Love gives you the power to heal
But love unspoken is not real
It undermines love and trust
And can turn love from rock to dust
Why did I not believe?
Torment myself that you’d deceive
I think it was the words unspoken
The ones I kept hidden until broken
I say them now, and forever
I love you, my darling and I’ll leave you never.
No more secrets, No more lies
No more hiding, No more goodbyes
—Milo Stamis, “Talk to Me”
* * * *
“Milo, who told you I screwed Danny? You never objected to me spending time with him before. We played video games together when we toured. How did he become an issue?”
“Good question, baby. It crept up on me, as I remember. After you and I became lovers, Bart kept stoking my coals. He joked about me being an old man in comparison to you and that I would soon need Viagra to keep up with you. As I explained earlier, I felt I stood on shaky moral ground as it was. His constant teasing made it so much worse. I spent most of the night after I found the drugs drinking with Bart. I just arrived at the studio the next day and the first thing I saw was you and Danny leaving together with your arm around him. Bart said he’d seen you two in even more compromising circumstances, but didn’t want to tell me.”
“And there was proof right in front of your eyes.”
“Yeah,” Milo countered. “It looked real enough at the time, with the Devil whispering in my ear. It was a very bad time for me. I felt as if I were being torn apart. Things became better between us, and all of a sudden, there was Danny. Bart kept pushing at me. Saying I should give you back a little of your own treatment. He suggested I use him as the means, but I wouldn’t touch him and it pissed him off.”
“I always hated him, the rat bastard,” Liam snarled. “Right from the time he joined the band he went out of his way to make me miserable.”
“What did he do to you? And why didn’t you tell Rick or Sam if you felt awkward telling me?” Milo sounded gruffer than he meant to.
“He picked his moments, waiting until no one else was around. He accused me of being a leech. If I ratted, I felt like I would just reinforce the image. I wanted to impress you with my maturity, to me it meant handling him by myself. He also had me convinced that no one would believe me, especially since he went out of his way to be nice to me when you and Sam were around,” Liam answered.
“Didn’t you trust me to look after you, baby?” Milo asked as he pulled Liam closer to his chest.
“He told me I stood in the way of the group’s success, an albatross hanging around your neck and choking you to death. I was young, naïve, and very jealous because you gave him a part of you I couldn’t get.” Liam’s voice sounded soft.
“What part are you talking about, Liam? You had everything I could give. I had no parts left over for anyone else,” grumbled Milo.
“No, hon, you’re wrong. He became your confidant. After Sam left, you turned to Bart, not Rick, and certainly not to me. He may not have made band decisions, but he had input. Rick got hung out in the cold, and you treated me like a baby despite the fact we fucked every night.”
“I don’t know. I guess you’re right. Rick always acted like a flake and I wanted to protect you. I couldn’t take you out for a drink and Rick took off elsewhere. The band became pretty isolated because Sam insisted on such tight security. If I went out alone, it seemed I felt surrounded by people who couldn’t speak to me. I took Bart along to have someone to talk to.”
“Why didn’t you talk to me, Milo? I wanted to help you and I sat there waiting for you to ask,” Liam said in a hushed voice resting his hand over Milo’s heart. “I thought it so stupid that you wouldn’t let me sit in a bar with you. We played the clubs since I was twelve. I could have ordered a Coke.”
“You don’t understand. I wanted you, but I couldn’t have you at first. Half of the time I went nuts with guilt, the other half I wanted to throw you on the bed and beat you until you bled for flaunting yourself in front of me. You epitomized temptation itself, and I wasn’t Christ. I made promises, both to Lily and to myself. The closer it got to your eighteenth birthday, the worse I felt. You drove me crazy by just being in the same room, baby. How could I tell you?”
