"So," Joey said, and waited.
"So," Lance said.
Waiting didn't work, so Joey said, "So, you got news?"
"No," Lance said. It was almost five in the morning in Russia, and somehow he'd lost the ability
to calculate the time difference. It was...some other time in New York, some normal time. Lance
put his phone on the pillow and laid down beside it. "Not really, no."
"Oh. So...how are you?"
Hungry, Lance thought. Horny. Pissed off. Tired. "All this free time all of a sudden," he said.
"I don't even know what to do with myself."
"Come home."
Joey's answer to everything. "I'm, uh. You know, I've been in Russia for -- what? -- about a
century now, and I haven't really seen anything. I thought I might go see St. Petersburg;
everyone says it's incredible. The winter palace...."
"Don't you fucking brood."
"I'm not brooding," said Lance, who had not been out of his hotel room for sixteen hours.
"Brooding doesn't make you feel better; it makes you feel worse."
"Thanks, Dad. I'm not brooding. I'm thinking about traveling. That's good for you."
"I'm better for you."
Lance laughed, and it hurt, possibly because he hadn't done as much of it lately as he probably
should. "You're so not."
"Hey!"
He sounded so hurt that Lance had to tell the truth. Fuck it all, anyway. "I need to get my mind
off of things, and you'd want to cheer me up, and we'd end up in bed."
Joey laughed. Such an odd giggle, from such a big, solid man. Joey. Lance twisted his fingertips
into his pillowcase until he could feel them growing hot and stiff from the reduced circulation.
"We wouldn't," Joey assured him. "God, it's been forever. I think this breakup finally took."
It had been a year and a half. "You'd kick me out of bed, in my heartbroken condition?" Lance
teased. Sort of teased.
"Come home," Joey said. "What's the hold-up? We miss you, man."
They did, Lance was sure. But they pitied him, too. In a few weeks, things would seem different.
It would be like coming home, instead of like being forced out of Russia with his tail between his
legs. "Even if I skip St. Petersburg...you know, I should probably go see my parents."
"Oh. Yeah. Well. If you change your mind...."
"Quit being so fucking accommodating." Joey and his awkward, awed silences. Joey never had
known what to say when things got hard. Just how to hold him.
"Okay. Come to New York, you asshole. You know you want to."
Lance rolled over to face the window, and the sky. Which way was he looking? He didn't have a
good view from this angle, not enough to recognize any constellations. He'd spent so much of
the last few months in transit, back and forth between Star City and Houston and New York and
Mississippi and Orlando. So why did it feel, after all that traveling, that he'd been standing in
place all along, and why did it feel like such a daunting prospect, to make that last trip home?
Because it was the last trip, he supposed. Because after this -- well, he could go anywhere he
wanted. He could even come back to Russia. But there would be nothing here waiting for him
when he landed.
"You're busy anyway," Lance hedged.
"So I'll fob you off on Justin. He's doing TRL tomorrow, so he'll be here...sometime. I don't
know; he was supposed to leave a message for me to let me know when he was getting into town,
but he hasn't yet. Anyway, Justin's coming, and we're supposed to go out tomorrow after the
show, so he can't have plans for the evening. Not interesting ones, anyway. He can take you to
dinner or something."
"I'm sure he'd love you settling his schedule for him."
"Please. Justin's taking this whole thing worse than you are. You should hang out with him just
to prove that you're not, like, totally damaged or whatever."
"I'm fine."
"Don't even try to tell me you're not down."
"Well, of *course* I'm *down,* Joey. Jesus Christ. I just wasted months of my vacation so that
a carton of, I don't know, kumquats or ratchet wrenches or whatever can go into space instead of
me. How am I supposed to feel about that?"
"And you know how he is. He thinks people that make you sad spend eternity in hell, and trust
me on this, I speak from experience."
"You don't think they do?" Lance chuckled.
Joey snorted. "Listen, amigo. Say the word, and people that make you sad can spend forty-eight
hours in the ICU. I know some people who know some people."
"Uh. Thanks, I think. Unless you've just made me an accessory to something, in which case,
thanks for nothing."
"Come home, you stubborn bastard. Don't even make me go put Bri on the phone."
"You wouldn't."
"I'm a desperate man."
"I'll come," Lance said, moving his half-full glass of water on the night stand to try to capture the
smattered reflection of stars in the dark glass. "Since you'll stop at nothing to manipulate me into
doing this your way."
"Better believe it," Joey said, without apology. "You'll be thanking me by the time you land."
*
///It's just like a movie. *Picture this,* Lance tells himself, knowing it doesn't make sense,
knowing that he's bombed on tequila slammers and jetlagged six ways from Sunday so that he
can't even fathom what time of the night it really is.
*Picture this,* he tells himself. *Establishing shot. Exterior, night.*
It's a balcony, and he is anybody. Any man, the Everyman. You are in costume, JC told him
when he said, But y'all have costumes, and what am I supposed to wear? You're Brad. Brad's
just a guy.
JC is inside, behind the sliding glass. He is still wearing fishnet stockings and high heels, and on
JC, it's not so remarkable. He still smiles the same way, those smiles that come all the way up
from the South Pole. He's not exotic or mysterious. He's *JC.* He's just JC in drag.
Justin has put on a t-shirt and baggy jeans -- they might be Joey's jeans, and how funny would
that be? how nauseating and wrong, but funny, too? -- but Justin is glassy-eyed and single-
minded, and he's not thinking right. He left the bra on, and Lance can see its outline through the
white shirt.
