Chapter Seventeen

 

 

 

“Oh man, I haven’t seen that in ages!” Scott says.

“I haven’t either. I think we watched it enough on the first two tours that I finally got sick of it,” Carter replies, laughing.

“We definitely need a bigger movie selection on the bus this time around. Maybe we can get them delivered to our bus!”

Carter plops down on the couch with the remote and tilts his head, thinking. “I don’t think they do that, Scott.”

“Whatever, you’re famous. They’ll do it for you.” Scott cuddles up against Carter’s side, and Carter’s arm comes around him and pulls him in close. He leans over and presses a kiss to Carter’s neck, just because he can, just to remind himself that this cuddling isn’t like any cuddling they’ve done before. This is boyfriend cuddling.

They watch quietly, and when the characters on the screen kiss, Carter tilts Scott’s head up and kisses him too. Scott giggles when he gets his breath back, and Carter blushes.

“I always wanted to do that with you,” he admits.

“I’m glad you did,” Scott replies. He darts in and kisses Carter quickly, just once on the lips, and then settles back into Carter’s arms.

Carter keeps making comments throughout the movie, about this hairstyle and that song, and those ridiculous shoes. It would usually drive Scott crazy, talking over the movie like that, but it’s different with Carter. Everything seems different with Carter. Scott likes hearing his thoughts, but he doesn’t really participate, at least until Curt and Brian are in bed together, totally not covered by the sheets. Scott elbows Carter and twists to look up at him.

“That’s totally us,” he says. “Last night.”

“It’ll be us tonight too,” Carter replies, wiggling his eyebrows.

“It’s pretty hot, right? You think we could be that hot?”

“We already are, baby,” Carter whispers, and pulls Scott up for a kiss with a hand under his chin. Carter’s fingers dig into his throat a little, and his teeth scrape Scott’s lips, and Scott melts against him. Carter guides him into all the right positions and shows him such perfect kisses. Scott’s fingers clench and release of their own accord on a handful of Carter’s shirt.

“You promised to fuck me,” he slurs. “Can we do that now?”

“Here?” Carter asks.

“Yeah.”

“With the movie on?”

“Whatever. Yeah.”

Carter turns Scott over onto his back and lays him out longways on the couch, takes his time undressing them both, pausing to point out scenes in the movie, which Scott doesn’t at all care about now. He pulls one of those handy travel bottles of lube and a strip of condoms out from under the couch cushions, and Scott wonders if Carter has them stashed all over the house. He wonders if they could fuck all over the house, in every room, now that they’re boyfriends. They could do that now, and nobody would think twice, because they’re together. Scott suddenly wants to try.

“I want you to fuck me everywhere,” he tells Carter, who laughs.

“What does that mean?”

“I mean... everywhere here. All over the house. In the pool. Can we do that? Would you fuck me underwater, Carter? And outside, and in the kitchen. And in the car, can we fuck in your car?”

Carter laughs again, keeps laughing as he leans over Scott and kisses him sloppily, so that giggles escape whenever their lips part. “I’ll fuck you anywhere you want,” he says.

“Then fuck me here, right now.”

So Carter does. And he tells Scott about all the places they could -will- fuck, all the ways Carter wants him. He makes good on his promise, fucking Scott slow and sweet and deep, and Scott comes with Carter’s voice murmuring in one ear and dirty guitar riffs sounding in the other.

They finish in time for the end of the movie, and Carter curls around Scott, pulling an afghan over them so they won’t be cold. Carter keeps nuzzling his ear and the back of his neck, but it doesn’t tickle. It just makes warmth shiver through Scott’s body.

“I wish I could spend every day with you, like this,” Carter whispers. “Wish I could just hide here and never leave.”

“It’s not really that fun,” Scott tells him. “You’d get bored, and you’d get tired of me. I sleep in all the time, and I play music really loud. You’ll wanna escape, trust me.”

Carter nuzzles Scott’s face with his cheek. “All I do in the morning is work out. And I sing really loud. And the things I want to escape from are out there, not in here.”

Scott’s heart swells. “You mean me?”

“Yeah, I mean you. We’re pretty good together, you know? I’m totally keeping you.”

It’s possibly the best thing anyone has ever said to Scott, and he can’t even respond, just buries his face in Carter’s skin and breathes him in, wraps his arms and legs around Carter and never wants to let go. He wants to sink into Carter’s body and never leave.

Carter holds him for a long time, all the way through the rest of the movie and the credits. When the music stops, he stirs and sits up, stretching, and Scott watches him, all those broad stretches of smooth, freckled skin that he just wants to touch. Carter catches him looking, and he blushes. He doesn’t just blush in his face, either - the pink flush goes all the way down through his shoulders, his chest, and Scott crawls up into Carter’s lap and clings onto him again.

“God, Scott, the way you look at me sometimes...”

“How do I look at you?”

“I don’t know. It’s like... It’s like you’re my biggest fan, you know? But like, in a good way, like I actually mean something to you. Like nobody could know me better, or be closer to me. It makes me feel really good.”

Scott breathes out in relief. “As long as it’s not, like... creepy. I don’t mean to be creepy. I just like looking at you.”

Carter rubs his hands slowly up and down Scott’s back and shakes his head. “Nope. Not creepy.”

