Zac
The small backstage bathroom was disgusting. Taylor could only imagine–not that he wanted to–how many other people had been in his exact position. For all he could remember, he had been in this exact position with Zac before. They’d done this so many times, in so many different hidden locations that Taylor had lost count.
Each time was its own experience, though, and Taylor wanted to savor them all. His eyes were trained on Zac as his brother dropped to his knees and made quick work of the button and zipper on Taylor’s pants. Taylor’s dick popped free, already fully hard, thanks to all the teasing Zac had done on stage during their soundcheck.
Zac took it all in one gulp, shoving Taylor’s hips back against the tile wall as he did so. Taylor let out a pathetic little yelp that was lost in the moan that followed when he felt the back of Zac’s throat.
Had they locked the door? Taylor couldn’t remember. He didn’t want to check, but he couldn’t help himself. One eye flickered open and glanced at the door–definitely not locked. And yet, that made it even hotter, knowing that anyone could walk in on them at any time. It was dangerous and hot and Taylor didn’t want it to ever end.
Zac could play him like a finely tuned piano, though, and Taylor knew he would draw it out only as long as he wanted to. He could be a tease, but he would never leave his brother hanging, nor would he rush things, even when they didn’t really have enough time.
Right then, they definitely didn’t have enough time, but Zac was taking his sweet time, his tongue swirling in torturously slow circles around Taylor’s head. Taylor was going to die before he got off, he was certain of it. He was absolutely going to die if Zac didn’t–
Buzz. Buzz.
I nearly jumped out of my chair when the tiny print on my phone screen vanished and was replaced with a smiling photo of my wife. Of all the terrible times for her to call, while I was checking for new fanfics had to be the worst.
Kate always took it upon herself to call me when I was on tour, because she knew if left to my own devices, I would just forget. It made me a bad person, I knew, but touring felt like a vacation from my husbandly and fatherly duties. Kate made sure that I didn’t forget that those duties included talking to her on a regular basis, though. Knowing I couldn’t avoid it forever, I swiped across the screen to answer her call.
“Hello?”
“Hey, just thought I would check in, since I didn’t hear from you yesterday.” Her voice was syrupy sweet, but I didn’t miss the accusation.
“Yeah, we umm… we had a really early bus call to make it into Pennsylvania today. Sorry,” I replied, shifting around to get as comfortable as I could on the green room couch.
It wasn’t a lie, really. We did leave Long Island at an ungodly hour in the morning. But I’d spent the last few days so preoccupied with thoughts of Carrick and what we’d done that it was amazing I’d been able to focus on the concerts. Focusing on things that were thousands of miles away… well, that wasn’t going to happen at all.
I should have been thinking about her, I supposed. Maybe then I wouldn’t have given in to temptation and finally found out what it felt like to kiss Carrick. As much as Kate and I fought over anything and everything, there was one thing she could never accuse of me being–a cheater. My faithfulness was about the only thing I had going for me, I was pretty sure.
Until now. In one night, I had changed all of that. Thinking about it, reading about it… all of that was no big deal, or so I had managed to convince myself. As long as it stayed a deep, dark secret that I never acted upon, it was fine.
“She’s going to the doctor next week, so just don’t tell Ike, okay?”
I suddenly realized that my wife was speaking to me. Once again, I was a bad husband. I shook my head to try to clear out the thoughts of Carrick and asked, “Who’s going to the what?”
“You haven’t been listening at all, have you?” Kate asked, heaving a sigh. “I’m not telling you the whole throwing up in Dilly Deli story again, but long story short–Nikki thinks she might be pregnant. And I don’t know why I told you at all, because you can’t keep a secret to save your life.”
“Pregnant, huh?” I replied. “I didn’t think they were even trying for another.”
“I guess it was a bit of a surprise. And it still will be if you keep your mouth shut.”
“I will, I will.” I sighed. I was sure Isaac would be happy to find out, though, no matter who told him. The two of them had always gone with the flow, always happy to be surprised. Kate and I tried to plan things out a bit more, even when it seemed the universe didn’t care about our plans. I knew I didn’t need to drag up an old argument, but I found that I couldn’t help myself.
“Do you think, maybe, when we get that break in the tour… I mean, if you go off the pill now, we could start trying then, couldn’t we?”
“We could,” Kate replied, drawing the words out, “if I went off the pill.”
“But you’re not going to,” I said, knowing how this conversation was going to go. It wasn’t the first time we’d gone around in the same circles.
