Wow! I just wanted to start off by saying thanks to all the people that wrote to me. It felt nice knowing that you guys enjoyed my first chapter, but I have to admit that I'm concerned about not meeting your expectations with this next installment. I just want everyone out there to know that I am going to take things slow between Mike and Brian and see where it leads. I don't know when the next installment will be out because I haven't begun typing anything yet, but I already have the blueprints worked out. Input is always welcome, and if I use any of your ideas I will be sure to give you all the glory and credit you deserve. Which basically means you will see your name in print -- for example - John Smith. (Sounds enticing doesn't it?).
This story is a complete work of fiction. It involves interactions between two men of consenting legal age. If it is illegal to read, view, come in contact with, or (insert whatever else you can think of here), in your state, province, or country, or are under the legal age to view such material then do not continue on with the story.
The characters in the story are completely fictional and any coincidence with the outside world was not intentional. If you find this kind of material offensive, then just click the little 'back' button at the top of the screen and your computer will navigate you out of here.
Chapter 2
I opened my eyes the next morning to find myself lying in the king-sized bed, with Brian on top of me. Somehow, during the course of the night, Brian and I had managed to both roll to the center of the bed and wrap ourselves around each other. His face was gently nestled at the crook of my neck and he was still dead to the world. My arms were wrapped around his body, and our legs were intertwined with each other. I also noticed that I wasn't making any moves to change the positions we were in. I lied there contemplating how comfortable this felt having him with me. I started wondering about my own sexuality again as I hugged Brian a little closer to me. I found myself feeling a little scared at the prospect that I had told a complete stranger my darkest secret. `What if Brian told someone?" I found myself wondering, but quickly realized he wouldn't do this as he had revealed his own secret to me. I knew I could trust him, there was nothing more to it. We had both confessed something last night and it would remain between us until we were ready to tell the world ourselves. It was nice having someone I could be so open with.
An hour or so later, I felt Brian stirring as if waking from his sleep. I quickly closed my eyes in order to maintain the illusion that I had not yet woken up. I didn't know how Brian would react to our being in this position. I felt a wave of guilt for violating his trust like this all because I enjoyed feeling the warmth of his body against mine. He was still in a volatile emotional state from the betrayal of his former love, and the last thing he needed was more confusion added to his life. I felt him raise his head from my neck and sit up a bit to look over our bodies. What surprised me was the fact that he returned his head to it's original position and got comfortable again. It seemed was in no hurry to change our positions either. We remained lying there for the next few minutes until I spoke up, "This feels nice, doesn't it?" I felt Brian flinch a little at his realization that we were both awake. "Yeah it does," he finally answered. "It feels--" his said stopping in mid-sentence.
"It feels comfortable and kind of ... safe," I finished for him.
"Yeah," he replied, "But there's more, you know? It feels kind of natural"
"Right..." I trailed off.
Brian leaned his pillow up against the headboard and sat up in the bed. I did the same with mine and we looked over at each other, both of us were blushing. I tried to break the uncomfortable silence. "So, Bri--" I paused trying to regain my thoughts from what had just been said. "You never told me why you came to this fair hotel of mine in the first place."
"Oh," he replied, "Just here on some business."
"Oh yeah, and what's that?"
He looked at me with a blank face and turned away from me. I could tell he was having a hard time telling me what it was.
"Is it something illegal or something?"
"No, I was just unsure if you recognized me or not. I guess you didn't," he said sounding disappointed to have to admit that to me.
"Why would I recognize you? Are you a movie star or something? Because I don't go to movies that often, I only know the big stars."
"No, nothing like that. I'm a musician."
"That's kind of cool, are you in a band? What instrument do you play?" I asked innocently.
"Uhh, yeah I am in a band," he replied. "I sing for the Backstreet Boys."
The sudden realization of why I had heard his name before came through my mind. I'd probably heard it on the radio a hundred times and not really paid any attention to it. I admit that I liked some of their stuff, especially that new song on the radio 'I Want It My Way' or something. Every time the bloody song came on the radio I was forced to sing along to it because the beat was just too uplifting. I couldn't resist not singing, even though I hummed along half the time because I didn't know the words.
