Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Redd picked up his landline phone on the fourth ring, cramming the receiver between his shoulder and beard. “Emerald Isle, Moonshine residence. Redd speaki—”

“It’s me, Rabbit,” Lohn said in complaint. “Listen, I don’t think we can record the rest of the ‘Vending Machine Love’ music video. Brandy is not amenable to it.”

Redd straightened up his head, taking the phone in his hand, frowning at the French toast he was scrubbing across the pan with a spatula. “Did you tell her it was for your wedding?”

“That’ll just make it worse. She’s camera shy; she wouldn’t want random strangers seeing her, let alone people she knows and has to talk to about it. She’s still fussed about the baby weight. She was crying about needing a new hostess uniform the other week.”

“We’d film shoulders up.”

“Nothing I tell her will make it better. She got irate at me for still trying to convince her after she said no. She’ll be back stateside in time for sunset and everything, but... I don’t know. She’s tired from working a nine-hour flight.”

“Tell her we can film another evening. It’s a three minute shoot. You just kiss her on the beach a couple times while the sun goes down behind you, that’s all.”

“Rabbit—” Lohn’s voice was toneless with defeat. “She’s not like me, man. She can’t be swayed into anything if you make it sound easy enough.”

“Except marrying you,” Redd joked, but Lohn only hum-laughed.

There was a silence, wherein Redd flipped his sizzling toast onto a heavy ceramic plate, which freckled up with condensation. He turned off the stove and sighed, grabbing a fork from the only Famed Country Music Duo “Rabbit Lightning” mug they had left from their defunct merch line.

“How’s this,” Redd started, pulling out a barstool from his dining table with an ankle, then sitting himself down, legs long enough that his bare feet still rested flat on the floorboards. He turned his head down against the glare of afternoon sun through the salt-blasted windows, and with a wriggling fork, he cut a corner of his toast and poked it into his mouth. He spoke with it chipmunked in his cheek: “We change the end of the video. You and me sing to the camera, like the song’s a message for Brandy and the wedding party, rather than you and her singing to each other and dramatising a kiss.”

“Uhhhh.” Lohn hesitated. “I guess if we can make it work.” He thought about it while Redd ate, but then said, morosely, “It was such a perfect vision in my mind, though. Pink sunset behind our silhouettes, hair in the breeze, our lips touchin’ as the song ends. Real sweet-like, you know? Maybe we’re better just scrapping what we have. Write a different song.”

“You can’t be so precious with art, man,” Redd said. “Sometimes the paint falls where you didn’t mean it to fall, and you can either paint over it or work it in. If you scrap your work every time something goes wrong you’ll end up with a stack of unfinished crap, and you never get anything done.”

“Right, and if—” Lohn got on board quickly. “And if you finish enough paintings, eventually you stop dropping paint in places it weren’t meant to go?”

“Yep. I mean, some things are still liable to go wrong. Even in music video making. But you don’t let a hiccup stop production.”

“Hm.” Lohn’s hum seemed a little less tense than before, with a sigh at the end. “How about after I pick up Brandy from the airport and take her to her mom’s place, you and me go to the beach.”

“You still want to film tonight?” Redd tipped a slosh of Tabasco sauce over the remaining crusts of his French toast, and smeared them around until the plate was oatmeal-coloured again and his crusts were spiced. “I guess we still need to finish recording. And if Brandy’s out...”

“The weather’s meant to be perfect this evening. If anything, we’ll get some good sunset footage.”

Redd chewed on his final bite, and nodded to himself.

Having grown up inland, with cows and grass and trees all around, Lohn wasn’t ever going to fully acclimatise to life on a beachfront. Redd watched him curl and uncurl his toes a dozen times, trying to nudge sand out of his flip-flops. He kept pawing at his mop of dark hair, as if he’d ever win against the wind. There was already soft-serve ice-cream paling two locks that framed his stubbled jawline. He’d wrinkle his nose whenever the smell of brine or cooking crab came blowing from the ocean or swirling in a gust from up on the boardwalk. Lohn didn’t seem to enjoy either smell.

Redd planted the tripod feet into the sand. The tide wasn’t this far in yet, so the sandbanks were still deep and slippy, and even a sure step would end up awry. Being so tall, Redd had a long way to fall, so stood carefully with his legs wide apart, craning down to peer into the viewfinder of their camcorder.

The sun wasn’t at the horizon yet, but sundown was technically now. Three streets back, closer to Redd’s rundown little beach shack on stilts, that searing orange orb would already be gone from view.

The distant chatter of vacationers and shrieking children carried past on a breeze, bringing with it a mouth-watering waft of fried fish, and hot sugar. Redd batted a hand, directing Lohn into the shot, focusing the camera and pointing him a step nearer, then farther away. The wind billowed through Lohn’s loose yellow tank top, exposing his nipples and chest hair.

Redd framed the shot so his chest would be visible, for the sex appeal, and all that.

“Looking good...” Redd said slowly, zooming out enough that his additional foot of height should fit in the shot.

“Well, thank you.” Lohn said, with a seductive look in Redd’s direction.

Redd refused to fluster. “It’s decent light.”

Lohn stood and lapped at his ice-cream, fingering his hair out of his face again.

“She should’ve been here,” Lohn said quietly. His voice was almost stolen by the wind. “This was her song.”

“She’ll realise when she sees the video,” Redd said. “Make the most of it, man - it’s all love. That’s all that has to come across.”

“Yeah.” Lohn took a breath in, then let it out. “All for love.”

He turned and looked out towards the sea, where lazy waves hushed on the shore and stretched back until it seemed they were never there. And, there they were again. The sky around the sun was easing from a bluey-green towards yellow, and a swipe of cloud in that corner of the sky was outlined in orange now.

“Ready to roll,” Redd said. “Finish your ice-cream quick before we lose the light.”

Lohn offered the cone towards the camera. “Meh.”

Redd stepped up to him, taking the cone and sipping the near-melted white nectar from the bottom half. He crunched up the last of the wafer and nodded to Lohn, indicating the camcorder. “Go check my framing.”

Lohn stomped the sand where he was standing to make sure he hit his mark later, and hurried to the camera, one eye shut to see the view. “Ooh-wee, that’s purdy.”

Redd grinned. “Yeah? Don’t let Brandy hear you telling me that.”

Lohn peeked over the camcorder. “I meant the sun, not y— Oh.” He ducked down again, realising Redd was teasing him. Redd snickered.

Lohn sniffed and wiped his face on a handful of his tank top, then tucked his messy hair behind his ears. “Hitting record.”

“Be quick about it.”

Lohn ran to Redd’s side, and found his mark. He looked up expectantly at Redd with wide blue eyes, made sparkly in the golden light cast down the left of his face. “Now what?”

“Uh. It’s your video. Where do you want me?”

Lohn realised he had to think fast as the sun was nearing its mark too. He grimaced, and looked around at the sand frantically. “Alright. Okay. We recorded everything up to ‘And I’m gon love you to the moon’, right?”

“Start with ‘This is the day’.”

“Sure.” Lohn rubbed his mouth with his palm in thought. “Okay. You back up out of shot. And I’ll sing. Then you come in and we’ll do, like, a duet.”

“To camera?”

“To— I don’t know. Just go on instinct. We’ll figure it out.”

Redd stepped back a couple times until he was sure he was out of frame. Lohn nodded and drew a breath, and began to sing - dry and pitchy, but this would be dubbed over with their studio recording, so it didn’t matter. “This is the day... I’ve been waiiiting for.” He sang low enough that his Adam’s apple bobbed; it would look natural in the edit.

Redd stepped in, eyes locked with Lohn’s. “From now on, it’s only you and me.” He felt the rumble deep in his chest as he sang, and it felt good.

Lohn lit up, the performance panic vanishing from his eyes, his grin stretching out, his shoulders going slack, fists unclenching. He sang the next line in perfect harmony with Redd, voice open and melodic. “You’re my only button-pusher,” he sang, nearly laughing. He shut his eyes, and there was this peculiar peace in him as he finished, “You’re the last one—” He opened his eyes again, and gazed happily up at Redd. “The last one I’ll eeever need.”

He let out a huge breath of relief, a dazed smile on his lips. Redd raised his eyebrows questioningly.

Lohn took a second - then his jaw dropped, and he uttered, “Oh shoot, maybe it should’ve been to camera.” He looked at the camera, with its voyeuristic red light and shiny black eye, staring them down.

“Does it just end there?” Redd asked. “We sing the last part and that’s it? You might wanna blow a kiss to Brandy or something.”

Lohn fretted, wetting his lips. “That’s not very me. I never blew a kiss in my life.”

“You wanted a kiss at the end.”

“We could hug?”

Redd glanced at him. “Hug.”

“Yeah. Back up. Let’s go again.”

When Redd hesitated, Lohn shoved his chest. “Hurry up, man, the light’s gonna go.”

Redd stumbled back, and no sooner than he left, Lohn sang—

“This is the day... I’ve been waiting for.
From now on, it’s only you and me.
You’re my only button-pusher—”

Redd turned towards the camera, but was pulled away by a tug on his arm. He met Lohn’s eyes, and Lohn sang to him, “You’re the last one, the last one I’ll ever need.”

Redd’s voice had gone quiet at the end.

Lohn held out his arms for a hug. Redd wasn’t really following the narrative here - Lohn was declaring his love for Brandy, but then hugging Redd instead? Maybe it was a hug by proxy. Redd let Lohn wrap his arms behind his neck, and Redd didn’t even wince when some of his long mullet got caught in the crook of Lohn’s elbow.

Lohn breathed an awkward laugh, dropping back. He had a shy and small look about him, which was rare nowadays. His hands kept holding Redd’s biceps.

“This is what you want?” Redd checked. “Us - singing to each other. Then hugging.”

Lohn thought about it, and as he did, his expression grew more unhappy. “No.”

Redd hoped Lohn wasn’t about to have a breakdown over the fact Brandy didn’t want to be part of Lohn’s passion project. They didn’t have time. If they were doing another take it had to be now. The sunset was at its strongest, a cinnamon heat pressing to Redd’s entire right side.

“It’s meant to be a love song,” Lohn said, achingly.

“Friendship is still love,” Redd said. If friendship was Lohn’s new angle on this, Redd wasn’t about to let him think this was second-best. “There’s not anything less intense or devoted about platonic love, compared to romance. Least, not from my end,” he added, in case it wasn’t true for Lohn.

Lohn gulped hard, fighting back emotion. He hadn’t let go of Redd’s arms. “It’s not that. I just— All this was— I thought it would’ve been real nice to be kissed on the beach like we planned. That’s all.”

Oh, he was disappointed. It was meant to be a special thing, to record this with Brandy, and she backed out. Maybe the video itself wasn’t the end goal. Lohn wanted the experience.

