Unexpected Liaisons - 22. Serious Shopping

“Well that went well.” Zupan slammed the door after throwing the last wheel of his chair into the back of the car, “Fuck.”

“Babe…” Zander laid a hand on his forearm, “Just breathe a minute OK?”

“Yeah.” Zupan gripped the steering wheel, then deliberately unclenched all the muscles in his hands he could actually control, and exhaled gently, “I’m sorry Zander.”

“It could have been worse,” Zander fiddled in his seat, “They invited us to dinner next Friday. And they said you could choose where.”

“Somewhere with a really big bar?” Zupan grinned at the boy he loved and started the engine, “I dunno why I thought that they wouldn’t be here.”

“We’ll deal.” Zander fiddled with the stereo until it played something safe and middle of the road that neither of them actually liked all that much, “Let’s just go home so I can sleep off the rest of my hangover yeah?”

Zupan drove a bit more sedately back, which just meant that he didn’t throw the car around the corners quite as hard. The idea that their parents would turn up to see his twin off around the world had completely slipped his mind, which was ridiculous. He’d wanted to smash that table and all the cups on it when his mother had started to draw comparisons between hobbies he’d had as a teenager and his relationship with the boy he loved. He’d told them he wanted to marry Zander, but the pretty blond hadn’t said anything since they’d been alone, and while Zander usually sang along to whatever was on the stereo, he was being uncharacteristically quiet. Zupan wasn’t sure that the ‘is it OK if I want to marry you’ discussion was best had in a car while he had to concentrate on driving.

The house seemed oddly silent. They’d been home without Zoltan plenty of times, but now it felt like he wasn’t there. Zupan turned on the TV, putting the volume on low, just to fill the space, and rolled in the house chair to his twin brother’s room. Zoltan hadn’t taken much with him, but he’d cleaned the place out. It looked like the room of a monk, the freshly made bed, clean sheets. Everything personal packed away into the built in wardrobe. It looked like a guest room, somewhere that no one actually lived. There was a picture on the bedside table, and Zupan rolled in and swiped the frame.

Two boys, aged about nineteen, identical in every way, arms over each other’s shoulders and grinning like lunatics, splattered in mud and paint. Zupan had always liked the other version of that shot best, the one where Issac was standing between them rather than holding the camera. He put the picture back down and looked around his twin’s former bedroom.

“You alright babe?” Zander leant against the doorjamb, his brow furrowed.

“He’s not coming back is he?” Zupan looked at the picture again, “Not permanently, not here.”

“No darling, I don’t think so.”

Zupan reached out, blindly, found Zander’s body and hauled him close against his chest. He was crying. He pushed his face into Zander’s abdomen and wished he felt less alone somehow. The boy curled over his head, hugging him, whispering things that Zupan didn’t really hear. Zupan pulled the boy into his lap, found his mouth and kissed him hard. Zander groaned against his lips, made a high pitched mewling noise in the back of his throat as Zupan felt him up.

They didn’t bother moving anywhere. Zander stripped enough clothes out of the way with quick, efficient movements to allow access and Zupan could barely wait to be inside the tight heat of the boy. They fucked wordlessly, hard, panting through gritted teeth. Zupan dragged his short nails down Zander’s spine as the boy rocked in his lap, kissed him as hard as he could, tried to tell him he loved him without speaking. Zander came in his hand with a wordless shout and Zupan gripped the slender hips as he reached climax.

Afterwards he clung to Zander, keeping the young man in his lap as they both tried to regain their breath and get their hammering heartbeats back to normal. Zupan kissed the join of his boyfriend’s neck and shoulder and spoke into the wetness of his skin.

“I meant what I said. I want to marry you.”

Zander sat back in his lap, his head on one side.

“I’m sorry, I’m being too fast aren’t I?”

Zander smiled, and kissed him, tasting like sex and sweat. Zupan wrapped his arms around the boy’s waist.

“Good. I wanna marry you too.”

“Is that right?” Zupan could feel his crotch getting ready for a second go round.

“Yeah, but you’re gonna have to ask properly.”

Zupan groaned, digging his fingers into the firm flesh of Zander’s arse, making the boy whine.

“You mean with jewellery and everything?”

Zander wriggled against his fingers, distracting him open wet kisses down the side of his neck.

“Yes.”

“Ugnh…” Zupan tried to find an answer as Zander wrapped strong fingers around his cock, “Anything you want babe.” The boy squeezed, “Anything!”

Zander smiled in a wicked manner.

“Oh goody!”

*

He called Billy. It seemed like the most sensible thing to do, and then he called Bay as back up. The two young men were waiting for him just inside the entrance of the shopping centre, out of the drizzle that had started to come down. Bay looked generally sleepy, hands dug into the front pocket of his hoodie, and he and Billy had been making small talk, alternately mocking and praising the mannequin’s outfits in the nearest shop windows.

“Hey guys.”

“Hey Zu,” Bay grinned, Billy waved, “How’s things in the love nest?” Bay grinned and made a rude sort of gesture.

“Ewww,” Billy looked at him like he was mad, “Sometimes I forget how much of a teenager you are.”

Zupan rolled his eyes.

“The pair of you are like a comedy duo. I swear you could not be more different.”

“So what sort of shopping trip is this that requires both of us?” Bay folded his arms across his chest and scowled as a group of girls in pink and glitter swarmed past.

Zupan shrugged his shoulders, then rocked his chair back and forth a little. He felt the need to fiddle as he spoke.

“I told Zander I wanted to marry him.”

“What?”

“Oh. My. God!” Billy squealed, “That’s so, I mean! Oh my god, oh my god. I can’t believe it!”

While Billy went on a high pitched ramble of excitement, Bay simply clapped him on the shoulder and pulled Zupan in for a hug.

