Part Two, We Are the Crowd
Previous
Despite Tommy’s reservations, nothing shows up over the next couple of days bar a few reported sightings of him and Zac at the bar, no photos and its all on the blogs, nothing on the bigger news sites, just rumours. Tommy is grateful, mostly on Zac’s behalf - the rumour that he’s dating one or more drag performers could do nothing but help Tommy’s image at this point, but Zac’s still rocking the squeaky-clean all-American vibe, and his fanbase tends to skew a little young to really appreciate the finer points of grown men in rubber pants and corsets.
The next few days drag a little. He’s busy, but not as busy as he’d told Adam he was. He catches up with his friends, dodges his management as best he can, goes to an audition.
“I’m really not that interesting,” Tommy tells an interviewer over the phone, a couple of days after the show. “I just hang out with interesting people, you know? I’m a schmuck who got lucky and people keep making me look good.”
She prints that verbatim, on the website and as a little sidebar blurb in the magazine, and by some miracle nobody calls him a pretentious dick.
Sunday afternoon he’s freaking out so much he actually calls Zac for moral support. This turns out to be a mistake, as Zac laughs at him for ten minutes solid and tells him to get over himself, because Zac is a terrible person and a very bad friend and Tommy is never taking him anywhere interesting or introducing him to people ever again.
“You go on dates every week,” Zac points out, still laughing. “Last week you went on a date with that new dude from the Vampire Diaries.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t like him,” Tommy says, and then pauses. “Actually, no, he was pretty cool, but he has a girlfriend who’s camera-shy and I don’t actually want to sleep with him even if he is attractively symmetrical.”
“Mmmm,” says Zac. “But?”
“I want to sleep with Adam?” Tommy offers weakly.
“Huh,” says Zac. “I kind of figured you already had.”
So Zac is no help, and its not like he can call any of his other friends, because they’ve never met Adam and would probably freak out at the idea that he’s going on a date with a pap even though Adam is totally retired and going to art school and everything.
He’s a bundles of nerve by the time Adam shows up, but so is Adam, all kind of breathless and shy and dropping his car keys, and when he takes Adam’s hand like they’re in the seventh grade Adam stutters over what he’s saying so hard he loses track of a whole sentence and Tommy can’t quite keep from laughing at him.
“You’re mean,” Adam says as they drive, and Tommy reaches over and puts his hand on Adams knee, and Adam gets all quiet and clenches his hands on the steering wheel and concentrates really hard on the road for the rest of the drive.
Tommy’s got no idea where they are when they finally stop, and he’s kind of glad of it. Adam smiles shyly and holds the door for him, and as much as Tommy wants to make fun of him for that he can’t, because Adam’s so fucking earnest about it, like he’s read all the books about how to be a good date and he’s totally determined to get it right.
The restaurant is nice, a homey, non-trendy place with a middle-aged waitress who calls them both honey and flirts in a motherly kind of way, and the food is awesome and comes in huge portions that make Tommy so, so happy and Adam go a little wide-eyed with alarm. (He starts babbling about calories when their dessert arrives and Tommy just ignores him and sucks chocolate cheesecake off the end of his fork with his eyes shut in bliss until he hears Adam whimper.)
The conversation goes so easy, too. The standard first-date discussion of movies, music and holidays gets sidetracked into a forty-minute detour on the glam rock seventies, a brief but instructive foray into the world of classic horror, and then Adam starts talking about being naked on stage in Germany and Tommy completely loses track of what’s going on because that image is totally the greatest thing in the world and he really hopes there’s pictures.
Adam takes the cheque, slapping Tommy’s hands away. “I asked you out, I’m paying,” he insists. “Next time you take me to some fuck-off celebrity hotspot where the salads are seventy dollars, you can pay. I know what you made on your last movie.”
“That’s creepy,” says Tommy, taking his hand again as they walk out to the car. “I can’t go out with you if you’re going to be creepy.”
“So I shouldn’t have brought my camera with the telephoto lenses?” Adam asks innocently, and Tommy rolls his eyes.
“You’re less than a foot away from me. Nobody needs to see me that close up.”
“I beg to differ,” says Adam, pinning him against the car, smiling small and secret. “I could stand to look a little closer.” He makes a show of peering closely at Tommy’s face while they both hold laughter in, and then sighs dramatically. “God, I’d kill for your complexion, you total bastard.”
“That’s why they put me in front of the camera,” says Tommy. “Cause I’m pretty. Are you going to kiss me, or is the plan to just breathe heavily on me all night?”
Adam laughs and actually bites him first, on the lip, just gently. It’s better sober, a thousand times better, Tommy practically bent backward over the hood of Adam’s crappy car in the parking lot of a restaurant, Adam’s hands at his waist like Tommy’s some delicate little girl, even the way Adam can’t stop smiling into it so their teeth keep clacking together.
“What’s so fucking funny?” Tommy asks eventually.
“Nothing,” says Adam, and Tommy can feel him grinning big and bright against his cheek. “You’re awesome.”
The manager of the restaurant comes out then and apologetically tells them they have to stop making out right in front of the floor to ceiling windows, so they climb back in the car and Adam takes him home. Tommy holds his hand the whole way, except when Adam needs it for driving, when he rubs Adams knee instead and Adam goes all pink and flustered.
“Come inside?” says Tommy, once they’re safely parked in the drive and he’s managed to prevent Adam from scurrying round the car to open his door for him but let him walk Tommy to his front door like its prom night and Tommy’s daddy is waiting in the living room with loaded shotgun.
Adam narrows his eyes, smirking. “On the first date?” he says primly. “I am not that sort of girl, Mr Ratliff.”
“Aw, come on,” says Tommy. “This isn’t our first date. We’ve been out before. I came to your show, that counts, right?”
“You brought Zac,” says Adam, scowling.
“He hooked up with Taylor, it totally counts. As, like, double date, maybe. Also, hey! That time we went out to that cool bar and spent all night dodging your ex.”
“You hooked up with Raja!” Adam isn’t even trying to hide his smile.
“I did, that’s true. That was awesome.” Adam makes an offended noise and sticks his lower lip out. “Okay, so we can’t count that. But this is at least our second date. At least.”
“I don’t put out on the second date, either. I’m a traditional sort,” Adam tells him, batting him away.
“If the words ‘waiting for marriage’ are about to come out of your mouth, I might cry,” says Tommy seriously.
Adam pulls a face. “Third date. At the earliest,” he says firmly.
Tommy considers this. “Second date’s gotta be worth something.”
“You’re fucking pushy, you know that? So much for romance.”
They end up on the couch again, necking like horny teenagers. Tommy’s had hookups, and he’s had sex, and he’s had relationships, but its been a lot of years since he’s just made out with someone, just kissing and touching with everything below the waist and under the clothes off limits.
“You’re so impatient,” says Adam, the third time he bats Tommy’s hand away from sliding up under his shirt. “You know, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from dating lesbians, it’s that sex is not all about the destination. Take your time and enjoy the journey.”
“You’re being a dick to torment me, admit it,” says Tommy. “Is this about the Raja thing?”
Adam giggles and kisses his neck. “No. I like you,” he says and props himself up so he can look at Tommy properly from three inches away. “I want to do this properly.” Emphasis on the last word, so earnest and honest and sweet.
“Sorry,” Tommy mutters. “I’m being a brat.”
