American English (Gossip Girl RPF, Ed/Chace, etc.) (6/6)
Author: iridescentglow
Title: American English - part 6
Fandom: Gossip Girl RPF
Pairings: Ed Westwick/Chace Crawford, Ed/Leighton Meester, Ed/Albert Hammond Jr, Chace/Carrie Underwood, Chace/JC Chasez, etc.
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 3,098 (total: ~20k)
Summary: "Do you have fuck buddies in England?" Chace asked. How Ed Westwick went from being an average kid from Stevenage to being a notch on Chace Crawford's bedpost.
Warnings: het and slash; non-monogamy (mostly of the unethical kind).
Disclaimer: Lies! All of it lies! Unlike the tabloid hacks, I fully admit that I'm just making stuff up to amuse myself. ;) In all seriousness, parts of this fic get a little unseemly and I want to stress that it was all written and intended as fiction. The views expressed in this fic are not necessarily my own.
Notes: Thank you to my betas, proofpudding and topofthepiano.
This story is completely finished.
-----
American English
Soundtrack | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
Chapter six
In the living room, Ed stacked the uncomfortable-footstool-things into a crazy, unstable tower. He turned the coffee table upside-down, so that the legs stuck up in the air like an abused crab. Next, he turned his attention to the couch. It took a great deal of effort to heave one end of it up into the air, but five minutes later, it was upended vertically. It loomed over him like a particularly crappy sculpture.
Ed stood back and looked at the reconfiguration of the room. He had a lot of mad, restless energy that he couldn't seem to get rid of. He supposed normal people cleaned in these situations, but it would take more than an argument with Chace to break his embargo on dusters and Marigolds.
He thought about going for a run to get rid of his energy, or finding a daytime bar where he could drink himself into feeling better. However, he felt irrational anxiety scratching at his insides. He didn't want to bump into anyone he knew; he didn't want to have to explain what had sent him into this spiral of lunatic-energy. Instead, he stayed home. He drank the three beers that were in the fridge and then rearranged more of the apartment. When he ran out of furniture to rearrange - and his restlessness finally abated - he reluctantly righted the couch again so that he could lie down on it.
By dinnertime, Chace had not come home.
By midnight, Chace had not come home.
By dawn, Chace had not come home.
It was near midday - almost 24 hours since their argument - when Chace finally unlocked the door and walked inside. From his place on the couch, Ed craned his neck to look at Chace. He wondered if he looked like someone who had gone on a crazy interior decoration spree and then stayed up all night waiting for a key to turn in the lock. As he raked a hand through his messy hair, he suspected his poker face was not at its strongest.
Chace looked around the room, looked at Ed, and then smiled.
Ed was stupidly, ridiculously, moronically glad to see that smile. It meant that Chace must not hate him. It meant that the anger between them must have subsided. During the night, Ed had entertained himself with morbid thoughts of what if?: what if they stayed in this fight forever? what if they never patched things up? what if it became tabloid fodder? - 'DRAMA: the stars of the hit show who can't stand to be in the same room together!'
"Feng shui?" Chace inquired mildly.
Ed shrugged. "Boredom, mostly." He sat up on the couch and then - limbs cracking painfully - pulled himself into a standing position.
"Looks good," said Chace. "I mean, if crazy crackhead chic was the look you were going for."
"It was," Ed said with a laugh. He tried to make his voice sound nonchalant as he segued clumsily to what was really on his mind. "So what have you been up to?" He knew girl roommates who had policies about calling each other if they were staying out all night. He and Chace - being guys and callous guys at that - had never implemented any such policy. Chace staying out all night was not an anomaly. Ed caring that he stayed out all night was more unusual.
"Oh… you know," Chace said vaguely.
Ed did not know. And that fact was driving him crazy.
Apparently sensing that Ed wanted more information, Chace added: "I've been walking around, trying to clear my head."
Ed had a brief - and embarrassingly paperback-romance-esque - flash of Chace on his nocturnal wanderings. Perhaps he had walked the crowded streets, feeling lonely among thousands of people. When the crowds had finally receded and the clock had ticked two, three, four o' clock, Chace had found an all-night diner staffed by a wise old man. Chowing down on cherry pie, Chace had bared his soul to the old man - revealed his hopes and insecurities. Hours later, unburdened and ready to admit to Ed that yes, he was a spineless prick, Chace had headed for home.
