Second Chances: A Romance Writers of America Collection (Stark World 2.50)

They reached the corner and started snaking across a wide-open farmer's market sprawled across a church plaza. In three minutes, he'd be safe. "I can't believe you were in a band. White boy rhythm and all."

"Hand to God. And then we found a real guitarist, and I sort of tagged along for kicks until our manager quit and I took over."

Jerome choke-laughed. "Wait, what? You managed something? A band?" No way in hell.

"You could call it that. It just sorta happened." Wince pushed his hand into his thick hair and scratched his scalp. "Made sure we got paid. Set up the venues. Fought with the label once we got signed. Kept the other guys clean-ish. Off hard stuff anyway. They figured I was crazy so they, I dunno, listened."

They snaked past stalls piled with bread and onions and fresh honey until they reached Union Square. "Never in a million years ..."

"I know, right? But after my folks, what did I care? Nothing scared me. Nothing grossed me out. Turns out I'm a perfect stiff for pop bands. Now the label sends me out to break new talent. I'm respectable, Jug."

"Jesus."

"Tell me." Wink. "But it pays great. How the hell else am I paying for private school in Manhattan?"

Right. "That's amazing. You finally figured out what you were good for."

You're good for me.

Wince smiled again, and for ten seconds they were boys sitting on a window ledge, a hundred feet above the city, sorting out their escape plan.

Jerome could see Union Square up ahead and the entrance to the R train. Fright or flight, mofo. He wanted to run away, and he wanted to let Wince kidnap him.

"Here's you." Wince paused at the top of the subway stairs. His dirty gold hair gleaming in the cold sunlight, his joker's grin teasing at the question that neither of them had the stones to ask.

Do you remember the two of us?

Jerome held out a shaky hand to shake.

Wince took it, but then pulled him into a quick hug, pressing their chests together for two impossible seconds. One breath, two breaths. And he still smelled great and felt better. And for two seconds, they were seventeen and anything was possible.

Once burned.

Wince muttered against his chest. "So great to see you, Jug." And then he was gone, walking away before Jerome could respond or wipe his eyes.

Downstairs, he stepped onto his train headed downtown. "Stand clear of the closing doors."

HE DIDN'T SPEAK TO Wince again 'til the hospital a month later.

Jerome was helping teachers chaperone a field trip to Lincoln Center, mainly because his daughter had bullied Walton into visiting the theater. Ten a.m. on a Tuesday onstage at the Koch Theater. Trying to corral thirty kids, ages seven to fourteen, was no joke.

"No pushing."

"Jerome." A little boy voice about twenty feet away.

He looked up, and Wince's son was waving at him from a high wall gilded like marzipan. Flip was among the little ones. Wince hadn't tagged along, which should have been a relief but wasn't.

The older teachers were struggling. "Linda, get down please." A half hour in, the four other chaperons were already exhausted. "Linda? Don't push."

The stage manager led them through the orchestra pit and the dressing rooms, finally bringing them up onto the stage to show off the curtain and lights. He called instructions to the union guys up in the booth.

A few minutes later, Flip's voice again. "Jerome. Hey, J'rome!"

"Boys! Flip, no!"

Before he could turn to look, shocked shouts drowned out the boy. Then he heard screaming, and he made for the noisy knot of kids staring at the floor.

Flip lay at the base of the marzipan wall, stunned silent, his face gray, his arm at a wrong angle.