Plan B (3 page)

One thing about Bo is he’s loyal as hell. He’d be cranky if I agreed, but he’d come with me, blaming himself because I’d gotten upset. Then he’d sit and pout the rest of the night. Yeah, like I wanted to deal with that shit. “Nah, I’m just going to crash anyway. I’m sure you’ll have way more fun here. She’s a feisty one, that Katie.”

Bo briefly glanced back in Katie’s direction and smiled. “That she is. You sure?”

“Geeze, papa bear, it’s no big deal. I was looking for an excuse to bail.” I gave him a shove. “Go on, I’ll see you later.”

He got.

I cut through the side yard to the sidewalk and headed back toward the dorm. Katie’s brother was a total asshole, plain and simple, and kind of creepy with the way he’d seem so fixated on me. The guy’s eyes were just—I shuddered and it had nothing to do with the cold. The way Lance had looked at me, the way I’d felt, really did a number on me, and I wrapped my coat tighter around myself. I’m pretty good at reading what people were thinking and feeling, but Lance, I just couldn’t quite get a read on him. I mean, I’d seen what I thought was disgust, his crass words only intensifying that feeling. I could have sworn it was lust, but I just couldn’t be sure, and it bugged me.

By the time I made it back to my room, I’d decided the guy was nothing more than a major jerk without a sliver of manners in that big jock body, but at least meeting Lance hadn’t been completely a bad thing. He’d given me an excuse to get out of frat party hell. I’d made up for the ballet, and now it was my turn to pick. A smile curled my lips when I remembered the flyer I’d gotten for an upcoming drag show.

Bo would so totally hate it.

Bo didn’t return to the dorm room after the party, but I hadn’t expected him to. He’d texted that he and Katie were going to hang with some of Katie’s friends and pull an all-nighter. That was fine with me. I was in a shit mood, restless, and I didn’t want to hear all the “Katie is so hot, Katie is so awesome, Katie did this, Katie did that.” I was happy for Bo, really I was, but Christ, a person could only hear so much about Katie before he fucking lost it.

After showering and scrubbing my face, I crawled into bed, hugged a pillow to my chest, and tried concentrating on the soothing mood music playing through the CD player. It was designed to relax: rushing water, the wind rustling through the trees, birds singing, and melodic pan flutes. It normally worked, but not this time. I tried to focus on the sounds around me, taking slow even breaths in through my nose and out through my mouth. But the harder I tried to relax, the more tense I became.

The thought of the way Lance had looked at me—I’d convinced myself I had in fact seen lust—caused my body to hum. It was creepy and intense. The glint of danger in those gray pools—so, so dangerous—both frightened and excited the hell out of me.

I didn’t sleep a wink, just tossed, turned, and tried to get Lance out of my head. But when dawn broke, I was still edgy, my thoughts all jumbled. I spent the entire Saturday trying to stay focused on my lines while in rehearsal for an upcoming production, but the rest of the time, I was pacing the tiny dorm room like a caged animal. I was exhausted, yet too wound up to rest. It was maddening. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was about Lance that consumed my thoughts.

I
HAD
an amazing childhood. I grew up in a home full of love with parents who gave me wings and encouraged me to fly in whatever direction I wanted. Both my mom and dad are big into theater and dance and from a young age, I shared their love of flair, playing dress-up, and dance. My mom toured with a ballet troupe for a while until she got pregnant with me and discovered her greatest love was being a stay-at-home mom. And I can honestly say without a hint of hesitation that she was and is the greatest mother on the planet. Devoting her life to me and Dad didn’t mean she gave up her love of theater or dance. Instead of being on stage, she had this little person to sit in the audience with—me—and left the public performances to Dad.

In private, however, she and I danced around the house or backyard and put on elaborate plays in the living room for an audience of one. My love for makeup and clothing has nothing to do with me being gay, or at least I don’t think it does, and everything to do with my parents passing their love of those things down to me. I don’t hide behind the flair. I thrive and feel free within its folds.

