She replied almost immediately. Good. Dinner tomorrow night. 7. Vanilla. Casual. Cookout. Bring swim trunks.
And followed by a Venice address and gate code.
He suspected that wasn’t a request.
Yes, Ma’am.
Smartass. :)
After confirming they’d be there, he added a question. Okay if I tell M you’re the one who referred me to Clark?
A brief wait for her reply. Sure. Why?
Didn’t want to assume you wanted to be identified.
Like I give a shit. :)
Doyle waited until seven to start cooking dinner. Mevi had only come upstairs once that whole time to use the bathroom, and Doyle made sure to test him when he did. He was almost ready to call down to Mevi that dinner was ready when the man came up of his own accord.
“That smells good.”
“Thanks. Pork chops. Oh, and we have dinner plans tomorrow.”
“We do?”
“Friends of mine. In fact, the friend who referred Clark to me. Her name’s Tilly. They split their time between home here and work in LA.”
“Okay.”
“And advanced warning, they have a non-traditional relationship.” Leaving out the BDSM aspects, he explained their poly triad.
Mevi’s fork froze mid-ascent to his mouth. “Wait…Tilly LaCroux?”
“Yes?”
“I’ve heard of her. They’re the ones who were involved in that case a year or so ago, right? The cousin of the one guy, she was a new mom and was killed while in custody in the jail?”
He nodded. “That’s them.”
He lowered his fork and let out a snort.
“What?”
“I saw a clip of that friend of hers with the photog. Where she was getting the baby out of the car? And I’ve heard stuff from friends about Trevor Nichols having a personal guard dog working for his office. Clark works with them. So that’s her, huh?”
“That would be…a reasonably accurate description of her personality if you cross her, yes. But like a guard dog, she’s also very sweet and protective of her loved ones.”
“I can’t tell you the last time I went to a casual cookout with friends.”
He felt sorry for the guy. Doyle knew first-hand from his clients how difficult it was to have a private life when a celebrity. Even when they weren’t “on” they had to carefully guard their every word, every action, because of the prevalence of cell phones. They might be famous and have money, but the tradeoff, sometimes, made it a very vicious bargain in terms of their private lives.
“Tilly and her guys are good people. They’ve already signed the NDAs, too, so no worries there. She’s used to working with celebrities.”
“That mean they know about what I did?”
He nodded. “Yes. But Tilly’s also a nurse by training. So she’s sympathetic. She’s also brutally honest sometimes. Don’t ask her for an opinion unless you really want one.”
After taking another bite of pork chops, Mevi spoke again. “I need more people like that in my life.” He stared into Doyle’s eyes. “Like you.”
“I’ll be here for you, as long as you need me.”
He smiled, but it looked sad. “I have a feeling it won’t be long enough.”
Chapter Eleven
Doyle wasn’t sure how to interpret Mevi’s comment, but didn’t want to push him too hard. After dinner, Mevi volunteered to help with cleanup, even though Doyle told him that wasn’t necessary.
“We’ll have to stop by my storage unit tomorrow,” Doyle said. “I didn’t bring swim trunks with me.”
“We could buy some.”
“Why would I do that when I have several pairs in storage that I know fit me? And do you have any with you?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Perfect. Then we’ll leave here about five. With the traffic, that’ll give us enough time.”
“Do we stop and pick something up to take? Like a dessert or something?”
“Good idea. She’ll appreciate that.”
Mevi headed back downstairs to work while Doyle returned to the sofa. After days of driving and having the lyrics to Hamilton now permanently embedded in his brain, he welcomed the relative quiet.
At least they’d arrived in Sarasota on a Sunday, giving Doyle several days to figure out how to explain the club to Mevi, if they could hear the music through the back wall. Maybe if Mevi followed his current work pattern he’d be too absorbed in what he was doing to even notice.
Then again…
He did have the back bedroom, right against the wall shared with the club.
Dammit.
Well, Mevi didn’t freak out over the fact that Tilly was poly. If Doyle had to explain Venture’s nature to Mevi, hopefully the man would keep an equally open mind.
* * * *
Mevi retreated to the office to work. His mind had already started diving back into his composing. It’d been a long time since he’d felt like this, and he belatedly realized that there were plenty of years where he’d self-medicated with obsessive workaholism. Normally, a strong work ethic was something to be praised and held up, especially in an industry where spectacularly flaming Dumpster fires were openly mocked in the press and social media.
When he was totally honest with himself, he realized why he’d done it. “I need to work” was nearly always an acceptable excuse to anyone to get out of something he didn’t want to be at.
The truth was, he usually was working.
Working meant he was moving forward, doing something productive.
It also meant not having to face people and pretend he was something he wasn’t.
How many holiday invitations had he declined over the years? Dinner parties? Outings with other band members?
Lots of teasing that he was a workaholic, but…that was the truth.
It was his way of avoiding reality. Insulating himself in a socially acceptable way.
As he stared at his notes, he jotted the word “Aloof” at the top of the lyrics he’d penned. It felt…right.
Then, after staring at it, he added another word.
“Aloof Excuses.”
