“I will fuss over you until the day one of us dies. Get some sleep, and do not have a sex dream about Joshua.”
Van laughed. “See you in the morning.”
He hung up and stared at his dark dashboard. Still horny thanks to that stupid kiss, he had the very real urge to hit some of his favorite bars and find a warm body to spend a few hours with. Friday night, even this late in September, should have good pickings on display. Guy, girl, whatever, as long as they ended up naked in bed, riding Van’s dick.
“Fuck!” he yelled at the roof of the car.
After another minute’s debate, he started the engine and drove home.
Alone.
ELEVEN
Benji followedAndy and Danielle off stage, with Bobby behind him, the hoots and hollers from their audience still ringing in his ears. He gratefully accepted a bottle of lukewarm water from a tech, happy to ease his slightly sore throat. One set didn’t usually weaken his vocal chords this fast, but he’d woken that morning with a minor sniffle.
His manager had vitamin C tablets and those preventative powder things in him so fast, Benji barely remember taking them.
Fading Daze was playing his favorite kind of venue tonight: a gay club. A place he’d actually heard of before in Providence, Rhode Island. They didn’t get those bookings very often, but since Benji was openly gay, it helped widen their appeal and gain new fans. And holy crap, he had plenty of fans to stare at while performing, many of them shirtless.
“Talk about eye candy,” Danielle said, sipping her own water. “Holy crap, I could dive into that crowd and die a happy girl.”
“Hey,” Andy squawked.
She placated him with a firm kiss to the mouth.
Benji palmed his phone. He’d felt the vibration of a missed message during the set. Voice mail from Joshua. His heartfluttered with joy. He hadn’t seen Joshua since Virginia Beach, but they kept in contact even more frequently now, both of them so keenly aware of what they’d almost lost.
The backstage area was still crazy noisy, and dance music boomed over the loudspeakers, so he eased his way down a short hallway to the green room. The walls vibrated a little, but he could hear well enough to play the message.
“Hey, babe, I know you have a show, but I need to talk to you. Call me, okay? I love you.”
He listened again before erasing it. Something in Joshua’s voice was off. Not upset, but whatever he needed to say didn’t sound like amazing news. They had twenty minutes before the next set. Part of him said to wait until they were done with the show, but that would be well after one o’clock in the morning. Joshua might not stay up.
“Hey,” Joshua said, picking up right away. He had to have been holding the phone to reply so fast, and that set Benji on edge.
“Hey yourself. Emmett’s party over already?”
“No, I wasn’t in the mood anymore, so I’m hiding in my room. It’s winding down, though.”
Benji smiled at a faded poster on the wall. “You never were one for big crowds.”
“Not really, but I was trying out that whole making friends thing.”
“How did it go?”
“Not well. I mostly stuck to people at the party I knew.”
“Like Emmett and Lincoln?”
“Yeah.” A pause. “And Van.”
Something curled around Benji’s lungs, making his breath catch. “Van was there?”
“Yes. He’s roommates with Melody, who’s dating Emmett’s cousin Adrian.”
“Right.” Swallowing hard, Benji asked, “What did you and Van talk about?”
“Different things. It happened in a roundabout way, but he told me he has issues with his heart. He really has to stay healthy or he could have a heart attack.”
