Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 05:34:41 -0700 (PDT)
From: No Way Out <jc4eva011@yahoo.com>
Subject: Boy Bands - Poor Little Rich Boy - Part 2

I don't know N'Sync, I don't own them, I don't have any connection to
them, and this little story is all the production of my over-active
imagination. I hope you enjoy it.

Poor Little Rich Boy - Chapter Two

Last Time

"I'm sorry Josh, I've got to go, thanks for everything." I ran out the
door, slamming it just as I heard Josh shouting 'what's wrong'. I half
ran- half jogged over to my dad's office. Fortunately, Josh's apartment
was downtown and quite close to the building. I walked through the main
entrance, the security guards who had escorted me out so *kindly* before
nodded in my direction, and I went up to the top floor in the elevator. I
knocked on the door of my dad's office, and he shouted to come in.

"Max." He said in a sort of greeting.

"Dad. What's wrong?" I asked him.

"You managed 10 days, and now you're staying at someone's apartment." I
looked down to the floor. "The idea was to see if you could survive
homeless. Obviously not. I won't say we're surprised Max, but it would've
been nice to have seen you manage it." I looked at my dad sadly. I could
hear the disappointment in his voice, and I could feel the tears in my
eyes. "You survived for a third of it, you get a third of what you would
have got. That's $2.4 billion." He stood up and walked towards me. "I'm
glad you're ok." He said, then hugged me. I hugged him back. I knew I'd
disappointed him, but all I could think about was Josh.

Now on with the story:

What my dad really meant when he said I'd only get a third of it was that
I'd have to wait for the rest of it, like a normal inheritance. I hoped
I'd be waiting a long, long time. I loved my dad, I'd rather have him
than any amount of money.

Now, as I walked out with my dad to the waiting limo, I wasn't sure what
to do. I knew when I felt the cheque in my pocket my dad had given me
exactly why he'd made me sleep homeless. It was to teach me what it's
like when we haven't got any money. It worked. I knew I was going to give
a large portion of my money away.

The next day, half a billion went straight to the homeless charities.
Suddenly, there were homeless shelters all over the downtown area, new
gyms, facilities and care centres sprung up, and no-one knew about the
mysterious benefactor. I knew there was someone I wanted to see
especially, Mike. I went and found him in one of the new shelters one
night. I told him my story in the manager's office, and he had a bemused
expression on his face as I related the whole story to him.

"Yeah, I realised you weren't one of us lad. That's why I never asked too
many questions about your past." He said. I realised he hadn't, and I
nodded. Then I handed him a check for $100,000 and thanked him for
helping me while I was with him. He looked at the cheque, then back up at
me. "You weren't kidding about being rich were you?" I shook my head, and
gave him a couple of my cards, and one of my dad's.

"If you ever need any help, or a job, don't be afraid to call either me
or my dad. I realise you might not want to ask somebody younger than you
for a job, but I'll tell my dad who you are, and if you phone him, he'll
give you a job, obviously he'll have to check what you can do, but I'm
sure he can find you something steady ok?" Mike nodded and shook my hand.
He hadn't touched me since we met, so I guessed this was as close as he
got, and he carried on thanking me. He walked out with a tear in his eye,
and I realised he just wasn't very sentimental.

Unfortunately, I wasn't looking forward to my next visit: Josh. I was
considering just paying him back for everything, and sending him the
money, but I didn't think that was very polite. I also wanted a chance to
explain to him, and I don't know, but I felt something for him, I was
hoping maybe we could get a bite to eat or something. I got my driver to
take me to Josh's apartment building. When I'd been out for the past week
or so, this place had seemed like a palace, suddenly it didn't seem quite
so lavish though. I went straight in and knocked on Josh's door, suddenly
I didn't feel so sure of myself. What do I say? Hey, I'm a billionaire
now, hope you don't mind that I deceived you for the past few days, hey
do you want to go out for coffee? Shit, I hadn't thought this through,
but the door was opening.