Justin is the superstar, and Lance is the everyman. How much simpler can he make it?
No, no, Chris told him when he said, You have to be fucking kidding me. This is the fun part.
This is the *experience.* Then JC called him a Rocky Horror virgin and laughed his giddy, hyena
giggle, and Justin started to sing.
*Touch me, touch me, touch me, touch me, creature of the night!*
"Okay, Lance," Justin says. His voice is too thin to be that solid, like the cables of suspension
bridges. "Now is when you have to say something."
It's like a movie, somehow. New York is spread out underneath him, and they say that if Lance
can make it there, he can make it anywhere. The sky is spread out above him, and he's coping
just fine, but he still can't look up. He's the everyman, and it's the last reel, and Justin in drag is
exotic and wild and unpredictable, just like Justin every other way, every possible way and all the
time.
"I can't," Lance says, and then he says, "You're such a shit. You really -- Just go to hell,
Justin."///
*
"Dude, who do you have to know to get backstage around here?"
"Hey, this is Broadway, baby. It ain't some two-bit shopping mall operation." Joey swiveled
around in his makeup chair and held out both hands for his daughter. Justin held her the same
way Kelly did, wrapped under one arm and balanced on his hip. "How's my two favorite spoiled
princesses?"
"Hey, keep that up and you can't have my girlfriend back." But Justin handed her over anyway,
and Joey tugged affectionately on the drawstring of Justin's hooded sweatshirt as Brianna
squirmed into a comfortable position, balled up on his lap. "We went to Central Park and fed the
ducks. She tried to strangle one. You really get your own dressing room?"
"What are you trying to say, I don't deserve my own dressing room?"
"I never got one on tour, and I'm twice the superstar you are."
"You never got a private dressing room because too many people liked watching you change
clothes, sugar baby."
Justin hopped up on the counter and picked up a flat tin of something, sniffing at it. "So this is
the smell of the greasepaint, huh? Smells pretty much like regular makeup."
"But the crowd roars instead of screams. Thanks for bringing her by."
"We were in the neighborhood. I'm going to get her some ice cream next; you know, get her all
hopped up on sugar, then take her back to Kelly. What about us, we still kicking it tonight?"
"Uh, yes and no. We have plans. Lance is on his way, and-- "
He came off the counter and fell immediately into pacing. "Tell me you're screwing with me."
"No, he's on a plane this very minute, and-- "
"Joey! *Warn* a brother!"
"I'm warning you now. You got about four and a half hours, and then we're meeting Lance at his
hotel."
"You asshole."
Joey smiled at him, the same angelic smile that was on Brianna's face. "T-minus, Timberlake.
You got your speech ready?"
"I am *not* doing this tonight. There's -- there's just no fucking way, no. Joey, I need -- more
time, I'm not ready, and -- shit, I've got too much going on right now to think about this."
"I knew you'd pussy out."
Brianna's short fingers gripped the braided leather bracelet on Joey's wrist; she tried to chew on
it, but only managed to suck on Joey's hand. Joey stroked her black, perfectly straight hair, and
she stopped and looked up at him. "Daddy, birdie," she said, and then said, "Daddy!" again,
urgently, as if worried that he wasn't listening to her. Like he could ever hear anything else when
she was talking. She pointed at Justin and said, "Birdie. Birdie. Nice, pretty."
"Yeah, he's a pretty birdie," Joey said, and smacked a kiss down on top of her head.
"I think she's trying to tell you about the ducks."
Ignoring him, Joey said, "But he's still just a big chicken."
"Look, I'm not pussying out. I just need to not do it...right *now.*"
"You said when he came back."
"I said when he came back from *space.* Which was going to be way later, after the album
dropped, and -- and, just -- Look, technically, he may never come back from space."
"What does Chicken say?" Joey asked his daughter. "Can you say what Chicken says?"
"Quack quack!" Brianna said.
"You can forget it, Fatone. You better find some other way to get your jollies tonight, cause I
ain't playing like this." Joey nodded innocently. He kissed Brianna again and handed her back up
to Justin. "I'm not," Justin insisted.
"Be here after the show."
"I'm not."
"Okay, but you're still coming to the hotel with me. I promised to deliver you, and I'm going to."
On his way out the door, Justin half-turned, catching Joey's eye in the large mirror on the wall.
"You know, I remember back when you'd have sung a whole different tune. Said I wasn't good
enough or something."
"You're not," Joey said. He wasn't sure how much he meant it and how much was teasing, but
since it didn't make a difference either way, he wasn't going to stress out over it. "But you'll just
have to learn."
*
///Justin doesn't look upset. Of course not, because Justin doesn't know what *no* sounds like,
can't even recognize it. Lance feels that way sometimes himself, but only sometimes.
"See, I knew you'd be like that." Justin points at him. His fault. Stupid Lance, have to go and be
like that. Sorry, Lance wants to say, and at the same time he wants to say, *Like* that? *Like
that?*
Ten thousand times, he's forgiven Justin, stood up for Justin, tried to explain Justin to the rest of
the human race, because Justin is the one who is like that, in the sense of, *Justin's just like that,
you know how he is, you know what he's like, Justin can be like that.* He's watched so many
people bleed from the eyes, the lips, and the soul because they forgot for a few crucial moments
what Justin is like, and Lance always remembers, and Lance has lived to tell the tale. He's the last
man standing, the last one whose love of Justin isn't hopelessly twisted and knotted up with what
Justin's *like.*
But apparently tonight it's Lance who's *like that,* and Justin whose eyes have always been
open. "I knew you'd be all -- not believing me and shit."
