Chapter Sixteen
The sound of a piano floated up from downstairs.
Jesse bolted upright, instantly awake, and saw the bed empty beside him.
He jumped out, snatched his boxers off the floor, hopping toward the door on one foot, then the other as he struggled to put them on and dashed down the stairs.
The music grew louder as he neared the bottom.
He sprinted across the entrance room, through the family room, and slid to a halt in the doorway of the music room.
Sitting shirtless in his black running pants, Evan’s fingers glided over the keys of the ebony grand in his classically inspired ballad “One More Time” from his fourth album of the same title.
The morning sun fell over him, the gold and copper streaks in his hair shone against the backdrop of darker chestnut.
Though his eyes were closed, his fingers never touched a wrong note. He took a breath and began to sing,
“I walk alone,
Still feeling the warmth
Of your body close to mine.
The seasons change,
Night turns to day,
But I remain the same.
My tears chill my skin,
Imitations of the ones
I caused in your eyes
The night I said goodbye.
Despite all the tears I’ve cried,
And all the pain they’ve brought,
I’d shed them all one more time
To see you smile again.
If seeing me hurt pleases you,
Then I’ll cherish this pain forever.
I’ll never ask you to forgive me.
How could I after all I’ve done?
But before my body leaves this world
I beg for the gift of your smile one more time.
One more time,
That’s all I ask.
One more time,
That’s all I need.
It’ll be my greatest treasure forever,
To see you smile one more time.
One more time,
For all my life.
One more time
For all our pain.
It’ll bring me just enough hope,
To face one more day…”
Evan’s fingers drifted over the piano in the interlude, playing high and mid-range notes, weaving them into soft, mournful harmonies. He took another breath, letting his smooth baritone flow out again,
“My loneliness has become the seasons,
Continuing on
It never weakens
Leaving me haunted by the memory,
Of your spirit broken in your eyes,
The night I walked away.
I know my lies
Were truths to you.
And the truths I spoke,
Were so very few.
I’ll never hurt you again,
By looking in your eyes
With betrayal on my lips.
I’ll go away forever,
If it would make you smile,
Just one more time.
One more time,
That’s all I ask.
One more time,
That’s all I need.
Can’t you see my joy is gone forever?
That’s why I need your smile one more time.
One more time,
For all my life.
One more time,
For all our pain.
To remind me of what I’ve lost,
And get me through one more day…”
Evan’s voice hushed as he finished the song, his fingers caressed the final gentle notes from the piano.
Jesse stood mesmerized in the doorway. All the times he had listened to the ballad on CD or the radio seemed distorted compared to the clarity with which Evan had just sung.
“Did I sound that bad?” Evan asked with an anxious chuckle.
Jesse realized he should breathe. “You sounded beautiful.”
“Well, I’m a little rusty. You don’t get much practice just singing in the shower.” Evan winked at him. “But you never got to hear me sing live, so now you’ve had your own private little performance.”
“Your voice, it’s amazing. I must sound like an old crone compared to you.”
“Now that you mention it,” Evan snickered, turning back to the piano.
Jesse laughed softly and walked to him. He wrapped his arms around Evan’s shoulders from behind, watching him play. Evan played whatever his ear thought sounded right. Jesse sat beside him, caught the melody and harmonies Evan did, and laid his fingers on the keys to play along with him.
Evan looked over at him. “Aren’t you going to start pestering me to answer why I quit performing?”
Jesse shook his head and stretched his long fingers over the keys.
“I’ve come to the decision that when you want to tell me, you’ll tell me.
I’m just going to say this. Even though I don’t know why you quit performing, whatever it was that made you leave it all behind couldn’t have been worth sacrificing your gift, and you are gifted, Ev.
What your music gives to the world is far too beautiful and precious for you to throw it away. ”
Evan stopped playing. “There’s nothing beautiful or precious about my gift.” He stood up and walked away from the piano, gazing out the tall windows at Lake Michigan, his back to Jesse. “Do you remember during my last tour when my guitarist, Brian Carney, died?”
Jesse’s hands slipped off the piano to his lap.
“Yeah, it was all over the place. He committed suicide. He only played with you because your regular guitarist, Jerry Jeffries, quit before the tour started since his wife was about to have a baby. But I thought Brian was just a fill-in until JJ was ready to catch up after the baby was born.”
