Page 46 of Finding Grey

TWENTY-THREE

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SEAN

“Your birthday’s next Saturday.” The thought occurred to me as we watched another movie in my living area a few days later.

Dante had spent more of his free time in my tiny flat this past week than he did in the main house. He hadn’t tried to test the new boundaries we’d imposed on our relationship, and he always went back to his own bed at the end of each night, but he hadn’t exactly kept his distance either. Which was why he’d spent the last hour slumped against my side with his head on my shoulder, as we watched a decidedly average comedy.

He tilted his head back to glance up at me before returning to his original position. “Something like that.”

“Are you going to do anything to celebrate?” I pushed. “Go out, see friends, something?” He seemed surprisingly dumbfounded by the line of questioning. “What do you usually do?”

Shrugging, he sat up to look at me. “Usually I’m on tour this time of year, so I don’t have time to bother with celebrating.” He thought about it a bit longer. “I did have a big party for my eighteenth, and again for my twenty-first,” he said with a nod. “My father hired someone to organise those. They were full of A-list celebrities, most of whom I’d never met before, or again.” Another casual shrug. “They were more about the publicity than anything else.”

“Damn,” I said, pulling a face. “That’s depressing.”

“Yeah, right,” Dante scoffed. “I spend my days doing a job I love, have more money than I know what to do with, and I’ve played hundreds of concerts to thousands of fans all over the world.” He leaned back against the arm of the couch with a soft laugh. “Everyone’s life should be as depressing as mine.”

“Shut up,” I cried, reaching out to slap him on the arm. “You know what I mean. Where’s the cake, and the friends singingHappy Birthdayoff-key?”

“Off-key singing gives me the creeps,” he said with a shudder. “I suppose it would have been nice to do something with friends sometimes,” he added, “but good friends are hard to come by when you travel half the year.”

“But you had a lot of people on tour with you,” I pointed out. “Other musicians, roadies, dancers. Didn’t you ever make friends with them?”

“Sometimes, with the backing musicians mainly, but then Roger would change them along the way. He didn’t like me getting close to anyone, especially the guys.” He wrapped his arms around one knee as he spoke. “He said he wanted me to stand on my own two feet and not become reliant on anyone.”

“Bullshit,” I said, frowning at the absurdity of the idea. “How are you supposed to enjoy life if there’s no one around to enjoy it with. Friends, people who know you inside and out. Those are the people who make it all worthwhile.”

Dante shrugged. “I had him. He knew me inside and out.”

“He knew you black and blue is more like it.” I regretted the words the second they were out of my mouth. We hadn’t talked about the bruises I’d seen on his ribs the first night we met, but I had no doubt who put them there. “I’m sorry,” I muttered in a quiet voice. “I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine.” Dante shook his head, not bothering to deny the abuse he’d suffered at his father’s hands. “Roger had trouble controlling his temper in those early years and there were times I bore the brunt of his anger. That came to an end after I turned twenty. My strength had outstripped his by then, and I moved out on my own, so we saw less of each other. He doesn’t treat any of his new clients the way he treated me,” he added, as if wanting to reassure me he wasn’t turning a blind eye to the abuse of others. “He sees discipline as a parent’s responsibility and I’m his only child so…”

He took a deep breath, running his hands over his face before he continued. “He was a good manager, though. He got me where I wanted to be, and then he did everything he could to make sure I stayed there. But no, I never believed he worried about me relying too much on others.” He looked at me with a derisive snort. “After what happened with you, I think he figured if I had too many male friends, I’d eventually go gay for one of them.”

“Would that have been so bad?” I asked, eager to understand why he would keep such a large part of himself secret.

“I didn’t think so at first, but…” A challenge glimmered in his eyes. “How many openly gay or bisexual rock musicians can you name off the top of your head? And no,” he added, when I started to consider the question, “you can’t go back as far as the seventies. I’m talking about eight years ago, when a teenager was forced to accept the other teenagers who bought his albums didn’t want to know how much he enjoyed kissing a boy.”

In my mind the argument was tenuous at best, but Dante believed it. “Your father convinced you to hide it, didn’t he?” I could easily picture Roger Sinclair pressuring his son to stifle his natural desires. The man was intimidating as all hell.

“He’s my manager,” he said, as if that provided an explanation in itself. “Roger’s been in control of every aspect of my career since it began. I’d be nothing without him.” He spoke as if his own talents, both natural and honed, counted for nothing. “So, yes, I agreed not to act on my feelings in the future, and then I did my best to stay away from temptation. My career was everything to me, and to him. Neither of us wanted to face the risk of losing it.”

The idea made me wince. Having my parents’ support had meant the world to me when I came out. I would have been devastated if they’d told me to hide my true self. “But it had to be like cutting yourself in half.”

“Essentially, yeah,” he said with a nod. “It didn’t seem like a big deal at first. I liked girls too, and I’d already lost the one boy who made me want something different,” he added with a small smile. “Over time, it got harder, so much harder, but by then it felt like it was too late to change.” He huffed out a breath. “People want Dante Sinclair the rock star, not Dante Sinclair the workaholic bisexual who says no to drugs and is lacking in the friends department. They want to buy into a fantasy and it’s my job to sell them one. Clocking out at the end of the day isn’t really an option for me.”

“But no one ever gets to see the real you. It’s all a big facade. You can’t deny that part is depressing.”

His chuckle lightened the mood. “I suppose it is.”

“Well, your isolation stops here.” Leaning over the edge of the couch, I grabbed a notepad and pen from a nearby drawer. “I’m throwing you a birthday party, complete with cake and singing. The off-key part is a necessary evil you’ll have to put up with, because I refuse to let you be alone on your birthday.” The state of perpetual loneliness he kept himself in was stupid, and if we were going to continue spending time together, I had every intention of snapping him the hell out of it. “Who do you want to invite?” I asked, pen at the ready.

Dante’s mouth dropped open and he stared at me. “I don’t know anyone in this city except you.”

“Oh.” It made sense, I supposed. He’d only visited Brisbane a couple of times, and always when he was on tour. “What if I invite some of my friends over and introduce you to them. They aren’t A-listers, but they’re good for a laugh and they won’t go stupid the second they lay eyes on you—I hope.” He looked wary, and I remembered his lack of trust when it came to other people, and the cause. “I can insist on it being a phone and camera-free event.”