"I met someone," Chace continued - and poof, Ed's fantasy disappeared.
Of course you did, mate, Ed thought. You could go to the Antarctic and hook up with the only smoking-hot climate change researcher in a thousand-mile radius.
Chace walked to the kitchen. Ed followed him helplessly, feeling part puppy dog, part horror-movie stalker. He hovered behind Chace, who bent to retrieve the carton of orange juice from the fridge.
"Her name's Alice," Chace said conversationally. "She's great."
You've known her less than a day, but okay, if you say so.
"She's a painter. She lives in this amazing loft in the Village. She has all her art on the walls. Conceptual stuff."
Do you think I give a shit? You spent all last night having great sex. Don't pretend like you cared what was on the walls.
Ed noticed suddenly that Chace was pouring the juice into a glass - a glass he'd just finished rinsing clean under the tap. Neither of them had done anything except drink straight from the carton for as long as they'd lived together. Chace took a dainty sip from his glass of juice. He had apparently said all he wanted to about Alice-the-painter-from-the-Village. Ed also found he had nothing to say. (There was plenty he wanted to say, but he knew none of it would make it out of his mouth as anything but a baseless insult.) They stared at each other for several seconds.
Then Ed said, "I'm going to bed."
Instead of pointing out the time - 12:10 p.m. - Chace just nodded and said, "Goodnight."
Once he was inside his bedroom, with the door closed, Ed realized the absurdity of the situation. He felt like a teenager who'd just ended an argument with a parent by screaming, well, I guess I'll just go to BED then - if you won't let me go out/play Nirvana at top volume/sacrifice goats, I'll just go to SLEEP and DIE.
On the other hand, Ed hadn't slept in 24 hours, so when he lay down on his bed, sleep came easily. He dreamed of a paint-flecked Medusa who turned him to stone.
When he woke up, it was dark in his room. He felt deeply disoriented. His bedside clock informed him that it was just past midnight. His thoughts were still filled with the snakes from his dreams. And there was a hand unbuttoning his jeans.
He'd gone to sleep fully dressed, but the hand obviously wanted to change that situation. Chace - and, though the idea of a disembodied hand appearing in his room was not beyond the realm of possibility, Ed now realized that the hand belonged to Chace - coaxed him out of his jeans. On automatic, Ed pulled his shirt up over his head.
He reached out to touch Chace, who was already naked. His skin was slightly moist, reminiscent of a baby seal. It meant that Chace had just taken a shower. After showering, in a show of (to Ed) staggering metrosexuality, Chace always slathered his whole body with lotion. As Ed breathed in, he could smell it: that generic lotion smell that simultaneously reminded him of beach holidays (sunscreen) and attentive mothers (E45 cream). It was such a strangely evocative scent - and wrong entirely for this situation, as Chace nuzzled closer to him, his erection pushing against Ed's leg.
Ed felt dirty beside shower-fresh Chace. It wasn't hard to read a metaphor into that one. He decided that he should do his best to dirty up Chace. He took charge of the situation, flipping Chace onto his belly and reaching for condoms and lube. They'd had sex in Ed's bed perhaps twice before - but never memorably. It was Chace's room that seemed like the rightful epicentre of their fucking. This fact only added to Ed's enduring sense of disorientation. He fucked Chace hard, but still on automatic - barely enjoying it at all.
Afterward - after he'd finished fucking Chace and hurriedly jerked him off, spilling come all over his sheets - they lay together in the near-darkness, not saying anything. Ed rolled over, so that he could look at Chace. His eyes were closed, but his breathing was too ragged for him to be asleep. Ed stared at him long and hard - almost obstinately. Because, he reminded himself, he was allowed. If someone crawled into your bed at midnight and pushed their cock into your hand, you were allowed to look at them like a lover.
