Curve
The next few days are a blur of meetings and lunches at the Compound, and they even eat breakfast at Denny’s once, although Chris bitches so much about that that they agree never to do it again just to shut him up.
“Oh my God, you freak, shut up,” Justin growls. “Your sorry ass never has to get out of bed before noon again, okay? Just stop with the bitching.”
Chris nods his head firmly. “There’s just no reason for it, ya know? At this stage of my life-”
Justin bangs his head softly on the table and Lance almost smiles at how familiar it all seems. “Oh, God, not that again. Come on, let’s get you out of here before you talk yourself into an early grave.” Justin grabs Chris’s arm and pulls. Chris jams his sunglasses on his face and lets himself be towed out of the restaurant.
JC just smiles and follows them without a word.
Joey walks out to the parking lot with Lance. They agree that yes, it’s a bit early in the morning, especially for the Justin-and-Chris show. And they wonder for the millionth time how JC ever tolerated riding with them for all those years. At least Lance and Joey’s bus only had ferrets and dogs on it.
They head back to the Compound for yet another meeting, this time about the logistics of getting some of JC’s favorite equipment from his studio in LA to the studio here in Orlando that they’ve decided to use first. It’s the one where they recorded most of No Stings Attached and it’s kind of a nostalgia thing to at least start recording there this time. At least that’s what Lance thinks JC means when he’s going on and on about it. Lance wonders why, if JC is so emotionally bonded to his soundboard, they can’t just go to LA to record, where at least it’s civilized. Or where he isn’t seeing an 18-year old Justin around every corner, he admits to himself. Orlando’s not such a bad city. It was very good to him once upon a time.
Things have gotten easier since that first day, Lance thinks. Frequent close proximity to Justin dulls the effect, building up Lance’s immunity a little bit more each day. It gets easier not to react to the happiness of Justin’s laugh when he deals with everyone who isn’t Lance, or the curve of the smile that never reaches his eyes when it is directed at Lance.
JC and Justin must have been writing new songs for quite a while, because they keep bringing them into the small studio at the Compound and playing them, their eyes anxiously watching the other three while they all listen. Sometimes they’re not anxious, sometimes they gaze confidently around the room, grinning with delight when Chris starts humming along to the chorus, or Joey starts taping out a rhythm with a couple of pencils. Okay, on JC it looks like confidence. On Justin, it looks at lot like arrogance. Lance sighs. And okay, he’s not the most impartial observer in the world. And that last song of Justin’s was pretty good, especially the bass line.
Lance notices that Justin backs off when the vocals head up into falsetto, just nodding his head and smiling, pointing up at the ceiling to indicate the range, and then at Joey. Joey grins back at him and Lance grits his teeth to keep from reminding Joey that the only reason he gets to sing more is because Justin fucked up his vocal cords trying to out-Michael Michael a few years back.
~~~~~
Justin had to bite his tongue to keep himself from blurting out all sorts of helpful advice. Lance was one of the most competitive people Justin had ever met, and he worked very hard, and he’d been putting in more hours than anyone else, ever since the German record company guys said he wasn’t good enough. Justin was intelligent enough to know that keeping his mouth shut at rehearsal was the smart thing to do. That’s why they had a choreographer to help Lance get better, and they hadn’t given that assignment to Justin.
Even Chris seemed to realize it was best to stay out of it, and he was using their unexpected downtime to try and annoy JC into reacting to him. If Chris wasn’t careful, he was going to get more of a reaction than he bargained for, and Justin thought it would serve him right. Justin could have told him that waving his hands around in JC’s face when he was trying to talk to Vince about their upcoming recording schedule, or poking him continuously in the side when he was discussing travel arrangements with Justin’s mom was not a good idea. You didn’t poke JC when he was trying to convince people that he was a responsible adult, not if you valued your life.
Justin sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, sipping from his water bottle and scrutinizing the way Lance moved. He made no bones about staring, and if anyone said anything about it, well, he was allowed to watch Lance dance. They were a group, and Justin had a vested interest, whatever that meant, in making sure Lance’s dancing improved.
He was definitely not watching the way Lance’s ass looked in those old track pants he wore to practice, and no one could prove he was. He felt kind of warm as he thought about it. He’d never looked at guys that way before, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. He also didn’t know why he was doing it, although he had some pretty good ideas.