"Wow, that's amazing." I said. "I'm sharing a bed with a Backstreet Boy." I found myself uttering. I looked over at Brian and saw a look of shear horror cross over his face. "Brian, what's wrong?" I asked.
"How could you say that?" he asked angrily.
"I was just kidding around with you, relax man."
"Get out."
"What?" I asked shocked.
"I said get out." he was near shouting levels.
I quickly thought over the last few minutes of our conversation realized what had caused him that much anger, and underneath, I knew pain as well. He thought I no longer saw him for the person he was. "Brian before I go, can I just say one more thing?"
"No."
"You've obviously gone through some pain in the past with your being a teen girl's idol, but Brian, I didn't mean anything by that comment. When I go, I'll always think of you the way we were last night when we talked. I'm sorry if you don't believe that, but all I can ask is that you trust me." I got out of the bed and walked over to my pile of clothes. I grabbed my pants and started pulling them on.
"How can I trust you when so many people have hurt me in the past?" he asked quietly.
"Look at me, Brian," I said walking over to him. "Look into my eyes, when I tell you I would never hurt you." He turned away. I grabbed his arm and forced him to look at me. "Look into them." I snapped. He slowly brought his gaze up to mine and I again had to fight off the opportunity to get lost in those beautiful eyes. I whispered, "I would never hurt you." We sat there staring at each other for a while until Brian said, "I believe you." He reached over and hugged me before sitting back down on the bed. He patted the spot next to him, motioning me to join him. I climbed over him and sat beside him on the bed.
"I'm sorry, Mike. It's just so hard having people seem so excited to see Brian the Backstreet Boy and not Brian Litrell the person. I shouldn't have jumped the gun when you said that."
"I understand in a way, I guess. I'm sorry if what I said hurt your feelings, I really hadn't intended for that to happen."
"I'll forgive you if you forgive me," he said batting his eyelashes at me.
"Ah shucks," I said trying to act all embarrassed. "I can't resist that face."
He laughed at me and I grabbed a pillow and tossed it over to him. "So, can we forget about all this and start talking about what we're gonna do today?" he asked trying to change the topic.
"Of course. I have a couple of ideas, but now that I know you're a `celebrity' anything in public is probably out of the question," I paused briefly. "But, then again I shouldn't have a problem fending off a few rambunctious ten year olds before they tried to maul you to death."
A pained look crossed Brian's face before I got belted in the arm by his fist. "So you like it rough do ya," I joked returning his punch. That started a wrestling match between us and before we knew it, we were both rolling off of the bed. "Ouch," was all Brian could say as I crashed on top of him. We both started to laugh at our predicament.
"Just to set the record straight," he commented after we had calmed down. "Eleven and twelve year olds enjoy our music too." We both laughed again at his joke.
"Here's the deal," I said changing back to the topic. "I thought we could head over to my place so I could get ready, then hop in my car and drive somewhere out of town."
"That sounds cool," he nodded seeming to like the idea. "Where'd you have in mind?"
"Well, I thought maybe we could head out to where I grew up and just chill out a bit. I know a few things we could do there, like gliding or something, and just relax for the day."
"Gliding? I've never done that before."
"Cool, so we'll go gliding then."
"Great," he smiled at me.
"Feel like a bite to eat before we you go and have your shower, or would you rather watch me slave over a hot stove?"
"Well, depends on whether you want me to tell you the truth or not."
"I'll take the lie then."
"Where's the room service menu?" he asked mocking getting up to look for the menu.
"You jack ass," I smiled pushing him back down.
"No, we can eat here, at least I know the food's edible," he joked at me.
"Shut up," I said while trying not to take offence to his comment.
I got up and walked over to the desk. I grabbed the menu and flipped it to the breakfast selections. I was surprised when Brian came over and was looking at the menu from over my shoulder. "I'll take that, and that, and that," he pointed while brushing his arm against mine. A feeling began in the pit of my stomach, one not too dissimilar from the ones I had when I first started liking Kelly. 'I can't be thinking this,' I thought to myself. 'What am I doing?'
