Zac

I’ve always been kind of a homebody; going out on tour was never my favorite part of being in a band. This tour was different, though, for reasons I felt horrible for admitting. I’d heard Taylor talk about how much nicer it was to tour without the wife and kids along, and I had to admit that I understood completely, even if my only child was just a few months old. Not having to deal with late night crying fits and my wife’s equally frustrating mood swings.. it was a nice change. Having my best friend–and his best weed–on tour didn’t hurt, either.

Speaking of said best friend, I wasn’t surprised to find him in the back lounge of the bus, long after everyone else had gone to sleep. Carrick and I were both night owls like that. I plopped down next to him on the couch and stretched out, making myself as comfortable as possible on a tour bus.

“You hear that?” I asked.

Carrick smirked. “Hear what?”

“Exactly,” I replied, smiling a bit. “Nothing. Silence. Pretty sweet, huh?”

“Yep,” he said, stretching out so that his already too small tank top slid up and revealed a patch of his stomach. “No complaints here.”

I glanced over him, wondering if he really understood why I was enjoying the solitude of this tour. “No ringing phones, no crying babies, no… wives…”

“Just a couple of buds…” Carrick remarked, his long arm stretching to reach behind the couch, where he had evidently stashed a pipe. “And some bud.”

“You know the way to my heart, Carrick.” I smirked.

He blinked at me for a moment, then lowered his eyes. It was brief, but I definitely noticed the change in expression, even though I had no clue what it meant. Giving a little chuckle, he passed the pipe to me and said, “Guess I do.”

I pulled my own lighter out of the depths of the couch and lit it up. Just as expected, Carrick had brought the highest quality with him. I had already learned, after over a year of friendship, that even the worst quality he got out in Cali was better than the best Tulsa had to offer. It wasn’t the only reason I kept him around, of course, but it didn’t hurt. After taking a nice, long hit, I passed the pipe back to Carrick, my big stupid hand fumbling a bit so that we were practically holding hands for a second as the pipe passed from mine to his.

Carrick licked his lips slowly, then pulled the pipe to them and took a hit long enough to rival the one I’d taken. I exhaled mine finally, leaning back against the couch.

A moment later, Carrick nudged my knee and sighed. With the pipe held out to me, he asked, “I told you I split up with my girl last week, right?”

I took the pipe and took another hit, then shook my head as I exhaled and passed it back to him. “That short chick? What was her name, Alicia or Alice or…”

“Allison?” Carrick offered, chuckling.

“Right, that’s what I said.”

He smirked. “Course it was.”

“What happened, though? She seemed… nice.” I really hadn’t met her for long enough to judge, but we’d been introduced at some red carpet event we all happened to be attending. Kate was far from Carrick’s biggest fan, so we didn’t get to do much more than say hello, unfortunately.

“She was,” Carrick replied, shrugging. “Just didn’t work out. Bros before hoes, right?”

“Damn right,” I said, nudging him. “Couldn’t really see you settling down anyway.”

“No?” Carrick asked, his head tilting to the side in what seemed like genuine surprise.

Was that harsh of me? He always poked fun at how young I’d gotten married, and here he was, several years older and still single. He had been with Allison for quite a while, but he was just past thirty and definitely still living the bachelor life. I couldn’t help making assumptions.

Carrick eyed me a bit critically. “I dunno, I think I would…. just gotta find the right person.”

“Yeah, well, it ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.” That was maybe more than I wanted to admit, but my lips were always loose when I was stoned. It wasn’t like Carrick didn’t already know anyway; he’d gotten an up close view of how great my married life was when Everybody Else had crashed at my house on their way through Tulsa back in the spring.

“No?” Carrick asked, chuckling softly. “Well, I imagine having a kid can make things kinda… tense.”

I stared him down. “The things I’ve seen in that child’s diaper, Carrick. You don’t even want to know.”

He let out a loud, booming laugh, his nose scrunching up as he slapped my thigh.

