TWENTY ONE

 

It was a lot easier to think of ending things with Brad when Brad wasn’t there. When Brad wasn’t talking to him, asking him not to go. When Brad didn’t have something so vulnerable, so deeply sad, in the depths of his eyes, something which couldn’t fail to touch Aaron’s heart, even as careful as he’d been to hold it back.

And it was definitely easier to make himself think that he could walk away when Brad wasn’t right there kissing him, plunging his tongue into Aaron’s mouth in that unique way he had, like he was claiming Aaron. It made Aaron’s knees wobbly, made him feel like he was really, truly wanted, and urgently desired. Maybe even needed.

Although Aaron had known that he was going to have to avoid Brad, and not be around him, once he was, he found it impossible to resist. Just as part of him had known he would, he melted into Brad, gave his mouth, his whole body, over to the older man.

Really, Aaron should be grateful to the chance movement that had the lamp tumbling to the ground. It snapped him out of his trance a little bit, enough that, when the door opened, and Lance, Jamie, and Ken tumbled in, he was able to wrest control of his mouth back from Brad, to look over into the stunned eyes of his friends.

Well, not entirely stunned. Lance and Jamie didn’t look exactly shocked, but almost amused, which irritated Aaron to no end. So they thought this was funny, did they? Him being caught with their manager, trapped between his huge, muscular body and the wall?

Aaron pushed against Brad’s shoulders, trying to force him away, and Brad was so surprised by the intrusion that he let it happen, though he could have easily fought it. He took a deep breath and turned what he very much hoped was an impassive look toward the other Lost Boys.

“What do you want?” he snapped, trying to, through pure force of will, pretend that he hadn’t just been caught doing what he knew that they had seen. They could hardly avoid it. But it was, he told himself firmly, really none of their business, and it wasn’t like that kiss, as hot and electric as it had been, really meant anything.

“You were kissing him,” Ken spoke up, predictably, before anyone else could. Jamie rolled his eyes in response, while Lance smirked and spoke.

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” he commented, but Ken didn’t even turn his head to glare at him like he usually would. Those wide, pitiless, confused turquoise eyes were fixed unerringly on Aaron, not to be distracted.

“Why would you be kissing our manager?” Ken asked, and then he looked back and forth, from where Brad stood just a few inches from Aaron. “What’s going on? Are you guys together or something? When did that happen?”

The whole thing was beyond bearing. For someone who was as intensely private as Aaron was, this was utterly humiliating, being caught in the act of making out. And Ken’s comments were bad enough, but when Jamie let out a soft snort of laughter, and Lance’s jade eyes danced with amused delight, that was when it got to the point where he just couldn’t even pretend to handle it anymore.

“We’re not together,” Aaron snapped, and by his side, he felt Brad recoil, just slightly, away from him. “Not that it’s any of your business, but it was just a sex thing.”

Which was the truth, wasn’t it? Only that didn’t take into account the things Brad had said to him only moments before they had been caught. It didn’t take into account that date that they’d had all of those months ago when Brad had brought him out to the movies.

It didn’t take into account all of the nights they’d spent utterly wrapped up in each other, all of the time that they’d stolen together. Even as he said it, he knew it was an unfair thing to say, that he was allowing his annoyance with Lance and Jamie to get in the way, but when he turned to Brad, he saw that the older man wasn’t there anymore. He wasn’t by his side. He was walking very calmly and quietly toward the door.

In seconds, Brad was gone, and so was any chance that Aaron had had, however slight it might have been, of making Brad forget what Aaron had just said. Which was for the best, wasn’t it? So why did his heart ache, feeling like it was silently not so much breaking but bursting into thousands of tiny, stinging shards?

“Aaron, what the hell was that?” Lance dared to speak up, apparently utterly undeterred by the venomous look that Aaron shot his way. Damn it. It had been better when these men had all been intimidated by him. Friendship wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

“None of your fucking business is what it is,” Aaron hissed, and even then, when he was deliberately putting off all of the back the hell off signs that he could, Lance didn’t stop.

“You just drove him off. Why?”

Why, indeed. It was a good question, and a fair one, but Aaron was in no particular hurry to be fair about this. Nor did he want to think too much about the question that Lance had asked, about the many reasons that Aaron had done what he had done, acted the ways that he had acted.

“I’m leaving,” Aaron spoke abruptly, his eyes glancing off of the surface of his friend’s surprised gazes. He couldn’t let himself let the look go any further, couldn’t allow himself to care about any of them, not given the situation.

“You can’t just walk away from this,” Jamie started, but Aaron held up a hand and, for a wonder, the lovely redhead shut his mouth. Jamie was probably just surprised that Aaron was going to say more, but Aaron would take it.

“No. I’m leaving the band.” It was time for them to know. Really, he should have told them ages ago, but he had put it off. Had thought that things might somehow work out, or something ridiculous like that. “As soon as the tour is over, I’m leaving.”

It was a senseless, cruel way to end things, but then, given what he had just done to Brad, Aaron supposed that was what he was good at, hurting people. But it wasn’t his fault. He had tried so hard to keep everyone out, and this was why.

Hadn’t he always known that his sister had to come first? That he would give this career up, that he would prioritize her? There was no sense in making friends, and definitely no sense in falling in love when he was only here temporarily.

But he saw hurt stamped all over their faces. The same hurt that he suspected that he would have seen if Brad had stuck around. He couldn’t bear it. Somehow, somewhere along the line, he’d come to care about all of these men, as stupid as it was and as much as he’d tried not to.

“Aaron,” Ken started, and it was all too much, all far, far too much, because damn it! Why didn’t anyone see that he was only doing what he had to do? He was being made into the bad guy, but it was for something that he couldn’t do anything about.

He couldn’t stand it anymore. He couldn’t look at these men. He couldn’t stand here and care about them and know that they cared about him. If he thought about it too much, he would beg them to forgive him, beg for their understanding. Then go after Brad and beg him to take him back.

But it was too late for all of that. Far, far too late. It had been since before he’d even met any of these men.

“Get out of my room,” Aaron said, his voice quiet and cold, shot through with sharp, stinging icicles. He turned away from them, leaning down to pick up the lamp that he’d knocked down, the lamp that had called his bandmates into the room in the first place.

He didn’t see them go. Very deliberately, he didn’t look, but he still heard it. When they were gone, when the door was safely closed behind them, and he was once more all alone, only then did he allow himself to collapse, to sit on the floor and lean against the side of the bed.

What had he done? It was easy to say that he had only done what he’d had to do, but was that true? His eyes burned, and he felt cold, all the way down into his heart.