Adam kisses him again, soft and intimate. “No, it’s nice,” he says. “It’s nice that you. You know. That you want me.”
“That I have eyes,” says Tommy, and watches Adam smile. “No, seriously.” Adam blushes a little, so Tommy has to kiss him some more, and then, after some amount of time passes, Adam rolls out from under him before Tommy can “tempt me with, like, your wiles.”
“I don’t have wiles,” Tommy protests, chasing him, and Adam pauses long enough for a brief, breathless kiss at the door and then he’s gone.
“Fucking tease,” Tommy complains, but there’s no heat in it as he watches Adam’s ass retreat down the hallway.
His publicist has left him a couple of messages, but it’s late now, so he jerks off in the shower, grumbling, sets his alarm and topples into bed.
(About an hour later, a sudden thought strikes him and he has to call Adam immediately. “When did you date lesbians?” he asks as soon as Adam answers, and Adam just laughs.)
He doesn’t get to see Adam for a couple of days, though they exchange flirty text messages as he suffers through auditions and Adam sorts through the paperwork he needs for art school.
The ex is drunk-dialling me. Adam sends him one evening, when Tommy’s sacked out on the couch staring vaguely up at the ceiling, without the energy to even go get a beer from the fridge.
I could totally take Bieber in a fight, Tommy texts him, after a particularly upsetting interview.
Hey, can I ask a favour? From Adam as he’s getting coffee, the barista giving him a bored I-know-who-you-are-but-I’m-too-cool-to-acknowledge-it look. He raises his eyebrows at her, and takes his coffee out into the fresh air, calls Adam.
“I’m not marrying you for tax breaks,” he says, when Adam answers.
“Aww, please?” says Adam, and they both crack up. “No, seriously though,” says Adam eventually, “feel free to say no.”
“You have to ask first,” Tommy reminds him, trying to juggle his coffee and his phone and get his keys from the pocket of his hoodie.
“Well, I have to do this portfolio as part of my application for school,” says Adam. “And I figured I may as well do, like, stuff I’ve already got experience with, right? So it’s like a theme of celebrity and the obsession with it, and paps and gossip rags and the whole narrative shit that happens. And I’m using lots of stuff I did while I was still working, stuff that never sold, and, well, I live in LA, so its not like I can’t expand it this way, but then I had this idea, and Sutan said I should ask you, so.”
“Rambling,” Tommy points out, setting his coffee on top of his car.
“Sorry. I was hoping you’d help me out.”
Tommy frowns. “I would, I really would, but there’s all this legal shit in my contracts about modelling and stuff, I’d have to talk to my agent.”
“Oh! No, I didn’t explain it,” says. Adam. “I mean, my idea is that I would, like, shadow you for a day, but instead of photographing you, I’d be shooting everyone else, all the people you meet, your management, your friends, fans and shit. Getting, like, people’s reactions to celebrity, you know?”
“Oh.” Tommy finally locates his keys, hits the button to unlock his car. “Actually, that sounds awesome.” Its a cool idea, but more than that, it means he gets to spend the day with Adam, and that will totally count as a date - he can be persuasive on that point if he needs to.
“And we can count it as a date,” says Adam brightly, proving his total excellence as a human being.
“Only if you let me buy you lunch,” says Tommy.
It turns out there isn’t a day that works for both of them until Friday, when Tommy has a couple of meetings in the morning and then is just running errands for himself around town.
“I mean, there’s only so much my PA can do,” he tells Adam over the phone. “I’m not letting her buy underwear for me, that’s a line I’m drawing right there.”
“You’re taking me along to buy underwear for you?” Adam asks, sounding bemused.
“You should see the faces on people when they realise who they’re selling tighty-whiteys to,” says Tommy, and hangs up on Adam’s cackling.
Adam shows up on his doorstep (well, the front door of his building) at a totally reprehensible hour on Friday morning, camera slung around his neck, grinning fit to bust.
“Way too fucking cheerful for this hour of the morning,” Tommy complains as Adam bounces into the foyer, but then Adam kisses him with a bright, wet smacking noise and shoves coffee into his hands.
“Morning, honey,” he chirps.
“Coffee,” Tommy replies, cradling it to his face, and Adam laughs.
He dozes on Adam’s shoulder on the way to his first meeting, and zones out through most of the event itself, as his manager and agent and some studio reps squabble and fight and Adam hums under his breath at his Tommy’s elbow and appears to be listening intently.
“Do you really just let them make decisions for you like that?” he asks afterwards when they’re having more coffee in the little staff room, and Tommy shrugs.
“Nope. Nothing’s official until I’ve signed for it anyway, and I’m not dumb enough to sign anything I haven’t read. If I don’t like what they’ve agreed on, I send it back.”
“Because they were discussing, like, you doing naked scenes and shit.”
Tommy snorts. “Pervs. I’m not getting naked. They’ll have to get a butt double, nobody’s seeing my scrawny ass.”
“It is pretty scrawny, isn’t it,” says Adam, sneaking a quick grope. Tommy makes an outraged noise and smacks his chest.
“Hands, mister. If I’m not getting any action, you sure as hell can’t get fresh,” but he doesn’t resist when Adam kisses him again, the hard lens of his camera jammed between their chests.
The second meeting is marginally more interesting, with a producer who really wants Tommy for his project, doesn’t even want him to audition, just do some quick screen tests with the actress they’ve got for lead. It’s actually a meaty part, a drug addict trying to get clean and support his pregnant girlfriend. Tommy can totally rock the heroin chic look, though he may need to cut down on the burritos for a while to get appropriately starved-looking.
His publicist wants to talk about setting him up on another date, but Tommy grabs Adam’s hand, gives her a pointed look, and drags him away.
“And now I’m done for the day,” he says happily, towing Adam down the sidewalk. “Lunch, do you think, or shopping first?”
“I could eat,” says Adam, and they spend half an hour wandering down the street bickering over where to eat - Adam keeps trying to bodily drag him into, like, vegan places and weird hippie organic restaurants that tended to pop up to cater to the health-nut zero-calorie crowd. Tommy threatens to abandon him for something with actual flavour, and they end up getting takeout sushi and finding a small park to sit in. Adam squeaks and starts taking pictures of the badass spiderweb strung between two trees with a vexed-looking spider hanging off it, and Tommy laughs at him and resists the urge to do something stupid like try and hand-feed Adam egg rolls. It’s only their second - third? - date.
Adam flops down on his back on the grass and says “Smile!” the camera clicking on whatever dumb expression Tommy was wearing at that moment, but he won’t show Tommy the result, wrestles the camera away and giggles.
When Adam starts to fret about his sensitive skin freckling in the sun, they get up and head for the department store, Tommy teasing him every step of the way, especially when Adam lets slip that his natural hair colour is nowhere near the ink-black he keeps it.
“You’re a redhead,” Tommy marvels, practically skipping beside Adam’s longer legs. “You’re a ginger. A rednut.”
“Fuck off,” Adam groans, and snaps a quick picture of the double-take from a passerby.
