Now that the art commission I asked of the wonderful Tiago Alexandre (his portfolio is here: https://www.artstation.com/talexior ) is finished, I have started playing around with title font types, colors, and positioning to turn it into (one of) the covers for Fractured Heart. What do you think? Is this readable but not boring? Do you have suggested changes for me to try? Please let me know 😀
If you’d like to read the story of the shy, sulky, emotionally traumatized EDM DJ Theo and his enemies-to-friends-to-lovers relationship with the arrogant, funny and flirtatious world-famous pop star Lysander, you can read the first eight chapters for free here! www.fracturedheart.net/chapters/ch1-8-preview
Then if you like the story, you can read an entire 3-5k word chapter every Friday for only $5 a month (for a total of four chapters each month) on Patreon!
That evening, the day that Theo had, for the first time, explicitly rejected Lysander’s efforts to get closer to him, Lysander had rushed home and, for the first time in maybe a decade, openly cried.
He didn’t let anyone see it, of course. That would have been crazy. His illusion of impregnable self-assuredness, either cheerful or sensual, had taken years of practice and therapy to achieve. He couldn’t let anyone know he had feelings; that even he, with all his money and looks and fame and millions of people around the world ready and willing to do whatever he wanted of them, was also capable of being sad.
So, locking down that illusion for the space it had taken to escape that grubby little apartment without visibly falling to pieces, he’d said his goodbyes to Theo, given him a vague promise to finish work on their musical collaboration via email. Then, with practiced calmness, he’d returned to the plain white sedan he’d left in the unused-except-for-him spot in the carport and driven home.
Then he’d sulked frustratedly on the elevator ride to the top and stormed inside his apartment, into his walk-in closet where sometimes the feeling of closeness helped temper the loneliness whenever he returned to his own penthouse apartment alone. There he’d dropped to the floor to pull his long legs to his chest, buried his face between them, and let fat tears start quietly descending at last.
Fuck. He hated to show weakness like this, even if no one was around to see it. He wasn’t supposed to be weak. He was supposed to be strong, confident, charming, talented, able to entertain nearly a hundred thousand people live on stage without breaking a sweat—what would any of those fans think if they could see him now? Would they start to hate him? Would they despise him after realizing what a pathetic loser he actually was?
“Fuck,” Lysander rasped to himself after several long moments of crying had apparently done little to temper the ravaged shreds of his heart. Every time he started to calm down a little, he recalled how stiff Theo’s posture had been, shoulders arched and hackles raised as if he really were a cat, trapped in a corner and ready to fight or flee if Lysander dared reach out. The venom in Theo’s voice as he’d more or less told Lysander to fuck off, that it “wasn’t his fucking business” why Theo had abruptly stopped replying to his texts for the better part of a week.
Yes, maybe logically, Theo was right…they weren’t actually dating after all; he wasn’t, especially in that moment of emotional turbulence, particularly convinced they could even be counted as friends. But still, Theo needn’t have sounded so…vicious about it. A simple “I appreciate your inquiry as to my feelings on the matter, but I do not at this time believe it is within the parameters of our undefined relationship for me to share those private reasonings with you” would have been just fine.
After a while, some thought went to calling Liliana, to pouring his heart out to her as he was unwilling to pour his heart out to a single other person on this planet, not even his therapist of seven years. But she was in a foreign country nine hours ahead of him, where it was currently four in the morning…surely she was asleep, and even though she probably would have said she didn’t mind the interruption if he’d needed to reach out to her, his sense of guilt wouldn’t let him interrupt that sleep.
Her daughter was young enough that Liliana still had trouble getting Jubee to stay in her bedroom at night…she might be even more sleepy because of it, and even though Liliana was every bit as beautiful as she’d been while strutting down catwalks in Milan wearing hundred-thousand-dollar haute couture five years prior to getting married, moving to Italy, then having a child, she still needed her “beauty sleep.”
So, having no one else to bother with his emotional agony, Lysander stayed curled up in his closet, cried for another few long minutes (maybe hours, though he doubted it). Then he decided to take a shower and go back to finding a way to tamp all that weak shit down before anyone else discovered his dirty secret—that he was actually human, despite all his privileges and façade of inward as well as outward perfection. Maybe work out in his home gym afterward; try to sweat his stresses and sadness out.
He couldn’t afford to continue wallowing in self-pity anyway; he had to fly back to New York in the morning, had to put on an illusion of confident calmness as he negotiated terms with avaricious businessmen for the New Year’s show and for the upcoming tour. They were middle-aged men who thought he couldn’t possibly have the skills or the arrogance to demand fair treatment, simply because he had been born to a life of privilege and was only 25; he literally couldn’t afford to give them a single inch, a chink in his armor to stab into and pry him apart.
So, with great effort, he indulged in one more shivering sigh, then brushed the tear streaks away with the heels of his hands and forced himself to stop wallowing in self-pity and weakness.
Time to get to work.
~~
It was late morning, two days later, when Lysander received a phone call from a number that made his heart lurch with worry and hope.
He was especially tired—after a long day of artfully exchanging words with reps and agents and other businessmen while he employed practiced smiles and silver-tongued scheming, some of those suits had insisted on taking Lysander out for drinks, and he knew better than to turn down the ‘offer’. A lot of the most important deals he’d secured in the past happened in the after-hours, when tongues were loosened and willpowers frayed by liquid libation and the presence of attractive women (though generally Lysander was too professional to partake of the latter, aside from a few well-timed winks that had the women giggling coquettishly and giving him fawning looks).
He was still worn out from the time-change, too—even though the clock said it was ten, his internal clock still thought it was seven, and the confusion caused by that dissonance threw his internal rhythms all out of whack. It was going to be even worse when he’d be returning to LA in another three days, his body thrown into even more confusion as he was forced to readjust to everything being three hours earlier.
That tiredness evaporated in a second, though, as soon as the now-familiar number—and the name—flashed on his screen.
Theo was calling him. Two days after telling him to fuck off, Theo was calling him. What did he want? Was he going to lecture Lysander further? Was he calling to tell him to fuck off permanently?
Or…maybe, just maybe, Theo was regretting his harshness? Maybe he wanted to make up?
Tentatively, afraid to trust himself not to pour out all his apologies for his invasiveness and beg Theo to take him back—at least as a friend, even if Theo had made it clear he never intended to become lovers—Lysander slid the digital button to accept the call and waited with bated breath for Theo to speak first.
No sooner had the call connected than Theo’s agitated, excited voice stammered out, “Listen to th-this,” and then music started playing through the receiver.
Parts of it were familiar already, but so much more had been added in since Lysander had heard bits and pieces in the recording studio weeks ago; presumably in the file that Theo had emailed over yesterday that Lysander had not yet been strong enough to listen to on his own. It wasn’t in disjointed fragments anymore, though—all of it had been mended together, and even if some parts were a little chaotic, on the whole it sounded very, very good.
