Page 49 of Not Your Golden Boy

He loved him. When had that happened? More importantly, how had Harry let that happen? Nikky was so young. He was at the beginning of everything that life had in store for him, whereas all of that had already passed Harry by.

As if some part of Nikky heard the thoughts of Harry’s soul, Nikky blurted, “I think we should record this. Together. For my album.”

Harry went from staring heatedly at his young lover to raising his eyebrows and sitting straighter in surprise. “You want to record this?”

“When we’ve ironed the song out a little more, yeah,” Nikky said, his youthful enthusiasm shining through. “I think we’ve really got something here.”

He met Harry’s eyes, and the meaning behind those words changed. The softness of Nikky’s blue-eyed gaze and the tentative heat stole Harry’s breath. For all his naivety and need to please, Nikky was much better at embracing his emotions than Harry was. Harry could see so much potential and vulnerability in Nikky’s gaze. He didn’t have to say anything for Harry to see that when Nikky loved, he loved deeply and fully. He gave everything he had to things.

Which was why he’d been so easily scared by the attention reflected back at him and why he wanted to run from it all.

It was a heady thing to understand someone like Nikky as fully as Harry felt like he was starting to.

Except reality was a thing, and when it slammed into Harry, just as he’d let himself be lifted up on the sweet swell of Nikky’s affection and enthusiasm, it brought him thudding down.

“I don’t think it would work,” he said, dragging his eyes away from Nikky’s and looking at his guitar as he strummed a few random notes.

“What?” The single word burst out of Nikky like he was experiencing his own crash. “Why? It sounds great. We work fabulously together. Is the song not good enough? Am I not good enough?”

Harry jerked straight again at the whirlwind of Nikky’s questions. They said so much more about him as a man than about the song.

“No!” Harry rushed to reassure him. “That’s not it at all. The song is fantastic. Working with you is so easy and feels so right.” A bolt of fear shot through him as if he’s said too much, revealed too much of himself. He hurried on to say, “It’s Albion. There’s no way he’d ever let us record anything together.”

Nikky blew out a breath of relief and sagged over his guitar a little, then straightened again. “Albion wants my album to be a hit. He wants to make a lot of money off of me. This song could make a lot of money.”

Harry laughed, but there was no humor in the sound or how he felt. “Albion despises me,” he said. “And—” He winced as he debated how much of his past he really wanted to reveal to the man who felt like he could be a fresh start in his life. If he and Nikky wanted to have a chance for anything pure and lasting at all, he’d have to be completely honest. He met Nikky’s eyes and said, “He deliberately ruined my career.”

Nikky’s eyes went wide. “What? No.”

Harry smirked. “Unfortunately, yes, he did.”

“But how?” Nikky asked, a demanding edge to his voice that Harry found charming. “And why? You’re an amazing musician. I’ve always loved your music, especially the deep cuts.”

“Not the catchy one-hit wonder?” Harry smirked, trying not to sound too bitter.

“Love on the Line is good, too,” Nikky said, then rushed on to, “But so is Break Me and Unspoken.”

Harry was surprised Nikky would name those songs. They were some of his favorites, the ones he’d put more of his heart into than part of him wished he had.

“I had to fight tooth and nail to get those tracks on the album,” he said. “Albion only caved because I threatened to walk if he didn’t include them. But that move of mine is what cost me in the end.”

“How so?” Nikky frowned.

Harry sighed and rubbed his stubbly chin. The cat was halfway out of the bag, so he might as well let it out all the way, even if it meant spilling his mistakes and failures, not to mention years of resentment where he’d wallowed in self-pity instead of doing something, for Nikky to see.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, Albion doesn’t like people contradicting him,” he said, strumming another chord, then setting his guitar aside. “I was young and cocky. I was so sure that I was the real deal, that I knew better than anyone else around me, and that I would be a Hall of Fame rockstar.”

“And you are,” Nikky pointed out. “You have a massive hit.”

“A massive hit,” Harry said. “One. Which was completely Albion’s doing. And I mean that in more ways than one.” Nikky’s brow pinched in confusion, so Harry went on. “He marketed Love on the Line until it had no choice but to be a major hit. I was so thrilled to hear myself on the radio, to be interviewed everywhere, and asked to sing at galas and things that it didn’t dawn on me that the rest of the album had already faded into obscurity.”

“But there are so many great songs on that album,” Nikky said.

“Yeah, and how many of them have you heard played on the radio or picked for film soundtracks or whistled by someone passing on the street?”

“None of them,” Nikky said, shoulders sagging. “Which I never understood.”

Harry shrugged and spread his hands wide. “Albion suppressed the rest of the album.”