Tommy wasn’t kidding when he said he needed to buy underwear, and he suffers gamely through Adam’s gentle teasing and the photographs that he suspects are not being taken only of onlookers, though he doesn’t quite manage to catch Adam at it. He’d normally just grab what he needs and get out, but something sparkly catches Adam’s eye and next thing Tommy knows he’s being dragged through a bewildering array of pants that all look identical to him and shirts that are alarmingly different, belts and boots and scarves and jewelry. Adam hustles him into a change room and throws things over the door and makes him come out and model outfits, occasionally sneaking in a quick grope or making unfeigned noises of appreciation. Tommy swears and complains and slaps Adam’s hands away, but he still ends up with a pile of different outfits and Adam purring happily like a cat having its belly rubbed.
“Can we go to a shoe store next?” asks Adam. “Ohhh, you have to get some heeled boots to go with those jeans. Ooh, my friend designs jackets, you’d look amazing in this one he made last year, it has all buckles and, like, leather bits on.”
“No more,” Tommy begs. “God, stop. Please.”
Adam pulls a face. “We’ve only been to one store! You hardly got anything. We’ve barely started.”
“No,” says Tommy, as firmly as he can in the face of Adam’s enthusiasm. “I am not made for shopping marathons.”
Adam’s face falls, but that’s when Tommy spots a music shop and goes to look at guitars, and Adam’s expression when Tommy starts fiddling around with a totally gorgeous Fender has to been seen to be believed. Tommy smirks and strokes a thumb over the pretty dark-red finish, plays a quick riff and pauses to tune it, pretends not to notice the way Adam’s face goes a little hungry.
“Okay,” says Adam. “No, you’re totally right, no more shopping, we should, um, go now.”
“In a minute,” says Tommy serenely, and the store owner comes over and Tommy manages to drag out a conversation with him long enough he thinks Adam might just snap and haul him away caveman style.
“You’re just teasing me now,” Adam complains, as they head for Tommy’s car.
“You’re damn right,” says Tommy. “Who’d have guessed you have a music fetish.”
“It’s not a fetish,” says Adam, blushing. “It’s, um. You have really nice hands.”
Tommy flexes his fingers, and Adam covers his eyes and trips over his own feet. “Does this mean you don’t want to see my guitar collection when we get back to my place?” asks Tommy.
“Fuck you,” says Adam, muffled.
“Um, excuse me,” says a small voice, so diffident it takes Tommy a minute to twig.
“Hi?” says Tommy. It’s a kid, maybe fourteen or fifteen, skinny and nervous looking, with his hair falling in his face.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” he says, politely breathless. “I’m a big fan, I was wondering if I could get an autograph, maybe?”
“Of course,” says Tommy automatically, and the kid goes red - redder - and holds out a notebook. “What’s your name?” he asks, and hears the click of Adam’s camera.
“Blake,” says the kid. “I really, really liked Dare Not,” he adds, eyes downcast.
“That’s awesome,” says Tommy. He scribbles something generic for Blake in his book, with a big squiggly sig, and the kid looks like he might pass out.
“Thanks so much!” he says, excitedly. “I think - you’re just awesome, man, I love you so much, you know?”
“Aw, thanks,” says Tommy, patting him on the shoulder. “You have a good day, okay?”
“You too!” Blake chirps, and scuttles off.
“Baby gay,” says Adam, all misty eyed. “He’s gonna be jerking off with that tshirt for months, you know that?”
“Oh, fuck off,” says Tommy crankily, and immediately feels bad when Adam looks a bit wounded. “Sorry,” he says tiredly. “Sorry. Fans like that freak me out.”
Adam frowns. “Raja and all her friends pawing at you is totally okay, but one fourteen-year-old with a crush is somehow angry-making?”
“Raja doesn’t need anything from me,” Tommy tries to explain, and Adam tilts his head to the side, frown changing shape.
“I don’t get it.”
Tommy switches the load of bags he’s carrying to one hand and digs in his pocket for his keys. “It’s like,” he says and stops, unlocking the car and tossing all the bags in the back seat. He leans against the door and palms his face, trying to figure out how to fit it into words. Adam comes over and stands next to him, a big solid warm presence, face creased with the effort of listening.
“That kid maybe has nobody,” he says eventually. “Maybe he hasn’t even told his Mom and Dad. Maybe he’s not even sure if he’s gay or what, doesn’t know anybody who’s gay or see anyone on TV that’s not, you know.” He lifts his arm and lets his hand flop from the wrist. “And then there’s me, and I wear stupid jeans that don’t fit and put off getting my roots done and listen to loud punk and like to kiss boys and I’m the only person they can see that’s like them, you know? Actually like them, not somebody completely weird who happens to like men.”
“I know,” says Adam warmly. “I’d have killed for a role model like you when I was kid.”
“Me too!” says Tommy. “But I don’t want to fuckin’ be the role model, shit.” He rubs his nose. “I’m a fuckup. I drink too much and swear all the time and never call my mother and I got fuckin’ lucky, I’m not that talented, not more than other people. They shouldn’t look up to me.”
“Oh my god, shut up,” says Adam, and Tommy is seized a fierce, hard hug. “You’re so fucking dumb, get in the car before I ravish you right here on the street.”
“Can’t,” Tommy mutters. “You’re squishing me against the door.”
Adam makes an exasperated noise and pulls away, kisses Tommy’s face quickly. “Wanna go home?”
“You can come see my etchings,” says Tommy roughly, and they make the drive back to Tommy’s with Adam’s hand on his thigh, Adam singing along to the radio in a low, tuneful crooning.
Despite the buildup, it’s weirdly stilted when the get in the apartment. Not awkward, exactly, but they stand apart from one another in the entryway for a minute and Tommy can feel himself getting shy, a sensation he thought he left behind with his first professional photoshoot.
“Bedroom?” he suggests, and Adam smiles all soft and intimate and holds out his hand, and they go into the bedroom like that, fingers twined together.
The housekeeper’s been: the curtains are open and the bed is freshly made, clean crisp sheets. Tommy shrugs off his jacket and drops it on a chair, sits down on the bed to toe off his shoes, and then Adam is on him like whirlwind of affection, cradling his face and kissing him, nuzzling at his neck and cheeks, pressing him down to the bed, and Tommy is laughing suddenly and doesn’t know why.
He shoves Adam over and strips him down, gets him naked and spread out under him, all freckled skin and mile-long legs and big, happy smile, and he can’t decide what he wants to do first. He wants to put his mouth on Adam, all over, taste all his skin and suck his cock, wants to get his hands on the thick muscles of Adam’s thighs and the cut of his hips, wants to fuck him, or roll over and get fucked. He’s practically frozen by indecision, overwhelmed by the amount of choice, and Adam cuts it short by reaching up and tugging him down to kiss him again, cuddling Tommy close against his chest and petting over his back with long, lazy strokes. Tommy sinks into it, drowning.
In the end, Tommy gets to do everything by turns. Adam approaches sex like a buffet, and every time Tommy says “I want,” or “Can we try” Adam says “Yes, yes and this too,” and they have sex in the bed and the shower and on the kitchen counter and the couch and then in the bed again a couple of times, and then the sheets need to be changed and Adam fucks him on the washing machine as it goes through its spin cycle.
Next thing he knows it’s Sunday evening and he’s curled up on Adam’s chest on the couch, the TV going in the background and Adam’s lazily stroking his back and ass and scratching gently at the tops of his thighs where they’re splayed over him, both of them too tired to actually have any more sex maybe ever but Adam wants to touch him and his hands feel so good. Tommy aches in places he’d forgotten about, the really great sex-ache where his hip-joints feel over extended and his ass is sore and his thighs are red with stubble burn and he’s in desperate need of some chapstick. He’s sticky all over and possibly glued to Adam in some fiendish way and he’s totally starving.
