Shut Your Eyes - Chapter 22
Title: Shut Your Eyes
Authors: goten0040 and garnetice
Chapter: 22
Rating: M
Ship(s): Kendall/James, Carlos/Stephanie, Logan/Camille, maybe more.
Summary: Future!Fic. Kendall returns to L.A. six years after Big Time Rush disbanded. James has been missing for years. Imagine how things change when James reappears in his life. And he needs help.
Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21
---
I woke up with the sun warm on my chest, the whisper of James’s breath tickling my ear. I could feel the rhythm of his heart beneath his ribs; feel the jump of his pulse where my fingertips rested against his throat. He shifted, the comforter rustling over our bodies, golden light pooling across his skin.
And I thought, this is what it means to be happy.
It didn’t last, because moments like that; perfect snapshots of what life is supposed to be like? They never do. But for a few minutes, for the first time in the longest time, there wasn’t a knot of tension at the back of my neck. There wasn’t any sick wave of guilt or loneliness or doubt or self hatred threatening to swamp me. There was just me and James’s heartbeat, and the exhilaration of being alive.
Then James’s phone vibrated, the buzz making my whole bedside table shake. I thought about reaching over, picking it up. But there was no point. I already knew who was calling.
I waited until the vibrations subsided, fine tremors like an earthquake building that made me grit my teeth, clench my fists into James’s side. It was stupid to be jealous. More than stupid. Idiotic. Moronic, even. It was also completely involuntary.
Joseph was right. Just because we fucked, it probably wasn’t going to magically make me special in James’s eyes. It wouldn’t actually fix anything at all. James wasn’t a princess locked up in a tower, and it would take more than an orgasm to wake him up. The kind of dragons he dealt with weren’t creatures I could slay.
It was ridiculous that I’d even allowed myself a minute of thinking I could. I wasn’t a teenage girl. I knew better than to think sex was like some kind of fairytale kiss, a panacea to all of my fucked up problems.
James shifted, groaned, eyes sleepily opening.
“Hey,” he croaked, the sound raw, beautiful. He was so fucking beautiful.
“Your phone rang,” I said, my tone a little icy. It probably wasn’t the best post-sex greeting.
Although I was sure I’d said something last night, in between rounds. Just thinking about it made my dick twitch.
“You didn’t- pick up?” He asked, voice neutral, controlled. The way it got when an interviewer threw out a really uncomfortable question. I rolled my eyes.
“No.”
"Why not?"
“It was Joseph.”
My voice didn’t just crack when I said his name. It shattered.
I needed so badly to know if James had ever slept with him, but at the same time, I figured Is really didn’t make me special. If anything, I figured it lessened my importance to him a little. I was suddenly one more guy in- well, not exactly a tiny pool.
“The guy’s not my biggest fan,” I said.
James began to say something, but his words were lost over the sudden, violent buzz of his phone a second time. Casting me a quick, dark look, he picked up.
“I can’t talk right now. No, I-“ James glanced at me, eyes narrowed. I made a hand gesture that I supposed could be interpreted as go on.
“It’s not a good time.”
He paused, listening, head tilting to the side. I wanted to nip at the skin on his neck, wanted to pin him to the bed and make him forget all about the guy on the other line. Instead I clutched the sheets in one hand and waited.
“Oh, I- really? Again? Yeah. I got it. Super,” James muttered, jabbing at the end button and slamming the phone back down on the nightstand.
He turned to me.
“Problem?”
“Joseph. Is in jail,” James said, looking somewhere between annoyed and embarrassed. He clambered out of bed, shoving the comforter on top of me so that for a few seconds I was lost in a downy white igloo. By the time I clawed my way out of it, he was already pulling up his jeans, designer blue-indigo denim hiding his too-skinny legs from view.
I watched as he fumbled with the zipper, the button, the belt, fascinated by the pale skin of his knee peeking out from a factory-made rip.
“Do you need help?”
The last thing I wanted to do was help bail that jerkoff out of jail.
“No. I just- I’m going to get him out.”
“How, exactly?”
His eyes narrowed, but I could tell from the shift of his body that he wasn’t sure.
“I’m coming,” I decided, jumping out of bed, not bothered by the fact that I was very, very naked. James had seen every part of me now. I had very little left to hide.
“That’s not- It’s a bad idea.”
“Why?”
“You don’t want your name tangled up in this. Also, he kind of hates you.”
I shrugged, because, yeah. Knew that.
“Fortunately the feeling’s mutual. Wait-“ I thought it couldn’t hurt to pry, sniff out if James was observant enough to figure out that Joseph and I had had a conversation or two of our own. “Why does he hate me again?”
“Um. His words? You’re an arrogant prick.”
James flashed me a grin, tongue between his teeth while he grabbed for a discarded t-shirt that most certainly did not belong to him. He said casually, “Why do you hate him? He’s- not a bad person.”
I grabbed a pair of boxers from my dresser, thinking about the correct way to respond. While I took my time, James went into the bathroom. I could hear him rustling around, brushing his teeth.
I’d bought him up a toothbrush after the first night he slept over, but he was probably using mine. I didn’t care; it wasn’t like we weren’t going to pick up the same germs playing tonsil hockey or more. But Logan would have had a whole slew of things to say about how unsanitary that was.
Logan was probably going back to Florida. I tried not to feel guilty about that.
“I never said he was.”
“Yeah. I can see you judging him from here,” James said, muffled voice echoing out of the bathroom.
“I don’t like him.”
“He doesn’t like you,” James countered.
“So you’ve said.”
I listened to James brush, spit, rinse. A clean looking pair of jeans was crumpled in one corner of the room, and I was pretty sure there was a t-shirt that didn’t smell too funky underneath the bed. I was probably too old to be shirking laundry duty, but whatever. The search was on.
“Look, Joseph- he’s. He’s been there for me, okay?”
“In bed?” I snorted, knowing it was the most immature response I could possibly have gone with.
“Dude, what is your malfunction? I never asked for the backlist of your gay lovers.”
“Right, so you did sleep with him.”
I nodded to myself, feeling my lips twist into a sardonic smile. Nothing like being right to really ruin my day.
“Does it matter?”
“I don’t know, okay? I don’t fucking know.”
I didn’t know how to give voice to what it was about Joseph that bothered me so much, how to say that I couldn’t stand the fact that they shared an intimacy that had nothing to do with simple sex.
James’s head popped out of the bathroom, disembodied from the neck on by the doorframe. His eyes were blank, almost reptilian when he said, “Okay. Fine. Yeah, I’ve slept with him.”
Something hot, sharp, possessive sliced through my insides. I didn’t like hearing that out loud at all, no matter what I’d suspected.
My head was halfway in and halfway out of my shirt when I ventured, ““Uh. Recently?”
I pulled the shirt the rest of the way on. James’s lips pressed together, eyes following the hemline.
“Oh, yeah. Yesterday, actually. Banged him like a drum.”
He disappeared back into the bathroom and I heard the sink faucet turn. I stared at the space where his head had been, mouth gaping open. Then, abruptly, James’s head reappeared and he said, “You actually believed that.”
>My mouth snapped shut.
“What?”
James rolled his eyes.
“Joseph and I haven’t been together in- a long time. Don’t let it go to your head.”
Then he slammed the bathroom door shut. I tried to figure out what that was supposed to mean.
Because he certainly couldn’t have been implying that it had anything to do with me.
Could he?
---
No matter how hard I argued, James refused to let me accompany him down to the police station. When I asked what Joseph was in for, he looked at me like I was pretty much the biggest idiot to have ever been idiotic and said-
“Possession of a controlled dangerous substance. Cocaine.”
He arched an eyebrow like, what else?
I tried to look like that was No Big Deal, like I was used to bailing crackheads out of the slammer every weekend. James did not look even mildly impressed.
“I’ll take care of it.”
“But-“
“Dude, what if someone sees you? The media would love that.”
“Media- what? I’m a hockey player, not a superstar. No one will notice.”
“This is Hollywood. Everyone knows everybody’s business. You know that.”
James frowned at me, admonishing, like I’d forgotten one of the cardinal rules I needed to follow to survive. Thing is, I knew he was right. I’d been so freaked out about kissing him in public because no matter how small time I was, there was always a chance that someone would recognize me. All it took was one camera phone and a little bit of nosy determination to cast some serious bad light on my character.
“Fine,” I said, a little sullen. I let him raid my coffee machine for some Starbuck’s home brew, which he sucked down like it was the water of life.
Before he left, I fisted a hand in his shirt and pulled him in for a kiss. Because no matter how pissed and jealous and twisted I felt inside, I wanted him. It was the only thing I knew.
Except he, apparently, did not share the sentiment. He pulled away.
“This. Was a mistake,” James said, and my lungs tightened. My fingers un-bunched from the fabric of his shirt, which, from the familiar logo and my surname stamped on the back was very definitely mine.
I tried to swallow, to smile, and I said, “Yeah. You’re right.”
He blinked.
“-say what now?”
