Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2002 11:12:48 -0400
From: Writer Boy <writerboy69@hotmail.com>
Subject: jc's hitchhiker - part 109

Obligatory warnings and disclaimers:

1) If reading this is in any way illegal where you are or at your age, or
you don't want to read about male/male relationships, go away. You
shouldn't be here.

2) I don't know any of the celebrities in this story, and this story in no
way is meant to imply anything about their sexualities, personalities, or
anything else.  This is a work of pure fiction.

Questions and commentary can be sent to "writerboy69@hotmail.com". I enjoy
constructive criticism, praise, and rational discussion. I do not enjoy
flames, and will not tolerate them.

Author's note: At the close of the last season, several readers e-mailed to
ask why I made no mention of JC being adopted during all of the discussion
of Jack's past.  I had not heard that he was, and since then have found
several conflicting reports, so I've been unable to substantiate it as a
fact or not. So, for purposes of this story, JC isn't adopted, and Karen
and Roy are his birth family.

That said, on with Season 7.

***Jack***

"Am I being really unreasonable here?" I asked, glaring at my phone as if
it might be to blame. "I'm completely justified in being pissed about this,
right?"

"I don't get paid enough to answer that," Andrew said, smirking without
looking up from his newspaper.

"What?" I asked, exasperated. He sat there, frustratingly impassive, and I
found myself wanting to grab him and shake him. I hated it when he did
stuff like this, because it made me feel moody, neurotic, and overly
dramatic. Whether or not any of those might actually be true of me was
completely beside the point. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?  It's
a simple question."

"No, it's not a simple question," Andrew said, folding the paper up. He set
it down on the seat next to him, turning toward me. His face, as always,
was more or less flat, and I realized that I'd only ever seen Andrew with
three expressions: blank, amused, and vaguely threatening. "It's a trick
question. I can disagree with you, and tell you that you're completely
overreacting, at which point you will redirect your anger from Chad to
me. Since I'm here, and Chad isn't, I don't really like that option,
because it means I'll have to listen to you for the entire cab ride."

"You could just agree with me, then," I said, crossing my arms. Next to me,
Junior snored lightly in his carrier bag, drugged into unconsciousness,
since the vet said it was the best way for him to fly. I brought the bag
with me as a carry on, since it was cloth, and it was ok with the airline
as long as I didn't take him out on the plane.

"No, that's not really an option, either," Andrew said, shaking his head.
"If I agree with you, then yes, you're ok, but the minute we get back to
JC, and you start telling him about this, you'll say something like,
'Andrew thought so, too,' and then I'll be in the middle of your drama. I
don't mind watching it, but I'd rather not play.  Remember all those talks
we had on the honeymoon about my role? Bodyguard. That's it. Oh, and
occasional criminal accomplice."

"One time I asked you to help me break into something and rifle some
files," I said, rolling my eyes at the ceiling. Andrew and I would never
admit it out loud to each other, but we were friends, even if he did always
keep that wall between us. "You act like we're out breaking the law all the
time. And this isn't just pointless drama. I'm completely justified in
being pissed about this."

"Then you don't need me to agree with you," Andrew pointed out. "Now, do I
go back to my paper while we sit here all night listening to you bitch and
moan, or are you actually planning to do something about this?"

"Of course I'm doing something about it," I grumbled, looking at the phone
again. I hated it when Andrew was right. "I was just waiting until I was a
little calmer, that's all."

"Of course you were," Andrew said, still not making eye contact as he
reopened his paper. "Because you always think everything through, and
never, ever do anything impulsive. Not you. You're not calling because you
wanted to wait, not because you wanted to spend five minutes complaining."

I glared at him, making a little growling noise at his sarcastic
commentary, and snapped my phone on.

"I really miss the good old days sometimes," I grumbled, dialing. Andrew
looked at me, an eyebrow raised. "The ones when you were all stone faced
and quiet."

Andrew snorted dismissively, and I bit back another sarcastic retort at
Andrew as I heard Melinda answer.

