Just
a Jealous Guy
by Roz
“Ryan?” Brad called as he knocked on the door, hesitating
before trying
again; the man was probably asleep and there was no
one quite like Ryan for
getting snappy at being disturbed. As he turned to go
however, the door
finally creaked open and the giant stood there,
ruffled, bleary and clad
only in a pair of shorts.
“What?” he growled.
Brad hesitated, “Oh God, I’m sorry as anything to wake you up, Ryan, but I
gotta find
lounge, at the bar, neither Drew or Greg have seen
him, and when I knocked
on his room I didn’t get a reply. You got any clue
where he is?”
“Of course I do,” Ryan said, rolling his eyes.
“Really?”
“Yeah, he’s always in my room at 2 in the morning,” Ryan snapped, waving his
hands about as he spoke, “as a matter of fact, we were
in the middle of a
kinky sex game, I had him tied up, in black leather
panties, with a doggy
chew toy in his mouth and was horse whipping him, but
when you knocked I
threw him into the closet. Happy?” as he finished, his
voice sank deeper
into a snarl of
sarcasm.
“Jeez, I’m sorry I asked, bite me while you’re at it
too, huh?” Brad threw
back.
Ryan sighed and his annoyance began to show, “Look, I’m tired, I’m grouchy
and I do not need this right now, okay?” he glared at
Brad. “I want to go to
bed.”
Brad knew how Ryan expected him to react, - to meekly apologize and hurry
away as people often did when the big man was angry.
He knew it. And he was
going to be damned if he would let Ryan do that to
him.
“You’ve been acting like a twat all night, you know that? You gonna ‘fess up
about what’s wrong, or are you going to carry on?”
Ryan ran his hand backwards through his hair before sighing and gritting his
teeth, “It’s *nothing* Brad. I’m going back to bed.”
He reached to pull the
door to, but Brad stepped into the room past him and
folded his arms as if
determined to have a solution or a set to.
“You can talk to me you know, Colin isn’t the only person who cares about
you around here. I care, hell, *we* care –all of us.
You may think we’ve got
our heads up our own asses or something but we all
noticed you in your mood
earlier on. We all were worried about you.”
There was a long silence in which Ryan looked at Brad evenly, as if weighing
up the younger man before he allowed himself to react.
“You don’t know what
you’re talking about.” He said dismissively.
“Fine, we’re blind and stupid. We didn’t notice a thing at all.”
“Really? That’s nice.”
“If you don’t want to admit to me what’s been eating you all night, then
don’t. Just you carry on being an arrogant bastard.”
“Sure. Okay. I will.”
“Being an asshole will make everything better.”
“It’ll get me some peace.” He glowered at his friend meaningfully.
“Don’t own up that there’s something really wrong and you’re really upset by
it.”
“I won’t.” he paused, “’cause there’s nothing *to* admit!”
“Yes there is.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Like the reason you’ve been acting such a…like a…a…” Brad faltered for a
good enough insult, and wished he had Greg’s skill for
comebacks,
“a...dick!” he cringed at how ridiculous it sounded.
“A dick. Wow, that an original or did you hire a
scriptwriter? ‘Cause if you
did, he really ripped you off,”
“Shut up!” Brad fought against his blush of embarrassment “Will you stop
acting like Greg for five minutes and talk to me? What
is with you tonight?”
Ryan gave him a sullen glare and Brad’s mind flipped back to earlier in the
evening…/might as well jump in at the deep end…/
“You’ve been off since the
party,” he said quietly.
“No I haven’t,” Ryan replied stubbornly.
“You have, you were fine at the taping,” Brad chewed his lower lip, “Yes.
Definitely the party.” Brad eyed Ryan with the look a
man with a flaming
torch might give a barrel of gunpowder, “When Phil
showed up.”
Ryan’s head snapped back to focus a blowtorch gaze on Brad. Hellish anger
flicked over the familiar features as Ryan struggled
to hide it before it
gave him away.
***
That night at the end of season party Colin and Ryan had stood leaning
against the bar, watching their fellow members of cast
and crew get drunk,
dance and generally make fools of themselves. Drew was
trying to chat up one
of the make up assistants and probably would have been
doing better if he
hadn’t had 8 beers already. Greg was chain smoking and
chatting to Linda at
one of the tables while
each other to ‘Wild thing’. Some of the crew had
brought music decks, and
were trying to recruit drunk people to sing along to
karaoke; Colin and Ryan
had a bet over how soon they could coax Drew into a solo
of ‘Macho Man’, and
argued for half an hour over whether he’d strip again.
The party was, in
short, very similar to many other end of season
parties they all had seen.
That was until a dark, svelte man had walked into the room with Dan
Patterson. He was some kind of production director, over to discuss the
format of the show from
had persuaded Dan to let him down to the party to
relax. After pointing out
several people Dan had pulled him over to greet Ryan
as an executive
producer, and also as “one of the parts of the
furniture”. But his
brown-black eyes had flicked over to the other stool
and lit up. And there
too, in Colin’s face was a smile and a large measure
of returning warmth.
The two men’s sudden movement to hug each other startled Dan and Ryan, and
on seeing the confusion on their faces Phil laughed
and nudged Colin.
“Would you want to explain to them?” His
heavy accent dripped over the
words as he spoke.
Colin smiled, “Phil is one of my oldest school buddies.” He looked at his
friend who still held his arm and grinned, “we were as
thick as thieves way
back at high school. But whatever happened to ‘I’m
going to an architect’
boy? That’s all you wanted for years,”
Phil smiled and took his cue to launch into the long story of his movements
from
change into a producer, his various movements and a
long rambling tale of
how he had decided to come to
Colin the whole time he spoke, leaving Dan and Ryan standing there uneasily.
