Heartstrings (15 page)

B
ombarded
by the heavy bass throbbing through the club, Cal held onto Blake’s wrist and pulled him across the dance floor, through the crowd, and toward the nearest glowing green exit sign. He was one setback away from snapping, and he really hoped to be able to avoid directing that snap toward Blake.

Beneath the exit sign, an open doorway led out onto an enclosed patio. A single lengthy leaner table stretched along the building’s exterior wall, smaller tables dotted around the darkened space. Strands of ivy raced up and down the walls, although Cal was skeptical it was real. Las Vegas and all.

The patio was empty. Thank God for small favors. Cal dragged Blake over into a corner of it and whirled to face him, somewhat out of breath.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he said at last. Blake’s blank stare rebuffed him.

“I could ask you the same thing. Yanking me all over this bar, interrupting my business, what the hell are
you
doing?”

Cal wound his fingers in against his palms, one hand curling into a full-on fist. He bit his anger back, tried to keep his head clear. He’d almost gone nuclear when he’d spied Blake at the bar, leaning in and speaking far too closely into that red-headed woman’s ear. He wanted to focus on what was important—on Blake fleeing the venue and rejecting the support structure designed to protect him. Not on his own private suspicions that Blake was up to old tricks and looking for an anonymous lay.

“You can’t just run off like that,” Cal said, keeping his voice low. “Everyone’s worried sick about you.”

“Don’t you ever just have to get away?” Blake took a step back, putting some deliberate distance between himself and Cal.

“Maybe getting away wasn’t the best idea after one of our bandmates just went MIA,” Cal countered.

Blake’s shoulders went stiff. He slanted his gaze away from Cal, appearing to study the ivy crawling along the exterior wall instead.

“I had to get out,” he said. “It was... it was like the spider and I couldn’t quite keep it all put together anymore and I just had to get. Out.”

Cal’s hands fell to his sides. Blake was borderline drunk and not making a lot of sense.

“Why does getting out have to involve running away and hiding in a club and burying your face in some stranger’s tits?”

Blake whipped his head back as though he’d been struck.

“Seriously? Is that what this is about?”

Cal ground his teeth together. He hadn’t meant to mention the woman. That hadn’t come out right at all.

“That’s not what I meant. That’s not what this is about—”

But Blake was having none of it.

“You think that I can’t even talk to someone in a bar without wanting to ‘bury myself in her tits’ which is first-of-all not true and second-of-all kinda sexist, pal.”

Cal slammed his palm into his forehead, cradling his face in his fingers. Seriously? He meant to confront Blake about running away and now Blake was drunkenly calling him a sexist?

“Blake, Christ on a crutch you are not listening to me.”

“I heard you pretty well, actually. What makes you think you can police who the hell I talk to?”

“It’s not about who you talked to. It’s about the fact that you ran away instead of letting me help you. Are you seriously making this about the girl instead of your own behavior?”

Blake reached out and gave Cal a little shove, palm flat against his sternum.

“If it’s not about the girl, why bring her up like that?”

Cal simmered over. External stressors he could handle. Crises at the bar he could handle. Rhett being an asshole he could handle. He could not handle Blake being an immature fuckwit. Lashing out in anger, Cal gave Blake a little shove back, nothing physical enough to hurt him, just to prove his point.

“What do you want me to say?” Cal raised his voice. “Do you want me to say I’m fine with you talking to anyone you want, taking home anyone you want, fucking anyone you want because otherwise I’m a jealous dick?”

Cal’s words appeared to have the exact opposite of their intended effect. Rather than fighting back at all, Blake just took a half-step backward from him. His hazel eyes shone in the orange glimmer of the bar’s lamps. His cheeks were flushed, just a bit red from the drink. His lips parted.

“Cal, what in the world?”

Blake spoke so quietly Cal could barely hear him.

“This... whatever this is, it isn’t about tonight. Are you even listening to yourself?”

The softly-questioning note in Blake’s voice scratched along the inside of Cal’s chest, something deep inside him twinging with pain and regret. He wasn’t thinking. He was speaking in anger. This whole conversation was a mistake. And Blake being fucking Blake could pluck the true hurt out of his words like it was nothing.

No. Blake was right. It wasn’t about the bar. Or the girl.

“I just...” Cal struggled to articulate himself. How could he put how he felt into words? How could he convey to Blake the enormity of his feelings, the lengths he’d go to protect what they had, the depth of his loyalty? There were no words.

“I just wish you’d turned to me instead of running away,” Cal said, the words murmured lowly.

