Chapter 10 #2
“Nope.” But she didn’t care. Not about that. Not tonight. She laced her fingers with his and pulled him down the street. “Come on. Let’s have fun.”
“Wait.” Dante squeezed her hand, and his expression left her shivering. He suddenly looked so serious, so much older. “Wait. Please. Can we talk? Somewhere private. I—I really need to tell you something.”
“Are you finally going to admit that Adam Lambert is way superior to Freddie Mercury?”
He didn’t laugh. “Please, El.”
She slid her fingers through his and squeezed. “Of course. Let’s go.”
* * *
Dante
Dante’s heart beat a thousand times a minute. Seriously, it was probably a dangerous palpitation. Maybe he should go to the hospital instead of talking to her…
“Dante? You okay?” Ellery looked up at him, her face open and waiting.
They had walked down to a beachside park by the Embarcadero Marina. In the distance, he could see the lights on at Padres Park. There must be a game tonight, but he didn’t really follow baseball.
“What did you want to talk about?” Ellery sat beside him on a bench.
He exhaled deeply, closing his eyes. He could do this. Even if it hurt, it was important if things were going to go any further. And he so desperately wanted that, wanted it with her.
Of course, the last time he had tried to talk to a girl he liked about his transition, it had not gone well. She had thought he was joking, and then she went and hooked up with Casper.
So…the track record was not on Dante’s side.
But Ellery was different, wasn’t she? And he was so very, very tired of being closeted around her.
“Okay.” He cleared his throat. His mouth felt incredibly dry all of a sudden, and the heavy breeze off the marina wasn’t helping.
“The thing is, um, when Casper and I were born, the doctor made a mistake. They gave Casper the right gender and me, the wrong one.” He couldn’t look at her face, not yet.
He just had to get this out. Even without knowing how she would respond, it felt so incredibly freeing to be himself.
“So, when I was like, twenty, I started on testosterone. When we met, I’d already been on it for a while.
” He paused, the keening of his heart too great to ignore any longer.
Even if it hurt, he had to see her reaction.
A single tear collected at the corner of her eye, and she wiped it away with the knuckle of her index finger. “So…you haven’t changed your mind about Adam Lambert?”
“What?” He laughed, the feeling so buoyant and unexpected that he couldn’t contain it. It bubbled out of him in chortle-snorts.
“I am so sorry, Dante. I shouldn’t have made a joke.
I am such a mess.” She was crying more now, but she took her hands in his.
“I—I don’t know what the right thing to say is at this moment.
I cannot tell you how touched and, I don’t know, humbled I am?
That you would trust me with this. Thank you.
” She wiped away more tears with the heels of her hands, but they kept falling.
He couldn’t leave it like that, he couldn’t, so he took the cuff of his sleeve and used it to dab at her lovely face.
Her warm tears melted into the fabric. She sniffed.
“I wish I knew what to say to make you know that I really like you, Dante. Even with your very wrong opinions about Adam Lambert, you are the coolest person I know. Thank you for telling me. I might not know the right thing to say now, but I promise, if you give me a chance, I can learn. I’ll try. ”
They stayed that way for a few long moments, his body still heaving from the adrenaline of the conversation. But it felt cathartic, more than painful. There was hope here. “Ellery?”
“Yes?”
“Can we go somewhere? I’d love to spend more time with you.”
Ellery stood from the bench, wiping away the last of her tears, and extended her hand to him. As he reached for her, his cuff slid up his arm, exposing the dove to the light.
“I’d really like that too, Dante.”
* * *
Ellery’s version of fun was not exactly the same as Dante’s, but he would roll with it. Hell, he would roll with anything if she went with him.
He sipped his beer, unable to keep the grin from his face. Adrenaline and spending time with the girl of his dreams did that for him. “So, you found a rocking open mic bar with its own microbrew? This is so SoCal.”
She laughed, the sound bright and brilliant. “Don’t hate on it just because you’ve been following shipboard rules for two years. It’s like you joined the Coast Guard, Mr. Shipshape.”
“Not exactly.” The singer on stage was trying, but couldn’t get the chords right in “Purple Rain.” Dante’s fingers tapped rhythmically against the frosty glass, keeping time.
Thank goodness she had forgiven him for being such an ass about his brother.
Even though he knew comparing himself to Casper was ridiculous, he couldn’t always help it.
Ellery watched his fingers move against the glass, like she knew exactly what he was doing and why. “So, Dante. Tell me, why don’t you want to be famous?”
“What?” He coughed, trying to cover his surprise.
“You.” She tapped his shin lightly with the toe of her sneaker. “You’re an incredible musician. You play at least three instruments better than anyone I know, probably more because you’re so humble you won’t admit it. You have a great voice. So why aren’t you out there more?”
He begged to differ about his voice. “On what? Social media?” He took a long draft of beer as it was easier than admitting the truth. “That cesspit?”
She rolled her eyes, and it made something flutter deep inside him. “Fair, but you’re stalling.”
He swallowed, the taste of the beer still coating his tongue. If he focused on the drips of condensation instead of on her, on how she made him feel, maybe he could get through this conversation.
“I—I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I don’t want to have to pretend to be someone I’m not.
I don’t want to hide, but I’m definitely not ready to live out in the cis world.
” He paused, and felt her waiting, not eager to jump in.
He liked that, how she didn’t jump on top of his words, but gave him the space to get them out.
“I see musicians and actors all the time. They say they won’t be something else, but then they change somewhere along the way.
