Page 81 of Torch Songs

Love me like I love you.

He played the final notes of the song, lost in the music until the very end, and when he looked up, April had taken her earbuds out and both of them were staring at him.

“What?” he croaked, suddenly terrified.

“That was…,” April started, wiping her eyes with her palms.

Then they heard it. A hiccup. A strangled breath. A sob.

Guthrie and April both stared at Tad as he tried to breathe through his tears, and April said, “Tad?”

“He said it,” Tad gasped. “He said he loved me. I never thought he’d say it.”

April stared at him and said, “April, peaceing out,” as she grabbed her stuff and scrambled for her room. Guthrie set his guitar down in the case and came to crouch in front of Tad, taking his hands.

“What?” he asked, trying to understand.

Tad wiped his face on his shoulder and then did it again. “God, Guthrie—I’ve loved you since you fixed my damned flat tire. I never thought you’d love me back.”

Guthrie kissed Tad’s knuckles, saw brine on them, realized they were both crying. “Of course I love you,” he said, partly in wonder because he’d said it, and partly in surprise because how did Tad not know? “Do you think I… I… all the things I’ve done for you—do you think I do them for anybody? Nobody’s had the parts of me that you do. Not a single soul. You’ve got to knowthat, right?”

“No, you asshole,” Tad hiccupped. “Because you don’ttell me.”

“Oh.” Guthrie stood so he could pull Tad’s face against his stomach. “Well, I love you. Now you know.”

And Tad laughed and cried against him for way longer than Guthrie expected. When he’d finally calmed down, Guthrie heard the waiting silence and thought it would be a good time to ask.

“So you like the song, right?”

And that started Tad off again.

Where’s My Love

TAD FINALLYhad to excuse himself to clean up… and to catch his breath. God. In a thousand years, he never thought Guthrie would say it. It figured that he’d say it in song, right?

And what a song.

Tad had loved music all his life, and he’d never heard something that called to him so plaintively, had evoked all the things Tad felt about the man he wanted to make a future with.

It was like those other attempts at love didn’t exist. All other love had to take a back seat to this thing he had with Guthrie because it dominated his heart, and Tad was subservient in all things to what had overwhelmed him as he’d listened.

It was a good thing Guthrie seemed to want the same things he did. There was no objection to April living with them. Guthrie didn’t just tolerate her—he embraced her, seemingly glad to have a built-in family when he chose to throw his lot in with Tad. Guthrie had hesitantly given the go-ahead for Tad to put his notice in with Chris; if Aaron George put an offer in writing, they were both leaving SAC PD at the end of August and moving to Colton in early September. He’d even—again, hesitantly—confided in Tad that he had a gig at the end of August, in the studio with Seth Arnold and his friends, and that he was hoping the result would be enough money for Guthrie to establish himself as a solo artist and to maybe not have to find another band that would simply leave him for bigger and better things.

He’d be happy, he said, to play small venues, to cut big albums, to wait tables and bartend in between paying gigs, as long as he could, please God, be allowed by fate to play.

He’d said it that way too, and Tad had seen the desperation in his eyes, the need to keep making his living doing this thing he loved more than all the gold, and maybe even all the love, in the world.

Tad had prayed for it to happen as well, to make Guthrie happy, but until this moment, that song lancing the swollen, painful places in his soul, he hadn’t realized what he was praying for.

He was praying for Guthrie’s sweet voice to move people like he’d just moved Tad and April. He was praying for the money and the time and the talent to make songs likethatone, that had opened Tad up and let all his fears and worries out into the cleansing air.

Guthrieneededto make music.

Tad understood now.

And Guthrie lovedhim.Tad got that too.

Guthrie had been planning to go with Tad to ask Tad’s friend for work in a couple of days, but Tad wanted to tell him not to. Wanted to tell him to stay home and keep writing. Wanted to tell him to cut hisowndisc and see if he could get it to sell.

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