Patrick stood in front of the box set section at the local book and music chain, twirling a ragged lock of hair at his temple, trying to figure out how he could best blow his entire paycheck from his first week of working at the grocery store. There was the new U2 collection, but it was mostly old stuff. There was a Springsteen box set he'd never gotten around to buying, but his buddy at school told him he was going to burn it for him. And there was the fact that, when his mother had cashed the paycheck for him, she'd pointed out that his entire closet, top of his dresser, and literally half the floor in his bedroom were filled with CDs, and perhaps he'd like to spend his money on something else, such as clothes, dates with girls, or even food.

Patrick glanced at the bookstore coffee bar. A blueberry muffin would be nice. But the Prince live collection, Earth, Wind and Fire: The Eternal Dance, James Brown: Startime, and Queensryche: Operation Live Crime would be much nicer.

As he was trying to calculate the total of his purchases, Patrick heard a voice behind him say, "It's no fucking use."

He turned around. There were two guys standing in the Showtunes section. They weren't kids from his school, but they couldn't have been much older than him. They were wandering slowly, not looking at the music, engaged in some sort of debate.

"That Spanish guy was good," the one with the longer hair said.

The other one shook his head. "He said he wanted to play ska. I mean, really. Ska."

"What about Mark's friend?"

"He fucked up like ten times playing the solo from Eruption. I don't know why he even tried."

"Now that's what we need," the long-haired guy said. "Someone who can play the solo from Eruption."

The guy with the short, curly hair turned and caught Patrick staring at him. "What?" he said. "Dude. I'm not gay."

His friend sighed. "Joe, you have to stop saying that. Homophobia means you are gay."

"I can play the solo from Eruption," Patrick said.

Joe frowned at him. "What are you, fourteen?"

"Fifteen," Patrick said.

"And you can play Eruption?" Joe asked. "Are you autistic or something?"

The other guy shoved Joe's shoulder playfully. "I'm Andy," he said. "This is Joe. We're trying to put together a band but everyone sucks. You really play guitar?"

Patrick nodded. "And drums. And bass."

Joe and Andy exchanged a look.

"And piano," Patrick continued. "Most wind instruments. And I can sing I guess."

"Wow," Joe said. "So...you wanna come jam at my place with us?"

Patrick smiled slightly. "You wanna buy me a muffin?"

"Uh...sure." Joe looked over at the coffee bar, eyeing the cashier. "Shit, that dude's gonna flirt with me again. You know why everyone thinks I'm gay? It's because I hang out with Pete."

"Who's Pete?" Patrick asked.

Patrick met Pete three days later. By then he'd spent hours jamming with Joe, and while he agreed that they sounded good, he wasn't sure he wanted to make a commitment to a band. He had school, and fifteen hours a week as a stockboy, and other musician friends he liked to play with, and he didn't want to devote all his time to a group of guys he barely knew.

When he told this to Joe, Joe just nodded and said, "Pete wants to meet you."

Pete was supposed to stop by Patrick's house sometime on Saturday, but Patrick was so busy listening to his new music that he almost forgot. Then his older brother called, and it was the first time in two weeks that anyone had heard from him. After they hung up, Patrick was so wrapped up in replaying the conversation in his head, looking for signs that his brother was doing better, that he didn't hear the doorbell until the third ring.

The guy on the front porch was wearing impossibly tight jeans, a bright red t-shirt, and dark eye makeup. When Patrick opened the door, the first thing Pete did was look him up and down, a fine line forming between his dark eyebrows. Patrick knew he looked a little strange in his trucker hat, glasses, thick sweater, baggy jeans, and bright blue sneakers, but at least he wasn't dressed like a girl.

"Is Patrick home?" Pete asked.

"I'm Patrick."

Pete frowned. "Are you like, developmentally disabled in some way I should know about?"

Patrick turned and walked back into his house.

"Wait, wait, I'm sorry." Pete rushed up behind him, following him into the small dining room. "Look, I'm supposed to beg you to join the band. We're serious about writing music and playing out, but Joe says we're not good enough without you. So whatever it takes, man."

Patrick moved to the opposite side of the round wooden table and looked at Pete. In the dim light coming from the windows behind him, Pete looked younger than he probably was, his face like a charcoal drawing done a hundred years ago and left somewhere to fade.

"I'm willing to do anything," Pete said. "Up to and including internet porn."

Patrick made a face.

Pete tapped his hand on the tabletop. "Name your price."

"Apricot waffles," Patrick said.

"Apricot waffles?"

"There's only one restaurant in town that makes apricot waffles," Patrick explained. "But it's thirty miles North, and I don't have a car. So if you drive me there, and buy me apricot waffles, I'll spend the rest of the day writing music with you, and we'll see how it turns out."

Pete shrugged. "Okay."

"Do you have a good amp?"

"I have everything," Pete said.

Patrick considered this. "I'll bring my acoustic, 'cause it's probably better than yours."

Pete rolled his eyes. "Fine. Bring clothes too," he called out as Patrick moved toward the stairs. "You can spend the night."

"I'll ask my mom," Patrick called back.

After securing permission from his parents, who were used to his late-night music events, Patrick put his acoustic guitar and duffel bag of clothes in the back of Pete's rusty red Jetta and slid into the passenger's seat. As Pete pulled onto the highway, Patrick looked through the CDs scattered on the floor, but didn't find any that impressed him enough to put them in the stereo. At the Scofield Diner, Pete had coffee while Patrick had his apricot waffles, and they spoke haltingly about their favorite musicians, songs, and local bands.

Pete lived in a messy studio apartment on the second floor of a small building. He had a piece of plywood over the stove, and seemed to be using it as a desk. There was an old television on a warped wooden stand, a plastic storage container instead of a dresser, and an unmade full size bed in the place of a couch. Like most musicians Patrick knew, Pete seemed to spend all his spare money on equipment, and the nicest things in his apartment were his two guitars, bass, combo amp, and Marshall stack.

Patrick walked up to the Marshall stack and ran his hand over it. "This is amazing. You play with this?"

"At gigs," Pete said. "In the apartment, if you turn it up past level 1, you'll blow the windows out."

"Cool," Patrick said softly. He dropped his duffel bag on the floor and set his guitar case on the bed. "So what kind of stuff have you been playing?"

