“Are you even listening to me?”
Alex turns back to face Carter, smiling a little guiltily. He makes what should be an unattractive expression look like something in a TV commercial, something enticing and seductive, but Carter can see right through it. He rolls his eyes. He’s known Alex for too long; those false expressions, those acts don’t work on him anymore.
“Did you hear anything I just said?”
Alex hesitates and flashes Carter a smile full of bleached white teeth. This smile is even more fake, and anger flashes through Carter’s chest as Alex says, “Um. No. Sorry. Tell me again, baby.” His voice is charming and sweet, but Carter doesn’t want charming and sweet. He wants honest, the one thing Alex hasn’t given him yet.
“No. Not if you’re just gonna ignore me like that,” Carter snaps. Alex huffs and looks away, and Carter relents a little, sighing. “Come on, this is supposed to be a fun night out. Let’s have fun, okay?”
Alex nods and downs the rest of his glass of wine before standing up. “Yeah, of course. I’m having fun.” Carter sees him catch the waiter’s eye again. Carter looks over and sees the waiter - what was his name again? Sam? Scott? - watching them leave and blushing, and he reaches down to grab Alex’s hand in a tight grip, glaring back. Sam-or-Scott’s face falls, and he quickly busies himself in a stack of dirty dishes. Good.
“Alex, come on.”
Carter weaves through the tables, pulling Alex along with him. There’s a knot in the pit of his stomach, and he grits his teeth hard against the feeling, hoping the fresh air outside will clear his head a little.
Alex stumbles behind him and curses under his breath. “Jesus, Carter! I can fucking walk on my own, you know,” he hisses, pulling his hand away.
He’s got a cigarette between his lips before they even get out into the back alley, and Carter pulls his lighter out of his pocket, a motion born of old habit. Their usual posse of paparazzi is standing across the street, surrounding Carter’s car. He shakes his head a little and rubs his eyes. He’s gotten used to them in the past six years, but the paps are the last thing he wants to deal with right now.
Alex’s lips purse around the cigarette as he takes a shallow drag, and Carter feels his blood heat a bit despite his annoyance. Even after all this time, all the glossy magazine covers and black-and-white fashion spreads, he hasn’t quite gotten used to that face. He presses his body close and rests a hand on the back of Alex’s neck, leaning in to whisper in Alex’s ear.
“Have I told you today how much I love your mouth? Can’t wait to get in the car, get that mouth on me...”
Alex hums, sounding profoundly uninterested. “Couldn’t that wait until we get home? I hate tasting like come all night.”
The smoke in the air suddenly tastes sour, choking and thick in Carter’s throat, and he moves away, taking a deep breath and narrowing his eyes. “I’ll buy you a fucking breath mint.”
The movement takes him into the yellow light of a streetlamp, and he hears a sudden rush of noise from across the street as the paps recognize his face. They’re swarmed in seconds, and suddenly flashbulbs are going off left and right, blinding them. Carter reaches for Alex’s wrist.
“Don’t,” Alex snaps, snatching his hand out of Carter’s reach.
Carter grabs him by the arm and yanks him close to hiss in his ear, “Not now, do not do this now.”
He lets Alex go and they both push their way through the crowd - easier than it used to be. They know Carter’s reputation. He and Alex make their way around to either side of Carter’s car, and Alex throws Carter a heated look over the roof before ducking inside. Carter rolls his eyes again as he follows.
“You always fucking do this,” Alex says as soon as the doors slam shut. “I can handle myself, okay? You don’t need to always protect me or guide me around or whatever. I’m a grown fucking man, Carter.”
“Yeah, a grown fucking man who was eyefucking the waiter from the minute we sat down.”
“Jesus Christ, would you chill the fuck out? I was not ‘eyefucking the waiter’, I was trying to get a refill. You read way too much into everything I do, especially if there’s another guy involved.”
Carter lets himself sink back into his seat and thinks about everything he’d rather being doing. Anything. Anything but this. “Baby...I’m trying, okay? I just want you all for myself.”
“I’m my own person, Carter. You can’t have me all to yourself. I belong to myself. And to my career. I thought you understood that.”
There’s a long, heavy pause, and Carter forces himself to meet Alex’s eyes. “What were you doing last week in Milan? I called you. A lot.”
“I know. Why do you think I didn’t answer? I can’t be in constant contact, for fuck’s sake. I was there on business. You knew that. You knew I’d travel a lot when we started this.”
“Travel, not cut me off completely! I worried. You didn’t have to make me worry for no reason. Or is there a reason? Something you’re not telling me?”
“Carter, there’s nothing.” Alex takes out his pack of cigarettes again but he doesn’t light one. He doesn’t have a lighter. Carter doesn’t give him his. “Not that it matters, because - and let me say this again, since you don’t ever get it - don’t belong to you. If I want to go and fuck some guy in Milan, it’s really none of your goddamn business.”
Carter’s stomach drops through the floor, and his hands clench into tight fists, fingernails digging into his palms. His voice is soft when he speaks again. “Alex...why are you even with me? Sometimes you really seem like you don’t want to be.”
“Well, I did, once. Before I found out how fucking crazy you are,” Alex snaps. He crosses his arms over his chest, fist clenched around his cigarette pack, squishing it out of shape.
“I opened my house to you. I wrote songs for you. That’s what people in relationships do. That’s not crazy, you asshole, that’s love.” It’s the first time Carter’s let himself say the word in a long time, and he immediately wishes he hadn’t. It feels almost slimy in his mouth, distasteful.