He suspected it might have something to do with Lance’s ass in those track pants.
Lance frowned down at his feet, and Justin could clearly see the exhaustion lurking under the determination written across his face. Justin checked his watch. Another fifteen minutes of Jerome and Lance working alone, then they’d all try the song together again for an hour or so. After that, they were going back to the hotel for a late dinner with the record company guys. And after that, they actually had an hour or two to do whatever they wanted before going to bed. The hotel had a pool, one of those weird, indoor pools on, like, the third floor that European hotels sometimes had. Maybe they could swim or something.
“Aaack! Help me, Joey!” Chris suddenly shrieked. “Help me- ow, JC, you ass, quit it!” JC had hold of Chris’s index finger and was bending it back, very painfully if the way Chris was yelling was any indication. Freaks. Justin debated joining the fray, but the expression of grim purpose on JC’s face kept him sitting right where he was. It was a heck of a lot safer here on the floor.
Jerome and Lance stopped shuffling through the steps of Here We Go and stood together with their hands on their hips, glaring at Chris and JC. Justin thought they looked pretty gay.
Justin sighed. Lance seemed really comfortable with being gay. He wasn’t embarrassed about it and he didn’t try to hide it, at least around the people he knew well. Maybe that’s where Justin was getting all these new ideas from, from Lance not being weird about it.
Lance raised his eyebrows at Chris and JC, then bent to pick his towel off the floor. Okay, when it came to this new checking out guys thing, Justin could safely say Lance’s ass might be a factor.
They did get to go swimming later, at least Justin and Lance did. No one else wanted to, and Justin and Lance suspected that there maybe was going to be some drinking happening in Chris’s room, to which Justin and Lance definitely weren’t invited.
Justin didn’t care. Who wanted to sit around and watch Chris and Joey act even sillier than usual, while JC fell asleep after two beers, stretched out fully-dressed across the bed, when he could be here, watching the way Lance’s bathing suit clung to his hips? Maybe it would slide down, just a little, and Justin would be able to see the trail of hair that led from Lance’s navel down into the front of his suit.
And maybe if he spent a little bit of time half-naked with Lance, he could figure out what was going on in his own head.
They splashed around in the pool for a while, before Lance paddled to the side and draped his arms over the tiled edge, tilting his head back so that he could stare at the weird decorative ceiling. Justin thought maybe there were shepherds and lambs and a few cherubs up there. Tilting his head like that made Lance’s Adam’s apple really prominent. Justin stared at it, wondering what it would be like to touch it. Would it vibrate when Lance talked?
Justin drifted closer, trailing his fingers behind him through the water. There was something he wanted to say, but he wasn’t sure how. He tried to think of a way to put it that didn’t sound arrogant. He wasn’t actually the best dancer in the group, that was JC, no question, although it was close, but he knew he was really good. Lance would be good too, soon enough, and Justin didn’t want Lance to think he was being condescending or anything.
“I think you’re getting better, dude.” Lance looked over at him sharply. “For serious.” Justin looked steadily back. Lance held his eyes for a long moment and Justin felt himself start to flush from the weight of Lance’s gaze.
Finally Lance nodded. “I know, it feels better almost every time I run through the choreography. It’ll be okay.” His eyes were quietly confident and he smiled at Justin. Justin beamed happily back at him.
Then suddenly Lance pounced, grabbing Justin’s shoulders and dunking him under the water. Which he had only been able to do because he caught Justin completely off guard. No way could he have done that if Justin had been ready for him.
Justin broke the surface, blowing water out of his nose. “Oh, you’re so dead, you fucker!”
Lance laughed and swam away, pushing off the side of the pool, kicking water in Justin’s face.
Justin sputtered indignantly, then launched himself after Lance. He managed to grab one of Lance’s ankles and he yanked hard. Lance’s other foot skidded on the bottom of the pool and he went under, his arms flailing wildly.
Justin pursued his advantage, ruthlessly trying to drown his bandmate. Lance fought back gallantly, and Justin thought maybe he’d managed to swallow half the pool by the time he stopped to catch his breath. Laughing underwater was never a good idea. Lance wriggled out of his grip and Justin felt bare skin slipping under his hands and his palm slid over the curve of Lance’s hip, and he wasn’t laughing quite so much. He wasn’t laughing at all, anymore, really. He jerked his hand away, hoping Lance wouldn’t notice. They stood together in the middle of the pool, breathing hard, both from exertion and from something Justin didn’t want to name yet, and again Lance smiled at him.
