Chapter Six
He glanced at his cell phone on the passenger seat.
He should call Brandon. He always called him after a show and if he didn’t, then Brandon would start ringing him like a spaz.
He was surprised Brandon hadn’t called already, then remembered he was going to make his move that night on a stagehand he’d been eyeballing.
He could bet as soon as Brandon finished with him, his phone would be lighting up.
But what would he tell him? He couldn’t lie and tell him he was home.
For one thing, his and Brandon’s relationship didn’t involve such deceit.
For another, he couldn’t lie to save his life.
If he admitted he had met someone and was going to his house, Brandon would demand to know who, and if he told him, he’d never believe him.
That really seemed the only way to go, though.
If he was lucky he could just leave a message.
Jesse grabbed his cell phone and hit the number two to speed dial Brandon’s cell, muttering to himself, “Don’t pick up. Please be pounding Joe Stagehand through your bed. Don’t pick—”
“Hey, this is Brandon. You missed me, sorry ‘bout your luck. But don’t be too sad. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you eventually.”
Jesse breathed a sigh of relief and lit into his message.
“Hey, it’s me. I just wanted to let you know my gig’s over.
Mike and Ben quit, I’ll fill you in on that later.
I’m not home right now because, you’re seriously not going to believe this but, Evan Arden was at my show and he invited me over to his house, so that’s where I’m going. I’ll call you when I get home. Later.”
Jesse hung up, chuckling to himself. Brandon would be so pissed when he got that message thinking he was mocking him for being overprotective.
He’d figure out some way to convince Brandon he hadn’t been messing with him.
Maybe he could introduce him to Evan. Then again, maybe not.
Brandon adored Evan’s music and looks, he’d freak out if he was within touch range.
Jesse’d worry about it later. Right now, he had more important things to stress over, like what was going to happen once he and Evan were alone together.
He knew what he wanted to happen. He wanted Evan to take his body for his own, to master it, possess it.
He wanted to feel Evan’s weight on top of him.
He wanted to taste Evan’s tongue, his skin, his ecstasy.
But the thought of the coming morning continued to haunt him, and for the first time in his life, his emotions began to win over his physical desire.
He wondered if he felt this way because Evan’s celebrity status had always put him at the level of unattainable.
Yet even if Evan were a garbage man instead of a superstar singer, he’d still feel this way.
It was how Evan looked, how he moved, how he laughed, his personality, that captured him.
As a man, not the famed singer, Evan was inherently sexy.
Now if only he knew how many other people in Evan’s life he would have to battle if he wanted to stretch this night toward the unreachable horizon.
Jesse focused his attention on the Ferrari as it glided down the empty streets to the secluded outskirts of town.
It went down a quiet road that worked its way toward the lake.
The right blinker flashed, and Evan turned onto a private road blocked by a set of ten-foot high steel gates.
Two tall, white brick pillars rose on either side of the gates, each mounted with a security camera.
Private Property and No Trespassing signs warned against unwanted visitors.
When the gates opened at Evan’s approach, Jesse assumed they must be on a remote control.
The Ferrari rolled through, and Jesse tapped the throttle to follow.
As he looked in his rearview mirror and saw the gates closing behind him, he felt like he had just left the world he knew behind.
The private road wound through a thick copse of oaks and maples, then broke free to open space.
Fields stretched out on both sides, and to his right, Jesse could see Lake Michigan dark with the night as if it were a second sky.
He rolled his window down. Only the chirping of crickets and the waves sloshing in the distance came to his ears.
He could smell the water of the lake, feel the cool moisture of it in the air.
He absorbed the peaceful atmosphere. The most nature he ever got was when he went running in Grant Park.
He brought his gaze forward, his mouth dropped open as he saw their destination.
Standing tall against the night, the front illuminated in the soft glow of ground lights, was a mansion of white brick accented with light gray stone, reminiscent of an English Victorian manor.
The private road ended, and Evan swung into a drive on the right where twelve-foot high steel gates connected to a ten-foot wall made of a white brick topped with upward pointing jagged stones.
