Seth was on stage, lit by a single spotlight and singing like a siren. I fell in love with him a little more every time I watched him perform. I was tempted to come in closer and reveal myself, but Sabrina had been so adamant about me being incognito. So, we sat at the bar. I ordered sodas for Mai and me to have something to drink while we waited for Petty Crime to finish out their last set. They were playing more or less the same songs they always had, which further confused me.
“So, this is where you go all those nights?” Mai glanced around at our surroundings like an anthropologist while trying not to sound too judgy about it. Corner Bar was pretty small, but the crowd was always good. It was known in Austin as the place you go to hear undiscovered acts, which meant the bands were sometimes hit or miss. Judging from the rapt attention of the crowd, it seemed Petty Crime was a hit. Seth always said he’d prefer to play to a small crowded room rather than a big, empty one. The band was hoping that if their tour of smaller venues went well and they were able to get a solid reputation locally, they’d get a booking at The Tomahawk, which was just a couple of blocks away but was a much bigger, multi-level outdoor arena. The Tomahawk was the equivalent to “making it” for a local band.
I amused myself with answering Mai’s questions about the band, their music, and my contributions to their artistic direction. Mai was impressed that I’d not only hooked them up with Sabrina but picked out their name, designed their logo, wrote several of the lyrics to their songs, and helped sell the merch.
“You should be getting paid for this,” Mai said. I smiled at her. She was probably right, but I reasoned that I got paid in other ways.
My head swiveled back toward the stage where Seth was cooing into the microphone. It was then that I noticed someone in the crowd had caught his attention. At first, I thought I’d only imagined it, but the more I watched, the more I realized…Seth was singing to someone in the audience the way he usually sang to me.
“Stay here,” I told Mai and skirted along the side of the club to get a better look.
The kid who’d caught Seth’s eye was young, but still probably older than me, since it was an 18-and-older night. Dirty blond hair, clean-shaven, eyes as wide as pie. From the giddy smile on the boy’s face, Seth’s magic appeared to be working on him. He looked like a walking John Deere tractor ad with his plaid, button-up shirt and boot-cut Levi’s. And he was completely over-the-moon for Seth, following his every gesture, hanging on his every word, swaying a little to the beat. I was watching Seth’s ritual seduction, only this time from the outside and aimed at someone else.
Could this be what Sabrina had wanted me to see?
But this was only an act for Seth. It was what he did as a performer. Like Elvis and any good front man, he worked the crowd into a sexual frenzy. It was part of Petty Crime’skitsch.So, even though my pulse was racing, and my panic was escalating, I hung back in the shadows and waited.
Finally, their solos were complete, and the last song ended. I expected to see the band wave and thank the crowd, then begin unhooking their amps and winding up cords, but instead, after Petty Crime’s usual send-off, Seth reached out to the blond boy and pulled him up on stage with one valiant tug. Seth whispered something close to his ear, and the boy’s eyes went wide. I knew Seth had just said something provocative to him because it was the same reaction he’d elicited from me.
My boyfriend was cheating on me, maybe had been for a while. My world was rapidly destabilizing, like straddling two shifting tectonic plates and trying to maintain balance. My lungs struggled to take in a whole breath, and my head was spinning. This was what Sabrina had wanted me to see. But why hadn’t she just told me herself? Perhaps she’d been afraid I might take my anger out on her.
Or Seth threatened her. That made me doubly upset.
“Hiroku, what’s going on?”
Mai had found me. Her hand was on my arm, and her eyes were full of concern. She must have seen it too.
The mist from the smoke machine made my eyes burn. My head throbbed, and I was having trouble focusing. I could walk away now and never know the truth. I could believe whatever excuse Seth told me—that boy was his dealer or his friend from way back or his fucking cousin. Take your pick; I’d believe any one of them.
But I owed myself to know the truth. During the gory scenes in a horror movie, I never looked away; I forced myself to watch. This wasn’t unlike that. If Seth was cheating on me, I wanted to see it with my own eyes.
“I need you to wait for me in the car,” I said to Mai.
Her eyebrows dipped even farther. “Are you sure?”
I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat. My fists were clenched at my sides, every muscle in my body taut and straining. Mai slowly backed away. I pulled off my hat and glasses and mounted the stage. “Where is he?” I said like the voice of death. Mitchell glanced up with a panicked look. Dean shook his head regretfully. Sabrina pointed in the direction of a closed door and mouthed silently, “I’m sorry.”
I stalked over to the door, knowing that whatever was behind it would change my life forever. The horrible monster waiting for me at the end of the darkened alleyway. I could still walk away and never know the truth. But then I’d always wonder if I was being lied to, and wouldn’t that be worse?
I opened the door to what was a large storage room and found the blond boy in the back corner on his knees, capitulated in front of Seth and doing for him what I’d done countless times before. Seth’s back was to me, but I could tell he was into it—ass pumping, moans erupting up from his throat like his soul was being torn from his body. His utterances were so musical, it was practically a song, and Seth was so captivated by the boy and what he was doing that he didn’t even notice me standing in the doorway.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away. The boy was practically choking on Seth’s dick while Seth’s hips rolled in time with his thrusts. Seth’s forearm was braced against the wall while his other hand gripped the boy’s head greedily. Fucking his face. I could see where Seth’s T-shirt had ridden up to expose his heart tattoo. How many times had I kissed that tattoo? How many times had I sucked that dick, whenever and wherever he wanted? I gave him everything—every part of me—to him and only him, and here he was giving himself away to a complete stranger.
The boy noticed me first, his cornflower blue eyes opening wide and darting in my direction, gaping mouth still wrapped around Seth’s cock. Seth realized the interruption and glanced down to see what had happened. Then his head and shoulders turned, and his gaze shifted toward me.
Caught.
He was caught, and he fucking knew it.
“Hiroku.” Seth pushed the boy off him and buttoned up, never taking his eyes off me.
I took off, running blindly past the stage, through the fogged room and out a side exit close to where Mai had parked on the street. The car was already running. Seth came tearing around the corner of the building as Mai pulled away without a word. Smooth as a criminal. My hands were shaking, mind racing, heart collapsing in my chest. I wanted to get as far away from Seth as possible, from what I’d seen, from the moment everything shattered like a glass trinket hitting the concrete.
I forced my gaze out the window so my sister wouldn’t see my devastation, but I couldn’t stop the tears from rolling silently down my cheeks. Thankfully, Mai didn’t ask any questions, just drove the speed limit and let me quietly fall apart in her passenger seat.
When we reached our house and pulled up to the curb, I uttered my first words to her about that night. “I’m so stupid…all this time.”
In the cloak of darkness across the center console of her reliable Honda Accord, my sister gripped me to her, tried and failed to hold me together.
