Chapter 9: The Return Flight
A week bled into Los Angeles with a slow, syrupy inertia. Matthew moved through his days like a ghost haunting his own life. The studio, his usual sanctuary, felt cavernous and cold. He’d sit at the Neve console, fingers resting on the faders, and instead of hearing the track, he’d hear Robert’s broken whisper: I wish I could take it back.
He hadn’t answered a single call. Robert’s attempts had shifted from frantic, back-to-back rings to a single, daily attempt that felt like a grim ritual. A voicemail icon would appear, a red digital scar. Matthew would listen, always in the dark, always alone. The messages were short. “Call me.” “Please.” “I’m losing my mind.” The last one, just yesterday, was just a long, ragged breath before the disconnect.
The silence was its own kind of violence.
Now, it was Thursday. Late afternoon sun sliced through the west-facing windows of the studio, heating the slate floors and making the dust motes dance above the grand piano. Matthew was technically working. A stem for a new Charli XCX track was open on the massive screen, a hyperkinetic puzzle of synth arpeggios that usually would have consumed him. He was scrolling on his phone.
Jack’s Instagram was a quiet haven. Pictures of dusty archival boxes in what looked like a university basement. A close-up of a cracked, handwritten score. A selfie with his study group, Jack grinning behind his glasses, making a peace sign that seemed charmingly dorky. He looked smart. He looked kind. He looked real.
A new notification appeared, not from Instagram. A text.
Jack: [Image Attached]
Matthew opened it. It was a screenshot of a flight reservation. Chicago O’Hare to LAX. Arriving Friday evening, next week. In the passenger field: JACK BENNETT. Paid in full.
The caption below read: I’m coming to you. Clean.
Two words. A statement, not a question. A principle upheld. Clean. No transactions. No debt. Just him, arriving on his own terms. The clarity of it was a physical shock, like a splash of cold, clear water. It was the antithesis of every murky, entangled, emotionally bartered exchange of the last year.
Matthew stared at the screen until the letters blurred. The weight of it, the sheer future-ness of it, pressed down on his sternum. This was a decision made concrete. Jack was crossing a continent. For him.
His thumb moved to the reply box. He typed I can’t wait to see you. He stared at it. It was true, but it felt too light, too eager, a deflection from the tectonic shift this represented. He deleted it.
He typed This means more than I can say. That was truer, but it felt weighty, burdensome. He deleted that too.
He let the phone fall onto the console with a soft tap. He leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking. He looked at the photo of Jack again. The boyish smile. Then, unbidden, another face superimposed itself. Robert’s face in the dim London dawn, years younger in sleep, just before Matthew had kissed his forehead and walked out. The feel of Robert’s lips, warm and desperate against his palm.
A hollow ache bloomed behind his ribs, a vacuum where certainty should be. He loved Robert. That was the immutable, frustrating bedrock. But love wasn’t a house you could live in; it was the land, and the house Robert had built on it was full of rotten beams and other people’s ghosts.
He couldn’t do this alone. The silence in the studio was suddenly oppressive, a high-frequency whine only he could hear. He needed a voice that wasn’t in his head. He snatched up the phone, navigating past Robert’s name, past Jack’s, and tapped the one contact who had seen every version of him since he was eighteen.
Evan answered on the second ring. “If this is about the fucking bass synth on the Demi mix, I told you, don't change it. It slaps.”
The sound of his best friend’s voice—irritated, familiar, instantly grounding—almost made Matthew laugh. Almost. “It’s not about the mix.”
A beat of silence. Evan’s tone shifted, the professional annoyance evaporating. “Oh. Hey. You sound like shit. London bad?”
“Worse than bad.”
“Are you in your studio?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t move. I’m in Burbank. Twenty minutes. Do not do anything stupid, like call him back or write a song about it. Just sit there and look at your expensive toys.”
The line went dead. Matthew put the phone down. He did as he was told. He sat. He looked at the expensive, silent toys.
Eighteen minutes later, the biometric lock chimed and the heavy door swung open. Evan strode in, looking like he’d come straight from a set—dark wash jeans, a wrinkled director’s shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a pair of Persols shoved into his blonde hair. He carried a paper bag from Father’s Office. He took in Matthew’s posture, the untouched screen, the general aura of existential paralysis.
“Right,” Evan said. He walked over, dropped the bag on the console, and pulled out two gourmet burgers and a cardboard container of crispy sweet potato fries. The smell of garlic aioli and beef filled the sterile air. “Fuel first. Then feelings. You’ve lost weight. You’re starting to look like one of those sad British models Robert probably cheats with.”
