Chapter One
Henry
Rain fell
from the sky in sheets. It’d only been drizzling when I’d boarded my private
jet not even a half hour earlier. Now, I
could barely see the airport outside my window.
“No,
babe, it’s not a big deal. I just would have liked to see you while I was in
town. It’s been a while. That’s all,” I said, shifting the phone to my other
hand.
Dipping
my finger into the empty glass that had once been the home of gin and tonic
number three, I stared at the melting ice as I stirred it in a circle.
Her
raspy, sleep-filled voice no longer sounded anything like that of the little
girl I’d met when she was only five. But, after sixteen years, Robin Clark no
longer resembled that child, either.
“I swear I thought the shower was next
weekend. I got my dates mixed up. I’m so sorry,” she lied. She did that a lot.
“Don’t
worry about it. It’s cool,” I said, pretending to believe her. I did that
a lot.
And it
killed us both a little more every time I did.
“I love
you, Cookie,” she whispered.
I wasn’t
sure if that was a lie or not anymore.
But I
knew one thing was true. “I love you too, kid.”
We sat in
silence for several seconds, neither of us willing to hang up. However, neither
of us knew what else to say. A million
words hung between us, but none of them would solve anything. God knows I’d
said them all over the last five years. Still, she’d never heard any of them.
Not really.
With my
heart physically aching, I swallowed hard and bit the bullet. “Listen, I’m
about to take off. I’ll be in L.A. for a show next week. Why don’t you come and
we’ll hang out for a few days?” It was an honest invitation.
I didn’t
receive an honest response.
“I’ll be
there!”
“I’ll
have Carter set it up. I’ll come by tomorrow afternoon and give you the
details. I can’t stay long, but maybe a quick dinner or something.”
“Perfect.”
We didn’t
linger with drawn-out goodbyes. A few seconds later, my phone was off and I was
once again gazing out at the pouring rain, wishing I were anywhere but on a
plane.
Carter,
my head of security, settled in the seat beside me and opened the latest issue
of Sports Illustrated magazine.
My
stomach clenched when the plane jerked as we backed away from the gate.
“Tell
Levee I love her, okay?” I said to Carter without dragging my eyes off the
terminal disappearing in the distance.
“Here we
go,” he mumbled, closing his magazine and turning his attention my way.
“Can you
do me a huge favor? If I don’t survive, make sure it’s open casket and I’m
wearing—”
“Blue. It
makes your eyes pop,” he finished for me.
“Right,
but—”
“But your
eyes will be closed, so you should wear green instead. It looks better with
your complexion.”
“Yes,
but—”
“But your
complexion will be ashy since you’re dead and all. So let’s just go with a
sleek, black suit. It’s timeless.” He arched an incredulous eyebrow.
Lifting
my glass in the air, I rattled the ice at Susan, my personal flight attendant.
She was busy buckling herself in for takeoff, but she flashed me a warm,
motherly smile in acknowledgement that she had seen me.
“So maybe
we’ve had this conversation before,” I told Carter.
He rolled
his eyes. “Every time we fly.”
I huffed
but didn’t bother explaining. He knew exactly how terrified of flying I was.
He’d been there the day it’d all begun.
You would
have thought that, after having traveled the globe for years, a simple two-hour
flight wouldn’t have been a problem. My racing heart and sweating palms argued otherwise.
In the
eight years since my career had taken off, I’d gone from a somewhat-popular
YouTube personality to the king of the music industry when Levee and I’d
released our self-produced debut album, Dichotomy.
Filled with half of her tracks and half of mine, it had soared to the top of
the charts. There hadn’t been a radio station in the country not playing our
music. In a matter of weeks, our careers had exploded, which had forced the
whole world to take notice.
The
following years had been a whirlwind. Grammys, record deals, fame, fortune, security. I could have retired six months
after I’d started and never wanted for anything again. Well, that’s not totally
true. The one thing I really wanted could never be bought.
I wasn’t
even sure it could be earned.
It was
something so rare that I feared it didn’t actually exist.
Love.
Unconditional. Unwavering. Eternal. Love.
I gave
that to exactly two people in my life.
I only
received it in return from one.
I’d been
born a gay man. There had never been a moment in my life when I’d been remotely
sexually attracted to women. If I had been, I would have married Levee Williams
the second I’d laid eyes on her. Because I’d known, just that fast, that she
was going to be the best thing that ever happened to me.
And she
had been.
Riding
the state’s dime to college, I’d branched out on my own at eighteen, armed with
nothing more than a guitar and a headful of mediocre lyrics.
In a lot
of ways, alone felt better.
In most,
it felt worse.