“I’m fuckin’ keeping you,” he tells Adam. “We can have sex all the time, it’ll be awesome.”
“’Kay,” says Adam, agreeably.
He has more meetings he can’t get out of on Monday morning. Adam practically has to carry him to the shower and pour coffee down his throat until he’s human, and he’ll be walking bow-legged for a while, calls a car instead of taking the risk of driving himself off the road. Adam kisses him goodbye, and then kisses him some more.
“I’ll call you,” he says.
“Give me some recovery time first,” Tommy tells him, wincing.
“We’ll meet in public,” Adam reassures him. “And, like, drink lemonade. Wrapped in bubble-wrap.”
“I do like bubble wrap,” says Tommy, and then his car pulls up, so he pulls away with one last squeeze at Adam’s ass.
Adam doesn’t call him on Monday, but if he’s feeling anything like Tommy is, he probably went home and crashed, so Tommy does the same after he finishes his meetings, devours a huge protein-heavy meal and a couple of beers and passes right out.
Adam doesn’t call Tuesday, and doesn’t respond to the text Tommy sends around lunchtime; Think we broke the showerhead. Have to get that fixed. Tommy puts his phone on silent when he goes out to a bar with some friends, and when he checks it on Wednesday morning, bleary-eyed, he’s got messages from his mother, from his agent, and from Alli, but nothing from Adam.
“Be seein’ you soon, hermano,” says Alli, when he calls her back. “We’re about done out here in nowhere, so I’ll be back in LA and we’re gonna be friends. You can sneak me booze and shit, it’ll be awesome.”
“I can’t wait,” says Tommy, with all honesty. Allison’s fabulous and he totally loves her. “I’ll take you out clubbing - oh, wait, no.”
“Ass,” she says cheerfully. “God, I can’t wait to get somewhere they have decent sushi again. There’s a place here has pork sushi, can you believe that? I almost lost my lunch. Ugh.”
“None of that in LA,” he says. “It’s hard to find anything with calories around here.”
“Mama’s gonna keep sending me care packages,” she confides. “I’ll share if you’re nice to me.”
“I am the nicest person alive,” Tommy protests, because Mama Iraheta’s care packages kept him sane out in the desert, and for a supply of her chocolate cake he’d do worse things than entertain Allison occasionally.
They make plans to meet up when she’s back in LA, and plot to photobomb the premier, and Tommy promises to introduce her to his cute age-appropriate friends to annoy her father.
He feels good when he hangs up, because Alli’s such an uncomplicated sweetheart and hanging out with her is going to be a total joy, and the bubble of happiness at maintaining such a cool friend buoys him through most of the afternoon, but Adam still hasn’t called.
He caves that evening and calls Adam instead, but it rings through to voicemail and he hangs up without leaving a message, breaks out a bottle of Jack. (He tries to tell himself that he’d probably be drinking anyway, it’s not a coping mechanism.)
Adam doesn’t call on Thursday, but Tommy has a long meeting with his manager and agent to figure shit out for the next couple of months - he’s finally getting busy enough various projects are starting to conflict, and he’s got screen tests and auditions and filming rubbing up against post-production stuff and premiers and then somebody mentions he’s been offered some voice work on a Dawn of the Dead video game and he throws a little diva and demands that they fit that in somewhere, please.
He texts Adam to tell him about it. No response.
Friday morning Tommy is woken at an ungodly fucking hour - he can’t be sure, but it’s definitely before eight AM - by his phone blaring out the Darth Vader theme he’d assigned to his publicist, Kerry. He swears and groans and slaps at it, but she never calls this early, so he figures he should probably answer it.
“Did somebody die?” he mumbles, and there’s a breathless pause.
“You know,” she says in a very calm tone, “When you make a sex tape, you need to tell me. I won’t judge - or I will - but I need to fucking know this shit to do my job because I’ve got Perez fucking Hilton on the other line asking if there’s any god damned comment about my client’s naked photos.”
Tommy’s stomach drops. “What.”
Kerry hisses through her teeth in frustration. “Because if you did and you didn’t tell me, I’m gong to fucking kill you. And send your rotting corpse on the most agonising series of public appearances I can dream up.”
“There’s got to be some mistake,” says Tommy, adrenalin washing away his morning grogginess. “This can’t be right.”
She makes an irritated noise. “Did you or did you not pose for dirty pictures?”
Tommy swallows. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”
(“No, lie still,” Adam said, pressing him down onto the sheets. “I just want to - fuck, you’re beautiful. I just want to fucking look at you for a while.”
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” said Tommy, but he sprawled obligingly anyway, letting his thighs fall open and tucking a hand behind his head. Adam pressed his hands to his mouth and looked and looked, greedily.
“You shouldn’t make an offer like that unless you fucking mean it,” said Adam roughly, and Tommy shrugged.
“I’m not saying you can stick them up at your next art show or whatever,” said Tommy, “but come on. I trust you.”
Adam’s face went all soft, and he leaned down to kiss Tommy, bite at his lip, already reaching for his camera. “Like I’d fucking share you,” said Adam fiercely. “I don’t even want to let you out of this bed, honey. These’ll be just for me.”)
Tommy can’t breathe, like something’s squeezing his chest in, some horror-movie villain crushing his lungs.
Perez has the photos up on his website, of course, so covered with white splatters of MS-Paint jizz you can barely make out Tommy’s face, but the unedited versions are up on TMZ and JustJared and all the fuck over Twitter. There’s one of Tommy lounging back against the pillows with his hair totally fucked up and his makeup a mess and purpling bites all over his throat and chest. There’s bare skin clear from his shoulder to his knee, the tattoo he’d sworn would never be public on his thigh obvious and visible, his hand dangling in front of his crotch only partially obscuring his half-hard cock and balls. He’s smirking, lazy and well-fucked.
The second photo is a few seconds later, Tommy rolling onto his side, reaching for the beer on the nightstand, the line of his body smooth and clean. His thigh’s angled to cover his junk, but his pancake-flat joke of an ass is in full view. Adam had laughed at him, and groped him cheerfully.
Tommy’s been around cameras enough to know that the composition is beautiful. The light is flattering, the angle is gorgeous, the whole setup looks like a photoshoot, too artistic to be tacky, except that Tommy is naked and fucked and there’s a torn condom wrapper by his hip and a bottle of lube on the nightstand and it’s obviously not meant for the public.
The last is the least scandalous, Tommy drinking beer, his lips on the neck of the bottle in a deliberately obscene way, amber liquid dribbling down his chin and neck and naked chest. It had seemed funny at the time, an over-the-top porno cliche that was even funnier when Adam had refused to do the honorable thing and clean him up; Adam hates beer and wouldn’t even lick it off him.
Adam. Shit.
Tommy shoves his laptop away, chews on his thumbnail. He hasn’t even made it out of bed yet and he has to, he really does, because this is going to take a fuck load of damage control. But the hurt is stunning right now and he can’t help the impulse to pull the blankets over his head and lick his wounds in private.
As a last-ditch effort to figure out if there’s been some big fucking misunderstanding, he calls Adam again. It goes straight to voicemail.
His phone starts ringing as soon as he hangs up, but he ignores it for the moment, plods into the shower, gets dressed, collects himself and heads for the door, phone still jangling away in his pocket.