"Melinda, it's Jack," I said, hoping she wasn't in the middle of something.
Melinda worked with the guys as part of the management team, in charge of
special projects, and I'd gotten to know her a little better through the
weeks of rehearsals. I figured with such a short time remaining before the
show, she would be the least busy, as I wasn't disturbing Josh under any
circumstances, not with this. I'd already sent him a voicemail wishing him
luck and telling him I loved him, routine for us both as he did the same
before I gave a talk, and I didn't want to throw him off before a concert.

"Jack, where are you?" she asked. "I thought you were coming in tomorrow,
for the MTV party."

"Apparently everyone did," I said, trying not to sound testy with her. "I'm
sitting at the airport, and there's no car here for me."

"Oh, Jack," Melinda sighed. I hated arriving at an airport alone, and there
was always supposed to be someone to meet me when I rejoined the guys, so
that I could get back to Josh as quickly as possible. As our personal
assistant, Chad was supposed to be keeping track of my travel schedule, and
making sure that stuff like this didn't happen, but here I was, again,
sitting at an airport alone. "Are you ok? I can get someone to come over
and grab you."

"No, no, just worry about the show, and doing your update, or whatever
you're working on," I said, shaking my head. "Andrew and I are going to
take a cab over, but can you have someone meet us at the gate? My pass is
in my luggage somewhere."

"No problem," Melinda said. "I'll get Julie to wait at the entrance, so you
won't have to stand in line, and I can put you in VIP. Is Andrew coming
with you?"

"Are you coming to the show, or do you want a night off?" I asked, holding
my hand over the end of the phone. Andrew shrugged.

"I'll do the show with you," he said. "I'm not off duty until I deliver you
safely back to JC."

"Yeah, we're both coming," I answered. "Can you have someone take care of
Junior?"

"Of course," Melinda answered again. I didn't want to bring Junior into the
seating with us, even though I'd be allowed to, because the lights and the
crowd bothered him.  Someone would keep him occupied and cared for during
the show, and make sure that he could walk around and go to the
bathroom. "Jack, you're cutting it pretty close. You're not going to be
able to see JC before the show."

"That's ok," I said, motioning to Andrew to flag someone down to help with
the luggage cart. Between us we only had two suitcases and Andrew's
carryon, but he needed his hands free, in case I got jumped, and I needed
my other hand to carry Junior in his little bag. "We're going to grab a
taxi now, ok? Thanks Melinda!"

"See you soon. I know someone else who'll be happy to, too," she said, and
I could hear the smile in her voice. As I hung up the phone I heard her
calling for Julie. Melinda had been with the guys since their early days,
and, like the rest of the management, had fully welcomed me as a member of
the band family.

"Melinda have us all set?" Andrew asked, his eyes ticking from side to side
as we walked out to the curb. I nodded as the porter waved a taxi over.

"Yeah," I answered, holding Junior as I caught a camera flash. Almost
automatically I turned a little, nodding toward the photographer, letting
them get a second shot, still pretty amused by the idea that people
actually snapped pictures of me. I followed Josh's lead in this, not
knowing how to deal with it myself, and he said it was always best to be
polite, and to smile, but not to let it disrupt what I was doing. It was
hard to smile and be angry at the same time, though, but I gave it my
best. "Later on I think we're having another one of those little talks with
Chad."

"Can I have a backstage pass for that, too?" Andrew asked, stepping aside
after checking the car, so that I could get in first.

"No," I answered, grinning. "But that was a good try."

Andrew didn't really want to see me ream out Chad, again, but it was hard
to say exactly what the relationship between the two of them was. They were
the two staff members closest to Josh and I (actually, unless you counted
the lady who cleaned the house when we were out of town, they were our only
staff members), but they weren't friends. It was hard to be friends with
Andrew, and Chad seemed a lot more interested being friends with Josh, or
Lance, or Chris, or anyone else he had seen on MTV. Andrew, on the other
hand, tended to favor Chad with glares of barely concealed contempt,
especially when Chad did things like clapping his hands when he was happy
or squealing girlishly. They weren't rivals, either, since Josh and I
allegedly liked them both equally, but every once in a while I got the
feeling that, should I decide that Chad needed to be ejected violently from
the building, Andrew would come running to help out. Then again, every once
in a while I got the feeling that Andrew would do the same to me.

