Nelson found me onthe terrace a day later, just staring out at the city. He handed me another cold beer and leaned on the wall with me.
“Hell of a view from here, man,” he said.
“Part of the reason I bought it. Who let you in?”
“Doorman.” He laughed. “I think the guy gets a kick out of you living here and having us A-listers walking in and out.”
“Us A-listers who? It’s you and…uh…”
“What? Your friends aren’t A-listers? What about Maddox and his bandmates. The lot of you drift back and forth between here and Marcus’ and Chase’s place. It’s like a floating party.”
“That’s why you hang out with us.”
“Well, that and Jace seems to like all you buttheads.”
“Smitten,” I teased.
“A little.” He smiled.
“Who told you I was out here?”
“Aubrey, of course.” He sipped his beer. “Aubrey and Austin?”
“And August. He’s at UC Davis studying particle physics.” I grinned.
“Are you serious? Aubrey, Austin and August?”
“Mom and Dad had a thing.”
“It’s a terrible thing.”
I choked on my laugh. “They’re not so bad taken separately. But yes, stringing them together is bad.”
We stood quietly looking out at the lights of the city. I had been doing nothing but thinking for the past week at this point and I was kind of tired of it.
“So, can I ask?” Nelson said, lifting an eyebrow.
I shrugged.
“What are you really afraid of?”
“What?”
He turned and leaned against the wall. “It’s clear you’ve known for years that you’re gay. It’s clear that your bandmates support you and have no problem with you being gay. Uriah will wait for you, but only so long. So what are you really afraid of?”
Chewing my lip, I stared out to the lights. There were few honking cars this late, overtaken by the wails of sirens as they raced around the city. One point six million people lived on Manhattan, and I was one, just one, of them. It was safe to say that most of them didn’t give a rat’s ass that I was in love with another man.
“I’m afraid that too many of our fans will…” I trailed off.
“Desert you? Hate you? Turn on you?”
I nodded. “And then destroy our band. We’re not the commercial puppets we were set up as. We’ve evolved, especially in the past four, five months. UDLR is a legit band, and we know our worth. But if all these fans abandon us because I’m gay…”
He rolled the label down the bottle. It was a habit with him. “I said it before, I’ll say it again. Fuck them. What you do in your bedroom has no bearing on what you do on stage, or in the recording booth. Grant said it—you could be a role model for these kids.”
The silence was short, before he turned and looked out at the city again. “More, you could be a lifeline. The difference between us, just what? seven years?, is shocking. Kids…hell, people are way more accepting of the spectrum of sexuality. But there are enough homophobes out there, enough haters, that the kids coming up now, the ones who we are the role models for, are still scared. They are still subjected to that hate.
“You…wecan be lifelines. Show them it really does get better as you get older. Show them how ourgive a fuckhas disappeared and we can be authentically us.”
