Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 18:23:28 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jason Calme <jasoncalme@yahoo.com>
Subject: Boy Bands - All The Ways I Love You Chapter 33

All the Ways I Love You

This story is about male/male relationships and contains
graphic descriptions of sex.

You should not read this story if it is in any way illegal
due to your age or residence.

This is a work of pure fiction. It mixes fictional characters
and events with real people. However any real person
mentioned in this work is purely an actor playing a part.
This story in no way is meant to imply anything about the
sexuality, personality, or behavior of the actual person.

Thanks to the many readers who have responded to this story.
Thanks to mattvt for reviewing and proofing parts of this
story; all errors remain my fault!

Copyright 2003 Jason Calme. This story is the sole property
of its author and may not be copied in whole or in part or
posted on any website without the permission of the author.

Questions and commentary can be sent to
"JasonCalme@yahoo.com".


Chapter 33

"He...he told you?" I gasped.

"Yes."

"What else?"

My Mom stared at me levelly. "He said he was going to move out.
That you said you wanted him to stay...that you forgave him..."

I nodded.

"But it looks like you haven't."

"Well...it's not easy!" I snapped.

"Well then, if you can't forgive him, maybe you shouldn't have
said that you did."

I felt like I'd been punched. Why was my Mother standing up for
Justin? "What? What kind of logic is that?"

"I'm just saying Ethan," she said softly, coming to stand next to
me, "maybe you haven't forgiven him, so you shouldn't say that you
have."

"Well...he...he cheated!"

"I know. And he's sorry. And maybe that's not enough. But you
need to face it head on. Not bicker at each other and fight about
other things. Either you sort it out, or you don't. But not talking
about it when you're still upset about it is not going to get you
anywhere."

I stood there not sure what to say, and then I slumped down and
sat on the end of the bed and Mom sat down next to me and put
her arm around me.

"So I'm being stupid then?" I asked.

"No," she said, brushing the hair out of my face with her other
hand.

"Then what do I do?"

"That's up to you."

"I should just forget about it?" I said warily.

"If you've forgiven him, then you have to. If you can't, then
maybe you can't forgive him."

"I thought I could. I still love him, I just...I'm so angry about it."

"Then maybe you need to talk about that with him."

"We've talked all about it. It doesn't seem to make any
difference. Maybe I just can't forgive him."

"Maybe."

"But I want to! What am I supposed to do?"

Mom shrugged. "I can't tell you that Ethan. That's up to you."

I sat there thinking, but couldn't seem to come up with an
answer. "What would you do? Would you forgive Dad if he did this?"

She looked at me thoughtfully. "Ethan I can't answer that for you.
I don't know how I might react. Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn't. I
don't know."

"Yeah."

"Are you worried he'll do it again?"

"No," I shook my head. I was pretty certain he wouldn't.

"That he likes the person?"

"He didn't even know her name."

"Oh. Are you worried he doesn't love you?" she said.

"No...he...I know he loves me. I know he's sorry...he wants to do
anything to make it right and I can't tell him what to do...I'm just so
angry...so angry I didn't stop it."

Mom frowned. "You didn't stop it?"

"I...I...Did he tell you where it happened?"

"When he was out in LA?"

"It was a big party he went to."

"Yes," she nodded.

"He didn't want to go but the record company insisted."

"He didn't tell me that."

"He wanted me to go out and go with him," I said, thinking of all
those phone calls and cursing myself mentally for not going. This
never would have happened if I had gone.

"Oh. You couldn't go?" Mom asked quietly. "Or you didn't want
to?"

"I was...I was procrastinating over some work and he was
whining at me to come and I just...I stupidly decided to put my foot
down and I wasn't going to go no matter what...and he was...he
practically begged me to come out and I said no."

"Do you think he did it to get back at you?" she asked me.

