The 17-Year-Old Itch

by M. J. O'Shea

  Went to run some errands for the day. Lock the door on the handle on your way out.—C

  His breath caught in his throat. He felt like gagging.

  Tony couldn’t believe how stupid he’d been. Fucking stupid. Damn it. He’d honestly thought things were going to be a little bit different after the night they’d just had. Why would he think that? Hell if he knew. Because there really wasn’t a damn chance in hell that things were going to be different. Casey was still Casey, no matter how many times he acted like he wanted to talk. He still had issues about Tony being good enough for him, and fuck that shit. Tony needed to get the hell out of there. He shook his head and sat up in bed.

  Lock the door on your way out. On your way out. Jesus Christ, how dumb can I be?

  Tony yanked the covers off him and jammed his clothes on. It felt just like before. Exactly the damn same.

  I can’t be with you, Tony….

  It took him a few minutes to get into his shoes the right way with his fingers shaking the way they were, but as soon as he did he was out.

  You know it wasn’t ever going to work. Maybe some time away from each other will be good….

  He stormed through Casey’s condo and pointedly did not lock the door on the way out. If Casey got robbed… oh well. It wasn’t likely anyway.

  Please don’t tell anyone….

  Fuck Casey and his secrets and his shame. For what felt like the hundredth time, he was done.

  He took the long way home. He didn’t want to face his friends, his roommates, anyone. Tony didn’t remember if Blair had the day off or a late call, but the first thing Blair would do was look at his face and know something was wrong. After he stopped for coffee and did a loop of the island, Tony finally pulled into their street. And fantastic. There was Blair’s shiny new car and Sander’s car right next to it. They were both home. They were definitely both awake, and he had zero patience for acting like he wasn’t about to murder someone. Tony parked and yanked his keys out of the ignition. He shut his door as gently as his rage would let him and jogged into the house. He wanted to get his shorts on and hit the beach as soon as he possibly could.

  Blair and Sander were sitting at the table with fruit and coffee. Blair gave him a quizzical look.

  “You okay, man?” he asked quietly. Tony knew it must be a weird sight. He was never upset like this. He’d been a good choice to play even-keeled Joey. It came naturally. Most of the time, anyway.

  “It’s a long story. I think I’m going to go to the beach.”

  “I’m making muffins if you want some. Eat your bad mood away in forbidden carbs?” Blair gave him a sly smile. The previous season, Tony and Blair had gotten great pleasure from sneaking in carbs and cheese and seeing how much they could get away with before someone said something about how their costumes were fitting. He hadn’t been in the mood for games since the second season had started. He’d wasted so much time thinking about someone who obviously wasn’t going to magically decide he wanted Tony. He’d had more than enough chances.

  “It’s fine. I think I’m just going to take off. Thanks for asking, though.”

  He went into his room and changed into shorts and a pair of flip-flops. He stuck a hat on his head and put on a pair of sunglasses, because as much as he was unlikely to run into fans on the beach by Blair’s place, it could still happen, and he wasn’t in the mood to deal with them at all.

  TONY SPENT a long time in the ocean, swimming and staring up at the sky. He didn’t want to go back and talk to Blair or hang out with Sander or even look at his phone again. He didn’t know how he was going to deal with his growing number of scenes with Casey. As far as he was concerned, other than his lame body, which didn’t seem to understand the distinction between a hot guy and an actual good guy, he didn’t want to see Casey ever again.

  He fell asleep under the shade of a huge tree for a few hours, which was relaxing at least. It was good to get away from all his shit and just sleep. He hadn’t done much sleeping the night before anyway. Tony liked his little moments alone on the beach. They’d gotten more and more necessary lately. At least he didn’t have any more scenes with Casey that week. Tony wasn’t into punching people, but he might have made an exception.

