Chapter 10
TEN
Dom had a hell of a time paying attention to anything except the back of Trey’s head, which only incited dirty thoughts of finger-fucking Trey on his hands and knees.
He fought a hard-on for the entire opening by Anthony Kross, mixing images of Trey with the awesome music getting the audience revved up for the rest of the festival.
He cheered and shouted with his friends, occasionally singing along to a song he knew.
As Anthony Kross wound down on his final song for the night, the crowd roared. Lincoln let out a piercing wolf whistle.
“Thank you very much,” Anthony said into the mike.
“Thank you. You guys are what made this entire competition possible, because you participated. You engaged on the website, and you voted for the amazing performers that we’ll see on this stage for the next three days.
So give yourself a big round of applause. ”
Dom nearly plugged his ears for the rise of cheers and celebrations. For the first time since he’d arrived at the fairgrounds, a cold block of anxiety settled in his stomach. He hadn’t played in front of a crowd this huge since high school. Since orchestra nationals in New York City.
Everything dimmed slightly, and the crowd tilted.
Someone wrapped a sturdy arm around his waist. “Dom, you okay?”
Lincoln. Lincoln was there. He’d make it not so bad.
“Look at me.” Lincoln grabbed his chin and held tight.
Dom blinked his best friend into focus. He stared into concerned blue eyes. “Had a moment. The crowd.”
“You want to go back to the tent?”
He didn’t want to give in to the anxiety attack. The past wasn’t allowed to get the best of him anymore. Not here. “No. I’m okay.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah.”
Lincoln let go of his chin, but stayed close, and Dom loved him for that. Everything was so easy with Lincoln. Instinctive.
Onstage, Anthony was saying something about the audience and the ballot handed out on arrival. “We’ve tallied your votes, and the winning band will be invited to share the stage with me tonight.”
“Wait, what?” Dom asked.
“All of the regular attendees were given ballots when they checked in at the gate,” Tyson explained. “It had every competing band on it, and they voted for who they wanted to see perform tonight as the special guest act.”
“Shit, really?” Dom’s gut twisted. With ten acts in eight categories, XYZ had a one in eighty chance of being chosen, but he wasn’t ready. He couldn’t possibly get up on that fucking stage tonight.
“Dude, breathe,” Lincoln said.
“Performing tonight by popular demand,” Anthony said, “and by a margin of two votes, is Fading Daze!”
Dom’s heart fluttered.
“Fuck me,” Lincoln snapped. “Really?”
Dom ignored his friend’s annoyance and watched Trey disappear through the crowd. He silently cheered for Trey’s victory. Dom had never seen Fading Daze perform, but he knew how talented Trey was. They would be amazing.
He tracked Trey across the stage, watching him pick out a bass guitar and strap it on. The group conferred briefly with Anthony, who took to the mike and asked, “How do you folks feel about a little Taylor Swift?”
Cheers and screams answered the question.
Anthony settled in next to Bobby with his own guitar, and Danielle stepped up to the mike. Her cheeks were flushed, obvious even from a distance. “Thank you!” she said. “Tay’s my girl crush, so I hope y’all enjoy yourselves.”
More cheers and hoots.
Andy laid out the beat, and Danielle launched into a gorgeous cover of “Cruel Summer,” working the crowd with seductive smiles and head tilts.
Trey backed her up on the chorus, their voices blending together perfectly.
They sang to each other on those parts, and yeah, Dom could see how people mistook them for a couple.
Except Trey was his.
They segued perfectly from Taylor into Katy’s “Last Friday Night,” with Danielle still on lead. Then Trey took over vocals on “Marry You,” turning into Bruno Mars without the pair missing a beat. If Dom hadn’t already known Trey was queer, he’d have been shipping Trey and Danielle all night long.
Listening to Trey sing was making Dom horny as hell, too.
Fading Daze rounded out their set by covering one of Anthony’s signature songs, and the crowd went nuts. Dom and Tyson cheered, because yeah, they were good. Hella good. Maybe even first-place good.
“Fading Daze, ladies and gentlemen!” Anthony said.
The foursome took a bow. Dom had never seen Trey happier or more alive than in that moment. He’d been born to perform, and despite Dom’s own looming deadline for success, he really hoped Fading Daze won the top spot and moved to the national competition.
“We’ll be back tomorrow morning at nine thirty to get this competition going!” Anthony announced. “Party on, Midatlantic!”
