Chapter 28 - Margaritaville.

*WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH* Kevan belted out his loudest complaint to date, hoping against hope that THIS time someone would listen to him.

“Blah, blah, blah, Kevan. Please, Kevan, Honey, blah, blah, blah . . .” The Papa said, his voice all pleading and sad as he tried again to shove the hard plastic thing with the rubbery end and the foul smelling gunk inside it into Kevan’s mouth.

How is it that none of these stupid people things understood that Kevan did not want the smelly gunk? He wanted The Daddy. Where the doo doo was The Daddy. Were the other people things around him just stupid or were they keeping The Daddy away from him for some reason? Were they intentionally doing this to be mean to him? Hmmmm. That was a new idea that hadn’t crossed Kevan’s baby mind yet - that his people things might be torturing him with the bottles of smelly gunk on purpose? It was such a horrible concept and so scary that Kevan wailed again and again and again.

Finally, The Papa let out his own big people thing version of Kevan’s ‘Wahhhhh!’ and handed the baby off to the The Silly One.

Twenty minutes later - or twenty hours or twenty days or twenty years, Kevan didn’t know and didn’t care because it felt like forever - The Silly One also seemed to give up. He handed Kevan off to some other big person thing that Kevan didn’t remember ever seeing before. This person thing had dark hair and his eyes were small and almost black.  The Black One wasn’t smiling down at Kevan the way almost all big people things did - this person thing looked almost as scared of Kevan as Kevan was of him. The mouth sounds that this Black One was making weren’t going to help calm the baby either - the noises he was making were higher pitched than most of the other people around Kevan and maybe even a little squeaky. It kind of hurt his ears even. The Black One also wasn’t holding Kevan right - instead of holding Kevan close to his body where the baby felt stable and safe, this person thing was holding Kevan so that he was far away from his chest with only his two hands to support the little body. Kevan felt like he was suspended over nothing with practically nothing holding him up.  Add to that the fact that Kevan didn’t KNOW this particular big person thing, and that he was already fed up with the stupid gunk-filled bottle, and you had a recipe for a very, very disgruntled infant.

*WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH* Kevan’s new cry managed to reach a decibel level that was certified to pierce the eardrums of even the most well-seasoned of parents. Michael - aka ‘The Black One’ to Kevan’s sensibilities - who was not used to being around kids at all, especially not angry, forcibly-weaned, almost six-month-old infants who’d barely managed to keep down any of the new formula over the past week and who were not happy about meeting strangers, was at a complete and total loss as to what to do in this situation.

Kevan quickly discerned that The Black One was absolutely useless - probably even mentally deficient - and decided to get rid of him as quickly as possible.

Which is probably why Michael ended up leaving Britin’s Chapel that day with his new Big Q-Mart Shirt covered all down the front with partially-digested, thrown-up, baby formula.

Brian was sitting in the beach cabana that was being used as the makeup and dressing room. He was aggravated as hell over the ridiculously slow pace they’d been following during this photoshoot so far. It had been almost a week now since they arrived and it didn’t feel like they were any closer to being done. Every day they’d be hustled off early in the morning, told to get ready and then they’d end up sitting around for hours while the prima donna photographer puttered around setting up his lighting, fiddled with the scenery and complained about the heat. By the time the temperamental photographer was ready, the models’ makeup would have become smeared and need retouching or something else would have gone wrong. Brian and the others would be marched out to the site and then back into the tents several times a day before any actual photography would take place. And then, just when things seemed to be going well, the photographer would declare that he’d ‘lost the light’ and they’d quit for the day.

Needless to say, Brian-the-control-freak was frustrated and ready to strangle the photographer.

He was also just about ready to walk. Since he’d got the phone call from Cynthia the day before about the stalker problem back in the Pitts, he’d been hovering on the verge of panicking. He wanted to be home where he could take care of Justin and Kevan and make sure they were safe from this nutcase. But, instead, he was trapped in Cancun and couldn’t leave without incurring a monstrous fine under the terms of his modeling contract, possibly even losing Armani as a client of VanGuard altogether. Even so, Brian was just about to say ‘Fuck it!’ to the fine and Vance and get on the next plane back to the states. The fact that he’d been waiting this morning for almost two hours in this almost airless tent wasn’t making him any more inclined to stick around for the rest of the shoot.

