Dorian Seacrest owns a music store and performance venue with his friend and business partner, Evan Harper. When Evan rushes into the stockroom a week or so before Christmas to tell him Caesar's Flame is booked for New Year's Day, he goes into shock. Many years have passed since Dorian has seen Laramie Treble, the drummer and leader of the now globally successful alternative rock band. Their erstwhile relationship -- mostly about sex -- deteriorated once Laramie became famous, mainly because he wanted to sleep with everything that moved. So Dorian left him to it. He wanted monogamy and forever, or nothing at all. Now Laramie is back and in hot pursuit of Dorian once again. But Dorian is not making it easy. He can't, because his heart won't survive another round, especially if all Laramie wants is something casual like before. He's just not built that way. It seems, though, that Laramie is determined to prove Dorian wrong, and there might be a little drummer boy in his future, after all. Dorian just has to decide whether to let his heart beat to Laramie's drum.

The Beat of His Drum

Finally getting the idea that I wasn’t going to be anything but business as usual, Laramie sighed. “No, the ones you have are fine. I have two new drum sets to kit out Can you do a special order? I need them sooner than later.”


“Yeah, sure. I’ll take care of it.” I pulled up the order screen to enter his information. “Tell me where to send the items. What’s your address now?”


He gave me the information for a swank area of town. I double-checked what he told me, then took his American Express Gold card to pay for the order.


“Thanks,” I said when I returned it.


I printed a receipt and handed it to him. “You should have them by Wednesday.”


He started to say more, but I angled my head to the next person in line, who happened to be Chuck, with Evan right beside him, ever the opportunist. Laramie took the hint, and he, along with his fawning groupies, moved out of the way.


Chapter 5