This Is Not the End

by Sidney Bell

  Zac notices that Cal’s still standing there, and he scoots to one side. “Sorry. It’s all yours. I’ll get out of your way.”

  You have never once, a day in either of our lives, been in my way, Cal doesn’t say. Instead, he goes into the bathroom and starts stripping his clothes off, shaking his head at his own stupidity. He’s naked with the shower curtain in one hand when he realizes that Zac’s busy looking through Anya’s makeup drawer, pawing through it with one hand but never picking anything up.

  “Feeling like it’s a good day for lipstick?” Cal lifts an eyebrow.

  “Oh. Maybe. Do you think—” Zac squints at the label on the first thing he picks up “—d’you think Happy Harlot is my color?”

  “I think you’re gorgeous with or without makeup,” Cal says, only half teasing, because he does like the look of Zac in black eyeliner. Zac in leather and eyeliner was the star of more than a few of Cal’s jerk-off sessions back when he was in his early twenties, back when he still let himself jerk off thinking about Zac, before he realized how much it was tearing him up inside to indulge those feelings. He buried them, but this whole thing has opened up that grave all over again. Jesus, this is the stupidest thing he’s ever done. He’s gonna break when this ends.

  And despite knowing that, Cal can’t stop staring.

  Zac’s gaze catches his in the mirror. “Really?” he asks, all jocularity gone. “You think I’m gorgeous?”

  Cal clears his throat. He has no idea what to say, not in a silence this loaded. “I mean. Yeah. Half the world wants to be with you, Zac. You can’t be surprised that I noticed it too.”

  “I am, though,” Zac says quietly. Maybe more quietly than he’s ever said anything. “Surprised, I mean. I am.”

  Cal wants to press his hand against Zac’s back, right between his shoulder blades where his hair has dripped a few beads of water. His skin would be damp and hot. He lists forward without meaning to, and then Anya’s calling up from downstairs, “Is one of you coming down for breakfast? Because I have to get to the bank, and that means someone has to do something with this child until Marina gets here!”

  Zac jumps. He puts the lipstick back in the drawer and shuts it, then stands there for a good five seconds without moving, staring at the counter. Cal wants to shake something, wants to grab him and hold him in place, but he doesn’t, he doesn’t know what Zac wants and he doesn’t know how to ask them to make room when there isn’t any, couldn’t possibly be any, and even if there is, it won’t be for someone like Cal, someone who always fails the people he loves most.

  Abruptly, Zac leaves without another word.

  Cal gets in the shower. He turns the water to very hot. Despite being sweaty and overheated from his run, he feels cold.

  * * *

  By the time they get into the studio to work for the day, the house is quiet. Anya’s back from the bank, upstairs in her own studio. Marina has taken PJ to the park, and from there they’ll be going to run some errands for the house. Zac and Cal have all morning to try to excavate some kind of sense from this stupid album.

  Zac’s going through the lyrics again, probably with the filter of Cal’s words from last night, his lips moving as he reads, and Cal feels naked and exposed having Zac’s attention on all his vulnerable spots. He feels kind of sick when Zac puts the sheaf of papers down. He can’t imagine the feedback can possibly be good even with the metaphor clearer.

  “You’re kind of not in a good place, huh?” Zac asks, his eyes on his guitar.

  “I’m feeling better,” Cal admits after a moment. He’s been half-expecting a debate about rewriting the lyrics. He would prefer that, actually, much as he hates debating. This new topic seems likely to turn into an actual fight. “I wrote most of these lyrics a while ago, remember? It’s not specific to any one place. Or time. It’s just—the nature of the beast.”

  “It’s kind of brutal.” Zac picks out a little riff from one of their older songs, trailing off in the middle and then starting again, making a discordant mistake because he’s not really paying attention to his fingers. “I mean, it was always depressing, but I hadn’t realized that the old man was so much...well, you. And I really hadn’t thought about your recovery like it’s something to dislike or resent or...whatever. I assumed it was a good thing. Nothing but a good thing.”

