Fall
You let me in
‘Cause after all
It seemed like the right thing to do
Hotels were a rare luxury on tour, with such long drives between most of the destinations that we often ended up just sleeping on the bus. Even more rare were the nights when Zac and I were able to find any amount of privacy even in a hotel. More often than not, he shared with Taylor and I shared with Annalee; it seemed we would never finagle it so that we had our own rooms that no one would notice weren’t actually both being occupied.
In Illinois, though, just a few days before the first leg of the tour ended, we got lucky. Annalee had rushed off to spend the night with an old friend who evidently lived in Chicago now, and Zac had managed to get his own room, too. I ditched most of my bags in my room and headed straight to his as soon as I received his text telling me the coast was clear and he was waiting for me.
I felt like I had to creep like a thief down the hallway to his room, where I only needed to knock once before the door swung open and Zac pulled me inside. His hair was wet and he smelled… clean. It was a generic sort of clean smell, like the nameless hotel complimentary soap, but I still liked it. As he kissed down my neck, I shamelessly buried my head in his hair and inhaled.
Eventually, he guided me toward the bed and we collapsed onto it together. Something about that movement or the way he looked at me stopped me in my tracks and made me lose my breath. It suddenly hit me that I would be leaving the tour soon—not for good, but it didn’t matter. I would still be away from him, and he would be with his wife.
I closed my eyes
And let you fall
I wonder what you could possibly know
About breaking down that I don’t
“Are you okay?” Zac asked, brushing back my hair.
I shrugged and glanced away from him, not wanting him to see the lie in my eyes.
“No, you’re not,” he replied, nudging my cheek his with his nose until I gave in and looked at him. “What’s wrong, Colbs?”
“Just thinking about… us, I guess. This whole thing we’ve got going on, and what’s going to happen in a few days, or a few weeks, or months…”
“Just think about now,” he replied, but I could tell by the look on his face and his tone of voice that he knew it wasn’t that simple. “Now is all we’ve got for certain. What more can we do, Colby? What more can I do?”
“I don’t know,” I answered, shrinking away from him a little. I was pretty sure I could smell beer on his breath, but that seemed to be a constant for all the guys on the tour.
“You want some kind of promise? I can’t give you that.”
“I didn’t ask for it,” I replied. “I’m not going to ask you for anything like that. It’s not my place.”
“Then I don’t know what you want me to do, Colby,” he said, letting out a frustrated groan. My eyes widened as he reached for the necklace he wore his wedding ring on and practically ripped it off. “How about that? Is that what you’re trying not to ask me for?”
It’s been awhile
Since I begged for
Anything but now I want more
“No,” I replied honestly. “I said it’s not my place. If you… if you want to leave her, that’s on you. But just taking off that ring means nothing. It’s a symbol. It doesn’t change anything.”
Zac groaned again. “Why do you have to make this so complicated?”
“I really don’t think I’m the one doing that,” I replied, but the words were mostly lost in his sudden kiss.
As much as I wanted to keep arguing with him for putting words into my mouth—words I would never admit I was actually thinking—the second his lips touched mine, I knew that I couldn’t. His tongue slipped into my mouth and I was done for. By the time Zac’s hand crept under my shirt, I was certain that he knew I was putty in his hands, and he was taking full advantage of that fact.
So lay me down
I’m lonely
You don’t understand me
And you’d never even try to
Anyway
Zac climbed on top of me, only pulling back from the kiss to let me push his shirt over his head. I had to admit, I did like the way he looked without that damn ring around his neck. I could try to imagine it was my ring, but it didn’t work. With it gone, though, I could almost pretend that Zac was free to be mine, even if I knew better.
I was so caught up in my fantasies of truly being with Zac that I barely even registered him peeling off my pajama shorts and panties. I only snapped back to reality when I felt his leg push my thighs apart, his hand finding its way between my legs and into the wetness I was ashamed to say was already waiting for him. Even though he didn’t know the reason, I was ashamed of how turned on I’d become because of my silly romantic fantasies. I couldn’t stop them, though. Now that Zac’s ring was gone, at least for the moment, I wanted to be even closer to him. As he worked one, then two, fingers in and out of me, I stripped out of my t-shirt and bra and pulled him down so that his chest was flush against mine. It was smooth and soft, but I knew the main reason it felt so good was because his ring wasn’t digging into my collarbone and reminding me that he was still married.
I hear you say
It’s not the same
I’m sorry
It’s something I just can’t explain
I dug my fingernails into his back, not really caring if I left marks, just needing him to be closer still. Zac didn’t seem to mind either, judging by the low moan he let out. His mouth did taste like beer, and I could smell it all around me with him so close, but I didn’t care.
“Colby,” Zac gasped out the second my hand slipped inside his boxer briefs. “I don’t… I don’t have a condom…”
“It’s alright,” I replied.
