Theo

TWO MONTHS LATER

We were in London, at the Towson Arena, and the crowd was electric. We’d been on the first leg of our tour for the new album for the past three weeks, and we had one week to go. I’d been insistent that I would only tour for a month at a time and then needed down time. Standing my ground had seemed impossible before, at the thought that I was messing things up for the rest of the band, or coming off like a diva. But I gritted my teeth and held in my mind how absolutely wrecked I’d felt at the end of our last tour, and I stuck to my guns. Everyone went with it eventually, and somehow, I didn’t care as much anymore.

Our third album was selling, the singles were charting, and I felt better in concert than ever. Somehow, the new songs lent themselves perfectly to being performed live, and every night, I sank into the music like I could catch lightning in my outstretched hand and wield it like a whip onstage.

I stalked and slunk, claiming the stage and letting the audience see it all. As Coco ripped into a solo, I dropped to my knees next to her like a penitent, striking the stage with my fist in rhythm. She bent down over me and I leaned back on my knees, and we were echoes moving sinuously with the music.

The crowd roared as she finished her solo, and I sang the chorus from my knees, arm outstretched to the writhing blackness.

They sang along, thousands of voices echoing my own words back to me. As I reached out at the hands open for me, a man caught my eye. He was thin and vulpine, wearing ripped jeans and a Metadeath T-shirt, a cocky smile curling his mouth. I made eye contact long enough to communicate a promise, and he nodded once.

After our encore, dripping with sweat, high on adrenaline, and buzzing from the music, I plucked him from the small crowd waiting for us backstage and fucked him against the counter in my dressing room, his hands and his release leaving smears on the mirror.

This was how it had been. A parade of men who, for just a few minutes, gave me something to hold onto. Gave me someplace to land, ferried me back to reality after I had lost myself, escaped into the magic of performing.

But after, when they left with a smile, or a kiss, a pout or a middle finger, it was just me, alone, without even the music. Until the next night, when I did it all again.

---

The car dropped me in front of my building, and my relief at being home flooded through me. I had two weeks before we went on the next leg of the tour, and I wanted to relax, catch up on sleep, and work on some new songs.

A strange thing had happened, the last week of the tour. We were in Germany and Austria, and Coco, Ven, and Ethan had gone out to clubs every night after our shows. I went with them the first night in Berlin, was pretty sure there was something in my drink besides vodka because I felt wasted after about five sips, and got a cab back to the hotel. For the next week, after we played, I went back to my room and wrote. It started as a stream-of-consciousness dump, just trying to empty my mind of some shit so I could sleep, because I was so wired.

But it had turned into a letter to Caleb. Half love letter, half hate letter, it flowed over page after page, then morphed into something else entirely. I started writing about when things had changed from excitement over our first album hitting the charts, to the dread I now felt whenever I left the house or the hotel, or went anywhere I was likely to be recognized. It had crept up on me slowly, that dread—so slowly that I almost didn’t notice it until I realized that going to Caleb’s farm freed me from it.

I also realized, as I paged back and forth through my nearly illegible scribbles, that there was a deeper dread lurking beneath the one I’d located. It came from the sense that the person who got recognized was more real than I was. How could I—the actual, singular Theo Decker—exist, when the Theo Decker the world saw was legion.

That week, I wrote the skeletons of three new songs, building them from the melody out, unlike how I usually wrote. I thought maybe that was because they weren’t Riven songs.

Maybe they were songs just for me.

I wasn’t sure what that meant, exactly, but I knew I wanted to work on them, see where they’d go.

It was about ten in the morning, and I sketched a tired hello to the doorman, a new guy whose name I couldn’t remember. Robert or Randy. Then I went upstairs, left my bags just inside the door, and fell into bed without even showering off the grit of travel.

I don’t know how long I’d been asleep when the front desk buzzed me and Robert or Randy or whatever his name was told me I had a visitor.

“A Mr. Caleb Whitman,” he said.

My heart started pounding a rhythm that made me woozy and I swallowed compulsively around a tongue gone dry as bone.

“Uh, yeah, yes, okay, thanks.”

“Ah, shall I send him up, then, sir?”

“Yeah, yup, thank you.”

I ran to the bathroom, sliding in my socks, and brushed my teeth as fast as I could, trying to erase sleep and airplane food. I glanced in the mirror and saw that my hair was a wreck and I had dark circles under my eyes, but there was nothing to do about it now. The knock on the door came as I dried my mouth and I made every effort to walk to the door slowly, in an attempt to control my nerves. But when I opened it to my first sight of Caleb in almost three months, any control I’d gotten slipped away.

He looked so good I wanted to throw myself into him.

His hair was longer, one side tucked behind his ear, his beard was meticulously groomed, and he looked healthier somehow. Tan or glowing or something. I crossed my arms over my chest, self-conscious about my own state.