When I told my parents I was gay, I was like ten or eleven. I’m not sure why I was so scared to tell them or why I felt my attraction for boys should be a secret, but it did and it ate at me, made me feel like I was a fake. I didn’t hide things from them, especially Mom, but somehow this revelation seemed huge.

I remember being nervous, standing there in our kitchen while Mom washed dishes and Dad dried. My secret weighed on me until it felt too heavy, and before I could chicken out, I blurted, “I think I like boys more than girls.” Mom turned and smiled at me, handed a dish to Dad, and said, “So do I,” and that was that. My sexuality didn’t matter to them either way. It didn’t define me then and it doesn’t now.

I experimented with sex a lot growing up. Even Bo and I did the mutual jerk-off. Boys experiment. At thirteen, you’re all about your dick and what it can do and how good it feels when you touch it, and you want to show that shit off. Bo’s terminally straight but… well, he’s a dude and, like I said, dudes experiment.

Not only did I grow up with loving and accepting parents, but I’ve also spent a lot of time with people in the arts and entertainment industry. They tend to be—if a bit odd—very accepting of “different,” so I’ve always been very comfortable with who I am. If there was chemistry between me and a guy, then hey, I’m all for fucking, but I don’t do relationships. I don’t drive myself crazy lusting over straight guys—or any guy. If we hooked up, great. If we didn’t, well, I had a more-than-capable hand. I wasn’t looking for a relationship. A little physical hookup? Hell yeah! Move in with me, tell me you love me, only me, forever—not a chance. So, why Lance had me all riled up, I didn’t have a clue. It was a totally new experience for me.

I don’t obsess.

Okay, I do obsess about the theater and my hair. Fine! I also obsess about my makeup and my clothes, but my point is, I don’t obsess about men. I wasn’t looking for a relationship, I didn’t do them. I was all about me, me, me. I put everything I had into my acting career and my future. I would see my name in lights. Broadway or bust, baby! So why I spent an entire weekend consumed with thoughts of Lance Lenard, I was clueless and quite frankly more than a little irritated.

By Sunday, I was just flat-out pissed off when I finally crawled out of bed.

I’d woken suddenly from a dream I couldn’t remember, but it didn’t take a damn rocket scientist to figure out what it was about. My breathing was labored, my pulse pounded through my veins, and my dick was so flippin’ hard it hurt. I shut my eyes and wrapped a hand firmly around it. I’d been so close when I woke, it only took a couple of hard pulls, and I was grunting, groaning, and shooting all over my stomach and chest. It was fast, intense, and felt so goddamn good to let go. As I twitched and jerked through each contraction, I thought finally, finally, the tension in my body would relax.
No.
Sex, jerking off, whatever, is a hell of a stress reliever, except this time the white dots that usually danced behind my eyes when I shot a load were absent, replaced by steel-gray eyes. Now instead of just tense and agitated, I was tense, agitated, wet, and sticky.

Arrogant, rude bastard had insulted me, creeped me out, pissed me off, and made me restless all weekend. Now he was fucking with my orgasms. What the hell was it about the guy? Lance’s stare had done something funny to me, and I couldn’t quite grasp the meaning. I’d had a few fantasies in high school about straight jock quarterback Trevor McKnight, which had been pretty hot. Maybe that was it, the combination of the lust I’d seen in Lance’s eyes bringing back old memories of hot football fantasies.

Thankfully, I woke Monday morning and was finally able to concentrate on something other than Lance. The U-M School of Musical Theater was doing a comedy,
The Boys from Syracuse
, and I’d snagged a starring role. It’s based on Shakespeare’s
The Comedy of Errors
, set to music. It’s considered one of Rodgers and Hart’s best musical efforts. Anyway, I got the part of one of the identical twins, Antipholus of Syracuse, who was going around causing all this havoc. I didn’t get my mom’s grace—I can’t dance for shit, two left feet—but I got Dad’s voice. I don’t think it’s as good as his is, but the director thought I was perfect for the part. The show was opening in just under a week. I knew my lines, could do my part and those of the rest of the cast in my sleep. I was ready, all but one thing—I was still debating whether I should dye my hair brown or wear a wig. Plain brown hair is so vapid, and I really, really like the blond and purple—took four and a half hours to get it that way—but wigs, no matter how expensive, just never looked natural on me.