"I do believe you. You're too fucking drunk to lie."
"It's not about that." And Justin reaches for him, his hand low, like he's going to grab Lance by
the waist, the hand, the dick. Who knows what he's reaching for?
Lance shoves his hand away, and Justin jerks it back, stung, holding it to his chest with cloudy
surprise in his eyes. "Aren't you tired of this game yet?" Lance says, using the scorn in his voice
to hide the way he's begging. "Why can't you let someone be close to you without chewing them
up and spitting them out?"
"No," Justin says -- not in answer to Lance's question, but in denial. His voice isn't steady
anymore. It's quailing, vibrating the way a rabbit drums its foot on the ground when it panics.
"Fuck, do you think I would ever hurt you?"
"Well, since I'm not as stupid as Britney and I don't think with my dick like Chris does, then,
yeah, I'd say. Yeah. I do think you would. You always do."
"I'm in love with you," Justin says. Again. Fuck, it's ringing in Lance's ears now, because once
is a hallucination, and twice is a revelation, and three times will be the end of the world.///
*
"Whatever you're selling," Chris said, "we don't want any."
"Chris, it's me."
Chris considered something snappy on the topic of how some people knew how caller ID worked,
thanks, but the lush, orange light of sunset spreading over the boat and his skin was making him
feel distinctly non-snappy. "In that case," he said, "whatever you're selling, I probably already
own."
"I need you to come to New York. Like -- now."
More than anything, Chris wished he believed that Justin was joking. "I don't suppose now could
mean something in the neighborhood of tomorrow morning?"
"Now means *now,* I don't *have* til tomorrow morning."
"Okay, all right. Jesus, you're a drama queen. Why don't you tell me what the hell's got you all
worked up?" It was probably nothing. Chris forced his stomach to settle down, because really,
the chances that something horrible had happened to Justin's family, or his album, or his general
well-being -- very small. Much more likely, this was just some wardrobe crisis run amok on the
high tide of Justin's natural flair. Really. Much more likely.
"Lance is going to be here in, like, four and a half hours. He's gonna be all depressed and -- and I
don't know what to say to him."
"Try pretending he's one of your best and oldest friends, and you feel for him. Uh. You know
what I mean. Feel bad for him. In his time of personal...loss or whatever. Give him my love, and
tell him I'd be there, except I'm in Malibu."
"Okay, I'm going to need a lot more help than that. Like, actually helpful help."
"J, you are killing me! You are seriously taking years off of my life. Look, do you have any idea
where I am?"
"Malibu."
"I am chilling on a great big boat. I'm wearing sunglasses and drinking a martini. I'm warm and
comfortable. Do you hear that?" Chris held the phone up over his head for a moment. "That's
the ocean. Soothing, isn't it? The sun is setting, I've got *Rock Steady* on the stereo, and
somewhere out there in that water, my much younger, much hotter pretty-much-boyfriend is
splashing around, getting all salty and out of breath. And you seriously want me to get on a
plane, *right now,* and fly to New York, because you're twenty-one years old and can't manage
your own love life without a personal trainer? No, dude, just forget it. Tell him you love him
with the love of the ages, tell him he can have a ride on your rocket, don't tell him anything at all.
I don't give a shit right now. Call me tomorrow and let me know how it went."
There was a long silence. Maybe Justin hung up on him.
"Chris," he said, his voice small.
Chris flung his arm over his face, sensing disaster as it loomed. "What is it?"
"I'm dying, man. I need you."
Chris hung up on Justin. He considered throwing his cellphone into the ocean for a full six
seconds before it dawned on him that he, much more than Justin, would be the one
inconvenienced by that.
"What is it?" Nick asked as soon as he climbed over the rail of the boat and got a look at Chris'
face. He was dripping all over the deck, and backlit by the sun, and cocking his head to the side
like a big, friendly retriever, and Jesus, but Chris deserved a Barcalounger in the very highest
levels of heaven for what a good fucking friend he was.
"I have to go to New York. It's, uh. It's Lance, he's on his way back and, you know. I guess
he's...bummed or whatever, and we're all supposed to...." And, on the other hand, he deserved a
stainless steel barstool in an especially unfortunate level of hell for being a lying bastard, or at
least a misleading one. But, weighing off the sin of incomplete honesty against the look he could
imagine in Nick's eyes when Chris says *Sorry, I know I'm a shit, but he says he needs me and
it's always over right there*.... Well, Chris could be a diplomat, when the alternatives didn't bear
thinking about.
Nick just looked at him for a long moment, and then nodded. "Hey," he said, "if my friends ever
called me anymore, I'd go, too." His feet made slippery noises as he padded over to Chris, oddly
light for someone so big and clumsy. Well, clumsy some of the time. Big all the time. He
dripped all over Chris when he leaned down to kiss him casually. "See you later," he said.
It wasn't a question. That was Chris' favorite part, and he thought of that steady, non-rising note
at the end all the way to shore, and all the way until he touched down in New York.
*
///Picture this, Lance thinks. It might be a movie, but the guy in the projection booth is messed up
on something, even worse than Lance is, because they've skipped a reel somehow. They're at the
end now, and the anger is gone and he doesn't want to fall down and die. He's sitting on the
balcony with his arm around Justin, and he knows that he's better at this than Justin is, because he
knows how No works, and what to do when it happens to you.
"It's gonna be okay," he promises, and then, to make Justin smile, he adds, "What is up with your
hair, by the way?"
