He wasn’t alone, marooned in a coffee-deprived center of Europe. There was a sympathetic baritone out there who had his back. Not quite sobbing with relief, he responded immediately.

  Thank you. Your support means so much to me, especially now! I’m going through a terrible time over here.

  After he added a suitably sappy emoticon and pushed “send,” he realized the message had not come from a known number. Slowing down this time, he typed another message.

  Your name isn’t showing up in my contacts. Who is this?

  He pressed send, then shifted mental gears to solve his transportation issues. Before he made it to the information counter, however, his phone dinged again.

  Adam stopped mid-stride and dug it out of his jeans’ pocket to have a look.

  I am your driver. Come out door 2 and look for a red Skoda.

  Embarrassment warred with relief as he pocketed his phone and headed for the one of the many glass doors. The good news was, they sent him a driver. The bad news—he couldn’t tip him until he could communicate with his bank, or unless he could break a big bill from his emergency fund.

  * * *

  Martin put his phone away and grinned. It looked like the star singer and lead guitarist of Sylvan Breeze had a rough morning. He had all of their music memorized, he knew all their YouTube videos by heart, and now he wondered what Adam Vanek would be like in person.

  Adam’s voice always made his stomach flip-flop, as though the American stranger was signing to him personally. The conceit was, of course, ridiculous. Adam had probably never heard of Martin, nor of his percussion obsession. There was no reason for him to know that Martin had played with folk groups from Iceland to Mongolia, nor that the hammer dulcimer his grandfather had built for him was now surrounded by a collection of percussion instruments from around the world.

  When Martin found out that Sylvan Breeze’s rhythm guy broke his arm in London, he was all too happy to double up his gigs and make use of his skills.

  Not that he needed the exposure—but he’d get to play with his internet crush. Which is why he was now circling the short-term parking, hoping to pick up the amazing and almost-legendary Adam Vanek without scoring a ticket.

  On his next crawl past the passenger pick-up area, his eyes honed onto to a tall, blond figure with a duffle bag and a guitar. He pulled over, turned on the hazards, and jumped out. “Adam?”

  When Adam turned to him, Martin waved him over, and opened the rear door. “Hurry up! I’m not allowed to park here!”

  Adam jogged over, tossed his duffle in the back, carefully set his guitar on top of it, then turned and attempted to shake his hand.

  “Hurry, hurry!” Martin saw a police car creep in their direction.

  They darted for their doors, hopped in and buckled up.

  The police car flashed its lights, and Martin got his idling car in gear and pulled away from the curb. “Sorry,” he said. “Parking here is impossible.” He glanced at Adam. “You have no suitcase?”

  “I do. It’s in Lisbon right now.” Adam let out a long, controlled exhale, and sank into his seat. “Thank you for picking me up,” he said slowly. “My name is Adam.”

  Martin turned to him while driving, offering his hand. “I’m Martin Sklar,” he chirped. “I’m your new drummer.”

  Adam’s shook his, letting go right away, presumably so Martin could drive. That was kind of too bad, because Martin would’ve eagerly traded down to an automatic transmission car, just to be able to hold Adam’s hand for a while longer.

  His warm, smooth palm.

  His long fingers, so skilled and sensuous on the guitar. Adam’s callused finger-pads were a testimony to his dedication to music.

  With his peripheral vision, Martin saw Adam shift in his seat and rearrange his long limbs to have a better look at him. He felt heat rise up his neck and to his cheeks. Being carefully studied by his idol made it hard to pay attention to the convoluted traffic patterns.

  “Oh. Okay.” Adam wrung his hands. “I take it they sent you because you’re the newest member of the band?” He was looking ahead now, and a glance told Martin that Adam was gripping the sissy strap above the door pretty hard.

  “Oh, no! I insisted.” He downshifted, letting the engine rev before he switched lanes and passed a trailer that had been slowing the traffic in their lane. “And I am not in your band, not really. I am only volunteering for the duration of the festival.”