Kate sighed so heavily I could hear it over the phone. “I just don’t see why we’re talking about having another when Junia isn’t even in pre-school yet.”
I didn’t bother pointing out that she was the same age Shepherd had been when we conceived her. Instead, I decided to try another tactic, adopting the sweetest tone of voice I could manage, “I just don’t see why you won’t even consider it. I mean, come on, Katie. You know we make the cutest babies.”
“It’s not about that, Zac,” she replied, but I could hear her voice softening some. “It’s just, you know, I don’t think you’re really considering that we’re talking about another life here. Another person. Not some magical solution to all of our problems.”
“What problems?” I asked. It wasn’t as though things were perfect between us, but she was talking like we were on the verge of divorce. Were we? If so, it was news to me.
“Zac…” Kate sighed. “I just mean that in general. It’s just a fact. I hate to bring them into this, but think about how rough Natalie and Taylor had it at first. They’re making it work now, but I think we can all agree bringing a baby into the equation did not help.”
“They were eighteen and nineteen, Kate. We’re both nearly thirty, not to mention, married.”
“Look, I need to go,” she said abruptly. “It’s apparently snack time for a certain son of yours. We’ll talk about this again, though. But don’t expect my answer to change.”
“Yeah, alright,” I replied, sighing. “Talk to you later. Love you.”
“Bye, Zac.”
It wasn’t really like her not to say it back, but I thought I could heard Shepherd yelling in the background just before the line went dead. All things considered, that had been far from the worst argument we’d ever had. It wasn’t like Kate was really wrong, but what was so bad about wanting another baby? What was wrong with being surprised that my wife wouldn’t even discuss it?
And what was all that about it not solving all of our problems? What problems?
Sure, our marriage wasn’t perfect, but what marriage was? We had our little disagreements, but we almost always worked things out. Maybe we had certain fundamental, philosophical differences, but that made life interesting. Opposites attract and all that. Jokes aside, I wasn’t that horrible to her. At least, not that she was aware of…
Yet she was the one to mention problems. Maybe our differences were a bigger wedge than I realized. If Kate was already talking like that… what did I really have to feel so guilty about?
I glanced down at the phone still in my hand, and considered opening up that fanfic page again. I had already gotten a little scare, though, even if Kate hadn’t really been there to bust me for reading smut backstage. Right then, a power nap before my soundcheck seemed like an even better idea. I stuffed my phone into my pocket and closed my eyes, letting the scene I’d read a few minutes earlier play out in my imagination… with one little substitution to the cast.
Soon I had drifted off, lost in a blissful slumber and an even more blissful wet dream. It was so realistic that it took me a moment to realize that the hand running through my hair wasn’t just a figment of my imagination.
“Mmm, Ca–” I mumbled, my eyes fluttering open. “Carrick?”
“Hey,” he said, chuckling softly. “Sorry for waking you. Sounded like a pretty good dream.”
“Huh?” I asked, blinking and hoping the look on my face didn’t give me away. “Oh, I was just… I don’t remember. Guess I may have been dreaming.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Shame that stuff never lasts. Anyway, I just finished soundcheck. I think your brothers are out getting lunch still.”
“Sorry I missed your soundcheck…” I knew I sounded pathetic, and I was probably pouting, but I really was sad to miss him on stage. I wanted to see Carrick perform as much as possible; he was just that intoxicating.
“It’s all good,” Carrick replied, shrugging. “You’ll hear the real thing later, anyway, right?”
“True…” I replied, my lips curling into a smile as I remembered the last show, which I had watched from the perfect vantage point to see Carrick’s ass wiggling around the stage.
He stared at me for a moment, then gave a little sigh and looked down. I bit my lip as I looked back at him, wondering how things were still so awkward. Well, okay. That was a lie. I knew why they were awkward; I just didn’t want to address the elephant in the room. If we never talked about that little makeout session, that was fine by me.
“So, how long are we going to keep this up?”
Well, fuck. I forced a blank, innocent look on my face and asked, “Huh? Keep what up?”
Carrick just stared me down. “This whole dancing around what happened. Are we gonna talk about it, or pretend it didn’t happen? ‘Cause it looks like you can’t make up your mind, and I’d really like to know where we stand.”
“I don’t… I don’t know what to say about it,” I replied honestly, running a hand through my hair. “I mean, I could say I was just stoned but how many hundreds of times have we gotten stoned together and not… done that?”
Carrick rolled his eyes. “We made out, Zac. Not saying it doesn’t change anything.”