“Milo, I was blissful after we made love. You took me into your bed and heart, and I was never happier than in those years. I felt such peace. We wrote our music, performed with our band, and then came back to our home. Yet Bart’s litany continued. He said I was only a mercy fuck for you and you stayed with me because of the bad publicity you’d get if you dumped me or if I jumped ship. On the nights when you went out with him for a drink, I went home heartsick, afraid he would convince you I was a complete waste of your time. He hated me and I never knew why. I was never nasty to him. I only wanted to help. Yet in front of the band he treated me so decently that when I did finally complain, no one would listen.”
“I talked to Bart instead of a shrink, yet every time I mentioned you, he spoke about how much he liked you, while at the same time, he reminded me how young you were,” Milo muttered. “It drove me nuts. He made me see myself as having robbed the cradle and you not loving me. I knew you had never experienced another man. He made me feel like I’d taken away all your options for my own selfish needs.” Milo shook in remembrance of Bart’s reference to pedophilia. That thought still brought him some guilt and discomfort.
“And I talked to Danny. How could I tell you my problems when our relationship became the problem? You still went out drinking with him. I’m sure he took every opportunity he got to pour shit in your ear,” Liam said flatly.
“Yeah, I see your point, baby,” Milo reluctantly conceded. “He was not one of your friends.”
“No matter how hard I tried, I never did anything right according to Bart. He hated me from the first.” Liam sighed. “When he started dealing drugs to Rick, I told Rick and Bart that I planned to tell you. I knew how you felt about drugs in a band. Bart said if I didn’t keep my mouth shut, I’d be the one personally responsible for ruining your dream. I turned eighteen. We just began a more intimate relationship. I didn’t feel secure, and Bart fed on that. When Rick said I would break up the band, I caved. Who was I to take it all away from you? After a while, the music began to suffer. I found them snorting on the last night of the tour. The Sizzle article appeared the next morning.”
“You were an equal partner in the enterprise. Hell, baby, Lily’s money supported the band through the rough and lean times. She wanted it that way. Sam made sure we paid back every dime with interest, but you took even more of a risk than we did. If we failed, you had nowhere to go. That’s why Sam remained so adamant about law school. He wanted to make sure you would be okay no matter what. Sam loved you more than he loved his own brother.”
After a long pause, Liam finally said, “Bart began threatening me. I didn’t know about Lily’s money. Bart said that no one would believe me if I told them about the drugs. He said everyone liked him, but I was a pain in the ass kid who had no real hold on anyone except moral blackmail because I was so young. He intimated that the band would have dumped me much sooner if you and Sam hadn’t told Lily you would take care of me. I wouldn’t have cared if you dumped me from the band. I just didn’t want you and I to end. I backed off, not because of Bart, because of Rick. Rick said he would take care of it. He did, for a while.”
Liam paused and Milo pulled him tighter into the strong circle of his arms.
“I just closed my eyes to everything after that,” Liam admitted. “I was too happy. But it never stopped, they just became more discreet. Danny told me Bart got half of the roadies hooked, and those who didn’t use quit after each tour in disgust.
“Just after the last tour, I told you Bart became a creep and a bad influence on Rick, but you didn’t listen to me. You still saw me as the ‘baby’ who didn’t know about that kind of shit. Milo, I knew better than you because you couldn’t see it, you had all you could do to manage the band without Sam.”
“Sam needed to pass the bar,” Milo countered. “Shattered Glass owed Sam for the time he took away from his life to help us. I knew he’d come back and be better than ever, but he needed the time and I promised to give it to him. I walked around with blinders on and became so pigheaded, I missed everything happening around me. I’m sorry. Sorrier then you’ll ever know.”
Milo stroked his fingers up and down Liam’s back in an old rhythmic motion he’d used to put him to sleep when he couldn’t relax. “There was another issue. Bart kept harping on your age and had me believing I was a pedophile. I never touched you until you turned eighteen, but that didn’t change the fact I wanted you for years. That secret shamed me. I couldn’t separate the wanting from the actual act. Now I know the fact that I waited, despite my desires, was what proved me innocent of that heinous accusation. Back then, I couldn’t be sure.”
“That perverted bastard! He called you a pedophile?” Liam gasped in anger.
