Chapter Four
Over the next few weeks, Hugo and Dante became so close they were spending all their free time together. Most of it was spent on the beach, driving around, or simply being together at Hugo’s place. They’d decided it was the safest bet, considering people’s habits of just showing up at Dante’s, unannounced. On top of that, the record people had decided to go ahead and release “Unbreakable” ahead of the new album and Dante’s popularity was growing faster than ever.
One day, as Dante crooned a new song in the sound booth, Mike ran into the studio, excited. Dante stopped, sensing that his friend was about to burst.
“What is it?” he asked.
“It’s number one! Unbreakable. It’s at the top of the charts. You’re number one!”
Dante threw down his fedora and whooped in celebration. Then he ran out of the sound booth and grabbed Mike and John. The three men yelled and patted each other's backs, but Dante noticed that one person wasn't nearly as excited. He looked over to the corner of the room, where Hugo had been sitting and listening. His boyfriend looked…he couldn't quite tell what he was thinking. Hugo simply nodded at him and smiled wearily.
Hugo had become a fixture in the recording studio. When he didn't have to go into the university or when they weren't off doing something else, he would come and listen to Dante sing. They even discussed his new work and styling choices, much to the annoyance of his musical buddies and agent. After a while, Hugo began to notice a latent hostility toward him, especially as the new single began to rise in the charts and more and more pressure was put on Dante to deliver. And now that he was number one, the only feeling Hugo could muster was fear.
That night, as the two of them decided to check out a new café on the boardwalk, Hugo mostly sat and stabbed at his food with his fork. He stared down at the plate, trying very hard not to look at Dante.
Dante, who was finding it more and more difficult to hide who he was from people, had a ball cap pulled down, almost to his eyes. He knew it was making it easier for his boyfriend to ignore him, but he was going to have none of it. He lifted his head, made sure no one was watching, and leaned as far as he could over the table.
“Okay, what the hell’s going on?” he hissed. He was tired from a long day of doing interviews and taking phone calls from “important” executives and it made the question come out a little more harsh than intended. When Hugo’s eyes flashed up, he looked away and mumbled, “Sorry. You just seem a bit preoccupied today,” he added.
Hugo pushed his plate away and sighed. “You don’t see it, do you?”
“See what?”
“The way your friends look at me, the way Marshal grumbles about me.”
“Marshal?” Dante said and rolled his eyes. “Don’t pay attention to Marshal.”
“He’s your agent. He controls a lot of your life.”
“He doesn’t control my life,” Dante insisted, loudly. He looked around to see if anyone had noticed and then shrank back in his seat.
Hugo shook his head. “The bigger you get, the more they’ll expect from you. You’ll have to start touring someday, do more interviews, endorsements, and everyone will start watching everything you do.” The truth was, he was already growing tired of lying about their relationship. He rubbed his eyes, not wanting to say what he’d been thinking for days. “I’ve never been interested in being the center of attention. I never wanted a famous boyfriend and I don’t want to be the cause of controversy for you.”
“What are you saying?” Dante breathed.
Hugo’s eyes widened. “I’m…I’m not saying anything. I just…I’m just feeling confused.”
Dante closed his eyes and nodded. “You’re telling me. It’s like I’ve been working for this for so many years and now it’s all just…” He shook his head, his appetite ruined too. “Come on, let’s go home.”
For once, Dante drove the sports car to the parking lot above his shack. He was tired of hiding too and missed the sound of the waves lulling him to sleep at night.
“Are you sure?” Hugo asked as they sat in the car. The pink and purple hues of sunset glowed over the water below, just like the night they'd met. The circumstances were different but didn't feel any less dire.
The singer thought for a moment and then nodded, forcefully. “Yeah,” he said, just as firmly. He was still worried, but mostly about Hugo. It was as if his own doubts had suddenly lifted. “Come on. Let’s take a walk on the beach.”
“Are you sure? I might fall in,” Hugo teased.
“Yeah, come on.”
The two of them hopped out of the convertible and made their way down to the cooling sand. Dante kicked off his shoes as the light breeze fluttered Hugo's button-up shirt. They meandered back toward Dante's shack, but once again, they realized they weren't alone. Standing at the door was an overdressed and impatient looking Marshal.
“Jesus,” Dante sighed.
“Maybe I should just go,” Hugo suggested.
Dante gritted his teeth and shook his head. “No. You were invited. He wasn’t.” Before Hugo could say anything else, he turned and walked up to his agent.
“What do you need, Marshal?”
“What’s with this guy?” the man countered. “He’s always hanging around. You don’t have enough adoring fans? You need a personal one?”