“Yeah, people in relationships totally tell each other what to do, where to go, who to talk to, who not to talk to... I can see it now!” Alex’s voice is getting shrill and it’s grating on Carter’s nerves. “You are the most controlling asshole I’ve ever been with.”
“Maybe I wouldn’t be so controlling if you could just fucking control yourself,” Carter barks. He grabs the steering wheel with both hands and stares straight ahead. He doesn’t want to see Alex’s beautiful fucking face. Not right now. “I don’t feel like dancing. Let’s just go home.”
But Alex shakes his head, vehement enough that Carter can see it even out of the corner of his eye. “No. I need a drink-god, do I need a drink. We’re almost there anyway.”
“I don’t think we should be out in public right now-”
“Well, I want to be in public. I’d rather be in public than locked in your fucking house with you all night. Come on, pull over. Let me out.”
“This is the middle of the-”
“Then take me to the fucking club. You don’t have to come in.”
They drive the rest of the way in uncomfortable silence, only to be met with more flashbulbs and annoyingly persistent men shouting their names. Carter shields his face with one hand, groaning. “I seriously can’t do this right now, Alex.”
“This is the only time to do it, because after this, we’re over.”
“What?” Carter lunges, reaching for Alex and bruising his ribs on the gearshift, but he’s already out of the car, out of reach. Carter throws open the door and races around, trying to catch Alex before he disappears into the club. “You can’t just-Alex, wait, stop! Alex!”
Alex whirls around right in front of the door, cheeks flushed with anger, and Carter nearly runs into him. Alex puffs himself up to his full height and glares, and even in six-inch heeled boots and hair perfectly coiffed, Carter feels small. “You want to know what I was doing in Milan? Alessandro. That’s what I was doing in Milan. Or should I say, who I was doing in Milan.”
Carter feels all the air leave his lungs. He can’t even focus on Alex’s face anymore; he feels faint. “You... How could you do this? How could you-”
“Because I got tired. I got tired of your clingy fucking bullshit, and I got tired of being ‘America’s Gay Sweethearts’. I got tired of being Carter Saint’s fucking boyfriend,” he shouts, punctuating it with a shove right in the middle of Carter’s chest, sending him tripping a few steps backward as the cameras flash wildly. It takes a moment for Carter to regain his footing, but Alex hasn’t stopped ranting, and his words make Carter feel even more off-balance. “That’s not who I am, and I’m done. I didn’t love you. I wasn’t your soulmate. We were supposed to have fun, and it stopped being fun a long time ago. So...I’m out. This is over.”
The frantic clicking of all the flashbulbs and shutters finally filters back in through the fog clouding Carter’s brain and instinct takes over. He stumbles back to his car in a daze, ignoring the questions shouted his way. He needs to get home, get somewhere private, where he can let himself feel his whole world collapsing.
He speeds away from the club, blowing through stop signs and traffic lights in his rush to get home, but he doesn’t quite make it before what Alex said catches up to him. This is over. Carter looks at the empty passenger seat, the crushed cigarette pack lying there, and the tears start flowing down his cheeks, hot and angry. By the time he parks his car in the driveway, he’s sobbing uncontrollably, clutching at the leather-covered steering wheel like it’s a life preserver.
His phone beeps, signalling a new text message. Of course - Alex couldn’t have dumped him anywhere more public. He needs to go inside. He needs to change out of his clubbing clothes and take a shower and wash his face. Instead, he buries his face in his arms and lets himself cry, lets the memories come as they will. Alex’s quick, flashing smile. The sinuous way his body would arc just as Carter thrust into him. How it felt to welcome him home after a long trip away.
Carter pulls out his phone and deletes the three new texts without even reading them. He can’t deal with his friends’ questions tonight, and he certainly can’t deal with Matt bitching him out for not controlling his image. Realness, he thinks to himself, and even in his head it sounds like sarcasm. Right now he thinks he’d rather have the fantasy.
Once he’s cried himself dry, Carter unbuckles his seat belt and stumbles up to the front door, feeling numb all over. He fumbles his keys three times trying to fit the right one in the lock, and he trips over Alex’s shoes where he’d left them in the foyer. He kicks at them roughly, knowing it’s stupid, not caring. Fucking shoes. Fucking Alex.
He slumps against the wall and lets his keys fall to the floor with a clatter, trying to summon the energy to get up the stairs and into bed. In his pocket, his phone beeps again, and he wrenches it out, wanting to hurl it against the wall, break it into tiny, non-beeping pieces. He takes a deep breath and glances at the screen, fully expecting another panicked message from Matt.
Instead, the screen glows with a name he hasn’t seen, hasn’t really even thought about in, god, well over a month, and his mouth twitches involuntarily into the tiniest ghost of a smile. He clicks the message open.
ur song on the radio babyboy, fuckin sick!!!! :)
Carter laughs. The sound is too loud, echoing in the empty house, but his smile is stronger, and he’s standing up straight again. He doesn’t think he can hold up a conversation right now, but he knows Scott will understand when he just sends a smile of his own back.
By the time he’s made it through an abbreviated version of his nightly routine, Carter feels numb again, and he falls into bed heavily, not even bothering to get under the covers. For the first time in a long time, he doesn’t set an alarm, and he turns his phone all the way off. The bed feels too big without another body in it, but Carter’s almost glad of the space. He spreads himself out, rubs his cheek against his pillow, and tries not to think about anything, staring out into the familiar darkness of his bedroom until sleep takes him.