Next
Despite Tommy’s reservations, nothing shows up over the next couple of days bar a few reported sightings of him and Zac at the bar, no photos and its all on the blogs, nothing on the bigger news sites, just rumours. Tommy is grateful, mostly on Zac’s behalf - the rumour that he’s dating one or more drag performers could do nothing but help Tommy’s image at this point, but Zac’s still rocking the squeaky-clean all-American vibe, and his fanbase tends to skew a little young to really appreciate the finer points of grown men in rubber pants and corsets.
The next few days drag a little. He’s busy, but not as busy as he’d told Adam he was. He catches up with his friends, dodges his management as best he can, goes to an audition.
“I’m really not that interesting,” Tommy tells an interviewer over the phone, a couple of days after the show. “I just hang out with interesting people, you know? I’m a schmuck who got lucky and people keep making me look good.”
She prints that verbatim, on the website and as a little sidebar blurb in the magazine, and by some miracle nobody calls him a pretentious dick.
Sunday afternoon he’s freaking out so much he actually calls Zac for moral support. This turns out to be a mistake, as Zac laughs at him for ten minutes solid and tells him to get over himself, because Zac is a terrible person and a very bad friend and Tommy is never taking him anywhere interesting or introducing him to people ever again.
“You go on dates every week,” Zac points out, still laughing. “Last week you went on a date with that new dude from the Vampire Diaries.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t like him,” Tommy says, and then pauses. “Actually, no, he was pretty cool, but he has a girlfriend who’s camera-shy and I don’t actually want to sleep with him even if he is attractively symmetrical.”
“Mmmm,” says Zac. “But?”
“I want to sleep with Adam?” Tommy offers weakly.
“Huh,” says Zac. “I kind of figured you already had.”
So Zac is no help, and its not like he can call any of his other friends, because they’ve never met Adam and would probably freak out at the idea that he’s going on a date with a pap even though Adam is totally retired and going to art school and everything.
He’s a bundles of nerve by the time Adam shows up, but so is Adam, all kind of breathless and shy and dropping his car keys, and when he takes Adam’s hand like they’re in the seventh grade Adam stutters over what he’s saying so hard he loses track of a whole sentence and Tommy can’t quite keep from laughing at him.
“You’re mean,” Adam says as they drive, and Tommy reaches over and puts his hand on Adams knee, and Adam gets all quiet and clenches his hands on the steering wheel and concentrates really hard on the road for the rest of the drive.
Tommy’s got no idea where they are when they finally stop, and he’s kind of glad of it. Adam smiles shyly and holds the door for him, and as much as Tommy wants to make fun of him for that he can’t, because Adam’s so fucking earnest about it, like he’s read all the books about how to be a good date and he’s totally determined to get it right.
The restaurant is nice, a homey, non-trendy place with a middle-aged waitress who calls them both honey and flirts in a motherly kind of way, and the food is awesome and comes in huge portions that make Tommy so, so happy and Adam go a little wide-eyed with alarm. (He starts babbling about calories when their dessert arrives and Tommy just ignores him and sucks chocolate cheesecake off the end of his fork with his eyes shut in bliss until he hears Adam whimper.)
The conversation goes so easy, too. The standard first-date discussion of movies, music and holidays gets sidetracked into a forty-minute detour on the glam rock seventies, a brief but instructive foray into the world of classic horror, and then Adam starts talking about being naked on stage in Germany and Tommy completely loses track of what’s going on because that image is totally the greatest thing in the world and he really hopes there’s pictures.
Adam takes the cheque, slapping Tommy’s hands away. “I asked you out, I’m paying,” he insists. “Next time you take me to some fuck-off celebrity hotspot where the salads are seventy dollars, you can pay. I know what you made on your last movie.”
“That’s creepy,” says Tommy, taking his hand again as they walk out to the car. “I can’t go out with you if you’re going to be creepy.”
“So I shouldn’t have brought my camera with the telephoto lenses?” Adam asks innocently, and Tommy rolls his eyes.
“You’re less than a foot away from me. Nobody needs to see me that close up.”
“I beg to differ,” says Adam, pinning him against the car, smiling small and secret. “I could stand to look a little closer.” He makes a show of peering closely at Tommy’s face while they both hold laughter in, and then sighs dramatically. “God, I’d kill for your complexion, you total bastard.”
“That’s why they put me in front of the camera,” says Tommy. “Cause I’m pretty. Are you going to kiss me, or is the plan to just breathe heavily on me all night?”
Adam laughs and actually bites him first, on the lip, just gently. It’s better sober, a thousand times better, Tommy practically bent backward over the hood of Adam’s crappy car in the parking lot of a restaurant, Adam’s hands at his waist like Tommy’s some delicate little girl, even the way Adam can’t stop smiling into it so their teeth keep clacking together.
“What’s so fucking funny?” Tommy asks eventually.
“Nothing,” says Adam, and Tommy can feel him grinning big and bright against his cheek. “You’re awesome.”
The manager of the restaurant comes out then and apologetically tells them they have to stop making out right in front of the floor to ceiling windows, so they climb back in the car and Adam takes him home. Tommy holds his hand the whole way, except when Adam needs it for driving, when he rubs Adams knee instead and Adam goes all pink and flustered.
“Come inside?” says Tommy, once they’re safely parked in the drive and he’s managed to prevent Adam from scurrying round the car to open his door for him but let him walk Tommy to his front door like its prom night and Tommy’s daddy is waiting in the living room with loaded shotgun.
Adam narrows his eyes, smirking. “On the first date?” he says primly. “I am not that sort of girl, Mr Ratliff.”
“Aw, come on,” says Tommy. “This isn’t our first date. We’ve been out before. I came to your show, that counts, right?”
“You brought Zac,” says Adam, scowling.
“He hooked up with Taylor, it totally counts. As, like, double date, maybe. Also, hey! That time we went out to that cool bar and spent all night dodging your ex.”
“You hooked up with Raja!” Adam isn’t even trying to hide his smile.
“I did, that’s true. That was awesome.” Adam makes an offended noise and sticks his lower lip out. “Okay, so we can’t count that. But this is at least our second date. At least.”
“I don’t put out on the second date, either. I’m a traditional sort,” Adam tells him, batting him away.
“If the words ‘waiting for marriage’ are about to come out of your mouth, I might cry,” says Tommy seriously.
Adam pulls a face. “Third date. At the earliest,” he says firmly.
Tommy considers this. “Second date’s gotta be worth something.”
“You’re fucking pushy, you know that? So much for romance.”
They end up on the couch again, necking like horny teenagers. Tommy’s had hookups, and he’s had sex, and he’s had relationships, but its been a lot of years since he’s just made out with someone, just kissing and touching with everything below the waist and under the clothes off limits.
“You’re so impatient,” says Adam, the third time he bats Tommy’s hand away from sliding up under his shirt. “You know, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from dating lesbians, it’s that sex is not all about the destination. Take your time and enjoy the journey.”
“You’re being a dick to torment me, admit it,” says Tommy. “Is this about the Raja thing?”
Adam giggles and kisses his neck. “No. I like you,” he says and props himself up so he can look at Tommy properly from three inches away. “I want to do this properly.” Emphasis on the last word, so earnest and honest and sweet.
“Sorry,” Tommy mutters. “I’m being a brat.”
