Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
Harvey
The crowd screamed as the stage lights flared and I strode on stage.
Otis stumbled over his cord as he retrieved his bass without making eye contact with me.
The stage wings were empty tonight. Tatum had opted to stay on the bus with Tobias, who was suffering through day three of withdrawals, and behind the drum kit, Brock was a presence that didn’t belong.
Nothing felt right.
Looking at Calix, you’d never know it, though. He worked the crowd into a furor, strutting and showboating as if it were any other night.
But I could see how we were coming apart at the seams. Brock fucked up the tempo in “Different Shades of Gray”, and Otis forgot an entire riff during “Deeper Underwater”.
Sweat trickled down my back as I took a deep pull on a bottle of water and positioned my capo for “The Lies We Live”.
The noise from the crowd was deafening as I plucked out the opening riff, and Calix ground out the lyrics like he was chewing on ghost peppers. The song felt more raw than usual, and I wondered if almost losing his brother had finally made the Grinch grow a bit of a heart.
Or maybe it was our manager. While I wouldn’t say he was friendly with her, he had definitely been less prickly, and they’d definitely fucked.
I could tell.
Speaking of fucking, it seemed like Calix had plenty of options in the crowd tonight, if he were interested in taking them up on the offer.
A group of girls on the floor to the right of the stage lifted their shirts in unison, jiggling their tits like they could hypnotize our lead singer.
Or maybe they were on offer to any of us.
One of them noticed my attention and winked.
A couple of weeks ago I would have been all over that shit, pulling the hottest one up onstage to show I could.
Fucking her and leaving her in the dust as easily as we moved from venue to venue on this tour.
It was a shock to realize the appeal of that had worn thin.
Instead of engaging with her, I scanned the crowd and found a couple of young guys holding signs that offered their asses to Calix to be destroyed.
Good luck with that.
A couple of older women stood farther back in the crowd with “I heart Otis” T-shirts, and another group seemed to be team Tobias. Despite their favorite band member’s absence, they still seemed to be enjoying themselves.
Good.
At first, I didn’t notice the disturbance in the crowd.
Maybe I’d become so accustomed to being the cause of the controversy that I didn’t notice when I wasn’t the center of attention.
Yeah, yeah. Self-centered, conceited, call it what you would, but I liked people to notice me.
“What the fuck?” Calix had moved the microphone far enough from his mouth that his demand didn’t carry through the room, but I was close enough to hear it and echo it.
Otis pulled one of Calix’s male fans on stage.
While Calix and my guitars carried the bridge, Otis pulled the young fan into a kiss that ripped straight through the center of my chest. It was sloppy, verging on violent, and I wondered if Otis’s spit had a high enough alcohol content to get the fan drunk.
I hated it.
Before I knew what I was doing, I was across the stage, pulling Otis back by the collar.
Guitar unplugged.
Bass unplugged.
Without acknowledging anyone else on stage, I pulled him into the wings, slammed his back against the wall, and erased that fucking kid’s memory from Otis’s lips.
He was mine.
It didn’t matter that I wasn’t gay.
I didn’t understand the instinct to claim, but I was fucking going with it, and I dared anyone to get in the way.
He tasted like whiskey and home. Like something that had always been inevitable.
Why the fuck had I ignored this for so long?
I kissed him until the final strains of the song reverberated through my body, and even then, I had to seriously consider if it was worth moving.
When I shifted, his erection pressed hard against my hip, and a shiver of…something…crept through my body. His lips were wet and puffy, his eyes unfocused in a way I hoped was lust and not inebriation.
“We…should get back out there,” he said, like the real world was only just breaking through this fantasy world daze.
I felt the same way. Would I wake up on the bus in a moment, lonely and aching like I had after the blowjob dream? Or was there a world where this was actually something that could be real?
He pressed a palm to my chest, and the solid weight did more to convince me this was real than anything else, which meant he was right. We had a show to finish.