Knowing that the ride to the show would take a while, especially in traffic
at this time of day, I started looking through my notes, thinking about
things I wanted to change or add.  I made a note in the margin to have Chad
look up current challenges to the sodomy laws of a couple states tomorrow,
if we didn't fire him by then, and thought about moving some parts
around. When I gave a talk I started out with a brief introduction of
myself, explaining right off that I wasn't there to talk about Nsync, and
talked a little about figuring out I was gay. I left out some of the rough
stuff, like the part where Jason hung himself, but I did leave in some of
the stuff that had gone on between Peyton and I, the college breakup part,
anyway, without saying his name. From there I moved on to issues facing
homosexuals currently, in a kind of state of the nation thing. I'd seen a
few other people do this, when I was figuring out what I should do, and it
went over well. I rounded off with a rather sanitized version of how Josh
and I got together, which led nicely into a discussion of gay marriages,
and then I opened the floor to questions. Most of the questions were pretty
intelligent, but every once in a while someone would still ask if Justin
was just as cute in person ("Well, you know, I have a lot of cute friends,
but they're all beautiful people inside, and that's more important."), or
what the next video would be. I didn't give anything out about them without
being cleared first by the publicity crew, and I generally steered
discussion away from that, anyway, since I wasn't technically part of
Nsync.

As we crawled slowly through the traffic around the stadium, I frowned at
seeing the little group of protesters near the main entrance. This was the
first tour since Josh had come out, and so far there had been a little
group of people at every show with signs, walking around in a circle as if
they could actually convince anyone to suddenly decide they didn't want
their ticket after all. They usually ended up on the news at every show,
but the guys had been a little proactive with this, heading off the kind of
trouble we were afraid might come up. The group had a lot more openly gay
fans attending the shows now, and we were all worried before the tour that
there would be scuffles or shouting, or something similarly annoying, and
that it would just turn out to be a lot of bad press for the band,
especially when some of the more zealous homophobes were on television
before the tour starting explaining that they would do whatever they could
to disrupt the shows. Chris and Joey, giving a backstage tour to one of the
morning shows before opening night, dealt with the whole thing rather
handily when asked about the statements.

"We support our friends, and our fans," Chris said, shrugging. "And I think
it's really sad that there are still people who think other people's
private lives are any of their business.  JC and Jack are two of our best
friends, but this tour is about the music, and the fans, not about what we
do in our private lives. Nsync isn't supporting any kind of a lifestyle or
an agenda, except maybe for love and tolerance."

"Are you worried about the threats that there will be protests?" the
reporter asked, unwilling to just let it die. "Or about how your fans might
react to them?"

"I have complete faith in our fans," Joey said, grinning. "They're all
intelligent enough to ignore the existence of ignorant, bigoted, small
minded people, and they won't listen to the hate. That's not what any of us
are about."

Sure enough, the fans had responded by ignoring the protesters at every
show so far.  Security stayed outside, to make sure that the protesters
weren't harassing people, but mainly they just stayed in a little area,
waving their anti-fag signs and screaming about sin and hell, and most of
the people walking by or going inside the arenas barely favored them with a
second glance. When Andrew and I got out of the car, greeting Julie and an
assistant I didn't know at the curb, some of the protesters recognized me,
and began to yell, but I favored them with the middle finger, to scattered
applause from the people around us, and a couple flashbulbs going
off. Julie's assistant climbed into the cab, to pay the cabbie and take him
to the hotel to drop off our bags, and Andrew and I followed Julie inside,
Andrew glaring at everyone, but also throwing a few really hostile stares
at the idiots with their signs.

"Want me to shoot one of them?" he asked, seeing how much they still
irritated me.

"No, thanks," I answered, smiling, nodding at people who pointed and waved
as we walked by. In dating and marrying Josh, I'd now become a celebrity by
association, a situation that was odd at times, and also extremely
frustrating sometimes, too.

