Page 2 of Conquest

Jesse squinted at him and poked him on the chest with an accusing finger. “You should know by now to never lose faith in me. It doesn’t matter how many band members we go through. You and I are the heart of Conquest.” His words came faster with his mounting excitement. “Maybe we play shitty bars now, but soon it’ll be the hottest clubs! Then sold-out arenas!” He leaped to his feet, his indigo eyes shining like a warrior’s about to enter a battle where he knew his victory was the only possible outcome. He threw a triumphant fist high into the air. “It’s only a matter of time before all of Chicago is coming to hear us play! How can they not with me, the golden god of music, singing? I will conquer the world!”

“Here we go again,” Kenny muttered to himself, then said louder to Jesse, “shouldn’t you be getting ready to meet Brandon? Carrie’s going to be here soon, and I don’t need you putting her in a bad mood and blowing my chances at gettin’ some.”

Jesse cringed with a fake shiver at the mention of Kenny’s girlfriend. “Don’t worry, I’ll be long gone. I try to make sure I’m not within a mile radius of anywhere that thing’s getting naked.”

Kenny frowned up at him. “You could at least attempt pretending to be nice.”

Jesse turned for the bathroom. “I’ll be nice when she speaks in a pitch that doesn’t hurt my ears.” He paused in the doorway. “Hey, did you get the mail today?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“And don’t you think if there was anything in it other than junk and rejection letters saying how our demo isn’t what every record label in the world is looking for, I would’ve told you by now?”

“Beautiful,” Jesse grumbled, shutting the bathroom door behind him.

He leaned back against the door. Despite his confident declaration, doubt twisted his heart. Week after week he faced the rejections for their demo, from agents and labels. He wondered just how many more times he could take being knocked down before his spirit became too weak to pull him back up to try again.

He drew in a quick breath and shook his head to clear it of the depressing thoughts. He got the water running in the shower and stripped while he waited for it to get up to temperature. He stepped under the flow, and as he did, the temperature faded back down to lukewarm, then cooled to a chilly stream trickling from the showerhead before a surge of hot water blasted out with skin reddening force. Jesse scowled up at the showerhead, sending a silent curse through it to the antiquated plumbing. He turned to washing and did his best to ignore the inconsistent temperature and pressure as it repeated the pattern several more times.

When he got out, he wiped the condensation off the mirror and looked at his reflection. At five foot seven, he was lithe and fit, his biceps firm with sinewy strength, his abdomen lined in muscle, his smooth chest well-defined. He ran the backs of his index and middle fingers along his slender jaw, then lathered his face and took his razor carefully over his flawless skin. His black hair toweled and styled to accentuate the sharp, jagged angles around his face, with enough length in back to fall just to the top of his neck. Long enough to get a messy look, but able to style neatly when he wanted.

Dressed in jeans faded on the thighs and a black V-neck shirt that clung to his lean frame, he slid three small silver hoop earrings into his left earlobe and a fourth up in the cartilage, then two more in his right earlobe. Around his neck, he fastened a choker of two thin black leather cords with a gold pendant of a sixteen-rayed sun that rested in the hollow of his throat.

He stepped out of the bathroom to the living room, and after putting on his shoes, he sprang up and spoke to Kenny as he walked toward the door. “I might spend the night at Brandon’s, so don’t worry if I don’t come home.”

Kenny nodded, concentrated on his guitar once again.

With the elevator broken in the rundown apartment building, Jesse jogged down three flights of stairs to the ground floor and pushed through a front door roughly the thickness of a sheet of plywood. He turned in the direction of his brother’s apartment a few blocks away. His heavy thoughts invaded his mind again and pressed down so hard they were reflected in the way he walked, dragging his feet, scuffing his already tattered Nikes on the sidewalk.

A piercing wolf whistle cut through his mind.

Jesse snapped his head up and spun toward the sound. His older brother waved to him, idling a few feet away on his Suzuki motorcycle.

“Moron!” Jesse called, walking toward him.

Brandon laughed. “Who’d you think it was? Prince Charming come to whisk you away on his gallant white and blue crotch rocket?” He pulled up next to the curb and stopped. His eyes locked on the bruise on Jesse’s jaw. He caught Jesse gently by the chin and turned his head to the right, peering intently at the purple blemish. “When we talked last night, I thought you said he only clipped you.”

Jesse stayed still while his brother inspected the injury. “He did. I twisted away and dodged the full impact. Mom’s been calling me, but she’s warped back into her classic stand-by-your-man mode. What sucks most is I was so pissed after everything happened, I refused to take the money she got for me, so now I’m going to have to dip into the funds I’ve been saving for a new keyboard, but I guess it’s better than taking anything that’s attached to him.”

Brandon dropped his hand from Jesse’s chin. “I’ll help you out as much as I can.” He faced forward, squeezing the handlebars of the motorcycle with white-knuckled force. “He could’ve broken your jaw. I should show him the results of all my karate lessons he paid for when I was a kid.”

Jesse gazed at the distant expression and barely concealed hurt on Brandon’s face. If anyone understood how their father could be, it was his older brother. There wasn’t a week he remembered from when they were young where Brandon and their father hadn’t been at each other’s throats over something. Their relationship had been a lot more volatile than what he had with their father, and he knew he should have learned from watching it, especially when Brandon decided to major in theatre and the performing arts at Chicago University and their father turned his back on Brandon. He should have seen his own expulsion from home coming a few years later, and part of him had, but part of him wanted to believe his father would change. At least when he got kicked out he had Brandon to go to, unlike Brandon who’d had no one.

Jesse laid his hand on Brandon’s shoulder, wanting to save him from reliving his dark memories. “Hey, you promised to feed me before we go out, remember? If you don’t, I’ll be too weak from hunger to be able to bait all the hottest guys in for you.”

Brandon rolled his eyes. “Like I need your help.”

“I’ve seen some of the people you date. You need all the help you can get.”

“Jerk-ass,” Brandon chuckled. “Get on.”

Jesse swung his leg over the back of the Katana 750. Brandon hit the throttle and zipped the bike through Jesse’s neighborhood toward his own.

Jesse leaned away from his brother and patted the back of his shirt. “You’re all sweaty. What the hell were you doing before you came here?”

“What do you think I was doing? Dancing my happy little ass off in rehearsal. We gotta go to my place so I can get a shower before we go out, but we can grab something to eat first.” Brandon veered the Suzuki onto South Dearborn Street and found a place to park near his apartment building.