Page 40 of Darien
EIGHTEEN
It was about three in the morning by the time Darien finally got in. He and Justin had been working all night, and Darien would have to get up pretty early the next day to continue to practice himself, but the song was done.
Darien was ready for this. He felt something deep down inside himself, something that was growing all the time, and that had been planted in the very center of his being a long time ago. Maybe a year ago, when Noah had asked him not to leave. Darien hadn’t been ready back then, but he was now.
Life, light, hope. Something good and green, that was what was inside of him. He couldn’t understand it, but he could put a name to it. Several names. Caring. Compassion. Trust. Need.
Love.
All of those and more and all of it related to Noah. Had Darien really been so scared of this? It was the best thing in the world, nothing to fear, except losing it. But that was what made this all the more potent.
He could lose everything. Not just Noah, but also his career. In fact, if he got Noah, he was going to lose his job, because there was still no way in hell that Lester would accept him and Noah.
If Darien were allowed to date, he knew it would be to someone else famous. One of his bandmates, maybe. Or some other celebrity. Not to someone like Noah, someone quiet and private, someone who wouldn’t enjoy the limelight, who would prefer not to be photographed.
Well, that was just the way it was. Noah was who he was, and that would always be more than enough for Darien. So, exhausted, he slipped into the apartment, already looking around for Noah.
He knew that he wasn’t there, though. He could feel the other man’s presence in the room, but he knew, before he even looked around, that Noah was gone. Sure, the bedroom smelled of him, but the house felt empty and cold, and Darien softly sighed as he saw that Noah’s laptop was gone.
Was Noah still at school? He had been working so hard, but it was so late. Was something wrong with him? Darien had so badly wanted to talk to him about what was going on, had wanted to beg him to come to the concert, but it looked like he might not have that chance.
Wasn’t it possible that Noah, with his almost ethereal loveliness, had found someone else? That he was with someone else? But that was jealousy talking. He knew Noah, and he knew there was no way that he could move on so quickly after a breakup.
With a groan, Darien fell down onto the couch, and his body was so tired that he even managed to fall into a fitful sleep. He woke up every half hour or so, though, sure that he’d heard a noise outside of his door, that Noah was coming home and that he would finally have the chance to plead his case.
It was about five when Darien finally gave up on that. Noah wasn’t going to come home that night. Wherever he was, he was there for the night. So Darien did the next best thing. He made a few phone calls, got Noah set up with a ticket to the concert, along with the VIP backstage pass, and got an email sent out to tell Noah about it.
At least Noah would know that Darien had wanted him there. At least there was a chance, however small, that the man that he still considered his boyfriend would be there as Darien made the sacrifice.
Whether Noah was there or not, though, Darien’s feet were set on this path. He was going to do it. He was going to lay everything out at love’s feet. And if Noah turned him down, or if he didn’t show up at all, then at least Darien could know that he’d done his very best to save what they’d had.
For a few more hours, Darien slept. Every hour or so, he woke up enough to try Noah’s phone. At first he texted, but when no answer came back, he tried calling.
As the hours passed and there was still no answer from Noah, Darien’s worry grew. Noah was the sort of person who was very serious about the things he did, including, apparently, breaking up with Darien, but he wasn’t a cruel man. Surely he would answer back, even just a few words telling Darien to go to hell, once it became clear that Darien was worried?
What if something had … happened to Noah? What if he was hurt? Not able to get to his phone for some reason? Darien tossed and turned, and finally, he just got up. He was going to start calling hospitals, he decided, looking for Noah. He had to do something because this just wasn’t like Noah at all to disappear off the radar completely.
Until he was called in for a surprise rehearsal, a full three hours earlier than the one that they had planned. And all he could do, really, was make phone calls in between numbers, any chance that he got.
It wasn’t until the afternoon that he finally had some luck, at least sort of. The good news was, he found the hospital where Noah had been. The bad news was, he was already gone. And, of course, the worse news was that he’d been in the hospital at all.
At least he’d been let out. That was something, though, of course, the nurse who took his call couldn’t tell him any details about a patient, as she so irritably told him before abruptly hanging up.
It drove Darien insane, and the whole time that he was practicing, his mind wasn’t on the moves he was doing. It was on the beautiful, frustrating man who had been his friend for so long, his boyfriend for such a short time, and the man who he was coming to realize he would do anything to get back.
His song was the one that came second to last. Justin gave him a meaningful look as he announced their set list, and the rest of the guys looked jealous that he got to have the spotlight all on him.
Let them be jealous. Soon enough, if everything went the way that Darien desperately hoped it would, they wouldn’t have to compete with him for attention anymore.
Slowly, he nodded back to Justin. Yes, he was still going to do it. He had poured his heart out to Justin the night before as they wrote that song, had told him everything that he planned, and Justin had approved of it all.
“It’s love,” Justin had said, and Darien nodded. It was love because only love could make him do something so reckless, put everything out there.
Now if only Noah would make it. If only Darien could find him, but where would he even look? All he could do was throw himself into this practice, and hope that somehow, by some miracle, Noah could forgive him enough to try again.
This wasn’t about Lance, or Ken, though Darien knew that Noah was jealous about them. And he could even understand why. But this was about something else. This was about Darien leaving a year ago, and the way that had stepped on Noah’s heart and made it hard for him to trust again.
He hadn’t done it on purpose, but he had done it, and he was going to make amends. He had been thoughtless, and Noah had been through so much in his life, some of which Darien knew about and more which he only saw reflected in those beautiful eyes.
