“Are you sure?” Edgar’s smile turned skeezy. “You know, we’re pretty good on the dance floor.” He took two steps right up into Kelly’s personal space and put his hands on Kelly’s hips. “You, me—we could go out back and take a breather.”

  Kelly turned around fast enough to catch Edgar with his elbow. “No. Now fuck off. I’m gonna go say night to Vashti.”

  Vashti, who’d been buying the drinks, at least deserved Kelly’s respect.

  “Vashti! Man, I gotta go!”

  Vashti turned around and then shoved Kelly out of the way. Edgar stumbled by, his fist coming down, because apparently he’d been swinging at Kelly while his back was turned.

  “Classy,” Kelly muttered, tripping him so he’d go sprawling.

  Edgar hit the floor on his hands and knees, and Kelly turned back to his boss and friend. “Man, I gotta get out of here,” he begged. “Like… like now. Thanks for the drinks, but….” He was almost crying. Even Edgar’s warmth had felt inviting—and it hadn’t been invited in the least.

  His body was crying out for a lover’s touch, and here it was, for free in every corner of the dance floor. Only he couldn’t afford to take it.

  “Yeah.” Vashti scowled at Edgar and grabbed Kelly by the elbow, hauling him toward the door. “No worries. You want to go somewhere else?”

  Kelly shook his head. He did, but he didn’t want to tell Vashti where. “I’m gonna go home,” he said, his voice still projecting above the crowd. “Thanks for the drinks, man. So much. You’re a good friend.”

  Vashti gave him a crooked smile. “That’s nice of you to say, given my boyfriend just groped you without consent.” His smile faded. “Text me tomorrow. You can commiserate with me on being newly single.”

  Kelly closed his eyes and hugged his friend, hard.

  Hard enough for Vashti to feel what was going on in his tight jeans. Vashti pulled away with raised eyebrows and too much hope. “You, uh, sure you don’t want to, uh, commiserate with me?”

  Kelly shook his head and backed away. “Tomorrow!” he promised, and then ran from the club the same way he’d run into it.

  Like he was running from his problems and couldn’t go fast enough.

  Ever.

  The wait for the Uber gave him a chance to cool down, and he was almost coherent when the driver got to him.

  “A cheap hotel,” he said. “Someplace not gross. Just not home.”

  “Know a place,” the guy said. “Five-dollar ride, ninety-nine a night.”

  A chain hotel, near the airport—it was all Kelly needed. He checked in and practically ran for the room and slammed the door behind him as he stripped off his club clothes and jumped in the shower.

  His cock stayed hard in the shower, and he barely dried off. Just stripped down the bed and grabbed his phone, still naked, throwing himself on top of the sheets with the little bottle of complimentary lotion in his other hand.

  He didn’t even have time to open the lotion.

  He just closed his eyes, thought of Seth, grabbed his cock, and stroked.

  One, two, three, fuck! The first jets of come hit his chin, and he rolled to his side, still twitching, still hard, but now maybe a little bit more able to think.

  He took enough time for a couple of sobbing breaths, still shaking with the aftermath, with the need that had not stopped thrumming under his skin. Then he wiped his hands on the sheets, moved so his head was on the pillow at least, and texted Seth.

  What are you doing right now?

  Composing in my room. Seth was living in a boarding house of sorts with other musicians—and suddenly the time difference hit Kelly.

  You were up at four in the morning! Because that’s when he’d texted, right?

  Yeah. Woke up horny. Was thinking of you.

  Kelly’s strangled laugh rattled in the darkened hotel room.

  I’m naked and alone in a hotel room right now for the exact same reason.

  His phone buzzed in his hand—Skype.

  Kelly hit the picture with one hand and reached for the lamp by the side of the bed with the other. When the light came on, he looked into Seth’s sleepy-eyed gaze and smiled for the first time in three days. The tension bled out of his body in a rush, but the arousal remained.

  “Oh God,” Seth rasped. “Instant boner. Gimme a sec.”

  He set the phone down on his desk—Kelly could see the computer screen—and there was some rustling.

