You think you might let out a sigh or a moan or some kind of noise, because he stops, draws his hand away from your body. You feel him move next to you, pulling himself away from you, his skin no longer on yours, his breath no longer on your shoulder, your nose no longer at his throat. Your eyes snap open, because suddenly you're cold again.
"Hey, hey," you say, blinking against the sunlight filtering through the cracked blinds. He's on his side of the bed, now, away from you, and you notice he's found a pair of boxers, because - unlike you, you also notice - he's no longer stark naked. He's on his back, hands clasped over his stomach, staring pointedly at the ceiling, so he has an excuse not to look at you, you think. "Hey," you repeat, and prop yourself up on your elbows. You think you should probably be more self-conscious, but you also think, fuck, you slept with him last night, didn't you, so who cares what he can see now?
"Hey," he says, tersely.
You scoot over a little, so you press your forearm to his bicep. He flinches, you can tell. You lean over, so your face is in the periphery of his vision, and his eyes meet yours. You smile a bit, but even you can tell it's forced. "Why'd you stop?" you ask, and you can still sort of feel the ghost of his fingers on your skin.
"What?" he says, and glances away from you.
"Nothing," you say, your voice small and weak, and you expel a breath raggedly. You don't want to cry, don't want to say anything, don't even want to acknowledge that you're not okay with that one-night deal. Don't even want to acknowledge that there was one night. You pause. "What're we doin' today?" you ask, just for something to say.
"I don't know," Chris says, and you hope that's not disgust you see in his face, before he turns away from you completely. "I'm probably going to go hang with Joey or something. Don't care about you."
And you think there was probably a reason he stuck that last thought in there, more than just because he doesn't know what you've got planned on your day off in Munich. A jab, yeah, you think, because it was unnecessary. Instead of saying something, you roll out of bed, snatch your boxers from the night before off the floor and head for the bathroom. You can taste stale beer in your mouth and your hair is stuck to your scalp, and no fucking wonder Chris doesn't want you.
You lock the door behind you and drop your boxers on the floor and stare in the greasy mirror at your reflection for a good long while. There are dark circles under your eyes and your hair is matted and your eyes are wide and you look impossibly young. No wonder Chris keeps reminding you of your age, too, you think, and turn on the water in the tub. You step inside and pull shut the sliding door and watch the water pool around your toes. You don't really notice the temperature of the water, but it's warm enough, you guess, so you turn on the shower, and it occurs to you that Chris really should be in here with you, shouldn't he?
You're lathering shampoo and wishing maybe you were capable of growing stubble, because that would make Chris think you're old and mature enough to be with him, right? When he pounds on the door, you hear him yelling over the spray of the shower.
"What?" you yell, pushing open the shower door so you can hear him.
"I'm going," he says, loudly, slowly, through the bathroom door, "to Lance's room, since he's not in there, so I can take a shower."
"Oh," you say, and quickly rinse the shampoo out of your hair and eyes. "Wait, I'm almost done," and shut off the water, because you don't want him to leave. Not yet.
You climb out of the shower, and vaguely wonder why the hell the bathtubs in Germany are so deep, and then why you noticed. You grab a towel off the rack near the toilet, kick your boxers under the bidet. "Wait?" you repeat, and wrap the towel around your waist before opening the bathroom door. You poke your head out, and find Chris leaning against the door of the hotel room. "I'm done," you say, uncertainly.
"Yeah?" Chris says. He isn't looking at you.
"Yeah," you say, and emerge from the bathroom. "Chris," you say, tentatively, when he takes a step forward, closer to you, and he's still not dressed, just in his boxers, but now also a t-shirt. "Chris," you say again, because you're even nakeder, with just a hotel towel around your waist, and you're still wet, and that should be irresistible to Chris, shouldn't it?
"Don't, Justin," he says, and he's still not looking at you. He brushes past you into the bathroom, and you jump, just a little, when his shoulder brushes your bare skin.
"What," you say, and stand in the doorway so he can't close the door. "I -"
"Don't," he repeats, a little more harshly. You blink. "It's not. It. it was a mistake, Justin. Last night. It didn't mean anything," he says. "I told you. I'm sorry." He adds this last part a little more quietly.
"Oh," you choke out, and hitch your towel as you walk away. You knew that already, didn't you, because he told you it was a one time thing, and he apologised, so that means it didn't count, right? It was a mistake because you're too young and he's too old, but it's not like you can help that. It didn't mean anything because he says it didn't, but it must have, mustn't it?, if he'd done it all, because Chris has never struck you as being the kind of person up for a casual fuck. You could be wrong though, right, because you're just sixteen and he's twenty-five, and he's schooled in the ways of life, and you definitely are not.