“Mr. Kinney,” tittered the annoyingly flirty little assistant to the Assistant Creative Director as she came jogging into the make up tent. “You have a phone call. The woman said it was urgent, so I decided to bring the phone to you myself.” She announced as she came to a stop well within Brian’s personal space, adding a big toothy smile, batting her overly mascaraed lashes at him and making sure that their fingers touched when she handed over the phone. “If there’s ever ANYthing else I can do for you, Brian - I mean, Mr. Kinney - please don’t hesitate to ask.”

Brian took the phone without bothering to thank the obsequious tart and turned his back on the girl - who seemed to take that as a challenge rather than a dismissal, intentionally brushing her chest against his back and trailing a hand low across his robe-covered back in the process of leaving the cabana. Brian glared at her over his shoulder, but the effect was lost as she had her back to him. He didn’t waste too much energy on the Fangirl though. He was too curious about this phone call to worry about yet another of his fawning groupies.

“Kinney.”

“Brian? It’s Cynthia.”

“It’s about time. What the fuck is going on up there? Did the police find that little weasel yet?” Brian demanded.

Cynthia proceeded to tell Brian about all the most recent developments in Pittsburgh. She informed him about Emmett’s run in with the hooded person trying to get into the house the day before, causing Brian to curse loudly and his blood pressure to skyrocket, not to mention that it aggravated the hangover headache he was still suffering through after spending most of the prior night drinking instead of sleeping. She also told him about the newest gift and letter that had been left at the house overnight. Brian was only partially mollified to hear that the round-the-clock security he’d asked for had been put into place and that one of the Hulk Brothers or their associates would be at Britin’s Chapel at all times for the foreseeable future.

“Good, but in the meantime what the hell are the police doing? We shouldn’t have to hide in our house and have bodyguards follow us around everywhere we go. This creep needs to be taken off the streets and locked up,” Brian demanded as he paced around the small space inside the makeup tent.

“Emmett took the most recent deliveries to the police this morning. I don’t think they’ll do much, though. I’m having Justin fax me copies of each letter he receives as well as pictures of all the gifts before they take them to the cops. I’ve read over all the letters and the problem is that basically they’re not explicitly threatening. It’s more the tone of the letters that’s scary. If you just look at the words themselves, it doesn’t seem that bad. I mean, this guy never actually says that he’s going to hurt anyone. It’s all just implied. Which means that the cops probably can’t DO anything,” Cynthia could almost feel her boss’ anxiety level escalating through the phone lines as she spoke. “Mostly he just goes on and on about how you and he are meant to be together. The thing that creeps me out the most is the pictures he’s sent. It’s apparent he’s been following Justin and Kevan around for a while now because he’s got pictures of them from all over the city. And then he either cuts Justin out of the pictures or uses a marker to obliterate his face. It’s . . . disturbing, to say the least. But in the letters he never once refers to Justin - it’s like Justin doesn’t even exist to this guy? I don’t know. Whoever he is, he’s clearly not mentally stable. But I don’t know what we can do about it.”

“Damned little fucker!” Brian collapsed into the chair by the canvas door, wishing now that he’d laid off the margaritas because that, combined with the stress of this phone call, seemed to be substantially increasing the stomach cramps he’d been feeling off and on all morning. “What else have you been able to find out on this Tad guy, Cynthia? Maybe the police need a bit of a push. If we find any dirt on him, that might spur them to take some real action.”

“I’m sorry to say that I haven’t found anything yet, Brian.” Cynthia admitted. “And his name is ‘Tag’, or ‘Taggart’, not ‘Tad’ - or at least that’s how he signs the letters. Unfortunately, that’s all I have. No last name and I’m not even sure that’s his real first name. It could be just a nickname or something. I’ve got feelers out to people I know in the community to try to find out more, but without at least a last name there’s not much I can do either.”

