“No. Does anyone have a diaper I can wear?”
The guys in the two different bands chuckled.
Good God, Up Down Left Right and Robot Servant were standing in my kitchen. Two chart topping bands with only slightly over lapping audiences were waiting for Angela’s baked eggs.
This was my life.
It was amazing.
Uriah winked and started reading from the screen.
“New talent takes the stage at Aida’s limited run.” He read the headline. “After John Rubens was arrested on drug charges, resulting in his dismissal from the cast, Austin Lowell, of Up Down Left Right fame, has stepped more than ably into his radically inadequate shoes.
“A special media-only rehearsal was held Thursday afternoon, and the presentation went off without a hitch. While Rubens was an adequate Radames against the amazing voices of Jayne Tillman’s Aida and Yvette Tomo’s Amneris, the deficiencies became apparent at the first note Lowell sang in his new role.
“An unexpected talent, Lowell finally seemed to bring the lagging performance together. With his insistence that the final number,The Messenger, be performed against program notes, there is something magical happening on the stage now.
“Austin Lowell will be playing Radames through the end of the run, for all performances except Thursdays. Tickets are still available as of this publication but with his fame proceeding him, the availability will quickly become limited.”
I couldn’t breathe. The write up was short, but I guessed it would be since I was taking over mid-stream. What I hadn’t expected was the amount of praise packed into those few little paragraphs.
Staring at Uriah, who was smiling at me and at the tablet and back at me, there was no stopping me. He was just too close.
I grabbed him and kissed him hard.
Uriah
Igasped against hislips and squeaked a second later.
The gasp of everyone else in the room was so loud I thought we were going to run out of air. It also got through Austin’s brain fog and he pulled back with a yelp.
The five members of Robot Servant were staring open mouthed, as was Noah. Taylor, Grant, and Luis all looked like they were about to lose their eyeballs out of their heads.
Nelson Powers, who had appeared from who the hell knew where, with his arms wrapped around the naked torso ofJace—what the hell was going on there?—just chuckled. He leaned to Jace’s ear and stage whispered, “Told you.”
Chase and Marcus just smirked.
Angela stepped forward from where she had been standing and swept the room with herdon’t eff with megaze. “This stays here. No one gets to say a thing about what just happened. Am I understood?”
There was chorus of ‘yes, ma’ams’ and general agreement.
“All right then.” She smiled. “Breakfast will be ready in about ten minutes. Go find shirts. All of you. There are too many acres of naked flesh around here. Shirts and toothbrushes. Luis, you know where your host keeps his stash. Show everyone. Chop chop!”
Everyone standing around broke into motion, heading down the hall just as a screaming orgasm erupted from the last bedroom on the right. Down to the last man, they all started applauding.
Austin was still staring at me. He hadn’t taken his eyes off me, and he was bright red. “Uriah…” He started shaking.
I grabbed his hand, and Angela pointed to the sitting room. “There’s a study, door on the right when you walk in. No one will bother you.”
Pulling Austin along, I could feel his trembling getting worse as we moved through the room. I found the study easily and closed the door behind us with a quiet click.
Taking his face in my hands, I forced him to look at me. “Breathe, Austin. Breathe. It’s okay.”
“I can’t believe I did that...”
“Emotion,” I said. “Takes away the rational part of our brains. Just breathe for me. Come on.”
He hauled in a breath, and then let it out slowly. He did the same thing again, and again until he finally seemed to be breathing normally. His face was still red and he was still trembling, but at least there was air again.