"Anything else?" I asked trying to shake the feeling in my stomach. He looked into my eyes and this time I did get lost in them. The life I knew that normally resided in them had returned, and a sudden wave of attraction coursed through my body. The butterflies in my stomach were now performing cartwheels. 'Mike, get a hold of yourself!' I demanded inwardly.
"I think that's pretty much it, for now," he added emphasis to that last part.
I tore my eyes away from his and focused back on the menu. "Sounds good," I said lamely.
I reached over for the phone and dialed room service. I got my favorite attendant and began chatting with her after I finished the order. She was excitedly telling me about her adventures in tropical Bermuda where she had just returned from vacation. Ten minutes later I got off the phone.
"Geez, if I'd known it was gonna take that long, I would have said 'let's eat at your place'," he commented with a smile on his face.
"Sorry, I hadn't talked to Kathy in a while. She wanted to tell me about her trip to Bermuda."
"No problem. Listen, I've got to use the phone to talk to management. I still need to tell them I won't be doing any work today."
"How do you think they're going to take it?" I asked.
"They'll be a little pissed because of the short notice, but they'll get over it. I haven't had time off for a while, and I'll just tell them I'm feeling sick or something. Try not to listen too much, okay, I don't want you to see me lie." "Ahh, please, relax. I've been known to do it on an occasion or two myself." He walked over to the phone and dialed a number. Brian turned and faced me while he was put on hold to be connected to someone important. He rolled his eyes and then pulled the phone away from his face and said to me, "I hate their hold music. I wonder who selects this crap." I smirked at his comment and thought it was probably a relative of the person who chose it for the hotel. Brian snapped the phone back to his face and he was suddenly talking to someone from his management. He was pretending to sound sick into the phone and was busy telling the guy that he wouldn't be going to work today. Their conversation droned on for a few minutes, so I tried to keep myself occupied by reading one of the hotel's in-room brochures. It always amazed me how every hotel had the ability to make the property sound better than it actually was. This one was over-glorifying the food available in the hotel restaurant with clever alliteration such as scrumptious scallops and voluptuous veal cutlets. `It really isn't that good," I thought to myself, throwing the brochure back on the table as Brian got off the phone.
"How'd it go?" I asked.
He gave me a thumbs-up. "Better than I thought. He told me that I should stay in and rest and that if I was still feeling sick tonight, I should call him at home and he'd arrange to cancel tomorrow too."
"Whoa, wish I had your boss," I said enviously.
"Yeah, well, now I have to deal with the guys. He said he was going to call Kevin and let him know. Knowing my cousin, he should be calling here to check up on me in a couple of minutes."
"Speaking of which, where are they?"
"Oh, there still in Florida, taking a break before the tour. I'm here alone to do some promo stuff for the company. We all drew straws and mine was the shortest, so here I am. Can't say I'm sorry about it, though, now that I've met you," he said smiling over at me.
"Watch it, flattery will get you everywhere," I joked to him. "How long are you gonna be in town for before they ship you out?"
"Four or five days, but that depends on how long I remain indisposed," he said turning his warm smile into an evil grin. "The longer I'm off `sick' the longer I have to stay here to finish the job."
"Ahh," I said picking up on his plan. "Well, then, I don't mind saying that I hope this flu has you flat on your back for a few days."
"My thoughts exactly."
"Just don't get any ideas that I'm gonna be your nurse maid or anything, `cause I can tell ya that it ain't gonna happen!"
"You shut up over there," Brian said, this being his only witty comeback.
Just then the phone started ringing. Brian seemed to pale a little at the noise, and he quickly glanced towards the sound. "That must be Kev, uhh, could you just sit there quietly while I take this call? I can't let him know you're here."
"No problem, Bri. I won't say a word." With that he walked over to the phone and picked up the receiver. He answered `hello' in his sick voice.
