TWO
This morning, there wasn’t going to be time to go to the gym. There was an early dance rehearsal in just a few hours, and all Ken was going to be able to squeeze in was a quick workout at home.
No big deal, he supposed. He had the equipment here, but the gym had more variety. Not to mention, there were other people there. Even though they were all working out separately, there was a sort of brotherhood to it, all of them doing the same thing.
It sure beat working out alone, anyway. Alone, his thoughts wandered, and he wasn’t sure that he particularly wanted to face them. To think about the men who had been in his life, who had come and gone. Men that he, in some way or another, had made an idiot of himself for.
First Darien, who had been his lover, but who had outright left the band to be with his boyfriend, Noah. No, he reminded himself. Not boyfriend. Husband now. Ken had been at his wedding in Vegas, had seen it happen. He had no problem with Noah, but he still wasn’t sure why Darien had chosen the little computer nerd over him.
And then there was Lance, who had been Ken’s temporary fake boyfriend before the idiot had gone off and fallen in love with Jamie, Darien’s replacement in the band. Ken had just been starting to think that maybe, just maybe, he had found someone in Lance. His best friend could have turned into his boyfriend for real. Or so he’d been allowing himself to consider, but he’d been a fool because the whole time Lance had been sneaking around with Jamie and falling in love with him.
Two men in two years had rejected him, both of them now married to someone else. Ken closed his eyes, pressed his finger onto the speed control button of his treadmill, and cranked his music until he couldn’t hear his own thoughts. It was better that way.
Only, almost against his will, another face snuck into his mind. The dramatic, sharp, beautiful features which had haunted him since even before Darien, if Ken were honest with himself. The shimmering, cold eyes, a shade of blue so rich that it almost looked purple in some lighting. The shock of brilliant red hair falling messily over a pale forehead. Dramatic, that was the word for it, but Ken had always known better than to try with that particular man.
Aaron was the one member of the band that Ken still barely felt like he knew, even as long as they’d been working together. Jamie was a much newer member, but he was also much more of an open book. Aaron kept to himself, and he probably had no idea how he had started to figure more and more prominently in Ken’s daydreams.
No matter how hard Ken pushed his body, Aaron’s face, Aaron’s slender, beautifully formed body, forced its way into his mind. Aaron singing, with that gorgeous deep voice. Aaron dancing, flinging messy, brilliant red hair out of his face. Aaron intense and focused, which he was, well, pretty much all the damn time.
Not that Ken would be stupid enough to go after yet another member of his band. Especially not the remote, aloof Aaron, who was a complete mystery to Ken. To everyone, Ken was pretty sure.
It would be idiotic to try. Wouldn’t it? Ken wiped sweat as it dripped down his face, enjoying the slightly rough scratch of the terrycloth. Aaron had never shown the slightest interest in Ken, or in anyone as far as Ken knew. He had stayed completely out of the whole thing, never involving himself in the ongoing soap opera as the members of the band sorted their romantic entanglements out.
So why couldn’t Ken get him out of his mind? It wasn’t so much fun being rejected that he was going to eagerly seek it out, right? But then, how did he know that Aaron wouldn’t go for it since he had never tried asking?
Ken knew he wasn’t hideous or anything. Maybe Aaron was just shy. Or it had just never occurred to him to give anything a try. Maybe Aaron had some sort of tragic past … Ken let his mind run away from him as he threw himself into the workout, feet pounding, heart racing with more than the exercise as he wondered what would happen if he let himself go to Aaron. Ask if he wanted to hang out sometime. It didn’t have to be any sort of big deal, right?
It was probably a ridiculous fantasy, but as Ken ran, as the endorphins started to flood through his body, it started to seem more and more possible. Probable, well, maybe not, but how would he ever know if he didn’t give it a try?
A slight smile formed on Ken’s lips as he thought about it. He and Aaron weren’t friends, were little more than acquaintances, so there would be no awkward best friend thing to get past like there had been with Lance. Aaron was strong, and he knew what he wanted, not like Darien. Well, not until Darien had hooked up with Noah, anyway.
So why not? Just invite Aaron out. He could always say no if he didn’t want to. It was a risk, but Ken had never been the sort of person to shy away from risks. The little smile formed into a fully formed, goofy grin, and he allowed his daydreams to take a much more interesting turn. Kissing Aaron. Seeing if that pale skin was as soft, as smooth, as it looked …
His music, piped into his ears from his phone, cut off suddenly, and instead, he heard the sound of his ringtone through the earbuds. Someone was calling him? Well, it had to be a work thing, then, or a family thing, because everyone else knew that texting him was far better.
Glancing down at his screen, he softly groaned when he saw what the call display said. But ignoring the call wasn’t really an option. She would just keep on calling back—he knew that. Better to get it over with, and he let his thumb slip over the screen, accepting the call.
“Hey, Mom,” he said, bowing to the inevitable. Thoughts, as pleasant as they had been, of Aaron slipped right away, and he turned the treadmill off. By the time he got his mother off of the phone, it would be time for him to shower and then go.
“Ken, darling,” her familiar, well-loved voice came through his headphones, and Ken mopped himself with the towel as he tried to get some stretching in while she spoke. “I wanted to talk to you about Luna’s wedding.”
Ken sighed, only barely managing to keep it soft enough that she probably didn’t hear. He loved his family, but it seemed like all they were talking about these days was the wedding. Not that he begrudged his only older sister her happiness, but it would be a relief when the whole thing was over.
“What about it? I’m ready,” Ken told her. Through long experience with her, he knew better than to let his impatience into his voice. She could be quite touchy, and the whole thing could devolve so easily into a fight, which he just didn’t have time for.
“I was hoping that your brothers could stay with you.” Her voice was bright, determinedly cheerful, like she didn’t realize what she was asking. Ken’s place was nice enough, but it wasn’t exactly huge. He only had the two bedrooms.
“Mom,” Ken’s patience was starting to fray. It was always like this. No matter how hard he tried to keep himself together, she could get to him like no one else. Or maybe it was just that everyone else realized that Ken had a temper, and they didn’t irritate him deliberately. But that was just her way. “All of them?”
There were a lot of brothers, after all. Three of them and the youngest was only five years old. He cared about all of his family and he, of course, like everyone, had a soft spot for Caleb, the baby of the family, but he just plain didn’t have the time to babysit.
“No, of course not. Caleb will stay with me in the hotel. But for some reason, Mason doesn’t want to stay with us, and I can’t just let a fourteen-year-old stay at your place alone. Not with the crazy hours you keep and your”—her voice trailed off before she delicately added—“lifestyle. So I’ve asked Liam to go along with him …”
She spoke more, of course. She was pretty much always speaking, but Ken was busy trying to calm himself down. He breathed deeply. He did all the things that he knew he was supposed to do. He counted backward from ten, slowly, but that didn’t stop the wave of anger from rising up in him.
“So I’m not safe for Mason to be around?” Ken tried to keep his voice even, tried hard enough that the force of that trying had him gritting his teeth so hard that he could almost swear he felt his jaw groaning with the force of it. “Why not?”
“Well, sweetheart, you know how it is. Your friends …” Her voice trailed off once more like she wouldn’t sully her lips with the words, and Ken dropped down into a chair and closed his eyes, his jaw straining as he tried to bite back the words. There was no point—he reminded himself. No point at all. She was going to be who she was, and Ken should have given up a long time ago on changing her.