“I said you’re right.”
He narrowed his eyes.
“Is this a trick?”
“No trick. It was fun, but-“ I shrugged, trying to look like the epitome of fine.
“Kendall-“
“You should. Go,” I said, waving towards the door. After a second, he left.
And I honestly didn’t know if I would ever see him again.
---
Two days later, Katie showed up at my door.
“Did we have plans?”
“Mom called.” She tapped her foot against the entryway and frowned. “Apparently you’re not capable of taking care of your own problems.”
I laughed, sharp and humorless.
“Let’s make this quick,” Katie continued, throwing herself on my couch in a move that was the complete opposite of prim. Which seemed to be what she was going for, in her very girly ruffled dress and kitten heels. She said, “I have a date.”
“With your boyfriend?”
“Actually, I’m taking my boss out on the town. He’s like fifty something. I think he expects to get laid.”
I blinked. Then I played back what she’d just said in my mind.
Then I asked, “So why are you here?”
“Everyone seems to think you have a problem. And it starts with the letter J. Tell me about it.”
“You heard?” I cocked an eyebrow. “Let me guess. Did it come up during your intervention meeting?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Really? Because it sounded exactly like-“
“Shut up and talk.”
“That doesn’t make any sense-“
“Kendall.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t want you to say anything. Logan left on a redeye last night. I guess you scared him away, just like you wanted,” she told me, and she sounded casual, not chastising in the least; but it didn’t make my guilt any easier to handle. She ordered, “Tell me about James.”
I shoved a hand through my hair, sighing. Katie was turning into such a capable, beautiful woman. But she still kind of terrified me. And I cared too much about her to lie to her face when I knew she’d see through it.
I’d always been a sucker for my little sister, I guess.
“I think- I think I might…possibly- love him.”
Katie rolled her eyes.
“You just got that?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve only ever run yourself ragged for two things. Hockey and James. The second you told me you found him, I figured it was only a matter of time before you figured out you wanted in his pants.”
“But- he’s messed up. He’s so messed up, and I don’t know how to fix him.”
Her face softened.
“You care too much, big brother. You always have. I’m going to let you in on a secret. You don’t have to do everything on your own. The reason people make friends is so they have someone to catch them when they fall.”
I ignored the fact that what she was saying was right out of the trite cliché rulebook and said, “You don’t have friends.”
“I never fall. But, you know, if I were to ever royally fuck up my life, I’ve got you and mom. And unlike you, I know its okay to ask for help.”
I was pretty sure I’d heard this secret before. I hadn’t liked it then and I certainly didn’t like hearing it now. I wanted to be the guy I always had been. I wanted to be the person who put things back together again.
“No one expects you to fix James, by the way. He’s a human being, Kendall, not a cabinet. You can’t just bang a hammer around and see what happens. This kind of shit, it takes time.”
I glanced at the clock on the microwave for lack of something better to do. I needed to think about what she said; about what everyone kept saying to me.
Maybe it was time I started listening.
But then, it wasn’t like James was coming back anyway. I’d been waiting two days. Two days, with no news whatsoever. It was killing me.
“I thought you had a date.”
“It’s okay. It takes him a while to get in the mood. The pills are slow working.”
“Aw, ugh, Katie.”
“What? It’s called honesty. You should try it some time. Maybe you wouldn’t be in this mess.”
I flipped her off. She grinned.
“Hey. When are you going to go back to the team?”
“I don’t know. Things have gotten complicated.”
“Why? Because you’re scared?”
“Yeah,” I admitted, “I guess I am.”
“So? You’re Kendall Knight. Since when do you give up?”
“I’m not giving up,” I said, bristling at the thought, because it had honestly never even crossed my mind. As much as I hated the way I didn’t quite fit among my teammates, I didn’t want to quit. I just didn’t want to go back until I had my head together.
“Hmmm.” Katie pursed her lips and said, “Right, come on.”
“Come where?”
“You’re going to Carlos’s.”
Oh, hell no.
“I’d rather not.”
She gave me a look and said, “The amount I care is tremendous.”
“But- you have a date.”
“I’m not coming. Camille’s downstairs. She’ll drive.”
“Do you want me to die? Is that what this is about?” I squeaked, more adamant than ever that I was not going to Carlos’s house. The ride home from Disneyland had been more traumatizing than the ride there. When Camille had dropped me off, I’d made a vow never to step foot into her sweet little Audi ever again.
“I don’t follow.”
“Have you ever been in a car with Camille?”
“No?”
“Lucky you,” I muttered.
“She can’t be that bad.”
“Care to cancel your date and find out?”
“No. I haven’t gotten laid in a week.”
“Katie!”
She shrugged and said, “Sorry. God, I thought the truth was considered a virtue around these parts.”
---
Camille greeted me with a frosty smile and enough barely restrained hostility that I was pretty sure she’d rigged the car to take a nosedive off one of California’s many piers with me still strapped inside. But apparently that was not the plan.
The plan was to see if we could both go out in a fiery explosion.
“Pox ridden cock slut!”
Swerve.
“Fuck face.”
More gas.
“Learn how to drive you douche waffle!”
I stared at the beaten up Chevy we were passing, a wide eyed girl at the helm and a big yellow sticker on the bumper declaring that-
“She’s a student driver,” I gasped, “Maybe you could- um. Turn down the rage?”
Camille ignored me in favor of hollering at a man who looked upwards of ninety that he was a-
“Chlamydia infested dirty cunt!”
“Camille!”
A daring convertible attempted to cut us off and we narrowly avoided becoming a pancake.
“Okay, you can suck my cock,” she yelled out the window.
“Camille, god, um, could you slow down?”
“Motherfuc-“ Camille swerved hard into the shoulder, pushing the gear into park. Next thing I knew she was punching my arm.
She punched really hard. All that fake ninja training had taught her well.
“Jesus fuck, stop!” I yelped, cringing into the passenger side door like maybe I could escape the confines of my seatbelt and run screaming down the freeway.
“It’s.”
Punch.
“Your.”
Punch.
“Fault.”
Punch.
“He.”
Punch.
“Left.”
Double punch.
“Again!”
She folded her arms over the steering wheel, long hair a curtain shielding her face.
“Why can’t you just- stop being you?”
I heard her sigh, thin shoulders bobbing with the movement.
“Camille, I- um. I didn’t mean to-“
“Make him leave? Make him flee across the country to his superhot girlfriend?”
“That,” I acknowledged. “I’m sorry. But I didn’t think he was going to listen-“
“Please. Logan always listens to you. Your opinion means a thousand times more to him than, oh, I don’t know. Mine.”
“We’re not sixteen anymore. I didn’t know he still…”
“Hero worshipped you enough to get out of dodge when you asked him to?”
I leaned my back against the headrest, aware of the way Camille’s dark eyes were boring into the side of my face, aware of the cars whizzing down the freeway at some ninety miles an hour. Aware that I was itching to hear James’s voice.
Finally, I snarled, “You know what? Don’t pin this all on me. He would’ve stayed if you asked him to.”
“He has a girlfr-“
“So? You’re the only person he’s cared about practically since the day we first stepped foot in the Palmwoods. But it took him a while to figure out what he wanted, and now he thinks you- I don’t even know. Can you just take me back to my place?”
“He thinks I what?”
“You’re famous. A TV star. Pretty,” I admitted, and this part of me knew that she’d hooked up with James, once, a long time ago. It didn’t burn me the way it did every time Joseph’s name popped into my head; but there was this part of me that resented Camille. She’d kissed James. Why wasn’t the idea of saving him consuming her? “He’s scared that you don’t want him.”
I slunk down low in my seat, crossing my arms and refusing to say anything else until Camille pulled the car out of park and dove straight back into the insane LA traffic. She still screamed obscenities out the window the rest of the way, but her heart didn’t seem to be in it.
---
Stephanie and Carlos were not very good at subtle. Fortunately for me, they also didn’t like to pry. Much.
I sat through about twenty minutes of awkward, somewhat frigid small talk with Carlos and Camille before Carlos declared that he had to check the barbecue. Camille followed at his heels, obviously desperate to escape anywhere that I was.
I decided that I needed to escape into the kitchen before they came back. Stephanie was there under the guise of making cookies while Carlos grilled us up some burgers, but her bowl of half finished dough sat untended on the counter. She was bent over a directorial magazine, reading about the newest filmmaking technology from some country I hadn’t even heard of.
“Hard at work?”
She grinned.
“Don’t tell on me.”
“’Kay. But I get first pick of the cookies.”
“Mm. Hey, is that a hickey?”
My hand flew to my neck.
“No! What? No!” I panicked and said, “Has it been so long since Carlos has given you one that you’ve forgotten what they look like?”
Instead of being insulted, Stephanie gave me a secretive smile and tugged at the collar of her blouse. A red purple mark like a rose petal rested underneath her collarbone.
“Don’t you worry yourself about my sex life, sweetie. I know exactly what a hickey looks like.”