Matthew almost smiled. “Charming.”
“It’s my job.” Evan shoved a burger into Matthew’s hand. “Eat.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes, the only sound their chewing and the distant hum of the HVAC. It was a comfortable, old silence. Evan had been there through the first messy coming out, the parents draining his accounts, the dizzying rise, the early fling they’d had that fizzled into something deeper and more permanent than romance. He was the one person who owed him nothing and told him everything.
“So,” Evan said finally, licking aioli from his thumb. “He fucked the promo guy. For a year. You met a nice midwestern PhD. And now you’re doing your best impression of a tectonic plate about to cause an earthquake. Correct?”
“That’s the summary.”
“And loverboy has been calling non-stop.”
“He’s calling once a day. Leaving... breaths.”
Evan winced. “Christ. That’s grim. Okay. And the PhD?”
Matthew unlocked his phone, pulled up the text, and slid it across the console.
Evan picked it up, scanned it, whistled softly. “Clean. Huh.” He looked at Matthew. “He paid for it himself.”
“Yes.”
“That’s… unexpectedly decent. Also a power move. He’s not letting you buy him. I respect that.” He handed the phone back. “So the earthquake is because you have to choose. Between the devil you love and the angel with a library card who’s flying into town.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It’s exactly that simple,” Evan said, his green eyes direct. “You’re just making it complicated because you think you have to suffer for loving the difficult one. That if you just suffer enough, Robert will magically become the man you need. Newsflash: he won’t. He’s forty-one. He’s a rockstar. His emotional toolkit is a lighter and a bottle of whiskey. You’ve known this for five years.”
The truth of it was a clean, surgical cut. Matthew looked away, out at the city beginning to sparkle in the dusk. “He was sorry. He was… destroyed.”
“Of course he was. He got caught. His backup plan talked. The stability he takes for granted was about to walk out the door. That’s terrifying. That’s not the same as change.” Evan leaned forward, his voice dropping. “Matty, listen to me. You built your entire life from nothing because your parents saw you as a paycheck. You have trust issues the size of this fucking building. So why are you trusting the person who has given you concrete, repeated, year-long evidence that he cannot be trusted?”
Matthew had no answer. The fries were growing cold.
“What does your gut say?” Evan pressed. “Not your heart. Your heart is a stupid, romantic organ that remembers the guy who wrote songs for you. Your gut. The one that clenches when your phone rings.”
Matthew didn’t have to think. His gut had been a hard, perpetual knot since the pub. His gut screamed danger every time Robert’s name flashed. His gut had felt… calm, expansive, when he read Jack’s text.
“My gut says Robert is a field of landmines I’ll have to walk on forever,” he said quietly. “My gut says Jack is… solid ground.”
“Then there’s your answer.”
“It feels like a betrayal. Giving up.”
“No,” Evan said, not unkindly. “Staying would be a betrayal. Of yourself. You’d be betraying the sixteen-year-old kid who produced his first hit in a garage, who swore he’d never let anyone make him feel small or insecure ever again. Robert makes you feel insecure every single day. That’s the betrayal.”
Tears pricked hotly behind Matthew’s eyes. He blinked them back, furious. Evan saw it. He reached out and squeezed Matthew’s shoulder, hard.
“You don’t owe him your entire life because he finally managed to feel a feeling,” Evan said. “The PhD is coming. See him. See what solid ground actually feels like. You might like it.” He stood up, gathering the trash. “And for God’s sake, call Robert. Give him his breath back. Tell him you need space, you need time, you need him to stop calling. Draw a line. If he respects it, maybe there’s a conversation in six months. If he doesn’t, then you have your answer written in neon.”
He headed for the door, then paused. “And if you hook up with the actor again before the PhD gets here, I will personally fly back and shame you. He’s dumb as a bag of hammers and he’s using you. You deserve better than being used. Even for sex.”
The door shut behind him. The studio felt different. The silence wasn’t oppressive anymore; it was charged. The path, while terrifying, was visible.
Matthew picked up his phone. He looked at Jack’s flight confirmation. He typed a reply, simple and true.
Matthew: I’ll be there. Can’t wait.
He sent it. Then, before the courage failed, he pulled up Robert’s contact. He didn’t call. He typed a text. It took him ten minutes to write three lines.
Matthew: Robert. I need proper space. No calls for a while. I need to think, and I can’t do it with the daily check-ins. I’m not disappearing. I just need quiet. Please respect this.