When Lysander heard his own singing voice played back to him, this time with effects added that gave it a dreamy, evocative feel, he almost gasped in shock. He’d never heard his voice sound like that…not crisp and charming but eerie, enchanting. The lyrics were only a few lines long, vague references to exploring uncharted territory in a deep, dark forest that he himself had written, but whatever Theo had done to them made it sound like so much more.
Minutes, maybe hours later, the song faded, and Lysander finally loosed a quiet, stunned breath.
Then, hearing Theo’s own shallow, anticipatory breathing, a startled laugh burst out of Lysander and he said with helpless automation, “Wow.”
He could practically hear Theo smile hugely in response, the shy DJ’s voice vibrating with pleased excitement as he replied rapidly, “Isn’t it p-perfect?!”
His own lips twitching into a bemused smirk, Lysander replied softly, still processing both the music and the fact that Theo sounded happy to be talking to him again, “It’s…pretty great.”
Glancing at the alarm clock visible next to the bed from where he’d been sitting in an armchair while checking emails on his phone, Lysander asked in subtle amusement, “Did you just finish that? Is that why you called me at…” Ten in the morning, minus three hours for the time change… “What is it there right now?…Seven AM?”
It was a strange hour for Theo to be awake and talking on the phone with him—the DJ ought to have either been working one of his ungodly 4 AM-to-noon warehouse shifts, or else sleeping in preparation for an evening shift instead. He had two jobs after all, and barely seemed to have a chance to take a break between them. Poor, overworked Theo. It was so fucking unfair that he had to work so hard for so little. Maybe someday, Lysander could convince the DJ to let him take care of him instead.
“S-Sorry.” Theo giggled, then rambled with absurd eagerness, “Ssss….Sorry…s-sorry’s such a weird w-word…”
Oh. Smiling to himself again, Lysander kept his tone light as he interjected, “Theo.”
“Mmmmm?”
“Are you… high right now?”
“Mmmmmm.” Theo punctuated his non-answer answer with another giggle, and Lysander’s lips twisted into an even deeper grin, relief slowly supplanting his worry that Theo had called to say something negative to him. Hopefully he wasn’t only feeling giddy because he was evidently stoned as fuck.
The breath rushed out of Lysander in a startled, touched, surge of emotion as the person he was completely infatuated with asked, “When are you c-coming over ag-gain? I wanna show this t-to you with th-the viss..vish…vishiliser app…”
Fuck. Suddenly, Lysander was very resentful of the fact that he was a thousand miles away right now. He wanted nothing more than to jump in his car, drive over like a bat out of hell over to that tiny apartment, and take Theo into his arms as he’d been longing to do since September. Maybe push him up against a wall and kiss him desperately. Maybe take this phone call as a sign that Theo, at last, would be receptive to that kiss.
Still afraid to confidently interpret Theo’s inquiry as such a sign, Lysander studiously kept his voice quiet, unassuming as he asked, “Do you want me to come over?”
“Yes!” Theo gusted out in immediate reply, and Lysander almost wept all over again, this time with relief. “So when? Whenwhenwhen? Today? T-tomorrow? Now?”
God, he was so fucking adorable that Lysander could hardly stand it.
As pleased as he was to hear his crush entreaty him for a rapid return, Lysander was tired, and a yawn leaked out of him as he debated his reply. “Not tomorrow…Hmm. Let me look at my schedule. Hold on.” Reluctantly pulling the phone away from his ear, feeling ridiculously like he might increase the chances that Theo would end the call if he did so, Lysander switched apps to check his calendar.
Goddamnit. Why was Theo finally talking to him like this now? “I can do…Wednesday evening? Assuming my flight doesn’t get delayed.”
“Nooooo…” The plaintive whine in the DJ’s voice should have been annoying, but all it did was make Lysander smile hugely again. “Nowwww.” Perhaps it was a good thing after all that Theo was so far away from him at the moment, or Lysander would have been sorely tempted to gobble him up for his unbearable cuteness.
“I can’t come over ‘nowwww’,” Lysander replied, hiding his disappointment at the fact with a wry chuckle. “I’m across the country right now. What am I supposed to do, teleport there?” If only such a thing were possible. Maybe, whenever he was back in LA again, Lysander should apply himself to inventing a teleportation device so that he needn’t be unnecessarily far away from Theo ever again.
“Yes. T-Teleport. I need you h-here.” If Theo sounded any more adorable, Lysander was going to faint. And…’need’. Theo had said he needed Lysander there with him. Even if he was being extra silly thanks to inebriation, surely he wouldn’t have said he needed him if he only viewed Lysander as a casual friend.
Either way, teleportation was not at that time possible, and as much as Lysander longed to be physically next to Theo, he still felt too much responsibility to his career and to all the people who depended on him to wildly chase after his crush by leaving New York early when he still had three more days of boring-ass meetings to get through. “Well…” It was a pathetic half-measure, but it was all Lysander could offer at the moment. “How about a video chat instead? It’s not the same, but…”
“Fine.”
Smirking ruefully at Theo’s pouty tone, Lysander drew his phone back again, stared anxiously at the screen for a long moment, then, trying not to panic that Theo might change his mind, forced himself to end the call and send a FaceTime request instead.
Saints be praised, Theo accepted it, and Lysander’s heart leapt yet again as soon as he could see that (unfortunately tiny) pretty, pouty face. Holy fuck did he want to kiss Theo so badly right then. Even if he had three days to get his longing back under control, could Lysander really trust himself not to put his hands all over the DJ as soon as physical distance was no longer a barrier?
“There you are,” Lysander heard himself murmur, sure he must have been wearing an embarrassingly dopey grin. Theo, instead, was scowling, though Lysander supposed (hoped) it was more that he was feeling sour about Lysander not dropping everything and returning to him as soon as Theo had asked him to. “Wow…you are high. I can see the red in your eyes from here.”
Actually, wasn’t this the first time Lysander had seen Theo stoned? He knew Theo smoked sometimes—the well-used bong in his apartment proved that obviously enough—but it was a bizarre and beautiful experience to see Theo so…unguarded for once. Wearing his silly, sulky, adorably needy true emotions on his sleeve. Lysander resolved that he would be encouraging Theo to smoke more whenever it was politely possible, if it meant he got the pleasure of seeing Theo relax his defenses this much.
Meanwhile, Theo had made a noise like a frightened rabbit and hidden his face after Lysander’s comment. So Lysander chuckled disarmingly and offered, “Hey, it’s fine, no judgement. We all have those days.”
Revealing only his red-rimmed eyes again, Theo mumbled from within the nest of his arms, “Where’re you?”
“I told you. New York.” Regrettably. “Did you think I was lying?”
“No…maybe.” Slowly, some of the silliness faded from Theo’s voice, and Lysander fought back a frown, sad to have caused Theo any discomfort; if it was indeed his fault that Theo’s giddy light had dimmed. The DJ’s face disappeared between his arms again, voice sadder still as he continued, “Lys…I’m…I’m s-sorry…”
It’s okay, baby, I forgive you. Fuck, please, I’m the one who’s sorry. I never meant to make you feel like I was intruding…I never meant to push you into rejecting me, because I was too presumptuous in thinking that you trusted me as much as I hoped you did.