Luckily,
within weeks of starting my new adventure, I met Levee at a local bar on
amateur night. She wouldn’t admit it,
but she’d been attempting to hit on me when she’d first strutted over after her
set. I understood how she’d misinterpreted my intense stare while she’d
performed. But, when her kind, brown eyes lit as our gazes met, I knew,
straight or gay, I needed to meet that woman. That night, over beers and more
laughs than I had ever experienced, we bonded over music. Less than two weeks
later, I moved in with her. Part of my heart bound to hers in a way I had never
felt before. With no parents, no siblings, not even a foster mother who’d taken
a liking to me, I’d spent most of my life searching for the sense of belonging
she gave me only minutes after we’d met.
I
fiercely loved that crazy woman. And it amplified as the years passed when I
realized the feeling was mutual.
Levee was
more than my best friend. Outside of Robin, she was the only family I’d ever
had.
Which
really meant she was the only true
family I’d ever had.
I’d heard
that God wasn’t exactly stoked about homosexuality, but come on. What kind of a
masochist sends a gay man his soul mate with boobs and a vagina?
Especially
considering she was now married to Sam Rivers and six months pregnant with his
baby girl.
I’d tried
dating over the years, but the few men I’d found interesting had found me
temporary. I was good for a night of fulfilling their secret fantasies. But
that’s where it ended. I guess that’s what I got for having a thing for straight
men. I couldn’t stop myself though. It wasn’t the sex. As a celebrity, I had
plenty of men vying for my attention. Ass was easy to come by. But the high
that came from being with a straight man, knowing he was going against his own
genetic coding just for one night with me, made every minute of the pain worth
it.
Those
forbidden encounters were a drug.
And I was
a junkie.
The hunt
of finding that perfect blend of brute masculinity and subtle curiosity.
The chase
of teasing and taunting, ramping them up until they were unable to get my
clothes off fast enough.
The
victory as they finally broke, giving in to the one desire they had never
considered before they’d landed in my crosshairs.
That was
the high.
But it
was always followed by the crash.
Including
the inevitable spiral down when they realized what they had done.
Some
freaked, slinging insults and threats at me as if I had somehow magically cast
a spell and charmed their dick into my mouth. Some wore their shame on their
faces, gathering their clothes and rushing from the room without a backward
glance. Some felt the high too and came back for seconds, desperate for more.
But they all left, one way or another.
Always.
Once I’d
accepted that those encounters were nothing more than a fix, it’d stopped
gutting me when they walked away.
While I’d
had my fair share of partners, I was far from a whore. I didn’t launch my
expert skills of seduction on any straight man who crossed my path. That would
have been a wasted effort. I was good; don’t doubt that. But men didn’t just
fall naked into my bed, begging for me to take their bodies in ways they would
never forget. At least, not the men I wanted. It took patience and dedication
to achieve my high.
I spent
two years working my way into a certain NFL quarterback’s bedroom.
Worth
every single second.
Or so I’d
told myself as I’d felt another piece of my soul break away when he’d dismissed
me from his life the very next day.
Maybe I
was a whore after all.
But I’d
tried the relationship thing and it just didn’t work.
I’d given
my heart to a man once. He’d given it back a month later.
I was
devastated when he left. I was ruined when, two months later, I watched him
marry a woman I knew he didn’t love.
No.
That’s not true. It was me he didn’t love.
That was
a common theme in my life and exactly why I was so successful as a
singer-songwriter. It was hard to be all “woe is me” with millions of adoring
fans acting as if you were a god who’d returned to Earth.
While
Levee struggled with the weight of her fame, I flourished under the spotlight.
I was alive on stage. And, with no one waiting for me at home, I’d devoted
years to touring. The roar of the crowd fueled my happiness to the point I
feared the day when I would have to settle down.
And,
right then, I was white-knuckle gripping the armrest as the jet accelerated
down the runway before lifting into the sky.
“Shit.
Shit. Shit,” I mumbled as my stomach dropped when the landing gear loudly
locked into place.
“You’re
fine,” Carter said absently.
I was
absolutely not fine.
“I’m
gonna puke,” I groaned.
His eyes
never lifted from the pages of his magazine as he shook a vomit bag open and
passed it my way.
“Thanks,”
I replied, disingenuous.
“No
problem. Now, take a deep breath and try to relax. We’ll be there in no time.”
As the
plane leveled out, so did my stomach.
Blowing
out a loud breath, I dropped my head back against the headrest. “We should’ve
taken the bus.”
“There
wasn’t time for the bus. Your ass is supposed to be on stage in four hours.
What we shouldn’t have done is drive to San Francisco in the first place.”
“We’ve
been over this. I wasn’t missing her baby shower.”
He
grumbled, adjusting in his seat. “I think Levee and Sam would’ve understood.”
I
narrowed my eyes and turned to glare at him. “Don’t even start with me. They
would have understood perfectly. But that doesn’t change the fact that I wanted to be there.”