Adam kisses him again, soft and intimate. “No, it’s nice,” he says. “It’s nice that you. You know. That you want me.”
“That I have eyes,” says Tommy, and watches Adam smile. “No, seriously.” Adam blushes a little, so Tommy has to kiss him some more, and then, after some amount of time passes, Adam rolls out from under him before Tommy can “tempt me with, like, your wiles.”
“I don’t have wiles,” Tommy protests, chasing him, and Adam pauses long enough for a brief, breathless kiss at the door and then he’s gone.
“Fucking tease,” Tommy complains, but there’s no heat in it as he watches Adam’s ass retreat down the hallway.
His publicist has left him a couple of messages, but it’s late now, so he jerks off in the shower, grumbling, sets his alarm and topples into bed.
(About an hour later, a sudden thought strikes him and he has to call Adam immediately. “When did you date lesbians?” he asks as soon as Adam answers, and Adam just laughs.)
He doesn’t get to see Adam for a couple of days, though they exchange flirty text messages as he suffers through auditions and Adam sorts through the paperwork he needs for art school.
The ex is drunk-dialling me. Adam sends him one evening, when Tommy’s sacked out on the couch staring vaguely up at the ceiling, without the energy to even go get a beer from the fridge.
I could totally take Bieber in a fight, Tommy texts him, after a particularly upsetting interview.
Hey, can I ask a favour? From Adam as he’s getting coffee, the barista giving him a bored I-know-who-you-are-but-I’m-too-cool-to-acknowledge-it look. He raises his eyebrows at her, and takes his coffee out into the fresh air, calls Adam.
“I’m not marrying you for tax breaks,” he says, when Adam answers.
“Aww, please?” says Adam, and they both crack up. “No, seriously though,” says Adam eventually, “feel free to say no.”
“You have to ask first,” Tommy reminds him, trying to juggle his coffee and his phone and get his keys from the pocket of his hoodie.
“Well, I have to do this portfolio as part of my application for school,” says Adam. “And I figured I may as well do, like, stuff I’ve already got experience with, right? So it’s like a theme of celebrity and the obsession with it, and paps and gossip rags and the whole narrative shit that happens. And I’m using lots of stuff I did while I was still working, stuff that never sold, and, well, I live in LA, so its not like I can’t expand it this way, but then I had this idea, and Sutan said I should ask you, so.”
“Rambling,” Tommy points out, setting his coffee on top of his car.
“Sorry. I was hoping you’d help me out.”
Tommy frowns. “I would, I really would, but there’s all this legal shit in my contracts about modelling and stuff, I’d have to talk to my agent.”
“Oh! No, I didn’t explain it,” says. Adam. “I mean, my idea is that I would, like, shadow you for a day, but instead of photographing you, I’d be shooting everyone else, all the people you meet, your management, your friends, fans and shit. Getting, like, people’s reactions to celebrity, you know?”
“Oh.” Tommy finally locates his keys, hits the button to unlock his car. “Actually, that sounds awesome.” Its a cool idea, but more than that, it means he gets to spend the day with Adam, and that will totally count as a date - he can be persuasive on that point if he needs to.
“And we can count it as a date,” says Adam brightly, proving his total excellence as a human being.
“Only if you let me buy you lunch,” says Tommy.
It turns out there isn’t a day that works for both of them until Friday, when Tommy has a couple of meetings in the morning and then is just running errands for himself around town.
“I mean, there’s only so much my PA can do,” he tells Adam over the phone. “I’m not letting her buy underwear for me, that’s a line I’m drawing right there.”
“You’re taking me along to buy underwear for you?” Adam asks, sounding bemused.
“You should see the faces on people when they realise who they’re selling tighty-whiteys to,” says Tommy, and hangs up on Adam’s cackling.
Adam shows up on his doorstep (well, the front door of his building) at a totally reprehensible hour on Friday morning, camera slung around his neck, grinning fit to bust.
“Way too fucking cheerful for this hour of the morning,” Tommy complains as Adam bounces into the foyer, but then Adam kisses him with a bright, wet smacking noise and shoves coffee into his hands.
“Morning, honey,” he chirps.
“Coffee,” Tommy replies, cradling it to his face, and Adam laughs.
He dozes on Adam’s shoulder on the way to his first meeting, and zones out through most of the event itself, as his manager and agent and some studio reps squabble and fight and Adam hums under his breath at his Tommy’s elbow and appears to be listening intently.
“Do you really just let them make decisions for you like that?” he asks afterwards when they’re having more coffee in the little staff room, and Tommy shrugs.
“Nope. Nothing’s official until I’ve signed for it anyway, and I’m not dumb enough to sign anything I haven’t read. If I don’t like what they’ve agreed on, I send it back.”
“Because they were discussing, like, you doing naked scenes and shit.”
Tommy snorts. “Pervs. I’m not getting naked. They’ll have to get a butt double, nobody’s seeing my scrawny ass.”
“It is pretty scrawny, isn’t it,” says Adam, sneaking a quick grope. Tommy makes an outraged noise and smacks his chest.
“Hands, mister. If I’m not getting any action, you sure as hell can’t get fresh,” but he doesn’t resist when Adam kisses him again, the hard lens of his camera jammed between their chests.
The second meeting is marginally more interesting, with a producer who really wants Tommy for his project, doesn’t even want him to audition, just do some quick screen tests with the actress they’ve got for lead. It’s actually a meaty part, a drug addict trying to get clean and support his pregnant girlfriend. Tommy can totally rock the heroin chic look, though he may need to cut down on the burritos for a while to get appropriately starved-looking.
His publicist wants to talk about setting him up on another date, but Tommy grabs Adam’s hand, gives her a pointed look, and drags him away.
“And now I’m done for the day,” he says happily, towing Adam down the sidewalk. “Lunch, do you think, or shopping first?”
“I could eat,” says Adam, and they spend half an hour wandering down the street bickering over where to eat - Adam keeps trying to bodily drag him into, like, vegan places and weird hippie organic restaurants that tended to pop up to cater to the health-nut zero-calorie crowd. Tommy threatens to abandon him for something with actual flavour, and they end up getting takeout sushi and finding a small park to sit in. Adam squeaks and starts taking pictures of the badass spiderweb strung between two trees with a vexed-looking spider hanging off it, and Tommy laughs at him and resists the urge to do something stupid like try and hand-feed Adam egg rolls. It’s only their second - third? - date.
Adam flops down on his back on the grass and says “Smile!” the camera clicking on whatever dumb expression Tommy was wearing at that moment, but he won’t show Tommy the result, wrestles the camera away and giggles.
When Adam starts to fret about his sensitive skin freckling in the sun, they get up and head for the department store, Tommy teasing him every step of the way, especially when Adam lets slip that his natural hair colour is nowhere near the ink-black he keeps it.
“You’re a redhead,” Tommy marvels, practically skipping beside Adam’s longer legs. “You’re a ginger. A rednut.”
“Fuck off,” Adam groans, and snaps a quick picture of the double-take from a passerby.
Tommy wasn’t kidding when he said he needed to buy underwear, and he suffers gamely through Adam’s gentle teasing and the photographs that he suspects are not being taken only of onlookers, though he doesn’t quite manage to catch Adam at it. He’d normally just grab what he needs and get out, but something sparkly catches Adam’s eye and next thing Tommy knows he’s being dragged through a bewildering array of pants that all look identical to him and shirts that are alarmingly different, belts and boots and scarves and jewelry. Adam hustles him into a change room and throws things over the door and makes him come out and model outfits, occasionally sneaking in a quick grope or making unfeigned noises of appreciation. Tommy swears and complains and slaps Adam’s hands away, but he still ends up with a pile of different outfits and Adam purring happily like a cat having its belly rubbed.