It does make him smile, and laugh, jostling against Lance's shoulder, banging Lance's elbow into
the iron railing behind him. They've skipped past something, Lance is sure. The part where
things got better.
"I didn't mean to do it like this," Justin sighs. "All...drunk, and you were sad to start with. It was
just -- in my head, you know, it all went...different. I at least got to kiss you." It could have been
mournful, but it's wry instead, and slightly aggrieved, and Lance squeezes his shoulders and
thinks, This is what you're like, this is exactly it.
This might be what he'll remember all the rest of his life about Justin. Out of all those memories,
this could be the one that never fades. How Justin managed to make it all sound like Lance's fault
without even trying.
"You've kissed me," Lance reminds him, with the unexpected effect of reminding himself at the
same time.
That was Justin, that other night, that other movie -- the porno where his mouth was desperate on
Lance's body, the one where he moaned and sucked on Lance's fingers and where he was terrible
and perfect and exotic, braced above Lance with one hand splayed out flat at the level of his eyes,
the other one doing something unimaginable inside Lance. All those kisses, numberless, one on
top of the other until Lance was buried alive, dying underneath them. That was *Justin.*
For the first time, Lance stops to wonder what it felt like for Justin. For the first time, he wonders
what came to life when they died like that, on a dare.
Those same fingers are twined with his now, and their joined hands hang somewhere over Justin's
chest. "You have to be the one who tells them, though," Justin warns him. "It's on you."
"Tells them -- what, them? Tells them *what*?"
Justin shrugs under his arm. "All. Why we're not. That you said no, you know."
Lance rubs his eyes with his free hand. "Okay, so. All night, then? They all knew about -- this,
and -- You told the rest of the guys before you told *me?*"
"Well...I didn't want to spring anything on them."
"Nah," Lance says. He wishes that Justin were better at recognizing irony. "That wouldn't be a
good idea." After a moment, he says, "They're all *okay* with -- with it? You and me?"
"Sure they are," Justin says, like anything else is unimaginable. "Well. JC said he knew it all
along. Mom said you were always her favorite, too. Joey said it explained a lot of things."
Lance snorts. He just bet Joey did say that. Joey, who never really believed that Lance and Justin
were nothing but friends. And wouldn't it be a laugh, after all these years, if it turned out that
Joey wasn't the one who was stubborn and blind and wrong?
"And Chris...." Justin falters for a moment, and Lance catches them breathing in and out
together. "Chris, well, at first he said, he was all -- Justin, you don't know what love means. We
had this little fight, or whatever, and he walked out. But he came back. Later on. And he said
that he always thought that Britney was kind of a girl you, and ever since then, he's been cool."
"I'm so glad you polled all my friends on this."
"You want to know what Wade said?"
"*No.* And I'm not breaking the news to your mom, either."
"She loves you, too," Justin says, grinning against Lance's bicep.
"Okay, one more time with that shit, and I swear, I'll heave your ass off this balcony. Don't say it
again, Justin."
Because movies come in three acts. One, two, and it ends with the third, and this movie can't end
that way, with love, with us, with Justin and Lance. Lance won't let it be like that.
He's seen what happens when the lights come up.///
*
He didn't go through regular customs; they moved Lance and his security team through a separate
set of doors, and went through his bags while everybody drank complimentary coffee. Airport
security apologized profusely for the inconvenience but promised him that it was for his own
protection, and Lance didn't really listen to any of it. Maybe somebody told him that Chris and
JC were there to pick him up, but if so, he wasn't listening to that, either. It was a shock to find
them both inside the limo.
Chris hugged him short and hard and said, "Hiya, Galaxy Lad."
"Hey," Lance said, and wanted to say more, something, but everything failed even before it could
form completely in his mind. He let JC hug him long and warm, and only pulled back when he
couldn't breathe anymore. JC gave him an encouraging smile, and then went back to pulling on a
black shoe with enormous stacked heels. Over fishnet stockings. "Uh," Lance said. "I know I've
been away for a while...."
"Mandatory fun, dammit," Chris said, and at the same time, his cell phone rang. "We got him, we
got him," Chris said into it. "Look, we're doing the best we can. ... Twenty minutes? Thirty,
more like thirty. ... And yet, laws of physics and all that. ... So stall, dude. Have them start late.
... What do you mean, *how?* When did you become the crappiest superstar in history? ... Oh,
my *advice.* Oh, yeah, because I'm so stingy with my advice. That's how come I'm *in New
York,* so I can not give you advice. You want my advice, bro? Have Joey start giving out
hundred dollar bills, and you start giving out blowjobs. I guarantee that movie will start when we
get there. ... Ever so welcome." Chris snapped the phone shut and gave Lance a slightly
maniacal smile. "Justin says he can hardly wait to see you."
"Same old Justin," Lance said.
"Gotta love him," Chris said, and then stared at Lance oddly, as though waiting for an answer.
Lance wasn't aware there had been a question, but he nodded anyway. Chris handed him a flask,
and Lance drank half of it before he even had time to register what it was. Tequila. Chris drank
tequila straight, like Lance did. Joey and Justin never touched the stuff unless they had salt and
limes, because Joey loved to play with his food, and Justin never did anything unless he could do
it right. JC didn't drink, hardly ever, because he had really hellish hangovers, no matter how
much water he washed it down with.
Lance watched out the window of the limo, streetlights going by like giant stars, and somehow
he'd never gotten over believing that the stars would be bigger in space, if up close they would be
golfball-sized, fist-sized, white suns in the darkness. He knew it wouldn't be that way, but he'd
have to see it for himself before he could really believe.
