Reverberations

Chapter 3

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Brian

I know I shouldn't have freaked out on him this morning, but fuck!  He has to get over the idea that we're ever going to be some fake-hetero couple. And if he can't …

I don't want to think about that.

He promised. He fucking sat in that chair in my goddamned office and told me he wouldn't do this to me again. He wouldn't make me feel like some sort of retarded asshole because I won't do romance and all that shit. He told me he knew what to expect from me. He told me he didn't need all the trappings; that I was enough.

But now, yet again, I'm not. I'm not enough for him. I'm not what he wants. He wants … I don't know what he wants now. Ben, maybe.  Someone like Ben, anyway. Built but boring.

Fuck!

I'm such a fucking coward - scared of every fucking …

But I could lose Gus. I could lose him. If I push too hard, for too much. If anything goes wrong. If Lindsay needs someone to blame for anything. If she meets someone else. If … so many ways. I could lose my son.

I'm entitled to be scared of that.

And Justin … if I don't go along with all his little fantasies, I could lo …

Shit!

When do I get a break here? I took him in. I let him go. I took him back. I hung on during his little Hollywood adventure. I kept the moving in offer on the table. I took him back again. I tried not to feel like second prize. I tried to shrug aside the feeling, the fear, that if things in Hollywood had worked out, he would never have come back to the Pitts. I tried to keep …

Alright, there've been times when I've been a total asshole. I know that. But I'm fucking trying. I'm trying to believe he's not just going to take off again as soon as something better comes along. And all I get …

Well, mainly, I get Justin. And that's enough for me.

But will I ever be enough for him? That's the question, boys and girls.

Why do I so often feel that I'm just a habit with him? Something he reverts to when he's not all that interested in anything else. And a bad habit at that. One that someday, probably sooner rather than later, he's going to break.

Fuck it!

Tonight I'm going to put in some hours at Babylon. And if I can find someone to suck my cock, and make me feel for just a few minutes that I'm what they want, what they really want - even if it's just for as long as it takes to get off, then that's going to be better than how I'm going to feel at home.

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Justin

I get home from Daph's and find a message on the phone at the loft that he's going to be "working" at Babylon tonight. Well, fuck him!

He is such a coward. He deliberately rang the loft and not my cell so that he didn't have to talk to me.

I don't know what his problem is. He should know by now that I don't want us to turn into a nice suburban couple any more than he does.  But how does spending time with your son equate to becoming one of the "dickless fags" he despises so much? I know he has major issues about "family" and all of that stuff. I might not know the details, 'cos he never fucking wants to discuss it, but I get the general picture in 3-D tecnicolor glory. But does he have to let that damage rule every damned aspect of our life together? He behaves as if our life, this life we live together is so fragile that even the smallest change will blow it to pieces.

How the fuck can we live our whole lives that way? How can I?

Or maybe I'm just reading this all wrong and it's really about the little surprise I brought back with me from LA. Maybe it's really that he just doesn't want to be with me right now. Can't stand to be with someone who's diseased or …

Oh, shit!

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Brian

It's an average sort of night at Babylon. Same old, same old.  There's some hot new stud who thinks that he can walk in and have any guy he wants, can bring the whole of Babylon to their knees to worship his cock. He's alright, I guess. But I've never really gone for that type.

I check him out, but he backs off like the chickenshit I suspect him to be. He makes out like he doesn't want it, but I know better.  I've been where he is, and I know exactly what he's afraid of. He knows that there's no fucking way I'm going to bottom for him, and he knows everyone else here knows it too. So he's too afraid of risking his "reputation" to take me on.

His loss.

Besides, he's not that hot. Not nearly as hot as what I've got at home.

It's late. And I'm tired. Fucking tired of playing these games.  I'm too old to start playing chicken with some wanna-be hot shot. I don't have to any more.

I'm going home.

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Justin

I try watching TV and compulsively tidying the loft and deliberately putting things where I know he won't think to look for them, but the anger just keeps simmering. Finally, I find myself sitting sketching out all my anger and frustration into a new episode of Rage.

In my little Rage world, it's not JT who is diseased. It's Rage himself. And it's not so much that he's caught something, as that something is warping his powers, so that instead of being able to hold all his inner demons at bay, they're spilling out of him from every pore So everyone can see the poor, fucked up mess that he really is.