  When he came back, he was naked, and not just from the waist up. Kelly had caught a glimpse of his fattening cock before he’d picked up the phone.

  Kelly watched as Seth made himself comfortable on sheets that looked slept in but not soiled, and a part of him—the part that was forever cold when Seth had to leave—warmed again. Not up to core temperature, but enough that Kelly could breathe.

  Seth held the phone back so Kelly could get a look at him, and the look was good, but it was also a little less of him than Kelly liked seeing.

  “Getting skinny,” Kelly said softly.

  “Which is funny, ’cause I feel like all I do is eat.” Seth lowered the phone enough for Kelly to get a good look at his dear, dorky little grin. “You’re….” He bit his lip then, and a look of sorrow crossed his face.

  “What?” But Kelly knew. His mother never said it, but the portrait was still up in the living room.

  “You look more like your dad every day. I hope that’s okay. I… I mean, he’s the best guy I’ve ever known, so it’s like a huge compliment, right? I just… I can still see the parts of you that are just you. It’s weird.”

  Kelly’s smile had a bitterness he knew his father’s never had. “I think maybe you’re the only one who can see the just-Kelly parts. I think maybe everyone else sees who they want to see, but you see me. The parts that were Daddy’s, the parts that are Mom’s. And me.”

  Seth’s grin grew wolfish, and the sentiment of their conversation evaporated like steam. “Gonna show me all the parts that’re just you now?”

  Kelly chuckled, feeling dirty and gleeful. “Lots of me, covered in me right now,” he said, panning the phone across his body where spunk cooled in glossy puddles.

  “Started without me? ’Cause, uh, if I was there, I could lick that up for you.”

  The image behind Kelly’s eyes was drawn from those two weeks in Mendocino—when Seth had done that exact thing. He moaned breathily and stretched, bending his knees and exposing his whole body to the air.

  “You could, uh, move around while you did it. So you’re licking my abs, and I’m licking your dick, right?”

  Seth remembered too. “Wasn’t my dick that one time.”

  Oh God. They’d been on round two, and Seth’s backside had been gaping, dripping in come. It was one of the most erotic things Kelly could remember thinking, much less seeing… and tasting.

  “I’d do that to you right now,” Kelly told him. “I’d fuck you and fuck you and eat you out until you came again.”

  Just saying these things—filthy, forbidden—was enough to make Kelly’s cock flex, then splat again on his stomach.

  “And I’d take you to the back of my throat and lube you up with my fingers and—”

  “Nungh….”

  Kelly had bottomed—several times. The panic and the fear and the pain had been replaced with hunger, as long as it was Seth’s smell, Seth’s touch, Seth’s voice.

  That wonder, that discovery, arched his back, thrust his cock into his palm, made him grunt as he stroked.

  Made him need.

  “Put the phone down,” Seth ordered, and Kelly did it because Seth knew what he liked. “Suck on your fingers. Get them wet.”

  And then, while Kelly’s fingers were getting sucked and slobbered on, Seth detailed what he’d do to Kelly’s body the next time they were together, how he’d touch, what he’d lick, how he’d devour Kelly whole.

  His voice, smoky and aching and hungry in the dark, was as dominating as his presence on stage, as his presence in Kelly’s life, in his mind, in his heart every time else. He drove Kelly to thrust his fingers into his backside, to fuck his fist with the other hand, to scream out loud, every detail, every moment of what he was doing, what he wanted to be doing, how he craved Seth’s hands, his ass, his mouth, his cock—

  His cock.

  This explosion was bigger than the first one, starting from his toes and rolling to his taint, his asshole, his balls, his gut… his heart.

  He didn’t just cry out, he howled, shuddering, twitching, flailing.

  Needing.

  Finally, finally, the wave receded, and Seth was whispering into the phone.

  “You back with me?”

  “Barely,” Kelly whispered, bringing his hand up to his mouth. He couldn’t taste Seth—he wanted to taste himself.

  “Gonna show me?”

  Kelly chuckled. So dirty. Like twelve-year-olds. Well, maybe not Seth. Seth hadn’t known sex until he’d looked at Kelly and seen him.