"I'm still going," he said hoarsely, and hit the flask again. "I just have to -- I mean, something
went wrong, but they can, like, even a week or two before, they can put me back on. Or next
year. I mean, all the training is done, pretty much. I want -- I mean, I can still *go.* Maybe."
JC reached out and held his hand. "We promised you however much time it took. You should
go."
"I really should go," Lance said. "I'm going to start calling around tomorrow. Figure out what
happened."
"Yeah, what's with that?" Chris said. "They had the money but they couldn't get it to Russia?
They could've put it in a boat and rowed it to Russia by now."
"It's...some fucking thing. I don't know, I was busy with the training." Damn flask was empty
already, and even shaking it over his tongue didn't make anything drip out. "See, I broke the
rules, didn't I? Trusted somebody else with the fucking money. Shoulda known better. Should,
by now."
"Shit," Chris said, with the kind of gentle humor in his voice that he usually only used on Justin.
"Now Lance isn't going to let any of us so much as smash open our piggy banks without going
through him first."
JC's giggle echoed from the duffel bag. In the darkness, he had to stick his head almost all the
way inside to find what he was looking for. "I used to have a Cookie Monster bank."
"Hide it from Bass."
"Okay, this is stupid. Tell me something nice. Tell me someone has good news."
"JC is very happy," Chris offered. "BT said he was a natural talent. In front of, like, witnesses.
JC has a huge crush on BT."
"Hey," JC said, pausing in his application of black lipstick. "Not everybody you know is gay,
Chris."
"Didn't say you were gay. Said you had a huge crush on BT."
"He's cute," Lance said, not sure whom he was supporting, here.
"He's married!" JC protested.
"Didn't say he was available. Said you had a huge crush on him."
"Well, I'm not as happy as Chris is," JC said defensively, and tossed something black and white at
Chris from inside the duffel bag. "Chris is all, like...in love. He bought an RV, and he follows his
boyfriend around everywhere."
"Fuck you, I do not," Chris said sharply. "*Everywhere.* Do not."
At first all Lance could think of was Justin, and how was that even remotely possible, how would
Joey not have called him *immediately?* Then he remembered, and said the first thing that came
into his head, which was, "You're still fucking Nick?"
The limo was wilderness-silent for a moment, the kind of silence that was full of sounds but lonely
at the same time. "Yup," Chris finally said.
"It's not really like -- They're totally serious," JC said. "Nick wrote him like two dozen songs,
and Chris practically lives-- "
"No, it is like that," Chris said, his voice toeing that line between Ha, ha, big joke and Well, screw
you, too. "I'm totally fucking him, and it's awesome. Acres and acres of that boy, and all the
stamina of youth. He oughta be a ride at Universal Studios. So you don't have to, you know, say
it like that, because you should be so lucky, Bass."
"Okay, I'm sorry. I didn't mean...anything. I just didn't realize."
"It's weird at first," JC said gently. "But wait until you see them together. It makes sense then."
Lance somehow doubted that, but he nodded anyway. Unexpectedly, JC leaned in and kissed his
cheek soundly; his lips had that warm-plastic texture that Lance's mom's lips had when she was
all made up. "So don't you worry about Chris, okay?" JC whispered in his ear. "You just worry
about you."
*
///"Give me one good reason," Justin says, but he's got his head turned into Lance's neck, his
teeth on Lance's skin, smooth and cool like the links of a necklace's chain, so what does he want,
anyway, reason or--
Well, yeah. Stupid. Justin wants what Justin always wants, which is acquiescence. He wants his
Yes.
"Justin, no, no," Lance murmurs. He gets his hand on the back of Justin's neck, but he can't push
or pull, so it just rests there, muddling the issue even further. "It's not about reason. I don't need
a *reason.* I just -- I'm not interested. In that. With you."
"Liar." Justin paints it all over his skin in lava red, *liar liar liar,* and Lance can't understand why
people say that lying is the easy way out. Every time Lance has needed to lie, there's been the
point of a knife under his skin, and the question was always whether to lose flesh, or just bleed.
There's never an easy way out.
"Not *everyone* in the world is interested in becoming your third one true love."
Justin pauses a moment, pulls back from his nesting place under Lance's jaw. His eyes shift up to
Lance's face; Justin almost never has to look up to meet anyone's eyes anymore. "That's kind of
a mean thing to say. Sometimes it just takes a while to know where you belong, there's nothing
wrong with that. And plus, I'm your third, too."
"Wade was not my one true love," Lance says, and a minute after Justin's lips touch him again, he
remembers to add, "And neither are you."
"Well, you're mine," Justin says, as though that settles everything. Or anything. He shifts
around, kneeling with Lance's outstretched leg trapped between both of his. "You're mine," he
repeats in that rasp of his, the one that's too crystal clear to be husky, the one that should never in
a million years be sexy, except that everything Justin does *is,* and he leans into Lance. Their
mouths dovetail together, not a steady, symmetrical kiss, but Justin's lips around Lance's bottom
lip, a loose connection by necessity, because they're both breathing in and out, hard, at the same
time.
Lance knows better than this. He's too smart for this. It's difficult enough to make a trip that he
can plan for and work for and fight for and pay for. Still, even then, things go wrong. Justin is a
journey that he knows he'll never be able to control, and only a fool would go this far, into such a
deep darkness.