“I—uh, I was sleeping. Just got back from tour,” I mumbled, holding the door open to him.

“Sorry to wake you.” His eyes were locked on me as I raked my hair back self-consciously.

“Um, do you wanna sit?”

We sat on the couch and I tucked my feet up under me, suddenly chilled in just a T-shirt.

“How have you been?” I asked, internally rolling my eyes at the bad oh-hello-there-let’s-make-small-talk dialogue.

“Better,” he said. “I’m better. I, uh, followed your tour a bit. Looks like it went well?”

Thank god he seemed as uncomfortable as I felt.

I nodded. “Yeah, it was good. Thanks.”

Then we sat, the air between us buzzing, the seconds ticking past in awkward silence.

Finally, after what felt like forever but was surely only about a minute, Caleb cleared his throat and held out a hand.

“Can I?” He took my hand and I nodded. “I’m so damn sorry, Theo. I know I may not have any right to show up here, but I’ve missed the shit out of you, and I’ve spent a while thinking about things, and I’m hoping you’ll give me a chance to explain. To try and…I don’t know, tell you why I freaked.”

Some place deep inside my stomach unknotted, let go of a tension I hadn’t even been aware of. I squeezed the hand that held mine, and used it to pull myself closer to him.

“Are you…I mean, do you want…” I held up our joined hands. “Is this a thing where you want to apologize so I let you go, or you want to explain so we can…try. Again.”

Because I wasn’t sure if I could handle another round of Caleb’s come-closer-get-away. I forced myself to look up at him though I was terrified to hear which one he’d choose. He cupped my face in his other hand and brought our foreheads gently together.

“I want to try again,” he said, voice the soft timbre of wind over water. “I’m hoping you’ll give me another chance.”

I scooted even closer and threw my legs over his, so I could wrap my arms around his neck. When that was awkward, I hoisted myself over onto his lap and molded myself to him. I could feel his chest expanding as he inhaled deeply and put a hand flat against my back and another in my hair.

I kissed him softly and instead of lust, it was comfort I wanted. The reassurance of his mouth against mine. The physical promise of possibilities. I pulled back enough to see his face.

“I’m still famous,” I said, and he smirked.

“Yes, yes, you’re very famous.”

I rolled my eyes. “I mean, the stuff about paparazzi. I can’t…I can’t control that. I wish I could—believe me. But I can’t, so…”

Caleb shook his head. “I know. I—that was me freaking out about shit, not really about the article. I kinda lost it at the idea of trying to stay sober while being sucked into the whole fame thing. But once I had time to think about it, it wasn’t really that.” He brushed my hair back. “The way I felt about you. How much I wanted you. It felt…too close to how I felt before. The craving I felt when you weren’t there. How I wanted to touch you, taste you—” He kissed the angle of my jaw and the spot under my ear, making me shiver.

I knew there were things we’d have to hash out. But now there was only one thing that mattered.

“I missed you. I missed you so much,” I murmured, wrapping my arms around him again. “I thought maybe this time, you wouldn’t…we wouldn’t…”

“Me too. House is lonely without you,” Caleb said in my ear.

He stood in one powerful movement, hauling me up with him. I hooked my thighs around his hips and he slid an arm under me and walked to the bedroom, putting me down on the bed and stretching out next to me.

I knew we had a lot of stuff to talk about, but right now, all I could think about was being close to him, feeling his skin against mine, breathing in the scent of him.

I pulled him on top of me and jutted my chin up, searching for a kiss. When Caleb’s lips came down on mine, I moaned into his mouth. I’d spent months alone, in hotel room after hotel room, missing this. I wrapped my arms and legs around him, so he couldn’t pull away.

“God, baby,” he murmured, digging a hand into my hair and running the other up and down my body like he wanted to touch every inch of me. He kissed my mouth, my jaw, my throat, and I clung to him, trying to strip his shirt and pants off without letting him move away.

“You can’t push me away again,” I choked out, and the words sounded tiny, like they came from a place so deep inside they could barely be heard. “I can’t stand it. Not again.”

Caleb’s eyes were lust and want and apology. The heat cooled for just a moment, long enough for him to press his lips to my forehead.

“I won’t. Not like this. I’ve got you.” To underscore that, he pressed us so tightly together I could feel his heart pounding in rhythm with my own.

Finally, helping each other, we managed to slither out of our clothes and grind together, naked flesh meeting in an explosion of sensation. We both panted into each other’s mouths as our hands roamed. We were impatient and clumsy, and when I made a frustrated noise, Caleb finally grabbed me by the hips and pulled me onto his lap, pressing our erections together and steadying me as I moved on top of him.

