I study my friend, his gaze watching me back closely.
Finally, he blinks. “Ez. If you don’t care, neither do I. We’ve already covered this.”
I nod slowly before holding out my hand. “To upsetting every major news agency, directors around the world, dissolving fan clubs, and destroying our images in the process.”
He snorts, but he clasps my palm. “Destroying? That’s a little harsh, isn’t it?”
“What did Shawn say? Something about imploding?”
Grayson’s lips pull up at the corner. “Like dying stars.”
“Is that what they do?” I ask, knowing full well he’ll have an answer. At Grayson’s raised eyebrow, I urge him on. “C’mon, you know you want to tell me.”
He lets out a sigh like he’s summoning patience, but I know there’s almost nothing he’d rather talk about. “When a star burns all its available fuel, it no longer has the energy to fight its own gravitational pull. It collapses in on itself, the result sometimes devastating. It can create a black hole. It can white out an entire galaxy for weeks on end. It can birth new life. New stars. It’s…cataclysmic. Ruinous and miraculous.”
The awe in Grayson’s tone has goose bumps spreading up my arms. “In that case, if we’re gonna go out with a bang one way or another, might as well make it a big one, yeah?”
Grayson shakes his head, but he’s smiling, his hand still clasped with my own. I give it a swift kiss before letting go.
“Come on, Mr. Fox. We still need to set up your bedroom.”
With a nod, Grayson follows me down the hall, most of the house on this floor. There’s also a spacious basement with another living area, a gym, and an indoor sauna. His bedroom is across the hall from mine, nearly as large as my own, with a bathroom just next door. He’s using the bedframe I had in here before, but we moved his mattress in, the old one now propped against the wall until someone can come take it away. The dresser was already here, but Grayson added his own chair in the corner for reading, and the rest of his possessions are sitting in boxes beside the bed.
We go through each box carefully, fitting the sheets to his mattress, putting away his clothes, hanging up a couple pictures. Madison features prominently in those.
When I pull a frame from a box I haven’t seen in years, I go still. Grayson pauses as well, his gaze snagging on me and the picture.
I was with him when he found this. Grayson saw a sign for an estate sale, and, as fascinated as he is with old antiques and the like, we stopped and went in.
Grayson and I were upstairs looking through the bedrooms when he opened a chest and made a sound I’d never heard from him before. Like pain, almost. An exquisite kind. When he stood back up, it was with this picture in hand. He was crying. I’ll never forget that.
Grayson’s voice is quiet now. “I couldn’t get rid of it.”
I shake my head. Of course not.
The picture is old.Veryold. There’s no writing on the back or indication of when or where it came from, but our best estimate based on the clothes and style of furniture is the midto late 1800s. There’s one person standing in view, in front of an elaborate four-poster bed, a wooden vanity off to the side with a low stool in front. The picture is black-and-white. Faded. And the serene smile on the man’s face…
I swallow hard, taking him in all over again. The stranger could certainly be called beautiful, but the pose is beyond bold for the times, I’m sure. He’s wearing an open shirt, his hands in the pockets of his trousers. His hair is short, dark, and he’s lithe, although not exactly young when this was taken. In fact, he’s probably close to our age. Late forties or possibly early fifties. Along the bottom of his flat chest, in two slightly curving arcs, are a smattering of stars. Tattoos, as black as night.
I run my finger over the glass. “Your star-boy.”
“Yeah.” Grayson takes the picture gently from my hand, his breath stuttering as he looks at it. “I know it makes no sense, but I know him, Ez. I feel it when I look at this picture. Iknowhim. I just wish… I wish I knew who he was.”
My throat is tight as Grayson sets the frame in a place of honor atop his dresser. He stands there for a long moment, looking at it.
“Perfect,” I tell him.
He gives me a small smile before grabbing a box of toiletries to bring to the bathroom. I stay for a minute longer, staring at Grayson’s star-boy. I know my friend has always felt a connection to the man in the picture.
But me? I can’t help but wonder who’s standing out of frame. Who it was that put that smile on his face.
Maybe one day we’ll figure it out. Or maybe some things are simply meant never to be known.
Chapter 21
Grayson
“I don’t get it,” Madison is saying to Ezra. The two are in the living room, Madison having come to visit. I stepped away a minute ago to take a call, but my daughter’s tone has me stopping outside the room, listening despite the invasion of privacy.