The poor man looked like a kicked puppy. He didn’t have any right to look so sad in light so pretty. He had an ethereal glow about him, hair windswept and lips shiny with sugar. Redd entertained a thought of how he might make Lohn feel better - then he stopped thinking, and prevented himself from thinking any more. There wasn’t time to think.

He leaned down, cupped Lohn’s jaw in a hand, tilted up his chin, and put a soft, careful kiss on his lips. Lohn sucked in a shocked breath, tensing up all over, thumbs jabbing Redd’s arms. He didn’t kiss back, and when Redd pulled away, Lohn was breathing unsteadily, eyes wide like a deer that had just been hit by a truck and then the truck backed up and looked at him, wondering what he thought about it all.

“Oh,” Lohn breathed.

His eyes skipped between Redd’s, left, right, left, right, left—

“Was that alright?” Redd asked cautiously.

Lohn nodded. He tipped his head down and nodded again. “Hooooooo. Uh. Uh. If—” He wet his lips and panted, eyelids fluttering as he got his mind under control. “If we’re gon do that, we-we-we’d best sing the full verse so it’s not so strenuous to edit later.” He checked with Redd. “Back up and go again?”

“You want an official shot of that?” Redd asked, surprised. “For the video?”

“Yeah.”

“Uuuh. Okay? Let’s— Let’s go, then.” Redd hurried back, and Lohn nearly toppled after him because he’d forgotten to let go of Redd’s arms. He righted himself and nodded, clawing his unruly hair back into place.

“This is the day... I’ve been waiting for.
From now on, it’s only you and me.
You’re my only button-pusher,
You’re the last one, the last one I’ll ever need.”

Once Redd was close enough, Lohn grabbed his sleeveless tee in both fists and gently tugged him closer, and Redd eased down, shutting his eyes and resting his lips on Lohn’s again. He felt it more this time - prickly stubble, round lips, the smell of ice-cream, the smell of Lohn that Redd knew well, but rarely so intimately. Lohn opened his mouth and Redd backed away in alarm, fingers touching his lips. He’d felt wetness.

Lohn’s eyes were blazing with sunlight. “H— Hold my face again next time. I liked that.”

Redd gulped and nodded. Lohn was in full director mode, and Redd wasn’t about to dissuade him. The hopeless, dishevelled wreck of a man he’d run into a couple years back didn’t have a director mode. When they'd played as kids before Redd moved away, Lohn rarely tried to choose what they did. To see this side of him out in full force was a miracle of character development, in Redd’s opinion.

“Go.”

Redd staggered back, finding his knees were weaker than they ought to be. He blamed the loose sand.

Lohn needed a moment to compose himself this time. He wiped his mouth, looking over at Redd. A rush of a grin crossed his face, then Lohn had to look away, breathing out through narrowed lips. He nodded when he was ready.

“This is the day... I’ve been waiting for.
From now on, it’s only you and me...”

Lohn’s voice cracked on those words. He seemed to mean them this time. He swallowed hard, and his breath shivered after.

Redd stepped in slowly, coming in one line later than he had before. He forgot to sing.

They stared at each other.

“Dangit,” Lohn said, waving Redd out. “Again.”

“This is the day... I’ve been waiting for.
From now on, it’s only you and me.
You’re my only button-pusher,
You’re the last one, the last one I’ll ever need.”

They got through it this time, and Redd cupped Lohn’s jaw, and thumbed his bottom lip, and leaned down to kiss him. Lohn moaned a tiny bit as their lips met, and both his hands flew to scrunch into Redd’s loose hair.

Lohn kissed hard, breathing out through his nose.

Redd let him work his mouth open, expecting it this time. Redd smiled and kissed back, nosing, offering a tiny smooch.

Lohn sighed. “Mmm... One more.”

Redd gave him another kiss. Lohn tilted his head, accepting it gratefully and warmly - then he dropped back, shaking his head. “A-Another take,” he clarified.

Redd wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, trudging back, slow and embarrassed. Lohn was blushing too, though, which made him feel better.

One more time: they sang it all perfectly, but their minds were not on the song at all. Redd grabbed for Lohn’s jaw and Lohn grabbed for Redd’s head, and they tore into a kiss, Lohn gasping, hips pressing to Redd’s. Redd let his hands trail up into Lohn’s hair, around his skull, then down... down his shoulders, down his spine, until he held the small of Lohn’s back in both hands, appreciating the curve of it. He tipped Lohn backwards a little.

Lohn panted onto Redd’s mouth. “Ah— Oh— Oh.”

Redd tasted Lohn’s breaths, finding the ice-cream tasted different on Lohn than it had when he ate it himself. Sourer, but in a good way. Lohn was nearly limp in Redd’s arms, trusting him not to let him fall.

“One more for luck,” Redd said, and Lohn nodded.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “Yeah.”

Redd tidied his own hair as he got out of frame, feeling it was out of place from Lohn’s roaming hands. He’d have no way to tell how messy it was until they watched the footage back.

“This is the day... I’ve been waiting for.
From now on, it’s only you and me.”

Redd smiled as he sang along with Lohn. Lohn grinned wider and wider.

“You’re my only button-pusher,” Lohn jabbed playfully at Redd’s middle, Redd chased his hand back and touched his waist in return.

“You’re the last one, the last one I’ll ever need.”

Lohn sighed in contentment, and Redd cradled his jaw, beaming as he leaned down to kiss his lips. This one was a soft, tender kiss. Slow. Lohn kissed Redd’s mouth open, and Redd guided it closed again. Lohn tilted his head, and Redd tilted the other way, and somehow their hands were behind each other’s necks. Lohn had to be on tiptoes. Redd was sinking down in the sand.

Suddenly a chill was cast over them, and a blueness descended. Redd kissed twice more, little pecks, but then broke the kiss to breathe. Lohn bit his own lower lip, eyes still closed to savour what he’d just experienced.

“Sun’s gone,” Redd said, voice low. “Let’s hope one of those takes was perfect.”

Lohn let go of a long, long breath through his nose. “Wow,” he exhaled. Slowly his eyes opened, now gleaming with all the world’s blues. “That felt...”

“Good?” Redd said.

Lohn replied, breathless. “Amazing.”

Redd was glad. He felt a pleasant fatigue beside his mouth now, which made him realise his smiles hadn’t been this big in months.

“Um.” Lohn awkwardly stepped back from Redd, releasing his shoulder. Lohn flexed his now-empty hand, and sniffed hard, coming to his senses now the heat was dissipating.

“Camera,” he uttered, going to stop the recording and fold up the tripod. He did so haltingly, like he’d forgotten how to do every step of the process. He kept sneaking glances at Redd, and a crooked smile would climb up one side of his face, then he’d look away in haste.

With their equipment packed away, they carried it: Lohn held the camcorder with the strap around his wrist, Redd rested the tripod un-telescoped over his shoulder. They made their silent way off the beach and down the dusty paved streets, between rental homes and half-maintained single-wides, until they reached Redd’s home base.

Redd wasn’t really thinking about what had transpired, but he also couldn’t think about anything else. Every few seconds he felt like he was experiencing it all again, flashes of Lohn’s body heat against his own, his mouth open and hot and wet and making little noises of pleasure.

By the time Redd plodded up the old wood steps that led to his glass-front property, he was a bit pudgy between his legs. He hadn’t had the chance to process it all in the moment, but in hindsight, he’d been aroused, and it either lingered or grew, he couldn’t figure out which. He felt warm deep in his belly and there were pleasant swirls and jumps happening in his chest, like his body was on a kiddie rollercoaster but his eyes were watching himself unlock his door.

He seemed to float through the darkened house, stunned by its silence compared to outside. This world was still and empty and scentless, and Redd could hear his own heart pounding now.

“I— I’ll be in the restroom.” Lohn uttered.

Redd glanced back and nodded, taking the camera. “I’ll get this loaded up on the computer.”

He washed his hands in the kitchen sink before he did, taking away the aura of seasalt making him sticky. He washed his face for good measure, hoping to soothe some of the hotness that still burned in his cheeks.

Lohn took longer than it usually would take him to pee. Somehow Redd didn’t think he was pooping. He just needed to reset in private.

Redd attached the camcorder into mess of wires attached to the PC, and after some insistent mouse clicking, motors began whirring madly as video capture software loaded up and fought to do its job.

Once a folder loaded on the screen, Redd saved the new video file to the PC, and backed it up to a USB thumb drive before he dared do anything to it. He’d lost enough data to crashes that he wasn’t taking any chances now.

Lohn arrived with damp, tidier hair and a ruddy face. He sat down on the daybed that was crammed perpendicular to the computer desk, which was covered in stacks of records, casettes, CDs, and recording equipment. It wasn’t really a daybed - Redd slept there, even though there was a bedroom in the house. He spent too many nights up late trying to edit things, so it just seemed easier to put the bed where he slept, rather than the other way around. If Lohn knew his rear was parked on Redd’s nighttime pillow, he didn’t indicate it. Redd wasn’t going to tell him.

Usually they’d be bantering now. Discussing plans for the end of the video. Complaining about something in their day. Lohn would be watching birds out the window as they came to roost in the trees near the house - Redd could hear the twittering.

But instead Lohn just listened to the machines, and breathed. They let the daylight go, and let the room turn a darker and darker blue. Amidst that gloom, the screen of Redd’s blocky beige PC gave out a neon glare to rival the Vegas strip, or a mall in the middle of nowhere. Redd’s eyes watered to look at it, but he stared anyway.

He opened Windows Movie Maker - twice, because it crashed the first time, trying to load the two-minute music video he and Lohn had spent a week editing together.

“We should use footage from the final take,” Lohn said softly. “The last time we... I think that was the best shot.”

“I’ll check the framing,” Redd warned. “We moved a lot.”

“Alright.”

Redd heard Lohn gulp. He shifted in the bed, crooking his knees up, hugging his bare calves around his ragged jorts. Redd spared him a glance, then looked down.

“So, uh.” Redd steeled himself. “Not that I think there’s anything shameful about it, about - about a man being with another man, or anything,” Redd said, “but I think, just from a career standpoint, and - you know, maybe a personal one too - it might be better if we kept this video as a sort of, uh, like an experimental art piece. Just for you and me. Rather than selling it to MTV, once MTV realise we exist. Or, uh, projecting it on a big screen to your wedding party.”

Lohn considered that. “Nobody else would see it?”

Redd scrunched his lips to one side, and he leaned back in his chair, letting the computer load their new file into the video editor. “I think that’s safest.”

Eventually, Lohn nodded. “But we’ll finish it still.”

“We’ll finish it. We can’t leave half-done canvases around. Gotta tidy up the paint.”

“Heh.”

Once the file loaded, Redd skipped to the end of their now-nine-minute video, and played the final minute.