About five hours later, four men sat by the door, drinking and watching the
dregs of the party slowly filter out of the room. “We
should really go,”
Jeff mumbled.
“You said that, what, five times already?”
“Yeah, well, we should really go.”
“Well I think it’s time for me to go,” Greg paused and smiled drunkenly, “to
the toilet, if I don’t, there’ll be a puddle here, and
it’ll smell,” he
grinned and pushed himself from his chair.
“Hey, while you’re in there could you bring out Drew? I think he’s been
bringing it up for the last hour or something.” Chip
said.
“Will do, my man.”
They watched Greg stagger off to the toilet. “I am so glad I don’t have to
take a cab back to the hotel with them,” Chip
murmured, shaking his head,
“Last time Drew covered the whole taxi with puke and diced carrots.”
“Do I get pity? I do.” Brad looked down at his shirt and jeans,” Good job
I’m only wearing these. I was going to take one with Ryan and Colin, but I
haven’t seen them for ages.”
“I think Ryan left early.” Jeff put in.
“Yeah, I remember, he seemed really… well, you know, annoyed would be an
understatement; he just marched out halfway through.”
Chip said.
“Mmm” Jeff agreed, “I would’ve asked him what was up,
but you know how he
can be when he’s annoyed. I do not want to on the
receiving end of that-” He
remembered to whom he was talking to and halted “-shit, sorry man, no
offence.”
“None taken. Unless
you’re Colin he’ll roast you alive when he’s pissed
off.” Chip said speculatively. “I mean, he does his
best to control it, but
when he loses it- hide.”
“I’m amazed he didn’t kill and eat that guy Colin was with all night. I mean
- did you see them? - supeer glued.” Jeff interlocked
his fingers to
emphasize his point, and made a little ‘schlup’ noise.
“It was Phil something, wasn’t it?” Chip asked, “Began with a D or
something.”
“Yeah, well, Ryan looked like he was shitting a pineapple when I saw him.”
“Oh come on, if your best friend was ignoring you and talking away in French
all night to some guy while you were standing right
there, wouldn’t you be
mad as hell?” Brad pointed out.
Chip and Jeff looked at their friend dumbfounded. “They weren’t doing that?”
“Uh huh,” Brad continued, “Greg said he went over to try to talk to Ryan,
and he was sitting right next to them, watching them,
not saying anything
while they talked. In French.”
“Oh my god,” Jeff stared at Brad in disbelief, while Chip sat there with his
mouth half open.
“And when he got up and left like ten minutes later, he said to Greg to tell
cab with someone else, and they didn’t even notice or
anything.” Brad
sighed, leant back and closed his eyes. “I mean, if I
hadn’t seen them like
that, I’d have thought it was just Greg making up shit
‘cause he was drunk.”
“That is so unlike Colin, if you ask me I reckon there’s something between
him and Ph—”
“Guys!” Greg emerged from the bathroom, the alcohol’s
effects pushed aside
momentarily, “Could you help me get Drew and his head
out of the toilet and
into the cab?”
***
“Look, you’re jumping to conclusions.” Ryan tried to cover, “It’s nothing
like that”
“You expect me to believe that? You left at eight, and you’ve never left
before the party’s finished. Ever.”
Ryan sighed. “Something else came up.”
“You can’t let yourself get angry because Colin has other friends. Or ‘cause
he spends ages talking to someone he hasn’t seen for
ages.” At Ryan’s lack
of response Brad stumbled on, “You two don’t have to
be glued together just
because you’re best friends. Best friends. It doesn’t
mean you can have no
other friends, no matter how close you are. You could’ve
come and talked to
any of us if you felt he was ignoring you. And look,
be fair, there are
times when you ignore Colin too so you can’t say—“
“THAT’S ENOUGH!” Ryan almost screamed before smacking his fist hard against
the wall, causing Brad’s heart to jump into his throat
in shock. He slowly
moved his hand down from the wall, and leant his
forehead against it. “Get
out Brad.” The words escaped as a hiss of anger from
between clenched teeth.
Brad nodded. “But I really do need to find him Ry, it
wasn’t just some
excuse…”
“Phil raved about some night club at the party.” Ryan said coldly, his face
still taunt with anger. The implication hung in the
air for Brad to see.
Brad nodded again, and as he opened his mouth to speak Ryan cut in, “I don’t
want to hear it. Go.” The younger man backed softly
out of the room.
When the door clicked shut Ryan threw himself onto the bed and tried to bury
his head in the pillows away from the thoughts. Yes he
had been jealous
tonight. So very much so. But
he hadn’t considered the others watching him.
It was hard enough to be infatuated with his best friend, but to have the
others picking up on it could wreck everything. But
the way that Colin and
Phil had looked at each other- it was almost transcending friendship, a look
of supreme fondness, a look of almost…love. He felt
his heart physically
twinge at that thought, as it had been doing all
night.
He loved Colin, and he hoped to god that Colin loved him back. Ryan
despised his own weakness at telling people how he
felt, nevermore so than
tonight. What he would have told Colin had he only the
words…
“Actions speak louder than words,” he said aloud to the room before pushing
himself up, off the bed, crossing to the walk-in
closet, and opening it.
A rubber chew toy hit him in the face as Colin spat it out. “I have cramp
now thanks to you,” he pulled a face at his tall
lover.
Ryan grinned, “Fine, in that case, would a sensual massage help?”
~FINIS~