You sigh and feel a knot in your throat, but you pull clothes out of your suitcase anyway and let your towel drop and get dressed, because you have to continue as usual, and maybe JC will want to do something with you, today. It's not the end of the world, not really, that Chris doesn't want to be with you, and you can't let it show.
You don't even notice that Chris is watching you until you step into your shoes and finally hear the bathroom door close.
When you knock on the door of the room next door, you hear someone - Joey, you guess - yell, "go the fuck away," and while that doesn't sound all that encouraging, you really don't feel like going back to your room, now.
"Is Jayce in there?" you ask, and rest your forehead on the panel of the door.
There's a grunting noise and a few quickly exchanged whispers from within, then JC's voice, which is surprisingly clear. "Just a sec," he says, and then you hear a thump, followed by footfalls coming towards the door. You move away from the door, not really wanting a repeat from last night, unless it involves Chris.
"Go away," JC says, when he swings open the door. He blinks blearily down at you and there's a blush on his cheeks and he's wearing a wifebeater and what appear to be Joey's boxers. You blink right back at him. "I have a headache, I'm hungover," he says, and his tone is arrhythmic, even more so than usual. When you don't move, he says, "What d'you want, Justin?"
"I was wondering if, um," you say, then pause, because now you're kind of forgetting your pretenses for coming over, but you know it had something to do with JC and you and probably the city and no one else, because they're either uninteresting or slutty or insensitive. "Um," you repeat, and you remember. "If you wanted to hang out with me today, like. go see Munich or something."
"We've been here a week, Jup," he says, and closes the door a little. "We've seen Munich." He looks at you contemplatively, then, "Go ask Chris," and, "no," when he closes the door entirely.
You stand outside the door for a few more minutes, staring at it crookedly, before it occurs to you that you're kind of hungry and should probably go find breakfast.
Chris is sitting in a chair pulled up to the window with his headphones on, when you come back later. He's staring outside, across the courtyard to the buildings on the other side, and since you've done that before, and it was kind of boring, you figure he's thinking. Or, by the set of his jaw and his slightly furrowed forehead, you think it might be called seething, because calm he is not.
"Hey," you say, and your voice hitches a little, so he probably didn't hear you, you don't think. You sit down at the foot of the bed, legs spread in a vee, back against the bed, and today's looking to be really boring, because you just turned down your mom for going shopping with her, because she's your mom, and JC's hungover and Joey's boring and Lance is...Lance, and you don't even know what Chris' deal is. "Hey," you try again, because he's still not paying any attention to you.
"Yeah, hi," he says, glancing over at you briefly.
So you stare at him, just a little, because he's hot, when you say, "About last night -"
and you don't stop, even though you flinch, when he interrupts you with, "Don't, J. Drop it," and his voice is clipped and short.
"No," you say, and pick at the carpet between your thighs. "It's just. why's it so bad?" You wish your voice would stop coming out so meek and small, because you're not intimidated by Chris or anything, he's just your hot best friend who's treating you like shit after you slept with him.
Oh, right.
"Going to go see Joey," he says, then, "Don't do this," and clicks off his discman, pulling off his headphones. "Just forget it happened," he says, and steps gingerly over you. "It shouldn't've happened."
"Yeah, it should," you say, just as he leaves the room, but it's so soft, you know he didn't hear you. It's stupid, you think, that it's affecting you like this, that you're so fucking sad you don't mean anything to him. You can't help it, though, not when you can hear him knocking on Joey's door and his voice floating through the thin walls, and fuck, he really should be in here, not out there avoiding you because he thinks he made a mistake, when he wanted it, and you wanted it, and that doesn't really constitute a mistake, does it?
You don't really notice that you're crying until you hear Chris say, "let's get out of here," and you feel a patch of wetness form on your thin t-shirt, over your ribcage. You lean your head back on the bed and blink away tears, slowly, and you're not straining to hear the conversation in the next room - really, you're not.
"Oh, hey," you hear Joey say, and his voice drops a notch. "What - what happened last night?"
"Never mind," Chris says, and you hope it's not your imagination that he does, in fact, sound regretful, but not in a bad way.
"Oh," Joey says. When you blink, tears are slipping down your cheeks. "I. you. he. He didn't want - want anything?" You don't even know why you're crying, but you can't help it.
"No," Chris says, a little too quickly, you think. There's a pause. Then, "yeah. Yeah, he did," and he sounds resigned.
There's another pause, and you don't know what's going on. Now your eyes are clenched shut, so you won't cry any more, but it's not really working, and when you bring your hand up to your face, your cheeks and eyelashes are damp and your eyes sting a little.