Ed wondered if he might love Chace - just a little bit. The kinda-love he'd felt for Katerina Sullivan. He preferred it when Chace was around and missed him when he went away. But he couldn't tell how deep his affection for Chace went. Were these feelings something that could be dusted off the top of his mind in a few days? Or would this floundering desire last for weeks or months or longer?
Chace opened his eyes suddenly, meeting Ed's gaze. "Hey," he said, his voice soft and low and lovely.
"I need to tell you something…" Chace continued. He reached out a hand to touch Ed, trailing his fingers lightly along Ed's arm.
Ed didn't say anything.
"I need to… " Chace stopped and sighed and then said, "I'm moving out." His soft, soft mouth formed the words as gently as another might say, I love you. "I need to find my own place. Alice said I can stay with her while I look. I think it's probably for the best."
Alice the painter with her loft in the Village. Of course. Maybe it was worse that Ed wasn't surprised. It was a bigger bombshell than he'd expected, but only marginally so. He wondered what the tabloids would make of it when they found out: Westwick chases Chace away: roommates and lovers no more.
The two of them lay together for a while longer, saying nothing. Ed was almost on the brink of falling asleep again, his breath evening out, when he felt Chace ease his body away from him. Ed heard the soft thump of feet hitting the floor and then Chace was gone. He closed the door very gently behind him.
The next morning, Ed called Leighton. He gave a halting, fractured version of what had happened. He tried not to sound as wretched as he felt, but he didn't hold much back. There was, after all, no longer any reason not to spill all of his secrets. After ending the call, he walked to the corner store, just for something to do. He bought a pack of cigarettes. As he walked home, he chain-smoked, weaving slowly along the sidewalk in a drunken line.
At their apartment block, he noticed the U-Haul truck parked at the curb (kerb). There were a few boxes stacked on the concrete. Ed looked at them for a long moment. He realized that he didn't want to go back upstairs and watch Chace packing up. It felt like the oxygen had been knocked from his lungs. He sat down heavily on one of the larger boxes. His fingers were shaking as he lit another cigarette. He was so absorbed in the act of smoking that he didn't notice Leighton's approach until she was standing over him.
"I brought you something," she said.
She proffered a brown paper bag. Hoping it contained liquor (booze), Ed reached for it, peering inside. Instead, he found a misshapen cupcake. He looked up at Leighton questioningly.
She shrugged. "I always bring my girlfriends a cupcake when they get dumped."
"Well golly gee, thanks," Ed mumbled in an exaggerated American accent.
"Shut up. Cheer up. And eat your cupcake," Leighton said, reaching over to ruffle Ed's hair.
Ed made a face, but he let his cigarette drop to the ground and pulled the cupcake from the bag. He noticed that part of the frosting (icing) was uneven. He glanced at Leighton.
"I got hungry on the way over," she said remorselessly. "What can I say? Your emotional crisis came at a time that was very inconvenient for me. I had to blow off lunch with a very hot guy. Well, maybe he was only medium hot. I was kind of wasted when I met him. No, I'm almost sure he was extremely hot."
"I'm not having an emotional crisis," Ed said resentfully, through a mouthful of cupcake.
"Oh shush, I know. Cupcake is, like, a minor romantic blip. If it were a big thing, I would have brought Mississippi mud cake and a pint of Ben & Jerry's."
Leighton took a seat beside Ed, making him scooch over, so that they were both perched uncomfortably on the cardboard box. She put her arm around him, resting her head on his shoulder.
She murmured soothingly, "It's okay. You just gotta get through it. Soon it'll all feel better."
Ed felt her self-help-book platitudes grate on his nerves; they were a dull echo of a thousand other relationships gone bad. He wasn't sure what he had with Chace could even be considered 'romantic'. Could this even be called a break up? Breaking up implied a relationship, which Ed and Chace had definitely never had. Maybe he was having an emotional crisis - but only because he wasn't sure what he was feeling; he didn't know what he was allowed to feel when his roommate-slash-best-friend-slash-fuck-buddy up and left him. Were there self-help books for this kind of thing? Leighton would probably know, he thought mockingly. Immediately, he felt guilty. After all, Leighton was here; she had cared enough to come when she knew he was hurting.