  He felt, rather than saw, Adam’s head whirl back toward him. “Volunteering?”

  “Yes,” Martin said happily. “I’m a big fan.”

  There was no mistaking Adam’s groan. In retrospect, Martin realized his error. No luggage, no drummer, a festival far away from home—and one of the band’s key positions was being filled by an unknown entity who was “a big fan.” Martin swallowed hard. “Don’t worry,” he said, trying not wince. “I know all your songs, and I know how to drum a little bit.” He phrased it like that, because the Czech culture had beaten boasting out of every little boy by the time he reached third grade.

  Boasting was unattractive.

  He couldn’t very well say that he was a kickass percussionist on anything and everything that caught his eye. Hell, he could play a set of garbage cans and make them sound good—but again, that would be boasting.

  He saw Adam settle into a deep, almost deliberate breathing pattern. Weird, that. It was as though the guy was trying to meditate. When they were well outside of Prague city limits, Adam broke the silence unexpectedly. His sexy baritone was as mellifluous as Martin remembered it from all his songs. “Thank you for volunteering, Martin,” he said with smooth confidence. “I’m sure we’ll be great!”

  * * *

  The little hotel near castle Tocnik was booked solid. Even Jennie, his bassist, and Aleeta, a vocalist who played the keyboard, got lucky when two German jugglers offered to share a room with them. “This is Greta and Frieda,” Jennie introduced them. “I’m sorry, Adam. I have no idea what to do. I asked the others, but everyone’s slammed!” She twirled her braid nervously and leaned in. “Even the local farmers have their hay lofts packed. Some performers are staying up at the castle, camping. But our gear’s safe, and there’s a drum set. You can find it all in here.”

  Adam nodded grimly and accepted a business card with a numerical code hand-written on the back. “This is the portable storage unit number, and that’s the combination to get to our stuff. And Martin here knows where things are, too.”

  No luggage, no money, and now, nowhere to sleep. Time to visit a local farmer and ask Martin to be his interpreter. Martin and his “I’m a big fan, I can drum a little” can-do attitude, and his crazy driving habits.

  “Okay.” Adam nodded. “Let’s meet for a quick rehearsal after...” He glanced at his phone and thought a bit. “At four? Let’s cut those drum solos out so we’ll have a bit of slack tomorrow.”

  Martin nudged him from the side. “We already played a little. Don’t worry, it will be okay.” His English was oddly accented, as though he had learned the British version, but was smooth from frequent use.

  “But the solos,” Adam started intently. “Did you…can you….”

  Their eyes met in a fierce clash of wills, of doubt and confidence, of fear and joy.

  “I can! Don’t worry. I made no changes.” Martin’s face lit up with an accommodating smile. “If you don’t mind, you can stay with me. I have an extra sleeping roll.”

  Somehow, Adam found it hard not to smile back.

  On their way back to the car, as the reality of having to camp at a major music festival began to truly sink in, Adam realized he began to let go of his preconceptions and of the tenuous pretense of control he maintained at most other times. He was willing, unusually, to wing it—I mean his luggage was already in another country. Once he gave in to the crazy, spontaneous flow of unlikely events, the knot in his stomach began to transform into that light, pre-show buzzy feeling he knew and loved. Yes, it was adrenaline, but his jitters mellowed from worrying about logistics into a more positive vibe, the sort that came with the anticipation of a good run and a receptive audience.

  Looming emergencies no longer threatened to tear his composure apart. The girls were set, the gear was secured, he had his guitar and a change of clothes. What could go wrong?

  “Is there coffee where you live?” he asked Martin with a hopeful gleam in his eye.

  * * *

  Martin doubted Adam had even absorbed any of the countryside around them. The rolling hills, the small villages they had passed through on the way from the airport, the narrow country roads lined with the public fruit trees whose apples and cherries were still too small, and too green, to pick.

  He doubted that even now, Adam was paying attention to the spectacular approach to Castle Tocnik itself. The gravel road curved up the hill topped with an old granite cliff, the peak of which rose above a steep gulley, creating a sheer drop higher than a six-story office building.

