AJ was unusually quiet as they headed to their busses. It worried Brian slightly, but he put it down to him probably having a major headache from hitting his head. Not only that, but it was five thirty in the morning; that wasn’t exactly AJ’s best time of day. So Brian kept quiet as they loaded the busses and started to put their stuff away. As the bus roared to life, AJ disappeared into the little bathroom.
There was something not quite right in the air, but Brian couldn’t put his finger on it. All he knew was that it was making him feel nervous and worried. So, to have something to do with his hands, he started to make coffee. The whole time he did he wondered what was going on.
By the time the coffee was done brewing, AJ was emerging from the bathroom in a pair of sweats and a tank top. He walked over as Brian was pouring the coffee, that serious look still on his face. But when Brian handed him a cup, mixed the way he liked, he did smile softly. “Grab your cup and come to the back of the bus.” He said. “I think we need to talk.”
Those butterflies in Brian’s stomach seemed to multiply. What the hell was going on here? There was definitely something up. He forced his hands not to shake as he picked up his cup and followed AJ to the back of the bus.
AJ stood at the side of the doorway to let Brian pass through. Once he had, AJ closed the partition. Together they sat on the couches, much as they had that memorable day before. Brian curled himself up sideways, his knees in front of him, his feet hanging sideways off the couch. It allowed him to look directly at AJ.
To his surprise, AJ wasn’t wearing his shades. His eyes were bright with what looked like nerves. Unable to help himself, Brian reached a hand out to touch AJ’s arm. “Whatever it is, J, it’ll be ok.” He found himself saying softly.
Licking his lips, AJ nodded. “I know.” He took a drink off his coffee before turning his eyes up to lock on Brian’s. “I want to tell you what happened. God, it seems too trivial anymore. So unimportant. I’m almost embarrassed of myself and how long I held on to it. How much I let it fester. You didn’t deserve half the shit I gave you, man. I’m sorry about that.”
Surprise had Brian sitting up straighter. Not only AJ saying that he was going to finally explain things, but the apology afterwards. In that moment, even though he wanted to know, Brian reacted to AJ’s obvious distress by saying “If you aren’t ready to talk about it, don’t push yourself. I don’t want you to feel obligated to tell me.”
“No, I don’t feel obligated. You were right. If we want to move forward, I need to let this go.”
AJ pulled his hand back and wrapped both hands around his coffee cup. He looked out the window as the bus ambled on down the road, but he wasn’t paying any attention to the scenery. His eyes were a little distant. “I sound like a fool in this, but I’ll risk that. Just keep in mind I was young, please.”
“Ok, Age.”
“Right. So, like I told you before, I took a breather because y’all terrified me a little. When I came back in to grab my coat, I heard you on the phone. So, I eavesdropped…”
~~~flashback~~~
Shamelessly, AJ leaned against the wall by the open door as he listened to someone talk on the phone. Who he was talking to, he had no idea. But as AJ had come up to the door he had heard a voice saying “I’m not sure if I’ll fit in here, bro. Everything and everyone is so…different.”
Well, naturally curious, AJ had instantly froze to listen to what this voice had to say. He couldn’t pinpoint who it was at first, so he chanced a peek in the door. Ah! It was big guys cousin. What was his name again? Baron? Ben? Brian? Brian! That was it.
AJ pulled his head back and shivered a little. Kevin was a nice dude and all, and he’d been with them for a little bit now, but damn if he wasn’t one intimidating motherfucker. He winced for a second at the language before realizing that, even if his mom had been around, she couldn’t exactly hear his thoughts. Brian’s voice intruded on his thinking again.
“There’s this young kid, his names Nick. He seems like a cool guy. A little crazy but that’s ok. You know how I can be sometimes myself.” Pause, then laughter. “Shut up, Harold. Yeah, I can see him and I getting along. Apparently he’s already pranked Kev. Imagine that! Wish I could’ve seen it. Bet Kev bout blew a gasket.”
