Page 20 of Bassist With Benefits
“Not tonight,” Alan replied, averting his eyes. Guilty about spying on his friend, heat dusted over his neck and up his cheeks. He’d seen Jeremy in the middle of an orgasm dozens of times. He’d witnessed Jeremy fuck and get fucked. But he had never purposely watched before. He had no idea why he wanted to watch so badly this time. It felt wrong. Invasive. And so fucking deliriously naughty.
Alan wanted the groupies out of there, and he just wanted to hang out with his friend… or go to sleep and forget how weird and wonderful the simultaneous blowjobs had been. He looked out the window to see if any fans were still lingering. “It’s clear out there now. I’ll be outside. I need some air.” He grabbed a fresh beer and opened the bus door. Before he stepped outside, he gave a cautious glance around the parking lot. Event staff was cleaning up the litter and breaking down the barricades, but there didn’t seem to be any fans lurking nearby.
Alan leaned back against the cold exterior of the bus and sipped his beer while he stared up at the stars. There was something going on between him and Jeremy that he couldn’t explain. Whatever it was, it needed to go away so he could function without analyzing every strange and erotic thought in his head.
Mike, the bus driver, appeared, walking briskly with a hurried trot, and gave Alan an apologetic shake of his head. “I’m sorry I’m late. I’m ready to go as soon as you are.”
Alan was impatient to get on the road. He opened his mouth to call the two groupies off the bus but realized he didn’t know the other guy’s name, only Eddie’s. “Eddie, and Jeremy’s guy,” he called to them. “It’s time to go!”
“Jeremy’s guy?” Jeremy’s guy stood in the doorway of the bus with an arched brow. “It’s Chris. If I was the one sucking your dick, you’d remember it.” He tilted his head with a smile. “Next time you’re first on my list.” He blew a kiss to Alan, jumped down from the bottom step, and slipped away into the darkness of the parking lot.
Eddie stepped off the bus next, and Jeremy felt like he should say something. “Thanks for the BJ. See ya around.”
“Eddie?” One of the members of the event staff stared at Eddie with a disgusted snarl. “What the fuck are you doing? Is this why you asked me to get you backstage? To suck this guy’s dick? You’re… gay?”
Eddie turned ashen. His eyes widened into saucers that reflected the light from the lamppost, making the whites of his eyes bright in the dark parking lot, and his mouth gaped open. He stood motionless, glued to the spot on the asphalt.
Alan grimaced. “Sorry, dude.” Having said enough, he got on the bus to trade one awkward moment for another. He motioned for Mike to close the doors. “Let’s get the fuck outta here.”
Alan hoped Jeremy had gone to bed, because now he felt weird about the twin blowjobs and how much he’d been thinking about both of them getting off at the same time, but Jeremy was sitting on the couch, remote control in hand.
“Want to watch TV for a while?” Jeremy clicked off the stereo and clicked on the flat screen.
A late night in front of the TV felt like a normal invitation, and Alan needed normalcy right now. He grabbed two more beers from the fridge, handed one to Jeremy, and fell into the captain’s chair. The rumble of the engine came to life and sent the bus in motion, leaving behind another city. “Goodbye, Orlando. Hello, NOLA!” They clinked the necks of their beer bottles together and took a drink. “I think I just outed Eddie.”
Jeremy almost choked on his beer. “You’re kidding?”
“I wish I was.”
“Right now? Outside the bus?”
“Yeah.”
“How? What happened?”
“His sister’s husband, or something like that, works security at the arena. I didn’t know he was there. I just blurted out ‘Thanks for the BJ!’ and the guy overheard.” Alan and Jeremy stared at one another, then burst out laughing. Alan knew it wasn’t funny. No one wanted their sexuality exposed before they were ready to deal with it. But sometimes involuntary laughter softened an uncomfortable situation.
“That sucks,” Jeremy said, his laughter dying down. “You just created a shitstorm for that guy.”
“I know. I feel bad.”
“Don’t beat yourself up over it. You probably did him a favor. It’s hard to imagine a grown man still in the closet in the 21stcentury.” Jeremy paused and picked at the label on his beer bottle. “Remember when we first came out to our parents?”
“Sure.” When they turned 16 they had decided to tell their parents together. Even as teenagers they had leaned on each other for moral support. “My mom said she already knew, and she had already discussed it with my father. It was kind of anticlimactic.”
“Yeah.” Jeremy smiled. “She called it mom-sense. I wish someone would have told my mother about that superpower, because she was clueless.”
Alan pressed his lips together and nodded, recalling how badly Jeremy’s parents had reacted to the news. His father had thought they were boyfriends and flipped the fuck out. “I thought your dad was gonna kick my ass.”
Jeremy let out a sarcastic laugh. “He thought you were responsible for turning me gay. After he threw you out of the house, I told him that you weren’t my best friend because you were gay, too. We were best friends because we both loved music. And surfing. And we played together in a band.” Jeremy paused and looked across the bus and out the window. “He said he didn’t care that we weren’t ‘gay together’ – that’s exactly how he put it.” Jeremy laughed, for real this time. “How stupid is that?”
“Is that why you ran away to Brandon’s that night?”
Jeremy nodded. “Mr. and Mrs. B. were awesome. He went to talk to my father while Mrs. B. fed me homemade ravioli. They let me stay the night. I have no idea what Mr. B. said to my father, but he showed up the next morning and took me home. When you rang my doorbell that afternoon I almost shit my pants, but they never said anything. Just ‘your friend’s here’. I never thought you’d have the nerve to come back to my house so soon.”
Alan remembered the day well and the apprehension about defying Jeremy’s father’s order to stay the hell away from his son. “I didn’t care. I wanted him to know that I wasn’t going anywhere. I wasn’t going to stop being your friend just because he didn’t like me.” Alan flashed a toothy smile. “He loves me now, though.”
Jeremy threw the cap to his beer at Alan. “Kinda hard not to, bruh.”