"Yeah, hi Kev, what's going on?" Brian remained silent listening to the response. "No, I'm feeling kind of sick." He paused again. "I don't know, feels like the flu, I guess." This time there was a longer pause. "I'll be fine, just a little sick to my stomach with a headache."
I hated listening to other people's conversations. I always felt like I was invading their privacy and this was definitely no different. I picked up another of the hotel brochures, this time it was on the various facilities offered, and tried to tune out Brian's discussion. I was being fairly successful, until there was a knock at the door. I looked up at Brian and I could see the worried look in his eyes. I could tell Kevin had heard the knock. "Oh, that must be the, uhh," he obviously couldn't think of what to say.
"Maid," I mouthed to him.
"Right, the maid," he stammered out. "She must be checking to see if she can clean the room. Hold on a sec." Brian put down the phone and walked over to the door. He quickly opened it and said in a fairly loud tone, "Could you come a little later please?" He smiled at the attendant and took the receipt from his hand to sign his name. Once completed, he grabbed the tray from his hands, mouthed `thank-you' and then closed the door. He put the tray down quietly on the bed and then went back to the phone. "Sorry about that cuz," he said. "What were you saying?"
Their conversation went on for another minute or so, with Brian informing his cousin he would be going to get some sleep for the rest of the day. He told him he was going to have the phone turned off so that nothing could disturb his slumber. He promised him that he would call when he got up and then proceeded to get off the phone. An audible sigh escaped his lips. "Alright, let's chow down," he said walking over to the tray.
"You okay," I asked hoping to see that he was.
"Huh, yeah, I'm fine. I just hate lying to the guys like that. But, I can't bring myself to tell them yet, so I have no other choice."
"Enough said, let's eat," I stated trying to refocus our attention back on the food. The last thing I needed was to bring Brian down with worry about telling his friends about his homosexuality. We began to wolf down the food on our plate without managing to say much to each other. Once we had both scraped our plates clean, Brian went into the bathroom to get ready for the day. I have to say I was a little disappointed that he would be covering up his well-defined chest, but I quickly tried to push those thoughts from my head. While he was in there, I got finished getting dressed and turned on the t.v.. I hardly noticed him reemerge from the washroom half an hour later as I was engrossed in watching the news headlines of the day. I was startled when he placed his hand on my shoulder and asked if I was ready to hit the road. I turned around and looked at him, and was startled to notice how incredible he looked standing there. `Wow!' was all I could say to myself.
"Yeah, let's go," I said turning off the tube. We walked out of the room and headed down towards the elevators. "You mind if we head out the back way?" I tried to ask non-chalantly, thinking about how uncomfortable it would be to try and explain to my coworkers we passed in the lobby what I was doing in the hotel.
"Actually, I was having the same thoughts myself. You know, to try and avoid being recognized by fans and stuff."
"Okay, then we'll head down to the basement, and work our way out from there." We made our way down to the basement and headed out the back staircase. We didn't run into anyone the entire time, things couldn't have gone any more smoothly. Once we were outside and walking towards my place, I decided this would be as good a time as any to tell Brian about my roommate.
"When we get back to my place, you'll probably get to meet Joe."
"Joe?" he asked curiously.
"Yeah, my roommate. He's a nice guy, goes to school with me. We've been living together a couple of years and he knows most of my friends. If he's even up, he'll definitely want to know about you."
"Great, nothing like adding a little pressure before we even get there."
"It won't be anything like that, I make new friends all the time. He'll just want to know how I ended up staying at your place, that's all."
Brian instantly got uncomfortable by my comment. "You aren't going to tell him are you?"
"What? No, no, Brian. I would never even think to tell anyone about what was said last night. That's something for just you and I, okay? I promise you. He's just gonna want to know how much I had to drink to not come home last night."
"Oh, so he's kind of looking out for you then."
"Well, I wouldn't go that far. He just likes sticking his nose into my business. Just pray his girlfriend isn't there, or else we'll be stuck in the apartment for half the day while she interrogates you. Don't be surprised if you feel she's put you into a Spanish inquisition. She can be brutal, especially since Kelly and I broke up. She's under the impression that I can't look out for myself now, so she tries to be my older sister or something."
