Page 48 of Not Your Golden Boy

“I don’t know what I want,” he confessed. Saying that out loud felt like defeat. It felt like he’d worked his fingers to the bone and climbed an impossible mountain, only to somehow, inexplicably, find himself right back at the bottom of the mountain all over again. “I just want to be happy.” That was the only truth he knew for certain.

“Hey.” Harry scooted closer and pulled Nikky into his embrace. “We all just want to be happy. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Nikky rested his head on Harry’s shoulder. That was where he wanted to be, right there, in Harry’s arms. He would have happily given up both high-profile careers to stay right there, where he felt safe.

But that was ridiculous and improbable. He barely knew Harry. They’d been thrown together by an impersonal agency so he could pretend to be doing something salacious to turn people off. That whole thing had been a stupid idea, but the results of it had given him everything he’d always dreamed of.

So what was his dream now? How could he have the career he’d always wanted and the love and connection he’d ached for even longer than he’d wanted his career?

“You know you don’t have to decide anything about anything right now,” Harry said, rubbing his back and kissing his forehead. “You’re skiving off work and taking a day for yourself. Focus on that and ignore everything else, even this new film offer.”

Nikky sat up and looked deeply into Harry’s eyes. “I can do that?”

Harry laughed. “Of course you can. And to kick everything off, why don’t we ignore everything else and go make some music together.” He stood, then offered Nikky a hand to pull him up from the sofa.

Nikky’s mouth twitched into a smile. “I’ve just had a shower,” he said. “And I’m a little full from breakfast. Maybe we should wait a bit to make music.”

Harry laughed. The sound was full-throated and wonderful. “Not that kind of music, princess,” he said, shaking his head as he tugged Nikky toward a door that Nikky thought was a closet. “I’m talking about actual music.”

As soon as Harry pushed the door open, Nikky’s mouth dropped. There wasn’t a closet on the other side of the door like he’d assumed, there was an entire room that Nikky could only describe as a music room. It held several guitars, a keyboard, and other instruments, not to mention recording equipment.

“Has this been here all along?” he asked, stepping into the room and looking around in wonder.

“Yes,” Harry said, laughing as he crossed the room to pick up an acoustic guitar. “I should have shown you sooner, but better late than never, right?”

“Yeah,” Nikky said, gazing around distractedly.

Harry grinned at him, probably thinking he was ridiculous, but Nikky didn’t care. He grabbed another acoustic guitar, then took a seat on the stool Harry nodded at.

“Let’s make some beautiful music together,” Harry said as they sat opposite each other, both in their element.

A thousand different emotions swirled through Nikky as the two of them started to play random chords that eventually blended together into an original melody. It was everything he’d ever wanted, but it had been handed to him at the same time as everything else he’d sought after since his first audition. Life hadn’t taken things away from him, like he’d first thought. I’d given him far too much, and any second now, it would force him to make an impossible choice, love or career?

fifteen

​. . .​

For years, music had been the expression and receptacle of all Harry’s hopes and dreams. Then it had become his instrument of torture as those hopes and dreams were warped and tarnished. But lately, it had started to purr and buzz again, like all those hopes and dreams might have a chance of resurrecting after all.

Playing with Nikky, even though it was simple and silly and contained within the closet of Harry’s music room, brought all of those hopes and dreams blooming to life again. Not so much in terms of coming up with a hit he could record to shoot to fame again, but in the joy he felt creating sound and giving his heart a form again.

“Ooh, that was nice,” Nikky said, stopping after they’d thrown together a few bars that gelled really well together. “Play that last bit again.”

“What, this?” Harry grinned at the earnest, creative, unfettered side of Nikky, then played the last bit of melody that had gone straight from his subconscious to his guitar strings without him having to think too much about it.

The notes felt free and whole. They’d come from Nikky as much as they’d come from him, which gave them an extra poignance.

“Yeah. I like that,” Nikky said, his smile making him look younger than his twenty-five years, but also filling him with a confidence that he didn’t believe he had.

He continued his answer to Harry’s playing with a new chord progression of his own. Then, entirely unexpectedly, he sang, “Dark, busy streets in the London night, but all I feel is you.”

Harry’s heart caught in his chest. He couldn’t hide his smile as he curled his fingers around the neck of his guitar and played a harmony to match Nikky’s melody. There was magic in the air. The whole room vibrated with it. Nikky continued to sing sporadically, eyes closed, coming up with lyrics when whatever divine force within moved him. Harry kept up, letting the words wrap around his heart and tickle words out of his own subconscious.

When Nikky fell silent as they played, he picked up the thread of the song, singing his own words. “We’ll hold back the night together. I won’t let anything touch you.”

A shiver shot through Harry as he expressed his deepest feelings aloud. They were big feelings, new feelings, feelings he wasn’t sure he could live up to. He hadn’t been able to protect himself from the snakes of the music industry all those years ago, so how did he think he’d be able to protect Nikky now?

Nikky opened his eyes and smiled at Harry with unadulterated joy. “Yes,” he said. “Exactly. I love it.”