And That Smile That You Give, To Me

The rest of the day I only did one thing; watch Jon Walker. Occasionally, whenever conversation would come to a lull or he was disinterested in Spencer’s rant about the diminishing food supply in the cabinets, he would get this foggy look in his eyes and drift off. Each time this happened I tended to lean forward and become overly excited, because I knew he was thinking about my task at hand and what I would have to do. But he never said anything to me. Whenever his eyes unclouded and he rejoined conversation, a tiny smirk would play on his lips and I would be lying if I said it didn’t kill me with curiosity. Because right there is my key to winning to the love of my life.

“Earth to Ryan,” A pale skinned hand waved itself in front of my line of vision, breaking my concentration on Jon’s thinking face. “I’ve been trying to get your attention forever, dude.”
I smiled apologetically at Brendon, taking note of the cell phone he had clutched desperately in his hand.
“Anyway,” He started, eyebrows pulling together with concern. “I need some girl advice.”
“O-Oh,” I stammered. Usually I had some type of warning when Brendon would come to me for help, but this caught me off guard.
“So, you know that girl I met at the show that one time?”
“With the hair?”
“Yeah.”
“What about her?”

“Well,” Brendon sighed dramatically, throwing a hand palm up over his forehead and making me grin. “She gave me her number. Should I call her?”
I paused. Normally, I would give in to what I knew he wanted and encouraged him to call the girls he liked, suffering quietly inside myself when he came home reeking of sex. I caught Jon’s eye across the room and I had a feeling he had overheard Brendon somehow, due to the fact he was narrowing his eyes at me. Maybe this was the first step he had been waiting for? For me to say no to Brendon?

Determined like the little competitor I am, I faced Brendon head on and said simply, “No.”
“No? Why not?” Brendon asked, confusion on his face.
I shrugged, playing it casual. “I just don’t think you should.”
Brendon contemplated that for a minute, before shrugging it off and stuffing the phone back in his pocket, looking up to give me a wide grin.
“Want to split a 3 Musketeers with me?”

At this, Spencer stomped his foot and demanded that we start to pool our money together because, godamnit there’s no more candy left let alone anything edible.
I glanced at Brendon and bit my lip, nodding my head in the direction of the bunks. Brendon cocked an eyebrow and I turned on my heel, quickly escaping the site of Spencer’s outburst with Brendon right behind me.

I went straight for my bunk, ruffling around in the sheets a bit before my hand hit the rectangular item I was looking for. Triumphantly, I clutched it in my hand and turned to see Brendon trying to peek over my shoulder.
“Here,” I said lamely, thrusting the item at him.
Brendon took the last 3 Musketeers bar I had been squirreling for myself in his long fingers, mouth agape.

“You really don’t want it?”
“No, have it,” I insisted, not able to hide my smile when he beamed and peeled back the wrapper, stuffing half of it into his mouth happily in one bite.
“I always knew I liked you the best Ross,” Brendon spit tiny pieces of chocolate when he talked.
“Yeah yeah,” I mumbled, silently rejoicing at the small compliment.

Brendon gulped down his mouthful before taking another, walking off back into the front lounge.
I gazed at him as he retreated, eyes boring the outline of his body into my brain.
Brendon left the door open behind him, turning out of view. I sighed, crossing my arms in front of me as I continued to stare after him wistfully. I jumped when suddenly Jon appeared in front of the doorway, a grin on his face and shaking his head sadly.
“You’ve got it bad,” He said.
I frowned and flipped him off.

-x-

I stumbled out of the bathroom, rubbing the sleep away from my eyes and yawning. I hadn’t slept at all last night, partly due to the fact that today Jon had said he would have a plan by now. I had tried numerous times to even begin to fathom what he might propose to me, but then I realized just how unreadable he was. You could figure out exactly what Brendon was thinking about from the smallest gesture, and I had known Spencer long enough to know how he thought. But Jon Walker was another thing.

Just as his name crossed my mind, a scruffy face with soft eyes jumped in front of me and I let out a small noise of surprise.
Jon checked over his shoulder and mine, tilting his head forward and whispering like we were on some spy mission.
“Here’s what you’re going to do today,” He checked again, probably more to add suspense than to actually check.
“What?” I urged, extremely anxious.
“Your goal is to: complement him on his overall attractiveness directly. No hiding behind metaphors or suggestions.”
Damn, looks like he knows me better than I know him.
“And,” He continued. “You’re to touch a total of four of his body parts.”
“The fuck?” I breathed.