“Seriously,” I continued, giving an exaggerated shudder. “It just… changes things. Changes you.”

His hand still resting on my thigh, Carrick replied, “You’ll live.”

“Glad you have faith in me,” I said, giving him a weak smile.

“Course I do,” he replied, the smile on his face lacking its usual humor. “That’s what friends are for, right?”

“Yeah,” I replied, my head tilting to the side as I smiled back at him. Grabbing the pipe, which was barely still smoldering, from his hand, I added, “And for sharing their weed.”

He just gave me another smile, glancing down at his hand and finally removing it from my thigh. Seeing another opportunity, I stretched my legs out across his lap.

“Anyway…” I said. “Feels good to just… be away from all of that and relax. Is that bad? That sounds bad.”

“Not bad at all,” he replied, chuckling a little and draping his arms over my legs.

“It does sound bad, Carrick,” I said, sighing. “I know it does. It’s just… it’s a lot sometimes.”

Carrick nodded, but didn’t say anything. His fingers brushed back and forth over my leg, seeming to have a mind of their own.

“Sorry, I’m being all depressing or whatever.” I shook my head, trying to clear it of all the thoughts I apparently hadn’t managed to smoke away.

Carrick shook his head. “You’re fine, Zac. Really. I.. I’m glad we’re friends, but I want us to be the kind of friends that can tell each other stuff. Open up, ya know?”

He punctuated the statement by giving my leg a gentle squeeze. It was weird to see him be so honest, but I understood what he meant. We had mostly just been smoking buddies, friends who had a good time together, but didn’t have time for much more. Living halfway across the country from each other made it hard to get that close, even though we clearly were… or would be, if given the chance.

After a moment, I gave him a nod and a weak smile. “So, you wanna tell me what really happened with… Allison… then?”

“I guess you could say…” Carrick trailed off, his trademark smirk returning to his face, although it seemed altogether inappropriate for our conversation. “She just couldn’t offer me what I needed.”

I nodded slowly as realization dawned on me. So that was the problem–the sex was nothing to write home about. That was something I could understand. Shaking my head, I replied, “You don’t even wanna know how long it’s been since…”

 

Carrick

I raised an eyebrow and smirked wider; Zac on a dry spell? Part of me wished I could help him out with that, but of course that wasn’t gonna happen any time soon.

“We’ve had like one weekend where my parents kept the baby,” he went on. “And that was… I’ve lost count of how many weeks ago that was. Sad that I was even counting, huh?”

“Nah, nothing sad about that,” I chuckled. “Been a while for me too. We officially split last week, but she moved out like… two months ago? So trust me, I hear ya on the dry spell.” I winked at him without thinking; I was having a hard time not flirting with him. But either he didn’t notice or didn’t care, although I had a feeling it was the first one. I hadn’t told him I was into guys yet, mostly because I worried all my playful remarks would start to make way too much sense.

“Not like this dry spell is all that different from how things before, really,” Zac remarked with a snort. I eyed him, rubbing his leg lightly; I just couldn’t resist an opportunity to touch him, apparently.

“Not doin’ it for ya, huh?”

“S’fine, when it happens,” he said with a shrug. “At least, I think so. She might tell a different story.”

“Oh yeah?” I was trying really, really hard not to picture Zac having sex… I must’ve been fueling the energy into my hands, because a moment later Zac let out a slight sigh that sounded way too much like a moan for my sanity.

“But I mean, it’s alright,” he went on. “When it happens. Ever since this whole Orthodox thing, though…” He trailed off, shaking his head.

“Orthodox?” I asked, moving my hands a bit higher up his legs. We’d never really talked about religion before; I knew him and his brothers were some form of Christian, but that was about it.

“It’s this new church most of the family joined. All these rules–eat this on Wednesdays, not that on Fridays, eat sweet fuckall during Lent… And Kate’s the worst for following every. single. rule. This,” he added, picking the pipe back up. “This is definitely not allowed.”

