fic: edge of desire (michael johns/david cook) (2/2)
Title: Edge of Desire
Pairing: David Cook/Michael Johns
Rating: PG-13
Summary: David Cook sort of falls in and out of love with Michael Johns, and all of the stops in between. 17k.
part one.
Time goes on, Idol goes on, Dave throws himself headfirst into his music and he does pretty well, surprisingly well, feels good about each and every week he’s on the show. Some shit with his brother comes up, and he refuses to be that guy, refuses to talk about it on camera no matter how much the producers cajole him, but it bogs him down, a little, and suddenly Andrew’s calling him nightly, and he and the other contestants grow impossibly close, so David has little time to think about Michael Johns. He misses him, distantly, the way he misses his relatives he only sees a couple of times a year, but when things had ended so badly, when he sent two or three or seven texts that went unanswered, it was easy to give up.
Life is good. That little incident almost seems funny now - it’ll never actually be funny, but when he gets drunk and thinks about how he confessed his love to a married Australian guy he met on a reality TV show… okay, yeah, that was kind of unintentionally hilarious.
He doesn’t tell anyone about it, not even Brooke who shoots him these sad, sympathetic looks every time Michael’s name is mentioned. He just shrugs and moves the conversation along, as if he’d talked to Michael the night before, sure, and he’s doing absolutely fine.
Everything happens so quickly and suddenly it’s down to two: David and David. He doesn’t know how that happened except he does, and he can easily gauge both of their fan bases, but he has no idea who will win. He works really hard on his songs, all three of them, and it doesn’t hit him until about five hours after the meeting with Nigel that when he said everyone was coming back for the finale, everyone meant everyone, Michael Johns included.
But he’s not worried about it. He’s over it. Michael’s bound to be over it, and if he’s not, then so what. No one’s going to ask them to sing together. No one’s going to force them into awkward conversation. It’ll be fine. Just fine.
No one knows where Michael is. They have hotel rooms, but Michael’s is always empty, and except for rehearsals, he’s never around. He’s not as group lunches, doesn’t show up for dinner, skips out on the outings on their days off-the Davids don’t have days off, but everyone else does, here and there. It’s not surprising. His life is in LA. Stacey’s in LA. He doesn’t need to depend on the Idol machine for housing or food or amusement. He’s fine without it. He always has been.
They don’t talk. Not like they used to, anyway. During a break from their group song, Michael says, “Y’want some water?” and Dave says, “Yeah, that’d be great, thanks,” and he throws him a bottle and that’s it.
And then they pass each other on the way to the bathroom and Dave says, “You and Carly sounded amazing, back there,” and Michael pats him on the arm, the way he does with his fans, and says, “Thanks, Dave, you sounded pretty good yourself.”
And it’s nice and all, but the Michael he knows-his Michael-would’ve smirked and said, “I know, right? Should’ve been me in the finale instead of your sorry ass.” Because that was the sort of relationship they had.
David’s not sure he likes this new Michael. He doesn’t want to be complimented. He wants to get drunk and play that game where they guess what the girls in Playboy were like as children. He wants Michael to grin at him, all white teeth and dimples, as he points to a naked girl with her legs spread high in the air and says, “Social butterfly, that one, you can see it all over her face.”
This is the only Michael he’s allowed to know now, though. He lost that privilege. And that’s just something he’s gong to have to live with.
He knows who Kimberly Caldwell is. She’s gorgeous, obviously, but she seems like a real sweetheart, too, as far as LA girls go. Brooke’s the one who points it out, first, during conversation over dinner.
“You know, she likes you,” she says in that coy Brooke White way of hers.
David spears a green bean on his fork and looks up. “Who?”
“Kim Caldwell. From season two of Idol. She’s on TV guide now.” She passes her phone over and David takes it out of polite curiosity. There’s a video pulled up, some post-show interview, and he plays all of about six seconds before he laughs and hands it back. She’s gushing. About him. About his music, and, weirdly enough, about his hair.
“She’s cute,” Brooke says pointedly.
“She is,” David agrees. “You should go for it.”
Brooke laughs and smacks his shoulder. “I’m just saying. You should talk to her! She’ll be at the finale.”
David throws a look of casual indifference at her. “Eh, I don’t know,” he says, stuffing a bite of chicken into his mouth. “I’m not really into reality show contestants.”
Up until that point, however, he knew who she was and that was about it. But suddenly, now he’s noticing her everywhere. When he flips on the TV and there she is. When he’s running errands with his brother and he passes her on the street. When he Googles her name and her pictures come up. It’s the strangest thing, really.
And Brooke doesn’t let it go. She drops by when he’s very innocently reading her Wikipedia page, and she smiles at him (he hates it when she does that, why does she have to know everything?) and says in a singsong voice, “Somebody has a cruuush.”
“Do not,” he says stoutly, but he gets the same feeling in the pit of his stomach that he got back when he denied having a crush on Michael Johns. Damn it.
“Do too. You should ask her out.”
“I should ask her out? And how should I do that? Should I have Jason have Syesha have Archie pass her a note that says will you please go out with David? Check yes or no-”
Brooke rolls her eyes. “You are such a smart aleck.”
“And you overestimate my ability to date hot girls.”
“Please, Dave, you’re a catch.”
David mock-glares at her and she mock-glares back and it’s pretty impossible to say no to that face so he sighs and gives in. “Fine,” he relents. “I will consider asking her out. But if she says no-”
“She won’t say no.”
“-if she says no, you owe me. Big time.”
Brooke just smiles and pulls him in for a hug, a real one, and he rests his chin against her shoulder and thinks for the millionth time how grateful he is for this stupid little singing show.
“By the way,” she whispers in his ear, like she’s about to say something really life-changing and important, and David strains his ears to listen.
“Quit internet stalking her, you weirdo.”
He gets his first chance-only chance, possibly, depending where life takes him from here-the night of the finale. It’s rather inconvenient timing, and he also happens to be raking in major man points by risking rejection on national TV, but he sees her from across the room and she looks breathtakingly stunning, so he figures, it’s now or never. The flowers are a last-minute addition, stolen from a basket in the lobby, and he’s not sure whose they are but he hopes they’ll forgive him, and before he really realizes what he’s doing, he asks her to dinner mid-interview and she looks surprised and happy and says yes.
“That wasn’t so difficult,” he comments off-handedly.
Archie blinks and looks at him and pats his arm like he’s so old and wise and knows exactly what he means. “That’s awesome, Cook. I’m really happy for you.”
David laughs. “Come on, Arch. You’ve got a show to win.”
David’s pretty distracted that night, because of the whole winning American Idol thing and all. It’s overwhelming. It’s overwhelmingly overwhelming, and he spends the next three days in a dizzied state of awe and constant gratitude. Life is pretty fucking amazing after all.
He hadn’t realized Michael had pulled him into a hug after his crowning moment until he saw the recap on TV four nights later. He must’ve realized it at the time, distantly, but there was so much going on-his family and the confetti and the fans and the singing-that it hadn’t really registered, and he certainly hadn’t seen Michael’s face up close like this; he looks happy. Happy for David. Like he’s celebrating the win just as much as David is, like everything hadn’t happened between them, and David’s heart aches so much he has to turn the channel.
It must’ve been a fleeting moment. A lapse of judgment on Michael’s part. He must’ve gotten caught up in the celebration, because even though he was hugging him then, even though his arm is clearly tightened around David’s shoulder, he hadn’t approached him at the afterparty. He hadn’t accosted him in the hall. He hadn’t even called him the next morning, just to tell him congrats.
There were only two weeks before tour rehearsals started. He wonders if this is how the whole summer’s going to go, if he’s going to have to act cool and unaffected at every stop they make. Or maybe he and Michael will just exist in the same space. There are eight other people along for the ride. He’ll have a lifetime worth of distractions.
Still, though. It won’t be the same.
David digs his phone out of his pocket and types up a text message: Enjoy your time off, he writes, hope all is well.
He presses the send button and then repockets the phone, not bothering to wait for a reply.
He doesn’t get one. Life goes on.
Their date takes place at a swanky hotel restaurant when David gets back from New York, exhausted but happy, the good kind of tired, and he splurges on a new vest-and-tie combo that his mom thinks he looks adorable in, although Andrew seems to think it makes him look gay. He ditches the tie and buys a new pair of jeans instead, and he spends a good twenty minutes on his hair in the bathroom-instantly missing having a hair stylist at his right hand at all times, because good God, could he use some help-before he deems himself fit to pick her up.
Kim’s wearing a low-cut red dress and black heels and she’s gorgeous and confident and David’s mouth might’ve fallen open a little when she climbed into the car beside him. “Hi,” she says, pecking him on the cheek breezily before reaching for her seatbelt. “You look nice.”
David wrenches his jaw shut. “Thanks,” he says, internally chiding himself for being nervous. She was a girl, just a girl, and they had a million things in common, and if the date was a disaster, at least they could swap American Idol stories all night and tactfully split before dessert.
It’s not a disaster, though. Far from it. Kim is surprisingly witty and unsurprisingly charming, and she orders an appetizer for the both of them before grinning sheepishly at David and saying, “I hope that’s okay.”
“No, that’s great,” he agrees, setting his menu aside. “I’m starving, I don’t think I’ve eaten real food since the finale.”
“What, they don’t feed the American Idol?”
“Exactly the opposite, actually,” Dave jokes, and puts his hand on his stomach. “They tell the American Idol that he’s been overfed. Tastefully, of course, but it’s kind of hard to ignore a producer who says, ‘You know what would look great? You, fifteen pounds lighter.’”
Kim’s eyes widen. “They did not,” she says, in complete disbelief.
David maintains a straight face for all of ten seconds but then breaks, laughing hard. “You’re right, they didn’t,” he agrees, ducking to avoid being slapped in the arm. “But you totally believed me. That’s kind of insulting.”
“Jerk,” Kim says, shaking her head in a playfully disappointed sort of way.
“Hey now. This jerk’s paying for your meal.”
“Well, this jerk better not expect me to put out after we eat.”
David nearly chokes on his wine but Kim just smiles at him innocently, reaching for her own glass. Oh yeah, David thinks. She’s a keeper.
They have two more dates that week and each one is as fun as the first, and Saturday morning they go hiking in a part of town that David didn’t know existed, and they stop halfway through and end up making out behind a patch of trees for well over half an hour. That’s his favorite part of the afternoon, he has to admit.
And this dating thing, it’s nice. Especially the part where Kim’s not married and is indeed attracted to men. That helps quite a bit.
Still, though, he’s leaving for the summer in just a few weeks so it’s not like they’re getting all serious about each other. It’s fun. This entire thing is fun, and he needs this. Deserves this. It takes his mind off rehearsals and he completely forgets that once upon a time in another world he’d confessed his love to Michael Johns. (Okay, he doesn’t forget it. But it’s irrelevant now, considering he and Michael exchange maybe six words a day, if he’s lucky.)
They don’t “break up” when it’s time to leave. They agree to keep in contact. They agree that it’s okay if they each want to see other people. (They also agree that it’s not likely that either of them will.) They agree to meet up at the end of the summer and see where their lives are, and Kim agrees to go to the Los Angeles tour date, and David agrees to give her backstage passes. (“To my pants,” but she just rolls her eyes.)
The buses pull up at eight o’clock in the morning, sharp. David’s sitting on top of his loaded suitcase and kicking a hacky sack from foot to foot. “You suck,” Jason says, when he drops it for the twenty-seventh time, and David picks it up and pelts it at his head.