“Yeah. He called you a man-whore, but said I was a sick, perverted bastard who preyed on young boys,” Milo whispered.
“I planned to tell you about the drugs and Rick. Before I got the chance to say anything, he turned you away from me.”
Suddenly they heard a loud crash, followed by the sound of the alarm system.
Milo went running down the stairs, with Liam right behind him. All of the outside lights were on and Milo spotted a dark figure running from the property. It looked as if a rock had bounced off the safety glass in the great room. The glass didn’t break, but it cracked in a sunburst pattern. The house phone and Milo’s cell rang at the same time. Milo pointed at the house phone and barked, “Answer that, it’s the alarm company. Tell them we need the police.”
“What about Conchita?”
“It’s okay, she went to bingo and stayed at her sister’s house. Go.”
Milo picked up his cell. An electronically disguised voice on the other end of the line said, “He’s back. Good, now you get to watch him die,” and hung up.
“They’re coming,” Liam said, shaking.
“Baby, you’re cold and so am I. Get me some sweats, bottom drawer, long dresser. If you need a pair, take one of mine. I’m going to call Sam.” He dialed.
“Sam, it’s Milo.”
“This better be good. It’s fucking four in the morning.”
“I know, we’ll make it up to you.”
“We will make it up to me? I take it things went well on the mountain.”
“Yes and no. We need some help. We just had an attempted break-in. What security firm do you use, and how soon can you get them out here? Someone has been working in the background against us for years, someone who knew us very well.” Milo summarized their suspicions to Sam.
Sam’s voice sharpened into focus. “Shit, Milo, are you telling me Rick may have had a hand in this? I’ll be there in a few hours. I’ll get a private plane.” Sam abruptly hung up.
Liam made it down the stairs just as the doorbell rang. He handed Milo his sweats. Milo put them on as he peered through the peephole. The police arrived.
He opened the door. “Officers,” Milo said. “Please come in.”
There were two of them, the younger one named Garcia. After talking with Milo, they searched the grounds and returned. “We found this rock with a note attached by a rubber band. We thought you should see the contents, but I bagged it as evidence, so don’t break the seal.”
Milo,
I’ll torture him while you watch, and then I’ll rape you before his eyes. It will be the last thing he sees before he dies.
Liam read over Milo’s shoulder, gasped, and crumpled to the floor. The second cop grabbed him and helped him over to the couch as he said to his partner, “Call an ambulance.”
Liam opened his eyes. “No, that isn’t necessary. I just need something to drink.”
“Do you have some brandy in the house?”
Milo ran and grabbed a bottle and glass from behind the great room bar and hurriedly poured Liam a shot. “Sip it slowly,” he ordered.
“Do you have any idea what this is all about, Mr. Stamis?” Officer Garcia asked.
“Yes. That’s Liam O’Shea, the musician. He has a stalker.”
“That’s right, you two founded Shattered Glass, with the Stein Brothers.”
“We think that this is the work of Bart Hedge, our former drummer. Officer, Liam is exhausted. He’s been traveling since early morning. I believe he filed an incident report at the airport rental car counter this afternoon.” The officer took his statement while Milo detailed what he knew. Liam sat with a stunned look on his face and sipped his brandy.
“Our manager is arranging for a security team,” Milo continued. “They should be here soon. Could you stay until they get here? And I’ll probably have more information for you in the morning. Hedge is dangerous. I believe he is both a user and a dealer.”
“We’ll be glad to sit outside until security arrives. We’ll search the grounds again.”
Milo took fresh donuts out of the fridge. “Take these. I’ll have Conchita buy more in the morning.” He saw the officers out and reset the alarm, then immediately went to Liam.
“I’m so sorry Milo, that I brought this to your door,” Liam said in a broken voice.
“Baby, you are right where you should be, in my arms. God himself isn’t going to take you away from me this time. Come on, I’ll help you up to bed. Is my room okay?”
“Yes, Milo, your room, your arms, that’s all I need right now. I promise I’ll deal better in the morning after I’ve gotten some sleep.”