Deleted scene from The Musician and the Muse

“Are you sure you want to do this with me?” Jesse asked me for the dozenth time.

I had thought about it, in detail, and I had assured him repeatedly that I wanted to be here. If he could be brave enough to walk into the children’s hospital where Amber worked to entertain kids with cancer just days after publicly admitting he was gay, then I could be brave enough to be right there beside him. And if that meant having a picture of myself posted on Twitter or Instagram, then so be it.

I wanted to be with him. That meant being with him, not pretending I didn’t know him. “Yes, I’m sure. Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. And I’ve done this before, remember.” Jesse reached out with the hand not holding his guitar case and twined our fingers together. 

I squeezed his hand, still stunned that he was confident enough to touch me in public now. Kissing on the bridge had been a risky moment of insanity, but the Golden Gate Bridge wasn’t exactly well-populated by people with cameras. Everywhere we’d gone since then, however, was.

From the Embarcadero and Fisherman’s Wharf, to Golden Gate Park the day after, and our hike through Muir Woods yesterday, Jesse hadn’t stopped touching me. It was all innocent, of course: a hand behind my back as he ushered me through a doorway, threading our fingers together as we strolled and looked at the sights, an arm around my shoulders as we sat side by side. Something in him had shifted; either he’d decided we weren’t being scrutinized here, or he’d decided he didn’t care.

It was nice seeing this freer side of him. He was relaxed here in a way he hadn’t been before, and I hadn’t even noticed until the tension was suddenly gone from him. But holding hands as we walked through the park was one thing. Making a public appearance with his boyfriend just a week after coming out was another. Sure, it was San Francisco, but still. 

We’d come here to lay low while the media storm blew over. This was not laying low.

“I know you’ve done this before,” I told him. “But that was, well… before.”

Jesse pulled me closer and kissed me lightly on the lips. “I know. But you heard Amber: she checked with the charge nurse, and she personally asked everybody that works on her floor. The parents all know I’m coming. Everybody’s cool with it.”

“You’re right.” I took a deep breath to center myself, and nodded. “Okay. Our first official public appearance as a couple. Let’s do this.”

Jesse smiled and squeezed my hand once more as we entered the hospital. We stopped at the information desk and got our visitor’s badges, which went smoothly since Amber had told them we were coming. From there Jesse knew the way to get to the Oncology floor where Amber worked.

I didn’t have much experience with hospitals myself. When Mom passed, Danny had been the one who’d found her and called the ambulance, and once they reached the hospital Mom was pronounced dead on arrival and taken to the morgue. I’d only spent a few minutes with Danny and her body there in the emergency room before driving my brother home. 

When I got the call about Danny’s death, I’d been called to the medical examiner’s office to identify his body. I’d sat in a chair in front of her desk and she showed me a photograph. That was it. No cold, antiseptic corridors to contend with. No smell of bleach wafting down the hallways.

This place was nothing like I’d expected. The hallways were all painted in bright murals of trees and rolling hills, of children’s nursery rhyme characters, of rainbows and farm animals, of underwater aquatic scenes. The nurses and orderlies we passed all wore hospital scrubs with bright colors and cheery pictures. Everyone smiled and nodded hello at us as we passed.

Jesse navigated his way through the maze of hallways to the elevator—which was decorated to resemble the inside of a train car—and led me to the sixth floor, the oncology ward. Amber had explained to me last night that her floor was mostly kids who were there for chemotherapy and other types of cancer treatment. Their little immune systems had to be closely protected, since the treatments made them susceptible to the slightest infections. Amber had stressed the importance of using hand sanitizer when entering and exiting each patient’s room, and I noticed the dispensers posted every few feet along the hallways.

As we approached the nurse’s station an older woman with short salt and pepper hair smiled wide when she spotted us. “Jesse Sutton, as I live and breathe! Amber told us you were coming but I wasn’t gonna believe it until I saw it with my own eyes. Come here, you!” She came around the desk with her arms outstretched.

Jesse barely got his guitar set safely on the floor before he was engulfed in a tight bear hug. “Good to see you too, Miss Ruth. It’s been too long.”

“I keep telling you that, and you keep not listening. When are you gonna finally move up here with your family and get out of that silly town?”

Jesse released her with a laugh. “Well, never say never.”

Her eyes climbed her forehead. “Are you serious?”

He turned back toward me and winked. “Well, let’s just say I have a little more incentive to live a quiet life these days.”

Ruth’s eyes flitted toward me and she smiled. “Is this him? Mr. Sapphire Afternoon himself? Well holy shiitake mushrooms, if those aren’t the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. Ruth Ludwick, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m the charge nurse here.”

She held out her hand and I shook it. “Noah Grisham. It’s a pleasure to meet you as well.” 

My nerves ratcheted up a few notches meeting this woman who so obviously cared for Jesse. It was clear now, after witnessing the exchange between the two, that Jesse came up here quite frequently. It was yet another in a long list of things I was discovering about him. There was this whole other side of him he kept hidden from the public, and the more glimpses I caught the more I fell for him.

It was humbling that a man with a heart as big as his would count me worthy to be let into his life.