Justin nudges upward, and his tongue brushes against Lance's lips. Lance shoves him away, not
gently. "Asshole, I said *no.*"
"That's bullshit, you want it," Justin breathes, and leans in again. Lance pushes him even harder,
rocking him back so that Justin has to put his hands behind himself to break his fall.
"You want to know what the difference is between me and Chris?" Anger keeps Lance's voice
steadier than it should be.
"Pretty much not at *all.*"
Lance doesn't care, right now he *so* doesn't care what Justin wants, if only because Justin
wants him to care. "I knew all along what he finally figured out: You're not real, Justin. You're
just a fantasy. A good one, a great one, fuck, you're a professional. But the closer you get to
somebody, the less of you there is."
*Picture this,* Lance tells himself, as he watches Justin's face, his stiff, backward-bent posture,
his parted lips that Lance can still taste. Picture a movie where the everyman is just a man, but
the superstar is something else completely. And what if one of them knows he's in a movie, and
the other one doesn't?
"That's what you think," Justin says. Lance doesn't say anything. "Well, okay," Justin says
brusquely, pushing to his feet. "That's your good reason, then. I mean -- you're *wrong.*
You're so fucking *wrong.* But if that's how you see me, then you and me won't go too far."
Which is good, because going too far is precisely what Lance is most afraid of.
He looks all the way up, and wonders when he got afraid of *that.*///
*
"Everybody knew all the words except me," Lance said helplessly.
"I only know about half," Joey said. He had an arm around JC's corseted waist, and his padded
hunchback had slipped from one shoulder to the middle of his back, camel-like. "I haven't been
since high school."
"JC and Justin and me used to do this a lot. Back when you and Joe were -- you know, not
always all about the group fun."
The red-velvet lobby of the theater had great acoustics, Lance noticed. The sixty or seventy
people coming out of the show sounded like a couple hundred. "You never worried somebody
might...see you?" Lance spread his arms out to indicate Chris on one side of him with his pink
wig and his French maid's outfit over sweatpants, Justin on the other in damn near nothing at all.
"It's not our usual crowd," Chris said.
"People see what they expect to see," JC said.
"Fuck 'em if they do," Justin said.
"A lot of people go to Rocky Horror," Joey said. "I don't think anybody would really care."
Lance pondered that. For the most part, maybe it wouldn't matter much; they might get asked
about it in an interview somewhere, but it would probably come off as endearing and goofy.
Chris in a miniskirt just looked like some kind of fraternity prank, and even JC was a little too
done-up to be taken seriously as anything but a Mardi Gras stunt. He barely even looked like JC.
Justin, on the other hand, looked a whole heck of a lot like Justin. In a white bra, modestly
stuffed, and a slip that kept settling just a little too low on his narrow hips for Lance's comfort.
Because maybe a lot of people did go to this movie, but he still didn't think America was ready to
see *that* in the Star Tracks pages of People. Lance didn't think he was ready for it, and hell,
he'd seen Justin naked before. He wasn't quite sure how you could spin it for the media in a way
that would obscure the fact that Justin looked really hot in women's underwear.
"Chris didn't used to be so much of a pussy, though," Justin said cheerfully. "What's with the
sweats, old man?"
"No one wants to look at my aged legs. That's what we keep you cute little twinks around for."
"Aw, you're breaking my heart. C'mere, I'll do miracles for your self-esteem." Lance somehow
got caught in between Justin grabbing Chris' ass and Chris socking Justin in the shoulder, and for
a horrible second, he was sure all three of them were going to go tumbling down on to the floor in
a struggling heap.
Joey hooked an arm around Justin's chest from behind and detached him from the fray. "Dammit,
Janet, the car, please? We're not quite as inconspicuous here as you seem to think we are."
"I don't even want to *know* what you're wearing under your costume," Lance told Justin.
"Wow, bad news," Chris said, and then stumbled forward with an *oof.* It looked like JC had
whacked him in the back, but surely it was Justin.
"You know, I think we'd be a lot *less* conspicuous if we didn't have two giant black guys
staring at us from three rows back the whole show," Justin grumbled, absently straightening his
slip.
"If you think that I would let y'all run around Greenwich Village in the dead of night, in drag,
without security, then...then I don't even know what to say. It's a good thing I'm not going
anywhere soon, because you obviously need me worse than I thought. Now, somebody get me
back to a nice, secured hotel, where I can get plastered in peace."
In this age of cell phones and laptops, Lance knew that there was nothing to stop a conscientious
person from getting a jump start on his projects in the limo, and getting drunk was a project like
any other. Joey, sitting beside him, opened up a bottle of champagne before the car had even
pulled away from the curb, and Justin, across from him, swung Lance's feet into his lap, took off
his shoes, and began to work at them, the heels of his hands sinking hard into the soles. Lance
sighed, and tried futilely not to let Justin's rhythmic hands remind him of the fact that he'd been
too busy and too tired to get laid for the last two months.
"Okay, beautiful," Chris said, poking JC in the ribs. "I know you're holding."
JC kept his stash in a flat, antique cigarette case, in the same duffel bag that had transported his
costume and Chris'. He offered one to Joey, who looked sideways at Lance before shaking his
head, which made Chris chuckle. He didn't even bother to ask Lance, who'd never approved of
the stuff, or Justin, who had nothing in theory against it, except that Lynn made him swear to her,
on an actual Bible, back when he was fourteen, that he'd never take anything that wasn't legal.
And Justin, for all his flaws, kept his word ninety percent of the time, and one hundred and two
percent when Lynn was involved.
He lit both at once and passed the second one to Chris. "This is cool," JC said. "I thought you
gave it up, though."
