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John undid the buttons of Paul’s trousers one by one, pulling them down along with the decade-old briefs. Paul remembers doing this in a hurry once, when they were kids, John pulling down his leather pants in one go; the chill of the room exposing the sudden nakedness of his groin and the strength of John’s grasp. None of that now. They’d grown soft about it somehow, the old fucks. Paul can’t even remember the last time they got really rough with it. Can’t even remember if he actually enjoyed it, the useless demonstrations of manhood. The reminder they were lads and not. Not.
Once his cock was pulled out of the fabric, John smirked - “well, hello little Paulie.”
“Oh, bugger off,” anyone else he’d be up and gone, embarrassed to death. Paul is embarrassed as he had gotten used to being around John, but he’s also fighting off a grin. Anyone else. “Like yer better off, you.”
There was a moment before he arrived, before they were both inside this hotel room, on top of this giant bed, where Paul thought they could be Lennon/McCartney again. They could both admit that this hotel room they weren’t telling their wives about was just a ploy to write together again. They just needed the quiet, the familiarity of a foreign hotel room where they could pick each other’s brains apart for words and music and meaning. They would sit down on that little table by the window, maybe even by the bed where it was more comfortable, and they were going to write, laugh, write, then do it all over again, with feeling. It would be Paul’s best bloody evening in a long time. And then they would be okay.
Paul even brought his guitar. Silly boy.
But then he unlocked the door and saw John look up at him from a newspaper. No guitar in sight. He almost felt ashamed of bringing his own, then. “What’s your game, man?” John used to spit at him over the phone. There was no game , he would tell him. But that was only true when it was said with an ocean between them.
“Hello,” he smiled at Paul. Not the tight one he had plastered to his face at the studio earlier. This was his John. Always there with a smile. “Was starting to think you wouldn’t show.”
He noticed John was barefoot. There was no game now. Just John and Paul. John, and Paul. He set his guitar down.
“No, I —" God, he had forgotten how to do this. How to play on the same key as John, how to make every conversation feel like a melody. Why does it always have to be a song? You’re just two men inside a hotel room. “I wouldn’t stand you up.”
“Hm,” John briefly redirected his attention back to the papers but thought better of it, looking back at Paul atop of his new glasses. “Wouldn’t be the first time, would it?”
“No, it wouldn’t,” Paul replied with a sharp smirk, but there was no real bite to it. Even their endless resentment wasn’t as interesting when they were just two men inside a hotel room. “Could say the same, couldn’t I, love?”
John’s radiant beam sent a shock of warmth through Paul; it almost felt like summer arrived early. Like it was July instead of February. Like he was 15 instead of 38. Or perhaps 19. Maybe 22. Or 25. Instead of old, oh, so old.
It was almost disappointing then, when John started kissing him and fumbling with his buttons. The possibilities of everything they once did together, the friends they used to be, all dissolving dissolving as the hands – Christ , those fucking hands – working on his jeans brought the aching sharpness in his groin into focus. So it’s going to be sex – lovely, more than. But less than a song.
The handjob that followed set the tone for the evening, with a predictable untangling of arms and legs, the stripping of Paul’s shirt, John’s sweater and corduroys, Paul’s socks (which John always made sure to remove himself while carefully cradling the sole of Paul’s feet, who couldn’t say he minded it at all), and John’s “just bought it, unlike you, you pig” underwear.
John started hovering over him but Paul wanted to take a beat to appreciate his naked, impossibly freckled, and slightly tanned body. So, last year did him good. That’s good. Paul is happy for him. More than. Another summer spent apart did John good.
He shakes the thought off. As Paul set about to touch that lovely, just lovely , waist, John jerked away from his touch with an usual feline-like precision.
“Wait, wait.” He stood up and Paul knew instantly he would close the blinds. It was early still, about six o’clock in the evening, but the streetlights were quickly making their presence known. They never used to care about the light coming in, maybe from all the afternoons at Forthlin Road, or those early mornings in Paris. The sunlight reflected on John’s back and Paul never wanted to kiss anything more, before or since. Like a flower to the sun.
As quickly as he left, John nearly jumped back on top of Paul before he managed to grab his waist (finally) and stop him. “Wait.”
John shot him a confused look, “What now? Don’t fucking tell me you’re jumping ship or—"
“No, shh,” Paul raised a finger to his lips and smirked. John did it too, as if a reflex. You two are like mirrors of each other, Linda had said. “I just want to look at you.”
