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“Why’d you change them? Your eyes, I mean.”
Kerry almost missed the distant question – called out to him from a room away – over the clanging of pots and pans. The open-concept chef’s kitchen had been a real selling point of this villa when he’d bought it, or at least his realtor had thought so. He could still remember that almost frantic eagerness in her voice as she’d hyped it up to him, describing the people he could invite over for dinner and the drinks he’d serve at its 15-seater island. She’d be disappointed to know he’d hardly stepped foot in this room since that celebrity home tour show had stopped by months ago. The limes they’d brought over as set dressing were still in a bowl on the counter, as pristine and fake as ever.
“Five hundred goddamned cabinets in this hellhole, and not one of them has a muffin tin it?” Kerry muttered to himself, his anxiety mounting with every unfamiliar drawer he opened. He suspected V – who hadn’t slept in a structure with four walls until well into his twenties, and could identify an engine’s cylinder configuration while blindfolded – wouldn’t be impressed with a man who owned a kitchen bigger than his apartment and didn’t even know how to use it.
“Uh, what?” he hollered back, clearly distracted and a few seconds too late. V rounded the corner, a finger tucked between the pages of ‘Live Free or Eurodyne: An Unauthorized Biography of a Chromatic Rock God’.
“Your eyes,” V repeated, watching him like a hawk. He leaned against the wall, as relaxed and impossible to read as ever. “They were brown before. Why’d you change them?”
Kerry raised an eyebrow at the book that had clearly prompted this line of questioning. “If you’re that starved for entertainment there are much better options around here somewhere. I’d recommend ‘Eurodyne Another Day’. Not very accurate, but much more exciting.”
V flashed him a brief grin. “Tried that one. Salacious, but not enough pictures, and I’m a visual learner… You know, you were a hottie with a body back then, too.”
‘Too’ was a real load-bearing word in that sentence, Kerry thought nervously. He wouldn’t blame anyone who thought he was hotter when he was younger – wouldn’t disagree, even. But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt to hear V say it.
“Did you like the brown eyes better?” He suddenly found the cabinets exceptionally interesting again, so he couldn’t see what sort of look V was giving him as the man paused for an interminably long time before answering.
“Didn’t say that, Ker,” he finally replied. “Just curious, why the change?”
Kerry shrugged. “Managers focus-grouped it before my second album, fans seemed to think it looked better.”
A quick glance told him V was frowning, so Kerry continued. “My partner at the time liked it better, too. It was a real turn-on for them. They were really into that old movie actor from back in the day… Chris Pine, I think his name was? Before your time, I guess…”
It was a bit of a desperate pivot on Kerry’s part, but it wasn’t untrue. Changing your appearance to please the masses was a real corpo-trash move, now that he thought about it. But changing for your partner was romantic, surely, and that had been part of it. From the look on his man’s face, Kerry had the sense he’d waded into some murky waters with his response, but if he spun this right he’d come off as an ideal input for a guy like V. The sort of man who’d do whatever it took to make his lover happy. He’d much rather be that than another aging sellout. A true rockerboy who turned rockstar the second the sweet smell of eddies hit his ripperdoc-special nose.
V opened the book to the page he’d marked, looking at the picture and back at him. Kerry tried desperately not to imagine how obvious his aging must be, when compared side-by-side like that. He held his breath, though he didn’t realize it.
“You look a little happier now,” the merc said, finally. He tossed the book onto the counter and folded his arms. “I mean, not totally, not with that shifty expression you’ve got on at the moment… but a little more confident, or something. Baby Kerry always looked like he had something to prove.”
Kerry exhaled.
“So, do you like your eyes better this way?”
“I…” Kerry sighed, closing yet another cabinet before V could see this one had nothing in it at all. “I haven’t thought about it much, to be honest. Didn’t really care about… well, almost anything back when I got it done. So it didn’t bother me at the time. And I’m used to it now.”
He locked eyes with his reflection in the spotless glass of his stacked ovens, and combed down a few stray hairs with his fingers. “I could change them back, if you like the brown better? Anything for you, doll.”
He gave V the roguish wink he’d tossed to hundreds of diehard fans waiting at stage doors all over the world. Of course, screaming and crying in response might have been a bit much to ask from a man he’d seen evade half a police precinct in a shitbox without breaking a sweat. But somehow the quiet chuckle he got back instead gave Kerry the same sort of thrill.