"Jack, there's nobody you know in VIP tonight," Julie said, leading us
through the arena as she handed Andrew and I our backstage passes. We both
hung them around our necks, but really only needed them for the local
security people. All of the tour personnel knew who we were, and would let
us through without question. "There are a couple contest winners, and some
record execs and their families. Do you know how to get to the back when
it's over, or do you want someone to come get you?"

"I think I can figure it out," I said, looking around. "This is pretty much
like the last place, right?"

"Yeah," she answered, nodding. The main doors had opened, and people were
beginning to take their seats. Julie, as an intern, probably had a lot of
stuff to do, and didn't need to hang around occupying us. I held out
Junior's case to her, and she smiled.  "Is he up yet?"

"He's still tranqued," I answered, shaking my head. "Please make sure he
gets a lot of water when he wakes up, and that someone takes him to the
bathroom."

"Jack, he'll be fine, just like every time," Julie said, laughing. I hated
having Junior out of my sight, even for a minute, since Kevin had told Josh
and I, one night when we were at his house for dinner with him and Kristin,
about how some fans kidnapped Brian and Leighanne's dogs once. The only
person we shared Junior with was Justin, who loved him as much as we
did. "I'll have him on the bus when you guys get there, ok?"

"Do you want me to stay with you, or go with the dog?" Andrew asked,
smirking again.

"Shut up," I said, waving Julie away. "Or I'll order you to sing along."

"I don't get paid enough for that, either," Andrew said, looking around for
the refrigerator.

The VIP area is, other than a private box, the best place to watch a
concert from. You're right against the stage, the chairs are more
comfortable, and they give you snacks and drinks. I nodded to the other
people there as Andrew handed me a diet soda, and we settled into our seats
as the crew finished their last minute work before the opening acts came
on. The crew, glancing over, saw me, and nodded and smiled as I smiled back
at them, Andrew and I making small talk and trying to remember who the
openers were this time. Like the Celebrity tour, they had a changing
schedule of them, some for one show, some for another, and I hoped and
prayed we weren't there for one of the nights when Puffy opened again. I
was still firmly convinced that the statue he gave Josh and I for our
wedding was a bong.

When the guys finally started their set I sat up straight, watching the
entire thing with rapt attention, dancing a little in my chair and singing
along. Andrew had gotten past the point of rolling his eyes at me, or the
way I stared at Josh like a lovesick teenager for every single moment he
was onstage. Since he wasn't expecting me, I figured Josh wouldn't see me
until someone else pointed me out. Josh told me that he never actually saw
anyone in the audience, because if he stopped to think about that many
people looking at him at once he would probably freeze up completely. You
couldn't tell when he was onstage, but Josh was a pretty shy guy, in
general, and prone to nervousness.

The concert started out fast and loud, with lots of flash, and the guys in
bright, shiny costumes. Some of the songs had been remixed a little, and
the choreography was completely changed, for the most part. The fans loved
it, even if they didn't know why it was different, and Chris's explanation
that they wanted to give everybody who had seen the previous concerts a
newer show had been accepted without question. Some things you only noticed
if you looked for them, like Justin being as far from Joey as possible, no
matter what they were doing, or how close together the arrangement had the
whole group of them. Whenever they split sides, the two of them always went
in the opposite direction, and when Justin was singing a lead, Joey was
always at the end of whatever dance line was behind him. Joey didn't argue
or question it when they'd mapped it out, not wanting to push Justin's
comfort level, and we all just kind of hoped that Justin would eventually
cross his own line, and be close to Joey again.

After the opening songs, they had the first break, which was Lance sitting
on a jutting piece of the stage, saying hi to whatever city they were in
("Hi there, New York!" was tonight's greeting), explaining that it would be
just him for the next song, and then singing a really bluesy version of
"Dock of the Bay", which worked well with his deep voice. Halfway through
it he glanced over and spotted Andrew and I, and I could tell that he was
surprised. Apparently, like Melinda, everyone thought I was coming in
tomorrow, but as he finished up he gave me a quick wink, and I knew that
Josh would know about me in about ten more seconds. When Lance finished up,
he introduced Joey, who came out on a moving platform as Lance's slid back
into the stage, singing "Ready to Fall."  None of the mechanical platform
shifting was quite as elaborate as the Celebrity tour or the NSA tour,
which was good, since it didn't require a hundred trucks to transport the
stage.

