Catch My Breath (37 page)

The beginning of the interview was fine. They answered the same questions over and over anyway. They all knew the answers practically in their sleep. Nobody was really paying much attention. Then the interviewer threw a curve ball.

“So tell me about this Delly thing. The fans want to know what the real deal is.”

Most interviewers avoided that question, probably at the request of their publicist. Danny looked surprised… and intensely uncomfortable. He smiled, but it was his fake smile. Elliot wanted to pat Danny’s leg under the table, tell him it was fine. He realized it was
not
the time.

“Elliot’s my best friend. Ever since we first met, we’ve just gotten along.” Danny’s smile grew soft and genuine. It was true, after all. Evasive but true.

The interviewer smiled. “I don’t think that’s what they want to know.”

“What do you mean?” Danny asked. He had to know damn well what that woman wanted to know. They all knew.

She flipped her shiny dark hair off her shoulder and smiled. It was that same shark-slick smile Elliot remembered from Liselle Marten back at the
Band Camp
house. “Some fans are pretty convinced there’s more to you and Elliot than meets the eye.” She stared at Danny. The back of Elliot’s neck grew hot too, waiting for the inevitable.

Danny chuckled. It couldn’t have sounded more forced.
You can do this, babe.
“Well, yeah.” He forced out another chuckle. “Some of them are convinced we’re together. It’s crazy, isn’t it?”

Good, good, good.
It hurt Elliot to hear Danny even partially deny them, but he had to do it. Danny was in an awful position. Elliot just wished the damn interviewer would drop it. Elliot fiddled with his watch.

She cocked her head to the side. “Well, you’re a slippery one, aren’t you? That’s not an answer. Are you or aren’t you more than friends with Elliot?”

Elliot couldn’t believe it. Apparently, neither could the rest of them. Webb, Tate, and Reece leaned in toward him defensively. They’d always figured Danny for the stronger of the two, but Danny needed support too, so Elliot reached out and slung his arm across Danny’s shoulders in what he hoped looked like a best friend’s embrace. Danny needed it. He stiffened at first but then relaxed into Elliot’s one-armed hug.

“That was definitely an answer,” he said. “We can’t control what the fans say. They’re just having some fun. There are rumors about the other guys too.”

“And once again you’re being evasive.”
Jesus, she’s not going to give up, is she?
Elliot knew that woman was going to force Danny to say it point-blank. He wondered if it was another one of their management’s plans or if she was acting all on her own. “If you’re not together, why won’t you just say so?”

“I don’t think I should have to defend myself against rumors. The fans are going to think what they think, aren’t they?”

“And you don’t mind them thinking you and Elliot are together? That your relationship with Chelsea is just an act?”

Laugh it off, babe. It’s fine, it’s cool, Elliot’s my best friend, we do love each other but….

“The idea of that is insulting.”

What?
Elliot could’ve sworn his heart froze. That was the last thing he’d ever expected Danny to say. Especially not in that awful
voice
. He let his hand slide down Danny’s back until it was in his own lap once more. Insulting? Elliot couldn’t look at the interviewer. He sure as hell couldn’t look at Danny. He stared down at his hands and messed with the clasp on his watch again.

“It’s insulting that you’re pretending with Chelsea or insulting that people think you love Elliot?”

“Yeah to both of those. How is it fair to her? She’s constantly being harassed with these questions. It’s enough to put a strain on any relationship. It doesn’t help that she sees me with him every day in close quarters. Chelsea’s great, but she’s human. She can see.”
And she sees the way Elliot looks at me….
He hadn’t said it. But it sure was implied.

Elliot felt like he’d been stabbed. Three pairs of very shocked eyes stared at Danny. Elliot just looked at everyone else. He couldn’t look Danny in the eye. He wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to for a long, long time.

Maybe it was naive of him, but he never thought Danny would take it so far, he never thought Danny would actually say it was insulting when people thought he loved Elliot. Yeah, it was a line. Yeah, it was faker than his overly publicized relationship with Chelsea. It still fucking hurt. Elliot didn’t know if he could stand to hear anything like that again.

As it was, he was fighting tears and hoping the interview would end so they could get the hell out of there and he could collapse in peace.