  Chapter Seven

  JOEY FELT guilty. Guilty wasn’t even the word. Weirded out. Totally weirded out. And yeah. Guilty. He’d fucking kissed Mack, well—okay, it wasn’t him. Mack had kissed him, but it had taken him a good few seconds to pull away, hadn’t it? He honestly wasn’t quite sure how that moment happened. It was all pretty surreal. One second they’d been talking, all chill and no big deal, and then Mack’s lips were on his. And he pulled away really quickly, right? He had. But then he’d told Mack about Robbie. So he’d led his friend on and then blabbed about his secret boyfriend. Neither of those things were helping Joey feel any less like a dickhead.

  “Hey.” Robbie ruffled his hair. “What’s up with you today? You seem all out of it.”

  Sure, if “out of it” meant the same thing as feeling guilty as hell for something he wished he could take back. There wasn’t any way to explain it without it sounding bad. There just wasn’t. He could say he pushed Mack away the exact second it started, but that would be a lie, and not to sound like a Pollyanna, but Joey didn’t like to lie. He also didn’t like not telling Robbie that he’d spilled the beans about them. He could pretend the kiss never happened, or the blabbing, but it was eating at him. And he didn’t like feeling like everything he said to Robbie was hidden under the outright omission of “I kissed another guy.” It was just as bad as lying.

  “I guess I just was thinking about some things,” he finally answered. That wasn’t a lie at least. He sure was thinking about some things.

  “You wanna go for a ride around the island today? I can take you to the beach.”

  Robbie. At the beach. Joey couldn’t help smiling. “You have beach clothes?” he asked.

  Robbie chuckled and kissed Joey’s forehead, which made him feel bad. “I have beach clothes. I just don’t wear them very often.”

  “And you want to take me on your bike?” Joey asked. Robbie hadn’t done a lot of sharing of personal things with him. It made him happy that Robbie was opening up. Joey really did like Robbie more than he’d ever liked anyone before. There was something about him.

  “Yeah. Let’s take my bike. It’s not too hot today.”

  “Okay. I’d like that.”

  Robbie smiled then, and even if his smile was rare, when he did smile, it was like clear, perfect sunshine. It made Joey want to do things to make Robbie smile like that all the time.

  Robbie leaned over and gave Joey a real kiss. They hadn’t had many—that one on New Year’s had been one of Joey’s first kisses, period. But he liked kissing Robbie. He hoped he had a lot more chances to do it.

  “Hey, Robbie?” Joey said. He had to tell him. It might be stupid, Robbie might not even care, but he had to tell him.

  “Yeah?”

  “Listen, something happened the other day, and I just, well, I wanted you to know. Mack didn’t know I was with you, and he kissed me. I pulled away and told him I wasn’t available; I might have told him I wasn’t available because of you, and sorry if you don’t want that. But, like, I don’t even know if I am available. I didn’t want to lie about it, and I wanted to know what this is, and shit. I’m just going to stop talking now.”

  Joey stopped to take a breath. He felt each and every one of his panicked heartbeats.

  Robbie nodded slowly. “Do you want to be available?” he finally asked.

  “Not if I get to be with you. I’d rather be here than pretty much anywhere else.”

  “Pretty much?” Robbie asked. He was starting to smile.

  Joey let himself smile in return. “Well, I’ve never been to New York or Paris.”

  “London?”

  “I don’t know.” Joey was outright grinning. “I think I’d probably pick you over London.”

  Robbie pulled him cl
ose for another kiss. “Thanks for telling me. Nobody else I’ve ever been with would’ve done that.”

  “You aren’t mad?”

  Robbie shrugged. “It was a misunderstanding. You aren’t going to keep kissing him, are you?”

  “No. Not at all. No.”

  “And you don’t care if people know about us?”

  “Not if you don’t.” Joey felt his face melt into a huge grin. He didn’t think he could stop it even if he tried.

  “Then I’m not mad. Bike ride?”

  Joey already felt a million times better. “Yeah. Let me drop my car and my school stuff off at home. Meet you there?”

  “With your parents?”

  “If it makes you feel better, neither of them will be home. The housekeeper might be, but she thinks you’re hot.”