John always said he was a narcissistic bastard anyhow.
When John showed Paul his naughty little stories in his tiny bedroom at Mendips, “to toss one off, you know? With a larf and all. ”That was the moment that Paul realised he never could really write about sex. He could draw naked birds, show them off for the boys, get home and get off. Christ, at twelve curved pencil lines were enough to get him going (sometimes still are, depending on how many times he and Linda made it that month).
But putting it into words… No, that was hard. He could visualise John’s smirk at his use of the word in his mind as if he could read into Paul’s mind. He was a visual person. John does the lyrics, Paul does the music, and all that bullshit. There is a twinge of truth in every myth, after all.
So, when John called him at two in the morning─on Boxing Day of all days─and told Paul that he had been writing about them, Paul’s heart felt like skipping enough beats to have him gagged a little. Oh, he tried to keep the thrill only John could give him off his voice, really? What’s the song like?
A tired sigh was his response. It’s not a song, Paul.
Oh. Okay. Silence. What is it then?
I’m writing about us. In Paris, you know.
If he was expecting anything, it was not that.
Before he could muster the courage to ask John to read it for me, then, he interrupted Paul, saying it's not ready.
John couldn’t see his furrowed brows, so it came out as a why would you tell me about it, then?
I don’t know, he imagined John twirling the phone cord, just felt like I should mention it.
Oh, but Paul knew. Was he really trying to get Paul to write about it too? To write a naughty story about them? What is there to write about anyway? he asked before realising he said it out loud and winced.
John, thankfully, took mercy on him and laughed. Well, Paul. Paris, for one.
Paul had wanted to say he didn’t remember Paris because he didn’t like the direction the conversation was going. But of course that would have been an ugly lie. Besides, he had never been very good at lying to John, even without those hawkish eyes piercing through him.
John obviously looked different from how he had looked in Paris; they both did, twenty years and all. Paul didn’t know whether to miss the teenage stamina or to be thankful they were still here, in a cheap (well, cheaper than what The Beatles were accustomed to, certainly) hotel, smiling into each other’s lips, with their whole lives ahead of them. Only John could make him feel that way: Impossibly, desperately young and with miles of road ahead of them. Even as the last decade proved him otherwise.
John still had a body that made Paul want to climb over and tear him apart just the same; the sweat that dripped from his nape to his torso still made Paul’s mouth feel drier than a two-hour concert. He still carried his shoulders a little hunched – like a real Teddy might still hit him on the head; though his frail appearance doesn’t give any signs of fighting back like it did at 21.
And although narrower, John’s face still looks like nothing on earth. Really, Paul could never figure it out, his face. From Forthlin to Hamburg to EMI, his sketches of John never looked the same. When Paul thinks he’s finally got it, gets the nose and the lips, the jawline and the fringe, John moved his face a little and he had to start all over again.
He used to find it exciting; looking at someone and never getting sick of them, the planes and rough edges of their face, like an enigma that was solely his to figure out. Oddly enough, he also used to think that’s how he was supposed to feel about his future spouse, the one who was made for him. And he was right ; but the fact John was his point reference always made him a bit uncomfortable (It’s fine, he doesn’t think about it. Doesn’t allow himself to).
Sometimes John looked as intact as a living sculpture under sunlight, where he belonged. Sometimes he looked like a character from Hollywood Babylon. And when Paul wasn’t really looking, when his face was merely a series of recollections of the man standing an ocean away, John could look like anything. A beast, a child, a father, a brother. Anything.
“Come ‘ead.”
He noticed John’s jaw tense slightly, and Paul wished he had drank enough to be more sentimental. But it was for the better; it had never, even when they were practically under the same skin, felt safe enough to drop all defences around John. He knows—they both know it’s for the better.
John kneeled over his torso. Paul’s sudden dominance had made him wary for a moment, so when he took John in his mouth, he felt his cock grow and the sensation was somehow both foreign and achingly familiar─the pulsations making Paul’s heart work at the same beat as John’s cock─with every inch of it sending Paul backwards to accept more. He felt the peculiar want to compliment John on the shape of it: The foreskin pulled back gave his tongue a nice, velvety sensation, and the thickness was nice enough (Perfect, really) so Paul would have his mouthful and his cheeks wouldn’t work overtime.
