Kiss Me Tenderly

I stepped shyly into the front hallway and stopped, shocked.
When Alex said he was good looking, he wasn’t kidding.
Zack looked strong, smooth muscle filling out a white and blue polo that made his tan skin seem darker than it was. His brown hair was pushed off his face, a silver ring piercing his nostril, a good natured smile set on his face. He stood with an easy confidence in the hallway, an air of almost smugness and confidence radiating off of him.
Not my type and hopefully not Alex’s either.
Isobel was laughing at something he said, a bouquet of flowers he had apparently brought over clutched to her chest. Peter was smiling as well, a hand on Zack’s shoulder as they chatted about god knows what. And Alex.. A pang of jealousy with a slight undertone of hurt smacked me right in the chest when I saw that Alex was tucked under his arm, smiling up at him, smiling that beautiful smile he usually reserved for me at him.
My breath was sucked in sharply and I chewed on my lip as I watched the scene unfold.
I will not be a jealous boyfriend. Zack is just Alex’s friend. I will be a good boyfriend and not be angry with Zack for holding Alex like that. I will be a good person. I will treat him with respect as is due to Alex’s best friend/soul sibling.
I stepped forward into the void and smiled.
“Hey, you must be Zack,” my voice was warm but my hands were shaking with nerves. Goddamnit.
Zack’s cool brown eyes surveyed me for a moment, looking me up and down before he put out a hand for me to shake. “Zack Merrick, that’s me,” he replied, a small smile coming to his lips. “And you are?”
“Jack Barakat, Alex’s boyfriend.” In the back of my mind, I wondered, if they’re so good of friends, why didn’t he know about me?
Zack looked down at Alex in surprise. “’Lexy, you didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend!”
I gritted my teeth involuntarily, trying not to let my own anger and surprise show. Lexy is my nickname for Alex.
Granted, they’ve been friends for longer than we’ve been dating but.. Still.
The blush I loved to see on Alex appeared again and he hit Zack’s chest, the sound of his hand hitting solid muscle intimidatingly loud. “I told you on the phone the other day, idiot, remember?” Alex was laughing, shoulders shaking Zack’s arm still around him.
Zack’s face split into a perfect grin, prompting Peter and Isobel to smile almost goofily at their son’s best friend. “Oh yeah, must have forgotten, duh.” Forgot my ass, the smirk on his face said otherwise. “How ya doin’ Jacko?”
My eyebrows gathered tightly in the middle of my forehead, rage pulsing underneath my skin, yearning to break free. I opened my mouth, the start of something very nasty about to break free of it’s constraints but I clamped my mouth closed again before I could say something potentially relationship ruining.
I will be a good boyfriend.
I will be a supportive boyfriend.
I will not be an asshole.
Praying that I would keep calm, I replied with a slightly more forced smile this time.
“Well, thank you. How was your flight? Safe, I presume?”
“Yeah, it was really nice. Saw a few cute guys at the airport,” Zack winked at Alex conspiratorially . Another flare of anger. “You Americans got it good over here, I swear.” The gaze that Zack bestowed upon Alex lingered for far too long and my skin literally crawled with the need to pull my Alex out of his arms and into the safety of mine.
Isobel jumped, as if just realizing how long we had been standing in the foyer of their home.
“Please, do come into the living room, the kids are playing in there,” she bustled past us into said room, calling over her shoulder as she went. “Are you staying here with us?”
Zack, thankfully, took his arm off of Alex to follow Isobel down the hall, squeezing past me, and I could fucking feel that he didn’t like me. You know that instinctive thing that kind of just grips you when you can tell someone doesn’t like you? Yeah, that instinctive thing was grabbing me by the throat and trying to pull me down the road, back home, to a place where I can cuddle with Alex under plenty of sheets and blankets and not worry about him being hurt.
I took another deep breath but was interrupted when I felt a soft nudge to my side.