Waves of heat and pleasure descended Redd’s body as he watched himself kiss Lohn. He hadn’t even noticed the singing, whether or not it might be timed right with the music. He’d been anticipating the kiss. As the footage played on, he snuck a secret glance at Lohn, to check if he was looking. He was; his attention was undivided, tanned face turned silver in the computer’s glow. His lips slowly parted.

Blushing now, Redd handled the mouse and gave the file a rough chop, cropping it to the song and the kiss. He fit it to the end of the last shot, featuring Lohn walking along the beach in daylight hours, singing, “Now I’m shined and ready... I’m keyed up! Revved to go! This sweet machine’s full of rocket fuel... And I’m gon love yooo-ooo-ou... to the moon.”

It took a few more edits, and nearly ten minutes because Windows Movie Maker wasn’t happy with the number of adjustments, but he aligned the video to the musical audio as best he could, and muted the footage. It was all wind anyway.

“It’s a little off,” Redd noted. “The first line’s early and the last line’s late. You can tell the mouth movements are wrong.”

“It’s perfect,” Lohn said firmly. “We can retime some of it by cutting in with some B-roll. Hands touching, or sunbeams in the camera lens. Stuff like that.”

“Yeah, we can do that.”

“Worse comes to worst, we can re-record that part of the song so it fits better.”

Redd was surprised Lohn was willing to put that much effort into something nobody would see, but then, actually, no he wasn’t. Lohn put effort into everything.

“Or re-record the kiss if we really need to,” Lohn added.

Redd forced himself not to look at Lohn. “If it comes to that.”

Lohn let out a tiny breath, which sounded like... astonishment? Relief? He was somewhat affected, in any case, by the idea that Redd might theoretically be up for another kiss.

Was he? Redd started to question what his stake in all this was.

He concluded he just wanted Lohn to be happy, and content with what he made. That was the only reason he kissed him in the first place. He could kiss him again if Lohn needed that. It was for the project. And Lohn was still learning to finish what he started.

They sat together for another hour, nearly, finally giving in and turning on the lamp beside the computer. Lohn gave suggestions for edits, and Redd carried them out, usually as small as cutting out a single frame, but once as big as removing the entire new segment and trying another shot. The more aggressive kiss didn’t suit the tone of the video, however (they were in agreement), and the other complete shots were even worse timing-wise, so they returned it to the final one.

They made the video fade to white before the sunset descended. Lohn didn’t like the symbolism of the sun going down on a kiss, because it seemed like an ending when the narrative of the song was that this was a beginning. So their hopeful ending was a moment when a blinding starburst peeked out between their lips, as they both drew breath, a strand of saliva coursing between their mouths. Redd wished he could edit that out, but he wasn’t good enough to try, and nor was his computer, which once belonged to a school library.

There was no point playing the whole video to check it - Movie Maker would honestly rather die than allow a full video to play back smoothly. They’d have to export first, and that could take half an hour if it didn’t crash the entire computer.

So Redd hit save, backed up the edit file, and left Lohn to export while he went to fetch a nearly-midnight snack. He got as far as setting the cereal out on the countertop before deciding he ought to pee first, so went off in the direction of the bathroom, towards the darker side of the house where no lights had been turned on yet. He turned them on as he went, and flipped some window shutters closed while he was at it. He loved having so many windows, but despised having neighbours.

Done with his business, he returned buckling his belt, following the sound of his own singing voice. Lohn’s was harder to discern, as he harmonised better than he soloed, but the nearer Redd came to the open arch to the kitchen-dining-office-daybedroom, the better he heard Lohn, singing the same line over and over.

“You’re the last one, the last one I’ll ever need — ever need — I’ll ever need — the last one I’ll ever need — You’re the last one, the last one I’ll ever need — ever need...”

Over and over.

Redd paused before he entered the arch, staying out of sight. He listened to the same line a dozen more times. Every time he heard the smack of Lohn’s finger hitting the same key, one time or two times, scrubbing backward.

Redd rotated himself around the arch’s side and leaned on it, head against it, looking curiously at the bony creature sitting on the edge of the daybed, leaning an arm and his chin on the back of the computer chair, his other arm outstretched, obsessively rewatching the same clip.

He wanted to watch them kiss. He was replaying the moment they finished singing and stepped forward, ready for it. The little breath they shared; the way Redd took hold of Lohn’s jaw.

Redd watched Lohn play it back another twenty times, finding himself equally enthralled. If Lohn weren’t pushing the button, he would be.

This was starting to feel dangerous. They were placing meaning on something that shouldn’t have meaning. Not like this. Not all-consuming.

“This can’t change anything between us,” Redd said.

Lohn nearly went flying. His hand smacked the crate of cassette tapes piled up behind the bed’s headboard and he yelped, hissing, grimacing, folded over his hand.

Redd went to him, offering a hand for Lohn’s hand.

Lohn placed his fist in Redd’s palm, growling in pain, and Redd sat down on his computer chair, swung Lohn’s way, and put a kiss on Lohn’s reddened fingers. Lohn unclenched his fist at once.

They’d been kissing each other’s bruises better since they were kids, it was automatic, but somehow it felt different this time. Redd kept hold of Lohn’s hand, meeting his watering eyes.

Redd’s breath stopped.

Lohn snatched back his hand, avoiding Redd’s gaze, squirming tensely on the bed. “Once the video’s done— Are we ever going to do that again? The thing we did on the beach?” He kept his eyes downturned.

Redd held his own hands, leaning his elbows on his thighs. “Uh.” He took a while to speak again, not knowing what words to use to avoid letting Lohn down. He seemed to want more. Redd didn’t want to hurt him, but the truth needed to be said. He needed a clear answer, since apparently it wasn't obvious to him. “We shouldn’t... We can’t do that again. You’re engaged, obviously. We were just pulling a creative project together. That’s all.”

“People in Hollywood, you know, they kiss all the time for art. For movies and that. Doesn’t mean they fell in love.”

“Yeah. But the video is basically done, besides some B-roll. So we don't need to do it again.”

Why did he use the words ‘fell in love’?! Why did he say that?!

Redd was too afraid to ask. He wanted to know the answer.

No, he already knew the answer. He wanted to not know the answer anymore.

He didn’t ask in case he found out he was right.

Lohn let the silence stretch for a little longer, then he said, quietly, “I— I oughta get back to Brandy. Her mom’s been good to baby Tyrone, but the grub is rarely sleeping through the night and Brandy had a long flight. So.” He pressed his lips together apologetically.

“Yeah,” Redd replied. “Yeah-yeah, get going. I’ll export later. We can tidy up the edit tomorrow. Don’t forget we still need to work on the jingle for North Brothers’ Logging Company.”

“Aw, dagummit.”

“Don’t think about it tonight. Just look after Brandy’s kid and get some rest.”

“Rest or babysitting, pick one,” Lohn uttered, getting up. “Oh, do you mind if I borrow that—?” He pointed at the USB drive, the shiny silver thing crammed in the PC’s only front-facing port. “Just for backing up the raw file.”

“Sure.” Redd leaned to safely eject the drive, then handed it over. “Don’t lose it, they’re expensive.”

“Trust me, I won’t,” Lohn said with his head down, pocketing the drive.

Redd tried not to read into the ‘trust me’. It seemed as if there was weight behind Lohn’s desire to keep hold of the file on the drive.

Redd got up, following Lohn to the front door, where the glass overlooked a porch, which fronted a dusty road bathed in a faint golden streetlight. “Drive safe, man. And try and get some sleep if you can.”

Lohn was lost in thought, hand on the doorhandle but not squeezing it.

Eventually he turned to Redd and asked, “Can I get a hug? Just one more.”

Redd huffed a laugh and wrapped his arms around Lohn’s shoulders easily, cheek on the top of his head. He squished him, and enjoyed the rub Lohn gave his back.

They held on longer than they usually did, but not by much. An extra three seconds, maybe.

Lohn breathed in as he pulled back, meeting Redd’s eyes - then he stood on tiptoes, held Redd’s cheek, and guided him into a kiss, lips to lips, breath hot and eyes shut. Redd froze in surprise - but he had no chance to respond, as Lohn had already dropped back, wrenched the door open, and fled the porch, slipping on sand as he ran down the steps. He stumbled to the dented silver hatchback parked in the road, unlocked it, forced the engine awake, and drove away in seconds, his panicked energy extending to the car’s wobbly movement as it shot away into the dark.

Redd pressed a hand over his mouth and slumped against his front door, clicking it shut.

Despite the stomach-churning guilt of knowing Brandy never approved this, and the fear that his and Lohn’s friendship was now irreversibly changed... Redd couldn’t help but grin.

Chapter Text

Redd slept fine for the first few hours of the night - the computer was on its colourful pipe screensaver, and the ticky-ticky-hum of the machine lulled Redd to sleep on the daybed. He woke to darkness, as the screen had gone to sleep, and the lamp was switched off. He knew he had a habit of turning the lamp off in his sleep, but at the other end of the kitchen he could see moonlight striped up the walls, glowing on the fridge magnets, so it wasn’t all dark.

He got up to pee, and decided against going to his real bed after brushing his teeth, because he’d already gotten comfy on the daybed. He grabbed a blanket, though, and tucked himself in, feet hanging off the end of the mattress.

But sleep did not come, because he’d already made the mistake of looking in the mirror in the restroom, and his messy hair reminded him who’d messed it up. He lay in bed now, hand in his own hair, remembering how Lohn’s hands felt there.

There was nothing about their interaction earlier that Redd hadn’t experienced at some previous point in time. Lohn had massaged his head before, and handily fussed with his hair prior to a stage performance. He’d played mama a few times too, licking a thumb and rubbing it beside Redd’s mouth to wipe away some chocolatey smudge. Redd had felt Lohn’s lips damn near everywhere on his body since they were six years old, as early on Lohn had made a habit of kissing better any knee scrapes, bumped heads, and a broken rib before they realised it was broken, and even as an adult he craved the same care in the other direction. Redd had made a point of providing it without being asked, especially when they first reconnected, because their years apart had left Lohn starved for touch and unaware he could ask for affection, even from whichever woman he was married to at the time.

Actually, Redd just about recalled a drunken night where Lohn had jokingly kissed his bare buttock, too.

There were moments Lohn had grabbed at Redd’s clothes in anger; they’d wrestled each other up walls and down floors in hilarious moments, or terrible ones. Lohn had fallen asleep at Redd’s side any number of times, working late, and they’d woken breathing each other’s air. Lips practically touching.

Those kisses last night, though - those were different.

Replaying sun-drenched memories of the evening kept Redd’s mind working, and in time he realised the grey haze of daylight was creeping into the kitchen. He watched grey turn to gold, and soon dappled light roamed the old carpet, wavered by tree leaves.