"I'll show you." Pete grabbed a blue spiral notebook off the top of his stove, picked up his guitar, and sat cross-legged on the bed. Patrick left his guitar in his case and sat opposite him, watching as he hurriedly tuned the guitar and then flipped to a page in the notebook.

Pete began playing and singing his song. It was something about how his girlfriend in eleventh grade was a whore. (And when Patrick peeked at the notebook, he saw that it was indeed titled "My Girlfriend in Eleventh Grade Was a Whore".) At the beginning of the second verse, Patrick put his hand on top of Pete's, cutting of the vibration on the neck of the guitar and silencing it.

Pete's hand was warm, like the darker shade of his skin held some secret heat, and Patrick felt pale and clammy in contrast. His hand was also surprisingly soft for a guitarist's hand, and as Patrick held on, feeling flesh, bone, string, and wood all burning into his palm, he couldn't help but wonder how soft Pete's skin might be in other areas.

Pete looked down at where their hands were joined, and then up at Patrick. "Why did you stop me?"

"Because it doesn't sound good."

Pete pulled his guitar backwards. "Fuck you," he muttered.

"I didn't mean it like that," Patrick said. "I meant –" He reached out and took the notebook. "Can I fix it? It'll only take a minute."

Pete put his guitar down on the end of the bed. "Sure. The song I spent three months writing, you go ahead and fix it in a minute." He walked down the short hallway and into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

Patrick picked at the acoustic as he scanned the lyrics, humming under his breath. It was less than five minutes later when Pete emerged from the bathroom, but rather than join Patrick back on the bed, he breezed past him and went to the refrigerator.

Patrick started playing the song. The melody was strong, and the guitar sounded full and rich. Pete froze with a grape juice box in his hand. Before Patrick even got to the chorus, Pete was sitting directly across from him, his eyes moving between Patrick's fingers on the strings and his lips as he sang.

When the song ended, Patrick looked up, and Pete was staring at him, his face somehow smoother, looking almost like a different person. His entire pretense was gone: the goofy ways he contorted his mouth, the mock-intensity in his forehead as he played, the sexy tilt of his eyes that he must've seen in a movie once and been trying to copy for years. Even his stupid smudged eyeliner looked different, and Patrick was again reminded of a drawing, as if someone had known that he was coming and circled Pete's eyes, as if to say, here, look here, this is where you'll find him.

"You just wrote that?" Pete said, whispering, as if his voice might drown out the last chord of the song. "Just now? While I was in the bathroom?"

"Yeah," Patrick said. "You like it?"

Pete smiled, his mouth huge, toothy, and ridiculously adorable, and Patrick thought that, if he wasn't in a band with Pete, he'd like to kiss him, just once, just to taste that smile.

Then Patrick thought, wait a minute, he didn't want to be in this fucking band anyway, so he leaned over his guitar and pressed his lips to Pete's.

It was quick and simple, a short kiss with only a slight parting of lips. Patrick could tell Pete was surprised by it, and by the time Pete had recovered enough to kiss back, Patrick was moving backwards, wrapping his arms around his guitar and watching Pete's face closely for a reaction.

Pete's reaction was to lunge forward, grab Patrick by the shoulders, and kiss him like he was drowning.

Patrick had kissed people before, both male and female, but never like this. Pete breathed hard against his face, bit down softly on his lower lip, and moaned into his mouth, his voice vibrating through Patrick's entire body.

"Wait a second," Patrick said.

Pete pulled back so quickly he almost fell off the bed. "Oh my god," he said. "I'm so sorry. Jesus. This is so illegal. I don't know what the age of consent is, but you're at least two years away from it. God, I'm such a pervert."

"No, I mean –" Patrick lifted his guitar off his lap and placed it in the open case beside him. "This is an expensive guitar, and I don't want to make out on top of it." He snapped the case closed and pushed it up against the wall. "Okay, let's go."

They ended up lying down, between two guitars, with Pete halfway on top of Patrick, Pete licking his ear as he undid Patrick's pants. Patrick was so dizzy from the kissing that he didn't realize what was happening until Pete's face was in his crotch.

Patrick choked out something that he meant to be a word but sounded more like a moan. Pete wrapped his hand around the base of Patrick's cock and put it in his mouth. Patrick threw his head back and hit it on the neck of Pete's guitar.

He heard a chuckle, and looked down to see Pete with a huge smile on his face, and Patrick thought, even combining all the media, nudity, and pornography he'd been exposed to throughout his entire life, that smile was the sexiest thing he had ever seen. Pete licked up the length of Patrick's cock and wrapped his mouth around it again, and Patrick realized, no wait, that was the sexiest thing he'd ever seen.

As Pete worked his mouth and hand together, Patrick reached out, grasping onto his guitar case with one hand and the sheets with the other, as if he might fall off the Earth if he didn't hold on. His vision was blurry, and he was making unfamiliar noises in the back of his throat, and he knew he couldn't last for long.

"Pete." Patrick reached down and grabbed his shoulder. "Pete."

Pete pulled back long enough to look up and say, "It's okay; you can come in my mouth," before returning to his work, and the words alone were enough to push Patrick over the edge. His body bucked forward, his hand clenched on Pete's shoulder, as he moaned until he thought he was might start choking.

As Patrick lay on his back and tried to catch his breath, Pete moved up to face him, settled down beside Patrick's body, and whispered, "I like how you taste."

Patrick looked over at him. "Okay," he said between deep, ragged breaths. "Okay. I'll be in the band."

They spent the evening going through the rest of Pete's lyrics, Patrick experimenting with riffs and melodies for the ones he considered most promising. Most of the songs were about Pete getting his heart broken by members of both genders, with one about how much he liked pumpkin pie. Patrick read the pie song through twice before shrugging and saying, "If the music's good, no one pays attention to the lyrics anyway."

"You are so romantic, Patrick," Pete said.

Patrick looked up from the blue notebook and stuck his tongue out.

"Now that's an invitation," Pete said, and he tackled Patrick.

After a long and leisurely round of groping and hand jobs, they turned off the lights and lay next to each other in the tangled sheets. Pete had one arm over Patrick's chest, with his face pressed against his cheek, breathing in Patrick's skin as his lips moved against his jaw.

"What are we gonna do about this tomorrow?" Pete whispered.

Patrick considered the question a moment before responding. "We'll go have pancakes."

He could feel Pete's smile against the side of his face. "I mean what are we gonna do when Joe punches me in the face for fucking the best guitarist we've ever met and then I get arrested for statutory rape?"

