Have A Little Faith In Me (16 page)

“All right.  You keep that ass tight, you hear?”  Nico said over his shoulder.  “Don’t let anyone else in there.  That shit’s mine.”

“Yes, sir,” Rocky smiled.  “It’s all yours.”

Nico laughed, but didn’t look back.  Didn’t need to.  They both knew it was true.

Rocky sat down hard.  Dizzy.  Jet and Sam and Rick were screaming, shouting, high fiving.  They were shaking beer bottles and squirting them like champagne.

All this time, all this effort.  Of course it was going to pay off, right?  Hadn’t he always had absolute certainty in that? 

Sure.  But that certainty had come with a wariness, a hesitation.  Just as he’d resisted the urge to pack up and move to New York right after his first visit, he’d resisted the desire, the delusion, to believe that they would indeed “rule the galaxy” so quickly.

It was a good song.  A really good song.  With an anthemic beat, sweeping chords, soaring keyboards that gave a hat tip to New Order’s “Age of Consent,” and of course the rueful but also hopeful vocals, well…

Now here was Korey on the phone, telling them the news.  DFA Records!  They were going to have a single on DFA!  It was un fucking believable. 

Korey made only one change.  “Not to get all marketing department on you guys, but, you know, the band title?  ‘Your Pitiful Little Band’?  It’s funny but it’s like, I don’t know, a bar band name.  A ‘business dudes rocking out on the weekend’ name.  It’s not the name of something that’s reaching critical mass, that’s gonna come downhill on these motherfuckers out there like a…”

“Boulder,” Sam said decisively, his ear pressed against Rocky’s with the phone between them.  “Rocky and The Boulders.”

Rocky grinned, took his beer baptism, loosened up and let out his own insane howl of glee, and joined the party.  But of course, in the back of his mind, he could only think, what’s next?  What do I do next?  This more than anything was what was going to make him a success – an absolute steely resolve not to be a “one hit wonder.” 

The sex with Nico only got better.  Crazier.  Rocky started to talk to Nico while he was getting fucked, egging him on.

“You love this, don’t you,” Rocky whispered one day.  “A guy in a room, just waiting for you, for you to come and use him.”

Nico’s eyes widened, startled at Rocky’s sudden verbosity.

“Your secret.  Nobody would ever dream it, would they, the quarterback fucking a dude in the ass.  Fucking pounding a load into a dude’s mouth.”

He smiled, seeing the recognition in Nico’s face, the slowly spreading grin.  “You walk around campus and you know, anytime you want it, you can just lift your little finger and there’s a gay dude who will give it up for you, anywhere, anytime…”

Nico laughed.  “You dirty fucking piggy.”

“I wanna get you alone in the locker room one day.  Text me when you’re there alone and I’ll come in and suck you right there, you in your cleats and your pads and your tight, tight pants…”

Nico scowled, hitched up Rocky’s ass high, so he could pound it as deep as he could go.  “Yeah?  You want me to fucking tackle you in the locker room, huh, have you on a bench?”

Rocky nodded, getting the words out between grunts from the impacts.  “That’s what you really like, isn’t it.  The danger.  The excitement.  They’re always telling you…o fuck…to keep your nose clean, to…o shit…stick to the straight and narrow path, and you hate it, you hate it…”

“FUCK!” Nico said, exploding inside him, no time to pull out and rip off the condom.

Rocky peeled it off him when he was done, inverted it, drank every drop of his cum.

This time, for the first time, Nico sat on the edge of the bed afterwards, still, thoughtful.  “You’re right,” he said, staring at the wall.  “It’s dangerous.”

Rocky felt a chill.  Had he made a mistake?  Had reminding Nico of the danger done the opposite of what he wanted?  Had he just ended the whole thing?

Then he turned his head and gave Rocky his million dollar smile.  “And you’re right.  That’s why I like it.”

Rocky laughed, relieved.  But when Nico left, he left out his usual cocky, flirty goodbye.  “I’ll see you,” he said neutrally.

“Yeah,” Rocky replied.  “See you next week.”  It was a question. 

Nico didn’t answer it.

In the days afterwards, he went over and over what he’d said, what he’d done.  It was true, and he’d known it was true.  It was always the people with everything to lose who risked it all.  It was a combination of, yeah, the boredom with “the straight and narrow,” but something else too – that sense of invulnerability that great success grants to some people. 

