“You weren’t supposed to compete with that!” Kelly’s shoulders drooped. “You were supposed to be my friend and be happy for me. That’s what you were supposed to do.”

  “I’ll have to hire someone to take your place!” Vashti whined, and Kelly shrugged. The store was notorious for turnover. He wasn’t particularly worried. He knew every vendor for a three-block radius—and most of them would be happy to have him on board.

  “If they’re still working here when I get back, I’ll have to find somewhere else to work until I graduate.” He was on track for two and a half more years, actually, because some of the classes needed for his computer graphics degree only rolled around once every year or so. His degree. His freedom. All of it. All at the same time. Him and Seth together—he could almost taste it.

  Tuscany would be a sampling of that freedom.

  The next two years would be appetizers and wine.

  But the rest of his life with Seth was about to be their breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and he could hardly wait.

  Vashti let out a sigh. “I… I don’t know if I can be your friend and your boss with how I feel about you,” he said at last. “I mean… I won’t be a douchebag at work, but, Kelly, I can’t keep being your dance bae either.”

  It hurt. Kelly wouldn’t lie. “I was never gonna be yours,” he said plainly. “I’m sorry that hurts too much. I really liked having you as a friend.”

  And he walked toward the connecting door to the store, just like that.

  “Kelly… wait!”

  Kelly turned around, and Vashti shrugged. “Movies Sunday? Forget all that shit I just said. I broke up with Edgar, and I really fucking need a friend.”

  Kelly nodded. “I can do that.”

  Vashti’s lean, pretty face lightened in a smile. “So you’ll get me something in Tuscany, right?”

  “A T-shirt in the airport?”

  “Aw, man, fuck you!”

  Kelly grinned. “Nope. You’ll be lucky if you get the T-shirt.”

  “I’ll keep hoping for a snow globe. I mean, a guy can dream.”

  And Kelly hoped that was all he’d dream about, because Kelly had hope now. So much hope. His life was just beginning. He knew it.

  TWO AND a half months later, Kelly stood naked on a porch in Tuscany.

  Seth’s conductor friend wasn’t just nice—he was stinking rich too. His “house” was a villa along a private beach. A crisp breeze blew off the water, only to be heated by the sun on the white sand beneath the landing. Succulents and yarrow dotted the beach, and the smell was different here—richer with grapes and flowers that were different from the yarrow in Monterey or the redwoods and ferns in Mendocino.

  Italian salt air, he and Seth called it, but God, the ocean still roared beneath his feet and the sense of freedom here—it wasn’t going away.

  His mom had been the one to suggest Kelly go first and spend three weeks there alone with Seth. They’d spent five weeks total—two touring Florence, Venice, and Rome and three at the villa. Seth had performances during those first two weeks. Kelly had been alone, blissfully alone, taking walking tours of the Coliseum, Pompeii, museum after museum after castle.

  He’d sketched everything for the first couple of days, but after looking at his hand work, after three years on the computer, he’d started to realize that about the only thing he drew well by hand was his family.

  And Seth.

  But he didn’t care. He drew it anyway, just to prove that he, Kelly Cruz, had gotten on a plane by himself and journeyed to a place so far beyond Sacramento that people at home didn’t believe it existed.

  He took every pamphlet in English that he could manage, and he looked up every story he could find on his phone.

  And for three nights in those weeks, he made it back in time to put on a tuxedo and sit in Seth’s little-used box seat and listen to his man make the music of the gods.

  Seth wasn’t “on tour” or “on a graduate program” in Italy—whatever they’d said to him to get him to come, he’d either misunderstood or blatantly lied.

  Seth was a headliner in Italy. He was their star attraction. His name was on the motherfucking marquee.

  Apparently his conductor had bought him three tuxedos and had them dry cleaned—for all Kelly knew it had been part of his contract once the poor man realized Seth could barely dress himself.

  But no wonder Seth had the money to send for the entire family.

  And seriously, leave it to Seth to eat PB&J for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and save up enough money to fly Kelly’s whole damned family in and out.

