***
It had worked much better than expected, and except for the unpleasantries of having biological samples collected, everything had gone smoothly. The doctors at the clinic were more than happy with running tests. That was just easy money for them, so the guy in charge hadn’t even questioned him about the real reason he wanted the investigations to be carried on.
Now he felt a tad more relieved, but it was just going to take a while to have the results back. Until then, he had to make sure that Aron didn’t fuck him by accident.
By accident? Who was he kidding? Aron was going to be all over his ass. Cooking? The guy behaved like he was trying to impress some chick. Carter had only tried it once. The girl he had been dating back then was nice; she had worn a cringing little smile all the time while trying to make sense of what lay there on her plate as if it was trying to reach her from beyond the grave like Carrie’s hand.
But Aron had clearly done it before, probably quite successfully, which could only mean that Carter was going to be well prepared for the offensive. It was extremely weird to be the one wooed. He needed to do something about it. Aron was bent on fucking his husband soon, and Carter needed to sort out a lot of things before that guy’s dick got within an inch of his backside. One of them being, of course, the fact that he needed to change back with Alex and let that guy get the well-deserved dicking from his beloved ‘hubby’.
In the meantime, he needed to juggle things, and he had never been a good juggler. He needed to make sure he was not going to blow things up at Alex’s workplace, he needed to maintain Aron’s marriage to the douchebag floating, and he needed to figure out a way to get back to his own body.
How was he going to do all those without fucking up really badly? He had no idea. But he was sure as hell going to try it.
***
About one hour later, an incredible smell hit his nostrils the moment he walked into the kitchen, where he supposed Aron still was, like the dutiful, loving husband he was. He made a small sound of delight before he could control himself. Aron’s eyes were shining as they were quickly trained on him.
Carter could almost feel the need to gulp. He could not be that easy. Well, at least he had one thing in common with Aron’s real husband: they both loved lasagna.
Aron quickly wiped his hands on his pristine white apron and walked towards Carter. There was a strange dance going on between them as Aron leaned in for a kiss, and Carter had no idea how to maneuver himself in such a way that Aron would just kiss him on the cheek, instead of lips.
With a small chuckle, Aron grabbed him hard, and, for a second, their eyes met, and Carter felt the strangest thing. Like he was on the verge of suddenly feeling very sick, or just his stomach was doing flip-flops, or it was just going to become airborne and wanted to come out through his throat ...
Aron leaned in and kissed him, softly the first time. Carter could now feel his eyelids doing their own show of a hummingbird impersonation. Great. What part of his anatomy was going to misbehave next?
Err, okay. Aron just went all in for a second kiss and this time he was using tongue. And the guy’s hands were starting to wander, too, clearly aiming for his behind. Now it was not time for him to get lost in all these games. He needed to put an end to the circus. His body couldn’t handle it at all.
So he kissed back, a bit too forcibly, and with a loud smack, but at least, Aron’s tongue slipped from his mouth like a weasel.
“Well, where’s that lasagna? I’m starving,” he began talking quickly.
“Hey,” Aron cooed while embracing him. “I’m trying to offer a proper welcome here.”
There was nothing proper about the way Aron’s tongue was trying to give him a full dental inspection.
“Well, do a good job then, and put some food on the table,” he joked.
Aron frowned slightly, but only for a second. He went straight to the oven while Carter excused himself to change into some home clothes and wash away the grime of being in the fashion business for a day. Half a day. Half a work day. Whatever, he really was starving and he could not think clearly.
***
“Wow,” he said, as he patted his belly with unhidden satisfaction. “That was great, Aron. Thank you.”
“Glad you liked it. I wasn’t expecting you to call for seconds, but it was my pleasure. And I can assure you, I used 97/3 beef for the recipe. I know you would accept nothing less. Let’s watch that waistline,” Aron said with a smile.
“I’ll work out later, to compensate,” Carter waved, earning another quizzical look from Aron. “What?”
“Your ballet instructor will definitely have a fit hearing you talk so casually about working out. We don’t want bulky muscles like Arnold, Alex,” Aron spoke in a weird voice with a little lilt, probably impersonating the ballet instructor.
“Ballet?” Carter’s face fell and was now probably crumpled on the floor somewhere.
There was no way he was going to do ballet. He had two left feet, and not good left feet. He was athletic as a general rule, but grace was something that had always evaded him.
“Don’t look so down. I know that you always end up bossing poor Pedro around. I think he is grateful when he doesn’t have you in charge.”
“Ah, well ...” Carter let the sentence stop mid-way.
He was speechless. And mortified. The mere idea of being dressed up in pants tight enough to reveal the entire anatomy of all his ancestors, not only his, was making him squirm.
“So, did you manage to go see him?” Aron cleared his voice.
“Hm?” Carter asked, too caught up in his own mind.
“Please tell me you went,” Aron said, a bit sternly. “To see Carter.”
“Ah, Carter. Yeah, yeah, I was. The poor guy,” Carter shook his head. “How come I escaped only with a few scratches, and he’s fucked up so badly?”
“The details are still unclear. The driver didn’t really see you at all. Or Carter. He just felt that he hit something. Heard the sound of something smashing against the truck, according to his statement. The police don’t seem to have too many details on the circumstances.”
Carter gulped as he reached for his wine glass. It felt eerie to hear about all this.
“So, no eyewitnesses? When did it happen? Was it late in the evening?”
“I was hoping you could tell me more. But you don’t remember anything,” Aron said, his eyes drifting away for a brief second. “It happened in the afternoon, and on a narrow street. The street camera didn’t catch more than the fire truck stopping abruptly. The police said that it was an impossible angle. As for eyewitnesses, there is a girl in the footage. But she just jumped in a streetcar moments later. She must have seen something, but she didn’t stick around to offer information. The only things we know about her are that that day she wore her hair in a ponytail, and had a huge backpack. Street view cameras don’t have that great resolution, unfortunately. The police launched an appeal on their Twitter, but, so far, there was nothing.”