“Can we go to a shoe store next?” asks Adam. “Ohhh, you have to get some heeled boots to go with those jeans. Ooh, my friend designs jackets, you’d look amazing in this one he made last year, it has all buckles and, like, leather bits on.”
“No more,” Tommy begs. “God, stop. Please.”
Adam pulls a face. “We’ve only been to one store! You hardly got anything. We’ve barely started.”
“No,” says Tommy, as firmly as he can in the face of Adam’s enthusiasm. “I am not made for shopping marathons.”
Adam’s face falls, but that’s when Tommy spots a music shop and goes to look at guitars, and Adam’s expression when Tommy starts fiddling around with a totally gorgeous Fender has to been seen to be believed. Tommy smirks and strokes a thumb over the pretty dark-red finish, plays a quick riff and pauses to tune it, pretends not to notice the way Adam’s face goes a little hungry.
“Okay,” says Adam. “No, you’re totally right, no more shopping, we should, um, go now.”
“In a minute,” says Tommy serenely, and the store owner comes over and Tommy manages to drag out a conversation with him long enough he thinks Adam might just snap and haul him away caveman style.
“You’re just teasing me now,” Adam complains, as they head for Tommy’s car.
“You’re damn right,” says Tommy. “Who’d have guessed you have a music fetish.”
“It’s not a fetish,” says Adam, blushing. “It’s, um. You have really nice hands.”
Tommy flexes his fingers, and Adam covers his eyes and trips over his own feet. “Does this mean you don’t want to see my guitar collection when we get back to my place?” asks Tommy.
“Fuck you,” says Adam, muffled.
“Um, excuse me,” says a small voice, so diffident it takes Tommy a minute to twig.
“Hi?” says Tommy. It’s a kid, maybe fourteen or fifteen, skinny and nervous looking, with his hair falling in his face.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” he says, politely breathless. “I’m a big fan, I was wondering if I could get an autograph, maybe?”
“Of course,” says Tommy automatically, and the kid goes red - redder - and holds out a notebook. “What’s your name?” he asks, and hears the click of Adam’s camera.
“Blake,” says the kid. “I really, really liked Dare Not,” he adds, eyes downcast.
“That’s awesome,” says Tommy. He scribbles something generic for Blake in his book, with a big squiggly sig, and the kid looks like he might pass out.
“Thanks so much!” he says, excitedly. “I think - you’re just awesome, man, I love you so much, you know?”
“Aw, thanks,” says Tommy, patting him on the shoulder. “You have a good day, okay?”
“You too!” Blake chirps, and scuttles off.
“Baby gay,” says Adam, all misty eyed. “He’s gonna be jerking off with that tshirt for months, you know that?”
“Oh, fuck off,” says Tommy crankily, and immediately feels bad when Adam looks a bit wounded. “Sorry,” he says tiredly. “Sorry. Fans like that freak me out.”
Adam frowns. “Raja and all her friends pawing at you is totally okay, but one fourteen-year-old with a crush is somehow angry-making?”
“Raja doesn’t need anything from me,” Tommy tries to explain, and Adam tilts his head to the side, frown changing shape.
“I don’t get it.”
Tommy switches the load of bags he’s carrying to one hand and digs in his pocket for his keys. “It’s like,” he says and stops, unlocking the car and tossing all the bags in the back seat. He leans against the door and palms his face, trying to figure out how to fit it into words. Adam comes over and stands next to him, a big solid warm presence, face creased with the effort of listening.
“That kid maybe has nobody,” he says eventually. “Maybe he hasn’t even told his Mom and Dad. Maybe he’s not even sure if he’s gay or what, doesn’t know anybody who’s gay or see anyone on TV that’s not, you know.” He lifts his arm and lets his hand flop from the wrist. “And then there’s me, and I wear stupid jeans that don’t fit and put off getting my roots done and listen to loud punk and like to kiss boys and I’m the only person they can see that’s like them, you know? Actually like them, not somebody completely weird who happens to like men.”
“I know,” says Adam warmly. “I’d have killed for a role model like you when I was kid.”
“Me too!” says Tommy. “But I don’t want to fuckin’ be the role model, shit.” He rubs his nose. “I’m a fuckup. I drink too much and swear all the time and never call my mother and I got fuckin’ lucky, I’m not that talented, not more than other people. They shouldn’t look up to me.”
“Oh my god, shut up,” says Adam, and Tommy is seized a fierce, hard hug. “You’re so fucking dumb, get in the car before I ravish you right here on the street.”
“Can’t,” Tommy mutters. “You’re squishing me against the door.”
Adam makes an exasperated noise and pulls away, kisses Tommy’s face quickly. “Wanna go home?”
“You can come see my etchings,” says Tommy roughly, and they make the drive back to Tommy’s with Adam’s hand on his thigh, Adam singing along to the radio in a low, tuneful crooning.
Despite the buildup, it’s weirdly stilted when the get in the apartment. Not awkward, exactly, but they stand apart from one another in the entryway for a minute and Tommy can feel himself getting shy, a sensation he thought he left behind with his first professional photoshoot.
“Bedroom?” he suggests, and Adam smiles all soft and intimate and holds out his hand, and they go into the bedroom like that, fingers twined together.
The housekeeper’s been: the curtains are open and the bed is freshly made, clean crisp sheets. Tommy shrugs off his jacket and drops it on a chair, sits down on the bed to toe off his shoes, and then Adam is on him like whirlwind of affection, cradling his face and kissing him, nuzzling at his neck and cheeks, pressing him down to the bed, and Tommy is laughing suddenly and doesn’t know why.
He shoves Adam over and strips him down, gets him naked and spread out under him, all freckled skin and mile-long legs and big, happy smile, and he can’t decide what he wants to do first. He wants to put his mouth on Adam, all over, taste all his skin and suck his cock, wants to get his hands on the thick muscles of Adam’s thighs and the cut of his hips, wants to fuck him, or roll over and get fucked. He’s practically frozen by indecision, overwhelmed by the amount of choice, and Adam cuts it short by reaching up and tugging him down to kiss him again, cuddling Tommy close against his chest and petting over his back with long, lazy strokes. Tommy sinks into it, drowning.
In the end, Tommy gets to do everything by turns. Adam approaches sex like a buffet, and every time Tommy says “I want,” or “Can we try” Adam says “Yes, yes and this too,” and they have sex in the bed and the shower and on the kitchen counter and the couch and then in the bed again a couple of times, and then the sheets need to be changed and Adam fucks him on the washing machine as it goes through its spin cycle.
Next thing he knows it’s Sunday evening and he’s curled up on Adam’s chest on the couch, the TV going in the background and Adam’s lazily stroking his back and ass and scratching gently at the tops of his thighs where they’re splayed over him, both of them too tired to actually have any more sex maybe ever but Adam wants to touch him and his hands feel so good. Tommy aches in places he’d forgotten about, the really great sex-ache where his hip-joints feel over extended and his ass is sore and his thighs are red with stubble burn and he’s in desperate need of some chapstick. He’s sticky all over and possibly glued to Adam in some fiendish way and he’s totally starving.