“Well, what do you want me to say about it?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, bowing his head so that I couldn’t see his eyes. I had a feeling that was a deliberate move, although I had no clue what I would see in them if I were looking. “I mean, you’re married so it’s not like…”
“Yeah, well.” I snorted, remembering what Kate had said about things that didn’t fix all of our problems. She might have had no clue what those problems really were, but I was starting to realize she was right. Maybe things were rapidly moving past the point of being fixable. “That doesn’t… it doesn’t have anything to do with what we did, okay? With me… kissing you.”
He looked up, a puzzled frown on his face. “How the hell do you figure that?”
“Carrick, you know me,” I began. It was time to put at least a few of my cards on the table, I decided. “Other than the weed, when have you ever seen me doing anything bad, anything she wouldn’t approve of? It’s not me. I’m not just… a cheater or whatever. I wouldn’t do something like that just for the hell of it, and just risk everything if it wasn’t… well, if it wasn’t already at risk.”
“Zac? What’s going on?” Carrick asked, looking far more concerned that I’d meant for him to. Yeah, things were bad, but if Carrick thought they were even worse than they really were… well, I could work with that.
I shook my head. “Just the same old shit, you know? But maybe… I don’t know, I think we’re reaching a breaking point.”
“Wow,” he said, finally breaking eye contact with me. “I’m… sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I replied, shrugging. “It is what it is. But I’m not… whatever’s happening with her, it wasn’t why I kissed you.”
“So why did you, then?”
My voice barely above a whisper, because I didn’t want to admit it but I knew I was backed into a corner now, I replied, “I had to know. I had to know how it would feel.”
Carrick heaved a sigh, looking almost disappointed. “There’s plenty of other guys out there, Zac.”
I stared blankly at him. Did I really have to spell it out? Did he really have no clue how much I lusted after him? Apparently not. “Yeah, but kissing them wouldn’t feel the same as kissing you, would it?”
Carrick stared back at me for a moment, then leaned back against his seat and looked away. Had I said the wrong thing again? I didn’t know what he wanted from me, what he wanted to hear.
“I don’t wanna be that guy, Zac,” he said, the words coming out in almost a growl, tinged with anger or something very close to it. “Don’t make me the last straw in your marriage.”
“That’s not… that’s not what I’m trying to do at all. What I feel… what I wanna do with you…. that’s something totally separate from what’s happening with Kate.” I didn’t like this. I didn’t like how honest he was forcing me to be. I was getting so close to a truth that I didn’t want to admit to him, and I wasn’t sure he even knew how far he was pushing me.
“But it isn’t, though,” he replied, shaking his head. “It might feel that way to you, but it really isn’t. Actions have consequences. For more people than just you.”
“I get that, okay?” I replied. “But what I mean is… I’m not doing this just to spite her or just to experiment or whatever you think. It’s not like that.”
“So what is it like, then?” Carrick sneered. I wasn’t sure he was going to like the answer, judging by the way he rolled his eyes at me, but I wasn’t sure I had any other options left but the truth.
“It’s like… like I wanted to kiss you, okay? Not just any guy. Not to experiment. But just because you’re… you.”
The faintest glimmer of a smile crossed Carrick’s lips, and I thought I saw a surprised look in his eyes before he turned away and shook his head. “That still doesn’t change the fact that you’re married, though.”
“And if I said I didn’t know how much longer I was gonna be? Would that change anything?” It was a mostly hypothetical question at that point, but Carrick didn’t need to know that.
He chewed on his lip for a moment, looking almost nervous. “It might.”
I scooted to the end of the couch, putting as little space between us as I could. “Would it mean… I could kiss you again?”
Carrick glanced away from me again, then back, but his smile was gone. “I have a girlfriend, too, you know.”
“Oh. I think you told me that,” I replied, racking my brain to try to remember if I’d known that and just stored the fact under ‘irrelevant’ or if I’d lost touch with Carrick so much that I really hadn’t even known. I wasn’t sure it mattered which; just like I wasn’t letting my marriage stop me from getting what I wanted, I wasn’t going to let this girl I didn’t even know stop me, either.
“Right,” Carrick replied, rolling his eyes. Mumbling, he added, “Probably won’t tomorrow, though.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, and the words were so low that I wasn’t sure they were meant for me to hear at all. All I knew was that now that I’d admitted the truth, there was no going back. I knew what I wanted, and I was determined to get it.
