Page 59

Amos

Six whirlwind months had passed since Anton Wagner had offered me the part of Alec— six fantastic, intense, and amazing months.

Not only did I love performing, love rehearsing, and the rigors that went with it, I also had Tommy by my side almost every night.

Anton had also introduced me to the writer, apparently his lover, Linc, who wrote Alec in Wanderlust.

What a freaking wild ride that had led to this musical! The story included a mysterious fortune-telling drag queen, a twink who blew the writer off, and wild dreams which Linc had basically written down and then made into the storyline.

There was little I didn’t love about Linc’s story, Alec in Wanderlust, or my part in it.

Tommy had dropped the ball just a few days earlier, announcing that he was going back to Texas. “I have to go deal with the chaos that is my former colleague.”

“So, they got him?” I asked.

“Yep, the team your brother hired lured him back to Texas by pretending to be an ultra-conservative hate group. They played him by saying they were going to use the book to discredit you.”

“Josiah hadn’t told me,”

I said, feeling left out of the loop.

Tommy chuckled. “You’ve been putting in twelve-hour days with rehearsal. When, exactly, did you expect him to do that?”

I nodded. “Okay, that’s fair. What’re you going to do?”

“Get my damned laptop back and make sure the SOB gets what’s coming to him.”

“Good. At least one of us is getting justice.”

Tommy smiled sadly at me.

The league had started getting nasty.

Although we couldn’t prove it yet, they had even leaked some information with lots of innuendo about me to the press.

There were always wild rumors going around about football players in the NFL.

Someone said they were accosted by me, insinuating that I’d sexually assaulted her while we were at a bar at an away game.

I definitely haven’t sexually done anything with a woman, so that hadn’t happened.

Another had accused me of stealing money from them when I’d been a new player on the team.

That one was more complicated as it involved an actual fan whom the team had brought in for a “spend a day with the players” sort of thing.

I had met the person once, hadn’t liked them at all, and then avoided them like the plague.

In both cases, either most or the entire team had been with me while I was supposedly with these people.

The allegations were bullshit, and unless the players lied, which I didn’t put past some of them now, I would be easily exonerated of those charges.

That wasn’t the point though.

Even my attorney had said he believed the team was throwing everything they had at me, hoping it allowed them to deny the reason they let me go was because I was a dress-wearing gay man.

“So, well, I’ll miss you. You’ll be back for my first show though, right?”

Tommy’s eyes grew big. “Amos, nothing would keep me away. Like, I’ll crawl back to New York if I have to. I will be in that audience on opening night. Besides, Mr. Wagner gave me the best seat in the house.”

“How is it you’ve sidled up to my producer?”

I asked, using my most Southern accent with the old Texas saying.

Tommy chuckled. “Well, likely because I’ve sent his buddy at Proudest two articles about the performance and have promised to do one about opening night.”

“Oh, you’re bribing him?”

Tommy touched his nose, then kissed mine. “I won’t be gone long. Just long enough to put this asshole behind bars.”

“What about your former boss?”

I asked, knowing they were trying to link the robbery to them.

“Says they didn’t know what he had planned. Likely they didn’t. The rag would do most anything to get an article, but breaking and entering was a big no, even for them. My guess is they sent him down there to find dirt, and he took it upon himself to break into my place.”

“So, are they going to pay for the damages?”

I asked. Tommy had flat-out refused any financial assistance from me, saying the insurance would cover the costs of damages, and that he hoped to force his former boss to pay for lost revenue.

He shrugged. “Maybe to save face, but I don’t know. Hopefully, once I’m there and the jackwad is facing jail time, he’ll confess how involved they were. I’ve already talked to the prosecutor and he’s willing to push him for information to reduce his sentence.”

I pulled Tommy into my arms, and he sighed. “I’m so sorry, Tommy. I know this was all because of me.”

He pulled back. “Um, no, this was because I wrote that book. I shouldn’t have…”

“What? Shouldn’t have expressed your feelings? Shouldn’t have faced all the crap that I caused you? No, baby, it was me who fucked up. You… well, you had every right to write what you did, and I… well, I’m hoping when you get your computer back, you’ll let me read it.”

Tommy pulled out of my arms and wrapped his around me. “Amos, I need to delete those files and hope that Elliott didn’t make copies.”

I shook my head. “No, I couldn’t disagree with you more, Tommy. He probably did make copies, and if you hide that, and trust me, I know all about the consequences of hiding part of yourself, you will be looking over your shoulder from now on. You need to publish your book. Even if it’s self-published, and you only sell three copies, at least you put it out there… At least it wasn’t something stolen from you and published without your consent.”

Tommy shook his head.

“Listen, Tommy, I love you. I know I hurt you, I know what’s in that book is going to be hard for me to read, but I’m not turning away from it. You shouldn’t either.”

He let me pull him back into my arms, and for a moment I could tell he’d gotten emotional. My God, what I’d put this incredible man through was so hard for me to come to terms with. I planned on spending the rest of my life making things right with him.

Tommy left the next day, and my life got even more hectic as the last two weeks before our PPP, which is the Broadway way of saying our first paid performance, debuted. Excitement and exhaustion grew simultaneously as we all prepared for that day.

God help me, I hoped Tommy was right. I hoped he made it to opening night. I couldn’t imagine him not being there on what had to be one of the most important nights of my life.