Brian and Me

Howdy, peoples! :) Well, here we are again.

First thing: I've been pecking away at a little website for a tension-breaker. Do check it out:

dls-stories.homepage.com

Second thing: As I'm sure you've noticed, this installment is way bigger than they normally are. I know that some of you are bound to feel that little itch in the back of your head that makes you want to bitch about such things, but hear me out. ;) This one covers about two and a half days, and finishes up the crossover with Matt's story, 'Search & Rescue'. Therefore, it needed to be a longer one. And there's more. :P

The next installment, as some of you know, is already finished. However, because this one is so long, I'm going to be waiting for about two weeks before I post it. That way, you can ration this one if you think it's too long, and read a bit at a time. Those of you who will read it all at once anyway can content yourself with the fact that two weeks is about half as long as you've had to wait lately. Hopefully, that'll appease everyone. As always, you can write me and complain. :)

Now, on to the legalities. This story portrays a homosexual relationship. If you shouldn't be reading it, don't read it. It is not meant to imply anything about anyone mentioned, other than the simple fact that they were remarkable enough to catch my eye and my interest. That's it.

To keep this short (considering that you've got a lot of reading ahead of you :P), I'll remind you to look at the last installment for story recommendations and thank yous. Everything I've said before still stands.

Finally, Matt. What does one say about Matt? I'd say I got lucky, but you'd all likely take that the wrong way. :P I'll just say that it was an incredible stroke of luck on my part that I got to meet up with him and develop the relationship that we have. I've had a great time working with him on the crossover, and getting to know him better in the process. Those of you who don't know him, it's really your loss. While our working relationship is over (sort of - keep an eye out in the future :P), the friendship will endure. It is knowing that that allows me to smile as I tell you that the crossover is over with the end of this installment.

As always, I hope you enjoy it. Also as always, let me know. The email's the same: dls_stories@hotmail.com.

ENJOY!

PART 91

"Sweetie, are you going to get up with me and shower, or sleep?"

I rolled over, bringing the blankets with me and starting him laughing. He had his answer. I felt the bed move as he got out of it, and then I was drifting back down again, already missing his warmth beside me.

"Time to wake up, pookie," I heard, breaking through my very enjoyable sleep. If he hadn't been whispering directly into my ear, I probably wouldn't have heard him at all. I kept my eyes closed, wondering if they really expected me to fall for this. Brian should have known better. I tried to keep the smile off of my face as I was nudged gently and the voice returned to my ear. "It's time to get up, Nate."

"JC, Brian's going to get suspicious if you keep this up," I said quietly, snuggling into my pillow once more. "I know that Matt just can't satisfy you, but I can't keep bailing you out like this."

I was rewarded with a round of chuckles from the room. Apparently, I had a larger audience than I had thought. I had been expecting just Brian and JC, maybe Matt. But I heard a female voice in there, and where Kathy went, Kevin usually was.

JC laughed, nudging me again and getting out of the bed. I kept my eyes closed and hoped that, if their fun was over, they would leave me alone again. No such luck.

"How did you know it was me?"

I sighed, but remained where I was, holding desperately to the last vestiges of sleep. "You're not Brian."

"Duh. How did you know that, though?"

"Brian got up to shower. You stink."

They all laughed again, and I smiled as I opened one eye and took them all in. I rolled over on my back and saw everyone looking at me.

"But how do you know that Brian showered? Maybe he got up to set this up," Kathy suggested, trying to catch me.

"Doesn't matter. He doesn't smell like Brian does. Plus, Brian hardly ever calls me pookie, and he would never be that close to my ear without kissing it. Especially if he were trying to get me up. Now, was there something that you people wanted, other than a picture of me sleeping with another man?" I arched my eyebrow and smiled at Brian, who was holding my camera at his side now.

"We really should be getting up," Kevin pointed out. "We've got to get some food, and then get back to Matt's and pick up Justin."

"Kathy said Justin could wait," I smiled, then rolled over again and pulled the blanket up over my head. "And Nate's tired."

"Maybe Nate should have actually slept last night," Kevin laughed. "Instead of keeping us awake. Now get out of bed and into the shower!" I felt someone grab onto the blankets right below where my feet were, and had just enough time to register Brian shouting Kevin's name before they were whisked away from my body.

My naked body.