“Oh god,” I groaned, my arousal ratcheting up in a heartbeat at the feel of his hard flesh against mine. I buried my face in his neck, smelling his skin and hair, and feeling his pulse beneath my lips, an ocean flowing just beneath the surface. Everything about him got me ridiculously hot. This wasn’t going to be pretty and I wasn’t going to last long. I just wanted to feel his muscular body against mine, his arms around me.

I spread my legs wider, bracing my feet on the bed so I could thrust harder against him, and I felt the vibrations of the growl in his chest. After a few minutes of moving together, his muscles tightened and straining, he fisted my hair and rolled us over so he was on top of me, pushing my hips up and settling in the cradle of my thighs.

“You feel so fucking good,” he said. “And you smell amazing.”

“Probably smell like a plane,” I gasped, between kisses.

“Smell like you,” he said, and licked up my neck, sucking until I groaned and my hips were thrusting up. When I whimpered and threw my head back, his eyes flashed and he wrapped a rough hand around both of our cocks, squeezing hard. I cried out and thrust, the velvet heat of his dick and the roughness of his hand the perfect contrast.

We moved together, chests heaving and breath mingling, until I felt heat boiling up from my belly.

“Kiss me,” I demanded, and as Caleb’s mouth slammed down on mine, I came, jerking heat between us. Caleb’s grip was slicked by my come and he groaned, stroking faster, then plowed his hips into mine and came hot and slick on my belly and chest.

“Fuuuuuuck.” He collapsed on top of me, breath leaving him in a moan against the pillow.

We lay there for a while, a caress here, a kiss there, as the sun set outside, casting the bed in shadows.

“Will you stay?” I asked.

Caleb swiped at the stickiness on our stomachs with the shirt he’d been wearing, then gathered me against him, murmuring an affirmation into my ear. I fell asleep with his lips at my throat and his fingers in my hair.

---

“God, we come off as total twits.”

I tossed the magazine facedown on the coffee table and flopped back down on the floor with my guitar, strumming angry chords. Caleb flipped through it, his gaze assessing.

“Just tell me,” I said.

“It’s not that you seem like twits. It’s that Coco, Ven, and Ethan don’t really write the songs, so when the interviewers ask y’all questions about the process of writing the music, you’re the only one with anything to say. But you don’t want to because you’re afraid they’ll think you’re hogging the spotlight. So then Ven says something generic and Coco says something technical about her playing that they edit down because no one who isn’t a guitarist can understand it. Which adds to that impression that you hate, that you guys got lucky in hitting it big.”

I sighed. Part of the problem I always had was that I didn’t know why we’d hit it big. I thought our music was great, sure. But loads of bands were great and never got successful, much less famous.

“The interviewer was a dick, anyway,” I mumbled. “He was, like, leering at Coco the whole time but then didn’t include half the things she said in the piece. Even the stuff not about guitar,” I clarified. “And the photographer kept trying to grab my ass and Ven was like, ‘Well, you end up in the front of every picture anyway, so…’ as if I were fucking photographers to get more publicity. Asshole.”

My mouth tasted sour at the memory of the slimy photographer, inching my jeans lower and lower on my hips, saying the light caught my hipbones and he wanted to capture it, all the time rubbing against me. His hands splaying possessively over my stomach under the pretense of adjusting the leather vest that hung open over my bare torso. I shuddered.

Caleb was watching me keenly.

“Where was your manager in all this? Or Lewis?”

I shrugged, not wanting to think about it anymore, and Caleb’s jaw tightened.

“Whatever, anyway, are we doing this?”

I held up the guitar and Caleb nodded, letting it go, and stretched out on the couch with his own.

This morning I’d come into the kitchen at the smell of coffee and found him humming something under his breath.

“What’s that?” I asked, pressing my cheek to the warm skin of his bare back.

“Coffee.”

I bit his shoulder.

“Just a little hook that’s gotten stuck in my head.”

Which was how we’d started writing a song together, tapping out a rhythm with spoons and humming into our coffee. We were interrupted by the messengered magazine from Lewis, but I was eager to get back to it.

We spent the better part of the day working on the song. It was the first time I’d ever written with someone from scratch. With Riven, I brought songs mostly formed and then we tweaked them, or changed them.

This was a chance to see how Caleb’s mind worked, and I was fascinated. He’d play a fall of notes, transpose it up or down, something about the structure, their association, sticking with him, until he found its proper home, then build from there. He was a tinkerer, an experimenter, using one piece to find his way to another, sometimes seeking out holds methodically like a rock climber, other times just jumping from bit to bit in a way that seemed capricious but must’ve meant something to him. My approach was different—I’d find a note or a progression that just felt right to me, and then build out from there. But we understood each other. I could see what Caleb was grasping for just as he could feel the rightness of what I found, even if I couldn’t explain it.

And, by dinnertime, we had a song. A rough song, tentatively balanced between our two styles. A song that would need some work. But a song, nonetheless.