"I don't know...I don't think so...it was just all so
complicated...You know with the press, and him being pressured to
put up a straight front...it just all got so bad," I felt like crying and
Mom squeezed me and I leaned my head on her shoulder. "I think
he was really hurt I wouldn't go out there when he'd asked me to,
and then the record company was on at him and his ex-girlfriend
was there with boyfriend in tow and..." I sobbed against my Mother.
She ran her hand through my hair.

"You know..." I said still crying, "if it was me, I probably would
have done it too," and I collapsed against her.

"It's okay Ethan," she said holding me and rocking me. "It'll be
okay."

When I'd calmed down a bit she got up and grabbed a box of
tissues and handed me a couple. I dabbed at my eyes and blew my
nose.

She sat down next to me.

"You know," she said quietly, "maybe you need to forgive yourself
as well as Justin. It's not your fault."

"Yes it is," I whispered, almost crying again.

"You didn't do it on purpose."

"Yes I did."

"Well you didn't mean for that to happen."

"But it did!" I was so angry with myself.

"So you're going to let some bad decisions and a moment of
weakness destroy all the happiness you could have?"

"Huh!" I said rolling my eyes.

"What? You're not happy with Justin?"

"No, I am...I love him so much...and I know he loves me...it's
just...God it's such hard work."

My Mom looked at me and smiled.

"What?" I said.

"I told you he was high maintenance," she said with a smile. "But
you didn't believe me."

"Yes I did," I laughed a little. "I just couldn't imagine this much!"

"Well, are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah Mom. Thanks Mom," I said and I put my arms around her
and we hugged.

"Okay, well I'm going to go out and see about dessert."

"Okay."

"You'll be out in a bit?"

"Yeah."



Mom left and I stood up and looked at myself in the mirror. My
eyes were red and I dabbed at them with a tissue. Then I went
down to the bathroom and washed my face. I felt better after that,
and I looked better too. I stared at myself. I knew what I had to do.

I walked down to the family room. Dad, Simon and Justin were
sitting watching TV. Simon was on the floor and Dad was in the
recliner. Justin was sitting at the end of one of the couches, looking
very lost. He looked up at me when I came into the room, but his
eyes didn't hold mine. He looked away quickly and looked down.

I stood there looking at him, not sure exactly how to proceed.
After a few seconds I just sat down beside Justin. He looked over at
me as I smiled nervously at him. He flashed a small smile and looked
away again.

I felt so nervous. What was he thinking? Was he angry with me?
Would he spurn me now? I tentatively reached out and put my hand
over his and closed mine around it, squeezing gently. He looked
back at me when I did that, looking down at our hands and then up
into my eyes. I smiled at him and he smiled tentatively back at me,
and I squeezed his hand again.

I leaned over towards him and he leaned over and I whispered
into his ear.

"I'm sorry I've been an asshole."

He shook his head and said quietly, "It's all my fault."

"It's not all your fault Justin. It's my fault too. I want us to work
this out. I know we can. I love you. Will you give me another
chance?"

Justin half laughed at that. His eyes were watering and he turned
to face me and I leaned in and kissed him slowly, a long slow kiss
but with more love than we'd managed for the last few days.

He pulled back.

"Okay?" I asked softly and he nodded, the tears coming faster,
and then he sobbed and collapsed against me and I put my arms
around him and hugged him close.

"It's okay baby...we're going to be okay," I whispered to him and
he nodded his head, still sobbing quietly.

I looked around the room. My Dad was studiously watching the
TV, pointedly ignoring us. Simon glanced over now and again, a
curious expression on his face. Not judgmental, just wondering
what was going on. My Mom was standing in the doorway and she
smiled at me, and then turned and went back into the kitchen.



"Are you two going to be okay?" my Mom asked.

"I think so."

"That's good."

We were standing together in the kitchen and I wanted to ask
her if we could break the house rule again but I didn't know quite
how to do it. And what to do if she said no?

"I'm going to bed now," my Mom said. "Justin looked like he might
need some company tonight. You might want to check on him? Make
sure he's tucked up in bed?" she said to me with a smile on her
face. She used to say something like that to me when Simon was
young and would get up after going to bed. I'd complain and then
go up and put the kid back in bed and tell him to stay there. At one
point it had become a bit of a game.