  Kelly had already started on a letter to thank the conductor. Seth said that was probably a good idea since he’d had to convince the guy he couldn’t sleep with him because he had a boyfriend.

  “I thought he was married! With a family!”

  “Yeah, but he’s bi, and apparently his wife and lovers are fine with it,” Seth said, shrugging. “I’m not sure if it’s Italy that’s weird or just music people in Italy or maybe these particular music people in Italy. Whatever. He was disappointed, but then I told him about you guys, and he asked if I wanted to invite you over. I offered to rent the place, but he said just to pay the maid, since she was doing groceries and laundry and stuff. So, you know, if you could help remind me to give Rosa a fuckton of money, that would be great, because she’s a really nice lady, and I don’t want to screw her over.”

  Kelly had gaped at him when he’d explained the sitch—as Seth was showing him around, after the last of his performances. The place itself was a marvel of cherry wood and giant wraparound windows, and for a moment, Kelly was sort of depressed.

  “It’s pretty and all,” he said, looking out over the ocean. “But, you know, how’re we gonna…?” He didn’t make the time-honored finger-in-the-hole gesture, but he might as well have.

  Seth had come up behind him, draping his warm body along Kelly’s back. “Nobody can see us,” he murmured. “See that path down to the ocean?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s private. The only people who should be on that beach are attached to this villa. So, yeah. When your family gets here, we need to be done, but until then….”

  Kelly had turned in his arms. “We can fuck like… like….”

  “Like Seth and Kelly on holiday, I hope!”

  And so they had.

  It was Mendocino all over again, with swimming, even though it wasn’t summer yet. They sat on the beach and rubbed lotion all over and ran up to the villa to have sex. Sex actually on the beach sounded great, but they’d learned their lesson in Mendocino. Sand. Everywhere.

  They would walk into town and shop and hold hands and then go back for lunch.

  And hey—more sex.

  Voracious and naked and free.

  And talking. No moment was too small. No irritation, no joy. The whole story of Kelly’s birthday came out, and Seth just held him and listened. Seth showed him pictures that he’d held back—a group of friends, male and female.

  Another Guthrie stared at him with limpid green eyes and a sort of frustrated sadness.

  Kelly looked at Seth’s phone over the dinner table as they sat side by side wearing nothing but robes, and tapped the face, making it bigger. “Do I need to walk away?” he asked, completely serious.

  Seth understood what he was asking. “No. He’s kind, but I’ve kept my distance.” The pain he’d worn when talking about Guthrie—who had come out, and written Seth immediately because his father had stopped talking to him—crossed his face. “I… can’t do that again. It hurts.”

  Kelly stroked his hand, the bronze-toned skin supple and smooth, because he might forget to eat but he always remembered his cocoa butter. “The stupid thing about living our lives like this is that… that it becomes Kelly’s life and Seth’s life—and it’s only our lives for a little while.” Seth turned his palm up, and Kelly laced their fingers together. “Mommy said it would be just until the girls graduate. She said….” He swallowed and smiled hopefully, because he loved his niece too. “She said we could take Chloe with us if we wanted. If you want.”

  Seth’s slow smile was all he could ask for. “There’s schools,” he said unexpectedly. “I… you know. Talk about Chloe a lot. Amara said there’s schools back in the Bay Area. So, you and me, we could move there and get her enrolled and….” He bit his lip. “Live together. Do you think we could live together? I mean, it wouldn’t be all sex and vacation like now.”

  Kelly smiled through blurry vision. “I would love to be boring on a Friday night with you,” he said. “I would love to work a job, any job, and come home and get Chloe from her special school and take her to see you perform. I would… every way I think of us together, it makes me happy.”

  “You’d have to nag me,” Seth said seriously. “I keep ending up living in places where people take care of me. Remember my apartment in Vacaville? I used to forget to take out the garbage and clean the toilet.”

  Kelly laughed softly. “Seth, how much money do you make?”