We’d used one every other time, but it didn’t really seem necessary to me. I was clean, I was sure he was clean and I was pretty good at taking my pill on time every day. Besides, I wanted Zac as close, at least physically, as I could get him. If I couldn’t have all of him emotionally, I could settle for physically.
He stared at me for a moment, blinking slowly, then nodded. His hands joined mine, helping to push his boxers down until he could kick them off into the floor. Although he seemed eager to be naked, once he was, he slowed down again, settling in between my legs and just laying there for a moment, breathing heavily against my neck. He wasn’t inside me; in fact, he was barely brushing against me, just enough to make me tremble. Our bodies were almost as connected as possible, and Zac seemed to be reveling in the way that felt just as much as I was.
Finally, after what felt like forever, he slipped inside of me. It felt even better than I could have imagined. I wasn’t delusional until to think that he was really mine, but right then, he was. Right then we were as close as possible and as together as possible. If only that moment could have lasted forever. At least it wasn’t as rushed as our other times, Zac’s motions actually slow and sensual, savoring the moment, this time.
I held him tightly against me, just enjoying the way his chest felt against mine. Our heartbeats seemed to sync up, beating out a surprisingly slow and steady rhythm in spite of what we were doing. We always seemed to be fighting, clawing at each other in desperation, but not this time. This time we slowed down and I almost wondered if time had slowed with us.
So shut your mouth
And hold me close
We both know
It’s better than being alone
It could have been hours or minutes before I felt Zac tensing against me, the first sign that he was about to come. I stared up at him as he sped up only slightly, biting his lip in concentration. My vision blurred with my own orgasm as his mouth fell open, a moan escaping it as he finally let go.
Zac collapsed on top of me then, and for a moment I was certain he’d fallen asleep still inside of me. Finally, he reluctantly rolled off and heaved a huge sigh toward the ceiling. I didn’t feel like sticking around to figure out what that meant, so I slipped off to the bathroom, gathering up my discarded underwear along the way. The shirt I grabbed with them turned out to be Zac’s, but I slipped into it anyway. It was surprisingly clean for something that had been laying in a pile on the floor, and it smelled like him. I had the silly thought that I hoped the smell lingered even after I left in the morning and returned the shirt to him.
When I came back into the room, at first I thought Zac hadn’t moved at all. But the covers were pulled up over him and a closer look revealed that he’d slipped back into his boxers. Otherwise, he was in the same position, still staring blankly up at the ceiling. Still not wearing his ring.
“Zac?” I asked softly, climbing into the bed and laying down what felt like a safe distance away from him.
He didn’t look my way. “Hmm? What?”
“Nothing, I just…” I began, then sighed. “Nothing. Just go to sleep.”
“I don’t know what this means,” he said.
“It means… I’m sleepy?”
“No,” he replied, shaking his head. “I mean this. The… taking my ring off. I don’t know why I did that.”
I rolled over so that my back was to him and mumbled, “Guess it was just the heat of the moment.”
The bed shifted but I didn’t look back to see if Zac was truly moving closer to me. “What I mean is… I don’t know what happens now. It’s just a symbol, Colby, like you said. Taking the ring off only changes things right now, right here, between us.”
“So why did you do it?” I asked, squeezing my eyes shut as though that would contain the tears.
“Because I wanted to,” he replied, wrapping an arm around me and grasping my hand. “I can’t make a commitment to you now. I’m not going to try. But that, the ring… that was something I could do. I just don’t know what comes next or what… what you want to come next.”
“It doesn’t matter, because I can’t have those things,” I replied softly.
I felt Zac nod as he rested his head against the back of mine. “I get that. You know I want… things I can’t have, too. That’s why I made a big grand gesture that I can’t back up… yet.”
“Yet?” I repeated, hating how hopeful I sounded.
“I don’t know what the future holds, besides the inevitable,” he replied, and I knew he was talking about the baby.
“I’m not stupid enough to think you can or will leave her,” I said.
He squeezed my hand. “Never say never.”
“Don’t.”
Zac recoiled. “What?”
“You just said you wouldn’t make any commitment to me. Don’t make any empty promises, either. Why would you do that? You can’t leave her now. You know you can’t. Whether you do someday or not… it’s too far away to think about now, and I’m not asking you to do it.”
“Then why are we even talking about it?”
“You started it.”
Zac sighed. “Then I’m finishing it now. I’m sorry if trying to tell you what I wanted with this stupid empty gesture made things even messier. I didn’t mean to do that, I just wanted you to know…”
He trailed off then and I asked, “What? Wanted me to know what?”
“Nevermind,” he replied. Despite the annoyance I heard in his voice, I felt him press a kiss to the back of my head. “Let’s just go to sleep.”
“Okay,” I replied, mostly because I was sick of arguing.
As he drifted off behind me, still holding my hand, I couldn’t help wondering what it was he seemed to both want and not want me to know he wanted. It seemed there could only be one answer.
He was falling in love with me, too.
If wanting you’s so wrong then I’m wrong
I’ll admit it
Time after time you’ll realize
You don’t mean it