Authors: S. J. Frost
Morgan rushed around the room, snatching shirts, jeans, and underwear off the floor. He gave Julian an embarrassed grin.
“Turned off yet?”
“Hardly.” Julian sat on the bed, looking at the moose print.
“You’re a nature fan, aren’t you?”
Morgan glanced to where Julian was looking. “Yeah, I love the outdoors. Hiking, camping, exploring the wilds. I used to camp a lot in the summer. A good weekend for me was heading out to Keys to Love
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the woods and not seeing another person until I started driving back on a Sunday night. We should go camping someday. We’d have a blast.”
Julian managed a slight grin, then opted for a distraction from the idea. He beckoned Morgan with his index finger. Morgan walked to him. Julian took hold of his hips, directing Morgan to stand in front of him and between his legs. He rubbed one hand up Morgan’s thigh. “So, now that you have me in your bedroom, what are you going to do with me?”
Morgan slid his hand under Julian’s chin. “I have a few things in mind.” He glanced at the alarm clock. “But we’ve got to head down to the store so I can meet that guy for the piano.”
Julian sighed. “Fine, reject me again.”
Morgan took both of Julian’s hands and hauled him to his feet. He yanked him against his chest, smirking down at him.
“Why am I getting the impression you don’t like being told no?”
“Because I don’t. Especially when it comes to sex.” Julian kissed him under the jaw. “And
I
plan to teach
you
to never say it to me.”
Morgan let out a husky chuckle. “So the student wants to become the teacher. I like that idea.”
Julian took Morgan’s hand as he turned for the bedroom door. “There’s no
become
about it. I wouldn’t underestimate what I can teach you, if I were you.”
Morgan lifted Julian’s hand to place a kiss on it. “I’m more than ready for those lessons.”
They returned to the first floor, Morgan grabbing Chopin’s leash as they headed out the door. He glanced at Julian as they neared the Porsche. “Maybe I should leave him home.”
Julian looked down at Chopin, then back to his car. “But he’s been cooped up for so long.” He paused for a moment, then shrugged. “A little dog hair and drool isn’t anything a good detailer can’t clean.”
“You’re serious?”
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“Of course.” Julian extended the car keys to him. “And before you lose that shocked expression, would you like to drive?”
“Hell yes!” Morgan took the keys, then reached to open the passenger side door to load Chopin in the back, who promptly sat in the middle with his head between the front seats. Julian petted him as Morgan got in.
Morgan adjusted the seat and mirrors, then took a breath as he fired up the car. When it roared to life, he turned to Julian with a grin. “Thank you so much.”
Julian laughed. “You haven’t even started driving it yet.”
“But just starting it was so good.”
Morgan veered away from his home. It took him a couple blocks to get used to the car’s power, but after soon he felt comfortable enough to switch on the radio and take Julian’s hand as he held the shifter. Jesse’s tenor voice blasted through the speakers, singing Conquest’s rock song, “Twisted Destiny.”
Morgan looked at Julian and rolled his eyes. “I can’t get away from this band. Every time I turn on the radio, there they are.”
“Yes, they’re quite annoying, aren’t they?”
“It’s just a good thing their keyboardist is hot. Otherwise, I wouldn’t listen to them at all.”
“It’s funny you say that because most people find the singer to be the hottie in the group.”
Morgan let out a snort. “He’s got looks, I’ll give him that, but nowhere near the keyboardist.”
“If you truly believe that, then we really are made for each other.”
Morgan’s joking demeanor faded. “You shouldn’t say it like that. It agitates me you’re always stuck in his shadow. You deserve better.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m in his shadow, but even if I am, I’m more recognized than I ever was as a classical pianist.”
Morgan sat quiet, mulling over Julian’s words. He swung into Keys to Love
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an open spot on the street near his music store. “Here we are.”
Julian got out and took Chopin’s leash as Morgan handed it to him. They neared the brick storefront, and he saw a wooden sign hanging outside with a piano and
Chandler’s
written in cursive.
As Morgan unlocked the door, Julian peered in through the bay window, making out the shadows of instruments inside. Morgan held the door open for him, and he stepped in with Chopin.