Biting back the ridiculously honest admission of how desperately he wanted Theo to like him, Lysander was preparing a noncommittal word of dismissal when Theo started drawling his name. His name. Something that Lysander couldn’t remember him saying a single time before, as if acknowledging him by name might be confessing a closeness that Theo was still, for whatever reason, unwilling to admit.
“Lys. Lysss. Lyyyyyssssss.”
Swallowing back that lingering urge to beg Theo to forgive him entirely, Lysander kept his voice neutral as he said, “Theo. Look at me.”
Slowly, with obvious reluctance, Theo pulled his face back up until it was visible, his morose expression tearing into Lysander’s chest. Uncertainty flickered in the warm brown depths of his eyes, gaze darting to the sides of Lysander’s face on the screen; or so Lysander supposed, small as the view of Theo was on the phone. “You’re b-busy. ‘M sorry, ‘m gonna g-go—”
“Wait.” The plea burst out of him before Lysander even realized he was speaking, his tone frantic, or so it sounded to his own ears.
The hand that Theo had started reaching towards his phone hesitated, dropped to the couch. The DJ’s eyes were so wide as Lysander continued carefully, putting every drop of emphatic encouragement into his tone that he could, “Theo. Your song—our song—is beautiful. You did an amazing job.”
Theo’s resulting smile was so beautiful that Lysander couldn’t help automatically echoing it, relieved and happy and hopeful and full of longing to see Theo again. He said, voice trembling a little bit with how hard he was trying not to reveal how deeply affected he was, “And I mean it—Wednesday. I’ll see you Wednesday. Okay? As soon as my plane lands, I’ll call you and we’ll figure something out.”
“Okay,” Theo replied quietly, shyly, then, “Miss you.”
Fuck. He was done for. Lysander was in love.
Smiling gently in direct contrast to the surge of awestruck emotion that internally assaulted him at the realization, Lysander murmured back to him, “Miss you too. Now get some sleep. Goodnight, Theo.”
Theo’s own smile looked serene, but there was a little bit of sheen to his eyes as if he, too, were holding back tears. “I l-love when you s-say that. G’night, Lys.”
Quickly, before he could start crying for real, Lysander ended the call. Then he stared at his phone where he was still clutching it for one long moment then another, breath rattling shakily in his chest as he stared at the blank screen.
He loved Theo. He loved Theo. Fuck, it was utterly ridiculous; he’d only met Theo months ago, and really, he barely knew him. Theo revealed only tiny parts of himself bit by bit, and Lysander doubted he’d ever fully know or understand the DJ, understand what it was that had happened to him in the past to make him so fragile and withdrawn.
It didn’t matter though. The scarcity of those admissions was what made each one of them so precious.
Well…if he truly did love Theo, was in love with him, then that only crystallized his mission. Breathing out deeply, Lysander resolved to dedicate himself to his newfound intent.
He’d just have to find a way to make Theo love him back.
I indulged in another couple pages of writing from Lysander’s perspective in my gay romance webnovel “Fractured Heart: the Tale of the Pop Star and the Pauper,” this time from the pop star’s POV instead of the shy tsundere EDM DJ the actual story is written about.
It’s been really interesting for me to explore Lysander’s inner dialog, because it turns out he’s more of a cad than he lets on, at least as far as how his view of the world has become after a near-decade of surviving and thriving in the Hollywood entertainment world. But I know (though I haven’t written that part of the story yet) that eventually he’ll soften back into the sweet, kind person he was before he got wrapped up in all that. Theo being the first person in a long time that Lys has lusted after without being able to immediately buy or charm him into reciprocating that lust is giving him a reality check he’s been sorely needing after years of everyone sucking up to him and/or immediately capitulating as soon as he expressed his desire towards them :p
Warning for some sexually explicit language, though it’s not the main point of the writing.
~~
If Lysander Delion didn’t get to see what sex with Theo Miller felt like soon, he was going to fucking die.
It wasn’t supposed to have turned out like this. Lysander hadn’t had to go without something he’d wanted in a long time. There were few things in this world that money, connections, or charm couldn’t obtain, and he had all three in spades.
The normal course of events was:
Lysander met someone or saw something he wanted
Lysander used his resources to obtain the someone or something he wanted, the end.
But somehow, it wasn’t turning out that way with Theo. Somehow, the shy EDM DJ’s fae-like qualities didn’t end with just his appearance—he was a damned unicorn, interested neither in money, who Lysander knew, what Lysander looked like, or the carefully crafted beguiling mannerisms Lysander had learned to employ. No matter what method Lysander used to attempt to entice him, the kid remained reticent, wary. And it was infuriating.
Not that Lysander had any interest in forcing Theo to accept his attentions. Despite what the tabloids liked to insinuate sometimes—assuming that no one could have possibly ended up as wildly successful and famous as Lysander had without turning into a total monster—he did, actually, try not to be a dick.
And if Theo had just straight up rejected him, had severed contact, or simply said “I don’t want to see you anymore,” then Lysander would have packed up his sexual frustrations and compelled himself to leave the kid alone.
But no. Theo wasn’t making this easy. As much as he shied away from Lysander’s more overt attempts at flirting, he still stayed in contact with him, still acquiesced to meeting with him from time to time. Yes, it had so far always been under the pretense of working on the collaborative EDM song Theo had reluctantly agreed to make with him…well, it wasn’t exactly just a pretense, they were working on a song together.
But none of their interactions had been dates, with the clear, ultimate goal of a romantic relationship. Or, at the least, fucking.
And Lysander had learned enough about Theo at this point to feel fairly certain that if he did explicitly ask for the thing he wanted most, Theo was going to spook away entirely.
So, with effort, Lysander had been restraining that part of him that very, very much wanted to outright pursue Theo. Had been keeping his charms in reserve, only letting them leak out intermittently, giving Theo mere morsels of what it could be like if he’d let Lysander in even just a little bit.
So far, it seemed to be working…maybe. Theo had, as he’d reflected, not wholly rejected him. And that was a good sign, right?
But fuck if it wasn’t testing every remaining shred of Lysander’s patience not simply going for what he wanted.
“Oh, God, Lys, just like that—oh fuck, that feels amazing—don’t stop—”
With an inward growl, Lysander tried to suppress his pent-up ruminations and return his attention to the present. Lucina, his on-and-off-again friend-with-benefits, was writhing beneath him, generous butt made firm by hours of Pilates thrusting back against him in the way he generally liked, thin waist trapped in position by the breadth of his large hands. He couldn’t see her face from that angle, but that was fine; he could tell from her voice that she was enjoying herself. So why wasn’t he?
Lucina was a good sport. A pop star like him, she was sick of long-distance relationships and never expected more from him than he was willing to give, nor did he of her. And she wasn’t his ideal type, but she was pretty enough, and more importantly, she was willing and available. Even if he wasn’t throbbing with desire with her, generally sleeping with her was sufficient for working out his urges if he was frustrated about other things.
