Taylor
I was leaning against the counter sipping my coffee, when Carrick shuffled into the kitchen. I smirked, handing him a cup already made to his liking. He smiled at me, taking it and gulping half of it down. He was dressed in nothing but his briefs, something that I was getting used to, even if it still made me blush a bit. My eyes trailed down his body, before being drawn back up when he cleared his throat.
“See something you like?” he teased, and I groaned, rolling my eyes. He laughed, patting the seat next to him; I sighed, but sat down anyway. Zac had gone out early to run a few errands, so it was just me and Carrick today. We didn’t spend as much time alone, but it was another thing I was getting used to.
Even though he’d only been here a few days, he seemed so at home here. Maybe that was because this had been his home for a while. I tried not to think about it, just like I tried not to notice the way he looked at Zac. I knew that look; I’d given it to my brother dozens of times in the past six or so months, but especially those months when I’d all but forced Zac into Carrick’s arms. The look of loving someone with all your heart, but bearing the painful knowledge that they’ll never love you as much as you love them. I wondered how Carrick dealt with it, how he managed to smile and pretend everything was fine. I wished I was that strong.
We drank our coffee quietly, glancing at each other every now and then. We’d always been friends, but this new dynamic was changing the way I saw him. The things we’d done together made it nearly impossible to think of him as just a friend, and yet there was something else, something beyond the sex, that drew my eyes to him. I’d caught the way he looked at me sometimes, too; there was more to it than simple lust, but I didn’t know what.
“Hey Tay, can I ask you something?” Carrick spoke up suddenly; I looked over at him, nodding. “Well, do you remember that party in LA, the one where we met?”
“Yeah, what about it?” I tried to keep my voice calm, but I couldn’t stop the shy smile from sneaking into my lips. I remembered it alright, all too well. Carrick smiled, and I had a feeling he was remembering the same thing.
“Well, how much of it do you remember?”
I smiled, looking down. He thought I didn’t remember? Well, I hadn’t ever brought it up, and I had been pretty drunk, so I supposed it wasn’t that unreasonable of an assumption.
“I wasn’t that drunk,” I said softly, feeling my blush increase a couple degrees.
“Really. So you remember everything?” He all but purred, leaning a bit closer. I nodded, biting my lip. He seemed to think a moment, his eyes sparkling. “So, you remember shoving me against a wall and making out with me?” His voice took on a husky tone, and my eyes fluttered a bit.
“Yeah… I remember you kissing me back just as roughly,” I breathed. He smirked, sipping the last of his coffee. I watched his hand as it moved to cover mine, our fingers brushing.
“Why didn’t you ever mention it?” His brow furrowed a bit in curiosity.
“You met Zac,” I answered simply, shrugging. He still looked a bit confused, so I went on. “I knew as soon as you guys met that you were done for. The way you looked at each other; even if Zac didn’t understand it at the time, it was pretty obvious.”
“What was?”
“Love at first sight.”
Carrick smiled, nodding. He looked down at our hands; I followed his eyes, watching as he turned my hand over, interlacing our fingers. I looked back up at him, not surprised to see his eyes on me. His thumb brushed the back of my hand, and I shivered a bit.
“It may not be the same, but you know I care about you, too.” The sincerity in Carrick’s voice surprised me, and I drew in a small breath. I bit my lip hard, looking down at our hands again.
“I care about you, too, Carrick. It’s more than just… just the sex. You know that.”
“I know,” he replied quietly. I felt his hand under my chin, lifting my face to his. I barely had a moment to gasp before his lips were on mine, soft and warm and surprisingly tender. I ran my fingers through his hair, kissing him back hesitantly at first. He pulled back to look in my eyes, the familiar gleam laced with genuine emotion.
I pulled his lips to mine, wrapping my arms around his shoulders. I felt him smile, holding me just as close. He broke the kiss, his lips trailing over my jaw down my neck; I let out a breathy moan, gripping at his back. His fingers worked under my tee shirt, running up my chest, drawing another moan from me. I pulled it off, breathless, staring into his eyes. He smirked, standing and pulling on my hand.