"You know you aren't making me feel anymore comfortable," he joked nervously. "Do you think either of them will recognize me?"
"Probably not, they're not into your music. No offence." I could see him relaxing at my comment.
"Good, that's the last thing I wanted to deal with right now. One less thing to explain."
"They're not that bad, Brian. You'll like them, I swear. I just wanted you to be prepared for anything popping out of their mouths."
"Okay, I trust you." The rest of the walk entailed me explaining how Joe and I had ended up living together. I explained how we met in some elective and got assigned to work on a project by the professor. On the first night we were supposed to do some work, we ended up getting drunk in one of the campus bars. We defended ourselves by saying that we were just getting to know each others study habits so we could work more effectively later. Needless to say, that never happened. Most of our work sessions involved shooters and pitchers and we failed miserably on the assignment. After that, we decided we couldn't work together anymore because we'd risk flunking out of school and becoming alcoholics, but we remained good friends. We moved in together at the start of the second year, and things have been going great ever since.
Fifteen minutes later saw Brian and I standing outside my apartment door. I was about to put my keys in the lock when Brian asked, "You think they'll like me?"
"Yeah, I do," I said trying to reassure him. I couldn't understand why he was so nervous about meeting my friends. "You've got no reason to be nervous, just be yourself. Besides, these guys trust my judgement with who I call a friend, so relax."
Brian only nodded his head and then I unlocked the door. We walked into an empty apartment and I noticed that Joe's bedroom door was still closed. "I should have known, he's not even awake yet, the lazy ass."
Brian smiled, relief emanating from every orifice of his body. Apparently I had underestimated his fear of meeting my friends. "You want the grand tour of Casa de Mike?"
"Yeah, that'd be great."
"Okay, well let's start off with this room here," I said pointing towards the kitchen. I showed him the kitchen, followed by the living room and dining room, then the bathroom, pointing out the Jacuzzi tub just because it was cool, and ended the tour with my bedroom. Brian seemed to like this room the most out of all the other rooms, because he said it definitely reflected my personality. I was still tying to figure out what that meant when we emerged back into the living room to see Joe sitting on the couch in front of the t.v.. "Ahh, look, Sleeping Beauty has arisen."
"Whatever man, I had a late night last night, I don't need to hear it," he said staring at the picture on the screen.
"You can leave the details about your sex life out, `cause I want you to meet a friend of mine." Joe pried his eyes open a little wider and looked over towards Brian. Meanwhile, I took a step to my left so Joe wouldn't have the opportunity to notice Brian was hiding behind my back. "Joe, this is Brian, Brian, Joe." I said trying to get the introductions over with.
"Hey Joe, nice to meet you," Brian said in a clear voice, obviously recovering from his nervousness.
"Same to you, Brian." I could tell he was curious about the situation. "You the reason Mike didn't come home last night?"
"Uhh, yeah," I jumped in. "I met some friends after work at a bar and Brian was with them. We both ended up crashing at Steve's last night `cause we were too drunk to make it home."
"That's cool."
"What about you? What did you do last night?"
"Gail came over and we just hung out. Watched a couple of movies, you know the usual."
"Then it's probably good I didn't come home, I hate listening to you guys going at it," I prodded him.
"Especially last night. Man, I must have been in good form!" he joked back at me. "Besides you know your jealous, how longs it been for you now anyway?"
I looked over at Brian and he was giving me a curious glance as if he was interested in my answer as well. "Too long," I replied trying not to give them too much information to hold over me.
"Yeah, like I said, jealous," was Joe's reply.
"Whatever guy. Anyway, I'm gonna go get ready and then Brian and I are heading out for the day," I said trying to change the conversation to one I had control over.
"Where you going?" Joe asked
"Mike promised to take me gliding," Brian said getting in on the conversation.
"That's fun. He took me about a year ago. There's no feeling like it, you feel like a bird soaring."