Just when I've nearly finished a lovely drawing of Rage with pus-filled sores all over his face, he walks in.

He comes up behind me, so I quickly flip to another page.

"Your compulsory time out must be up by now," he says, bending down to nuzzle into my neck. "Wanna fool around?"

Fuck him!

We can't just fuck all of our problems away like this.

Besides … I still don't feel clean. I still don't know if it's safe. I just don't want to right now.

I shrug away from him.

"I'm working," I say.

I feel him stand up. I hear him, I swear I hear him pull his lips between his teeth the way that he does while he's thinking exactly how he's going to respond to something. Like he can't ever just come out and say what he thinks without looking at it from every possible angle first.

Then I hear him walk away.

I sit there for what seems to be a long time before I realize that is not something I want to hear, not something I ever want to hear.

Whatever's going on with him, whatever's going on with me, we'll figure it out. But we can't do that if all we do is close off to each other.

I get up, finally, and follow him.

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Brian

I should have fucking stayed at Babylon. This game's just as tired, and at the end of it, I don't even get laid.

I leave him to sulk and go take a shower. I've been in there a few minutes when the shower door slides open, and then he's there with me. He doesn't say anything, just squeezes some of the shower gel onto his hands and starts wiping them over my chest.

Whatever little drama has been going on in his head seems to be over - for now, at least.

I guess the only thing to do is make the most of it, make the most of him. It looks like he's not going to be around much longer. Feels that way, at least. Feels like he's gearing up to leave me. Again.

I don't want to deal with those thoughts. I won't.

So I wrap my arms around him, as if I can hold him here with me just by that gesture. And then I kiss him. I'm afraid he won't respond, but immediately his body presses hard against mine. For a moment, anyway. Then he pulls back.

"Brian, I'm not sure …"

I don't know what he's talking about at first. I think he's not sure that we should fuck in the middle of a fight … whatever. But then he starts to go all red and almost teary eyed, and I realize he's still fucking worrying about the syph.

I sometimes forget how young he is. How inexperienced in dealing with some of the shittier things of life. He's had so many big fucking dramas to deal with, I'm not sure how this one even rates notice, but it's clear that on his personal Richter scale it's at least a 7. And, knowing this, suddenly I feel … like a fucking boyfriend, I guess. At least … a wave of fondness almost replaces the lust that was building nicely a few seconds ago.

I kiss him gently, and turning off the shower, reach for a towel. I wrap him up in it, and then say, in a voice that's so sweetly reasonable it damned near makes me puke, "What did the doc say?"

Justin shrugs. And then gives a little half smile, that gets wider as I start to dry him off. I'm careful to keep it non-sexual. We used to do this sometimes when he was getting over the bashing, and I remember the drill. Remember just what he liked. Remember how good it seemed to make him feel. I let all those memories guide me to make this time good for him too. If it's still too early and we can't fuck tonight, then at least I can get him to the point where he's comfortable laying close to me. Not that I want that … exactly. But he seems to sleep better that way.

"He said it should be okay. But …"

"We don't have to if you don't want to," I assure him. "If you're not ready."

He gives a funny laugh, and then he's pulling the towel away and pressing up against me again.

"Oh, I'm ready," he breathes; and I know that tone of voice.

He'd better be fucking right about that, because just hearing that tone in his voice has got me way past ready.

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Justin

I wake up when Brian's getting ready for work next day. I get up and put on the coffee, and when he comes out the shower I go up to help him get dressed. We both get some high protein breakfast and I realize just how fucking grateful I am to him for last night. I love that sometimes he just gets it.

I don't think he always understands what's going on in my head, anymore than I understand him. But sometimes he really does. And when he does get it, he always seems to know just what I need.

Last night I started off needing tender and gentle and reassuring, and wound up needing hot, hard, more … and I got it all. I give him an extra long kiss to try to tell him. He gives me a funny, lop-sided sort of smile. But it's not really a smile. He looks … sad.

Why the fuck does he look so damned sad?

This dancing around each other is getting old. Tonight, whether he likes it or not, we are going to have to talk. I think he thinks that … God! Of course he does. He thinks that I'm not happy, not satisfied. And in a way that's true. But not in any way that really threatens us.