Back home, in that religious world, there was plenty of secret sinning.  And the thrill of the forbidden was part of it.  But part of it was the guilt, too.  The whole engine ran on guilt – you could sin, hell, you
should
sin, because if enough people didn’t sin and get caught and repent, the whole works would fall apart.  There had to be somebody to serve as the object lesson, the sacrificial lamb. 

But what fascinated him most about Nico was his, well, his innocence.  Nico had no guilt about fucking guys.  Rocky knew he wasn’t the only object of Nico’s attentions, he saw the pictures and heard the stories – Nico’s weekends in Vegas, the rumors of coke and hookers and who knows what.  It didn’t matter.  What mattered was that hour he had with Nico once a week, when Nico was
all his.
 

It wasn’t supposed to be enough.  The whole world of popular culture and popular music and popular commerce rallied against him, screaming about true love, my one and only, blah blah blah.

But it was.  It was enough.  When Nico was with him, they were together, completely.  How many people did he see, almost
burdened
with each other, two of them together out of the need to be coupled, whether out of the fear of being alone or just under the social pressure. 

He and Nico were a couple, for that perfect moment.  They were honest and open with each other, gave each other pleasure.  Made each other laugh. 

Wasn’t one perfect moment better than a thousand moments spent yearning for that one?

Yes, he decided.  It was.  It was more than enough.

They happened the same day, the best and worst news of his life. 

He was home when Korey called him.  “Check your email.”

“Why?” Rocky said.

“Just check it, your majesty.”

Rocky pulled up his gmail, opened Korey’s mail and the attachment.

“Oh holy shit.”

“Yeah.  Congratulations.  You entered the dance chart at #7.  You got to get to New York, man.  You guys got to make some dates.  This thing is burning up the dance floor.  And you’re gonna need a manager.  And, since I’ve already got some entrepreneurial experience and contacts in the scene, may I suggest…”

“Of course.  I mean, I’ll check with the guys but yeah.  You’re hired, I’m sure.”

Rocky was reeling.  Just! Like! That! he was a success.  But it wasn’t really, he thought, “just like that.”  It was a lifetime of work, of practice, of study, paying off at last. 

“And there’s one more thing,” Korey said lightly.  “Just a little offer.”

“Yeah?”

“How do you feel about selling out to the Man?”

“I feel poor.  What’s the Man want?”

“The Man,” Korey teased it out, “wants to pay you…one hundred thousand dollars to use ‘Your Faith in Your Friends’ in a beer commercial.”

“That’s insane.”

“Well, it started at 25K, but then I called another Man and started a bidding war.  Presuming that I already had the manager job, of course.”

Rocky laughed.  Tilted his head and roared.  “FUCK YEAH!” he shouted.

“Awesome.  Okay I gotta lotta paperwork to get run up for you guys to sign.  If the rest of the guys agree; you put all four of you down as songwriters so it’s gonna need everyone’s approval.”

“Don’t worry,” Rocky said, remembering a weed-fueled discussion at a party, in which all the members of the band had enthusiastically eviscerated some trucker-hatted hipster who’d sat there denouncing bands who “sold out” to commercials.  “We’re on board.” 

On his way to tell the guys, he stopped in the student union to load up on celebratory oversize overpriced foofy coffee drinks.  While he waited in line, he checked out the TV, which was turned to SportsCenter.

Two commentators were frowning onscreen, with Nico’s picture in the background. The tag at the bottom of the screen read NICO PAULUS IMPLICATED IN AUTOGRAPH SCANDAL.

Rocky shook his head.  What a bunch of bullshit.  The school made about a trillion dollars on sales of Nico’s jersey, and they would begrudge him a couple dollars for reselling one with his signature on it?  Of course, all of what came next would be enrobed in a rich sauce of hypocrisy, by those at TV networks that charged insane amounts of money for beer commercials during UGA games so they could pay absurd amounts of money to men in bow ties who would scowl at the camera, Stern Upholders of Standards, to denounce Nico for sullying the Purity of the Game.

Fucking bullshit
, he thought, shaking his head.  It would all blow over.  It had to – it was just too ridiculous not to.

Nico ignored him in dance class, as usual.  But Nico always found a moment when, with his quarterback’s perfect situational awareness, he knew that absolutely nobody but Rocky was looking at him, and that was when he’d throw him a wink, a promise of what was to come.

Not today.  And after class, he could feel it – Nico wasn’t lurking behind him, discreetly following him to his room.  Rocky could always feel it, Nico’s lust, laser focused on his ass.  But not today.

He turned, saw Nico headed the other way.  Ran after him.  “Hey.  Hey!”

“Hey man,” Nico grunted, his face a mask.