Of course, the fact he was even thinking about it made him feel strange, so he focused on sucking and tightening the grip on John’s arse─no longer that full and generous but still as soft as a pillow.
He felt a strong pull on his scalp and opened his eyes to set his head back enough to look up at the man before him. God, John. Paul tried to figure the scene out. Look at me while you blow me. You can’t dismiss it by saying you were lost in a trance, by pretending you are not you, that I am not me.
“You just hate the truth looking you dead in the eye, pardner,” John had told him in one of their worst fights. And he was right. John is always right when it comes to Paul, it seems.
Fine. So he looked at him, and immediately it was too much. Yet John didn’t seem to think so, keeping his mouth open as he looked down at Paul, his Paul, sucking his cock. Paul knew the feeling all too well, which managed to calm him down somewhat, though the same couldn’t be said for the aching feeling in his own dick.
He closed his eyes to swallow the precum while also giving the tip a soft, yet firm suck. When John audibly moaned, tipping his head back to reveal his glorious neck, Paul could keep on at it. For all his pretence, John could never disagree with Paul’s escape clause.
“God… wait, stop, stop!” The roughness in John’s voice made him back off.
“What is it?” His own voice sounded as rough as though Paul was an entirely different man. And although the last thing Paul wanted right now was to have an argument of any kind, there was no mistaking his rather frustrated tone. He’d never admit it, but he could feel John was close and had wanted him to come in Paul’s mouth. To swallow him down.
“Get on ‘yer knees.”
Oh. Paul couldn’t pretend getting fucked was what he wanted so soon, not with the aftertaste of John’s cock in his mouth, but he couldn’t say he hadn’t missed it desperately. The feeling of John’s firm hands on either side of his hip made him feel more in touch with himself, with John , than any fucking drug on earth.
(He once tried to tell John that, but he wouldn’t hear it. He only wanted more, more, more.)
Though. When Paul felt John’s tongue in his ass, just the tip of it, the moan that escaped his throat was not unlike what he imagined he’d sound like if all the masseurs in the world were bending every bone in his body. Jesus fuck, John. What could get you higher than this?
Paul could only hope that the nearly violent way he was stroking himself was enough of an invitation for John to just keep at it. If Paul could only take his mind off the tongue inside him, he would be able to feel John’s death grip on his thighs and the brush of his nose against his ass. John’s tongue in his ass felt more intimate than a cock anywhere; Paul felt the sensation inside his groin, in his knees and nipples and wrists. He couldn’t stop the lazy grin that formed as he tried to slow down the work at his cock.
Everywhere, John. You’re everywhere.
Paul had the wildest, most thrilling sensation of being in a porno flick (Oh, but what he wouldn’t give to see footage of this), or one of the sex ads in the gay magazine he furtively read through at Danny Fields’ place last week.
Bottom (Your prisoner and Toy) wants Top (Father, Cowboy, Coach, Cop). 29-34? Small waist. Delicious tongue worshipper. Lean back and watch yr hot rod get super done, Sir. Don’t any of you long poles want to be shucked down and get some down-home Fr.? EXHIBITIONISM, facesitting, Close Encounters in Paris.
He couldn’t imagine it then, making it with those men. What would he even do? His mind went blank and so he thought, with a sincere wave of relief, that he could never be a real queer if he couldn’t imagine riding some faceless man’s long pole, and sitting on his faceless face as his speechless tongue was inside him and. Well. And then he got a hard-on. That was a fun night with Linda, he thinks, rather uselessly by now.
(When she started to make her way down his cock, knowing all the places to kiss before getting on with it, Paul had the most insane impulse to ask her to lick him there. But he couldn’t. Linda’s presence always forced him to be present as well, even when they smoked, and with Paul and all of his senses in the room…He just couldn’t. He couldn’t ask her. It wasn’t an option.)
The strong hands on his thighs pressed on sharp enough to bruise and before he could do anything about it, they had pulled him backwards and rolled him around until Paul was on his back, staring breathlessly at the wicked, if not slightly dazed, grin in front of him. As always, John hovered over him with the grace of a hawk hunting for prey.
Paul was afraid he’d never be drunk enough to say it out loud, but he would let John have him. Consume him. Meat and bones and all. It felt right. Like something they were working towards all along.
(God, he was sick. John made him sick. How could such a sweet boy make him feel that way? Grotesque? Desired? A meal waiting to be feasted upon. Well, that’s John.)
