Chapter 30 #2
“Yes, well, I was caught off-guard, too,” she said with far more patience than he probably deserved.
“This might be hard for you to believe, but Damian was my friend, too, and it was…well, it was a shock to find out he’d do something so terrible to you.
I think you deserved better, and I think he’s a pretty shitty person for putting you in that position. ”
“Well, thank you for the vindication,” he said. “I appreciate it.”
She went on.
“However, I have to admit you and I were both at fault, too. We let him get away with far too much, and I think if we’re both being honest with ourselves, we probably knew what he was capable of for a long time now.
We just let ourselves believe he wasn’t that bad, just as long as he was doing something we thought was okay. ”
Mikey hated to admit it, but she was at least partly right.
“So,” he said. “What do we do now?”
“I think we’re safe from him trying to take his revenge. Whatever he might say, it’s amazing what an NDA will do. Damian is vengeful and he’s a bitch, but he’s a bit of a chickenshit, which means he’s almost certainly not going to do anything to hurt either of us.
“In answer to your question about what you should do now,” she went on. “I think you should go after Luke, tell him what happened, and hope he understands. I mean, you’re not really the one who orchestrated the implosion of his career, are you? He can’t realistically or reasonably stay mad at you.”
You clearly don’t know Luke Carter, he thought but didn’t say.
Instead, what he said was, “you may have a point. I guess it’s worth a shot.
” He knew, even as he said it, there was no chance in Hell Luke was ever going to give him the opportunity to explain.
The pain over his forced outing, and its fallout, plus the fact he felt betrayed by Mikey after all they’d shared together… it would all be just too much for Luke.
Well, there’s only one way to find out, he thought.
So he called Luke.
And called him.
And called him.
And called him again.
Mikey had known it was probably a waste of time, but even so, the fact he went straight to voicemail each time depressed him.
Fuck you, Luke, he thought after the umpteenth unanswered call.
Finally, when he still hadn’t heard from Luke by the next day, he had no choice but to go to NACA, in the hopes he might run into him there. Once he arrived, of course, he was greeted by Brenda just inside the front doors, her face a picture of concern.
As well she might, he thought.
He plastered on what he hoped was a convincing smile as he approached her. Before he could open his mouth, however, Luke came striding in the door, his face like a thundercloud, dressed (as was usual with him) in a plain white T-shirt and jeans.
This ought to be good, Mikey thought.
To the surprise of no one, Luke just ignored him and walked right up to Brenda.
“Hi Brenda,” he said. “Can we talk?”
“Sure,” she said, clearly uncertain where this was going.
For that matter, Mikey was, too.
“Do you want to go into my office, or…?”
Luke didn’t hesitate.
“No, no need for that. I just wanted to tell you that from now on my relationship with Mikey Smiles is going to be purely professional. You have the set list, and so we’ll go off of that.
I’ll be happy to be here for any rehearsals or workshopping of the material.
But I’d rather you be there at all times. ”
This was getting stranger by the second and yet, at the same time, it was pretty much exactly what Mikey had expected. Faced with pain and something he couldn’t quite cope with, Luke chose to withdraw.
What did you expect? He asked himself. He thinks you betrayed him in the worst way imaginable. You can hardly blame him for not wanting anything to do with you.
Unfortunately, feelings didn’t always listen to reason, and Mikey was feeling himself right then.
He briefly toyed with the idea of telling Luke where he could stick his arrangement, but then he decided no, it was better to go along.
If Luke was going to ignore his calls, if he was going to continue to not give Mikey even the barest chance to explain himself, then this was the way it would be.
Brenda didn’t say anything at first. Instead, she just looked between the two of them, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. Finally, though, she shrugged.
“If that’s the way you want it, Luke, then that’s the way it’ll be. Mikey, do you have any objections?”
A whole host of them crowded onto the tip of his tongue, but he forced them back.
“Works perfectly fine for me,” he said.
And then he turned and walked out.
It turned out it was not fine.
At all.