I jerked on the bed, suddenly very much awake, just in time to see that they were all looking at my hip. Everyone but Brian. He was already grabbing my boxers from the floor and handing them to me. Matt managed to pull everyone's attention from me long enough for me to slip them on and stand from the bed. Brian pushed me toward the bathroom.

"You get in the shower, sweetie. I'll kick Kevin's ass for you." He was obviously trying to get me to smile, and it worked. A little.

Brian made sure that I was okay, and then left me alone again. Stripping off the boxers once more, I got into the shower and started the water, thinking about what had just happened. Not very long ago, having them all see me like that would have been more than enough to freak me out.

It still had, though not nearly to the degree that it would have. My scar - all three of them, really, but the one on my hip especially - had always served as a reminder for me. A reminder about how much hatred there was out there, and how easily it spilled over into violence. I had always hated them, for just that reason. Whenever I had managed to forget about things like that, all it took was a shower to remind me again.

Andy had once told me to think of them as war wounds. Reminders of my strength rather than other's weakness, but that had never rung true for me. They were war wounds, alright, very much capable of inducing a certain degree of shell shock in me.

But I was okay. I was surprised, of course, when Kevin had exposed me to the room, but I wasn't as ashamed as I would have been a few months before. Brian and the rest of the group had given me that much. Through my relationship with them, and what I had been through to maintain it, I had learned to claim and own my life. All of it. Even the parts that I was most ashamed and embarrassed by. They were all mine, and they held only the power I gave them.

Still thinking about this, I shut the water off and stepped out into the room, right into the towel that was waiting for me. It was connected to a very warm boyfriend, who dried me off, repeatedly asking if I was alright.

"I'm fine, Brian," I told him, taking the towel and finishing the job as he handed me my robe. Pulling it on, I gave him a smile. "I really am okay. Just a little shock, but nothing major. I hope you didn't bitch Kevin out."

"Well..."

"He didn't know I was naked under there," I chuckled. "Did you see the look on his face when he first realised I was? Before he saw my hip? I thought he was going to have an aneurysm or something."

"He feels really bad about it."

"I can imagine, after having you after him."

"I wasn't that bad. Kathy was the hard-ass. I was just worried about how you were going to take it. You said that no one really has seen it, and I know how hung up on it you are."

I pulled the robe open and turned to show it to him again. "It's kind of hard not to get hung up on, when it's on your hip. But I'm good. A few months ago, I don't know exactly what I would have been doing right now, but it wouldn't be smiling. What was Kathy being a hard-ass about?"

"You should have seen her," he smiled. "She totally freaked on us for being so dramatic this week. She bitched Matt out for closing himself off to JC, and told him to open himself up, then turned on JC and told him not to compare Matt to Craig - which we're going to have to talk about - and then yelled at me for treating you like you're fragile."

I smiled and refastened my robe. "Did you listen?"

"Yes, dear," he laughed. "You're lucky you weren't there, or I'm sure you'd have gotten a tongue lashing, too."

"Oh, I doubt she'll let me off the hook entirely."

Brian reached out and pulled me against him. "Okay, as long as you're alright. I think Kevin was letting them know what happened to you. He asked if that was okay. Matt sees stuff like that all the time at the hospital, but it really surprised Kathy and JC. It surprised Kevin, too, and he knew it was there. Seeing it is a whole different thing."

"It's alright if they know, I guess. Can't hurt, at least. As long as I don't have to tell it." I pulled away from him with a smile. "I've told it enough for now. I think I'll wait until I'm writing my autobiography before going through it again."

"Can I be in your autobiography?" Brian asked, slipping his hand into mine as I walked to the counter and started to brush my teeth. It was slow going with just the one hand, but Brian wasn't offering to let the other go, and I wasn't about to ask him to.

"You might get a chapter or two," I grinned around the froth. "Near the beginning. The affair with Kevin is going to make up the bulk of the book."

Brian laughed and slapped me on the back, making me choke. I spit out the toothpaste and smiled at his reflection. "Fine then, you just got cut back to a brief mention. Just some guy I used to know."

"I'll just have to go out of my way to do something for you that will make it impossible for you to not mention me."

"You could marry me."

"What?" He got the cutest expression on his face.

"Relax, pookie. I wasn't proposing. Just saying. That would be a pretty big thing. It'd be bound to get you a few paragraphs at least. It'd take that long for me to explain why I rejected your sorry ass and ran off with your cousin."

