Secrets

Part Five: OML -- Pretending

July 5, 2017

Chester knew he hadn't slept more than a few minutes all night long. His brain had been back and forth since he'd laid down next to Mike the night before, carefully and thoroughly picking apart memories starring the emcee, trying to convince himself to do the right thing. If only he knew for certain that he was choosing the correct path for them both. He was in agony.

Another week had passed by, another week that found Chester not brave enough to either speak up or stop the path he and Mike were headed down. During each pre-show huddle he found the sparkle in Mike's deep eyes distracting, and in the post-show dressing room, the only compliments that mattered were Mike's. Every moment they spent together felt as though the universe were in charge of them, manipulating them, pulling their voices together on stage, pulling their bodies together at night. He felt the spark of Mike's touch in the sunlight, and the more he tried to ignore the tender kisses they shared in the dark, the more they haunted him. Chester had reached the point where if they continued on as they were, he'd be pressing Mike against the wall in some venue and destroying during the space of one breath... one heartbeat... one kiss... everything they had worked almost twenty years to build. Linkin Park. Families. Brotherhood.

I've almost known him twenty years. Twenty fucking years. Where has the time gone?

Now he lay listening to Mike's breathing, deep and regular, his full lips parted slightly as he lay on his side, his left arm tucked up underneath his pillow. He longed to take Mike in his arms and pull them closer together. In the early morning light creeping through the windows he could see Mike's dark facial hair, and his fingers ached to reach across the space between them and stroke over the softness, to touch his lips. With the knowledge that this was the last morning he would awaken with the emcee next to him, he drank in every detail of Mike's sleeping face. The way his black hair fell across his forehead, and how he loved the look of it against white hotel pillowcases. His thick black eyelashes against his cheek, a cheek that was sharper than it had been in their youth. The stray hairs around his eyebrows that he'd always adamantly refused to pluck on the account that he wasn't a woman. His perfectly proportioned nose in which Chester had always been a little bit jealous.

His eyes memorized each new line in Mike's face, knowing that when he wasn't as relaxed those lines were deeper and more prominent. Chester thought of the baby soft, round face of Mike's early twenties, the upside down 'u' shaped earrings with the balls on each end, the red and orange and blue tints he'd tried in his hair with varying degrees of success. While Mike slept, their blanket had shifted enough to expose one tender shoulder, skin that never saw sunlight and was pale though Mike could tan easily. Chester could easily visualize Mike's dark nipples, the sparse smattering of dark hair on his chest, the way his stomach narrowed into his hips, and the fine trail of dark hair that led to unseen treasures underneath the boxers he always wore to bed. He knew what Mike's back looked like, and could identify exactly where the mole was behind his right ear, as well as the one on the sole of his right foot.

Chester closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He would replay Mike's side of the conversation he'd had with Anna before bed last night over and over if that was what it would take to get the courage to tell Mike that they couldn't sleep together anymore. It had sounded shockingly like his best friend's wife was issuing ultimatums, and he could still hear Mike's voice, his soft pleading, which turned into promises, which turned into joy as he talked to each of his children. Yes... Chester was ending things between them for the greater good. For their families. Things had gotten too hard, too much, too close to the tipping point for him to be so cavalier as to let things continue to snowball downhill. And Mike doesn't even know.

They'd fallen asleep holding each other, Mike a wreck over Anna's frustrating phone call, and Chester had stared unblinkingly into the darkness, thinking. Memorizing. Turning back time and desperately wishing that he'd told Mike before he'd married Anna that he wanted him, but deep down knowing it wouldn't have made any difference. Mike and Anna had been married years before Mike had declared his love for the vocalist in his sleep, and by then there were new wives and more babies between them. All they could ever be was best friends, and Chester knew they couldn't continue the way they were, yet he couldn't tell Mike the truth, not now.