Patrick turned so that his body was flush against Pete's and put one hand on Pete's hip, his lips brushing against Pete's as he spoke. "Then we'll go have pancakes," he said.

Pete kissed him, more slowly than they'd kissed before, and Patrick thought that maybe this wouldn't be the worst band he'd ever jammed with.

The first show they played was in a bar three hours away. Pete and Patrick drove Joe's van, and Joe and Andy were in Andy's Jeep, that way they'd have enough room not only to transport their equipment, but also to sleep in their cars. They'd practiced Patrick's songs every day for a week, but were still unsure about themselves, which was why they'd accepted a gig in a town where no one knew them.

The played first, and through their entire set no one came within ten feet of the stage. The only people Patrick could see in the crowd were the other bands, a few early-drinkers sitting at the bar, and some waitresses. Even at his young age, Patrick had already played to crowds ten times this size, and a few times at festivals, so he felt a little pathetic singing a song about pumpkin pie to a sound tech and an overweight bartender. But Pete was thrilled, and halfway through their set rushed up to Patrick and kissed him on the neck. Patrick stumbled over his words mid-verse, but no one in the meager crowd seemed to notice. After the show Pete hugged and high-fived everyone who came near him, and Patrick didn't have the heart to tell him that they'd kind of sucked.

They stayed to have a few drinks and watch the other two bands, and none of the waitresses seemed to notice that Patrick was six years under the legal drinking age. Toward the end of the night Pete managed to beg a free thin-crust pizza off the bar's owner, and they ate it while watching the more popular local band get a small crowd worked up. Joe kept poking Patrick in the side and pointing out everything he thought the band's guitarist did well, and Pete kept rubbing Patrick's thigh underneath the table.

At the end of the night Patrick ended up lying on top of a sleeping bag in the back of the van, pinned between Pete and Pete's amp, with Pete's mouth on his neck and his thigh between Patrick's legs. When Pete finished kissing down Patrick's neck and pulled his head back, Patrick thought about how the Pete who looked at him was so different from the Pete who looked at everyone else.

Everyone else's Pete was a goofy, self-involved attention-whore, but when Pete looked at Patrick, it was like his entire face changed. He was softer, calmer, completely unsure of himself, but comfortable with how little control he had. No matter what hideous outfit Pete was wearing, whenever he looked at Patrick, he was completely naked, and Patrick knew this was something special, something he had to protect.

"We should do this every weekend," Patrick said.

"Play a gig or make out in a van?"

"Both." Patrick said as he stifled a yawn. "The crowd was really into your lyrics."

Even in the dark, Pete's eyes sparkled with his smile. "We sucked."

Patrick put his arm around Pete's back. "Yeah."

Pete took a deep breath in, and rubbed his nose against Patrick's face, like he was trying to crawl inside his flesh. "Patrick," he whispered. He pulled his head back and looked into Patrick's eyes. "Patrick, you are the most perfect and beautiful human being I've ever met."

Patrick leaned forward and kissed him quickly on the lips. "You're drunk."

"Yeah, but still."

Patrick reached down to the waist of Pete's stupid tight jeans, and struggled for a moment before finally opening the top button. He wanted to crawl down the length of Pete's body, kiss all his ridiculous tattoos, drink in the scent of beer, sweat, and smoky cheap bars, and suck his cock until he made him scream.

But he was more tired than he thought, and they both ended up falling asleep wrapped around each other, breathing softly, Patrick's hat still on his head, his hand down the front of Pete's pants.

The next morning the four of them had breakfast at a diner. Toward the end of the meal, when Pete got up to go to the bathroom, Joe nudged Andy, and Andy leaned across the table.

"Hey, Patrick?" Andy asked. "Is Pete sexually molesting you?"

Patrick nearly choked on a bite of his banana pancakes.

"Sorry," Andy said. "Didn't mean to be so blunt. It's just that we've had this conversation with a lot of people." He looked back at Joe nervously. "Um...not that Pete's a whore."

Joe picked up one of his last French fries and ran it through a smear of ketchup on the edge of his plate. "Pete's a whore," he said.

"We just want to make sure you're both okay," Andy continued.

Patrick cut his last pancake in half. "I made the first move," he said. "He's not taking advantage of me or anything."

"Yeah," Andy said. "That's good. It's just..." He looked over his shoulder at Joe.

Joe wiped his mouth with a napkin. "It's just that Pete's profoundly fucked in the head. He's a great guy, and one of my best friends, but he's fucked in the head." He dropped his napkin into his empty plate. "Profoundly."

Andy looked back across the table. "And we're just worried things might get weird if he ends up in love with you."

Patrick chuckled. "Don't worry, guys; he's not in love with me."

Just then Pete walked back to the table, still shaking his hands dry, slid into the booth next to Patrick, wrapped his arms around him, kissed him on the cheek, and said, "Patrick, I'm so in love with you."

Patrick stabbed a piece of his food with his fork, held it up to Pete, and said, "Banana pancake?"

Their next show was close to home, and they each had enough friends that there was something resembling a crowd watching them. Still, there was no dancing, and everyone just clapped politely between songs, and Patrick thought he'd rather be ignored than feel like he was playing a set for his grandparents.

Backstage was little more than a hallway with a couch, but Pete was celebrating like they'd just sold out Madison Square Garden. "Did you see that?" he squealed, practically jumping on Joe's back. "They loved us!"

Joe shoved him away, though he couldn't help smiling too. "Pete, they're our friends. And you've slept with like half those people."

"I know!" Pete said, practically squealing. "Most people I've slept with hate me!"

Patrick stood nearby, only half-listening to a guitarist from another band describing the wah pedal he'd just bought, and it wasn't long until he was on the receiving end of Pete's boundless energy. Pete wrapped his arms around him from the side and kissed him on the cheek.

The guitarist raised his eyebrows.

"We're good friends," Patrick said.

Pete licked a line from the base of Patrick's neck up to his ear, and said, "I want you to fuck me tonight."

Patrick gave the guitarist a small smile. "We're very good friends."

"Come on," Pete grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the back door.

