Chapter Forty


A few hours after Dre had left Marshall’s house, AJ pulled into Brian’s driveway for the meeting he’d promised to come to over the phone days earlier.  He took a deep breath and shut his car off.  This was it.  It was all going to come out in just a short time.  What he’d been trying to protect the group from, what he’d been trying to protect Brian from.  

He had allowed a fleeting thought to pass through his head about warning Kevin what he was going to do, but had dismissed the idea immediately.  Partly because of his complete unwillingness to even call Kevin on the phone, and partly because in a deep, dark part of himself that wanted to somehow even the score…just a little, he wanted Kevin to be caught unprepared.  Wanted to watch his world crash around him, his friends, his cousin, turn on him.  Wanted to see his expression when the guys he’d called ‘brothers’ turned their shocked, disbelieving and eventually disgusted expressions in his direction.  

AJ wanted to watch Kevin suffer, even if it still couldn’t compare to the way he had suffered because of him.  He knew he should feel bad about that, but somehow, he just…didn’t.

Getting out of the car, he headed up the drive to Brian’s front door, feeling more and more like he was about to fall off the edge of a cliff with every step.  By the time he reached the door, his stomach was knotted up, his palms were sweaty and he wanted a drink…desperately.  Instead of turning tail and heading for the nearest bar, he took another deep breath, summoned courage from somewhere deep inside him, and knocked on the door.

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Inside the house, Brian’s stomach was knotted up also, although for different reasons.  The idea he had come up with a while ago in New York, during their two day break from recording when AJ had gone off to see Marshall in Detroit, was about to be put in motion.  As he headed for the door, he told himself again that he was doing the right thing.  He’d done it a couple times before, and both times it had worked.  Kevin and AJ needed to work out whatever was going on between them, and unless they sat and talked…alone, that wasn’t going to happen.  

So, Brian had set the meeting up.  Leighanne was off shopping with a friend, and Nick and Howie wouldn’t be coming over for another hour or so, so it was just the three of them.  Kevin had shown up about five minutes ago, looking just as miserable and lost as he had since they’d met up in New York.  Brian took a deep breath as he opened the door to AJ.  It was time for this to all end, and unfortunately, it seemed to be up to him to bring an end to it.

“Hi Aje.”

“Hey Rok.  The other guys here?”  AJ asked, false cheer in his voice.

“Just Kevin so far.”  Brian answered as he turned away to lead AJ further into the house, missing the look of apprehension that flitted across AJ’s face before he could hide it.

Brian led him through the house to a music room, complete with a state of the art sound system, and every CD under the sun, along with several antique guitars set in stands, a couple overstuffed couches, and a couple matching chairs.  A wet bar sat at one end of the room, silently mocking AJ, even though he was fairly sure Brian had removed all the alcohol prior to the meeting in deference to AJ’s sobriety.

AJ no more than stepped into the room than Brian backed out again, mumbling something about forgetting something.  AJ suddenly found himself alone with Kevin, who was sitting on one of the couches.  A tight band formed around his chest and he thought for a minute he might suffocate.  

Turning around without a word he started to head after Brian, refusing to spend any time alone with Kevin, only to find the double doors to the room…the only doors to the room, firmly shut in his face.  The band around his chest tightened and he shot forward, grabbing the door handles, trying to get the doors open, but they wouldn’t budge…they were locked, apparently from the outside.

Realization dawned on AJ and he screamed, “No!  Rok, let me the fuck out right now!”

Kevin stood abruptly from his spot on the couch as he watched AJ try the door over and over, screaming at Brian the whole time.  He felt sick.  They were alone together for the first time since he’d nearly raped him, and it was obvious AJ was on the verge of a panic attack because of it.  Kevin wanted nothing more than to walk over, pull AJ into his arms and calm him down, but he knew without a doubt it wouldn’t work like that.  More likely, he’d send AJ over the edge.

Swallowing hard, he spoke loudly to be heard over AJ’s yells, “He can’t hear you.”

AJ jumped as if electrocuted and whirled around to face Kevin, pressing his back into the door as if it could somehow protect him.  Neither of them spoke for a full minute as they stared at each other, trying to figure out what was going to happen next.  

