Chapter Text
If you’d asked Simon two and a half years ago what topped his bucket list, he wouldn’t even have been able to conceive of this. He’d have said something like going to university or joining an a capella group or traveling to Africa. That would have been the only kind of adventure his sixteen-year-old brain could have conjured. He’d known he wanted out of Bjärstad. He’d known he wanted to do something more with his life.
But he would never have thought that “more” meant headlining a huge U.S. tour as part of a pop band. These past three months felt like something that happened to other people. Performing every night in front of screaming audiences. Of men and women, girls and boys reaching for him, yelling his name.
It wasn’t just these past three months that felt like a fever dream. These past two and a half years did. Getting cast in Undercover Strobe. Having six European number-one hits. Winning Eurovision. Having three songs from their third album top the Billboard charts in the States. Sometimes he looked back at the past two and a half years and didn’t even know how he’d gotten here. Because Rosh had tagged him on an open call on Insta and dared him to do it? How had that one small digital act alchemized into this?
But this tour was starting to wear on him, making him feel paper thin.
They’d been stuck in the tour bus for months. His first trip to America and all he’d seen was highway. Wide-laned stretches of asphalt. Billboards promising homemade pie and lawsuits and fun parks. Congested rivers of 18-wheelers and SUVs large enough to hunt rhinoceroses. Boston. New York. Philadelphia. Baltimore. Raleigh. Atlanta. Cincinnati. Chicago. Cities reduced to a name, a dressing room, pricey catering gone cold, fans who wanted everything from him.
To make it worse, Henrik and Lars had been sniping at each other nonstop since Atlanta.
You were the one who went left when you should have gone right.
And But you were a half-beat too early on “Nordic State of Mind” again.
And You’re not holding the formation tightly enough at the end of the second verse.
Stig—their manager, producer and wrangler all wrapped into one—was, as always, trying to play peacekeeper.
“Look, I know it’s been a tight couple of weeks,” he was saying as they all stretched backstage. “We’ve all been pushing ourselves to the limit.”
A speaker poured the opening band’s music into the large space of the green room, filling the spaces between their words without drowning them out. Their opener was nearly finished with their set. A platter of cold wraps and salads stood off to the side. The air conditioning was cranked up to arctic levels. Goosebumps speckled Simon’s thighs.
“After this last Vegas show, you’ll all have three days to blow off steam,” Stig said. Dressed in his atypically unpressed three-piece suit, his dark, slicked-back hair falling out of its shell, he looked as rumpled as Simon felt on the inside.
Not that rumpled was a look ever allowed Simon anymore. He’d finished with hair and makeup an hour ago and was off in the corner, quietly trying to warm up his muscles despite the overzealous air conditioning. A smokey gold and black eyeliner for this tour. Thick mascara. A generous glitter swipe to accent his cheekbones. Pale lip gloss. His hair with just enough gel to give his curls shine but let them flutter and fall in his eyes when he danced. A black sheer crop top and gold lamé wide-legged booty pants for the first set. When he’d started performing, he’d loved how pretty he felt when costumed up. Transfigured into another, more beautiful, version of himself.
But tonight the gold lamé scratched at his waistline. And from the stink of it, the wardrobe department had only given his shirt a cursory laundering after last night’s show.
“Well I’m going to blow off steam by getting the hell away from all of you and finding some boys who appreciate me,” Lars said, gearing up for full-tilt drama, as he rolled his naked shoulders under his black-and-gold military jacket. “And can we put it in our fucking rider that these stupid American venues turn off their fucking air conditioning?”
Simon considered putting his earbuds in, just to block everyone else out. But Stig would probably quirk his eyebrow at him, silently reprimanding him for not showing team spirit.
Just then Simon’s phone rang.
Sara.
His finger hovered over the accept button. It was the middle of the night for her. She only called when the insomnia got really bad.
He sprang up. “Sorry, I have to take this,” he murmured before dashing from the room.
“Can’t sleep again, Sara?” he answered the call, gently.
“Simon, it’s Felice speaking.” A strange voice in his ear.
He froze, wrapped an arm around his cold, naked midriff. Registered that he was in a dusty backstage corridor with scuffed tile and halogen lights.
“Felice, what’s going on? Is Sara OK?”
“Yeah, she … She’s here and she let me call you from her phone. Because I think it’s really important that you know. It’s Wille. I just came back from the hospital.”
