“Well, first, how about a proper hello?” He holds out his arms for a hug, and I go willingly.
Luce is more than the guy who keeps us in line. He’s also my friend. His partner is too.
“How mad is Marty?” I ask after I step back.
“He understands. Though I was pissed our sudden vacation lasted all of five days.”
“Fucking Harley.”
“About that.” Luce puts his hands in his pockets and looks down at his feet.
“What is it now?”
“I found something out. About his fiancée.”
“What?”
“She’s in on it. We thought … well, I thought he’d picked some random fan and decided to play this whole charade without clueing her in, but it turns out, she knows. Like you, she has a full-on NDA in place, and she knows he’s gay. It’s completely fake.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better? Is it supposed to make me go running back into his arms only to watch him in public with her? No. I’m not gonna do it.”
Luce leans his large frame against the desk in the corner of the hut. “I’m not suggesting you do. But I thought it might be easier to see him knowing he’s as miserable as you are because of something out of your control.”
This is when I get mixed feelings about the whole thing. It’s not Harley’s choice to stay closeted. The label threatens his career, convinces him he won’t make it as a gay solo artist, and then they go with the threat that brings nearly every artist to their knees—breach of contract.
It’s enough to pull anyone in line.
I love music, and I love having fans, but I’ve yet to meet a musician who’s one hundred percent happy with their label. Although, that could be because most of the artists I meet are with Joystar too.
They’re a big fat corporation who only looks at the bottom line—how we can fill their pockets with millions of dollars.
“I don’t get it,” I say, exasperated. “There’s five of them. Why can’t Harley come out? There are four other guys in Eleven that girls can be obsessed with. Let the gay kids have someone. Please.”
“Oh, wow, you really have had Harley goggles on. You think he’s the only queer one of those boys?”
My immediate response is to protest that, but what am I basing my opinion on? The endless tabloids of each of the boys, putting them with the latest it girl. I’ve hung with all of them, and they’ve all played the part. Well, except for Ryder, but that’s because he has his baby on tour with him most of the time, so whenever he’s not on stage, he’s with her.
“My gaydar is on the fritz. I used to be able to pick out a straight gay guy with one look. Even in a strip club with tits in his face.”
“Why would you be in a girly bar?”
“Tennessee.”
“Oh, enough said. Well, yeah, the entertainment industry skews anyone’s gaydar. The obviously gay ones are straight and the straight ones are gay, and don’t get me started on the ones that swing every which way. We need to come up with some sort of codeword like back in the day where they’d ask if you’re a friend of Dorothy’s.”
“Like when you were a teenager?”
Luce ignores my jab. He’s really good at that. It’s why he manages the band so well. “My point is, we both know Harley’s the most popular. He writes some of their songs and is the main focus in their videos, so out of all the boys, he’s the one they least want to come out because he’ll make them money long after Eleven splits. Which we know is inevitable.”
“The only reason Harley is the most popular is because he’s an attention whore. He wants to be the Justin Timberlake. The Robbie Williams. I’m surprised Harley and I even worked as a couple. Two egos as big as ours shouldn’t even be in the same room let alone share a life together.”
“I know when you’re using humor as a defense mechanism, hon.”
See, Luce gets me. Where Matt and all his friends are like big brothers to me, Luce is more like the father figure I never had, even if he’s only eleven years older than me.
“Damn you.”
“You love me.”
“I love Marty more.”
“Oh, you’re lucky he couldn’t come here to drag your ass back to the States. You know how blunt he can be.”
It’s true. He’s unapologetically blunt. Though, unlike me, most of the time, Marty doesn’t mean to be.
“I’m sorry I almost gave you a vacation and then took it away from you.”
“We still had a good break. Went home. Saw family. It was more than what we were supposed to get, so …” He shrugs. “But we do have to go back.”
“I know we do, but how’s this for an option? We don’t.”