Outside was much quieter. With the exception of the bar, the neighborhood was all office buildings, and it was so late that they were the only people in the large parking lot. On the street there were benches, newspaper boxes, and retro-style phone booths, with plastic doors instead of glass. But it was all too newly-developed, too clean, and looked oddly abandoned. It reminded Patrick of a video game he used to play, where you'd have to wander around an abandoned city finding parts of some magical medallion that would help you escape, but halfway through the quest you'd start running into zombies hidden in the schoolhouse, the post office, and the abandoned town square. Patrick loved that game, but each level he advanced, he always kind of stupidly hoped the next person he encountered, instead of trying to eat his brain, would end up being someone cool.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, then Pete's entire body pressed up against his, and Pete's breath in his ear. In the wasteland of his suburban town, his boring youth, and the lame local music scene, he'd somehow found someone cool, someone who honestly believed they could make great music, someone who could give him a hard-on just by exhaling hot and wet on the curve of his neck, someone who thought every note he sang was genius, someone who made him feel loved.

"Go back to my place," Pete whispered in his ear, his breath making a dragging noise as he inhaled. "You'll do it? Patrick." The word seemed to get caught in his throat, and he breathed in deeply again. "Patrick."

Patrick turned around, put his hands on Pete's shoulders, and took a step backwards so he could see him in the dim streetlight. Pete's eyes were half closed. "Are you on something?" he asked.

"No," Pete said. "I don't know." He reached up and rubbed his eyes hard, then blinked rapidly until he was able to focus again. "Where's my car?"

"You can't drive," Patrick said. He reached into Pete's jacket pocket and took out his keys, then headed to the far end of the parking lot where Pete's red car was parked.

"You can't drive either," Pete said as he followed. "You're too young. You're a tiny, tiny baby, Patrick."

Patrick unlocked the door and got into the driver's seat. He didn't have a license, but he'd taken the class, and he'd driven his parents' car plenty of times while they were with him. He waited until Pete was in the passenger's seat, and then turned the ignition. He looked over to see Pete sitting with his head forward, his chest concave, and the heel of his hand pressed to his forehead.

"Sit back." Patrick leaned over and pushed Pete back gently, until his arms fell to his sides and he allowed his body to rest against the seat. Patrick leaned over, pulled the seat belt over him, and fastened it. The car had one of those interior lights that stayed on when you shut the doors, but then extinguished itself gradually, and in the fading light Patrick could see that Pete wasn't entirely with him. He seemed to be staring through everything, his eyes glassy.

"Don't be angry," Pete said.

"No one's angry." Patrick put his arm around Pete's back, and gave him a quick kiss on the lips.

Pete didn't even seem to notice that he was being touched. "You don't know how bad it gets," he said softly.

"Everything's fine now," Patrick said. "We're gonna go back to your house, and make out in your bed, and fall asleep, and tomorrow we can go to IHOP."

Pete nodded, and his chest heaved, as if he was struggling to control his breathing. "I'm sorry," he said. "I can't explain..."

Patrick leaned closer, wrapping both his arms around Pete, pulling Pete's head until it was flush against his. "You don't have to explain anything," he said, and they sat that way in the dark parking lot until Pete's breathing returned to normal.

They didn't talk about what happened in the parking lot. The next morning Pete woke Patrick up by putting his hand down his pants, and they spent over an hour fooling around in the white patches of sunlight that fell onto the bed before heading out to IHOP for a huge breakfast, during which they cracked each other up by singing pop versions of their favorite old-school metal songs, and kicked each other's shoes underneath the table.

For the next three months they played out almost every weekend, even though some of the venues were pathetically small and deserted. There were a few good shows though, mostly when they were with other, more popular bands, or if they played late enough that the crowd was drunk enough to dance to anything. Pete argued that they were getting better every day, and there were even some people showing up to see them who weren't friends or relatives. But Patrick still felt like the band's overall sound wasn't as good as it could be, and he spent hours outside of their regular practice time sitting with Pete's blue spiral notebook and trying to make a decent song out of the lyrics for "I Am Going to Sit in this Room and Write Bad Poetry Until You Love Me You Fucking Bitch".

One day Patrick got a call from an old friend, inviting him to perform at a club's acoustic night, and he brought the idea to the rest of the band. It would have to be just Patrick and Joe, so it wouldn't be how they usually played, but it was a popular local show, and could bring the band a lot of attention. He'd been afraid of hurting Pete and Andy's feelings, but they all agreed that Patrick sounded great on an acoustic, and they were supportive of anything that could help the band.

Patrick and Joe spent two weeks practicing acoustic versions of their strongest songs, along with a few covers. Pete and Andy were at nearly every rehearsal, listening, giving them feedback, making suggestions, and on one occasion, playing an epic game of Battleship that somehow ended with wrestling match in Joe's backyard.

"I'm fine," Pete said as he stood in the garage and watched Patrick pack up his equipment. He was holding a bloody tissue to his forehead, and his jeans were covered in grass stains. "Don't worry about me. It's not like you had to defend my honor or, you know, prevent me from getting my ass kicked."

Patrick reached up to remove the tissue from Pete's head, saw that the scratch wasn't bleeding anymore, and kissed him softly on the mouth. "You're fine," he said. "You don't need me to take care of you."

Pete nodded sagely. "This will teach me to sink people's battleships."

Whatever disagreement Pete and Andy had was settled by the night of the acoustic show. The four of them went to Denny's beforehand, had a massive breakfast for dinner, and then stood right up front while the first three bands played. Andy watched each one carefully, and in the periods between sets he'd gather the rest of them around and criticize the performances.

"They're not as good as us," he said after one band had gotten off the stage.

"Not as good as my Patrick," Pete said, one arm around his shoulder, his other hand occupied by a drink.

Patrick leaned over and sniffed the dark-colored liquid.

"What?" Pete asked.

Patrick shrugged. "What?"

Pete walked away during the next three bands, but Patrick spotted him a few times in the crowd around the bar, flirting with anything that moved. Patrick smiled as he watched Pete make his lame sex-eyes at a group of college girls. He wondered, he hoped, if this was how it would be forever: him quiet and contemplative, focused on the music, and Pete making himself the center of attention, drawing in the crowds, bringing them to hear Patrick as he sang Pete's words.

When it came time for Patrick and Joe to take the stage, Andy helped them bring their equipment onstage, and then jumped down to the floor and gave them a thumbs-up. With the lights from the stage, Patrick couldn't see Pete, but he figured Pete was watching from back by the bar.