AJ snickered to himself. That had been funny to watch. Nick had tied Kevin’s shoelaces to his chair while he wasn’t looking, so when he stood up him and the chair had collapsed forward. Brave kid, pissing that big dude off.
“Yeah, I think so.” Brian said in answer to whatever the person on the phone had asked. “There’s another guy. Howard. Howie, he says to call him. Latino. If this takes off, I bet he’ll be the ladies’ man of the group. He just has that kind of charm about him, you know? A little quiet, though. I could barely get him to say a word to me beyond hello!”
Oh man, wait till he got to know Howie! Then you could never get the man to shut the hell up! Always talking, talking, talking. If not just talking, then nagging. Sometimes it was like Howie was trying to cover for Denise when she wasn’t there to watch AJ. Even if he appreciated having a good friend look out for him, sometimes he wanted Howie to back off and let him grow up a little on his own.
Howie would like that ‘ladies’ man’ compliment though. He’d have to tell him that one. Playing with the edge of his shirt, AJ tuned back in to what Brian was saying, curious to hear what the blond bombshell had to say about him.
“What? Oh, yeah! Him. Kev mentioned him? That’s hilarious.” Here Brian started to laugh. “I don’t even know where to start on that kid! He’s, different, that’s for sure.”
Different? AJ scowled at the wall. Why did he say that like it was a bad thing?
“I don’t know how to….Not like that, you butthead. He's just like, an iceberg. Cold and cool as ice. Bored looking all the time. It’s like he feels nothing. The whole time he just watched us all with this creepy little smirk that just about drove me up the wall. Felt like my skin was crawling. An trying to talk to him? It's like talking to ice! You just get froze out. There's nothing there in those eyes of his. He struts when he walks places, like he’s trying so hard to be tough. But he just won’t quite manage it. He’s got too much of the geek look to him yet. Maybe when he grows up some. For now, it just makes him kind of creepy."
AJ’s mouth dropped open. Grow up some? Geek? Like hell he was! He didn’t ‘strut’ places. He walked. What the hell was this dude’s problem? But one comment struck close to home. The ‘trying so hard to be tough’ part. How on earth had this guy seen that right away? Seen that shield that AJ put up, hoping that people would think he’s tough, think he was a badass.
He wasn't cold, either. He just didn't trust anyone very easily. Was that so hard to understand? Get burned one too many times and you learn to be shy about trusting a person. You learn to lock it away or you end up getting hurt.
Brian’s voice broke through yet again.
“No, no, not at all! He looks like he can scrap with the best of them. I mean, he’s got that rough side to him, no doubt. He’s an arrogant kid, too. Out of all of them, I don’t know if he’ll make it. No, not lack of talent I guess. Kev says he can sing like crazy. No, it’s more that he seems the flightier type. He’ll get bored of this, I’d think, and find something new to do. Like a kid with a room full of toys, he’ll flit from one to the other. I give it three months, tops, of hard work before he bails on things.”
Flighty? That cut to the quick. So many people in his life had accused him of not being able to stick to anything. How many times had he been told that his dad had run out on him and his mom, and that blood would show true? That he would run from anything that required commitment, just like this dad had. That was an image that AJ worked so hard to put down.
His mom and his grandparents never said anything like that to him, though. But he wanted to prove all the same to them that he wasn’t going to end up like his dad. He wasn’t going to be some deadbeat loser. He would make something of himself. He would make things better for him and his family. Maybe his dad hadn’t been there to take care of them, but he, AJ, was going to make sure that his family was taken care of. He’d make sure they never had to worry about rent, or food, or paying for the lights ever again.
What did this little prissy boy from Kentucky know about any of that? He came from a happy little family that never had to worry about a thing. Never had to lay in bed and listen to his mom try to quietly cry to herself as she sat up, wondering how she would make ends meet. He hadn’t had to fight his way up the ladder until people didn’t necessarily like him, but they respected him.