“Wille? What? You’re not making sense.”
“Simon, Wille tried to kill himself. And … and I found him in his room, and they don’t know if he’s going to be OK.”
The corridor lay still around him. The scuffed tiles. The ugly halogen lights. Plugged in on the floor, someone had left a cell phone charger. A gum wrapper folded into a tidy accordioned rectangle. Coming through the walls, the opening band was moving into their finale. The friendly growl of a dance-pop bass line. The steady heartbeat of a 4:4 beat.
“Simon, are you there?”
“Simon?”
“But you’re all graduating in two weeks.” His voice didn’t sound like his own.
“Yes, and?”
He’d be flying home for his sister’s graduation just after the tour wrapped up. Secretly, he’d been longing for and dreading it. Because he knew he’d have to sit in the audience across from Wilhelm. Because he was all too aware of the cracks around his heart from being newly single. Because he yearned for the spell Wilhelm had always held over him to be broken. Because he was terrified the spell would be broken. It had been two and a half years since he’d last stood next to him. And for months he’d been cradling that thought close to his chest at night—that he’d see Wilhelm soon. And for months he’d been berating himself that he was thinking so much about seeing Wilhelm soon.
“But he’ll be alright?”
“Did you not just hear me?” Felice’s voice trembled. “They have no idea if he’s going to live or die. He’s sedated now. I don’t even fucking know if he’ll wake up. I’m freaking out because I should have seen this coming and done something. And he hasn’t even come out of his room for days, saying he needed to study. And I just believed him, but I should have known better. I could have …”
He heard shushing noises down the line. His sister speaking softly before her voice came over the phone. “Simon, some people here think you should come. Be here with Wilhelm.”
“Me? Why?”
“The doctor said he needed to be surrounded by people he loved. And we all know that that doesn’t mean the queen.”
Loved? He’d studiously avoided asking Sara about Wilhelm for two years. How could she come to that conclusion?
“Sara, you know Wilhelm and I don’t … talk much anymore. I …” he trailed off as he sank abruptly to the floor. Seated, the cold of the tile bled through his thin pants. “Oh, God. I can’t believe he tried to kill himself. That idiot, I’m so mad at him.”
“Felice says you should come and tell him that yourself. She said you’re the one person whose face he might want to see when he wakes up.” She paused as Simon’s world wheeled. “And I think you’d get mad at yourself if … well, if he didn’t live and you didn’t come back and try to see him one last time.”
“Oh, God. Shit.” He tilted his head back against the wall, stared up at the rectangular halogen lights bearing down on him. “Yeah, I’ll come.”
He hung up, tossed his phone to the tile, dropped his head to his knees and wrapped both arms around his legs. He was so cold.
&
“What the fuck, Simon, we don’t have time to re-do your makeup, we have to be on in thirty!” Henrik hollered when Simon returned to the room, wiping at his eyes. But Simon didn’t even turn to look at him.
“Stig, listen,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. His producer was already there at his side, a solid hand on Simon’s shoulder. His dark eyes met Simon’s.
“I’m listening,” he said softly, and the whole room got quiet except for the muffled thumps of the mainstage speaker signaling the road crew setting up for the main act, now that the opener was done.
“I can’t go on. I have to fly back to Stockholm right now,” Simon said.
“What the fuck?!” Lars yelled, but Stig held up his hand and silenced him.
“Why?” Stig asked, stepping closer.
Simon felt the lurking presence of his bandmates at the edges of his vision. He wished Lars wasn’t hovering so close. But it couldn’t be helped. It was Stig he looked at as he sucked air into his lungs. He’d have to say it. These past few years, Stig had never asked. Simon had never offered. Even though if anyone had a right to know the truth of Simon’s sex tape, it was the man who had plucked him out of his existence as a scholarship choir kid with an unfortunate viral video and transformed him into an international pop star.
“Someone I care about deeply just tried to kill himself,” he blurted out. Shocked by how true that statement was. So many times he’d told himself he’d moved on. That he’d found boyfriends who treated him better, loved him more than Wille ever could. But there it was, deep in his stomach—that horrible feeling that Wilhelm might die and Simon would be left living with words he’d never said to him. “And he’s in critical condition. … It’s … Wille. Prince Wilhelm.”
