Fractured Heart: The Tale of the Pop Star and the Pauper

"Fractured Heart: the Tale of the Pop Star and the Pauper" is a #boysLove / #gay #romance #webnovel about a shy, sulky, economically underprivileged underground EDM artist that ends up falling in love with a funny, flirty, overly-friendly world-famous pop star who seems like he has it all, until they discover that even two people from such wildly different social classes can still bond over their 'fractured hearts'!

You can read four advance chapters for $5/month, as well as the first eight chapters for FREE, on patreon:

"SFW" version: patreon.com/fracturedheart

"as intended" adult-only version: patreon.com/fracturedHeartAO

You can also find more info on the main website: www.fracturedheart.net

(You can read the first eight chapters free at www.fracturedheart.net and read a full 3-5k word chapter every Friday for only $5 a month at patreon.com/fracturedheartAO after that!)

Scenario: Lysander the world-famous pop star and boyfriend of shy, grumpy tsundere EDM DJ Theo has recently gone out of town for a performance while Theo stayed home to work on his music, and naturally they can't go a day without immediately having phone sex XD

~~

Lost ‘in the zone’ as he had been, Theo hadn’t noticed that his phone notification had gone off until he’d finished his workout. He was in the process of toweling perspiration from his brow when he finally thought to check for messages, forcing enough strength into his beleaguered arm to pull his phone up from the side-table he’d left it on. Immediately his eyes widened as the motion triggered the phone to flash a preview of the text he’d received, and he paused only long enough to make sure he didn’t get the screen streaked with sweat before he unlocked it to read the message in its totality.

Sorry, babe. As soon as we got checked in, the owner of the stadium we’re performing at tonight insisted on taking us out to dinner at a high-end steakhouse. I didn’t want to be rude and check on my phone while we were there, and we got back so late that I didn’t want to risk waking you up. How are you doing? Want a phone call? I have a couple hours left before I need to go to the arena…I was thinking about catching up with emails, but I’d much rather talk to you. :)

Theo bit back a smile even though there was no one around to judge him for it, amused and relieved to find that his boyfriend hadn’t already forgotten about him only a day after he’d left. The text had come almost half an hour ago—Theo decided Lysander could stand to wait ten minutes more so he could shower the stink off of himself. So deciding, he bathed in record time, not bothering to get dressed afterward before he collapsed backward onto the mattress and stared at his phone for only a moment before he decided to call rather than text first.

“Babe!” This time Lysander spoke first, sounding relieved and eager as if they hadn’t just talked less than a day prior. “There you are. Sorry, were you in a meeting with Victoria or something? I hope I didn’t interrupt you.” He sounded so bashful and apologetic that Theo couldn’t help laughing, thinking how odd it was that the world-famous pop star should be the one that seemed nervous. At the sound of his laughter, Theo practically heard his lover’s brows drawing together before the singer asked, a little offendedly, “What?”

“N-nothing. Just…I miss you.” Theo sighed, laughing again softly. God, it was so good to hear his voice. “Um…how was, uh, the s-steakhouse?”

“Oh. Fine. My fillet mignon was a little overdone, but I’ll survive. The owner was really insistent on showing his gratitude that we’re kicking off the tour in his stadium.” Lysander broke into his own laugh, sounding a little bemused. “I didn’t have the heart to tell him that actually our first choice would have been The Circle, but that place was already booked out almost two years ago by Barbara Savannah.”

“Barbara S-Savannah?” Theo echoed, the name so famous that even he’d heard of her. Anyone who had ears and had been around a radio at least once in their lifetime would have heard of her. “Isn’t she, l-like, eighty years old?”

“Something like that. Still performing though.” The pop star sounded genuinely impressed. “Here’s hoping I still have that much energy fifty years from now.” Theo struggled to imagine Lysander ever not brimming with energy, even as a shriveled old man. Who was he kidding? Lysander would probably still be hot even at a hundred. Though he might not still have every strand of golden hair by then.

Swallowing back a titter, Theo cast his gaze about the bedroom from his vantage for a few moments, trying to come up with something else to ask about. Truthfully, it just felt wonderful to hear Lysander’s voice. Especially considering Lysander was actually listening and responding to him, not just ‘speaking’ to him through something pre-recorded.

Then, taking notice of the fact that he was alone in their apartment right now with nary a friend or stranger around to overhear, he grinned a little wider then asked, “Wh-where are you right now? Still in your h-hotel room?”