He hit send. He immediately turned his phone face down, as if it were a live grenade.
He waited. The seconds ticked by. One minute. Two.
The phone buzzed, once. A text reply. Matthew’s heart hammered. He flipped it over.
Robert: Okay. I’ll wait. I love you.
No fight. No guilt-tripping. Just a surrender to the boundary. It was the first truly respectful thing Robert had done in a year. It made the ache worse, and the resolve stronger.
Matthew stood up. He walked to the window, pressing his forehead against the cool glass. The city was a river of light below. Somewhere out there, Colton was probably at a party, angling for an introduction. In London, Robert was sitting in a quiet flat, waiting. In Chicago, Jack was likely in a library, a gentle man who paid his own way, packing a bag.
He had drawn a line. He had invited a future. The ground beneath him felt unstable, treacherous, but for the first time in a long time, he was the one choosing where to stand. The momentum was his. It was terrifying. And it was alive.
The week that followed was a masterclass in psychological attrition. Each hour stretched like taffy, sticky and slow. Matthew worked, but his focus was a fragile thing, shattering at the slightest provocation. The ping of a text that wasn’t Jack’s. The sight of Robert’s name on a studio credit. He’d find himself staring into the middle distance, his mind looping on a single, frantic question: what was he doing?
How did someone like Jack, with his archival boxes and moral clarity, fit into this world of private drivers and curated loneliness? Was he just another fixture, a quieter, kinder accessory to be placed in the vast museum of Matthew’s success? The thought sickened him.
More gutting was the fear that Jack was merely a substitute. A wholesome placeholder for the chaotic, devastating love he still craved from Robert. Was he building a sane future, or just constructing a meticulous revenge? He’d pace the empty house, his footsteps echoing on the polished concrete, feeling like an imposter in his own life.
The sex question was simpler, but it gnawed too. The memory of Chicago was a warm, glowing ember. But that had been a contained bubble, a weekend outside of time. This was an invasion of his territory, a test. Would the gentle PhD student from the record shop simply want a tour of the Grammy cabinet and a wild celebrity fuck? Or would he look at Matthew, really look, and see the crumbling man inside the platinum records?
Friday evening arrived with the slow bleed of LA sunset, purpling the hills. Standing at the arrivals curb, Matthew felt exposed. The chaotic ballet of cars and reunitions swirled around him. He spotted Jack before Jack saw him. He was wearing a worn leather jacket over a grey t-shirt, a duffel slung over one shoulder, squinting slightly at the overhead signs. He looked out of place, not lost, but observant, an anthropologist landing on a strange new shore.
A current of pure relief shocked Matthew’s system. It was him. It was real.
“Jack,” he called out, his voice cutting through the din.
Jack turned, his face breaking into a wide, unguarded smile that reached his eyes behind his glasses. He walked quickly forward, dropping his bag at his feet. Without hesitation, Matthew closed the distance and pulled him into an embrace. It was firm, full-bodied. He felt Jack’s hands flat against his back, the solid reality of his shoulder under the jacket, the faint scent of airplane air and his plain soap. No cologne. Just clean.
“You made it,” Matthew said into his ear, the words coming out rougher than he’d intended.
“I did,” Jack said, pulling back just enough to look at him. His eyes scanned Matthew’s face. “You look tired.”
“It’s been a week.”
“Tell me about it on the way.”
The drive home in Matthew’s car was a capsule of murmured conversation and thick, gathering tension. Jack talked about his flight, a disorganized professor, the peculiar smell of airplane coffee. Matthew drove, listening to the sound of his voice, a calm, grounded counterpoint to the radio’s static.
The space between them in the low-slung seat hummed. Matthew was hyper-aware of the inch separating Jack’s thigh from his own. The casual brush of Jack’s sleeve against his arm when he gestured. The conversation began to lull, dipping into a silence that wasn’t empty but full, charged like the air before a storm.
Without looking over, focusing on the winding canyon road ahead, Matthew slowly lowered his right hand from the steering wheel. He let it rest on the center console, then trailed it onto Jack’s denim-clad leg, just above the knee. The touch was a question, a breach.
Jack’s sentence about archival fieldwork died mid-word. Matthew heard the sharp, quiet intake of breath. Then, Jack’s own hand came down, warm and sure, covering Matthew’s. His fingers laced through Matthew’s, a firm, claiming grip. He didn’t say anything. He just held his hand and smiled, looking out the window at the darkening hills, his thumb stroking the side of Matthew’s index finger.