Brian grinned despite himself and turned my head to kiss me. I accepted the offer gladly, happy to be alone with him for a few minutes. I knew that there were likely going to be few moments like that until we were back in our bedroom that night. We were likely to be surrounded by people. Brian pressed the issue - not to mention me - as he turned me around completely and held me against the counter, his hands slipping the simple knot on the robe and moving inside.

When he finally stepped back, I had to laugh. My toothpaste was spread all over his mouth. "You're going to have to brush again."

"Small price to pay," he smiled, leaning in again. I have him a quick kiss and then slid to the side and turned back to the mirror. I passed him his brush while I took mine up again and finished with it.

Once we were both fully brushed, he slipped his hand into mine again and pulled me into the bedroom. "You wanna skip breakfast?"

I smiled and was about to tell him that I did when my stomach made itself known with a loud rumble. "I guess not," I laughed.

"That's okay, sweetie. We used up a lot of energy last night. Several times," he added with a grin.

I punched him in the stomach and threw him on the bed, then climbed on top of him. "If that's what's in store, I guess I'm going to have to start eating a lot more, eh?"

"Count on that," Brian said, then craned his neck up to press his lips to my neck. "I'm up for it."

I ground against him as I laughed. "I can see that, pookie. But we really don't have time for this, you know. I'd bet Kevin's already got breakfast ordered, doesn't he?"

Brian nodded. "He was doing that when I came to check on you in the shower."

I sighed and dropped to the side. "We've got a long day of being friends ahead of us."

"Just the dance tonight," Brian said, turning on his side. He supported his head in one hand, raising up on his elbow. His other hand came to rest on my stomach and started to gently scratch. "We've got the entire car ride there with nothing to do but be together."

"Together with Matt and JC, Kevin, Kathy, and now Justin."

"So what? They've all seen us together. Except Justin, and he's bound to have seen JC and Matt, and JC and Craig together. I doubt we'll be much of a shocking thing for him to see."

"Yeah, but what a great first impression. 'Hey, Justin, I'm Nate. Nice to meet you. Excuse me while I suck face with my boyfriend.'"

Brian laughed and gave me a kiss. "It'll be fine, sweetie. But as far as I'm concerned, we have all of yesterday to make up for."

"Isn't that what we did last night?"

"No, that was just the prelims. Getting ready for the real making up."

"I don't know if I have the stamina for that."

Brian leaned in, placing his lips right next to my ear. "Find it," he growled, then gave me a kiss right on the spot that I had mentioned to JC earlier.

I inhaled sharply. "Okay, you make an excellent argument," I said, nodding. "Now, how about we go and get some breakfast so that I have the energy reserves for keeping up to you. I'd hate to fall asleep in the middle of something interesting."

"I think I can hold your interest just fine," Brian growled again, grabbing me and causing another sharp intake of breath. "Don't you?"

"Mmmm." Closing my eyes, I nodded once more. "Yes, you can. But you shouldn't, unless you want Kevin and Kathy to see more than me naked this morning. They're going to be barging in here any minute."

Brian gave me one more kiss, then released me and stood up. He went and got me a pair of boxers, tossing them to me. "You're wearing those and the robe to breakfast. I want easy access to you if I feel the need."

I slipped the boxers on with a grin. "You always feel the need."

"So much the better. Are you complaining?"

"Not at all, sweetie." I got up and started to fasten my robe again, but he brushed my hands aside and put his arm around my waist, under the fabric.

I just smiled and walked with him out to the main room.

We didn't get much further than the edge of the room before Kathy was giving me a hug. Brian released me and stepped aside just as her arms took me in. "Kevin told us," she whispered, squeezing me. "I'm so sorry."

I looked past her to find everyone watching, gauging my reaction to see how I was doing. I smiled at them to reassure them that I was fine, and then pulled back from Kathy and showed her as well. "Thanks. I appreciate it, but it's behind me. No sense worrying about it now."

Kathy smiled back, though there was a certain degree of sadness in it. Her hand moved from my forearm to my temple, running over the small scar there. I was surprised that Kevin would have told them about that one, since it really wasn't that prominent. Especially with my hair growing out like it was. "Sorry for staring, too. I just didn't expect..."

