Come To Me

By A.Y. Caluen

An age-gap M/M romance novella about making beautiful music during lockdown.

 

When all three of his roommates moved out, Davy Sun's living situation was a mess. Then friends of a friend offered their pool house for the duration, and it was an offer too good to refuse.

 

The last thing Davy expected while he was living in some random rich person's backyard was to meet the man of his dreams. But it turned out the rich guy was friendly with guitarist Barry Teller, who came over to give an open-air lesson.

 

The lesson turned into a picnic dinner, and then some playing and singing on the patio. Turned out Barry really liked Davy's voice … and he wanted to hear it from up close.

 

Content alert: this story is set in the real world of 2020.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alexandra Caluen
• Release date: Sep 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215521717

A.Y. Caluen

A.Y. Caluen lives in a small purple house with her husband, a bottle of Laphroaig, a lot of books, and nine pairs of ballroom shoes. She is the author of over fifty contemporary romance novels and novellas featuring creative, diverse characters.

Book preview

Chapter 1

June 2020

I’m about to get evicted. Davy heard himself say it and squeezed his eyes shut. Shit. Didn’t mean to say that. What was Ro supposed to do about it? Even if he wasn’t all the way over in London.

Wait, what?

Sorry, never mind. Didn’t mean to say that, not your problem, just fell out my mouth. But the other guys both took off too. He told Ro about the sudden disintegration of the roommate situation. Jaime was a hygienist; the dentist he worked for apparently looked at what was happening, looked at his Social Security statement, and said fuck it. Gave everybody their notice and retired. The office wasn’t going to re-open, even if the pandemic magically cleared up tomorrow, and nobody was hiring. So that guy moved to Arizona to live with his folks while he re-grouped. Dorian, the orderly, after a month of double shifts, started crashing with a co-worker who had a place close to the hospital. Before long everybody said why don’t you just move in there. Even Davy said that. It wasn’t like he could keep this apartment anyway. Both of them together wouldn’t have been able to. It’s not, like, actual eviction. Not yet. But I can’t swing this rent, so I have to move, so it’s basically the same thing. At least I still have my job. He could do his work as a healthcare coordinator for an LGBTQ-focused nonprofit from home. And I’m healthy. I was already doing the mask thing. You know we’ve been doing that for months.

That’s good. Listen, I met some people last year. What if I could hook you up with a place to live. Ro sounded like he didn’t want to promise anything but had reason to think this was possible.

For real? Davy couldn’t keep the hope out of his tone. Finding an apartment in L.A. was never easy, especially when you didn’t have a car, and right now? When everybody was afraid to open their door? Plus you had to wonder why a place was empty, ugh.

For real, Ro said. I’m on it.

Call me as soon as you know?

Sí, okay.

Davy watched the call drop, sat there staring at the phone for a few seconds, then heaved a sigh. It felt like his whole life had fallen apart since February.

When Ro left, it was a who-knows thing. He was going because some guy he’d never even kissed said ‘come to London, I want to know you.’ Paid for his ticket. And now they were engaged. So that was one down. Then a month later, all of a sudden the new flu turned out to be a worldwide pandemic with no end in sight, and the other guys had to bail.

They were all still healthy, at least. With three out of four of them working in healthcare, and Ro being Type I diabetic, they were maybe a little more aware and cautious than the average. But wearing a mask to protect yourself from other people’s germs (and vice versa) had suddenly gone from ‘generally advisable’ to ‘only a fool would not.’ You couldn’t find the damn things anywhere. Davy ended up making his own out of washable fabric and stuff from the drag box. People were still stockpiling and hoarding the weirdest shit.

And nothing was open except essential businesses. Grocery store, drugstore, Home Depot, the gas station. Two of those were irrelevant to Davy. The others were a pain in the ass. He used to get shit delivered if he couldn’t bum a ride from one of his two roommates with cars. Now he didn’t feel like he could afford that, so he was walking down to the corner bodega where everything either fell off a truck or was half again as expensive as it would’ve been at the supermarket.