  “Wow.” Adam’s exclamation was almost lost in the roar of the little car’s engine and the spitting gravel as Martin made the best of his manual transmission, and he cut a curve a bit too tight. “Is this where we’re performing?”

  “Yeah!” Martin yelled, then cut to the right, toward the woods. “And here’s where we sleep.” When he pulled the car to the edge of the road, he jerked his head at Adam’s gear. “Take everything. I have to move the car, and the carpark is far away.”

  Adam rolled out of the cab of the car and stretched his long limbs. “Thank you for driving me,” he said unexpectedly. “And thank you for drumming for us. I’m sure everything will work out just fine.”

  Ah. So that’s where his mind had been when he should have been playing tourist and soaking in the sights—worrying. “My pleasure,” Martin said with a slow smile. “Now let me show you my place.”

  Adam followed him with his guitar slung over his back and a duffel in his hand. Once Martin veered off the road and into the woods, however, Adam stopped behind him. “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see,” Martin said. “Don’t worry, you’ll be comfortable, and it’s not too far away.”

  * * *

  At first, Adam had hoped they would sleep in the castle. From across the moat, the ancient structure looked hard and unforgiving, however, and he had soon changed his mind. The tower on the far right was partially broken and rebuilt. A wooden draw bridge across the deep, dry moat looked newly maintained. Even though he would be happy to perform there, the rough-hewn, gray castle stones would, most likely, make for an uncomfortable bed.

  As they made their way through the woods, the trunks of the firs stood far enough apart from one another to leave ample space for them to pass. A few more trees in, he came upon a group of small structures. The little houses were barely taller than a man, and were made of rough, weathered lumber with an opening for a window in one end and a hole instead of a door in the other.

  “What are these?” Adam asked. He poked his head into one of the rustic, tent-sized houses. The door opening didn’t go all the way down. He would have had to climb over a foot and a half of boards to get inside, but once he looked, he knew why.

  The small structure was filled with hay.

  “This is where some of the festival-goers sleep,” Martin said. “Others pitch tents, but that’s not as comfortable.”

  Adam raised his eyebrows. When their eyes met, he was drawn into the warm hazel of Martin’s gaze. There was something welcoming in it, something sweet and hot, and...dammit, they were here just to play music.

  “My place is down by the creek,” Martin said. “Come on! I got here early just to claim it.”

  As he followed his new drummer through the sap-scented shade of the forest, Adam couldn’t take his eyes off his broad shoulders, nor off the way his nut-brown hair stayed long in the back and curled up over the neckline of his red T-shirt.

  In the disoriented stress of his situation, Adam had been thinking only of the logistics of their festival gig, and his luggage, and the issues related to replacing Jared. He had not really looked at Martin until now. Ducking branches and weaving between the boles of trees had him notice the slight, swishy looseness of Martin’s movement.

  A familiar looseness of someone who was comfortable with who he was, someone who felt safe within his surroundings. Someone out, like himself.

  A slow smile began to tug on Adam’s lips. Fate might have just sent him a new drummer he could talk to without faking an interest in team sports.

  Few minutes later, the hill dipped away from the castle and toward a creek. A lone shack stood on what must have been the only flat area on this bank. Its roof looked new, its boards sat tight together, and the door and window openings were barred with a rustic, green fabric.

  “Welcome to my secret hiding place,” Martin said as he gestured at the shack proudly. “I always get here first to make sure nobody squats in here.”

  “Oh, it’s not first come, first serve?” Adam asked with amusement.

  “Well.” A crafty expression crossed Martin’s face. “It just so happens that we aren’t on the castle’s property anymore. This forest is private, but my cousin is the owner’s forester and game-keeper. He made sure it was okay to build this here. The owner knows—his kids camp in here sometimes. We’re farther away from all the fans this way, but we’re still close enough to all the parties. With the lay of the land, we’ll even be able to hear other people’s music!”