"Really? I thought it would be like being in a Cessna."
"No, nothing like that. You're completely at the discretion of the wind currents, manipulating the controls so you can stay up as long as possible. You'll know if he trusts you if he lets you take the stick for a while."
"Now that'd be fun!" Brian said with enthusiasm. "I've never had the chance to fly anything before."
"Don't get your hopes up, Brian. He didn't let me take control of the thing the entire time."
"Yeah, that's because I knew you'd probably try and take the thing into a nose dive," I said piping up. "He has no fear of dying," I indicated towards my roommate.
"You have to admit it would have been fun!" Joe laughed.
"Uh-huh," I said unconvinced. "Brian, make yourself at home while I'm in the shower, he doesn't bite."
"If Gail were here, she could tell you otherwise," Joe joked.
"Hey, what did I say, Joe? Not a word about your sex life." I laughed.
"Ah, come on," he whined. "I love watching you blush." I shrugged and then walked back into my bedroom to grab my clothes I was going to wear for the day. As I walked passed Brian I winked and then headed into have my shower. I was a little nervous about what Joe might say while I was out of the room, but I figured Brian could handle himself. Joe was harmless, as long as he didn't start telling embarrassing stories about me. That I would kill over.
When I came out of the washroom, I heard Joe saying to Brian, "... so when we came around the corner you wouldn't believe what we saw. There was Mike and Kelly going at it on the picnic table. You should have seen his mother's face, it was priceless." Brian was laughing pretty hard at one of the worst moments of my life, and I felt my face become all flushed. My mom still wouldn't let the incident drop.
"What are you guys talking about?" I asked pretending to be in the dark.
"I was just telling Brian about the time when me and your folks caught you having sex with Kelly in your backyard. I tell you Brian, I have never laughed so hard in my life." Brian had stopped laughing noticing that I was no longer in the bathroom. He was waiting to see what my reaction would be.
I allowed a smile to creep onto my face as I recalled the `incident' in my mind. "You should have seen how quickly Kelly jumped off me when she saw that we were performing in front of an audience. In her haste, she kind of knocked me off balance and, uhh, I fell off the table."
"Off balance?" Brian asked curiously.
"Yeah, you could say they were in an unusual position, and that Mike wasn't prepared to be moving anytime soon." Joe said vaguely.
"The worst part was that when I fell, I kind of landed on my wrist and it snapped so I couldn't even pull my pants up because it hurt too much."
"So, his dad had to come over and help him pull them up," Joe was almost in tears from his laughter now. "Then they had to take him to the hospital to get it put into a cast. I tell you Brian, it was priceless, I was laughing the entire time. His mom laid into him for like the next six weeks until that cast came off."
"My dad was cool about it, but suggested that Kelly and I use a little more caution when selecting locales in the future. My mom on the other hand, was repulsed to know that I even knew such positions existed. She still brings it up from time to time."
"Kelly couldn't face his parents for months," Joe said continuing with the story. "She was so embarrassed. But could you blame her? I mean it was her idea to do it like that in the first place. I swear I thought she was going to join a convent when you broke your wrist like that."
I allowed both of their laughter to die down before I suggested that Brian and I take off. I didn't want Joe to start on any more embarrassing tales, and besides I wanted to show Brian my old stomping grounds. We both said good-bye to Joe as we left and headed down to the apartment building's underground garage. We walked over to my Pathfinder, and like a gentleman, I unlocked and opened Brian's door first. "Thank you," he said while walking past me. He got in and I closed the door for him. I got in my side, started the engine, and took off out of the garage. We were now on our way to our day of fun together. What I didn't know was that this day was going to change my life forever.
To Be Continued.
Ok, guys, I know this chapter has a little less emotional stuff than the last one, but I wanted to build a little bit about the characters so you got more of a sense of who they are. The next installment will most likely be more intense as Mike and Brian discuss their feelings a bit more to each other. Let me know what you think about this one and if you have any suggestions, I'll be glad to hear them. Later.