“Knew I’d lost you there, cowboy,” John breathed, and although his tone was warm and lightheaded, Paul felt ashamed to lose himself in thought when they were fucking. When they were touching. He had already learned the hard way, that to be with John was to be with John. And to be with John, he had to give up a part of himself, perhaps his entire front cortex. Not thinking, not being inside his own mind, was something he both dreaded and longed for in equal measure.
And he knew he could do it, he had done it before. He could do it for John.
(Paul has a long-held fear that maybe, just maybe, there was a time when being with John didn’t mean having to give up anything. Maybe giving his mind a little rest while John had him, but John liked it when Paul, all of Paul, was there too.
He didn’t allow himself to hope for such times again.)
“Well, pardon, Monsieur. I was thinking of this,” pulling John by the neck and kissing him, really kissing him for the first time that night, tasting the hot saliva that travelled from John’s tongue down Paul’s throat, feeling the vibration of the groans coming from deep down John; it made Paul feel all-mighty. He felt more powerful than hitting #1, and more ─ Well, just as powerful as making a stadium filled with thousands of men and women scream, and scream all for him.
His hands drifted to John’s ass, his mouth to his ear. “Lay down, now. Go on.”
And John obeyed him. Little kitten, he is. Paul smirked to himself as he licked his way down John’s lower belly, his hairless and endless legs, his bony and yet majestic feet, tonguing between his toes. John was screaming all for him, too.
“Paul, Paul, God, Paul, oh!” He held John down with both hands on his hips, fingers digging into the soft skin of his arse. “Shh, baby, just finishing what I started, ‘s all.”
Paul would never get over this, he thought with a fondness that lasted decades. Still keeping one hand gripped tight on John’s hip, he moved his other one to shift back on the foreskin and gave the tip a little lick.
“Jesus, Paul, I’ll kill you,” the threat came out breathless and exasperated, but the grin on John’s face was unmistakable.
In lieu of responding, Paul licked his lips and let them slide over the head and down the shaft. Fondling with John’s balls in the way he liked to be held himself (One positive about being John’s Paul, was that their tastes were the same; whatever got Paul off got John off, and vice versa), Paul tried to get the gist of it back again. Feeling the pre-cum fill up on his tongue, he slid it back up slowly, but not without giving the dripping tip a little teeth.
John’s screams and curses were the best thing Paul had heard from him in a while. Before letting his pride take over before he actually did anything worth it, Paul took a deep breath on John’s scent and set to work on the pulsating member in front of him. As he swallowed as much as he could, it briefly occurred to him that sucking cock really was like riding a bicycle.
Of course, not even Paul’s ego─or John’s sincerity─would allow himself the claim to be the world’s best cocksucker. He wasn’t even sure that would be a title he’d like to claim. No, definitely not a title he was interested in. Regardless, he was a pro at sucking John off, and that was more than enough for him (and John would say the same).
As his mouth filled with a mix of saliva and pre-cum, Paul breathed through his nose and swallowed as much of John as he could take and tried to find John’s eyes as he visibly gagged on it, the way John liked it, as his eyes filled with tears. Before could find them, he felt John’s fingernails sneaking into his scalp, his firm and yet gentle pull slowly sliding Paul up his shaft while he was still sucking on it.
“My god, Paul. You, you─” John ceased speaking, as if overwhelmed by the sight of Paul on him. And wasn’t that all Paul ever wanted. He moaned and the sound vibrated through John’s cock.
“Fuck!” John broke eye contact to stare breathlessly at the ceiling and Paul knew it was all too much because he felt it too. All he needed was to stroke himself, so he slid his hands down the mattress to where his cock met the bed sheets at the same time as John, still not looking at him, thickened his voice and said, “Touch yourself, Paulie.”
He didn’t have to after all, it was all too fast. All he could remember was humping the bed sheets to completion as John’s come shot down his throat; the taste so John , so him, that Paul couldn’t help feel a strange sort of pride at holding a bit of his best mate inside his own body.
(There is a faraway memory of Paris, of swallowing it for the first time, before John did, of hearing John say “you don’t have to” even as the gape in his mouth told Paul otherwise, of him tasting the bitterness with a smile and replying “I don’t mind”, and of John just pulling him by the armpits and kissing ‘im, tasting himself in his lover’s mouth.)
“You hungry?”