  Seth shrugged. “I got no idea. I have sort of an agent. Gianni found her for me. She puts the money in the bank, and Dad tells me when he takes something out. There’s always enough for what I need, you know?”

  Kelly rolled his eyes so far back in his head, it almost hurt. “You know, I’m pretty sure we could hire a maid. Just saying. You’re a world-class soloist—you get that, right? What little kids want to be when they pick up a bow, you’re that!”

  Seth cocked his head, wrinkling an entire side of his face. “No,” he said, absolutely positive. “’Cause when I started at Bridgford, they told me that a good musician doesn’t get that good until they hit their thirties, at the very least. So I haven’t even peaked. We’ll have to wait another ten years to hire a maid.”

  He was totally and completely serious, and Kelly wasn’t sure whether to cry or to bang his head against the table or to kiss him, through ice cream and coffee, and possess him, completely, over the kitchen table.

  He did the kitchen table thing—it was a sturdy piece of furniture, and it held up terrifically.

  And he didn’t have to explain to his lover that Seth was the giant who walked with his feet among the stars and his head in the clouds and that Kelly was the mortal who climbed the money-stalk every so often just to visit his world.

  Kelly loved him. God, sometimes it just had to be that simple.

  Today, with the family arriving in three more days, and the clock ticking in the back of their minds—always, always the clock—Kelly was going to let it be that simple.

  He stared out at the sea with the cocoa butter next to him, grabbed a fingerful and reached behind him, allowing the breeze and the sun to play on his skin as he let his fingers play around his orifice, burning, stretching, filling.

  Knowing Seth was behind him, sitting at his desk for a moment to do some composing, where he would look up and see Kelly, pleasuring himself.

  And if he didn’t look up?

  That was okay too, because Kelly was truly pleasuring himself. He was celebrating how wonderful this felt, the freedom from the fear this act might have brought him once, how much his body felt like his, so much like his that he would give it to Seth without inhibition.

  He heard a sudden intake of breath. A gasp. An “Oooooooooooh….” on the exhalation, and turned his face to the dazzling sky.

  Three… two… one….

  Seth’s hands were shaking too hard to be gentle, but Kelly didn’t need that, not now. He was bent roughly over, his hands gripping the wooden railing, his ass thrust out, as Seth breached him and surged inside, his breadth stretching, his length stuffing, his body the most welcome of invaders.

  Kelly let out a cry—happiness, triumph, pure sex—and begged.

  “God, Seth, took you long—enough!”

  Hard. Seth liked to fuck hard, and Kelly liked it too. They liked it all, hard and fast, soft and slow, the heavy-duty power fuck.

  His body would never tire of having Seth’s inside him, and Seth would bend over and plead for Kelly as often as he could.

  But not now.

  Now Seth was taking over, fucking him from the inside out, and Kelly was disintegrating, flying outward, soaring over the ocean under the sun. His body was life and sex and hope—and Seth, human music, playing his soul like the violin.

  Frayed and Broken

  Two and a half years later…

  LATE. SETH was late.

  Kelly frowned at his phone in annoyance. Seth had needed to attend an out-of-town engagement right before Agnes’s appearance in the high school play. It wasn’t a big deal, really, but Seth had such a stellar record of sneaking into these things, holding Chloe, taking them out to dinner, and then sneaking away—often with Kelly to his apartment in San Francisco—that the lateness seemed out of character.

  But then, so had Seth’s excessive workload, until Kelly had gotten shitty with him the night before.

  So you’re in New York again but you’ll be here?

  Yes.

  Do you need me to walk away? Kelly had been kidding, mostly. It was their code, every time they saw somebody in the photo record who showed up a lot, or who seemed… interested in the other person. It was a way to ask, politely, if there was anything to be worried about without getting stupid and mad and jealous, and as codes went, it wasn’t bad.

  Kelly’s sentence was almost up, and he wanted Seth more than ever. Every text, every Skype, every cheap hotel for privacy and phone sex—all of it had been worth it. Kelly was almost free, and Seth had been saving for a house, browsing the property outside of San Francisco with an idle eye.