  “Oh God.” Robbie hid his face in his hand.

  “I’ll see you there,” Joey said. He hopped in his Jeep and tossed his backpack in the back seat.

  TONY AND Levi had been on set for hours that day. Longer than their usual long days. Tony had to admit, it was awesome to get some significant screen time. His character had grown from Ryder’s perky sidekick to someone who had his own storyline over the course of the first few episodes of season two. He really did appreciate it, but he was tired as hell. As much as he didn’t actually want it for his career, he wouldn’t mind a few days of the sidekick workload.

  “How you doin’, man? You look exhausted.” Levi plopped down on the beach next to him. They’d just filmed a beach scene with them acting all loved-up and cutesy. It was a bit awkward to kiss Levi; he wasn’t going to lie. No matter how much the fans liked to alternate between him with Blair and him with Levi, neither of them were even remotely possible.

  “It’s weird to see you in, like, normal clothes.” Tony plucked at the sleeve of Levi’s T-shirt. For the beach scene they’d traded in Levi’s typical leather boots and jacket for shorts and a pale T-shirt. He looked more like Levi than Robbie, which had made kissing him even weirder for Tony. Like making out with a cousin or something.

  “I know. I think Whit had a great time prepping me out. He doesn’t like all the leather and stuff on me.”

  Tony smiled. He was happy for Levi and Whitney. Really happy. Same as he was happy for Blair and Sander… and Flynn. Fuck. But he had to admit that watching his friends find love all around him while he got repeatedly rejected by the one guy he couldn’t get out of his dreams kinda sucked ass. Tony decided he was going to focus on finding a new guy who wouldn’t ditch him in the morning.

  “Have you seen all the tweets since they started escalating our little lovefest?” Levi asked with a chuckle. “I swear, Whit’s printing out the good ones and posting them on the fridge at his place. He thinks it’s hilarious.”

  “What are we again? Jobbie? That just sounds ridiculous.”

  Levi snickered. “It sounds like a Star Wars character.”

  “Or some random award show. The Jobbies.”

  Tony lay back into the sand. He didn’t think they had much left to film, and if he got a tiny bit of sand on his costume, it probably went with the territory. He was glad Casey wasn’t there—had no reason to be there, wouldn’t be there. It was just him and Robbie and a few random extras with the film crew. Perfect, as far as Tony was concerned. Lately, he’d even been trying to avoid Blair. Blair had been giving him tons of looks ever since his performance in the kitchen a few days before.

  “Who are you going to take as your date to the Jobbies?” Levi asked.

  Tony snickered. They were getting dumb-tired. It usually happened sometime around the end of the day when they’d been at it for far too long.

  “Blair. Duh. Since I’m two-timing you with him.”

  Levi rolled over and giggled into his arm. “Did you just say two-timing? Are we in fifth grade?”

  “I am sixteen,” Tony muttered. Life would be easier if he was. He remembered thinking his life was so hard back then. He hadn’t known from shit.

  “You really do look worn-out, man. You sure you’re okay?” Levi asked.

  Great. Another Blair. It wasn’t like Tony was going to get into the fact that he’d been left in bed like some hooker. At least there hadn’t been a tip on the nightstand.

  “Yeah, I’m looking forward to our first long weekend.”

  Levi nudged him. “Man, we haven’t even been back for a month. You need some, like, supplements or something?”

  More like a cast change….

  “Nah. I just need to chill. I haven’t been sleeping well. I keep waking up thinking I hear Blair and Sander getting it on.”

  “Jesus….” Levi had always been the type who minded his own business. Not into oversharing. Even his adorable new relationship with Whitney hadn’t changed that.

  Tony laughed. “I’ll tape it for you next time I hear anything.”

  “You suck.”

  “OKAY, MISTER. We’re talking.” Blair rarely looked anything but sweet and a little shy. Tony hadn’t seen that look on his face unless he was in the middle of playing Ryder. It was a little intimidating.