Pretty as a kiss, he thought.

The phone rang. Redd startled, and his heart remained pounding even after he realised it was just the phone. He lurched his torso out of bed and patted his hand across the crowded desk until he touched the beige plastic rectangle.

He dragged the receiver to his ear. “Emmrldle, Moonshine ruzzidence, Redd speaking.” He cleared his throat hard, but there was no helping the sleepy weight in his voice.

“Rabbit... Sorry, didn’t want to wake you...”

“Hey, man.” Redd pinched his foggy eyes, trying to clear his head. Even after lying awake for an hour, thinking, he’d been floating halfway in a dream. He smiled a little, feeling shy, glad Lohn didn’t know he’d been on Redd’s mind all night.

“Could we - meet up and write a new song today?”

“Yeah. The jingle’s due in, uhhhhhh...” Redd batted around for his planner book.

“Something new,” Lohn said. “Not the jingle.”

Redd scoffed. “What happened to finishing projects?”

“We’ll get to the jingle! I need to write something else first.”

“Alright, Lightning, did inspiration strike you In the night?”

“Heh. You could say that.”

“Ahhh. Okay, I’ve got dishes to wash and I need to vacuum at some point. But yeah, man, show me what you’ve got. We might even work it into the jingle if it’s catchy. How’s this afternoon?” Redd asked. There was a knock at the door.

“Well, I’ll need to pee sooner than that.”

Redd furrowed his brow. “Seriously?” He put on his tinted aviators, then got up and threw the blanket back. He trudged through the small hallway and into the living room, where he could see Lohn drooping guiltily on the other side of the glass door, his hand in the pocket of his jeans, a crumpled black button-down hanging off his frame.

Lohn rolled a shoulder and hung up his cellphone, pocketing the Nokia brick as Redd unlatched the door. Lohn lost a fight with a yawn, and was still yawning, frozen in place once the door was wide open.

“I take it the baby didn’t let you sleep,” Redd said, standing back to let Lohn in.

“Hm.”

“Have you eaten?” Redd asked.

Lohn shook his head and disappeared into the bathroom, leaving Redd paralysed by the same deep yawn.

Assuming Lohn was going to talk Redd’s ear off about his musical ideas once he had some food in him, Redd tidied the daybed properly, folded the blanket, then put his guitar down there too, since Lohn was hopeless at singing the notes he was trying to convey when his voice wasn’t warmed up.

Lohn came in as Redd was pulling bread out of the packet. “How’d you sleep?” Lohn asked.

It was like he knew. Redd burned hot on the ears and behind his neck, but answered lightly, “Ah, I had a lot on my mind. Work stuff.”

“I’ll do this,” Lohn said, taking the pan and the stick of butter from Redd. “I’m being an inconvenience to you, being here so early. Least I could do is feed you.”

“You’re not an inconvenience,” Redd said gruffly, but he let Lohn take over breakfast. “Creativity happens when it needs to happen, there’s no scheduling it sometimes. Even at—” he wiggled his computer mouse, and looked at the time. “Six-forty? Jesus, Lohn.”

Lohn gave a wheeze of regret.

Redd went back to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of apple juice from the fridge, then went to sit cross-legged on the daybed. “So what’s the song?” He picked up the guitar and lay it over a thigh, giving a few testing strums.

“Not much in the way of a song yet,” Lohn said. Redd heard eggs cracking and their empty shells hitting the stack of dishes in the sink. “But I have a... a concept.”

“Mm-hm.”

Lohn got distracted for a minute, dipping bread in egg and transferring it to the pan on the stove, which he then realised he’d forgotten to turn on. Redd heard muttered swears and then the cli-cli-cli-cli-cli-fwoosh of the stovetop as the gas came on.

“I have a notion that... we might write another love song,” Lohn said, once the toast finally began to hiss. “Less of an obvious one. I don’t think bein’ direct about what I’m feeling is working out in my favour.”

“How do you mean?”

“Brandy is of the opinion that our songs are ‘silly’.” Lohn used the fork he was cooking with as half of an air quote. “Like there’s not a genuine meaning behind it. I was being sincere with her song, right? ‘Vending Machine Love’?”

“It can be lighthearted and fun and still be meaningful,” Redd agreed. “Our songs are silly, though. There’s an audience for that. There will be.”

“She meant silly like... like—” Lohn pressed his lips together in discontent, and he tucked his hair behind his ear, shaking his head.

“Like for kids?”

“Like for nobody,” Lohn said quietly. “She... didn’t wanna hear it at all. I showed her the lyrics and she sighed and laughed and...” Lohn wiped his eye and looked at his hand, then rubbed his hand on his button-down. “There’s not enough Starbucks-es in North Carolina.”

“What?”

“She wants more Starbucks-es. Like there are in airports and the big cities everywhere.”

“I thought she hated coffee.”

“She gets ice water with one of them flavour syrups. But she likes the look of holdin’ a Starbucks cup, with her nude nails and her perfect little necktie and her jaunty beret.”

“Easy, man,” Redd said soothingly. Lohn was angry now and his words were starting to spike. “Just focus on the music. Love songs, remember.”

“It is about the music,” Lohn complained. “It was always about the music.” Less angry now, more sad. His voice strained with a dam of suppressed emotion. “She wants, like, six kids and a house in California. Do you know why she agreed to marry me? Even after I told her I was more or less infertile?”

“Why?

“She was—” Aggressive toast flip, loud hissing from the pan. “She was banking on me and you being famous someday. We’d move to L.A. with all the Starbucks cups, and refined people to appreciate that jelly-lime joot salad— jime-jelly— lime - jelly - fruit - salad, the one her sister taught her to make. I don’t know. I guess she’s since been disappointed with the kind of music we make. Or maybe she never much cared after all. Just hoping some meaningless jingle makes us millions. She wants money, not me.”

Redd kept quiet, not enjoying any better than Lohn that his fiancée wasn’t interested in something that was such a big part of who Lohn was, and wanted to be. The jingles were their money-makers but their hearts and souls went into their original songs. That’s why Redd was willing to put off their paid work for Lohn’s passion projects.

“She told me... she still gets down on her knees every night to pray we get our big break.”

Redd battled over whether to say that was nice, or not. Lohn’s tone implied he thought it was condescending. Redd didn’t know Brandy well enough to determine it wasn’t.

“She makes more than I’ll ever make now,” Lohn said. “She could move to L.A. alone if she wanted.”

“She wants you there.”

“She wants a famous husband who cleans up nice.”

Redd scratched his beard. “She sees your potential?”

“Maybe.”

Lohn sighed and looked around for a plate, then started opening cupboards, but Redd stood up and went to him, putting down his apple juice and getting a cereal bowl.

“It’s all in the sink, I need to wash up,” Redd said.

Lohn put two toasts in the bowl and kept the other two in the pan. Redd topped the bowl with pancake syrup, while Lohn drifted out of the kitchen, leaving his toast behind, presumably to cool down.

Lohn flopped face-first onto the daybed and groaned a long note, scooping Redd’s pillow over his head. Redd set down his steaming bowl and batted Lohn’s inner thigh with a hand, then shoved him closer to the wall so Redd had space to sit.

“I wanna—” Lohn mumbled into the bed. “I need to write something stupid. So then her callin’ it all silly makes sense again.” His voice was clearer once he turned his head and looked up at Redd. “I thought I was tryin’ hard.”

Redd sighed, trying not to pity Lohn. “Well, maybe ‘Vending Machine Love’ was not actually intended for her,” he said.

He regretted it instantly.

Lohn rolled onto his back, looking up at Redd curiously. “How’d you mean? Like it was just for me? For the purpose of making something and finishing it?”

“Yeah. That’s exactly what I meant,” Redd lied.

“Or I should save it for the right person? Are you saying Brandy’s not the one for me?”

Redd said nothing.

“You might be right.” Lohn’s gaze turned to the wooden ceiling, and he exhaled as he pondered. “We could write a cooking metaphor. About making something for yourself.” He met Redd’s eyes. “Makin’ something for someone you love.”

Redd gulped.

Lohn blinked a few times. “I was thinking of, like...” He halted. “No, never mind. It’s over-dramatic.”

“Say whatever garbage is in your brain, man, we’ll make it make sense after,” Redd said. He reached for his French toast and cut a corner off. He took a bite, then cut another piece and offered it to Lohn, who opened his mouth and nibbled it off the fork.

“A song about... wanting to do something that’s wrong,” Lohn said, chewing. “Everyone who knows you want it will tell you it’s wrong. It’s implied that it’s wrong. Society frowns upon it. You know deep down it’s wrong. But it happens anyway. Deeper down, you know it’s not wrong, it’s fine. And you can’t stop wanting it because it feels - so good.”

Redd forced back flashes of heat and memories of Lohn’s hands behind his neck, hot breaths gasped against wet lips. “Hm.”

“Like putting a Q-tip in your ear,” Lohn said.

Redd snorted a laugh and had to wipe his nose with his sleeveless tee.

Lohn finally smiled, and Redd grinned down, laughing again.

Now Lohn relaxed, swallowed his food, and tucked a hand behind his head. “Rabbit...?”

“Hm.”

Lohn hesitated, but then opened his arms up slightly, as if offering or asking for a hug.

“What, you want me to get all the way down there?”

“I’m tired,” Lohn said.

Redd sighed and awkwardly fumbled his nearly seven-foot form onto the sliver of the bed that was left, lying against Lohn’s side. They didn’t fully make contact; Redd remained perched on an elbow, looking down at Lohn, who’d wrapped his hands around Redd’s waist.

“What’s up, man?” Redd asked him gently. “What’s the song really about? I’ll take a guess and say it’s not Q-tips.”

Lohn’s throat tightened visibly. His eyes searched Redd’s, lips parting, like he wanted to say something. Redd simply waited, knowing Lohn would eventually figure out this was the time to say anything he needed to say.

Pain in his eyes, maybe fear, Lohn’s lips trembled as he asked in a whisper, “Can you do it again?”

Redd felt a touch on his right hand, and found Lohn moving it from Lohn’s hip to his jaw. He felt the bristles there, darker and pricklier than they were last night. Lohn’s eyes shone with hope.

“Just one more time,” Lohn pleaded.

Heart thumping, Redd asked in an equal hush, but with more pressure, “Why?”

Why do you want that? Wouldn’t you rather be kissing the woman you proposed to? What do I have that she can’t give you? Why can’t you just let this go and keep things how they were between us? What happens if I say yes?

What happens if I don’t?

...Are you ever going to stop wanting this?

Redd felt Lohn swallow again, throat moving under the side of his thumb.

“Why, man?” Redd asked again. “Why do you want me to kiss you?”

“I need to check something,” Lohn said.

Redd tilted his head warily. “Check what? See if you still like it? It won’t be any different than last night.”

