(Even When It's Not) About You

Ghosts

The bus was in motion when Rob woke up the morning after... the morning after things changed between him and Mike. He lay completely still, didn't even open his eyes, as he contemplated the night before, and the petal kisses to his neck Mike had left there. Kisses he could still feel, burned onto his skin like a branding. If he were an irrational person, he'd be afraid the marks would be there for everyone to see. But Rob wasn't irrational, or fanciful. He knew there was no way for anyone on the outside looking in to see that Mike had left an indelible mark on him in the back lounge, free from the muddled decision making properties of alcohol. Whether or not those kisses had been colored by other emotions, Rob wasn't sure.

He lifted his hand and touched his neck where Mike had kissed him, his eyes still closed while he thought about it. Tried to figure out how to start the conversation he knew needed to happen. In his head it was simple. He'd make coffee. Mike would come from his bunk, sleep tousled and gorgeous as always, and they'd sit in the back lounge, bodies close, waking up together. He could take Mike's hand and tell him a story of how he'd loved him for years, and Mike would smile and everything would be perfect. He could see it in his head.

But Rob wasn't fanciful. As much as he wanted to simply confess, Mike, I've been in love with you for years, he knew presenting that information in the wrong way could break everything.

So he didn't know where to even start. Did he go back to the crush he'd had on Mike before the band ever got started? Would that even matter, almost twenty-five years later? They'd both gone on to date girls, and he'd been in a relationship with a girl when Mike married Anna. Rob dabbled on both sides in his twenties, but his public relationships had only been with women. He'd only once had a serious relationship with a man, and it was sandwiched quietly between two very public, very blonde girlfriends.

The more he thought about it, not admitting to the years he'd pined for Mike seemed to be the easiest way, even if it was selling his feelings short. Long ago he'd come to terms with the fact that Mike was Anna's, and Chester's, and there was no room in that for him. Now he woke every day to a world where not only Mike's lover, but his wife, were gone. It was a whole new reality, and they'd been navigating it together just fine, until Mike kissed him.

Rob lay in the bunk, trying to make sense of how he was feeling, until he decided that there was no way to know what he would say until he saw Mike that morning. He could lay there and turn over all the possibilities of how it would go in his head until he went crazy, or he could admit that worrying about it would only make him anxious and get up to make coffee. Give himself something to do other than obsess over a moment that hadn't yet happened.

Reaching for his glasses in the small cubby next to the bed, Rob rolled over. The interior of the bunk came into focus, his small collection of personal effects tucked into spaces around the bed. It was too compact a space for him to sit all the way up, but he pushed up on one elbow and blinked the sleepiness from his eyes before he pushed his hair back absently and let his head fall back on the pillow. Knowing he should get out of bed and making it happen were two different things. He pulled his curtain back a little, just enough to see Mike's had been pulled completely closed at some point after he'd gone to bed.

The privacy that afforded was enough to encourage Rob to get up, swinging his legs off the side of the bunk and hopping down the few feet to the aisle. For thirty-nine he was in remarkably good shape, and a few quick stretches in the aisle were all it took to rid him of the stiffness of sleep. It didn't take much effort for him to pull his sheets and blankets up and make the bed, either, the thought making him smile. Mike left his unmade all day, despite making his bed daily at home. Something about being on the road turned his bandmate into a teenage boy, one who wasn't interested in things like making beds and sleeping at reasonable hours. Rob closed the curtain to his bunk and slid his feet into his slippers, then made his way down the aisle toward the idea of coffee.