After Joey finished up, nodding to me with a smile, all of them were back
onstage, doing a few of their slower ballads. As soon as they hit the stage
Josh looked around for me and smiled, blowing me a kiss before launching
into his part. I found myself grinning thoughtlessly, and smacked Andrew on
the arm as he rolled his eyes and sighed. The lineup was a nice mix of
their newer stuff, which was selling quite well, and the older favorites,
although, as on the last tour, some of the older songs had been remixed and
tweaked a little. This set rounded out with Justin doing "Gone", his
spotlight piece, while all of them sat on beanbags in pajama bottoms and
t-shirts. I hadn't seen the costuming for this until the final dress
rehearsal, when they did the whole show for family and friends, and I had
felt my eyes water when Josh sat down on his beanbag and we all saw that
the front of his t-shirt had "J Squared" on it in silvery glitter.
Replicas of it were selling at the concession stands better than some of
the regular band shirts, as gay guys everywhere were buying them up. Josh
and I had become icons, bigger than Ellen and Anne or Rosie and what's her
name, and unlike George Michael, Josh still had a career.

After the lights went down on that Chris came out, full of hyperactive
energy, to get everyone excited again, wearing a stupid propeller beanie on
his head and leading the audience in a mostly participatory version of "The
Lion Sleeps Tonight". I laughed all the way through it, clapping and
singing along, which is exactly what Chris wanted people to do when he
decided to make that his solo piece. It got everyone excited again, and
laughing, especially listening to his sharply high voice, and made a great
segue back into their faster songs, with more of the flashing lights and
dizzying choreography they were known for. Watching them, even though I'd
now seen this show several times in a row, I always felt an immense sense
of pride, knowing how hard they worked, and that everything we were
listening to was real, because they didn't sing to a tape, like Britney
did.

After the set of fast songs, though, I felt myself tensing up a little,
knowing what was coming next. The lights went down, and then one spotlight
came on as Josh rose up from below the stage, seated at a piano, all in
black. If the core audience had been older, there would have been cigarette
lighters going on all over the arena, but instead it was just those
spinning light thingies they sold at the concession stands, lighting up the
darkness as Josh, without an introduction, began playing "Incomplete". The
house, as always, was silent, saving their swell of applause for the end,
and my eyes, as always, watered at hearing Josh's voice so filled with raw
emotion and pain. Andrew handed me some tissues.

"You ok?" he asked, as Josh, head bowed, sank back below the stage.

"I'm fine," I lied, blotting at my eyes. I knew why Josh had picked that
song, since we'd talked about it on the honeymoon, but it still brought
back a lot of painful memories for us both. Maybe facing them during every
show helped Josh to lay them to rest, by taking some of the sting out of
them, but I was more of the feeling that it would be better to let a scab
form over the whole thing, to push it all away. I knew that wasn't healthy,
though, which was why I'd agreed to let the guys put the song on the album,
and to let Josh sing it.

When it was over they popped back out amid more flashing lights and
blasting music, and did a couple more songs before they finished the show,
as was almost a tradition now, with "Bye Bye Bye".

"We are Nsync!" Josh yelled, as they stood in the center of the stage
holding hands.

"Good night everybody!" Joey yelled as the guys, one by one, waved, and
then jogged offstage.

Down below, I knew, they would towel off and get changed before climbing
wearily onto the bus back to the hotel. Josh would be tired, as he always
seemed to be exhausted on tour, and the others were always showing me shots
in their photo albums of Josh sleeping on busses, planes, and couches,
wherever he could catch a spare wink. At the other end of the spectrum,
Chris would be completely hyper, bouncing around the bus, guzzling water
along with the rest of them, making sure everyone was ok and talking about
everything that had happened during the show, even if it was routine. The
other three were somewhere in between. Justin was always keyed up after a
performance, but by morning would have coasted back down into his shell a
little, and Lance's mood would change to match, going from enthused to
nurturing as Justin needed him to. Joey would be dialing his phone as they
got on the bus, calling to talk to Bri and to tuck her in over the phone.
Chris always saved his call to Vlada for later, and Josh snickeringly
suggested it was so they could have phone sex without the rest of them
hearing.

