NINE
It was strange, being brought in to meet the members of a band, one of the newest sensations to hit the charts. Strange to know that he was going to come face to face with celebrity. He supposed he had already, but he’d known Darien before. The rest of his band were strangers.
What was Darien up to, anyway? There was clearly something. The smirk on his lips was one of pure mischief, and he seemed very pleased with himself, if somewhat on edge. His eyes glowed as they walked through the building, a place that Noah knew he could never have gotten into in a million years if not for the man at his side.
“Okay. Just … don’t be scared of them. They’re good guys. Mostly.” Darien stopped Noah outside of the door and gave him a little kiss, just a swipe of his lips over Noah’s, over far too soon. But then, they weren’t in private anymore, and it seemed that Darien seemed to want to keep things at least mostly secret.
Noah nodded, and Darien pushed open the door. A wave of sound hit him, music. Not the music that Noah would have expected, either. Classic rock, full of hard, thrumming guitars and pounding baselines.
“Lance, turn that off,” Darien directed, speaking to what had to be the most gorgeous man that Noah had ever seen. Tall, at least six feet and maybe a few inches above, and built like a god, all rippling muscles and long, flowing waves of dark hair, with green eyes that sparkled with amusement as he reached for the speakers, Lance did turn it down.
“Buzzkill,” Lance said to Darien, and then turned those remarkable emerald eyes toward Noah. “Who’s the kid?”
Noah felt like he wanted to look at everything at once, his eyes widening to try to take in more information. He had seen pictures of these men, and videos, but somehow, that wasn’t the same as being in the same room as them.
They were all gorgeous. Which, Noah supposed, made sense. They had been picked for that as much as for their musical ability, if not more. His eyes shifted from Lance to the one he knew was Aaron.
Even more stunning than Lance, though shorter and more slender, and with an intense expression on his face that made Noah’s breath go a little strange and stutter-y, Aaron was graceful and lithe, but not delicate. Even with his almost ethereal beauty, there was a fierceness to him that was undeniable. He had these eyes, not kind and carefree, like Darien’s and even Lance’s were, but full of restless, snapping energy. They were a shade of blue so vivid and intense that it was nearly purple, and his hair was dyed a bright, fire engine red, artlessly messy around his face.
He said nothing, but Ken, the last member of the band, came bouncing over. Noah had always thought that Darien had too much energy to be legal, but Ken outdid that by a good amount.
Noah hung back and watched as Ken put a huge, toned, muscular arm around Darien’s shoulder, giving him an energetic, one-armed hug. What he was feeling, he told himself, wasn’t jealousy. He didn’t care that Darien was surrounded by these gorgeous men all the time, and he didn’t care that Darien was being hugged with far too much affection by a god with messy brown hair and green-blue eyes which sparkled with energy.
“Yeah, who’s the kid?” Ken asked, still draped over Darien in a way that made Noah’s shoulders tense up with a sort of silent protest. No wonder Darien didn’t want a relationship. Not when beauty like this surrounded him. Who was Noah, shy, plain, quiet little Noah, to think that he had a chance with Darien?
He was no one. He wasn’t even famous, and he couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.
“This is Noah. He’s my …” Darien hesitated for just a moment and then rushed on, carefully not looking at Noah. “He’s my best friend from back home.”
Best friend. Noah closed his eyes briefly at the sting that brought, as sharp as a knife pricking at the skin of his stomach. If he let it, that could hurt him a lot. But, on the other hand, what did he expect? For Darien to declare that he and Noah were, what, together? When they hadn’t even said that to each other?
Maybe, if Darien did say that, though, it would make Ken stop hanging all over him. Make the gorgeous man stop hanging that stocky, muscular body all over him. A year, he and Darien had been apart. What had happened in that year?
Did he even want to know? Ken was acting awfully possessive, wasn’t he? He kept looking at Noah in a way that didn’t seem exactly friendly.
“This isn’t a concert. We don’t need people around getting in the way,” Aaron snapped, and Noah dropped his gaze. He wished he could say something, anything, but Darien hadn’t even told him why they were here at all. He was interrupting a rehearsal, and he didn’t even know why. How could he defend himself?
His heart rate sped up, and his breathing quickened. Only Ken seemed hostile, but Aaron seemed like he would rather Noah go. Lance, at least, didn’t seem to care either way and had turned his music back up a little bit while everyone else was busy.
“He’s not here to get in the way,” Darien defended him, and the grip of fear, of near panic, on Noah’s chest loosened a bit. “You all talked to Lester, right? About setting up social media accounts and websites and stuff?”
All three of the men nodded, and Darien beckoned Noah over, which, Noah wasn’t exactly heartbroken to note, also dislodged Ken. Noah walked over to the bench around the side of the room, and when Darien gestured, he sat down and opened his laptop.
Was Darien just showing off his work? Noah shook his head a little. He had no idea what was going on, but Darien sat beside him, and he felt the comforting warmth of his presence beside him.
“Wow,” Lance commented. “That’s incredible.”
They were all clustered around him, Noah in the middle of an incredibly beautiful, talented group of men, all way out of his league. Noah glanced up at Lance, trying to read his face, very alert for any sign of sarcasm, but he didn’t see any.
“Yeah. So I figure, we hire him. He’s a whiz at this sort of thing,” Darien said, and Noah stared at him. This was certainly the first that he had heard about this! Darien glanced back at him smugly and then turned to look at the rest of his band to see what they thought.
“Yeah, it looks good,” Aaron’s voice was dismissive, and he turned away right after he’d said it, but Noah had the idea that Aaron was pretty much always like that. “I’m in.”
“Me too,” Lance said, with a bit of a laugh. “Welcome to the team, kiddo. There’s no way in hell I could do anything even half as good.”
Which only left Ken, who had a look of conflict on his face. He liked the website, Noah realized, but he didn’t want Noah around. What exactly was there between Darien and Ken, that Ken would be this put out just to have some competition?
Competition. Yeah, right. Like Noah could compete with any of these glorious specimens of men. And they had way more in common with each other than Darien had with Noah, no matter what past they’d shared.