Paul returned to the present to see he had already been dragged to lay his head in one of the pillows, opening his eyes to meet John’s tender inquiring gaze as he raked his hand through Paul’s miserably greying hair. It was almost dinner time. Linda was likely setting the table by now.
“Nah.” he lied and stretched. Christ , he wasn’t nearly as flexible as 20, was he. “Wouldn’t mind some tea, though.”
“Coming up.” John grinned, turning to sit on the edge of the bed and call room service. Paul didn’t want to know what possible fake name he could have used to check-in, but could only hope no employee raised any eyebrows at the man who wore sunglasses inside and sounded strangely like John Lennon when he came in.
Paul turned on the lamp by the side of his bed then turned to stare at the freckled back ordering some tea, biscuits and coffee. “Coffee, huh?”
John put the phone down and crawled to the nest by Paul’s side. He always felt strangely paternal towards John at times like this; he’d never ask, but nonetheless wondered if John felt the same towards him.
“Yes, Paul, I prefer coffee now. Got a problem with it?”
There it was. He sighed. “No, Johnny, it was just a question.”
“Hm.” He made curls out of Paul’s chest hair as Paul ran his fingers through John’s scalp. “Well, I’ll drink some tea with you. I can go both ways, y’know?”
Paul chuckled. “Yes, Johnny, I know.”
They started making out, kissing and touching and kissing, and Paul had the tranquil realisation that he could do this forever, so he said do.
“Me too,” John replied hotly against his lips. “I could do this,” he said, kissing Paul’s neck, “and this,” kissing the warm spot behind Paul’s ear, “and this,” kissing Paul’s nipples, “ forever. Easily.”
Paul felt his cock twitch enthusiastically in response, but room service arrived before anything could be done about it.
While John removed his trousers and settled back in bed with their tea and biscuits - and, sure, coffee - and went on a full mouthed rant about how impossible it is to get any decent black pudding in America and about how much coffee stinks in England, Paul understood there was no two ways around it, he loved John.
“What is it?” John asked between bites of his precious, precious pudding. “Got something in me face?”
Well, Paul supposed the embarrassing feeling of his melting eyes wasn’t as good as an ‘I love you, John ’.
“Nothin’, Johnny. You’ve got a funny face, that’s all.”
John pushed him playfully on the shoulder, making the silver tray nearly tip over on the sticky, soon unusable, white sheets. Paul laughed.
“Ah!” John slapped on his thighs and set his hands to his waist in a mock reprimand. Such a Mimi’s boy. Paul could only laugh harder. “Now look at the mess you’ve made me done, boy! Nearly got me goolies baked, you!”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Mrs. Slocombe, it was far from my intention to harm your priceless pussy, honest!”
“Oh, you dirty pest!” And while he could imagine a much younger John tossing a tray dramatically off the bed, teacups an’ all, the one in front of him stopped in the middle of a bit to gently set the platter on the floor next to him. Paul stared silently at him before getting jumped on, knees and all.
“Oi!” He exclaimed while moving John’s legs to his sides, “I’m not 18 anymore, y’know”.
“Really?” John dropped his voice to a whisper as he tongued his ear and rained kisses down Paul’s neck and cheek, “but, why, you’re still such a good boy for me.”
Fuck, not this, Paul could barely think to protest as his hips, obviously betraying him, arched up to meet John’s.
“Aren’t you, Paul?” John slid down and started testing Paul’s prostate with one, then two of his fingers up to the knuckles, “My good boy?”
“Yes, Johnny,” Paul gasped while grasping at his shoulder and soft, velvety hair, needing to touch all of his skin at once, “‘m you boy.”
John tongued his nipples until they were as hard as his prick, giving it little bites that Paul accepted resistingly, licking around the ears inside the head, his curls of auburn hair a county line for a tongue going out of town, down the backbone, pause, a kiss, pause, testing the asshole (“God, did you clean yourself, for me, tidy boy?”) by tapping with the slightest pressure, knocking again and again to produce a moan, the streaming backward, the mutual gasp of his dick going in.
“Jesus, Paul, baby,” he breathed out with one hand gripping firmly at Paul’s waist, the other seemed to meditate on the wideness of Paul’s shoulders, the power of his chest.
“Yeah, love, I know.” Shit, if Paul didn’t feel like basking under the fucking sun. Having John’s attention, his eyes, his hands, his cock…It was almost too much. Almost.