“He’s my boyfriend, Marshal,” Dante snarled. “I don’t need you telling me who—”
He was interrupted when his agent grabbed his arm and pulled him to the side of the porch. “He’s your what?” Marshal spat.
“My boyfriend. And get your hands off me!” he countered, yanking his arm free.
Marshal waved a finger and shook his head. “Oh, no, no, no. You are supposed to be a playboy, remember? You have tail to chase and I mean hot, horny females.”
Dante shook his head. “Join the twenty-first century, man. No one cares—”
Marshal laughed in his face, a hollow, mirthless sounding noise. “You keep telling yourself that, champ. You see how far you get in this business. You ditch him or you risk losing everything. You lose me, you lose the record label. You ask yourself, do you really want to be famous, Dante?” With that, he turned and walked down the steps, giving Hugo a menacing look as he started up the beach.
Dante turned and looked at him too. Hugo’s hands went to his face first and then he clasped them behind his head in shock. “It’s okay, man,” he tried to assure him.
“Oh God,” Hugo only murmured.
“Come on,” Dante intoned.
“What?”
“Forget him. Let’s go in.”
It took a while to calm Hugo down. He seemed to think that his boyfriend's life was ruined and it was all his fault. The odd thing was, Dante didn't. In fact, he felt oddly free.
As they lay in bed, a while later, exhausted from a long and emotional bout of love-making, Hugo gently took Dante’s hand. He looked over the slender fingers and shook his head. “How can you be so calm about all this?”
Dante placed his cheek against his boyfriend’s head, letting his face get lost in Hugo’s curls. “I’ve been thinking about something Marshal said. Do I really want to be famous?”
Hugo sat up in surprise, almost knocking him off in the process. “What do you mean?”
Dante propped himself on his elbow and shrugged. “You know I’ve been doing this for a long time. I was doing okay before getting signed.”
“Yeah, but—”
“When I was twenty, I was playing little clubs. They were small, but they were packed. People came to see me and we…I could talk to them, you know? I could hang out after a gig and really get to know people. Do I really want to play to a full stadium, be whisked from city to city, and be so tired I never get to enjoy it?”
At first, Hugo simply stared at him, wide-eyed, but then a slow, boyish grin crossed his face.
“What are you grinning at?” Dante chuckled.
“I mean, if that’s what you really want…” He let the sentence hang there, not wanting to unduly influence his boyfriend’s thoughts. The truth was, he loved the idea, though. After a moment of silence, he said, “I wanted to be a singer once.”
“Yeah?”
“It was a long time ago, though. I was just a kid.”
“So was I,” Dante pointed out. “I’m still doing it, though. So, let’s hear it.”
“What? No, I couldn’t.” Hugo clammed up, blushing and shaking his head.
“Hey, it’s just me and you.”
“Exactly! I’m just me and you’re…you!” he exclaimed, gesturing at his boyfriend. He could tell Dante wasn’t going to let it go, though, so he took a shaky breath and tried to think of something to sing. It had been a long time since he’d taken music seriously, but he thought of a slow, soft gem he’d loved as a teenager. His voice was so quiet, it was barely above a whisper.
“There you go,” Dante encouraged and nodded along. As Hugo’s voice got a little louder, he joined in the chorus and was shocked to hear how good they sounded together. What was even more amazing was just how beautiful Hugo’s voice was. After a few moments, Dante stopped singing altogether and simply listened to his boyfriend’s dulcet tones.
Hugo closed his eyes and it was as if the rest of the world disappeared. When he finished the song and opened them again, a gasp choked in his throat at the sight of Dante, crying. “I’m sorry, I—”
Dante shook his head, forcefully, and clasped his hands together. “No, man…that was…the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. All that talent, pent up inside for all these years. How could you stand it?”
Hugo shrugged. “I didn’t really have a choice, I guess. I didn’t have…the look or the self-confidence. I knew I’d never be a star, like you.”
Dante shook his head and rubbed a tear from his cheek. “You should have been.” He sniffed and then smiled. “Why don’t you sing with me?”
His boyfriend’s eyebrows shot up. “Sing with you? No, I don’t think I could. I couldn’t handle doing what you do.”
“No, not like that. I don’t care about all that,” he added and realized, for the first time, that it was really true. “I want to go back to the clubs, do small shows. I want to be who I am and make the music I want. We’ll find some tiny, dark pub and you can get up for one song with me. What do you say?”
“I think this is crazy.”
“Yeah, but what do you say?”