Except it wasn’t working this time. Which wasn’t to say his body wasn’t responding in the usual way—under normal circumstances, with a wet, warm pussy ready to receive him, Lysander could find it within himself to let his penis swell—the hard, long cock he’d been blessed with that the girls and sometimes boys and sometimes they/thems were so fond of praising and begging to have inside of them—and give the people who wanted to have sex with him what they craved.
But it wasn’t distracting him from what he really wanted this time, not really. He didn’t want Lucina. He wanted Theo, wanted to see what it felt like to run his calloused fingers down the length of that slim, feline body; wanted to stroke through the straight, black lengths of hair and see how soft they were; wanted to watch with satisfaction as that pouty moue opened up to wrap around his dick and suck; wanted to see the warm brown of his eyes that always seemed to be narrowed suspiciously darken with lust. He wanted Theo to be the one beneath him now, arching and mewling, begging him for more.
Fuck. Maybe he should just give up. Maybe he should stop teasing himself by keeping up this cat-and-mouse game where Theo remained in his periphery, close enough to have Lysander wanting but not close enough to fulfill that want.
“Aahh!” Lucina cried out shrilly, orgasming beautifully, sinking back against him and taking him in until every inch was enclosed in pulsating softness and warmth. It was just enough pleasure that Lysander soon found his own release, filling the condom within her with cum, digging his curled fingers into her hips to keep her in position until the last spasm worked through him and surface-level repleteness replaced his lust. Mental frustrations be damned.
Then she collapsed into the enormous mattress with an airy, delighted laugh, and Lysander fell forward onto his splayed palms to either side of her torso, careful not to crush her. Given that he was 6’5” and made of almost pure muscle while she was 5’4” and probably weighed less than a sack of potatoes, that would have been easy to do.
“Fuck, Lys,” she groaned, rolling to her backside as soon as he’d extracted and giving him a sleepy, satisfied smile. “I missed that fabulous dick.”
“Yeah? Did you?” he replied with practiced smoothness, giving her a wicked, half-lidded grin after disposing of the condom then facing the bed again, folding his arms across his broad chest. Despite the fact that he was smiling, her own smile faltered, and after a moment she pushed up to sit on the side of the bed and give him a look of concern. Shit, maybe he wasn’t wearing his mask of confident nonchalance as effectively as he’d assumed he was.
“You look…distracted,” she commented, rising from the bed and laying a sympathetic hand on his muscle-bound bicep. “Are you…upset you didn’t win Artist of the Year this time?”
His eyes widened slightly and he let out a barking laugh. While, yes, it had stung a little not to achieve that prestigious award after winning it for the last three prior years, that was far from the top of his list of concerns.
But he didn’t want her knowing what was really bothering him—he wasn’t in the mood for a soul-searching conversation, and anyway, it was a little embarrassing to admit his usual methods of getting what he wanted weren’t working for once. So he only shrugged, the soft movement dislodging her grasp on his arm, and said, “Sure. I mean, Hughie did spectacular this year; he totally deserves it. But of course it hurts.”
Her sympathetic frown lowering even further, she hovered a hand uncertainly near his shoulder, then dropped it and offered her own slight shrug. “Well, there’s always next year,” she said brightly in an obvious attempt at consoling him, and a wry smirk tugged at his shapely lips at her endearing efforts to cheer him up.
“Yeah. Next year,” he agreed, and deigned to at least give her cheek an affectionate caress. Then he stooped to the floor and offered the discarded dress to her; an obvious indicator that it was time to go. “I’ll call you next week?”
If her frown shifted a little into disappointment, he pretended not to notice. He didn’t bother to put on any of his own clothes as he strode ahead of her, escorting her out of the penthouse once she’d repaired her dishabille.
She lingered just a little while in the doorway to regard him with one more smile, stroked her palm down his bare chest in what might have been a subtle display of possessiveness. Then she took herself to the elevator to head out of the building and on to wherever she went when they weren’t fucking or happening to run into each other at a mutual event.
As soon as the door clicked shut again, Lysander found himself staring at the back of it, breathing shallow in his chest as he recalled what it had felt like to see Theo hovering there only two nights prior on the way to his own exit. The DJ’s eyes had been so wide, his body practically vibrating with hyper-awareness of how close to him Lysander had been.
Lysander had been lusting for Theo since the very first second their eyes had met at the concert venue weeks prior, but that moment in the doorway had been the first instance Lysander had become certain that Theo was lusting for him, too.
So why wasn’t Theo just giving in to that lust? Why was he still resisting, still keeping Lysander at arm’s length, when his body was so obviously yearning for their joining?
Fuck…Lysander really needed to find some solution to their fraught situation, or he was going to internally combust.
~~
(You can read more of the actual story if you want, including the first eight chapters for free, on patreon, where you can access future chapters as well as a free first-page-of-chapter preview, for just $5 a month: patreon.com/fracturedheartAO )
For a fun little writing exercise I’ve been rewriting the first chapter from my gay romance webnovel Fractured Heart from Lys’s perspective, and man he really was lovestruck-at-first-sight 😂
~~
Several others had also climbed the stairs onto the stage with him along with Lindsay—techs, the tour manager, the head stylist who’d come along just case a single mesh shirt rhinestone or pink boa feather had been disturbed out of place. He was in the midst of going over positional cues with the head lighting tech James when Lysander became dimly aware of another person hovering at the foot of the stairs, obviously waiting for an opportunity to rise up and join them. Keeping half an ear towards what James was saying, Lysander swept his eyes sidewards to get a better look at who that person was.
And beheld the most beautiful-fucking-creature he’d ever seen.
Asian and with a diminutive, lithe build evident despite his shapeless work uniform, the young man’s hair—straight and black as midnight—hung in a sheath over part of his face in what was a stylish though no doubt inconvenient Goth aesthetic. That sheath shielded one black eyeliner-rimmed eye from view as the other fixed on Lysander with mild suspicion, reminding him instantly of an untamed feline nervously backed into a corner.
The rest of his face, unshaded by that sheath, appeared androgynous, almost elfin; he looked like some fey creature, trapped temporarily in the mortal realm and forced to toil in mundane labor until he’d recovered whatever sacred artifact had been stolen away from him so he could return to his sacred forest home.
Finally, the burning in his chest reminded Lysander to breathe again, and, unbidden, a true, unaffected smile burst across his face. The young man looked startled in response, his own eyes—too dark to see their color clearly without Lysander stepping closer, but likely brown—widening subtly, body jerking just the tiniest bit backwards. The gesture tugged at Lysander, like a hook tugging at a baited fish; it took concerted effort not to let himself take an automatic step forward in response to that slight retreat.
“James,” someone said, and belatedly Lysander realized it was his own voice, his brain carrying on quite sensibly while his heart was still lurching like a caged sparrow in his chest. “Could you step to your right? I think you’re blocking our friend there from climbing the stairs.”