There was no way around it, John loved him. Just like Paul loved him. It was plain to see in the steadiness of his gaze. So firm, so attentive, so tender. As if Paul was the most precious thing in the universe. Nothing else mattered, not really, but Paul. He felt abashed; Paul hadn’t been loved that way in years. He wanted to fold himself into it.
As he got closer and closer, he stopped thinking. There, that sweet, sweet spot between the world of the living and the dead. He can vaguely register his grip on John’s strengthening to the point of inevitable pain, matched with John’s brutal thrusts and loud, unashamed screams that could’ve been anyone’s, dead or alive’s; when John fucks him, it doesn’t matter.
Paul dozed. In his sleep, troubling images: He’s on top of a pyramid. An Aztec priest holds a stone knife in one hand and in the other he lifts the still breathing heart above its former home, a naked warrior, whose lower back balances on a cock-shaped sacrificial stone. He’s held by half-naked priests at the hands and feet, his body still spasming and arching. He’s got the vaguest sense of seeing it in one of Mary’s textbooks, though there were no undressed people in it. Or hard cocks.
Paul slowly opens his eyes and the guilt of not being home hits him all at once. Tries to cool it out. It’s okay, I’ve told Linda, reasons with himself. But he hasn’t done this all that much in the last decade, and when he did, he would always be home before the sun came up. Sleeping next to Linda was always warmer than any lay, anyway.
But this wasn’t any lay, was it? This was John, in nameless hotel room #2. So, really, in a way, it didn’t even count. He breathes out. It’s okay.
The other side of the bed is empty so he turns on his side to find John, again, sitting at the table by the window, with the lamp next to him lighting that concentrated look on his face in the most exquisite way. His legs are drawn to his chest as he holds a book with both his hands, a title that Paul can’t quite make out.
John notices his movements and smiles, “Oh, hullo, princess. You looked fit for the knacker’s yard, you.”
Paul yawns as if to accentuate the point. “Yeah, ‘m a bit doozy. What ‘ye reading?”
“This vampire book, by Anne Rice.”
“Interview with the Vampire?”
“You’ve read it?”
“Nah,” he stretches and doesn’t have it in him to feel embarrassed by the cracks all over his body, “but I bought it for Heather last Christmas, I think.”
“It’s great. Don’t know why it took me so long to read it.”
“Hm.” Paul breathes in as John focuses on the book. He feels weightless here, in this 4-star hotel with his former fiancé watching over him. It had been so, so long. “Johnny?”
“Hum?” he asks, though his eyes won’t leave the page.
“Read me a bit, will you?
“‘Corse, love.”
He goes back a few pages and starts: “Never had I felt this, never had I experienced it, this yielding of a conscious mortal. But before I could push him away for his own sake, I saw the bluish bruise on his tender neck. He was offering it to me. He was pressing the length of his body against me now, and I felt the hard strength of his sex beneath his clothes pressing against my leg. A wretched gasp escaped my lips, but he bent close, his lips on what must have been so cold, so lifeless for him; and I sank my teeth into his skin, my body rigid, that hard sex driving against me, and I lifted him in passion off the floor. Wave after wave of his beating heart passed into me as, weightless, I rocked with him, devouring him, his ecstasy, his conscious pleasure.”
As Paul went quiet, John inquired with a crooked smile, “So, did you like it?
He pondered, “What kind of interview is that?”
John roared with laughter, “I know, right?! I had no clue it was a queer one, but Starman told me I should try it because it was right up me alley. Should’ve known, huh?”
The mention of Bowie was enough to set an uneasy line upon Paul’s shoulders. “Does Bowie know you’re bent, then?”
John rolled his eyes. “Come on, Paul. ‘Course he does. I told you.”
“No, you didn’t!”
“Yes, I did. Back in ‘74, remember?”
Paul huffed. “No, John, I don’t remember,” letting out a humourless laugh. “We were cooked out, remember? All of us. Surprised you have any memories left at all.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” John inquired, finally starting to become frustrated with the direction of this conversation.
The condescending little laugh escaped his mouth before Paul could do anything about it. “Nothing, John. It means nothing.”
“Sure sounds like it means some thing.”
Breathe in, Paul told himself, breathe out. He forgot. He forgot how to deal with an angry John. Sure, there had been outrageous phone calls over the last decade, but the flawless technique of it ─ the art of dealing with John’s moods…Was lost on him.
Lost.
He’d just have to figure it out all over again.