“Dude!” he grinned, “Nice one.”

“You asked Zander to marry you?”

“Well… not quite.” Zupan glanced between his friend, and his boyfriend’s best friend, “I told him I wanted to marry him. No I have to go do it properly and stuff.”

“You brought me jewellery shopping?” Bay threw up his hands, “Oh, hell no Zu!”

“No, I brought Billy jewellery shopping. I asked you to come to make sure this doesn’t end up taking all afternoon.”

Billy had another little flap along with the words ‘engagement ring’ and ‘oh my god’ and ‘diamonds’ while Bay and Zupan sat and watched him, wondering when his voice was going to fall back into the normal range of hearing. Eventually he stopped and turned to Zupan with a serious expression.

“We are buying a ring for Zander, for you to propose with?”

“Yes!” for a moment Zupan wondered why he’d decided to bring Zander’s best friend, but then he realised that his question had a self-explaining answer.

“Then we are in the wrong part of town. Come on.”

“What? Why?” Zupan followed Billy out of the shopping centre, and was pleased when they went the long way around the steps to head towards the old laines. “Where the hell are we going?”

“You ain’t buying Zander any old ring.”

“I’m not?” Zupan wheeled fast to keep up with Billy and avoid all the pedestrians not looking where they were going because of the rain.

“No. He’s special right?”

“Right.”

Bay was ten steps ahead of them, turned round and grinned.

“So he needs a special ring!” Bay jogged backwards, “Which means money…”

“Billy…”

“Not too much money!” Billy waved his hands, “I promise.”

Not too much money was somewhere in the high four figures, and Zupan felt the bottom fall out of his stomach when he saw the rings they were attached too.

“No way.” Zu wheeled backwards away from the counter and the polite sales lady, “Hell no.”

“What? I think they’re pretty.”

“They look like girl’s rings,” Bay touched Zupan’s shoulder, “C’mon Billy, use your left hand brain a little bit.”

“Alright, alright.” Billy sulked as they left the swanky jewellers, “But he’s gonna need a little bit of sparkle.”

“Fine, fine.”

Zupan followed Billy along the laines, getting the narrow wheels of the road chair stuck in odd wide cracks in the paving and annoyed that he was taking up space the constricted alleyways. There were jewellery shops every few feet in this part of town, and Billy kept on stopping to look at things, show them rings he thought Zander might like.

It was Bay who stopped on the other side of the street and waved them over with an excited grin. Zupan pushed through the people and umbrellas that thronged the narrow road to get to where Bay was standing.

“Oh yeah,” Billy was grinning from ear to ear, “That’s the one.”

“Isn’t it just?” Bay looked very pleased with himself, “Just like D says, I know how to pick ‘em.”

“You two couldn’t have picked a shop with a window I could see into, huh?” Zupan huffed, and tried to lift himself up on his arms to see into the display. It was useless. “How much?”

“Two thousand.” Bay said, as though it wasn’t a lot of money.

“Let’s go look then.”

The shop had a step and all, so Zupan managed to hold his tongue and Bay helped bump him up. Zupan rolled up the counter where a narrow built red haired girl was counting tiny blue stones from one packet to another with tweezers.

“Hi, miserable weather huh?”

“Er… sure.” Zupan tapped on the leather countertop, small talk had never been his strong suit, and he figured that his usual brand of vicious sarcasm wasn’t going to be much help in a place with nice carpet.

“So what can I help you gents with?” the girl smiled brightly at the three of them, but she kept her attention focused on Zupan.

“There’s a ring in the window.” Zupan turned to look at Bay and Billy, “Which one?”

“The gold and black one.” Bay said.

“With all the little stones.”

“Ooh, good choice. The mokume gane technique is so unusual and pretty. You guys have a good eye.” She stood up, “Let me go grab it.”

Zupan turned to his friends with a frown.

“Mo-ku what now?”

“Mokume gane,” the girl had returned, “It’s a Japanese metalwork technique originally used for making samurai swords. Using it to combine more than one kind of metal creates these lovely patterns that look like wood grain.” She placed the ring stand down in front of Zupan, “This one is eighteen karat yellow gold, rose gold and titanium, pave set with diamonds and sapphires.”

It was…lovely. And pink, sparkly, and reminded Zupan of that night when Zander had thrown back every pink drink like it was nothing, then stood underneath the neon lights looking like a vision. The three metals wound together so intricately that Zupan didn’t even want to think about how it had happened, bright gold, a metal that was practically black and the soft rose pink of the other gold. The gems were set flush in the band, tiny points of light going all the way around. Every three diamonds was another stone, but the sapphires weren’t blue, they were sugar pink, like the rim on a pink lemonade shooter.

“Which of these nice guys is the lucky man then?”

“Er… none of them.” Zupan turned the ring over in his fingers. He was shaking, “they came to help me pick.”

“And what do you think?”

Zupan looked at the ring, slid in on his bent little finger where it didn’t make it past the second knuckle. Zander had such slender hands.

“It’s perfect.”

“Do you know what size you need?”

“L.”

They all turned to look at Billy. Zupan stared.

“Huh?”

Billy laid a hand on the big man’s shoulder.

“And just who do you think has gone shopping with your boyfriend for the last four years? I could tell you what shoe, shirt and underwear size he takes too.” Billy looked smug, “Like we never talked about what sort of rings we wanted and went to go try things on. Size L. He has such skinny fingers.”

“Perfect. This one is the same size.” She turned back to Zupan, “So then. You ready to do this?”

Zupan took the ring back. It was perfect, the right size, the right colour. It sparkled like Zander did when he smiled. He turned the band over and over in his hands. He’d never been more sure of anything in his life. He put the ring on the table and smiled.

“Box it. I want it.”