  Kelly showed his hand, covered in white cream, and deliberately licked it off. Seth gave a grunt, then a moan, and as Kelly watched his face avidly in the phone, a shot of clear liquid hit his chin and spattered across his cheek.

  Oh.

  “Show me,” Kelly whispered, sucking on the webbing between his thumb and forefinger.

  Seth did, looking him gravely in the eyes through fiber optics and thousands of miles.

  Oh Lord.

  His eyes….

  Kelly shuddered again, in letdown, and sank into the bed, not even bothering to wipe away the decadence of the last half hour.

  Even the smell of his come permeating the air felt like a release.

  “Happy birthday to me,” he said, feeling comfortable in his skin for the first time in weeks.

  “That wasn’t even the real present,” Seth told him, breathless and happy.

  “Wasn’t that the flowers?” Kelly frowned, puzzled, and Seth’s shy, dorky smile made its appearance again.

  Derp. There went Kelly’s heart, dropping down the tunnel, in love with him as he always was. It was like every time he could see the landscape of the world without Seth, he’d actually talk to Seth, and the world would shake him into wonderland, where love existed, all over again.

  “Naw. I told you I wanted to tell you something. You still have your passport?”

  Kelly had gotten it when he’d helped Seth get his. Poor Seth—all the things he’d needed. He might have space-cadeted himself right out of Italy if Craig and Kelly hadn’t stepped in and helped him get his paperwork done.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, like, I’ve got this conductor, right? And he’s super rich, like, ‘a different house on three continents’ rich. And he’s going to New York for three months and….”

  And Seth explained what he wanted to do, and Kelly’s heart—which had felt cramped and claustrophobic and small and angry since watching Seth disappear on a plane in August—took a great big deep breath and began to soar.

  HE SHOWERED again and caught another Uber after that. For a moment, he thought about calling Vashti but decided against it.

  Vashti had been a good friend, but not a great one.

  Kelly thought they needed a little talk.

  His mom was up watching television when he got home. Something dark and noir with lots of bodies and a cynical hero—the girls hated detective shows, and this was her chance to watch what she liked.

  “Hey, sweetheart.” She smiled tiredly as he walked in. “Good night dancing?”

  “Mm. Best part of the night was talking to Seth afterward.”

  “Seth?”

  “I, uh, called him. Missed him.” He spent a lot of time not talking about Seth, but the family knew.

  “Yeah? How is he?”

  “He’s great. He’s got… well, he’s sort of wondering if we can, you know, all….”

  She had some tweaks to add to the plan—some of them surprising, some of them thoughtful.

  But while they talked, Kelly sat on the couch and leaned his head against her, grateful for the soft woman smell of his mommy, the acceptance, and now, hearing her plan about an opportunity she’d never have thought of, the joy.

  He wanted to ask about her and Seth’s dad and tell her it was okay, but he was just so grateful, this night. It could have ended disastrously. There were so many bad choices he could have made. But the ones he did make were leading him where he wanted to go.

  “This sounds so good.” He let out a sigh. “So good. I can’t believe Seth put all this together.”

  “I can, baby. That boy loves you.”

  “Yeah, but for how long?” Oh. Oh no. He hadn’t meant to make his voice that bitter. “I mean, you know, I don’t know how long I’ll be—”

  “Lily and Lulu graduate in two and a half years,” she said, her voice as level as he’d ever heard it. “Tell him until then. Tell yourself until then.”

  “But Mommy—school, rent, Agnes, Chloe—”

  She gave a short laugh. “Don’t you think Seth will want to take Chloe with him, if it’s possible?” she asked gently. “And the girls are already working toward scholarships. They’ll have jobs. They can help me pay rent after you move out.” He saw the flush under her dusky skin. “And you know, I might not be alone forever.” Her smile—warm and weary and so welcome—came back, and she started to play with his hair, like she had when he’d been a child. “You’ve been my brave little man for a long time, Kelly. So much longer than you should have. But I need you to have a life and a future. Seth? He’s everything you deserve in life, mijo. If you can care for Chloe, give her a home where she’s her daddy’s shining star, you will have given everything I could ask for, you think?”