Chace appeared at the doorway, holding a television set. In the morning sunshine, dressed in jeans and a 'beater, with hair artfully mussed, he looked part angelic, part pornographic. Ed averted his eyes, concentrating instead on the TV set. That made him remember that the TV they'd been sharing for a year belonged to Chace. Well, great. No Euro 2008 on cable for Ed.
"Hey, Leighton," Chace said, sounding faintly surprised.
Leighton smiled at Chace, but she didn't say anything. Ed thought he felt a ripple of tension roll between them. He wondered suddenly if they'd ever slept together. It was not beyond the realm of possibility. Maybe they, like Ed and Leighton, had snuck off during filming, in order to scratch an itch, fill in the blanks of TV-14. Ed found that his head was pounding. Who else had Chace slept with? Michelle? Undoubtedly. Nicole? Yes. He'd seen that one with his own eyes after drunkenly stumbling into a club bathroom. Jessica? Probably. Taylor? No - but it was only a matter of time. Blake? Unlikely, but it couldn't be ruled out. How about her sainted boyfriend, Penn? Ed had never entertained the possibility before, but now he thought about it, it seemed queasily probable. Penn, with his long fingers and softly-spoken musings about Kandinsky, made a pretty good conquest. Fuck. Ed could imagine it now: Penn on his knees before Chace; gracefully accepting the thrust of Chace's cock into his mouth.
"I just have to load the last of this stuff into the truck," Chace said, gesturing to the U-Haul. He paused and then said, with a faint smile, "You're sitting on my books."
Books? Since when did Chace read? Now he thought about it, Ed could dimly recall - through the haze of his sex-related memories - that there had been a shelf of books in Chace's bedroom. What the hell did he read? The Bible? The complete works of Charles Dickens? Ed felt the pounding inside his head amplify. He realized how little he knew - really knew - about Chace. He knew how Chace looked when he came, but then, so did half of the free world, apparently. He realized he couldn't remember the name of Chace's sister; he couldn't remember the name of the town where he'd grown up. He knew what kind of beer Chace liked, but not his worst fears or who he voted for or if he believed in heaven.
Numbly, Ed got to his feet. Leighton stayed at his side, clutching his arm protectively. They watched as Chace finished loading his life into the U-Haul truck. Neither offered to help him.
"So, uh, bye," Chace said. It seemed like a general sort of statement, directed equally at Ed and Leighton.
"Bye!" Leighton said in a tone so bright it might have been sarcastic. "I guess I'll see you in the Hamptons next week."
"Yeah… the Hamptons," echoed Chace.
Oh, Jesus. The Hamptons. Ed had almost forgotten. They were filming there next week. That was sure to be a special kind of balmy, brightly-lit torture.
For a moment, Chace lingered. The three of them - Chace with his hands in his pockets, Ed and Leighton arm-in-arm - formed a familiar tableau. Ed could almost feel a camera tracking the scene. Then Chace backed away - out of shot - and climbed into the truck's cab. He gave an awkward left-handed wave out of the window as he drove away.
Ed was glad when Leighton reached up and wrapped her arms securely around his neck, suffocating him in a perfumed embrace. He was glad he didn't have to ask for the hug. Leighton pressed a kiss onto his cheek and murmured a final self-help-book platitude into his ear. Ed found this one to be the most helpful of all:
"He's a shit."
Epilogue
The next day, a new piece of gossip appeared online. The words, hot new couple?? were pasted above a picture of Ed and Leighton hugging. From the angle the picture had been taken (with a long lens, presumably), the chaste kiss on the cheek was transformed into an enthusiastic tonguing session.
Ed mustered a slight smile. He was sitting on his bed, MacBook for company. He pulled up AIM in order to send Leighton the link, but she was Away. The message read: Lunch date. Italian. (The guy.) Superhot. (I hope!) Ed sighed and pushed his laptop aside. He lay back and watched the fan on his ceiling go round and round and round and round. Minutes slipped into hours.
He was roused by the bleep of a new message on his AIM. It was Leighton.
Hey. Rescheduled lunch date was a bust. Not hot at all. You wanna go out?
"Yeah," Ed said, answering her question aloud. "It's New York. What is there to do in New York except go out?"
