Dressed In Black

Awkward situations followed by awkward hugs

I woke up first. I had momentarily forgotten what had gone down the night before, until I saw that both of us were still very much naked. I sat up slowly so as not to disturb Zak. I grabbed my phone from the side table and laid on my stomach with my head facing the bottom of the bed. I scrolled through twitter for a bit, finding nothing particularly interesting. I didn't tweet very often except to promote the show, so it was quiet for me, notification wise. Suddenly I felt stirring from the top of the bed. I turned to see Zak stretching. He smiled when opened his eyes and saw me still in bed with him. God, this man's looks were unreal.

"Thought I dreamed last night, but damn your fantastic ass is real and still here." He kissed my butt as he came to lay next to me.

"C'mon now..."

"Hmm..." He hummed against my neck as he reached it. I shook my head and turned it to kiss him. I seriously couldn't believe that this was happening. I wouldn't have thought, even a week ago, that Zak and I would be doing whatever it was we were doing. Sure, I had started wanting it, but I didn't expect anything from it.

"Stop thinking so hard, Alli. Everything's fine." He took my one of my hands and kissed it, and then examined my thumb for a minute. "Yknow, your thumb-biting is adorable, but god your thumbs are torn up."

"Yeah. It's an old habit that I can't break at this point." I trailed off.

He got up and put his boxers on, tossing me a shirt. I slipped it on and layed back down on my stomach, laying my head on my arms. He came back and layed on his side next to me. We sat in silence for what had to be more than five minutes, only broken by a sigh from Zak.

"Your head is an animal. What are you thinking about?"

I shrugged my shoulders. I didn't want to be the one to bring it up-- I didn't want to ruin the mood we had set up in the last 24 hours, but it was going to torture me.

"Come on, Allison. Let me in."

"I just... what does this mean?"

"What does what mean?"

"You know. Zak, we had sex. That's... what does that mean for us?"

He kissed my cheek.

"Can we not talk about this right now? I just want to spend the day with you, stress free."

"We have to work today."

"Shhhh......" I couldn't help but smile at him. Next thing I knew, he was pushing the shirt up and planting kisses up my spine. I rolled my eyes and turned to kiss him. The shirt came off and...

____

I got out of his bed to take a shower, and was met with a curt smack to the ass as I passed him. I jumped and covered it, looking back at him.

"You've had me now, twice. Don't be naughty."

"Hard not to when you're walking around my room naked." He winked at me, and I turned to close the bathroom door, peeking out before i shut it all the way to look at him. He was an amazing looking man, and my head was reeling.

I looked in the mirror and gasped. My neck, shoulders, and chest had quite a few dark red marks.

"ZAK!"

"Oh no, I'm in trouble. What?"

I opened the door and pointed at the biggest one. "How old are you?" He shrugged.

"We have people coming over today! Zak, Aaron is coming over today."

"Whoops!" He shrugged and then laughed, showing just how little he minded. I groaned and shut the door. God he was making this incredibly more difficult than it needed to be.

I took a cold shower to try to get the bruising to go down a little bit. It wasn't promising, and i resorted to my mediocre makeup abilities. My cover job wasn't perfect, but it helped make them less noticeable at first glance. I walked out of the shower and found Zak asleep. I passed through the room and closed the door softly behind me, going to the room that was intended for me, and getting dressed. I picked the highest necked shirt I could find and put a sweatshirt over for good measure.

I normally wouldn;t mind so much, Of course, I was over 30 years old and I didn't need to be walking around with hickies on me. But right now, while we still hadn't talked about it, I didn't want all kinds of jokes to be flying around, or to make it awkward or complicated with the other guys.

I heard the doorbell ring and I hurried down the stairs to get it. It was Aaron. As I figured.

"Where's Zak?"

"Sleeping, I think." I tried to play it off, and luckily he seemed none the wiser. I was sweating a little bit, and I was praying to whatever that I wouldn't sweat my shitty cover-job makeup off. He hadn't looked at me too closely yet, and I thought I might be okay.

Until Zak came down the stairs in a short sleeved t-shirt, turned around, and I saw long red claw marks down the back of his arms. I threw my hand at my face and just hoped against all hope that Aaron didn't ask any questions.

"Long night?" Aaron asked, while he was setting up his computer. Zak gave me a sultry look and answered,

"Yeah, it was busy." Aaron looked up and cocked his eyebrow.

"You guys are being weird. I'm gonna work and pretend this isn't weird." When he turned around to go to the office, Zak pinched my butt. I whipped around and smacked his hand.

"What are you doing?" I whispered, my teeth clenched.

"I like seeing you squirm to cover it up. It's kinda hot."

"Well stop it, you jerk." I rolled my eyes and followed Aaron, my anxiety through the roof.

I sat so that Aaron would be between Zak and I- I didn't trust him to not fuck around while we were doing this. He was being way too frisky with Aaron here, especially right now. I was having some trouble focusing on work, because I couldn't stop thinking about what happened. It made me nervous for what was yet to come-- either a very uncomfortable conversation followed by a shitty ending, or a still very uncomfortable situation with a potentially less shitty ending. I knew what Zak was like, I'd been friends with him through many, many women. If I was expecting anything other than sex from this, I was the biggest idiot in the world.

Why did you fuck him? None of this would be bothering you.

It was fun and damn... he was good. Way better than Danny ever was. I shook my head-- gotta stop thinking about this. I had to fan my face to get the heat to subside.

"You okay over there, Allison?"

"Yeah Aaron, I'm cool."

"Alright." Zak looked up at me and smirked . Great, he knew.

We spent a few hours looking for locations and filling out paperwork. Zak and I had never really agreed on who was doing to due to... certain events, so we ended up just splitting it, though not without some email chat, tension filled fighting. The energy was off in the room, and I knew that all of us could feel it. Aaron left when we had finished, going to work on some art ideas that he had. I had to give it to him, he was creative and very passionate about the things that he liked. Especially if those things were Star Wars.

My phone beeped.

What the hell was with you and Zak today? It was weird as shit in there girl. -A

I threw my head back and whined. Zak looked up from his computer and screwed his face at me.

"Who was that?"

"Aaron, asking me what was up today. Somebody couldn't keep his hands to himself and it didn't go unnoticed."

"Sorry, I can't help it." He went back to what he was doing. I got up and walked over, pressing his laptop lid closed.

"We gotta talk about this, okay? Because I've been freaking out about it all day, and my anxiety is mounting to a point that if I don't get this off of my mind soon I'm going to lose it."

He kissed me instead, pulling me into his lap. So much for that idea, then.

___