“Yeees?” Lysander confirmed in a drawl, his tone indicating that he already caught what direction Theo was heading with his inquiry.

Theo practically giggled in response, clamping his lips together and composing himself before he said with false nonchalance, “I see. And…are you c-currently alone in your room?”

“No, everyone’s over. We’re actually having a party right now.” The singer’s pretense collapsed immediately as he huffed a laugh then said, “No, of course I’m alone. Why? You want to exchange embarrassing secrets?”

Damnit. He was going to make Theo explicitly say it, wasn’t he? “N-No. I want to ‘help you relax’.”

The slight, excited intake of breath from the other side of the phone had Theo smiling hugely. “Well, I am pretty stressed out right now,” Lysander admitted, not sounding stressed out at all. “What do you propose I should do about that stress…master?”

The way his lover purred the ‘pet name’ immediately shot Theo through with a bolt of lust so intense that he almost groaned. He suddenly felt very naked, all his awareness pinpointing on his unsheathed cock. It twitched where it lay against one of his thighs, already beginning to harden. Jesus…it’d been a day and a half since his boyfriend had last fucked him senseless. Was he really this libidinous? Had his horny pop star lover turned him into a pervert, too?

“Theo?” Lysander said uncertainly, and Theo realized he’d zoned out, his consciousness completely focusing on the strong and sudden urge to touch his cock.

He needed to get his lover just as pent-up first, though, so he’d have to wait. “Tell me what the r-room looks like,” he instructed, closing his eyes again as he prepared to paint a picture in his mind.

“The room? Umm, let’s see…” The singer trailed off for a few moments, and Theo assumed he was piecing together the right descriptors as he observed his surroundings. “Well, it’s not super fancy, since we’re not on the Strip,” he began at last, sounding a little far away as if the receiver wasn’t right next to his mouth anymore. “There’s, uh, a single king-size bed, a dark wood nightstand, a cabinet with a TV on it, two armchairs next to the window with a reading lamp hanging over a circular coffee table between them…”

“Mmhmm?” Theo prompted, letting all the building ardor he had within him slip into his tone. He still wouldn’t let himself touch his genitals, but he started stroking his chest, trying to convince himself it was his lover’s hand instead of his own. “What c-color’s the carpet?”

Lysander laughed at that, then fell quiet again before saying curiously, “I’m not sure how to describe it. Sort of chaotic? Brown and black and red triangles on top of each other. Honestly, it’s hideous. I’m glad we’ll be out of here tomorrow morning so I don’t have to look at it again.”

Theo echoed his laugh, momentarily startled out of his mounting desire. Damnit, Lysander was making it hard to be sexy, teasing him into laughter like that. He decided to be a little more direct.

“What’s the b-bed cover feel like?” he asked, then added, “You should p-probably take your pants off so you can s-see how it really feels.”

Lysander said nothing in immediate response to that; Theo instead heard the clink of metal, probably a belt buckle being undone, then the rustle of fabric. The tonal quality indicated that it was happening some distance away from the phone, and rather hurriedly.

“Mmm. Kinda rough,” his boyfriend finally answered his inquiry, the affected indifference of his tone belied by his slightly rapid breathing. “Bet it’s barely even 200-thread count.”

“Spoiled brat,” Theo giggled. “What happened to ‘w-we’re lucky if we get to sleep in a bed, p-period’?”

“I’m just saying. You’re the one who asked,” Lysander replied a little poutily. “What else should I describe? …Should I tell you how hard I already am?”

It was Theo’s turn to have his breath catch in his throat, penis twitching in a reciprocal approach to hardness. “Are you?” he said, with effort keeping his tone passive. “How interesting. Wonder h-how hard we can get your dick without you being allowed to t-touch it.” The singer groaned frustratedly at that, and Theo bit his lip in capricious pleasure, his own forestalled ardor comforted by the knowledge that he was starting to make his boyfriend squirm.

“Cruel master,” Lysander chided, a little airlessly. His breathing hitched again, and Theo thought that maybe he was disobeying Theo’s order and already stroking himself.

“Turn over,” Theo commanded, figuring it would be harder for Lysander to pump his cock if it was crushed into the bed. “Tell me h-how the cover feels brushed against your n-nipples.”

More rustling; Theo heard sheets rubbing against each other, and it did indeed sound like coarse material. Hopefully his lover’s sweet, tender skin wouldn’t be too badly bruised from having to sleep in it one more night.