“Is that what all this is?” Blake took a step closer, halving the distance between them. “It’s not that I didn’t trust you. I just needed to get away and go somewhere nobody knew me. I needed to go somewhere and be with someone that didn’t need me to be Blake Bradley, even if that’s a whole club of anonymous people.”

Cal felt sick the second Blake said the phrase
be with someone.

It was now or never. If he didn’t front up about his fears, about why he left the band all those years ago, he’d never have the chance again. Because this conversation was either going to dredge his worst fears to the surface or leave them buried forever, null and void.

“I. I want to tell you something.” Cal hated how stilted his voice sounded, how robotic. He tried again, clearing his throat. “You’re right. I was being jealous. I was afraid you’d... gone back to old habits.”

“Old habits? I drink a bit but I like to think it wasn’t ever that bad.”

“The girl,” Cal said through his teeth. “Yes. I did think—well, not really think, no. I
feared
you were trying to get her to go home with you. So she could be the one who helped you through this instead of me.”

Blake’s jaw fell open. He lowered his eyebrows, his expression vacillating between hurt and surprise.

“Let me finish,” Cal pleaded. “I should have said this a long time ago, but even back years ago, it bothered me. I always said it didn’t bother me when you slept with other people, but it did.”

Blake sank down into the closest chair, folding his limber body into it, looking numb.

“Then why on earth pretend it didn’t?” He sounded broken.

Cal crouched down, placing his hands on Blake’s knees. He dug his fingertips into the fabric of his jeans, stroking the denim with his fingernails.

“I was terrified you’d think I was controlling. Or that being only mine wasn’t enough for you. That I was asking you to give up something without having the right to do it.”

Blake buried his face in both hands, breathing hard. Cal gripped his knees, fingertips steely, holding on, grounding him. He had to get it through to Blake that he wasn’t
still
upset. That no matter how much it hurt back then, the tentative thing they were building between them now was so much better, so much more intimate, different in so many ways...

“It’s so hard to talk about this stuff,” Cal muttered. “I don’t want you to think that I thought you ran off here to cheat on me or something. I know you didn’t. It just. It hurt like hell to feel like I wasn’t what you needed when you were upset.”

He just kept talking. And every word he said, he felt like he was digging himself deeper and deeper into a hole. A hole that would go on forever if he didn’t shut himself up.

Fortunately for him, Blake did it before Cal had the chance to.

He reached out, putting a finger to Cal’s stammering lips. He held it there, firmly.

“Cal,” he said. “This is. This is a lot to take in. Can we just... be quiet?”

Cal nodded mutely against Blake’s hand, locking eyes with him, peering upwards. Blake managed the faintest of smiles, slightly askew with his buzz. Cal wanted to kiss it.

“Are we okay?” Blake asked, caution narrowing his eyes.

Cal just nodded against his hand. Yes. They were okay. As long as Blake said they were. Calmed by the purgative effect of just getting the words out of him, Cal puckered his lips and pressed a brief, tender kiss to the pad of Blake’s finger.

A
ll these unexpected
revelations made Blake’s head spin. It made sense in hindsight. Of course it did. He and Cal had discussed monogamy all those years ago, laughed it off as a silly and outdated concept. Blake slept around because it was all part of the rock-star persona. Just another way to feed off the adoration of the crowd.

But now that he looked back on that time, it was true: he didn’t remember Cal fooling around with anyone else. How the hell had he not noticed?

And Cal, why the hell had he been so
stupid
?

Everything made a lot more sense when you just assumed that the root of most human conflict was people making dumbass bad decisions. Blake gnawed the inside of his lip, trying to figure out what to say. Telling Cal
I forgive you
seemed wrong, because Cal hadn’t done anything wrong per se. And neither had Blake.

Not wrong. Just stupid.

“Well, hey,” Blake said, his words a little fuzzy around the edges from the mezcal. “If you want me to lean on you when things get bad, take me somewhere better than this place.” He cast a dour look around the empty patio. “It’s kind of harshing my buzz.”

“All right,” Cal murmured, kissing the pad of Blake’s finger again. “I couldn’t agree more.”

* * *

S
omewhere else
turned
out to be their hotel. Cal called them a car, which dropped them off dutifully just outside the Mandalay Bay.

Nighttime Las Vegas was in full effect outside. Every building’s facade was lit up in glowing gold–orange, neon signs and glittery fountains all fighting to draw the eye. Beautiful people wearing next to nothing staggered past in great flocks. A convertible rolled out of the valet lot, its sound system blaring Skynyrd.

“Come on,” Cal said. “Follow me into the lobby, then wait there.”

That last mezcal was only just now hitting Blake, blurring the world at its corners and imbuing him with an all-over warmth and relaxation. Blake was a happy drunk. And though he wasn’t drunk-drunk yet, he was feeling better than he had a right to, given the dire straits his band was in.

