“Are you even happy?”
Cal stares at his bass, that dark red finish, the heavy strings. “Any sober day is a happy day.”
“I mean here. With us. Are you happy?”
Sort of. But he can’t say that. Not without unleashing a whole host of things he has no idea how to put into words. “Yes.”
Zac’s expression goes taut. “You’re such a shitty liar.”
“I’m not lying.” Cal blows out a breath. “I don’t know how to talk about this with you. I don’t know how to—Yes, I’m happy. Having you here makes it a lot better.”
“It’s good,” Zac interrupts, almost mean. “Say that it’s good.”
“It is good,” Cal says, with as much patience as he can scrape together. “God, you have no idea. It’s so—you and Anya are—it’s just—”
“Then how come it’s a lie? If it’s good, why is it a lie to say you’re happy? I can tell you are.”
“It’s not—”
“Oh, fuck you. You can’t even look me in the eye—”
Cal forces himself to meet Zac’s gaze. “I’m happy. Here. Like this. With you and Anya. All right?”
“Stop lying to me!”
“I’m not lying, you jerk.”
Zac sets his guitar aside and gets up. He stabs a finger in the air at Cal. “I’m not doing this with you again. I’m not wading through a million pounds of bullshit deflections to get to the one grain of honesty you’ll give us. You’re such a fucking coward. Just say what you mean.”
Cal sets his bass aside too because his hands are shaking. He stands up and puts the instrument in its stand in the corner, and then turns to face Zac. It’s not only his hands shaking. His whole body is vibrating, because it’s here. It’s happening now, and he’s not ready. It’s too soon. “I don’t have the energy for this, that’s all.”
Zac nods. “Right. For being with us. All the massive energy required to watch movies and have sex and eat dinner. So sorry to put you out. Do you even want to be here?”
“I want it more than my next breath,” Cal snaps, and his hand is somehow on Zac’s collar, wrenching at it. He can see Zac’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallows, can see the sweet hollow of his collarbone. “I’m not the one who doesn’t want—it’s not—You’re the one who can’t decide what you want. One minute you’re kissing me and the next you’re pulling away. At least with Anya I know she wants me, you’re impossible—”
“Me?” Zac shoves Cal, just enough to rock him back a step and make him let go of his shirt. “You’re the one who won’t fucking put out.”
Cal’s mouth drops open. He can’t think of a single thing to say, that’s how wrong Zac is, but Zac’s going on anyway.
“Yeah, every time we get close, you get all—” Zac waves his hands wildly in the air. “What the fuck is that?”
“I do not! You’re the one who backs off every time we get close!”
“I didn’t want to push!” Zac shoves him again, still not very hard. “I thought you’d take off on me again if I made you uncomfortable!”
“It’s not pushing!” Cal shoves him right back, also not very hard. “I would’ve said yes!”
“Well, I didn’t know that! You never say what you want. It’s like taking a jackhammer to cement with you, trying to figure out what you need me to do. Just fucking say shit!”
“I want you!” Cal roars, and Zac lunges forward and kisses him.
It’s every bit as filthy as any other kiss they’ve had, but this time Zac drives him backward until he hits the wall, until he can’t breathe because Zac’s so tight up against him.
“Take your shirt off,” Zac demands against Cal’s mouth, but Cal doesn’t get a chance to obey because Zac’s dragging him to the floor. He’s pushing Cal onto his back and shoving at him, wrenching at his clothes. Fabric tears, but Cal doesn’t care, couldn’t possibly, because he’s yanking at Zac the same way. He needs Zac naked, right now. He thought they were going to break up and instead it’s—this, and he can’t believe it, it’s too impossible, too heavy, too ridiculous to be believed, even as Cal arches beneath Zac once it’s bare skin to bare skin.
“I could strangle you sometimes.” Zac uses a hand to shove Cal’s face to one side, biting at the tendon in his throat, making Cal’s hips jerk.
“Feeling’s mutual,” Cal gasps, and retaliates by wrapping his legs around Zac’s hips and pulling him closer. He aches in every cell, trying to get closer and closer, but he can’t, he can never touch enough or kiss enough or hold Zac tightly enough. He wants to hold Zac down and explore this gangly body, take it apart, learn every sensitive spot and secret, and there’s no time because the craving is vicious inside him, incapable of waiting. He lifts his head, biting at Zac’s mouth, demanding more, and Zac gives it to him.
They rub off on each other right there, graceless and fast and dirty, cocks raw with the friction, hands leaving bruises, teeth scraping, knees bumping, hearts thundering, limbs sweaty.
Roughly three minutes after Zac kisses him, their bellies are smeared with come. It’s over. Twenty years in the making, weeks of foreplay, and it takes three minutes. It’s already over. Cal can’t stop those words from parading through his brain: It’s over. It’s already over. Cal’s shaking all over again, and it has nothing to do with sex or orgasms and everything to do with the corner they’ve turned. Zac’s sprawled on top of him, heavy and limp, and Cal closes his eyes. His breathing hitches.
Zac lifts his head from where it’s been resting on Cal’s shoulder, peering down at him, and Cal feels every one of those twenty years as he stares right back, at this man who’s been the foundation of his life for two decades. It’s like he can see every iteration of Zac all at once: nineteen-year-old Zac getting sloppy with booze backstage after their first gig, young and gleeful and unable to stop laughing; twenty-three-year-old Zac howling into a microphone, his voice sending shivers through a packed stadium in Osaka, his pale skin glowing with sweat beneath the hot, glaring lights; twenty-eight-year-old Zac playing guitar in the studio with his eyes closed, a small smile on his lips as he coaxes beauty from the strings.
He can especially see the Zac of right now, the Zac who’s a husband and father, the Zac who’s grown up from a wild, reckless boy into a settled man who already has a family, who has a wife he’s made promises to and a son who’s going to be old enough soon to start needing a word for the role Cal plays in his life, and Cal’s heart fucking breaks. It just breaks. He presses his forehead against Zac’s collarbone and tries not to completely fall apart.