Lips
Something was building. I wondered sometimes if I was just being paranoid, but I could feel it. I could feel this tension boiling just beneath the surface, even when everything seemed to be going just fine. Everything with Seamus seemed perfect and even Zac seemed okay. He seemed happy enough and left us entirely alone for the next day.
It should have been fine. I should have been able to relax. Yet, somehow, I couldn’t.
What could go wrong, though? That was the question I kept asking myself. I had Seamus, and things with him were good. I had ended it with Zac, and even though I wasn’t sure that he was entirely okay with that, he seemed to understand it and he was keeping his distance. No one was going to find out what had happened between the two of us. That nightmare had ended. So, I asked myself again, what could possibly go wrong?
We made it all the way to Omaha without any of my paranoid fears coming true, though. I tried to remind myself that they were just that – fears. Fears that weren’t grounded in reality at all. For once in my life, I was choosing to do something that was good for me, to be with someone who really cared about me and who I really cared about, and I had ended things with Zac before they could mess that up. There was no reason to give in to all of those fears and run away like I had in the past.
Despite my paranoia, I had a good feeling about the concert that night. It’s strange how, even before we’re even onstage, the three of us can just sense when it’s going to be a good show. The audience that night was giving off particularly good vibes that were radiating all the way backstage, and everyone seemed to be in a good mood. Yet another reason to dismiss my fears as totally unfounded.
Even Zac seemed to be in a good mood, and that put a smile on my face. Things between he and I really needed to go back to normal, if that was even possible. I had to laugh at myself for even thinking of it that way. What kind of normalcy could there be after you’d had sex with your brother? But right then, as we lounged around before our set, trying not to strain our voices or otherwise do something stupid and clumsy that would ruin the show, he looked happy and for that I was glad.
After lounging around for a while myself, I decided to go watch Shay’s set. Since he was the only opener, he got to play a pretty long set and I found myself enthralled with it every night. It didn’t even matter that it was usually the same songs each night. I could listen to his voice forever, the way his slight accent came out when he sang certain words and the way he rocked his hips a little when he got really into the music.
He was already a few songs into it by the time I made my way to the side of the stage. I hoped he hadn’t noticed my absence. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to watch him; I was just enjoying the fact that our dressing room seemed, for once, free of the sort of awkward tension that had followed me and Zac around for days.
I was a fool for thinking that tension was gone for good.
Seamus was just launching into his last song when I felt a presence near me. I didn’t even need to turn my head to see who it was. I just knew, without a doubt, that it was Zac. We’d always had that sort of freakishly strange connection. I guess it was a sibling thing, but I’d never really felt that connected to the rest of them. It was just Zac who I could sense as soon as he walked into a room, whose emotions I was so tuned into even when, as it seemed, I didn’t understand them at all.
“He sounds really good tonight,” Zac said to my complete and utter surprise.
“Yeah,” I replied. “But he sounds good every night.”
Zac chuckled. “Relax, I wasn’t trying to insult your boyfriend, okay? That was actually a compliment.”
I turned around and eyed Zac. I really didn’t know what he was trying to say, and I refused to believe that he didn’t have some kind of ulterior motive. Even if he had been acting okay for a day or two, I didn’t totally trust him. His overdramatic ways could return at any moment.
“Seriously, Tay,” Zac said holding his hands up as if to surrender. “He sounds good, even I can admit that. So just chill, alright?”
I didn’t think I was getting all that upset. Zac just seemed way too defensive, and it didn’t make sense to me at all. I didn’t have much time to think about it, though. The sudden absence of music, replaced by scattered cheers, alerted me to the fact that Shay’s set had ended. Sure enough, when I spun around, I saw him heading straight toward me.
As soon as he was within reach, my arms were out. He swung his guitar around behind him and embraced me. I was pretty sure Zac made some sort of sound behind me that might have been a cough or a fake attempt at gagging. I wasn’t really sure, and I chose to ignore it. I was just being paranoid, I was sure. Zac wasn’t that petty and childish, was he?
“Great set, babe,” I said, leaning in and pressing a kiss to Shay’s cheek.
Maybe I should have been a little more cautious after that incident in Louisville, but I really didn’t care. The only person around to witness this particular show of affection was Zac. While he might not have enjoyed it, his anger was in a different arena entirely from those assholes at that other venue. And anyway, it was worth anything at all to see Seamus smile at me.
“Thanks,” he replied. “I’m sure you guys will be great as well. Let me just ditch this guitar and get changed, yeah? Then I’ll be back.”
“Yeah, alright.”
He leaned in then and kissed me on the lips. It was quick and fairly chaste, but I didn’t mind. Zac gave another little cough-snort-thing from behind me, and I honestly had forgotten that he was even there. That was just the effect that Shay and his lips had on me, I guess.