Finally AJ found his voice and asked sharply, “What?”

“He can’t hear you.  He had the room soundproofed last month because he can’t stand some of the music Leigh listens to.”  Kevin said quietly now that he didn’t have to speak over AJ’s yelling.

“Fuck.”  AJ said, remembering Brian mentioning something about that and trying not to start hyperventilating.  He felt trapped.  He was trapped.  With Kevin.  And Brian had obviously planned it ahead of time because he would have had to have the locks fixed on the door so they couldn’t get out.  “Fuck!”  He said again, louder.

Kevin backed up a little, putting more distance between him and AJ, trying to show AJ he had no intention of coming after him as he said, “He didn’t know what he was doing.  Don’t…don’t be too hard on him for this.”

Before thinking, AJ responded, “I know.  It’s just…I feel…”  He trailed off, unable to articulate how betrayed he felt, even though he knew deep down it was irrational to feel that way.  Brian had no idea what had happened, and he knew without a doubt he would never have let Kevin within a mile of him let alone locked him in a room with him if he had an inkling.

Kevin picked up on the thread of what he’d been about to say and ran with it.  It was the first time AJ had talked to him with anything resembling civility since the whole thing had happened, and he didn’t want to let that go.  “You feel what?”

Startled out of his thoughts, AJ looked back over at him and realized it too.  His expression and voice hardened.  “Nothing.  Not a fucking thing.  I don’t feel a damn thing, and if I did, I sure as fuck wouldn’t tell you.”

Kevin’s eyes dropped from the blaring hatred in AJ’s to the floor, his stomach sinking inside him.  He should have known it was too good to be true, that AJ might actually talk to him, that they could possibly work through everything and begin to move on somehow.

After a few more minutes of silence, AJ still pressed against the door, Kevin carefully staying on the other side of the room, trying to look non-threatening, AJ muttered, almost to himself, “I have to get the fuck out of here.  Now.  I can’t…I just…can’t.”

Kevin felt lower than low, hating the scared note to AJ’s voice and knowing he had put it there.  In a quiet voice, he asked, “How?”

AJ didn’t answer for a minute, then his eyes flew to Kevin’s as he got an idea.  “You.”

“What?”

“You can break down the door.  You did before, in the hotel in Boston.”  AJ answered, a desperate note to his voice.

Kevin shook his head.  “No, I can’t.”

“Why the hell not?”  AJ asked, his voice rising a notch.

Kevin lost the fight to tamp down his knee-jerk reflex to react to AJ’s temper with anger of his own, pissed off that AJ couldn’t figure out why that would be such a bad idea.  “Because, when I broke down that door I was way beyond just angry with you.  I was seeing red.  Just like I was at that party, and we all know how that ended up, don’t we?
I can’t just make myself see red on demand, and even if I could, and the door doesn’t break, do you really want me that mad and locked in this room with you?”  

Watching the color drain from AJ’s face, Kevin immediately regretted bringing up the near rape with them stuck alone together.  Whirling away, he swore softly, then turned back, fighting the sick feeling in his stomach when AJ flinched at the action.

“I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t have said that.  It’s just…you don’t know what you’re asking.  My temper’s what got us to this point.  Anyway, I’m not strong enough to break that door down myself, and I’m pretty sure you won’t get close enough to me to help.  Even if you did, I don’t think it would be enough.  That door’s part of the soundproofing.  It’s a solid four inches of oak.”

AJ nodded mutely, trying not to get stuck in memories of that night at the party.  If he did, he’d start hyperventilating again.  Suddenly another idea popped in his head, and he started rummaging through his pockets until he came up with his cell phone.

Kevin stared at it apprehensively.  “Who are you calling?”

“Marshall.”  AJ responded as he hit the speed dial and held the phone to his ear, ignoring the warning beep coming from his phone, letting him know the battery was low.

AJ watched the expression on Kevin’s face carefully at the mention of Marshall, and, unsure why he felt the urge to reassure him, he said gruffly, “Don’t worry.  He won’t come after you for this.  I’ll make sure he knows it wasn’t your fault.”