I let him lead me upstairs, lowering me to the bed and covering me in kisses. My head was swimming; we’d never done anything without Zac, and a small part of me felt guilty. But looking at Carrick leaning over me, kissing his way down my chest, I couldn’t stop myself from tangling my fingers in his hair, throwing my head back and moaning his name.
His eyes never left me once as he pulled my jeans off of me, stroking me to full hardness before swallowing me all at once. My hips bucked, my back arching; I couldn’t stay still, or quiet, as he sucked me torturously slowly. When I felt a finger pressing against my entrance, I had to bite my lip to muffle the shameless moans that threatened to fill the room. When he pressed a second finger into me, I couldn’t hold back, my voice echoing off the walls.
He slid into me not long after, wrapping his arms around me and kissing me with a passion I wasn’t prepared for. This was different than it was with Zac; the way Carrick and I moved together, the way our bodies fit, but also the feelings between us made it… different. No better or worse, but definitely not easily compared to sex with Zac.
One major difference was the fact that Carrick never shut up. It was hot, the lewd words coming from his mouth making me shiver, but more than once I kissed him just to give him something else to do with his mouth. He smirked at me, but kissed me back hungrily, not the least bit offended. I guessed that wasn’t the first time he’d gotten that reaction.
When we climaxed together, it was explosive. We collapsed to the bed together, sweating and gasping for breath. We lay there for a while, I wasn’t sure how long, just holding each other; he stroked my hair, making me purr… I rubbed his back, gently massaging the knots away. He looked in my eyes, and I in his, and I knew as well as he did that there was more than physical attraction between us.
Later that morning, we shared a quiet breakfast. We made small talk, but it wasn’t awkward. In fact, it felt perfectly normal, like home. I wasn’t sure what to make of this shift in the dynamic, but he smiled reassuringly at me. This would be okay. We both loved Zac, with all our hearts, and were happy to share his love. And even though it wasn’t love exactly, it was becoming more and more clear that there were strong emotions on all sides of our arrangement… our family. The thought made me smile. We were becoming a family. And I couldn’t have been happier.
Zac
It had barely been a week since Carrick had moved in–again–but we were already falling into a routine. Having him here had always just felt right, even when it was temporary and my world was falling apart. Now that he had moved to Tulsa for good, it was no different. Okay, it was a lot different. The first time Carrick had moved in, it had just been the two of us against the world. Now, Taylor was here too, and we were creating a strange new life together.
Officially, Taylor’s bedroom was downstairs, while Carrick and I shared the master bedroom. On most nights, though, we all ended up piled in the master bed, and not just because it was bigger and more comfortable. That was only one of many ways that our arrangement, for lack of a better word for it, was weird. But as strange as it was, after only a few days, I really couldn’t imagine it any other way. It was still new, and we were still figuring out how to make it work, but it already made more sense to me than conventional married life ever had.
The first test, I supposed, was Halloween. It had always been my favorite holiday, and I always had fun making the most of it; even with two boyfriends to take care of, I was determined to make Halloween a blast. Taylor seemed equally excited about it, and spent the entire morning and afternoon baking homemade candy for the goodie bags we were going to hand out. Costumes were my territory, and I had the perfect idea for the three of us.
Carrick stared in the mirror, deliberately un-straightening his tie. Once it was sufficiently off kilter, he turned to face me. “Well? What’dya think?”
“You look like an even bigger dork than usual.” I grinned.
He rolled his eyes and poked my chest. “Yeah, right… just remember whose idea this was.”
“Only because Taylor didn’t wanna be Legolas…” I grumbled in the general direction of the guest room door. For some reason, the room that officially belonged to Taylor had the biggest mirror, so we had chosen it to be our dressing room. I was sure Taylor was still slaving over the hot stove like the good little housewife he didn’t want to admit he was, oblivious to my comment about him.
“You just wanted to see me in tights!” He called out. Apparently not as oblivious as I had thought.
“Damn right I did!” I yelled back.