The girls settle into theirs first and when Chikezie and David try to board to check it out, they practically chase them away, brandishing their purses like weapons. “No boys allowed,” Kristy says, sticking out her tongue, so they retreat to their own bus, shaking their heads.
Most of the bunks have already been claimed. Jason and Michael snatched the two furthest back; Archie’s got the one up front, but he’s ferreting around, wringing his hands, asking every single guy if that’s okay. David doesn’t really care where he ends up. He figures each bunk will be as cramped and uncomfortable as the next, so he piles his shit on an empty bed and sits down, testing out the springs.
“Home sweet home,” Chikezie jokes, unearthing a box of Poptarts and passing them around ceremoniously. Together, they break starchy artificial bread and toast to their new abode, and then Jason jumps up and locks himself in the bathroom and says he’s going to christen the bus for real.
“We’re not even moving yet!” David yells, throwing a pillow at the door, “you can still use the bathroom inside!”
The first show goes surprisingly well, given that none of them have ever done anything remotely close to this before. No major bumps or scratches, no lyrics forgotten, no missteps or tragic accidents. Dave doesn’t fumble over the guitar chords to any of his songs, and the group number, while still fantastically cheesy, is actually fun, a great way to end the show.
They stand on the stage when it’s all over, facing the crowd, seeing their faces, and Dave’s heart is racing with more than just endorphins. The applause is deafening, Carly’s arm is solid around his waist, and he just feels good.
He wants to do this for the rest of his life.
On their first day off, a warm day in Nevada, Carly wakes him up during his afternoon nap. It’s the first one he’s managed to take in weeks and so he’s admittedly grumpy, trying to shake her off without having to open his eyes first.
“Dave, come on,” she wheedles, poking him in the side again.
He bats her hand away.
“You shouldn’t even be here, this is the boys’ bus,” he grumbles into his pillow. He doesn’t care that he sounds like a petulant ten-year-old. He wants his sleep, damn it. “You’re a girl. Go to the girls’ bus. Go be girly.”
“Oh, shut up, would you? Come on. Up and at ‘em. We’re leaving, and you’re going with us.”
“Don’t want to.”
“I didn’t ask you what you wanted,” Carly says, and then, sounding very serious, “You have about eight seconds to wake up before I have Chikezie sit on you.”
That gets his attention. Very reluctantly he blinks his eyes open and rubs at them tiredly, struggling into a sitting position. And then-“Hey!” he says, indignant. “Chikezie’s not even here.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a sucker for believing me. But now you’re awake, so you might as well get dressed! C’mon. We’re going to dinner.”
He raises an eyebrow. As far as he knows, most of the others have gone out for the day, doing the touristy shit he can’t always bring himself to pretend to be excited about. “We who?”
“We as in your friends, your tourmates, fellow contestants on American Idol. Ring a bell?” She doesn’t wait for him to answer; it’s probably for the best. He’s too sluggish to be witty. “Look, we’ll even go someplace where they have buffalo wings and beer. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
He hesitates. That’s a pretty tempting offer.
“Fine,” he says at last, throwing his blankets aside. “But I swear, if you ever wake me up by wet willy again-”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m terribly frightened.” She smiles at him all cutesily and he wishes, not for the first time, that stuff like that wasn’t allowed. “Wear that shirt with the buttons, okay? It makes you look-”
“Skinny?” he supplies, reaching for the shirt in question. He wore it three stops ago but a sniff check says it’s a-okay for at least another day.
Carly makes a face. “I was going to say ruggedly handsome, but you know, whatever.” She picks up a pair of discarded jeans and pushes them at David. “Wear these too,” she says, heading for the door. “And meet me by the street.”
When David tosses her a skeptical look, she just shrugs and climbs down the steps. “They make your butt look good,” she explains, and then disappears outside.
They head into the bar together, Carly telling Dave some story about Ramiele sleeping on the couch for two nights in a row because she was too embarrassed to admit she couldn’t reach the top bunk, and David’s laughing and not really paying attention to where they’re going. Carly leads him to a table in the back and he trails after her willingly, but when he sees exactly where she’s taking him, he stops dead in his tracks.
“Ohhh no,” he says firmly, shaking his head. “No no no no no.”
Carly looks at him innocently. “What?”
“You-you’re really evil, you know that?”
The table’s really not all that big, and it’s already half-occupied; one seat taken by Brooke, lightly snacking on chips and salsa, and the other by Michael Johns, nursing a beer and looking a little bit sullen. He always looks sullen these days. And considering the fact that they share a living space that’s smaller than his living room, they’ve done a pretty fair job at avoiding each other this summer. No need to interrupt that now.
“David,” Carly says, and she looks more concerned and less mischievous than she did ten seconds ago. “Look, I don’t know what happened, Brooke doesn’t know what happened-none of us know what happened, but you guys used to be so close. And now the two of you barely speak and we miss you.” She smiles ruefully. “We miss Mavid.”
David doesn’t say anything. He’s annoyed. He’s annoyed with Carly, for tricking him into this, and he’s annoyed with himself, for being tricked so easily. “There is no Mavid,” he says flatly at last. “And that’s a stupid word, anyway.”
(He used to like it. He used to think it was funny. He and Michael used to talk about themselves in third person like they were one unit: “Mavid’s hungry,” Michael would whine before dinner; “Mavid wants to go to bed,” Dave would intone after a long day of rehearsals.)
“Just… do me a favor and don’t be a baby, just this once, okay?” Carly puts her hand on his shoulder with a pleading look. David sighs. “It’s dinner. An hour of your day. It’s not going to kill you.”
“Fine,” he says sulkily, and then he follows her to the table.
Brooke spots them first. “Hi guys!” she says, half-happy, half-anxious. Apparently she and Carly were in on this together. Evil schemers. David makes a mental note to be mad at them later. And judging by Michael’s expression, he hadn’t known about this either. Great. Just great.
“Sorry we’re late,” Carly announces, dropping down into the seat next to Brooke. That leaves only one, the one by Michael, and he sits down carefully, making sure to leave plenty of room between the two of them. It’s not like this is the first time they’ve had a meal together. This is just the first time there wasn’t an entire group of people to distract from the weirdness. Because that’s what it is now. Weirdness. “Dave was too busy drooling,” Carly adds, flipping her menu open.
“Was not,” David says, a touch of defensiveness in his voice. “I don’t drool.”
“Do too,” says Carly.
“Do not.”
“Do too,” says Brooke.
“Do not.”
“You do, mate,” Michael says, and David looks up at him in surprise.
“You have no proof,” he says after a long, confusing moment, crossing his arms over his chest. Of course the first real conversation they’d have in weeks would be about David’s propensity to drool in his sleep. Go figure.
“I’ve got plenty of proof. I was your roommate. You’d have a wet stain on your pillow every morning,” Michael says smugly, tipping his beer up to his mouth like the conversation was over, like he’d already won. The bastard.
“Yeah, well, at least I’ve never had a questionable dream about characters from Sesame Street,” David shoots back, and Michael chokes on his drink and lowers the bottle, sputtering.
“I told you-that wasn’t a questionable dream, it was a normal dream in which I happened to live next door to Big Bird.”
“You were moaning Elmo’s name,” Dave says pointedly, and Michael looks flustered, but he’s also cracking up.
“This coming from a guy who sleepwalked and peed in the shower at three o’clock in the morning,” Michael returns, and Carly and Brooke are exchanging some sort of secret smile that Dave could spend hours analyzing, but he doesn’t even care. It’s like he and Mike are in their own little world, and maybe he’s airing his dirty laundry to everyone in a fifty food radius, but he’ll take it. He didn’t realize how much he’d missed Michael until he re-experienced how good it felt to just laugh with him. He’d take this any day.
“That was only because you made me take a tequila shot before bed,” David says. “I warned you, didn’t I?”
The waitress arrives before Michael can open his mouth for a retort, bless her heart, and David orders a beer and enough buffalo wings to go around. He doesn’t mind paying. He feels like he’s just taken a huge weight off his shoulders without actually having to confront the weight, and when the waitress brings back their drinks, David clinks his bottle against Michael’s and toasts to the night.
On the bus that night, David’s tucked into his bunk and working on a surprisingly difficult Sudoku when he hears Michael’s voice. “Dave,” he calls, and David’s heart maybe does that stupid thing where it skips a beat. He pokes his head through the curtains.
“Yeah?”
“You want to watch an episode of It’s Always Sunny with me?”
It’s possible that Michael’s only inviting him because he knows he loves that show. It’s possible he’s only inviting him because Jason or one of the other guys told him to. But it’s also possible that he’s inviting him because he wants to, because he’d enjoyed their time at dinner, because he was starting realize that David wasn’t quite the satanic homewrecker that he’d built him up to be. David really hoped it was the latter. But no matter what, he’d accept it.
“Absolutely,” he calls back, and even though they’d just eaten two days ago, he digs into his backpack and holds up a giant bag of Twizzlers. “Candy?’
“Knew you were good for something,” Michael says with an appreciate nod.
It’s just the two of them, watching TV. David takes the empty couch, ignoring the way Mike’s spread out against his, and they pass the bag of candy back and forth between them, laughing in all the right places. It was like they were rooming together all over again, and when Michael falls asleep around two o’clock in the morning, cheek pressed against the arm of the couch, David doesn’t think about how he wants to kiss him. Instead, he tosses a blanket over him, finishes the episode, and then goes in the back to call Kim.
David thinks they’re probably going to have to ease their way back into this friendship thing, but turns out, he’s incredibly wrong. The next day he and Mike go for a walk, and they end up getting lost for three hours and then bombarded by teenagers in some puny mall in the middle of nowhere, and Michael laughs the entire time, and there’s no discussion of weirdness, of boundary-crossing. It’s just as fast and easy as it was the first time around, and the only difference is that Dave knows he’s going to have to keep himself a little more guarded this time, that he’s going to have to be more careful, and when they finally escape the clutches of an overzealous mom with a camera, Michael turns to him and says, “So I’ve thought of something to liven up the group numbers every night…” and David just listens with a grin.
The robot.
That’s his big idea.
Well, not just the robot-“tons of dances, any sort of them, really”-but they start with the robot, right at the tail end of the concert, just as Please Don’t Stop the Music is wrapping up. They’re all on stage but as far as David is concerned, it’s just the two of them, locking eyes, and David and Michael are both incredibly bad dancers, which just makes it that much funnier.
And the best part of all is that it starts off as an inside joke, something to help with the monotony of performing the same song and dance every single night, but then Michael drags him to the living room three mornings later and points to his computer. It’s apparently turned into something much bigger.
The Mavid Dance, the fans are calling it. With videos. Pictures. Discussions and speculations-all about them.
David loves it. All of it. They start planning their next move.
Kim sends him a text letting him know she can make it to the New York show at the end of July. David’s more excited to see her than he thought he’d be. It’s not like he ever thought he was replacing Mike with her, looking for someone to fill the Michael Johns-sized gap in his life, but up until now he’d sort of thought they fulfilled a distinctly similar role.
But he was wrong. Clearly, he was wrong. He and Michael are buddies, and really, he hasn’t even thought of him like that for three months (save for a moment of weakness here and there, a dream he couldn’t control or two) and Kim, well. There are a few incriminating objects in his cell phone that hint at the fact that they’re definitely not just friends.
He sends Kim backstage passes, but he also slides one of his hotel room keys into an envelope and plans to hand it off to a member of security, ensuring he’ll deliver it to her before the show. Michael catches him signing his name at the bottom and lifts his eyebrows in curiosity.