“Rough,” Lysander confirmed, his breathing tight. “It’s…making them…sensitive.”

“Rub against them. Against the c-covers.” Since he knew their own bedding was considerably softer, Theo didn’t bother flopping over to mimic his lover’s presumed pose. Instead, he performed his next directive on himself as he said it. “Pinch them.”

Lysander replied with a soft moan, and Theo squirmed a little as he kept his eyes closed, imagining his lover’s tall, broad-shouldered form laying stomach-down on the coarse-grained bedspread with the ugly carpet underneath him, muscular planes gilded by bright light streaming in through a large window overlooking the Nevada desert. “Theo,” Lysander breathed after another moan, his tone strained. “Master. Please, let me touch myself.”

“No,” Theo denied him, smiling wider than ever. The thought of exerting control over his lover even from hundreds of miles away, with no actual power over him other than what Lysander chose to give him, was as amusing as it was arousing. “Not yet. N-not your dick.” He considered, then, “T-touch your ass instead. Rub the outside of your a-asshole.”

Unlike sheets, it was harder to hear through the phone if skin brushed against skin. But judging by the sounds Lysander was making, muffled as if he had his mouth pressed into a pillow, he seemed to be following Theo's instructions to a T.

Because he was the master, and not the pet, Theo figured he deserved more autonomy over how much he allowed himself to touch his own body. It took too much effort to keep the phone in place with one shoulder pressing it to his cheek, so he switched it to speakerphone, set it a little ways away on the mattress, then turned around to kneel on the mattress. He angled himself so that one hand was free to wrap around his shaft while his other glided a finger between his own ass cheeks.

“G-go inside,” Theo commanded, not caring if he sounded breathless. “T-two knuckles deep.”

Lysander loosed a faint laugh, sounding rueful. “Can I get lube first?” he asked a little plaintively. “My ass is a little too tight to jump straight to that.”

Remembering explicitly just how tight his lover’s firm ass was, Theo grumbled a bit, then allowed benevolently, “Fine. But s-still no touching your dick.” He decided that maybe lube was a good idea on his own end, so he reached into the nearer nightstand and pulled out a bottle of it. He tried not to dwell on the last time Lysander’s hands must have touched the bottle.

Even if he wasn’t physically in the same room with his lover at the moment, he was still connected to him through verbal communication, and wasn’t that the most important thing? Besides, he’d both fucked and been fucked by his boyfriend enough times at that point to very well imagine what every part of his lover must have looked like at that moment.

“Are you touching your ass?” Theo probed after his lover had been silent for a little too long—maybe he’d had some trouble getting to his suitcases to locate the lubricant Theo had no doubt he’d brought along with him as easily as Theo had located his.

“Yeah,” Lysander confirmed belatedly, a little winded as if he’d just darted back across the room to resume the phone call. He, too, sounded as if he’d switched to speakerphone, but Theo supposed that was a better idea than getting lube all over the screen. “Ah, god, Theo…”

“What does it f-feel like?” Theo asked, sticking his own fingers inside of himself, first one, then two. Unlike Lysander, Theo had grown used to bottoming nine times out of ten, and he liked to think he was pretty good at relaxing his inner walls to take in whatever size phallic object he was currently interacting with without feeling discomfort. He was capable enough of taking in his lover’s cock while still taking pleasure from it, and that thing was huge.

“Mmh…amazing…” Lysander made an incoherent noise after that, and Theo grinned as he bit back a moan. “Not as…amazing as…your dick, though.”

Theo’s smile faltered, and he almost snorted derisively. There Lysander went again, calling everything about him ‘amazing’. It made it very hard to believe any of his compliments, since Lysander seemed to find every part of him ‘amazing’, from his face to his form to his much more modestly-sized penis.

But he didn’t let himself give voice to that complaint, knowing it would only irritate Lysander. Instead he said, “Imagine it is my dick, th-then. Pushing into you. S-slow, gentle. Filling you up. Do you feel filled up?”

Another strangled noise loosed out of the singer, jolting Theo through with lust. Though they weren’t as big as his dick of course, Lysander’s hands were pretty large, too, and his fingers were long and calloused. Theo could well remember what those fingers felt like in his own ass. Definitely more satisfying than his own much slimmer fingers. Ah, fuck, he missed his boyfriend’s fingers. Missed his dick most of all, but he’d have settled for being touched by any part of him at that moment.