It was a great smile, knowing and shy at the same time. Justin felt warmth blossom in his belly and he smiled back.
~~~~~
“What do you mean, we’re putting things on hold for a few days?” Lance is annoyed before he even knows what’s going on. Joey looks like he’s annoyed right back at him as he comes in from the kitchen, holding his cell phone.
“That was Johnny,” he says, waving the phone around. “Something’s come up, and we’re just gonna chill a bit for now.” He doesn’t look at Lance as he settles back on the couch, putting his phone on the coffee table, parking his feet beside it.
“What? What do you mean, something’s come up?” Now Lance is totally pissed, because God, he’s here, they’re doing this, and now they’re not? “What is it?”
“Jesus, Lance, look at you, you’re all mad before you even know what’s going on.” Joey sits up again, frowning, his feet hitting the carpet with a muffled thump.
“Well, what is going on?” Lance isn’t going to say he’s sorry for yelling, he has every right to be mad, even if he doesn’t know why yet. He thinks the last few years have given him license to be mad anytime he wants.
“Justin has to go back to LA for a few days. Three, tops,” Joey says. Now he looks at Lance, waiting for him to react.
Lance obliges. “You have got to be kidding me. You are, right? You’re fucking kidding me, right?” Lance can’t believe this. He should have known this would happen. He’s surprised it hasn’t happened already. He’s surprised Justin lasted this long.
He’s surprised at how surprised he is. He’d thought-well, it didn’t matter what he’d thought. He’s been thinking a lot of things, actually. But now, Justin is bailing.
“They’re just going to do a few reshoots on the movie. Just a couple of scenes, he says.” Now Joey’s using his soothing voice, the one he uses when Briahna wakes up in the middle of the night with a nightmare. Lance is far from soothed.
“Right. A couple of scenes. Uh huh. I knew it! I knew this would happen.” Lance is up, pacing, waving his arms around like some kind of crazy person. He makes himself stop, folding his arms around his middle. He takes a deep breath, focuses on Joey’s concerned face, and listens to Joey’s concerned voice.
“You knew what would happen, Lance? What do you think happened?”
“I knew he’d bail! It’s barely been two weeks, and he’s bored. He’s bored and he’s running back to Hollywood, to-” He stops himself again. That’s enough. He makes himself sit down on the couch next to Joey.
“Lance, man, you know all about reshoots. It happens. That’s all that’s going on here. He’ll be back in two days, three, tops.” Joey turns to face him, tucking his foot up under his leg.
“Bullshit,” Lance fumes.
Now Joey’s just exasperated. “Lance, he’s committed to this, you know he is. He really wants this. We wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t.” He puts his hand on Lance’s arm, but Lance shakes it off and bounds to his feet again.
“And that really sucks, Joey,” he says furiously. “He defines us all, did you ever notice that? We only do stuff-”
“Now that’s bullshit,” Joey interrupts forcibly. "The group maybe, these days, but not us. He doesn’t define the rest of us, Lance.” Joey pauses, like he’s unsure of how to say what he wants to say next. “It's just you, man.” He looks over Lance’s shoulder, and Lance turns toward the doorway to the kitchen, where Kelly is standing with a sad smile on her face.
“Sweetie, you know it hasn’t only been Justin,” she says. “It’s been all of you, all of us. You know that.”
Lance does knows that, he knows Kelly’s right. He needs to stop reacting. That’s the trick, that’s what’s going to keep him sane through all this. He needs to stop reacting to Justin.
Joey sighs. “Lance, I’m telling ya, he’ll be back in two days, three days-”
“Yeah, three days tops, Joe. I got it.”
Lance uses the downtime to fly to Vegas. He wants to go for three days, but only stays two, just in case. He thinks it’s damn optimistic of him, and gives himself points for that. He can drink a lot of vodka, listen to a lot of bad music, and play a lot of poker in two days. There’s something very soothing in the flick of the cards against his fingers, the quiet chink of chips thrown carelessly to the middle of the table, the studied casualness of his hands sweeping even more chips into a triumphant pile in front of him.