  Tony was sitting at a lunch table in the cafeteria on set with his own lunch of salad and a fish fillet. The place was nearly deserted. Blair was still decked out in Ryder gear. He stared Tony down. Tony missed the earlier part of the week when it was just him and laid-back, mind-his-own-business Levi. Blair wasn’t going to be so easy to divert.

  “I’m not really in the mood, B. I know you’re trying to be a good friend, but I… can’t right now. I need to get prepped for my scene with Cutter later today. We’re working out at the gym. And talking. I don’t think Joey’s ever talked to Hudson before.”

  “You’ll be fine.”

  So that attempt at putting him off didn’t work….

  “I’m nervous.”

  “No, you’re not. Something’s been up with you ever since we got back, T, and nerves isn’t it.” Blair sighed. “It’s been weeks, and I still haven’t seen my friend yet. Not really. Can’t you tell me what’s been going on?”

  “Things are just different now. For all of us.”

  Blair rolled his eyes like a champion. Clearly he’d learned a few tricks from his alter ego. “Give me a fucking break. It’s not that different. Barely different at all, other than a few new combinations between us for filming. What happened to you? It’s not the fans outside the set. They don’t bother you. I know you better than that.”

  “Would you believe it’s the tabloids always pushing the story that you and I are hopping in the sack together?”

  “Nope.” Blair raised his eyebrows. “Last season you saw that for what it was. Planted publicity. It’s still the same thing, and they’ve never said anything concrete. There isn’t anything concrete to say. Try again. There’s a guy, isn’t there? An actual guy other than me or Levi.”

  Tony winced. “Nope. No guy.” At least that much was true. There really, really wasn’t a guy. He’d be damned if he let Casey get to him again. Except he was still getting to him every damn day. It never seemed to let up.

  “You know, you’re a good actor. But you’re not that good. Who is it?”

  “There isn’t a guy. Not anymore.” Shit. I shouldn’t have said that. “Can we just drop it? I promise to stop acting like the hormonal teenager I play on TV and start acting like myself again.”

  Tony watched Blair’s expressive face move from irritation to empathy to confusion. Finally it settled on unhappy but accepting. “Fine. I won’t ask you about it right now, but I’m not letting it go forever.”

  “I didn’t really expect that you would.”

  Blair was a better friend than that. Tony would be doing exactly the same thing if Blair was acting as weird as he was. He still hated it.

  “’Kay. Grab some forbidden dessert for us and come back here. At least I want to hang out with you until break’s over.”

  Tony nodded. “Okay.”

  “While you’re in there, think about how you want t
o tell me what’s been going on with you. I’m not going to wait very long.”

  Jesus. Tony hoped he managed to make it through the rest of the day without running into Casey. Blair’s attempted interrogation was enough pressure, thanks.

  Chapter Eight

  “HI, THIS is Devon Jones from Hollywood Spin back with the cast of Coconut Cove. I feel like I’ve gotten to know you guys so well since we first met last season. Is there anything new going on for any of you?”

  “Tony’s in a holiday period piece. Comes out Thanksgiving weekend.”

  Blair sounded like the proud boyfriend half the tabloids reported he was. For most of the cast, it was funny. Obviously not for all of them. Tony winced at Casey’s glare. Fuck him. Fuck him a lot.

  “That’s great,” Devon said and grinned his huge extra-white grin. “Congrats, Tony. How was that different from working out here?”

  Tony gave Devon a practiced smile. “It was great. I missed my friends here, but it’s always fun to get a change of scene and do some different work. That being said, it was also great to get back into Joey’s familiar shoes.”

  “Does it get hard for any of you to play teenagers?”

  Tony was in a mood. He decided to speak again. “It is sometimes. You know, people forget that we’re really quite a bit older than our characters. Some of us were in high school nearly ten years ago. Every once in a while, I find people in my own life treating me like I’m sixteen.” He said that last part pointedly. At Casey. Someone had to notice. Devon cleared his throat. Tony wondered if only he was reading awkward into it.