Kevin woke to a throbbing headache. He tried to roll over, but something weighing down on his chest was stopping him. Something warm. No, not something, he corrected, someone. He forced his eyes open and looked down. Alex.

Slowly, memories of the night before came flooding back. The bar, the guy, making out with him, coming back to the hotel, seeing Alex and Nick making out, the fight with Nick and Alex taking care of him. He'd asked him to sleep in the bed with him. He could tell Alex hadn't wanted to, but he'd given in.

Kevin remembered throwing his arm over his midsection and Alex trying to get up. Kevin had pretended he didn't know he was trying to get up and had spooned him when he'd turned away, tightening his arm around him, not wanting him to leave.

Alex had stayed.

That thought ran through Kevin's head over and over as he stared down at the sleeping man. He had his head on his chest, one leg thrown over his, his arm flung across his stomach. Kevin was on cloud nine.

And then he felt it. Something hard pressed against his hip. An erection, Alex's erection. He was asleep, plastered to him, and hard. Kevin groaned, his own member starting to harden.

Alex shifted in his sleep, his erection rubbing against Kevin's hip. Kevin heard him moan and it turned him on even more. Alex's eyes fluttered open and he tilted his head slightly, looking up into Kevin's eyes. Neither one of them breathed for an instant and then, as if in a trance, Alex slid up to meet his lips.

Alex had seen the desire in Kevin's eyes and couldn't stop himself. He was drawn to him like a magnet. When they're lips touched, a jolt of molten desire flowed through him. Kevin was kissing him back. At that realization, all rational thought left his head.

Kevin moaned into the kiss as Alex's tongue licked inside his mouth. The action was erotic as hell and between that and Alex's hard cock pressed against him, he was overheating. Kevin reached down and hooked his hands under his arms, pulling him up closer and over the top of him.

Alex was so lost in the feeling of kissing Kevin that he didn't realize at first what the older man was doing until he suddenly found himself on top of him, resting between his legs, hard cocks pressed against each other through the fabric of their boxers. He gave in to the feeling and started grinding his hips against him, his hands somehow winding up tangled in Kevin's long black hair at the sides of his head as he deepened the kiss further.

Kevin's senses were reeling. He'd wanted this for so long now. The hangover he'd woken up with was like static in the background, but nothing he couldn't ignore. As long as Alex kept making him feel like this, he could ignore a herd of elephants stampeding through the room.

Alex pulled his mouth from Kevin's to kiss a trail along his jaw line and down the side of his neck. He felt Kevin's hands suddenly on his ass, urging him to grind harder, faster. Alex had no intention of denying him. As the pace became more frantic, so did their kisses and caresses and moans.

Alex licked the hollow of his neck, then sucked lightly. Kevin moaned his name and heat shot through Alex. He sucked harder and ground his hips against him faster. He was close to cumming and if Kevin's panting and frantic grinding and moaning were any indication so was he.

Suddenly, the phone rang. They jumped apart as if scalded, staring at each other with a mixture of confusion and desire in their eyes. The phone rang again and Kevin mumbled something about bad timing and hangovers being a bitch as he reached for it.

Alex got up and left the room, needing to get some space between them for a minute and wanting to give Kevin some privacy to talk. He stepped into the bathroom. Just before he closed the door, he heard Kevin say Kristin's name.

Alex leaned back against the closed door and squeezed his eyes shut. Kevin was talking to Kristin. His wife. The love of his life. Why the hell did they keep ending up making out? Alex knew why he'd kissed him, he was still in love with him. For the life of him, though, he couldn't figure out why Kevin had kissed him back.

And holy shit. They'd both come so close to getting off together. Alex couldn't get the taste of Kevin's skin out of his mouth. For that matter, he could still feel the older man's hands on his ass and damn, the feeling of their erections pressed together, rubbing, grinding…

Alex shoved himself away from the door and turned to open it. He had to get out of there. He couldn't deal with this. It never should have happened. He crept quietly from the bathroom to the door to the hallway. He could hear Kevin talking to Kristin, but couldn't make out his words.

Opening the door to the hallway, he peaked out, looking both ways to make sure the coast was clear. He still had the damn erection and he was in his boxers. He didn't need anybody seeing that. After he was sure there was no one around, he quickly crossed the hall to his room, breathing a sigh of relief once there. He shut and locked the door for good measure, needing to be alone.

Out in the hall, Nick watched Alex's retreating form from his doorway. He'd been on his way over to his room to apologize for how he'd acted last night, but when he'd opened the door, he'd seen him walking back to his room from the direction of Kevin's room.

So, he had spent the night, Nick realized. Hurt flashed across his face. He knew he had no right, that he and Alex weren't a 'he-and-Alex', but the hurt was there just the same. Quietly, he stepped back into his suite and closed the door. He'd apologize to Alex later. He couldn't face him right now.

Kevin couldn't get Kristin off the phone quick enough. He didn't want to talk to her. He wanted to let their lawyers handle it all. This was the first time she'd called though since he'd sent the papers back to her signed, so he felt like he should at least give her a few minutes of his time.