“It’s for Kim,” he says, and he has no idea why he feels like he might be blushing a little bit. Michael looks at him blankly so he clarifies, “Caldwell.”
“Oh.” Michael shifts feet and glances down at his cell phone and then back up at Dave. “I didn’t realize-are you guys dating?”
“Sort of, we’re-” He shrugs. “We’re just having fun.”
He’s got a look on his face that David can’t identify and he’s not going to bother trying to decipher what it means. That sort of thing gets him in trouble. He’s only just been forgiven for last time, and he’s really not willing to take his chances.
But Michael just nods and puts his phone to his ear, like he’s taking a phone call. “That’s cool,” he says, breezing past Dave, and then, “See you out there,” with a pat on his arm, disappearing around the corner. David blinks a few times and finishes writing his name, sealing the envelope before he passes it off.
David tries to introduce Kim to Michael after the show but he’s nowhere to be found, and when they have a comfy hotel bed and room service to look forward to, there’s really no point in hanging around the venue all night. He thinks it’s a shame they don’t get the chance to meet because they’re really similar in a lot of ways, with their sense of humor and disarmingly dry wit, and he could easily imagining them all getting along.
He mentions this to her, off-handedly, and she looks interested at first, and he’s got that problem where once he starts talking about Michael Johns he has a hard time stopping, and then he’s telling story after story after story, and the more he talks about Michael the more he realizes just how much he likes him, but then Kim slips out of her dress and under the sheets and he stops thinking about Michael Johns altogether.
Around two o’clock in the morning, David says he thinks they should be exclusive.
Kim kisses him on the lips and says that she agrees.
When he and Michael go on their pre-show Krispy Kreme run two days later, they talk about almost everything, like normal, but they don’t talk about Kim. They also don’t talk about Stacey. They never talk about Stacey, and it’s not because David doesn’t ask. It’s just a thing they have, he guesses. Just a thing.
The entire summer flies by way too fast. He has no idea where time went. He has no idea how they ended up here, the morning of the last show. He looks at everything a little more appreciatively now. The microwave that’s next to impossible to open. His tiny nausea-inducing bunk. The fans that attempt to rip clothing straight from their bodies. He’ll miss it all.
Mostly he’ll miss the people, though. (Mostly he’ll miss Michael.) The group of friends he had the privilege of spending the past three months with are nine of his favorite people in the whole entire world, and he can’t imagine having done it without them. He gets a little emotional every time he thinks about them splitting up, but he’s careful not to show it too much, because he’s already a little tired of Chikezie and Michael throwing wadded-up tissues at him every time he turns his back.
Still, though, he knows he’s not the only one. There’s a reason they’ve been inseparable since Thursday. There’s a reason the guys have set up camp around the sofas so often that the brand new couches have butt-sized indentations throughout the day.
The last show is amazing. Incredible. The best they’ve ever felt, and they hold each other as they leave the stage, arms over shoulders, hands around waists.
Their bags are packed. The buses are clean.
At dinner that night. David passes Chikezie and Michael a box of tissues. They both need it.
Kim’s waiting for him when the plane touches down in Los Angeles. He hoists his bag over his shoulder and heads in the airport, and he doesn’t even see her until Michael nudges him in the arm and says, “There’s your gal.”
He brightens automatically. He hadn’t been expecting her. And he’s exhausted and a little sore and all he wants at this moment is a soft bed and a warm meal, but if he can have both of those things with Kim, well, he thinks he’d enjoy them quite a bit more.
“Hi,” she says, smiling, her arms wrapping around his shoulders.
“Hi,” he echoes, and he leans in for a quick kiss, paparazzi be damned.
She takes his carry-on from him, which is really unnecessary, but then, she does look cute with a backpack, so he decides not to argue. “Welcome home,” she tells him, looking straight into his eyes like they’re the only two people in the world, a hint of mischief in her smile. “I got us a hotel room.”
David raises his eyebrows.
“So you can sleep,” she laughs, slapping him playfully in the arm, and David opens his mouth to make a joke, but she cuts him off with, “I can’t be held accountable for what I do when you wake up, though,” and he promptly forgets what he was going to say.
“Best. Girlfriend. Ever,” he says, and it’s the first time he’s ever used that word with her, and it feels weird in his mouth, but a good kind of weird. A comfortable sort of fit, and her face lights up, which makes it totally worth it.
“Well, then,” she says, slipping her arm through his, “come on, boyfriend.”
David’s more than willing to go with her, but there’s something he has to do first. “Hang on jut one sec,” he says, setting his suitcase down and then turning to face Mike.
Stacey hadn’t shown up. The look on Michael’s face makes David think he’d been hoping she would, but she hadn’t. Then again, he could’ve been completely misinterpreting it. He didn’t know Stacey. He didn’t know what they were like.
He did know, however, that he was going to miss Michael. That he was going to wake up tomorrow morning with an empty sort of feeling without having Michael three bunks away. That it was going to be so incredibly weird to fumble into his kitchen and not find Michael sprawled out at the table.
He did know that he missed him already.
But he puts on a brave face, so to speak, and takes two steps closer. “So I guess I’ll be seeing you around, huh?” he offers, and Michael gives him a strange little nod.
“You’ve got my number, mate. We’ll get lunch soon, yeah?”
David wants to say that lunch isn’t enough. That he wants to spend more time with them than just an hour during the weekday when they both happen to be free. But he doesn’t want to seem weirdly clingy. He just nods and sticks his hand out for a shake.
Michael gives him a searching look and pushes his hand away, and then, arms spread wide, he pulls him in for a hug. It’s a chest-to-chest, hip-to-hip sort of hug, the kind he’s been afraid to give him for months, and David’s body nearly melts with relief as he squeezes him back.
It last about twenty seconds longer than necessary. Michael pulls back and David steps away and then they exchange quiet goodbyes and Michael grabs his bags and goes one way, and David throws his arms around Kim’s shoulders and goes the other.
They don’t turn around for a final look, a final wave. They’re not those kind of people. This isn’t that kind of story.
But when he climbs into the passenger seat of Kim’s little black car, his phone buzzes in his pocket, and it’s Michael:
First thing I hear on the radio? Please Don’t Stop the Music. God kill me now, he wrote, and David laughs and replies, I’m doing the robot as we speak.
They never once addressed what happened between them. In the countless number of hours they spent in conversation, talking about this and that and everything else, it never came up. David never apologized for wanting to kiss Michael, and Michael never apologized for blowing up at him for something he couldn’t exactly help. They simply got past it. Way past it. Because you can’t love two people at the same time, and Dave’s falling pretty hard for Kim, who may be the most kickass girlfriend he’s ever had, and he and Mike do lunch once a week or every two weeks or however often they can swing it, and they’re normal and good. It’s all good. Everything is.
In October, David puts the final touches on the last song on the album, and then he takes a two-week vacation with Kim in the tropics. He accidentally leaves his phone at his house, and when he gets back, he’s got six voicemails from Michael. They’re about stupid, mundane things, and David listens to every single one of them with a grin.
In November, the album comes out, and David’s life is hectic and stressful and exactly the way he wants it to be. He’s so incredibly proud of this album, of the music, and it truly is the best feeling in the whole entire world. He and Michael get together and celebrate by opening a bottle of wine and listening to the album until David makes him turn it off, and then they spend the rest of the night drunkenly passing the bottle back and forth and discussing the merit of corduroy pants and rehashing memories from tour, like that one time Archie got motion sick and threw up, except the swaying of the bus caused him to miss the toilet. They laugh until they’re breathless, and they both end up crashing on the living room floor, waking up six hours later, stiff and miserable and happy.
He and Kim celebrate by having sex. Lots and lots and lots of sex, with a steak dinner beforehand, and a glass of champagne after.
He can’t decide which one he likes more.
Life happens, the way life does, and everything keeps getting better and better. Both Neal and Andy agreed to be in his band, so he gets to make money playing music with his best friends, and kids stop him on the street for autographs, and he gets to spend all of his free time with Kimberly Caldwell. He’s busy more often than not, and his weekly lunches with Michael reduce to monthly lunches, but that’s okay, because they still text and email all the time.
There are little things he’d never realized he took for granted in his old life (his old-old life) like going to the movies and not being mobbed, or buying a new pair of pants completely uninterrupted. That’s why he likes to go to the grocery store when he has the day off. He can mostly get by unscathed there, and he’s trailing along at his own pace, throwing some vaguely health-conscious foods into his cart, when someone says his name.
He stops and sighs a little, because he’d really wanted this day to himself, but he’s never ignored a fan in public before, and he doesn’t plan on starting now. When he turns around, however, cheesy-ass smile on his face, it’s not a fifteen-year-old girl who’d called for him. It’s a woman. A blonde woman that he immediately recognizes.
Stacey. Michael’s Stacey.
“How’ve you been?” she asks, pushing his cart next to his. “It’s crazy to run into you here, I was just picking some things up for later-Michael says he hasn’t seen you in a while, but I’m sure you’ve been plenty busy.”
David laughs politely and thinks about how Michael must’ve never told her that once upon a time he’d almost tried to destroy their marriage. That was nice of him, at least. “Yeah, I’ve… tons of stuff going on right now. How are you?”
“I’m great! Really great. Mikey and I just got back from Atlanta, and now he’s working on music and… well, you probably already know that, you two are thick as thieves.”
David hadn’t known that, actually, and it makes him a little sad. That seems like the sort of thing he should know. He’s a shitty friend. But he just nods his head and says sure, sure, because admitting it would be worse.
“You know what! If you’re not busy tomorrow, you should join us for dinner. You and your girlfriend!”
“Oh,” David says, “I don’t-“
“No, no, I insist! I’ll tell Mikey to send you the details. It’ll be so fun.” Her cell phone starts ringing and she extracts it from her purse, waving at him before saying, “It was great bumping into you, we’ll see you tomorrow,” and then continues down the aisle, cell phone glued to her ear.
Okay, David thinks, a couple’s dinner. That’s what couples do, right? Kim had been saying they should go out more often, be more sociable. They had to start somewhere Maybe it’d be fun.
Michael’s text message tells him the name of the place and what time they should meet, but not much else. No “see you soon, mate!” In fact, not exclamation marks at all. It’s a little strange, a little abnormal for Mike, but David doesn’t spend too much time thinking about it. It’ll be good to see him tomorrow, and besides, Kim’s excited.
“You know,” she says on the drive over, “for as much as you and Michael seem to love each other, I think it’s kind of weird that I haven’t really hung out with him yet. Is there something you want to tell me?”
David very pointedly keeps his eyes on the road. “Very funny,” he says, without finding it very funny at all.
The hostess takes them to their table at the restaurant like she was expecting them, and she keeps looking back over her shoulder at David with a dreamy little smile. They have a private little table in the back, a bottle of wine in the middle, and Michael barely glances up when they’re seated. Stacey, however, stands and gives them both quick hugs before pulling Kim into the seat beside hers. “So nice to finally meet you!” she says, and the two of them start gushing, conversing rapidly in girl-ese, and David doesn’t even try to understand what they’re saying.
Instead, he turns his attention to Michael. “Hey Mike,” he says, touching him lightly on the arm.
Michael gives him a curt little nod. “Hey.”
Well. That wasn’t what he’d been expecting. “How’re things going?”
“Fine, you?”
“Good. Really good.”
“Glad to hear it.”
David shrinks back in his chair some and glances at his menu, up to Michael’s face, then back to his menu. It’s like he’s experiencing some sort of weird déjà vu, like he’s been transported back to eight months ago when Michael wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. Only this time, he hasn’t done anything wrong.