As we stepped back onstage, the crowd lost their collective minds, while Calix looked like he was ready to cut someone. Otis’s little friend had returned to the sea of faces below us, and I breathed easier knowing I didn’t have to face that threat.
How many times did Otis have to see you with random girls?
I shut the thought down before it could sink its claws in, because the truth was that I hadn’t cared before.
They’d meant nothing to me, and I’d been adept at ignoring the impact my lifestyle had on someone I’d always professed to care about, even if I was beginning to realize I hadn’t been entirely truthful about how much I cared.
We finished the show with an acoustic version of “Black Lighting” and “Second Coming” as our encore. The energy of the crowd was electric; the roar of voices followed us offstage and through the back halls of the arena.
“Fucking-A. Are all your shows like this? I feel like I’m buzzing.
” Brock bounced down the corridor, hyper as a teen who’d mainlined energy drinks for twelve hours straight.
Calix strode ahead, eyes fixed on the exit door like he was done with all our shit.
A gentle brush against my fingers let me know Otis was close.
“I think we need to talk,” he murmured.
I nodded without looking over.
What the hell was I going to say?
I didn’t want him kissing other guys? That I wasn’t gay, but the thought of him with anyone else made me blind with jealous rage? That he was mine, even if I wasn’t sure I could give him what he wanted.
Yeah, I was a raging asshole. Even I could admit that much.
The cool night air hit us like a slap as the crowd gathered at the stage door pushed against the temporary barricades. Cameras flashed, and more than one person with a phone held high jostled for our attention.
“Otis, are you gay?”
“Harvey, do you hate gays? Is that why you pulled Otis offstage?”
“Calix, where’s Tobias? Is it true he and Ruby Dearlove have a secret child?”
“Otis, is it true you blacked out during sound check?”
The questions came hard and fast, some circling the truth, while others were outrageous enough to make me want to chuckle. The temptation to answer was there, but with our manager otherwise engaged, we behaved ourselves, walking through the noise like it couldn’t touch us.
Tatum would have enough on her hands with Otis’s stunt.
No need to make it worse.
“Harvey, is it true Lainey Lincoln broke things off with you because she caught you and Otis together in the green room?”
That one almost got a reaction out of me, but seriously, what the fuck?
Lainey had never been anything official, and as far as I knew, our hookups weren’t common knowledge.
So either these people were making things up to fish for real gossip, or Lainey had been more invested in our arrangement than I thought.
I hoped, for her sake, it was the first one, because I knew Tatum wouldn’t hesitate to come for her again. Our little manager was a brawler.
I knew from Lainey’s makeup artist that it had taken a metric shit-ton of makeup to cover the black eye Tatum had given her.
She wasn’t a bad person, and she hadn’t really deserved to get hit, but those two had been set to blow up for a while, and I hoped they could come to some kind of truce now that they’d had it out.
As soon as we were clear of the crowd, Otis brushed my hand and inclined his head to the side.
My heart stuttered as a deeply ingrained part of me stood up and demanded we avoid the coming discussion.
If we didn’t face it, it never happened, right?
I was just another normal guy, going about his day.
But the truth was, we did need to talk, if for no other reason than that not talking had led my best friend to drown his feelings for the last few weeks. He deserved better than my bitch ass running from him again.
We wove between buses, trucks, and the various vehicles that made up our road train until the darkness closed in and the voices of the crowd faded into the night.
Tucking my hands into my jeans pockets, I leaned against the door of a random van.
Otis righted a milk crate that had been abandoned in the dust and sat.
He jumped to his feet a moment later. He paced the small space, rubbing his hands together like the friction was energizing his movements.
This wasn’t the Otis I knew. His quiet confidence was something I’d always envied, and it wasn’t until I saw him stripped of it that I realized how much I’d relied on it.
“So…” I started, having no idea how to finish the sentence.
“So,” he agreed, finally choosing to mirror my pose against the van.
“It’s been a fucking night, huh?” My attempt at levity came out flatter than three-day-old soda.