“OK. Simon, look at me.” Stig’s other hand pressed down on Simon’s other shoulder. “Take a breath. And take a step back. Will your dropping everything and rushing to his side make a difference? Think about it.”
Air moved in and out of his chest. His heart kicked wildly, as if trying to break out of his ribcage. He nodded. “Yes. His friends think I should be there. I … have no idea why. But … I also … I have to. I can’t not go. He can’t die.”
“OK. Well, then you’ll go back to Sweden.”
“What the fuck?” Lars again. “We’re on in—”
Stig shut him up with a glare and turned back to speak softly to Simon. “But, Simon, even I, with all the resources at my fingertips, cannot charter you a flight to Stockholm in the next thirty minutes. Or even in the next two hours. This will take a bit of time. So, this is what we’re going to do. I’m going to pull in every favor I can, and I will get you a chartered flight to Stockholm tonight.
“And this is what you’re going to do while I do that. You are going to take a deep breath and think of every fan who ever told you how much you mean to them. You are going to remember that pink-haired kid last night who told you they’d driven ten hours to see your show because watching your coming-out interview saved their life. You are going to remember the Latinx mom who said that seeing the closeness between you and your mom at the awards show last month gave her hope that she and her estranged gay son could have a good relationship someday. You are going to remember the director of that gay choir that you sang with at London Pride last year who said that seeing a young generation so out and proud made him think that all the hiding and suffering he’d been through had been worth it. Because now the younger generation can live so beautifully.
“You are going to remember all of those people. Because they’re who’s in the audience right now. They’re out there, waiting to see you. So, just for now, you are going to let Wilhelm be in Sweden, with, I’m sure, the best doctors in the country taking care of him. And you are going to go out there and perform for your fans. Those people who love you more than air. Those people you mean the world to. Can you do that?”
Simon shut his eyes against Stig’s searching gaze. Inadvertently, he was flooded with the memory of sitting in the dirt next to Wilhelm outside that first party. “You were the loudest. You were singing straight from your heart,” Wilhelm had said.
He nodded. Willed his heart to stop trying to jackrabbit out of his chest. “Yeah, I can do it.”
“Good. Good boy.” Stig squeezed his shoulder one last time and stepped away. “Now run back to hair and makeup and get them to clean up your face.”
“Geez. You gays are always so dramatic,” Henrik’s voice floated after him as Simon sprinted out of the room.
&
That night, the concert moved through him. Grounded him in his body and took control. His heart was belted out. His dance moves sweated onto the stage. His body only one shape among five, illuminated.
And when the strobes swept the crowd like searchlights over black water, he looked for him. That boy he could save. He didn’t just sing for him. He poured out the last of himself like a libation.
&
I’m in New York! Felice and I are staying with Madison for two weeks this summer. And I don’t understand how anyone can call American hot dog buns bread.
LOL.
“It’s a twelve-hour flight. You should really try to get some rest.”
Simon glanced up from his phone. Stig stood by the small plane window, still dressed in his rumpled three-piece burgundy suit.
“You, too.”
Stig shrugged. “I will.”
“Thank you,” Simon said softly. “For coming with me.”
Stig nodded. “Couldn’t let my best singer go rogue, could I?”
Simon huffed a laugh and glanced back at his phone. “Ten months ago. That’s the last time I had any contact with Wilhelm. ‘LOL.’ Will that be the last thing I ever said to him?”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Stig walked to the fully stocked bar and bypassed the expensive alcohol to nab two bottles of sparkling water. He tossed one to Simon.
“Yes. No. All these years, I’ve thought that protecting Wilhelm’s privacy meant not mentioning him to anyone in my new life. I don’t even know if I know how to talk about him.”
Stig shrugged and settled into another lounge chair across from him. How Stig had managed to pull in favors from Justin Bieber, of all people, Simon had no idea. But here they were, winging towards Stockholm in Bieber’s private plane. Simon had never flown in anything so decked out for luxury, he thought absently. Too bad he was too wrung out to appreciate any of it.
When Simon didn’t continue, Stig spoke up. “My first boyfriend was in the closet,” he offered. “He was an American Mormon doing a mission in Malmö. He promised me he would leave the church for me and stay in Malmö. But at the end of his year, he packed up and went home. And I had to flee as far away as I could because the whole city felt haunted by him. That’s when I went to Seoul. Which, you know, worked out well for me, in the end.”