“Mike,” he tries, because maybe he’d misread it, maybe he was wrong. “Is something-”
“You should really try the salmon here,” Mike interrupts, leaning forward to flip the pages in Stacey’s menu.
Okay then.
He doesn’t have to talk a lot during dinner because Stacey and Kim do more than their fair share. He learns about Stacey’s yoga classes, and Kim talks about her family in Florida, and Stacey’s wanting to repaint the house, but Michael hates yellow paint, and on and on and on and on they talk, about things that have no significance in the world at all. He and Mike used to talk about these things too, but at least they were funny about it. And Michael is doing anything but laughing right now. In fact, he’s sitting moodily in his seat, silent, only chipping it when he has to, and even then it’s only a nod or a murmur of assent.
David tries a few times, because it’s been almost six weeks since he’d seen him last, and he’d been really looking forward to making up for lost time, but Michael apparently has no desire to talk to him at all.
“I hear you’re working on music,” David says, and Michael just says, “Yep.”
“Loved that Christmas song you did, very jolly,” David says, and Michael just mm-hmms.
“Written any songs about me yet?” David asks, and Michael simply shrugs his shoulders, and that’s when he decides to give up. He throws himself into conversation with the girls, instead. At least they don’t look at him like they’re bored out of their skulls by his presence.
Stacey is very complimentary. She must’ve told Dave that she loves his vest six times by now, and she keeps sighing happily and looking over at him and Kim like they’re the cutest things she’s ever seen. “You guys are just such a great couple,” she keeps saying. “So cute. You really seem crazy about each other.”
“We are,” Kim agrees, reaching across the table and taking David’s hand in hers. He thinks he sees Michael roll his eyes, but he ignores it. Whatever.
“Still trying to figure out how I got so lucky,” Dave jokes, squeezing her fingers. “Either that, or who’s slipping Kim drugs behind my back.”
“You two are so perfect together,” Stacey says happily. She grabs Michael’s arm. “Aren’t they perfect together, Mikey?”
Michael doesn’t look up from his drink. “Sure,” he says, “perfect.”
Kim laughs. “Actually, we have some pretty exciting news…” and David wants to stop her, cut her off, because they haven’t even told his parents yet, but there’s no way of signaling to her without being totally obvious, so he just sits back and lets her finish with, “We’re moving in together!”
“Really?!” Stacey says, just as excited as he’d wanted Mike to be. “That’s amazing! Cognrats, you guys, I’m sure you’ll love it so much-”
But she trails off because suddenly, Michael has pushed his seat away from the table and stood up. His mouth is drawn in a straight line and all three heads turn to look at him. Stacey’s the first to speak.
“Mike, what’re you-”
“I told you,” he says, voice thick, “I told you that I didn’t want to come tonight.”
And then he turns around and he leaves.
Stacey looks absolutely flabbergasted. “I don’t-I have no idea what that was about.”
“It’s fine,” Kim says, although she looks a little uncomfortable, eyes darting between the two of them, and then, “Dave, what are you doing?”
Because he stood up to. He doesn’t know what he’s doing or why he’s possibly thinking of going after Michael, but he needs to. He needs to know what’s going on. He refuses to sit here all night and wonder. “I’ll be right back,” he promises them, and then he follows Mike’s path towards the door.
It’s not difficult to find him. He’s just outside, back to the restaurant, hands in his pockets, staring out towards the street. David lets the door shut softly behind him and takes a step closer. “Michael,” he says, and Michael doesn’t jump like he’s surprised. He turns around to face him, slowly, like he’d been expecting him all along.
But he’s still looking drawn and unhappy, restless. “What?” he says sharply, and David feels a surge of anger that he hadn’t been anticipating.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he demands. “Seriously, what’s your problem?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? Oh, come on. I’m not an idiot.”
“Go back inside, Dave,” Michael says, chest heaving a little, like he’s fighting to be still.
“Not until you tell me what I did to piss you off.”
“You didn’t do anything.”
“I obviously did something, if you don’t even want to have dinner with me-”
“It’s not you.” His voice is calm, quiet. Dangerous. David looks at him slowly.
“What?”
“I said it’s not you.”
“Then who is it?”
They’re probably a weird sight, the two of them, facing off in the parking lot of a really fancy restaurant. Michael takes one step forward and clenches his hands into fists.
“It’s her.”
“Her?”
“Her, David. Kim.”
And that sets him off a little, because what the fuck, since when does Michael have a problem with Kim? How could he possibly? He’s defensive on her behalf, and annoyed, because she’s never done anything to anybody, and seriously, that doesn’t make sense.
“What about Kim? What’s wrong with Kim?”
“Nothing’s wrong with her.”
“Obviously you think something’s wrong with her, you just said-”
“It’s you and Kim. Both of you. Together.”
David swallows hard, fairly convinced his heart is in his throat. “What are you talking about?” he says again, and it comes out a lot softer than he’d intended.
Michael laughs, sharp, cold, shaking his head. “Come on, Dave,” he says flatly. “Like you said, you’re not an idiot. I’m sure you know. Don’t you think there’s a reason I’ve never asked you to bring her along when we hang out?”
But it’s still not clicking, still doesn’t make sense, he has no idea what Michael’s getting at. “What are you-what?”
When Michael looks at him, his eyes are wet, almost, or maybe they’re just gleaming under the bright restaurant lights. His laugh turns a little more desperate, a little less cruel, and he covers his face with his hand, pressing his palm flat against his cheek.
“I don’t want her to have you,” he says miserably, “if I can’t.”
David stares at him. “What?” he says, and it’s the only thing he can come up with. He’s pretty sure Michael’s just fucking with him. Any minute now, he’s going to laugh, and he’s going to say got you, and he’s going to punch him in the shoulder and head back inside-but he doesn’t do any of those things.
He just takes two more steps closer, so there’s hardly a foot between them, and he looks straight into David’s eyes, and they are wet, at least a little. “You know,” he says quietly. “I know you know. That’s why I had to stay away from you when you told me, because I would’ve-we would’ve-it’s always been like that for me, Dave. I like you so much. I always have.”
His hand lifts and presses lightly against David’s shoulder. Dave watches it like he has no idea how it got there, like he has no idea how they ended up in this situation. He’s more confused than he’s ever been. With Kim and Michael and Michael and Kim and what is he doing?
“What are you doing?” he says, voice croaky, running an anxious hand through his hair.
“Dave,” Michael whispers, and suddenly his body is closing in, suddenly his face is right there. It would be so easy to kiss him. So easy to close his eyes and press forward just an inch-
“No,” David says, wrenching his eyes open. He gently pushes Michael away. “You-you told me it could never happen, so I moved on. I moved on. I’ve got Kim and you’ve got Stacey…”
“I want you,” Michael says, and David’s stomach twists into a ball. “I just want you.”
But David can’t do this. He’s not that guy. “You had your chance,” he says, stepping back towards the door. “And you didn’t want it. So…I can’t. I won’t.”
And then he heads back inside.
David doesn’t hear from Michael for close to three months. He and Kim never move in together; they’d completely meant to, but then things had gotten more complicated. His tour began in February, and who had time to think about a house when he spent all of his time on another fucking bus?
Their relationship tapered off in a way that had nothing to do (nothing to do, he’d promised himself, time and time again) with Michael Johns, and everything to do with the fact that it was a part of life. And it’s okay. They’re still friends. He doesn’t need a relationship on tour, doesn’t need validation or anything else.
He just needs his guitar, and he needs his band, and he occasionally needs a tall beer and an order of buffalo wings, and, thankfully, he has all of the above.
They’re in San Diego when it happens.
He’d just wrapped up his set, hot and sticky with sweat but feeling so good, the audience had really been on fire tonight, and he’s backstage, washing his face in the sink when Andy and Neal burst in the door.
“Hey Cinderella,” Neal says, in that drawling, teasing voice of his. “Guess who’s here.”
David doesn’t look up, dries his face on a towel. A little bit of makeup comes off. Gross. “Who?”
“Your Prince Charming,” he says with a smirk, and Andy smacks him in the stomach and says, “Neal.”
Dave locks eyes with Andy in the mirror; he’s the more trustworthy one of the two, after all. “What?”
But Andy just shrugs. “He wants to see you, Dave. We told him we’d see if you were busy-not sure if you wanted to see him or not, after everything…”
David’s not sure if he wants to see him or not, after everything. But he feels his head nodding, even though his brain hadn’t okayed it. “I… yeah. That’s fine. Send him back.”
They turn and head through the door together and Dave sits down on a stool. He hadn’t expected this. He wasn’t sure he was ready for this. It’s not like he hates Michael. He’d certainly spent a fair amount of time thinking about him. But he didn’t know what to say. Honestly, he’d sort of thought that door was closed.
The door swings open. Michael peeks his head through, all timid smile and messy hair. “Hey,” he says, looking relieved that he’s alone. He steps in. “I caught your show, managed to get tickets last minute. You sounded great.”
“Thanks,” Dave says. “What’re you doing here?”
“I… I wanted to see you. I would’ve come sooner, but you’ve mostly been on the east coast, yeah? And besides, I was… taking care of things first.” He offers up a stupid shrug that’s more endearing than anything and David hates that he can still get to him like this, after all this time.
“I’m divorced,” Michael says, after a long stretch of silence.
David stares at him. “Congrats?”
Michael smiles at him wryly. Maybe a congratulations wasn’t the appropriate reaction, but he didn’t know what was.
“I’m sorry I was so greedy,” Michael adds, clearly taking his silence as a sign to continue. He pauses, reconsiders. “I’m sorry about a lot of things, actually. Least of all the way I treated you. I was a fool, Dave. You did crazy things to me.”
“I didn’t do anything to you,” David says sharply. He’s not going to take responsibility for this. He’s not.
But Michael just shakes his head. “Maybe you didn’t mean to, mate, but you did. I fell for you fast. It scared the shit out of me.”
“And you thought the appropriate response was to completely alienate me from your life, wait until I was finally happy again, and then drop a huge bomb on me completely out of the blue.” David throws the washcloth down and nods. “Makes perfect sense.”
“It doesn’t, I know it doesn’t.” Michael grabs David by the arm and pulls him back; he considers shaking him off but doesn’t, allows it to happen. Shit. “I really want to make it up to you. I know it’s going to take time. But I can’t live my life without you in it. I tried that once. Didn’t work.”
David clears his throat. “I’m on tour-”
“They’ve got phones.”
“-and I don’t even know how long I’ll be on the road-”
“I can be patient.”
“-or where I’ll end up when it finishes-”
“Plane tickets’ll have to go down eventually.”
“-and I’m not even entirely sure I like you that much, Mike.”
But Mike just grins at him cheekily. “We’ll work on that,” he promises, and David’s heart gives in. “Look, I’ve gotta run-I parked my car by a fire hydrant.”
“Dumbass,” Dave says, rolling his eyes, but it sounds a lot more affectionate than he’d intended. Michael pulls him in for a hug before he can protest, squeezes him tightly, and then disappears down the hall, yelling, “I’ll call you,” as he goes.
David sits back down and groans. Fucking Michael Johns. He hops out of his seat and reaches for his toothbrush when his phone starts ringing, somewhere buried deep within his bag. It takes him a second to fish it out, but when he does, he raises an eyebrow at Michael’s name on the caller ID. “Hello?”
“Told you I’d call you,” Michael says, and David laughs and hangs up on him.
Of course.
David realizes he wants to kiss Michael Johns for the first time in a long time two months later, post-show in some random hotel room in Wisconsin. This time, he acts on his impulse.
