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

He held up his hands. “Okay, okay. Jesus, don’t bite my fucking head off.” He didn’t move out of the way, however.


I took the key out of my pocket. “You’re blocking the door.”


“I want to talk to you, but you keep blowing me off.”


“I’d never expect that from you. Why are you being such a dick?”


“You make it sound like I have to give you a reason for what I say or do, when we don’t have anything between us anymore. Never really did, actually, since it had been just sex.”


“We could…what? Oh, I see. You wanted us to get together, is that it? Maybe fool around a bit, like the old days, until you get bored and move on? What do you take me for, stupid? Don’t you have some groupies to fuck or something?”


“You mean the two from earlier?” He shrugged. “They’re harmless, and way too young for me.” He was so cavalier about the whole thing. God, enoughalready.


Chapter 6