The next evening the five boys were hanging out together in Howie’s room. Anyone who didn’t know them would have been amused to discover that they were playing Uno. They all loved the game. Four games in, Kevin had won two, Howie one, and AJ one. Growing frustrated, Nick tossed down his cards when AJ won another game. “I’m hungry.” He announced to them all.
“I don’t have much here.” Howie warned him.
Kevin gathered up the cards and looked up at Nick. “My doors unlocked. Go on down and get the snack stuff I’ve got in the kitchen. I forgot to bring it earlier.”
“Sweet!” Nick launched up from his chair. With a grin, Brian joined him, offering to help carry things. The two set out from the room laughing with one another. AJ shook his head and tried to hide the way he watched Brian’s ass as he walked away. It was all he could do not to growl lightly to himself. Damn, that boy looked just as good going as he did coming. Heh. Coming. The innuendo in that had AJ chuckling to himself.
Howie nudged him as he stood up. “What’re you laughing about?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know, Howard?”
A coaster bounced off the back of AJ’s head. With a curse he picked it up and huffed it to where Howie was standing at the kitchen. By a lucky dodge Howie managed to get away from it. He stuck his tongue out and giggled.
“Now, now, children. Behave.” Kevin teased drolly. His eyes sparkled at them. Since AJ had finished rehab and they’d started their touring again it always made Kevin happy when they got together like this. AJ knew that while he’d been drinking his relationship with his band mates had gone to the wayside. He enjoyed being able to be with them now and to reconnect with them.
In a good mood, his smart ass side was very prominent. He tipped a salute to Kevin as he stood up, rapping his heels together smartly. “Sir, yes Sir!”
On a sigh, Kevin threw his own coaster. AJ ducked and laughed hysterically. In the process of ducking from Kevin’s, the one that Howie threw managed to hit the top of his head. Without thinking he spun and ran. It took Howie a second to realize what AJ was doing and then he was running too. “Get away from me, Alexander!” he shouted, jumping over and chair and skirting around the couch.
Kevin knew better than to get in the way. He laid the freshly stacked deck on the table and sat back to watch as the two chased each other like lunatics. He knew who was going to win this one. Sure enough, AJ leapt over the couch and landed right on Howie’s back, wrapping his legs around his waist. Laughing, and horribly overbalanced, Howie tumbled onto the couch, pinning AJ underneath him. He instantly spun to tickle him.
Laughter bubbled from AJ. He tried to squirm away from his friend. With a thump he fell off the couch and onto the floor, panting and chuckling. “You little shit.”
Howie sat up and brushed his hair out of his eyes. “We may be older now, but I can still kick your ass, Mclean.” He warned. His eyes caught sight of something and he moved off the couch, sitting on AJ’s chest. Before AJ could protest he was moving the edge of his shirt. “Holy shit! Kev, come look at this!”
Good humor filled Kevin as he walked over and leaned over the back of the couch to look where Howie was pointing. It took him a second to realize what he was seeing. Then his deep laughter boomed through the room. “Why, AJ. That looks like a love bite to me! You’ve got a girl and you’ve been holding out on us?”
“Get off me, you fat ass!” AJ grumbled, trying to buck away from their hands. Howie just stayed where he was and let his smile grow. “Who is she?”
“Get off!”
“You’ve been getting laid and you didn’t even tell your best friend, who, I might add, has a girlfriend at home and has not been getting laid for the past few months.”
Another attempt to dislodge Howie that failed. AJ contented himself with yanking his shirt back in to place. “It’s nothing.”
“Nothing?”
Seeing the evil light in Howie’s eyes, AJ had to contain his laughter. He knew what Howie was going to do. Valiantly he tried to struggle as his friend grabbed his shirt and started to pull it up. He would have managed it too if Kevin hadn’t joined in. He took control of pulling AJ’s shirt off while Howie tickled AJ to keep his hands busy. He was laughing so hard by the time they had his shirt off that his face was red and he almost couldn’t breathe.
“Look at this! Jesus, J, you get with a vampire or something?” Howie stood up, letting AJ climb to his feet. He and Kevin looked at AJ’s bare chest, noting the little love bites all over the place.
“Give me back my shirt, you fuck heads.” AJ gasped out, still trying to catch his breath and still fighting giggles. He reached toward Kevin, wanting to get his shirt back, but Kevin tossed it to Howie. For a few minutes they played a game of keep-away, laughing as AJ dodged back and forth between them.
AJ stopped between the two, glaring from one to the other. Then his face lit with a grin. Spinning in a direction they didn’t think of, he shot toward the bedroom area. He didn’t hesitate to open the dresser drawers and rifle through Howie’s shirts. “D, you got ugly shit in here!” he called out as he grabbed a simple black shirt and pulled it on.