This time, Michael kisses him back.
Pairing: David Cook/Michael Johns
Rating: PG-13
Summary: David Cook sort of falls in and out of love with Michael Johns, and all of the stops in between. 17k.
part one.
Time goes on, Idol goes on, Dave throws himself headfirst into his music and he does pretty well, surprisingly well, feels good about each and every week he’s on the show. Some shit with his brother comes up, and he refuses to be that guy, refuses to talk about it on camera no matter how much the producers cajole him, but it bogs him down, a little, and suddenly Andrew’s calling him nightly, and he and the other contestants grow impossibly close, so David has little time to think about Michael Johns. He misses him, distantly, the way he misses his relatives he only sees a couple of times a year, but when things had ended so badly, when he sent two or three or seven texts that went unanswered, it was easy to give up.
Life is good. That little incident almost seems funny now - it’ll never actually be funny, but when he gets drunk and thinks about how he confessed his love to a married Australian guy he met on a reality TV show… okay, yeah, that was kind of unintentionally hilarious.
He doesn’t tell anyone about it, not even Brooke who shoots him these sad, sympathetic looks every time Michael’s name is mentioned. He just shrugs and moves the conversation along, as if he’d talked to Michael the night before, sure, and he’s doing absolutely fine.
Everything happens so quickly and suddenly it’s down to two: David and David. He doesn’t know how that happened except he does, and he can easily gauge both of their fan bases, but he has no idea who will win. He works really hard on his songs, all three of them, and it doesn’t hit him until about five hours after the meeting with Nigel that when he said everyone was coming back for the finale, everyone meant everyone, Michael Johns included.
But he’s not worried about it. He’s over it. Michael’s bound to be over it, and if he’s not, then so what. No one’s going to ask them to sing together. No one’s going to force them into awkward conversation. It’ll be fine. Just fine.
No one knows where Michael is. They have hotel rooms, but Michael’s is always empty, and except for rehearsals, he’s never around. He’s not as group lunches, doesn’t show up for dinner, skips out on the outings on their days off-the Davids don’t have days off, but everyone else does, here and there. It’s not surprising. His life is in LA. Stacey’s in LA. He doesn’t need to depend on the Idol machine for housing or food or amusement. He’s fine without it. He always has been.
They don’t talk. Not like they used to, anyway. During a break from their group song, Michael says, “Y’want some water?” and Dave says, “Yeah, that’d be great, thanks,” and he throws him a bottle and that’s it.
And then they pass each other on the way to the bathroom and Dave says, “You and Carly sounded amazing, back there,” and Michael pats him on the arm, the way he does with his fans, and says, “Thanks, Dave, you sounded pretty good yourself.”
And it’s nice and all, but the Michael he knows-his Michael-would’ve smirked and said, “I know, right? Should’ve been me in the finale instead of your sorry ass.” Because that was the sort of relationship they had.
David’s not sure he likes this new Michael. He doesn’t want to be complimented. He wants to get drunk and play that game where they guess what the girls in Playboy were like as children. He wants Michael to grin at him, all white teeth and dimples, as he points to a naked girl with her legs spread high in the air and says, “Social butterfly, that one, you can see it all over her face.”
This is the only Michael he’s allowed to know now, though. He lost that privilege. And that’s just something he’s gong to have to live with.
He knows who Kimberly Caldwell is. She’s gorgeous, obviously, but she seems like a real sweetheart, too, as far as LA girls go. Brooke’s the one who points it out, first, during conversation over dinner.
“You know, she likes you,” she says in that coy Brooke White way of hers.
David spears a green bean on his fork and looks up. “Who?”
“Kim Caldwell. From season two of Idol. She’s on TV guide now.” She passes her phone over and David takes it out of polite curiosity. There’s a video pulled up, some post-show interview, and he plays all of about six seconds before he laughs and hands it back. She’s gushing. About him. About his music, and, weirdly enough, about his hair.
“She’s cute,” Brooke says pointedly.
“She is,” David agrees. “You should go for it.”
Brooke laughs and smacks his shoulder. “I’m just saying. You should talk to her! She’ll be at the finale.”
David throws a look of casual indifference at her. “Eh, I don’t know,” he says, stuffing a bite of chicken into his mouth. “I’m not really into reality show contestants.”
Up until that point, however, he knew who she was and that was about it. But suddenly, now he’s noticing her everywhere. When he flips on the TV and there she is. When he’s running errands with his brother and he passes her on the street. When he Googles her name and her pictures come up. It’s the strangest thing, really.
And Brooke doesn’t let it go. She drops by when he’s very innocently reading her Wikipedia page, and she smiles at him (he hates it when she does that, why does she have to know everything?) and says in a singsong voice, “Somebody has a cruuush.”
“Do not,” he says stoutly, but he gets the same feeling in the pit of his stomach that he got back when he denied having a crush on Michael Johns. Damn it.
“Do too. You should ask her out.”
“I should ask her out? And how should I do that? Should I have Jason have Syesha have Archie pass her a note that says will you please go out with David? Check yes or no-”
Brooke rolls her eyes. “You are such a smart aleck.”
“And you overestimate my ability to date hot girls.”
“Please, Dave, you’re a catch.”
David mock-glares at her and she mock-glares back and it’s pretty impossible to say no to that face so he sighs and gives in. “Fine,” he relents. “I will consider asking her out. But if she says no-”
“She won’t say no.”
“-if she says no, you owe me. Big time.”
Brooke just smiles and pulls him in for a hug, a real one, and he rests his chin against her shoulder and thinks for the millionth time how grateful he is for this stupid little singing show.
“By the way,” she whispers in his ear, like she’s about to say something really life-changing and important, and David strains his ears to listen.
“Quit internet stalking her, you weirdo.”
He gets his first chance-only chance, possibly, depending where life takes him from here-the night of the finale. It’s rather inconvenient timing, and he also happens to be raking in major man points by risking rejection on national TV, but he sees her from across the room and she looks breathtakingly stunning, so he figures, it’s now or never. The flowers are a last-minute addition, stolen from a basket in the lobby, and he’s not sure whose they are but he hopes they’ll forgive him, and before he really realizes what he’s doing, he asks her to dinner mid-interview and she looks surprised and happy and says yes.
“That wasn’t so difficult,” he comments off-handedly.
Archie blinks and looks at him and pats his arm like he’s so old and wise and knows exactly what he means. “That’s awesome, Cook. I’m really happy for you.”
David laughs. “Come on, Arch. You’ve got a show to win.”
David’s pretty distracted that night, because of the whole winning American Idol thing and all. It’s overwhelming. It’s overwhelmingly overwhelming, and he spends the next three days in a dizzied state of awe and constant gratitude. Life is pretty fucking amazing after all.
He hadn’t realized Michael had pulled him into a hug after his crowning moment until he saw the recap on TV four nights later. He must’ve realized it at the time, distantly, but there was so much going on-his family and the confetti and the fans and the singing-that it hadn’t really registered, and he certainly hadn’t seen Michael’s face up close like this; he looks happy. Happy for David. Like he’s celebrating the win just as much as David is, like everything hadn’t happened between them, and David’s heart aches so much he has to turn the channel.
It must’ve been a fleeting moment. A lapse of judgment on Michael’s part. He must’ve gotten caught up in the celebration, because even though he was hugging him then, even though his arm is clearly tightened around David’s shoulder, he hadn’t approached him at the afterparty. He hadn’t accosted him in the hall. He hadn’t even called him the next morning, just to tell him congrats.
There were only two weeks before tour rehearsals started. He wonders if this is how the whole summer’s going to go, if he’s going to have to act cool and unaffected at every stop they make. Or maybe he and Michael will just exist in the same space. There are eight other people along for the ride. He’ll have a lifetime worth of distractions.
Still, though. It won’t be the same.
David digs his phone out of his pocket and types up a text message: Enjoy your time off, he writes, hope all is well.
He presses the send button and then repockets the phone, not bothering to wait for a reply.
He doesn’t get one. Life goes on.
Their date takes place at a swanky hotel restaurant when David gets back from New York, exhausted but happy, the good kind of tired, and he splurges on a new vest-and-tie combo that his mom thinks he looks adorable in, although Andrew seems to think it makes him look gay. He ditches the tie and buys a new pair of jeans instead, and he spends a good twenty minutes on his hair in the bathroom-instantly missing having a hair stylist at his right hand at all times, because good God, could he use some help-before he deems himself fit to pick her up.
Kim’s wearing a low-cut red dress and black heels and she’s gorgeous and confident and David’s mouth might’ve fallen open a little when she climbed into the car beside him. “Hi,” she says, pecking him on the cheek breezily before reaching for her seatbelt. “You look nice.”
David wrenches his jaw shut. “Thanks,” he says, internally chiding himself for being nervous. She was a girl, just a girl, and they had a million things in common, and if the date was a disaster, at least they could swap American Idol stories all night and tactfully split before dessert.
It’s not a disaster, though. Far from it. Kim is surprisingly witty and unsurprisingly charming, and she orders an appetizer for the both of them before grinning sheepishly at David and saying, “I hope that’s okay.”
“No, that’s great,” he agrees, setting his menu aside. “I’m starving, I don’t think I’ve eaten real food since the finale.”
“What, they don’t feed the American Idol?”
“Exactly the opposite, actually,” Dave jokes, and puts his hand on his stomach. “They tell the American Idol that he’s been overfed. Tastefully, of course, but it’s kind of hard to ignore a producer who says, ‘You know what would look great? You, fifteen pounds lighter.’”
Kim’s eyes widen. “They did not,” she says, in complete disbelief.
David maintains a straight face for all of ten seconds but then breaks, laughing hard. “You’re right, they didn’t,” he agrees, ducking to avoid being slapped in the arm. “But you totally believed me. That’s kind of insulting.”
“Jerk,” Kim says, shaking her head in a playfully disappointed sort of way.
“Hey now. This jerk’s paying for your meal.”
“Well, this jerk better not expect me to put out after we eat.”
David nearly chokes on his wine but Kim just smiles at him innocently, reaching for her own glass. Oh yeah, David thinks. She’s a keeper.
They have two more dates that week and each one is as fun as the first, and Saturday morning they go hiking in a part of town that David didn’t know existed, and they stop halfway through and end up making out behind a patch of trees for well over half an hour. That’s his favorite part of the afternoon, he has to admit.
And this dating thing, it’s nice. Especially the part where Kim’s not married and is indeed attracted to men. That helps quite a bit.
Still, though, he’s leaving for the summer in just a few weeks so it’s not like they’re getting all serious about each other. It’s fun. This entire thing is fun, and he needs this. Deserves this. It takes his mind off rehearsals and he completely forgets that once upon a time in another world he’d confessed his love to Michael Johns. (Okay, he doesn’t forget it. But it’s irrelevant now, considering he and Michael exchange maybe six words a day, if he’s lucky.)
They don’t “break up” when it’s time to leave. They agree to keep in contact. They agree that it’s okay if they each want to see other people. (They also agree that it’s not likely that either of them will.) They agree to meet up at the end of the summer and see where their lives are, and Kim agrees to go to the Los Angeles tour date, and David agrees to give her backstage passes. (“To my pants,” but she just rolls her eyes.)
The buses pull up at eight o’clock in the morning, sharp. David’s sitting on top of his loaded suitcase and kicking a hacky sack from foot to foot. “You suck,” Jason says, when he drops it for the twenty-seventh time, and David picks it up and pelts it at his head.
