Follow My Heart

The minute we’ve escaped the rehearsal studio building and slammed our respective doors of my car behind us, he throws himself on me with full gusto.

“Wait a few minutes, I have to drive!” I exclaim, half-laughing against his lips that are everywhere, my mouth, my jawline, my ear, always my right ear.

“Can’t,” he grunts, on my lap again, running his hand up my shirt, and now it’s getting increasingly harder to concentrate as I shiver. His chilly hand raises goosebumps on the flesh all along my arms. “Waited so long . . .” he goes on, pushing my shirt up past my nipples. “Since we first met . . . backstage . . .”

It takes all the restraint I have to dislodge him from me. “Hotel,” I croak, putting the car into drive and now we’re off.

“What hotel are you staying at?” I ask, checking the review mirror for cops because I’m about to speed like I’ve never speeded before.

“Embassy. It’s in Independence,” he murmurs as he rubs my thigh and then lets his hand roam further.

I stop him, taking one hand off the wheel and removing his slender fingers from my crotch. “I will wreck the car and we will both die,” I warn.

I shorten what would normally be a twenty-minute drive to ten minutes, which still seems like an eternity when you have a horny rock star squirming in the passenger seat. I can feel his eyes burning holes into the side of my head the whole drive, and he opens his door before I’ve even finished parking haphazardly in the first spot I see next to the hotel.

“Come on,” he says breathlessly, impatiently as I lock the car doors and follow him through the front doors in a jog.

We force ourselves to calm down when we enter the lobby, although it’s almost eleven o’clock so there aren’t a whole lot of patrons standing around. The hotel clerk stares at us suspiciously as we speed walk to the elevators. I almost groan out loud as I see an elderly lady waiting for the same elevator as us, but just Zeke jerks his head towards the other one there’s a ding and the door open. The old lady steps in; it would be suspicious for us not to.

Zeke hits the seven and the woman hits the two. Waiting thirty seconds as the machine rises through two floors is agony. I can see the singer twitching noticeably at my side, and not for the last time his flawless splendor, pure and simple beauty in a world so hideous, knocks the breath from my lungs.

The elderly woman shuffles onto her floor and, god love him, Zeke is on me before the doors are halfway closed. But now I take control, taking his shoulders and kissing him into a corner, trying to be gentle but more turned on than ever by the sight of his wavy hair in a ruffled mess, crumpling against the wall behind him. I don’t care if security cameras are watching us from the ceiling; I don’t care that we’re seconds from his hotel room; I need to touch him, to sate my hunger for his skin and trembling frame. I mimic his actions from earlier in the car and push his shirt up to his armpits, but I take it further and lick his skin, pale under the tattoos, all the way from his stomach to his chest. He mewls and touches the back of my neck.

Ding. It’s our floor.

He leads me to room 742 and shakily inserts his key card and then we’re inside. It’s a nice room. It’s a nice hotel. The door clicks shut behind us and now there’s nothing—nothing—to stop us from falling into each other’s arms and colliding our lips together and discarding our clothes as fast as we can. Which we do.

We’ve only managed to ditch our shoes, socks, and my jacket and shirt when he’s pushed me down on the bed. I scramble backwards, itching to claim dominance but humoring him for the time being, watching with eyes like orbs as he unbuttons his pants.

Then he stops, and his eyes widen in horror. “Oh, shit,” he breathes, clapping a hand over his mouth. “Oh, shit, oh, fuck.”

“What? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t have anything,” he confesses, clutching his hair in his fingers and watching me fearfully.

“Oh.” I purse my lips, thinking fast. “Do they sell them at the hotel?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think so,” he nods.

“Okay. You wait here and I’ll be right back.” I shrug back into my shirt and pull on my shoes, hating it, half-wanting to tell him Fuck it and then fuck him instead without protection.

But he is a rock star. I should use protection.

He gives me his key card and tells me to hurry back, grinning at me devilishly and pulling his pants off— a difficult task, with skinny jeans. I pocket the key and catch the wallet he tosses at me before I close the door of Room 742 reluctantly.