I grabbed a ball cap and my script and quietly slipped out of the dorm. Bo had finally shown up around four that morning looking haggard but happy. There’s this little coffee shop just a couple of blocks over called Brewed Awakening that has the best coffee in town. The café was a little fancy, with plenty of gourmet and creative coffee choices, but I like mine with just a little cream and sugar.

The walk over was chilly. I hadn’t realized how cold it was and should have grabbed a coat rather than my old black
Kingdom Hearts
hoodie, but it was a short walk and I was too busy thinking about my hair, lines, songs, and Antipholus of Syracuse to be bothered by the weather.

There was hardly anyone in the coffee shop that early—on a college campus, six a.m. is early. I groaned a little to myself when I saw Tiffany behind the counter. It wasn’t that I disliked Tiffany. I did like her. But that particular morning I was feeling less than sociable, and if Katie was a chatterbox, Tiffany was the grand dame of talks-way-too-fucking-much. She’s slim and tall and—I can’t really say beautiful, but maybe cute, in that girl-next-door kind of way. She has dark blonde hair, a crooked smile, and, bless her heart, a major problem with allergies, so she is constantly sniffling. But she’s also very, very—and I do mean
very
—friendly.

“Danny!” Tiffany squealed when I stepped up to the counter. “I haven’t seen you in like, forever.” She then went on and on about how much she’d missed me over the past week and what she’d been up to, as she poured my coffee without needing to ask me what I wanted.

As she added the half-and-half and sugar to my coffee, she talked the entire time. “So, how have you been?”

“Good. And you?”

“How’s the play coming along?”

“Great.” I reached for my coffee, but she held on to it.

“I bet you’re getting excited about opening day, huh?”

“Yup.”
Can I please have my coffee now?
I tried taking it again, but she picked it up before I could grab it, and put a sleeve on it.

“Oh. My. God. I was telling a friend of mine how awesome you are, and she’s coming with me to see the show.”

“That’s great. Thank you.”

“We’ve already gotten our tickets,” she informed me with a proud smile.

I wasn’t usually rude, and I’d chat with her a few minutes, asking her about her classes or her boyfriend, but that morning I really wasn’t in the mood for small talk. I threw a couple of bucks on the counter and grabbed my coffee as soon as she released it, and said with a wink, “That’s awesome. I’m sure I’ll see you both there, but I have to read over my lines. Keep the caffeine coming.”

Tiffany got this really happy expression on her face and nodded vigorously. “I will. I will.”

Tiffany is very sweet even if a bit infatuated with theater majors. I don’t know, I think she somehow thought her pouring coffee in my cup was some kind of important role for the overall success of the show. Hey, if it made her happy and quiet, I was all for telling her she was the most important aspect of my acting career.

I was on my second cup of coffee—trying to concentrate on the script, but I kept getting distracted by thoughts of my hair, wigs, and beauty parlors—when the bell over the door jingled. I glanced over toward the sound and instantly slumped in my chair. I mean, really? What were the chances? I’d been coming to this coffee shop for weeks, always early and never, ever, not once, had I seen him in here.

It was a conspiracy, I tell you.

I pulled my ball cap farther down over my eyes, shifted in my chair so that my back was to him, and prayed like hell he wouldn’t notice me.

No such luck.

I waited until he was standing at the counter, his back toward me, then gathered up my script and shoved it into my bag. I was just about to get up and slip through the door when that freaky hair on the back of my neck rising hit me. I looked up and sure as shit, Lance was standing a few feet away from my table, coffee in hand, staring at me. Tiffany obviously didn’t know him, because damn, had he gotten a cup of coffee fast. For a second we just stared at each other, and I was doing my best to be all nonchalant and not give away any of the panic I felt. I don’t know why I was so freaked out. I mean, yeah, I’d been thinking about him all weekend and how he’d thrilled and creeped me out, but he wasn’t looking at me with the same menacing look now. It was more uncertainty, maybe with a little embarrassment thrown in.