Hugo snorted through his own tears and gave Dante a weak nod.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Even though it was late, Dante slipped his new cell phone out of his pants and dialed the number of a journalist who’d been dying to do an interview. “Bev? Hey, it’s Dante Lucas. Yeah, I’m doing great,” he answered and smiled at Hugo. “I know I’ve been putting off that interview, but I thought I’d make it up to you with a real scoop…There’s no one else I’d rather give it to. How about tomorrow at the studio?” He waited and then nodded into the phone. “Ten a.m. it is.” Then he ended the call and tossed the phone onto his bedside table. “It’s done…well, almost.”
The next morning, Hugo called in sick from work and went home to find the best clothes he had. He was so nervous, he was shaking, having recently been informed that this would be a live, televised interview for a morning news program. At first, he’d refused to even go and had almost run to Dante’s bathroom to throw up. When he’d finally calmed down enough, Dante drove him home.
“Everything okay in there?” his boyfriend called from the bathroom door.
“No, everything is not okay!” he called back, but only got a chuckle in reply.
When he finally did come out, Dante straightened his tie and said, “You don’t have to go on camera. I don’t even have to use your name.”
Hugo breathed a sigh of relief and nodded. “Good, because I think it would just be really embarrassing for both of us otherwise.”
Dante gave him a hug and a good-natured pat on the back before ushering him back to the car so they wouldn’t be late. When they drove up to the studio, an entire legion of people were waiting for him, including Marshal, looking perturbed as per usual. He stepped up to the sports car to get a word in with his client before anyone else could.
“What is this?” he asked. “Beverly Montoya called me and said that you’d arranged an interview…a televised interview. You do realize that’s my job, right?”
Dante slipped off his expensive pair of aviator shades and nodded. “Yeah, I do. It was your job.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re fired, Marshal.” He handed the burly man his sunglasses and grinned, mischievously. “Keep them.” Then he turned to the waiting reporter and camera with a grin and a wave.
“So, Dante,” Bev schmoozed, “we hear you have a big announcement to make this morning.”
Dante nodded, suddenly looking serious. “Yeah, Bev, I do. First of all, thanks for having me and I want to let the fans know how much I love them.” He waited for her polite acknowledgment and then went on. “I want everyone to know, I've thought about this a lot and…I'm announcing now that the world tour you may have heard about won't be happening.”
“Oh no, why not?” Bev asked.
“I just don’t think it’s right for who I am as an artist or for the music. I’ve been in this business a long time. Most of my life has been playing small clubs and doing the music I feel in my heart. Anyone who knows me knows that the image portrayed in the media, that’s not me. I haven’t been true to myself lately and that has to change.” From the side, he could hear Marshal’s voice and those of the record execs, starting to chatter.
“Wow. So why now? What caused the change of heart?”
Dante smiled, shyly, looking down from the camera. “It was my boyfriend, Bev.” He glanced, quickly, toward the car and then back down at his feet.
There were audible gasps, shocked outbursts, and a lot of silence from the people trying to run his career. Beverly Montoya, on the other hand, grinned from ear to ear and put a hand on his arm.
“That is so sweet, Dante. Is he here today?” she asked, having caught the glimpse.
The singer shook his head. “He’s a very private person, at least for now.”
“Why for now?”
“Because, the truth is, he’s actually a way better singer than I. We might be doing some stuff together in the future, so…” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hugo in the car, shaking his head in humorous despair.
“Oh wow, that sounds wonderful. So, now that you’re out, will you be doing any activism in the LGBT community or making any representational music?” Bev asked.
Dante hadn’t even thought about it that way. He’d never really been in the closet, but he had never really been out either. He nodded, slowly, and then looked back up at the camera. “Yeah, I think I will. Of course, I may not have a record label after this, but that’s okay. I’ll never stop making music.”
“What a revelation we’ve had this morning. Thanks for talking to us, Dante. I’m keeping my fingers crossed and wishing you luck in whatever you do,” Bev said in all sincerity.
“Thanks, Bev,” Dante replied and gave her a kiss on the cheek before walking away. As he did, Marshal and the execs caught up to him.
“We need to talk,” his former agent insisted.
“No, we don't. You do what you have to do. I'm finished with the bullshit.” With that, he hopped into the car and cranked it up. Some of the cameras tried to follow them, but he sped away before they could get much of a look at Hugo.
As they drove south along the coast, Hugo kept shaking his head and saying, “I can’t believe you just did that.”
“Doesn’t feel real, does it?” Dante agreed.
“Did you just throw away your career?”
The singer snorted and shook his head. “I had a career before those guys, I’ll have one after.”
“Beverly Montoya seemed impressed,” Hugo pointed out, feeling a bit more positive.
“She did.”
“And a lot of other people,” he added. “This could be really great for you.”
“Yeah.”