“Good. Then I’m the president of your fuckin’ fanclub, babyboy,” Scott teases, and he can feel Carter’s chest shaking with laughter before he can hear it. “You can’t get rid of me.” Please don’t ever try.

They get dressed again for dinner, but undressed when they go upstairs for bed. Carter doesn’t fuck him again, even though Scott sort of wants it; Carter touches him instead, rubs his hands all over Scott’s chest and his throat and his arms, kisses him breathless and murmurs into his ear.

“I don’t want to go to sleep,” Carter whispers, and Scott blinks in the dark, wishes he could see Carter’s face.

“Why not?”

“Because then today is over, and tomorrow I have to go back to work.”

“You like your work. It’s like...your dream. Isn’t it?”

Carter sighs. Scott can feel the movement of his chest, and the puff of warm air against his skin. “Yeah, it is. But just makes everything more...intense, you know? Like, I can’t just date someone. It’s like the whole world is watching me. Like my whole life is just one long episode of that Blind Date show, complete with snarky commentary. And I don’t want things to be like that, with us. I want it to just be...us. God, I’m not making any sense.”

Scott doesn’t know exactly what to say to that, so he just makes an encouraging noise and snuggles closer. Carter’s hand finds his under the sheets and holds on, and Scott wonders if he could sleep like this, hand in hand with Carter. He probably could.

“I have to do an interview tomorrow, and they’re gonna ask me about Alex. And eventually they’re gonna be asking me about you. Even if we try to keep it to ourselves, Scott, someone’s gonna find out eventually. And...I don’t like hiding. I really, really don’t.”

“You shouldn’t have to hide,” Scott agrees quietly.

“And you shouldn’t have to come out before you’re ready,” Carter replies.

The term surprises Scott, and he opens his mouth and closes it again, words failing him. He’s never really thought of it that way before. He’s never felt like he was lying, or hiding. But Carter’s right, he will need to go public if he expects to stay with Carter, and his stomach twists into a tight knot. He finds himself clinging to Carter’s hand and forces his fingers to relax.

“It’s okay,” he whispers. “Say whatever you need to say in your interviews. I don’t mind.”

“Scott... You can’t just say that. This is important. You need time to process, you need... You need to know yourself really well. I can’t just mention you offhand in some random interview. That’s not fair to you.”

“It’s fine,” Scott insists. “I’m fine with it. As long as it’s you, you know?”

Carter’s quiet for a long time, and Scott wonders if maybe he’s fallen asleep after all. When he speaks again, he sounds cautious, as if he’s choosing his words very carefully. “You know I don’t believe in putting labels on everything, Scott. I’m not trying to do that to you. But...I don’t know if people are gonna let you get away with calling yourself straight any more. They’re gonna ask. Fuck, I know better than anyone, they’re gonna ask a lot. And I don’t know if you’ll know what to say back to them. Have you...have you thought about it? Do you even want to?”

What Scott wants is for Carter to go to sleep, or change the subject, or maybe fuck him through the mattress again. He wiggles closer, crawling half on top of Carter, and kisses him once, twice, just chaste little kisses that he hopes will distract him. “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t care, just promise me, promise it doesn’t matter to you, please.” He kisses Carter again, doesn’t give him time to answer.

Carter reaches up and clasps his hands around the back of Scott’s neck, squeezing gently but insistently until Scott pulls away. “It’s okay with me, Scott. Whatever you need to say is okay with me. I just need you to think about it, all right?”

Scott takes a deep breath and tries it out tentatively, just inside his head. He skirts around the word for a long time, but finally there’s nothing else to do, nowhere else to go.

Gay. It sounds...weird. Not wrong, exactly, but not...him. It’s like the word has all these things that come with it, a whole culture, a whole fucking language that Scott’s heard but doesn’t know how to speak, and he’s too old to start learning. The word makes him think of Carter, and Sutan, and people who are beautiful and confident and genuinely fabulous. It doesn’t sound like him at all.

A whole slew of other words, other labels, come to mind as soon as he eliminates the first, most obvious one. He sifts through them, trying them on for size, and eventually comes up with “bisexual” as the one that seems to fit the best. But it’s still not...not quite right, not quite comfortable. He tries to imagine describing himself with that term and sighs, frustrated. Why do there have to be labels at all? Why does he have to choose a word? He doesn’t know enough words to find the one that fits him, if it even exists at all.

He turns over onto his side, facing away from Carter, and he waits for Carter to spoon up behind him. He wants it so badly, he barely lets himself breathe until he hears the blankets shift, feels Carter reaching for him. Scott sighs deeply and closes his eyes, holding Carter’s hand tight against his stomach.

Carter kisses his ear and whispers, “Today was a good day,” and Scott smiles into the dark.

“Yeah, it was. The best day,” he replies, and means it.

“We’ll make tomorrow good too.”

Carter sounds determined, and Scott can almost feel that strong will bracing him. He thinks he could do almost anything with Carter behind him. He sort of already has.

He nods against the pillow and presses closer to Carter, and he’s not even turned on by all of their bare skin - he just takes comfort from Carter’s arms surrounding him, from his broad chest against Scott’s back. Sleep comes easy, warm and slow and even, and Carter’s still there when he wakes up, still holding him just as close as he had all through the long night.