"Max! God, I'm so glad you're ok! Where did you go? Hey are you ok?" Josh
looked into my eyes, genuinely concerned. I looked at him for a moment,
and I could feel my legs coiling to run. I shouldn't have come. This was
so stupid, I've lied to this guy, did I really think we could be friends
now?

"I'm sorry Josh, I shouldn't have come. I've got this for you though." I
handed him the cheque, and before he could look at it, I ran and sprinted
down the stairs. I heard him shout from the top of the stairs.

"Max! Wait!" I looked up and saw him leaning over the top of the railing.
"Max! Wait, what is this? Why are you running, what's wrong?"

"I can't Josh, I'm sorry." I shouted back up the stairs, and then I ran
out the building, and back into the waiting limo. I saw Josh arrive
outside the door of his apartment block as the limo pulled away. I could
see his disappointment at not catching me.

A week passed, and while I knew that I wouldn't hear from Josh, I still
longed to see him again. I think I bought everything I could find to do
with N'Sync during that week. I was so happy to see his smile when he
appeared on an MTV interview that week, but I noticed as he walked off
the edge of the screen his smile dropped suddenly. He wasn't happy, I
wanted to know why, but there was no way I could see him now. One week
passed, then two, then a month. I grew detached from a lot of people. My
Mom and Dad, I hardly spoke to them. I had my own place now, I'd bought
an apartment in the city. I'd taken control of the homeless shelters and
facilities I built. I needed something to take up my time, and this
seemed as good a way as any.

"Thanks Mike, I'll take the food order slips to the office." I took the
clipboard off Mike. He had wanted a job, and I gave it to him. He was now
sub-manager of the non-boarding facilities. I'd split the stuff I'd built
downtown into two groups: places to sleep, and other facilities. Mike had
control of the latter. But I think he could see I was distancing myself
too.

"Ok Max. Hey Max?"

"Yeah?" I said groggily. I was tired.

"Ummm, do you want to go get a coffee when we're finished up here?" He
asked. We would be finished about 10:30 at night, I didn't really want to
go, but Mike was very persuasive, so I just agreed anyway.

"Sure. Let me just finish up with these papers." He nodded and went back
to checking the facility over. After about half an hour, Mike appeared at
my door with my coat in his hand. He knew I'd already finished 20 minutes
ago. I was hoping he'd go home and forget about the coffee if I waited
long enough, but he didn't. "Fine! Jesus, I'm coming already." I rubbed
my neck, sore from all the paperwork and other stuff I'd done over the
last couple of days. Mike and I went to a local diner. We sat on the
vinyl stools and ordered coffees.

"Wanna tell me what's going on?" Mike asked me.

"What do you mean?"

"Tell me, before you got that money, had you ever worked a day in your
life?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Course. I went through university." I answered, a little angered that he
should be so presumptuous.

"Nah, nah, that's not what I meant. I meant did you ever actually work,
like work for a living, money."

"I guess not in that way, no."

"So why you doing it now?" Mike asked accusingly. I shrugged. "It's that
guy isn't it?" Mike had no problem with me being gay, in fact he seemed
to take it a little too well at times. I nodded to his accusation. "Then
why the hell don't you go and see him then?"

"And say what? Hey Josh, good to see you. I lied to you when I stayed
here - I'm not really homeless. I'm a billionaire." I realised I was
shouting, and the other two patrons of the diner and the guy behind the
counter was staring at me. I sat down and shut up.

"No, just ask him to talk, don't be quite so outright, but be truthful.
Explain it how you did to me: how your dad made you do it to get your
inheritance." Mike said quietly.

"He'll never believe me, and even if he does, he'll never want to talk to
me, I'm just a stupid liar."

"Tell me, what lie did you actually tell him?" I looked up at him like he
was stupid.

"What? Are you daft? I stayed in his home pretending to be homeless, I
took his food, and his hospitality, I lied to him about everything."