Morgan closed the door behind them. “You can let him off his leash. He’s good in here.”
Julian unclipped Chopin from his leash, all the while his gaze strayed around the shop. The space was larger than it appeared outside, the walls and floor done in warm, natural wood. Five pianos dominated the floor, three uprights, two baby grands.
Along one wall hung a few violins and violas, cellos in open cases in front of them. The back wall was occupied with a handful of woodwinds and brass instruments, in one corner sat a set of timpani drums. On the remaining wall were accessories; strings, mouthpieces, polishes, all that one would need to play and tend the fine instruments. He noticed the many vacant spaces, as if instruments had gotten sold, but no new inventory replaced them.
Julian felt at ease in the shop, as if he’d visited many times before. Maybe it was the smell of the instruments, their wood and polish, their familiarity, or the quietness surrounding them as the lay at rest. He started to regret the money Morgan had used to win the auction and felt a twinge of guilt at his doing so.
If he’d only been more open with Morgan about his attraction, maybe Morgan wouldn’t have felt the need to do such a thing.
Then if he still decided to liquidate any of the instruments, the money could’ve gone toward the store’s debts.
Morgan walked past the cash counter. “The office is back here. I just need to grab the paper work on the piano.”
Julian came out of his thoughts to follow him into the small office cluttered with filing cabinets, a desk and chair, a few more instruments that looked to need repair. He took a seat behind the desk, gazing around the room.
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Morgan stood at a filing cabinet, flipping through files with his back to him. “Can I ask you something?”
Julian brought his attention to him. “You can ask me anything.”
“What you said in the car, about getting more attention playing for Conquest than as a classical pianist, is that why you decided to make the change to rock? To get more fame and money?”
Julian shook his head. “No, not at all.”
Morgan walked toward him and sat on a corner of the desk.
“Then why did you do it?”
“Because I needed to. All my life, for as long as I can remember, I was placed at a piano with classical scores in front of me. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Vivaldi, Brahms, the list goes on and on. It’s all I knew, it’s all I played, and for a long time, it’s all I loved. I enjoyed rock and other forms of music, but I’ll admit, I used to look down at them, believing none had the class or sophistication of classical. Then something happened to change my opinion, a musician who made me see that different genres of music can be blended into one harmony.”
“Who was it?”
Julian smiled. “Evan Arden. I’ve never told Evan how he influenced me, he’d just smile and say thank you, anyway.
And certainly there are other bands who had melded classical instruments with popular before. But something in Evan’s music touched me, and I thought, wouldn’t it be wonderful to do something like that?
“Now, part of these thoughts also happened at a time when I was starting to get bored with playing classical. Always the same pieces over and over again, living under the reigning fists of conductors. I wanted freedom. I wanted challenge. I wanted to break free of the strict scores and do things on my own.”
“But isn’t it still the same thing playing for Jesse?” Morgan asked. “I’ve heard he’s a tyrant.”
“He’s not half as bad as people think. A lot of people only see what he shows on his surface, his arrogance. But once you get Keys to Love
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to know him, you realize most of that is just his wall. Whenever you work in the arts, you have to build defenses or else you’ll very quickly
not
be working in the arts any longer. Whether it’s being a musician, a painter, an actor, a writer, there are few other careers where you throw your work at the mercy of the public. So to survive, Jesse has a wall of arrogance. Evan is cold and distant to those he doesn’t know.”
Morgan spoke up before Julian could continue. “And you present a façade of propriety and sophistication that makes you seem untouchable until you get to know someone better.”
Julian grinned. “Exactly. But that’s not to say any of our facades are completely fake. Jesse can be cocky, Evan can be icy, and I like to think I have a little sophistication in me, but none of it is as dramatic as it first appears. Take Jesse. He likes things done his way, but he’s also open to opinions. His bottom line is what’s best for the music. And you know, there’s one song on
No
Fear
that I wrote the entire piano score for.”
“Which one?”
“‘Tomorrow.’”
“I love that song!” Morgan cleared his throat to recite the chorus,
“I’ll be in your arms…tomorrow,
When the first light shines.
