Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 5

soon as he got to the photographer's studio, and Aaron could just drive him back. Nodding to himself, Travis jumped in Aaron's fastest car and peeled rubber off the tires getting the candy-apple red Miata out the big roll-up door of the warehouse.
    Shit.
    That would still be stinking up the living quarters sometime next week, unless he missed his guess. Travis pushed that concern to a back burner in his head and concentrated on getting to the other side of town as quickly as possible without getting a ticket or getting himself killed. What should have been a twenty-minute drive came in at around seventeen, not miraculously shorter, but still quicker than strictly allowed by the law, even though he caught every light between the warehouse and the photo studio just as it was changing from yellow to red.
    Travis saved his rebel-with–a-cause celebration for a day when his head wasn't killing him going into the party. He parked the car in the closest parking garage he could find to the photographer's studio and winced his way out into the sunlight. He'd never get a shot at Aaron…the guy considered him some sort of holy relic left over from the days before Timothy had died.
    Jesus. Timothy. Travis still felt his breath catch in his chest when he let thoughts of his brother creep into his waking mind. He forced himself to relax, sucking the humid late-afternoon air of another Bay Area summer into his cramping lungs. Their mother had been big into "T" names, and Travis still had four other siblings to prove it. Teresa, Taylor, Tristan, and Tyrone were all older than him. Timothy had been the eldest, and he'd died after getting stung by a bee. No one had even known he was allergic to bees.
    Timothy and Aaron were best friends their whole lives, and they'd started the band together. Timothy died one day after they signed their very first record contract. Travis shook his head. Thinking about all that shit didn't do any good right now, and the stress of it was amping the pain behind his right eye back up to the level it had been at before he took the Imitrex. He pulled his ball cap lower toward his shades and lengthened his stride toward the cool blue coloring of the design on the door of the building he was aiming for. Slipping in through the glass doors, Travis made his way to the receptionist.
    What the hell was her name—Lindy, Mindy, Cindy—Sandy. Her name was Sandy. Travis eased the ball cap from his head and gave his best sheepish grin. "Sorry about the sunglasses, Sandy. Got another migraine."
    Travis had found over the last three years that people in positions like Sandy's generally reacted very favorably when you remembered their names, showed at least a modicum of politeness, and offered up some vulnerable bit of pseudo-personal information as if they were at least a casual friend of yours. Sandy proved his point by smiling prettily and pointing one manicured nail toward the hallway to the right of her desk. "They're just down this hall, sir, in the big studio at the end. I'm sure Mr. Wasserstein won't mind if you watch the shoot from the rear."
    She was wrong on that count, but Travis would make sure she either didn't lose her job or got a better one either with the record company or with one of his siblings. She shouldn't be penalized because he'd learned flattery and manipulation at the knee of a master. Timothy had taught Travis every trick he knew on that front.
    Travis stopped on his way toward the door she'd indicated and snagged a cup of water from the chilled dispenser located at the far corner of the lobby. His head was really starting to kill, so he popped the max dosage of Imitrex. Waiting in the cool half-light of the hallway for about fifteen minutes eased his head enough to chance the lights behind the door to the "big studio." He dropped his sunglasses back down from the top of his head quietly, pressed the door open enough to slide his body through, and slipped into a dream.
    Aaron rested one lean hip against a faux Grecian pillar, wide white wings seeming to spring naturally from his strongly muscled back. His eyes were done up in heavy black guy-liner, he had a golden circlet restraining his currently auburn and black shoulder-length tresses, and a bit of gauzy white cloth was tied haphazardly over one shoulder. The bit of cloth fell to the upper mid-thigh region of Aaron's well-muscled legs. A golden belt made of some braided fiber cinched the outfit low around the bass player's hips, and