Excerpt

After calling my mom and letting her know I'd be late to supper and might have found Nick, I headed for The Book Shed. I parked my car a little down the street and followed some university students inside. It was packed, but I found a table toward the back, much to my relief.

I ordered a Coke and waited for the reading to begin, a hum of anticipation running through me. I could hardly sit still and began to make little towers out of sugar packets. I shook my head in disbelief as I thought about Nick and where two years had deposited him. Reduced to singing nursery rhymes, and poetry readings, while that remarkable voice lay unused.

But not after tonight. I was going to change his world as much as he'd already changed mine.

I settled down, as did everyone else (there were about fifteen people in all, pretty damn good for a poetry reading, I thought) when Nick walked out onto the stage. Wearing a red shirt and black leather pants. That had been who I'd seen leaving Harrison's. I wondered if he had any other clothes -- it was the same outfit he'd worn to the audition, with one addition. He had on a Derby hat, which he flipped off his head as he fiddled with his microphone. His hair had become mussed up by the hat, but he just shook his head like a terrier and set the hat upside down on the stage.

"Feel free to contribute to my waistline," he said with a grin, patting his stomach.

One of the girls obliged his request by tossing a handful of coins inside the hat. He blew her a kiss, then joked and laughed with the university students for a few minutes longer. I watched with a stab of longing as he hugged and kissed a couple of the girls and, to my somewhat jealous amusement, one guy. The guy smacked Nick on the butt and retook his place in the audience.

"Thanks for coming, everybody," Nick said. "I appreciate you making me feel less lonely tonight."

"How can you be lonely with that pretty face?" the butt-slapper called out.

The grin on Nick's face was a sad one -- but I wondered if I was the only one who realized that. "You'd be surprised, Richie, you'd be surprised." He readjusted his mic, then licked his lips and said, "Welcome to my strange little world."

Then he opened the door to that world, and I walked in.

He was almost as mesmerizing reciting his lyrics as he was singing. As he spoke, I could hear strands of music playing through my mind, accompanying his words. It was all I could do not to grab a napkin and borrow a pen and start jotting down what I was hearing in my head. I couldn't wait to hear him sing again, hear that voice perform a different sort of magic than what was woven now -- magic defined by me.

But this was good. Very, very good.

I watched, fascinated, and filled with hungry anticipation as he moved comfortably in front of his small audience, charming them with the elegance and cleverness of his words, drawing out their emotions. In between readings, he talked to his friends and money was good-naturedly tossed into the hat. He earned every coin, every bill. Amazing, just amazing, and my inner conviction that we were meant to work together intensified. I could hardly sit still.

He hadn't lost any of his stage presence, that was for sure, though finally he faltered. When he looked up and saw me.

Our gazes locked. Held. Heat flashed through me and my longing for him intensified, my body responding to the first stunned, then comprehending wicked look in his eyes. I got that hard, that fast. From just a look. If ever I worried I'd imagined his effect on me, I was reassured at that moment.

He had me, and he knew it.

I tried to look cool and unaffected, but that was blown out of the water when I nervously took a sip of my drink and spilled some of it on my shirt. I brushed it away and smiled at him sheepishly.

For a long moment we were lost in each other's gazes until one of his friends in the audience yelled, "Wake up, Nick!"

He broke his gaze from mine then and laughed nervously. "Sorry." He looked at me again and I smiled, feeling a little more at ease. He wiped a hand across his face and said, "Okay, now where were we, class?"

I settled back, and for the rest of the hour he continued, but now he directed his reading toward me, bathing me in his words. My excitement intensified, but man, how I relished the little bit of painful heaven he was giving me.

I put my hand under the table, an action he didn't miss as I adjusted myself in shorts grown too tight, failing to find a more comfortable arrangement. The pressure of my hand on my dick only made it harder to bear. I feared a major explosion any second and removed my hand again, wrapping it around my Coke, trying to think cold thoughts as I squirmed in my seat. But Nick continued his verbal lovemaking to me and I just got hotter.

