as self-preservation forgetting, and it feels like a betrayal to the best thing that ever happened to him. Though it pains him, he lets them go, like lit Chinese lanterns floating out to sea, prayers that maybe in some dimension, what he's letting go will be found and cherished by another-Chris of another-Nick, saved somewhere since this-Chris can no longer keep them.
What Was
“ Could you be more of an asshole?” Chris storms into the house, tossing his keys in the general direction of the key peg, not caring when they hit the floor. Just another thing for Nick to roll his eyes at, the nick on the hardwood. It's my goddamned house! Why do you care if I scuff my floors? Followed by, when did I stop thinking of it as 'our' house?
“ I'm sorry, but you cannot tell me that question about that famous photographer, Joe McWhatever, wasn't ignorant bullshit specifically pointed at Randy. Yes, he's full of himself, but who isn't when they're proud of their talent? I seem to recall a certain swaggering Marine Corps captain role you landed that made you insufferable for weeks, barking orders at me and demanding push-ups. You don't have to be an ass to my friends.” Nick kicks his shoes off and picks them up, padding in stocking feet to the bedroom to put them away in the closet.
I wanted to watch your arm muscles, because you're so beautiful. Chris glares and toes off his own shoes, leaving them in the living room right where he knows Nick walks to sit on the couch.
Nick comes back to find him snapping the cap off another beer and drinking in the open door of the fridge. “You're wasting energy.”
“ So? I pay the power bill.”
“ Just because you can pay for it means you should waste it?” Nick shakes his head and walks out of the room.
“ Can I do anything right?” Chris yells at his back.
“ You can start by closing the fridge and keeping your mouth shut about Randy if you don't have anything nice to say.” Nick's voice is faint, and Chris hears the click of the bathroom door when Nick disappears for his nightly face ritual. The man is obsessed with his skin, convinced it will keep him aging well and landing movie roles well into middle age. His name is big enough that it's not arrogance to hope.
Chris talks to the closed door, head bowed, trying to keep his voice from rising. “The photographer question was a legitimate effort to understand where Randy was coming from. I can't help it if his theory on off-camera lighting placement differs from something I read about another photographer doing. I was trying to understand the difference between the two methods, not make it look like Randy was blowing shit out his ass. Which he clearly was. I didn't make him look like an idiot. He did that all by himself.”
Nick flings the door open, his hair held back by a stretchy hair band, face shiny from the soap he'd just used. Chris steps back. He hates the way that shit smells. “So he was trying something new and hadn't figured out how to make it work yet. Doesn't mean it won't, and you didn't have to laugh in his face.” Nick's eyes are brooding, the hooded look of a jack-o-lantern daring people to approach the door and see if there's truth in the rumors of haunting over the threshold. “Are you suddenly an expert in photography now? It's bad enough if someone brings up 19th century literature in front of you. Face it, Chris. Unless it's a book or handed to you in a script, you don't know everything there is to know, and trying to say otherwise is just arrogant and makes you look like a jerk.”
Chris whirls on his heel and walks away, willing his fists to loosen. His chest burns, his heart beating hard like the wings of an angry raven tapping ever so insistently at his chamber door.
“ What about all the dickhead things Randy's said to me about that Out photo shoot?” Chris mutters, getting a blanket from the closet and spreading it out on the couch. He knows he was a jerk. He just wants some acknowledgment that he wasn't the only jerk.
Their gasps fill the room. Nick arches into Chris's chest on top of his own, a moan escaping his lips. He wants to slow them down, take the time they used to take exploring each other. But Chris is falling into the usual routine. Stroking through boxers, shedding the boxers, a little frotting, and then Chris either presses Nick to his stomach and grabs the lube or hands it to Nick and rolls over himself. It's become familiar, a little boring, over too fast, like Chris is going through the motions so he can go to sleep. Why bother then? Nick thinks, as Chris presses the lube into his hand.
It feels good. It always feels good, but Nick misses those days when it burned like a rocket entering the atmosphere, consuming and defiant. He moves down Chris's back with reverence, sampling the smoothness of his skin with lips parted. Chris squirms.
“ C'mon, Nicky. Do it.” Chris's voice is breathy, wanting, but Nick can hear it, the impatience, and he wonders if it's because Chris has an early call in the morning or if he's just that ready to feel Nick inside him. With a sigh, Nick does as he's asked, coming a scant five minutes later. Five minutes after that, Chris is asleep, turned on his side facing away. Nick wonders if this feeling in his chest, this tragic and resigned thing swimming around, is loneliness.
The words hurt, flung at Chris's head like daggers thrown from a practiced hand. He bats them away with daggers of his own, blue eyes flashing.
“ I'm too impulsive, too quick to anger. Not accepting enough of your friends. Anything else, Nicholas? Oh wait, I rely too much on my dad for advice. Never mind that he was a director, mentored plenty of actors, and has loads of experience and advice to keep me from falling on my face. I'm so sorry; I thought that you might have benefitted from his insight, too. By all means, forge your own way and fall flat in the mud. I haven't cut the umbilical cord. Yet another fatal flaw.”
“ All I'm saying, Christopher,” spit like a curse, “is that perhaps the growing up would be more convincing if you managed to do some of it on your own.”
Heat floods Chris's face, his eyes narrowing and deadly calm. Nick flinches involuntarily. Chris knows he needs to control himself. He's getting “that look” on his face again. But his mouth has gone and detached itself, marching into Nick's personal space and pulling the pin on a verbal hand grenade.
“ Just because I didn't have to grow up without a father doesn't mean I haven't grown up, Nick.” Detonation. He regrets it as soon as Nick's face freezes, stunned. He deserves the quiet “fuck you” whispered with precision straight into his soul. He deserves the slammed door, the screeched tires. He deserves to be left for that one.
He doesn't see Nick for three days. He expects to never see him again.
This guy is everything Nick is not. He's blonde, green eyed, talks constantly about himself, and Chris is wondering why he's standing here, pretending rapt attention. It's the gravity defying ass, Chris remembers, ordering them both another round. The guy's white teeth clack against his beer bottle and he barely stops to swallow before continuing on about the difficulty of running a marathon, how much of a boot camp he went through to reprogram his mind into believing he could do it.
Nick always just knew he could do things. He simply did them. He never bored me with how he got there, no matter how hard it was. God, I miss him.
This guy is no Nick.
Chris smiles, asks the right questions, knows he's got the runner stud hooked. They go back to the guy's house and Chris asks if he's got wine when he's offered a drink. Runner Stud calls out from the kitchen, “I hope you don't mind it out of a box. It's all I have. Didn't have time to go to the market.”
Chris smirks but calls out that it's fine. He's too busy looking at the bookshelves. Stephen King. Dean Koontz. Steve Martini. Does this guy read anything deeper than made-for-TV miniseries in print? Oh, here we go. Classics. Catcher in the Rye. Gulliver's Travels. Grapes of Wrath. Shit, Chris read all that in high school.
So he's no Lit major. I'm here to fuck him, not marry him.
Runner Stud comes back into the room, dimming the lights and handing Chris his glass. It's swill, sickly sweet and cloying. Thankfully, Chris has enough of a beer buzz that he can down it without gagging and refuse the refill. He's on Runner Stud in a second, hands on his hips, tongue in his mouth. This guy has no technique. Slobbery, all tongue, no lips, no sensuality at all. It's like kissing an overeager puppy. Still, that ass, it begs to be played with. Except Runner Stud keeps pulling Chris's hands back to his waist. After the third time, he stops drooling on Chris's neck long enough to say he's not into anyone touching his ass. He's a top all the way. It's said proudly, but Chris