I don't think it does, anyway.. Not unless he blows it right out of proportion, and starts one of his "there's no lock on the doors" little scenario.

I pull him in for another kiss, and say the words I hardly ever say.

He gives me a long look. I wrap my arms around his neck and press my face against his. His arms come round me, and in that gesture, I can feel him getting ready to let me go. Again.

Well, not this time.

I have to find a way to fix this. Find a way to tell him what I want, what I need, and at the same time make him realize that I will never come close to getting what I need from anyone but him; from any life but one with him in it.

He leaves, and I have the day to work out what I'm going to do.

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Brian

I feel so fucking tired.

After a fuck-fest like last night, normally I'd be invigorated today, ready to take on the world. But I just feel …

It felt like goodbye.

When he kissed me, and held me, when he said those words … it felt too fucking much like goodbye.

But what am I going to do? Throw him out before he can leave me?

Been there, bought the t-shirt, and wore it till it fell to shreds.  Along with what might laughingly be called my heart. I can't do that again. I don't have the strength anymore. I guess the only thing I can do is just … hang on in there. And hope that this time when he leaves, he'll leave … something, some shred of something that I can cling to to get me through the rest of my sorry-assed fucked up life.

Of course, just when I feel at my weakest, Mikey rings.

He's babbling on about some fucking housewarming party - like that's an attractive option after the dinner party fiasco. Then he says something about some guy named Brandon. It takes a few minutes of him babbling on about how Emmett says this guy is so hot, and how I finally have some real competition for king stud or some shit like that before I even realize who he's talking about.

I stick my tongue in my cheek and tell him that yes, I can see this Brandon dude might be some sort of competition - if he was half as hot as he thinks he is. Mikey though, who seems to have suddenly done a complete about turn about how juvenile and pathetic my lifestyle is, doesn't want to let it go. He seems honestly outraged that someone could come along and try to oust me from my position as super-stud. I let him ramble on while I go on working on the latest campaign, just making the right noises at appropriate intervals. And then Mikey makes some asinine comment about how I should set up a competition to see who can bag the most tricks in a week, just to show him who's boss.

I have a meeting to go to, so I say, "Yeah, sure. That'd show him.  I'll have to do that very little thing. But right now I have work to do, so bub-bye."

And then I hang up.

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Justin

I work out what I'm going to do. I don't think Brian's going to be thrilled about it. But I need to do something, and this seems to me like the best idea.

Mom is not convinced, but she understands, and even manages to find me what I want. Not on her agency's books. I couldn't afford the sort of rents they charge. But through someone who knows someone.  It's just a couple of rooms over a store. But it's walking distance from the loft and it has these big-assed windows so the light is fucking fantastic.

By just after lunch, I have my own studio.

It will be a bitch to heat in the winter, but I can paint in gloves if I have to. And it will be mine. My own space. Somewhere I can legitimately go when the whole no-change thing with Brian feels like it's strangling me, without him thinking that it means I'm leaving him.

I finally figured out that what freaks me out most about the no-change thing is that it feels like Brian's once more calling all the shots. He's not and that's not fair, but it's how it feels to me when he goes into super defense mode every time there's the smallest change in the dynamics of our relationship. And that makes me feel weak, and I go pushing for way more than I need from him just to prove that I have some power in this thing between us. Which, of course, makes him even more defensive, and the whole thing just escalates way out of proportion.

I need to feel that I have some control in my life, that I'm not back to being just Brian's twink. This is my way of claiming that control.

And, anyway, if I'm not going back to school, then I have to seriously start working on my art. And not just Rage.

I can't do that at the loft. I'm a messy painter. I like to splash things around sometimes. I need to be able to have drying canvases spread around the place. I need to be able to work for days without having to stop and tidy things up.

It's not just that Brian would have a fit if I treated the loft that way. I'd hate it as well. I don't want to live in that sort of mess. I just want to be able to work that way.

So this is perfect.

Of course, he'll resist it. Of course he will. It's fucking change. And he'll read way too much into me needing my own space.  But it's just work. He has Kinnetik. I will have this.

Who knows? Maybe someday I'll be making enough that I can rent the store downstairs as well, and turn it into a little gallery. The area's becoming more gentrified. It might even make money.