“J
ESUS
, El. I’m so damn sorry. I really didn’t mean for it to come out that way.”

Elliot still felt like he’d been stabbed. He kept trying to tell himself he was being ridiculous. Overly dramatic. Out of line. But he felt it, and it freaking hurt like hell. “I know you have to say we’re just friends, I know that’s the damn game. But you made it sound like I was ruining your relationship with Chelsea. That the fucking rumors about us,
rumors
, were hurting you and her. You
didn’t
have to say that.”

“They backed me into a corner. You saw it. What was I supposed to do? Just lay one on you in public? Say that it’s not a rumor, that we’re in love?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. You didn’t have to flip out like that for damn sure. Have you seen the shit they’ve been saying about me online?” There was page after page. Gossip sites, Twitter accounts, nobody had anything nice to say about Elliot and how his attitude was hurting Danny’s relationship.

“Have you seen what they’re saying about
me
?” Danny countered.

“Who?”

“The girls who know we’re together. They hate me, El. They say your face just crumpled when I said all that stuff. They think I broke your heart.”

“You kind of did. It felt so real. It was like you were breaking up with me on television in front of all those people. And a few girls on Twitter and Tumblr isn’t the same thing as every tabloid in the universe. Because of this whole thing, I’ve been called a home wrecker and desperate. Like I’m trying to break up your fucking engagement.”

“There is no engagement! Not even a fake one. That was all just hinting and innuendo. Jesus, El. Remember what Reece said? How none of that crap is real? It’s not.”

“It feels pretty damn real to me, D. I want to put an end to it.”

Danny was silent for long moments. “E-end?”

“Yeah. We need to talk to management. I’m tired of being the damn bad guy. If I have to come out to fix this, it’s not like I’m trying to nail the closet door shut anyway. I’ll do it.”

“Wait. Come out? Like
out
out? How would that solve anything? That would just make it worse!”

His face said it all. Danny was scared. He’d told Elliot all along that he wanted them to be public, but Elliot thought back to the chances he’d had to confess. Elliot had to make him tell Katie, he’d never told Chelsea, and sure, a live interview wasn’t the best venue to start down that path, but Danny didn’t look like he even wanted to think about it.

“Listen,” Danny said. “We’ll find a way to fix it somehow. Get people to leave you alone. I’ll make sure to take back what I said about things being tense. Blame it on a bad day or something. We can deal with this.”

“But….” Elliot stopped. He didn’t want to speak rashly. “In the end, if management said they didn’t care, do you even
want
to come out anymore? I’m getting a big no from your face.”

“I do, El. But so much is at stake now. Things aren’t like they were when we moved out of the
Band Camp
house. They’re not even like they were before the tour.”

“Do you love me?” Elliot asked. His voice shook.

“Of course I love you.”

“Are you… ashamed of us?” It wasn’t the best time for questions like that, but all of a sudden Elliot had to know. He had to know if things were ever going to change or if he’d be stuck hiding forever as long as he was with Danny, pushed in a closet and dragged through the mud just to hide who he was.

“Well, no, it’s just….”

Elliot’s heart sank. He wasn’t an idiot. He knew why Danny was scared, but it was just too much. “It’s nothing, Danny. I’m getting to the point where I’m honestly not sure I can do this anymore.”

“Do what?”

“Us. Try to make this work with all the pressure and the bullshit. It’s just too hard. I understand where you’re coming from, I really do, but I don’t know if I want this to be my life, hiding like this. I’m never going to want to be with a girl. There is no easy option like Chelsea out there for me. I think I need to figure things out on my own.”

Jesus, it hurt. It hurt like nothing Elliot had ever felt, but he knew he was right. The pressure was too much for both of them. Elliot couldn’t hide them forever. It wasn’t in him, and it wasn’t fair to keep asking Danny to do all the dirty work. Maybe if there was nothing to hide anymore the nasty articles would go away. Maybe Danny wouldn’t have to drag Chelsea around all over the place. Maybe everything would just be… easier.

“Elliot,
no
. I love you.”

“I love you too, Danny. But this? I can’t do it anymore. Not if there’s no end in sight to all the crap that goes with it. I just can’t.”