My tour
had been scheduled over a year in advance. Tickets had sold out in less than
five minutes. But none of that had mattered when I’d found out that Sam’s mom
was planning a baby shower for Levee. I had very few priorities in life.
However, being there for her was always one of them.
Susan approached
my seat. “Can I get you another drink, Mr. Alexander?”
“Thank
God. Yes!” I lifted my glass in her direction.
“No
problem.” Her eyes nervously shifted to Carter. “A word?”
Carter
unbuckled his seat belt and moved past me. They huddled together behind the
small bar in the front, but my focus was on the mini bottle of gin she was
emptying in my glass. I was well aware that I needed to slow down. Drunk on
stage wasn’t exactly a novelty in my business, but slurring my words and
stumbling over lyrics was a deal breaker for me.
Just as I
was about to tell her to hold off on the drink, the plane suddenly jerked and
my nerves skyrocketed all over again. I sucked in a sharp breath, and both sets
of their concerned eyes jumped to mine.
Yep. I can sober up later.
Snapping
my fingers, I ordered, “Drink.”
Susan
smiled compassionately before shooting an impatient glare at Carter. I would
have cared what they were whispering about if I hadn’t been about to pull an
Incredible Hulk and peel out of my own skin.
“I’ll tell
him,” Carter relented with a sigh, tagging the drink from her hand and then
moving in my direction.
With
shaking hands, I took the glass and tipped it back for a sip, relishing in the
distracting burn in my chest.
“Tell me
what?” I asked, settling the glass in a cup holder.
He
motioned his chin at my drink. “Why don’t you finish that first?”
The clear
liquid sloshed as the plane suddenly banked to the left.
“Excellent
idea,” I said.
Carter’s
gaze once again lifted to Susan’s in a silent conversation.
Her lips
thinned.
Throwing
the rest of my drink back, I bounced my attention back and forth between the
two of them. Susan looked downright nervous, and Carter appeared more than a
little annoyed.
“Okay,
what the hell is going on with you two?” I demanded.
“The
pilot is having some chest pains,” he announced.
Suddenly,
there wasn’t enough gin in the world.
Fighting
to make my seat belt tighter, I gasped, “Did he pass out? Are we going down?”
Carter’s
expression remained impassive.
“Of
course not!” Susan cut in.
Her
reassurance did little to comfort me, because whatever magical mechanism kept
the cabin pressurized suddenly failed. If the pain in my lungs was any
indication, there was absolutely no oxygen left on that plane. We were all
going to die.
Carter’s
heavy paw landed on my back, pushing my torso down so my head was between my
knees.
“Calm
down and breathe. We aren’t going down. The copilot is taking us back to San
Francisco. We’ll be on the ground in no time.”
The vise
on my lungs didn’t loosen.
Still
hunched over, I nodded, having heard his words but finding no relief in them.
Susan
kneeled beside me. “It’s okay, Henry. Co-captain Baez is an amazing pilot. You
won’t even know the difference.” She rubbed my back.
Embarrassment
mingled with the worthlessness I felt in that moment. But I was helpless to
reel it in. My body was out of control. I was left as nothing more than a
marionette being held captive by my fear.
Reaching
out, I gripped Carter’s thigh desperately searching for a way to ground myself.
The man
was a beast. At six-five and well over three hundred pounds, with short, black
hair and nearly black eyes, he looked every bit of the scary bodyguard I’d
hired him to be. There wasn’t anything soft or gentle about him. However, he’d
been with me for almost a decade. He knew how I worked, even if he didn’t like
it.
He patted
my hand, and then I heard the crinkle of his magazine opening.
“You’ll
be fine,” he said.
I wasn’t
sure he was right.
Henry Alexander's story will arrive
on May 17th
in The Spiral Down by Aly Martinez!
Add this
M/M Romance to your TBR list on
Goodreads!
RELEASE DATE: May 17th
Blurb
I was
afraid to fly.
He made me soar.
After years of climbing the
ladder of success in the music industry, I finally had everything I could want.
Yet I still found myself
wandering through life alone.
Captain Evan Roth was the
one man I never saw coming.
Tall, dark, mysterious…
Straight.
We were both damaged beyond
repair and searching for something so elusive we weren’t sure it even existed.
But, when two broken souls
collide in midair, falling is a given.
I just never expected to
crave the spiral down.
About the Author:
Aly Martinez
Born and
raised in Savannah, Georgia, Aly Martinez is a stay-at-home mom to four crazy
kids under the age of five, including a set of twins. Currently living in South
Carolina, she passes what little free time she has reading anything and
everything she can get her hands on, preferably with a glass of wine at her
side.
After
some encouragement from her friends, Aly decided to add “Author” to her
ever-growing list of job titles. Five books later, she shows no signs of
slowing. So grab a glass of Chardonnay, or a bottle if you’re hanging out with
Aly, and join her aboard the crazy train she calls life.
THANK YOU!
