“Year ahead of Piper in school.”
“Well, that puts them between Liam and Piper. Maybe have some kids over to the Big House, like a small party, include this kid, and see what we find out,” I suggest. “The Big House used to always have people over, I’m sure it’s no different now.”
“Great idea. We can invite just enough people it doesn’t seem like an ambush, but few enough we can suss out the issues,” Theo says, and we all make plans for a party Piper and Liam don’t know they are having.
Breakfast with the guys leads to almost being late to leave Bear Valley. I’m playing Red Rocks for a charity event — a group Perrin and Jack are big supporters of, called Rainbow House. My understanding is that Perrin has been involved with them for years. They provide safe spaces for youth that don’t have a home, usually due to being kicked out by their family because they are something other than straight.
My agent thought it would help my “party boy” image to do a benefit event, and also it supports a LGBTQ+ cause, which puts my sexuality back in the news. Apparently if I am not going to publicly flaunt my relationship with Baylor and tell all, teasing it by reminding the public that I’m gay is just as good, as far as the studio is concerned.
I’ve never played at Red Rocks, but it’s the coolest vibe I have ever seen. It is so Colorado and everything I loved about Baylor and his family and Bear Valley in general: casual, authentic, and outdoorsy.
The plains and the Denver skyline are visible to the audience behind the stage. The seats themselves are situated between large rock formations of deep red sandstone that jut out from either side of the stage, creating a natural amphitheater that has just been enhanced with seating. Wide seats are in a semicircle on a steep incline with a million steps.
In the same national park as the venue, just a few feet away, dinosaur tracks can be seen embedded into the rock. Playing here seems old and ancient, more ritual than concert.
During sound check I can’t keep a smile off my face. The acoustics alone are going to make this an amazing concert. There are no poles, because there is no roof to holdup, and every seat is a good one.
It’s all the drama of a stadium show with all the intimacy of something much smaller. I hope it’s the first of many times I play here.
The concert is going down at sunset, and I can’t wait. Somewhere out there is my family. Watching me perform for the first time since I became a rockstar.Baylorwill watch me perform for the first time in twelve/thirteen-years.
There’s a day, somewhere in our future, where I will pull him on stage and blend his voice and his music to mine again, but that’s not today. Still, it’s the beginning ofsomething, and as I Sharpie my name to the cinderblocks of the backstage tunnels along with virtually everyone else who ever graced this stage, I know the music’s going to be good tonight.
When I walk out onto the stage, it’s to a wall of people looking down, and the roar and energy funnel straight for me.
The show starts, and I don’t stop for almost three hours. Drenched in sweat, and singing to the back row, I put all I can into Baylor’s lyrics and my voice to carry them.
He wrote these feelings about me, not some guy back here in Colorado like I assumed, butme. And that changes my relationship to them. To the music.
We planned an encore, and when I walk back out to the roar of the crowd, I start playing a few chords to calm everyone down. They are broken chords, nothing to introduce a song they would know.
I raise my hands to the audience; they roar, then become quiet.
“I want to leave you all with a smile tonight,” I tell them, “so this is something new.”
My eyes land on Baylor, to the front right of the stage with his family, where he can come backstage easily after this.
And for the first time since he sang it for me on the demo I listened to on that lonely run, I look him right in the eye and sing the song he thought to be the beginning of our end. But it’s not the Final Song.
It’s the first.
Chapter 23 – Caswell
Love Song – Lana Del Ray
Icomeoffthestage, feeling a strange mix of vulnerable and buzzed. A haze of faces seem happy, pleased with the show, but it’s not until I lock eyes with Baylor that I can breathe.
We move toward each other until he’s pressing me against the wall backstage and my legs are wrapped around his waist.
“Fuck, you are brilliant, love,” he says, landing kisses on my neck and holding my sweat-drenched body close.
I’m already hard, which is uncomfortable as fuck in the tight pants I have on, even if they weren’t damp with sweat too.
“Dressing room,” I mutter, when I can be bothered to pull my lips from his. The buzz of the show lives under my skin, and I feel like I’m flying.
I manage to untangle myself and pull him behind me through the tunnels to the space they gave to me. It’s not huge, but I’m not going too far from him for a while.
“Tell me the lock on the door works,” he mutters, back against the door as I reattach myself around him, and keep kissing.