I laughed, moving my hands up to his lower thighs. I was probably pushing my limits, and the fact that Zac was dressed only in a wifebeater and boxers wasn’t helping.

“Man, to each their own, but if there’s a higher power? I seriously doubt they give a fuck what we eat… or smoke…” I gave him another wink, but he tilted his head in curiosity.

“If? You don’t believe in God?”

“Haven’t made my mind up yet. Maybe there is a higher power; maybe the universe is really just that awesome on its own. Gives me plenty to think about, anyway.”

Zac looked at me for a moment; I didn’t think he was the type to judge, and sure enough, his lips curled in a tiny smirk.

“That’s… that’s kind of a good way to think about it. Sometimes I just… I don’t know. And that’s between you and me,” he added with a pointed look.

“Hey man, you know you can trust me.” We hadn’t been friends all that long, but he already meant a lot to me. And even if he didn’t, I wasn’t the kind of guy to talk behind someone’s back.

“Yeah… I know.” He gave me a genuine smile, and I wanted so bad to just… something. But I settled for giving his thigh a gentle squeeze.

“You gonna rub my feet, too?” He asked after another tiny, but infuriating, moan. I just shrugged, grinning.

“Sure, why not?”

“You are a brave man, Carrick Moore Gerety,” he laughed, wiggling his toes. I scooted toward the other end of the couch, until his feet were in my lap, and started massaging them. He leaned back and closed his eyes, sighing happily; I took the chance to really look at him, the way I hadn’t been able to before. His wife seemed like a total bitch, but she was definitely lucky, I thought to myself while licking my lips slowly.

“Man, if you ever did this for Allison, I don’t know why she’d leave,” Zac said, followed by another moan. I almost made a sound myself, but covered it by chuckling.

“Who says she’s the one that left?”

Zac lifted his head to look at me, one eyebrow raised.

“Like I said… I wasn’t getting what I wanted.” I inwardly cringed at how horny I probably sounded, but again, he didn’t seem to notice, just smirking at me.

“Well, I wouldn’t kick ya out of bed.”

I froze. He… he hadn’t just said that. Right? I eyed him… maybe…

“Did I say you could stop?” He said, smiling sweetly and giving me a playful kick. I looked down, seriously hoping I wasn’t blushing, and started rubbing his feet again.

“Sorry, babe.” The nickname came out all on its own, and out of the corner of my eye I saw his eyes widen a fraction.

“You know you didn’t have to do it, anyway. I was kidding.”

“Doesn’t bother me,” I said, shrugging and trying not to grin like an idiot. “I can stop if you want, though.”

“Nah, keep going.”

I glanced up at him, and saw him smiling even wider than me, looking smug as shit. So that’s how it was gonna be with him, huh? I shook my head and chuckled.

“You’re somethin’ else, Zac.”

“So are you, Care,” he replied, leaning back with his hands behind his head. Care? I wrinkled my nose and laughed, picturing a stuffed bear with a pot leaf on its belly. I looked up at Zac, about to mention it, but got caught by the view of his arms stretched out, muscles flexing. I blinked a couple times before realizing I was staring; I also realized I was failing to keep my cool, and shifted in my seat.

Zac pulled his feet off my lap, and I worried he’d caught me. But instead of sitting up, he flipped around and laid back down, his head in my lap.

“Mmm, think it’s bedtime. Goodnight, Carrick.”

“Um… o… kay?”

I blinked, not sure what to make of the situation. I wasn’t completely sure if he was just goofing around, or… something else. But I did know I had to chill out, or we’d have an even more pressing… problem.

 

Zac

“What?” I grinned up at him. “Is there a problem?”

Carrick smirked and shook his head, shifting a little bit underneath me. “No, no problem…”

Between the weed and the foot rub I had jokingly asked him for, I was feeling very, very relaxed. Maybe a little too relaxed, given the fact that I was about to fall asleep in my best friend’s lap. That wasn’t exactly normal, I knew, but neither was Carrick. That was what I liked about hanging out with him; I didn’t feel like I had to hold back anything or act any particularly way. I could just let loose, and right then, what I felt most like doing was curling up with someone and going to sleep.