  Kelly bit his lip and let his mother offer him this. An end. A light at the end of the tunnel. A ready-made family in a faraway place, wherever Seth landed. A chance to be with the man he loved.

  “KELLY! I thought you weren’t coming in today! I was going to call you after my shift.”

  Kelly looked at his boss and friend grimly. “Vashti, you and me need to talk.” He kept walking, past Raven, who was putting together a very pretty Christmas display, and past Julia and Callum, who were both being absurdly gentle with an aging queen who had trouble sitting down, much less trying on the boots she’d made up her mind to wear.

  Vashti didn’t even ask him where he was going. They blew through the store and didn’t stop until they hit the washer and drier, where Kelly crossed his arms and scowled.

  “What?” But Vashti looked away. “This isn’t about Edgar, is it? Because I broke up with him last night.”

  “And I appreciate that,” Kelly conceded. “I also appreciate the trip to the club, and the drinks, and the way you had my back.”

  “But why—”

  “I appreciated everything except the come-on.”

  Vashti froze, a guilty grimace on his face. “Yeah. That was in… poor taste.”

  “I thought we were over this. I mean technically, you hadn’t even broken up with Edgar by then!”

  “I….” Vashti let out a sigh. “Look, Edgar was a… a trophy, you understand? A prop. Sure, he was an asshole, but I just wanted someone to prove to you that I moved on after Andre! You… you let me talk to you when I’m dating someone. You go out with me. You relax and be my friend—”

  “But it’s pretty shitty to just pretend to be my friend when you want to get in my pants!”

  “I’m not pretending to be anything!” Vashti retorted. “You are just… prickly. You don’t let anybody in. You just hide behind your fake boyfriend—”

  “My fake boyfriend?” Kelly tilted his head. “Who was it whining about all the time I took off this summer to see my fake goddamned boyfriend!”

  “You know what I mean!” Vashti yelled, pushing away from the washer where he’d been leaning and pacing.

  “No, I don’t. Enlighten me.”

  “You’ve been having a long-distance relationship since I’ve known you, Kelly. What’s it been? Three and a half years? Who does that? Who does long distance for their prime sex-life years? What kind of bullshit—”

  “He can’t come home!” The words were ripped out of Kelly’s chest, because Vashti didn’t know what he was dealing with—the sudden PR push about Castor Durant’s cold case, the social movement against the evils of the “liberal lifestyle,” the five-year anniversary of Castor’s death—all together in the same pot. Kelly had to smell that shit simmering every day. “He can’t! Don’t you get it? He can’t. My brother will use his presence to take his daughter back, and that’s bad fucking news. My brother’s stupid father-in-law is a god-awful human being, and he’s got connections that will fuck up Seth’s life for good if shows his face. He visits, and he’s got to stay in his apartment the whole time, because our entire neighborhood knows what he looks like, and we don’t want word to get out. So I can’t fucking leave, Vashti, and he can’t fucking come home.”

  “So what? You’re stuck in limbo? You don’t get a life? You go stepping and fetching whenever this guy calls your name? I don’t get it! You’re… you’re so vital, Kelly! So alive! So fierce! Don’t you deserve more than to date a ghost?”

  “A ghost?” Kelly could still hear Seth’s voice, smoky with passion, in the darkness of the hotel room. “Seth is more there for me halfway across the world than you are right here in this room. Do you know he’s been sending my family money? This whole time! He’s getting recording contracts and performance gigs, and he dresses like a homeless person and eats peanut butter and jelly so my little sisters can go on science field trips and trips to Ashland to see plays!”

  “That’s great, but what’s he doing for—”

  “And he’s paying for my entire family to go to Tuscany!” Kelly belted it, not even because he was angry but because he couldn’t contain his joy. “Five weeks in Italy, Vashti—and you can give me the time off in two months or you can fire me, but you’re not fucking stopping me.”

  Vashti dropped his chin to his chest and rubbed the back of his neck. “Goddammit, Kelly. How is a guy going to compete with that?”