After a little while, a rather astute girl in the front began to notice something interesting was going on. She turned in her chair, stared at me with an amused smirk on her face, then whispered something to one of her friends. That girl's gaze flickered back and forth between me and Nick, and she nodded, then whispered to the person next to her. And on that went. I blushed, drank some more Coke, then realized just how full my bladder was getting. I'd not gone all afternoon and had been plying myself with drinks the whole time.

And now Nick's liquid eyes, braver as he too realized the audience had caught on to what was going on and loved it, devoured me. The smiles, the glances, the growls -- geesh -- he threw in were designed to drive me insane, and it worked. Oh, how it worked. And every damn person in there realized Nick Kilmain was courting the blond guy sitting alone at the table in the back. Me. I wanted to run from the embarrassment of it even as I enjoyed every second. Besides, I couldn't move lest everyone see exactly what state he'd put me in.

I think Astute Girl had it figured out.

Finally, the hour was coming to a close. My descent into the sweetest of agonies was almost over. "Okay, my friends, this final poem is dedicated to the handsome boy in the AC-DC t-shirt sitting alone back there." He waved at me. "Hi, Brandon. Good to see you."

You'd think I was drinking liquor, I felt so intoxicated. I couldn't believe what I did next. "Hi, Nick," I called back. "Good to see you, too. Very good." The audience laughed and my face heated. I hadn't meant it to come out so full of ... longing.

"Feeling better?" He lifted his hand and touched it, then his head.

All eyes moved to me. I mimicked him, touching my hand and head. "Much. Thanks."

"Good. I'm glad to hear that," he said, the huskiness in his voice unmistakable. The audience crowed, and I felt like melting on the spot. This I hadn't imagined happening when I followed him here. My face was on fire, as was my body. One of the clerks brought me another Coke, and I guzzled it in a futile attempt to cool off.

Then he began his last poem. A love poem, of course, which the audience took to quite spiritedly. As I watched him, I realized I envied him, how he stood on the stage so open and carefree, so assured about who he was, his sexuality, his acceptance by his friends. I would never feel that way about myself, and knew it. That evening in the book store was the closest I ever got.

Oh, God. I needed to go to the bathroom, bad. Bad..

I crossed my legs and prayed and thought about fat men in Speedos. This time, it didn't work.

Finally, it was over. His friends burst forward with applause and rose to congratulate him, and I knew then I had to run and find the bathroom, quick, so I could talk to him. I ran to the bathroom and made it to an empty stall. A few painful minutes later (it is kinda difficult peeing with a hard-on), but feeling much, much better, and with my libido a bit more tamed, I splashed water on my face, dried it, and left the bathroom, looking for Nick.

To my surprise, the crowd had thinned out considerably. I guessed I'd been in there longer than I'd thought. I looked around, panic setting in again as I didn't see Nick. I pushed my way through the people still standing around and whirled around, looking about frantically. I spied the girl from up front as she was walking out the front door.

"Wait!" I called out, but she didn't hear me. I ran through the room and stopped her. "Wait, where'd Nick go?"

She turned to me in surprise. "Where did you go? He thought you bolted."

"I --" My face flushed. "I just went to the bathroom. He's gone?"

She gave me a sympathetic smile and rolled her eyes. "I told him you weren't upset. You didn't look freaked out to me."

"He thought I was freaked out? Why?"

"Well, he was afraid he'd embarrassed you, by messing with you like that." She smiled. "He really likes you and thought he'd screwed up and scared you off."

I shook my head, rubbing my hand over my face. "No, no no no, I wasn't embarrassed. I was just full of Coke. Where did he go, do you know?"

She hesitated, shrugged, then pulled me aside. "If you hurry, you can probably catch him. He's walking home."

"Home? He lives around here?"

She grimaced. "No, he lives over on Essex. Essex Haven."

I stared at her in surprise. I knew the place. "The shelter? Why is he living there?"

"His parents moved to Utah, his roommate moved out on him, and he had nowhere else to go." She frowned. "He wouldn't tell his parents what happened and moved in there."

"That's a mile from here, though."

"His car broke down, so he's walking, and he wouldn't let me take him. Go on and catch him. He was kinda upset when he left, but I bet you run faster than he can walk."

I nodded, then said, "Thanks. What's your name?"

"Karen."

"Thanks, Karen." I turned around and took off, heading down the street after Nick.