NINE

 

It was strange, being brought in to meet the members of a band, one of the newest sensations to hit the charts. Strange to know that he was going to come face to face with celebrity. He supposed he had already, but he’d known Darien before. The rest of his band were strangers.

What was Darien up to, anyway? There was clearly something. The smirk on his lips was one of pure mischief, and he seemed very pleased with himself, if somewhat on edge. His eyes glowed as they walked through the building, a place that Noah knew he could never have gotten into in a million years if not for the man at his side.

“Okay. Just … don’t be scared of them. They’re good guys. Mostly.” Darien stopped Noah outside of the door and gave him a little kiss, just a swipe of his lips over Noah’s, over far too soon. But then, they weren’t in private anymore, and it seemed that Darien seemed to want to keep things at least mostly secret.

Noah nodded, and Darien pushed open the door. A wave of sound hit him, music. Not the music that Noah would have expected, either. Classic rock, full of hard, thrumming guitars and pounding baselines.

“Lance, turn that off,” Darien directed, speaking to what had to be the most gorgeous man that Noah had ever seen. Tall, at least six feet and maybe a few inches above, and built like a god, all rippling muscles and long, flowing waves of dark hair, with green eyes that sparkled with amusement as he reached for the speakers, Lance did turn it down.

“Buzzkill,” Lance said to Darien, and then turned those remarkable emerald eyes toward Noah. “Who’s the kid?”

Noah felt like he wanted to look at everything at once, his eyes widening to try to take in more information. He had seen pictures of these men, and videos, but somehow, that wasn’t the same as being in the same room as them.

They were all gorgeous. Which, Noah supposed, made sense. They had been picked for that as much as for their musical ability, if not more. His eyes shifted from Lance to the one he knew was Aaron.

Even more stunning than Lance, though shorter and more slender, and with an intense expression on his face that made Noah’s breath go a little strange and stutter-y, Aaron was graceful and lithe, but not delicate. Even with his almost ethereal beauty, there was a fierceness to him that was undeniable. He had these eyes, not kind and carefree, like Darien’s and even Lance’s were, but full of restless, snapping energy. They were a shade of blue so vivid and intense that it was nearly purple, and his hair was dyed a bright, fire engine red, artlessly messy around his face.

He said nothing, but Ken, the last member of the band, came bouncing over. Noah had always thought that Darien had too much energy to be legal, but Ken outdid that by a good amount.

Noah hung back and watched as Ken put a huge, toned, muscular arm around Darien’s shoulder, giving him an energetic, one-armed hug. What he was feeling, he told himself, wasn’t jealousy. He didn’t care that Darien was surrounded by these gorgeous men all the time, and he didn’t care that Darien was being hugged with far too much affection by a god with messy brown hair and green-blue eyes which sparkled with energy.

“Yeah, who’s the kid?” Ken asked, still draped over Darien in a way that made Noah’s shoulders tense up with a sort of silent protest. No wonder Darien didn’t want a relationship. Not when beauty like this surrounded him. Who was Noah, shy, plain, quiet little Noah, to think that he had a chance with Darien?

He was no one. He wasn’t even famous, and he couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.

“This is Noah. He’s my …” Darien hesitated for just a moment and then rushed on, carefully not looking at Noah. “He’s my best friend from back home.”

Best friend. Noah closed his eyes briefly at the sting that brought, as sharp as a knife pricking at the skin of his stomach. If he let it, that could hurt him a lot. But, on the other hand, what did he expect? For Darien to declare that he and Noah were, what, together? When they hadn’t even said that to each other?

Maybe, if Darien did say that, though, it would make Ken stop hanging all over him. Make the gorgeous man stop hanging that stocky, muscular body all over him. A year, he and Darien had been apart. What had happened in that year?

Did he even want to know? Ken was acting awfully possessive, wasn’t he? He kept looking at Noah in a way that didn’t seem exactly friendly.

“This isn’t a concert. We don’t need people around getting in the way,” Aaron snapped, and Noah dropped his gaze. He wished he could say something, anything, but Darien hadn’t even told him why they were here at all. He was interrupting a rehearsal, and he didn’t even know why. How could he defend himself?

His heart rate sped up, and his breathing quickened. Only Ken seemed hostile, but Aaron seemed like he would rather Noah go. Lance, at least, didn’t seem to care either way and had turned his music back up a little bit while everyone else was busy.

“He’s not here to get in the way,” Darien defended him, and the grip of fear, of near panic, on Noah’s chest loosened a bit. “You all talked to Lester, right? About setting up social media accounts and websites and stuff?”

All three of the men nodded, and Darien beckoned Noah over, which, Noah wasn’t exactly heartbroken to note, also dislodged Ken. Noah walked over to the bench around the side of the room, and when Darien gestured, he sat down and opened his laptop.

Was Darien just showing off his work? Noah shook his head a little. He had no idea what was going on, but Darien sat beside him, and he felt the comforting warmth of his presence beside him.

“Wow,” Lance commented. “That’s incredible.”

They were all clustered around him, Noah in the middle of an incredibly beautiful, talented group of men, all way out of his league. Noah glanced up at Lance, trying to read his face, very alert for any sign of sarcasm, but he didn’t see any.

“Yeah. So I figure, we hire him. He’s a whiz at this sort of thing,” Darien said, and Noah stared at him. This was certainly the first that he had heard about this! Darien glanced back at him smugly and then turned to look at the rest of his band to see what they thought.

“Yeah, it looks good,” Aaron’s voice was dismissive, and he turned away right after he’d said it, but Noah had the idea that Aaron was pretty much always like that. “I’m in.”

