“I didn't say you would,” Leo said. “But I'm not sure he knows that.”
“I’ll just have to make it clear,” Caleb said, reaching around him to turn the shower on again. He needed to get ready and get over to Brad's. “But you like it . . . the song, right?”
Leo sighed. “I don't hate it. I just think . . . I just think it's a side of you I haven't seen, and it's weird, because I thought I knew every side of you.”
“You do,” Caleb swore, pulling Leo, damp towel and all, into his arms. “There is nobody else on this planet who knows me as well as you do.”
Leo didn't say anything, but wrapped a wet arm around his neck, hugging him tightly. But he didn't need to say anything, because the opposite was true, too—nobody knew Leo Humphries as well as Caleb did. And Leo was dying to know, even though he hadn't said it out loud, why Caleb hadn't trusted him to produce his album.
They had talked about it, back when Caleb had first expressed interest in recording a solo project. At the time, it had made perfect sense to say, but we're already spending so much time together, and we always want to kill each other in the studio. That was still true, but even after his first session with Brad, Caleb was wondering if he'd focused on the wrong thing. He and Leo did do things differently when they were in the studio—Leo liked a more organic approach, trying a hundred different things, and Caleb liked to be organized and know going in which direction they were going—but maybe that wasn't as much of a problem as having a producer who wanted to turn the songs Caleb had sweated, bled, cried, and vomited over into commodities.
But you wanted someone who would get your songs heard. That's what he’ll do.
“I'm not going to let him change me,” Caleb murmured into Leo's damp neck. “I promise.”
Leo nodded. “Good. Because I love you just the way you are.” He paused, pulling away, turning back to the sink. “Hey, I thought you should know. The realtor called. That house? The one with the bright pink flowers?”
Caleb already knew where this was going before Leo continued. He felt a stab of something that hurt. He should've gotten over himself, told Leo he'd liked the house too. Why hadn't he? Stubbornness? Determination to stay in the one they were already in? He wasn't entirely sure, but he didn't want to think about it because yeah, it hurt.
“What about it?” Caleb said.
“It sold,” Leo said shortly. “Too bad.”
“Too bad,” Caleb echoed, and discovered that he really meant it.
———
“You're holding out on me,” Brad said, shoving a hand through his blond hair, after they finished another take of the new song they'd been working on for the last three days. “I know you've got better stuff than this.”
Caleb stared at him. Actually, he was holding out on him, but how did Brad know that? Nobody knew about the song he had hidden in his metaphorical back pocket, the song he definitely didn't trust Brad enough with yet. But at the same time, there was nothing really wrong with this one. He thought it had a nice lyrical starkness that he liked. Even the other guitar player—Steve, Caleb had finally gotten out of him a few days ago, his name was Steve—had told him he thought it was “beautiful.”
“There's just like a whole bunch of these sad, melancholy songs, all about how much you're fucking longing for someone. How many of those can you have, before it starts to feel all the same?” Brad argued.
Mario, who was on the drums, spoke up. “I like this one.” And Steve nodded. Even though they were definitely in Brad's pocket—he paid them to hang around an island paradise and come in and play when he needed them to—it felt like they were on Caleb's side here.
“What I'm saying is that these are all versions of the same song. A song you got right, I know you did,” Brad said, pointing at Caleb, who shifted uncomfortably in front of the microphone. “I know you did, because you wouldn't be here otherwise.”
It was all true. When Caleb had been writing these songs, he'd been leading up to one. But Caleb was less and less inclined to share that song, especially with a producer like Brad. What if he ruined it? What if he didn't understand it?
Leo would understand it, that annoying voice in the back of his head argued. He'd get it.
That's because he was there, because it's about him, Caleb argued back.
“I don't know what you're talking about,” Caleb said. He realized after the words were already out of his mouth that he'd already decided. Nobody was getting their hands on the song. Maybe not anyone, not ever. Even though he'd come here, to Brad's studio, with the explicit desire that someone needed to hear it. A whole lot of someones, he'd hoped once upon a time.
“Fine,” Brad said with a frustrated sigh. “I think you need something sexier though. Upbeat, but sexy, yeah? Don't you and that boyfriend of yours have sort of a . . . reputation?”
Caleb flushed. Maybe they did. He'd never been embarrassed before at how much he and Leo wanted each other. It was a blessing—and it had been a curse when they'd been separated for all those long years. Now, they were just making up for lost time.
He thought about how every morning it seemed like he woke up and hungrily reached for Leo. How this morning felt like it echoed so many other mornings over the last two years.
“Yeah, they've got no control,” Steve snickered.
Caleb shot him a half-hearted glare. They didn't—not really. And how was that a terrible thing? It was something that should be celebrated. When you loved someone so much, when you craved them with every fiber of your being, wasn't that pretty fucking awesome?
“Hey,” Brad said, holding up his hands, “I'm just trying to get some creative juices flowing. Besides, I know Leo a bit—he'd be flattered, wouldn't he?”
Brad didn't know fuck all about Leo, but he was right about this. Leo would be flattered. It was the only reason Caleb was even considering it.
“How about this?” he asked, reaching for a pad and grabbing the pen he'd shoved in his hair. He scribbled down a few lines. They weren't anything close to perfect, but they sure felt real. And right now, that was what Caleb craved more than anything. An island of truth he could cling to.
“Loaded gun? Really?” Steve said, glancing over his shoulder.
Caleb shrugged self-consciously. “I don't think we can really say hard cock in the song on the radio?”
Brad laughed. “Too bad. It has a lot of rhyming potential.”
“You should own it,” Mario piped up. “Something about how you know you're powerless, it's obvious, etcetera, etcetera.”
Caleb wrote down more words. It actually wasn't an awful idea.
“More drums on this one,” Brad directed, and Mario tapped out a driving beat. For a split second, Caleb missed Max and his rhythms—and how he always knew what was right, even when Caleb didn't—but Max was back in LA, probably struggling through a shitload of awkwardness with Felix right there. Besides, Mario's beat, he decided as he listened, wasn't half bad. It had a push to it, a buoyancy that he liked. Then Steve picked out a melody on his guitar, and a few minutes later, they actually had a chorus.