“Alright,” Ruth turned back to Jesse as she released my hand. “We’ve got you set up in the usual spot. Amber and the other nurses are wrangling up the kids as we speak. Give us another fifteen or twenty minutes and we’ll be ready for you. You boys want some coffee while you wait?”

Jesse chuckled. “You still serving that motor oil you call coffee?”

Ruth slapped him playfully on the shoulder as she walked back behind the nurse’s station counter. “Oh, hush, boy. You want it, you can get it yourself. Noah, it was nice to meet you. Shame a nice boy like you had to fall in with a rascal like this one.”

Jesse picked his guitar back up with one hand and threaded his fingers through mine with the other. “You love me and you know it.”

She shook her head and chuckled. “Lord knows why. Now scram, you two. I got patients to see to.”

Jesse nodded and led me down the hall and into the nurses’ break room. “You want some coffee? It’s really not that bad. I just like to give Ruth a hard time.”

“No, thank you. I’m fine.” I leaned against the countertop and watched as Jesse sat down and pulled his guitar out of the case to tune the strings. “Ruth seems nice.”

Jesse smiled as he adjusted one of the knobs. “Yeah. She’s a hoot.”

“She cares for you very much.”

Jesse nodded. “She reminds me a lot of my Aunt Dottie.”

I watched as Jesse’s expression faltered for the briefest of moments at the mention of Uncle Hank’s wife. I had no idea whether they had kept in contact. Hell, I didn’t even know if she was still alive. All I knew was that Jesse missed his surrogate family a lot, and that he was too stubborn to talk about it.

Fortunately I was saved from making the conversation even more awkward by Amber popping her head in the door. “Hey, you two. Ruth said I’d find you in here. You about ready?”

Jesse flashed his trademark grin, the momentary melancholy at the mention of his past forgotten, and strummed one last chord on his guitar with a flourish. “Let’s do this.”

***

As amazing as it was to watch Jesse onstage at the Legacy in front of an audience of adoring fans, it was even more so watching him in front of a roomful of sick children. I had to fight back tears as we walked into the oncology ward’s playroom to see dozens of kids all thin and pale, balding from chemotherapy and other various treatments. Some had oxygen tubes coming out of their little noses, some had their central lines hooked up to bags of medication hanging next to them. All of them, I was glad to see, had at least one parent or family member with them.

And all of them were completely rapt as they watched Jesse play.

Just like his show at the Legacy, he asked the kids what they wanted him to play, and it became clear rather quickly who the Jesse Sutton fans were. One of the girls who appeared to be twelve or thirteen requested “When My Life Began,” then blushed every time he smiled at her during the song. One of the young boys, who looked to be about the same age, wiped away tears when Jesse played “Sapphire Afternoon,” glancing at me several times during the song. I guessed he had seen Jesse’s performance on the internet, and I made a mental note to say hello to him later.

While Jesse chatted with the kids in between songs, I snapped a few photos on my phone and sent one to Layla. I hated that she missed this. Then the thought occurred to me: did she even know he did this? The two of them seemed like such good friends on top of their employer/employee relationship, but I had to wonder if Jesse kept things like this a secret. I winced as my phone vibrated with an incoming message, hoping I hadn’t just outed Jesse.

Layla: I see you’ve met Ruth, then.

Me: Thank god you knew we were here. I was afraid I’d gotten Jesse in trouble.

Layla: I didn’t know you were there right now, but I figured you would be sometime before the end of the week. Jesse loves it there.

Me: He’s very good with them. I don’t think he even knows how much he is making a difference in their lives just by being here.

Layla: That’s Jesse. He has no idea how brightly his star shines. The rest of us just have to accept that we’ll always be in his shadow.

I turned Layla’s words over and over in my mind for the rest of the day, as Jesse visited with some of the sicker patients who hadn’t been able to leave their rooms to attend his concert. As we drove back to Jake and Amber’s and he held my hand the entire time. As we grabbed dinner with Jake and Amber at a ramen place in their neighborhood and Jesse casually signed the check with a 200% tip. As we lay in bed later that night trading slow and sensual blowjobs, trying to be quiet so we weren’t overheard.

I loved him, that much was clear. It had been clear for a while now. Jesse had brought light into my life during a time in which I couldn’t fathom ever finding my way out of the darkness. And now that we were together, our limbs as entwined as our hearts were, I couldn’t fathom ever living another day without him. But there was one little thing that still stood in the way of us making a life together.

“Jesse?”

“Yeah?” he asked, his fingers stroking lightly along my back as we came down from our respective highs.

“I think I’m ready.”

“For what?”

“To go back home.”

Jesse’s fingers stilled. “You want to go back home? To Leighton?”

I raised my head up and placed my chin on his chest, bringing us eye to eye. “I want you to come with me to pack up Danny’s house. I’m ready.”

Jesse’s smile was radiant as he leaned up and captured my lips with his own. “You know I’m pretty sure I don’t want to live in L.A. anymore, right?”

“Then we’ll figure something else out. Together.”

Jesse pulled me tighter against him and kissed me again. “I like the sound of that.”