"Just try to wait until Simon is asleep," she added, "and not too
many loud noises." And with that she was gone, humming to
herself.


I crept into the room, pulling the door closed behind me.

"Ethan?" I heard a voice whisper.

"Yeah. Hey!" I said, climbing into the bed beside him.

"Hey baby," he said, cuddling up next to me. "I missed you."

"I've missed you too baby. I'm sorry I've been a jerk the last
couple of days."

"That's okay. I deserved it."

"No you didn't."

"Yes I did."

"No...because...I wasn't angry with you, I was angry with me."

"You were angry at yourself?" Justin sounded puzzled.

"For not coming out when you asked me. If I'd come out it
wouldn't have happened."

"Oh..."

"I'm sorry."

"It wasn't your fault."

"I still feel it partly is. Will you forgive me?"

"Of course, sure I do," I could see him smiling in the dim light.

"And I forgive you," I said.

"Yeah?"

"So let's not talk about it again, okay baby? And I'll try not to be a
jerk about it again."

"Me too...I love you," he said and we kissed.

"Though I do want to...man you've got balls telling my Mother you
cheated on me."

Justin laughed, "Yeah...I couldn't believe it myself...it just kind of
came out."

"What happened?" I asked curiously. Really I just wondered how
it happened.

"Well," he started, "she came after me and said I seemed upset
and I said I was okay, and then she asked me if we were fighting."

"Uh huh."

"And I said I didn't want to talk about it and she said that if I ever
did want to talk about it she would be happy to listen and she
wouldn't pass judgment on anything I told her."

"Sounds like Mom," I said, slowly running my hand down Justin's
side.

"So I kind of said I'd done something bad and you were mad at
me and well, one thing led to another, and I just told her."

"Wow. What did she say?"

Justin took a deep breath. "As I said it I was like, 'Oh my God'
she's going to kick me out or have your Dad beat me up or
something! I felt so bad. And she just put her arms around me and
hugged me. I was kind of shocked."

He lay there staring at me and I could just make out his eyes
were watering. He started to cry and I started to tear up too. We
clutched at each other, breathing hard, sobbing against one
another.

The hugging slowly turned to cuddling, and the crying started to
abate. Holding each other, running our hands over each other. I
realized that the last couple of nights we'd had sex, but we hadn't
been loving. Or at least I hadn't been. I'd just got off using his
body. I was still so angry then. I'd made sex, not love.

There was a difference. Sex could be mutual masturbation.
Helping each other off. Or it could be with love.

I knew he hadn't loved that girl. She'd just masturbated him. It
was nothing. He was still mine. Had always been mine. Had always
loved me. I wondered if he thought about me while that girl sucked
him. I almost wanted to ask him, but I knew I had to get past this.

Let it go.

I ran my hands up and down him, pulling him close to me, kissing
him on the lips and face. Letting him know I still loved him, loved him
so much. And I could see tears running down his cheeks.

"I love you so much, baby," I whispered into his ear.

"I don't deserve you," he said softly.

"I don't deserve you," I said back to him.

"No I don't," he said.

"No I don't," and I shut him up with a long hard kiss.

We lay there in each other's arms, just holding each other, being
loving to one another. There was no sex. Just love. He was my love.
The only one for me. He felt so warm and comfortable next to me.
We just fit together. And I lay there, thanking everything I could
think of; God, my Mother, my luck, so grateful I hadn't lost him. And
finally falling asleep.




Life almost returned to normal after that. Justin never discussed it
much, but suddenly he was back to frequent visits and we seemed
to be lucky with the press. No one seemed to have noticed he was
visiting my building or staying there for a week here and there. To
minimize any problems we never went in or out of the building
together, and we were careful when being seen out around the
town. No hugging, holding hands or anything. We figured they'd get
pictures of us together; that was fine. Pictures of him coming into
the building; fine. As long as there were no pictures of us going in
and out together, or being intimate out in the public, then without
anything else, there wasn't much the press could really do with the
pictures.

