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 took a deep breath. “I’m gonna get Chuck and go. We have to practice for this weekend’s show. You’ll be there, won’t you?” This vulnerable version of the drummer was new to me. And dangerously heart-warming.


“Please come.” With a last meaningful look, he went to find his bandmate.


The rest of the week leading up to the show, Laramie would stop in at least once a day to see me, make sure I’d been sleeping well. And I had, thankfully. He showed me parts of his character that I hadn’t known existed. We got to know each other on a deeper level, our likes and pet peeves. We didn’t argue at all, and he didn’t bring up anything about us getting together anymore. Which was a pity, since my heart was thawing out toward this new, thoughtful version of the man. I didn’t know if that was a good thing.


Chapter 11