Kevin was shocked silent for a minute, unsure himself why AJ was reassuring him.  When AJ swore and slammed the phone shut, Kevin asked, “Wasn’t there?”

“No, he’s there, just not answering.  Probably in his studio...”  He trailed off as he remembered Marshall giving him a piece of paper with an emergency number on it before he’d left his house to go to Brian’s.  Marshall had told him that the only other person who had it was Kim in case there was an emergency with Hailie, and that it was pumped right into his recording studio.  He had made AJ promise to call him immediately if things got too intense in the meeting and he started craving alcohol.  AJ figured that what had happened instead was grounds enough to use the number anyway.

Digging through his pockets again, he pulled it out and opened his phone to dial the number.  Halfway through, his phone shut itself off.  He swore and pressed the button to turn it on again, watching as the ‘recharge battery’ display kicked on for a few seconds, then the phone died again.  He’d forgotten to charge his phone and it had died…again.

Swearing a stream of explenatives, he hurled the phone against the nearest wall.

“What happened?”  Kevin asked tentatively.

“Piece of shit died.”  AJ muttered, trying to figure out some other way out of there.  There weren’t any windows in the room, and no phone that he could see.

After another minute of tense silence, Kevin ventured, “I wasn’t worried about me when you said you were calling him.”

That got AJ’s attention.  “What?”

“I was worried about Brian.  Marshall’s going to go after him for this.”

“No, he won’t.”  AJ said automatically.

“You didn’t see him that night he came to my house AJ.  I thought I was dead.  He’s going to look at Brian as the one who put you in danger from me again, and he’ll hurt him…badly.”

AJ met Kevin’s gaze without flinching.  “No, he won’t.  I know him.  You don’t.  He won’t hurt him if I ask him not to.”

Kevin studied AJ’s confident expression for a moment longer, before silently nodding and reaching into his pocket for his own cell phone.  Just as silently, he offered it to AJ.  AJ hesitated, surprise covering his face, clearly not having expected the offer.  Kevin waited, unmoving while AJ tentatively walked over and took the phone from him.  His fingers brushed against Kevin’s and he jerked back from the contact, but managed not to drop the phone in the process.

“Thanks.”  He muttered, walking back to his previous position by the door, well away from Kevin before dialing in the emergency number again and waiting while it rang.

“Hello?”

AJ sighed in relief when he heard the gruff, urgent voice on the other end.  “Marshall.  Thank God.”

“Alex.  What’s wrong?”

“I…he…I’m locked in a room, with Kevin.”  AJ blurted out.

“What?  Are you all right?”  Marshall asked, standing abruptly and knocking the chair over that he’d been sitting in.

“I’m…okay.  Kevin didn’t do it, and he hasn’t tried anything.  Listen.  I need you to come get me.”

“Give me the address and I’m there.”  Marshall said, his voice hard.

AJ swallowed.  “First you have to promise me something.”

“What?”  Marshall asked sharply, able to tell by the tone of AJ’s voice that he wasn’t going to like whatever it is.

“You won’t hurt Brian, or…or Kevin.”  AJ said quietly.

“You’ve got to be fucking joking.”

“I’m not.  It’s not Kevin’s fault.  He didn’t know Brian was going to do this and he even lent me his cell so I could call you…and Brian…he thinks he’s helping.  This isn’t the first time he’s locked us in a room together when we’ve had a fight.  That’s all he thinks this is, so he’s only trying what’s worked before.”  AJ rambled off, trying to make Marshall understand.

“Alex…”  Marshall’s voice was tense and angry over the line, not giving a rat’s ass about Brian’s reasoning.  The fact was Brian had put AJ in danger and he wanted to beat him into the ground for it.

“Please.”  AJ said urgently.

There was a moment of silence, then a sigh before Marshall finally answered.  “Okay.  I promise.  I don’t fucking like it, but I promise.  I won’t do anything to Brian I don’t have to to get him to open the door, and I’ll leave Kevin alone…this time.  Now give me the address.”

“Thank you.”  AJ said, then rattled off the address.