Justin was asked questions for a while, but he would just shrug
and say we were friends and move on.


Every time Justin came home seemed to be like a party. He'd
arrive with bags and boxes of stuff. A guitar one time, a keyboard
another. There was a constant stream of things being delivered by
UPS and Fed Ex. I think a different pair of sneakers were delivered
every other day.

Justin's stuff was starting to overwhelm my tiny apartment. The
hallway was stacked with things. The side of the bedroom was now
devoted to his music gear. The theory was he could play in there
without disturbing me too much.

But it was getting to be too much. Something had to be done.
One morning I got up and I went to look in my closet for something
to wear. Opening the door, items flew out at me, falling on the floor,
dropping from above. It was an avalanche of clothes and sneaker
boxes. Once I'd pulled my way out of that, I searched through the
closet. I found exactly one shirt of my own in there. Everything else
was Justin's!  So where was my stuff? I hunted around and
eventually found some stuff piled on the chair by his side of the bed.
I got dressed and marched down to the living room.

Justin was sitting on the couch, wearing sweat pants and t-shirt,
his hair still messed from the night before, eating cereal while
watching MTV. God he was beautiful.

"Justin!" I snapped.

"Huh?" he said looking up.

"Do you know there was exactly one shirt of mine packed into
that damned closet?"

A smile came to his mouth and he looked back at the TV.

I kicked his feet softly.

"Hey! I'm talking to you," I said.

"What?" he moaned. "It's not my fault you don't have any
clothes." He paused and the smile got larger. "You want to go
shopping today?"

"Justin," I bickered, "I don't need more clothes! I need to find the
ones I own! And have somewhere to put them!"

"Huh!" Justin smirked.

"Justin!"

"What?"

"It's just getting out of control. You've got more stuff here than I
do"

He shrugged. "Maybe we need to find a bigger place?" he said
impishly.

Every time he'd suggested finding another place before, and he'd
done it a few times, I'd had a gut reaction against it. I wasn't ready
to abandon 'my place' for an 'our place.' For some reason this time I
didn't have that gut reaction. Instead I was standing there thinking
about it. What would it mean? How difficult would it be?

Justin, who'd gone back to looking at the television, seemed to
have noticed that I hadn't instantly dismissed the idea. He turned
back to face me

He stared at me for a moment, and slowly a grin came to his face.

"So?" he asked.

"Maybe," I answered.

His face lit up. "Cool!" he said, jumping up. "Do you have a
paper?" he asked.

"What?"

"Want to look at some listings? Maybe we could go and look at
places this afternoon?"

"This afternoon?" I almost gasped. I was thinking of spending
some time talking about what we wanted. Then some more time
thinking about it, and then maybe in a month or two...

"Sure...let's get the paper," I heard myself say.

Justin nearly let out a whop as he jumped up and ran over to the
counter and then jogged back with yesterday's paper. He opened it
up and threw it down on the coffee table, crouching down in front of
it and patting the ground next to him to indicate I should join him.

I knelt down and kind of cast my gaze over the ads.

"Here's one," he said pointing at it, and then he picked up a pen
and drew a circle around it.

I looked down at it:

	4BR in lovely doorman building boasts huge living room, eat-in
kitchen with all amenities...

"Ah Justin," I said, "that's a 4 bedroom place in the upper east
side..."

"Yeah. You don't want to move there?"

"Well...ah we don't need a 4 bedroom. I was thinking of a 2
bedroom. That's too expensive," I said.

"Nah...I was thinking we need one bedroom, then an office for
you, a studio for me, and then we could have a weight room..."

"A weight room?!" I almost started to laugh.

"Weights and a treadmill and stuff. Then I can work out at home
sometimes without the hassle of going down to the gym," Justin
said seriously.

"Oh..."

"Is that okay?" he asked.

"I don't know...it's just..." I looked at the price.