The gates opened at Evan’s approach. Jesse went through, noticing the wall stretched on and on, enclosing the entire estate, and security cameras were mounted atop the wall at various intervals. Like the first set of gates, these closed behind him.
He coasted up the long drive behind the Ferrari, staring at the mansion.
He didn’t know why he was shocked at the size of it.
With the way Evan’s career had been he must have ridiculous cash, but the house and property were the largest he had ever been to.
The high two-story had a long front and sharp peaks rising to the roof that made it look more like a three-story.
A castle-like stone tower on the far end from the attached three-car garage rounded the corner with stained glass windows.
He saw to the left, the driveway circled around in front of the double oak front doors, to the right it wove around to a separate building off to the side that looked like a Victorian coach house and stable, though judging from the six large doors on it, he assumed it was actually another garage and from the depth of the building, it could easily hold more than six cars.
The doors to the attached garage opened, and he saw two empty bays.
The third held a restored black ‘67 Mustang Fastback. He pulled in and got out of his truck.
“That Mustang is awesome. Is it a real GT500?” Jesse asked.
Evan climbed the couple steps to the access door. “Yeah. It was my dad’s. You probably saw the twelve-car garage when you came in, but all it’s got in it is my beater and my baby.”
“What’s your baby?”
“Enzo Ferrari.”
“What’s your beater?”
“Cadillac Escalade. My car collection is pretty lame right now, but I’m trying to build it back up. I put in an order for a new Lamborghini Murcielago a couple weeks ago, but it won’t be ready for a while.”
Jesse followed Evan inside and closed the door behind him.
While Evan punched his code into the security system keypad by the door, Jesse stepped down a short hall to the entrance room with walls paneled from the floor to the vaulted ceilings in richly colored wooden rectangles carved in relief.
An open flight of broad, dark wood stairs was directly across from the front doors, and the wood floor beneath him shone with polish.
Across from him, he could see into the family room through a wood-trimmed open doorway that arched in a sharp Gothic peak.
Everything in the house looked new and immaculate, yet underneath it, Jesse could feel the weight of history.
From the architecture and interior design, he guessed the latest the main structure could have been built was the 1920s.
He noticed a few cardboard boxes near the doorway to the family room.
“Did you just move in?”
“Last week,” Evan said, brushing against him as he moved past.
Evan led the way across the entrance room to the right of the stairs and through another open arched doorway to the kitchen.
Jesse’s eyes roamed around the kitchen. It looked larger than his apartment.
It had all stainless steel appliances, dark cherry cabinets, countertops of beige granite flecked with black, and tile flooring in mixed shades of browns and tans.
A breakfast counter with stools tucked underneath was across from the refrigerator.
Jesse pulled out a stool and sat down. “Your house is incredible.”
“Thanks. It had been on the market for a while waiting for someone with the cash the buy it, so I was able to move in pretty quick. Everything from the first set of gates to a half mile beyond where the private road dead-ends and on both sides is mine, too.”
Jesse’s mind staggered at one person owning so much. “Even the beach?”
“Yeah.” Evan bent down to look in the fridge. “Is Guinness okay?”
“That’d be great.”
Evan pulled out two beers and popped the caps. He extended one bottle toward Jesse, then paused with it just out of his reach. “You’re not going to tell on me for corrupting a minor if I give you this, are you?”
Jesse stopped his mind before it galloped away with thoughts of all the ways he’d love to have Evan corrupt him, and chuckled. “No, don’t worry about it. It’s not like it’s my first drink, anyway.”
Evan handed him the beer. He lifted his own to his lips, mumbling against the bottle, “And it’s not like you’ll be leaving tonight.”
Jesse looked up at him. “Did you say something?”
Evan answered him with a grin as he drank.
Jesse put the bottle to his lips. Having never tasted dark beer before, he took a tentative sip, then a longer drink. “That’s really good,” he said, lowering the bottle.
“You want to talk about good, I practically survived off premium sake in Japan when I was there.”
A quizzical look fell on Jesse’s face. “Is that where you ran away to after you quit performing?”