Realizing he was being unfair—and that Lysander didn’t have all the time in the world to enjoy phone sex before he’d be expected to show up at the stadium and perform for a bajillion people, hopefully sated at least for that night if Theo did this right—he took pity on his boyfriend and said, “Okay, you can t-turn now. Sideways, on your h-heels…whatever. Don’t take your fingers out, though. Use your other hand to s-stroke your dick.”

“Finally,” Lysander gusted, left the phone alone for a moment, fabric rustling as he moved. His voice sounded further away still, as if his chin were tilted up and his head leaning back in pleasure, as he said, “Oh, fuck, Theo. It feels so good. Your dick feels so good.”

A disbelieving titter almost escaped from Theo; apparently his boyfriend had a more fertile imagination than he’d given him credit for. He decided to play along. “Yeah? As g-good as my mouth on your c-cock?” In the real world, the position would have been impossible, of course. Not unless Theo had developed some kind of fantastical twisting powers…no, that was a disturbing mental image. He was thinking too much about it. Just go with the fantasy, damnit. “Mmm. Cum for me, b-baby. Cum in my mouth.”

Lysander groaned hard at that, and Theo almost thought that maybe he’d cum already. But then he heard movement, furious rustling, moans and gasps and a whole cacophony of amorous sounds. His boyfriend seemed to be enjoying himself quite thoroughly, and Theo decided to follow suit, even if he wasn’t quite as capable of imagining his hands were his lover’s body parts instead.

Actually, fingers weren’t really doing it for him, and his thoughts turned towards going to the bureau drawer and getting out a dildo instead. Probably the big, veiny, purple one that was almost as glorious as the real thing. Ah, but that wasn’t fair on Lysander. Who most likely did have a dildo or three somewhere in his luggage, but Theo didn’t want to take away from his remaining time sending him on a quest to find them.

Besides, Lysander already sounded like he was on the very verge of cumming. So he decided to pace himself out of solidarity, at least until they concluded their phone sex; he’d have plenty of time to fuck himself silly with toys once Lysander had left to get ready for his show.

“Theo,” Lysander groaned out loudly in that way he almost always did as he came, and Theo loosed his own moan as he imagined his lover’s body held rigid, hovering on his knees with one hand wrapped around his dick and the other shoved halfway up his ass. Which part of him had orgasmed? His penis? His prostate? Both?

“Did you g-get the bed all dirty?” Theo inquired teasingly, though he had to stop stroking himself for a moment to gather the breath to speak.

“Mmm. Maybe. A bit. Hopefully the maids don’t get mad.” The singer only sounded amused, despite his pretense of contrition. “If only you were actually here, so I could have cum on your face instead.”

Theo’s eyes flew wide at that, and despite his fears that his own limbs weren’t enough to stimulate himself into orgasm, they apparently were after all. He moaned as he jerked forward, ass clenching around his fingers, dick thrusting into his other hand as cum spurted out of him onto their own bedspread. “Shit,” he gasped afterward, laughing breathlessly. “N-now I need to call our maid.”

A warm, contented hum sounded over the phone. “Maybe next time,” Lysander began, his tone back to a sultry purr, “We should do this in the shower. Much less cleanup.”

Theo burst into a laugh. “The sh-shower? My phone would break.”

“That’s why you wear Bluetooth earbuds, silly.” Lysander was probably smiling. He was always smiling. “I’m sure there are waterproof ones out there. Should I have Cindy buy us some?”

“Ugh. Don’t m-mention your assistant at a time like th-this!!” The last of his ardor draining out of him, Theo flung onto his backside next to where he’d made a mess, panting for a moment or two. “So. Do you feel ‘r-relaxed’?”

“A little. Do you think I’ll do okay tonight? I won’t…forget the lyrics, or fall off the stage?”

Shaking off the momentary horror of imagining Lysander doing either of those things, Theo insisted with quiet confidence, “No, you w-wont. You’ll be magical. Mesmerizing. You’ll d-do every part perfectly, and all your fans will be c-crying at how beautiful it all is.”

A low chuckle rumbled from the phone. “I wish I’d had you with me for all the past shows. I could have used your pep talks. Hey, when it’s over, I’ll ask one of the techs to send you some photos. To show you I’ve got the charm you gave me hanging from my guitar strap, like I promised.”

