Chapter Eight #2
“Sorry. I was just thinking that the lean-to is taking longer than I thought,” he lied.
There was no sense in worrying Troy when he was just getting his health back.
Brian glanced at the half-built structure made of logs duct taped together.
Three main supporting beams would hold up a roof slanted down to the ground diagonally.
“At least the frame’s done. I’ll start weaving the roof tomorrow. ”
“Great. I can help.”
Brian sat next to Troy on the blanket, crossing his legs and giving the fire a prod with a long stick. The usual mixture of fish, coconut, papaya, and breadfruit smoked on their cooking stone. “No, you rest.”
“Dude.” Troy leveled a stare at Brian. “I have been resting in that teepee for days. I cannot rest anymore or I’m going to lose my mind. Besides, it hurts way less. I haven’t cried once today.” He grinned. “Huge improvement.”
A smile ghosted over Brian’s lips. “Fair enough. I just don’t want you to do too much too quickly.”
“I think I can weave. Hell, we should start right now.”
“After dinner. We’ve got to fatten up.”
Troy rubbed his face, yawning. “Okay. Can you shave me tomorrow too?” He wrinkled his nose. “Jesus, I stink. I don’t know how you’re sleeping in there with me.”
Brian shrugged. “It’s fine.” Truth was, Troy was rather ripe, but Brian needed to stay close by. Troy seemed to be recovering, but what if he suddenly took a turn? What if he called for Brian, and Brian didn’t hear him? What if he wasn’t there?
As they ate dinner, they pointed out the constellations they knew and made up names for the ones they didn’t. Brian pointed. “That’s the humpback of Notre Dame.”
“Is he related to the hunchback?”
Brian laughed. “Humpback, hunchback. You know what I mean. And yes, they’re cousins. See?” He pointed. “There’s another one just to the left.”
“Oh yeah! I see it. We need a beauty to go with the beasts.” Troy scanned the heavens. “Hmm.”
While Troy searched, Brian found himself watching him in the campfire’s orange glow.
He’d been frighteningly pale the day after the bite, his tan somehow diminished, especially in contrast to the terrifying red of his lower leg.
But now Troy looked much more himself again, and Brian could breathe more easily, the awful weight of fear and regret lighter.
Still, the guilt lingered. He swallowed a bite of fish and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I took off that day.”
Troy tore his gaze from the sky with a frown. “It wasn’t your fault. I shouldn’t have been a baby about it.”
“But I shouldn’t have gone.”
“Why not?”
Brian raised his eyebrows and nodded at Troy’s foot. “Because that happened.”
“I’m the one who chose to go exploring on my own. This could have happened to either of us anytime. It was bad luck.”
“But if I’d been with you, you wouldn’t have…” Been so scared. “Been alone.”
Troy sighed and poked at his dinner with his shell spoon.
“Look, it sucked sitting there in the jungle, thinking I was going to die and not being able to do anything about it. But I knew you’d come.
I just hoped you’d hurry the hell up, and you did.
So stop blaming yourself, okay? And if you want to be alone, you can.
I shouldn’t have taken it as an insult.”
“I didn’t explain the way I should have.”
“Okay. Explain now.”
Brian ate another mouthful and toyed with his makeshift spoon. When he swallowed, he said, “I’ve always been a bit of an introvert.”
“Really? You don’t seem shy.”
“I’m not. It’s like, when you’re tired and need to get energy, how do you do it? Some people get it from being around others and engaging with them. But I recharge by being alone. Reading, thinking, just…being.”
“Right.” Troy nodded, seeming to contemplate it.
“That makes sense. I don’t mind being alone sometimes, but usually someone’s always around.
That’s one of the great things about being in the band.
Always someone to hang with. The guys, or the staff.
I guess I do prefer it. But you wouldn’t want to be alone all the time, would you? ”
“No. I think… In Australia, I was alone too much.”
Troy watched him. “Is it a different system down there and you had to train again or whatever? Is that why you were the copilot on my flight?”
The tension was immediate, as always. Brian thought he might snap his spoon in two, so he dropped it in his bowl and put it aside.
He wasn’t hungry anymore. “No, it was… I liked it better as first officer. I didn’t want to be in charge.
” He could feel the weight of Troy’s gaze.
“I wanted a change. It could be competitive at the big airlines.” It was a truth, if not the truth.
“Hmm. Yeah, I can see that. You wanted a slower pace.”
I didn’t want to be responsible when people died. “Right.”
“I think about that sometimes. We’ve done four albums and five world tours. It never stops. And I know I really shouldn’t complain.”
Brian smiled. “You’re allowed to complain to me. My tell-all’s going to focus on much more salacious details. I won’t tell the world how ungrateful you are.”
Laughing, Troy slapped carelessly at Brian’s arm. “Thanks for that.”
“But seriously, I can imagine that must be damn tiring after a while.”
“Yeah.” Troy’s smile faded. “I wonder if they kept going without me.” He shook his head. “God, I hope Ty’s okay. I hate that I’m not there. That I can’t find out.” He scrubbed at his face. “It was drugs.”
“That’s why you and your brother fought?”
“Yeah. Why I left. He’s been drinking and doing drugs. It started out as a bit of partying, and I told myself it was normal. He’s older now, rebelling. Beer and pot were one thing. Coke and heroin… I just can’t. I…” He shook his head, nostrils flaring.
“Hell, I don’t blame you.” Brian shook his head. “That’s scary stuff.”
“He promised he’d stop, and I told him if he did that shit again, I was out. So when he did, I had to leave. Or else…”
“Or else it would be an empty threat. Seems like drugs and alcohol are hard to avoid in the music industry. Or Hollywood. Addiction’s a powerful thing.”