“You okay? You look a little.. Tense,” Alex asked me softly, nuzzling his nose into my cheek before depositing a soft kiss there. My head turned slightly to give him a proper kiss, my arm wrapping around his waist and pulling him tight against me, to assure myself that he wasn’t going anywhere.
“Doing just fine, ‘Lex. C’mon, let’s go hang out a bit before we have to carry our sleepy babies home.”
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We did eventually end up carrying our kids out to the car, I with one child on each hip, Alex with Owen clinging to his shirt. Alex and Zack continued to talk as I buckled all the kids in, one by one, about who knows what but I was sure they had a lot of catching up to do. Jealousy prickled again, skittering across my skin, a cold sweat that I neither liked nor anticipated becoming more enjoyable as they days went by.
I stood by Alex as they talked and laughed, arm settled loosely around his waist. A possesive, douche bag move, sure, but I just needed him close, you know? Eventually, it got so late, I had to tap on Alex’s hip with my fingers to attract his attention. When he looked at me, I looked pointedly at the backseat of the car where three little angels were in desperate need to sleep in their beds at home.
“Oh, crap, I didn’t realize how late it was getting, sorry, Jacky,” Alex said apologetically, giving me a short hug before letting go. “Thanks for reminding me. So, you’re coming over tomorrow, Zack? For dinner?”
Zack’s gaze locked with mine.
There it was, the unmistakable air of a challenge, the pointed look that was supposed to make others back down but not me. Not this time.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, ‘Lexy.” His voice was heavy with confidence, making sure to stress the nickname. So I take it he noticed my little cringe when he used ‘Lexy earlier. Fucking awesome.
I’m being childish but I don’t give a shit. I can’t lose Alex he’s the most important thing to me.
“You know how to get there right? You have the address and everything…” Alex continued to babble in the background but all I could focus on was the stare leveled at me by one Zack Merrick.
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That night, after we had gotten home, after we had changed three sleepy little angels out of their fancies and into their pajamas, I silently led Alex up to our bedroom. I closed the door gently and turned to face him, beautifully haloed by the moonlight. His eyes shone up at me as I took my sweet time undressing him, pushing the dress shirt off his shoulders, letting the belt, jeans and boxers fall to the floor. I think he could sense that tonight was a night for slow, gentle love making and he maintained the eye contact, making everything seem a little more.. Intimate. I lay him down on the bed and thought, for the millionth time, how beautiful he was, and how lucky I was to have him and I vowed to never hurt or harm him in any way shape or form. As our bodies rocked together that night, we chased a languid high, reached up to touch the universe, to spread across eternity. Alex’s body arched into mine, his entire being singing with pleasure and love, mine responding just as ardently. Everytime I drove into Alex’s body, I tried conveying everything that I couldn’t say out loud because I was too afraid: that I loved him forever, that he was mine, that I would never let anything get between us. When we finally crested, we fell over the edge together. And when we lay together that night, the beats of our hearts drumming in our chests, there was not one person in the world more content with my life than I.
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The next morning, I woke up to an empty bed. No Alex snoring on my shoulder, no leg hitched up around my waist, and the blankets were still piled on the bed. That was strange.
I sat up, confused. Normally, Alex would just stay in bed and wait for me to wake up before going downstairs to make coffee or something. The door was cracked though and I heard Alex’s laughter float into the room, suffusing it with it’s beauty.
Smiling to myself, I slid on a pair of old sweats and a t shirt I had just grabbed off the floor and headed downstairs. I hummed happily as I entered the kitchen but right at the doorway, I stopped. There, sitting at my fucking kitchen table was Zack Merrick.
I glanced at the clock and swore in my head. It was fucking 8:32 A.M.
Alex quickly turned to me and smiled his beautiful smile at me that was always extra glowy the morning after we have sex. Just… that smile had the ability to make everything better. Even my kind of sour mood from not waking up next to a warm body. “Morning, Jacky,” he greeted me, bouncing out of his chair to leap into my arms, kissing me full on the mouth, morning breath and all. Laughing gently against his lips, I kissed back.