He’d really meant to do something as silly as that? Feeling a swell of tenderness in his chest, Theo let the full width of his smile break free. “Okay,” he said contentedly, then, “I love you s-so much. Go be amazing, L-Lysander Delion.”

What he would have given to see his boyfriend’s face at that moment, even in digital form. Ah, he should have asked for a video chat, even if it would have made assuming a position to give himself pleasure while staying in frame a challenge. Next time.

“I’ll do my best.” A heavy pause, full, maybe, of love, longing. “I love you more, my sun and stars.”

Currently editing this scene I wrote yesterday where the MC in my gay romance story Fractured Heart is playing the guitar version of one of his pop star boyfriend's songs for him after learning it on his own and omg they're so sweet I'm gonna die TT_TT

(Spoiler alert: the boys in my 'boys love' story do, in fact, fall in love)

~~

Those emerald eyes were widened as Lysander joined Theo in the room. The singer paused at the doorway before slowly folding his long legs beneath him to copy Theo’s pose, sitting only a foot away so that their knees were almost close enough to touch. Theo kept his eyes downcast, trying not to grimace as his hand stilled on the frets.

“Don’t s-say anything if I mess up,” he commanded by way of greeting, flickering his eyes up only momentarily to see his boyfriend furrow his brows before the singer offered a soft nod. “I’m…I’m s-still practicing.”

“I won’t,” Lysander promised, fingers lightly curling as he clasped either knee.

The position reminded Theo a little of a karate student awaiting instruction from his master, and an uncomfortable titter almost burst out of Theo before he quickly tamped it down. Then, because the poignant silence was only making him more nervous, he forced himself to start playing.

It was the underlying rhythm to Fractured Heart, learned after he’d shyly asked Lysander for the guitar sheet music for some of his songs more than a month prior. Lysander had grinned brilliantly at the request, obviously smug about Theo’s desire to teach himself something so important to his lover, and Theo had scowled and made some snarky response to counteract that arrogance. Still, Lysander had whisked immediately to his office and printed out the scoresheets that same day, though Theo had waited until his lover was gone at work before he’d started plucking out the melodies on his own.

He still wasn’t all that confident about it, so he played slowly, giving himself time to make sure he had his fingers properly positioned before he tried to strum the note. Once or twice a note came out slightly wrong anyway, and he grimaced, fighting the urge to give up in a huff. Lysander stayed absolutely silent throughout the whole song, and with his eyes trained on the guitar, Theo could almost pretend as if his lover wasn’t there; as if he was just practicing on his own as he’d gotten into the habit of doing (almost) every single day.

At the end of it, his hands on the edge of trembling from nerves, Theo looked up at last. And found his boyfriend crying, though Lysander’s smile was effervescent.

“Fuck,” Theo breathed in startlement, unable to prevent himself from gawking even as his boyfriend sniffled and rubbed his tears away with the heels of his calloused hands. Theo had thought Lysander might be happy to see the efforts he’d put into learning the song, but he wasn’t supposed to be crying, damnit.

“Theo,” Lysander breathed in response, and then he was laughing, delighted and overwhelmed. He scarcely gave Theo time to set the guitar aside before the singer grabbed him by the middle and yanked him into a straddling position so Lysander could kiss him, deep and long.

Theo was gasping as he pulled back at last, still on the edge of gawking as Lysander cupped his face and just…held him, staring at him with every drop of love and admiration that the singer apparently felt for him suffused throughout his expression.

“That was beautiful,” the singer murmured happily at last, and Theo averted his eyes sideways, too overcome by his lover’s unabashed profusion of emotion to hold his gaze for another second. “Ah, my beautiful, amazing, irreplaceable Theo.”

Theo didn’t know what to say in response to that, never knew what to say in response to any of his boyfriend’s unbearably romantic sentiments. Lysander always seemed to know what to say or do to sweep him entirely off his feet, just as he always knew how to diffuse Theo’s sullen moods, or to comfort him when he was feeling utterly bereft. Whereas Theo, well...

Refusing to let himself fall into old patterns of feeling sorry for himself, Theo mentally grit his teeth, shifted his gaze to his blue-tipped fingers where they were curled in his lap between them, resolved that he’d just have to dedicate himself to finding a way to make himself ‘worthy’ of Lysander’s incredible love. If such a thing was even possible. Maybe therapy really would help; maybe he could identify the parts of himself that were the most broken, and start the process of mending them into something that at least approached “fixed.”