Or something happens that forces them out of the closet before they’re ready. ”
She paused, but he nodded, indicating he was finished with his mini monologue. “I get that. I do. But shouldn’t you take a chance? To be happy? To find your own success?”
Warmth rose within him, and he shifted in his seat to minimize his discomfort.
What would success be for him? He’d been “successful” on the cruise ships.
He’d been the go-along guy, ready to step in anywhere at any time with the right chords and melody.
That didn’t mean he wanted to go back to that.
The guy apologetically butchering “Purple Rain” had stopped and now there was a male duet on stage singing Poison.
Desperately, he needed a change of subject. She hadn’t brought up his transness explicitly since their conversation, but she seemed to be processing it in her own Ellery-way. “So, oh wise one, why don’t you ever want to sing your original songs in public?”
Ellery looked away, at the band on stage. She covered her face with her palms and sighed. “I—it’s not…okay. It’s a lot. I feel like they’re not good enough. Like no one will like them and I will have put myself out there on stage only to be ridiculed by people who don’t get it.”
“But your songs are fantastic.”
“Says you.” She picked up her glass of club soda with lime and drank half of it. “But you’re special. You’re Dante.”
The duet on stage finished their song, and something about the conversation and the dull rumble of applause and the warm buzz of alcohol in his blood gave him courage. He traced the knuckles of Ellery’s hand with his fingertips, memorizing her contours.
“Ellery, when you’re ready, the rest of the world wants to hear what you have to say. The way you sing and who you are is unique. It has value. Don’t get drawn into the centrifuge of self- doubt.”
Ellery’s hand twitched beneath his touch and her sharp inhale sounded like a snare drum.
He couldn’t look away, not now. His gaze locked with hers.
Her brown eyes, dark and rich like mahogany, looked through him.
A single tendril of hair had fallen in her face, catching on the curve of her lower lip.
Summoning courage he hadn’t realized he possessed, he used his thumb to brush the hair away, letting the sensitive pad linger for a moment on her mouth.
Her skin was soft and slightly sticky from the rosebud lip balm she used.
If he smelled his hand, would he smell her on himself?
But before he could contemplate any more than that, Ellery shifted in the bench of their booth. She closed the distance between them, cupped his face in her guitar-calloused hands, and pressed her lips to his.
Sensation soared within him, like her kiss woke his soul and set it free. He massaged her mouth with his, letting his hands drop to the arc of her neck, pulling her closer. Nothing had ever felt like this, like he had mastered a challenging guitar solo and won the lottery all at once.
“Is this okay?” she asked, her voice whisper-soft against his skin. “I’m sorry—”
“Don’t apologize.” He cupped her chin in his palms, changing the angle and deepening the kiss. “Yes, it’s perfect.”
She was so fierce, and yet there was something tentative about her. He loved it. He tilted his hand and slanted his mouth to hers, tasting her from a new angle. Yes. This was what it should always feel like. This was what it always should be. This was—
“Everyone, please welcome to the stage our next performers, Ellery Vaughn and Dante Baker!”
Ellery pulled away from him then, but there was a soft, happy smile on her face. Now that he knew what kissing her was like, he wondered if he would ever be satisfied with anything else. Perform? Now? He could climb Mount Everest without oxygen, and he’d call to her from the summit.
“Come on.” Despite his current fog, he watched her stand and hold out her hand to him. He took it, unseeing. Wherever she went, he would follow. “Let’s get up there.”
The next few minutes passed in a blur of hormone-fueled brilliance.
There was a piano on stage, so he played that instead of his bass, harmonizing with her as they sang a mashup of “Shelter Me” and “Shelter from the Storm.” Her voice was smoky and haunting, seeping into his blood and ricocheting around his system.
Dimly, as he really couldn’t see much of anything beyond his gorgeous, petite friend, he registered that people in the audience held cell phones aloft, recording them. He didn’t care. Not in the least.
For five minutes, he had Ellery. He had the sound, the music, and it was the greatest five minutes of his life.
And then they met Logan Groff.
* * *
“Logan Groff, Dreammaker” (unpublished draft), LA Now
…There are many things people say about Ivy League-educated, former surf pro Logan Groff.
A particular segment of Los Angeles hopefuls, the ones who get blowouts in Larchmont and lunch in Pucci wrap dresses, hang on his arm at concerts and premieres.
They should know better. His bachelor status is almost as famous as his clients.
“They say I’m strict,” Groff says, sitting behind his antique behemoth of a desk.
His office is on Wilshire, and though many such buildings had to shut their doors during the pandemic, Groff insisted on going to work each day, even as he let his employees work from home.
He is not one content to Zoom in his pajamas.
“Strict gets the job done. I’m not here to make friends.
I’m not here to deal with their feelings.
There are therapists for that. I’m here to make supernovas. ”
That a supernova is a naturally occurring phenomenon does not seem to bother Groff, and to his credit, his clients have routinely gone platinum. So what is it about his tactics that lead so many to fame?
“I have a defined recipe for success. If I shared it, it wouldn’t be successful anymore.” Groff winks, his sun-bleached brown hair never moving an inch from its gelled perch atop his head.
He refuses to compromise or explain his famously restrictive nonfraternization policy in his bands.
Those who resent it call it the “No-ko,” short for “No Yoko.” Personally, this writer has always felt a little bad for Yoko Ono.
She was a product of the patriarchal suppression of true feminist voices.
Whatever the apparent negatives, it is common knowledge in the music world that if Logan Groff’s attention falls on you, you’d be the fool of the century to turn him down or refuse to bend to his rules. They don’t call him The Dreammaker for nothing…