They'd debated starting with a cover, but Patrick didn't want to be just another lame cover band, so he convinced Joe to let him start with an acoustic version of one of the songs he'd written with Pete when they'd first met. It sounded great, and when Patrick looked up from his guitar at the end of the song, the crowd directly in front of him had doubled. He looked over at Joe nervously, and Joe took the lead, introducing themselves and the band, giving a shout-out to Pete and Andy, and playing the intro to their next song. After that song, the applause was so loud that Patrick was sure something was fucked up with his monitor, but he didn't want to cause problems for the sound tech, so he just moved on to their next song.

When they finished their set, the stage lights went out, and Patrick was amazed at how many people were standing in front of him. There was practically no one at the bar anymore; everyone had crowded around the stage, and as he and Joe stepped off the side of the stage, there was a rush of people moving around them to congratulate them.

Andy shoved his way through the crowd. "You guys were amazing!" he shouted.

"Where's Pete?" Patrick asked.

"Everyone was talking about you," Andy continued. "Hey, did you meet Eddie? He has a club downtown –"

Patrick grabbed Andy's arm. "Andy. Where's Pete?"

"Uh," Andy looked around. "I don't know."

He found Pete standing next to a dumpster in the alley behind the club, both hands braced against it, vomiting a mixture of hashbrowns and blood onto the pavement. As Patrick approached, Pete let his head fall against the dirty metal, spat out a dark, sticky mass, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and turned so he could lean back against the dumpster, holding onto the edge to keep himself from falling.

"My Patrick," he whispered through chapped lips.

Patrick stopped in front of him and looked down at the vomit at his feet. "You probably have alcohol poisoning," he said. "You should go to the hospital."

Pete shook his head. "I'm fine."

Patrick looked over his shoulder at the club. Through the concrete block wall behind him he could still hear the noise of the crowd. He turned back to Pete.

"You didn't see us play," Patrick said.

Pete opened his mouth, as if he was about to say something, but only managed to fall backwards, banging his hip against the dumpster as he struggled to stay on his feet.

"Stay here," Patrick said. "I'll be right back."

Patrick went back into the club, bought a bottle of water, nodded politely at a few people complimenting his set, and then told Joe and Andy he had to take Pete home. When he went outside, Pete was sitting on the ground, though thankfully not in his own vomit.

"Come on." Patrick held his hand out, and helped Pete to his feet. He kept Pete's hand in his as they made their way to the car. When they were both seated inside, Patrick unscrewed the top of the water bottle and passed it to Pete.

"Drink this," Patrick said. "The whole thing."

Pete closed his eyes and shook his head.

"You'll be a mess tomorrow if you don't," Patrick said, pressing the bottle into Pete's chest until he wrapped his hand around it and took a tentative sip.

Patrick started the car and drove them back to Pete's apartment. Pete silently sipped at the water, managing to finish two-thirds of it by the time they parked outside his building. Pete made it around the front of the car before he stumbled, and Patrick held him by the arm as they made their way up the stairs.

Once inside the apartment, Pete collapsed on the bed and was unconscious by the time Patrick came back from the bathroom, holding a damp washcloth. Patrick sat on the bed next to Pete and wiped his face, cleaning off the dirt, the eye make-up, and something sticky on the curve of his jaw. He took off Pete's shoes, pants, and shirt, and covered him up with a blanket.

Patrick leaned over Pete, brushed back the hair off his forehead, kissed him on the cheek, and said, "Pete, wake up."

Pete opened his eyes slowly, wincing at the overhead light.

"Just listen." Patrick moved so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed, out of arm's reach, and looked over at the window. "My brother's ten years older than I am," he said. "And my very first memory is of him coming home and falling down on the kitchen floor. I was so little I didn't even know how to untie shoes, and I sat there for so long, studying the laces, tugging at his heels, until I finally got his shoes off. Then I got him a glass of water, woke him up, and cleaned his vomit off the floor. It happened so many times I don't even remember which was the first time. I don't remember how many times he passed out in the kitchen, in the hallway, or in the front yard. I don't remember how many times the cops brought him home, or how many times he didn't come home at all, and I stayed awake all night waiting for him. All the times I cleaned him up and tried to hide it from our parents, I thought I was helping him, but I wasn't. And even now, there are times no one hears from him for weeks, or months, and it fucking kills me, because one time he's not going to call. One time he's going to be dead, and I never did anything to help him."

Patrick turned and looked at Pete, who was watching him with hard, sober eyes.

"I'm not going to do this with you," Patrick said softly. "I'll have a couple drinks with you, and I'll have a good time out at shows with you, but I'm not going to deal with you when you're fucked up like this." He looked down at his hands. "I really like you, and I want to play music with you, and kiss you, and everything." He stood up, making eye contact with Pete again. "But the next time you want to kill yourself, call someone else."

Pete just stared at him.

"I'll see you at practice tomorrow night," Patrick said.

"You –" Pete cleared his throat. "You can get home okay?"

Patrick nodded. "It's early. The buses are still running."

"Okay," Pete said, so softly that it was barely audible.

Patrick reached down and squeezed Pete's hand. "Get some sleep." He locked the door behind him, and walked to the bus stop two blocks away.

The next night when they all met to practice, no one mentioned Pete's drinking from the night before, though there was plenty of discussion about how great the show was. Joe had gotten three phone calls that morning inviting them to play at clubs.

"It's unreal," Joe said. "Just a few days ago I was trying to get us gigs by promising Pete's ass to people."

"Oh my God!" Pete said. "Is that why that old guy at the bar last week kept grabbing my crotch?"

Then everyone laughed, and Patrick put his arm around Pete, and Pete leaned his head against Patrick, and everything was good again.

A few days later Patrick spent the night at Pete's house, where they alternated between writing music, making out, and watching the "V" miniseries on DVD.

"The fact that you own both V miniseries," Patrick said as he tuned his acoustic guitar. "Automatically makes you a geek."

Pete flipped open his blue notebook. "And the fact that you know there were two V miniseries, means you are right there with me." He slid the notebook across the bed. "Tell me what you think."

Patrick read through the first song, then looked up at Pete's eager face. "There are puns."

Pete smiled.

"You wrote puns," Patrick said.

Pete nodded. "Do you like it?"

Patrick looked down at the page, then back up at Pete. "Of all the literary elements you could employ –"

"Screw you, Patrick." Pete snatched the notebook back. "You don't see me making fun of your music."

Patrick couldn't help but chuckle. "Because my music's good."