"Did your dad kick you out that car that first day you were homeless?" I
nodded. "And did he tell you not to come home? And he wouldn't let you
enter his offices?" He asked.

"Yeah, so?"

"Well then, you were homeless. You also didn't have any money, you had to
get food from somewhere." Mike's logic was impeccable. Unfortunately, I
had a nasty feeling that Josh wouldn't see my arguments as logical, but
as those of a liar. "And besides, you have to go and say sorry properly
right?"

Mike knew exactly what had been gnawing away at me: I felt guilty that I
hadn't said sorry to Josh properly. I'd shouted it to him as I ran away,
but that didn't really count for much. I also knew Josh hadn't cashed the
cheque, which just made me feel more guilty. I nodded in Mike's
direction. "We've been working together too long." I smiled at him, put a
$20 on the counter and walked out.

The Next Day

It was already 11 and I still couldn't get out of this damn shelter. We
had a drunk guy here who I was trying to get to the bathroom before he
threw up everywhere rather than just over his own sheets as he already
had. Mike walked in and I called out to him.

"Mike! Can you come give me a hand?" The guy I was helping along stumbled
a bit, and I had to lean down to catch him before he fell. When I looked
up, I saw Mike standing there, and next to him was Josh. "Shit!" I
shouted, and let go of the guy I was holding. Josh incredibly enough
caught him, and held his arms. He didn't seem put off by the incredible
stench coming from him, and just held him. And the guy threw up all over
the front of Josh's clothes. Josh let go, but then caught him again
before he hit the ground. He had a really grossed out look on his face. I
can imagine how bad that must be. The guy threw up some on my shoes, and
I thought that was disgusting, but all over his front? Gross. "Mike can
you take him to the bathroom?" I asked him.

"Who? This guy or Josh?" Ah. Dilemma. I had spare clothes in my office,
so I figured it would be better for him to take the drunk guy, as I told
him to. "Josh, follow me, I've got some spare clothes for you." Once we
were in my office, Josh started peeling off the outer layers of his
clothes. He was trying so hard not to get any of the slimy liquid onto
his skin, it was quite funny to watch. "There's a bathroom through
there." I pointed to the staff bathroom. All the staff at this place were
allowed to use my office, and walk in and out freely without knocking, so
the staff toilet was actually in my office so to speak. He looked at me
with a tight-lipped gratefulness, and returned a few minutes later having
washed his hands and forearms. He was holding a pair of jeans in his
hands, and his shirt which he'd taken off before rested over the back of
the chair in my office, vomit side up. I handed him some pants, and a
shirt.

"Thanks."

"No, thank you. It was nice of you to help that guy, I didn't mean to
drop him. It was just, a surprise, to see you."

"Yeah, I should imagine it would be. What's it been? Two months?" He sat
down in front of my desk and I slowly moved until I was behind it and sat
down in my own chair.

"About that."

"Mike said you wanted to tell me...you know, about what happened."

"I want to ask you something first though: why didn't you just take my
money?" I asked.

"Not that it's any of your business, but do you think I let Mike and you
stay at my place simply because you were homeless? Did you think maybe I
let you stay there because I enjoyed having you around? Maybe I wanted
someone to talk to?" Ok, I hadn't thought of that, I just thought he was
a really nice guy, and while the fact that he had let us use his
apartment more than made up for the fact that he just wanted us there as
friends, I hadn't actually thought of that as his reason for letting us
stay there. "Why did you run off and never come back, and how are you now
the manager of this place?"

"What's Mike told you?"

"Nothing, he literally just said that you wanted to talk to me, to
explain what had happened. I really liked you Max, I wanted to know what
happened to you." I nodded. I hesitated a bit longer. "So are you going
to tell me?"

