High Strung (The Road to Rocktoberfest 2024)

Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

L uka woke to the sound of thunder, with rain pounding on the roof of the bus in a steady roar. The vehicle wasn’t moving, and he could hear the generator rather than the engine, so they’d no doubt made it to Pittsburgh.

He’d been looking forward to this show, which would be in the PPG Paints Arena with an estimated crowd size of over 14,000 people. It would be their biggest show so far, and he’d been excited about it before, but now he just felt numb.

Sometime during the long night, in the pitching and rolling of the bus, he’d finally fallen asleep. His mind had kept him up far too long, but eventually even Luka’s larger than average capacity to stay angry had lost out to exhaustion. But despite his tiredness, he’d dreamed: uneasy dreams he hadn’t had in years about his parent’s disappointment in him, the alienation he’d felt from his family, the worry and excitement of being out on his own for the first time, knowing he’d had no safety net. All the doubts and fears that had plagued him since he’d defied his family’s expectations to become who he wanted so desperately to be.

And through it all, of course, was Kit.

There was simply no way to dream of the past without Kit being part of it. It wasn’t even the first time Kit had invaded his sleeping thoughts over the last few years. Right after that last catastrophic fight, Kit had been a prominent fixture almost every time Luka had closed his eyes, but the frequency of the invasions had mercifully diminished as time passed. So had the intensity, so that instead of just the fight, he sometimes dreamed of things they’d done in high school, the music they’d played together, and the excitement they’d shared in coming up with their band. Sometimes the dreams made him ache with yearning for what he’d lost when Kit was no longer a part of his life. Kit had been everything to him — friend, supporter, the rock that had gotten Luka through adolescence. He’d even been Luka’s first crush, though Luka had never given Kit any sign, afraid of losing the one person he truly needed in his life.

But last night brought back the nightmares. The memories were there, as fresh as though they had just happened, but there was also a strange distance to it, like a pane of glass had been slipped between him and what had occurred, isolating him from the raw pain and anguish. He saw his younger self, and Kit, and Jordan — and in retrospect, watching it play out from the “safety” of distance, he could see how badly he’d been fooled by Jordan, the first man Luka had thought loved him romantically.

Of course, he’d also blamed Jordan for what had happened, as much as if not more than Kit. But it had been Kit’s betrayal that had hurt him the most.

Luka had been dazzled, knocked off his feet by his first love affair. Jordan was everything Luka had thought he wanted at the time: elegant, older, handsome, well-educated, from an upper class family who seemed to treat him like a golden child. They’d met in college, where Jordan had been a grad student at nearby Columbia during Luka’s senior year at Juilliard, only one year from his JD degree, confident of his success because his family had a law firm in Philadelphia. All Jordan had needed to do was get through school and pass the bar before having a privileged place in the family business, and his self confidence — which, in retrospect, had simply been arrogance — had drawn Luka like a magnet.

Jordan had been a guest at a wedding where Luka, Kit, and two violinists had been playing as a string quartet, providing music not only for the ceremony, but for the elegant reception held in the gardens of an opulent Long Island mansion. As advanced strings students, it was easy for the four of them to get these types of gigs in the summer, playing weddings and even some corporate functions where classical music was part of the backdrop for a lot of financial wheeling and dealing. The money was good and very useful in supplementing what their scholarships didn’t provide.

Luka knew now that he should have been suspicious from the start. Jordan had first tried chatting up Kit, but Kit had been unimpressed, and then he had stuck close to Luka. But when Kit had needed to go to the restroom, Jordan had turned his attention to Luka — and Luka, naive fool that he had been, had believed Jordan’s claim that he’d only been talking to Kit to get closer to him .

The entire saga had played out in his sleeping mind, but he didn’t want to relive it yet again, so he pushed it from his thoughts, then pulled back the curtain to his bunk and stood up, blinking to clear the grit from his eyes. The bathroom was empty, so he took care of that first, then washed his hands and decided he needed coffee.

Everyone else still seemed to be asleep, so he checked his watch, surprised to see it was only just after six in the morning. He’d barely had four hours, but he didn’t want to go back to sleep just to have yet more dreams about unpleasant things. So he settled for an energy drink instead of the coffee in order not to disturb anyone else, then moved up to the living area in the front of the bus and pulled out his phone.

He went to check his email, but a news alert popped up first. He’d forgotten that he’d set notifications to tell him every time the F-Holes appeared in the news.

Rock Today — Sultana bassist Kit Davies subbing in for F-Holes injured Jett Turner.

For long moments, he stared at the words, feeling his stomach twist. He didn’t want to read it, not really, but he clicked on it anyway.