The question seemed to echo around his empty apartment.
END.
Title: American English - part 6
Fandom: Gossip Girl RPF
Pairings: Ed Westwick/Chace Crawford, Ed/Leighton Meester, Ed/Albert Hammond Jr, Chace/Carrie Underwood, Chace/JC Chasez, etc.
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 3,098 (total: ~20k)
Summary: "Do you have fuck buddies in England?" Chace asked. How Ed Westwick went from being an average kid from Stevenage to being a notch on Chace Crawford's bedpost.
Warnings: het and slash; non-monogamy (mostly of the unethical kind).
Disclaimer: Lies! All of it lies! Unlike the tabloid hacks, I fully admit that I'm just making stuff up to amuse myself. ;) In all seriousness, parts of this fic get a little unseemly and I want to stress that it was all written and intended as fiction. The views expressed in this fic are not necessarily my own.
Notes: Thank you to my betas, proofpudding and topofthepiano.
This story is completely finished.
-----
American English
Soundtrack | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
Chapter six
In the living room, Ed stacked the uncomfortable-footstool-things into a crazy, unstable tower. He turned the coffee table upside-down, so that the legs stuck up in the air like an abused crab. Next, he turned his attention to the couch. It took a great deal of effort to heave one end of it up into the air, but five minutes later, it was upended vertically. It loomed over him like a particularly crappy sculpture.
Ed stood back and looked at the reconfiguration of the room. He had a lot of mad, restless energy that he couldn't seem to get rid of. He supposed normal people cleaned in these situations, but it would take more than an argument with Chace to break his embargo on dusters and Marigolds.
He thought about going for a run to get rid of his energy, or finding a daytime bar where he could drink himself into feeling better. However, he felt irrational anxiety scratching at his insides. He didn't want to bump into anyone he knew; he didn't want to have to explain what had sent him into this spiral of lunatic-energy. Instead, he stayed home. He drank the three beers that were in the fridge and then rearranged more of the apartment. When he ran out of furniture to rearrange - and his restlessness finally abated - he reluctantly righted the couch again so that he could lie down on it.
By dinnertime, Chace had not come home.
By midnight, Chace had not come home.
By dawn, Chace had not come home.
It was near midday - almost 24 hours since their argument - when Chace finally unlocked the door and walked inside. From his place on the couch, Ed craned his neck to look at Chace. He wondered if he looked like someone who had gone on a crazy interior decoration spree and then stayed up all night waiting for a key to turn in the lock. As he raked a hand through his messy hair, he suspected his poker face was not at its strongest.
Chace looked around the room, looked at Ed, and then smiled.
Ed was stupidly, ridiculously, moronically glad to see that smile. It meant that Chace must not hate him. It meant that the anger between them must have subsided. During the night, Ed had entertained himself with morbid thoughts of what if?: what if they stayed in this fight forever? what if they never patched things up? what if it became tabloid fodder? - 'DRAMA: the stars of the hit show who can't stand to be in the same room together!'
"Feng shui?" Chace inquired mildly.
Ed shrugged. "Boredom, mostly." He sat up on the couch and then - limbs cracking painfully - pulled himself into a standing position.
"Looks good," said Chace. "I mean, if crazy crackhead chic was the look you were going for."
"It was," Ed said with a laugh. He tried to make his voice sound nonchalant as he segued clumsily to what was really on his mind. "So what have you been up to?" He knew girl roommates who had policies about calling each other if they were staying out all night. He and Chace - being guys and callous guys at that - had never implemented any such policy. Chace staying out all night was not an anomaly. Ed caring that he stayed out all night was more unusual.
"Oh… you know," Chace said vaguely.
Ed did not know. And that fact was driving him crazy.
Apparently sensing that Ed wanted more information, Chace added: "I've been walking around, trying to clear my head."
Ed had a brief - and embarrassingly paperback-romance-esque - flash of Chace on his nocturnal wanderings. Perhaps he had walked the crowded streets, feeling lonely among thousands of people. When the crowds had finally receded and the clock had ticked two, three, four o' clock, Chace had found an all-night diner staffed by a wise old man. Chowing down on cherry pie, Chace had bared his soul to the old man - revealed his hopes and insecurities. Hours later, unburdened and ready to admit to Ed that yes, he was a spineless prick, Chace had headed for home.