“I’m fuckin’ keeping you,” he tells Adam. “We can have sex all the time, it’ll be awesome.”
“’Kay,” says Adam, agreeably.
He has more meetings he can’t get out of on Monday morning. Adam practically has to carry him to the shower and pour coffee down his throat until he’s human, and he’ll be walking bow-legged for a while, calls a car instead of taking the risk of driving himself off the road. Adam kisses him goodbye, and then kisses him some more.
“I’ll call you,” he says.
“Give me some recovery time first,” Tommy tells him, wincing.
“We’ll meet in public,” Adam reassures him. “And, like, drink lemonade. Wrapped in bubble-wrap.”
“I do like bubble wrap,” says Tommy, and then his car pulls up, so he pulls away with one last squeeze at Adam’s ass.
Adam doesn’t call him on Monday, but if he’s feeling anything like Tommy is, he probably went home and crashed, so Tommy does the same after he finishes his meetings, devours a huge protein-heavy meal and a couple of beers and passes right out.
Adam doesn’t call Tuesday, and doesn’t respond to the text Tommy sends around lunchtime; Think we broke the showerhead. Have to get that fixed. Tommy puts his phone on silent when he goes out to a bar with some friends, and when he checks it on Wednesday morning, bleary-eyed, he’s got messages from his mother, from his agent, and from Alli, but nothing from Adam.
“Be seein’ you soon, hermano,” says Alli, when he calls her back. “We’re about done out here in nowhere, so I’ll be back in LA and we’re gonna be friends. You can sneak me booze and shit, it’ll be awesome.”
“I can’t wait,” says Tommy, with all honesty. Allison’s fabulous and he totally loves her. “I’ll take you out clubbing - oh, wait, no.”
“Ass,” she says cheerfully. “God, I can’t wait to get somewhere they have decent sushi again. There’s a place here has pork sushi, can you believe that? I almost lost my lunch. Ugh.”
“None of that in LA,” he says. “It’s hard to find anything with calories around here.”
“Mama’s gonna keep sending me care packages,” she confides. “I’ll share if you’re nice to me.”
“I am the nicest person alive,” Tommy protests, because Mama Iraheta’s care packages kept him sane out in the desert, and for a supply of her chocolate cake he’d do worse things than entertain Allison occasionally.
They make plans to meet up when she’s back in LA, and plot to photobomb the premier, and Tommy promises to introduce her to his cute age-appropriate friends to annoy her father.
He feels good when he hangs up, because Alli’s such an uncomplicated sweetheart and hanging out with her is going to be a total joy, and the bubble of happiness at maintaining such a cool friend buoys him through most of the afternoon, but Adam still hasn’t called.
He caves that evening and calls Adam instead, but it rings through to voicemail and he hangs up without leaving a message, breaks out a bottle of Jack. (He tries to tell himself that he’d probably be drinking anyway, it’s not a coping mechanism.)
Adam doesn’t call on Thursday, but Tommy has a long meeting with his manager and agent to figure shit out for the next couple of months - he’s finally getting busy enough various projects are starting to conflict, and he’s got screen tests and auditions and filming rubbing up against post-production stuff and premiers and then somebody mentions he’s been offered some voice work on a Dawn of the Dead video game and he throws a little diva and demands that they fit that in somewhere, please.
He texts Adam to tell him about it. No response.
Friday morning Tommy is woken at an ungodly fucking hour - he can’t be sure, but it’s definitely before eight AM - by his phone blaring out the Darth Vader theme he’d assigned to his publicist, Kerry. He swears and groans and slaps at it, but she never calls this early, so he figures he should probably answer it.
“Did somebody die?” he mumbles, and there’s a breathless pause.
“You know,” she says in a very calm tone, “When you make a sex tape, you need to tell me. I won’t judge - or I will - but I need to fucking know this shit to do my job because I’ve got Perez fucking Hilton on the other line asking if there’s any god damned comment about my client’s naked photos.”
Tommy’s stomach drops. “What.”
Kerry hisses through her teeth in frustration. “Because if you did and you didn’t tell me, I’m gong to fucking kill you. And send your rotting corpse on the most agonising series of public appearances I can dream up.”
“There’s got to be some mistake,” says Tommy, adrenalin washing away his morning grogginess. “This can’t be right.”
She makes an irritated noise. “Did you or did you not pose for dirty pictures?”
Tommy swallows. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”
(“No, lie still,” Adam said, pressing him down onto the sheets. “I just want to - fuck, you’re beautiful. I just want to fucking look at you for a while.”
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” said Tommy, but he sprawled obligingly anyway, letting his thighs fall open and tucking a hand behind his head. Adam pressed his hands to his mouth and looked and looked, greedily.
“You shouldn’t make an offer like that unless you fucking mean it,” said Adam roughly, and Tommy shrugged.
“I’m not saying you can stick them up at your next art show or whatever,” said Tommy, “but come on. I trust you.”
Adam’s face went all soft, and he leaned down to kiss Tommy, bite at his lip, already reaching for his camera. “Like I’d fucking share you,” said Adam fiercely. “I don’t even want to let you out of this bed, honey. These’ll be just for me.”)
Tommy can’t breathe, like something’s squeezing his chest in, some horror-movie villain crushing his lungs.
Perez has the photos up on his website, of course, so covered with white splatters of MS-Paint jizz you can barely make out Tommy’s face, but the unedited versions are up on TMZ and JustJared and all the fuck over Twitter. There’s one of Tommy lounging back against the pillows with his hair totally fucked up and his makeup a mess and purpling bites all over his throat and chest. There’s bare skin clear from his shoulder to his knee, the tattoo he’d sworn would never be public on his thigh obvious and visible, his hand dangling in front of his crotch only partially obscuring his half-hard cock and balls. He’s smirking, lazy and well-fucked.
The second photo is a few seconds later, Tommy rolling onto his side, reaching for the beer on the nightstand, the line of his body smooth and clean. His thigh’s angled to cover his junk, but his pancake-flat joke of an ass is in full view. Adam had laughed at him, and groped him cheerfully.
Tommy’s been around cameras enough to know that the composition is beautiful. The light is flattering, the angle is gorgeous, the whole setup looks like a photoshoot, too artistic to be tacky, except that Tommy is naked and fucked and there’s a torn condom wrapper by his hip and a bottle of lube on the nightstand and it’s obviously not meant for the public.
The last is the least scandalous, Tommy drinking beer, his lips on the neck of the bottle in a deliberately obscene way, amber liquid dribbling down his chin and neck and naked chest. It had seemed funny at the time, an over-the-top porno cliche that was even funnier when Adam had refused to do the honorable thing and clean him up; Adam hates beer and wouldn’t even lick it off him.
Adam. Shit.
Tommy shoves his laptop away, chews on his thumbnail. He hasn’t even made it out of bed yet and he has to, he really does, because this is going to take a fuck load of damage control. But the hurt is stunning right now and he can’t help the impulse to pull the blankets over his head and lick his wounds in private.
As a last-ditch effort to figure out if there’s been some big fucking misunderstanding, he calls Adam again. It goes straight to voicemail.
His phone starts ringing as soon as he hangs up, but he ignores it for the moment, plods into the shower, gets dressed, collects himself and heads for the door, phone still jangling away in his pocket.
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