Inching a little closer to him and lowering my voice, I said, “Carrick, I… I don’t think just once is gonna be enough for me.”
“Yeah… I know.” Carrick’s eyes flitted up and down my body, something like nervousness in them but something different, too. Something like… lust? Could it be? He’d done nothing during this conversation but try to talk me out of pursuing him, but maybe that really was just a moral argument. Maybe, deep down, he wanted me, too.
“Please, Carrick,” I said, lunging toward him and pawing at his shirt. I probably looked pathetic, but I really didn’t care. I wanted him, and I was done hiding it.
“So, you and Kate… you’re really…” Carrick glanced down at my hand, then up at me, his eyes barely visible under his bangs.
I knew what he was asking, and I knew I was going to hell if I gave him the answer he wanted. I didn’t care. I couldn’t speak, but I found myself nodding anyway.
His hand reached out and covered mine. “We do this, we cross that line… I don’t know if we can go back.”
“Who wants to go back?” I asked, smirking a little.
To my relief, Carrick gave a little smile of his own, leaned forward and pressed his lips against mine. It was too gentle, too little. I needed so much more. I grasped his shirt tightly in my fist and pulled him onto the couch with me. Our legs tangled together, our tongues fought for dominance and I was in heaven. I tangled my hands in his hair and moaned shamelessly against his mouth. When Carrick nipped at my bottom lip, my hips rolled up against his almost as a reflex.
Carrick pulled back and smirked. “You sure you’re not just horny?”
“Well… there is that, too.” I grinned.
Carrick rolled his eyes, then leaned down and kissed my neck. “There’s no hurry, you know. I don’t want you to feel like you’ve gotta prove anything.”
“Prove anything? Like what?”
His lips trailed up and down my neck and jawline. “That we’re on the same level or whatever. I’m just saying, experience isn’t everything. I told you I’d show you the ropes, didn’t I?”
“Well, maybe I need… a few reminders…” I moaned out.
Carrick paused and stared down at me, and I knew I’d said too much. Or rather, I’d said too little before, when I’d apparently drunkenly tried to come out to my best friend.
Grinning sheepishly, I admitted, “I may not have been entirely honest before… with whatever I told you about being curious…”
“Oh,” Carrick said, blinking rapidly. His brow furrowed and his smile fell as I supposed realization dawned on him. “So you’ve…”
“I mean, it was just teenage stuff. Just fooling around.” And really, that’s all it was. It wasn’t like I’d gone all the way or even had a boyfriend. I was pretty damn sure I was bisexual, but it was still mostly hypothetical and something I’d decided to leave to fantasy when I proposed to Kate.
Carrick pulled back further. “Like what?”
“Jeez, you need my entire sexual history here or what?” I asked, feeling myself blushing. “Just like, you know, making out, hand jobs… blow job or two…”
“Well, considering I thought you were straight until recently…” Carrick sat up. “Yeah, I think it would have been nice to know.”
Was this really upsetting him? I didn’t understand. So it had been a lie of omission, but I hadn’t told anyone–not even Kate. Telling Carrick… sure, he would have accepted me, but I knew it wouldn’t have stopped there. Once the floodgates had opened, I wouldn’t have been able to shut them again. He wouldn’t have just known I was bi, he would have known how much I wanted him, too.
Although… it seemed he wanted me as well. So maybe I had kept quiet for a stupid reason. All I knew was that it was apparently going to take some groveling to make up for it.
“I didn’t… I didn’t think it mattered,” I replied. “I mean, it’s not like I go around telling people, you know? It just… it is what it is. And all of that was years ago. I didn’t think it would ever be a part of my life again, at least not outside of my fantasies.”
Carrick eyed me, as if trying to decide if that explanation made sense. It was the truth, at least. After a moment, he let out a sigh.
“Yeah… okay. It’s just, we’re supposed to be best friends. Just figured something like that would come up.”
“I’m… I’m sorry,” I said, knowing I couldn’t avoid those two words any longer. “I didn’t realize it would bother you. I just… I haven’t told anybody. I didn’t see why it was anyone’s business, but I guess it kinda is yours now.”
“It’s okay,” Carrick replied, his hand reaching out to brush my cheek as he leaned in and kissed me.
I kissed him back just as deeply, knowing we were still on thin ice but not really caring. Now that I was sure he wanted me, too, I didn’t want to let him go… ever.
After a moment, he pulled back and kissed my jawline. Chuckling softly, he asked, “So… read any good fics lately?”