Mark blinked owlishly at the sun streaming in through the patio door, letting his eyes adjust to the early morning light before opening his eyes fully. Feeling the warm weight laying on his shoulder shift slightly, Mark tilted his head to look down at his friend's peaceful face. Mark gently slid down on the sofa so his face was level with Deacon's and gazed silently at his lover's sleeping profile. Reaching up with his hand, Mark lightly traced his fingers across Deacon's sharp features - perfect, high cheeks, pouty lips and an almost sculpted nose.
There was a small scar at the top of Deacon's forehead, near his hairline. As he tenderly touched the tiny flaw, Mark frowned, remembering where the scar had come from. It had been Sarah and Deacon's three month anniversary, and when Deacon had opened a bottle of champagne, the cork had flown into the wall and right back at Deacon's head, creating a three inch gash and knocking him unconscious.
Sarah and Deacon had spent their anniversary in the hospital emergency room, drinking Pepsi instead of champagne and eating Oreos rather than camembert cheese. Mark recalled Sarah saying it had turned out better than the night they had planned would have - it had shown her how much she loved Deacon, groggy, stitched up and ungraceful as he might have been.
Suddenly, the telephone's shrill ring broke the morning silence. Still frowning, Mark quickly unwrapped Deacon's arms from his torso and swung his legs around to the ground. Finding and putting on his boxer shorts and t-shirt, Mark grabbed the phone and shut himself in the guest bedroom.
"Hello?" Mark asked quietly, hoping the phone hadn't woken Deacon up. A cheerful squeal greeted his question.
"Mark!" Sarah's voice crackled through the line, "how are you? Is Deacon there? Can I talk..." Mark listened as Sarah spoke to someone in the background. "...I know we have to go, but I just...well we should at least...it's Mark..." Mark gazed out the window as Sarah talked to the other person. Suddenly a very familiar voice came on the line.
"Mark? Babe? Is that you?" An excited voice asked, and Mark felt the blood drain from his face. "Mark? Are you there?" Swallowing heavily, Mark opened his mouth and spoke to his girlfriend. They were having a great time, Marie said, but they could only talk real quick - she told him she loved him and made him promise he'd tell Deacon that Sarah loved him too. They said their goodbyes, and Mark hung up. Leaning against the door, Mark closed his eyes and frowned.
Eventually Mark walked out into the kitchen and put the phone on the counter. He opened the patio door and wandered out onto the pool deck, deep in thought. Most guys talked all the time about how cheating on your girlfriend in certain circumstances wasn't technically cheating, but Mark wasn't most guys, and Marie certainly wasn't most girls. Sarah and Marie had jokingly told Mark and Deacon not to even look at other girls while they were away, and now he could honestly say they wouldn't. 'But this is still cheating,' Mark thought. 'We're cheating on them.' Mark sighed deeply. 'And ourselves. How cliché.'
Mark was so deep in thought that he hadn't heard Deacon get up and open the patio door, yawning loudly. He hadn't heard Deacon call his name twice, and didn't register anything outside of his own thoughts until two powerful hands shoved him face first into the swimming pool. Gasping, Mark swam to the surface and glared at his grinning best friend, standing in his jockeys beside the pool. Before Mark could do anything in retaliation, Deacon did a running cannon ball into the pool, creating a huge splash and re-drenching Mark.
As Deacon surfaced, Mark grabbed his friend's neck in a head-lock and forced him underwater. Deacon reached up and seized both of Mark's ears, and dragged him down with him. The pair play-wrestled for some time before they ended up on the steps leading into the shallow end of the pool, gasping for breath and laughing. When he had recovered, Deacon turned to Mark with a quizzical look on his face.
"What were doing out here, all silent and pensive?" Deacon looked at his watch. "It's no where near noon yet, and I would've thought that after last night you'd be exhausted," he teased with a nervous grin. Mark rolled his eyes and snorted. Staring at the sky, the boys sat in silence for a while before Deacon sat up and turned to face his friend fully. "Seriously, what's up? Is it...about what happened?" Deacon frowned in earnest, trying to read his friend's face. "Because I still don't feel weird about it, and if you were worried about some strange morning-after thing, I wasn't gonna act psycho or angry or anything, I don't..."
"No...nah," Mark began, plucking at his soggy t-shirt. "I wasn't worried about that, it doesn't feel weird to me either. I just...I was thinking about Marie and Sarah. They called a little while ago. Sarah said to tell you she loves you." Deacon fell silent and looked down at his feet and listened carefully as Mark continued. "This doesn't feel wrong, or awkward, at all - it feels way too right, actually. But we have other people to think about. What we're doing, it's still..."
"Cheating," Deacon finished quietly, looking up at Mark intensely. "I've thought about that too. But this...us...I wanted it so much last night that if I didn't act on what I felt, I'd be cheating myself." Deacon sighed softly and lay back down on the steps. "And I still want this... I think you do too." Deacon didn't seem to be addressing anybody, but Mark answered anyway.
"Yea, I do," Mark said decisively, "Now that I've had ...this...I don't want to give it up just because of what my mind says I should do. You were right, I'm sick of thinking before I act." Mark slapped at the water, glaring. "I don't want to hurt Marie, but I guess I want to have my cake and eat it too. I know I shouldn't throw away what I have with Marie in case this turns out to be..." Mark struggled to find an appropriate word, "...a phase. But I don't want to ignore what I feel for you just because we're not supposed to." Deacon rubbed his forehead and nodded slowly.
"If this whole fucked up situation was reversed," Deacon replied slowly, "and Sarah wanted to 'try' someone else behind my back just to see if it would work, I don't think I'd be very receptive." Mark bit his lower lip silently, preparing for rejection. "But no matter what we do here, someone is gonna end up getting hurt." Deacon paused in thought, squinting at the bright light bouncing off the water. Turning to look straight at Mark, Deacon continued. "Sarah and Marie are going to be gone for five weeks whether or not we carry on with this. I don't want to hurt them, but I don't want to resent them either. Everyone's fucked either way, so I reckon we might as well follow our..." Deacon smirked, his eyebrow raised, "...hearts and see where they take us." With that assertion, Deacon leant over to Mark and kissed him roughly. Mark responded eagerly, pulling Deacon nearer to him as they sank back into the shallow end of the pool.
Smoothing his hands under Mark's soaked t-shirt and lifting it up over Mark's head, Deacon flicked his tongue across his friend's lips, silently urging Mark to open his mouth. Using one hand to prop himself up with and the other to pull Deacon's face closer to his own, Mark returned the gesture and leant further into the passionate kiss. When Deacon suddenly reached down and began rubbing Mark's semi-hard crotch through his wet boxers, Mark's arm buckled beneath him. Not expecting the sudden and confident stimulation, Mark's upper body collapsed on top of his arm, and the back of his head hit the pool stairs with a wet thud.