Recorded music blasted over the sound system, and the crowd fractured.
A dance area formed closer to the stage, and others drifted back through the grandstand to the food and beverages.
Dom wanted to wade through the crowd and congratulate Trey on how awesome he’d been onstage, but he couldn’t. Not on purpose.
He grabbed Lincoln and tugged him toward the dancers.
He hadn’t been out dancing in ages, and he found the beat easily.
Lincoln draped his arms over Dom’s shoulders, rolling his hips and dancing along.
Fun and easy between friends. Tyson, Benji, and Joshua joined them, and a few girls insinuated themselves into the cluster of hotness.
Dom ignored the occasional glare or grimace tossed their way. He’d stopped giving a fuck what people thought about him being gay years ago, because fuck their ignorance. He wasn’t letting other people control how he lived his life, and tonight he was getting down with his best friend and bandmates.
Someone brought him an Unbound Bomb, and he gulped the cold liquid.
It briefly helped with the heat and narrowed his focus on the guy he was dancing with.
Tyson. When had that happened? A bottle in a paper bag got passed to him.
He sniff-checked it, decided rum, and took a slug.
It burned down his throat, and he followed it with a second.
If he couldn’t be with Trey, he could still have a fucking good time.
Lincoln was there, so it was safe to let loose.
He ground into Tyson, because it felt good. He closed his eyes and pretended Tyson was Trey and that felt even better. Pretended Trey was rubbing against him, dancing with him, making him hard. Hands on his lower back dropped to squeeze his ass. Felt nice.
It took his phone vibrating in his back pocket to bring Dom back to his senses. He blinked Tyson into focus, slightly alarmed by the lusty way Tyson was grinning at him. But that wasn’t what made Dom’s heart slam into his ribs—Trey did.
Trey was in the crowd, dancing not too far away and staring directly at him with a strange expression. Not anger, exactly, but close. He turned away and wrapped his arms around some gyrating chick.
Shame and annoyance burst inside of Dom. Shame at having his arms all over another guy—friend-zoned or not—and annoyance at Trey for having his arms all over a girl. Keeping up appearances was one thing, but Trey was fucking grinding on her.
Just like he’d been grinding on Tyson.
Dom untangled himself from Tyson with a curt “Sorry, dude, need something to drink.”
“Want company?” Tyson asked.
“Nah, I’m good. You party.”
Trey’s face haunted Dom on his way over to one of the tents selling bottled water.
His head was still a little fuzzy, and he was sweating like crazy.
The water went down good, cooling his insides but doing nothing for his twisted thoughts.
Seeing someone on the sly was a pain in the ass when they both had to act single in public—worse, Trey had to act straight.
The straight thing never really bothered Dom until that moment.
Did Trey and Danielle shine together onstage?
Fuck yes. Did that mean Dom liked seeing them like other people saw them—as some kind of secret couple?
No. He didn’t. He wanted to march back into that crowd of bodies, tug Trey into his arms, and land a hard kiss on him that would tell everyone who Trey belonged to.
He wanted to but he wouldn’t, because that might push Trey away.
It wasn’t Dom’s job to out someone else, and he wouldn’t do that to Trey.
“Excuse me?”
Dom turned. A guy about his age with shaggy blond hair and horn-rimmed glasses was smiling shyly, hands shoved into the pockets of his cargo shorts. “Yeah?”
“Are you Dominic B?”
He blinked. Dominic B was the name he used on his YouTube channel, and despite having about four thousand subscribers, he only very rarely encountered a real person who recognized him from it. “I am.”
“Oh wow, dude, it’s really cool to meet you. I’ve seen all of your uploads. You’re an amazing violinist.”
“Thank you.” Dom gave the guy a genuine smile.
He’d started the channel a few years ago, partly for fun, and partly as therapy.
He’d wanted to play his violin again, and he had.
In the privacy of his own room. But he also wanted to play for people, and he still had a lingering association from orchestra nationals that kept him away from real stages and live performances.
Recording videos of himself playing his violin and uploading them to an anonymous, digital audience had been his middle ground.
He had cultivated a small, devoted audience over the years, and once in a while he met an actual fan of Dominic B’s channel.
“I kind of wanted to say thank you,” the blond said. “In your third video when you played ‘My Immortal’ and explained that the channel was therapy for you, it really hit home. I’ve, ah, been through some stuff, and you inspired me to take up an instrument in order to channel my emotions.”