I'm in really good mood now, so I decide to go to the diner for something to eat. I spent so much time running round earlier, I forgot to have lunch.

When I get there, Emmett is sitting opposite Deb and they're deep in conversation. Em has the look on his face that he gets when he's passing on some particularly tasty morsel of gossip, and when I come up to the table, they both shut their mouths with an audible snap, so guess who the gossip's about?

I sigh.

Either they've heard about the studio, and are turning it into something way bigger than it is, or they've heard that Brian and I are "having problems". Probably because I didn't go to Babylon last night.

Or maybe it's about the syphilis.

I wince. I hope not. I hope that Brian hasn't said anything about that to dear little Mikey. You can't tell with Brian. He might just think it's funny.

Deb gets up, so I slide in opposite Em.

"So. Wassup?"

I wait expectantly for an answer.

Deb gives Emmett a warning look, so I know I was right. It's about me. Or Brian. Or more likely us.

"What can I get you, Sunshine?" she says. And by the way she says it, with that mother hen tone in her voice, I know it's about Brian.  She thinks he's fucked up again.

I sigh. Years of blaming Brian for everything that wasn't the way she liked it in Mikey's life have made it her natural response.  There's a problem? It must be Brian's fault.

But I'm not Mikey. And I'm not going to get into this with her. I'm certainly not going to give her any more ammunition to shoot at Brian. Deb's little bullets can wound Brian in a way that most other people's don't. She's one of his weak points. He was desperate for a mother, and there was Deb, all warm and loving and motherly.

The problem is that Deb's love came with a price tag. It had to be bought with Brian's willingness to shoulder responsibility for Michael - for every aspect of Michael's life, every fuck up Mikey ever made. All Brian's fault, in the gospel according to Deb. Add that to his natural control freak tendencies, and you've got why Brian thinks he's fucking responsible for everything, and why all these assholes let him go on thinking it.

But now is not the time to take on that issue. I smile at her and order. She gives Emmett another look and heads off.

I turn the smile on Emmett, and raise an eyebrow.

He wriggles in his seat.

"C'mon, Em," I say. "Spill. I'm gonna hear it from someone."

He looks ashamed for a minute and then says in what's meant to be a reassuring tone but just sounds nervous, "Justin, it's nothing, really. It isn't."

Okay. It's not the syphilis, because he'd be all warm and sympathetic over that.

It's not the studio, thank God, because I want the time to tell Brian about that myself.

So … it must be about Brian. Something Brian's done. He was pretty pissed off with me yesterday, for some warped Brian reason, so I guess he could have lashed out last night.

"So, what?" I ask.

Em looks like he's seriously thinking about whether to answer, and then he drops the gossip queen mode, and becomes the Emmett I really like.

"Honey, it's just Brian being stupidly Brian," he says.

I sigh.

Now what?

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Brian

The first call is from Deb to invite me - not us, you understand, me - to dinner on Friday night.

Then Ted pokes his head in to "see if there's anything you need, boss".

And then Mikey rings.

I can't believe what he tells me.

Can't.

Don't want to.

Can't.

But Jenn apparently told Debbie, and Deb … seems to have told everyone.

Which leaves me, of course, the last to know.

Again.

Somewhere inside me is anger, burning through my skin.

Somewhere there is pain, pain so deep and all encompassing it's like pouring acid on exposed nerve endings.

But all I can really feel at the moment is bewilderment.

How could he do this to me?

How could he let me find out this way?

I sit there for a while, pretending to work.

Then I go home.

Home?

Well, back to the loft, anyway. Guess it's about to stop being a home. Again.

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Justin

When Em first tells me about Brian's little competition I can hardly take it in. It's such a fucking juvenile load of crap for anyone to even think about getting involved in.

But then I remember how Brian totally freaked out yesterday morning, and I realize that he's going through something at the moment that I just don't understand, so …

Shit! It just might be true. It's something that Brian, tweaked and hurting, might just get himself into. And once in, of course, there's no way he'd ever back away from it.

What a stupid fucking asshole! While he holds this pathetic competition with this Brandon guy, I'm just supposed to sit on the sidelines and … what? cheer him on?

Well, fuck that!

