Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 3

grimaced. He hated this, hated hiding his feelings, but Lars was a lot more cautious since that trick had woken up and seen them in the shadows after the Dallas concert six months earlier. They'd convinced the guy he was tripping, but still...
    "You know what this press conference is about?" Lars nudged him sharply.
    Rik shook his head. He propped his booted feet on the low table in the sitting area of the suite. "Pamela said Dion insisted on a press conference when he came back from Aspen last week. Maybe he's decided on a new musical direction for the band."
    Lars nodded, plucking at the ingeniously placed frayed threads of his designer shabby jeans. "He's bored with us, you know."
    Rik sighed. They'd been losing Dion since Kim joined the band five years ago. When Kim crashed his sports car into a moving van on I-25 in Denver a year ago, he thought there'd been a chance. Felt like a son of a bitch for thinking that with Dion's lover gone, there'd be room in his life for Rik and Lars again, but he couldn't erase the thought.
    Under the cover of his leather jacket he squeezed Lars's hand. "We knew when we walked in that garage ten years ago that his talent outweighed our prettiness."
    "Why can't he see us?"
    "I think he can." All too clearly. Dion Fieri was a talent to be reckoned with. Drummer, keyboardist, composer, lyricist. He wrote the songs, set the mood, guided the musical path of the band. Rik and Lars, they were pretty front men who knew how to work a crowd and talk to the press.
    They could sing. But so could a thousand other men. Some better. Dion had catered his talents to let their voices shine and their little group had soared to the top of the charts in a shockingly short period of time. Then Kim joined the band.
    Kim had other interests. Pop music wasn't his cup of tea, he sneered often in his fancy accent. He wanted Dion to leave the band, start a new group, take a more serious, darker direction.
    "I'm tired, Rik."
    "We're on break for another month after this," he soothed.
    A knock on the door preceded Pamela's entrance. They looked up at her curiously. Rik peered over her shoulder. No sign of Dion. Not like him to be late. "Where is he?"
    "He's waiting up by the stage entrance. Told me to come get you." Pamela smiled gamely, but she knew as well as he did that it was odd behavior for Dion.
    "Okay, then." He jerked upright, held a hand down to help Lars up. Lars brushed him off. Rik smiled a little trying to hide the hurt. "Give us a minute?" He tipped his head at Pamela.
    She nodded briskly. "Hurry, please. He's in a shitty mood, you know how he gets."
    Unfortunately, he...they, did. Dion had always been dark and moody, but since Kim's death he'd been brusque and short tempered as well. Lars shuddered and froze next to him. The door clicked quietly behind Pamela, and Rik embraced his twin.
    "Look, he doesn't mean anything by it. He's still hurt about Kim. We have to be patient."
    "I'm tired of being patient, Rik. Years of waiting for him to realize how I felt, to pull his head out of his ass and recognize a pass when I make one?"
    Rik pushed his own hurt aside. "We have each other."
    "We should have him, too."
    "Most people are lucky to find one person who loves them like I love you. Like you love me."
    "I know. I just can't help loving him too. I can't go on, seeing him all the time, knowing he's dying inside for love of another man."
    "Huh. Listen to you getting all poetic!" He tipped his brother's face up to his, kissed him lightly on the lips. "We need to go away somewhere quiet and peaceful and rest, have fun and relax. We'll talk him into going on vacation with us after this conference, huh?" That would do it, maybe. Get Dion away from memories of Kim, someplace new and see what happened.
    Lars smiled a little weakly. A heavy tap on the door reminded them that Pamela waited, and Dion as well.****
    Lars slipped into the hallway behind Rik, who immediately started chattering to Pamela about their last tour and the plans for another one in six months. He slipped a hand into the tight pocket of his jeans and trailed them down the hall. Something wasn't right, and he could feel it in his bones.
    Whatever Rik said, he was convinced that someone had been in that room briefly while they'd been going at it. Who could it have been? How could they explain something like that? Sure, the press knew them as wild, knew that they did everything together, but they'd been so very careful over the years to