Lohn just breathed. He shut his eyes, frowning, holding on to Redd’s hand, fingers slipping between Redd’s knuckles. A soft breath left Lohn and curled up, warm on Redd’s collarbone.

“Did you talk to Brandy?” Redd asked. “Does she know?”

Lohn frowned more, eyes still shut. “Rabbit, can we talk about that later, I just need— I don’t want to talk about Brandy.”

Redd hung his head. “I can’t just keep kissing you whenever you want.”

“If you don’t want to, I won’t ask you again after this,” Lohn said, meeting his eyes. “I swear.”

There was not one part of Redd that believed him. Oh, he believed Lohn meant the promise, but he did not believe it was a promise he could keep. He was scheduled to be married in a month and there was no way an urge this irrepressible could be willed away in that time, especially not if Lohn was realising he enjoyed it, and wanted to check how much. If Lohn was willing to cheat now he’d be willing to cheat later.

And yet. Redd could really use a song right now. A song about wanting to do something wrong. Everyone who would ever find out he wanted to kiss an engaged man would tell him it was wrong. It was implied it was wrong. Society frowned upon it. Redd knew deep down it would be wrong. But he wanted it anyway. Deeper down, he didn’t feel like it was really all that wrong, because no matter how much Brandy was meant to mean to Lohn, she didn’t care like Redd cared, and Lohn liked Redd better. Always had, always would. And Redd couldn’t help wanting it...

Why do I want this? Redd asked himself now.

Why can’t I just let this go and keep things how they were between us? What happens if I say yes?

But what happens if I don’t? Am I ever going to stop wanting this?

“Just - one more,” Redd said before he could stop himself. Then he made a promise he was equally sure he might not keep, but had to say anyway for the sake of not becoming a homewrecker: “Then we never do this again, no matter what.”

Lohn’s expression shattered to relief and despair at once, and Redd felt the same.

Redd took off this aviators and folded them, leaving them on the side of the desk. And he leaned down slowly, stroking Lohn’s cheek with his thumb.

Lohn clutched Redd’s hand tighter, lips parting, breath hastening.

Their lips met, and while Redd intended to go slow, Lohn didn’t. He grabbed Redd’s head and opened their mouths wide, kissing with desperation and moving his whole body in the bed, wrapping a knee over Redd’s thigh and hooking him closer.

Lohn whimpered, and Redd groaned, and felt a surge of shame but a flutter of pleasure, and before he knew it he’d deepened the kiss, taking control and slowing it down, working his lips and jaw over Lohn, nose batting at Lohn’s, one side, then the other. Smooches. Long, soft-tonged rolls of pressure.

Lohn lay flat and opened his legs, and Redd moved between them naturally, only realising what he’d done when Lohn closed his legs around Redd’s buttocks, holding him down.

Redd’s lashes fluttered, feeling an urge to pull back before they went too far, but Lohn’s hands were in his mullet now, and Redd was melting, warmth and oozy comfort sinking through his body like hot syrup on a perfectly fried crispy breakfast toast. Redd remained, and sank deeper.

Lohn broke the kiss, breathless, making vocal sounds of desire. “Ohh, I love this.” He kept panting. “Rabbit, I-I think want to— Shoot, let’s just—” He grabbed Redd behind his neck and supported him as he threw their weight, bucking in the bed and rolling them over. Redd didn’t resist, and as he bumped the bookshelf against the wall, then lay on his back and got comfortable, he realised he’d helped.

Lohn grinned and settled on Redd’s waist, hip to hip, with Lohn’s legs open around Redd’s stockier frame. Lohn shut his eyes and squirmed, a smile curling up the side of his open mouth. A rolling movement turned to pressure, and Redd realised three nudges in that Lohn was dry humping him, getting Redd’s crotch to press his taint.

Redd panicked and grabbed Lohn’s waist, sitting up so they were both upright. He held Lohn’s hips still with one hand, touching the side of his neck with the other. He kept his touches gentle so as not to scare Lohn, but shook his head, and said, “That’s enough, man.”

At least Lohn understood he’d crossed a line. “Sorry.”

Redd watched his lips. “It’s alright.” He swallowed. “Is this helping you? Did you check what you wanted to check?”

Lohn nodded. He tried to kiss Redd again but Redd pulled back, and turned his face away.

“You don’t want to,” Lohn said.

Redd considered being honest. He wanted to. But all he needed right now was for Lohn to stop. He decided not to answer.

“Lohn, you’re getting married. To a woman with a newborn baby.” Redd felt the chills of guilt pouring down his body, becoming more and more horrified he’d allowed Lohn to give in to desires that might ruin a future he’d spent a lifetime working towards. Brandy was the one he really needed, and this little experiment might’ve undone it all.

“You need to leave,” Redd said firmly, retreating from Lohn’s body everywhere except where Lohn was sitting on him. “Go home. Go anywhere. Come back when your head is clearer. You’re gonna hurt somebody like this. All of us. I don’t want you hurt again.”

Lohn took a moment to understand he was being kicked out.

Slowly he got up, pulling down his shirt, running a hand back through his hair.

He stood for a while, stunned and not knowing what to do.

Redd sat at the edge of the bed and nudged Lohn’s discarded flip-flops towards his bare feet. Lohn looked down and put them on, sideways, then straight.

“Rabbit...” Lohn sighed. “Listen, there’s... something you don't know yet. There's something I have to tell you. It— It’s kind of hard to say.”

“Not now.”

“No, it’s important. The thing is, Rabbit... whatever this is, what I have with you... Gosh.” Lohn’s breath shivered. “Thing is, when I asked you to kiss me again, I don’t mean for it to hurt Brandy. Obviously I wouldn’t want to betray her. What I’m feeling for you is something I haven’t ever felt with her, and last night—”

“Lohn, get out.” Redd hung his head, fists against his forehead. “I’m serious. Whatever you’re about to say, I don’t want to hear it.”

“But Brandy wouldn’t even have to know what we do together—”

“Lohn.”

Lohn heard the bark of Redd’s voice and realised it wasn’t a moment to bargain. The request for separation was because Redd needed it.

“Stop talking,” Redd said. “Leave. Now.”

“Okay.” Lohn touched Redd’s shoulder with his fingertips. “Sorry, man. I’m sorry.”

Redd swatted his hand away, not in the mood to be touched. Lohn dissipated from Redd’s peripheral view.

After twenty seconds, Redd heard the front door click closed.

Redd expected to hear the car engine, but maybe he was listening too hard and missing something obvious, because he didn’t hear it.

After a minute he gave up and breathed in, head back, hands sinking into the bed. He had to live with this now: the knowledge that his best friend wanted to... what? Experiment with him? Exchange sexual touches. Be kissed. Lohn was going to marry a woman and bury this, maybe forever. Either he buried it or they both became villains.

A selfish part of Redd wanted Lohn to snap and end things with suburban-dreaming Brandy, and escape to be with rockstar Redd like a runaway girlfriend in a biker movie. But Brandy and her baby son were the only good things that had come into Lohn’s life since Redd went out of it, way back in their late teens. Since then, Lohn had been through every kind of failed romantic relationship and emerged in a worse state every time. A life with Brandy wasn’t something to escape.

Redd had tried hard to make Lohn believe he was still worthy of love despite being a clumsy, distractible fool wrecked by divorce, having no career to speak of yet, nor boundless affluence, nor traditionally handsome features, nor two working testicles like most other men. Redd had spent two years getting Lohn to sing again the way they used to - better, even - and making him smile until a grin didn’t look uncomfortable on his face. He taught him how to cook enough to keep himself and a partner healthy, how to keep a house and a car in working condition, and told him all the good and beautiful ways a man could treat a woman. As a teacher, Redd had been blessed with a willing student, and as a gardener, he’d been blessed with already having good roots. Lohn just needed pruning, shaping, and some emotional fertiliser, not regrowing from scratch. He was always a good boy. A kind man. A careful friend.

Wanting Redd, while a beautiful breadwinning brunette air hostess named Brandy was at home with baby Tyrone, was either an act of madness on Lohn’s part, or something worse than madness. An act of clarity.

Redd shook his head and stood up, forcing away the thought.

Lohn would’ve known he was queer. He wouldn’t have married five women in succession. He wouldn’t have asked Brandy to marry him. He’d had a lifetime to figure it out. He would’ve known.

With orange aviators back in place over his eyes, Redd grabbed his toast and ate it lukewarm, standing to stare out of the window at the distant Food Lion grocery store.

He tried not to feel bad about sending Lohn on his way. If the other man was anywhere near as confused, scared, and full of thoughts to process as Redd assumed, under any other circumstance, he’d have come straight to Redd to talk it over. But this time Lohn needed to figure it out himself. He was a grown man. He had the tools and the faculties now.

The toast in the pan went into the fridge. Lohn could eat it later, if he ever came back.

After a quick shower, Redd got to work washing the dishes. He put some music on but he didn’t sing along, barely even hearing what Dolly Parton thought of the world. His own voice rambled on in his mind.

Lohn fell in and out of love easily, always had. Five wives and a childhood chain of middle- and high-school girlfriends would speak to that. Perhaps he felt the first touch of Redd’s lips on his own, against the backdrop of a love song, the kind of song he’d waited all his life to sing to someone, and conflated a loving gesture with romantic love, rather than an act of deep friendship on Redd’s part.

They’d both been raised to marry before sex. Redd had moved to less strict areas when he was still working his belief system out, but Lohn remained deep in the world of judgement, prayer, and angel eyes, and had never left. Redd had never married and had enjoyed many a lady lover, but Lohn had done nothing more than kiss his betrothed before they tied the knot. Redd imagined Lohn kept proposing to women the second he felt a flutter of anything - lust, love, attraction or closeness to the faintest degree - then divorced after the passion faded, or they realised they were never suited as people.

And... if Lohn was feeling lust, or any desire that he couldn’t easily treat with a proposal, such as attraction to another man in a society that taught him that was a sinful thing, he might really be in trouble. He had to be torturing himself with guilt.

Redd knew there was an unshakable real love between them, not to be chafed by a momentary passing lust. They’d survive Lohn having a crush on him. They could laugh about it someday. But their bond might not survive if Lohn’s curiosity came between him and his wife-to-be. Or vice versa. Redd would never forgive himself for offering that first kiss if that was what destroyed Lohn’s chance at having a family, the thing he wanted most in the world.

Redd left half the dishes unwashed, but washed his hands, and dried them on the way to the computer. He sat, turned off the music playing through Winamp, and dug up the folder for the ‘Vending Machine Love’ music video draft. It had exported last night, and he’d fallen asleep waiting.

He leaned up and tugged a navy blue bedsheet drape across the window, which slumped down all at once and blocked out half the sunlight, leaving this half of the room cooler, and the screen visible. Redd opened the video in Windows Media Player.