The rest of the drive was wordless. The tension had cracked open, not dissipating, but flooding the car with a silent, mutual understanding.
When Matthew swung the car through the tall iron gates and the modern compound emerged from the landscaped hillside, Jack went very still. The house was all sharp angles and vast planes of glass, glowing like a lucent jewel against the night.
“Holy shit, Matthew,” Jack breathed, the words full of genuine awe, not envy. “This is… this is architectural digest come to life.”
A familiar, cold embarrassment slithered through Matthew’s gut. Opulence as a barrier. “It’s a lot,” he said, a weak apology in his tone. “It’s just… space.”
“It’s incredible,” Jack said, unbuckling his seatbelt, his gaze drinking in the cantilevered decks and the infinity edge pool. “It doesn’t even look real.” He grabbed his duffel and followed Matthew inside, his steps hesitant on the polished floor, as if walking into a gallery.
Inside, Jack was politely, utterly overwhelmed. His eyes tracked the soaring ceiling, the monumental fireplace, the pristine, almost unlived-in perfection. He set his bag down gingerly. “Where do you… exist in here?” he asked, not unkindly, but with a scholar’s curiosity.
Matthew laughed, a short, relieved sound. “Mostly in the studio. It’s messier. More me.”
“Can I see it?” Jack asked, his eyes lighting up with a different kind of interest now, pure and professional. “I mean, only if it’s okay. I won’t touch anything.”
“You can touch whatever you want,” Matthew said, the implication hanging between them. He led Jack down a wide hallway, through a soundproof door.
The studio was indeed messier. Sheets of handwritten notes, empty coffee cups, a sweater thrown over the back of the mastering chair. But it was still a temple of cutting-edge technology. Jack stopped on the threshold, his jaw going slack.
“Oh, my God,” he whispered, reverent. He drifted into the room as if in a trance. He approached the wall of vintage synthesizers, his hand hovering over a Prophet-5. “This is the ’78? The one with the original chips?” He turned to the Neve console, running a finger along the edge of a fader. “This is the console you did the Melodrama finals on?”
Matthew leaned against the doorframe, watching him. The embarrassed chill melted away, replaced by a warm fascination. Jack wasn’t seeing a price tag; he was seeing history, tools, artistry. “Most of it, yeah.”
For twenty minutes, Jack geeked out. He asked intelligent, granular questions about tube compression on the Lorde vocals, about the sampling technique used on that one Billie Eilish track. Matthew answered, the joy of talking shop with someone who genuinely understood flooding back to him. He let Jack sit at the grand piano, plinking out a clumsy chord progression that made him grin. He showed him how the tape echo worked.
Jack sat back in the producer’s chair, spinning slowly, a look of pure contentment on his face. “I could stay right here all weekend,” he sighed, smiling up at Matthew.
Matthew moved from the doorway, coming to stand beside the chair. He looked down at Jack, the professional spell breaking, replaced by the personal, the hungry. “I was hoping,” he said, his voice dropping, “we could do a few other things too.”
Jack’s smile softened, turned intimate. He laughed, a low, quiet sound. He stopped the chair’s spin and stood up, closing the small space between them. “Yeah? Like what?”
They were inches apart. Matthew could see the flecks of amber in Jack’s brown eyes, the faint stubble along his jaw. He didn’t answer with words. He cupped Jack’s face in his hands and kissed him.
It began tenderly, a reconnection, a confirmation. Then Jack made a hungry sound in the back of his throat, his hands coming up to fist in Matthew’s shirt, and the kiss deepened. It became a slow, searching duel of tongues, a press of lips that spoke of a week of waiting, of years of loneliness. It was wet and deep and frankly desperate.
Matthew’s hands slid down, pushing the leather jacket off Jack’s shoulders. It fell to the floor with a heavy thud. He gripped the hem of Jack’s t-shirt and pulled it up and over his head. Jack raised his arms, compliant, his glasses knocked slightly askew. Matthew took them off gently, setting them on the console. Then he looked.
Jack’s chest was pale, a contrast to his arms. And there, just as he remembered, was that lush, dark mat of hair, a swirl of it between his pecs, trailing down over the soft plane of his stomach. Matthew splayed his hand over it, feeling the crisp texture, the warmth of skin beneath. “God, I love this,” he murmured, his voice ragged.
Jack’s answer was to push him. It wasn’t violent, but it was decisive. He walked Matthew backward until his knees hit the low bench of the Juno keyboard. Matthew sat, the keys emitting a dissonant groan beneath him. Jack dropped to his knees on the slate floor, his hands going to Matthew’s belt.
