Page 74 of Wanted Mann

This time, another New Year’s. He’s back on the stage at Black Diamond, and I can be here.

Fuck me, he looks as good. Even better than I remember.

Jeans outline his strong thighs. His face contorts with the song, blue eyes flashing in the stage lighting, contrasting hard with his dark hair. Sexy-as-hell dark stubble covers the sharp bones of his face.

I don’t spare a thought for what would happen if I came up to him after the show.

Twelve years ago, I knew when I came back to Baylor, I needed to have something to show for it.

The Grammys.

The goddamned Super Bowl Halftime Show.

A bouquet of Platinum albums instead of roses.

I’ve got those in my back pocket. But as the years go on, none of it seems enough; the space between us insurmountable.

I let the lyrics sweep over me. Listening to the words, not just his voice. On Valentine’s Day, he only sings lost-love songs. Which is funny as fuck, given our contract saying he writes those for me to sing. But he doesn’t sing the ones he wrote for me himself, and I wonder what that means. He just covers other songs and throws in a few he wrote for other people. The occasional one I declined and someone else took to the top of the charts.

Tonight, being New Year’s, he’s coveringSame Old Lang Syneby Dan Fogelberg. He changes the gender of the old lover, like he always has.

The ache in my chest as I watch him beats right along with this song. None of what I have accomplished seems adequate to explain why we parted ways and stayed apart. None of it good enough. I don’t know whatisenough. What will be enough.

I need to be more than a kid who wanted to be a rock-star like everyone else. Baylor is the kind of guy you have to earn. Even now, at the top of my game, I’m not sure I have.

I torture myself listening to all of this fucking song. I do it stone-cold sober, too. Even the smallest crack in my inhibitions must be avoided around Baylor, or I will do something crazy to make every headline tomorrow.

I find a part of the crowd full of singles so I can feel the music without looking like a stalker, and there I stand until the end of the show.

I know which song is his last because I know Baylor, and that’s exactly how he would have arranged a set list. I slip out of Black Diamond with Nix and Caleb, trudging through the snow to the bus waiting to get back on the road and finish the latest tour.

Baylor, January 2

The alarm on my phone goes off, as if I am asleep and actually need it.

12:01 a.m, January second.

Last year on New Year’s Eve, Matt made his move on Theo. Two nights ago, on this New Year’s Eve, they were both full of plans and aspirations for the new year and the new life and businesses they have grown together since they got back from LA.

I watched Matt kiss Theo’s ring finger, right where their tattoos brand. That sort of sentiment plucks the strings over my heart like hands on a Fender.

Two years ago, Quinn shared a New Year’s kiss with Bishop, his fiancé. Now Jack, Perrin, Matt, Theo, and I have a betting pool for when they will get married. My money is that they already have.

Three years ago, Jack started the whole theme when Perrin Thayer stumbled into the Bear Valley Inn, and Jack’s arms. The brotherly bet on those two is when they announce a baby is on the way.

Four brothers, three down, and me left to go.

Still, I was crazy to think this year was meant for me. I knew it wouldn’t be, but that didn’t stop my heart from hoping just the same.

This January second may be the loneliest morning I have ever known.

I shake my head at my own melancholy, flicking the ashes of my once-a-year cigarette into the snow outside my cabin. Later, I will regret that smoke like I always do and spend the next three days trying to dislodge the taste from the back of my throat.

I started performing again. Startedputting myself out theremore, which is something highly recommended when you are trying to cure a decade-long heartache. I guess it’s some kind of preparation for a day I should know will never come, when my foolish heart finally understands Cas wasn’t ever meant for me. I knew that clearly at twenty-two. Why I can’t understand it twelve years later is a mystery I will never solve.

Walking back over to my seat on the back deck, I pick up my notebook, always preferring to write on paper. I ignore the other seat out here.

Two chairs on the deck of a one-person home.

I jot another verse to a song aptly called “The Fool.” I’m almost done pouring my soul out into it. The song is a tear-jerker, more Nashville Blues than my usual, but it will sell.

Heartbreak always does.

THE END.