His Song

By J.M. Snyder

Dane is destined for greatness, his boyfriend Krish just knows it, but first he needs to break into the local music scene.

Randy Blake is Dane's idol, a small-town musician with a sound Dane likes. When Blake asks Dane to stop by sometime, maybe have a private jam session, Dane is ecstatic. But it seems Blake has something other than music on his mind.

Krish struggles with jealousy -- he knows Blake would help advance Dane's music, but Krish just can't trust the man. A more pressing question, though, is can he trust Dane when his lover seems blinded by his idol?

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Jun 25, 2010
• ISBN: 9781935753407

J.M. Snyder

An author of gay erotic romance, J.M. Snyder began self-publishing gay erotic fiction in 2002. Since then, Snyder has worked with several e-publishers, most notably Amber Allure Press and eXcessica Publishing.Snyder’s short fiction has appeared online at Ruthie’s Club, Tit-Elation, Eros Monthly, and Amazon Shorts, as well as in anthologies released by Alyson Books, Cleis Press, and others.For more book excerpts, free fiction, and purchasing information, please visit http://jmsnyder.net.

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2

Part 1

The things I put up with, Krish Rajendra thinks, glancing around the darkened coffeehouse. The crowd’s his age but this was never his scene—art students with multi-colored hair, poets in dark jeans and black turtlenecks, aspiring writers chatting about Kerouac and Ginsberg over cappuccinos. Give him a sports bar any day, Monday night football on the tube, Aerosmith on the jukebox, beer sloshing out of cold mugs and peanuts on the floor. None of this candlelight shit, or the heavy scent of espresso that hangs like rain in the air, or the Bob Dylan wanna-bes up on the small stage, taking turns on the open mike with their acoustic guitars and whiney songs. Why is he here again?

Dane.

Krish lets his gaze wander around the room until he sees Jude Danelian, twenty-three and his lover of two years. He’s the reason they’re at the Dharma tonight—Randy Blake will be there, Dane said earlier, when he broached the subject of coming downtown. He sat on the arm of the sofa and leaned onto Krish in that way he has that gets him anything he wants. His body pressed along Krish’s side, his arm draped around Krish’s shoulders, his fingers toying in the short, dark hair at the nape of Krish’s neck. Come on, he cajoled. One night, what’ll it hurt? I don’t want to go alone.

We don’t have to go at all, Krish replied. There’s a game on tonight. He slipped his arms around his lover’s waist and pulled him into his lap. Dane’s tall, slim, almost bony, and when Krish holds him tight, he’s afraid he’ll snap the boy in two. He was captain of the basketball team back in high school, made it through college on an athletic scholarship, and never even talked to an art student until the year after he graduated, when he ran into Dane at the grocery store where the boy worked.

Literally—backed his pickup into Dane’s bicycle; he never did get the hang of reverse. When Dane came out, Krish was already dusting off the bike, thinking maybe no one would notice the bent rims? They weren’t that bad, a little hammering should pop them right back into shape…

Then he looked up and saw that light brown hair, streaked with blond and falling like a curtain in front of Dane’s face, one length to his chin. He had an endearing habit of flipping it out of the way as he talked, and Krish was lost. He insisted on taking Dane out to dinner—his parents owned a small Indian restaurant not far from his apartment, it was the least he could do, give the boy a warm meal and fix up his bike, and by the end of the week they were inseparable. Two years later and all Dane had to do was rub along the sensitive skin behind his ear, stare at him with those puppy-dog eyes, give him a slight pout, and damn. So much for the game.

Now he watches Dane, waiting at the bar for their drinks. The girl at the espresso machine says something that makes him laugh—he ducks his head and his hair falls in front of his face, Krish loves how it does that. Despite the distance and the crowd, he thinks he can hear that laugh, rich and soft like freshly turned soil. When the girl hands Dane one of the drinks, she says something else, smiles coyly, holds the mug even after he takes it. Dull jealousy curls through Krish, an angry ache that makes his head hurt. Hands off, babe, he thinks, narrowing his eyes. That’s my boy so you best just settle down now, you hear?

Dane laughs again—he doesn’t even realize she’s flirting with him; he’s oblivious when it comes to stuff like that. The first time Krish smoothed that hair back from his brow, leaned over him and whispered that he was the sexiest boy he’d ever seen, Dane blushed so fiercely, Krish thought he might spontaneously combust. I’m not that pretty, he said. Since then Krish makes sure to use his lips, his tongue, his hands, anything he can think of, to convince Dane otherwise.

As his lover crosses the room, a steaming latté in each hand, Krish glares at the girl staring after him. If he were the flamboyant type, he’d greet Dane with a possessive kiss, press him back against the booth and show the girl just who the hell this boy belongs to, anyway. He’d like to see the look on her face then, see that cute smile freeze into place. He could do it here—this is a coffeehouse, not a sports bar; none of these artsy-fartsy kids would say shit about two guys making out in the corner and he’s still fairly buff, he could take any of them easily in a fist fight—but he’s not like that. What he does with his boy is his business. He doesn’t perform for an audience.

Dane gives him one of his self-conscious smiles, the ones Krish loves to kiss away. When he slides into the booth and sets the mugs down in front of them, Krish lets his hand find Dane’s leg in the darkness beneath the table and trails up until it rests in the joint where thigh meets groin. He can feel the pillowy softness at his lover’s crotch, and another smile from Dane makes him wonder why they’re here at all. We should be home, he thinks, watching Dane sip his latté. The game on TV and the two of us naked on the couch…now that’s what I call an evening.