I took her hand and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "It's alright. I stare sometimes, too. Luckily, it's hidden except for the few minutes every day that I'm in the shower. Any other time it's exposed, there's more than enough to keep my mind occupied." I grinned at Brian and found him blushing slightly. Kathy laughed and released my hand, walking with us further into the room.

I was expecting some kind of comment from Matt and JC about it as well, but they apparently understood my not wanting to talk about it. They also likely knew that I understood that Kathy had spoken for them as well. I continued to smile as Brian and I took seats on the couch.

"I ordered a variety of breakfast stuff," Kevin told us as he came to sit as well. "They should be here with it shortly."

"How long is shortly?" Brian asked, his fingers running across the back of my neck.

"Not long enough for that," Kevin grinned, seeing my expression at his touch.

"I'd have thought you got enough of that last night," Kathy laughed. "It's a good thing we were up anyway, or you'd have been hearing us banging on the walls."

I blushed and smiled as I looked at my feet. But Brian just laughed, then cocked his head to the side a little. "What on earth were you two doing up that late?"

He made a good point, and I raised my head just in time to see the look shared between Matt, JC, Kathy and Kevin, and their smiles. I looked to Brian, but he just shrugged.

"You get the feeling we're out of the loop?" he asked.

"It was nothing," Kevin said.

"He was doing me a favour," Matt told us both, and he and JC were blushing a little bit. I had a feeling that the favour had something to do with a good end to their 'alone time' the night before, and was glad. He didn't elaborate, and we didn't need him to. After all, it wasn't really any of our business. Of course, neither was what we had been doing, and they seemed to enjoy bringing that up.

We moved away from both subjects, talking about the day ahead of us, and what we were going to do at the dance that night. JC, Justin, Brian and Kevin would undoubtedly be roped into performing on some level, and there would more than likely be a sea of autographs. I got the impression that Matt's daughters were going to be getting every drop of mileage out of the fact that they knew the guys that they could.

I was about to ask Matt if they knew about Brian and I when there was a knock at the door. Kevin answered it, and moved aside as they wheeled the carts into the room, then waited for him to sign for the meal before leaving us alone again. I noticed with a smile that, before Kevin could open the door, Matt and JC had split apart on the couch slightly, just as Brian and I had. It was frustrating, but sort of humourous how quickly it became second nature.

My question was forgotten as soon as I got the first whiff of breakfast. It looked like Kevin might have ordered some of every breakfast item on the menu, and my stomach was more than up to the challenge. It seemed that I wasn't the only one in that condition, as we all converged on the carts at once.

Kathy drove us back to the house while Matt called and made reservations for us all at a hotel near the girl's school. We would be staying overnight there, and then coming back to Memphis the next day, Saturday. Saturday night would be our last night at Matt's house, and then Brian and I would be on a plane for Toronto. As much as I was enjoying my stay in Memphis, I was starting to look forward to a week alone with Brian, Nick and Erron.

Brian and I were once more in the back seat of the SUV. And once more, I was paying no attention at all to where we were going. This time, however, it was because Brian was taking up my entire field of view. We spent most of the ride with our heads resting together at the forehead, just watching each other. The only things I could see clearly were his eyes. When he blinked, I held off for a split second, enjoying the brief view of his closed eyes, completely calm and at peace.

We didn't even notice when we arrived back at Matt's house. What finally got our attention was JC. Turning around from the middle seat he was sharing with Matt, he reached out and put a hand to the top of each of our heads, then separated them an inch or so and brought them back together. Matt laughed and hit him, trying to look reproachful, but he couldn't keep it up when he saw the surprised expressions on our faces.

"You could have just tapped us on the shoulder, you know," I said sourly, rubbing my forehead. He hadn't done it hard enough to hurt at all, but it was definitely a surprising way to get our attention.

"What would have been the fun in that?" JC asked innocently as he started to grin.

He and Matt got out of the vehicle, with Brian and I following. After gathering our bags, we made our way to the front door and waited for Kathy to unlock it, since she still had the keys.

"Guess Curly's not here yet," JC said, looking around as though he expected Justin to jump out from behind the bushes or something.

"He'll be here. He would have called if there were some problem," Matt commented, just as Kathy got the door open. Once we got inside, she put the keys in their customary place on the dining room table, and dropped her stuff inside the door.

"How long do we have before we have to get going?" she asked, not even slowing down on her way to the kitchen.