"Me?" Chris looked startled. "No, not me. Nicky gave it up -- you know, his whole rebirth trip -
- and I'm being, like, supportive and whatever, so I don't smoke around him." Lance raised his
eyebrows; he was *Nicky* now, was he?
"That's so great," JC sighed, leaning on Chris' shoulder. "They're *so great,*" he stressed,
possibly for Lance's benefit. "It's just, like -- *fun,* and they have all these little jokes, and
everybody wants to hang out with them. I don't know why *you* guys won't go hang out with
them. I'm there all the time, and Aaron and Leslie are there all the time, and-- "
"We don't all have time, C," Joey protested. "It's not that we're -- anti-Nick. I'm sure he's -- I
mean, it's not about that. It's just that the three of us have a lot of commitments."
"I do go hang out with them," Justin said, with a little acid at the back of his voice. "When I'm
invited."
"Will you shut *up* with that?" Chris groaned. "One time. *Once,* I said it wouldn't kill you to
call before you turned up in my house. Or maybe, I don't know, *knock.*"
"I said I'd give you the key back."
"I don't want the key back! Keep the key!"
"Fine!"
"They're so great," JC said again, dreamily. "It's so hard, you know? To find that thing where
you can just be with somebody, like friends, like Chris and Nick."
Looking more than a little embarrassed, Chris shrugged JC off his arm. "We go one summer
without killing each other, and JC thinks we're some kind of love story for the ages. I think this
says something about the quality of relationships he's had a chance to compare it to."
"Hey," Joey objected mildly.
"You know what's weird?"
"You?" Chris suggested.
JC smiled politely, and forged ahead. "It's like...there's supposed to be such a big difference,
with the gay thing and the straight thing. But it's funny, because there are all these guys that I
really love, that I totally *get,* you know, like on a deep level, and it's like there's no difference.
I mean, you guys and Nick, you're all -- on some spectrum of gayness, right? But then there's
Tony and Alex and Brad and BT, and I'm completely with them, too, but they're straight. So it's
like...where's the difference?"
Lance looked down at the last of his second glass of champagne and decided that was enough to
blame free speech on. "Yeah, good point, JC," he said. "You're very inclusive in the type of men
you fall for."
Joey snerked into his glass, and Justin looked out the window, with his hand discreetly up over his
mouth. Chris kicked him in the shin, and JC said, "What does that mean?"
"It means," Lance said, enunciating as carefully as possible, "that real straight men frequently
actually want to hang around with *women.*"
"Leave him alone, Lance," Chris said shortly. "If the man says he likes girls, he should know."
"People don't always know what they want."
"*You* don't always know what people want," Chris said. "You ignore the shit you don't want
to deal with, just like everybody else does, so don't think you have some kind of grand
perspective on reality, let *alone* on relationships."
"I didn't say-- "
"Chris, lighten up." Joey to his rescue, as usual. "Can't we all get together and just have it be a
cool, fun thing?"
Chris smoked his joint for a minute, and then seemed to decide to relax. He flung an arm around
JC's shoulders and said, "I'm cool, I'm fun. Ommmmm."
"You're cool, huh?" Justin said, still looking out the window.
"Like popsicles and Zima, baby," Chris said, in that gentle voice that he only seemed to use when
he was communicating something that was meant for Justin specifically. "Like Zima popsicles."
*
///Justin is self-absorbed. Justin thinks his problems are worse than anybody's, always. He can't
understand how the world could dare not to reform itself to meet his needs.
It should be obnoxious, it should make him another industry brat, the kind of necessary evil that
keeps a career going.
It's not like that. Lance watches him brood, leaning over the balcony railing as if he's
contemplating the nature of suffering in the universe, and it makes him weak in the knees. Justin's
desires are so pure. Justin always knows exactly what to ask for. So, really, how *can* it be his
fault if he doesn't get it?
It's not the answers that Lance has always fought. It's the questions. *Is there something strange
about me, am I different, do I not fit in here?* becomes *Do I want this, can I live like this, can I
have a man and everything else I want, too?* becomes *Is this for real, will he be here for me in
the morning, will he be here forever?* becomes *Do I want him here forever, can the way I love
him change even if loving him never does?* becomes *Do I really believe in my life, am I sure that
if I go away, everything I care about will be here waiting when I come back?*
Once Lance has asked the questions, the answers were always right there. But it's asking at all
that means change, that means there's a new truth on the horizon. It's as if Lance has always
been in flight, and there are moments when he knows he's going to have to land, and that's the
frightening part. Not the landing, but anticipating it, before you can actually see the ground.
Justin is brave, really brave, and Lance doesn't think he is. Maybe that's why the world does
reform itself, time after time. Maybe there's something about simply being able to ask what it is
you really want that gets its reward. The Bible says that, Lance knows. That it's asking that
counts. Because answers are knowledge, but asking is faith.
"The thing is," he croaks, putting his hand on Justin's shoulder, "that...it's just so...hard to
imagine. It's not that you don't care about me. It's just that.... You're ambitious, Justin. More
than any of us, and that's saying a lot. You can't have a -- a significant other, not a real one, not
and keep it secret forever, and I just think it's stupid of you to put yourself in a position where
you'll have to choose."
Justin turns his head. "You think you'd only be real if everyone knew about us?"
"I'm just saying...what would it be like, you know? How would it ever work out, really, you and
me together?"
And this is the question, given form and substance for the first time in Lance's life. He would
always have wondered this, if he'd been enough of a man to wonder at all.
