Page 88 of The Prodigal Son

Tears well in my eyes as I stand among a crowd of over twenty thousand people, watching the man I love stand alone on a stage and sing a song I listened to him write in the middle of the night just a couple weeks ago.My song.

Leave it to Theo Virgil to confess his love in the most dramatic and grand way possible. I wish I could do the same. I wish I could stand on a stage and tell the world that I love him.

I wish it didn’t have to be a secret. I wish I could run up there right now, wrap my arms around him, and kiss him.

I wish our love wasn’t such an offense to others.

This song is even more beautiful than I remember. Tender and slow. With lyrics that would pull on my heart even if it wasn’t about me.

Isaac has a voice like a scorching campfire that crackles and burns with warmth and texture. As he sings, I close my eyes and I bathe in the sound.

This is when I feel closest to God. This keenness of music and togetherness and harmony. A powerful connection, so visceral it doesn’t even feel like reality.

This was the sensation I chased every Sunday when I went to church growing up.

This song is my new hymn.

Isaac, my god.

When the song wraps up, I open my eyes and they immediately connect with Isaac’s. For just a moment, it feels as if we’re alone. His expression matches mine. I don’t need to say the words that I’m thinking. He can feel them.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

As the crowd cheers, the band comes back out to the stage. They continue to play the rest of their set list. I don’t hear the cruel voices that often pop up inside my head in moments like these. For a few blissful moments, it’s quiet.

At this point, I have Theo Virgil’s set list memorized. As he plays the last song before the encore, I shuffle out of the crowd toward the backstage. I hold up my badge to the bouncer near the exit, and he waves me through. This moment of anxious anticipation is the same after every show, although tonight is a bit different.

Not only did we essentially just say our first “I love yous,” but I’m willing to bet Isaac is as hard as the Eiffel Tower in those jeans, and I can’t wait to get my hands on him. Sometimes it takes over an hour between the end of the show and when we can finally be alone in his trailer, but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna wait that long tonight.

After I make my way through the long hallways toward the backstage area, I lock eyes with Isaac. He and the band are about to run back out, the crowd screaming his name, waiting for their encore. It’s dark, and the band runs out to the stage first, butbefore Isaac can disappear from my sight, I grab his hand and pull him toward me.

For a brief moment, we’re alone. The crowd cheers louder, and I know I only have a few seconds left, so I press him up against the dark cinder block wall and I kiss his lips with ferocity. He growls against my mouth, tugging at my jeans desperately. Reaching down, I grip his raging erection through his pants and he moans louder against me.

“Fuck!” he cries, seeking more desperately needed friction.

But we can’t do this here. I have to tear my mouth away from his and my hand from his crotch.

Panting, I mutter, “Meet me in the greenroom after the show.”

“Dammit. Okay,” he replies, looking dazed. His pupils are blown wide with arousal. With that familiar sheen of sweat he gets when he performs, he looks so sexy it hurts.

I touch his face softly before he heads toward the curtain. The crowd is still screaming wildly, but before he steps out, I call for him.

“Isaac.”

He stops and turns toward me in expectation.

“I love you, too,” I say, and he smiles brightly before giving me that wink he always does and running out onto the stage.

I watch the last two songs from the wings with my arms crossed over my chest and a proud smile on my face. It’s a different show every night, at least for me it is. The first time, I watched as a fan, then as a friend, and now through the lens of a lover.

He is mine, and as long as I am alive, I will keep him. Not Theo Virgil, but Isaac Goode, the young, carefree, and sometimes adorably obnoxious love of my life.

He plays the last song with more energy than ever, smiling brightly, strumming the guitar harder, jumping higher, and just before it ends, I leave the wings in search of the greenroom.

One of the staff points me in the right direction, and when she asks who I am, I simply explain that I’m Theo’s pastor, of course, and after every show, he likes to say a private prayer. She doesn’t ask any more questions, and it’s not technically a lie.

The rooms they provide Isaac after all of his shows are always a little more drab and run-down than I expect them to be. And tonight is no different. The paint on the walls is chipped, the linoleum cracked. There’s an old table with four chairs and a dusty old black leather couch. I pace the room with aroused anticipation. The bottle of lube that I took from Isaac’s tour bus is in my pocket.

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