Matt checked his watch and called after her. "A couple of hours or so!"

"A couple of hours, huh?" Brian smiled at me, pulling me along behind him toward the living room and the bedroom beyond. "We'll go and... um... pack our stuff for tonight." We heard them laughing behind us, but no one tried to stop us from leaving.

I pulled Brian to a stop in the middle of the living room and turned him to face me. "That was so smooth, pookie."

He dropped our things and put his arms around my waist. "Doesn't matter how smooth I was," he said with a smile. "They would have known that it was just an excuse to be alone with you anyway."

"I suppose you might have a point there," I conceded, tilting my head slightly just as our lips met. One of Brian's hands remained on the small of my back, but the other went straight to the back of my neck, gripping and pulling me into him as he deepened the kiss.

He followed the kiss up with a series of little kisses, finally putting his head on my shoulder and turning his face into my neck. I was about to do the same to him when I glanced up at the patio doors.

"Jesus!" I yelled, jumping back and out of Brian's embrace.

"What's wrong?" Brian asked, seeing the surprise on my face. Before I could answer, everyone else was in the room, drawn by my yell. JC and Matt were the first there, and they both started to laugh, quickly followed by Kevin and Kathy. Matt finally waved at the windows, making Brian turn around.

Justin was standing outside on the deck. His hand was poised to knock on the glass, but hadn't fallen. He was looking at Brian and I with about as much surprise on his face as I was sure was on mine. I had just caught the form of someone watching us when I glanced up. Seeing someone where there should have been no one, especially with all that had happened the day before, wasn't exactly a calming experience.

Brian started to laugh as well when he realised what had happened, and he stepped away from me to go and open the door to let Justin in. I heard Matt ask JC in a whisper if he had told Justin about Brian and I, and JC's whispered response that he hadn't, not feeling that it was his place to do so.

Brian opened the door and held it while Justin maneuvered his way inside on his crutches, his one piece of luggage thrown over a shoulder. When he got to the middle of the room, JC took his bag and gave him a hug. By the time that Matt had done the same, both Justin's surprise and my own had pretty much worn off.

"And this is Nate," Matt grinned. "Nate, Justin."

"Hey," Justin said, extending his hand. "Sorry for surprising you like that."

I smiled and shook with him. "Don't worry about it. I have a feeling I could be making the same apology."

Justin laughed and nodded. "I didn't expect to see that." He turned to JC and Matt. "How come you didn't tell me?"

"It's none of your business," JC returned with a smile. "I wasn't going to tell you if they didn't want you to know. And I didn't get around to asking them about it."

"Just so you know, I'm cool with it," Justin said, looking at Brian and I again. "I was just kinda shocked to see it like that."

"Don't worry about it," Brian told him, putting his hand in mine. "If JC trusts you, we do."

"So you two decided to put off getting ready for tonight?" Kathy asked mischievously. "You seemed pretty excited about it a few minutes ago."

"We really should," Brian smirked, tugging on my arm. "Just so we're ready when it's time to go."

"Yeah, you wouldn't want to make us wait, right?" JC laughed.

"Right," he agreed, pulling me toward the hallway.

I returned everyone's smiles and followed along behind him. "Nice meeting you, Justin."

"You, too," he laughed.

"That was rude," I said, as soon as the bedroom door was closed behind us. Then I was thrown on the bed.

"Guess you'll have to spank me for it." Brian climbed onto the bed with me and started working at the buttons on my shirt.

I grabbed his hands to get him to stop. "I'm sort of serious, you know. He just walked in the door and we ran the other way. I'd be kind of insulted."

"You're not Justin," he smiled, looking down at me and stilling his hands. "I'm sure they'll explain for us, and make any apologies that need to be made. Though I really don't think any will be necessary. Besides, there's the entire trip this afternoon to get to know him better."

"What made you change your mind? This morning, you had definite plans for that trip." I released his hands, and they started to move again.

"Two things. The first is that you're right. It would be rude to do that and ignore everyone when they're sitting right there. The second is that I know you well enough to know that you're going to sleep for at least part of it."

"I am not," I laughed as he got my shirt undone and open. He pushed the front open so that the fabric pooled at my sides, and then started to gently run his thumbs over my waist.

"Please, sweetie. You can't go ten feet in any sort of vehicle without sleeping. Unless you take your computer to keep you occupied, and I forbid you to bring it along with us. Plus, you didn't get a whole lot of sleep last night, and you're not going to get much tonight either."