"That's it." Pete launched himself across the bed, knocking the notebook to the floor, and tackled Patrick onto his back. He began by tickling his sides, but they were kissing soon enough.

"Say my lyrics are good," Pete muttered against Patrick's lips.

Patrick just laughed in response.

"Say my lyrics are good," Pete said. "Or I'm going to stop kissing you."

Pete gave one last nip to Patrick's neck before moving his face above Patrick's and raising his eyebrows threateningly.

"You will never stop kissing me," Patrick whispered. And he was right.

An hour later they both lay sweaty and half-naked on the bed. Pete reached down to the floor and retrieved his notebook. "Want to read another one?"

Patrick leaned up on his elbow. "Sure. As long as it isn't like, filled with bad penis metaphors or something."

Pete tossed the notebook across the room. "I'll write some more songs tomorrow," he muttered, and he turned and curled up against Patrick's chest.

One night after a show, Pete was talking to some girl he knew from college, and Patrick wasn't really listening, because the guitarist on stage was pretty good, and he was completely focused on watching the guy's hands move.

"That's exactly like me and Patrick," he heard Pete say. "Like how, this band could break up, and we could move to opposite sides of the country, and the planet could be destroyed by a meteor, but we would still always be best friends. We're that much in love, you know?"

The girl gave Pete a strange look. Patrick wasn't surprised at her reaction; he thought she'd been talking about microbrews, which had very little to do with how much Pete and Patrick were in love.

Another night Pete and Patrick went out to see a band with one of Patrick's friends in it. It was a private party, the drummer's sister's thirteenth birthday, so there was no alcohol, but that didn't stop them from having a good time. Pete seemed to become best friends with everyone in the first hour. He played with the little kids, started a mosh pit with the teenagers, and even flirted with one of the mothers. Patrick got invited onto the stage and sang a few old punk covers with the band. And from the crisp darkness of the makeshift backyard stage, through a veil of noise and fireflies, he looked down and saw Pete grinning at him, with his hair all messed up and his face flushed from running around the yard, and Patrick just wanted to jump on top of him and pin his arms above his head and lick the sweet-smelling curve in the center of his sternum, and later, he did.

The next month they did another show out of town, and Patrick brought a crate, an actual wooden crate, filled with CDs. During the drive he played Pete an assortment of classic rock, pausing occasionally to shout something like, "You don't know Zappa? How can you not know Zappa?"

"You're such a fucking music snob," Pete said from the driver's seat of Joe's van.

Patrick reached back to his crate to get another handful of discs. "I'm never speaking to you again."

"Cool," Pete said. "I'm gonna pull over at this rest area so we can have sex."

"Okay," Patrick said.

The show was good, but Patrick noticed that Pete was oddly subdued. Subdued by Pete standards. By normal human standards, he was still a narcissistic mess of attention-deficit disorder and clumsy sexuality. But he didn't yell at the small crowd, or try to molest Patrick on stage, or do anything vulgar with his bass, and after the set he disappeared. When Patrick asked Andy if anything weird had happened the day before, when they'd been practicing while he was at school, Andy just shrugged and said, "He's probably tired. I don't think he slept last night."

When Patrick found him, Pete was lying down in the back of the van, his arms behind his head, staring at the ceiling and drumming his fingertips on his stomach, as if playing an imaginary guitar. After watching him for only a few moments, Patrick could tell he wasn't playing the chords he probably intended to play, but Pete looked so sad that Patrick decided not to mention it.

Pete looked up and smiled weakly. "You should go back. I'm fine. I just get like this sometimes."

Patrick didn't say anything, just closed the doors behind him and lay down on the floor next to Pete. They were silent for a long time, staring at the shadows thrown from the dim light of a streetlamp on the other side of the parking lot. Then Pete rolled onto his side, pressed his face against Patrick's neck, and wrapped his arms around Patrick's chest like he was drowning, and the sensation of them touching was the only thing keeping him alive.

Patrick started singing "Joe's Garage", and while he couldn't do a very good job with the song while lying on his back with someone's nose in his throat, he didn't think Pete was bothered by his sub-par performance. As soon as he began, Pete made a soft noise deep in his throat, something between a breath and a moan, and his body trembled lightly with something between an orgasm and a sob. Patrick shifted, as if he could somehow get closer, as if he could absorb everything inside Pete that hurt, and replace it with kisses and breakfasts and classic rock melodies, and somehow that moment was more intimate than sex could ever be.

And before he even got to the bridge, Pete was asleep.

Eventually they got their first gig that paid in actual money, rather than free Buffalo wings and beer, and they splurged on two motel rooms down the street from the club where they were playing. A few hours before they were due to perform, Pete and Patrick checked into their room, took a shower, got distracted while in the shower, performed acts that necessitated a second shower, and finally got dressed for the show. Patrick wore a pink t-shirt, a yellow sweater, a blue blazer with worn cuffs, black corduroy pants, green sneakers, and a red baseball cap. Pete wore a black hoodie with purple hearts on the sleeves, size 4 ultra-low-waist women's jeans, and white boots covered in gold glitter.

As Patrick was reading a newspaper and Pete was applying eyeliner, Joe and Andy came into the room.

"Hey guys," Andy said. He shifted nervously. "Look, this probably isn't the best time, but we..."

"We have to say something," Joe finished for him. "Are you two...?"

Patrick and Pete turned to look at them.

"Are you two getting dressed in the dark?" Joe asked.

Pete looked down at his outfit. "I look pretty," he said with a pout.

"Pete," Andy said gently. "I know twelve year-old girls who wouldn't wear that outfit."

"And Patrick –" Joe began.

"Don't say anything to Patrick," Pete interrupted. "Patrick looks great." He moved to the bed, where Patrick was reclining, and patted his knee reassuringly. "These shoes really bring out his eyes."

Joe sighed. "You're like two codependent alcoholics. You have to stop encouraging each other."

Pete threw his arms around Patrick dramatically. "Patrick, if we ever make it big, I'll buy you a hundred stupid hats."

Patrick patted Pete's shoulder. "Thanks. If we ever make it big, I'll uh...buy you a gift card to TJ Maxx."

"If we ever make it big," Joe added. "I'm doing an entire VH1 Behind the Music about your stupid clothes."

Andy laughed. "Sound check in an hour, guys."

Pete stood up quickly. "Damn. I gotta finish my make-up."