While I’m in the elevator I open the wallet to make sure I have cash, and then I realize it isn’t mine. It’s worn and brown and fat, stuffed with a few tens and twenties and also some scraps of paper covered in handwritten words. Before I can snoop further the telltale ding alerts me I’ve arrived on the ground floor.

I’m too excited to be properly ashamed when I approach the hotel clerk, the same one who I know saw me come in with Zeke just a few minutes prior. Her nose is slightly wrinkled as she watches my advance.

“Hey. Do you sell condoms?” I ask hurriedly. I try to calm down; my obvious impatience probably isn’t helping the frantic, about-to-have-sex look.

“I’m sorry, no.” She doesn’t look very sorry. I slap the counter lightly with my palm before thanking her in a low voice and walking away.

Great. Now what? There’s no fucking way I’m going to go home tonight without having sex with Zeke. But, I mean . . . listen, I don’t want to insinuate that Zeke has even an ounce of promiscuity in his tiny body, but I know how these things go with musicians. Things happen on tour. And there is no doubt in my mind that there are hundreds of thousands of people, guys and girls, all over the world, who would sleep with him in a second. Hell, I’d tap that even if I’d never heart of Automatic Gunfire.

I find myself getting a tiny bit angry at Zeke for not having anything with him. What was he playing at? Did he just not care about endangering himself anymore? Has he slept around so much at this point it hardly mattered anymore, besides what could he possibly get from a guy like me, someone who obviously never gets any action . . .?

I shake myself and try to think past the anger, the pointless assumptions. My car keys are still in my pants pocket. I can just run out real quick and get a box, and I’ll be back and ready to go in no time.

Without a second thought I march out the door and towards my car. I consider texting the number that called me earlier to tell me about band practice to let him know what I was doing, but decide against it. I hadn’t actually heard Zeke on the other end of that phone call. I couldn’t be sure that that number belonged to the singer at all, and I don’t think it would make a very good impression if Trevor or one of the other band members got a text from me about running to the nearest gas station to get condoms. See you soon, don’t start without me.

By the time I’ve pulled into a gas station ridiculously far down the road, it’s been fifteen minutes since I left Zeke alone in his hotel room. More and more anxious thoughts fill my mind as the grubby man working the counter at eleven p.m. scans the generic box of Trojans. Zeke probably thinks I fucking robbed him, like I planned it all out, knowing the successful musician would have a fat wallet and executing my strategy accordingly. I took his hotel room key to boot. I can only pray that he trusts me finish this thing the way I started it. Don’t fret, honey, I think as though I’m trying to send my thoughts to him telepathically, reversing out of the two parking spaces I’d taken at the gas station and then pulling onto the highway. I’m comin’ for ya.

I can’t help but give the hotel clerk a little wave as I pass through the lobby for the third time in as many minutes, the plastic gas station bag crinkling in my fist. She purses her lips and shuffles some papers on the desk in front of her while I make a beeline for the elevator.

The ride from the ground floor to the seventh is excruciatingly slow now that I’m seconds away from Zeke again. I can feel my heartbeat quicken with each floor the machine passes; I take the box of condoms out of its bag and pass it back and forth between my hands eagerly. When I reach my floor I actually take it at a run to door 742. Click goes the lock as it reads the key card and I’m inside. The lights are still out and my stomach coils in anticipation.

“I’m back,” I call softly. No answer. I bolt the door behind me for good measure and turn the corner of the room—

Zeke hasn’t moved from his spot on the bed, but he’s still fully clothed except his pants and he’s curled up into a ball. Upon closer inspection I realize that he’s fast asleep.

My breath hitches in my throat and I set the box on the dresser softly, careful not to make any sound. I can’t take my eyes off of him, and as much as I want to be pissed at him for falling asleep before we had a chance to have raunchy sex, waking up the guests in the next room and causing the bed’s headboard to make a dent in the wall, I just can’t. He’s way too fucking cute while he sleeps. Any trace of irritation I may have had is doused as he mumbles a sleepy sound and nuzzles his cheek into the pillow.

