Page 52 of Syncopation
Dom coughed. “Is he okay?”
“I saw the guy come out with a bag of drugs. What the hell was Ray thinking?” Mish’s thoughts were closer to his own.
“He’s suitably horrified, chastised, and he wasn’t thinking at all.” Exhaustion was quickly catching up with Zavier. He leaned as casuallyas he could against the wall and let it hold him up.
“Ray didn’t...do anything foolish or get hurt or anything...right?” Dom’s face colored, then paled.
For someone in a rock band with albums that had parental advisory warnings on them, Dom could act so...sheltered at times. “No. I got in there before anything happened, Ray didn’t know about the drugs, and the guy was of age anyway.”
Both of them relaxed. Good.
“Turned out the guy was twenty-one.”
Mish grunted. “He didn’t look that old.”
“Yeah. I felt pretty rash about rushing in there, until the drugs fell out of the shit’s pocket.” He pushed off the wall. “I don’t think Ray’ll be letting anyone in his room again.” Would likely turn away anyone not associated with the band.
“He takes too much on his shoulders.”Dom’s quiet voice.
Zavier turned and studied Dom, the words Ray had thrown at him coming back.Dom would do you in a heartbeat.There was history between Dom and Ray he didn’t know, but he was certain Ray was wrong about Dom. If Zavier propositioned, Dom would say no, in that same heartbeat. “What do you mean?”
“All the criticism, the journalists, the press. All Carl’s yelling and Kevin’stroubles. He takes it on, blames himself, and then—” Dom gestured at the door. “Goes off the deep end.”
“Not the first time he’s done this?” God, he didn’t want to be staking out Ray’s door every night to keep the groupies away. How the fuck had that guy known where to go?Shit. They didn’t have bodyguards.
“Notthis,” Dom said. “Last tour, he’d find a member of the crew to screw and everythingwould be fine.”
“Carl hired a new crew,” Mish said.
Always back to that asshole. Zavier pushed a hand through his hair. “Ray was talking to us, on the bus. He had an outlet, at least for a while.” Before the journalist had rattled him. Before he’d flipped Zavier off. Back when they’d shared a couch and leg room.
A little thought niggled at Zavier, one that reminded him he’d pulledaway exactly as Ray was reaching out—which meant he was at fault for all this, too. But he couldn’t change the past, couldn’t go back and undo his actions. His soul roiled. And here he thought himself so careful, so controlled, yet his emotions and fears had gotten the best of him.
“A shared burden is an easier one,” Mish said.
Very true. But far too tempting. “Well, this crisis is averted.We should all turn in.”
Dom nodded and headed back to his door.
Mish stooped, picked up the ice bucket that had been sitting at her feet, and handed it to Zavier. “It’s a little melted.”
“I’ll manage.”
She chuckled and gave him a smile. “I still like you. You’re messed up, but you have a heart.”
“Gee, thanks.” One tired smile later, and he was back at his own door and intohis room, shutting out the chaos behind it.
Except he still heard the echo of Ray’s moan in his head and felt the heat of that body in his fingertips, even when he plucked some ice out of the bucket to add to his glass of water.
He hadn’t lied when he’d told Ray he wasn’t a sub. Ray couldn’t be Zavier’s submissive, for so many reasons, self-control aside.
God, he so wanted to takeon that bundle of nerves and desire and need, but Ray made him impulsive and uncovered too many of his own worries. Leaving Dimitri and the orchestra had been easy—not entirely painless, but easy. Leaving Twisted Wishes would gut him completely. He’d already tangled his own hopes and fears, the want to make it big and the terror he’d screw their chances up somehow. He fuckingcaredfor Mish andDom and especially beautiful, fractured Ray Van Zeller. He had no idea how to prove to Ray that he was worthy of every bit of praise, that Ray was the reason the band was skyrocketing in popularity.
Yeah, the media focused on Zavier as the point of change, which was unfair. Ray was the heart and soul of Twisted Wishes. If he was cut out—the terrifying suggestion Ray had made—they’d all witherand die.
Problem was, Ray took the weight of the band onto his back. Zavier could take that weightoffRay, if only for a time. He could. He so clearly could. The desire was there, wound so tight around his core. It would be a delight, and honor. And if it went wrong, an act that would tear their whole world apart.
Zavier downed his glass of water, then poured another. He couldn’t riskRay or the band, not even to help in the one way he knew how.