“It doesn’t have to be in a provocative way,” Jon amended quickly. “Just, you know, casually put an arm over his shoulder or hold his hand or something. But it has to be four different parts.”
“Jon, that’s crazy, how can you expect me to-“
“Don’t worry, I’ll have a cold shower ready if needed. And don’t even think of skipping out on a task, cause I’ll find out. I’m everywhere, baby,” Jon smirked at my blushing face, pushing past me and disappearing into the back of the bus.

I cursed to myself, contemplating catching up to Jon and telling him there’s no way I can play this game anymore. But, then he’d tell Brendon about my feelings and fuck, I think I made my life a lot worse in that short span of time I decided that telling Jon would be a good idea.

Deciding to take it, I rolled my shoulder and entered the front of the bus, finding Brendon sitting on the couch tying his sneakers. I took a deep breath and cracked my knuckles. I might as well get the first part over with, it shouldn’t be too hard or sound too embarrassing if I worded it correctly.

“Hey Bren,” My voice was sounded strained and nervous.
“Ry! I was waiting for you to get up,” He smiled at me and got to his feet. “A couple of us are gunna walk around for a while, maybe play some hacky sack or something. And it’s already decided that you’re coming.”
“Oh yeah?” I cocked an eyebrow playfully. “By who?”
“Me,” Brendon winked.

“You know Bren,” I swallowed and tried to concentrate on only saying what needed to be said and not on the possible consequences. “You look very nice today.”
Brendon stopped and laughed, raising both eyebrows. Not a great sign. “Um, thanks?”
“I-I…I just mean you look nice today.”
“Do I look bad any other day?”
“No! God no, I’m just, fuck Bren it was just a compliment you can stop laughing,” I blushed ferociously, grabbing my jacket and shrugging into it violently.
“Sorry, sorry,” Brendon calmed his laughter and walked forward. “Thank you, that was very nice.”
I grunted and tried to hide my face. Brendon slid an arm into the crook of my elbow and smiled at me.

“So, what is it about me that looks so nice today?” Brendon continued pompously, tugging forward on my arm and heading to the door. This counts as touching a body part, even if he initiated it, right? Good, at least I got one out of the way.
“Just…I don’t know!” I said, desperate to not make a fool of myself. “Just overall, you look great.”
“Oh, so I’m upgraded from nice to great? Damn, I must be good,” Brendon chuckled and opened the door, casually dropping my arm to walk out into the mid morning daylight.

A small group was congregated a little ways away, laughing joyfully. I recognized a few of our techs and the guys on tour with us, but I couldn’t be bothered with that. I have an objective here, and I intended to fulfill it.

“Oh look, there they are,” I said lamely, pointing in the obvious direction. I lifted up my arm that was on the same side as Brendon, clenching and unclenching my fingers. I held my breath and I struggled to decide where to place my hand. I couldn’t go to low because one, I don’t have the self confidence and two, it would just be humiliating. But I couldn’t go too high because wasn’t the whole point of this game to make Brendon aware of my feelings?
So before I could think on it too much, I gently rested my hand just above the small of Brendon’s back. I pushed him forward and acted like I was guiding him in the right direction, when really it was so obvious as to where we were going.

He didn’t make any movement or act differently or ask why I was touching his back, he just walked along happily.

“Hey guys!” Eric, our keyboard player, called out to us as we got closer and at his words I dropped my hand immediately. “We found a football.”
“Found?” Brendon asked doubtfully.
“Well, stole but whatever, it’s not like they’ll miss it too much,” Eric waved his hand breezily and I laughed.

“Okay so, let’s pick teams,” Jon piped up and I did a double-take. How did he get here before me and Brendon? Wow, dude really was everywhere.
“Can I be captain?” Brendon burst out immediately, thrusting his hand into the air like a child wanting to be picked in gym class; it made me smile.
Jon nodded his head and Brendon disappeared from my side, Eric nominating himself to be the other captain.

