the anatomy of love [BxB] COMPLETED

46

Jackson gets back to his apartment late. His eyes stay open on pure willpower alone. When he walks through the door, he sees the living room light on.

"He's home!" Jackson hears someone whisper. A shadow flickers across the walls.

"Caleb?" Jackson calls out. "Are you still up?" It was almost two in the morning, and tomorrow was Monday. Caleb was usually better about sleep than Jackson, who would brave a killer hangover and less than five hours of sleep if the guy was hot enough. Well, maybe if the guy was a certain dark haired, blue eyed, sexy, dominant, and brooding man who might have been his boss a week ago.

"Yep! We've been waiting for you to get home," Caleb says, as Jackson emerges around the corner and into the living room. Caleb and Lauren give him identical smiles, which Jackson thinks is just creepy.

"Why? What's going on?"

"Nothing!" Lauren says quickly. Too quickly. "We just wanted to ask how your trip was."

"It was good."

"Soooo..." Caleb says with a grin, his eyes hinting that Jackson should know what he's getting at.

"Um."

"Did you guys, you know..." Caleb continues with a suggestive raised eyebrow.

"Have sex?" Jackson asks incredulously. "Yeah, like the first day we met."

Lauren looks impressed. "The day you met? Really"

"Maybe the second day, I can't remember―"

"As much as I would love to hear you and Weston Sawyer's sex life, that's not what I meant!" Caleb interrupts, and with a dramatic sigh straightens up as if to start again. "What I meant was, are you guys, you know..." And he takes Lauren's hand, as if it explained everything. And then it does.

"Oh! No, I mean, we just....no," Jackson says, his voice getting weaker. "We haven't made things...we haven't talked about...it."

Their hopeful faces fall almost simultaneously.

"You guys aren't dating?" Caleb asks in disbelief. "He's not your boyfriend?"

"No. I already told you." Jackson shifts around, suddenly very hot and very uncomfortable. "Why do I need him to be my boyfriend?" He sounds too defensive. Why is he defending himself?

"I thought that was what you wanted?" Caleb asks slowly, unsure. Jackson flushes, embarrassed. Like a complete fool.

Of course, he had somewhat assumed Wes had silently agreed that they are something more than what they were. But he had never thought to make it verbally official. If he could see it in Wes's eyes, wasn't that enough? He felt two sides within pulling him in two completely different directions. One side said, enough with institutionalized, overwrought words like boyfriend when that never promised anything, that meant really nothing, in the end. But the other side of him, perhaps the more insecure side, wondered if Wes was really his if Jackson can't call him his boyfriend.

Are they dating? It felt so mundane for them, for their relationship. He wanted passion and fire and besame and wine and hotel sheets and midnight escapades, not dating. Dating is for the Robins of the world, and he had never wanted anything to do with it. So why was he questioning it now?

"Wes and I are good just the way we are," Jackson says, a tad defiant. But he remembers where his hurt pride got him before. He sighs. "Okay, fine. I'm scared of asking him because I don't know if he's ready. I don't want to, you know, scare him away."

Caleb gave him a sympathetic look. "I get it. How long are you willing to wait?"

Just wait. Jackson could wait forever for Wes. But maybe he shouldn't.