Movement beside him indicated that the lighting tech had stepped back as bidden, but Lysander didn’t look in his direction to verify it. Couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t look at anything beyond that youth, shy and bewitching, his wary expression igniting some part of Lysander’s subconsciousness that had it ridiculously screaming at him to step closer and take that delicate face between his hands. He wanted so badly to stare into those black-lined eyes, to whisper words of reassurance that Lysander meant him no harm, to enfold that slim body against his own broad chest and pour everything within him into protecting the young man, cuddling him close like a fragile, broken-winged bird.
“Uh—n-no, i-it’s fine,” the youth rasped out at last, his soft voice and slight stutter as vulnerable and protectiveness-invoking as his physical appearance. “I can—I c-can just climb up the s-side—”
The youth was actively retreating now, one slight, flighty step at a time, and some small, rational part of Lysander was commanding him to rein himself in, to restrain those urges he was already fighting against to close in even closer. He knew he had to prevent himself from giving in to that pleading voice inside of him that was trying to bid him to chase after the stranger, even if it felt like the youth was a faerie that would disappear forever if Lysander didn’t immediately take him into hand.
So, with his teeth that were still flashing in a bright smile gritting ever so slightly with determination, Lysander took his own step backward and said with a calmness that was far from what he was actually feeling, “No, no, don’t be silly. We can move.” Then, with practiced grace, he swept his arm to the side to make sure the route was cleared; aware despite his spellbound stupefaction that they were blocking access to the stage where the youth was obviously headed, it was the least he could do. Again, almost without his conscious involvement, Lysander heard his voice say genteelly, “What can I help you with, friend?”
The youth responded with another startled blink, his tone even shyer as he muttered, “Oh…I-I’m just doing s-sound check.” Then, with obvious reluctance, he plodded up the four steps that separated the stage from the cement flooring, his thin, pale fingers clinging to the railing as if he were forcing himself upward through heavy winds.
Lysander knew he was still partially blocking the way with his own big form, but his legs seemed to have locked in place after his first step back. Instead he kept his enraptured gaze fixed on the young man, watching him trudge upward even after his dark eyes had dropped demurely to the steps beneath his feet. Only once the youth was scarcely more than arm’s length away did Lysander manage to force himself further back, still feeling powerless against the urge to keep staring at the stranger. He knew he likely looked deranged, but he was unable to tear his gaze away nonetheless.
If the others around him noticed how oddly he was behaving, none had the temerity to say anything about it; instead, just as the youth closed in on his destination—flitting about the stage between amps and instruments, checking connections, turning dials, making sure everything was set up properly for the show—James started speaking to him again, resuming his break-down of performance cues that Lysander was having a very hard time caring about in that moment. But at last, his work ethic prompting him not to let a little heart-stopping enchantment get in the way of him doing his job, Lysander reoriented himself towards his entourage. He did his absolute best to pay no attention to the burning awareness in his periphery that the spellbinding young man was still right there.
To help new readers find out if they’re interested in Fractured Heart: the Tale of the Pop Star and the Pauper, I’ve made chapters 1 – 8 available to read totally for FREE. If you want to read past that chapter, you can do so on Patreon at the following links:
In an effort to make it more challenging for data scrapers to steal the story, you can download and read each chapter as a PDF, linked below. I will put the entirety of chapter 1 here; if you’d like to keep reading, then please use the download links for the PDFs to see them!
Fractured Heart: Chapter One
“Jim needs you to switch the right amp with the spare. Says it was fucking up big time at the Housenfuhrer set last night.”
Pausing with his hands on the handle of the plastic broom—with ends that were badly frayed because the owner of the concert venue was too cheap to replace anything until it was broken down into a useless husk—Theo grumbled to himself. The amps were rather heavy—while he liked to think of himself as a competently strong guy, it was still a struggle to move them by himself. Of course, another able-bodied assistant to help would have been lovely, but just as with his refusal to replace the broom, Jim refused to hire a sufficient number of people to handle the workload. The cheap-ass just expected the handful of employees he did have to work the jobs of five people simultaneously instead.
When he’d first gotten a job at Halo a year and a half prior, Theo had been so delighted he’d almost cried. Here was his ‘in’ to the professional music production world—working in such close proximity to the performers meant he was bound to find an opportunity to cross paths with and hopefully impress some music exec or agent or someone else with bargaining power in the industry who could get him a deal. Then he could finally escape being trapped into gigs DJing other people’s music in grimy underground nightclubs with floors that were perpetually sticky with spilled drinks, and find the time to work on producing his own original music that might actually see widespread release someday.
Even though he’d only been producing EDM for just under five years and still had a lot to learn, he liked to think that his current skill level was more than passing fair in quality. His roommate and best friend Siti seemed to think so—she wasn’t even particularly into EDM, and yet even she said his music was “bitchin’.” Maybe it was hubris to think he might be ready for something bigger, but…
“No one wants to listen to your crap ‘music.’ Stop wasting so much time on it and just be a model. Your pretty face is all you’re really good for, you know.” The echoing memory of that voice had him grimacing, shaking off the briefest of shudders as he placed the broom against a wall in the entrance hall then made his way towards the stairs leading up to the large stage that dominated the back half of the main room.
Halo certainly wasn’t the most high-tech concert venue available on that side of the outskirts beyond Los Angeles proper, nor was it the largest. Yet it was a popular venue for many musical artists to test out new material, or cultivate a more ‘intimate’ audience experience—sometimes even very large acts. Casting his gaze towards the empty floor as he stepped onto the stage still gave Theo’s stomach a lurch as he imagined what it must feel like to perform at a venue that was larger—to stand in front of thousands of people all screaming and staring at you, pouring your heart out into your music right there for the public to judge. No, thank you, sir.
One of his too-few coworkers Keenan was already on the stage fighting to move the broken amp—Theo passed him a nod of acknowledgement, but the middle-aged man only gave him a flat stare in return. Keenan wasn’t the most pleasant of individuals, Theo had discovered soon after getting hired—too many years working a shit job, he supposed. If Theo stayed on at Halo for another ten years or so, he’d probably end up with the same sort of easily-irritated disposition.
“Jim wants this switched,” Keenan muttered as Theo approached the other side of the amp, and Theo nodded rather than let him know he’d already been informed as much. Between the two of them, they struggled to corner-walk the amp to the far side of the stage, tucked away into the wings behind a curtain, then did the same backwards with the spare amp kept in the corner. Eventually, they’d have to use the forklift to take the bad one out and hopefully put it somewhere the repair techs could come out to look it over, but not today—the headliner for that night was due to show up at the venue in another two hours. They didn’t have time.
As he struggled to move the amps, a sheaf of coal-black hair worked its way free from under the clip he’d slid in before his shift, falling annoyingly into the path of his vision. Occasionally it stabbed into his eyes worse than the eyeliner that had leaked into them when he’d been too hasty applying it that morning. Growling softly, Theo did a head toss to flip it behind his ear, but it slid right back into the way. After a second attempt with no more success, Theo gave up with a sigh. Should’ve worn a bandana, though he’d wanted to show off the new cut to Siti in the box office without messing it up with bandana-hair first.