I made a face. Yeah. I’d sort of asked for that. But visions of Carlos and sex were dancing around in my head now and ugh, talk about karmic justice.
“I think pregnancy is addling your brain.”
Stephanie flung cookie dough at my face in response.
“You’re always cooking,” I told her, avoiding the projectile. “Does Carlos keep you chained up here in the kitchen? That’s a little chauvinist.”
“I’m always hungry,” she replied with a grin. “The baby’s going to eat me out of house and home.”
“Somehow I doubt that.” I glanced pointedly at their chandelier, just barely visible through the entryway.
Stephanie laughed and said, “So. I heard you scared Logan into scurrying across the country.”
“I- yeah.”
I tried my best to look supremely unbothered by the fact. Logan was in Florida and out of my hair. I’d finally be able to function without him looking over my shoulder. It was what I wanted, just like Katie said. But I didn’t feel good about what I’d said to him. I didn’t feel good about anything, really.
Maybe Stephanie saw that. She said, “Things always get better, Kendall. Even if it feels like they never will.”
“I don’t know if he’s going to forgive me,” I told her, surprised at the words tumbling from my mouth because I hadn’t really known that I was thinking them. “I don’t know if I actually want him to. He cares so much, and-“
“You don’t feel like you deserve it.”
I glanced at her, sharp, surprised. She smiled a little impishly and tilted her head.
“You’re not some big mystery, Knight. Since the day I met you, you’ve always been fantastic at fighting for your friends. Not so much for yourself.”
“I’m scared I’m going to let him down,” I whispered, and it was weird, because until that moment, I hadn’t completely understood that it really was the reason that I’d been so adamant about ignoring Logan’s advice. If I didn’t make an effort to please him, it wouldn’t surprise anyone when I failed to do so. If he didn’t think I was great, he wouldn’t be surprised when I didn’t do great things.
I was only human, and the weight of Logan’s expectations had been suffocating.
“Then don’t.” Stephanie shrugged.
“It’s not that easy. He wants me to leave James alone.”
“I don’t think so.”
“He told me so.”
“Yeah, but-“ She paused and bit her lip. Carefully, she said, “I think Logan wants, or- wanted, to help you. I don’t think he minds that you’re spending time with James so much as that you’re not talking to him about it. Or anyone, really. I don’t know if you know this, Kendall, but you’ve got a good game face. It’s probably hard for him to tell if you’re interested in what’s happened to James because you’re being a good friend or if it’s because you’re trying to support some secret addiction to crack.”
“I don’t want anything to do with the drugs. I don’t even want James to have anything to do with the drugs.”
“Really? Because it doesn’t sound like you believe that.”
“I do,” I said quietly, understanding what she was getting at.
I’d been hanging around James while he was high. I’d seen the negative consequences of what he was doing; felt the fear his skinniness inspired in me and shivered when I stood in the ruins of his life. But at the same time, I was treating it like it was only a peripheral problem. Like it didn’t actually change who James was to me.
It was obvious that came across in my voice, in my attitude, in the way my body language changed when I talked about him, and I couldn’t help it. But what Stephanie was asking me to do? I could barely face the facts myself. How was I supposed to get James to come around?
She sighed and said, “Never mind. I know that you’re not stupid enough to go down the same path James has.”
“I thought you just said I’m hard to read.”
“I said you’ve got a good game face. To people like Logan and Carlos, maybe you are hard to figure out. But I’m a director. I’m used to trying to get inside of other people’s heads. Want to know what else I’ve figured out?”
“Shoot.”
“That hickey’s from James, isn’t it?”
I froze.
Stephanie held up her hands and said, “Hey, hey. No judging here. Promise.”
I frowned at her, skeptical. I could hear my blood pounding in my ears, but the universe didn’t seem to be imploding, so there was that.
“You’re not going to tell me that this-” I waved a hand over my neck and knew that my stupid ears were turning stupidly red. “Makes hanging around James an even worse idea?”
“Nope.”
>“It doesn’t even matter. James wants nothing to do with me,” I admitted, “He said it was a mistake. Which makes sense. It’s not like I have anything to offer. I can’t do anything for him. Katie said that no one expects me to fix James, but that’s not true. If I want to- be with him-“
I was probably the color of a cherry at that exact minute. Stephanie kind of looked like she wanted to coo and pat me on the cheek.
“-then I can’t just tolerate the way he lives. And he knows that. So he just pushed me away. He doesn’t want my help, and I can’t make him better unless he asks for it.”
“Kendall, if you want him, don’t let him go. Stop waiting for him to step up.”
I stared at the fridge. It was plastered with pictures; of the Garcias, of Stephanie’s friends and family. But mostly of us. Me and James and Carlos and Logan.
It was like an anthropological study of how many different ways we could smile. Some of the pictures were taken so long ago that I didn’t even remember what had gotten us smiling in the first place. There was one in the corner where we looked no older than seven or eight. James and I were hanging upside down from a tire swing, Logan and Carlos perched in the branches of the tree that held it aloft.
James as a child was dead set on pleasing his mother. He’d lived in the shadows of her expectations for his entire life. It was only ever when he hung out with the three of us that he seemed to really come out of his shell. The more time we spent together, the more he became this brilliant, gorgeous boy who breathed life and laughter and so much love it was hard to bear.
I wanted to clutch at my chest, claw the love that I felt for him out of my heart, because I was scared, terrified that I’d never find that boy again. That I’d never see more of him than the glimpses I caught when he wasn’t too high or too low.
“What if I can’t help?”
“Is that what you’re worried about? Have you even tried to broach the subject? If there’s anyone in the entire world that James will listen to, it’s going to be you.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
Because I was very, very sure that James wasn’t going to listen to a single word I said, no matter what kind of quiet, sunlit mornings we shared.
Stephanie sighed.
“You and James have both always had too much pride. It stops you from doing the sensible thing. James might not immediately take you seriously, but I think he will. In time. Half the fun of being lost is discovering who’s going to come find you. I think James has been waiting for you to come back for a long time, whether he knows it or not.”
“I guess…”
“Grow a pair, Knight.”
I tossed the softened dough ball at her head. Which lead to her pouring a bag of flour over mine. I ended up waging a sugar assault from behind the island, which was not exactly the best strategic stronghold, seeing as she was standing next to fully stocked cabinets.
As far as food fights go, the one between Stephanie and I was pretty tame. But it didn’t matter that we were being gentle; conscientious of the baby. It was still fun. By the time Camille and Carlos came in to see what all the ruckus was about, the two of us were covered in white, laughing.
---
I didn’t see James again until the end of the week. I’d caved and tried calling him only to get a machine telling me that his voicemail-box was full.
He was waiting outside my apartment in the early evening, watching the traffic speed past in a blur of red, white, and yellow; taillights bleeding color. He had a cigarette resting idly in one hand, a pillar of ash building against white paper. He didn’t look very interested in smoking it.
I was coming back from my mom’s, a plastic bag full of vegetables that she’d pushed on me clutched in one arm. I nearly dropped it when I saw him.
“Uh. Hi?”
“Hey,” he pushed off the side of my building, walking towards me.
“How, um. How’s Joseph?” I winced as I said it, inherently feeling like I was doing something wrong the second I mentioned his name.
“Fine. Still a douchebag.” James cocked an eyebrow. It looked like a challenge.
“But you got him out?”
“Yeah.”
I watched him tap the ash off of his cigarette and bring it to his lips.
“Good. It’s been. Um. I didn’t know if I was going to hear from you again.”
James got closer and closer still. We were standing barely a foot apart when he leaned in and kissed me; trapping me between his mouth and the burning embers of the cigarette resting lightly behind my neck. When he pulled back, there was barely an inch separating us; the smoke that tainted our shared breath hovering in the void.
“Me either.”
“I had something that I- I want to tell you something.”
He tilted his head, a smile curving his lips. I couldn’t tell if he was high. If there was anything behind his eyes other than the little boy who used to pound me at Guitar Hero.
“I wanted to say that-“ I bit my lip, because I’d been toying with the idea ever since my conversation with Stephanie. This was a big thing, but like most decisions, I was making it half-assed. “I extended my leave with the Wild. I’m taking the year.”
James withdrew in a snap, like the cigarette had burned him.
“Why would you do that?”
“I’m being there. For you. It’s what friends do. And don’t say we’re not friends, because it’s a lie, James.”
“I didn’t ask you to put your life on hold. I haven’t asked you for anything.”
“I know. I can’t just leave LA knowing that you’re all alone, and-“
“I’m not alone. I have Danika and Zack and-“
“Joseph?” I snorted. “I’m sure you get a whole hell of a lot of support and- comfort from him.”
“Is that what this is? You think I’m a slut? You think you have to- what? Protect me from myself?”
This conversation was moving to familiar waters.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You might as well have. You don’t think I see the way you look at me? Like- I’m infected?” He practically screamed, his voice raw at the edges.
“James-“
“You think I sell myself for drugs. I’ve never had sex with anyone I didn’t want to, okay?”