The click of the buckle was obscenely loud. The rasp of the zipper was a promise. Jack yanked Matthew’s trousers and boxer briefs down to his thighs in one firm motion. Matthew’s cock, already fully hard, sprang free, curving up against his stomach.
“Fuck, look at you,” Jack breathed. He didn’t go straight for it. He leaned in, nuzzling the thatch of hair at the base, breathing him in. He placed a hot, open-mouthed kiss on the inside of Matthew’s thigh, his stubble scraping the sensitive skin. He licked a slow, tortuous stripe from root to tip.
Matthew hissed, his head falling back, his hands gripping the edge of the keyboard bench. “Jack… please.”
Jack finally took him into his mouth, and it was heaven. Wet, tight heat enveloped him, and Jack knew what he was doing. He worked him with a focused, avid intensity, one hand wrapping around the base to stroke what his mouth couldn’t take, the other gripping Matthew’s hip. He bobbed his head, his lips stretched tight, his tongue swirling relentlessly over the crown on every upstroke. The sounds were filthy, wet sucks and soft gags, and Matthew chanted a stream of broken curses, his hips beginning to jerk involuntarily.
“Oh god, just like that, don’t stop, fuck, your mouth is so good…”
He was hurtling towards the edge, the coiled tension of the week, the anxiety, the heartbreak, all focusing into this white-hot point of sensation. Jack felt it, speeding up, taking him deeper, his free hand cupping and gently squeezing Matthew’s balls. The dual sensation was too much.
“Jack, I’m gonna come… I’m gonna…”
Jack didn’t pull away. He hummed, the vibration ripping through Matthew, and swallowed him down. Matthew came with a shattered cry, his back arching off the bench as he pulsed deep into Jack’s throat. Jack took it all, swallowing steadily, until Matthew was spent, shuddering and soft.
Jack slowly released him, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He looked up, his lips slick and swollen, his eyes dark with desire. “I missed that cock,” he said, his voice gravelly.
The raw honesty of it, the filth of the words, ignited Matthew again. He surged forward, off the bench, his pants still around his thighs. He pushed Jack onto his back on the cool floor, coming down over him. He kissed him, tasting himself on Jack’s tongue, a possessive, deep kiss. He kissed his way down that hairy chest, licking and sucking at his nipples, making Jack gasp and writhe.
He made quick work of Jack’s jeans, yanking them and his briefs down. Jack’s cock stood thick and flushed against his belly. Matthew didn’t tease. He wanted to claim, to reciprocate, to devour. He took Jack in his mouth all at once, burying his nose in the dark curls at the base.
Jack cried out, a raw, unfiltered sound that echoed off the high studio ceilings. His hands flew to Matthew’s head, not pushing, but holding on. “Matthew… fuck… yes…”
Matthew worked him with a single-minded intensity. He used his hand and his mouth in tandem, slick with spit, the rhythm fast and relentless. He wanted Jack to feel just as wrecked, just as owned. He listened to the choking pleas, the garbled curses, the creak of Jack’s leather jacket under his shoulders as he arched off the floor.
“I’m close, I’m so close, don’t stop, please don’t stop!”
Matthew plunged down, taking him deep, and Jack came with a strangled shout. Matthew drank him down, the salty-bitter taste flooding his mouth, until Jack was trembling and spent.
Matthew collapsed beside him on the hard floor, both of them half-dressed, breathless. The air smelled of sex and warm electronics. After a moment, Jack started to laugh, a breathless, joyful sound. Matthew turned his head to look at him.
“What?” Matthew asked, a grin spreading across his own face.
“We’re on the floor of a multi-million dollar studio,” Jack giggled, pushing his hair off his forehead. “I just gave a Grammy winner a blowjob on a keyboard bench. My thesis advisor would have a stroke.”
Matthew laughed, the sound free and easy in his chest. He reached over, lacing his fingers with Jack’s. “Fuck your thesis advisor.”
“I’d rather not,” Jack deadpanned, and they both laughed harder, the tension of the week, the weight of the unknown, dissolving in the shared, silly aftermath.
They lay there for a long time, talking in low voices, making loose, hopeful plans for the weekend—the beach, maybe a hike, a specific taco stand Matthew loved. The romantic weekend ahead was no longer an abstract concept. It was lying here, on the hard floor, in the warm, comfortable silence between them. It felt possible. It felt real.