Chapter Twenty-Nine
Lulu
Xavi was fucking late. As in really fucking late. The guy who was always on time chose tonight of all nights—fucking opening night—to be late. Lulu was pacing the lobby of the Pea Cock Theatre. He had been for the last ten minutes, when he really should be getting ready, doing his final vocal warmups before he took the stage. The bell to notify the audience that the doors were closing in five minutes and they were to take their seats sounded, and still there was no fucking sign of Xavi. No texts, no calls, no nothing.
Lulu had started worrying in earnest half an hour ago, his chest growing tighter by the second as he started sweating through the layers of make-up. All Lulu’s calls went straight to voicemail, his texts ondeliveredbut notread.He wasn’t worried that Xavi had changed his mind about coming and that he was going to blow Lulu off. No, Xavi might be a man of few words, but he was a manofhisword. If Xavi said he was going to come, he was coming. Something must’ve happened. The thought alone of something happening to Xavi tore through Lulu like a sharp knife slicing through his skin, ice cold and deep, leaving his head throbbing and his gut churning with fear. What if Xavi had been hit by a car? Shit like that happened all the fucking time. Wouldn’t it just be the fucking irony of Lulu’s life that he’d finally gotten his man only for Xavi to be—No! He wasn’t going to go there. He couldn’t. Xavi was late. That was all.
Only Xavi was never late.
“Mr. Cisnero,” Carol, a member of the backstage crew, called from the entrance to the dressing rooms. “It’s time.” She spoke something into a headset that Lulu couldn’t make out, and in the background, the orchestra was fine-tuning their instruments.Shit.Glancing at the entrance, Lulu willed Xavi to enter, to come running toward him right now, but only an elderly couple came through the doors as the doorman got ready to close them.
“Mr. Cisnero. Lulu,” Carol urged.
Hijo de puta,he was going to fucking kill Xavi. And then he was going to kill him all over again, only slower. Throwing one final glance at the door, Lulu felt his body sigh with defeat. Then he hurried after Carol, who guided him efficiently through a buzzing backstage area toward the left side of the stage where Lulu was supposed to make his entrance in a few minutes. Asthe magic peen, Lulu played one of the main parts in the show. The first act started with Calvin, who played the poor farm boy Dickie, singingSomewhere Over the Rainbow, looking all sad and peen-deprived. Then Lulu entered in his deep-purple bodysuit, singingTouch Meas bright rainbow lights flashed in the background.
Reaching Calvin, Lulu found him bouncing on his feet, repeating his opening lines to himself, his eyes swimming with excitement.
“Hey, man, about time,” Calvin panted. “Everything good?”
“Yeah.” Lulu forced a smile on his face.The show must go on, right?But really, how could it, when Xavi wasn’t here?
“Cool.” Calvin stuck out his fist in front of Lulu, and Lulu bumped it half-heartedly with his own. Calvin smiled at him crookedly, an unspoken question in his eyes that would one hundred percent have led to the old Lulu blowing Calvin in a dressing room shortly after the final curtain drop. But that was before. Before he’d told Xavi he loved him. Before Xavi had said the words back. Before they’d made love and becomeamantes, novios. So instead of smiling back seductively, Lulu just mumbled, “Break a leg,” while his own heart broke just a little bit more.
Then the opening music started playing, softly at first until the music rose and rose, the violins and cellos intermingling with the melancholic piano notes. Moving toward the edge of the heavy ruby red velvet curtain, Lulu wrapped his fingers around the thick fabric, pulling it slightly to the side. The auditorium was filled with people. The show was sold out on both opening night and the next three nights it was running. Most of the audience was seated, while the ushers were showing some late arrivals to their seats. The seat center stage in the second row that Lulu had reserved for Xavi was empty, almost mocking him, and Lulu felt Xavi’s absence like a gaping hole in his chest, like a void threatening to suck him into permanent darkness. Inhaling deeply, Lulu bit back the tears that threatened to spill and smear the thick layer of foundation.