“And how many people did you want to have sex with?” I asked without meaning to.
“Fuck you.”
“Yeah, I think we were just talking about that.”
“You’re not funny.” He glared at me. “You’re just a self centered dick. I don’t know why I even bothered coming back.”
James turned around and began to walk away. Shit.
That was not what I’d meant to do.
I grabbed for his arm, the shift of muscle and sinew beneath my fingers.
“James, James-“
“Let me go, Kendall.”
“No, I-“ I batted at his hand as he tried to pull my fingers away, “Stop. Stop fighting me.”
“Why? Why should I stop?” James shoved me, and I tripped off the curb, biting my tongue hard and nearly stumbling into traffic. It was only years and years of learning to keep my balance on the ice that kept me from falling face first in front of a Beamer.
My head would have been crushed at eighty miles per an hour. James didn’t even try to catch me.
I wasn’t sure if it was because he knew I had great reflexes or if it was because a part of him wanted me out of his life, no matter how it happened.
“Why should I do anything for you?” He kept yelling, “You’re just going to leave.”
Something in me snapped.
“No, I’m not. All I fucking want is you,” I yelled, blood in my mouth tasting of coopery metal and something sweet, like the orange candy my grandpa used to give me when I was nine years old. The sky was a dark blanket falling around us, the color of crushed purple velvet where streetlights softened the black. But even if the night had been abyssal, I would have been able to see James’s eyes, the fire and the radiance that had never really left him. “You’re all I think about, all the time, and I can’t- I won’t leave you this time. I promise.”
Every single word I said was true. He was the only person in this hellhole that I wanted, the only person on this crowded street that I could even see, his silhouette a halo of taillights and stars.
“Please,” I whispered, stepping back onto the curb and taking his face in my hands. “I don’t care if you want to get high or burn down this city or if- I don’t know, if you decided you wanted to bone my entire team. I just want you.”
In the distance, a car honked, the horn bearing down on us like the rumble-roar of on oncoming tornado. Half a block down a family was bickering about which restaurant to choose for the night, light and laughter in their voices, the brilliance of happiness a virtual aura surrounding them. A helicopter growled overhead, broadcasting the traffic reports to most of the Greater Los Angeles area.
And I barely noticed any of it. I could only focus on James; on the shadows of his face and the way he made my heart feel like it was bleeding, color and sound like trailing neon lights, like city traffic frozen in a snapshot.
“You can’t promise me things like that.”
“I’m not leaving,” I said again, soft.
He tried to make a joke out of it. He shifted from foot to foot and attempted a smile. “Don’t mock my abandonment issues.”
“I’m not. I know what it’s like to be left, okay?”
I pulled his face close to mine and kissed him, hard, bruising. I didn’t care when our teeth clicked, and I didn’t care when he bit my tongue. His hands shoved at my hips, but after a beat, it turned to fumbling with the zipper of my jeans right there on the street. It was hard and fierce and there were probably camera snapping tourists everywhere. For the first time I didn’t care. Not even a little bit.
We managed to stumble our way into my apartment building, running into every wall and corner the place had.
“You taste like blood,” he mumbled, but he didn’t stop his assault on my mouth. In that moment, I lived for it; his lips and his tongue and the scrape of his stubble against my chin.
We fumbled our way just inside the door of my place, and it was like that night after we visited his ramshackle theater, but this time James didn’t bother dropping to his knees. He turned me in place so that I was facing the wall. My belt was already hanging half out of the loops and James shoved my jeans down until they rested somewhere around my calves. There was nothing for a beat, just the sound of him rustling around with something I couldn’t see. I shed my shirt like snakeskin, feeling want thrum in my bones.
The first time I’d done this, the very first time, it had hurt like a bitch. I’d walked around the next day feeling like I was bruised on the inside, a sharp, stinging pain making me grit my teeth every time I shifted the wrong way. Chris had made it good, had made it worth it, but- I was so glad I had that first long out of the way.
Seconds later, James was behind me again. I could feel the warm press of his stomach against my spine. The heavy heat of his cum slick cock rested against my ass. I leaned into it, already sick of the foreplay.
His fingers trailed up and down my ribcage, rhythmic, like he was counting the shift of bone beneath my skin. I could feel his breath tickle the back of my neck, his lips graze the skin where my throat intersected my shoulder. His other hand was moving too, trailing up the side of my jaw, into my hair, fingertips pinpricks of heat on my scalp. He tugged back a little, exposing my jugular so that he could suck, bite, mark.
James wasn’t interested in being gentle this time, and that was okay. Neither was I.
I shifted, bracing my other arm against the wall; tangling one of my feet behind his ankles so that he couldn’t move back, even if he wanted to. His body was fire against mine.
James’s knuckles skidded against the skin of my cock as he traced the contour of my stomach. I hissed a breath, involuntarily trying to grind back against him, his heat and his hardness. He laughed, a shaky exhalation against my neck that made my hair stand on end.
“Still so fucking impatient.”
His fingers moved to my side and I tried to emphasize my point, pushing back again until he made this noise halfway between a gasp and a groan. His hand left, and I heard him spit and fuck, that was going to burn like the fires of hell for both of us but I didn’t even care. I listened to him spit once, twice more and craned my neck, trying to see when he wrapped his saliva-wet hand around his cock, the tip already nudging at my ass.
He barely bothered stretching me; one cold finger nudged inside, followed by a second, a third. I rocked back into it, into the harsh scrape of his short nails, the jut of bone and soft skin. My dick twitched, wanting him, wanting to be touched, but I curled my fingers into the wall and waited.
The head of James’s dick pushing inside of me hurt; the unfamiliar stretch of a new shape and the chafe of already drying skin. But we were both so fucking desperate that I didn’t fight it when he slammed the rest of the way in, hips snapping against mine. He bit into my shoulder, tongue assuaging most of the pain, but it was something to focus on, something to concentrate on for the first few violent thrusts. I grit my teeth, rutting back against him the second he got the angle right and lightning sparked in my veins, fingers to toes.
One of James’s hands gripped my hip, holding me in place the same way I had him pinioned with my leg, neither of us able to move away; stuck like Newton’s Cradle, momentum and energy back and forth, endlessly crashing into each other. I could feel his mouth against my shoulder blade, tongue learning the shape of my marrow, the feel of my pulse and did what I could to grind back against him.
“I’m impressed with your multi-tasking but just fuck me. Harder,” I grunted, pushing off against the wall, back against his body so that I could feel him filling every inch of me. All of it scorching; from the ridge of the head to the vein on the underside all the way down to the hair curling at the base of his dick. All of it making me come apart; wanting more, faster, please.
James’s other hand crept up my sternum, my throat, like he was trying to measure the tempo of my breath by touch. Like the sound alone of every harsh exhalation each thrust forced from my lungs wasn’t enough. He fucked up into me again, again, still sucking on my skin, but more urgent now.
His fingers brushed feather light against my jaw, dipping into my mouth, skimming over my eyelids. He pressed my eyes shut so that the world went dark. All I had left was the heat of his body, the scrape of his teeth against my shoulder and the feel of him rocking inside of me.
When I came, it was to flashbulbs behind my eyelids and the shape of James’s name tumbling from my lips. I could feel him go tight behind me, fine tremors like a tuning fork taking hold of his body before he let go, shuddering against me. He rode it out, forehead resting against my sweat-slick shoulder.
I wanted to collapse there, against my really, really uncomfortable wall, but I didn’t. I waited, shaking, James’s cock still a dull pulse inside of me. When he finally pulled out, cum dripping on the floor, I turned, a little wobbly. I yanked on the back of his neck, knocking our foreheads together.
“I should-“ he began, but I shook my head, vehement.
“You’re not going anywhere. Stop testing me. Stop trying to see if I’ll leave if you do something horrible, okay?”
“Will you?”
“I’d have to think about it- No. Idiot.”
He smiled, tired and a little uncertain, but I shoved him towards my bedroom.
“Go. We’re not done yet. I’ll meet you in there.”
I walked into my bathroom, flicking on a light. My ass was sore, my stomach coated with my own cum. I was a mess. In every single way possible. I’d promised James I wouldn’t leave, but Stephanie was right. I couldn’t stick around to watch him kill himself either. I still had a future with the team. I had so much life left to live.
So what the hell had I just done?
I caught a glimpse of something in the mirror and turned, trying to see what it was. The skin from my shoulder blade to my shoulder was marked, blossoming with black-blue like a Rorschach test. The bruises weren’t in any kind of order and not a single one was the same size. I dug my fingertips into one, feeling the way it made me ache all the way to my toes, wanting to revisit the electric press of James against my hips, my cock.
It kind of looked like a wing; one of those stupid tattoos people get to pretend they can fly. I didn’t appreciate the symbolism. Being with James never felt anything like taking to the sky, not since years back when we would sing together, when things were better, easier. Now our time together was more like being buried alive. The bruises, the ache; it was all just rubble, weighing me down. Thing is, I was long past the point of being able to dig my way back out.