"I met someone," Chace continued - and poof, Ed's fantasy disappeared.
Of course you did, mate, Ed thought. You could go to the Antarctic and hook up with the only smoking-hot climate change researcher in a thousand-mile radius.
Chace walked to the kitchen. Ed followed him helplessly, feeling part puppy dog, part horror-movie stalker. He hovered behind Chace, who bent to retrieve the carton of orange juice from the fridge.
"Her name's Alice," Chace said conversationally. "She's great."
You've known her less than a day, but okay, if you say so.
"She's a painter. She lives in this amazing loft in the Village. She has all her art on the walls. Conceptual stuff."
Do you think I give a shit? You spent all last night having great sex. Don't pretend like you cared what was on the walls.
Ed noticed suddenly that Chace was pouring the juice into a glass - a glass he'd just finished rinsing clean under the tap. Neither of them had done anything except drink straight from the carton for as long as they'd lived together. Chace took a dainty sip from his glass of juice. He had apparently said all he wanted to about Alice-the-painter-from-the-Village. Ed also found he had nothing to say. (There was plenty he wanted to say, but he knew none of it would make it out of his mouth as anything but a baseless insult.) They stared at each other for several seconds.
Then Ed said, "I'm going to bed."
Instead of pointing out the time - 12:10 p.m. - Chace just nodded and said, "Goodnight."
Once he was inside his bedroom, with the door closed, Ed realized the absurdity of the situation. He felt like a teenager who'd just ended an argument with a parent by screaming, well, I guess I'll just go to BED then - if you won't let me go out/play Nirvana at top volume/sacrifice goats, I'll just go to SLEEP and DIE.
On the other hand, Ed hadn't slept in 24 hours, so when he lay down on his bed, sleep came easily. He dreamed of a paint-flecked Medusa who turned him to stone.
When he woke up, it was dark in his room. He felt deeply disoriented. His bedside clock informed him that it was just past midnight. His thoughts were still filled with the snakes from his dreams. And there was a hand unbuttoning his jeans.
He'd gone to sleep fully dressed, but the hand obviously wanted to change that situation. Chace - and, though the idea of a disembodied hand appearing in his room was not beyond the realm of possibility, Ed now realized that the hand belonged to Chace - coaxed him out of his jeans. On automatic, Ed pulled his shirt up over his head.
He reached out to touch Chace, who was already naked. His skin was slightly moist, reminiscent of a baby seal. It meant that Chace had just taken a shower. After showering, in a show of (to Ed) staggering metrosexuality, Chace always slathered his whole body with lotion. As Ed breathed in, he could smell it: that generic lotion smell that simultaneously reminded him of beach holidays (sunscreen) and attentive mothers (E45 cream). It was such a strangely evocative scent - and wrong entirely for this situation, as Chace nuzzled closer to him, his erection pushing against Ed's leg.
Ed felt dirty beside shower-fresh Chace. It wasn't hard to read a metaphor into that one. He decided that he should do his best to dirty up Chace. He took charge of the situation, flipping Chace onto his belly and reaching for condoms and lube. They'd had sex in Ed's bed perhaps twice before - but never memorably. It was Chace's room that seemed like the rightful epicentre of their fucking. This fact only added to Ed's enduring sense of disorientation. He fucked Chace hard, but still on automatic - barely enjoying it at all.
Afterward - after he'd finished fucking Chace and hurriedly jerked him off, spilling come all over his sheets - they lay together in the near-darkness, not saying anything. Ed rolled over, so that he could look at Chace. His eyes were closed, but his breathing was too ragged for him to be asleep. Ed stared at him long and hard - almost obstinately. Because, he reminded himself, he was allowed. If someone crawled into your bed at midnight and pushed their cock into your hand, you were allowed to look at them like a lover.
Ed wondered if he might love Chace - just a little bit. The kinda-love he'd felt for Katerina Sullivan. He preferred it when Chace was around and missed him when he went away. But he couldn't tell how deep his affection for Chace went. Were these feelings something that could be dusted off the top of his mind in a few days? Or would this floundering desire last for weeks or months or longer?