Untouchable.Lulu had always thought he was untouchable because he’d tried so hard to make himself just that. Untouchable to his father’s fists and his vile words. Untouchable to people who looked at him like he was a freak or lovers who treated him like shit. Untouchable to the gaping void in his soul that his mother’s absence had left behind. When really he wasn’t. One look, one touch from Xavi and Lulu would crumble. He was frail like porcelain when it came to Xavi. He held Lulu’s life in his hands, didn’t he?
Then, just when Lulu was about to close the curtain, a figure bolted down the stairs to the right of the row of seats like the floor was on fire. Black leather jacket, black T-shirt, black jeans. Lulu’s fingers dug into the curtain as the figure came closer, the features of Xavi’s beloved face materializing before him. It truly was him, his Xavi. He was here, and suddenly the numbness left his body, and Lulu could breathe again.
“Xavi!” he called out, stepping halfway out from behind the curtain, waving in Xavi’s direction. Just as an usher was about to guide Xavi to his seat, he looked up, his eyes locking onto Lulu’s.
Sorry,Xavi mouthed, his eyes wild and wonderfully vibrant. Then his face split into his familiar smile, so breathtakingly beautiful that Lulu’s entire body screamed at him to run from the stage and leap into Xavi’s arms and just stay there forever.
It’s okay,Lulu mouthed back, then blew Xavi a kiss before he hurried to his seat. Everything was okay now.
The next hour and a half went by in a blur. The audience laughed in all the right places, and Lulu wasn’t even the least bit envious that Calvin stole the show as the innocently kinky farm boy Dickie. He was brilliant, just the right combination of sweet and seductive. Lulu nailed all his songs, even all the high notes, and throughout the play, although the auditorium lay in darkness, he felt Xavi’s eyes on him. Every move Lulu made was for Xavi; every word he spoke or sang was for his lover. Every little coquettish wink or extravagant gesture. There was only Xavi in the room, in the entire universe.
As the curtain dropped one final time, the crowd went wild, and the actors were called forward again and again to standing ovations that just went on and on and on, until Lulu’s head was spinning. The only thing that tethered him to the ground, which had always tethered Lulu to the ground, was Xavi’s loving eyes on him. Always on him, never leaving, always there.
A sudden urge moved through Lulu, a persistent buzzing in his body, in his head, that couldn’t be ignored. Without thinking, Lulu ran to the orchestra pit and dropped to his knees when he reached it. Waving at the conductor, Vivienne, Lulu’s heart threatened to beat out of his chest.Don’t fucking overthink this, Lulu. Don’t, or you’ll lose your nerve. Vivienne moved through the violinists and cellists with a confused expression on her face until she stopped before him.
“Oui?” Vivienne was from France and mostly replied in French but understood English perfectly.
“Can I…” Suddenly, Lulu’s throat was dry, like he’d been walking in the desert all day, his eyes stinging from the sand and the ruthless sun. “I need to ask you something. A favor.”
Vivienne nodded, her sky-blue eyes gazing back at him wondrously.
“You see that man, the good-looking one in the leather jacket? In the middle of the second row?” Lulu pointed in Xavi’s direction only to find Xavi frowning at him. Vivienne’s gaze followed Lulu’s hand, then she nodded. “He’s my boyfriend. We… we’ve been best friends our entire lives, and we’ve only just found out that we love each other. That we’ve always loved each other.” Lulu sniffled, digging his teeth into his bottom lip to stave off the tears. Sucking in a breath, he tried to steady himself. He realized the audience had stopped clapping and that all eyes in the auditorium were on him and Vivienne. “I want to sing to him.”Fuck.“So that he knows…”
“That you are…comment dis-tu ça?” Vivienne’s forehead furrowed. “That you are hispour toujours, non?”
“Huh?”
“That you are his forever,non?”
“Sí! Yes! Exactly.”
“Bien sûr!” Vivienne beamed. “Of course,mon ami. Everything forl’amour, my friend. You must always dotout pour l’amour.The song?”