"Is Kevin staying in our room, too?"

He leaned in and kissed my forehead. "One of these days, I'm going to give you the spanking you so badly deserve."

I brought my hands up and started to undo his shirt as he had done mine, and laughed. "With all the spankings I owe you, you can just credit your account with the ones you owe me." I finished with his shirt and pulled it off of him, then pulled him down onto me. We slowly inched our way to the head of the bed.

"Sweetie?"

"Hmm?"

"We forgot our bags in the living room."

I laughed. "Oh, you are smooth."

"Doesn't matter," he whispered, nuzzling my neck. "It's not like they bought it anyway."

"No, I'm sure they didn't. Did JC seem a little distracted at breakfast?" I asked, tightening my arm around him. The other was folded under my head as we rested. "Like there was something on his mind?"

"There was," Brian said quietly, pulling back a little. "He and the others went this morning to visit Craig's grave."

"What? Why didn't they say anything? I mean, I can understand if JC didn't want us to go with them, but still..."

"They just decided to let us sleep," Brian interrupted, putting his hand on my chest and pushing me back down to the mattress. "It wasn't that he didn't want us there, just that, after yesterday, they decided it was better for us to be together for a while."

"Still, we should have gone. JC would have been there for either of us. And what's Craig doing buried in Memphis anyway? Was he from here?"

Brian shook his head. "He didn't have family, really, and JC had no legal right to any say in the matter. He died here, so he was buried here."

"Shit."

Brian nodded and gave me a kiss. "JC paid for everything, but they wouldn't let him take the body home to be buried. Playing that joke on you this morning brightened his mood a little bit, but he was still kind of out of it at breakfast. I didn't think to tell you before we left the room, and then there wasn't a chance with him sitting right there. And, sweetie, why didn't you tell me about JC having a fiance?"

"What?"

"Craig. I didn't know anything about him until they told me when they got back this morning. Matt said he told you about it."

I nodded. "He did. I didn't realise that no one had said anything, and it's not exactly something that you just bring up. It just didn't occur to me that you wouldn't know. Sorry it blindsided you."

"It's okay. It just threw me for a bit. Not exactly the kind of thing you expect to hear out of the blue. And it just makes things that much worse for JC, having him buried here."

I sighed as Brian lay back down with me. We were quiet for a few minutes, both of us thinking about how unfair that was to both JC and to Craig. "I wonder what would happen to me?" I asked out loud, barely realising I had spoken.

Brian turned my head so that he could look me in the eye. "Don't think about that."

"I can't help it, Brian. I mean, you obviously couldn't step forward and do something. Even if you were out, you wouldn't be able to do it. Andy and Mom and Dad would try, but do they have any say in this kind of thing? They aren't technically family."

Brian thought for a moment, then frowned. "I guess the decision would fall to your uncles."

That got a frown from me, too. "My father's brothers," I corrected him. "And there's no way I want them involved, if it comes to that. Promise me you'll steal my body before letting them have it."

"I would do everything I could to do what you would want done," Brian said immediately, hugging me tightly. "No matter what. And you know that the guys and Andy, Erron, and your parents would all be there, too. But that's not going to happen, sweetie. I don't even want to think about it."

"Okay, I don't mean to upset you, it's just that I'm essentially in the same situation as Craig. Excepting my limited and incredibly lacking family, there's no one to direct that sort of thing."

"Then you can't die until we're legal," Brian said, then put a hand over my mouth. "The next word out your mouth had better be a happy one."

I smiled and licked his hand. When he removed it, I kissed him. "I love you."

"That's a happy one," Brian confirmed, putting his head down on my shoulder. "I love you, too."

PART 92

Brian and I spent another half-hour or so just laying there, holding each other and enjoying being together. We had both been sort of planning on making love, but it would have been impossible to surpass the closeness and intimacy contained in that half-hour. There's something amazing that happens in moments like that. Moments where the need to speak is virtually non-existent. We're more ourselves than at any other time, I think. Looking back, those are the moments that I've cherished the most.

"You sleeping?" I heard him whisper. It was so quiet, even for a whisper, that I barely caught it. I understood it more because I was wondering the same thing about him than because my ears picked it up.