“Theo?” Lysander murmured gently, drawing Theo’s attention back to the present with a blink. Theo met his boyfriend’s gaze again, chest fluttering at the look of unease that had crept into his emerald eyes, of worry.

Immediately Theo applied himself to easing that worry, forcing himself to smile, to trace away a lingering tear with the pad of his thumb. “You weren’t s-supposed to cry,” he said, a little wryly, and Lysander broke into an embarrassed smile under his touch.

“Yes, well. Who was it that said ‘I’m human, too; anyone would cry after hearing that song’?” Lysander retorted, echoing his wry tone.

~~

Heya, so I've been releasing my original gay romance webnovel "Fractured Heart: the Tale of the Pop Star and the Pauper" on Patreon since the beginning of the year (with the first eight chapters free on my website fracturedheart.net ) but it's been extremely hard to find new readers, so I was going to start posting them for free on Royal Road and Ao3, and maybe wattpad, scribblehub, and any others that people recommend.

I'll still have way advance chapters on Patreon ($5/mo for a full length (3-5k words on average) chapter every Friday, but my main goal is honestly just to find new readers so that I'm not just writing for myself.

Even if it's an acquired taste, I think there HAVE to be at least SOME people out there who will enjoy a story about a shy tsundere economically disadvantaged midwestern kid with a traumatic past who moves to LA to become an EDM producer where he ends up in a relationship with a flirty, famous, over-the-top pop star who was born and raised rich and privileged after they start bonding together through their "fractured hearts" (I know, groan ^-^;;)

Everything I've researched for Royal Road emphasizes quantity over quality: upload every day even if it's only a page or two rather than space out releases weekly like I have been on Patreon. To that end, I was going to chop up my chapters into 1-2 page sections to post daily for a few weeks, then slow down to three times a week once I start getting closer to where I am on Patreon (currently chapter 22). But RR lets you schedule posts, so I could set up a bunch of them ahead of time.

However with Ao3, my understanding is that the best you can do is DRAFT posts, but you still have to manually log in to post those drafts. I can still do it, but that'll be more challenging to me, given the busy-ness of my usual life. So my question for Ao3 writers is: is there a marked difference in releasing shorter chapters daily or semi-daily vs actual full-size chapters once a week?

I'm also nervous about my writing being stolen and fed to some AI bot or something, but I guess that's the reality of uploading anything online these days. I just have to hope that anyone who reads the stolen material becomes interested enough to seek out the real thing and maybe become an actual reader ^-^;;

Also if there are other platforms I should post to, please let me know! I already made a bunch of accounts awhile ago, I just haven't started posting on them because I'm waiting on some artists I commissioned to finish drawing covers for the book first: https://www.fracturedheart.net (the top right menu item has all the links)

Was joking with my beta reader friend about how I have too many "alternate universe" ideas for the characters in my gay romance novel(s) and said "I might as well throw in one about shifters" and now I have a shifter AU idea too... Alt text:

me:

"“Fuck!” the singer shouted as Theo sank his teeth into the other side of his lover’s neck, this time closer to his throat than his collarbone. Lysander reared back automatically, then he burst into his own startled laugh, rubbing absently at the new surface-level injury. “Damn. Are you sure you’re not a vampire?”"

unintentional reference to the vampire/vampire hunter AU 😂

my friend:

Theo's eyes glow red …no?

me: in the modern day au? lol pretty sure this is the only universe where theo DOESN'T have red eyes 😂 ugh i wanna write the other aus now the vampire hunter one…dragon rider…demon slayer…there are like two others i forgot I should probably come up with a shapeshifter one too just for fun 😂

my friend: role reversal, or was that an actual AU

me: you mean make lys the short one? i'm not sure what you're referencing lol i had a dream once wehre lys was the short one lol but no, thats not one of my actual au ideas oh shit nwo im actualyl imaginign a shifter one

my friend: 🤷 maybe that was it

Chapter 22 of my gay romance webnovel "Fractured Heart: the Tale of the Pop Star and the Pauper" is now up on Patreon! You can find the links, as well as a free first-page-of-chapter preview, here: www.fracturedheart.net/chapters/ch22/

If you're not sure about the story, you can read the first eight chapters for free here, then get one full-length chapter every Friday for only $5 a month on Patreon:

https://www.fracturedheart.net/chapters/ch1-8-preview/

As-intended "adult only" version: patreon.com/FracturedHeartAO

Inferior censored "SFW" version: patreon.com/FracturedHeart

~~

[First Page of Chapter Preview]

Three days later, he was getting ready for his first DJ gig since getting his mixer fixed, and he still hadn’t told Lysander about it.