"Ok Josh, but, you've got to promise not to say anything, and not to
leave until I'm finished. Please?" I looked up at him, and he nodded. I
proceeded to tell him my story. How my father was a billionaire, how he'd
set up tasks for my sisters and me, how I'd been lost once I had no money
and nowhere to stay, how Mike helped me, and then meeting him, getting
the phone call from my dad, running over, getting the money, and finally
setting up all these homeless shelters. I told him how guilty I felt
about taking advantage of him, I told him how much it meant to me that he
had given us a place to stay, and I started to tell him how much I liked
him, but he interrupted.

"Look Max, ok, I get the idea a lot's happened to you recently, but it
doesn't answer my question, why didn't you come see me and tell me this
before?" He looked over the desk at me. I was fiddling with a pen on my
desk, but I could feel my stomach cramping up, and I felt a bit sick. I
could smell Josh's clothes which were bundled up on the other chair in
the room. I would pay for them to be dry cleaned, or get him new ones if
they were ruined.

"I didn't want to lose you. We spoke a lot while I was there, and most of
what I told you was true, even if it was distorted a bit to fit in with
my situation at the time. I thought of you as a friend, and if I'd come
to see you, to explain to you, I knew that everything would change. You
wouldn't like me anymore, and I didn't want that. At least this way I
could fool myself into thinking you'd still be my friend." I could feel
the tears stinging my eyes. The truth is the only friends I'd ever had
had been people who worked for us. I didn't go to school because my dad
wanted us home-schooled, and so I ended up getting close to my sisters,
and also a couple of the people who worked on our grounds all the time.
There was the cook, Anna, who I really loved, the gardener or one of
them, Ted and there were a couple of others, a brother and sister who
worked in the house but they left a couple of years ago. I kept my eyes
fixed on my desk. Josh was going to walk out, and I didn't want to see
his back as he walked out the door. There was a knock on the door, and as
I looked up, I noticed Josh was still there, looking at me. Mike opened
the door and said that he was leaving now. I told him I'd lock up and he
left, grabbing his coat on the way out. Now back to Josh.

"Why would I leave?" Josh asked. I looked up at him incredulously.

"Because I lied to you. I took advantage of you, I was an idiot."

"You didn't lie, you really were homeless, you needed someone to look
after you, so you didn't take advantage of me, and why the hell are you
an idiot?"

"Cos I didn't come and see you sooner and apologise then." He chuckled,
and sat back in his chair.

"Look Max, I don't know what you thought I was going to do, but after the
explanation you gave, I can understand why you did what you did. And
after seeing what you've done with all these shelters, I can see that
you're not the same person I met a couple of months ago: you're even
better, you're a good person Max. Don't beat yourself up over something
so small." I nodded. "Now, Max, I still want to be your friend, I know
the circumstances have changed a bit, but I know we can still be good
friends. How bout that?" He gave me the cutest grin you've ever seen, and
I couldn't help but smile back.

"Sure. But I still owe you a couple of meals, so you've got to come over
sometime ok?" I smiled back at him and he nodded.

"Actually, there's something else you could help me with."

"What's that?"

"Well, Mike called me, I gave him my number in case he ever really needed
anything, and he told me to come up to talk to you, umm, and the thing is
I didn't have a chance to book a hotel yet." He grimaced at the
confession, and I knew what he was asking.

"Great! Then you can stay in my new place, I'm the only one who's been in
there so far, it would be nice to finally have someone else see it and
tell me how bad my taste really is." We both laughed for a second. "Come
on, let's go." Just as we were walking out, a couple of the night staff
walked past the office and looked in.

"Hello Mr. Cutler, are you off now?" The first one asked.

"Yep, we're just on our way." As I grabbed my coat, Josh grabbed the door
and held it open while we walked out. We walked from the shelter to my
place. They were both downtown, so it was less than a mile to my place. I
realised when we were about halfway there that we should have caught a
cab as Josh might have been tired, but he seemed okay, so we carried on
walking, and we were soon at my building. It was actually one of my dad's
office buildings. I'd bought the top floor and refurbished it, fitted the
lift with a key lock for my floor, so that basically, it was a penthouse
suite, it was in the middle of the business district and I loved it. I'd
refurbished it strangely - it was now one big room, with a screen to hide
the sleeping area. The kitchen hadn't really been used, but the living
area certainly had, and I hadn't had a chance to make my bed yet. The
covers off my bed could be seen on the floor around the corner of the
screen. I looked over at Josh.

