Chapter 23 #4
DJ stiffened. She was too good at hitting it on the head, and calling a lame excuse out for what it was. “I guess I thought I was, too, but with everything that’s happened…I’m just messed up, Marjorie. So maybe it is better if we take some time and figure out if it’s real.”
“Or maybe you need the one person who can help you work through things and get un-messed up.” Marjorie tugged a short lock of his hair. “DJ, it’s simple. If you love someone, you tell them. Tell them you want to be with them. However, I know you prefer more dramatic gestures.”
She shot him an amused look. “Steve will never forget his thirtieth birthday, nor will the local police department. So if you need to make a dramatic gesture for Roy to express how you feel, stop delaying. Make it. You’ve lost a lot these past few months.
Roy doesn’t have to be one of those things. ”
DJ thought about it. And kept thinking about it, even when he put her in the car to go home a few hours later.
The song percolating in his head since before the death of his band had been written, the choreography worked out. And yet…maybe he wanted to change a few things, turn a commercial effort into something more personal. Maybe he wanted to be sure the performance said everything the song did.
If so, he’d need to get his ass in gear and everyone else associated with it, because any changes at this point would make the timeline tight. The first public performance of the song was coming up soon.
But before he gave Marshall a heart attack, he needed to get an informed opinion.
As he considered who might provide that to him, a slow smile crossed his face.
They were on his schedule for after the show, but he expected they wouldn’t object to an earlier meeting.
He had the piece they’d requested almost ready, after all.
He texted Madison and received an enthusiastic reply a mere few seconds later. He texted Henry next, letting him know he needed to go to Charlotte in the morning.
“I can’t believe you not only found the time to do this, but came up with something this spectacular.” Madison had finished her third listen to the demo tape he’d brought, this time while following the script together as it played.
“I’ve been working on it in my spare time.” It had been a good break from everything else, a way to pass the long hours of the night, when he put off sleep because he dreaded finding himself in the hallway again.
“I’d love you to be here for opening night.
Maybe come out and take a bow for it.” Julie winked at him.
She was a curvy woman with vivid blue eyes that might be contacts.
Her eyes were lined with dark blue color and two black dyed braids held back her thick brown hair.
In a theater T-shirt that barely contained ample breasts, and faded, snug jeans, she looked like a woman dedicated to the dramatic arts.
The biographies on the theater website said Julie had run a community theater in New York City before she came here. When she introduced her to DJ, Madison said she had the determination of a bulldog, the enthusiasm of a golden retriever, and the tenacity of a Jack Russell.
“In short, she’s saying I’m a first-class bitch,” Julie had joked. “But if you want a community theater to thrive, I’m your woman.”
“I’m just kidding. I know you’re busy,” she said, showing the golden retriever side. “We’ll send you a tape.”
“If I can be here, I will, but I don’t want to take anything away from your performers. I’d rather just come as an anonymous guest. I know how to be incognito.”
Being able to go out without being recognized had been unexpectedly freeing, enough that he’d seriously considered cutting his hair back again.
But one thought of Roy’s fingers tugging on it, stroking through it, and he knew he wouldn’t.
Unless Roy persisted in holding him at arm’s length, and then DJ would shave himself bald out of spite.
And tattoo “Roy sucks” across his skull.
DJ opened up another file on his laptop. The three of them were sitting on the same side of a card table that had been set up on the theater stage, the score piped through the music system so they could feel the effect. DJ had been pretty jazzed about the results himself.
Composing music, experiencing the joy of it coming together, was bittersweet. Knowing he didn’t have Steve, Tal and Pete to share it with, to make it even better with their input, was tough. He was doing some of it with his new bandmates, but it wasn’t the same.
He liked Dillon, the new guitarist, though, and Sy was upping his game daily, absorbing information like a sponge from studio musician drummers who were the best in the business. DJ and Moss had arranged for them to work with Sy.
It could still be good. It would just take time.
“If you’re cool with it, I’d like to show you something,” DJ said to the two women. “There’s a new song I’ll be debuting at my next show. I want to change some of the choreography, and I’d like your thoughts. Top secret stuff.”