Chace opened his eyes suddenly, meeting Ed's gaze. "Hey," he said, his voice soft and low and lovely.
"I need to tell you something…" Chace continued. He reached out a hand to touch Ed, trailing his fingers lightly along Ed's arm.
Ed didn't say anything.
"I need to… " Chace stopped and sighed and then said, "I'm moving out." His soft, soft mouth formed the words as gently as another might say, I love you. "I need to find my own place. Alice said I can stay with her while I look. I think it's probably for the best."
Alice the painter with her loft in the Village. Of course. Maybe it was worse that Ed wasn't surprised. It was a bigger bombshell than he'd expected, but only marginally so. He wondered what the tabloids would make of it when they found out: Westwick chases Chace away: roommates and lovers no more.
The two of them lay together for a while longer, saying nothing. Ed was almost on the brink of falling asleep again, his breath evening out, when he felt Chace ease his body away from him. Ed heard the soft thump of feet hitting the floor and then Chace was gone. He closed the door very gently behind him.
The next morning, Ed called Leighton. He gave a halting, fractured version of what had happened. He tried not to sound as wretched as he felt, but he didn't hold much back. There was, after all, no longer any reason not to spill all of his secrets. After ending the call, he walked to the corner store, just for something to do. He bought a pack of cigarettes. As he walked home, he chain-smoked, weaving slowly along the sidewalk in a drunken line.
At their apartment block, he noticed the U-Haul truck parked at the curb (kerb). There were a few boxes stacked on the concrete. Ed looked at them for a long moment. He realized that he didn't want to go back upstairs and watch Chace packing up. It felt like the oxygen had been knocked from his lungs. He sat down heavily on one of the larger boxes. His fingers were shaking as he lit another cigarette. He was so absorbed in the act of smoking that he didn't notice Leighton's approach until she was standing over him.
"I brought you something," she said.
She proffered a brown paper bag. Hoping it contained liquor (booze), Ed reached for it, peering inside. Instead, he found a misshapen cupcake. He looked up at Leighton questioningly.
She shrugged. "I always bring my girlfriends a cupcake when they get dumped."
"Well golly gee, thanks," Ed mumbled in an exaggerated American accent.
"Shut up. Cheer up. And eat your cupcake," Leighton said, reaching over to ruffle Ed's hair.
Ed made a face, but he let his cigarette drop to the ground and pulled the cupcake from the bag. He noticed that part of the frosting (icing) was uneven. He glanced at Leighton.
"I got hungry on the way over," she said remorselessly. "What can I say? Your emotional crisis came at a time that was very inconvenient for me. I had to blow off lunch with a very hot guy. Well, maybe he was only medium hot. I was kind of wasted when I met him. No, I'm almost sure he was extremely hot."
"I'm not having an emotional crisis," Ed said resentfully, through a mouthful of cupcake.
"Oh shush, I know. Cupcake is, like, a minor romantic blip. If it were a big thing, I would have brought Mississippi mud cake and a pint of Ben & Jerry's."
Leighton took a seat beside Ed, making him scooch over, so that they were both perched uncomfortably on the cardboard box. She put her arm around him, resting her head on his shoulder.
She murmured soothingly, "It's okay. You just gotta get through it. Soon it'll all feel better."
Ed felt her self-help-book platitudes grate on his nerves; they were a dull echo of a thousand other relationships gone bad. He wasn't sure what he had with Chace could even be considered 'romantic'. Could this even be called a break up? Breaking up implied a relationship, which Ed and Chace had definitely never had. Maybe he was having an emotional crisis - but only because he wasn't sure what he was feeling; he didn't know what he was allowed to feel when his roommate-slash-best-friend-slash-fuck-buddy up and left him. Were there self-help books for this kind of thing? Leighton would probably know, he thought mockingly. Immediately, he felt guilty. After all, Leighton was here; she had cared enough to come when she knew he was hurting.