After asking Juniper, then Ryan, to let him know if any gigs were coming up soon, Theo had had to field through their responses in comparison to his own work schedule. He did his best to leave at least a few hours between shifts and gigs since working back to back meant he’d be dead tired at one or both. As for hiding the gig from Lysander, well. He’d just claim he was working that night and trust that that would be it—Lysander wasn’t about to call the warehouse and make sure Theo was really working at that time.

He couldn’t precisely put his finger on why he was hesitant to let Lysander know about the gig. Part of it was not wanting to bother him, yes…even if he’d had a prior engagement, Theo could imagine Lysander canceling that engagement just to come to the show and support his boyfriend, and Theo didn’t want to interfere with Lysander’s career even more than he already had.

But there was something else about it, too…they’d been lucky so far that tabloid reports about them hadn’t leaked yet, at least so far. Though Lysander typically wore his disguise whenever they were in public, they’d gone on that not-a-date near LACMA, and a truly eagle-eyed zealous fan could have used the zoom on their camera phone to see them through the restaurant window on the pier. And it wasn’t as if Lysander’s disguise was that thorough, either. Given his unusual height, he stuck out anyway, even when he was covering his head and face.

If Lysander came to a gig of his…with all those bodies pressed close…the chances of his identity getting revealed were too high. Then people would wonder why such a major celebrity would be at a tiny underground rave, and if they saw Lysander interacting with Theo after the show, well then…it was all over.

He was using the same “cheap” sound mixer he always used, of course—not only was he unwilling to touch the enormous $10k+ mixer Lysander had bought lest he accidentally break it, it simply would have been beyond impractical to try to bring to the venues by bus. He liked his mixer, anyway—maybe it wasn’t as fancy, maybe it didn’t have brand-name prestige, but it had served him well in the four years since he’d bought it. He hadn’t been able to do DJ gigs before getting it, and his music had bloomed after he was able to associate tactile sensations with the intermixing sounds, not just clicked digital buttons on his laptop screen.

Given that he hadn’t dressed up much in a while, he decided to put more effort into it this time. Though it wasn’t the most comfortable, he fit himself into the same tight pleather pants he’d worn to his karaoke birthday party, as well as a torn-sleeve vest adorned with studs and buckles, paired with fingerless gloves that covered him from palm to upper forearm.

He’d gotten new, better quality makeup, too. He’d used the money that Lysander had paid him since technically they’d completed the final clause of their contract: producing a finished track ready to be sold. He’d needed the funds to supplement what he made from the warehouse to pay for his half of that month’s rent anyway, given that it was now his only regular job.

Siti’s parents were considerably less unwilling to help her pay for expenses—of course, she was going to school to be a biochemist, a far more respectable job than “EDM DJ”—and she worked at Halo mostly for extra spending money. Though she’d said since Theo quit that she was thinking of quitting, too, since it was too boring now that he wasn’t around to bitch about Jim with.

He felt a little bad about that—like it was his fault the job had become unappealing. But at the same time he was glad for it, even if it had been an unwise decision from a financial standpoint. The job had been crushing his spirit as well as destroying his chances for sleep…now, with just the job at the warehouse, he had more hours available to produce music and to do the occasional DJ gig.

Although now that he had a boyfriend to entertain visits with amid all that, his schedule was in some ways even more tight than it had been before he quit.

The rave he was getting ready for now was at a new venue he’d never played at yet, one that had opened only six months ago named Underbar; aptly named since it was literally built underground in the basement story beneath an alt-clothing store. Given their newness, they were rotating through DJs frequently, trying to find ones that best fit their “vibe.”

If the sales on the track he’d done with Lysander didn’t pan out, then maybe he could become a regular DJ at Underbar. It wouldn’t pay nearly as much, and playing in front of people would always be stressful to him, but at least it’d be doing something that still involved music instead of having to get a job at a café or some crap.

The bus ride to the venue went by uneventfully—he received a few odd stares for his mix of buckles and black, but no one said anything overtly rude to him or tried to mess with his gear. In fact, a pair of girls had spent half the ride casting glances towards him and giggling before they finally got off on their stop, and he even thought he caught one of them stealthily snapping a picture of him, which he wasn’t sure how he felt about.

~~