Marshall wrote it down, then took a deep breath and said, “I’ll get there as fast as I can, baby.”

AJ took a deep breath too and closed his eyes in relief, leaning his head back against the door behind him.  “I know you will.”

“Good, now give the phone to Kevin.”

“Marshall…”

“Look.  I promised you I wouldn’t hurt either of them, even though everything inside me is screaming to beat them both.  Now give the phone to Kevin.”  Marshall said sharply, feeling immediately like shit for talking to him that way.  He knew how scared AJ probably was right then being in that room with Kevin.  He didn’t need him coming down on him too.  After a heartbeat, he added a quiet, “Please.”

“Okay.  Hurry.”

“I will.”

AJ walked back across the room to Kevin and handed him the phone back.  “He wants to talk to you.”

Kevin took the phone and lifted it to his ear cautiously, as if Marshall could come at him through it, and said, “Yeah?”

“Hurt him and you die,” was all Marshall said before the line went dead.  

Kevin swallowed hard and closed his phone, sliding it back into his pocket.

AJ eyed him warily for a minute.  “What’d he say?”

Kevin shrugged.  “Just…warned me not to hurt you.”

AJ was sure it was a little more than that, but didn’t press the issue.  

~   ~&~   ~   ~&~   ~   ~&~   ~

Five minutes later, they were sitting at opposite ends of the room, Kevin on a chair he had pulled to one corner, AJ on a couch.  AJ knew that even if Marshall broke every speed limit known to man it would take him at least half an hour to get there.  He looked at his watch for the hundredth time and tried not to think too much about who he was in the room with.  A hard thing to do when he kept running through his head what Kevin had said about thinking he was going to die that night Marshall had went to his house after the near rape.

Finally he couldn’t take the silence anymore, or the questions running through his head.  “What did he do?”

“What?”  Kevin asked, started from his own thoughts.

AJ looked down at the floor and fiddled with the end of his shirt.  “That night…after…when he went to your house.  What did he do?  You said you thought you were going to die.”

Kevin tensed.  He opened his mouth to answer, then shut it, then sighed and opened it again.  “It doesn’t matter.  I deserved it…and a lot more.”

AJ thought about pressing the issue more, but decided against it.  He couldn’t help but agree with him anyway.  After another long silence, he asked, “Why?”

Kevin frowned, having been lost in thought and unsure of the thread of AJ’s question because of that.  “Why did I deserve it?”

AJ shook his head.  Finally looking over into Kevin’s face, he asked him the question he had been wanting an answer to for a while now.  “Why did you try to rape me.”

Kevin flinched as AJ’s voice broke on the word rape, but he didn’t drop his gaze, staring back into AJ’s pain-filled eyes with his own.  “I’ve been asking myself that question since it happened.”

“And?”

There was a long pause before Kevin answered, then, when AJ was about to give up on getting an answer at all, Kevin finally spoke again.  “And I honestly don’t know.  I snapped.  I just…somewhere in this last year since you broke it off,”  Kevin paused to chuckle humorlessly, disgusted with himself, “Actually, no, it was before that.  While we were still together.  Those last months before rehab.  You were starting to pull away from me.  I could feel it.  You didn’t want me around like you used to.  I could see it was hurting you to see me with Kristin, but I didn’t want to give either of you up.  The more you pulled away, the more obsessed with keeping you I got.

Kevin paused, staring at the far wall but not really seeing it, lost instead in memories he wished he could erase.  “That day in Boston…I’m not sure what I would have done if Nick hadn’t come in and decked me.  I wasn’t thinking straight.  It just got worse after that though.  I was sure after you got out of rehab that I could win you back.  I knew it would take time, but I thought you’d come back to me at some point.  When you didn’t…I just…started to loose it.  My world became focused on you.

Kevin’s eyes refocused and flicked to AJ’s face before turning away again as he continued, “That night I picked you up from Marshall’s.  I could see something happening between the two of you.  I mean, I know you.  I know when you’re interested in someone.  And him?  The fact that he’d let you in his house and let you help him out was enough to convince me he felt something for you too.  And the kiss.  When you kissed him in front of me in your house.  I wanted to kill him.  I wanted to kill you for wanting him instead of me.”

