt, is a simple paneled door, inconspicuous save for the rusted padlock holding it shut. Jake is just reaching out for it when Aiden calls out, “Hello!” from across the floor. A frantic flapping sound comes from the other end of the hall, and Jake looks up to see a pair of crows make a hasty exit through a hole in the roof. The echoes of Aiden’s voice reverberate in a way that makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.