“And how long did it take you to get over him?” Simon put his phone, face down, on the table in front of him. It’s not like text messages could reach him here in the sky.
“I don’t know if I ever did fully get over him. It made me so sad. How he couldn’t be himself. But I was able to make space in my heart for someone else.”
“You and Thomas seem happy.”
Stig twisted the ring on his finger and smiled, somewhere else. “We are. When I get to see him.”
“Is that why you joined me on this flight?” Simon asked, laughing. “For a booty call back home?”
Stig smirked at him and sipped at his water.
For a long moment, only the hum of the engines pulsed between them.
“That first summer,” Simon said after a minute, “when we released ‘Not Here for the Legends’ …” Their first single had topped the charts, and Simon and his bandmates had been locked in a Stockholm studio, working their asses off to finish the rest of the album. The endless summer daylight fueling them. Bursting with the thrill of something coming.
“I asked Wilhelm if I could see him. Since we were both in Stockholm. Go for a coffee. Or just take a walk. But he said that he wasn’t allowed to be seen with me. And I’d already told him once before I wouldn’t sneak around. So that left us at an impasse. I was so tired of how hot and cold he was. I mean, I get it now, in a way. Now that I have my own NDAs that my security team hands out. But … I had no idea how I could be with Wilhelm if he didn’t even know what he wanted. And then everything started with Johnny, and I told myself to move on. I haven’t even seen Wilhelm since the last time I was at school. He texts me sometimes, but he never really tells me how he’s doing when I ask. I have no idea what’s going on with him. Clearly.” Simon tucked his feet under him and tugged a nearby blanket over his lap. “I just don’t understand why he’d …” His entire body felt like a worn-out dishrag. Squeezed thin enough to expose the threads.
“Back then, I just wanted out of Bjärstad and all that stupid attention because of that sex tape. I never thought my success would drive a wedge between us.”
“It’s not your success that drove him away,” Stig said quietly after a moment. “It’s his own closet that keeps him from you.”
“It’s the queen’s closet,” Simon scoffed. “She’s the one who keeps him there. But I guess he lets her.” Outside the window, pitch black. Like a Bjärstad winter. “He told me he loved me, you know? The last time I saw him. And I never said anything back. I just … never knew how to help him.”
“You can’t help everyone, Simon.”
“Shit. I hope Felice is right that Wilhelm even wants to see me. Was this incredibly stupid, to drop everything and fly over here to see someone who hasn’t even spoken to me in nearly three years?”
Stig laughed briefly and leaned back in his chair. “Maybe,” he said gently. “And if it was, then I’ve used up my one favor with Bieber. So we’re out of luck if we need this plane again. But,” he shrugged, “it seemed to be what you needed in the moment. I find trusting your instincts to be a good thing. Overthinking things just will tie you in knots.”
“Your one favor with Bieber, huh? And how did that come about?”
Stig gestured grandly. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
&
It probably shouldn’t have been a surprise that Simon slept so well on Bieber’s private plane. He expected his sore heart and tired mind to hold him hostage all night. But eventually, his body’s physical exhaustion pulled rank on his heartache, and he slept.
A flight attendant served them coffee and a full American breakfast of pancakes and eggs before they landed at Arlanda. Which was good, because without that, he would never have been able to handle being papped two minutes after making it through customs. He didn’t even know why he bothered with the nondescript jeans, baggy black hoodie, baseball cap and sunglasses. Sometimes he thought a full-on beekeeper’s suit would be the only thing to hide him in public.
The camera flashes led to other people running up, asking for autographs. He kept his cool, just, but his skin itched with the need to run. He’d made it to Stockholm. Wilhelm was just a few hours away. And here he was stuck signing autographs. If he didn’t escape soon, he’d never make it out. A single person seeking autographs was like a dangerous driver on a highway. It could quickly become a hundred-car pile-up of fans demanding things from him. Someone asked, “But aren’t you supposed to be on tour in America?”
At which point, Stig stepped in, saying smoothly, “Yes, and he’s home on urgent personal business, so we need to get moving.” He led Simon away by the elbow. Stig’s tone was authoritative enough that they walked all the way to the car without incident. A team of their Stockholm-based driver and bodyguards were waiting for them there.
