“Otis, is it true you blacked out during sound check?”
The questions came hard and fast, some circling the truth, while others were outrageous enough to make me want to chuckle. The temptation to answer was there, but with our manager otherwise engaged, we behaved ourselves, walking through the noise like it couldn’t touch us.
Tatum would have enough on her hands with Otis’s stunt.
No need to make it worse.
“Harvey, is it true Lainey Lincoln broke things off with you because she caught you and Otis together in the green room?”
That one almost got a reaction out of me, but seriously, what the fuck? Lainey had never been anything official, and as far as I knew, our hookups weren’t common knowledge. So either these people were making things up to fish for real gossip, or Lainey had been more invested in our arrangement than I thought.
I hoped, for her sake, it was the first one, because I knew Tatum wouldn’t hesitate to come for her again. Our little manager was a brawler.
I knew from Lainey’s makeup artist that it had taken a metric shit-ton of makeup to cover the black eye Tatum had given her.
She wasn’t a bad person, and she hadn’t really deserved to get hit, but those two had been set to blow up for a while, and I hoped they could come to some kind of truce now that they’d had it out.
As soon as we were clear of the crowd, Otis brushed my hand and inclined his head to the side. My heart stuttered as a deeply ingrained part of me stood up and demanded we avoid the coming discussion. If we didn’t face it, it never happened, right? I was just another normal guy, going about his day.
But the truth was, we did need to talk, if for no other reason than that not talking had led my best friend to drown his feelings for the last few weeks. He deserved better than my bitch ass running from him again.
We wove between buses, trucks, and the various vehicles that made up our road train until the darkness closed in and the voices of the crowd faded into the night.
Tucking my hands into my jeans pockets, I leaned against the door of a random van. Otis righted a milk crate that had been abandoned in the dust and sat. He jumped to his feet a moment later. He paced the small space, rubbing his hands together like the friction was energizing his movements. This wasn’t the Otis I knew. His quiet confidence was something I’d always envied, and it wasn’t until I saw him stripped of it that I realized how much I’d relied on it.
“So…” I started, having no idea how to finish the sentence.
“So,” he agreed, finally choosing to mirror my pose against the van.
“It’s been a fucking night, huh?” My attempt at levity came out flatter than three-day-old soda.
Otis didn’t bother humoring me with a laugh, instead watching me closely, like he could read my mind if he concentrated hard enough.
A dog barked somewhere out in the night. I pulled my jacket around myself more tightly as a cold breeze filtered between the vehicles around us.
“What happened back there?”
There was no accusation in the question. Just a quiet curiosity that shouldn’t have scared me as much as it did, because I still wasn’t ready to admit the answer to that to myself, let alone to him. But this wasn’t only about me, and I was getting really tired of the person I’d been.
“I didn’t like him touching you.”
He grunted, and I couldn’t tell whether he thought I was bullshitting, or if he was calling me on my cowardice.
“He shouldn’t have kissed you,” I tried.
“Ikissedhim. I pulled him onstage.Mychoice. And if I’d chosen to take him backstage and fuck him, that would have been my choice too. Now tell me why you think that’s not okay.”
“Because…” There was no because. Sweat gathered under my collar as Otis’s eyes shone up at me. This was too much, too real. What was I doing?
“Do you hate the idea of me being gay?”
“No.”
“Is it because you know I’m in love with you?”
You’re drunk. You don’t know what you’re saying.
Some very small, sensible part of me bit the words back before they could escape and completely decimate the man in front of me. The truth was that I had known, or at least suspected,for a while. No one put up with the bullshit that comes with a loser like me unless they were crazy or infatuated. Or both. When I saw his interest in Tatum, I’d been equal parts relieved and jealous. It meant I could avoid being Harvey, the former fat kid who was a little too interested in his best friend, and could continue being Harvey—sex addict and all-around asshole.
