He opened his eyes and kept walking to NACA.
It was still a couple of hours ‘til showtime, and so there really weren’t many people there. Mikey, of course, slipped in the side door and, as soon as he was inside, the usual wave of nostalgia washed over him. He’d thought when he first came back here the feeling would abate with time but, if anything, it just seemed to grow more acute. Faced with the possibility the Center would either close or at the very least be updated, he was yearning for a past he could never regain.
I must be getting nostalgic in my old age,he thought, then laughed at the idea of someone in their late twenties claiming to be in old age.
He made his way through the halls of the Center until he got to the stage. The band had already set up, and everything was set for sound check.
Except, of course, Luke Carter was nowhere to be found.
Damn it,Mikey thought.I swear if Luke doesn’t show up to this concert I am going to hunt him down and drag him back here.
Luke, though, chose that moment to come striding in, looking even more devilishly handsome than usual. He was dressed in a simple outfit of a tight pink T-shirt, dark wash blue jeans, and cowboy boots, and Mikey was glad he wasn’t wearing a white shirt like he usually was. The last thing they needed was to show up looking like twins.
Somehow the simplicity of what he was wearing just made him look even sexier. Or perhaps it was the way the shirt clung to each and every muscle–including his biceps, which seemed to be stretching the poor thing to the breaking point–or perhaps it was the way the jeans hugged his hips in just the right way to showcase his thick thighs…
Okay, keep it in your pants until after the concert,he thought.
No matter how hard Mikey tried to distract himself from the handsome sexiness of Luke, however, the dirty thoughts kept intruding, reminding him of what it had been like to see and feel Luke out of those clothes.
Luke gave him a faint smile, and Mikey started grinning like an idiot.
Luke, though, didn’t say anything more than that, and for the rest of the setup–in fact, all the way through soundcheck–Mikey found himself wondering whether Luke was going to sayanythingto him before they did their performance.
Finally, though, he came up to him and looked him up and down. At first, Mikey thought Luke was giving him one of hispatented judgmental looks, but then he realized something else was going on. That strange little light was back in his eyes. When he looked more closely, however, it was gone, and he was left wondering if he’d imagined the whole thing.
“Break a leg out there tonight,” Luke said. “I hope it goes well for both of us.”
Mikey couldn’t help but shake his head.
“Thanks,” he said, but Luke was already walking away.
Then the last-minute preparations were under way and, before he quite knew what was happening, the concert was about to start.
He peeked out from behind the curtains at the auditorium, and he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The whole place was packed, with every seat filled, and there were more people crowding in. His eyes flicked up to the balcony, and he saw they were filled, too.
Holy shit,he thought.That’s a lot of people.
Of course, Mikey was used to playing to much larger crowds, but even so, there was something humbling about seeing so many people gathered in NACA. He was pretty sure the place hadn’t seen a crowd like this in far too long, and it made him happy to think he might play a part in saving NACA from the demolition that would surely have been the result if they hadn’t managed to pull this off.
Now comes the hard part,he thought.We actually have to sing.
As soon as he stepped out on the stage and heard the roar of the crowd, though, he felt himself swept away. He was taken back to the fateful day a decade ago when he’d given his first performance on this very stage. He’d come a long way since then–of course he had–but in some ways he was still that teenager just trying to figure out his way through life.
You made it,he thought.
Luke came on from the other side of the stage and, if anything, the roars of the crowd got even louder. Mikey tried not to be too jealous. Luke was a hometown boy who still lived here, while he was still a bit of an interloper. It was only fair Luke would get the louder acclaim.
And, truth be told, he wouldn’t have traded the beaming look on Luke’s face for anything in the world. This was the happiness Luke deserved, and Mikey was genuinely happy for him.
They both approached their mics and, after a bit of uncertainty over who was going to speak first, Luke took the lead.
“How we doin’ tonight, everybody?” he shouted.
The response was almost deafening.
“That’s what I like to hear!” Luke shouted back at them. “Are you ready for Mikey and me to play yinz some music?”
Again, the roar of a crowd more than ready for the performance to start.