"I'm gonna help pay for it...it's going to be our place..." and he
looked into my eyes, his face a mixture of enthusiasm and
hopefulness.

And what was I supposed to say to that?

"Well we have to figure out the costs...and share it equally."

"Sure..." Justin said, looking happy again. "Look you pay what
you're currently paying, and I'll make up the difference?"

"But then you'd be paying more than half!" I protested.

"But I'm going to have more rooms since the weight room is my
idea."

"I don't know." I was so tempted. But I was still thinking of
reasons to say no.

"Think about it. In the mean time, let's see what's out there. We
can work out the details later," and he turned back to the paper
and started happily circling things.

I wasn't sure about that idea, but I decided to go along with it for
the moment.


Justin offered to contact an agent to show us a couple of
apartments. I hate dealing with agents, but to humor him I said
okay. The idea was that it would be my name used for everything
so no one would find out about Justin. And we decided to take Abby
with us for cover when we went looking. We were going to pretend
that Abby and I were together, and Justin was Abby's brother since
he looked more like her than me.

When I called Abby to see if she was up for it she was so
enthusiastic I was a little bit surprised. I kind of thought she'd think
we were dumb, but later I decided she just wanted to go look at
apartments.

So the next day the three of us caught a cab from my apartment
to go meet the realtor. Justin gave the cab driver the address, and I
didn't really pay attention. Honestly, I wasn't thinking we'd rent the
first place we saw. This was sort of an exploratory trip and maybe in
a few weeks we'd focus in on what we wanted.

Much to my surprise, we ended up in a really expensive looking
neighborhood that I couldn't believe would have an apartment in
the price range Justin and I had been looking in.

Okay, a price range I had been looking in. Justin looked at
anything that had at least 4 bedrooms, ignoring the price
completely.

I began to worry that I had let Justin lead us on a wild goose
chase.

We climbed out of the cab and a woman dressed in very
expensive looking clothes, in her mid fifties, came walking over to
us.

"Are you the Thompsons?" she asked.

"I'm Ethan Thompson," I said. "This is Abby, and this is her
brother...ah...Randall."

"How do you do, I'm Ellen," she said.

She shook our hands in a very stiff and quick way, and led us up
to the entrance.

"This is a wonderful place, you're going to love it...it's been empty
only a couple of weeks," she started on her sales speech.

We came up to the door and I looked and there was only one
doorbell. I wondered what that was about. Maybe there were more
inside the entranceway. She smiled and took out a key and opened
the door, leading us into the entranceway. It was not very large,
and there were no mailboxes or buzzers. She then opened the
interior door.

"I'll just turn off the alarm," she said, going and punching at
buttons on a pad by the door. We were now in a large hallway with
stairs going up on the left side. To the right were double doors
leading into what looked like a huge room, and straight ahead, the
hallway lead back into the house with other doors off of it, and
what looked like a kitchen at the end.

"This is the living room," she said, taking us into this huge room
with a fireplace and chandelier. It was about the size of my
apartment. Then she led us through to the dining room, and then to
the living room beyond that. Then into the kitchen. It was huge,
with counters, an island and all modern appliances. She waved at
the windows casually and said "The garden is small but delightful.
I'll take you out to the garden when we've finished inside."

She then showed us a bedroom that was downstairs. "You can
use this as a guest bedroom" she said. "Or as a study."

Then up stairs we went. On the second floor there were more
rooms; bedrooms, an office and a poolroom. On the third floor were
even more rooms.

I was dizzy.

"Oh and in the basement there's the guest apartment."

She took us downstairs and showed us a tiny little apartment
with kitchen, bathroom and bedroom.

"So they rent this?" I asked.

"No it's going to be vacant until it's sold." And she handed me a
sheet on the place and my eyes fell to the price at the bottom.

"Uh..." I said. "You know, can you give us a few moments?" I
asked politely.

"Oh, certainly" she said.

I looked over at Justin, who was now half was across the room,
looking innocent. I went over and literally grabbed him by the arm
and dragged him over to the corner, Abby following along.