“Aren’t we gonna…”

Nico cut him off.  “No.  Sorry dude, that’s done.”  He moved off, and Rocky’s shock kept him rooted in place for a second.

“What do you mean?” he said angrily, racing after him.  “Why?” 

Nico kept moving.  Rocky picked up his pace.  “You fucking owe me that.  At least.  Please.”

Nico stopped.  Turned, and Rocky’s next words caught in his throat.  Nico’s face was stone, but his eyes were sad, apologetic.  “You see the news?”

“Yeah, but that’s just some stupid…”  He trailed off, as the look on Nico’s face told him otherwise.

“It’s like you said, dude.  Danger’s exciting.  Risk.  But that’s it.  I gotta do the thing now, you know, contrite and holy and all that.  No more risk.”  He paused.  “I’m sorry.”

Rocky opened his mouth but Nico walked away, and didn’t look back.

As much as he wanted to, Rocky didn’t take to his bed this time.  There just wasn’t time to stop and cry, hardly even time to think. The band was going supernova.  Nothing was happening at the glacial pace he’d expected.

They had to go to New York, to be guests on one of the late late shows.  They all missed class for that.  Then they had to stay in New York a few extra days, to meet with potential producers for the album they’d only just realized they had to hurry up and write. 

Rocky told them about Nico, told them all of it.  They knew he was sad, and he wanted them to know why.  They were his friends, and the song they’d written wasn’t just some bullshit.  His faith in his friends
was
strong.  

And work kept his restless mind busy, kept his intellect flying far above his emotions, kept him from landing on the carcass of…whatever he’d had with Nico, and pecking at it over and over.

But you can only work so many hours until you finally have to go to bed.  And in those few moments before exhaustion took him, the fucking feelings he’d been avoiding clawed their way past all the cerebral barriers he’d built, and the pecking began. 

It hadn’t been love.  But it was the closest Rocky had ever gotten.  It had been…a connection, however perverse.  A man’s touch.  Nico had been, in his own casual come-and-go way, well, kind to him.  His introduction to sex couldn’t have come at a better pair of hands, literally and figuratively.

He’d made a mistake, he could see now.  No matter how he’d played along with Nico about being “fuck buddies,” he had fallen in love.  And while from Nico’s point of view, it had just been…

Well, he couldn’t know, what Nico felt.  But he did, a little.  The look on Nico’s face when he walked away from Rocky for the last time, yeah, there was regret there.  But something else, too, a…coldness.  An iron will.  A triage, that set aside whatever they’d had, to concentrate on the critical issue.

Of course there was an iron will there.  Rocky knew that from their time in bed.  And he knew that a starting quarterback on a big SEC team didn’t get to that position without it.  And Nico had done what he had to do to keep that position. 

Which meant, above all, removing any chance that he could be discovered having gay sex.  It had been a thrill, risking getting caught, until he’d been caught at something else.  Then he had just…deleted his risk profile. 

No more straight men
, Rocky resolved.  No more guys who were going to walk away at the first sign of trouble, the potential revelation of their queer side.

But Rocky wasn’t meeting any gay guys in Korey’s circles who did to him what Nico did, who made his guts churn inside.  They were all so…crisp, and pressed, and polished.  Even the ones with sleeve tattoos and ripped jeans had…designed their look so carefully.  Every hair was in place (or removed, as appropriate), every outfit carefully coordinated after long consideration and research. 

He saw so many pictures of “hot” guys, shirtless, with great bodies and decent-enough features, but in most of those faces, there was just no
heat
there.  They stood and posed and to Rocky, they were like empty vessels.  So lacking in that extra something that they just sucked the air out of the scene.

They bored him.  He longed for Nico’s effortless appeal, for a man who was just…who didn’t need to clad himself inside the latest shell to attain what everyone was calling “hot” today.  A look that would be “out” tomorrow, cast aside in favor of the next shell.  There had to be gay guys like that, there
were
gay guys like that.  He just had to look harder.

The commercial featuring their song hit the airwaves, and immediately people were asking,
who does that song!
  Korey was talking about touring already, but they barely had enough material to put on a show – they were filling in their set list with cover versions.  Riding this rocket meant working furiously, writing more songs, rehearsing them, trying them out in little clubs…

They’d all reached the same conclusion by spring break.  They would have to drop out of school.  Or withdraw, anyway.  And that meant that Rocky would have to make a phone call.

He’d been in regular contact with his grandmother, telling her how it was going at school (editing out the pot smoking and the cock sucking).  Now he had to tell her he was quitting.