“Shouldn’t have hair like that, man,” Keenan commented disapprovingly as they both paused to lean against the replacement amp and wipe sweat from their brows. “Too much upkeep.” Keenan’s own hair was wiry and cropped extremely short—bet he didn’t need any prep at all.
Keenan might have been right, and once upon a time Theo would have agreed with him. His mother certainly would—she hated the style of personal expression he’d picked up since art college, and he had to forgo the eyeliner, the red eyeshadow, and certainly the black lipstick any time he visited back home or he’d hear no end of the lectures.
But since he’d slowly immersed himself in the rave community, he’d discovered a kind of welcoming atmosphere that was difficult to find elsewhere—certainly in the transaction-based “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” world of Los Angeles. The tagline often associated with the rave scene was PLUR: “Peace, Love, Unity, Respect,” and for the most part it seemed like the majority of participants honored that creed.
“Y-Yeah, well,” Theo replied with an empty laugh, taking in one more deep breath before he set to work switching all the cables over to the replacement amp. Eager to change the subject before Keenan reminded him any more of his mother’s complaints, he asked, “Who’s the h-headliner tonight, a-again?”
Keenan’s eyes narrowed—like a lot of people, he wasn’t fond of the 0.5 seconds longer it sometimes took Theo to get through a sentence with his stutter, but for once the curmudgeonly older man withheld his tongue on that topic. “Kylie Simone is opening. Lysander Delion is the main set.”
Oh—right. Tonight was a pop music concert. Theo couldn’t help grimacing at that. He hated all forms of pop, found it grating and soulless, manufactured by committee to be the most “earwormy” to generate sales rather than use the creative medium of music to convey anything with human intention. Ironically, it sounded more artificial to him than his most preferred genre EDM—the kind of music that actually used nothing but machines to produce.
And Lysander Delion was a step below even the awfulness of pop music in general—he was a nepobaby. His father owned Everest Entertainment, one of if not the largest record label companies in the Americas. That pretty much guaranteed Lysander a signing as long as he could at the minimum ululate into a microphone without sounding like a dying cat. And even if he did, they could always fix that with autotune.
Of course, Theo couldn’t think of any specific songs he could confidently attribute to the pop star—it wasn’t his kind of music, so he didn’t go out of his way to listen to it on purpose. But surely he’d heard it on the overhead speakers in the mall or maybe from someone’s cell phone as they played it at max volume on the city bus, and he was sure he’d hated it then without even knowing whose music it was.
After getting the cords straightened out, Theo returned to the front hallway to resume sweeping the last of the garbage left over from the night before—Uly had been on shift, not Theo, and Uly always did a shitty job whenever he was tasked with cleaning. Or organizing flyers at the box office. Or dusting off the equipment between uses. Or…pretty much any task he was given, really. Theo was sure Uly must be the son of the venue owner or something or surely he would have been fired by now, but Theo hadn’t cared enough about the surly asshole to look into it.
An hour and a half of other mundane cleaning and set up tasks ticked by with agonizing slowness, until one of his coworkers came into the backstage area to let them know that one of the performers was pulling into the garage. Most of the others made their way towards the back entrance at the mention of that, the women especially—given how Lysander Delion was rumored to be physically gorgeous as well as a (if you liked that sort of music) good singer, of course he had a legion of fangirls hiding in wait anywhere one might go in the US—or beyond, if the crowd sizes even in places like India and Singapore were taken into account. Theo’s own grandmother had probably heard of him all the way down in her tiny village of Seonsan in South Korea, and she didn’t even own a TV.
Rolling his eyes at the breathless excitement from some of his coworkers, Theo stayed at his task—getting the freshly-laid cords taped down so no one tripped on them and sued the venue for a bazillion dollars—and a moment later, the women returned wearing obvious looks of disappointment. Ah, just the opening act, then.
Another half hour later, and the concert hall employees were starting to shift nervous looks back and forth. Some of the headliner’s sound tech team had shown up earlier in the day to get their own equipment set up, but not the headliner or his background band themselves, meaning they couldn’t yet do final soundchecks to ensure everything was set up perfectly before go-time. Though two more hours remained before doors would open to concert attendees, sometimes unforeseen complications during set-up could push the start time and music venue fans were not known for their patience over unexpected delays. Especially the younger, predominantly female fans like those who were likely to turn out for a heartthrob pop idol like Lysander Delion.
Theo’s already low opinion of this celebrity he had never breathed the same air as fell even lower as the window before lateness drew ever shorter. Apparently Lysander had reached the level of fame where he felt like other people’s time wasn’t as valuable as his—if he hadn’t already been that presumptuous since childhood, seeing how he’d been born with a proverbial silver spoon in his mouth.
At last, almost 40 minutes past his scheduled time for arrival, a large black stretch-SUV that could only belong to someone who thought he was the current Prince of Pop arrived at the back of the hall. Theo was fuming by then—even if he wasn’t the only employee there, Jim was known to arbitrarily attribute blame anything that went wrong on whoever happened to be in his line of sight at the time, and Theo had experienced the brunt of his misguided ire plenty of occasions already.
God, he really needed to quit this job. A year and a half in and the closest he’d gotten to talking to a music exec was getting sent on an errand to buy a very specific brand of cherry cola when the headliner that night had been having a hissy fit and no one else was available to answer her irrational demands.
“He’s here!”
Three seconds after Becca, the brunette light tech with the half-shaved head and dark red eyeliner he meant to ask the brand name of one of these days, squealed this announcement, two other women in the building shrieked their excitement and the group of them descended towards the garage like a pack of cougars on the hunt. Theo debated going with them just to catch a look at whoever this prick was so he knew what he was dealing with, but he figured he’d see the jerk soon enough whenever His Highness finally showed up on stage for sound check.
“Oh…guess Lysander’s here, then?” said a female voice from over his shoulder as Theo checked that the vending machines were stocked with enough change and Theo turned to see his friend facing him with a wry smirk. Unlike the other women, Siti was as unimpressed by celebrities and influencers as he was—it only took so many interactions with some spoiled brat screaming that the people working with them were “getting in the way of their lighting” before one lost any element of feeling starstruck. Anyone with half a brain did, anyway.
“S-Sounds like,” Theo grumbled in agreement, and just as he said it, breathless, giggling voices echoed across the empty dance floor as a gaggle of women and several men followed the figure who floated onto the stage in a shimmer of silvery rhinestones and a ridiculously pink feather boa. Some of the crowd were from the venue, others must have come with the singer—agents and make-up artists and a personal assistant or three. Probably bodyguards as well, famous as Lysander was.
Shifting the dozen or so feet from the off-center snack hall into the main area to get a clear look towards the stage, Theo stopped in the shadows and narrowed his eyes as he stared observationally across the wide space at that evening’s headliner; the one who had deigned not to show up until little more than an hour for setup remained.