---
Authors: goten0040 and garnetice
Chapter: 22
Rating: M
Ship(s): Kendall/James, Carlos/Stephanie, Logan/Camille, maybe more.
Summary: Future!Fic. Kendall returns to L.A. six years after Big Time Rush disbanded. James has been missing for years. Imagine how things change when James reappears in his life. And he needs help.
Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21
---
I woke up with the sun warm on my chest, the whisper of James’s breath tickling my ear. I could feel the rhythm of his heart beneath his ribs; feel the jump of his pulse where my fingertips rested against his throat. He shifted, the comforter rustling over our bodies, golden light pooling across his skin.
And I thought, this is what it means to be happy.
It didn’t last, because moments like that; perfect snapshots of what life is supposed to be like? They never do. But for a few minutes, for the first time in the longest time, there wasn’t a knot of tension at the back of my neck. There wasn’t any sick wave of guilt or loneliness or doubt or self hatred threatening to swamp me. There was just me and James’s heartbeat, and the exhilaration of being alive.
Then James’s phone vibrated, the buzz making my whole bedside table shake. I thought about reaching over, picking it up. But there was no point. I already knew who was calling.
I waited until the vibrations subsided, fine tremors like an earthquake building that made me grit my teeth, clench my fists into James’s side. It was stupid to be jealous. More than stupid. Idiotic. Moronic, even. It was also completely involuntary.
Joseph was right. Just because we fucked, it probably wasn’t going to magically make me special in James’s eyes. It wouldn’t actually fix anything at all. James wasn’t a princess locked up in a tower, and it would take more than an orgasm to wake him up. The kind of dragons he dealt with weren’t creatures I could slay.
It was ridiculous that I’d even allowed myself a minute of thinking I could. I wasn’t a teenage girl. I knew better than to think sex was like some kind of fairytale kiss, a panacea to all of my fucked up problems.
James shifted, groaned, eyes sleepily opening.
“Hey,” he croaked, the sound raw, beautiful. He was so fucking beautiful.
“Your phone rang,” I said, my tone a little icy. It probably wasn’t the best post-sex greeting.
Although I was sure I’d said something last night, in between rounds. Just thinking about it made my dick twitch.
“You didn’t- pick up?” He asked, voice neutral, controlled. The way it got when an interviewer threw out a really uncomfortable question. I rolled my eyes.
“No.”
"Why not?"
“It was Joseph.”
My voice didn’t just crack when I said his name. It shattered.
I needed so badly to know if James had ever slept with him, but at the same time, I figured Is really didn’t make me special. If anything, I figured it lessened my importance to him a little. I was suddenly one more guy in- well, not exactly a tiny pool.
“The guy’s not my biggest fan,” I said.
James began to say something, but his words were lost over the sudden, violent buzz of his phone a second time. Casting me a quick, dark look, he picked up.
“I can’t talk right now. No, I-“ James glanced at me, eyes narrowed. I made a hand gesture that I supposed could be interpreted as go on.
“It’s not a good time.”
He paused, listening, head tilting to the side. I wanted to nip at the skin on his neck, wanted to pin him to the bed and make him forget all about the guy on the other line. Instead I clutched the sheets in one hand and waited.
“Oh, I- really? Again? Yeah. I got it. Super,” James muttered, jabbing at the end button and slamming the phone back down on the nightstand.
He turned to me.
“Problem?”
“Joseph. Is in jail,” James said, looking somewhere between annoyed and embarrassed. He clambered out of bed, shoving the comforter on top of me so that for a few seconds I was lost in a downy white igloo. By the time I clawed my way out of it, he was already pulling up his jeans, designer blue-indigo denim hiding his too-skinny legs from view.
I watched as he fumbled with the zipper, the button, the belt, fascinated by the pale skin of his knee peeking out from a factory-made rip.
“Do you need help?”
The last thing I wanted to do was help bail that jerkoff out of jail.
“No. I just- I’m going to get him out.”
“How, exactly?”
His eyes narrowed, but I could tell from the shift of his body that he wasn’t sure.
“I’m coming,” I decided, jumping out of bed, not bothered by the fact that I was very, very naked. James had seen every part of me now. I had very little left to hide.
“That’s not- It’s a bad idea.”
“Why?”
“You don’t want your name tangled up in this. Also, he kind of hates you.”
I shrugged, because, yeah. Knew that.
“Fortunately the feeling’s mutual. Wait-“ I thought it couldn’t hurt to pry, sniff out if James was observant enough to figure out that Joseph and I had had a conversation or two of our own. “Why does he hate me again?”
“Um. His words? You’re an arrogant prick.”
James flashed me a grin, tongue between his teeth while he grabbed for a discarded t-shirt that most certainly did not belong to him. He said casually, “Why do you hate him? He’s- not a bad person.”
I grabbed a pair of boxers from my dresser, thinking about the correct way to respond. While I took my time, James went into the bathroom. I could hear him rustling around, brushing his teeth.
I’d bought him up a toothbrush after the first night he slept over, but he was probably using mine. I didn’t care; it wasn’t like we weren’t going to pick up the same germs playing tonsil hockey or more. But Logan would have had a whole slew of things to say about how unsanitary that was.
Logan was probably going back to Florida. I tried not to feel guilty about that.
“I never said he was.”
“Yeah. I can see you judging him from here,” James said, muffled voice echoing out of the bathroom.
“I don’t like him.”
“He doesn’t like you,” James countered.
“So you’ve said.”
I listened to James brush, spit, rinse. A clean looking pair of jeans was crumpled in one corner of the room, and I was pretty sure there was a t-shirt that didn’t smell too funky underneath the bed. I was probably too old to be shirking laundry duty, but whatever. The search was on.
“Look, Joseph- he’s. He’s been there for me, okay?”
“In bed?” I snorted, knowing it was the most immature response I could possibly have gone with.
“Dude, what is your malfunction? I never asked for the backlist of your gay lovers.”
“Right, so you did sleep with him.”
I nodded to myself, feeling my lips twist into a sardonic smile. Nothing like being right to really ruin my day.
“Does it matter?”
“I don’t know, okay? I don’t fucking know.”
I didn’t know how to give voice to what it was about Joseph that bothered me so much, how to say that I couldn’t stand the fact that they shared an intimacy that had nothing to do with simple sex.
James’s head popped out of the bathroom, disembodied from the neck on by the doorframe. His eyes were blank, almost reptilian when he said, “Okay. Fine. Yeah, I’ve slept with him.”
Something hot, sharp, possessive sliced through my insides. I didn’t like hearing that out loud at all, no matter what I’d suspected.
My head was halfway in and halfway out of my shirt when I ventured, ““Uh. Recently?”
I pulled the shirt the rest of the way on. James’s lips pressed together, eyes following the hemline.
“Oh, yeah. Yesterday, actually. Banged him like a drum.”
He disappeared back into the bathroom and I heard the sink faucet turn. I stared at the space where his head had been, mouth gaping open. Then, abruptly, James’s head reappeared and he said, “You actually believed that.”
>My mouth snapped shut.
“What?”
James rolled his eyes.
“Joseph and I haven’t been together in- a long time. Don’t let it go to your head.”
Then he slammed the bathroom door shut. I tried to figure out what that was supposed to mean.
Because he certainly couldn’t have been implying that it had anything to do with me.
Could he?
---
No matter how hard I argued, James refused to let me accompany him down to the police station. When I asked what Joseph was in for, he looked at me like I was pretty much the biggest idiot to have ever been idiotic and said-
“Possession of a controlled dangerous substance. Cocaine.”
He arched an eyebrow like, what else?
I tried to look like that was No Big Deal, like I was used to bailing crackheads out of the slammer every weekend. James did not look even mildly impressed.
“I’ll take care of it.”
“But-“
“Dude, what if someone sees you? The media would love that.”
“Media- what? I’m a hockey player, not a superstar. No one will notice.”
“This is Hollywood. Everyone knows everybody’s business. You know that.”
James frowned at me, admonishing, like I’d forgotten one of the cardinal rules I needed to follow to survive. Thing is, I knew he was right. I’d been so freaked out about kissing him in public because no matter how small time I was, there was always a chance that someone would recognize me. All it took was one camera phone and a little bit of nosy determination to cast some serious bad light on my character.
“Fine,” I said, a little sullen. I let him raid my coffee machine for some Starbuck’s home brew, which he sucked down like it was the water of life.
Before he left, I fisted a hand in his shirt and pulled him in for a kiss. Because no matter how pissed and jealous and twisted I felt inside, I wanted him. It was the only thing I knew.
Except he, apparently, did not share the sentiment. He pulled away.
“This. Was a mistake,” James said, and my lungs tightened. My fingers un-bunched from the fabric of his shirt, which, from the familiar logo and my surname stamped on the back was very definitely mine.
I tried to swallow, to smile, and I said, “Yeah. You’re right.”
He blinked.
“-say what now?”
“I said you’re right.”