“Damn,” Carter took a sip from his wine. “I feel a little guilty, you know? He’s lying there, while I’m here, eating lasagna and drinking wine. How could we be both hit by that fire truck and I escape like this while he’s in a coma?”
“Maybe you were just quick to cross the street, and you weren’t that badly hit,” Aron explained, as his eyebrows furrowed. “But don’t feel guilty. I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Well, better him than me,” Carter said wryly.
The irony was apparently lost on Aron.
“I didn’t say that,” Aron murmured and looked down. “Regardless of what he said and did at our wedding … I still care about him.”
Carter could tell it was taking Aron nerves of steel to admit that in front of his husband. Why had he had to fuck up so badly that day? Why had he gotten drunk and crashed Aron’s wedding? All he could remember was that he had felt pissed as hell and that he had just needed a scapegoat for what he was feeling. Or, simply put, he was such a closeted homophobe that his best friend getting married to a dude had been needed to bring that to the surface. Was it like a reversed closet thing, maybe? If gay guys needed to get out of the closet to realize who they were, homophobe dudes in denial needed to enter the closet?
That kind of reasoning was just taking him to one of the biggest conundrums in history. Do cats eat bats? Or do bats eat cats? He shook his head. If he was going down the rabbit hole, he would rather have his wits about him. And cats ate bats. He was sure of it. Or was it the other way around?
He must have been making all kind of faces for the last minute or so because Aron was now eyeing him warily.
“Please say something,” Aron said as he stood up to clean up the table.
He really needed to get out of his own head and take care of his temporary husband and what looked like quite fragile feelings. Aron was 6.4 tall, but Carter could bet Alex was bullying the guy like there was no tomorrow.
So he reached out and caught Aron’s wrist.
“I’ll do the dishes,” he said solemnly.
Surely, his sacrifice had to count for something. He only had disposable cutlery in his home, simply because he could not bring himself to do the dishes. It was an inefficient loss of time, as far as he was concerned. There was nothing to win from washing dishes and losing precious time while doing so. Except if you were Agatha Christie and this was a way for you to come up with new ideas for your next book. No wonder the lady had felt in a murderous mood when doing that. Yeah, washing dishes sucked balls.
Aron looked at him, without saying anything. Maybe instead of washing the dishes, he needed to do something else. With a sigh, he nudged Aron to sit down.
“Look,” he started. “I know how things went down.” No, he didn’t. “But I’m not mad at him anymore.” Alex was going to throw a hissy fit when they were going to swap back. “So just feel free to talk about him, without feeling guilty.”
“Really?” Aron looked at him carefully, but somewhat hopeful. “Please, Alex, tell me this is not some new idea of yours to torture me.”
Carter bit his bottom lip hard. He felt for Aron, but it was still a bit funny to see him so pussywhipped. Cockwhipped. Asswhipped? Ah, what the fuck was the gay equivalent to that? He had always known Aron to be his own man if a little stubborn and hardheaded at times. So this was a tad funny.
“Why are you grinning?” Aron’s eyes narrowed.
Carter quickly schooled his face to a more neutral expression.
“Sorry, I have a scattered brain these days.” At least, that was partially true. “What I mean to say is that you can talk about Carter. I have no issue with it.”
“Okay,” Aron spoke, although clearly not completely convinced. “And just know that everything is in the past anyway. And that you have no reason to feel insecure.”
Carter smiled. There, there, everything was fine. Wait, insecure? What was that supposed to mean?
“Why should I feel insecure?”
Aron shot him a strange glance.
“You know, about what I told you about Carter. I suppose that set you off more than the words he threw at us at the wedding. Although the guests were pretty much mortified. Really, how much of a cliché can I be?” Aron smiled ruefully as he ran one hand through his short black hair.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Carter murmured and, for some reason, his eyes remained glued to Aron’s mouth.
In passing, Aron wiped his bottom lip with one thumb. It was like he was trying to keep himself from smiling. A fond smile, with just a smidge of irony in it. Self-deprecating a little.
“You know,” Aron let his shoulders fall and looked away.
He could swear the guy was embarrassed. But for the love of all that was holy, he could not imagine why. So he just asked.
“Why?”
“Why what?” Aron tried to dodge the question.
“Why would you consider yourself to be a cliché?”
“Eh,” Aron pursed his lips. “Come on, we’ve all been there. Well, probably not you. Do you really need me to spell it? And you already know, it’s just that you are either blocking that particular weird and uncomfortable conversation we had, or you just enjoy seeing me squirm.”
“Aron.”
Hubby.
Jeesh, that was never going to grow old. Back on track, Carter, back on track, now there’s no point to dally on distractions, we’re on to something here. Maybe we’re going to find out why Aron doesn’t really hate us.
Why on Earth was he talking to himself like a bad impersonation of Deadpool?
Back on the fucking track.
“Aron. Just tell me. Come on. The truth will set you free. What cliché are you talking about?”
Aron linked his fingers and pressed both hands against his chest like he was just preparing for a sudden strike.
“You know. Me. The gay guy. Crushing on my straight best friend.”
Carter could swear the room just made a sudden tilt and swerve.
“Say what? What best friend?”
His IQ was searching its soul right now. There was nothing there, but a vast ocean of nothing. Maybe one last neuron was still standing. Last nervous cell standing. Sounded like the title of a B-rated horror movie. Or C.
Aron stopped his mental ramblings.
“Quit playing, Alex. I’m talking about me crushing on Carter.”
TBC
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