“I’m glad you’re on this tour, you know,” I told him, the statement punctuated by something halfway between a sigh and a yawn.

“Me, too,” he replied, one hand finding its way to my hair and twirling a strand of it around. I wondered if he knew I liked that. Then again, it would be sort of weird if he did. He probably didn’t even realize he was doing it, I decided.

I smiled up at him. “You’re alright, you know.”

Carrick just sighed and trailed his fingers down my neck. A low sound that might have been mistaken for a moan escaped my mouth all on its own, surprising even me. I shifted around, trying to pass the sound off as just settling in, getting more comfortable to sleep. What else could it have been, anyway?

“Well,” Carrick said, clearing his throat, “hate to make you get up, but I think I’d better hit the hay.”

I stared up at him and pouted. “Aww, but how’m I gonna sleep without my pillow?”

He chuckled softly, shifting a bit. “Nah, you wouldn’t wanna be around me; I snore like crazy loud.”

“Wouldn’t bother me,” I replied with a shrug, then sat up to let him go, since he seemed so determined to do so. “But alright. Knock yourself out.”

He stood up and glanced back down at me. “We’ll hang more tomorrow, promise.”

“Alright.” I smiled up at him. “Goodnight, Carrick.”

“Night, Zac.”

I watched Carrick walk away, then stretched back out on the couch. It had been a good night–a good show and a nice, surprisingly serious at times, talk with my best friend. Now I wanted to get some good sleep, but I knew the back lounge couch wasn’t the best place for that.

Reluctantly, because I was pretty comfortable, I pulled myself up and padded off to the bus bathroom. I used it quickly, then made the mistake of glancing at myself in the mirror. I felt pretty good, but I looked like shit right then. The bags under my eyes were massive, and I knew being on tour wasn’t entirely to blame for that; like I had told Carrick, things at home had been pretty stressful for a while.

I didn’t want to think about all of that, though. Being on tour was my chance to escape, even if I wasn’t really the type to take advantage of being away from home. If anything, I was likely to be better behaved on tour than at home, even if I had been going through a dry spell at home, too.

Until I mentioned said dry spell to Carrick, I really hadn’t thought about it much. It didn’t bother me, really; things weren’t great at the best of times. But going without entirely seemed to be getting to me. Just thinking about how long it had been made a knot form in the pit of my stomach. But then that knot turned into… something else–frustration, yes, but of a more sexual nature.

Not quite believing that I was going to do this on the tour bus, I checked to make sure the bathroom door was locked. It was. Heaving a sigh, I slid my hand into my boxers.

 

Carrick

Oh man… that boy was gonna be the death of me. I headed back to my bunk and got settled, yanking the curtain shut and stripping as soon as I could. I wasn’t trying to be a creep, and I tried to tell myself he was married… and straight… but every time he gave me that wicked grin, all I could think was how bad I wanted to shove him up against a wall.

And tonight, he’d been pressing all my buttons without even trying. Seeing him in boxers was one thing; having him stretched out in my lap was another. And then, laying his head in my lap like we were… Apparently I wasn’t the only one with boundary issues. It’d been almost too much, but then… I just had to look. I couldn’t help it. And when he moved just the right way, and his boxers fell open just a little… yeah, there was no way I could safely explain him suddenly having a boner-pillow.

So I chickened out and ran. Cowardly as fuck, but what could I do? The tour was just starting, and the last thing I wanted to do was make it weird. So yeah, I ran… straight to my bunk to jerk off.

As I closed my eyes and stroked myself, I thought about all the ways our conversation could have gone differently. I saw myself running my hands up his legs, over his thighs, wrapping around his cock… Saw him laying in my lap, pulling me down and kissing me hard… Him flipping over and wrapping his mouth around me… I took a breath, trying to calm down; there was no hurry.