It started in black and white as the guitar and harmonica began to play. There was Lohn, sitting alone on a public bench on the boardwalk, all the way to one side, as though someone else was missing. He hung his head, shaggy black hair hiding his face like a widow’s veil.

“Girl, I was a beat-up vending machine
With all my buttons pressed...”

It was Lohn’s song, and he sang alone. He lip-synced to the track, looking forlornly into the middle-distance. Some B-roll of a vending machine from the backroom of J. Johnson’s Deli and Diner made a brief appearance, camera tilted and roaming down its empty racks.

“I had nothing left inside my drawers
And nothing left inside my chest.”

Redd kinda liked that those lines doubled as metaphor and innuendo, while also being completely true. Somewhere along the way with his five wives, Lohn had sired no children, and discovered the only testicle he had didn’t work all that great.

Lohn’s old wedding ring fell from his hand, in fake slow motion - they’d tied the ring to fishing wire and filmed it inside a shoebox. Neither the camcorder nor Windows Movie Maker could handle real slow motion.

“My past wives munched all my candy:
All the sweet, the hot stuff too...”

Lohn walked along the Emerald Isle boardwalk, eyeing the candy stores, always alone. He hopped up on the wall dividing the path from the beach, and his bare feet danced on it, without much verve. He stopped dancing and just walked.

“All I had was bitter and rough
That’s all I had for you.”

Here’s where he spoke to the camera, half-joking, “All Sour Patch but no Kids, you know what I’m sayin’?”

All at once the music came alive with a fuller sound; the video flooded with colour and there was a moment Redd couldn’t tell what he was looking at, but his brain caught up, and he followed the camera as it left the ocean. They’d wrapped the camcorder in a Ziploc bag for that shot. Lohn wasn’t alone anymore: he shoved at Redd’s shirtless torso as he fished the camera out of the water, and Redd shoved back - a candid shot, part of their tests, but one they used anyway, because the chemistry between them was palpable.

“Then my friend named Rabbit,
He saw me broke and cleaned me up.”

Lohn lip-synced, cocking his head towards Redd, who waved at the camera. Although his mouth did not move in the video, in the audio Redd sang too, harmonising to make new and beautiful notes.

“Made me laugh, got me to fight
For the day I’d meet my one true love.”

Here were year-old shots of Redd and Lohn sitting cross legged on the beach wall, Lohn laughing with his bare legs akimbo, Redd grinning at the camera, then chasing Lohn with it, making him bat it away, shy to be looked at, but bright-eyed with happiness anyway. A jumpcut: Lohn now sat up straight, and Redd fingered at the rose that was tucked in Lohn’s button-down shirt. Redd had bought him that shirt. He remembered this conversation. Lohn got a lesson in looking put-together for a special occasion, and it just so happened that he realised he loved flowers.

Now Lohn walked along the beach, filmed earlier this week. The button-down he'd worn for the shot a year ago was in the wash after getting salt on it when Redd chased Lohn into the ocean, so they gave up on consistency, and leaned into the idea that time was passing. Lohn sang as he walked, blustered by the wind. He looked princely in his billowing clothes, even an arcade-branded t-shirt he’d borrowed from Redd.

“Now I’m shined and ready
I’m keyed up! Revved to go!
This sweet machine’s full of rocket fuel
And I’m gon love yooo-ooo-ou... to the moon.”

The long note on “you” was a yodel, akin to a dog howl.

All at once, Redd realised how much he’d been ignoring his instincts. It had crossed his mind at least twice as he and Lohn wrote the tune, but he’d never thought about it deeply, or considered it important enough to impart to Lohn a simple observation: the lyric “love you to the moon” seemed to directly reference Redd’s chosen surname, Moonshine. Like a dog howling at the moon. Redd had mentally dismissed it as common enough prose that it didn’t matter. But everything mattered in art. Redd was teaching Lohn to not be so precious, to let things go wrong and be different than the vision, let things be meaningless and accidental - but at the same time, of course it meant something.

It meant something to Lohn. He’d done nothing but work on this song for not just weeks, but months. He had to have taken it apart and put it back together over and over before he ever came to Redd with it, wanting to make a video.

“This is the day... I’ve been waiting for.
From now on, it’s only you and me.”

Lohn stood against a sunset, on the left, and Redd stepped into frame on the right. Their hair whirled around them, Redd’s long enough to flag out of frame, Lohn’s already tangled, mussed into thick locks by the humidity. They were both smiling, Lohn’s eyes gleaming with anticipation.

“You’re my only button-pusher,
You’re the last one, the last one I’ll ever need.”

Redd watched himself cup Lohn’s jaw and Lohn shut his eyes and they fell into each other, holding on, moving closer. Redd buried his face against Lohn’s, and their hands found the backs of each other’s necks - a phantom touch Redd still felt; a cool palm on his hot skin. They shared spit and breaths and smiles, and—

Flash to white, sunlight filling the screen.

Redd felt everything. And he felt numb.

Lohn wasn’t imagining anything. This was real. He wasn’t mistaking friendship for romance.

This was romance.

Redd had been—

Good God, how did he miss it? All along, Redd was shaping and pruning and tending Lohn into the kind of lover he wanted himself.

He’d considered it before, but Redd was certain: this song was never for Brandy. He had no idea if Lohn even knew. Maybe he left in the line about the moon as a secret meaning just for him, not realising Redd understood it. Or perhaps it was all truths from his subconscious. Redd was guilty of writing things that he only realised months later were thinly veiled descriptions of his own psyche. And Lohn wore his heart far closer to his sleeve than Redd. There had to be a reason Lohn had the song revolve around his relationship with Redd, despite it being intended for Brandy. The relationship with Redd was what taught Lohn what romantic love was meant to be like.

Redd taught Lohn he was worthy of love because he was.

And he was loved. By Redd.

Redd understood why Lohn was watching this kiss on repeat. Redd was doing the same, now. He kissed Lohn with some kind of... desperation. And joy. And, oh, the way he held him, it was so tender. There was no joke in any of it. Lohn melted in his hands. The brief moment before the kiss, Lohn looked at him with awe and relief, preemptively amazed at what was going to happen.

And Redd held him like he meant it. In hindsight, Redd had been performing the movements, trying to look like it was all straight out of a movie, but none of his loving expressions were planned. He had no idea how to make his eyes sparkle that way on purpose. And he couldn’t deny it made him fluttery, both at the time, and now. But, that was just what kissing did for him.

Yet... it occurred to him - not really in words, nor feelings, just fragments of understanding, piece by piece, across the minutes he’d spent mulling all of this over - he could’ve (should’ve?) felt some repulsion, but didn’t. A boy grows up with another boy, they’re like brothers. They reconnect as adults, as bandmates, business partners, platonic best friends... Even without the barrier of homophobia, which Redd never cared for and Lohn was actively working to unlearn, there should be something between them that made kissing... icky. Like it might at least seem funny to touch each other like that. Like it was a silly game. It probably shouldn’t feel like...

Like that.

Like home, and happiness.

Like a Q-tip in the ear after years of itching.

Lohn could tell Redd didn’t feel repulsed. Lohn never resisted either, despite getting flustered over it. Perhaps there was never any guilt at all, or why else would he have come back here this morning, just wanting Redd to kiss him all over again? All he’d said was that it should feel wrong but it didn’t.

Annoyingly, it seemed they were on the same page.

Redd needed to rip up the page and burn it. This was his problem to deal with now. Lohn would come to his senses. Redd needed to come to his own.

There was more at stake for Lohn. Brandy’s happiness and Tyrone’s future hung in the balance. Lohn had made them promises, and Redd had made very clear that a man worth marrying makes good on his word. He doesn’t lie. Or cheat. He might steal but only for good reasons.

Redd made up his mind. If Lohn were ever to kiss him again while still in a relationship with Brandy, his and Lohn’s friendship was over. Redd would have failed as a teacher but also as a friend. Lohn was a better person than he’d shown himself to be today.

Redd just prayed that whatever he’d needed to ‘check’ had given him the data he needed to make an honourable choice.

It did break Redd’s heart that the honourable choice was not what Redd now wanted. But Redd decided to want Lohn’s happiness more. Didn’t matter it wasn’t really true. He’d say it until it was. Lohn was meant to marry Brandy.

The pipe screensaver started to fill the black screen.

Pipes...

That was all this daydream was. A pipe dream. A fantasy where Lohn realised he’d been gay all along, but hadn’t figured it out before because the only man who ever thought he was worth loving had gone out of his life for the years when he, a late bloomer, was properly developing his sense of what he liked. A fantasy where Lohn met Redd at the altar, while Brandy nursed Tyrone in the pews. A fantasy where newlyweds Redd and Lohn adopted a puppy and dressed her up like a baby and she enjoyed the attention.

Maybe they could have a family of puppies, all different breeds and sizes. A house with flowers on the wallpaper, and a desk with a computer that could run Windows XP with all the updates installed. A beachfront vow renewal twenty years down the line, with a dozen friends and a hundred more Rabbit Lightning fans in attendance.

It wasn’t a horrible idea. Potentially they’d have to move out of North Carolina if they wanted their careers to go anywhere, and if they wanted to get married on paper too.

A pang of longing hit Redd as he woke from his daydream, having drowned in its warmth for a while.

Was he wrong to let this pass unacknowledged?

Did he owe it to Lohn to encourage him to explore his true self, if perhaps he hadn’t fully realised until now? What about Brandy? What would she think? Did it matter, if this was between Redd and Lohn? If Lohn only just realised he wanted something else, then Brandy shouldn’t be duped into a marriage that Lohn wasn’t committed to. She was better off without him, and so was Tyrone.

Redd fought himself, eyes on the telephone. Maybe he sent Lohn away too soon. He didn’t know how long he’d been thinking about this but he hoped it wasn’t long enough that Lohn had gone home to Brandy, all determined to be the perfect heterosexual husband, thinking it was the honourable thing to do.

Maybe the honourable thing was to break up with her.

Maybe Redd could still catch him. Change his mind. Tell him he wanted— Ask him if he wanted—

Redd reached for the phone and hit the speed dial.

He heard Lohn’s phone ring somewhere nearby.

Chapter Text

A tappa-tap-tap sounded on Redd’s front door.

Redd stood up and put his landline phone back in its cradle. Distantly, Lohn’s cellphone stopped ringing.

Redd hesitated, but then went through the hall, out of the sun, to the living room. Lohn was outside the glass door, looking at his now-silent cellphone - but he glanced up and gave a crooked little grin. He waved and put his phone away.

With a gulp, and what felt like a knot of emotion trembling in his throat, Redd tugged the doorhandle. It was unlocked, but Lohn didn’t make a habit of walking in uninvited. Redd opened up the door and a waft of hot beach air came pouring in.