“Fuck!” Brian yelled, causing Cynthia to quickly pull the phone away from her ear. “Fuck. fuck, fuck, fuck!”

“Calm down, Brian. There’s no use getting that upset,” Cynthia tried to pacify the obviously agitated man. However, when several more minutes went by and all she heard on the phone was a continuing string of ‘fuck’s, Brian’s voice getting fainter and fainter, she started to get concerned that something more was going on than just another of Brian’s legendary temper tantrums. “Brian? Are you okay . . . Brian?”

Brian, meanwhile, was doubled over and almost falling out of his chair. The vague sense of stomach discomfort he’d been feeling all morning had just turned into a sharp stabbing pain deep inside his gut. At this point, all Brian could do was gasp for air and mutter the occasional ‘fuck’. He’d forgotten he even had the phone still in his hand until Cynthia’s yelling finally penetrated through the haze of pain he was feeling.

“Shit! Stop yelling, Cyn. Fuck! You screaming in my ear isn’t going to help the fact that I feel like I’m about to puke my guts out here,” Brian eventually managed to get the words out to placate his worried assistant. “Either I fucking drank a lot more than I remember last night or the ice in those margaritas wasn’t made with filtered water. Shit! It feels like someone’s stabbing me in the gut with an ice pick.”

“Uh oh. That sounds bad, Brian. I was laid up for almost a week with Montezuma’s Revenge after my last trip to Mexico. I hope you don’t have it as bad as I did,” Cynthia sympathized with her boss.

“Another good reason to come home right away,” Brian grunted as another stab of pain hit him, although this one wasn’t quite as sharp.

“I really don’t think that’s a good idea, Brian, If this stalker guy really is a threat, you’re safer out of the country than back here in the Pitts, even with a case of the runs.”

“Fuck that! What about Justin and Kevan? I’m not going to be hiding out down here in Mexico while some crazy is after my family,” Brian’s anger, for a moment, overwhelmed his pain

“There’s nothing you could do here, Brian. Right now there's nothing more anyone can do. If there were, we’d already have it done before you got back,” Cynthia reassured her boss. “Plus, now that we’ve got security in place, Justin and Kevan should be fine. Emmett’s been staying at Britin’s Chapel this week too, so there’s basically no time of the day or night that either of them are alone. They’ll be fine, Brian. You should just stay where you are and finish out the rest of the shoot. Hopefully, by the time you do get back, the whole thing will have blown over.”

“Shit!” Brian felt yet another puncturing pain and grabbed at his gut with his hands until the throbbing abated a bit. “Okay. I don’t think I could fly like this anyway. I’d probably be puking before we hit 20,000 feet. But NOTHING better happen to them before I get back or heads will fucking roll. Do you hear me, Cynthia? Make sure that everyone knows that my family’s safety is paramount. And it goes without saying that you have authority to do whatever you need - money’s no object - just make sure they all stay safe. Got it?”

Cynthia acquiesced and the conversation ended quickly. Brian was glad to note that the worst of the stomach cramping had passed by the time the phone call ended, although he still felt vaguely nauseated. As he hung up he saw the digital time readout on the phone and was again pissed off that he’d now been waiting around in this stupid cabana for almost two hours. Enough was enough. He didn’t care what the fuck the fickle photographer was doing, he was going back to his room until the asshole was ready for him.

Halfway up the pathway to the hotel, Brian was waylaid by the same fawning fangirl that had brought the phone to him earlier. Brian literally cringed when she laid her hand on his biceps and gave it an intimate little squeeze. This was really the last thing he felt like dealing with today.

“There you are, Brian. I was just coming down to get you,” Assistant Fangirl simpered. “It seems that the photographer, along with most of the rest of the production staff who went out drinking with him last night, are all sick to their stomachs right about now. They think it was bad fruit in the sangria or something. Anyway, it doesn’t look like anything much is going to get done the rest of today and I thought that maybe I could treat you to a beer by the pool, since you looked so hot back there in that cabana . . .” she offered, letting the innuendo hang there in the air while she smiled up at Brian.