“Brown or blue – hell, make them purple if you want,” V replied. “I don’t care what color your eyes are, as long as you’re looking at me.”
In retrospect, Kerry would later (much later) realize he fell in love with V right then and there. He’d been teetering toward the edge of that precipice for a while, probably from the moment the merc grabbed the arm of his jacket to drag him away from a burning van. And a little bit more every day since.
Still, Kerry had spent decades building walls to protect himself from the endless rotation of leadhead D-listers with aspirations of making the cover of NC’s raunchiest screamsheets. It was just as well, he had a bad habit of falling for their smooth-talking and ego-stroking for a week or so, until eventually he realized he couldn’t stand them almost as much as he suspected they couldn’t stand him. He used to convince himself he loved them, if only so he could believe it was possible they might love him back. That anyone would, really. Not just like or adore, the way the seas of faceless fans felt about the man he played onstage. But love, in the way that meant someone might really know him and care for him anyway. He’d wasted months and years on end numbing himself to the company of the sort of people he felt he deserved, at the time, until eventually he decided he’d rather just be alone. Miserable alone was better. You always got to pick the TV station, and the booze lasted longer.
V was different though. All of Kerry’s defenses and his veneer of exaggerated narcissism were useless against a guy who could see right through them. It made falling in love with him as easy as it was dangerous. As easy as leaning over the edge of a cliff. As easy as letting go. So easy he didn’t notice he’d passed the point of no return until several days later, and wouldn’t know how deep this thing went until one day he hit the bottom.
“What are you banging around in here for, anyway?” V asked, bringing Kerry back to reality. The merc’s own brown eyes scanned the enormous kitchen, likely looking for a threat that wasn’t there. Brown was a lovely color, Kerry realized. Deep, and warm. Those focus group gonks were out of their minds.
“I was… ah, fuck it,” Kerry groaned, running a hand down his face. It was too early in the morning (afternoon, really) for this much pretense. “I was looking for a muffin tin, but this damned place is a maze. I was gonna make you breakfast just like the one we saw on Corpo-rats last night. Made my assistant go out and buy muffin mix, ‘ganic eggs, the whole deal. It was gonna be cute as shit.”
V grinned and moved toward him until he was leaning on the counter, so close that all Kerry could see was his eyes, and all he could feel was the hot breath that caressed his lips. The asshole didn’t make a move, though. Just crowded his space, until the cavern of a kitchen felt as intimate as the closets and tiny green rooms where he’d had his first fumbling hookups as a young punk.
“It IS cute as shit,” V said, in a voice softer than he should’ve been capable of. “You’re cute as shit, actually.”
His hands were on Kerry’s waist. How long had they been there? And had his thigh always been –
Kerry surged forward and kissed him before he’d even decided to, his hands clenching that retro jacket of V’s with more force than anyone else would dare, if they weren’t looking for a very short fight with a guaranteed ending. It was still early days for them, early enough that every kiss still felt a bit like a leap of faith. He indulged himself for a moment, lavishing in the scratch of another man’s facial hair on his own, and the clumsy feeling of kissing someone who’s trying not to smile. He never could resist being a tease, though, and the moment he felt V begin to reciprocate in earnest he shoved him back with a smirk.
“Looks like we’ll be ordering breakfast, then. My dreams of being someone’s perfect house-husband someday are utterly dashed.”
V’s eyes were still wide from the kiss he’d provoked but hadn’t entirely expected. Shock was always the easiest of his expressions to interpret, rare though it was, and Kerry was starting to love the challenge of invoking it. The merc licked his lips – maybe to gather his senses, maybe to see if he could still taste Kerry on his mouth – and something in the rockerboy’s chest clenched with an excitement that didn’t just feel sensual. Partly, sure, but less than he was willing to admit.
V recovered quickly, though. He always did.
“Don’t give up on your dreams just yet, Ker-bear.” His easy smile had returned, with an added tinge of smugness when Kerry scowled at the ludicrous nickname. “Let me introduce you to the wonderful world of blueberry muffin pancakes.”
One of a million pans was rustled up from the cabinets. The burner on the stove clicked as it ignited. And Kerry fell just a little bit harder.