“Wait. I can’t record this with my spy camera for our social media pages?” Julie made a show of tapping the top button of her shirt, just below her impressive cleavage. “Dang it.”
DJ chuckled, but called up the video of the latest beginning-to-end rehearsal of the piece. As he took them through it, he explained the changes he was considering.
Julie morphed from teasing flirt to intent stage manager, requesting a re-watch without any interruptions. Afterward, her follow-up questions confirmed her experience, and the suggestions she offered improved the message and emotion he wanted to convey. He made a lot of notes.
Julie looked toward Madison. “Grab Des from out back. He can offer input on the rope stuff.”
“This is why I hired her,” Madison told DJ as she rose. “I thought it was a hundred percent fabulous. She sees how to make it better.”
“I plan to shamelessly use her knowledge.”
“She likes to be shamelessly used. Just ask her husband.”
Julie curled her lip in a mock snarl. Madison grinned and disappeared behind the stage. DJ heard the side exit door open and close. So absorbed in what Julie was discussing with him, he ignored his cell when it pinged twice, but when it started ringing, he gave it an impatient look.
“Oh shit. Sorry.” He hit connect. “Yeah, Jim. Yes, he’s fine.”
When he returned the phone to the table, DJ answered Julie’s curious look.
“My security people won’t let anyone into your building unless I’ve said they’re okay.
It’s something Roy told me to do. People will go to a lot of lengths to pretend to be someone I know, and some of them are good enough to fool anyone. ” Except Roy.
The moment highlighted the differences between “normal” for him and the rest of the world, but he sensed more than that in Julie’s speculative look.
Before he could ask what she was thinking, Madison returned in the company of a man with long brown hair and piercing eyes. He wore a dirty T-shirt and jeans. DJ recalled there’d been a man on the roof when he arrived, replacing shingles.
His slim build was similar to DJ’s own. But when DJ met his gaze, there was a quality in his eyes, one that intensified when he looked toward Julie, which told DJ he was a Dom, as authoritative when the moment called for it as Roy.
He really missed Roy. Enough that he stammered during the introduction to Desmond Hayes, for fuck’s sake. But it was like having a deep craving for a specific food and being close enough to something like it that the craving became twice as bad. Because close enough wasn’t enough.
Fortunately, when Des gave him a friendly, man-to-man nod, the Dom-vibe dialed back and saved DJ from embarrassment. Des bent over Julie’s shoulder, gripping it, his callused thumb teasing the small curling hairs on her neck, as she hit play on the relevant section of the video she’d cued up.
Des had her rewind it several times before he straightened. Just like his wife, he fired off a handful of suggestions that would improve the scene, and its safety for the performers.
“Can my choreographer call you if he needs to do so?”
“Sure. Julie’ll give you my number.”
“Great.”
Madison grabbed them sodas and snacks from a backstage room. Julie had asked Des to stay, saying it looked like a good time for a break. He indulged her, straddling a chair backwards and giving the women a roof update.
DJ was content to listen. He needed a break as well. More of his nerves were involved in this piece than he’d realized. The women included him in their casual chatting, but Madison asked DJ a question that said they’d noticed his mood.
“Are you nervous about doing this in front of your fans? You’ve done edgy stuff on stage before, but this seems more personal.”
He was talking to two submissives and a Dom, so he understood that was the angle of her question. A caring and concerned one.
“Moss was worried that this might tank my career,” he said. “You know, doing it where I’m not the alpha, the top.”
“I think it’s going to rocket your career into a whole new stratosphere.” Madison’s serious look said she wasn’t blowing smoke up his ass. “Even if it’s buried deep, most people understand the craving to trust someone enough to surrender to them.”
“But hey, if you’re right, we always have an opening for you here,” Julie said.
“The pay would be nothing next to what you’re earning, but how much money does someone need to make in a lifetime?
Feeding your soul is the important thing.
Though if it’s a pride thing, Madison can probably manage something slightly higher.
Not bigger than my salary though, because I’d be pissed. I am top dog here, you know.”
“She never stops working an angle,” Madison informed a grinning DJ. “It’s why she’s as good at marketing this place as she is at running it.”