Philadelphia, PA — Fans were surprised on Monday night to see Kit Davies, bassist and vocalist for supergroup Sultana, on stage playing with up-and-coming cello-metal band the F-Holes, in lieu of their injured member, Jett Turner. Turner suffered a concussion and wrist sprain on Saturday after tripping on a cable bundle and taking an unfortunate fall down the stage stairs. Rock Today reached out to Turner, who has been released from the hospital and will fly back to Los Angeles tomorrow. He reported that he is recovering, is disappointed that he can’t immediately return to the tour, but he’s flattered that someone like Davies was willing to step into his shoes.

“Who wouldn’t be?” Turner laughed. “I mean, damn, he’s epic!”

Davies, who had only just returned from Sultana’s four month European tour, couldn’t be reached for comment. Sources at Headcrash, the label for both bands, reported that Davies requested to be the replacement, and since he had no current commitments, they’d seen no reason not to give him the position.

We reached out to Carter Morgan, A if he felt somewhat down and as washed out as the gray sky, at least he wasn’t boiling with fury the way he had been last night. He knew he had over-reacted to Kris’s inclusion of Kit, but his emotions always seemed to run at about 1000% during a performance. She couldn’t have known the history involved, so when Kris came up to him, offering him a cup of coffee with a hesitant smile, he took it.

“Thanks,” he murmured softly, looking up at her and offering a crooked smile. “And I’m sorry.”

“Me, too,” Kris said, surprising him. She read his expression and shrugged, smiling a little pensively. “Performances can be pretty emotional. It’s fine, right? We’re good?”

“Yeah, we’re good,” he replied, and he meant it. It helped to know she wasn’t choosing Kit over him after all. The knot of tension he’d been carrying around since Kit’s arrival loosened, and he finally felt like maybe the crisis was over. At least for the moment.

Greg, who was a total night owl, finally came out to join them.

“What about I get us all an Uber, and we go out for lunch? I know this great little place. It’s a total dive, but the pierogies are amazing!”

Everyone else seemed enthusiastic about going, but Luka demurred. He wasn’t hungry, and he was actually considering going back to bed, letting the drumming rain lull him to sleep.

“You sure?” Greg asked as he put on a jacket against the rain.

“I’ll be fine. I think I’m going to get some more sleep.”

No one else seemed too concerned about him remaining behind, and they gave up urging him when he just shook his head and remained seated. He returned his attention to his phone as they departed.

Finally, he was alone, and he sighed, pushing up out of the leather chair to head toward the bunk room. But there was a sound at the bus door, which reopened with a swish of hydraulics. Luka was dismayed to see Kit there, his hair damp.

“I changed my mind,” Kit told him. He looked somber, almost depressed, but maybe it was just the weather and Luka’s own mood making everything seem grimmer than it really was. He hesitated, then finally drew in a breath as though steeling himself. “Look, can we talk?”

“We have nothing to say to one another,” Luka replied, straightening up to his full height. While he didn’t want to start anything, he wasn’t going to pretend he was pleased with Kit’s presence.

“Not true,” Kit replied. “If for no other reason than the sake of band harmony, we need to clear the air. And you need to understand that the band is on your side, not mine.”

Luka hated feeling defensive, so he crossed his arms over his chest, frowning and hoping Kit would take the hint. He thought for a moment about heading for his bunk at the rear of the bus and locking the door, but he didn’t want to. He was tired of running, and he wasn’t going to let Kit drive him to it again.

“Okay, they’re on my side,” he said. “Is that all?”

“No, that isn’t all.” Kit didn’t raise his voice, but Luka saw the way he squared his shoulders as though bracing himself for a difficult task. “I hope we can reach some kind of understanding, not for my sake, but for yours. I don’t want this to be an adversarial thing, Luka. Neither of us gain by the next few weeks being this tense.”

“Then what the fuck do you want?” Luka felt himself growing annoyed again, and he bit down on the impulse to snarl. Kit could say whatever he wanted. It wasn’t going to change a damned thing as far as Luka was concerned.

“I want my best friend back.”

The words, uttered in a sad, almost defeated tone, brought Luka up short. He stared at Kit, really looking at him for the first time in years. He could see that without the cheerful smile and the happy act, Kit looked older. He was only twenty-seven, the same age as Luka, but he could see lines of strain at the corners of Kit’s eyes. He seemed thinner, too, now that Luka took the time to notice, and it surprised him. Kit had always been the buffer one, joking that he needed the muscles to lug around seventy-five pounds of case and instrument, which was double the weight that Luka had to deal with. It was definitely a shock to Luka’s already overwrought system.

“Why, are you dying or something?” Under the nasty words, however, Luka felt a surge of something he didn’t want to call fear. He might hate Kit, but he didn’t want him dead! That would mean that the only good part of Luka’s entire childhood would die, too, and the thought of that was too horrible for him to even consider.

“No, I’m not dying.” Kit sighed heavily, running a hand through his damp hair, making the short, honey blond strands in the front stick up. “Believe it or not, I miss you. You don’t think I’m happy about what happened, do you? I know you think it was deliberate, but I’ll swear on a stack of bibles that it wasn’t what you think! I wasn’t trying to hurt you, Luka.”