The girls settle into theirs first and when Chikezie and David try to board to check it out, they practically chase them away, brandishing their purses like weapons. “No boys allowed,” Kristy says, sticking out her tongue, so they retreat to their own bus, shaking their heads.
Most of the bunks have already been claimed. Jason and Michael snatched the two furthest back; Archie’s got the one up front, but he’s ferreting around, wringing his hands, asking every single guy if that’s okay. David doesn’t really care where he ends up. He figures each bunk will be as cramped and uncomfortable as the next, so he piles his shit on an empty bed and sits down, testing out the springs.
“Home sweet home,” Chikezie jokes, unearthing a box of Poptarts and passing them around ceremoniously. Together, they break starchy artificial bread and toast to their new abode, and then Jason jumps up and locks himself in the bathroom and says he’s going to christen the bus for real.
“We’re not even moving yet!” David yells, throwing a pillow at the door, “you can still use the bathroom inside!”
The first show goes surprisingly well, given that none of them have ever done anything remotely close to this before. No major bumps or scratches, no lyrics forgotten, no missteps or tragic accidents. Dave doesn’t fumble over the guitar chords to any of his songs, and the group number, while still fantastically cheesy, is actually fun, a great way to end the show.
They stand on the stage when it’s all over, facing the crowd, seeing their faces, and Dave’s heart is racing with more than just endorphins. The applause is deafening, Carly’s arm is solid around his waist, and he just feels good.
He wants to do this for the rest of his life.
On their first day off, a warm day in Nevada, Carly wakes him up during his afternoon nap. It’s the first one he’s managed to take in weeks and so he’s admittedly grumpy, trying to shake her off without having to open his eyes first.
“Dave, come on,” she wheedles, poking him in the side again.
He bats her hand away.
“You shouldn’t even be here, this is the boys’ bus,” he grumbles into his pillow. He doesn’t care that he sounds like a petulant ten-year-old. He wants his sleep, damn it. “You’re a girl. Go to the girls’ bus. Go be girly.”
“Oh, shut up, would you? Come on. Up and at ‘em. We’re leaving, and you’re going with us.”
“Don’t want to.”
“I didn’t ask you what you wanted,” Carly says, and then, sounding very serious, “You have about eight seconds to wake up before I have Chikezie sit on you.”
That gets his attention. Very reluctantly he blinks his eyes open and rubs at them tiredly, struggling into a sitting position. And then-“Hey!” he says, indignant. “Chikezie’s not even here.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a sucker for believing me. But now you’re awake, so you might as well get dressed! C’mon. We’re going to dinner.”
He raises an eyebrow. As far as he knows, most of the others have gone out for the day, doing the touristy shit he can’t always bring himself to pretend to be excited about. “We who?”
“We as in your friends, your tourmates, fellow contestants on American Idol. Ring a bell?” She doesn’t wait for him to answer; it’s probably for the best. He’s too sluggish to be witty. “Look, we’ll even go someplace where they have buffalo wings and beer. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
He hesitates. That’s a pretty tempting offer.
“Fine,” he says at last, throwing his blankets aside. “But I swear, if you ever wake me up by wet willy again-”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m terribly frightened.” She smiles at him all cutesily and he wishes, not for the first time, that stuff like that wasn’t allowed. “Wear that shirt with the buttons, okay? It makes you look-”
“Skinny?” he supplies, reaching for the shirt in question. He wore it three stops ago but a sniff check says it’s a-okay for at least another day.
Carly makes a face. “I was going to say ruggedly handsome, but you know, whatever.” She picks up a pair of discarded jeans and pushes them at David. “Wear these too,” she says, heading for the door. “And meet me by the street.”
When David tosses her a skeptical look, she just shrugs and climbs down the steps. “They make your butt look good,” she explains, and then disappears outside.
They head into the bar together, Carly telling Dave some story about Ramiele sleeping on the couch for two nights in a row because she was too embarrassed to admit she couldn’t reach the top bunk, and David’s laughing and not really paying attention to where they’re going. Carly leads him to a table in the back and he trails after her willingly, but when he sees exactly where she’s taking him, he stops dead in his tracks.
“Ohhh no,” he says firmly, shaking his head. “No no no no no.”
Carly looks at him innocently. “What?”
“You-you’re really evil, you know that?”
The table’s really not all that big, and it’s already half-occupied; one seat taken by Brooke, lightly snacking on chips and salsa, and the other by Michael Johns, nursing a beer and looking a little bit sullen. He always looks sullen these days. And considering the fact that they share a living space that’s smaller than his living room, they’ve done a pretty fair job at avoiding each other this summer. No need to interrupt that now.
“David,” Carly says, and she looks more concerned and less mischievous than she did ten seconds ago. “Look, I don’t know what happened, Brooke doesn’t know what happened-none of us know what happened, but you guys used to be so close. And now the two of you barely speak and we miss you.” She smiles ruefully. “We miss Mavid.”
David doesn’t say anything. He’s annoyed. He’s annoyed with Carly, for tricking him into this, and he’s annoyed with himself, for being tricked so easily. “There is no Mavid,” he says flatly at last. “And that’s a stupid word, anyway.”
(He used to like it. He used to think it was funny. He and Michael used to talk about themselves in third person like they were one unit: “Mavid’s hungry,” Michael would whine before dinner; “Mavid wants to go to bed,” Dave would intone after a long day of rehearsals.)
“Just… do me a favor and don’t be a baby, just this once, okay?” Carly puts her hand on his shoulder with a pleading look. David sighs. “It’s dinner. An hour of your day. It’s not going to kill you.”
“Fine,” he says sulkily, and then he follows her to the table.
Brooke spots them first. “Hi guys!” she says, half-happy, half-anxious. Apparently she and Carly were in on this together. Evil schemers. David makes a mental note to be mad at them later. And judging by Michael’s expression, he hadn’t known about this either. Great. Just great.
“Sorry we’re late,” Carly announces, dropping down into the seat next to Brooke. That leaves only one, the one by Michael, and he sits down carefully, making sure to leave plenty of room between the two of them. It’s not like this is the first time they’ve had a meal together. This is just the first time there wasn’t an entire group of people to distract from the weirdness. Because that’s what it is now. Weirdness. “Dave was too busy drooling,” Carly adds, flipping her menu open.
“Was not,” David says, a touch of defensiveness in his voice. “I don’t drool.”
“Do too,” says Carly.
“Do not.”
“Do too,” says Brooke.
“Do not.”
“You do, mate,” Michael says, and David looks up at him in surprise.
“You have no proof,” he says after a long, confusing moment, crossing his arms over his chest. Of course the first real conversation they’d have in weeks would be about David’s propensity to drool in his sleep. Go figure.
“I’ve got plenty of proof. I was your roommate. You’d have a wet stain on your pillow every morning,” Michael says smugly, tipping his beer up to his mouth like the conversation was over, like he’d already won. The bastard.
“Yeah, well, at least I’ve never had a questionable dream about characters from Sesame Street,” David shoots back, and Michael chokes on his drink and lowers the bottle, sputtering.
“I told you-that wasn’t a questionable dream, it was a normal dream in which I happened to live next door to Big Bird.”
“You were moaning Elmo’s name,” Dave says pointedly, and Michael looks flustered, but he’s also cracking up.
“This coming from a guy who sleepwalked and peed in the shower at three o’clock in the morning,” Michael returns, and Carly and Brooke are exchanging some sort of secret smile that Dave could spend hours analyzing, but he doesn’t even care. It’s like he and Mike are in their own little world, and maybe he’s airing his dirty laundry to everyone in a fifty food radius, but he’ll take it. He didn’t realize how much he’d missed Michael until he re-experienced how good it felt to just laugh with him. He’d take this any day.
“That was only because you made me take a tequila shot before bed,” David says. “I warned you, didn’t I?”
The waitress arrives before Michael can open his mouth for a retort, bless her heart, and David orders a beer and enough buffalo wings to go around. He doesn’t mind paying. He feels like he’s just taken a huge weight off his shoulders without actually having to confront the weight, and when the waitress brings back their drinks, David clinks his bottle against Michael’s and toasts to the night.
On the bus that night, David’s tucked into his bunk and working on a surprisingly difficult Sudoku when he hears Michael’s voice. “Dave,” he calls, and David’s heart maybe does that stupid thing where it skips a beat. He pokes his head through the curtains.
“Yeah?”
“You want to watch an episode of It’s Always Sunny with me?”
It’s possible that Michael’s only inviting him because he knows he loves that show. It’s possible he’s only inviting him because Jason or one of the other guys told him to. But it’s also possible that he’s inviting him because he wants to, because he’d enjoyed their time at dinner, because he was starting realize that David wasn’t quite the satanic homewrecker that he’d built him up to be. David really hoped it was the latter. But no matter what, he’d accept it.
“Absolutely,” he calls back, and even though they’d just eaten two days ago, he digs into his backpack and holds up a giant bag of Twizzlers. “Candy?’
“Knew you were good for something,” Michael says with an appreciate nod.
It’s just the two of them, watching TV. David takes the empty couch, ignoring the way Mike’s spread out against his, and they pass the bag of candy back and forth between them, laughing in all the right places. It was like they were rooming together all over again, and when Michael falls asleep around two o’clock in the morning, cheek pressed against the arm of the couch, David doesn’t think about how he wants to kiss him. Instead, he tosses a blanket over him, finishes the episode, and then goes in the back to call Kim.
David thinks they’re probably going to have to ease their way back into this friendship thing, but turns out, he’s incredibly wrong. The next day he and Mike go for a walk, and they end up getting lost for three hours and then bombarded by teenagers in some puny mall in the middle of nowhere, and Michael laughs the entire time, and there’s no discussion of weirdness, of boundary-crossing. It’s just as fast and easy as it was the first time around, and the only difference is that Dave knows he’s going to have to keep himself a little more guarded this time, that he’s going to have to be more careful, and when they finally escape the clutches of an overzealous mom with a camera, Michael turns to him and says, “So I’ve thought of something to liven up the group numbers every night…” and David just listens with a grin.
The robot.
That’s his big idea.
Well, not just the robot-“tons of dances, any sort of them, really”-but they start with the robot, right at the tail end of the concert, just as Please Don’t Stop the Music is wrapping up. They’re all on stage but as far as David is concerned, it’s just the two of them, locking eyes, and David and Michael are both incredibly bad dancers, which just makes it that much funnier.
And the best part of all is that it starts off as an inside joke, something to help with the monotony of performing the same song and dance every single night, but then Michael drags him to the living room three mornings later and points to his computer. It’s apparently turned into something much bigger.
The Mavid Dance, the fans are calling it. With videos. Pictures. Discussions and speculations-all about them.
David loves it. All of it. They start planning their next move.
Kim sends him a text letting him know she can make it to the New York show at the end of July. David’s more excited to see her than he thought he’d be. It’s not like he ever thought he was replacing Mike with her, looking for someone to fill the Michael Johns-sized gap in his life, but up until now he’d sort of thought they fulfilled a distinctly similar role.
But he was wrong. Clearly, he was wrong. He and Michael are buddies, and really, he hasn’t even thought of him like that for three months (save for a moment of weakness here and there, a dream he couldn’t control or two) and Kim, well. There are a few incriminating objects in his cell phone that hint at the fact that they’re definitely not just friends.
He sends Kim backstage passes, but he also slides one of his hotel room keys into an envelope and plans to hand it off to a member of security, ensuring he’ll deliver it to her before the show. Michael catches him signing his name at the bottom and lifts his eyebrows in curiosity.
“It’s for Kim,” he says, and he has no idea why he feels like he might be blushing a little bit. Michael looks at him blankly so he clarifies, “Caldwell.”