As Andrew and I walked backstage, heading for the dressing rooms, we ran
into Chad in the hall, hair gelled, jeans too tight, looking for all the
world like one of the backup dancers in his sleeveless top. I was almost
sure that he was wearing lip gloss, and his eyes popped open in surprise
when he saw me.

"Jack!" he blurted, his voice cracking. "Oh my God! I thought you weren't
coming in until tomorrow!"

"Apparently," I sneered. "That would probably be why I was sitting at the
airport alone with no ride, and no passes. I bet I don't have a hotel key,
either, do I, Chad?"

He squirmed uncomfortably, and Andrew watched, not even bothering to
pretend to be staring at the ceiling or something.

"No," Chad answered finally, looking at me pleadingly. "I'm really, really
sorry, though.  It's just that, you know, JC said yesterday that he'd take
me to lunch today, and I was really excited, and I guess I got your
schedule confused, because I thought you were coming in at six in the
morning, not six tonight."

"You got confused?" I asked, feeling annoyed. "You have three main
responsibilities, Chad. You open the mail to me and Josh, and help us with
correspondence. Is that beyond you?"

"No," he answered, looking at the floor as he wrung his hands together.

"My face is up here, Chad, not on the carpet," I snapped. Why did he have
to be such a wuss when I confronted him on anything he did? It made me feel
like a bully.  "You're my research assistant. You look things up for me and
make sure my facts are up to date.  Is that too much for you?"

"No," Chad answered, looking at my mouth. It was closer to looking me in
the eye than staring at the floor had been, but I still wanted to grab him
and shake him.

"The last thing you have to do is coordinate my schedule, to make sure shit
like this doesn't happen," I said. "Since this is the second time in three
weeks that I've been sitting at an airport with no ride, not to mention
when I flew into Boston three hours after the busses rolled out of town,
I'm thinking that maybe we might be asking too much of you. Are we?"

"I said I was sorry," he whined, chewing on his bottom lip.

"Fine, you're sorry, but my patience is gone, Chad," I said, shaking my
head. "Maybe you should start thinking about whether or not this actually
is the right job for you, because you can believe that I'm starting to
wonder about it."

"It won't happen again, Jack," he said quietly. His face was starting to
get a little red.

"No, it won't," I agreed. I know that Josh wanted to give him a chance, and
kept telling me to be patient with him, but he hadn't really shown any
signs of improvement. He was flighty and unreliable, and I expected more
out of someone that we were paying as much as he was getting. And it had
nothing to do with the way he looked at Josh, either, like he would gladly
hand over both his kidneys in a heartbeat if Josh asked for them. I was
definitely not snapping at Chad all the time because I was possessive and
jealous, and why was Josh taking him out to lunch, anyway? "Why don't you
take a little time to think about this, and stop by our room, wherever in
the hotel that may be since I have no idea, tomorrow morning at about
eleven? If you still work for us by then I'll have some stuff for you."

"OK," Chad said quickly, all but running down the hall. He was holding a
hand up near his eyes, and I realized that I'd probably made him
cry. Great. I felt my anger giving way to frustration as I realized that
I'd been a total shit to him, treating him like my mother, oops, my other
mother, treated the maid.

"Good night, Chad," Andrew called down the hall after him, and I shot him a
little glare.  He blinked innocently at me. "What? Did you want me to grab
him and hold him so that you could slap him, too?"

"OK, your point is duly noted," I said, shaking my head. "I didn't mean to
do that in front of you, and I could have handled that better. He just, I
don't know, he pushes this button inside me, and I turn into this total
bitch."

"No way, Leona Helmsley," Andrew said, smirking again. "You're great with
the hired help."

"OK, I get it," I said, smiling against my will. "You know, Chad isn't the
only employee I could fire."

"Good luck finding someone else who's willing to put up with your drama,"
Andrew chuckled. "Are you going to need me tomorrow?"

