Excerpt:
The door closed behind them, shutting off the bar's karaoke racket, the sudden silence startling. Mat walked down the sidewalk without touching Kasper.
Mat hated that he'd ruined their night. It was a heartfelt moment out of a romantic movie, and he'd screwed it up by getting distracted over something that shouldn't matter.
"I'm sorry," Mat said.
"For what?" Kasper unlocked the car.
"I didn't handle that very well." Mat nodded back toward the bar.
"I think that was my fault. We're not really at the love song phase. I was so into performing, I didn't think."
"It wasn't the song. It was me." Mat took Kasper's hand. "I should have been flattered that a man
I really like was singing to me about how he feels, but I was too busy thinking about other stuff."
"Like what?"
"Like how a guy with a collection of gold records was on stage performing a song meant just for me and how that instantly made me the coolest person in the room. One public performance, and it all went to my head."
The smile started as a twitch in his lips and grew to a grin, melting Kasper's knotted expression.
"Is that why you're upset?"
"That I've spent all this time telling myself your fame doesn't matter, and the first chance I have to prove it, I focus on nothing but that? Yes. I'm upset. What if I've been lying to myself — to you this whole time?"
"You're being too hard on yourself." Kasper caressed Mat's cheek with the back of his fingers.
"Trust me. You haven't lied to either of us."
"How do you know that? I don't even know that anymore." He tried to slide his hand from Kasper's.
Kasper held on to him. "Because I know how it looks when all someone wants from me is bragging rights. This was my fault. I was showing off. I made a public display of what I feel for you. What I should have done was hold you close," Kasper wrapped an arm around his back and pulled Mat against him, "taken advantage of the dance floor," Kasper held their tangle of fingers to his own chest, "and sung it in your ear." Kasper danced with him there on the sidewalk.
Kasper crooned the chorus to him again, quiet and low. This time when he melted, there was no self-absorbed burst of frivolous pride to mangle it. Eyes closed, he heard footsteps pass nearby and ignored them. That was their moment. It had nothing to do with anyone else.
Kasper punctuated the song's last word with a kiss to Mat's ear, humming the final few notes.
Mat couldn't help smiling.
"Better?" Kasper asked, his voice still low.
"Much."
"I'm sorry."
Mat shook off the apology. "Me, too." He rested his chin on Kasper's shoulder. "What happened to us not being at the love song phase?"
"I guess we are, after all."
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