“Me too,” Lance said, with a bit of a laugh. “Welcome to the team, kiddo. There’s no way in hell I could do anything even half as good.”

Which only left Ken, who had a look of conflict on his face. He liked the website, Noah realized, but he didn’t want Noah around. What exactly was there between Darien and Ken, that Ken would be this put out just to have some competition?

Competition. Yeah, right. Like Noah could compete with any of these glorious specimens of men. And they had way more in common with each other than Darien had with Noah, no matter what past they’d shared.

“Fine,” Ken finally said ungraciously. “I’m in, too.”

Noah blinked. What had even just happened there? What exactly had he been volunteered for?

“In for what?”

The voice came from a door, where two very handsome men stood. The one who had spoken was tall, with dark hair going to gray at the temples and in the hairs of his beard. He wore glasses and a suit, which made him look overly fussy when compared to how casual all the rest of them looked.

The other man stayed quiet, standing back, but he seemed to see everything through intense, piercing gray eyes. They could see right into people’s souls, or so it seemed, and Noah felt an immediate affinity for him. He, too, preferred to sit back and stay silent and watch. He sensed that they had that in common.

“My friend Noah is going to be our social media manager,” Darien said, his voice cheerful and bright, but with an undertone to it that most people wouldn’t recognize. But Noah had been with Darien through a lot, and he knew enough to hear the anxiety that was only just barely there in his voice.

“Oh, is he,” the man said, a tone of condescension in his voice that immediately made Noah prickle. “As far as I know, I’m your manager, and I hire people.”

“We all want him, Lester.” To Noah’s surprise, it was Aaron that spoke, facing the older man down, his eyes directly on his face.

“He’s good,” Lance agreed, and Ken stayed silent, but even that was a minor miracle considering how obviously he disliked Noah for existing. “You should at least look.”

Lester shrugged, and with the air of one who was simply doing something to amuse some children, he came over. Darien cleared out of the way so that Lester could sit beside Noah, and Noah felt his skin prickle at the contact of their arms. Something about this man, he didn’t like. Maybe it was just that he was such a corporate stooge, but it felt like more than that.

He’d always had a good sense of people, and something in him was telling him to proceed with caution around this man.

“… Okay,” Lester finally said, after what felt like an hour of him staring at the website. “Okay, fine, kid. You’re hired. What’s your name?”

Noah gave it, and Lester nodded to him. And just like that, it seemed, Noah had a job. He stared in wonder at Darien, but also at the rest of these men, who didn’t even know him and yet were giving him this chance.

It was a chance to make some money. To stop living off of Darien’s charity. He had no idea what a gig like this would pay, but surely it would be enough for him to move out, to get his own place.

“All of you will have to spend some time with Noah. Building websites, or whatever,” Lester said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Something that reflects your personalities, but is also uniform enough that it’s clear that you’re the same band. And then a band website.”

Noah nodded, bored with the explanation. He already knew what he was going to do. Everything that Lester was saying were things that he’d already decided to do without his help, but other than a slightly contemptuous look, he didn’t give any indication of that.

“Great,” Ken muttered, so quietly that only Noah could hear. Or maybe Darien, standing on the other side of Noah from Ken, had picked it up, because Noah saw Darien shoot Ken a bit of a confused look.

So it was an incredibly conflicted sort of meeting for Noah, who had walked in there with nothing and walked out with a job that could lead to his independence. Social media manager. Not something he had ever considered doing before, but he was qualified for it.

But then there was Ken, and, to a lesser extent, the rest of Darien’s band. How friendly would they be if they knew that what Noah wanted most in the world was for Darien to walk away from them? How could Noah even ask Darien to leave behind his friends?

The answer was that he couldn’t, and that was very clear to him now. If Darien asked him for his opinion, he would give it, but otherwise … well, what it came down to, Noah realized, in the secrecy of his own mind, was that he loved Darien far too much to want him to do anything but what made him happy.

If that meant staying with the band, then Noah would just have to support that. It was, after all, Darien’s choice. Darien’s life. And no matter what, no matter how frivolous Noah found it, he knew that he would want to be a part of that life, in whatever way Darien would allow.

Love was a crazy thing. Something which he himself had not been touched by, not until now. Noah looked around at the four members, the four Lost Boys, and smiled slightly.

They looked good together. Pop music wasn’t Noah’s thing, but even he had to admit that they sounded good together, too. And Noah had to come face to face with the unwelcome thought that, even if he did push, even if he did try to take Darien away, it wasn’t a fight that he could very likely win.

Noah was hard work, and the Lost Boys were fun. Darien had always been the sort to pick fun, so all Noah could do was not make Darien pick at all. That was the only way he could be involved in his life, and it was worth it.

So it seemed like Aaron, Lance, and even Ken didn’t have much to worry about. Though the way Ken stared at him, the naked hostility in his eyes, it didn’t seem like Ken agreed.

What was going on with Ken and Darien? What had Noah walked into? Should he ask? Questions swirled through his head, turning it into a maelstrom, a cloudy tempest filled with shocks of lightning, making it truly impossible to think about anything with any sort of clarity.

One thing got easier, and a million other things got complicated. Was that just how it was with life?

Darien had put himself out there for Noah, though, not only once, but twice. He’d dropped everything to come pick Noah up from school, and now he’d gotten Noah a job, and a job that he could be good at and take pride in.

Wasn’t it just barely possible that Darien felt something for Noah, too? Something beyond friendship? Why else would he put himself out there so much for him?

So many questions and only time would give him the answers that he so badly, so desperately, wanted.