“Well, that was sweet,” Zac said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
He walked off then, close behind Seamus. For a moment, I wondered if he was going to do something stupid. I didn’t think Zac was dumb enough to try to beat him up or anything. How could he possibly explain something like that? There was no reasonable explanation for it besides the awful truth, and I thought that Zac could see as well as I could that our secret needed to stay a secret.
Still, I wanted to chase after them. I couldn’t, though. I found myself rooted on the spot, almost in disbelief. The worst part was that I could definitely smell alcohol lingering in the air around me, and for once, surprisingly, I wasn’t the source of it. I wasn’t sure who was, though – Seamus or Zac.
I didn’t have a chance to find out, either. All too soon, our set was beginning. The band descended upon me, everyone talking on top of each other as they made the final preparations for the show. In those moments, there was no time to think about anything but the show. I had to admit, that was my favorite thing about touring – those times when I could empty my mind of everything but music.
And that’s exactly what I did for the next two hours.
That temporary break for my mind left me feeling a lot better. I hadn’t really been in a bad mood anyway, except for that strange little encounter with Zac. Even if I had dwelt on it, I knew I wouldn’t have come to any sort of conclusions, so it was just as well that I put it out of my mind for the entirety of the show. The show went so well that by the time it was over, I didn’t even care what Zac’s problem was. He seemed to be in a pretty good mood, too. He even gave me a smile before we took our bow. It wasn’t much, but I liked it.
In fact, everyone seemed to be in a good mood after the show. Obviously I wasn’t the only one who felt it. It had just been a good night. Shay was right there to greet me as soon as I got offstage, his huge grin saying it all. We walked arm in arm through the backstage area, only parting to gather up all of our belongings that seemed to multiply and scatter themselves around the green room while we weren’t watching.
I hated to part ways with him at all, if even for a moment. I still wasn’t totally comfortable with any big public displays of affection, though, so we kept a safe distance from each other as we walked back to the bus. It was no surprise at all that fans were already gathering there in the hopes of getting an autograph from at least one of us. The bus strategically blocked us from their view, but I could hear them chattering and knew the crowd was already pretty big.
Right then, I really didn’t want to deal with the fans at all. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to them or anything; it was just that spending time with Seamus sounded a lot more fun. The way he flopped down onto the bus couch just looked like an invitation to me, even if Zac was sitting right beside him, sipping a beer.
Well, at least I had found the source of that alcoholic smell. I could only hope that Zac hadn’t actually been drunk during the concert, but I wasn’t in any position to judge him if he had been.
“You guys going out there tonight?” Isaac asked, emerging from the back of the bus, where he had apparently already changed out of his suit and into a t-shirt and jeans. He glanced at Zac. “I’m going to guess that’s a ‘no’ for you.”
Zac only offered him a raised eyebrow as a reply. Perhaps I had been wrong about that good mood I thought Zac was in. Then again, he never really was a talkative drunk, and he seemed to be well on his way to drunk right then.
“I’ll go,” I said, sounding more like I was going to my death than to mingle with the fans. I gave Shay a little pout. “I’ll be back soon, alright?”
“Yeah, take your time,” he replied, smiling. “I’ll still be here when you get back.”
It seemed like a loaded statement, although I didn’t know why I needed to be reassured. Whatever it meant, it made me smile. I gave him a quick kiss, then shed the rest of my bags and grabbed a marker from our stash by the door, trying to ready myself to face the masses. The last thing I saw before stepping off the bus was Seamus helping himself to a beer and rejoining Zac on the couch.
Just as I suspected, there was a huge crowd waiting for us. I signed my name so many times it felt like my hand might fall off and made small talk with the same fans I was certain I had seen the day before and the day before that. All part of the job description, though. The crowd seemed to thin out around Isaac first, and I was left still signing tickets and posters and CDs when he came over and told me he was going back onto the bus.
A few long minutes later, the last few stragglers bid me goodbye and I made my way back to the bus. I couldn’t wait to see Seamus again, even though I knew it really hadn’t been that long since we had parted. Even just a few seconds away from him were kind of agonizing, though. I had to admit, I was falling hard. All I could think about as I climbed up onto the bus was the way his lips would feel on mine when I finally saw him again.
He wasn’t at the front of the bus, though. I didn’t hear voices from the back, but I figured that was the next logical place to look. Maybe he had joined Zac for some drunken video gaming. He wasn’t super into the games, but he humored Zac sometimes. Figuring they must have been back there, I made my way down the bus’s hallway and pulled the door back.
I wasn’t at all prepared for the scene in front of me.
The lips I had missed, the lips I had thought about as I signed endless autographs… were locked with my brother’s.