Now that…that felt perfect.
Picking up his guitar, he strummed it before starting to play again.
* * * *
Doyle stood in the doorway, leaning against it and watching when Mevi looked up. Mevi never heard him come down.
In Doyle’s hand was a tester.
Mevi held out his hand for it as Doyle walked over.
“How long were you standing there?”
“A while. I didn’t want to interrupt.”
That was something else. Usually, Mevi was hyperaware of others in his space. A protective sense he’d developed over the years so he didn’t slip up around anyone.
Doyle didn’t seem to inspire that same defensiveness in him.
After Mevi did the test and returned it to him, Doyle turned to leave.
“What time is it?” Mevi asked, not wanting him to go just yet and still unable to bring himself to open up.
“Nearly midnight. I wanted to get another test before I went to bed.”
“Holy crap. Sorry. I didn’t mean to keep you up.”
“It’s okay. Like I told you, I’m here to help you. Working is helping you. I’m not here to disrupt your life. I’m here to try to help you learn how to hold it together. That’s why I’m not trying to get you to talk to me yet. I do want you to keep in mind that even if it’s the middle of the night and you need to wake me up, I want you to if you need to talk.”
“Thanks.” He knew it was Doyle’s job, but still…
It felt like a genuine sentiment. In a way he’d never felt from his counselors in rehab. Sure, they’d meant it, but like it was their job.
This felt more like it was just how Doyle was. Calm, steady, dependable. That it wouldn’t matter if he was a client or a friend or a distant relative he hadn’t spoken to in years, that Doyle would still drop everything and listen.
/>
“Good night. I hope your work’s going okay for you.”
“Thanks. You, too.”
After a nod, Doyle headed upstairs.
Mevi noticed he was barefoot, and watched the way the man’s thighs and calves flexed as he ascended the stairs.
And his cute ass.
Shit.
He needed to focus.
Turning back to his notes, he started to play again.
* * * *
Standing there and listening to Mevi, watching him…it was easy to see how and why he’d become successful. There was almost an invisible inferno alight inside the man, the intensity washing off him.
That level of determination wasn’t something often seen in failures. Hell, it wasn’t seen very often in many successes, either.
That’s why Portnoy’s Oyster had endured and thrived where many bands who’d started out at the same time or later floundered and failed, or broke up.
What Mevi created came from his heart, his soul.
Doyle headed to bed, lights off and door ajar so he could hear and see. He lightly dozed, waking when he heard Mevi ascending the stairs. A quick glance at his phone showed it was nearly two a.m.
He would soon find himself adjusting his daily schedule to Mevi’s, he knew.
Now able to go to sleep, he did, starting awake at some point later.
Fumbling for his phone, he saw it was nearly eight in the morning.
Sitting up and trying to orient himself, he took a deep breath.
No sounds from inside the apartment.
He used the bathroom, listened at Mevi’s door to make sure he was in there, and then went to make the coffee and do his tai chi.
At least he personally felt more settled now that they were in one location. Tonight, dinner at Tilly’s. Maybe being around some relatively “normal” people would be good for Mevi. Especially people he could relax around.
He was pouring his own cup of coffee when he heard Mevi’s toilet flush. He had the test kit already sitting on the end of the counter, and Mevi did it without being asked.
Negative.
“Can I make you something for breakfast?” Doyle asked.
Mevi seemed a little…lost. “No, I’m all right,” he said. “I’ll get something later.”
But he didn’t move, didn’t head downstairs.
“Are you all right?”
Mevi shrugged.
After a moment, Doyle tried again. “Did you want to talk?”
Mevi finally looked up from his cup of coffee. “Anything I tell you is confidential?”
“Yes. Unless you admit a serious crime to me. Or tell me you’re thinking about hurting yourself or someone else. Those are contracted stipulations I insist on so I’m not hamstrung in exceptional cases.”
Mevi slowly nodded, gaze back on his coffee.
He edged closer to Mevi. “Are you thinking about hurting yourself?”
Finally, Mevi shook his head. “No. Not anymore.”
A little relief crept in. “Are you struggling with a craving to drink?”
“A little today, yeah.”
Two down, countless possibilities to go. “Is it something you’ve never told anyone else?”
Mevi nodded, a long, shuddering sigh reflecting the man’s dark inner mood.
Okay, that narrowed it down even more. In Doyle’s experience, it probably meant one of a few obvious subjects, and he hesitated on whether or not to push him harder.
Then Mevi turned and headed for the stairs.
Shit.
Part of him was torn between wanting to follow and press, or to let him be and not pressure him.
“Do you want me to come get you at lunch time?” he opted to call out.
Mevi hesitated. “Yes, please.”
Then he descended the stairs.
Doyle walked over and stood at the head of the stairs. Mevi had left the door at the bottom open and Doyle heard him start playing.
Whatever weighed Mevi down, it was close to breaking the surface, like a huge pustule trying to explode.
How long it took to coax it to a head remained to be seen.
* * * *
Mevi didn’t know why he chickened out. He’d fully planned to admit to Doyle that he was gay, finally able to get it off his shoulders.