Re-settling myself, I took another deep breath and thought of tried to think of someone, anyone else. Allison, my first girlfriend, my first boyfriend… but it didn’t take long for any of them to shift back to long brown hair, big brown eyes, and a smile that looked made for doing bad things with. I wrestled with my conscience for a while longer, but finally just said fuck it. No harm in just thinking about him, right?

I thought about that smile, about his impossibly full lips, and what I wanted to do to them. I pictured myself kissing him, making him sigh and moan and whimper like I knew he could. I thought about how sexy he’d looked after his show, cheeks flushed and dripping with sweat. I wanted to lick every drop from his body, see how high I could make his voice go.

I wanted to run my hands down his body, see if he was packing as much as he made it seem. I bet he was, and then some; I wanted to see it, to touch it, to taste it. I wanted all of him, in every way. And I wanted him to want me, too. As straight as he claimed to be, I knew I’d caught him looking more than once. I wanted him to look at me like that, like he wanted me just as bad as I wanted him.

I wanted to hear him moan my name, to beg me to give him what he needed. Not that I’d ever hold back from him.

I could practically see it; him, staring into my eyes with so much hunger, so much desire, so much…

 

Zac

It only took a few strokes to bring my dick up to its full size. I must have needed this more than I had realized and more than I had admitted to Carrick.

Carrick.

I didn’t really want to think about him while my hand was down my pants, but it wasn’t the first time. Hell, it wasn’t even the second. I had never really come to terms with that, but fantasies were just that–fantasies. Not things you would do in reality. I might have been imagining it was Carrick’s hand–or, god, his mouth–wrapped around me instead of my own, but that didn’t mean I really wanted it. Right?

I braced my myself with a hand on the sink, and let out a low groan. Immediately I froze, afraid that someone had heard, but the bus seemed silent–mostly silent, at least. The sound of rustling sheets and something that might have been a moan caught my ear, but I was certain I was only hearing things. I had to be.

As if it had a mind of its own, my left hand tightened around my cock, which was already pulsing with need. Whether they were a fantasy or something more, those thoughts of Carrick were getting me there faster than I carried to admit.

 

Carrick

I was so close, so fucking close. I felt the twinge of emotions flaring up, but shoved them aside; this was definitely not the time. Whatever I did or didn’t feel about Zac was irrelevant. Right now, the only thing that mattered was the mental image of Zac, bent over the couch, moaning my name as I railed into him.

I let out a moan, then immediately bit my lip; tour buses weren’t exactly known for their sound insulation. I held still for a second, but didn’t hear anything, so went back to it. In my mind I was pinning Zac down, his mouth hanging open in a silent cry of ecstasy, his eyes burning into mine. Carrick, I heard him say. Carrick, please. I need you. I need you so bad.

“Fuck!” I kept my voice as low as I could, but I couldn’t help swearing as I came, Zac’s gorgeous body writhing beneath me, his lips saying things I couldn’t even bring myself to imagine.

It took me a while to come down from the post-climactic high. When my eyes finally adjusted I cleaned myself up and slipped beneath the sheets, suddenly exhausted. A little part of me pointed out that nothing I’d just imagined would ever really happen, and it hurt, but I tried to ignore it. Zac was a good friend… my best friend. And having him in my life in any capacity was well worth it.

 

Zac

My knuckles turning white as I gripped the sink, I came. I came harder than I could ever remember, and I couldn’t deny that I was picturing Carrick with every stroke it took to get me there. Carrick on his knees in front of me, me on my knees in front of Carrick, Carrick bending me over a hotel bed…

I was depraved, and I knew it. The things I thought about when I jerked off, which were increasingly centered around Carrick, were things I would never dare breathe a word of. I didn’t know what they meant. I didn’t want to even consider what they might mean. All I cared about was the strange feeling of peace that came over me once I had cleaned up my mess and headed off to my bunk.

Tour buses, and tour bus bunks in particular, still weren’t my favorite place in the world, but for right then… things were okay.