Pete took off as soon as they got to the club, but no one was particularly worried. They'd actually arrived early, and there was plenty of time to talk to the other bands and set up. At one point Patrick saw Pete talking to the female singer in another band, standing close with his hand on her arm, and later he was sitting next to one of the male bartenders and appeared to have his tongue in the guy's ear. It was all pretty typical and safe Pete behavior.

But when they were getting ready to play, and Pete walked onto the stage behind him, Patrick noticed that he looked uncharacteristically pale.

"You okay?" Patrick asked.

Pete looked up from where he was fiddling with his amp and smiled, but it was just a forced movement of his mouth; his eyes looked blank and a little bit bloodshot. "Yeah," he said.

"Cause you look weird," Patrick said, taking a step toward him.

"I'm fine," Pete said, a little too quickly, as he moved backwards, bumping against the corner of his amp but hardly noticing.

"Look, if you just fucked someone backstage, that's totally cool," Patrick said. He hadn't had nearly as many hook-ups as Pete had in recent months, but he'd met a few people, and he was comfortable with the way their relationship had developed into something close but not monogamous. Still, he was occasionally weirded out by how mutual friends would refer to them as PatrickandPete, and he didn't want Pete to get the idea that he would ever become jealous or possessive.

"Everything's fine," Pete said, ducking his head down, as if purposefully avoiding Patrick's eyes.

"Hey, if there's something –" Patrick reached out, and his fingertips had barely brushed against Pete's black and purple sleeve when Pete knocked his arm away, hard, and Patrick's hand connected with the drum behind him.

"Will you just leave me the fuck alone for one minute?" Pete shouted.

Joe was between them in an instant, grabbing Pete by the shoulders and forcing him as far away as possible while still being on the stage. A moment later Andy was at Patrick's side, holding his injured hand and running his fingers along his reddened knuckles.

"Are you okay?" Andy asked.

Patrick nodded. It hadn't broken the skin, and didn't hurt enough to keep him from playing. He leaned to try and see past Andy. Joe was saying something in a strong, even voice and Pete had his head ducked down so low his forehead was barely visible.

Andy glanced over his shoulder, then turned his attention back to Patrick. "Don't worry about him right now," he said gently.

"I'm not worried about him," Patrick said, his voice tasting bitter in his mouth. "I'm...whatever, fuck it." He pulled his hand out of Andy's grasp. "Take him back to your room tonight, okay?"

"Sure," Andy said.

Joe walked over to them. "He's gonna leave you alone for now," he said to Patrick. "We'll deal with this later."

Patrick wanted to say something else, something about how he didn't need Joe's help to resolve anything, and especially not to protect him. He'd shouted, yeah, but Pete would never do anything to actually hurt him, and it wasn't like they needed a band intervention to deal with it. They were best friends, they were writing partners, they were PatrickandPete.

But they were supposed to go on in a matter of seconds, so Patrick just walked to the opposite end of the stage and picked up his guitar. They played a decent set, and afterward Patrick sat and watched the next two bands, and pretended it didn't bother him that Pete had disappeared.

After the last band had played, Patrick sat at the bar and talked to the third band's guitarist, a pretty sixteen year-old boy with lips that looked permanently wet, and was debating inviting him back to the motel room when the second band's singer tapped him on the shoulder.

"You're Patrick, right?" she asked. She pursed her lips together nervously. "He's asking for you."

Pete was lying on the floor of the women's bathroom, unconscious, with a red and yellow bruise on his forehead. His eyes looked sunken into his head, and there was some unidentifiable substance on the front of his shirt.

"Oh my God." Patrick knelt at his side, oblivious to the sticky floor, and turned Pete onto his back. "Fuck. What happened?"

"We were talking before the show, and he was fine," the girl explained. "Then I didn't see him for a while, and he showed up like this." She crouched down next to them. "He was awake a minute ago. I don't think it's serious. His head, I mean."

Patrick ran his fingertips over the wound. It wasn't bleeding, and though it looked awful, it wasn't bad enough to cause a concussion. At the touch, Pete opened his eyes. They were completely red, and his pupils were too small.

Patrick turned to the girl. "I'm sorry. I mean, I'll take him back to the motel."

"Do you need help?" she asked.

Patrick shook his head. "Come on," he said to Pete. "Come on, stand up." He helped him to his feet, and though Pete clung to Patrick's sleeve tightly, he was okay to walk, and they made their way out of the club and down the street.

He didn't turn on the light in the room. He sat Pete down on the bed, and Pete curled into a ball, hugging a corner of the blanket to his chest, and breathing heavily, like it had taken too much effort just to walk.

Patrick sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at the motel room wall, where the moonlight burned a shadow of Pete's form into the yellowing wallpaper.

"Patrick," Pete said from behind him, his voice thick and gravely. "Patrick, I love you."

Patrick took in a few deep breaths before responding. "Don't ever say that to me when you're fucked up," he said softly. He stood up and turned to face him. "Actually, just don't ever fucking say that to me again."

Pete pushed himself into a sitting position slowly, as if struggling against dizziness. "Patrick..."

Patrick went to the other side of the bed and grabbed his duffel bag. He'd left some dirty clothes on the floor, and he shoved that inside and zipped up the bag.

"Don't go," Pete whispered.

Patrick walked around to the other side of the bed.

"Patrick, please –"

"If you give a shit about me at all," Patrick said, "don't make this harder."

Patrick walked to the door. When he turned around to look back, Pete was sitting in the center of the bed, his knees to his chest, his body folded in on itself, his eyes blank. Normally, when Pete walked into a room, everyone knew he was there. With just a word, a look, or a smile, he filled every space he inhabited. When he touched someone, everything else was drowned out by his energy. Patrick had never seen him look so small before.

Patrick left, locking the door behind him, and went back to the club, where he could borrow their phone to call his mom, ask Andy to look in on Pete, and tell Joe he was quitting the band.

The first night, Patrick felt like someone tore half his soul out of his body through his throat. Then he thought that sounded like a lyric from one of Pete's crappy songs. Then he sat on the floor in his bedroom for an hour, breathing deeply and willing himself not to cry. Then he slept for fourteen hours straight.

For the next few days he didn't leave the house. He told his parents he'd quit the band to join his friend Kevin's band instead, but his mother knew something was wrong, and he caught her watching him a few times like she was afraid he was going to explode or something. Instead of exploding, he watched a lot of crappy TV, looked for new music online, made pancakes in funny shapes, left ten voicemails for his brother, and didn't touch his guitar.