At first, I'm so mad at him that I can hardly contain it. I've told Brian over and over that I don't expect, or even want, monogamy. For either of us. I like it that I can see a hot guy and fuck him without any guilt issues if I feel like it.

The syphilis has given me a bit of a wake up call about being too fucking casual about that but I still don't plan on turning into little Mary Housewife, and I certainly don't expect him to. No, Brian tricking isn't an issue.

But Brian having the whole of gay PA keeping score, that's something else again. Not to mention that it leaves me looking like a total twat for putting up with it.

It's almost like he's fucking creating a scenario guaranteed to push me into walking out on him again. And I wouldn't put that past him, either. But I am so onto him. There's no way he's getting away with that. I might rip him a new asshole so big he'll be able to install an en suite bathroom, but there is no way we are breaking up over this.

My anger starts to cool a bit and I just become determined. It's time, and more than time, that I began to restate my claim on him, and on this relationship. He doesn't have to say he loves me, he doesn't have to swear some bullshit oath of lifelong fidelity, but he does have to show me some fucking respect!

To help me feel like I deserve that, to feel like I'm in control, I start working out what I'll need to get for my studio. That leads me to pulling out a box, and starting to pack some of my paints, and stuff, ready to take down there tomorrow.

That's what I'm doing when, hours before I expect him, Brian gets home.

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Brian

I walk in and find him on his knees in front of the storage unit, packing some stuff into a box.

Fuck!

I feel like I've been fucking stabbed in the gut. I almost double over with the pain. I guess up to now I've been holding onto some bullshit hope that it wasn't true, some belief that he wouldn't do this to me.

But now …

The pain recedes, and crashes back, like some huge wave, but in the space between, rage builds in me like a corrosive. I feel myself turning into Jack. I want to grab him and smash my knuckles on his face, bruise them on his ribs, plough them into the softness of his belly.

My hands clench into fists, and I stand there gasping, trying to get some sort of control.

He looks up at me and smiles. Or starts to smile. That smile, my "welcome home, I've missed you" smile. Guess that's a habit too.

But all of a sudden his face changes, and all trace of the smile has gone. He stands up and pulls himself up to his full height. Which usually means trouble. Somewhere behind my anger, I recognize that, and my mind registers that, if I wasn't seeing through a red haze myself, I'd say he was pissed as hell.

I'm still struggling to find … something. Some strength that isn't pure rage, so that I can get some words out. Words that won't … won't send him reeling away so hurt and angry that he may never let me near him again.

I have to be near him. Even if we're never together again, I have to have him in my life. I can survive, I can somehow get through this, as long as I have something of him left in my life. That need does battle with the rage, and finally wins.

I am such a fucking pussy.

"Going somewhere?" I grind out.

At the same time, so the words collide and bounce off each other in the space between us, he says, "Come home early to get a head start?"

I've got no fucking idea what he's talking about, and I can't find any more words. I walk over and kick the box.

It skitters across the floor.

"Hey!" he yells. "Be careful, asshole!"

Then the words come.

"When were you going to fucking tell me, Sunshine? Or were you just going to let me come home and find you gone?"

He stands and stares at me. As if he can't take in what I've said.  Or what it means that I've said it.

Sprung!

Then he says, out of nowhere, like it fucking means something, "Brian I am not going to let you use this stupid fucking competition to drive me away. Don't even think it."

Before he's finished, I'm already cutting in, the pain in my gut spilling through my voice and turning the words to sharp-edged knives.

"You are such a fucking liar! I know about the apartment, Sunshine, so don't you dare try to bullshit me!"

Then, somehow, I hear what he's said, and, for a moment, the pain recedes a little, and I just feel confused.

"What fucking competition?"

"What apartment?"

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Justin

"What apartment?"

"What fucking competition?"

We stand and stare at each other for just a moment before I realize.  Fuck! Somehow, someone has already told him, and he thinks …

He thinks I'm leaving him.

As soon as that registers I'm moving towards him. He tries to shrug me off, to walk around me, but I grab his shoulders. He looks away from me, but I say his name, softly, with all the love that I can put into my voice.

"Brian."

And then his eyes meet mine. The sheer misery in them kills any trace of anger that is left in me.

"Brian, I don't know what you've been told, but it's not an apartment."

He gives a snort of harsh laughter.