I’ll be in your arms…tomorrow,
When the daylight dies.
I give you all my tomorrows,
From now to eternity.
Without you at my side.
None would exist for me…”
Julian clapped softly. “Well done! But you should’ve sung it.”
Morgan held up both hands. “No, really, I shouldn’t have.
There would be no tomorrows for us if you heard me sing. But the piano in that song is amazing.”
“I’ve had the melody in my head for ages, but didn’t know
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what to do with it. I played it for Jesse one day and halfway through, he snapped his fingers, pointed at me, and said, ‘I’m going to write lyrics for this.’ And so, he put lyrics to it, wrote the parts for guitar and drums, and now it’s on the album. If it wasn’t for him, it never would’ve gotten heard at all.”
Morgan nodded thoughtfully. “So you left classical music to expand as a musician. I’m glad and relieved to hear that. I hated to think you were a sell-out.”
“Sell-out! That’s harsh in any regard. You just proved the point of those walls I spoke about not even thirty seconds ago.”
A chastised expression crossed Morgan’s face. “Sorry. I guess it’s going to take some adjusting to look at things from the inside rather than out.”
Julian laid his hand on Morgan’s thigh. “It’s alright. It does take time to adjust to this lifestyle. But yes, I made the change to grow into the musician I wanted to be. That’s not to say I wouldn’t go back to playing classical professionally, but only if I could balance it with being in Conquest. And you know, I’ve found the keyboards to be a lot of fun. They’re so similar to a piano, but at the same time, so different. I like the challenge of them and the challenges of playing for Jesse, because he
does
push me.
“Where before people would do nothing but nod and smile in approval at whatever I played, he’ll shake his head and say, ‘You can do better.’ I can’t tell you how much I needed that. I was
starved
for it. To have someone tell me not everything I do is perfect, but who also works with me to grow closer to that.
When I made the decision to try and break into rock, I never in a million years thought I’d end up with a front-man who is also a classicist at heart. I consider it a heavy dose of good fortune.”
“Well,” Morgan said, “I guess I’ll admit that if the classical world had to lose you, it’s good it was to a band like Conquest.
That doesn’t mean I’m not going to hold out on hoping someday I’ll get to see you surrounded by a symphony playing some of those same old scores, though.”
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“I already owe you a concert. I could call in a favor and make it a grand one.”
Morgan smirked at him. “Or you could play two for me and open the second one up to the public.”
Julian shook his head at him with a playful grin. “Greedy boy.
But it’s not beyond the realm of possibilities. Maybe a charity concert. Of course, you do know you’d have to be seated next to my mother if I were to do such a thing. She mourns my entering into popular music.”
“What about your father?”
“He nods sympathetically to my mother when she goes on one of her woe-is-me tangents, but when I first made the announcement, he pulled me aside and gave me a hard pat on the back saying he was happy for me. When we’re all together, while he’s doing his sympathetic nods to my mother, he’s always throwing me covert winks of approval.”
“That’s good he’s supportive.”
A buzzer sounding through the shop interrupted them.
Morgan glanced out the office door. “Damn. They’re here already.” He looked back to Julian. “This shouldn’t take long. It’s just one of the uprights going, a lot easier to move than one of the baby grands. I’ll get this wrapped up, then we can go get an early lunch.”
Julian drifted his hand up Morgan’s thigh. “Or we could grab takeout and go back to my place.”
Morgan leaned down to him, his lips nearly touching Julian’s.
“You’re insatiable.”
“And I’m thinking you like it.”
“I love it.” Morgan brought their lips together, pausing in the kiss as the buzzer screeched again. He sighed and stood up. “Isn’t it enough they’re already getting this piano at a third of its value?
Do they have to be so damn rude, too?”
Julian watched him stomp toward the front door, unlock it, and talk to the people outside, pointing to direct them around
114 S.J. Frost
back. As Morgan turned from the door to head to toward the back from the inside, he met Julian’s gaze and rolled his eyes in a look that said how he felt about the people. Julian smiled at him, more in sympathy than finding any humor in the situation.