Speaking of the band, I really should check my phone,
he thought. There were a bunch of texts about the after-party, which he scrolled past without reading. He saw one from Palmer, though. And Palmer typically didn’t text.

Blake read the words like a series of disconnected sentences that didn’t quite add up to a coherent whole. He understood their meaning. Just dimly, and from a long ways off.

So it really was over, then.

He wandered into the hotel’s lobby, all gleaming white marble and molded ceiling fixtures. An impressive paneled glass lamp caught his tipsy attention. He stood directly beneath it, admiring the craftsmanship, wondering how much such a thing might cost. Which led to him wondering just how poor he’d be in a matter of months.

Staring upward at the light like a hapless moth, he stayed put until Cal returned, nudging him with a shoulder.

“I’ve uh, I’ve just done something I probably shouldn’t have,” Cal murmured into his ear. “But if you grease the right palms in this town, they’ll open a lot of doors. Follow me.”

Cal grabbed Blake by the arm again and led him down a hallway, off the main lobby entrance. A man in a dark purple polo shirt waited for them at the mouth of the hall, then bid them to accompany him. What followed was a labyrinthine walk through the hotel’s side corridors, on floors too low to be either casino or hotel.

“The aquarium normally closes at eight,” the man in the polo said. “But we do after-hours VIP tours. If anyone asks, you had one booked but you missed your reservation and I took pity on you.”

They took an elevator down one floor, then arrived at an underground lobby, its ticket kiosk dark and shuttered. Polo shirt guy swiped a security tag through the lock on a pair of heavy metal doors, then pulled one open.

“You have twenty minutes,” he said.

He shut the door behind Cal and Blake once they were inside.

* * *

“
W
here are you taking me
?” Blake asked. Cal led him past a couple of interpretive displays, something about the life cycle of fish. Cal always had been weirdly obsessed with fish. Didn’t they have season passes to the Denver Aquarium once when they were younger? Blake was sure he’d remember if he was completely sober.

They turned one last corner and arrived at their destination.

A long tunnel stretched out before them, lit from above with glimmering blue-green light. Overhead arched a plexiglass half-moon that held a massive tank of water at bay. Just beyond the glass, fingers of coral and little spirals of bubbles stretched up toward the ceiling, which looked impossibly high. Fish swam placidly over their heads, none the wiser to being observed from below.

Blake had to catch his breath. The scale and beauty of it was dizzying.

Cal took Blake’s hand this time, weaving their fingers together. He led Blake down a walkway, then stopped right in the center of the tunnel, fish all around them, the gentle burble of the tank all they could hear.

Giving Blake’s arm a tug, Cal eased down onto the floor and just sat, cross-legged.

“Come here,” he said. “Just... sit with me.”

Blake sank down, leaning in against Cal’s side. He held tight onto Cal’s hand, admiring the wiry strength he felt there. The aquarium’s chlorine-scented air was chilly. He scooted closer to Cal for warmth.

“Just how much did you bribe that guy?” Blake whispered, his voice soft with wonderment.

Cal inched closer to him, warmth bleeding through his shirt. He looped an arm around Blake’s shoulders and pulled him close.

“You probably don’t want to know,” he said.

So Blake fell quiet and they just sat. A shark floated overhead like an angular ghost, its white underbelly bathed blue by the lights. The far-off burbling of the tank’s filters made for calming white noise. The fish themselves were calming too, glittering bodies gliding through the water with ease.

Before long, Blake understood why Cal liked aquariums so much.

He’d never been
upset
in one before. The calming effect was almost instantaneous.

Blake curled his body against Cal’s, uncaring of who might walk in on them. He needed to feel Cal against him, needed to be reminded that Cal was there. He turned his head, pressing a small kiss to the underside of Cal’s jaw. And Cal curled his arms tighter around Blake’s chest, cradling him close.

“I promise I’m all yours now,” Blake whispered into Cal’s skin. “All that stuff, years ago... I was just figuring out who I was. What I wanted. I got swept up in the lifestyle.” A pause, a breath. “I never meant to hurt you.”

Cal trailed one thumb along the inside of Blake’s wrist, eliciting a twitch and a shiver that curled his toes inside his boots.

“I should have said something. I should have told you what I wanted.”

Another shark passed overhead, momentarily bathing them in shadow, its smooth gray body blocking out the light.

“There’s a lot of things we should have done.” Blake let himself go slack, utterly boneless against Cal’s body. He relinquished the last parts of him that cared about appearance or control.

“What matters is we’ve got a chance to do it right this time.”

Blake couldn’t have agreed more.