Secrets

Part Three: LIVING THINGS -- Struggles

[March 5, 2013]

Chester sat with his hands curled around his coffee cup, alternating his stare between the magical brown liquid and the soft, relaxed curves of Mike's sleeping face. He inhaled the five-star hotel's rich dark roast and compared the color of the liquid to the color of Mike's eyes on stage last night. Dark, dark brown, almost black. Hypnotizing and beautiful.

The Australian tour ended last night, and they had celebrated together before exhaustion settled on them. Back in the room, and two showers later, Mike had curled on his side in the crisp, white hotel sheets and held his hand out to pull Chester into his arms. It was without hesitation that Chester joined him, sinking down into the cool mattress and fluffy pillow to talk quietly together until Mike stopped answering, and Chester knew he was asleep.

Before he, too, fell asleep, Chester continued to lay with his fingers laced through Mike's, their arms stretched in the space between them - space Chester had been taking care to leave now before they fell asleep, but always found had disappeared by morning. He listened to Mike's slow and steady breathing, and he thought about Mike kissing him almost two weeks ago, the gentle kiss that had turned passionate so quickly. He thought about the way their bodies fit together, how they'd both been aroused, and he thought about the secrets he was keeping from his best friend. He felt the weight of those secrets, and he wanted very badly to free himself from that burden... he just didn't know how.

Every morning he lay tangled in Mike's arms, thinking about how to say something, to open a dialogue between them about what was happening, but every morning the secret died on his lips when he opened his eyes to find Mike gazing at him with the purest form of affection in his eyes. There was no part of Chester that wanted to lose that sweet glow of admiration, that trust, that feeling of peace and safety they had between them. So every morning he stayed silent. Every morning he returned Mike's soft good morning with one of his own, and every morning he went to his room to dress while cursing his cowardice.

He began to think that maybe if he woke up first for once, he'd find the nerve to confess. Which lead to him sitting in the corner chair in the cold hotel room this morning, the day they were leaving to go home for five months. This was the last possible day he could screw up the nerve to tell Mike they had crossed the line, to admit he'd known what they were doing and that it was wrong, and hope that Mike would forgive him. Once they left for home, it would be too late. He had to try.

He was on his second cup of coffee and nowhere closer to finding the right words to say when he heard Mike shift in the bed, watched his arm smooth over the sheets in search of Chester. He looked down into his coffee cup again. Warm, beautiful brown. The color of Mike's eyes.

"Ches?" Mike lifted his head from the pillow an inch, his sleepy eyes connecting with Chester's fuzzy form as he spotted him sitting in the chair. "Is that coffee?"

"Yeah," he responded softly as he struggled to keep his voice calm, his heart already hammering in his chest. "Want me to get you some? I got you a cup but you were still sleeping so I drank it too. I've almost finished it," Chester corrected with a sad smile.

Mike briefly chuckled low in his throat as his eyes slid closed again and he wrapped his arms around Chester's abandoned pillow. "You're so bad, Ches. Drinkin' my coffee."

"I'll get more now," Chester said, already on his feet and heading for the phone to call room service. "And another cup for me."

"And bacon," Mike mumbled with a dreamy smile on his face.

Chester stopped next to the bed with his hand on the phone, looking down at Mike. His black hair falling across his forehead. His dark lashes in thick slashes across his eyes. His perfectly shaped lips that were slightly parted as he sighed over blissful bacon fantasies. His bare arms that were cradling Chester's pillow in place of Chester's body. Mike was the picture of innocence lying there in their bed, and Chester still couldn't think of what words he could say that wouldn't shatter their relationship into pieces.