  “It’s a lot of things. It’s something I believe in and value and want, and I know it’s necessary for me to have a good life, but it’s also really hard, and that means it’s hard not to hate it sometimes.”

  “Are you even happy?”

  Cal stares at his bass, that dark red finish, the heavy strings. “Any sober day is a happy day.”

  “I mean here. With us. Are you happy?”

  Sort of. But he can’t say that. Not without unleashing a whole host of things he has no idea how to put into words. “Yes.”

  Zac’s expression goes taut. “You’re such a shitty liar.”

  “I’m not lying.” Cal blows out a breath. “I don’t know how to talk about this with you. I don’t know how to—Yes, I’m happy. Having you here makes it a lot better.”

  “It’s good,” Zac interrupts, almost mean. “Say that it’s good.”

  “It is good,” Cal says, with as much patience as he can scrape together. “God, you have no idea. It’s so—you and Anya are—it’s just—”

  “Then how come it’s a lie? If it’s good, why is it a lie to say you’re happy? I can tell you are.”

  “It’s not—”

  “Oh, fuck you. You can’t even look me in the eye—”

  Cal forces himself to meet Zac’s gaze. “I’m happy. Here. Like this. With you and Anya. All right?”

  “Stop lying to me!”

  “I’m not lying, you jerk.”

  Zac sets his guitar aside and gets up. He stabs a finger in the air at Cal. “I’m not doing this with you again. I’m not wading through a million pounds of bullshit deflections to get to the one grain of honesty you’ll give us. You’re such a fucking coward. Just say what you mean.”

  Cal sets his bass aside too because his hands are shaking. He stands up and puts the instrument in its stand in the corner, and then turns to face Zac. It’s not only his hands shaking. His whole body is vibrating, because it’s here. It’s happening now, and he’s not ready. It’s too soon. “I don’t have the energy for this, that’s all.”

  Zac nods. “Right. For being with us. All the massive energy required to watch movies and have sex and eat dinner. So sorry to put you out. Do you even want to be here?”

  “I want it more than my next breath,” Cal snaps, and his hand is somehow on Zac’s collar, wrenching at it. He can see Zac’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallows, can see the sweet hollow of his collarbone. “I’m not the one who doesn’t want—it’s not—You’re the one who can’t decide what you want. One minute you’re kissing me and the next you’re pulling away. At least with Anya I know she wants me, you’re impossible—”

  “Me?” Zac shoves Cal, just enough to rock him back a step and make him let go of his shirt. “You’re the one who won’t fucking put out.”

  Cal’s mouth drops open. He can’t think of a single thing to say, that’s how wrong Zac is, but Zac’s going on anyway.

  “Yeah, every time we get close, you get all—” Zac waves his hands wildly in the air. “What the fuck is that?”

  “I do not! You’re the one who backs off every time we get close!”

  “I didn’t want to push!” Zac shoves him again, still not very hard. “I thought you’d take off on me again if I made you uncomfortable!”

  “It’s not pushing!” Cal shoves him right back, also not very hard. “I would’ve said yes!”

  “Well, I didn’t know that! You never say what you want. It’s like taking a jackhammer to cement with you, trying to figure out what you need me to do. Just fucking say shit!�
��

  “I want you!” Cal roars, and Zac lunges forward and kisses him.

  It’s every bit as filthy as any other kiss they’ve had, but this time Zac drives him backward until he hits the wall, until he can’t breathe because Zac’s so tight up against him.

  “Take your shirt off,” Zac demands against Cal’s mouth, but Cal doesn’t get a chance to obey because Zac’s dragging him to the floor. He’s pushing Cal onto his back and shoving at him, wrenching at his clothes. Fabric tears, but Cal doesn’t care, couldn’t possibly, because he’s yanking at Zac the same way. He needs Zac naked, right now. He thought they were going to break up and instead it’s—this, and he can’t believe it, it’s too impossible, too heavy, too ridiculous to be believed, even as Cal arches beneath Zac once it’s bare skin to bare skin.