“Oh.” Michael shifts feet and glances down at his cell phone and then back up at Dave. “I didn’t realize-are you guys dating?”
“Sort of, we’re-” He shrugs. “We’re just having fun.”
He’s got a look on his face that David can’t identify and he’s not going to bother trying to decipher what it means. That sort of thing gets him in trouble. He’s only just been forgiven for last time, and he’s really not willing to take his chances.
But Michael just nods and puts his phone to his ear, like he’s taking a phone call. “That’s cool,” he says, breezing past Dave, and then, “See you out there,” with a pat on his arm, disappearing around the corner. David blinks a few times and finishes writing his name, sealing the envelope before he passes it off.
David tries to introduce Kim to Michael after the show but he’s nowhere to be found, and when they have a comfy hotel bed and room service to look forward to, there’s really no point in hanging around the venue all night. He thinks it’s a shame they don’t get the chance to meet because they’re really similar in a lot of ways, with their sense of humor and disarmingly dry wit, and he could easily imagining them all getting along.
He mentions this to her, off-handedly, and she looks interested at first, and he’s got that problem where once he starts talking about Michael Johns he has a hard time stopping, and then he’s telling story after story after story, and the more he talks about Michael the more he realizes just how much he likes him, but then Kim slips out of her dress and under the sheets and he stops thinking about Michael Johns altogether.
Around two o’clock in the morning, David says he thinks they should be exclusive.
Kim kisses him on the lips and says that she agrees.
When he and Michael go on their pre-show Krispy Kreme run two days later, they talk about almost everything, like normal, but they don’t talk about Kim. They also don’t talk about Stacey. They never talk about Stacey, and it’s not because David doesn’t ask. It’s just a thing they have, he guesses. Just a thing.
The entire summer flies by way too fast. He has no idea where time went. He has no idea how they ended up here, the morning of the last show. He looks at everything a little more appreciatively now. The microwave that’s next to impossible to open. His tiny nausea-inducing bunk. The fans that attempt to rip clothing straight from their bodies. He’ll miss it all.
Mostly he’ll miss the people, though. (Mostly he’ll miss Michael.) The group of friends he had the privilege of spending the past three months with are nine of his favorite people in the whole entire world, and he can’t imagine having done it without them. He gets a little emotional every time he thinks about them splitting up, but he’s careful not to show it too much, because he’s already a little tired of Chikezie and Michael throwing wadded-up tissues at him every time he turns his back.
Still, though, he knows he’s not the only one. There’s a reason they’ve been inseparable since Thursday. There’s a reason the guys have set up camp around the sofas so often that the brand new couches have butt-sized indentations throughout the day.
The last show is amazing. Incredible. The best they’ve ever felt, and they hold each other as they leave the stage, arms over shoulders, hands around waists.
Their bags are packed. The buses are clean.
At dinner that night. David passes Chikezie and Michael a box of tissues. They both need it.
Kim’s waiting for him when the plane touches down in Los Angeles. He hoists his bag over his shoulder and heads in the airport, and he doesn’t even see her until Michael nudges him in the arm and says, “There’s your gal.”
He brightens automatically. He hadn’t been expecting her. And he’s exhausted and a little sore and all he wants at this moment is a soft bed and a warm meal, but if he can have both of those things with Kim, well, he thinks he’d enjoy them quite a bit more.
“Hi,” she says, smiling, her arms wrapping around his shoulders.
“Hi,” he echoes, and he leans in for a quick kiss, paparazzi be damned.
She takes his carry-on from him, which is really unnecessary, but then, she does look cute with a backpack, so he decides not to argue. “Welcome home,” she tells him, looking straight into his eyes like they’re the only two people in the world, a hint of mischief in her smile. “I got us a hotel room.”
David raises his eyebrows.
“So you can sleep,” she laughs, slapping him playfully in the arm, and David opens his mouth to make a joke, but she cuts him off with, “I can’t be held accountable for what I do when you wake up, though,” and he promptly forgets what he was going to say.
“Best. Girlfriend. Ever,” he says, and it’s the first time he’s ever used that word with her, and it feels weird in his mouth, but a good kind of weird. A comfortable sort of fit, and her face lights up, which makes it totally worth it.
“Well, then,” she says, slipping her arm through his, “come on, boyfriend.”
David’s more than willing to go with her, but there’s something he has to do first. “Hang on jut one sec,” he says, setting his suitcase down and then turning to face Mike.
Stacey hadn’t shown up. The look on Michael’s face makes David think he’d been hoping she would, but she hadn’t. Then again, he could’ve been completely misinterpreting it. He didn’t know Stacey. He didn’t know what they were like.
He did know, however, that he was going to miss Michael. That he was going to wake up tomorrow morning with an empty sort of feeling without having Michael three bunks away. That it was going to be so incredibly weird to fumble into his kitchen and not find Michael sprawled out at the table.
He did know that he missed him already.
But he puts on a brave face, so to speak, and takes two steps closer. “So I guess I’ll be seeing you around, huh?” he offers, and Michael gives him a strange little nod.
“You’ve got my number, mate. We’ll get lunch soon, yeah?”
David wants to say that lunch isn’t enough. That he wants to spend more time with them than just an hour during the weekday when they both happen to be free. But he doesn’t want to seem weirdly clingy. He just nods and sticks his hand out for a shake.
Michael gives him a searching look and pushes his hand away, and then, arms spread wide, he pulls him in for a hug. It’s a chest-to-chest, hip-to-hip sort of hug, the kind he’s been afraid to give him for months, and David’s body nearly melts with relief as he squeezes him back.
It last about twenty seconds longer than necessary. Michael pulls back and David steps away and then they exchange quiet goodbyes and Michael grabs his bags and goes one way, and David throws his arms around Kim’s shoulders and goes the other.
They don’t turn around for a final look, a final wave. They’re not those kind of people. This isn’t that kind of story.
But when he climbs into the passenger seat of Kim’s little black car, his phone buzzes in his pocket, and it’s Michael:
First thing I hear on the radio? Please Don’t Stop the Music. God kill me now, he wrote, and David laughs and replies, I’m doing the robot as we speak.
They never once addressed what happened between them. In the countless number of hours they spent in conversation, talking about this and that and everything else, it never came up. David never apologized for wanting to kiss Michael, and Michael never apologized for blowing up at him for something he couldn’t exactly help. They simply got past it. Way past it. Because you can’t love two people at the same time, and Dave’s falling pretty hard for Kim, who may be the most kickass girlfriend he’s ever had, and he and Mike do lunch once a week or every two weeks or however often they can swing it, and they’re normal and good. It’s all good. Everything is.
In October, David puts the final touches on the last song on the album, and then he takes a two-week vacation with Kim in the tropics. He accidentally leaves his phone at his house, and when he gets back, he’s got six voicemails from Michael. They’re about stupid, mundane things, and David listens to every single one of them with a grin.
In November, the album comes out, and David’s life is hectic and stressful and exactly the way he wants it to be. He’s so incredibly proud of this album, of the music, and it truly is the best feeling in the whole entire world. He and Michael get together and celebrate by opening a bottle of wine and listening to the album until David makes him turn it off, and then they spend the rest of the night drunkenly passing the bottle back and forth and discussing the merit of corduroy pants and rehashing memories from tour, like that one time Archie got motion sick and threw up, except the swaying of the bus caused him to miss the toilet. They laugh until they’re breathless, and they both end up crashing on the living room floor, waking up six hours later, stiff and miserable and happy.
He and Kim celebrate by having sex. Lots and lots and lots of sex, with a steak dinner beforehand, and a glass of champagne after.
He can’t decide which one he likes more.
Life happens, the way life does, and everything keeps getting better and better. Both Neal and Andy agreed to be in his band, so he gets to make money playing music with his best friends, and kids stop him on the street for autographs, and he gets to spend all of his free time with Kimberly Caldwell. He’s busy more often than not, and his weekly lunches with Michael reduce to monthly lunches, but that’s okay, because they still text and email all the time.
There are little things he’d never realized he took for granted in his old life (his old-old life) like going to the movies and not being mobbed, or buying a new pair of pants completely uninterrupted. That’s why he likes to go to the grocery store when he has the day off. He can mostly get by unscathed there, and he’s trailing along at his own pace, throwing some vaguely health-conscious foods into his cart, when someone says his name.
He stops and sighs a little, because he’d really wanted this day to himself, but he’s never ignored a fan in public before, and he doesn’t plan on starting now. When he turns around, however, cheesy-ass smile on his face, it’s not a fifteen-year-old girl who’d called for him. It’s a woman. A blonde woman that he immediately recognizes.
Stacey. Michael’s Stacey.
“How’ve you been?” she asks, pushing his cart next to his. “It’s crazy to run into you here, I was just picking some things up for later-Michael says he hasn’t seen you in a while, but I’m sure you’ve been plenty busy.”
David laughs politely and thinks about how Michael must’ve never told her that once upon a time he’d almost tried to destroy their marriage. That was nice of him, at least. “Yeah, I’ve… tons of stuff going on right now. How are you?”
“I’m great! Really great. Mikey and I just got back from Atlanta, and now he’s working on music and… well, you probably already know that, you two are thick as thieves.”
David hadn’t known that, actually, and it makes him a little sad. That seems like the sort of thing he should know. He’s a shitty friend. But he just nods his head and says sure, sure, because admitting it would be worse.
“You know what! If you’re not busy tomorrow, you should join us for dinner. You and your girlfriend!”
“Oh,” David says, “I don’t-“
“No, no, I insist! I’ll tell Mikey to send you the details. It’ll be so fun.” Her cell phone starts ringing and she extracts it from her purse, waving at him before saying, “It was great bumping into you, we’ll see you tomorrow,” and then continues down the aisle, cell phone glued to her ear.
Okay, David thinks, a couple’s dinner. That’s what couples do, right? Kim had been saying they should go out more often, be more sociable. They had to start somewhere Maybe it’d be fun.
Michael’s text message tells him the name of the place and what time they should meet, but not much else. No “see you soon, mate!” In fact, not exclamation marks at all. It’s a little strange, a little abnormal for Mike, but David doesn’t spend too much time thinking about it. It’ll be good to see him tomorrow, and besides, Kim’s excited.
“You know,” she says on the drive over, “for as much as you and Michael seem to love each other, I think it’s kind of weird that I haven’t really hung out with him yet. Is there something you want to tell me?”
David very pointedly keeps his eyes on the road. “Very funny,” he says, without finding it very funny at all.
The hostess takes them to their table at the restaurant like she was expecting them, and she keeps looking back over her shoulder at David with a dreamy little smile. They have a private little table in the back, a bottle of wine in the middle, and Michael barely glances up when they’re seated. Stacey, however, stands and gives them both quick hugs before pulling Kim into the seat beside hers. “So nice to finally meet you!” she says, and the two of them start gushing, conversing rapidly in girl-ese, and David doesn’t even try to understand what they’re saying.
Instead, he turns his attention to Michael. “Hey Mike,” he says, touching him lightly on the arm.
Michael gives him a curt little nod. “Hey.”
Well. That wasn’t what he’d been expecting. “How’re things going?”
“Fine, you?”
“Good. Really good.”
“Glad to hear it.”
David shrinks back in his chair some and glances at his menu, up to Michael’s face, then back to his menu. It’s like he’s experiencing some sort of weird déjà vu, like he’s been transported back to eight months ago when Michael wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. Only this time, he hasn’t done anything wrong.
