Con Brio: Todd and Ian's story

3) Todd

Todd turns back around and sits back down. Ian has his eyes closed, his face turned away towards the window, and Todd's heart skips another beat. Is he okay? He's not spiraling, is he? His sweatshirt is in his lap. Is he cold?
He shakes his head and looks down, deals the cards again in case Ian wakes up, but he keeps his eyes shut for the moment. Todd sighs. God, flying is boring. After a while he turns around to talk to Brett and Eddy, but the second he does he can see them lovebirding. He almost laughs when he catches that they're both hard, too. Yup. Figures. He turns around and sits back down before they notice him. He's half and half surprised those boys are not walking off to the toilet together to become members of the mile high club.
But then of course, they're way too good for that. It's not in their systems to break the rules. Now Todd, on the other hand, is a member already, of course. What was his name again? God, he could suck well. Frank, he thinks his name was, now that he thinks about it. Not that the others know anything about him. Not that it will ever happen again, anyway.
He's a monk, now. Completely celibate.

"Cards?" Ian asks softly beside him, and he can't help it, he lights up.
"Absolutely."

----

Whoa, Taipei is overwhelming. It's busy, people everywhere, and the air is different, full of other scents. He follows Brett and Eddy a bit dazedly to a taxi driver, who is leaning against his cab, looking at them expectantly.
"Eddy Chen?" he asks, and Eddy nods and fires a whole bunch of Chinese at the guy.
Todd guesses from the gestures that they can load their shit into the booth. He also guesses Brett and Eddy will want a bit of alone time, before they go exploring. He's hungry, though. It's already dinner time in Australia. He sits in the back of the cab and looks out at the busy street.

More Chinese, as Eddy talks to the receptionist at the hotel, who is clearly all over him. She's batting her eyelids, ogling his torso, her lips slightly parted. He almost bursts out laughing but catches himself.
Flirting works the same in any language, right? Still, she gives Eddy some keycards and bats her eyes at him once more. Eddy is completely oblivious, of course. No shock there. He is the most innocent guy in the history of the planet, after all. It's part of his charm, Todd guesses.
"Well, she was subtle about it." he can't help but remark as they step into a lift that's pretty much as over the top Asian as the lounge just was. Ian grins as he presses the button for the second floor, but Eddy just shakes his head and rolls his eyes.
"Fuck off, Todd. She didn't like me, she was just being friendly."
"Yep, sure, and my name is Frank."
"Okay, Frank, here's your fucking key card."
Todd grins and takes it. The lift doors are open already, and he walks into the hallway to find their rooms. The key card he's holding says they're in 223.
"So, are we going to get some food first? I'm starving." he says half jokingly, then scolds himself as Eddy's face falls. God, what a knob he is. "Or, on second thought, maybe we should freshen up first?" he relents.
"Yeah." Brett answers with a look at Eddy that could start wet logs burning. "We could go to dinner in half an hour or so?"
"Ok, sure, see you then." he says. And for a moment he thinks about teasing them a bit, telling them to have fun. But he's been enough of a knob, no? So he simply turns around and opens the door to room 223.

How could he even begin to tell those boys how jealous he is of them? They have love, they have the real thing. Something he had never even aspired to, until it fell out of the sky and hit him over the head. Completely blindsided him. It's just that now he happens to be the idiot who fell in love with his best friend, with the straight guy, and who made everything worse for himself and for the rest of them. He walks into the room, puts his stuff down and tries not to think about Brett and Eddy anymore, as Ian instantly walks into the bathroom and locks the door behind him. Todd lets himself fall on the bed and sighs.