For the first couple of weeks after the fateful encounter at the Center, things went okay.
Luke and Mikey came in, they rehearsed and tweaked the songs, and then they went home.
To an outsider it would’ve looked like they were cordial collaborators.
Mikey, though, felt the difference in his bones.
Every time Luke looked at him with that deadness in his eyes he yearned to just shout at him that he was being an idiot and all of this wasn’t his fault, but then he’d stop himself.
If Luke was so determined to shut him out completely, despite everything they’d shared, then Mikey would leave him to it.
Normally in a situation like this he would’ve just gone back to California and come back periodically for rehearsals, but something kept Mikey in West Virginia.
He just couldn’t bear to leave, not when things were still so uncertain with Luke.
He supposed he was afraid if he left Luke might just throw in the towel altogether.
The true reason he stayed, though, was simpler: Mikey still had it bad for Luke Carter. Every time they were together he’d feel the energy pulsing between them, and the more he tried to ignore it or tried to explain to himself why it could never work, the more insistent it became.
Finally, he knew what he had to do.
He had to talk to Mindy.
Mikey knew he needed a FaceTime with Mindy rather than just a phone call and, to his relief, she proved to be up for it when he sent her a text. When he saw her face pop up on his phone he couldn’t help but smile, because she always had that effect on him.
“Hey, sugar plum,” she said, flashing her pearly whites. “What’s up?”
“Do you have a minute?” he asked.
“Sure,” she said. “But just a couple of ‘em, sugar. I have a concert comin’ up.”
“Well, remember how I told you I was going to see Luke and try to reconnect with him?”
“Yeah,” she said, raising one perfectly-contoured eyebrow.
“Well, it got complicated.”
Mikey proceeded to tell her the whole story, and except for a few clarifying questions here and there, she let him talk. When he was done, she had just one question.
“Do you love him?”
“Of course I do,” he said. “It’s what makes this whole thing so hard.”
He distantly heard someone telling Mindy it was almost showtime.
“Look, sugar,” she said. “I’m gonna tell you something. Most of us aren’t lucky enough to find a love like what the two of you have. If you want Luke back, I think you know what you have to do. You gotta tell him how you feel.”
“I want to,” he said. “But I don’t know…I wanna make it really special.”
“Then write him a love song,” she said. “It’s what I’d do.”
“Oh, wow,” he said. “You’re absolutely right.”
“I know I am, babe,” she said. “But sugar, I gotta go. It’s almost showtime.”
“Okay,” he said. “Thank you, Mindy. Really. You’re a true life saver.”
“I know that, too,” she said. “Love you. Bye!”
“Love you, too. Bye, babe,” he said, and the call ended.
He knew Mindy was right. As he’d discovered during his little sojourn with Luke, he really was a musician at heart, and he’d always be better at expressing his thoughts in music than in just words alone.
And so, in the privacy of his hotel room, he put pen to paper and started to write the song he’d always wanted to write but never had the courage.
It borrowed some of the country vibes he’d learned from Luke, but it was essentially a Mikey Smiles song, the kind of song he should’ve been writing all along.
Never, in all of his career, had Mikey written anything like this.
It was raw but fun, filled with heartbreak but also with joy.
Unlike Luke’s song, which was about two men and their unexpected love, this was definitely an apology song.
It was about Luke, yes, but it was about something much bigger.
It was about all the gay boys who’d parted ways and still somehow sought, and found, a path back together.
Damn, this is good, Mikey thought when he had it all down. Now, what to do with it?
But, of course, the answer was obvious. If Luke Carter wouldn’t talk to him before the concert, maybe once he heard the song during it and knew it was Mikey’s love note to him, then maybe he’d open up just enough to listen to him. It wasn’t much of a hope, but it was all Mikey could do.
Besides, Mikey was a born showman, and he could charm the pants off anyone. Including Luke, as he’d shown several times.
He smiled.
Luke Carter, he thought. I’m gonna prove I love you, no matter what it takes.