"It's a studio," I tell him. Then I drag him to the box. "I was packing up some of my art stuff to take there tomorrow. I've just rented out some work space, that's all. I'm not going anywhere."

He glances at the floor and then swings his eyes around the room, trying to make it look like he's not taking any notice of the contents of that damned box. But he does. I see it in the way he relaxes a little, a tiny loosening of some of the tension in his shoulders, his hips. He sucks in a breath.

"What competition?" he asks again.

I know he's playing for time, but I let him get away with it. Mainly because he genuinely doesn't seem to know what I'm talking about.

"I saw Emmett at lunch time," I tell him. I figure that he'll take that clue that I know all about it and will stop bullshitting. If that's what he's doing. Right now, I can't tell. Because when I say that, he looks more bewildered than ever.

He pinches the bridge of his nose, which means he's got a bitch of a headache. I give up any idea of getting the anger back, and slide my arms around him.

For a moment, he stiffens, and I'm afraid he's going to push me away, throw another drama queen moment, throw me out; but then his arms come round me. He hugs me tightly against him, and I hug back.

I don't know exactly what going on, but I have the feeling that we've just dodged a canon ball.

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Brian

He puts his hands up behind my head and draws me down into a deep but heartbreakingly tender kiss. It nearly finishes me. I'm not sure that I can hold things together. I want to push him away, throw him down the stairs, lock him in the fucking bathroom, chain him in the closet. Something.

But he's rubbing my scalp gently, and kissing all along my jawline at the same time.

And he's here. In my arms.

I pull back from him, and he tries to follow with his lips, but I hold him still till I can look into his eyes. He's got better at lying, over the years. But his eyes always give him away. He can never quite meet my eyes when he tries to lie to me.

Right now, though, his eyes look straight back into mine, and then he smiles at me.

"Brian, I love you. I'm not going anywhere."

I don't know how to react to that. So I just pull him in and kiss him, deep and demanding; asking all the questions that I can't find words for. And he answers - somehow answers all my questions, all my doubts and fears in that one kiss. So I pull him closer and kiss him again.

And while I do, there's only one coherent thought going through my brain.

I am going to fucking kill Mikey.

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Justin

I know his headache's really bad, when after two of the most amazing kisses we've ever shared, he just sighs, and staggers over to the couch. I help him get settled, with his feet up, and then I get him a drink. It shouldn't help his headache, but he's convinced it will, so it might. Anyway, he looks like he needs it. In the end, I get one for myself as well.

Then I sit down next to his feet, and maneuver around so I can pull them on my lap. I take off his shoes and start rubbing his feet and he puts his head back and gives a low moan of pleasure.

"So tell me about this competition," I say.

I might love him, and I might be sorry that he's been hurting, but he's still not off the hook entirely.

"What fucking competition?" he asks, tiredly. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Your "fucking" competition," I repeat to him. "The "fucking" competition you've set up with that guy Brandon."

He huffs. And then says, tired, but with an edge, "Justin, I don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about."

I sit and stare at him. He's closed his eyes again, and when I stop rubbing, he wiggles his toes to draw my attention back where he figures it belongs. I find myself grinning a little, and go back to his foot massage. He isn't kidding. He would no way lie about this. He really doesn't have a clue about this so-called competition.

I tell him what Emmett told me.

He gives a ghost of a laugh.

"That is so fucking lame!" he says. "Do you seriously think that I'd even consider … Besides this guy isn't even fucking hot!"

"Emmett said Michael told him that you'd told him about it yourself."

He stares at me for a moment, and then he starts to laugh.

"Fucking Mikey!" he says in between chuckles. "It was his idea of how I should defend my title. I just said I'd do it to fucking get him off the phone."

He laughs even louder at the look on my face.

"Brian, he's told everyone," I say. "Well, he told Deb and Emmett anyway, and you know what that means."

Brian rubs his foot up my arm.

"I wonder if someone's told Brandon," he grins.

Okay, he clearly thinks it's funny, but even as his other foot begins to circle around in my lap in a way that means he's feeling better, even while I stroll my hand up his thigh, and reach for the prize that's hidden there waiting for me to release it from the prison of his pants, even while I am feeling so fucking glad that it's not true, one thought is buzzing round my brain.

I am going to fucking kill Michael.

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