"What are you doing?" I hissed.

"Just looking!" he said, as though it was no big deal.

"Looking? This house is...did you see the price? We never talked
about buying a place, and I can't afford this."

Justin looked guilty and hurt at the same time. "I just wanted to
look at a couple of places to see what was out there. There's no
harm in looking," he almost whined.

"Justin..." I hissed. "You tricked me!"

"I'm sorry," he said, but I didn't get the impression he really was.
"Just give it a chance, okay? Just look," he begged.

"Justin!" I hissed.

He stared back at me, and then his face turned to a mixture of
sad and mad. "You don't have to sign anything," he said angrily,
and stomped away from me. I looked at Abby, who just gave me a
look as if to say 'I'm not getting involved in this.'

I decided I needed to calm down. We went back into the kitchen
and out into the garden and looked at that. It was a nice little
garden. Really the place was very nice, but it didn't grab me. I
noticed that Justin attempted to be casually interested, while
keeping as far away from me as possible.

I looked at the listing sheet that I still held in my hand, and damn
it, I tried to be angry with him. And yet I kind of wondered why I
was angry. If 'we' were going to buy this place it was mainly going
to be him that was buying it. There was no way of pretending I
could have bought it, or even half of it. This was quite a commitment
for him to make. More than I expected.

Was it more than I wanted?

The four of us were standing there. Me looking at Justin, Justin
avoiding looking at me, Abby and the Realtor making small talk. I
turned to Abby.

"Abby?" I said, and she came over to me. "Could you do me a
favor? Do you think you could get her to show you something inside
for ten minutes?" I whispered.

Abby nodded and said 'sure' and went over and asked the real
estate agent something and they walked inside. Justin looked up
and noticed them going as I wandered over to stand beside him.

He looked at me and then away and I put my arm around him and
pulled him toward me. He resisted for a bit and then let me pull him
to me, and I Leaned in and kissed him quickly.

"You're an annoying little fuck, you know that!" I said playfully,
and he smiled. "I love you."

"I just wanted to..." he said quietly. "I thought maybe we should
look at something more permanent."

"Yeah...permanent huh?" I asked, looking at him and smiling.

"If you...if you want," he said hesitantly.

"I don't know Justin," I began, and he flinched a little. "Not about
the permanent, it's how much this costs. I don't want people
thinking I'm living off you...especially your mother."

He stood there looking thoughtful.

"But let's talk about permanent as a separate thing to where we
are going to live," I went on. "Permanent sounds good...like
something I'm hoping that we'd be..."

Justin smiled and I put my arms around him and we kissed and
hugged tightly.

"We don't have to look at the other places," he said. "I arranged
for us to look at some apartments tomorrow. Let's just do that."

"You did, did you?" I said and playfully poked him.

"Yeah," he looked away and then back into my eyes.

I grabbed the lapels of his jacket and tugged them tightly, using
them to pull him towards me.

"Let's look at the other places," I said. "We're already out. It
won't take long," I said and kissed him on the nose.

"Okay?" he asked.

"Yeah...just next time you could let me know rather than sand
bag me. Okay?"

"Oh...that's no fun!" he laughed, and I kissed him again.

"Well we better go before Abby runs out of excuses to keep the
Real Estate agent in there." I let go of him and we walked inside,
finding Abby and the real estate agent in the hallway talking about
parking and things.

"So what did you think?" the real estate agent asked turning to
Justin and I. I thought for a moment, the said, "Well it's nice. It's
also the first place we've seen so it's kind of hard to really say...but
its' nice."

"Would you like to see the next place?" she asked.

"Sure. Do you have a sheet on it?" I asked. She went into her
brief case and pulled out two more sheets.

"These are the two properties that I thought you might look at."

I took them and Abby and Justin crowded around to look over my
shoulder. I handed one sheet to Abby and Justin and I glanced at
the first one, and then we switched. The first sheet was for
something that was priced similarly to this one, and seemed to be
older. The second place was several million more and seemed to be
huge and recently remodeled.