Chace appeared at the doorway, holding a television set. In the morning sunshine, dressed in jeans and a 'beater, with hair artfully mussed, he looked part angelic, part pornographic. Ed averted his eyes, concentrating instead on the TV set. That made him remember that the TV they'd been sharing for a year belonged to Chace. Well, great. No Euro 2008 on cable for Ed.
"Hey, Leighton," Chace said, sounding faintly surprised.
Leighton smiled at Chace, but she didn't say anything. Ed thought he felt a ripple of tension roll between them. He wondered suddenly if they'd ever slept together. It was not beyond the realm of possibility. Maybe they, like Ed and Leighton, had snuck off during filming, in order to scratch an itch, fill in the blanks of TV-14. Ed found that his head was pounding. Who else had Chace slept with? Michelle? Undoubtedly. Nicole? Yes. He'd seen that one with his own eyes after drunkenly stumbling into a club bathroom. Jessica? Probably. Taylor? No - but it was only a matter of time. Blake? Unlikely, but it couldn't be ruled out. How about her sainted boyfriend, Penn? Ed had never entertained the possibility before, but now he thought about it, it seemed queasily probable. Penn, with his long fingers and softly-spoken musings about Kandinsky, made a pretty good conquest. Fuck. Ed could imagine it now: Penn on his knees before Chace; gracefully accepting the thrust of Chace's cock into his mouth.
"I just have to load the last of this stuff into the truck," Chace said, gesturing to the U-Haul. He paused and then said, with a faint smile, "You're sitting on my books."
Books? Since when did Chace read? Now he thought about it, Ed could dimly recall - through the haze of his sex-related memories - that there had been a shelf of books in Chace's bedroom. What the hell did he read? The Bible? The complete works of Charles Dickens? Ed felt the pounding inside his head amplify. He realized how little he knew - really knew - about Chace. He knew how Chace looked when he came, but then, so did half of the free world, apparently. He realized he couldn't remember the name of Chace's sister; he couldn't remember the name of the town where he'd grown up. He knew what kind of beer Chace liked, but not his worst fears or who he voted for or if he believed in heaven.
Numbly, Ed got to his feet. Leighton stayed at his side, clutching his arm protectively. They watched as Chace finished loading his life into the U-Haul truck. Neither offered to help him.
"So, uh, bye," Chace said. It seemed like a general sort of statement, directed equally at Ed and Leighton.
"Bye!" Leighton said in a tone so bright it might have been sarcastic. "I guess I'll see you in the Hamptons next week."
"Yeah… the Hamptons," echoed Chace.
Oh, Jesus. The Hamptons. Ed had almost forgotten. They were filming there next week. That was sure to be a special kind of balmy, brightly-lit torture.
For a moment, Chace lingered. The three of them - Chace with his hands in his pockets, Ed and Leighton arm-in-arm - formed a familiar tableau. Ed could almost feel a camera tracking the scene. Then Chace backed away - out of shot - and climbed into the truck's cab. He gave an awkward left-handed wave out of the window as he drove away.
Ed was glad when Leighton reached up and wrapped her arms securely around his neck, suffocating him in a perfumed embrace. He was glad he didn't have to ask for the hug. Leighton pressed a kiss onto his cheek and murmured a final self-help-book platitude into his ear. Ed found this one to be the most helpful of all:
"He's a shit."
Epilogue
The next day, a new piece of gossip appeared online. The words, hot new couple?? were pasted above a picture of Ed and Leighton hugging. From the angle the picture had been taken (with a long lens, presumably), the chaste kiss on the cheek was transformed into an enthusiastic tonguing session.
Ed mustered a slight smile. He was sitting on his bed, MacBook for company. He pulled up AIM in order to send Leighton the link, but she was Away. The message read: Lunch date. Italian. (The guy.) Superhot. (I hope!) Ed sighed and pushed his laptop aside. He lay back and watched the fan on his ceiling go round and round and round and round. Minutes slipped into hours.
He was roused by the bleep of a new message on his AIM. It was Leighton.
Hey. Rescheduled lunch date was a bust. Not hot at all. You wanna go out?
"Yeah," Ed said, answering her question aloud. "It's New York. What is there to do in New York except go out?"
The question seemed to echo around his empty apartment.
END.