Yet here was this two-bit little back country boy, insulting him and saying he had no feelings inside? That he was ice? He had plenty of feelings. Just because he didn’t put them out there on display didn’t mean that they weren’t there, or that they couldn’t be hurt.
Looking at his shoes, AJ was surprised to notice the sheen of tears in his vision. What the hell? What did it matter what this punk had to say? Who was he, to make judgments like that? He brought a hand up, using the back of it to wipe at his eyes. Who cared what he thought? But even as he told himself that spiel, over and over, the tears still came.
A sound of movement from the room Brian was in caught AJ’s attention. Not wanting to get caught eavesdropping, and crying to boot, he turned toward the exit and just ran. Slapping the doors open, he took off around the building toward the parking lot. Just as he rounded another corner, he ran face first into someone.
The two grunted as they hit the ground. AJ reacted quickly, practically bouncing off the grass and back to his feet. Before he could run again, someone’s hand grabbed his and a familiar voice called his name. That was Howie. “AJ! Alex, what the hell?”
Howie was standing beside him suddenly, the grip on his hand changing. He saw AJ’s face and made a soft sound of distress before he pulled him in close for a hug. “AJ, what happened? What’s going on?”
In the comfort of his best friends arms, AJ found he couldn’t hold it all inside. With his breath hitching, he told Howie everything he’d heard. Then he didn’t something that he hadn’t done for years. He cried. But when the tears were done, when he was finally in control again, he promised himself one thing. No one would ever see him cry again. He would never let that stupid blond know exactly how much he had hurt him.
~~~end flashback~~~
Still staring out the window, AJ grew silent when his story was done. He stayed that way for a while, not wanting to turn and look at Brian. Some of the old pain came back, tightening his chest. Maybe it sounded silly to others but it had hurt him to hear that. As the silence stretched on, he started to worry. Why was Brian so silent? Why wasn’t he saying something?
Locking himself down tight, AJ slowly turned his head, unsure of what he would find. What he saw wasn’t at all what he had expected. Brian sat there, hands clenched so tightly around his coffee cup that his knuckles were white. His head was bowed down so low that all AJ could see was the top of his head. He seemed to almost be quivering. What the…?
Softly, so soft that AJ almost didn’t hear, Brian spoke. “Holy God.” Just those two words. But in them was a wealth of pain that had AJ reacting instinctively. He put his now empty cup on the counter and reached out to close his hands over Brian’s. “Baby?” he whispered.
Very slowly Brian’s head lifted until his bright blue eyes were locked on to AJ’s. There was pain in them, but it was the tears that undid AJ. Brian was crying? No. That wasn’t supposed to happen! AJ brought one hand up, cupping Brian’s cheek. “Don’t cry. Please, don’t cry.”
“I am such a bastard.” Brian whispered brokenly. “I’d forgotten all about that conversation with Harold.”
That stung slightly. To think that a moment that had been so momentous to him had been so easily forgettable to the person who had done it. But the sting vanished away under the evidence of Brian’s honest sorrow. There was no doubting the sincerity of the pain Brian felt. “I didn’t tell you to hurt you.” AJ whispered to him. “I wanted this out in the open so that we could move on. So we could go further from here and let the past go.”
“I can’t believe I hurt you like that. I never meant to, AJ, you have to understand that.” Brian let go of his cup with one hand, using it to clench tightly to AJ’s hand. “Please, if anything else, please know that I didn’t mean any of those things to hurt you. You guys, you all terrified me. I reacted with poorly thought out humor.”
“You were terrified of me?” AJ asked in honest surprise. He had never, in all his wonderings, thought of that. “What the hell for?”
“Of all of you! You guys had this group, this amazing group of people who had all worked so hard to get to where you were. You busted your butts and worked so hard to get to where you wanted to be. Then Kevin calls me and suddenly I’m there, a part of this group without any of the effort you all put in to it. I was so terrified that you would all resent me for having it so easy.”