Lysander Delion was the sort of person every head turned to whenever he entered a room, whether you liked the guy or not.
Sporting a surfer’s tan and the kind of golden wavy curls that darker-haired individuals would spend hundreds of dollars every other month bleaching and dyeing their hair to imitate, the singer had the nerve to even have an aesthetically pleasing bone structure—masculine but not too masculine, wide shoulders and an athletic build to match his impressive height. His teeth were probably the most eye-catching part of him, beyond his flamboyant clothing—pearly white and perfectly straight; they were probably flippers, rather than the teeth he’d grown in as a preteen. No way that brilliant grin he was flashing at everyone was 100% natural.
A soft sigh next to him had Theo jerking his gaze sideways, furrowing his brows in dismay at the fact that even Siti seemed to be feeling awestruck by the sheer magnificent stage presence of the celebrity, though she quickly shook her head and the glazed look dropped away from her eyes. “Guess he’s kinda hot,” she admitted begrudgingly. “Bet he’s a total asshole, though.”
“D-Definitely,” Theo agreed. That type always was.
Enough space lay between himself and the pop star that Theo couldn’t make out the words being exchanged between Lysander and his entourage, but he supposed most of it was nonsense catering and flattery and whatever else the prick needed to hear as much as he needed oxygen to breathe. Theo ignored them, returning to refilling the coins in the vending machine then sweeping the entranceway one more time. Siti had already moved to her customary spot behind the half-window in the box office, sighing as she logged into the computers, no doubt preparing herself mentally to deal with the incoming horde of fangirls.
Scuffling feet from the closer edge of the main area had him looking upward, meeting Jim’s perpetual scowl with a soft scowl of his own. “What are you doing?” Theo’s boss hissed, apparently having forgotten that he was the one who had tasked Theo with sweeping the hallway again. “Get on stage. You’re needed for sound check.”
Biting his tongue, Theo only nodded haltingly, stopping long enough to tuck the broom behind the box office doorway then dusting his hands off on his black slacks as he walked along the outside of the main area towards the curtains that separated it from backstage. The slacks were polyester and he absolutely hated them, but they were part of workplace uniform regulations—as if anyone would notice or care if he wore cotton rather than polyester. Jim was just a control freak like that, using his limited power as the concert venue head manager to enact petty restrictions on his vastly underpaid minions.
The voices grew louder as he passed through the heavy black curtain, and he could identify the singer’s voice immediately without having heard it before—only a celebrity used to entertaining the public would have that sort of practiced dulcet cadence as if he were filming an online vlog about his daily workout routine instead of talking to another human being.
“….Don’t really need any of that,” Lysander was saying, his radiant smile focused on the woman with a clipboard standing before him with a look of intense concentration on her face. The blonde had green eyes—unusual. Probably contacts. “Just some water, and maybe, I don’t know…Skittles?”
“Skittles, got it,” the woman said, head bobbing as she wrote down notes as if he were passing on commandments from God. “Any particular color?”
Lysander’s brows drew together at that and he loosed a faintly confused laugh. “No, anything is fine. Or a Jolly Rancher, if that’s easier. Just something sugary and non-dairy.” He winked—actually winked—as he added, “Something to keep my energy up between songs, you know?”
Acid twisted in Theo’s stomach as he tried not to glare at the flashy celebrity. God was he fake.
The entourage was gathered close enough to the edge of the stage that a few members within it were partially blocking the short stairwell Theo needed to ascend to reach the sound equipment. He stopped at the bottom of the stairwell with one hand on the railing and heaved a sigh, debating whether he should just wait for them to eventually clear or make his way forcibly through the crowd. While still deciding which tactic to enact, Theo blinked as the pop star’s gaze suddenly swept towards him, and for a split second his heart skipped a beat.
Lysander was staring at him—something indefinable shined in the emerald depths of the singer’s slightly widened eyes, and for mere seconds the singer’s polite smile froze in place. Then suddenly he burst into an ear-splitting grin that didn’t seem like it should be humanly possible, but somehow the blonde pulled it off. Theo felt his throat work in a dry swallow and almost took a step backwards, ill-prepared for the force of that luminous smile.
“James,” Lysander said without taking his eyes off Theo, and one of the men who was lingering near the top of the stairwell jerked his head up attentively. “Could you step to your right? I think you’re blocking our friend there from climbing the stairs.”
At once, about seven pairs of eyes locked on Theo in unison, and his throat worked even harder as he really did take a step back. “Uh—n-no, i-it’s fine,” he mumbled automatically, shrinking another step backwards until his hand fell away from the railing to clench lightly at his side. “I can—I c-can just climb up the s-side—”
“No, no, don’t be silly. We can move.” With a sweeping gesture of his arm as if he were parting the Red Sea, Lysander signaled his entourage to dutifully step to the side, clearing the way. Only the pop star remained in his path, still beaming down at him from the top of the stairs while Theo briefly tried to recall what his own name was. “What can I help you with, friend?”
He’d said it again—‘friend’. Did he mean Theo? Theo’s brow puckered at that, unsettled by the unexpected familiarity from a total stranger, and a famous celebrity to boot. He supposed he ought to be offended at the presumptuousness of it, but mostly he just felt confused. Wasn’t that a Southern thing? But as far as he knew, Lysander was born and raised in Los Angeles, unlike the poor, ignorant midwestern boy that Theo was…
Catching the six other sets of eyes still staring at him within his peripheral, Theo recalled what his task was with another blink. “Oh…I-I’m just doing s-sound check,” he mumbled, almost too quiet for his voice to carry even that short distance, and belatedly he forced his legs to move, climbing the stairs one awkward step at a time.
Although he loved making music, and could endure DJing on stage as long as the room was dark and not too crowded, Theo hated to be the center of attention—hated to feel like he was being judged, evaluated, as if he was standing on display. It made working at the concert venue especially ironic—he interacted with the sorts of people who thrived on attention every day, and it only reinforced his distaste for it. Lysander, too, must have thrived on it, or he wouldn’t have gotten as famous doing large-scale stage performances as he had.
As Theo neared the top of the stage, Lysander finally stepped back to make space for him, though the singer’s gaze still hadn’t left Theo’s face. For his part, Theo dropped his stare to the ground as fast as humanly possible, using the shadows cast by the house lights to guide him past the celebrity and other members of his entourage until Theo had passed by the lot of them and reached the sound equipment at the back of the stage. Even once he’d moved beyond the group, Theo thought he could feel the singer’s stare boring into the back of his neck…though he could have been imagining it.
What the hell was the pop star’s problem with him? It hadn’t been an unpleasant smile, but still—surely Lysander didn’t often smile that intensely at other people or there’d be a lot more reports of unconscious swooning from audience members in the tabloids.