“We’re not breaking up,” Danny whispered. He sank to the floor and put his arms around his knees. “We can’t break up.” He looked shell-shocked. Truthfully, Elliot was too. He’d been pissed as hell, but he never thought he’d come into this room to end things. He just needed to yell. It was only when he realized Danny didn’t want anything to change that he started to see where it was going.

“I think we have to. This mess is only going to get worse until we get rid of the cause behind it.”

“
No
.” Danny looked up at Elliot from where he was huddled on the floor. “What’ll I do?”

Elliot didn’t know what to tell him. “Why don’t you go sleep in Webb’s room tonight? Tate and Reece paired up.” Elliot stopped. “We can’t make this crappy for the other guys though. How many times have we promised?”

He let out a small, sad laugh. He and Danny were pros at hiding their feelings at that point, right? Things would just have to move on and work somehow.

“That’s not what I meant, El. I mean, what the fucking hell will I do without you? I can’t even imagine it. I don’t want to.”

“Well, you’ll have to go through a lot less shit, I bet.” He reached down to touch the top of Danny’s head, but he couldn’t. Even that much hurt. “It’ll be fine, Danny. We’ll get past this and be okay. Friends.”

It was a lie. Elliot knew it. He and Danny had never been just friends. He wasn’t sure if they were capable of it.

E
LLIOT
sat out on their hotel room’s balcony in the warm summer evening air. Still, even in the balmy night, he shivered. Nothing was going to be okay. He didn’t know how to solve their problems, how to make management and money and contracts and rabid fans disappear so he and Danny could just be. The truth was, they never would’ve been at all if it weren’t for all this. They’d have never even met.

He watched Danny pack up his stuff from the balcony, watched him shuffle around their hotel room with his head down, slowly dropping things into his bag. Elliot pulled out his phone and texted Webb. He said things were cool, but he and Danny just needed some space from each other. It was another lie, but they’d gotten awfully good at those.

Danny was gone for a long, long time before Elliot could bring himself to go back into their hotel room. Without Danny there, nothing felt right. Worse than that. It was like some big black vacuum had opened up inside him where Danny used to live. He didn’t cry. He’d gotten to some point far beyond crying. It was awful without Danny’s bright smile on the other side of that glass door. Elliot had no idea how long he could keep going without it.

He wished he knew what the other choice was.

M
ONTREAL
, Calgary, Chicago, St. Louis. It didn’t matter where they were. Danny felt nothing. He smiled and laughed with the guys, and so did Elliot—they’d promised, after all, not to mess things up. Neither one of them wanted to screw with the team. But inside he was dead. The only moments Danny felt a spark was when he and Elliot inadvertently touched. When they brushed against each other in the suddenly way too small tour bus, when they managed to sit too close to each other on the couch to avoid brushing thighs. Danny hated those moments. They were the only thing he lived for. Not having Elliot but seeing him every day couldn’t have been more torture, but the other option, Elliot actually being gone? No. That was unthinkable. Danny decided that after the tour he was going to put everything he had into getting Elliot back. He had to.

One night between Chicago and St. Louis, or maybe Indianapolis and Cincinnati—it didn’t matter, he supposed—Danny got a call. Management. They want to fly Chelsea out to show everyone was happy and cool. Another lie to smooth everything over, another opportunity for some faked happy-couple pictures that told the story management wanted to tell. The story Danny himself had grown comfortable with. He felt like he’d betrayed Elliot somehow by getting so used to the game. If there was some way to fix it, he’d do anything. But the idea of telling the truth after so many months was terrifying.

Danny sighed.

“What’s the point of the Chelsea show now?” Danny asked. He barely had the energy to fight. “Elliot and I are done. There’s nothing to hide.” That wasn’t exactly true, at least not if Danny had anything to say about it, but management didn’t need to know differently.

“You guys need some positive publicity. People like you and Chelsea together.”

Danny sighed. “I don’t want to do it. I’m not in the mood to smile.”

“Listen, Danny,” Rebecca said into the phone. She sounded far away and more than a little condescending. He had a hard time liking her after the past few months. “The Pixies have taken off finally, and a lot of that is due to your high-profile romance with Chelsea. I know you’re friends with these girls. Don’t you want to help them?”