He narrowed his eyes.
“Is this a trick?”
“No trick. It was fun, but-“ I shrugged, trying to look like the epitome of fine.
“Kendall-“
“You should. Go,” I said, waving towards the door. After a second, he left.
And I honestly didn’t know if I would ever see him again.
---
Two days later, Katie showed up at my door.
“Did we have plans?”
“Mom called.” She tapped her foot against the entryway and frowned. “Apparently you’re not capable of taking care of your own problems.”
I laughed, sharp and humorless.
“Let’s make this quick,” Katie continued, throwing herself on my couch in a move that was the complete opposite of prim. Which seemed to be what she was going for, in her very girly ruffled dress and kitten heels. She said, “I have a date.”
“With your boyfriend?”
“Actually, I’m taking my boss out on the town. He’s like fifty something. I think he expects to get laid.”
I blinked. Then I played back what she’d just said in my mind.
Then I asked, “So why are you here?”
“Everyone seems to think you have a problem. And it starts with the letter J. Tell me about it.”
“You heard?” I cocked an eyebrow. “Let me guess. Did it come up during your intervention meeting?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Really? Because it sounded exactly like-“
“Shut up and talk.”
“That doesn’t make any sense-“
“Kendall.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t want you to say anything. Logan left on a redeye last night. I guess you scared him away, just like you wanted,” she told me, and she sounded casual, not chastising in the least; but it didn’t make my guilt any easier to handle. She ordered, “Tell me about James.”
I shoved a hand through my hair, sighing. Katie was turning into such a capable, beautiful woman. But she still kind of terrified me. And I cared too much about her to lie to her face when I knew she’d see through it.
I’d always been a sucker for my little sister, I guess.
“I think- I think I might…possibly- love him.”
Katie rolled her eyes.
“You just got that?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve only ever run yourself ragged for two things. Hockey and James. The second you told me you found him, I figured it was only a matter of time before you figured out you wanted in his pants.”
“But- he’s messed up. He’s so messed up, and I don’t know how to fix him.”
Her face softened.
“You care too much, big brother. You always have. I’m going to let you in on a secret. You don’t have to do everything on your own. The reason people make friends is so they have someone to catch them when they fall.”
I ignored the fact that what she was saying was right out of the trite cliché rulebook and said, “You don’t have friends.”
“I never fall. But, you know, if I were to ever royally fuck up my life, I’ve got you and mom. And unlike you, I know its okay to ask for help.”
I was pretty sure I’d heard this secret before. I hadn’t liked it then and I certainly didn’t like hearing it now. I wanted to be the guy I always had been. I wanted to be the person who put things back together again.
“No one expects you to fix James, by the way. He’s a human being, Kendall, not a cabinet. You can’t just bang a hammer around and see what happens. This kind of shit, it takes time.”
I glanced at the clock on the microwave for lack of something better to do. I needed to think about what she said; about what everyone kept saying to me.
Maybe it was time I started listening.
But then, it wasn’t like James was coming back anyway. I’d been waiting two days. Two days, with no news whatsoever. It was killing me.
“I thought you had a date.”
“It’s okay. It takes him a while to get in the mood. The pills are slow working.”
“Aw, ugh, Katie.”
“What? It’s called honesty. You should try it some time. Maybe you wouldn’t be in this mess.”
I flipped her off. She grinned.
“Hey. When are you going to go back to the team?”
“I don’t know. Things have gotten complicated.”
“Why? Because you’re scared?”
“Yeah,” I admitted, “I guess I am.”
“So? You’re Kendall Knight. Since when do you give up?”
“I’m not giving up,” I said, bristling at the thought, because it had honestly never even crossed my mind. As much as I hated the way I didn’t quite fit among my teammates, I didn’t want to quit. I just didn’t want to go back until I had my head together.
“Hmmm.” Katie pursed her lips and said, “Right, come on.”
“Come where?”
“You’re going to Carlos’s.”
Oh, hell no.
“I’d rather not.”
She gave me a look and said, “The amount I care is tremendous.”
“But- you have a date.”
“I’m not coming. Camille’s downstairs. She’ll drive.”
“Do you want me to die? Is that what this is about?” I squeaked, more adamant than ever that I was not going to Carlos’s house. The ride home from Disneyland had been more traumatizing than the ride there. When Camille had dropped me off, I’d made a vow never to step foot into her sweet little Audi ever again.
“I don’t follow.”
“Have you ever been in a car with Camille?”
“No?”
“Lucky you,” I muttered.
“She can’t be that bad.”
“Care to cancel your date and find out?”
“No. I haven’t gotten laid in a week.”
“Katie!”
She shrugged and said, “Sorry. God, I thought the truth was considered a virtue around these parts.”
---
Camille greeted me with a frosty smile and enough barely restrained hostility that I was pretty sure she’d rigged the car to take a nosedive off one of California’s many piers with me still strapped inside. But apparently that was not the plan.
The plan was to see if we could both go out in a fiery explosion.
“Pox ridden cock slut!”
Swerve.
“Fuck face.”
More gas.
“Learn how to drive you douche waffle!”
I stared at the beaten up Chevy we were passing, a wide eyed girl at the helm and a big yellow sticker on the bumper declaring that-
“She’s a student driver,” I gasped, “Maybe you could- um. Turn down the rage?”
Camille ignored me in favor of hollering at a man who looked upwards of ninety that he was a-
“Chlamydia infested dirty cunt!”
“Camille!”
A daring convertible attempted to cut us off and we narrowly avoided becoming a pancake.
“Okay, you can suck my cock,” she yelled out the window.
“Camille, god, um, could you slow down?”
“Motherfuc-“ Camille swerved hard into the shoulder, pushing the gear into park. Next thing I knew she was punching my arm.
She punched really hard. All that fake ninja training had taught her well.
“Jesus fuck, stop!” I yelped, cringing into the passenger side door like maybe I could escape the confines of my seatbelt and run screaming down the freeway.
“It’s.”
Punch.
“Your.”
Punch.
“Fault.”
Punch.
“He.”
Punch.
“Left.”
Double punch.
“Again!”
She folded her arms over the steering wheel, long hair a curtain shielding her face.
“Why can’t you just- stop being you?”
I heard her sigh, thin shoulders bobbing with the movement.
“Camille, I- um. I didn’t mean to-“
“Make him leave? Make him flee across the country to his superhot girlfriend?”
“That,” I acknowledged. “I’m sorry. But I didn’t think he was going to listen-“
“Please. Logan always listens to you. Your opinion means a thousand times more to him than, oh, I don’t know. Mine.”
“We’re not sixteen anymore. I didn’t know he still…”
“Hero worshipped you enough to get out of dodge when you asked him to?”
I leaned my back against the headrest, aware of the way Camille’s dark eyes were boring into the side of my face, aware of the cars whizzing down the freeway at some ninety miles an hour. Aware that I was itching to hear James’s voice.
Finally, I snarled, “You know what? Don’t pin this all on me. He would’ve stayed if you asked him to.”
“He has a girlfr-“
“So? You’re the only person he’s cared about practically since the day we first stepped foot in the Palmwoods. But it took him a while to figure out what he wanted, and now he thinks you- I don’t even know. Can you just take me back to my place?”
“He thinks I what?”
“You’re famous. A TV star. Pretty,” I admitted, and this part of me knew that she’d hooked up with James, once, a long time ago. It didn’t burn me the way it did every time Joseph’s name popped into my head; but there was this part of me that resented Camille. She’d kissed James. Why wasn’t the idea of saving him consuming her? “He’s scared that you don’t want him.”
I slunk down low in my seat, crossing my arms and refusing to say anything else until Camille pulled the car out of park and dove straight back into the insane LA traffic. She still screamed obscenities out the window the rest of the way, but her heart didn’t seem to be in it.
---
Stephanie and Carlos were not very good at subtle. Fortunately for me, they also didn’t like to pry. Much.
I sat through about twenty minutes of awkward, somewhat frigid small talk with Carlos and Camille before Carlos declared that he had to check the barbecue. Camille followed at his heels, obviously desperate to escape anywhere that I was.
I decided that I needed to escape into the kitchen before they came back. Stephanie was there under the guise of making cookies while Carlos grilled us up some burgers, but her bowl of half finished dough sat untended on the counter. She was bent over a directorial magazine, reading about the newest filmmaking technology from some country I hadn’t even heard of.
“Hard at work?”
She grinned.
“Don’t tell on me.”
“’Kay. But I get first pick of the cookies.”
“Mm. Hey, is that a hickey?”
My hand flew to my neck.
“No! What? No!” I panicked and said, “Has it been so long since Carlos has given you one that you’ve forgotten what they look like?”
Instead of being insulted, Stephanie gave me a secretive smile and tugged at the collar of her blouse. A red purple mark like a rose petal rested underneath her collarbone.
“Don’t you worry yourself about my sex life, sweetie. I know exactly what a hickey looks like.”