Finally he hung up the phone though and climbed out of bed. He'd felt the shift on the bed as Alex had gotten up and had heard the sound of the bathroom door clicking shut a minute later. He walked out of the bedroom toward the bathroom, looking for him, frowning when he saw that the bathroom door was slightly ajar.

When he stepped inside, his heart sank. The room was empty. He turned back around and looked around the sitting room, foolishly hoping to see Alex sitting on his couch, flashing him a smile. No such luck. Alex had left. Kevin felt…empty.

Alex got ready in record time. After making a quick call to make sure his bus was back from the repair shop, he showered, packed and left. He had locked himself on his bus before any of the others had even made it out of their rooms. He didn't want to see anyone, especially Kevin…or hell, even Nick for that matter.

He rummaged through the cabinets of his kitchenette, looking for something to eat. He found a bag of chips and figured that would do until they stopped somewhere for lunch. Grabbing a can of soda, he headed back to the bedroom. Propping up some pillows, he made himself comfortable before picking up the remote and flipping on the TV which was mounted to the wall in the corner.

Setting the bag of chips in his lap, he reached in and grabbed one as he flipped through the channels with the other hand. Umpteen channels later, he set aside the chips, realizing he wasn't hungry at all. He was still too worked up about what had happened with Kevin. With a disgusted sound, he clicked the TV off and jumped up off the bed. There was nothing interesting on TV and his mind kept racing.

He decided to work on a song. Happy. Yeah. He hadn't worked on that since before rehab. Crossing to the mini recording studio Kevin had built for him, he stepped inside. If this didn't work, nothing would.

Howie opened his door and walked to Alex's. It was wide open, so he stepped in, looking around for his friend. Nothing. No one. The suite was empty. Weird. Alex was not an early riser. Stepping back out of the room, he looked up and down the hall. He had to talk to someone about what he'd seen at the club the night before. He thought about going to Brian, but quickly nixed that. Brian was holed up in his room with Leighanne and besides, Kevin was his cousin. He wouldn't want to hear about him with some guy. Howie looked at Nick's door. Maybe he could talk to him. He crossed the hall and knocked.

Nick opened the door to find Howie there. "Hey, man."

"Hi Nick. Can we talk, I…" Howie's voice trailed off as he took in Nick's appearance. His eyes were red and puffy, his hair was a mess and he was still in his boxers and a beater, even though they were supposed to be meeting for breakfast in fifteen minutes and taking off for the next town on their tour in a hour and a half.

"Nick, what's wrong?"

The younger man shook his head. "Nothing."

"Nick, come on. You've been crying. Talk to me."

He shook his head again. "I don't want to talk about it."

Howie hesitated. He didn't want to pry, but he could see Nick was really upset about something. "Are you sure…"

Nick interrupted him, not sure how much longer he could deal with his friend's probing. "Listen, Howie, I appreciate the concern, but really. I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay…"

Nick decided to change the subject. "What did you want?"

"Huh?" Howie had been lost in thought.

"You knocked on my door, remember? Is there something you wanted?" Nick asked as patiently as he could manage. He just wanted to be alone.

Howie shook his head. "Oh, uh, nothing important. It can wait."

Nick knew that wasn't true, he could tell it was important to Howie by the look on his face, but he was too emotionally drained at the moment to be of much help to the older man anyway, so he just said, "Okay."

"Nick, I'm here if you change your mind and want to talk about it. Whatever it is."

Nick offered a weak smile. "Thanks. I guess I should get ready."

"See you at breakfast?"

"Sure."

With that, Nick shut the door on Howie. He leaned back against it, tears once again sliding soundlessly down his cheeks. He felt so lonely right then. It was Brian all over again. Well, in some ways not as bad as Brian. He wasn't in love with Alex, just seriously infatuated with him. But in other ways it was worse because they'd slept together, where he and Brian hadn't. One thing was the same though, just like with Brian, he didn't have a shot. Alex loved Kevin and Kevin definitely felt something for him.

Nick sighed and pushed away from the door, scanning the room for his bags to start packing. Now he had to go face them for breakfast. Fuck that. No way in hell. He'd just grab something on his bus to snack on until lunch.

Kevin showered and dressed, his thoughts rushing around in his head making it hurt worse than the hangover already had. He didn't know what to make of what had happened between he and Alex earlier. He knew how he felt, he loved him. But Alex? He had no clue.

He wondered briefly if maybe Alex hadn't told him the truth when he'd said he was over him. He quickly discarded that thought though. More than likely, Alex had just woken up horny and got carried away. After all, the night before he'd been making out with Nick. This probably meant no more to him than that.

He ignored the voice in the back of his head pointing out that he'd made out with another guy the night before too. That was different, he told himself. An experiment. Alex and Nick hadn't been experimenting. They knew what being with a man, being with each other, was like.

Packing up his stuff, he headed for the elevator. He wasn't going to think about it any more. There was no point until he talked to Alex and found out what he thought about it all. Unfortunately, that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. He'd checked his room a few minutes ago to find he'd already cleared out. More than likely, he'd headed down to breakfast.

Kevin decided to bypass breakfast with the guys and grab something on his bus. He had no desire to sit across a table from Alex with all these thoughts running through his head. He needed time alone.


Chapter Seven
MAKING AMENDS, MENDING LOVE Contents