Chapter 19 Julian
JULIAN
Time doesn’t move in a straight line when you’re living in the dark.
That’s what I tell myself, at least. That the nights don’t add up to anything real. That the hours we steal are just fragments, disconnected, uncounted. Just for tonight became just for now became just until and the until never comes, stretching endlessly before us like a road with no destination.
I don’t know how many cities we’ve passed through.
London, Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Dublin.
The names blur together like the hum of the tour bus, like the way Malik’s voice sounds when he’s half-asleep and pressed against my shoulder, his words melting into mumbles against my skin.
I don’t keep track. If I don’t count, it’s not a pattern.
If it’s not a pattern, it’s not a choice—but it is.
Every time I let him pull me into a green room, every time I stay when I should leave, every time I press my mouth to his and pretend it doesn’t mean anything, I’m choosing this. Choosing him. Choosing the lie that wraps around us like a cloak, both protecting and suffocating.
The tour moves like a heartbeat. Steady.
Relentless. The rhythm of it lulls me into something like peace, or maybe just exhaustion, a familiar cadence that drowns out thought.
We wake up in hotel rooms that all smell the same, clean linen, stale air, the faint musk of last night’s sweat lingering beneath expensive hotel soap.
Malik is always warm. Always too close, or not close enough.
He sleeps like he lives, loudly, unapologetically, sprawled across the mattress like he owns it.
Like he owns me. His limbs heavy and certain, claiming space without hesitation.
I watch him sometimes, in those quiet moments before dawn when the world feels suspended.
The way his lashes cast shadows on his cheeks.
The way his lips part just slightly when he breathes, soft and vulnerable in a way he never is when he’s awake.
The way his fingers twitch, like he’s still playing an invisible saxophone in his sleep, composing even in his dreams. I trace the lines of his tattoos with my eyes, memorizing the stories he’s inked into his skin.
Tattoos I never knew he had until the night in New York when we crashed together after years apart.
The music notes along his collarbone, elegant and precise.
The date of his first Grammy win, hidden beneath the curve of his shoulder where only lovers would discover it.
The word Symphony in cursive along his ribs, where no one else would see it unless they were looking.
Unless they were me. Symphony, the name I used to call him when we were just boys finding our way through music and each other. Because he was my muse, all the notes working in harmony, to create something beautiful in my life. Something I couldn’t name then but understood in my bones.
I don’t touch him when he’s sleeping. It feels too intimate, somehow.
Like I’d be stealing something he hasn’t offered, crossing a boundary that shouldn’t exist between us but does.
When he wakes up, he always reaches for me, his fingers finding mine in the half-light, pulling me back to him as if afraid I’ve drifted too far away during the night.
The green rooms are our sanctuary. The places where the door locks and the world outside fades into meaningless background noise.
Where Malik’s hands find my waist with practiced certainty, where his mouth finds mine without hesitation, where his body pins me against the wall and reminds me exactly what this is.
What we are. What we’ve always been beneath the hatred and the silence.
It’s never gentle. Well, not at first. It’s heat and hunger and the kind of desperation that comes from knowing we don’t have long.
Someone could knock at any moment, shattering the illusion.
Or the crew will start setting up soon and we risk the chance of being seen by the wrong person, a stagehand or technician who might not understand the need for discretion.
We both know this illusion has an expiration date, counted in minutes rather than hours.
Then, sometimes, it slows. Malik’s fingers grip the nape of my neck, his breath hot dancing over my skin like notes from his saxophone.
His teeth graze my collarbone, marking me in ways no one else will see.
His hands slide beneath my shirt, mapping the planes of my body like he’s memorizing me.
Like he’s afraid I’ll disappear when the lights come up, a fear not entirely unfounded given our history.
I let him. I let him because I want it. Because I want him.
Because for the first time in years, I’m not thinking about the cost, the careful calculations that have governed every moment of my professional life.
In these stolen moments, I am not Julian Reed, celebrated jazz pianist. I am Miles, just Miles, and I am his.
I don’t leave right after the shows anymore.
Before, except for the one time I stood in the back of the theatre and watched him play, you couldn’t pay me to stay in the venue any longer than I had to.
I’d slip out the side door, melt into the crowd, disappear before Malik even stepped offstage, before temptation could find me.
Now, I linger. I stand in the shadows where the crew won’t notice me.
Where the fans won’t see. Where I can watch him without being watched, a voyeur to his public self.
Malik always finds me, just like I would look up from my piano and find him in return, a magnetic pull neither of us has managed to break despite years and distance.
I’m like a shadow, waiting and watching.
He’ll sign autographs with practiced charm, take selfies with wide-eyed fans, laugh with the celebrities who join us backstage, all confident ease and charm.
He’ll let some eager fan press a little too close, let their hands linger on his arm, let their eyes rake over him like he’s something to be claimed, a prize to be won.
I’ll stand there, silent, trying to keep a straight face, my expression carefully neutral while my fingers curl into fists at my sides, nails biting into my palms.
I tell myself it doesn’t matter. This is part of the act.
I know the deal. Hell, I have to do the same with my own admirers, smile and nod and maintain the careful distance of a professional.
Malik is just being Malik, charismatic, untouchable, theirs for the night, giving them the performance they expect.
None of it matters, but it does matter. Because I know what his skin feels like beneath those expensive clothes. I know the way his breath hitches when I kiss the spot behind his ear, a secret vulnerability. I know the sound he makes when he cums, low and rough, almost a growl. He’s mine.
When he finally turns away from them, when his eyes scan the crowd and land on me with unerring accuracy, when that slow, knowing smile spreads across his face, transforming him from icon to man, it’s not for them. It’s for me. Only for me.
The cracks begin to form in Dublin, hairline fractures in my carefully constructed walls.
There’s an after-party after the show. A label exec’s birthday, or maybe just an excuse to drink expensive whiskey and pretend we’re all friends in this cutthroat industry.
Malik is in his element, laughing, flirting, holding court like the king he is, comfortable in the spotlight in ways I’ve never managed.
He’s wearing a fitted black shirt that clings to his chest like a second skin, sleeves rolled up to show off his forearms, muscled and strong.
His beard is freshly trimmed, his hair sharp, his smile sharper, edged with something dangerous and inviting.
He looks like sin and everyone wants a piece of him, moths to his flame.
I watch from the corner, nursing a glass of bourbon I don’t want, the amber liquid warming without being consumed.
A woman in an expensive, all big tits and fake lips slides into the seat beside him, all calculated grace and practiced charm.
She laughs at something he says, her head thrown back to expose the elegant line of her throat, her hand resting on his knee with deliberate intent.
He doesn’t move it. Doesn’t even glance in my direction to acknowledge the silent witness to this performance.
I want to leave, escape the tightness in my chest, but Eli is standing beside me making small talk with industry people, anchoring me in place with his presence.
I know I should look away, focus on the conversation, play my part in this social dance, but I can’t keep my eyes off Malik.
Instead, I stand here like a statue and watch, feeling something ugly and hot coil in my gut, wrapping around my ribs like vines.
I’ve never considered myself a jealous man.
I’ve never felt possessiveness over anyone because I’ve never let them get that close, never allowed myself that vulnerability.
Unfortunately, I recognize the feeling in the way I recognize a wrong note in a song, instinctively, viscerally, with a sick kind of certainty that can’t be denied.
This is new, and dangerous, and it changes things.
I want to be the one holding his hand in public, not just behind locked doors.
I want to be the one out in the open with him, acknowledged and real.
The realization rocks me to my core, because I know what this means. What it would cost. What I might lose.
Later, in the hotel room, Malik is quiet, the silence between us heavy with unspoken words.