After a while he had to do something else, so he met up with some old friends to go to movies and concerts, played a bit of music in someone's basement, worked a few shifts at the grocery store, jammed with a guy from school, and even played at a private party with a local band he really liked whose guitarist had strep throat.

Two weeks later Pete showed up on his doorstep, wearing skintight plaid pants and holding his blue spiral notebook out in front of him.

"Do you want this?" Pete asked.

Patrick had just gotten out of the shower, and was supposed to leave soon to meet someone from school to go see a new band play. His hair was still wet, and he felt naked without a hat on. He looked at Pete's hands, but didn't respond.

Pete lowered the notebook and looked off to the side nervously. "There's some new stuff, in the back, and if you're not gonna sing it, I don't want it, that's all."

"Uh, okay," Patrick said. "I mean, if you don't want it."

Pete held the notebook out again, and Patrick took a step forward to accept it.

"So, um," Pete said, still without looking up. "Fuck the band, okay? Don't worry about it. It doesn't matter."

Patrick nodded. "How's Joe and Andy?"

Pete smiled slightly. "They're okay. They hate me a little, but that never lasts long." He looked up at Patrick, his eyes strangely clear and youthful without make-up. "I just mean, forget about the band, and the music, and my crappy lyrics, and even forget about the sex. I just –" He looked down at his shoes. "I just need you to be my best friend again. Eventually." He looked up. "If you want to."

Patrick hugged the notebook to his chest.

Pete twisted one of his feet so that he was leaning on the side of his dirty sneaker. "If you want to," he repeated. He forced another small smile. "I'll see you."

"Yeah," Patrick said, and he went into the house before Pete had a chance to say anything else.

That night, after everyone else in his house had gone to sleep, Patrick sat on his bed and read the entire notebook, all one hundred wide-ruled pages, beginning with "My Girlfriend in Eleventh Grade Was a Whore" and "The Next Time You Bring Zima to my Party I am Going to Cut You" and ending with "You Taste Like Pancakes and Blowjobs" and "You are the Most Perfect and Beautiful Human Being and I Don't Know How You Exist in this World". When he was done, Patrick turned the notebook over and read it through again. And when he was done with that, he stood up and got his guitar.

The next day Patrick called in sick to school and work, and spent the morning sitting in the park and sipping a cup of coffee while softly humming to himself. He thought about the time when he was seven years old, and his family was on vacation at a cottage they rented every summer on a lake, and his brother was complaining that he'd forgotten his favorite mix tape at home. And in the shadow of the little wooden house, in the fading sunlight just after dinner, staring out at the overdeveloped coastline of a green-gray body of water with some Native American name he could never remember, Patrick realized that not everyone had music in their heads, and he couldn't imagine how people lived like that.

When he finished his coffee, Patrick took the bus to a familiar building on the other side of town, walked up to the second floor, and knocked on Pete's door.

It was almost noon, but Pete looked like he'd just woken up, his hair messy and his eyes tired. When he saw Patrick, his face lit up, and he was obviously trying not to grin. He stepped backward and opened the door. "Come on in."

Patrick walked into the messy, single room, and though Pete tossed some dirty clothes from the bed onto the floor, Patrick made no move to sit down. He raised one hand to show that he was carrying the blue notebook.

"These are actually good," Patrick said.

Pete's smile widened. "You sound so surprised."

Patrick looked down at the notebook. "I kind of want them." He looked up at Pete. "I kind of want everything."

Pete seemed to be holding his breath.

"How did you know you loved me?" Patrick asked.

Pete's eyes widened, then flickered to the bed. "The first day I met you," he said. "When I heard you play. It was like you validated everything I loved about music." His eyes moved back to Patrick. "And then every day after that, it was like you validated everything I loved about just living in the world."

Patrick took a step forward, and he could feel that warmth again, that heat that always seemed to radiate off Pete's body, like his insides were just a tangled mess of fire and sex. When he spoke his voice was so soft that Pete had to lean forward to hear him.

"I knew I loved you," Patrick said, "When you messed up, and I didn't stop loving you. And I want it all back. I want the music, and the band, and the writing with you, and the kissing, and the sex, and the long nights in your bed, and the times you get too drunk to see straight. I want you to fuck up over and over again, and I want to forgive you every time, and I want you to know that you can do anything, and I'll love you in spite of it all, and because of it all, and no matter what happens."

Pete stared at him, his lips parted, a slight line forming between his eyebrows, and then let out a long, deep breath. "Fuck," he said. "Holy fuck, how do you even exist in this world?" And before the sentence was finished, he had his arms at Patrick's sides, and his chest pressed against him, and his mouth parting Patrick's lips, breathing into him hard and hot.

If sex with Pete was normally raw and passionate, sex with Pete after not speaking for weeks was so intense that, by the time they were lying tangled on the bed, grabbing desperately at each other, all Patrick could hear was Pete's labored breathing and the rush of his own blood through his ears. Pete pressed his hips against Patrick's clumsily, his feet struggling for purchase on the tangled sheets. By the time he got Patrick's pants undone, they were both sweating and shuddering, and they came within seconds of each other, without even having taken off their clothes.

Patrick collapsed on his back, and as he struggled to catch his breath, Pete made himself comfortable with his arm across Patrick's chest and his face resting against Patrick's cheek. "So you wrote new music?" Pete asked.

"Yeah," Patrick said. "And it's good. The songs about, you know, us – we probably don't want to play those in public. But the rest are good enough to make a demo."

Pete kissed the side of Patrick's face slowly, his lips wet. "And you liked my lyrics?"

"They were great," Patrick said. "It didn't even take me that long to fix them."

Beside him, Patrick could feel Pete's huge, goofy smile on his skin as he chuckled silently into his neck. "We should go play the new stuff for Joe and Andy. You up for it?"

"As long as we can stop on the way for some coffee." Patrick stretched his arms up above his head and yawned. "Maybe a blueberry muffin."

Pete leaned up on his elbows and looked down at Patrick, his eyes sparkling. "We're going to do something amazing," he said. "We're going to take over the entire world."

Patrick smiled. "All I really want is a blueberry muffin."

Pete leaned his head down, so that their foreheads were touching. "Are you ready?" he asked.

"I'm ready," Patrick whispered, and when Pete kissed him, all he heard was music.