"Wow. This place is incredible. I thought the rental I had when I was
here last time was nice, but this place, whoa." He looked around
approvingly.

"Rental?" I asked him, I thought we were in his apartment.

"Yeah, I don't live in Maryland. I thought I told you that. I live in
Florida."

"Oh yeah, you did mention something like that. I presumed you had another
place up here."

"Hey, we're not all billionaires you know, can't afford to have houses in
every state!" I blushed, it wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't been
so damned true.

"You can sleep over here." He dumped his bag in the spare sleeping area,
and we came together again in the living room. It was 11:30, pretty late,
but I wasn't really tired. "So, umm, are you tired?"

"No. Not really."

"Well, you want to stay up watch TV, talk or something else?"

"Something else?" He asked me with a raised eyebrow. He hadn't told me he
was gay, but if he wasn't then he was the most flirtatious person I'd
ever met. I blushed. "How about we just talk." I nodded, and we sat down
on the big leather couches. "So, you're Max Cutler. Tell me what that's
like." He said with a smile on his face.

"Huh?"

"Well, you know about me, I told you all about me when you were staying
with me, but I don't know about you. You didn't tell me about your past."
So, I proceeded to tell him about growing up and living, with my dad, my
mom and my sisters, he asked a lot of questions about what it was like to
be rich, like what was it like to have servants, and how many bedrooms
were there in our family house. He thought it was really exciting, when I
told him about our other homes across the US, he went wide-eyed, and when
he asked about whether I'd been anywhere else outside the US, well let's
just say he wasn't the only one who'd been on world tour, a few times. I
got us some drinks about 1 o'clock, and I was getting a little buzzed
from the alcohol. I know I don't normally act very outspoken, but I just
blurted it out:

"Are you gay?"

"What?" He looked back at me.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have said that, never mind."

"No, it's ok, you've got every right to ask that, but can I ask you
something first?" He said quietly.

"Ok, what?"

"How will you react if I say I am?" I was acting really stupid cos I was
drunk and I was flirting, so:

"Well, if you're straight, no different, and if you're gay, well, I'll
ask you out for dinner!" I chuckled at him. He didn't say anything, and
his actions, or lack thereof sobered me up pretty quick. "Oh god, I'm
sorry Josh, I shouldn't have put you in that position, that was so
stupid, Josh just forget I said anything. Sorry." I mumbled off at the
end.

"No, it's ok." He started slowly. "Look, I am gay, but I'm not looking
for a relationship, I'm sorry but I just got out of a big relationship,
and I'm just not ready yet." He got visibly upset. I went over and put my
arm around him.

"I'm sorry Josh, I didn't mean to upset you, please forgive me. We don't
have to do anything, I was kidding ok? I was just flirting, please just
forget about it ok?" I wiped the tears from his eyes and held onto him
again. We were sitting very close, and I noticed, but he didn't seem to,
so I carried on hugging him. He smelt so good. His hair smelt of flowers,
some shampoo I guessed, his skin smelt of cologne, and his clothes of
whatever deodorant he had put on that morning. I didn't want to let go,
but I relaxed my grip a bit. It was starting to feel weird, especially
after he told me he didn't want to do anything with me. We both sat back
on the couch and carried on talking. We talked about other things, his
work, that sort of thing. We were both getting really tired, and we
realised too late that we were too tired to move, so we grabbed a blanket
off the end of the couch and threw it over both of us, and slowly drifted
off to sleep.

TBC

End of Part 2

Hope you're enjoying this! Any Feedback: JC4eva011@yahoo.com