The tears in Brian’s eyes finally spilled over, but he never broke his gaze. The emotions in those eyes held AJ still. He couldn’t have moved, couldn’t have spoken even if his life depended on it.
“I was talking to Harold, and he was asking me all these questions about everyone. I was scared, and nervous, and so I used humor to try to chase some of it away. You terrified me most of all, and because of that I was the hardest on you. I won’t deny that I thought you were hard and cold at first, Age. You felt that way to me. I came from a different place than you. A place where everyone was open with emotions, good or bad, and where we were all touchy people who loved to just talk. In so many ways I’d been sheltered before I joined you guys. Can you see that? Can you see how I felt?”
In that instant, AJ could. He could see Brian, feeling alone in this strange place he’d been shoved into. Used to being surrounded by family, and his community, and his church. Then suddenly he was with strangers, only his cousin for family, and unsure of what to say or how to act. So much like how AJ had felt alone.
Brian gripped his hand tighter, his voice urgent as he tried to explain himself. “I didn’t know what to think of you. You were like nothing I’d ever dealt with before. Tough on one side, yet this little geeky kid on the other. I couldn’t seem to figure you out, and that made me nervous. So when Harold asked me about you, making comments about what he’d heard from Kev, I just spouted out what came to mind. But don’t you see? Everything I said about you was wrong. So, so wrong. That’s why I’d forgotten about it. All those first impressions I had of you, you proved me wrong. Even when we fought all the time, I still learned what kind of person you were. Are.”
Putting his cup beside AJ’s, ignoring the way it shook with the bus’s vibrations, Brian took hold of both of AJ’s hands, lacing their fingers together.
“Even when you made me so mad I could spit, I still saw the person you’ve become. The person that you are. You’re not flighty like I first thought. You’re cautious. But back then, I mistook the two. You’re loyal, and steadfast, and strong willed. You aren’t cold. You’ve just been through hell and had to learn to hide it all behind a shield of some sort to protect you. I was so wrong, AJ. And I’m so sorry that I hurt you this way. I can see why you were so furious with me. You’ve always covered hurt with anger. God, I can see now how badly that must have hurt you.”
There it was again, the pain in Brian’s voice. How on earth could AJ stand against it? He looked into Brian’s eyes, saw the tears streaming down his face, the way his lip quivered as he spoke. Pain was written into every feature on his face, as well as a sorrow for what had happened. There was no faking that kind of emotion. Maybe for other people, but not for Brian. He was so honest and upfront. He would never think of faking emotions. Right then, as the person he had hated for so long cried tears for the unintentional pain he had caused, AJ let go of his anger, let go of his hatred, and tumbled head over heels into love.
“I was a fool.” AJ said softly to him. When Brian started to protest, AJ shook his head. “No, I was. I let words get to me, words that never should have bothered me.”
“But they were cruel. Unintentionally cruel, but cruel nonetheless.”
“Even so. Look at all the time that’s passed since then. How on earth can I hold on to anger about this? You’ve never given me any indication that you still felt that way. I was blind to any offer of friendship you tried to make because I was clinging too tightly to something I should have let go. I can see now that it wasn’t anger so much as fear of getting hurt, fear of trusting, that kept me away from you. You’re not a cruel person, Brian.”
“I am so sorry I hurt you, AJ. More sorry than I ever can express…”
AJ broke his hands free from Brian’s and reached up to cup his lover’s face. That new feeling in him, the love he felt for this man, filled his entire being. Ever so gently he brought Brian’s face forward and kissed him. It wasn’t the heat and anger and passion that they normally shared. This was a gentle kiss, tender in ways they had never shared before.
Everything in AJ wanted to announce his love. To share it with Brian and hear it in return. But he knew that now was not the time for this. Now was the time for healing. For old wounds to be lanced and drained and to heal over.
The two men pulled back a little, their foreheads resting together, tears leaving tracks down both their cheeks. But they were smiling. Things weren’t perfect yet, but they were going to get better.