“Right,” Luka snapped. It was hard to keep his cool, and he had to resort to clenching his fists tightly. “Tell me you didn’t sleep with my boyfriend! Tell me how I misunderstood seeing the two of you naked in bed together. Yeah, I always figured Jordan instigated it, but you were right there with him. I’m sure you knew I was seeing Jordan. I dropped enough hints about it! But go on, tell me how you never knew. This should be good.”

“Are you finally going to let me explain?” Kit frowned, but he seemed to take Luka’s silence as an agreement. “I didn’t even know Jordan was your boyfriend! You said you had a thing for someone older, someone well off who would have issues if it came out that he was seeing you, but then you clammed up and refused to tell me who it actually was. You never brought him to our apartment. You’d just come home covered in hickeys and bruises and tell me you knew what you were doing. Hell, I thought from the way you were keeping it such a fucking secret, you were having an affair with Dr. Bennet.”

Luka jerked in surprise. He was so startled by the ludicrousness of Kit’s words that he almost laughed. “You thought I was sleeping with our music composition professor ?”

“I wasn’t the only one,” Kit snapped back. “The late nights you were keeping, and the way Bennet was always putting a hand on your back, or standing close to you. Blake and Josh thought you were, too, and we even followed you one night. We saw you go into the building with Dr. Bennet, and then not come out until the next morning. We were worried about you losing your scholarship if anyone else figured it out! So we covered for you when other people started to say some unkind things about how much of a teacher’s pet you were, insisting you were just working with him on the music for Sultana. It never even occurred to me it could have been anyone else.”

Luka was stunned. He thought back over the circumstances, and he could almost see how they could get the wrong idea. Martin Bennet had been in his mid-thirties, a handsome, talented man who had recognized Luka’s potential, not just as an instrumentalist, but as a songwriter. Luka did work closely with him, even after hours, because Martin had been helping him with the music and lyrics he was writing for what would end up being Sultana’s first album. He was a nice, caring person, and while almost everyone on campus thought he was gay, he wasn’t. Martin had once confided to Luka that he was completely asexual — music was his only passion, his only love. But that didn’t mean Martin didn’t have feelings, and Luka knew the older man was fond of him. Yet Martin had never once overstepped any boundaries. Luka had been comfortable around Martin, even considering him exactly the kind of man he wished his father had been: loyal, supportive, encouraging, and proud. Martin had once said he was certain Luka would be famous one day, not for playing the cello, but for the beauty and complexity of the songs he wrote. Luka had never considered him anything more than a friend and mentor.

And often, after spending time with Martin working on music, Luka would go to Jordan’s apartment, which was conveniently located in the same building where the composition professor lived. They’d have sex, sometimes wild and definitely more than a little risky, given Jordan preferred to bareback, and he enjoyed inflicting pain, which Luka wasn’t really into but tolerated for the sake of their relationship. But Luka had been blinded by love to any danger, and he’d believed Jordan when he’d said they needed to keep things under wraps. Jordan had explained that if his rich parents had found out he was gay, they would have stopped financing his Columbia University law degree and pulled the rug out from under his $6K per month apartment. It was probably even true, and certainly Luka understood about parents trying to control your life even after you were an adult. He’d thought he understood Jordan, but in the end, it turned out he’d been horribly wrong.

If there was one thing Luka was good at, it was not talking about things. So he’d agreed they could pretend to be nothing more than friends, and Luka’s work with Martin was a perfect cover. Apparently a little too perfect, if his friends had believed he was sleeping with his professor.

Of course, Luka had been so worried about losing Jordan if anything had come out, that he hadn’t realized he was giving an entirely different impression to Kit and the other members of Sultana. He’d thought he was in love, completely smitten, blinded by what, in retrospect, had been mostly lust, and he’d thought Jordan felt the same way. It was only after everything had blown up, and he’d left the band, that he’d realized just how much Jordan had played him. But his anger at the way he’d believed Kit had betrayed him as well had overrode everything else. He could — and had — gotten over Jordan, but he’d never gotten over the loss of Kit.

Doubt and pain coiled within him, topped with a dawning horror that he might have done something incredibly stupid. After four years, here it was. He could either hear Kit out, and possibly have to own up to having been so wrong that he’d made a terrible mistake, or he could hold on to his anger, keep Kit away, get through the next six weeks and go back to the way things had been.

The second option was the safer one, letting Luka continue to blame Kit instead of acknowledging he might have been wrong. It would be easier to keep the past in the past, but Luka mentally braced himself and looked at Kit somberly. For better or worse, he needed to know. Not knowing the truth, however unpleasant it was, would eat him up inside, and he knew himself well enough to know that he’d go into a mental spiral if he didn’t let Kit speak.

“Tell me.”