Headed south towards Linköping, the car wound through Stockholm’s early evening traffic. Sluggish, Simon stared out the window at the city’s colors bright with the persistent May sun. It’d be another three hours before they’d make it to the only decent hospital outside Bjärstad. He longed for more than a 48-hour reprieve before jetting back for the L.A. show. To just go home and collapse on his mom’s couch for a week. A month. A year. He and everyone else in his band needed a break, a real one.
“There’s no news about the crown prince yet,” Stig said, scrolling through his phone. “The fact that they’ve managed to keep it under wraps gives us a chance at getting into the hospital without any journos or paps spotting you. Especially since we’ll be leaving Stockholm behind us.”
Simon pulled his hood over his baseball cap. “It’s just any possible fans on site we’ll have to worry about.”
“Have you texted his people yet that you’re on the way?”
“If by his people, you mean my sister and Felice, then yes. Felice says that he’s stable. And we should hurry up.”
“Felice is his girlfriend, right? A beard?”
Simon exhaled and dropped his head back against the headrest. “I have no idea. They were friends at school. And, yeah, they’re photographed together a lot these days. Sara and Felice are best friends, but Sara never talks about Felice much with me. I think that Felice and Wilhelm have never publicly said they’re a couple. You know, his mom’s not going to be happy to see me. But Felice asked me to come, and I’d hope she has some sway.”
“Well, you’d know best. Is there anything else I can do?”
Simon turned to look at Stig. In the plane, he’d managed to sleep and put himself to rights. Pressed three-piece dove gray suit, slicked-back hair, but his eyes were tired. Simon patted his hand. “I think you’ve gone above and beyond today.” He gestured towards the unseen car driver behind the glass. “Are we going to drop you somewhere in Stockholm, so you can get that booty call with Thomas?”
Stig shook his head. “I’m coming with you to Linköping. I thought you might need my support. Juls's team booked a hotel room for me and Thomas, though. Thomas said he’d drive to Linköping tonight to meet up. There’s a hotel room for you, too, if you want it, but I figured you’d want to go stay at your mom’s?”
Simon smiled, the knot in his chest easing a bit knowing Stig was coming with him. Stig would navigate them through any potentially difficult group situations. Subtle and smooth, Stig always knew how to exert the right kind of pressure. His finesse could work any room to get what he wanted—journalists, fans, his band. Despite his own years of press training, Simon feared that, if left to his own devices, he might go full apeshit on the queen if she tried to keep him from Wilhelm. “Wow, what will I owe Thomas for this?”
“Just don’t have any emergencies for the two weeks after the tour ends,” Stig replied with a laugh.
Simon saluted. “Got it, boss.”
They rode in silence, easing out of the city onto the highway. The roads, the cars, the industrial parks they passed—everything felt modest and understated after the sprawl of American highways.
“Look,” Stig spoke up later. “I know it sucks, but don’t forget that we only have 48 hours in Sweden. That was as close as I could cut it so we’ll be landing in L.A. five hours before the sound check.”
“I’m sorry about all my appearances in Vegas you had to cancel,” Simon said. “I was supposed to visit a youth shelter today, wasn’t I?”
For Simon, downtime meant that he got to do additional appearances while the rest of the band fucked off. He would have thought that being the only out gay member of a famous boy band meant a lot of men wanting to suck his dick. While it did mean that, in many glorious and annoying ways, it also meant additional responsibilities. Not that he minded. Visiting youth shelters, speaking at schools, doing guest appearances with gay choirs. Every time he met queer people who raved about how he’d inspired them, how he’d changed their lives, how his voice, his interviews, his music had saved them from isolation or suicide or ostracisim, he felt that little bit restored.
“Yeah, they were disappointed, but I said we’d try to reschedule it for after the tour wrapped up.”
“Yeah, maybe. I have to be home again for my sister’s graduation. Could we fit it in between the L.A. and San Francisco shows instead?”
“I’ll ask Juls.”
They drove on. Simon was grateful for Stig’s steady flow of conversation about business and the latest headlines. It didn’t stop the circling thoughts, but it distracted him enough from going insane inside this locked box that couldn’t seem to barrel fast enough towards Wille.
&
An hour before they arrived, a message from Felice blipped onto his phone.
He’s awake. And no longer in a critical condition.
The persistent sun had given way to a hazy twilight when they pulled into the hospital parking lot. Simon stared up at the first stars winking into existence.