Page 7 of Wild Obsession

“I think you might like guys, Freckles,” Keannen says.

I swallow. “If I say I do, do we get to do that again?”

I used to think Keannen’s smirk was harsh and cold, like a switchblade flicking out to threaten you, but right now, it’s just about the most beautiful thing in the world.

“Yeah,” he says. “We could do that again.”

Chapter Three

Tim

WE DON’T SEE Baptism Emperor as often after that first tour rehearsal. They have a tougher schedule than us, since we can practice basically whenever we want. Music has become our full-time jobs, so we take the weekdays and mornings when a lot of the Baptism Emperor guys are busy.

I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a relief. Seeing Keannen that first time knocked me off-balance, and I’m still tilting even weeks into rehearsals. It doesn’t help that I can check out during most of the instructions about stage direction. Daphne directs the others around, especially Erin, choreographing movements that are meant to look spontaneous and natural. From behind my drum kit, I mostly get to watch.

“Tim,” Daphne says, snapping me out of my thoughts, “I want you to stand up at the end. We’ll have a little stage for the drum kit. After the last note of the last song, stand up and give us one of these.” She mimes crossing her drumsticks over her head. “Got that?”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” I say.

She has us run through the last song of the set, a loud, aggressive, fast song Erin wrote back when we were starting out and really struggling. It’s supposed to be triumphant and wild and free, but I’m feeling anything but triumphant as I face this upcoming tour. Still, when I hit the last notes, I stand as Daphne directed, crossing my drumsticks over my head.

The music fades. Daphne is scowling.

“That’s not bad,” she says in a voice that indicates it is, in fact, very bad, “but put a little more spark into it. Tim, you’re supposed to look like you just slayed the dragon, not like you ate a lemon. Try it again.”

We replay the end of the song, and I do my best to seem like the conquering hero Daphne wants me to be, I really do, but my heart clearly isn’t in it. My grin is fake as hell, and I’m a beat late on jumping to my feet.

“We’ll keep working on it. We have time,” Daphne says.

I guess I’m a lost cause in her eyes. Well, she wouldn’t be the first to see me that way.

I settle back down on my seat behind the drums while Daphne moves on. She focuses on a different song this time, “Apart,” the song Cameron wrote for his boyfriend Julian, the song half the world now knows Cameron wrote for his boyfriend Julian. We opened that fateful show in the Gorge with this song, and it’s part of what helped us get scouted, but Cameron absolutely hates being in the spotlight, so when Daphne drags a stool out to the center of the stage and encourages him to sit on it with his guitar, his scowl burrows into his face.

“We can dim the lights for this one,” she says. “One light, right on you, Cameron. Everyone else hang back. This can be a breather, a quiet moment. Dial up the emotions before we set you guys loose on the back half of the set.”

It makes sense in a business-y kind of way, but Cameron clearly isn’t thrilled about it. He does it anyway. He’s gotten more used to performing, and once his fingers are moving, everything seems to become easier for him. Even from behind, I can tell he’s closing his eyes as he sings, his voice soft but rich as he croons the lyrics he wrote specifically for the man he loves. There may have been a time when it would have been dangerous to let him sing this song so publicly when everyone knows who it’s for, but these days, it’s become a huge hit. We definitely attract a lot of queer fans, and part of that has been Cameron’s willingness to be so publicly out. Not that he could have hidden it. As he sings the words “if fate is kind, she’ll bring us back together” in a mournful warble, you’d have to be dead not to feel those lyrics strike your heart.

Hidden behind my drums, I swallow. Hard.

I’ve never had what Cameron has with Julian. If two human beings were ever bound body and soul, it’s them. They’re incomplete without each other, and anyone who spends two seconds around them can not only see it, but feel it.

Even me, someone with no romantic experience, can pick up on the shift in energy when they’re together. Already, I know the nights that Julian joins us on the tour will be our best performances. His presence will change Cameron, and that will ripple out to effect the rest of us as well.

My chest is too tight as I sit behind my drums watching Cameron play. For one shining moment of my life, I tasted the barest sliver of what he’s singing about right now, and it was so bright, so beautiful, so incredible that it’s still messing me up eight years later. That rebellious boy I kissed under the bleachers during band practice permanently rewired my brain. His smiles, his secret looks during class, his stolen kisses under the bleachers or in the bathroom. They were the closest I’ve ever been to the kind of love pouring out of Cameron as he croons for his boyfriend, but those memories of Keannen cut me up all the same. It’s like something inside me shattered when we parted, leaving shards of broken glass that slice me open every time something stirs them up.

Cameron finishes the song, and Daphne heads across the stage clapping.

“That is perfect, just perfect,” she says. “God, yes. That’s going to absolutely kill. Don’t change a thing about it. Just do that every night, and we’ll be golden.”

“Yeah, sure, no problem,” Cameron says with sarcasm dripping off his words.

We all know he’ll manage it, though. After our first guitarist left, we recruited Cameron from an ad, but meeting him was like destiny for The Ten Hours. We were incomplete before he fell into our laps, his talent reshaping our little group permanently.

Daphne gives us a break after that. I slink off the stage to sit against the cool concrete with a water bottle and a sandwich, but I find I don’t have as much appetite as I should. I’ve always known I was the weakest link in The Ten Hours, but this tour is really bringing it all to a head. Cameron is incredible; crowds adore Erin; Kelsey brings a chaotic, fun energy no one can look away from. I’m justhere, sitting behind my drum kit and failing to do one simple move for the finale. I don’t know how to be the conquering hero Daphne wants me to be. I’m a mediocre drummer who got lucky.

On top of all that, Keannen is going to be around. Keannen, who’s always been the better drummer and seems determined to rub that in my face. Maybe it’s his form of revenge for how things ended eight years ago, and if that’s the case, I can’t really blame him. He deserves his moment, and I deserve his scorn. I left without a word. Eight longyears of complete and total silence stretch between the day I abandoned him and that first tour rehearsal. Why wouldn’t he want to show off and put me in my place now that he has the perfect chance?

I startle when Cameron sits beside me. He’s got a poke bowl from a place around the corner, and he digs in without a word. After a couple minutes, though, he nods at my uneaten sandwich.

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