“Hey,” Lohn said quietly.

“I’m... glad you came back.”

“I didn’t go anywhere,” Lohn said softly.

Redd examined his face, not knowing how to feel yet. He’d clearly gone somewhere, because there was a red rose in the buttonhole of his shirt now.

“I still need to tell you,” Lohn said. “The thing I didn’t say before. The important thing. If you’re not ready to listen I can come back when you are. I’m not leaving until you hear it. Because there’s a lot of facts you’re assuming about me that are not true.”

Somehow Redd didn’t think Lohn realised how obvious he was. Redd was pretty sure there was nothing his friend could explain that Redd hadn’t already figured out.

“Lohn... look...” Redd sucked in a belly-deep breath. “I know I said what I said, earlier. Alright, I made ‘assumptions’ - I was not fully understanding what you needed or why, and I didn’t want to hear your side of it because - I was afraid of what you’d say. You get impulsive when you let emotion in. I didn’t want you saying something to me we’d have to pretend you never said.”

Lohn took a breath to argue that, but Redd held up a placating hand, tone friendly but authoritative as he said, “I’ll listen now. But I don’t think I was wrong. You cannot cheat on Brandy. But you can’t hide the truth from her, either. She may admire the California ways but I doubt she’s prepared for her husband to have an open relationship with another man.”

Lohn ducked his head, snuffling a laugh. Colour touched his cheeks and the tops of his ears.

“If you want what I think you want,” Redd went on, “then the right thing to do might be to end things with her.”

“If I do want what I think you think I want,” Lohn said, with an air of both amusement and irritation, “then you are correct.”

“Okay. Good.”

“What do you think I want? Or are you going to let me explain?”

“Well, I— I’ve had a bit to reflect. And I realised you...” Redd let out a calming breath, “might need something from me. Something more - uh - intimate, than the friendship we’ve had all these years. Maybe you want...” Redd cleared his throat. “Romance. Physical— Physical intimacy. Of the sexual variety. And. Affections. The sort you might get between... lovers, or spouses. And if that’s true, then...” Redd felt like his core was trembling. “If that’s the case, Lohn... then, boy... I—” Say it. Ask him. “I need to ask you... if... that’s what you want.”

“Is that what you want?” Lohn asked.

Redd couldn’t speak. He tried to several times, but after nothing but air came out, he eventually just nodded. His heart was thumping so hard it hurt.

Lohn looked at Redd carefully. He gulped. “Coincidentally, Rabbit, I need to ask something too.”

Redd wrangled out a crooked smile. “Not into answering questions today? Alright. Shoot.”

“Redd ‘Rabbit Claw’ Moonshine,” Lohn said. He sank down onto one knee, and with the fingers of both hands, he offered the silver ring off his own finger. “Will you marry me?”

Redd stopped breathing. “W—”

Lohn... really did that.

Was doing that. Currently.

Slowly, Redd sighed, and sank his forehead into a palm, glasses raised over his knuckles. “Of course you are. Of course you’re doing this.”

In the back of his mind, he somehow knew this was coming. He’d barely thought it through, but apparently Lohn was already there. Either this was the wildest spur-of-the-moment decision Lohn had ever made, or he must’ve already had this in mind when he showed up this morning. Redd hadn’t got as far as expecting it, but he wasn’t surprised, either.

“You don’t want to?” Lohn tremored. “Or...?”

Oh. He was still waiting for a reply. It wasn’t obvious.

Redd peeked out over his lowering hand, teary-eyed and grinning. “Come on, man, really? Right now? Here? Like this?”

“I brought a flower.” Lohn stood up, showing Redd the rose in his buttonhole. “I thought—”

“No, it’s not the flower, man.” Redd was nearly laughing. He smiled fondly at Lohn, even while his stomach was tight with concern. He eyed Lohn’s lips, aching because he didn’t feel welcome to lean down. “You need to sort Brandy out in all this, alright?” He lifted a hand and cradled Lohn’s precious face, wanting to squish him out of anger and kiss him right after.

“I know you can do better,” Redd said, firmly. “You promised that woman the rest of your life. I do not want to be in a relationship with a man who’d go back on his word the way you’re doing. I wouldn’t even want to be friends with him. As happy as I am you came to talk it over, I still don’t feel right about this. I can’t answer you, man. I’m sorry. Not until something changes. That’s my line and it’s not moving.”

Lohn gave a little giggle-sob, shoulders rising. “Rabbit, she— Brandy, sh-sh-sh— She broke up with me last night.”

Redd frowned, hurriedly adjusting his glasses. “What’s that now?”

“I was trying to tell you after we finished... you know. Checking something. But you needed a minute. And I wasn’t really ready for that conversation yet, in any case. I was struggling to even say it.”

Redd felt like the clueless one now. “What?” He reached out, tentatively holding Lohn’s shoulder - keeping Lohn away, keeping himself steady.

“It’s not an easy thing for me, gettin’ dumped again. And explaining it in words made it - I don’t know - more real. Like everything was changing all at once, and I wasn’t even done thinking over what happened between us last night and figuring out what it meant for us.”

“No— Come on, man, explain you breaking up. What happened?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Do you want the short version?”

“Go for it.”

“She saw the video of us kissing and she kicked me out.”

“Wh— Why would yo—” Redd retracted his touch, hands flung open in despair. “Lohn - come on, man, why? Why would you show her that?”

“Long version it is,” Lohn sighed.

“All ears.”

Lohn sucked on his bottom lip, then licked it, and began, “Earlier, you stopped kissin’ me. And for a second I thought you didn’t want to kiss me anymore, and I got scared I’d ruined everything over nothing. But I did what you told me, and I asked questions instead of makin’ assumptions. I asked if you didn’t want to kiss me. And— And you said your reason for not kissin’ me was that I was engaged to a woman, not that you didn’t want to. And the thing is, Rabbit - well, I am no longer engaged to a woman. Not since about four in the morning.”

Redd turned around and wandered back to the kitchen. Lohn followed, shutting the door and explaining as he went: “I forgot that the thumb drive you gave me didn’t have the completed video on it, we hadn’t exported yet. I asked Brandy if she wanted to see it, but she didn’t want to watch our music video, she just thought it would be silly. That’s... a whole other argument. But she went to bed, and I plugged the drive into Brandy’s mom’s laptop - and I watched the footage we recorded last night. Us kissin’ each other. The baby was up and I was in charge, so I had time. Watched it all over and over, thinking the whole night... about you. And h-how—” Lohn’s voice faltered, and Redd felt a lump rise to his own throat.

Redd sat on the daybed, leaning forward over his linked hands, and Lohn sank next to him, one heel up on the bed, resting a shoulder on Redd’s.

“I was never able to keep love burning in me,” Lohn said. “Not for years. I’d meet a nice lady, a beautiful woman, who impressed me or thought I was alright, and I’d always be hoping, maybe she’s the right one. Maybe this time...”

Redd said nothing. Lohn had already said a number of unexpected things, and Redd had since realised he ought to stay quiet and listen. He’d spent two years telling Lohn how to be a better listener, and now needed to come to terms with the idea that Lohn might always have been better at it, and Redd ought to take notes.

“Everything always fell apart,” Lohn went on, speaking softly. He slowly slid his silver wedding band back onto his ring finger and flexed his hand, making it sit better. “With women. But when things go wrong, it’s easier to separate. Move on. I don’t want the hassle of trying to work things out when the problem’s either something I don’t care for, like cutting my hair short like she wants, or making nice with some Fox-News-obsessed relative, or something I can’t do anything to change, like me not being able to have babies, or me not enjoying sex all that much, you know?”

Redd was indeed taking notes, mentally, for things to unpack at a later date.

“Anything we had that I might’ve once labelled as passion,” Lohn shrugged, “it always waned. And eventually I just don’t care enough to find it again. I don’t care about impressing her because - she wants someone different. Someone who’s not all the things I am.” Lohn took in a deep, preparatory breath, eyes down, chin down. “And it’s not the same with you. I’m always tryin’ to impress you. And you spent all this time—”

“I wasn’t trying to change you—”

“I know. I know.” Lohn gave a wonky grin. “I know you weren’t, Rabbit. I was thinking about the time you bought me this shirt.” He stroked his own chest, hand whispering along the silky black fabric. “You never told me them grubby rags I was wearing made me look like a high-falutin’ sewer rat. Or that if I just change this one thing, I’d look more like someone else. You just held this shirt up to me and said this might suit me, go try it on. And then told me I looked real good. And that’s how you always did things. You never said I was doing something wrong, just gave me something better. Made it easy.”

Redd glowed at the praise. They didn’t much talk about it directly, but Lohn had joked a few times that Redd’s longest-running creative project was Lohn himself. It was good to hear he hadn’t screwed up, despite everything he’d thought and said this morning.

“No matter how often we disagree on something,” Lohn pressed on, “we don’t... fight about it. We can bicker, fine. But we talk and figure out what’s better. Exactly the same way we write songs. And I can’t figure out how to do that with anyone else. Because I think— I think it’s the song-writing that taught us how to be that way. How to make a new lyric rather than compromise one way or another.”

Redd licked his lips. “I appreciate hearing all this, man. But how is this about Brandy? What happened last night? What happened at four a.m.?”

Lohn tapped his fingers anxiously on the bedspread, turning his head away from Redd for a moment.

“My point is,” Lohn said, head towards Redd, but eyes still down, “you’re my best friend. You set a gold standard for me and my relationships that nobody’s matched, and I never found myself wanting to try. The effort you put in with me, I don’t have that for anyone else. All that energy goes into our songs. I’ve been keeping it for you. Because it’s yours, you made it.” Lohn sniffed, and adjusted in the bed, sitting forward with his legs down like Redd did.

“Then last night... you went and kissed me like that.” Lohn gulped hard. “And obviously I felt something. Love. Your love. My love. Just, an overwhelming amount of feelings. Good feelings. I was telling myself for a few hours after, you only did it because I was actin’ all pitiful about Brandy not being there to kiss me. You only did it because we’re working on getting things finished, and I was gettin’ perfectionism stuck in my craw about the final shot with a big romantic kiss. It might not... mean anything, right? Like Hollywood kisses.”

Redd was about to reply but Lohn upped his volume to stop him, saying, “Then I started wondering, maybe I’m wrong. I sat rocking the baby, and watched the whole video again, every second of that uncut footage, on repeat. I couldn’t hear much past the ocean and wind noises, but that helped, just seeing your face and the way you touched me. I watched you...”

Lohn’s breath halted, then released, wrangled briefly by a rope of emotion.

“I nearly convinced myself you were in love with me.” Lohn smiled, shy now. Redd grinned too.