"Maybe in the afternoon," I answered. "I don't know what our schedule is."

"OK," Andrew said. "Call my cell when you know. Now, the dressing rooms are
right around that corner, and I think you can get that far on your own,
unless you want me to walk you the rest of the way."

"I think I'll be ok," I agreed. "I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"Do us all a favor and get laid," Andrew called, walking away. "Take some
of the edge off."

"You're not funny," I called after him. I did, however, fully intend to get
laid, but not until the morning, when Josh was fully awake.

I turned and began to walk down the hall, passing the game room and the
quiet room, which even I wasn't allowed to go in. It was band members only,
and they were firm on that rule. There were two dressing rooms set up, as
there had been at all of the other shows. Lance and Justin shared one, and
Josh, Joey, and Chris shared the other. Lance, changed out of his costume
and into regular clothes, was stepping into the hallway as I walked out,
and when he saw me he broke into a grin as he closed the door of the
dressing room behind him. He looked better every time I saw him, and last
time I asked he'd told me that he was sleeping through the night a lot more
frequently. I guess taking care of Justin was good for him.

"Hey!" he said, holding out his arms. We hugged quickly, squeezing each
other tight.  Lance and I hadn't gotten along in the beginning, but we were
well beyond that now. "I thought you weren't coming until tomorrow
morning."

"So did everyone," I sighed, pulling back. He caught the look on my face.
"Yeah, Chad.  Again. Great show tonight, by the way."

"Thanks," he said. "I swiveled wrong during 'Pop', though. I wasn't
concentrating."

"Lance, no one noticed that," I said, shaking my head. They were all like
this. If I said the same thing to each of them, told them all it was a
great show, all five of them would be able to tell me immediately one thing
that they'd done wrong, and would have fixed by the next show. In almost
every case, the audience never saw it, but they were such
perfectionists. "Where's Justin?"

"He's getting changed," Lance said, nodding toward the door. Lance was the
only one allowed in the room when Justin changed, so I knew better than to
knock. "I have to pee, though."

"OK," I said. "Have fun. I'll see you guys on the bus, ok?"

"Yeah," he answered. "Welcome back."

"Thanks," I said, walking up to the other door. I could hear Chris and Joey
laughing at something. Knocking, I leaned just my head in. "Hello?"

"Jack!" Josh burst, hurrying across the room, shirtless. I felt my mouth
watering as his bare torso danced toward me, and he jerked me inside,
wrapping his strong arms tightly around me as he swung me in a circle
across the room. I buried my face in his neck, my arms sliding over the
smooth skin of his back as his sweaty hair brushed my cheek.

"That's our cue to leave," Joey said, grabbing his bag.

"See you two on the bus," Chris said, laughing, as he and Joey walked over
to the door.

"Mmmm hmmm," I mumbled, falling into Josh's blue eyes as he began to rain
kisses across my face. I grabbed his head gently and pressed his mouth to
mine, feeling the firm pressure of his silky lips as his invading tongue
snaked into my mouth. When he finally pulled back we were both panting, and
it seemed like we sucked in all the air in the room.

"Welcome back," Josh breathed, not letting go of me.

"Thanks," I said, sliding my hands over his velvety chest. He'd stopped
waxing it, and I found the little sprinkling of hair across the tops of his
pecs fascinating to play with. "I missed you."

"I missed you more," Josh said, kissing me again.

"It's only been two days, babe," I said, laughing, as I pulled away.

"It felt like two months," he whined, pulling a shirt off of the rack next
to him.

"Well," I said, crossing my arms. "Why don't you finished getting dressed,
so we can go back to the hotel, and make up for lost time?"

"Let's go," he said, and I laughed. "What?"

"Nothing," I said, pointing. "I was just thinking that maybe you needed
some shoes."

"Smartass," he snickered, looking around for them.

"Love you," I said, pointing at them.

"Love you, too," he answered, slipping his feet into them. "Let's go."

***

To be continued.

Before that, though, I just want to give a quick shout out to all the nice
people I've talked to this summer in the chatrooms, #boybands and
#crazy. Once I get back on my regular schedule I'll be back in there a lot
more often.