Brian managed not to gag, but only just barely as his already upset stomach did a sickly roll. “Yeah, thanks but, uh, I don't think so. I mean, I know I'm hot - I'd wanna do me too - but unless you've been living under a rock for the past year, you've got to know I don't bat for your team,” Brian explained, trying to be at least a little diplomatic about turning the girl down. Unfortunately, the woman continued to smile at him as if she thought maybe she would be the girl who could get him to rethink his team affiliations. But, when her too friendly hand started to slide up his arm and then across his chest, Brian decided to hell with the nice-nice. “Sorry, chickie. I’d rather hook up with a scat queen than come any nearer to you or your obviously overused pussy.” Brian took hold of the wandering hand with his index finger and thumb as if to avoid any overt contamination and dropped it back at the girl’s side. “Eat the street, Sweetheart!” Brian added dismissively and turned his back on the now angry Assistant Fangirl, who probably wasn’t a fan at all anymore. Not that Brian cared.

Instead of continuing on to his room, though, the run in with the Fangirl caused Brian to change directions and head straight to the poolside bar. After that unpleasant experience, Brian needed a fucking drink. He didn’t care that it wasn’t even noon yet. The pain in his gut seemed to be almost gone now, thank fuck, so he might as well get his frustrations out by drinking rather than pacing and worrying alone in his room.

Brian sauntered up to the bar which was situated next to the resort’s main pool and shaded by a palm frond roof. He undid the sash and pulled off the robe he’d been wearing, leaving him in only the tiny, and very revealing, black Armani Exchange swim briefs that he’d been supposed to be modeling that morning. He tossed the robe over a stool and then sat on the next one over, making himself comfortable on the small woven rush seat of the bar stool, even though the rough material dug into the backs of his thighs.

Brian waved to the bartender and ordered a glass of whiskey - he vowed to stay away from anything fruity and only drink his alcohol ‘neat’ until he got back home, hoping that would fend off any additional stomach problems. Out of the corner of his eye, Brian noted that the Assistant Fangirl had taken up a seat at the far edge of the pool area and was still eying him lasciviously even after his pointed rejection.

Shit! Brian was so fucking done with the whole pseudo-celebrity thing. Yeah, it had been nice at first - especially when he was pregnant and feeling a little self-conscious about his body - to have all the attention that he got from being semi-famous. He’d felt flattered by all the doting fans. And the ego boost he’d got from seeing his face on the cover of GQ, as well as being in those Armani ads in all the high-end magazines, had been great. But the celebrity status had gotten tiring pretty fast. He was tired of the feeling that eyes were following him everywhere. He was tired of being on display all the time. He was fed up with the fangirls thinking they could convert him, not to mention the apparently crazy stalker that was back in Pittsburgh threatening his family.

Brian tossed back the rest of his tumbler of whiskey and slid the glass down the bar so that the helpful staff person could see he needed another. While he was waiting for his refill, Brian ran his hand down his once again flat belly and happily noted that most of his muscle tone was back. His abs still weren’t quite as well defined as they’d been before Kevan came along, but they weren’t too bad. He thought he looked pretty good in his little black briefs, even if he did say so himself. And the rest of his body appeared to have weathered the storm pretty well too. His pecs were still a little swollen and sore - he’d had problems all week with some occasional leaking as well as intermittent pain, which seemed to be a side effect of the abrupt cessation of breastfeeding - but that just made his chest look even better and more toned. Yep, his body at least seemed to have recovered from the trauma of pregnancy. But, even so, he really couldn’t wait for his Armani modelling contract to be up. He did NOT intend to renew the contract no matter how much they offered him. He no longer cared to flaunt his body to a world filled with overly persistent fangirls and potential stalkers. It had sounded like a good idea at first, but Brian now knew that this wasn’t the life he really wanted.

That wasn’t to say that he didn’t still like knowing that he was admired. The tall, slim blond man sitting on one of the barstools immersed in the pool on the far side of the bar, the one whose eyes kept roaming approvingly over Brian’s body, confirmed that Brian was still attractive. That felt good and reaffirmed that he hadn’t lost whatever it was that had made him the Stud of Liberty Avenue in the first place. Brian was gratified to know that if he allowed himself to meet the man’s eyes, he would have an instant companion.