  “I could strangle you sometimes.” Zac uses a hand to shove Cal’s face to one side, biting at the tendon in his throat, making Cal’s hips jerk.

  “Feeling’s mutual,” Cal gasps, and retaliates by wrapping his legs around Zac’s hips and pulling him closer. He aches in every cell, trying to get closer and closer, but he can’t, he can never touch enough or kiss enough or hold Zac tightly enough. He wants to hold Zac down and explore this gangly body, take it apart, learn every sensitive spot and secret, and there’s no time because the craving is vicious inside him, incapable of waiting. He lifts his head, biting at Zac’s mouth, demanding more, and Zac gives it to him.

  They rub off on each other right there, graceless and fast and dirty, cocks raw with the friction, hands leaving bruises, teeth scraping, knees bumping, hearts thundering, limbs sweaty.

  Roughly three minutes after Zac kisses him, their bellies are smeared with come. It’s over. Twenty years in the making, weeks of foreplay, and it takes three minutes. It’s already over. Cal can’t stop those words from parading through his brain: It’s over. It’s already over. Cal’s shaking all over again, and it has nothing to do with sex or orgasms and everything to do with the corner they’ve turned. Zac’s sprawled on top of him, heavy and limp, and Cal closes his eyes. His breathing hitches.

  Zac lifts his head from where it’s been resting on Cal’s shoulder, peering down at him, and Cal feels every one of those twenty years as he stares right back, at this man who’s been the foundation of his life for two decades. It’s like he can see every iteration of Zac all at once: nineteen-year-old Zac getting sloppy with booze backstage after their first gig, young and gleeful and unable to stop laughing; twenty-three-year-old Zac howling into a microphone, his voice sending shivers through a packed stadium in Osaka, his pale skin glowing with sweat beneath the hot, glaring lights; twenty-eight-year-old Zac playing guitar in the studio with his eyes closed, a small smile on his lips as he coaxes beauty from the strings.

  He can especially see the Zac of right now, the Zac who’s a husband and father, the Zac who’s grown up from a wild, reckless boy into a settled man who already has a family, who has a wife he’s made promises to and a son who’s going to be old enough soon to start needing a word for the role Cal plays in his life, and Cal’s heart fucking breaks. It just breaks. He presses his forehead against Zac’s collarbone and tries not to completely fall apart.

  “Hey,” Zac says, soft and worried. “Hey, Cal, baby. What’s wrong?” He frowns, sort of flinches. “You, uh, you wanted that, right?”

  Cal nods helplessly. He’s fucking crying. Great. It’s just—this couldn’t possibly get worse.

  “Don’t do that,” Zac says, sounding terrified. “Shit. What’d I do?”

  You loved her first. You married her. You had a family with her. And I can’t even blame you, because she’s wonderful and I love her too, so much, and I’d marry her and have a son with her in a heartbeat, and I am so fucking jealous of your happiness, and it’s killing me to watch it and think about what comes after.

  Zac is terribly still, his expression stunned. Then he says, “After what?”

  And that’s the moment that Cal realizes that he’d said all of that out loud. Cal lets his head fall back onto the hardwood floor. He lets his legs untangle from Zac’s. This is going to be it after all, isn’t it? The moment when Zac says, Look, this has been a great time, but I think this is getting kinda heavy, don’t you?

  “After this.” Cal gestures, halfheartedly, to himself and Zac. And then aimlessly at the ceiling, because Anya’s upstairs.

  Zac still doesn’t move. “And you see this happening soon? This...this after.”

  “I don’t—Isn’t that what this is?” He swallows hard. “You think I don’t know that I’m—” He can’t say disposable, because he knows he’s not. Zac needs him almost as much as Cal needs him back. But he also knows there’s a time and a place, and this was always going to happen, and this is the natural spot. They yelled at each other to get to this point, hell, they shoved each other. If they’re going to salvage any kind of friendship out of this, it’s stupid to wait and risk things devolving further. “I know I’ve always had a limited shelf life with you guys.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Zac asks.