“How’d you sleep, beautiful?” I asked him, once we had pulled apart. He giggled and snuck under my arm to the coffee pot.
“Like a baby.” Alex handed me a cup of coffee, three spoons of sugar and a splash of creamer, just the way I liked it, before settling back down across from Zack. I kissed his forehead in thanks and decided to sit down next to him.
As we sat there talking to Zack, I decided that having him around wouldn’t be all too bad, would it? I mean, Alex would have his best friend back. Alex is always really happy when he talks about Zack and isn’t that the point? To make him happy?
I steeled myself for the rest of the day, only excusing myself so I could get changed and check on the kids once or twice. By the time I had come back downstairs for the second time (Owen and Missy had gotten into a fight about who got to use the purple crayon next), Alex and Zack had started migrating to the living room but had stopped in the hallway to look at all the pictures. There were a few pictures of Alex, Owen, Missy, Sassy, and I that we had snapped and printed out, solely for the purpose of solidifying our stance as a family, but there were more just of Owen, Missy and Sassy, school pictures, pictures on holidays. It was like a timeline of our children and Alex and I were very proud that we had arranged it the way we did. There was only one picture in that entire hallway that didn’t involve Alex or Owen in any way shape or form and when I discussed it with Alex, he understood and didn’t throw a fit every time he saw it.
But, of course, Zack was the one to stand in front of it and stare at it. It wasn’t a huge picture, not like a mural or anything but I guess it was of a decent size. It was a picture of Venetia, Sassy, and Missy feeding ducks at the duck pond, one of the last pictures I had of them all together, it was one of the sweetest things I had ever seen. I also had a picture of just Venetia and I hung up next to it, both of us smiling, both of us looking madly in love.
“Who’s this?” Zack pointed at Venetia and suddenly, I was angry again. Didn’t your mother tell you pointing wasn’t polite, Zackary?
“That was the twin’s mother, Venetia. She passed away a few years ago,” I replied shortly, not liking having to talk to this guy about Venetia.
“They look just like her,” he mused, looking at the picture closely. I was starting to get angry.
Wouldn’t you be if someone just came over to your house and started scrutinizing your pictures?
“But why do you keep them around the house? Doesn’t it make you feel sad that she’s gone? Doesn-“
The anger broke free from the dam in my chest.
“Of course I feel sad, Venetia was my soulmate,” I hissed, anger more than evident in my eyes. “But have you ever grown up in a broken home, Zack?” He shook his head no. “Venetia did. She never knew her mother because her mother abandoned her when she was two and a half. When she knew she was dying, truly knew that she was dying, she requested that she always have a picture or two on the wall, to remind her children that she still loves them, even if she’s in heaven. She doesn’t want them to forget her face. Would you want that for a child?”
I was shaking, teeth grinding together, blood pulsing through my veins at top speed. If he so much as dares to disagree with me in an impertinent manner-
Zack slowly shook his head slowly. “Hey, I didn’t mean any harm by it, Jack, I was just wondering,” he grumbled. “I’m just saying, you have a boyfriend now, shouldn’t you be letting go of the past? Put the picture in a photo album or something?”
I was starting to build up steam for another blow up when Alex came between us, wide eyed. “Jacky, Jack, you’re okay, just breathe,” he instructed, his hand finding it’s way up to my cheek, my body immediately relaxing into his. He gave me a brief smile before rounding on Zack. “And you, Zack, stop antagonizing poor Jack, his wife passed away from cancer. If he wants to keep it up for his girls, let it be. I don’t have a problem, I don’t know why you should.”
“All I’m saying is, you, Alex should be his main concern, no-“
“And all I’m saying is, Zack, get out of my house.”
The words came unbidden from my throat and I caught the shreds of disbelief and shock in their eyes but I refused to take the words back.
“What?”