Chapter 24 #2
“I do worry about it, that’s the problem,” he says, trying to think through the heavy wine fog.
“I know you, Damian. You’re always doing something you probably shouldn’t, even when I tell you not to.
I wish you’d actually listen to me sometimes.
” He’s aware he’s slurring his words quite badly, and he knows he’s probably not making as good of a point as he wants to, but he can’t seem to get his tongue to behave or get his mouth to move like it should.
Damian, however, is looking more sober now, and it occurs to Mikey maybe he was always putting him on. Maybe he’s just been pretending to be drunker than he is just to lure Mikey into a false sense of security.
I’ve really got to get rid of him, he thinks, even as he knows it’s not going to happen.
Whatever Damian’s many other flaws, something about his intensity and his borderline-obsession with Mikey brings out the best in his art.
When Damian is around, he hits all of the right notes and manages to write the best lyrics.
Some in the industry wonder whether Mikey would be where he is if it weren’t for Damian’s influence.
He’s also very good at making sure only positive stories about Mikey get put in the press. As he just reminded Mikey, he’s the reason his pansexuality has remained a secret.
I wish Luke was here, Mikey thinks. But I screwed it up.
By now he’s well on the way to maudlin, and he hates it when he gets to that stage of drunkenness. It all just makes him mad at Damian all over again for encouraging him to drink rather than to abstain.
“I think it’s time for you to get to bed, Mikey,” Damian says. “I can already see you’re starting to get sloppy.”
There are few things Mikey hates more than being condescended to. Damian’s patronizing tone reminds him too much of his mother.
“What if I don’t want to?” he demands. “You can’t make me do anything I don’t want to do. You’re not my mother.”
He knows he’s made a mistake. If there’s one thing Damian doesn’t like, it’s being thwarted.
I wish we hadn’t gotten drunk, he thinks. I wish I’d gone anywhere other than here tonight.
“I think,” Damian says slowly and softly, “ you should really go to bed before this gets any uglier. I really don’t want to have to do anything the both of us are going to regret.”
Mikey wants to fight back, to tell Damian he can fuck off, but he doesn’t. He needs him too much.
And so, hating himself more than a little, he gets to his feet and starts heading toward his bedroom.
As he gets ready for bed, Mikey can’t shake thoughts of Luke Carter from going through his head.
He knows it’s stupid; there’s nothing between the two of them and hasn’t been for a long time.
Still, when he closes his eyes, it’s Luke he thinks about, it’s Luke whose arms he wants around him, it’s Luke’s deep voice he wants to hear in his ear.
He remembers in particular one magical night, when the two of them had walked down near the creek, the sun already setting, the lightning bugs starting to flicker.
It had been the most magical night in his entire young life and, even though he’s been all around the world and performed in some major venues, he’s never found the same feeling again.
I really was an idiot, he thinks. If I’d just told Luke how I really felt, I think the two of us would’ve been able to make it work. Somehow.
It’s a futile thought, but he likes imagining what it might have been like if he was with Luke, likes thinking about how the two of them would have built a life and a career together. He thinks about a cabin out in the middle of nowhere, West Virginia, just the two of them, maybe a dog…
So many wasted opportunities. They live now only in his dreams.
When, at last, he manages to drift off, he’s unsurprised to find his dreams populated by Luke Carter.
He wouldn’t have it any other way.
Mikey wakes up the next morning with the worst wine hangover he’s had in a very long time.
It’s like there’s a hammer in the back of his head, pounding away.
He’s aware there are meetings and recording sessions planned for today, but for the life of him he can’t find the energy to really care, let alone to get out of bed and start getting ready.
The previous night is almost entirely a blur. He thinks he remembers something about Luke, and he has vague recollections of the concert, but that’s about it.
He finally stirs when Damian starts pounding on the door, and even then it feels like the world is spinning around him. He takes a few deep breaths to keep from throwing up.
Damian, of course, decides to come striding into the room, having gotten tired of waiting. Despite the fact Mikey is naked, he goes right to the windows and, once again without waiting for Mikey to give him anything resembling permission, yanks them open.
Mikey groans and throws himself back on the bed, putting a hand over his eyes to try to shut out the stabbing pain in his head. It’s not really effective, though, and he’s starting to wonder whether, in fact, he might be dying.
“I know you’d rather lay around here all day than actually do something useful,” Damian says, voice dripping with contempt.
“But you have a very busy day ahead of you, and I didn’t go to all the work of scheduling these appointments just for you to sit in bed and be hungover all day.
So, rather than laying around, you’re going to get your ass out of bed, take some aspirin and drink some coffee, get some eggs down you, and we’re going to start the day right. Do I make myself clear?”
Mikey glares at Damian through his fingers, but if Damian is at all intimidated by this he doesn’t show it. In fact, unless Mikey is mistaken he actually looks like he’s gloating, though what he could have to gloat about he has no idea.
After he finally gets out of bed, the day goes much like most others do, with a round of meetings and video shoots, and even an interview or two.
It’s not until he’s back in his hotel room that he sees the news about Luke Carter being forcibly outed by some sneaky paparazzo, as well as his subsequent disappearance.
Seeing what Luke is going through washes everything else out of his mind.
I have to call him, he thinks. He needs to know he’s not alone.
But of course Mikey doesn’t end up calling Luke. In fact, he doesn’t even answer any of the questions a few journalists ask of him, preferring to give them a simple “no comment.”
If he’s being honest, the idea of Luke being with other men drives him crazy with jealousy, and the sight of him kissing that man on some sleazy website…he can’t get it out of his mind.
When it comes down to it, though, he’s also just not brave enough to make that call. Calling Luke to offer his sympathy would almost certainly open up a whole Pandora’s box of emotions and baggage, and he can’t afford the distraction right now. It’s a weak excuse and he knows it.
Damian, of course, rushes to reassure him he’s doing the right thing.
“He got careless,” Damian says. “He can figure his shit out on his own without your help. If you reach out to him now, he’s only going to drag you down with him.
Just stay focused on your own career, Mikey, and if you want to come out as pan…
well, we can make sure it goes just the way we want it to. ”
Figures, Mikey thinks. Heaven forbid we actually Luke show a little grace right now.
But, as always, it’s just easier to do what Damian says, so Mikey does.
And then the news moves on, Luke goes into exile, and Mikey returns to his everyday life, sans the wine. He’s sworn off the stuff for good.
He can’t get Luke out of his mind, though, and when he has his own coming-out experience—which, fortunately, goes much more smoothly, thanks in no small part to a well-timed (and fast-tracked) memoir, as well Damian’s machinations and his skill at manipulating the press into doing and saying exactly what he wants–he can’t help but wish the same had happened for him.
In fact, some part of Mikey wonders if he didn’t come out as a form of atonement for what happened to Luke, as fucked up as that sounds.
Through it all, Damian is there, always hovering, always acting like he has Mikey’s best interests at heart. Mikey senses something has changed between them, though.
I’ll get to the bottom of it, he thinks. One of these days.
Life has a way of getting in the way, though, and soon he’s falling into the same old rhythms as before. In the back of his mind, though, he starts to think.
What if I could be free of Damian.
What if?
At the same time, he also starts thinking about what it would be like to see Luke up close again.
He even dares to think about what it would be like to reconnect, if not romantically, then maybe just as friends.
He tries not to think about it too much, but as the months go by, he knows, somehow, he needs to get Luke back in his life.
The question is: how?