  Okay, maybe the shelf life thing wasn’t really better phrasing than the disposable thing. Cal winces. “I mean...”

  “You mean what?”

  “I mean...” Cal cannot think of a single word. His brain is doing a mental shrug, a you’re on your own, buddy.

  “You mean that you think we’re going to break up with you.”

  “Are we...are we together?”

  Zac’s mouth drops open. Then it snaps closed. “We had this talk. You said you needed something serious. We said we were serious.”

  “Sure, for now.” Cal can’t believe that Zac is actually making him say it. For the first time, Cal can imagine a time when he could hate Zac, because this is—it’s unbearably cruel. And there’s no purpose in it. There’s no point in saying any of it. All Zac has to do is ask him to go. He doesn’t have to pry this whole ugly thing out of Cal’s chest first.

  “For now,” Zac repeats, his tone tightening. “Because we have a shelf life. Serious, my ass. You’re such a fucking liar.”

  Cal’s really confused now, because he doesn’t know what else Zac can be expecting. It’s like they’re having two separate conversations. Okay, maybe Cal was wrong for assuming that this was the exact moment Zac would realize he’s done with this part of their relationship, but Cal’s not sure what the hell else could be going on. “Yeah, all right? There’s a shelf life. You can’t get mad at me for...for realizing that. What was I supposed to do? Plan on this lasting forever? How can you even expect that from me? That’s...it’s mean.”

  “You really...” Zac clears his throat. “You’re really—you’ve really had one foot out the door this whole time.”

  He sounds so small. So hurt. So—so much like Cal’s being a monster that Cal just—snaps.

  “It’s not my fucking door!” he yells, making Zac jump. He pushes Zac off him and gets up, going for his jeans and tugging them on. He uses his shirt to wipe their come off his belly, then throws it aside. Zac’s staring up at him, stunned, and it only pisses Cal off worse. “It’s not my house. It’s not my table or my couch or my wife or my child. All the ‘serious’ in the world won’t change that this is your family, and I’m the guy who’s... What the hell do you want me to do? Maybe it takes a year, or maybe it takes you five years or ten, but eventually you’re going to put together that you have a family that you belong to and it’s time to settle down and this game that you and Anya play where you invite someone in for a while to spice things up is gonna get old, and I’m really glad that you like me more than the rest of the guys you’ve screwed on the side, but you’ll still have a family when it’s done. What do I have? What can I ever get out of this that’s mine? And fuck you for not bothering to fucking notice that fact, fuck you, Zac, for assuming any of this is easy or that I should just carve all of this out of myself for you t
o paw through and—”

  Cal stops short because he’s about to say something horrible. Something massive and terrible is clawing its way out of his throat. He doesn’t think he can do this. He wants a drink. He wants to stay. He wants to hear Zac say the words so he can leave and never look at any of them again, because watching them all be happy while he’s grieving will be the thing that kills him.

  “Wow,” Zac says, staring. “Wow. When you let go, you really let go, don’t you?”

  “There’s a reason I usually don’t.” Cal sounds wobbly. His knees are weak. He sits back down.

  “Yeah.” Zac stands and doesn’t take the time to do more than tug his boxers back on before he’s heading for the door. “Come with me.”

  “Zac—”

  Zac turns back, grabs his wrist, and hauls him up and into the hallway. “I’ve never been this furious in my life, man. We’ve been friends for twenty years, and I had no idea that you thought I could ever be this much of a user, especially of someone I love, and it’s pretty fucking clear you don’t trust me at all, but you’re gonna do what I say, right now, no arguing, because I’m fucking done with this garbage. Come. Upstairs. You. Bastard.”

  Cal exhales hard but allows Zac to tow him up the stairs, and when Zac points to the bedroom, Cal goes in and slumps onto the bed to wait. He feels like a man on death row, waiting for the inevitable.

  He can hear Zac down the hallway talking to Anya, and then hears her loud, startled “What!” and he figures he’s screwed that up too. But at the same time, he doesn’t know what he could’ve done differently. It’s not his fault that he figured out the end of this road before either of them did.