I made a face. Yeah. I’d sort of asked for that. But visions of Carlos and sex were dancing around in my head now and ugh, talk about karmic justice.
“I think pregnancy is addling your brain.”
Stephanie flung cookie dough at my face in response.
“You’re always cooking,” I told her, avoiding the projectile. “Does Carlos keep you chained up here in the kitchen? That’s a little chauvinist.”
“I’m always hungry,” she replied with a grin. “The baby’s going to eat me out of house and home.”
“Somehow I doubt that.” I glanced pointedly at their chandelier, just barely visible through the entryway.
Stephanie laughed and said, “So. I heard you scared Logan into scurrying across the country.”
“I- yeah.”
I tried my best to look supremely unbothered by the fact. Logan was in Florida and out of my hair. I’d finally be able to function without him looking over my shoulder. It was what I wanted, just like Katie said. But I didn’t feel good about what I’d said to him. I didn’t feel good about anything, really.
Maybe Stephanie saw that. She said, “Things always get better, Kendall. Even if it feels like they never will.”
“I don’t know if he’s going to forgive me,” I told her, surprised at the words tumbling from my mouth because I hadn’t really known that I was thinking them. “I don’t know if I actually want him to. He cares so much, and-“
“You don’t feel like you deserve it.”
I glanced at her, sharp, surprised. She smiled a little impishly and tilted her head.
“You’re not some big mystery, Knight. Since the day I met you, you’ve always been fantastic at fighting for your friends. Not so much for yourself.”
“I’m scared I’m going to let him down,” I whispered, and it was weird, because until that moment, I hadn’t completely understood that it really was the reason that I’d been so adamant about ignoring Logan’s advice. If I didn’t make an effort to please him, it wouldn’t surprise anyone when I failed to do so. If he didn’t think I was great, he wouldn’t be surprised when I didn’t do great things.
I was only human, and the weight of Logan’s expectations had been suffocating.
“Then don’t.” Stephanie shrugged.
“It’s not that easy. He wants me to leave James alone.”
“I don’t think so.”
“He told me so.”
“Yeah, but-“ She paused and bit her lip. Carefully, she said, “I think Logan wants, or- wanted, to help you. I don’t think he minds that you’re spending time with James so much as that you’re not talking to him about it. Or anyone, really. I don’t know if you know this, Kendall, but you’ve got a good game face. It’s probably hard for him to tell if you’re interested in what’s happened to James because you’re being a good friend or if it’s because you’re trying to support some secret addiction to crack.”
“I don’t want anything to do with the drugs. I don’t even want James to have anything to do with the drugs.”
“Really? Because it doesn’t sound like you believe that.”
“I do,” I said quietly, understanding what she was getting at.
I’d been hanging around James while he was high. I’d seen the negative consequences of what he was doing; felt the fear his skinniness inspired in me and shivered when I stood in the ruins of his life. But at the same time, I was treating it like it was only a peripheral problem. Like it didn’t actually change who James was to me.
It was obvious that came across in my voice, in my attitude, in the way my body language changed when I talked about him, and I couldn’t help it. But what Stephanie was asking me to do? I could barely face the facts myself. How was I supposed to get James to come around?
She sighed and said, “Never mind. I know that you’re not stupid enough to go down the same path James has.”
“I thought you just said I’m hard to read.”
“I said you’ve got a good game face. To people like Logan and Carlos, maybe you are hard to figure out. But I’m a director. I’m used to trying to get inside of other people’s heads. Want to know what else I’ve figured out?”
“Shoot.”
“That hickey’s from James, isn’t it?”
I froze.
Stephanie held up her hands and said, “Hey, hey. No judging here. Promise.”
I frowned at her, skeptical. I could hear my blood pounding in my ears, but the universe didn’t seem to be imploding, so there was that.
“You’re not going to tell me that this-” I waved a hand over my neck and knew that my stupid ears were turning stupidly red. “Makes hanging around James an even worse idea?”
“Nope.”
>“It doesn’t even matter. James wants nothing to do with me,” I admitted, “He said it was a mistake. Which makes sense. It’s not like I have anything to offer. I can’t do anything for him. Katie said that no one expects me to fix James, but that’s not true. If I want to- be with him-“
I was probably the color of a cherry at that exact minute. Stephanie kind of looked like she wanted to coo and pat me on the cheek.
“-then I can’t just tolerate the way he lives. And he knows that. So he just pushed me away. He doesn’t want my help, and I can’t make him better unless he asks for it.”
“Kendall, if you want him, don’t let him go. Stop waiting for him to step up.”
I stared at the fridge. It was plastered with pictures; of the Garcias, of Stephanie’s friends and family. But mostly of us. Me and James and Carlos and Logan.
It was like an anthropological study of how many different ways we could smile. Some of the pictures were taken so long ago that I didn’t even remember what had gotten us smiling in the first place. There was one in the corner where we looked no older than seven or eight. James and I were hanging upside down from a tire swing, Logan and Carlos perched in the branches of the tree that held it aloft.
James as a child was dead set on pleasing his mother. He’d lived in the shadows of her expectations for his entire life. It was only ever when he hung out with the three of us that he seemed to really come out of his shell. The more time we spent together, the more he became this brilliant, gorgeous boy who breathed life and laughter and so much love it was hard to bear.
I wanted to clutch at my chest, claw the love that I felt for him out of my heart, because I was scared, terrified that I’d never find that boy again. That I’d never see more of him than the glimpses I caught when he wasn’t too high or too low.
“What if I can’t help?”
“Is that what you’re worried about? Have you even tried to broach the subject? If there’s anyone in the entire world that James will listen to, it’s going to be you.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
Because I was very, very sure that James wasn’t going to listen to a single word I said, no matter what kind of quiet, sunlit mornings we shared.
Stephanie sighed.
“You and James have both always had too much pride. It stops you from doing the sensible thing. James might not immediately take you seriously, but I think he will. In time. Half the fun of being lost is discovering who’s going to come find you. I think James has been waiting for you to come back for a long time, whether he knows it or not.”
“I guess…”
“Grow a pair, Knight.”
I tossed the softened dough ball at her head. Which lead to her pouring a bag of flour over mine. I ended up waging a sugar assault from behind the island, which was not exactly the best strategic stronghold, seeing as she was standing next to fully stocked cabinets.
As far as food fights go, the one between Stephanie and I was pretty tame. But it didn’t matter that we were being gentle; conscientious of the baby. It was still fun. By the time Camille and Carlos came in to see what all the ruckus was about, the two of us were covered in white, laughing.
---
I didn’t see James again until the end of the week. I’d caved and tried calling him only to get a machine telling me that his voicemail-box was full.
He was waiting outside my apartment in the early evening, watching the traffic speed past in a blur of red, white, and yellow; taillights bleeding color. He had a cigarette resting idly in one hand, a pillar of ash building against white paper. He didn’t look very interested in smoking it.
I was coming back from my mom’s, a plastic bag full of vegetables that she’d pushed on me clutched in one arm. I nearly dropped it when I saw him.
“Uh. Hi?”
“Hey,” he pushed off the side of my building, walking towards me.
“How, um. How’s Joseph?” I winced as I said it, inherently feeling like I was doing something wrong the second I mentioned his name.
“Fine. Still a douchebag.” James cocked an eyebrow. It looked like a challenge.
“But you got him out?”
“Yeah.”
I watched him tap the ash off of his cigarette and bring it to his lips.
“Good. It’s been. Um. I didn’t know if I was going to hear from you again.”
James got closer and closer still. We were standing barely a foot apart when he leaned in and kissed me; trapping me between his mouth and the burning embers of the cigarette resting lightly behind my neck. When he pulled back, there was barely an inch separating us; the smoke that tainted our shared breath hovering in the void.
“Me either.”
“I had something that I- I want to tell you something.”
He tilted his head, a smile curving his lips. I couldn’t tell if he was high. If there was anything behind his eyes other than the little boy who used to pound me at Guitar Hero.
“I wanted to say that-“ I bit my lip, because I’d been toying with the idea ever since my conversation with Stephanie. This was a big thing, but like most decisions, I was making it half-assed. “I extended my leave with the Wild. I’m taking the year.”
James withdrew in a snap, like the cigarette had burned him.
“Why would you do that?”
“I’m being there. For you. It’s what friends do. And don’t say we’re not friends, because it’s a lie, James.”
“I didn’t ask you to put your life on hold. I haven’t asked you for anything.”
“I know. I can’t just leave LA knowing that you’re all alone, and-“
“I’m not alone. I have Danika and Zack and-“
“Joseph?” I snorted. “I’m sure you get a whole hell of a lot of support and- comfort from him.”
“Is that what this is? You think I’m a slut? You think you have to- what? Protect me from myself?”
This conversation was moving to familiar waters.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You might as well have. You don’t think I see the way you look at me? Like- I’m infected?” He practically screamed, his voice raw at the edges.
“James-“
“You think I sell myself for drugs. I’ve never had sex with anyone I didn’t want to, okay?”
