Twenty year old Corey Evans is one-half of 2ICE, the biggest duo on the radio at the moment. Pronounced twice, they're number one on the Billboard charts this week with their latest single. And number one in download sales, with two albums that have already gone platinum, to hear their manager tell it. And currently on their second U.S. tour, which has sold out stadiums across the nation. Despite this, there's an emptiness inside him which Corey can't seem to fill, no matter how many groupies he takes to his bed. He sees this same emptiness mirrored in the eyes of his band-mate, Ian Coltraine, who drowns his evenings after each show with a bottle of whiskey. Ian's the one Corey turns to when he wakes beside an unknown fan, still asleep in his bed and needs help evicting her. He's Corey best friend, the only person on the tour he can confide in, who he really trusts ... The one, Corey finally realizes, with whom he is madly, deeply, terribly in love. And he suspects Ian might feel the same. But his recent string of one-night stands makes Ian cautious about Corey's true feelings. He's wanted Corey for so long, and has watched him go through countless fans in search of ... what? Ian doesn't know. And he doesn't yet believe Corey when he says Ian might be it. Ian hopes so, but can't bring himself to believe Corey's fickle desire won't be gone in the morning. Can these two young men somehow move beyond Corey's past and Ian's pain to embrace a love they both so desperately desire?

Beautiful Disaster

Happy?Ian asked himself. You put those tears there. Does that make you feel better?


In all honesty, it didn’t. It just made everything ache a little more, hurt a little worse. Corey frowned. “Please listen to me. Just let me say what I need to say and then I’ll leave, I promise. But please listen.”


“Fine.” Ian swirled the whiskey around his glass and the ice cubes chinked softly to each other, but when he raised the glass to drink from it, Corey took it away. His hands were warm and soft on Ian’s cold fingers. “Now you’re pushing it.”


Corey set the glass aside. “Without the drink. Just you and me. No alcohol, no buffer, nothing to soften the blows. Just hear me out, okay?”


Ian sighed and felt tears sting his eyes. “There’s nothing to say.” He wanted the drink, the comfort of getting lost in something, anything, right now. Anything to drown that image of Corey, peaches and cream and summer grass and sweet love, that image he couldn’t seem to push out of his mind.


Chapter 17