“Well, that’s what we told the media. The truth is, I kicked Brian off the tour.”
“Kicked him off? Why?”
Evan turned back to the piano and sat down on the bench beside Jesse.
He took in as deep a breath as he could, letting out a shaky exhale.
“Because I was sleeping with him and when I broke it off, he wouldn’t accept it, so I got rid of him.
When I first met him I knew he wanted me, but it wasn’t because he was attracted to me for who I am, it was because he was attracted to the idea of me, the person he thought I was from seeing me on stage, in interviews, and all that bullshit.
I tried to ignore the whole thing at first. He had a wife and two little girls, and I didn’t want to come in between that. But, he was persistent.”
Evan hunched forward with his elbows on his knees, his eyes focused on the floor.
“So I decided, what the hell? If he wants it so bad, who am I to deny him? And I thought maybe after he was with me once he’d be satisfied and go back to his wife and kids.
So, one night I showed up outside his hotel room door.
But afterwards it didn’t work out the way I thought.
He wanted to keep the affair going, and I’ll admit I caved a few more times.
There’s only so much you can do when your mouth and mind are saying no, but your body is pleading yes, and I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of him. ”
Jesse nodded slowly, not wanting to openly acknowledge how attractive the other man had been and trying to ignore the jealousy permeating every part of him at hearing Evan talk about a former lover.
“But things got out of control,” Evan said softly.
“He would knock on my hotel room doors at all hours of the night. I didn’t get much sleep when I was on the road to begin with, so you can imagine how pissed I was getting, not to mention, I wasn’t always alone when he was pounding on the door.
And he was starting to mess up a lot during concerts, which didn’t help my patience.
Then during a show, I was doing my thing singing next to him, and he stopped playing, threw his arm around my neck, and tried to kiss me.
That was it. I told him I was finished with him, that he was the worst lover I had ever had, and I fired him from the tour, then to add insult to injury, I got him cut from Phoenix so he couldn’t even be a studio musician with them anymore.
I ruined him. I used my influence and ruined him. ”
Jesse sat quiet, his stunned mind stumbling to absorb all that Evan said.
Evan cleared his throat, trying to find his voice again.
“Except for Greg, no one knew the details of our relationship, but either way, I couldn’t risk letting any of it get out, so Greg begged JJ to leave his new son and come on tour as a cover-up, and like a true friend, he did.
Then a week after I had fired him, Greg came to me and told me Brian had killed himself with a shotgun.
“I didn’t know what to do, but I couldn’t stop my tour.
And when it was finished, I couldn’t bring myself to go back into the studio.
How could I? I had destroyed a man’s life.
I couldn’t stand the limelight and the adoration of everyone around me.
It made me sick to think of all the people who admired me not knowing what kind of person I really was.
“And when I cut Brian’s wife a check to make sure that she and the little girls would be taken care of, people sang my praises thinking I was so generous and kind.
Not a fucking one of them knew it was nothing but guilt money.
I couldn’t handle it. So I left the country and went anywhere I thought people wouldn’t recognize me. ”
As Evan finished, a protective rush surged through Jesse, and with it, a feeling that had been lingering below the surface of his consciousness waiting for him to acknowledge it.
He turned his head toward Evan. All of Evan’s defenses, all his walls were down.
His pain, his fear, bared raw and open. In that moment, he knew without a doubt he had fallen in love with him.
But there was one thing he had to know. Jesse drew in a long breath and said on the exhale, “Were you in love with him?”
Evan’s head snapped toward Jesse. “No,” he said quickly, desperately.
He shook his head, his voice softened. “I wasn’t.
I don’t know if that makes it worse or better.
I’ve tried to answer that for years. Worse because he died for nothing, having never obtained my full affection, or better because I at least came to the conclusion that…
” he swallowed hard and gripped his legs near his knees to hide the sudden trembling in his fingers.
He forced his eyes to stay focused on Jesse’s.
“That…the man I love would never receive such treatment from me.” He broke their gaze as soon as he finished the last word, his eyes going to the floor again.
Jesse slowly turned his eyes away from Evan, his heart pounding.