No, he’s more than cute, I realize as I walk closer as quietly as I can. He’s beautiful. Magnificent bathed in the light of the streetlamps streaming in through the window, and the soft glow of the alarm clock on the bedside table. Now that he’s out of his pants I can see the skeletal image of a leafless tree tattooed on his thigh, its branches reaching almost all the way up to his hip. His hands are curled up by his face, twitching occasionally like he dreams of playing the piano. His lips are parted and he snores ever so quietly; a gentle, rhythmic, comforting sound. In and out. A sound I could get used to.

I cross to the other side of the bed and sit down as lightly as I can, scooting toward his back. Loathing myself for doing it but knowing I have to, I rub his side with my hand and say, “Hey. Zeke, wake up.”

He rolls over onto his back and groans, reaching up to rub his eyes with the heels of his hands. When he blinks awake and sees me looking down at him, he scrambles to sit up.

“Seth, you—you’re back.”

“Yep. Hotel didn’t sell ‘em. Ran down to the nearest gas station.”

“Oh, I see.” He looks conflicted. “I thought— But never mind! Come on, we can still—”

I shake my head. “Not a chance.”

“But I—oh, god. Seth, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.” He hangs his head and I can tell he’s on the verge of tears and it pains me.

I take his face in my hands. “Hey. Zeke. Look at me.” He meets my eyes, and I can see that, indeed, his are glistening and worried. “Don’t worry about it, all right? It’s perfectly okay. You’re probably still exhausted from the show the other night.”

“Yeah.” He sniffs. “But I really should have had something with me, I just—I don’t usually—I dunno. I feel so stupid.”

“Don’t. Really. It’s fine, I swear.” I know I don’t sound convincing so I allow a smile to spread across my face and I kiss his forehead gently. The sudden emotional blow as I realize that I’m holding so much beauty literally in my hands is beginning to feel familiar. And I love that.

He lets himself smile just a little, and then sighs and scratches the back of his head. “I guess our night is over, huh?”

“I guess so.” A pause in the conversation as I consider whether I dare to say it. Then I blurt out, “So, you’ve wanted it since you saw me backstage, huh?”

I can see him blush even in the darkness, and it strikes me how different he is now than when he was horny earlier—he went from a sex-crazed beast, attacking me every three steps and willing to fondle me while I drove, to what he is now; the shy, reluctant vocalist I met before the concert. “Yeah, I guess I did say that out loud, huh?”

That’s a good enough answer for me. I chuckle, insanely happy right now even though I didn’t get any. Then the thought that my departure is imminent wipes the smile clean off my face.

I take a deep breath. “I guess I should get going, huh? Let you get back to sleep.”

“You don’t have to . . .” He wraps his hand around my arm, long fingers caressing the smooth, inkless skin.

I shake my head and stand up. “Yeah. I do.”

He follows me as I grab my jacket, and when I open the door to leave he pulls me in for a last kiss.

“I’ll make this up to you, okay? I promise.”

I smile and reach up to brush a lock of beautiful raven hair from his face. “There’s nothing to make up.”

“All right, then.” He chews his lip. “I’ll call you, though. Tomorrow!”

“Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.”

I like the sound of that, and I touch his hand briefly before I begin to make my way toward the elevator. It’s a few seconds before I hear the door close, and I hope that Zeke doesn’t keep himself awake worrying.

It isn’t until I sit down behind the wheel of my car that I feel the lump in my back pocket. Frowning, I reach back and extract something from beneath my butt.

It’s Zeke’s wallet.

My face splits into a smile, which remains on my face for the entire drive home. I keep the wallet on my lap, resting on my left leg like it belongs there. I’ll tell Zeke about it when he calls me tomorrow, I tell myself. There’s no use in waking him up again now.

Because there is no doubt in my mind that tomorrow, I’ll be hearing his voice—god, that voice, like the chorus of a thousand angels all meshed into one—crackling on the other end of the phone. It doesn’t matter what he says, or what we talk about. He’s going to call me.

And, as I pull into the tiny parking lot of my apartment building, I know that, as long as I have the thought of that voice to look forward to, I’ll be all right. I’ll be able to go on.