“And how many people did you want to have sex with?” I asked without meaning to.
“Fuck you.”
“Yeah, I think we were just talking about that.”
“You’re not funny.” He glared at me. “You’re just a self centered dick. I don’t know why I even bothered coming back.”
James turned around and began to walk away. Shit.
That was not what I’d meant to do.
I grabbed for his arm, the shift of muscle and sinew beneath my fingers.
“James, James-“
“Let me go, Kendall.”
“No, I-“ I batted at his hand as he tried to pull my fingers away, “Stop. Stop fighting me.”
“Why? Why should I stop?” James shoved me, and I tripped off the curb, biting my tongue hard and nearly stumbling into traffic. It was only years and years of learning to keep my balance on the ice that kept me from falling face first in front of a Beamer.
My head would have been crushed at eighty miles per an hour. James didn’t even try to catch me.
I wasn’t sure if it was because he knew I had great reflexes or if it was because a part of him wanted me out of his life, no matter how it happened.
“Why should I do anything for you?” He kept yelling, “You’re just going to leave.”
Something in me snapped.
“No, I’m not. All I fucking want is you,” I yelled, blood in my mouth tasting of coopery metal and something sweet, like the orange candy my grandpa used to give me when I was nine years old. The sky was a dark blanket falling around us, the color of crushed purple velvet where streetlights softened the black. But even if the night had been abyssal, I would have been able to see James’s eyes, the fire and the radiance that had never really left him. “You’re all I think about, all the time, and I can’t- I won’t leave you this time. I promise.”
Every single word I said was true. He was the only person in this hellhole that I wanted, the only person on this crowded street that I could even see, his silhouette a halo of taillights and stars.
“Please,” I whispered, stepping back onto the curb and taking his face in my hands. “I don’t care if you want to get high or burn down this city or if- I don’t know, if you decided you wanted to bone my entire team. I just want you.”
In the distance, a car honked, the horn bearing down on us like the rumble-roar of on oncoming tornado. Half a block down a family was bickering about which restaurant to choose for the night, light and laughter in their voices, the brilliance of happiness a virtual aura surrounding them. A helicopter growled overhead, broadcasting the traffic reports to most of the Greater Los Angeles area.
And I barely noticed any of it. I could only focus on James; on the shadows of his face and the way he made my heart feel like it was bleeding, color and sound like trailing neon lights, like city traffic frozen in a snapshot.
“You can’t promise me things like that.”
“I’m not leaving,” I said again, soft.
He tried to make a joke out of it. He shifted from foot to foot and attempted a smile. “Don’t mock my abandonment issues.”
“I’m not. I know what it’s like to be left, okay?”
I pulled his face close to mine and kissed him, hard, bruising. I didn’t care when our teeth clicked, and I didn’t care when he bit my tongue. His hands shoved at my hips, but after a beat, it turned to fumbling with the zipper of my jeans right there on the street. It was hard and fierce and there were probably camera snapping tourists everywhere. For the first time I didn’t care. Not even a little bit.
We managed to stumble our way into my apartment building, running into every wall and corner the place had.
“You taste like blood,” he mumbled, but he didn’t stop his assault on my mouth. In that moment, I lived for it; his lips and his tongue and the scrape of his stubble against my chin.
We fumbled our way just inside the door of my place, and it was like that night after we visited his ramshackle theater, but this time James didn’t bother dropping to his knees. He turned me in place so that I was facing the wall. My belt was already hanging half out of the loops and James shoved my jeans down until they rested somewhere around my calves. There was nothing for a beat, just the sound of him rustling around with something I couldn’t see. I shed my shirt like snakeskin, feeling want thrum in my bones.
The first time I’d done this, the very first time, it had hurt like a bitch. I’d walked around the next day feeling like I was bruised on the inside, a sharp, stinging pain making me grit my teeth every time I shifted the wrong way. Chris had made it good, had made it worth it, but- I was so glad I had that first long out of the way.
Seconds later, James was behind me again. I could feel the warm press of his stomach against my spine. The heavy heat of his cum slick cock rested against my ass. I leaned into it, already sick of the foreplay.
His fingers trailed up and down my ribcage, rhythmic, like he was counting the shift of bone beneath my skin. I could feel his breath tickle the back of my neck, his lips graze the skin where my throat intersected my shoulder. His other hand was moving too, trailing up the side of my jaw, into my hair, fingertips pinpricks of heat on my scalp. He tugged back a little, exposing my jugular so that he could suck, bite, mark.
James wasn’t interested in being gentle this time, and that was okay. Neither was I.
I shifted, bracing my other arm against the wall; tangling one of my feet behind his ankles so that he couldn’t move back, even if he wanted to. His body was fire against mine.
James’s knuckles skidded against the skin of my cock as he traced the contour of my stomach. I hissed a breath, involuntarily trying to grind back against him, his heat and his hardness. He laughed, a shaky exhalation against my neck that made my hair stand on end.
“Still so fucking impatient.”
His fingers moved to my side and I tried to emphasize my point, pushing back again until he made this noise halfway between a gasp and a groan. His hand left, and I heard him spit and fuck, that was going to burn like the fires of hell for both of us but I didn’t even care. I listened to him spit once, twice more and craned my neck, trying to see when he wrapped his saliva-wet hand around his cock, the tip already nudging at my ass.
He barely bothered stretching me; one cold finger nudged inside, followed by a second, a third. I rocked back into it, into the harsh scrape of his short nails, the jut of bone and soft skin. My dick twitched, wanting him, wanting to be touched, but I curled my fingers into the wall and waited.
The head of James’s dick pushing inside of me hurt; the unfamiliar stretch of a new shape and the chafe of already drying skin. But we were both so fucking desperate that I didn’t fight it when he slammed the rest of the way in, hips snapping against mine. He bit into my shoulder, tongue assuaging most of the pain, but it was something to focus on, something to concentrate on for the first few violent thrusts. I grit my teeth, rutting back against him the second he got the angle right and lightning sparked in my veins, fingers to toes.
One of James’s hands gripped my hip, holding me in place the same way I had him pinioned with my leg, neither of us able to move away; stuck like Newton’s Cradle, momentum and energy back and forth, endlessly crashing into each other. I could feel his mouth against my shoulder blade, tongue learning the shape of my marrow, the feel of my pulse and did what I could to grind back against him.
“I’m impressed with your multi-tasking but just fuck me. Harder,” I grunted, pushing off against the wall, back against his body so that I could feel him filling every inch of me. All of it scorching; from the ridge of the head to the vein on the underside all the way down to the hair curling at the base of his dick. All of it making me come apart; wanting more, faster, please.
James’s other hand crept up my sternum, my throat, like he was trying to measure the tempo of my breath by touch. Like the sound alone of every harsh exhalation each thrust forced from my lungs wasn’t enough. He fucked up into me again, again, still sucking on my skin, but more urgent now.
His fingers brushed feather light against my jaw, dipping into my mouth, skimming over my eyelids. He pressed my eyes shut so that the world went dark. All I had left was the heat of his body, the scrape of his teeth against my shoulder and the feel of him rocking inside of me.
When I came, it was to flashbulbs behind my eyelids and the shape of James’s name tumbling from my lips. I could feel him go tight behind me, fine tremors like a tuning fork taking hold of his body before he let go, shuddering against me. He rode it out, forehead resting against my sweat-slick shoulder.
I wanted to collapse there, against my really, really uncomfortable wall, but I didn’t. I waited, shaking, James’s cock still a dull pulse inside of me. When he finally pulled out, cum dripping on the floor, I turned, a little wobbly. I yanked on the back of his neck, knocking our foreheads together.
“I should-“ he began, but I shook my head, vehement.
“You’re not going anywhere. Stop testing me. Stop trying to see if I’ll leave if you do something horrible, okay?”
“Will you?”
“I’d have to think about it- No. Idiot.”
He smiled, tired and a little uncertain, but I shoved him towards my bedroom.
“Go. We’re not done yet. I’ll meet you in there.”
I walked into my bathroom, flicking on a light. My ass was sore, my stomach coated with my own cum. I was a mess. In every single way possible. I’d promised James I wouldn’t leave, but Stephanie was right. I couldn’t stick around to watch him kill himself either. I still had a future with the team. I had so much life left to live.
So what the hell had I just done?
I caught a glimpse of something in the mirror and turned, trying to see what it was. The skin from my shoulder blade to my shoulder was marked, blossoming with black-blue like a Rorschach test. The bruises weren’t in any kind of order and not a single one was the same size. I dug my fingertips into one, feeling the way it made me ache all the way to my toes, wanting to revisit the electric press of James against my hips, my cock.
It kind of looked like a wing; one of those stupid tattoos people get to pretend they can fly. I didn’t appreciate the symbolism. Being with James never felt anything like taking to the sky, not since years back when we would sing together, when things were better, easier. Now our time together was more like being buried alive. The bruises, the ache; it was all just rubble, weighing me down. Thing is, I was long past the point of being able to dig my way back out.
---