A small part of him wanted to do exactly what he’d told Brian to do. Tell them that he didn’t have a girlfriend, but he did have a boyfriend and yeah, he had a tendency to be a vampire. Not that AJ minded. He stood by the dresser, staring off into space for a minute. Oh, hell no, he didn’t mind. He loved the feel of Brian’s teeth nipping at him, or that warm mouth and its amazing ability to… No, he couldn’t go there. Mentally he shook himself even as he grinned. It wouldn’t look good if he went back out there with a hard on. Trying to keep that in mind he headed back out to his friends.
Just as he came back in the door opened and Brian and Nick were back, arms full of chips and cans of soda. They looked at AJ funny, since he had on a different shirt, and they both glanced to Howie, who was still holding AJ’s shirt and grinning.
Eager to distract everyone, AJ threw himself onto the couch. “Let’s watch a movie.” He suggested as he snatched his shades off the floor and put them on his head.
Naturally there had to be an argument about what movie to watch. Satisfied with this, AJ stayed in his seat and let them debate it out. He paid no attention to whatever movie was chose. Instead he waited until they put it in, and when Howie sat down next to him on the couch he laid down and put his head in his best friends lap.
Nick and Brian stretched out on the floor like they always did while Kevin got the lights and then moved to his own chair. It felt good to just sit together as a group and relax. It was also extremely soothing to lie there while Howie combed his fingers through AJ’s hair just like he used to. Lying there, AJ felt himself start to drift. Same as almost every other time the two had done this, AJ started to drift off to sleep. He stayed in that in between area, half asleep and half awake, for quite a while.
Through half lidded eyes he watched Brian watch the movie. His love had such an expressive face. AJ loved to watch the way it lit up when he was amused by something. Or the way he worried his lip when a scene wasn’t going well in the movie.
He smiled when he saw Brian hop up, offering to grab drinks for anyone. Kevin and Howie both said yes. Kevin turned toward them, reaching out to flick at AJ, thinking he was sucked into the movie, but AJ felt Howie raise a hand and heard him whisper. “Kids tired. Let him sleep a little.” Anyone else in the world would have pissed AJ off by calling him ‘kid’. But from Howie and Kevin he knew it wasn’t a derogatory term.
His eyes followed Brian’s ass as he walked toward the kitchen. A corner of his mouth quirked. Hey, he couldn’t help it. Because he was watching he was the only one who saw Brian paused and raise a hand to his heart. Worry echoed through AJ. He felt his brain wake up in an instant. But just as quickly as it had started, Brian dropped his hand back down and went about gathering up sodas.
Something was going on there. Something that he needed to talk to Brian about. He’d said before that it was just a strong beat that happened when he was stressed. Well, what was he stressed about in a kitchen grabbing sodas? That he’d grab the wrong one? No, they needed to talk about this. AJ’s greatest fear was Brian’s heart. After watching as he went through open heart surgery AJ had gained a new respect not only for Brian, but for the way a person’s body could turn against them. But he kept his mouth shut for the moment and simply watched as Brian delivered the sodas, then excused himself to the bathroom. Yeah. Something was definitely going on.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Brian stood in the bathroom and stared at his reflection. Worry had created a small crease between his eyes. What was going on here? Idly he rubbed at his shirt, at the scar that marred his skin. For a while now he’d been having these weird heartbeats, which really were normal for him if he stressed his heart too much. That hadn’t bothered him. What was bothering him was this feeling of being short of breath. He would do something simple and find himself having to pause to catch his breath.
Fear ate at him like a cancer in his mind. Who was he kidding. He knew the signs; hell, he’d had them often enough before. He also knew what he needed to do. But he couldn’t, not right now. They were in the middle of tour. If it could just wait another two months he would be free to go see his cardiologist without anyone else being any the wiser.
AJ was starting to catch on. But, if he was honest with himself, Brian knew that he didn’t want to keep this from AJ. From the rest of the band, yes; from his family, yes; but not from AJ. If what he believed was true he was going to need that strength in AJ that he relied on. He would need one person by his side who wouldn’t baby him, or demand too much of him. One who would let him lean without making him feel less a man.
That was a talent that AJ had. How he did it, Brian had no idea. But he loved it. Even at his worst, whether he was sick or crying or just plain depressed, AJ never made him feel less of a man for his emotions. In fact, he encouraged Brian to be himself.
This would be a hell of a test on their relationship. If it was true. Maybe it wasn’t. It could just be his imagination. Or it could just be stress from the tour.
Looking at his face in the mirror, Brian wondered who he thought he was convincing.