That was a role that felt comfortable and familiar - he’d long played the part of the sexy gay lothario and could fulfill that function without even breaking a sweat. He’d always enjoyed knowing that he could pull any guy he wanted with little or no effort. It was comforting to know THAT at least hadn’t changed, despite what the gossips on Liberty Avenue, as well as his teasing friends, had been saying. This guy’s attention was proof positive that he still had it. He had always liked the sense of approval he got from that type of interaction. There was acceptance and adulation. Brian liked being liked. And if that's what Brian wanted to be - The Stud of Liberty Avenue - he could still play that role with ease.

Draining the rest of his second drink, Brian allowed himself to look over at his poolside admirer. The guy was hot. And those acres and acres of tanned skin were definitely tempting. But, strangely enough, the first thing that came to Brian’s mind when he really looked at the guy was that the sun-streaked blond hair was just a shade or two too dark. However, if the guy’s hair were lighter, then the golden tan skin would look wrong - in that case, he’d be better off staying out of the sun. And before he knew it, Brian was picturing a completely different blond. One with almost white blond hair and flawless, untanned, alabaster skin that was so soft your hand would glide over it like it was silk. A blond whose deep-set sapphire blue eyes always glinted at him with amusement and admiration and maybe something else that he wasn’t ready to name . . .

“Fuck!” He was supposed to be using this time away to figure things out, get his head on straight, and ease back into what Brian thought of as his ‘real life’. But every time he turned around he found himself thinking about that pernicious little blond twat that had started all this trouble in the first place. Why the hell couldn't he get his mind to move on? “Another!” Brian yelled as the bartender shuffled past.

The bartender poured another two fingers of whiskey into the glass and Brian picked it up. After the second sip, he let his mind move back to the nagging problem that had been haunting him. Okay, he couldn’t stop thinking about that one particular blond, so then maybe he’d better just bite the bullet and work through that whole mess and hopefully get it out of his system. He turned his shoulders to the left so that he physically couldn’t see the admirer in the pool and, with a huge sigh, he delved into the the ‘Problem of the Blond’.

Justin . . . The name alone brought on such a flood of mixed up emotions and turmoil that Brian felt an almost palpable need to flee. Who would have thought that a diminutive, soft-spoken, blond boy could have such a huge impact on Brian’s life? It wasn’t just the pregnancy and the unexpected advent of renewed fatherhood that had thrown Brian for a loop either. It was the blond boy himself . . . along with that completely disconcerting way the kid had of getting inside Brian’s psyche.

Brian tried to focus through the growing haze caused by the alcohol, trying to analyze exactly what it was about his current situation that had caused him to, in essence, run from his own home. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about Kevan or Justin. He did. Brian could easily admit that he loved his sons more than he’d ever thought possible. He could also admit that he cared deeply about Justin and didn’t want the young blond out of his life. He was even willing to acknowledge that, since he’d arrived in Cancun, he had missed his little family.

But he also, in some ways, missed his old life. The carefree life of a single man who wasn’t constrained by the obligations of a family. A life where he was free to come and go as he pleased and where he was automatically respected just because he was Brian Kinney, Stud. He just didn’t know how to reconcile his family life with his public persona anymore.

Brian had already reached the bottom of his glass of whiskey again before he’d resolved anything. This time, however, when he looked up trying to locate the bartender to get yet another refill, Brian noticed that his modelling buddy from the airplane, Hunkalicious, was just pulling up the next bar stool. Brian and Hunkalicious had struck up a bit of conversation a time or two over the past week and generally speaking he’d found ‘Licious to be a genial companion. Brian took his appearance right then as a sign that it was more than time to give up his apparently useless and solitary introspection.

“Kinney,” ‘Licious said and nodded to the man beside him as he waved the barkeep over. “It looks like the two of us are the only ones on the crew who’ve escaped the ravages of the stomach thing going around. Lucky us.”