A short time after he’d crossed the stage, the sounds of conversation started up behind him again, and Theo loosed a soft breath of relief. He began testing cords and dials, making sure everything had power and nothing was cranked up too high or placed in a way that would cause feedback. Though Lysander was billed as a solo artist, he still had a back-up band, their equipment already set up along the back row of the stage by sound techs that had arrived ahead of the singer himself hours prior. Resting in the center, halfway towards the front, was the electric guitar the singer had selected for tonight’s show—pastel pink and white, covered in shiny silver star stickers.
At the start of his “career”—who could really say when a nepobaby in entertainment truly debuted—Lysander Delion had presented himself in a more traditionally male pop star aesthetic. However it seemed that in more recent years he’d really been pushing the envelope on what was considered “masculine,” and the predominantly queer or queer-curious zoomers in his fanbase ate it up.
After he’d seen what the singer looked like, distant memories of tabloid and magazine covers that he’d glanced at while waiting in line at the grocery store floated to mind—whenever it came to awards shows, for instance, no one seemed to know if Lysander would show up in a conservative matte blue tuxedo or flaming red sequined leggings and vest. Theo spent plenty of time on his own appearance before heading to raves or anywhere he would be expected to “dress up,” and even he thought Lysander’s fashion choices were rather over-the-top.
However, that wasn’t his primary concern with the ambiguously-gendered guitar at the moment. His only focus was on making sure the damn thing was set up to sound correctly when the show started so Jim couldn’t blame him if something went wrong. And thanks to His Highness showing up so late, they had less than an hour to make sure that it was.
A flicker of irritation at the reason they were so behind passed through Theo’s expression as he lifted his gaze to the blonde, now standing with his back towards Theo as he continued to address his entourage. Now Jim was there as well, eyeing the celebrity with a grin that could only be defined as hungry—he was going to make a killing off ticket sales tonight.
“Um—” Theo hesitated, loathe to attract eyeballs back onto him but needing to get the singer’s attention so they could get the sound check done on time. “Lys—er, M-Mr. Delion, c-can you come here please? We need to ch-check sound.”
“Oh!” Pausing in his conversation immediately, Lysander whirled around and faced Theo with an apologetic smile. “Sound check. I forgot. Sure.” The blonde strode towards him, and Theo couldn’t stop himself from automatically taking a step back as the singer swept down to fetch the guitar from where it lay on the stage. As he rose, Lysander flashed a look through long lashes towards Theo, his smile turning ever so slightly sultry as he said, “By the way, ‘Mr. Delion’ is my father. Please feel free to just call me Lysander.”
Something annoyingly similar to butterflies fluttered to life in Theo’s stomach as he nodded stiffly, then turned his gaze determinedly towards the guitar, doing his best to ignore the ring-studded fingers that rested about the neck. A moment later, those fingers strummed softly, and a beautiful—but slightly too quiet—sound of strings vibrated across the open space. “How’s this?” the pop star asked, his voice as melodic as the musical instrument.
Butterflies or no, Theo went into work-mode, putting his distractions aside so he could get the job done. He wouldn’t be able to determine how the instruments sounded to the audience until he was standing in the mixer booth at the center of the room, but he could already tell it was too quiet. He needed to check the other equipment sound levels as well—steeling himself with a quick intake of breath before he dared to look directly at the radiant celebrity, he asked in a perfunctory voice that sounded a lot calmer than he felt, “C-can your bandmates also take up p-positions? And…” Swallowing a grimace, he used the politest yet still urgent voice he could summon to add, “P-please hurry. Doors are supposed to open in t-twenty minutes.”
The singer’s eyes flew wide at that, and for just a second he almost looked like a real person, not something printed out at the “pop idol” factory. “Shit!” he breathed, then with another apologetic smile he called to his bandmates, prompting them to make their way to their stations.
Apparently the urgency in Theo’s tone worked, because the singer and other performers stayed on task as Theo and the other techs worked with them to get all the levels up to snuff. They still went another twenty minutes over doors’ opening time, but that was at least within the parameters of a fairly average delay—just in the period that he’d worked at Halo, Theo could count the number of sold-out shows that actually started on time on one hand.
As the hour of impact drew close and Theo felt relatively assured that all was correctly prepared, he dropped down from the mixer booth in the center of the dance floor to make his way to the bathroom for a lighting quick piss-and-spritz. There were two bathrooms in the small venue, one near the box office for attendees and one backstage for the performers, but the one backstage was closer to the sound booth so he started heading that way, keeping his steps light as the lateness of the hour pressed against his nerves.
Theo had barely made it two strides past the curtain before he felt a presence settle in next to him, and he almost did a double-take upon turning to find that the headliner of the sold-out show was keeping pace with him, once more regarding him with a beaming smile. Theo had managed to quell the butterflies while he had a specific job to do, but now as they power-walked temporarily alone together through the backstage hallways, the butterflies had returned, apparently now double in number.
Maybe he’d had too many energy drinks that day, and he was just getting acid reflux. Yes, that was definitely it—no way was he falling for the charismatic celebrity’s charms like every other idiot.
“What’s your name, anyway?” Lysander asked while Theo tried unsuccessfully to walk too fast for the blonde to keep pace without Theo bursting into an outright run.
Theo’s brow furrowed at the question, once more confused by the disproportionate amount of attention the celebrity was paying towards him. Yet it seemed a simple enough thing to answer so he mumbled, “Theo,” right before placing his hand on the door leading to the backstage men’s bathroom and shoving it open.
To his dismay, Lysander continued to follow in his footsteps even into the bathroom, though he’d only smiled without saying anything after Theo had offered his name. Maybe the celebrity had to take a leak also—it was the most logical explanation, but as Theo cast a glance towards the three urinals lined up together with only a thin partition of wall between them that barely stretched from collarbone to groin, he couldn’t help but feel a little off-put at the idea of standing only a couple feet away from the celebrity with his dick out. So he made his way to the lone stall instead, immediately locking it but then only sitting on the seat with his pants still pulled up, struggling to control his bizarrely rapid heartbeat.
Shit. Maybe he was having a heart attack. Maybe all those energy drinks he’d been pounding almost nightly—the only way he’d been able to survive working at the warehouse from four AM to noon, try his best to take a catnap, then work at the concert hall from six PM to two in the morning—were finally catching up to him.
Thank God the singer didn’t try to talk to him more even while he was in the bathroom stall—after a few seconds longer, he heard the sound of the urinal being used, then the sink, then the soft click of the outside door closing. Only then did he feel safe enough doing his own business, though he couldn’t help jumping at every sound as if the celebrity were about to burst into the room again at any moment. If Lysander did—then Theo might scream. Or call the cops, famous celebrity or not.
His nerves were still jittery even as he rushed his way back to the mixer’s booth, though blessedly Lysander was getting into position on the stage not lying in wait to accost Theo as soon as he exited the bathroom. Theo couldn’t help flickering his eyes stage-ward as he crossed through the dance floor towards the booth, but the singer had his attentions on his bandmates so Theo managed to make it into position with no further awkward conversation or heart-stammering green-eyed stares.
~~
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