Page 51 of Conquest

“But you haven’t put out any new albums.”

“That doesn’t mean I quit making music.” Evan took a deep breath and sighed. He pushed himself up and got out of bed, swiping his boxer-briefs off the floor as he headed for the door. “Come on, if it’s so important for you to know.”

Jesse sprang out of bed and hopped into his boxers as quickly as he could to follow Evan. He reached the hall and saw Evan moving down the stairs in the dark. Silver light from the moon streamed through the windows to illuminate Evan’s skin, making Jesse feel like he was chasing a specter through night. He caught up to Evan as he turned right at the bottom of the stairs, going to the opposite end of the mansion from the kitchen and family room.

Evan led him through the dining room to a closed wooden door that peaked high and sharp in Gothic style, carved in arches and lines, making it look as though it’d be at home in any seventeenth century church. When Evan had given him a tour of the house, Jesse remembered this door led to Evan’s office in the tower that rounded the far corner. He’d only gotten a quick peek inside when Evan cracked open the door saying, “And this is my office. All boring, nothing interesting,” and shut it again. Now he became instantly enamored with the space.

He walked into the middle of the circular room. Dark walnut bookshelves curved around the walls and towered above to a second landing. A narrow flight of spiral wooden stairs wound up to the second landing and still more bookshelves, though all the shelves on both levels were bare save for a handful of car magazines and maps of various countries.

Two large, arched stained glass windows overlooked the front lawn, one on the first level, one on the second, and under each was a wide plush seat built into the light gray stone wall. The wall to his right was paneled in dark wood squares carved in relief and climbed to the second level, where the wall continued to the ceiling in the light gray stone. Swords of various designs hung on the wall; an English long sword, a rapier with a sweeping hilt, two Chinese broadswords, three katana, and two wakizashi.

Evan stood in front of the wood paneled wall behind a massive desk of dark mahogany that had a laptop computer, a printer, pads of paper, pens, and empty sheet music all neatly organized. He pressed on the square of one wood panel. It sank in, clicked, then slid to the side, showing a safe behind.

“Are these real?” Jesse asked, admiring a katana. “Like true historical pieces?”

Evan punched a code into the safe and opened the solid steel door. “Yeah, I’m sort of a collector when I see one that strikes me.”

He retrieved a fireproof box from inside the safe and set it on the desk. He opened it, revealing pages and pages of sheet music. He sat down in the black leather chair behind the desk and pushed the box toward Jesse.

Jesse sat on top of the desk and leafed through the songs. “There has to be over fifty songs here. And they’re complete with lyrics, music, everything. If you have all this music, why haven’t you recorded a new album?”

“I guess I haven’t felt like it.”

Disbelief dropped Jesse’s jaw. “Haven’t felt like it? How can you say that? What about your fans? Don’t you think you owe it to them—”

“I don’t owe anybody, anything,” Evan said sharply.

Jesse stared at him in silence for a moment. “But, I don’t understand. You don’t want to make albums, but you keep writing music. Why?”

Evan brushed Jesse’s hair back from his forehead. “What difference does it make?”

“I want to know.”

Evan slid the chair between Jesse’s legs and put his hand behind Jesse’s neck, pulling him down for a kiss. He rubbed his other hand up Jesse’s thigh. His fingers slipped in the front hole of Jesse’s boxers and grazed his cock. Though it responded instantly to his touch, Jesse broke the kiss and pulled Evan’s hand away.

He kept Evan’s hand in his and tried to will his steadily rising organ to lay at rest, but it now listened better to Evan than to him, and despite seeing the hard line pushing against Evan’s boxer-briefs, he knew Evan was trying to escape talking by arousing him.

Jesse laid his hand on the side of Evan’s face and bent toward him, keeping his voice gentle, but firm. “I want to know.” He sat back, holding up the sheet music and gesturing at the house. “There has to be a reason for all of this. You disappeared, running all over the world, alone. Then you come back and buy this house, alone. I know you like your privacy, but all the time I’ve been here I haven’t even heard the phone ring, so you must not have that many friends anymore.”

“I never had that many to begin with,” Evan mumbled. He stared down at the desk. “Do you ever give up when you have your mind set?”

“No.”

Evan thumbed at the corner of a pad of paper, his voice barely audible in the silent room. “You know, when I first started singing, I never expected it to take off the way it did. Being a one hit wonder was fine in my book. All I wanted was to earn a lot of money really quick to help my dad. When I was sixteen, he was diagnosed with throat cancer, and by the time the doctors caught it, or I should say by the time he went to a doctor, it was already very advanced. He went through treatments and operations to have tumors removed, and finally his whole voice box had to be taken out. Even though he hid his pain, I know it broke his spirit to lose his voice, even if it was only a shadow of what it had been when he was healthy. It was my mother who convinced him to do it, and he did it because there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her.

“I told you earlier today he was from England. When he lived there, he worked steadily as an opera singer in a midsize opera house in London, and he would have made it to the highest level, but he met my mother when she was in London on an exchange student program, and when it came time for her to return to the States, he came with her. Before he could even try to start his career here, my mother got pregnant with me. So he gave it up and spent his whole life working as a mechanic to support us.”

Evan raised his eyes to Jesse, a sad smile on his lips. “He used to call me his little prodigy. He taught me to sing and all he knew about music, and worked twelve to fourteen hours a day to pay for lessons on whatever instrument I decided I wanted to learn next. After I played one for a while and mastered it, I’d get bored and want to switch. There were times when I’d have two instructors at once, and never did he complain that it was too much.”

Evan’s smile faded, and he lowered his gaze again. “When he got sick, I was willing to do anything to save him and decided the best way to do it would be to take advantage of the skills he had helped me hone. I knew that if I could get the right exposure, my voice would be able to take care of the debt from the doctors and him not being able to work, and I thought once I signed with a record label, I’d have enough money where I could send him to the best treatment centers in the country. So when I learned that a huge classic car restoration shop was doing a hot rod Christmas float for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and they needed a singer, I jumped all over it.

“I went down to their shop to audition and instantly got it. When I was on the float, I made sure to fluctuate my range and improv with the crowd so there was no question that what people heard was my real voice. After that, the car shop was flooded with labels looking to sign me, but I went with Phoenix because my dad felt he could trust Greg, and Phoenix actually cared about the product they were putting out. I didn’t care either way so long as I saw a check.” Evan took a deep breath as he finished.

“He must’ve been really proud to see you hit it big,” Jesse said softly.

“He was, but all the money in the world can’t keep cancer from spreading. He died right before my first tour started. I guess that’s why I threw myself into music so hard. I felt like it was all I had left. I felt like I had to do it for him.”

Jesse stroked Evan’s hair from his eyes. “I’m sorry.”