EIGHT
Darien opened his eyes, and at first, he didn’t know why he was on his couch, and he definitely had no idea why there was someone curled up in his arms. There was an insistent sound, a buzzing tone, and it was this that had woken him up.
His phone. It was his phone. He groaned and reached for it, his fingers curling around the plastic case and pulling it to him. Beside him, chest to Darien’s chest and back to the room, Noah stirred a little but slept on.
At some point, they must have fallen asleep, tangled up in each other on the couch. That time they’d made each other come, it had only been the first one. They’d gone many more times, two starving men finally given access to food for the first time.
Darien had never had any idea that he could feel so satisfied with so little. They’d rubbed off on each other, they’d stroked each other to completion, and it was all teenager stuff. The sort of thing that a couple might do furtively in their bedroom, fearful of being heard.
So why was it so satisfying? Why did it feel so good, when from someone else, Darien knew that he would want far, far more? Well, it wasn’t that he didn’t want it, because he did. He wanted to feel Noah’s body around him more than anything, but what they were doing felt so good that it didn’t feel like there was a rush to get to that.
Darien smirked to himself. He must have worn the beautiful young man out, because it wasn’t very often that Darien was the first one up. Noah seemed to sleep lightly, and not even close to enough. Which made him try to be far more careful as he pulled the phone to his face, speaking softly as he tried not to rouse his sleeping … whatever Noah was.
“Yeah?” He pitched his voice just above a whisper, just loud enough that the person on the other side could hear him.
“Darien? What’s up? Why are you talking so quietly?” Lester asked, his tone sharp with suspicion. He had this way of speaking, like Darien was some sort of child. Someone who couldn’t take care of himself. He did it to all of the members of his band, though more to Darien since he was the youngest.
“I …” Darien cleared his throat and raised his voice a little. Lester was pushy, nosey, and Darien wasn’t sure that he was ready to share what was going on between him and Noah with the world just yet. “Why are you calling so early?”
“It’s after ten thirty in the morning,” Lester commented, his voice amused. “And you have a practice today at noon if I’m not mistaken.” Which he wasn’t, he kept a better tab on their schedules than Darien did, which Darien supposed was part of the job of a manager.
“Oh.” Darien took a deep breath, and he felt Noah stirring. He made a hopeless attempt at sitting up, to try to take this conversation into the other room. It would be nice if Noah got a nice long sleep in for once, but their legs were tangled up in each other, and Darien felt like growling at himself as he saw those eyes, dark with sleep, open.
While sleeping, Noah looked so carefree. It was the only time when he did. There was a sort of tension in his face during his waking hours, and Darien hated to be the one who brought him back into that.
“Darien?” Noah asked, and Lester was silent on the other end of the line. Had he heard? Darien held up a hand to silence Noah, just for a few minutes, and hoped that Lester hadn’t heard anything.
It wasn’t that he was ashamed to be with Noah. It was more that he was jealous of their time together, and he didn’t want this thing to become public, not just yet. Not until it was more stable, and they had settled into their new roles with each other, whatever those would be.
Lester would probably want to turn it into some sort of marketing thing. The world might tear them apart because the small bit of trust which Noah had allowed back into his eyes was new and fragile and delicate.
“What’s up, man?” Darien asked, breaking the silence between him and Lester, sitting up to perch on the edge of the couch, by Noah’s feet. He drew them absently into his lap, rubbing his thumb over the soles and kneading at the arch, enjoying the intimacy in a way that he wouldn’t have suspected from himself.
Noah moaned softly, and Darien smirked to himself. It seemed like Noah wasn’t used to such touching, either, but that only made Darien want to do it more. As far as he was concerned, anything that made Noah make noises like that was just fine.
“I’m planning a tour,” Lester told him, and to Darien’s relief, there was nothing said about either Noah’s voice or that little moan that he had let out. Hopefully, Lester hadn’t heard anything.
“A tour? Like you mean around California?” Darien frowned. That didn’t seem like a big enough deal for Lester to call him. He could have just told them all at practice today. They’d done tours in the surrounding area before, after all.
“No. Around the United States.” Lester sounded greatly pleased with himself, and Darien could nearly see the smug smirk on his face as the words oozed his self-satisfaction. “As soon as this album is done. And you are all going to have to help promote it.”
Darien’s head reeled. A nationwide tour? He found himself shaking a little bit, not sure how to feel about that. Of course, he had wanted a tour like that. Wasn’t that what they were all on this for? For the fame and fortune? Well, fortune was starting to come in, but their fame was mostly local so far.
“Help promote it?” Darien’s tongue felt too big in his mouth, making it hard to speak. He felt like an idiot, just numbly parroting back the words, but the truth was, he didn’t know how to feel just yet. He hadn’t had the time to think about it, and he kept kneading Noah’s feet to try to bring himself some sense of reality.
“Yeah. Websites, social media accounts, all of it. If we’re going to pull off a huge tour like that for a relatively new band, you’re all going to have to get involved. We’ll figure it out, but we’ll definitely need a social media expert. For now, your job is just to get in on these … social media things, or whatever.”
Lester had no idea what he was talking about. That much was clear. He knew the need, but not anything about how to satisfy it. Darien shook his head, amused. Lester spoke like social media was some sort of huge, unknowable thing, stuck in an older time when there was no need for any of it.
“Okay,” Darien agreed. He could toss some stuff together, he supposed, though he wasn’t much good at that sort of thing. And it didn’t help that he still didn’t even know if he would be around for this tour. His mind kept going first one way and then another.
A tour. A big, national tour. If he did that, then he would be set. But the album was still months away from completion. They didn’t have even half of the songs that they would need, and Lester had said for at least a month or two that he would bring in a songwriter to get things going.
That was Lester, though. He was all about the grand, big picture, not so much with the little details that made the whole thing run, which was, if Darien thought about it, not such a good thing in a manager.
“Lester, I need to talk to you …” Darien started. “Soon.” And he was going to. He was going to have to decide whether to sign another contract or let it go and go back to being just another ordinary person. He knew that the rest of the Lost Boys hadn’t signed again, either, but unlike him, they all seemed to be pretty sure that they were going to sign again.
It was probably just that Lester thought that there was no way any of them could turn away from what he was offering. They were already famous locally, and well known throughout the rest of the United States. They were, really, a sensation, and what man could turn away from something like that?
