Dom swallowed hard.
“Please join me in welcoming Off Beat to the stage!”
Trey squeezed his wrist, then led the way. Dom tried not to flinch under the sudden glare of the stage lights. Applause rolled over him, a very welcome and familiar sound—only a thousand times louder than anything he remembered. Trey stood behind his keyboard and flipped a few switches.
Dom walked alone to the center microphone. He stood under the lights, the sounds of the crowd slowly fading, and imagined his parents in the audience, so incredibly proud of him. He pictured Lincoln there with Roxy and Starr and Taisha and Percell. Benji and Joshua. Tyson. Andy, Danielle, and Bobby were out there for real, cheering them on.
He glanced back at Trey, who winked.
Dom raised his violin to his shoulder and pressed his chin against the rest. Positioned his fingers and the bow. And waited.
Trey keyed the opening chords of “My Immortal” so elegantly that Dom had to swallow a lump in his throat. He pulled his bow across strings and fell into the song he loved so much. Dom played with everything in him, drawing music out of himself and his instrument as though it was an extension of himself. A beautiful, living thing filling the space around them. Charging the air he breathed.
Time lasted for infinity in that song, and then it was winding down. Dom pulled the last note as Trey hummed the final few beats. He met Trey’s eyes over his shoulder, surprised to see tears there.
Eventually Dom became aware of the cheers and whistles from the audience, but he couldn’t acknowledge them yet.Couldn’t take a bow, because Trey was walking toward him, pride and love radiating in every step. Dom handed his violin off to one of the techs already resetting the stage. She’d be safe enough for a few minutes.
Trey tugged him into a full-bodied hug that said everything he couldn’t over the roar of continued applause. Dom clung, heart hammering, so fucking proud of himself and his man.
He didn’t expect it, but Dom should have figured out that Trey had put it all on the table for him. For them. Because Trey pulled back just far enough to kiss him soundly on that stage, in front of God and witnesses, and it was pretty much perfect. Dom laughed, so much joy inside that he had to let it out.
They spared a moment to bow, and then raced offstage, both of them still laughing, hugging, touching as much as possible. Trey towed him right through the green room to the empty corridor outside.
“I got hard watching you play,” Trey said. He tugged Dom into his arms, and Dom felt the truth of that statement against his thigh. “Half of the men in that audience probably got stiff, and the women? Wet seats all over the house.”
Dom snorted at the crude statements. “I can’t even describe how that felt.”
“I can see it all over your face. You’re glowing.”
He pressed his forehead to Trey’s and closed his eyes, wanting to savor the performance high for as long as possible. “Glad it was you, babe.”
“Me too.” One of Trey’s hands curled around the back of Dom’s neck. “That was.”
“Yeah.” Dom touched the glass vial over Trey’s heart. “Yeah, that was.”
EPILOGUE
Four MonthsLater
Dominic spotted Benji’s car idling in the pickup lane at the Philly airport, which was good because Trey had forgotten to ask what he drove when Benji offered to collect them. Their flight in from Atlanta had them landing at eight ten on Christmas morning, which had been the best their manager had been able to get. They’d had a gig the night before that lasted until one a.m., so the six o’clock flight had been a compromise.
No way was Dominic allowed to miss Christmas Day at home, no matter how amazing Off Beat’s career was at the moment. Trey had taken that call from Mom two weeks ago during their stay in Baltimore.
“Dudes!” Benji waved his hands in the air, then darted around other departing passengers to throw his arms around Dominic. “Merry Christmas.”
“Hey, man, Merry Christmas.” Dominic returned the hug. “Looking good.”
“You too. Hey, Coop.” He embraced Trey, too. “You, on the other hand, look awful.”
Trey snorted. “I had food poisoning two days ago.” He was never eating raw oysters again. Ever.
“Ugh, that sucks. Happened to me once after a bad batch of Maryland crab soup. No fun.”
He didn’t want to think about his still-tender stomach. “Can we go? It’s fucking freezing.” Trey already missed the slightly less arctic weather he’d left behind in Atlanta for Pennsylvania in December. And he didn’t have his fluffy winter coat on him.
They stuffed their suitcases into the trunk. Dominic called shotgun, which was fine by Trey. He stretched out on the backseat and napped for the ride out to the Bounds house, barely paying attention to Benji’s questions about their travels.
Ever since their first duo at Unbound nationals, Off Beat had been busy with club bookings all over the country. Their manager, Silas Easton, was a genuinely nice guy who adored their sound and the fact that they were a couple. He got them a logo and a website, and got a Facebook fan page set up, and they recorded a handful of professional videos of them covering different songs for the pages. For the last few months, they’d been traveling almost nonstop. They were already set to play at several state fairs the following summer, and the whirlwind didn’t look like it was stopping anytime soon.