  But New York kept calling.

  Kelly figured Seth wouldn’t know he knew, but Craig was over at their house almost every night, and the semisecret affair he carried on with Kelly’s mother was becoming less and less semisecret every day. He’d been the one to tell Kelly—on a note of frustration—that the opportunity to play first chair in David Geffen Hall didn’t come along more than once in a lifetime and he wished Seth would listen to reason.

  Kelly had swallowed, biting his lower lip, for once—oh God, just this once—unable to put Seth’s career first.

  Craig had rolled his eyes. “Do you think he wouldn’t bring you and Chloe with him? You can get a job as a graphic designer in New York as easy as you can get one in San Francisco.”

  Kelly had gasped then. “But… but family….” Because being farther away had not once—not once—occurred to him, not in the last interminable years.

  “Jesus, Kelly, you and Seth have managed a perfectly functional relationship for the last eight years. Do you think we’re going to just go away if you move to New York?”

  But Seth hadn’t mentioned anything, in spite of an increasing number of short trips to appear there as a soloist.

  So the question—Do you need me to walk away—had been facetious, but he’d pulled it out because he wanted the truth. Sometimes Seth really was that flaky. Sometimes he just depended on everybody’s acceptance of his silence to not talk about the stuff that made him uncomfortable. It was the same tactic he pulled when money came up and Linda and Kelly looked at their taxable income versus what they spent and realized that Seth had been funneling the equivalent of Kelly’s entire income into the Cruz family coffers, with his father’s silent, capable help.

  They still hadn’t had that conversation, and Kelly wasn’t sure they ever would.

  Seth’s answer had been typical Seth.

  Because why? Who am I dating besides you?

  Kelly had sent back a picture of Seth with his violin. It was the only new thing Seth owned besides his tuxedos. He’d gotten it from a master craftsman in Italy, and he’d confessed, red-faced, that it had its own seat when he flew.

  He’d named it Chloe.

  Seth’s answer was satisfyingly fervent. No! I’m sorry! I’m just trying to put by some money so we can look at houses after your graduation!

  Oh!

  Well, that would have been good to know before I got all butthurt, wouldn’t it!

  Sorry! I didn’t want you to worry.

  Of course he didn’t.

  Well, relax a little. I don’t need a house. Just you.

  But he knew it did no good. Seth felt… guilty. Not about Castor Durant so much as about not being there. It didn’t help to tell him that he needed to go out into the world. It didn’t help to remind him of his gift—his glorious gift—that would be languishing, unnourished, unappreciated, if he’d stayed in his father’s apartment and lived the life Kelly had. He had an obsession with having left the Cruz family when they’d needed somebody, and Kelly hadn’t been able to convince him that the world needed him too.

  But they were going to be together soon, and they’d be raising Chloe, and Kelly had jobs lined up in San Francisco, and their world—their world was going to be bright as the sun.

  And as much as he loved his sisters, his mother, even his friends and his hometown, every breath until then felt like he was trapped in a white stucco cube.

  They were so close—so damned close.

  And this was closing night of Agnes’s play, and Seth was late, and Kelly was twitchy. Damned twitchy.

  He just kept waiting for his world to explode again.

  Craig was sitting on his left, and he looked at Kelly’s phone and frowned. “Anything?” he whispered, and Kelly shook his head.

  Nope.

  Nothing yet.

  On his other side, Chloe tried hard not to squirm in her pretty dress. “Seth?”

  “He should be here,” Kelly told her, thinking this was stupid. One delayed flight did not a disaster make. But the whole family was looking around, eyes darting, twitchy as hell.

  Unbidden, Kelly’s mind was brought back to that long-ago night when he and Matty had been peering outside the curtain, looking for their father, and Seth had been hoping his wouldn’t show up.

  The world was a funny, twisted place, he thought bitterly. Matty had come and gone. Sometimes he’d show up with small gifts for Chloe, always looking like a hundred miles of bad road. They’d learned just to ask him in, to feed him, to take what he could give.