“Yeah, lucky us,” Brian intoned laconically, gulping down the remains of his last glass so that he could get another as soon as ‘Licious got his glass filled. “I think I had a touch of it this morning, but it seems to have passed. Just to be safe, though, I figure I should keep on drinking so that the alcohol will kill off any bacteria that’s left.”

‘Licious laughed heartily and clinked his glass against Brian’s in a toasting gesture. “Sounds like a reasonable treatment plan to me, Dr. Kinney. I think I’ll join you.”

Over the course of the next couple of hours, Brian and ‘Licious followed Dr. Kinney’s prescription assiduously, administering liberal quantities of alcohol into their systems for the antiseptic properties of the liquid. Since there was no control group involved in this experiment, it will never be known if this procedure was effective in fighting off the traveller’s diarhea that had taken out the rest of the group. However, it did result in two very drunken men who very soon weren’t feeling any pain at all. Especially not once the handsome hottie from the pool came over, kneeled in front of Brian’s bar stool and started sucking him off right there in front of the entire resort. This, in turn, inspired the Assistant Fangirl to come over and join in, performing the same service for Mr. ‘Licious.

At the very least, this course of treatment did cure Brian of his lingering introspection over his Homebound Blond, his fatherly failures and that nagging feeling that he really should be getting his Studliness back on again.

And everything was going swimmingly . . . at least until the next morning, when Brian woke up with the worst hangover he’d had in more than a decade, rolled over to escape the bright sunlight glaring down into his eyes, and discovered that one of the reasons his mouth tasted like it was filled with sand was because it was full of sand. He blinked until his vision cleared sufficiently enough so that he could see his surroundings. Based on the sandy clue he’d already received, it probably shouldn’t have surprised him that he appeared to have spent the night on the beach, sleeping just beyond where the tide was lapping at the shore. What did surprise Brian was that he was stark naked with no clothing anywhere in sight. It also vaguely surprised him that there was another body lying next to him - likewise naked.

Brian lay there just blinking and trying to corral his jumbled memories of the night before. Usually Brian was pretty good at holding his liquor. And even when he’d had the occasional wild night, he could generally remember most of what he’d done. But this time, at least so far, the evening before was a complete and utter blank.

Eventually Brian shifted enough so he could prop himself up on his elbows. Even that small amount of motion, though, was more than his groggy head and rumbling stomach could handle. Ten seconds later he found himself retching and coughing up the toxic contents of his stomach into the damp sand. The sounds he was making startled his slumbering companion who lifted up his own head and looked over sympathetically towards Brian. As soon as Brian was done - well, for the time being anyway - he looked over at the man who gave him a weak smile.

“Morning, Tiger,” a scruffy, sand-covered Hunkalicious said. “Wow. That was some fucking bender, huh? I can honestly say I have never before drunk so much that I woke up naked on the beach in a foreign country.” ‘Licious remarked with a chuckle, the sound jarring Brian’s head even more, to the point that Brian wondered if he had the strength to reach over and slap the man in order to make him stop with the fucking laughing already. Luckily the laughter stopped when ‘Licious added, “of course, I also never drank so much that I thought fucking another guy was a good idea, either. So, I guess the waking up on the beach thing is relatively kinda minor . . .”

For about half a second, Brian felt a tiny thrill of pride thinking that he’d successfully turned another straight guy. He started to sit up more but froze halfway as the soreness in his ass, which had been exacerbated by the act of sitting up on it, slowly penetrated into this consciousness. That’s when Hunkalicious’ words struck home . . . ‘fucking another guy’. Not, ‘getting fucked by another guy’. Which, now that he was thinking about it, made sense with the sore ass thing.

Brian groaned, toppled over onto his side and let himself lay there in a huddled ball of misery. When he didn’t say anything more, ‘Licious finally got up, smirked down at Brian, grabbed the beach towel that was waiting a few feet away and then slowly shuffled off back towards the resort buildings. Brian watched him go, noting with yet another groan, that not only were there no clothes strewn about around him on the beach, but there was also no sign of a used condom anywhere in sight.