“I wouldn’t mind seeing him in tights…” Carrick agreed, nudging me aside so that he could scrutinize his appearance a bit more.
“Your hair’s too long to really look like Castiel,” I remarked. He was about a foot too tall, too, and didn’t look a thing like Misha Collins. But he looked good in a trench coat and Taylor was going to look really hot in my leather jacket. “Then again, mine is too long to be Sam, but I guess it’ll do.”
“So you’re Sam from a future season,” he replied, shrugging. After a moment’s pause, he kissed my cheek and wrapped his arms around my waist.
I leaned against him, sighing happily. We did look good, and not just because of the costumes. We looked good together. “I just want everything to be perfect. Not just our costumes and not just Halloween, but you know… everything.”
“I know, baby. I think things are pretty perfect so far.” To punctuate that statement, he kissed my neck, pulling me closer to him.
“Yeah?” I gave his reflection a hopeful look. “I mean, I know it’s all… so weird. It’s hard to believe it’s happening, you know? And this is coming from the guy who has been in love with his brother for the better part of the year.”
Carrick sighed. While he might have been far, far more understanding of my situation with Taylor than a sane person would have been, I knew it still had to hurt him to think about it. When I had asked him to come visit me, it had only been for moral support. I hadn’t expected him to be drug into the middle of everything, because I hadn’t known how deep his feelings for me went… or how deep my feelings for him went. It was all so, so much more complicated than I expected when I made that phone call, and it only continued to get more complicated.
I frowned, hating myself for bringing up the subject, even though it wasn’t like he could really forget that I was dating Taylor, too. “Sorry, I’m being weird; I know. We don’t need to talk about all this again.”
Carrick spun me around to face him. “It’s okay, babe. Really. Trust me, this is a little weird for me too. But I’m just happy to be here with you.”
“Yeah?” I asked, staring him down to decide if I really believed him. But of course I did. Carrick wouldn’t lie to me. “I’m glad you’re here, too. Somehow, I think things would be even weirder if you weren’t here…”
“How so?” He asked, tilting his head.
“Because you held me together all through the summer? And even if I have Taylor back… what if I fall apart again?” My voice broke pathetically as I spoke. I hadn’t meant for the conversation to turn so serious, but it was too late to fix that. It was true, though. I wasn’t sure if Carrick really knew just how important he had been to me for those few months he was here. If I’d hidden from Taylor and Kate on my own, I might have gone insane. Instead… I fell in love.
He gave me a sad smile, then pulled me in and pressed his lips to mine. We kissed slowly, which was unusual for us, but passionately. There was something different about it, different from our normal kisses, but I couldn’t quite figure out what that difference was. While I was still trying to puzzle it out, Carrick pulled away and gave me a serious look.
“I won’t let that happen,” he said softly, and I absolutely believed him. The serious look faded away, replaced by his trademark smirk. “Besides, now I have my very own twink.”
“Well, not your very own,” I huffed. “I mean, you do have to share him with me. Or share me with him.”
Carrick grinned. “Let’s go with both.”
I tilted my head to the side in confusion. There was something distinctly evil about Carrick’s grin, and I wasn’t sure what to think of it at all. Then again, when wasn’t there something a little evil about Carrick?
“Taking turns,” he added, as though that cleared everything up.
“Taking turns… with who?” I asked mock accusingly.
Carrick just laughed. “Let’s see, three guys… how many possible combinations is that?”
“Quite a few…” I crossed my arms, but couldn’t keep the grin off my face. “And some I didn’t know we were considering.”
“You know me; I’m up for anything.” He winked.
“It’s usually one of my favorite things about you,” I admitted.
“Trust me, I know,” he replied, grinding against me just to prove his point.
I groaned, both in frustration at his strange statements about our arrangement and the fact that he was a giant cocktease. “You know, sometimes I hate you a little bit.”
“Love you too, babe,” he replied. “So should we go give the princess a hand?”
“You know he’ll just kick us out of the kitchen… but I’m sure we can have plenty of fun before he does.”
And with that, we were off. I decided I could worry about his ideas about taking turns later…