“Mike,” he tries, because maybe he’d misread it, maybe he was wrong. “Is something-”
“You should really try the salmon here,” Mike interrupts, leaning forward to flip the pages in Stacey’s menu.
Okay then.
He doesn’t have to talk a lot during dinner because Stacey and Kim do more than their fair share. He learns about Stacey’s yoga classes, and Kim talks about her family in Florida, and Stacey’s wanting to repaint the house, but Michael hates yellow paint, and on and on and on and on they talk, about things that have no significance in the world at all. He and Mike used to talk about these things too, but at least they were funny about it. And Michael is doing anything but laughing right now. In fact, he’s sitting moodily in his seat, silent, only chipping it when he has to, and even then it’s only a nod or a murmur of assent.
David tries a few times, because it’s been almost six weeks since he’d seen him last, and he’d been really looking forward to making up for lost time, but Michael apparently has no desire to talk to him at all.
“I hear you’re working on music,” David says, and Michael just says, “Yep.”
“Loved that Christmas song you did, very jolly,” David says, and Michael just mm-hmms.
“Written any songs about me yet?” David asks, and Michael simply shrugs his shoulders, and that’s when he decides to give up. He throws himself into conversation with the girls, instead. At least they don’t look at him like they’re bored out of their skulls by his presence.
Stacey is very complimentary. She must’ve told Dave that she loves his vest six times by now, and she keeps sighing happily and looking over at him and Kim like they’re the cutest things she’s ever seen. “You guys are just such a great couple,” she keeps saying. “So cute. You really seem crazy about each other.”
“We are,” Kim agrees, reaching across the table and taking David’s hand in hers. He thinks he sees Michael roll his eyes, but he ignores it. Whatever.
“Still trying to figure out how I got so lucky,” Dave jokes, squeezing her fingers. “Either that, or who’s slipping Kim drugs behind my back.”
“You two are so perfect together,” Stacey says happily. She grabs Michael’s arm. “Aren’t they perfect together, Mikey?”
Michael doesn’t look up from his drink. “Sure,” he says, “perfect.”
Kim laughs. “Actually, we have some pretty exciting news…” and David wants to stop her, cut her off, because they haven’t even told his parents yet, but there’s no way of signaling to her without being totally obvious, so he just sits back and lets her finish with, “We’re moving in together!”
“Really?!” Stacey says, just as excited as he’d wanted Mike to be. “That’s amazing! Cognrats, you guys, I’m sure you’ll love it so much-”
But she trails off because suddenly, Michael has pushed his seat away from the table and stood up. His mouth is drawn in a straight line and all three heads turn to look at him. Stacey’s the first to speak.
“Mike, what’re you-”
“I told you,” he says, voice thick, “I told you that I didn’t want to come tonight.”
And then he turns around and he leaves.
Stacey looks absolutely flabbergasted. “I don’t-I have no idea what that was about.”
“It’s fine,” Kim says, although she looks a little uncomfortable, eyes darting between the two of them, and then, “Dave, what are you doing?”
Because he stood up to. He doesn’t know what he’s doing or why he’s possibly thinking of going after Michael, but he needs to. He needs to know what’s going on. He refuses to sit here all night and wonder. “I’ll be right back,” he promises them, and then he follows Mike’s path towards the door.
It’s not difficult to find him. He’s just outside, back to the restaurant, hands in his pockets, staring out towards the street. David lets the door shut softly behind him and takes a step closer. “Michael,” he says, and Michael doesn’t jump like he’s surprised. He turns around to face him, slowly, like he’d been expecting him all along.
But he’s still looking drawn and unhappy, restless. “What?” he says sharply, and David feels a surge of anger that he hadn’t been anticipating.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he demands. “Seriously, what’s your problem?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? Oh, come on. I’m not an idiot.”
“Go back inside, Dave,” Michael says, chest heaving a little, like he’s fighting to be still.
“Not until you tell me what I did to piss you off.”
“You didn’t do anything.”
“I obviously did something, if you don’t even want to have dinner with me-”
“It’s not you.” His voice is calm, quiet. Dangerous. David looks at him slowly.
“What?”
“I said it’s not you.”
“Then who is it?”
They’re probably a weird sight, the two of them, facing off in the parking lot of a really fancy restaurant. Michael takes one step forward and clenches his hands into fists.
“It’s her.”
“Her?”
“Her, David. Kim.”
And that sets him off a little, because what the fuck, since when does Michael have a problem with Kim? How could he possibly? He’s defensive on her behalf, and annoyed, because she’s never done anything to anybody, and seriously, that doesn’t make sense.
“What about Kim? What’s wrong with Kim?”
“Nothing’s wrong with her.”
“Obviously you think something’s wrong with her, you just said-”
“It’s you and Kim. Both of you. Together.”
David swallows hard, fairly convinced his heart is in his throat. “What are you talking about?” he says again, and it comes out a lot softer than he’d intended.
Michael laughs, sharp, cold, shaking his head. “Come on, Dave,” he says flatly. “Like you said, you’re not an idiot. I’m sure you know. Don’t you think there’s a reason I’ve never asked you to bring her along when we hang out?”
But it’s still not clicking, still doesn’t make sense, he has no idea what Michael’s getting at. “What are you-what?”
When Michael looks at him, his eyes are wet, almost, or maybe they’re just gleaming under the bright restaurant lights. His laugh turns a little more desperate, a little less cruel, and he covers his face with his hand, pressing his palm flat against his cheek.
“I don’t want her to have you,” he says miserably, “if I can’t.”
David stares at him. “What?” he says, and it’s the only thing he can come up with. He’s pretty sure Michael’s just fucking with him. Any minute now, he’s going to laugh, and he’s going to say got you, and he’s going to punch him in the shoulder and head back inside-but he doesn’t do any of those things.
He just takes two more steps closer, so there’s hardly a foot between them, and he looks straight into David’s eyes, and they are wet, at least a little. “You know,” he says quietly. “I know you know. That’s why I had to stay away from you when you told me, because I would’ve-we would’ve-it’s always been like that for me, Dave. I like you so much. I always have.”
His hand lifts and presses lightly against David’s shoulder. Dave watches it like he has no idea how it got there, like he has no idea how they ended up in this situation. He’s more confused than he’s ever been. With Kim and Michael and Michael and Kim and what is he doing?
“What are you doing?” he says, voice croaky, running an anxious hand through his hair.
“Dave,” Michael whispers, and suddenly his body is closing in, suddenly his face is right there. It would be so easy to kiss him. So easy to close his eyes and press forward just an inch-
“No,” David says, wrenching his eyes open. He gently pushes Michael away. “You-you told me it could never happen, so I moved on. I moved on. I’ve got Kim and you’ve got Stacey…”
“I want you,” Michael says, and David’s stomach twists into a ball. “I just want you.”
But David can’t do this. He’s not that guy. “You had your chance,” he says, stepping back towards the door. “And you didn’t want it. So…I can’t. I won’t.”
And then he heads back inside.
David doesn’t hear from Michael for close to three months. He and Kim never move in together; they’d completely meant to, but then things had gotten more complicated. His tour began in February, and who had time to think about a house when he spent all of his time on another fucking bus?
Their relationship tapered off in a way that had nothing to do (nothing to do, he’d promised himself, time and time again) with Michael Johns, and everything to do with the fact that it was a part of life. And it’s okay. They’re still friends. He doesn’t need a relationship on tour, doesn’t need validation or anything else.
He just needs his guitar, and he needs his band, and he occasionally needs a tall beer and an order of buffalo wings, and, thankfully, he has all of the above.
They’re in San Diego when it happens.
He’d just wrapped up his set, hot and sticky with sweat but feeling so good, the audience had really been on fire tonight, and he’s backstage, washing his face in the sink when Andy and Neal burst in the door.
“Hey Cinderella,” Neal says, in that drawling, teasing voice of his. “Guess who’s here.”
David doesn’t look up, dries his face on a towel. A little bit of makeup comes off. Gross. “Who?”
“Your Prince Charming,” he says with a smirk, and Andy smacks him in the stomach and says, “Neal.”
Dave locks eyes with Andy in the mirror; he’s the more trustworthy one of the two, after all. “What?”
But Andy just shrugs. “He wants to see you, Dave. We told him we’d see if you were busy-not sure if you wanted to see him or not, after everything…”
David’s not sure if he wants to see him or not, after everything. But he feels his head nodding, even though his brain hadn’t okayed it. “I… yeah. That’s fine. Send him back.”
They turn and head through the door together and Dave sits down on a stool. He hadn’t expected this. He wasn’t sure he was ready for this. It’s not like he hates Michael. He’d certainly spent a fair amount of time thinking about him. But he didn’t know what to say. Honestly, he’d sort of thought that door was closed.
The door swings open. Michael peeks his head through, all timid smile and messy hair. “Hey,” he says, looking relieved that he’s alone. He steps in. “I caught your show, managed to get tickets last minute. You sounded great.”
“Thanks,” Dave says. “What’re you doing here?”
“I… I wanted to see you. I would’ve come sooner, but you’ve mostly been on the east coast, yeah? And besides, I was… taking care of things first.” He offers up a stupid shrug that’s more endearing than anything and David hates that he can still get to him like this, after all this time.
“I’m divorced,” Michael says, after a long stretch of silence.
David stares at him. “Congrats?”
Michael smiles at him wryly. Maybe a congratulations wasn’t the appropriate reaction, but he didn’t know what was.
“I’m sorry I was so greedy,” Michael adds, clearly taking his silence as a sign to continue. He pauses, reconsiders. “I’m sorry about a lot of things, actually. Least of all the way I treated you. I was a fool, Dave. You did crazy things to me.”
“I didn’t do anything to you,” David says sharply. He’s not going to take responsibility for this. He’s not.
But Michael just shakes his head. “Maybe you didn’t mean to, mate, but you did. I fell for you fast. It scared the shit out of me.”
“And you thought the appropriate response was to completely alienate me from your life, wait until I was finally happy again, and then drop a huge bomb on me completely out of the blue.” David throws the washcloth down and nods. “Makes perfect sense.”
“It doesn’t, I know it doesn’t.” Michael grabs David by the arm and pulls him back; he considers shaking him off but doesn’t, allows it to happen. Shit. “I really want to make it up to you. I know it’s going to take time. But I can’t live my life without you in it. I tried that once. Didn’t work.”
David clears his throat. “I’m on tour-”
“They’ve got phones.”
“-and I don’t even know how long I’ll be on the road-”
“I can be patient.”
“-or where I’ll end up when it finishes-”
“Plane tickets’ll have to go down eventually.”
“-and I’m not even entirely sure I like you that much, Mike.”
But Mike just grins at him cheekily. “We’ll work on that,” he promises, and David’s heart gives in. “Look, I’ve gotta run-I parked my car by a fire hydrant.”
“Dumbass,” Dave says, rolling his eyes, but it sounds a lot more affectionate than he’d intended. Michael pulls him in for a hug before he can protest, squeezes him tightly, and then disappears down the hall, yelling, “I’ll call you,” as he goes.
David sits back down and groans. Fucking Michael Johns. He hops out of his seat and reaches for his toothbrush when his phone starts ringing, somewhere buried deep within his bag. It takes him a second to fish it out, but when he does, he raises an eyebrow at Michael’s name on the caller ID. “Hello?”
“Told you I’d call you,” Michael says, and David laughs and hangs up on him.
Of course.
David realizes he wants to kiss Michael Johns for the first time in a long time two months later, post-show in some random hotel room in Wisconsin. This time, he acts on his impulse.
This time, Michael kisses him back.