He kept half an eye on his laptop screen, open to his in-box. Nothing much was happening. The first six weeks of the lockdown had been a scramble, but now they had a groove. Shared calendars, regular contact times, video meetings. Pretty much nobody bothered with standard working hours. He was basically on call from seven in the morning till eleven at night. In the before times, he would have pushed back hard. But there was nowhere to go, and nothing to do, so he might as well stay available. Try to be indispensable.

Try not to think about the person he might’ve moved in with. As of February, when Ro took off, Davy-and-Jorge was fourteen months old. Their barely-acknowledged anniversary was in December, the same night Ro met Reggie the painter. The date was the only thing those two relationships had in common. Davy met Jorge at a club in Hollywood, not at a movie star’s house in Mid City. It was hard not to be bitter sometimes. If he didn’t really care about Ro, if he wasn’t genuinely happy for the guy – they’d known each other for fifteen years, after all – he’d be one sick mess of envy. Because Ro was going to live in London with a guy who owned his own place, who knew movie stars, who ran one of the best porn sites Davy had ever seen. And Davy was alone, because Jorge was dead. He caught the virus, spent more than a month in the hospital, then died anyway.

They hadn’t ever talked about moving in together. It was more casual than that. Davy didn’t kid himself that it was a great love; at best, it was friends with benefits, except he was pretty sure they weren’t seriously dating anyone else. Maybe he should have committed to being exclusive, but they’d never had that talk either. Even with things being how they were, he thought Jorge would’ve said yeah, come on, you can stay with me. Davy only even knew the guy died because he had contacts at the hospital.

****

Feeling insecure meant it was time to text a few people. He thought about calling his parents, decided against. Things would have to be a lot worse before he’d make that call; they’d immediately go to DefCon 1 and tell him to come home to Seattle, which was not where he wanted to be. Instead he flicked open his camera roll and looked at pictures. A year ago he and Ro and the other guys were still doing the drag thing. The four queens, unlikely friends who would never have met if they hadn’t all loved getting fabulous. None of them were super serious about it, but it was fun. It was a creative, social thing, usually involving music and drinks. Didn’t cost much, and they could be whoever they wanted to be for a night. Turn their whole life into a performance.

The phone pinged, a new text from Ro: You’re going to get a call. Fingers crossed!

Davy texted back a couple of happy emojis, then flipped back to the latest picture from England: Ro in this Lord of the Rings-looking outfit with his hair loose down his back, carrying a longbow. Sexy leather thing on one hand, the other holding the bridle of an honest-to-God horse. Doing some modeling, he said, for another painter. He looked amazing. Healthy, happy, secure. That was all any of them ever wanted. Somehow it seemed like two out of three was the best Davy could ever do.

The phone buzzed in his hand, an incoming call. Unknown number, but he always picked up; sometimes their clients had to change numbers. Hello?

Hi, is this Davy Sun?

Yes?

Hi. My name’s Charlie Lebedev. I met your friend Ro last December at a party and did some pictures with him, I don’t know if he told you.

Davy snorted out a laugh. "Girl, he told everybody."

She laughed too. My stuff’s still on the drawing board. I was planning a series and then shit happened. Anyway, Ro called me up and said you might be having a minor housing crisis.

Yeah. I’m kind of embarrassed about it.

Why?

Her tone was reassuring, so he told the truth. Well, I’m thirty-five. It seems like by this age a person shouldn’t have to worry about making the rent.

Um, Davy – is it okay if I call you Davy? – this is Los Angeles. Everybody worries about making the rent.

A more-open laugh. Thanks for that. Yeah of course you can call me Davy.

Great. Call me Charlie. So the thing is, Ro knew this because he did his session at my place. My husband and I live in the Hills in this kind of oversized house and there’s a guest house? It’s empty now, if you decide you want to come see it. Or if you decide you just want to move straight in.

Davy stared at the phone for a few seconds, wondering if he’d slipped into an alternate reality. Um. We should probably meet, right? What did Ro tell you?

"He told us where you work and that the place you’re in was a four-way share but he and the others left you hanging. We looked up your employer and called to verify. That’s really kind of all we need to know. I mean,