Kevin paused and took a deep breath, trying to gauge AJ’s response to what he had said so far, but AJ was carefully keeping his gaze blank and his mouth shut.  The only sign he was affected by what Kevin was saying was the way his jaw kept clenching and unclenching in some nameless rhythm.  

“So, that night at the party, I was watching you grinding on that girl, and I saw Marshall walk in.  I started seeing red again, like in Boston.  When you took off, I didn’t even think about what I was doing or why.  I just followed you.  I wanted you to want me again.  I was sure if we had sex again, you would.  When you turned me down, I just…snapped, and there was no one there that time to stop me.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that I was obsessed.  Plain and simple.  There’s no excuse, no explanation’s going to make complete sense.  I let myself get out of control and you had to pay the price.”

Kevin couldn’t even bring himself to say he was sorry.  He knew that there was no way that would be enough, and somehow it felt like an insult to even offer it in exchange for what he’d done.

AJ sat there for a long time, processing what Kevin had just said.  He had hoped, prayed actually, that once he’d heard Kevin’s reasons, it would make more sense to him.  But it didn’t.  He still felt scared sitting there, locked in the room with him, even though Kevin had been going out of his way to stay away and be as non-threatening as possible.  The memories of that night still turned his stomach, and the anger and rage still boiled inside him.  In fact, now that he had the explanation, he felt even angrier.

Standing abruptly, he paced the room for a while, before stopping and turning to Kevin.  “You know why I came here today?”

Kevin had an idea, but shook his head anyway, knowing AJ needed to tell him.

“I was going to tell all of them.  I thought about calling you and warning you, but I wanted to see your face when they all turned on you.”

“I would have deserved it.”  Kevin said quietly, his eyes dropping to the floor.

“Yeah, you would have.”  AJ agreed coldly.  He turned away and his shoulders slumped.  “I was also going to quit the group.”

Kevin’s gaze shot up and he said sharply, “No!”

AJ tensed immediately and turned back to Kevin.  “No?  You can sit there and fucking dare to tell me no?  You have no idea what it’s like being around you after what you did.  I can’t stand it.  I can’t stand the sight of you.  Even with Marshall there trying to help me through it, it’s too much.  I can’t take it anymore.”

“But this was your dream…”  Kevin trailed off.

AJ chuckled humorlessly.  “Yeah, the group was my dream.  Almost getting raped by my ex-boyfriend who was also in the group wasn’t though.”

Kevin blanched at the acrid tone to AJ’s words, and couldn’t stop himself from trying to at least apologize, even though he knew it was nowhere near enough.  “I’m so….”

“Don’t!”  AJ suddenly screamed, cutting him off.  “Don’t you fucking dare say it.  It’s not enough and it never will be!”

Kevin watched, flinching as AJ whirled away and grabbed the nearest object, some knickknack Leighanne had probably bought for the room, and threw it against the nearest wall.  Helplessly he sat back and watched as AJ systematically destroyed the room, sending objects flying, and CD’s crashing to the ground.  

He thought about Brian, and what he’d do when he saw the room, but decided AJ needed this, needed to get the rage out of his system, and Brian would just have to deal.  He shouldn’t have interfered this way.  If he’d just stuck to the meeting with all the guys the way he was supposed to, this wouldn’t have happened.  AJ would have told them all, and it would be over.  

Finally though, Kevin watched as AJ came closer and he realized he was headed for one of the antique guitars.  One that Brian’s grandfather had given him.  Shooting up out of his chair, he wrapped his hand around AJ’s wrist just as he was reaching for it, stopping him.

AJ, too angry to think straight, reacted on instinct and swung around to face Kevin, bringing the fist of his free hand with, and punching Kevin in the jaw…hard.  He watched as Kevin let go of his wrist and stumbled backwards.  Not giving him time to recover, AJ dove at him and punched him hard again in the face.  One more well placed fist and Kevin lost his balance and fell backwards to the floor, landing on his butt with his legs sprawled out in front of him.  AJ clenched his fists, ready to strike again.



Chapter Forty-One
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