Troy regarded him for a moment. “You sound like you know something about it.”
Picking at his coconut husk, Brian shrugged.
“Only a little. My mother died when I was seven, and I never knew my father. So it was just me and my grandparents. Gran had an accident when I was about nine. Fell off a step ladder trying to change a lightbulb. Nine times out of ten, you’d be bruised and laugh it off. But she broke her back. It was rough.”
Troy winced. “God, that would be awful.”
“It was. She was laid up for months. But the real problem came after she was supposed to be recovered. She hid it well, but she’d gotten hooked on painkillers.
There were some days when I’d come home from school and she’d be on the couch, out cold.
I’d eat peanut butter and crackers for dinner, waiting for her to wake up.
Grandpa worked late at the barber shop. Of course I should have told him, but I was scared. ”
“I’m sorry,” Troy murmured.
“It’s okay. Wow, I haven’t thought about this in a long time.
Grandpa did figure it out, of course, and Gran knew she had a problem, and she kicked it.
She was a determined woman.” He picked up his coconut and fiddled with the spoon, scraping the shell around the edges.
“I think you did the right thing. Taking a stand.”
Brian’s approval was comforting. “Even though it brought us here?”
The idea that he might never have met Troy otherwise was suddenly a rock lodged in Brian’s esophagus, and he could only nod.
“I just wish I could talk to them. Send a message in a freaking bottle. Go online and find out how they’re doing even if I can’t talk to them.”
“While you’re at it, I have a list of all the things on this island I want to google. Starting with whatever bit you. If it was a snake, it must have been a python or constrictor. They can still bite, but it won’t kill you.”
“I feel like it was too small. There was something there, but it was…maybe a foot long? I don’t know.” He gingerly rolled his ankle from side to side. “At least it feels a lot less like burning death.”
“I’ll drink to that.” Brian lifted his water bottle and took a swig. “God, I would kill for a cold beer.”
“Also, a Big Gulp Coke with ice would be heaven. I miss processed sugar so much.” Troy stared at the gentle swells of the ocean. “Okay, I can’t take this.” He put down his dinner and hoisted his leg off the pack. “I’m too gross. I need a bath. Can you help me?”
“Why don’t we wait until tomorrow when it’s light?”
“I can’t. Please?”
How could Brian look into those big brown eyes and say no? “Okay, let’s get you up.”
Once Troy was standing on his good leg—keeping his right foot elevated behind him with his knee bent—Brian swore softly. “Shit. Should have taken your shorts off while you were on the ground. Hold on.”
Dropping down, he peeled Troy’s boxers over his hips. As his hands skimmed Troy’s thighs, brushing over the sparse hair there, Brian’s groin tightened, making his heart skip.
What the fuck?
They’d been naked around each other before, and Brian had seen a thousand other guys over the years in locker rooms. It had never been anything…weird.
But kneeling there in the sand, slipping down Troy’s underwear with Troy’s hand resting on his head for balance, it was…
different. A pulse of heat zipped through him, and he was very aware of the sensation of Troy’s flesh under his fingers, his thick cock in the periphery of Brian’s vision.
Brian kept his gaze zeroed in on Troy’s knees.
“Okay, right leg first.” Brian’s voice cracked, and he cleared his throat as he gently lowered the cotton over Troy’s swollen ankle and foot. “Can you put a bit of weight on it?”
“I think so.” Troy lowered his foot and tentatively leaned on it. He winced, but lifted his left foot enough for Brian to get the boxers off, leaning heavily on Brian’s shoulders now. “Will you be my crutch getting down there?”
“Of course.” Brian stood gratefully, trying to shake off his body’s strange behavior.
“You’re coming in, right?” He glanced down at Brian’s cargo shorts.
“Right.” With Troy still holding onto his shoulder, Brian quickly unzipped his shorts and stepped out of them and his boxers, keeping his gaze on the pale sand.
He wrapped his left arm around Troy, and they slowly made their way to the water’s edge.
The skin of their bare torsos and hips stuck together damply, and Troy felt so hot against him that Brian wanted to feel his forehead to make sure a fever wasn’t returning.
But Troy seemed fine, and Brian was being…
he didn’t even know what. He shook it off.
He was tired and stressed. Whatever. It was nothing.
The water was cool, and Brian sighed as his feet sunk into the soft, wet sand. “This was a good idea.”
“Hell yes.” Troy lowered his bad foot.
“Feel okay?”
“Salt stings a little, but it’s not bad. It feels kind of good. After before, this is nothing.” He hopped forward. “Okay, let me get down there.” When the water was knee-deep, he let go of Brian and did a little attempt at a dive that was more of a belly flop before rolling onto his back.
“Very graceful. I can tell you’re a dancer.” Brian gave him a quiet golf clap.
Paddling deeper on his back, Troy flipped him the finger. “I can dance. I’m not a dancer. There’s a difference. Besides, I’d like to see how graceful you look.”
Holding out his arms, Brian splatted into the water, trying to splash Troy as much as possible. So of course Troy splashed him back, and they laughed in the dark little waves under the glittering stars. When they tired of it, they floated on their backs, rocking on the gentle swells.
“I think the beauty’s there.” Troy pointed. “Near the beasts. That little cluster with a trail behind her. You see?”
“Uh-huh.” Brian turned his head to look at Troy. He stuck out his arm, but Troy was beyond his grasp. “Don’t float too far. You never know about the currents.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Troy kicked lazily with his good foot, floating back toward him.
Brian reached out, his fingers brushing over Troy’s wrist just to make sure.