Justin turns, and his shoulder is at an angle to Lance's, standing against him but not face to face.
"Okay," he says slowly. "It would be like this. We'd pass out before we were done making out,
and the guys would go home, and we'd wake up on the couch tomorrow morning, and we'd
make love before we even said a word. I'd go back to my press shit, and you'd go back to work,
and I'd send you flowers every day, and you'd act like you thought it was totally lame. We'd
miss each other, and everyone we know would make fun of us, and we'd joke on the phone about
how we were going to rip each other's clothes off when we saw each other next, but when we did
get together, it would always be all slow and juicy, and you'd call me darlin' and I'd fall asleep
with the tips of your fingers in my mouth, just because I couldn't let go of you. Eventually, we'd
get used to each other. We'd fight about which of us spent too much time in the bathroom in the
mornings. You'd still think my hair was always wrong, and I wouldn't listen. I'd still think your
clothes suck, and you wouldn't listen, either. We'd spend Christmas at your parents' house, and
you'd be too weirded out to have sex in your old bedroom, and I'd make fun of you for that for,
like, ever. You'd go to space, finally, and I'd never understand why you could do that, but you
can't ride on my bike. I'd watch you on tv, and you'd be my fucking hero. You'd want me to do
a formal denial every time the papers said I was fucking some starlet, and I wouldn't do it. I'd
say, let them think what they want, why should we care, and you'd say I was using it, trying to
have my cake and eat it, too, and we'd both be right, but neither of us would really want to hear
that. You'd say that Joey never did that to you, and I'd say, yeah, well, I'm not gonna run off and
turn straight again on you, either, and you'd be totally pissed off about that. But the truth is, I'd
be jealous, because for all those years it seemed like you and him were so meant to be, and with
you and me, it feels kind of like a longshot. You'd be jealous, too, though, because secretly you
think that I need Chris' permission to do this at all, and if he ever changed his mind, you'd be shit
out of luck. The sex would be even hotter when we were being all passive-aggressive with each
other, though. I'd still send flowers, but you'd think it was some empty gesture, like I just hired
someone to make sure you get them because I think that's what a boyfriend is supposed to do.
So you'd get mad, and I'd get mad, and we'd threaten to break up, but deep down we'd both
know that'll never happen. We'd hate birthdays, because what the fuck do you buy? We'd play a
lot of one-on-one, and every once in a blue moon, you'd beat me, and you'd never be totally sure
if I let you win or not. I'd start writing music for the next album, and you'd lie in bed with me
while we both worked, and I'd want to get up and get my guitar, but I wouldn't, because you
were all warm against my back. You'd get drunk at Joey's wedding, and I'd take care of you and
make sure none of it got on film, and for once I wouldn't be jealous at all, because it's always me
who's gonna have your back. You'd buy me a ring, and I'd be an asshole about it and never wear
it when there were photographers around. But it wouldn't make any difference. Eventually,
enough people would know about us that it would reach critical mass, and somehow all of a
sudden, we wouldn't even know how it got out, exactly, but everybody would know. You'd act
angry about the invasion of privacy, but secretly you'd be humiliated. I'd act humiliated, but
secretly I'd be relieved. We'd try to handle it gracefully, but pretty soon we'd decide, fuck them.
We've already done everything and gotten everything we could possibly want, so what do we
need them for? We'd move to Wisconsin and try to figure out what's so great about a normal
life, anyway. We couldn't handle free time, so we'd get jobs in a mall. You'd be the manager of
the Gap, and I'd work at Sam Goody."
Lance doesn't know, he has no idea, when and how Justin has spiraled around against him, when
he put his arms up to hold Justin close. He slips his hand down and snaps the strap on Justin's bra
and says, "Victoria's Secret. It was Victoria's Secret."
"Yeah, that's right," Justin chuckles. "Victoria's Secret. Great employee discounts. We'd sing
whatever we felt like, whenever we felt like it, and we'd see the world, nice and slow with no
schedule to follow, and we'd cheat on each other once or twice, and there'd be a little more talk
about breaking up, but deep down we'd never believe it for a second. I'd be sending you flowers
when you were seventy-two, and you'd complain about me wasting money, and we'd outlive
everybody we know."
"I don't think that's how it would go," Lance says. He doesn't know if he's laughing quietly, or
choking to death. "I don't think it would happen that way at all."
Justin moves his cheek against Lance's, and hums into Lance's ear. "Well, hell, Lance, how
would I know how it's gonna be? There's only ever one way to find out."
"I can't give you an answer. I can't even...I can't think. I'm not ready for you. I have, like, a
hundred really good reasons that it would never work, even though I can't exactly think of any of
them right this very minute."
"This was a bad time to bring it up. I knew that. Can we...take a raincheck?"
"On falling in love?" The idea is slightly lunatic, but at the same time, it seems awfully indicative
of their lives in general. I love you, you're my everything, let me pencil you in for something
really life-changing, how does November ninth look for you?
And anyway, you schedule it every other time you decide to go someplace important. "I fell
forever ago," Justin says, and it *must* be a lie, because Lance thinks he would have known that,
thinks surely he can't be this oblivious. "But you can catch up whenever. Okay?"
"Okay," Lance says, and he's not sure whether he just promised something or not. He's not sure
if he wants to have promised something, if he wants to have a choice, if he wants to want things at
all anymore, when it hurts so much to come back to the ground empty-handed. "Superstar," he
mumbles incoherently into Justin's shoulder, and wonders if Justin will shine bigger and brighter,
up close.///