I looked at Abby and rolled my eyes.

The Real Estate agent was looking hopeful.

"Sure," I said, let's take a look.

We went to the expensive one first. It was amazing. Very
modern, but a little stark. It looked like it had just come out of a
House & Garden photo shoot. Justin seemed to like it a lot. I felt it
was sterile.

The last place was something else again. It needed work; the
kitchen was old and needed new appliances, maybe a complete
redesign. But it had a wonderful top floor room with a patio garden,
and another very private garden in the back. It was three floors,
but it was smaller than the other places. Still there was a living
room, dining room, living room and plenty of other rooms for
whatever we might need. Offices, spare bedrooms, music studio
and weight room. There was also a garage that opened out to the
alleyway in the back.

There was something about the place I just liked. It seemed like
a home. I could imagine living there.

We clambered about the place, going back to the garden a couple
of times. The people were still living there, so it was furnished,
which may have made it appear better than the first place too.

Abby dragged the real estate agent off for a bit while Justin and I
were looking at the top floor.

"What do you think?" Justin asked, a huge grin on his face.

"I like it," I said. "I like the street and the layout. Kitchen needs
some work."

"Yeah, and a few other rooms."

"But I like it better than the other two places."

"I liked the second place," Justin said.

"Yeah? More than this place?"

"Well..." he paused, "that place doesn't need any work."

"Yeah...you're right."

"But if you like this place better..."

"We'd have to both like it," I said.

"I like this place too," he said. "I think it'd be better than the
other place once we do some work on it."

"Yeah..." I said, then I realized that we were talking about things
as though we were definitely going to buy one of these. Justin
looked back at me with a grin, and I wondered if he was thinking
the same thing.


The next day we went and looked at apartments. We looked at
three and didn't like any of them. It was all so depressing.
Yesterday we'd been talking about renovating kitchens and all the
things we'd do, and now we were looking at apartments and
thinking 'well this would be okay for a year or two...'

That night, over dinner, we chatted a little about it, but didn't get
far. The money was such a big issue for me. Justin knew I was
having trouble with it and he didn't seem to push it. After dinner I
went and sat on the couch and Justin came over and sat down
beside me. We were talking about watching something and I just
grabbed him and pulled him down so that he was lying down on the
couch, his head in my lap. I stroked through his hair with one hand,
my other running up and down his chest.

"So..." he began, "what do you think?"

"About what?" I asked.

"Apartments."

"I didn't like any of the ones we saw today much."

"Me neither," he said.

We sat there not saying anything.

"I liked the third place," Justin finally said.

"The three bedroom?"

"No, the house. Yesterday."

"Oh...I thought you liked the second one better."

Justin shrugged. "That was good too. But I think the third one
had more personality. I think we'd be happier there."

I looked down at him and couldn't help smiling. "Maybe. We
should probably take a look at a few more places though, don't you
think?"

"Why?"

"Why? We've only seen three places! There could be a lot more
out there. Maybe something even better."

Justin shrugged.

"So...do you want to look at more houses?" he asked, his voice
sounding a little tight.

I looked down at him. He was staring up at me, watching me
closely. I was curling his hair in my fingers, winding it round and
round.

"We should probably do that rather than grab the first thing we
see," I said trying to sound noncommittal.

"So you do want to look at houses...not apartments?" he said,
making it absolutely clear what he was asking.

I sat there thinking, looking down at Justin. Thinking about us.
Thinking about what the next few years would be like. Imagining
them in an apartment or in a house. An apartment seemed so
temporary, and what I wanted with Justin I wanted to last forever.

I remembered what that woman at the party said. 'If you assume
it isn't going to last, then it won't.'

I smiled down at Justin and nodded.

"Yeah," I said. "I think that's what I want to do."

Justin lay there and grinned.

"Okay," he said, smiling up at me.


-------------------------------
To be continued...


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My other stories:
    High School: Do What You Can
    Celebrity: Boy Bands: Birthday Blues