chapt 1

Val allowed himself the realization that this discussion made him uncomfortable because it made him think about where he might figure in Aidan's sex life, and where Aidan might figure in his, and he just did not want to go there with someone he really liked as a friend. Especially since the someone had a girlfriend already, and was thus off the market.

Stella saved him from his own thoughts by telling him about Aidan's show the night before and how bad the acoustics were, but the crowd was ok and the drinks were pretty good and not overpriced, even though the bartender really was trying to distract people at the bar from listening to the music. Although, she mused, sometimes Aidan's stuff made pretty good background noise.

Aidan was a singer-songwriter in the boy-with-an-acoustic-guitar mold, and his shows usually consisted of him and his guitar on a stool, sometimes with a microphone and sometimes not. His songs had a vaguely folky-country tone and they were either about love - mostly being in love, but sometimes falling out of love as well, or having your heart broken - or the southwest, where he'd grown up. Every so often a traditional British ballad would sneak in. The ballads weren't exactly Val's cup of tea, but he didn't dislike them, and he'd certainly sit and listen if Aidan was playing a bar or a little club somewhere.

Aidan's other songs made Val want to go to Arizona or New Mexico or parts of California that weren't LA or San Francisco. Oddly enough, the love songs did not make him want to fall in love. But they did make him happy that such a love existed somewhere.

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chapt 1

Aidan's other songs made Val want to go to Arizona or New Mexico or parts of California that weren't LA or San Francisco. Oddly enough, the love songs did not make him want to fall in love. But they did make him happy that such a love existed somewhere.

(Val at twenty-six had never really been in love. He'd been in like and in lust and in crush, but never really love. He wasn't worried about it yet, though - he figured it would happen eventually, and he could still say he loved his family, the little of it there was, and he loved some of his friends. What Aidan and Stella felt for each other, he never had, but they did and that was enough for him.)

"Did you play anything new?" Val asked now.

"No," Aidan said. "All old stuff. I haven't been writing lyrics, it's a little weird. Lots of music, though. I know a guy, Allen Souter" -

( Like the Supreme Court Justice, Stella interrupted. )

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