“But I still doubted it. I figured, either I’ve been blinded by this one gesture, or I’ve been blind all along. So I needed to check. I made up my mind to talk to you in the morning. I had to stop myself from callin’ before the sun rose.”

There was a long pause, and Lohn hesitated a number of times. Redd waited for him.

“Brandy came down to the living room when Tyrone started crying and I couldn’t soothe him quick enough. It took me that long to go microwave the milk. I got back to the living room - that’s where the laptop was, there’s nice warm wall-lighting and quieter air conditioning in there - and Brandy was already up, breastfeeding. Eyes on the screen playin’ that video on repeat. Watchin’ you and me kiss over and over.”

“Shit.” The air seemed heavier suddenly; Redd felt it weighing him down.

“I just. I put the bottle down and went to her, stroking Tyrone’s little feet. And I said, can I ask you a question? And she said yeah. She didn’t sound mad. I thought she was too tired to understand what she was watching, maybe. But I asked her - how can you tell if someone’s in love? And she just looked at me. For a really long time. And then she... she said ‘I don’t know’.”

Lohn started to smile, wiping tears from his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Like, she was upset. Obviously. And mad at me. But in an okay way. Resigned, or something. But sh-sh-she. She burped Tyrone and lay him down in his rocker - the car seat one, one of them ones with the handle - and she picked him up and was gonna take him to her room. She told me I should go. I asked her if she wanted me to come back. Because I wasn’t sure. And she said no. So I took the thumb drive and left. And I drove home to change, went to the Food Lion for roses, then came here, and waited in my car until you woke up and I saw the bathroom light on. Then figured I oughta wait until at least the sun was up. Then I called you.”

“I sent you away too,” Redd said. “Just the same as Brandy did. Why’d you come back?”

Lohn looked at Redd, confused. “You wanted me to.”

“But how did you know? Why didn’t you need to ask?”

Lohn kept looking at Redd in confusion. “You always want me to come back.”

Redd searched Lohn’s bright eyes. “Maybe Brandy wants you to come back. Maybe she said that but didn't mean—”

“I don’t want to go back. I want to be here.”

“Oh.”

“I didn’t know what to think until you did send me away,” Lohn admitted. “That kiss meant the world to me, nearly, but you wanted it to end. And I got so scared I’d made a huge mistake. But your problem was Brandy, not me. You still wanted me.”

“I’m sorry I wouldn’t listen.”

“You were scared too,” Lohn said, nudging Redd’s knee with his own. “If I told you I was in love with you, you wouldn’t be able to unhear it. It’s a hard thing to hear when it suddenly means something.”

“Are you?” Redd asked. “In love.”

Lohn looked at Redd thoughtfully. “If this isn’t love then I don’t know what love is. But this sure as hell is not what I was feeling for Brandy.”

“It might be lust. Or you could’ve gotten confused by me kissing you. It was a pretty intense touch. It might be nothing.”

“Rabbit, I don’t care. I don’t care what it is. What label it has, or doesn’t have. Feelings are so nebulous anyway, the synapses can’t be firing the same for everyone. Every marriage I’ve been in, I was sure I was feeling attraction, and falling in love. I was convinced I would muster up some lust once everything was legal in the eyes of God, and I felt comfortable in the bedroom. I was sure that comfort would come eventually. I was hoping someday I’d be as at ease with women and their bodies as I am with you and yours. I was always hoping for that trust we have, the ability to work things though like I do with you. I had that hope with all of them. And they all failed. I gave up. It didn’t come naturally, and I didn’t... want it, really.”

He took a deep breath before going on: “And like I said. You always want me to come back to you. And I have. Because I want to be here. I don’t care if I’m in love with you, Rabbit. ‘Cause I love you. As a friend. More than I’ve ever loved anyone or anything. And that’s just a fact.”

Redd slowly let go of a breath. “Okay.”

“Hm.”

Redd got off the daybed and turned around to face Lohn, and crouched down, one hand on Lohn’s knee. Then he knelt, scuffed jeans to the floorboards. “You still wanna marry me?” he asked.

Lohn grinned hugely. “Yeah.”

“You don’t have to. If you want to be friends, not married, I’m good with that. Friends who kiss each other sometimes.”

“Naw, I’d like to be married. I want—” Lohn reached for Redd’s hand and held it tight. “I want to be able to be intimate with you.”

“Uh. I don’t think God cares if you’re having sex out of wedlock when you’re both men.”

“Best cover our bases, though, just in case,” Lohn said firmly. “You never know.”

Redd chuckled. “You do... want that, then. Sex.”

Lohn nodded. “I didn’t want to stop earlier. When you were kissing me. I— I wanted—”

“What?” Redd encouraged, eager to know.

Lohn turned a little pink. “Wanted to rub myself on you.”

Redd felt a swoop of pleasure. “Yeah?”

Lohn nodded, blushing with his head down. Redd thought he was adorable.

“That’s lust, man,” Redd told him. “Listen, I don’t mean to patronise you, but I get the feeling I should ask. Do you ever wanna look at me... uh, naked? Or aroused? Me or other men? Do you fantasise about that? Touching or being touched?”

“Why?”

“You weren’t feeling that for women,” Redd checked. “You said you didn't like sex, so I'm just wondering.”

“Well, I do want to be a parent,” Lohn said. “I just think it’s weird that men always seem to enjoy the process so much. Half the time I think they’re just pretending it made them see heaven, ‘cause you’re meant to like it, but in reality it’s just... fine. But it’s the recommended procedure for reproduction, so it is lust in a sense. The urge to procreate. And I’m better off gettin’ myself married to do that.”

“Right,” Redd said, nodding deeply, more to assure Lohn he wasn’t strange than because he shared any of those sentiments. Lohn couldn’t be the only one who didn’t enjoy being intimate with a woman. “Right, right. Yeah.”

Lohn looked up and to the left, pondering to himself. “I do think about you when I'm thinking about women, though. But it’s just to compare."

"Compare," Redd repeated.

Lohn shrugged a shoulder. "Heh. Usually I'm wishin' she was more like you.”

Redd's brows rose.

Then Lohn’s unibrow rose. “Oh,” he said, as he realised. He then deflated as understanding overcame him.“Oh.”

Marvelling at this level of innocence, Redd wondered if there had been anything he could’ve done to help Lohn earlier. He seemed to have gone about life doing what Normal People did, assuming he was doing it right and feeling the appropriate things, not looking off the trodden path. All Redd could do was make him turn his head, probably. And Lohn’s head was now turned. New path. Redd would need to show him everything in case there was something else that Lohn hadn’t heard of or put a name to before.

Redd took a breath. “I think. Before we get married. We need to talk. A lot.”

Lohn nodded, still surprised. “Yeah.”

A moment later he said, tone heavier than before: “I guess the parent thing won’t pan out, no matter what I do, then. Adopting babies seems so abrupt. You’re not a parent and then suddenly there’s a whole baby. At least when there’s a pregnancy you get to know it before it exists.”

Redd wet his lips, slumping down to kneel with his butt on his heels. “How do you feel about puppies?”

Lohn perked up. “You know I love puppies. What about them?”

“Adopting them.”

Lohn’s eyes widened. “How many?”

Redd laughed, head back. “So, yes.”

“Sure!”

Redd carried on snickering, until it faded out, and he was left smiling, holding Lohn’s hands.

“I wanna write love songs,” Lohn said quietly. “With you.”

“You weren’t thinking about Brandy when you wrote ‘Vending Machine Love’, were you?”

“It was about you,” Lohn replied, like it was obvious. “It was for Brandy, though.”

Redd nodded. “Alright. Can I tell you something? About yourself.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s an assumption, but I think it’s an accurate one.”

“Alright?”

“Actually, you are in love with me. I know emotions are complicated, but you can trust that feeling. Even if it was subconscious at the time you wrote that song, it’s— It’s a love song. It could be a friendship song, that’s true. But what you’re saying you feel for me, and you wanting to kiss me like you do— These things don’t fully fit a platonic relationship. It was a perfect song to play at a wedding. Just not yours and Brandy’s.”

“Mine and yours.”

“Mm-hm.”

Lohn let out a breath of relief, and a goofy grin found a place on his face. He looked down, and wriggled the ring off his finger, and tucked it into Redd’s hand. Redd curled his fist around it, feeling its heat.

But Lohn’s smile faded, and he fretted, looking at Redd with shiny eyes. “Rabbit, am I allowed to kiss you? I know I swore I never would again. I’m... really regretting making that promise.”

Redd’s smile came up slowly, brightening and brightening until it made his eyes ache and his teeth started to dry out, rarely exposed past his upper lip. “Come here,” he said, kneeling up, and gently taking Lohn’s jaw. “Believe me, that is not the promise I want you to keep.”

“Hm?”

Redd kissed him gently, breathing out as their heads tilted. Redd separated, and whispered against Lohn’s lips, “Promise me your life, man.”

Lohn laughed out a sob, wet with sudden emotion. “Rabbit. Even if you said no to my proposal, you’d have that.”

Redd carried on smiling, face a few inches back from Lohn, admiring him and his dewy eyes and overwhelmed expression.

“Lohn Moonshine,” Redd said to himself. “Huh.”

Lohn’s smile turned to a grin.

“Listen, man,” Redd said, bringing Lohn’s hand to his face and kissing the back of it. He stood up then sat next to Lohn, bouncing the mattress. “I’m going to suggest something. And I really think you should consider it. Because I want this to work, and I want you to be completely sure you’re not blindsided by whatever comes next for us.”

“Okay...?”

“I want you to move in with me.”

“Oh.”

“Share my bed. Have every meal with me. Share a bathroom. Hear me pass gas.”

“And smell it?” Lohn grinned.

“And smell it, too, exactly,” Redd smiled back. “Get angry with me about the dishes in the sink. Realise I don’t sleep where I’m meant to, or when I’m meant to. Raise a badly behaved puppy with me. Walk in on me watching adult videos. Maybe - we can even make love if the moment strikes and we both want it. We can’t be precious about perfection. I need— I need you to get used to me, see me the way I would be if we were... you know - serious about carrying on that way. And if the shine stays...”

Lohn took a little while to nod, but he nodded.

“I’ve been trying to impress you too,” Redd explained. “I never stopped.”

“Let’s not stop,” Lohn smiled. “Let’s keep trying. We’ve been doing it all this time, how hard could it be to keep going?”

Redd snuffled a laugh. “Hm. Guess you’re not the only one talked into things when someone else convinces you they’re easy.”

Lohn gave him a long, affectionate look. “Redd,” he said, using that name for the first time in years, “loving you has never been anything but easy for me.” He took Redd’s jaw in his hand and kissed his lips, commanding and sure.

When he spoke that way, with his director’s voice, there could be no doubt.

Let the paint fall where it may. This was one artwork they were going to finish together.