Page 63 of The Invisible Roommate

Gerard shrugged with the heftiness of confessions yet to be made on his shoulders. “If they’ve guessed, they haven’t said anything.”

“I only ask because,” Emory started, taking on an erudite tone, “if there’s a mental block between you and the people you’re playing music with, I venture to assume that this block disrupts the production of oxytocin during a usually oxytocin-producing activity. Perhaps I’d go even further to say that instead of producing oxytocin, the act of playing music with your brothers is producing higher levels of cortisol, which is a stress-response hormone.”

“First my cholesterol, now you’re concerned about my cortisol?” Bristling, Gerard felt overly pathologized. “Should I give you my insurance card so you have somewhere to send my bill?”

He expected to receive a sassy reply, but Emory, perhaps sensing Gerard was disguising hurt under snark, said simply, “Hypotheses must be tested to be proven. I’m sorry for speaking out of turn.”

The easy, sincere apology disarmed him. Not only that, but it made him want to hold Emory close and kiss him senseless. There was something supremely sexy about a man who could confidently apologize, and even if Emory was new to the concept like he was with guitar playing, he brought to it a genuine vigor that stirred Gerard’s emotions.

When a song they could play together popped into mind, Gerard offered Emory the capo on the table as an olive branch and instructed him to place it on the first fret. They tested the hypothesis. On a piece of scratch paper, Gerard wrote out the sequential chords E minor, G major, D major, and A major. Down, down, down, down, up was the beginner-level strumming pattern he taught Emory.

They drilled it until Emory got it without looking at the sheet.

The tune of the song teleported Gerard back to the time before We the Wells when success felt impossible, and loneliness was constant. The lyrics poured out of his open mouth without hesitation; his voice swerved overtop Emory’s relatively confident strums. The lyrics described walking lonely roads.

Gerard possessed none of the emo swagger Green Day’s front man was known for, but what he lacked in hard rock punchiness he made up for in pure connection to the lyrics. At one time, it was as if Billie Joe Armstrong had done an invasive procedure to extract Gerard’s innermost thoughts and feelings, making him less isolated in his loneliness, which he knew was oxymoronic.

For the most part, then, he kept his eyes closed, too focused on the simmering passion vibrating through him, but as he hit the last refrain, he delivered the line about wishing someone out there would find him directly to his guitar-strumming invisible roommate. Playing a song with someone was a bit like running a three-legged race; the music was a red bandana tied around their inside ankles. If they lost step with one another, they’d never make it to the finish, but Emory played a last resonant chord, and Gerard imagined fervent applause for them.

Gerard exhaled those old, dusty emotions unboxed by the song before registering how relaxed he was. Part of him had assumed revisiting that song would disprove Emory’s hypothesis, that anxiety would fire through him at unparalleled paces and tighten his vocal cords, causing his soft palate to clamp down and make high notes impossible. Rather, catharsis wrapped him in an unexpected bear hug.

“The data is in. The results align with the hypothesis,” Gerard admitted in a spent voice. “What’s the next step in the scientific method?”

Emory wordlessly slipped his hand in Gerard’s. The invisible heat and delightful softness of his palm grounded Gerard in the moment. “Communicate the results…”

Communicate. Of course. The one thing he couldn’t do without disclosing his location and being shuttled back to the spotlight before he was ready.

Beyond Halloween, he had to brace himself to rejoin reality. Iping might’ve felt more like reality than his celebrity life, but divorcing himself from it completely was a far-flung fantasy.

“I will. I’ll tell my brothers,” Gerard said finally, squeezing Emory’s hand back. “After Halloween and once we finish your song. I can’t leave until then.”

Obviously, Gerard couldn’t see Emory’s look of judgment over his loosey-goosey response, but he sensed it all the same. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to voice anything about his growing feelings for his roommate, his student, his cowriter, his partner in crime.

Gerard added, “I’ll think about what I want and the steps I need to take to reintegrate myself into society and come clean with my family, but for now…”

Playing one of his all-time favorite songs with Emory had whipped up his desire, only further proving the stated hypothesis about music fostering connection, so he suggested they relocate to the bed, where they fell into each other’s embrace and showered each other in slow, tender kisses.

29Emory

By Monday, Emory was no guitar hero, but he was ready to compose. He had the chords and the confidence to set his pen to paper, for real this time.

All he needed were the right words.

Good thing his cowriter had a couple of Billboard number ones under his belt.

“How are you hearing this?” Gerard sat forward, puzzling over Emory’s most-recent draft. The pen ink was still fresh, and it tattooed itself onto Gerard’s thumbs.

Nervous now, Emory strummed several grating chords in a row while singing way off-key. “Can I have stage fright if I’m not even onstage?”

Gerard laughed. His dreamy eyes had the intensity of a packed auditorium of rapt people combined with the gleam of a powerful spotlight. “You had no trouble playing ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams.’”

“That was different. I had no idea what song it even was.” After that, their pillow talk had consisted of an oral history of Green Day, the band itself, and its importance to We the Wells. Gerard spoke passionately but in hushed tones about musicianship and how that song had hoisted him out of hard times. As he shared these personal tidbits, Emory inched closer and closer until they were nose to nose, heads sharing one pillow. They kissed again until they fell asleep.

As it stood, Emory never wanted to dream without the taste of Gerard on his lips.

But that thought felt premature, much like he worried his orgasm would be if they ever finally did it. Already, there had been times where Gerard rocked his gym-toned ass against Emory’s statuesque cock while they kissed, and he sensed an unconscious unloading that he saved at the very last second through any means necessary. One time, he’d physically pushed Gerard off him to avoid the embarrassment of a mess. Thankfully, Gerard took this as a hot dominant move, not a last-ditch effort to hide his overeagerness.

“You should pretend I’m not here.” Gerard leaned back as if adding distance would make his stage fright all better.