Except…he couldn’t.
He couldn’t force the words out.
As he spent the morning working, he tried to forget about the man upstairs, the man that drew him in for reasons Mevi couldn’t explain. Yeah, Doyle was handsome and bi, and Mevi felt himself to be a chickenshit. He knew Doyle couldn’t get involved with him.
But to make the acknowledgment to the man and then be rebuffed outright would hurt, sting.
Doyle brought him lunch and a tester and left him alone. As Mevi reviewed his notes while he ate, he knew he needed to nut up and say something.
If he couldn’t, no other progress could happen.
He got it.
Didn’t make it any easier to admit.
He headed upstairs again early enough to grab a shower and get ready. As he quietly followed Doyle out to the car, sunglasses on, he realized it was…odd to have an expectation of privacy.
He’d lived so long in the public eye, always aware that someone, somewhere, might have a camera or cell phone trained on him, that he’d forgotten what it was like to be…free.
With Doyle, he’d had a level of freedom—ironically—that he hadn’t experienced in years.
They headed out of the complex and twenty minutes later were pulling into a storage facility. Doyle had to punch in a code at the gate to be let in. Then he parked in front of a temperature-controlled building in the back.
“I’m going to be a while. Feel free to join me.”
Mevi did. When Doyle pulled out a ring of keys, Mevi noticed a small pewter tag with some sort of symbol engraved on it. Before he could ask about it, Doyle let out a laugh.
“I haven’t been here in a while. I apologize in advance for how messy it is.”
“Why don’t you ship everything to LA?”
“I don’t have room for it. I have a tiny one-bedroom apartment. I don’t need anything else. And eventually, I want to move back to Florida.”
Something about that tweaked Mevi’s heart in a bad way and he didn’t know why. “You are?”
“In a few years. When I get tired of being on the road. Storage units out there are expensive. My attorney here has a key and the code and if I really need something, he can always come get it and ship it for me.”
They took an elevator up to the third floor and Doyle led the way down darkened corridors that lit up automatically as they passed. Stopping in front of one unit, Doyle unlocked the lock and pulled the door up.
It was a larger unit, about the size of a one-car garage. It wasn’t jammed tight with stuff, but if Mevi’s immediate calculations were correct, there was probably a small house’s worth of furniture inside.
Doyle left Mevi standing there as he picked his way through a narrow, winding path toward a pile of boxes in the back. Mevi stepped just inside, glancing around. On a dining room table sat a large, black duffle bag apparently packed full of stuff. The zipper lay open, and when Mevi peeked, he spotted a whip on top.
“Dude. You play Indiana Jones or something?” He removed it and shook it out, surprised to find it was heavier than cheap movie prop ones, and shorter, too, not even four feet.
“What—shit. Where was that?”
Mevi took a test swing with it. “This is cool.”
It amused him to discover Doyle owned something like that. Before Doyle could stop him, he started digging into the bag and pulled out a riding crop. “Did you have a horse?”
“That’s not—”
“Dude!” He held up a red acrylic paddle. “What the hell?”
Doyle’s face was an adorable shade of beet red as he grabbed everything from him and shoved it back into the bag, zipping it shut. “That’s personal.”
“What is all that?”
Doyle picked up the bag and carried it toward the back of the unit. “Personal.”
Mevi had a sudden revelation. Sure, he knew kinky people in the music biz. He saw and heard stuff that never hit public gossip sites.
“Hey. If I tell you something, will you tell me something?”
Doyle stopped and turned. “What do you mean?”
Mevi heard his voice trembling. “If I tell you something about myself, something nobody else but you knows, will you tell me something about you? Especially if I promise not to tell? You’ll have something against me you can use.”
Doyle set the bag on top of a pile of boxes and returned to him. “It doesn’t work like that,” he quietly said. “I’m not looking for ammunition against you. My job is to help you as much as you’ll let me. All I insist on is that you’re honest with me.”
“Please?” Mevi didn’t realize he was whispering.
* * * *
Doyle cursed his stupidity. He’d forgotten his toybag was right there. Last time he’d visited the unit, he’d engaged in a little wistful reminiscing and had forgotten to zip it up again. But…
Something in Mevi’s manner and tone told him that maybe he would have to quid pro quo this if it meant fully earning Mevi’s trust.
Nobody he’d ever dealt with professionally—other than Tilly and that group—knew he was kinky. He kept that on the down-low.
It wasn’t anyone’s business.
Revealing what he suspected Mevi wanted to ask would come perilously close to violating ethical boundaries.
But refusing to help his client wasn’t something Doyle was comfortable with, either.
He stepped closer to Mevi and held his hands out to him. Normally, he avoided too much physical contact with his clients, but in this case, he suspected the man was starved for human touch.
Mevi placed his hands in Doyle’s and Doyle gently squeezed. “Okay,” Doyle softly said. He hadn’t heard anyone else moving around on that floor, but didn’t want to take a chance. “You go first, and then you can ask me anything you want, and I’ll answer it.”
Mevi’s breath hitched in his chest as he stared at their hands. The man’s grip changed, desperate, hard, clutching.