  A brief tour got Adam acquainted to his new “home away from home.” The inside was hung with fabric alive with exotic patterns. A small, shell-shielded candle lantern hung off the ceiling, and the soft hay on the floor was covered with a lush, rich-patterned knotted rug. A lump of bedding was rolled up in one corner, and a painted wooden box sat by the door. “This is amazing,” he said, realizing that Martin was sharing his special place with him.

  A safe place.

  A private place.

  “The latrines are downstream,” Martin said. “I’ll show you later. But the best part is the swimming hole.”

  “The swimming hole?” Adam perked up. Even though the heat abated in the shade of the forest, a cool dip sounded like heaven on earth.

  “It’s upstream, under a small waterfall. I use it instead of a shower.” Martin shot him a bemused look. “What do you want first, the water hole, or some fresh-brewed coffee?”

  First, coffee.

  Half an hour later, Adam was sitting on a small carpet outside Martin’s shack (“Carpets are more comfortable than needles”,) watching him use a rock-and-brass, coal-fired brazier (“My cousin says this is safer than a campfire in the woods,”) as he roasted green coffee beans in an exotic-looking brass pan.

  “Where did you learn to make coffee like this?” Adam asked in wonder as he watched Martin pulverize the fragrant, roasted coffee beans using a mortar and a pestle while the water was slowly heating in a brass kettle.

  “I spent a good bit of time all over the Middle East.” As Martin said that, Adam’s heart leapt at the adorable blush that rose up his neck. “I learned this from one of the Bedouin tribes in Morocco,” he said, nodding at his exotic set-up. “Do you mind if I add some spices?”

  “No, go right ahead.” Fascinated, Adam let the percussive thump-and-grind of the mortar and pestle draw him into a trance of sorts, a state during which he was always transported to that place, a place where cultures clashed, and music collided, and where new words and melodies sprang to his head unbidden.

  On any other occasion, he would’ve dived for his notebook and started jotting down rhymes and phrases, fleeting impressions of that place and its melody and its particular colors and scents. Now, however, for the first time in quite a while, he desired to linger. He wanted to share this quiet, hypnotic moment with the beautiful man sitting cross-legged on the other side of the carpet and making an unheard-of, original, one-of-a-kind cup of coffee just for him.

  The water bubbled to a boil, adding its own music, and in due time Martin had poured it into a small brass pitcher chased with fanciful designs that spoke of faraway places, and was scented with cardamom.

  “Now we wait,” Martin said with an air of happy complacence. Because here, in the middle of the woods where the brook next to them sang of eternal life, and where Martin had opened his sanctuary to an utter stranger and played his coffee-music for him, he was obviously happy.

  Their eyes met. They exchanged a smile that stretched across centuries. Not knowing anything else about Martin, Adam came to an unlikely and startling realization.

  He was dangerously close to falling in love—which was, of course, impossible.

  * * *

  The exterior battlements of the castle enclosed a space that fit a stage and ample space for a mosh pit. Booths with carnival foods lined the wall, separated by spaces where visitors could peer through the narrow archery slots into the woods, and at the flat lawn across the moat. That’s where most of the campers would settle down tomorrow on their blankets, equipped with picnic baskets and ample supplies of drink.

  “The acoustics in here is amazing,” Martin said as he gave Adam a tour of the venue. The scent of roasted sausages began to drift on the air, and with it the sweetness of cinnamon pretzels as the first food vendors started setting up to sell to the casts and crews of many performing groups.

  Adam didn’t know where to look first. “So...we stay out here?” he asked. “Can we go inside the rest of the castle?”

  “Yes, and the great hall is even being reconstructed.” Martin’s enthusiasm was palpable. “This is the only castle that had never fallen to the Hussites and their siege engines,” he said as he beckoned Adam through an underpass.

  The ancient stones met in a crest of a gothic arch that supported the weight of the structure overhead. Adam wondered at the craft that had created something so strong, and so lasting.