I had a horrible flashback to high school gym class, being last on the field, the two teams fighting over who would have to put up with ‘The Dropper’, as I was so adequately named.
I knew Brendon put a lot of thought into this, and so therefore he always picked the same people. Only the good ones, with actual hand eye coordination and some kind of balance, unlike me who the last time we had played, managed to find a way to trip over a rock and let the ball slip to the other teams possession where they proceeded to score the winning touchdown.

It got to the point where I was left standing with Spencer, who wasn’t as bad as me but defiantly not the best. Eric was up next to pick and he took a while looking between me and Spencer, expression full of dead seriousness.
“Ryan.”

I tried to hold back the scowl as I walked to join Eric’s team. The one time I get picked and it’s on the opposing team from Brendon. I high-fived Eric as I reached him only because his hand was held up.
The two teams passed one another on the way to our respective sides of the fields. I elbowed Jon’s bass tech out of the way to make sure me and Brendon would come face to face as we passed.

“So, it looks like we’ll be going against each other,” I pretended to sneer, coming to a halt in front of him.
He stopped, narrowing his eyes and putting on that adorable competitive face. “Looks like it.”
“Well, best of luck to you,” I stuck out my hand and he shook it. I made a point to glare at Jon over his shoulder to make sure he saw this. Three.

I don’t know how, but somehow in the amount of time it took for me to rejoin my team, everyone had decided Brendon’s team would be shirtless and we would keep ours on to distinguish between players.
“U-Um, so, I’ll like, be goalie or whatever,” I stumbled, not able to keep my eyes form wandering to wear Brendon was griping the bottom of his shirt and about to pull it off.
“Ross, we’re playing fucking football. There’s no goalie,” Eric scolded me and I shrugged, blushing at my lack of sports knowledge.

Captain Eric, as he demanded to be called, arranged us strategically around the field, me being placed all the way to the side and very back. Normally, it probably should have been taken as an insult, but I was good with it. I was less likely to make a fool out of myself all the way over here.

I wasn’t even paying attention to what was going on, who had the ball, or even if anyone was running towards me. Brendon was on the other side of the field, topless.
His jeans hung low as always, though this time there was no strip of boxers, just the unhindered, endlessly long stretch of pale skin. The sun beat off of his body perfectly, making his skin appear to have developed the ability to sparkle and shine.
Brendon ran with a constant smile on his face, crying out tactics to his teammates and yelping excitedly whenever he caught the ball. By the end of the second half or so, a thin layer of sweat had formed on his body, his cheeks flushed pink with exertion and hair plastered to his forehead. It all made my heart beat a little quicker and impossible to look away.

I was aware he was running in my general direction, but off to the side and right down the middle of the field.
“Ryan! Wake the fuck up and stop him!” Eric was yelling over and over again as a swarm of people formed a mass and tried to catch up with Brendon, but he was way too far ahead of them for it to even be remotely possible.

“Crap,” I snapped myself out of my dreaming, having to ashamedly wipe a small amount of drool off my face. I followed Eric’s instructions and sprinted out to meet him, trying to gather some kind of inclination as to what I was supposed to do.

Brendon was beginning to laugh and I nearly stopped right there when my heart did, seeing him running at me, sweating and half naked and so happy.
“Tackle him Ryan!”

Somewhere deep inside me I let out an animalistic roar and dove forward, my brain taking care of two things with one action; my desire to touch him and listening to my teammates were both solved by diving forward.

My head collided with his chest and he let out an ‘Oof’ as he was thrown backwards on impact. I went down with him, feeling the ball pop out of his hands and go flying somewhere behind our heads.
We landed roughly, me positioned directly on top of him, all our body parts lined up. I was very aware of his sweat now being on my cheek, of how my hands were touching his bare chest, of how my legs had somehow wrapped themselves into more or less a straddle-like arrangement.

“Ow, you dick,” Brendon laughed beneath me.
I opened my mouth to laugh along but found I couldn’t, too immobilized by our closeness.
“Ryan, I think your knee is sticking me in my thigh.”

I shot off of him like a bullet, blushing so much it felt like a fever. I quickly turned around and picked up the ball, putting it purposefully in front of my enlarged crotch and I tried to walk casually back to the group.