"Then what the hell are you doing in here?" Joey asks; you can detect a vague edge to his voice.
"I. I didn't. he didn't. We. um." Chris pauses. "It shouldn't -"
"What the fuck, Chris," Joey says, and there's definitely an edge, now. "Have you even talked to him today?"
"Yeah -"
"Did you even see him this morning?" Joey's voice is getting increasingly loud, and you feel like such a fucking kid, sitting in the next room, being spoken about as if you really need Joey to defend your honour. You want to be angry, but you just can't bring yourself to it.
"Yeah -"
"He came by earlier, y'know. He fucking looked like hell -"
"Look, it doesn't matter, Joe. Shut up. He was drunk, he's a kid, it doesn't matter." You think Chris is full of shit, because like hell it doesn't matter.
"Chris," Joey says, suddenly, and the anger's gone from his voice, you think, and you hear a dull thud, and Chris saying,
"Ow, fuck, you bastard," even though it's not so coherent, followed by quick footsteps and the sound of running water.
"Yeah, fuck you," Joey says, loudly. You stuff your fist in your mouth to stop from crying any harder, not like you're really crying that hard anyway, but still, and bite down on your knuckles.
"Motherfucker," Chris says, his voice muffled over the sound of the water.
"Go talk to him," Joey says, and it occurs to you that you really don't know what just happened. "If he doesn't care, come back and I'll apologise and kiss it better and we'll go out, but right now you're being a fucking asshole."
"Fuck you," Chris says, but the water shuts off, and it's not too long before he's opening the door to your hotel room. You don't want to look up, you don't, you can't, but you do, and he's sucking on his bottom lip and staring at you as he closes the door. "Hey," he says quietly.
You don't say anything, because there's nothing to say. Not any more.
"I'm sorry," he says, then, softly. He sits down across from you, legs crossed. Between your feet, you notice, because your legs are still spread. You suddenly feel vulnerable, but you don't want to do anything about it.
"Fuck you," you say, and wipe the tears from your cheeks, even though you know you'll just have to do it again next time you blink. You're beyond caring, at this point.
"I didn't know," he says, and when he says 'know', you notice his bottom lip is bleeding. Oh, you think. Oh.
"The fuck you didn't," and your voice cracks over 'fuck'. You draw your legs up to your chest and hook your arms around your knees, and you're not rocking yourself in some semblance of comfort - you're not.
"You don't even know what you want," he says. "I'm sorry, it's just. you. you're sixteen," he says. You really didn't need to be reminded of that.
"Fuck you," you say again, this time choked. "I do know what I want." You know, now, that you're staring at his lips, and the way the blood's beading around the cut, the way he quickly licks it away before it drips. "I fucking know what I want," you say, and there's desperation there, "so fuck your pity and your apologies if they don't fucking mean anything."
"It. they. They do, J," he says, and he gingerly touches his lip. He's looking at you, and you know you look like hell, and you should care, but you don't. "But you're young -"
"I don't care," you say, vehemently. "I told you. It's not my fucking fault."
"I don't think we -"
"Don't fuck with me," you say, and you can tell you're on the verge of hysterics. "You. fuck. fuck." You close your eyes again, and fresh tears stain your cheeks, and you feel so fucking stupid, sitting here crying in front of Chris, and why the hell does this hurt? "Fuck," you try again, "if you don't like me, fine. But I fucking thought you did, okay? And it can be good, it can, and I don't fucking care how old you are." Somewhere in the middle of that, your voice rose a tone, you think, so you take a deep breath and hope maybe you can get yourself under control, because how long have you been crying, now? "It - it'll be, it -"
"Justin," Chris says, and suddenly his face is hovering near yours, though you can't see it because your eyes are closed, and his fingers brush your cheek. "I'm sorry," he says. His finger traces your lower lip, and your tongue darts out to lick it inadvertantly, and then he kisses you, and you can taste his blood on your lips, but the kiss is sweet. You relax against him, unfolding your limbs from yourself, and he slips an arm around your waist.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he repeats against your mouth, and this time, it's not a reference to how old you are. "It's just. I didn't. I." He kisses you again, then pulls you up to the bed, so you're sitting on the edge, rather than the floor. "Love you," he mumbles, and you thread an arm around his neck. You move back a little, so he fits in between your legs again.
And now you really can't stop crying, not with his tongue down your throat and his hands slipping up the back of your t-shirt and his thighs pressing against yours and his stubble scratching at your chin, and this is what it's supposed to be like, so this can't be a mistake can it?
When Chris says, "your mom went shopping, didn't she," you know it's not a mistake, and you know this isn't just some one-shot deal.