There’s something soothing, too, in the smooth skin and skillful mouth of the most readily available of his usual Vegas hookups. He even lets the guy fuck him, which may not have been the best idea he ever had, because it leaves him feeling more alone than he did to start with. That doesn’t stop him from doing it again the next morning, before leaving for the airport to catch his flight back to Orlando.
Joey doesn’t say a word about his pale face and bloodshot eyes when Lance lets himself into the house in the late afternoon, just gives him a hug and plants a wet kiss in the middle of his forehead. Then he sics Briahna on him, sending them to the home theater to watch movies on his gigantic screen.
He and Briahna watch Shrek 3 and Lance recounts his poker victories to her during Justin’s parts.
After dinner, Joey tells him all about what they did while he was gone, which seems to be a big, fat nothing as far as Lance can see. Which, as he refrains from pointing out to Joey, was his whole point. When Justin’s not there, the rest of them wait. That could be the subtitle of Lance’s life-Waiting For Justin. But he knows that’s not as true for the rest of them, and he’s too jet-lagged to argue with Joey tonight, so he keeps his mouth shut.
When Justin comes back after being gone for three days, Lance has to get used to being in the same room with him all over again.
~~~~~
They bounded off the stage, laughing and high on the screams and applause from the audience. Scrambling for the van, Lance found himself stumbling into Justin, and for a minute he was afraid they were both going down.
“Whoa, dude, watch it,” Justin laughed, and they clutched at each other to keep from falling. Lance couldn’t help it, he held on to Justin a little longer than necessary, until JC bumped into them from behind and Chris yelled, “Come on, what’s the hold-up?” from the seat next to the driver that he’d already claimed as his own.
They piled in behind Joey, and Justin ended up sitting next to Lance in the middle seat. They were all talking a mile a minute about the show and the girls and how loud and amazing it all was.
“And Lance, dude, you rocked,” exclaimed Justin hoarsely. He’d been nursing another cold and Lance’s mom had told him that Lynn was worried about his tonsils again. He just couldn’t shake the colds completely, and one would get better only to be replaced by an even worse one. Lance didn’t know how Justin was doing it. He was surviving on Nyquil and Tylenol, the German directions on the bottles sometimes making him squint in confusion and say, “Lance, c’mere, what do you think this means?”
Lance would want to go get his mom or Lynn to help decipher the long German phrases, but Justin always said, “No, no, dude, come on, we can figure this out. You’re a smart guy, look at this, does this look like teaspoon or tablespoon to you?”
“I think it’s teaspoon, Justin. I don’t think you’re supposed to drink a whole tablespoon of Nyquil at once.”
And Justin would laugh, and then wince when it made him cough. “Ouch,” he’d say, and sigh.
Now he started coughing again, and Lance fished around on the floor of the van for his backpack. He had some cough drops in there somewhere, the kind that made your throat numb, and he dug in the side pocket until he found them. He handed them to Justin and Justin tipped his head onto Lance’s shoulder. “Thanks, man.”
There was a lot of traffic and the ride back to the hotel took almost an hour, and eventually they began winding down. Even Chris started using his indoor voice, although he and JC and Joey kept up a running commentary on the kinds of cars the van passed, and the people on the sidewalks, and the different store fronts, Chris from the front seat and Joey and JC from all the way in the back.
Justin crashed hard, his head still on Lance’s shoulder. Lance watched him frown as he occasionally coughed in his sleep. Lance looked out the window at the passing buildings. They hardly ever got to see anything of the cities they were in, except maybe the airports, so it was nice to get a chance to just watch stuff for a little while.
Justin stirred and Lance peered down at him, studying his face. Justin opened his eyes and regarded Lance sleepily. Then he said, “You really were good tonight, you know?”
Lance smiled and nodded. “Thanks, Justin.” It was quiet now in the van, and Lance raised his head to see Chris, turned around in the front seat, watching them with an unreadable expression on his face. Lance smiled at him, too, because he really had performed well tonight, and he felt pretty good about it.
Chris smiled back and nodded his head, then turned around in his seat to practice his German on the unfortunate driver.
Lance settled more comfortably against the seat back and let his arm steal around Justin’s waist.
~~~~~
Curve: a: deviation from a straight line; to cause to curve b: a line defined by an equation so that the coordinates of its points are functions of a single independent variable c: a curving line of the human body d: the relative performance of individuals measured against each other e: the course of progress while learning something