Otis didn’t bother humoring me with a laugh, instead watching me closely, like he could read my mind if he concentrated hard enough.
A dog barked somewhere out in the night. I pulled my jacket around myself more tightly as a cold breeze filtered between the vehicles around us.
“What happened back there?”
There was no accusation in the question. Just a quiet curiosity that shouldn’t have scared me as much as it did, because I still wasn’t ready to admit the answer to that to myself, let alone to him. But this wasn’t only about me, and I was getting really tired of the person I’d been.
“I didn’t like him touching you.”
He grunted, and I couldn’t tell whether he thought I was bullshitting, or if he was calling me on my cowardice.
“He shouldn’t have kissed you,” I tried.
“I kissed him. I pulled him onstage. My choice. And if I’d chosen to take him backstage and fuck him, that would have been my choice too. Now tell me why you think that’s not okay.”
“Because…” There was no because. Sweat gathered under my collar as Otis’s eyes shone up at me. This was too much, too real. What was I doing?
“Do you hate the idea of me being gay?”
“No.”
“Is it because you know I’m in love with you?”
You’re drunk. You don’t know what you’re saying.
Some very small, sensible part of me bit the words back before they could escape and completely decimate the man in front of me.
The truth was that I had known, or at least suspected, for a while.
No one put up with the bullshit that comes with a loser like me unless they were crazy or infatuated.
Or both. When I saw his interest in Tatum, I’d been equal parts relieved and jealous.
It meant I could avoid being Harvey, the former fat kid who was a little too interested in his best friend, and could continue being Harvey—sex addict and all-around asshole.
“You kissed me.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.” What else could I say?
He cocked his head, studying me for a moment, then pushed away from the van and moved in closer.
“What would you do if I dropped to my knees, right here in the dirt, and put my mouth on your cock?”
“I don’t know.”
Lie.
I was already half hard at the suggestion.
“Have you done that before?” If he said yes, it would wreck me. That idea alone made it hard to breathe.
“Sucked cock?” Jesus, if he kept saying it like that, I’d embarrass myself.
He shook his head, and my breath left me in a rush.
“But I want to.”
He closed the space between us, his mouth hovering over mine so that I could taste his breath. His hand curled over my hip, and I hated his restraint. I wanted him to take control so I could live in my denial just a little longer. Maybe if I just…
I pushed my hips forward, a confession of guilt as I let him feel how hard I was.
With a groan, he pressed his mouth firmly to mine. He ate the curse that slipped over my tongue as he cupped my erection, and I surrendered to him. To sensation. I fisted his hair as he worked my belt loose. He bit my lip hard in response, soothing the marks he left with his tongue.
Cold air hit my ass as he pushed my jeans down my hips and dropped to his knees in the dirt.
His curls were soft beneath my fist, just like they’d been in my dream, and in the space of breaths where he kneeled before me, I had a sudden panic that he’d disappear.
“Otis.”
He stared at my cock like he was trying to solve a puzzle, and I wondered if maybe he was as overwhelmed by this as I was.
“You don’t have to—”
He ran his tongue firmly from my balls all the way to the tip of my shaft. My words caught on a strangled gasp.
“Fuck.”
He wrapped his lips over my head and hummed in amusement. The vibrations made my eyesight spotty.
Saliva dripped over my balls as he worked his mouth over me, and I tried my best to keep still so I wouldn’t fuck up the moment. It was messy. It was clumsy. And when I realized he was fucking his fist while he sucked me, it drove me right to the edge.
“Fuck. Fuck, I’m going to come.” I turned to the side and came all over the ground as Otis shook through his own release at my feet.
“That was…”
“Harvey.” I glanced down at my best friend as he tucked his dick away.
“Please don’t say anything to ruin this moment. Just let me enjoy it, and we’ll talk about it later. Okay?”
I nodded, fixing my own jeans as he quietly got to his feet and led us back to the bus.