"No, I'm awake," I said softly. It just seemed like one of those moments when speaking at a normal volume was completely wrong. I'm not entirely sure that I would have been able to raise my voice if I had wanted to. "What are you thinking about?"

He shifted in my arms and sighed. "Nothing, really. Just how nice this is. You and me, being together with nowhere to go and no one that we need to talk to right now. It's nice."

My hand lightly ran over the bare skin of his back. "Yeah, it is. I wonder if normal people have many moments like this."

"What?"

"Normal people. The ones that get to be together all the time. I wonder if they take time like this, or if we appreciate it more because we don't get to do it as much."

"I'm sorry, sweetie."

"For what?"

"I'm the reason we're not normal people."

"No, you're not. Your career is the reason. You are the reason that I'm enjoying this so much. I didn't mean it as an accusation. I just wondered if maybe we weren't a little lucky, since we get to understand how nice this is."

Brian's head shifted on my chest, the top of his head nudging my chin. I smiled and kissed the top of his head just before he spoke. "I guess we are, in a way. I don't think people who can just be together all the time really bother to do it. My parents don't. Do yours?"

I stopped to think about that, having four parents to consider. "Half and half," I said finally. "Mother and Father never really were like that. They used to be a bit more romantic and emotional when I was really little, but nothing much. Even that was gone by the time they died. Mom and Dad, though, are pretty affectionate, and they spend every minute together that they can. They're more reserved with people in the room, but every now and then you can catch them if you walk in without them hearing you."

"Catch them?"

I laughed. "Andy walked in on them last year one day. They were in the laundry room."

"Walked in on them as in..."

"As in got more than enough of an eye-full, yeah," I confirmed, still laughing. Brian started as well, his head and chest bouncing against mine slightly. "Ask her about it sometime, if you want to get her to shut up."

Brian stopped laughing and got quiet again, then spoke softly. "I guess I don't have to worry about that, huh? My parents are likely still fighting about me."

That killed any joviality that had been in the room, and I tightened my grip on his shoulder. "Have you talked to your dad?" He didn't answer, but his head went back and forth. "Why not? I'm sure he'd like to hear from you."

"I thought I'd give them some time, you know? They're bound to be fighting about this."

"And if you give it some time, Harold might be able to bring Jackie around a little bit."

"Yeah, I was thinking that, too. But, I guess I should probably call Dad, shouldn't I?"

"I think he'd appreciate it, sweetie. He said to call him at the office if you wanted to avoid your mom, so at least you don't have to worry about getting into it with her."

Brian took a deep breath and sighed, then looked up at me. "Should I do it now?"

His eyes told me quite clearly that he wanted me to tell him what to do, to take control so that he wouldn't have to make the decision himself, even though we both knew what that decision almost had to be. "Yeah, sweetie," I said, kissing his upturned forehead. "I think that would be a good idea. You talk to him for a bit, and I'll give you some time. I'll go and get something to drink, and hang out with them for a bit."

With another sigh, Brian sat up. "Okay. Can you bring me a glass of water?"

"You bet," I smiled, then sat up and turned so that my feet were dangling over the edge of the bed. "I'll be right back."

"Nate?"

I turned my head back to him rather than stand up, and he reached out, running his fingers over my jaw before cupping my cheek in his hand. "Thanks."

"I didn't do anything, pookie," I smiled, leaning back to give him a kiss.

"You never think you do, but you do. I don't know how you do it."

"It's easy," I told him, letting my smile grow a little bit. "I just think of what you'd do for me, and then do that."

He grinned and kissed me again, then let me stand up. "That's a total lie, but it's a sweet one."

"I'll be back in a second," I said, walking to the door. "You stay here and miss me."

I walked down the hall and into the kitchen, giving everyone in the living room a smile, and got Brian his glass of water. When I got back to the room, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, talking into his cell phone.

"Yeah, Dad, I'm doing good."

I tapped him on the shoulder so that he would see me put the glass down on the desk, and smiled. He gave me a smile back, letting me know that things were okay. I mimed a hello at the phone, and he nodded, silently promising to say hi to Harold for me. Reaching out, I ran my fingers through his hair, then leaned in and kissed him on the cheek before leaving him alone again.

"Did you two have fun?" Kathy asked with a huge grin on her face when I emerged again. She looked behind me, then gave me an appraising look. "What'd you do? Tire him to the point of exhaustion?"

I laughed and dropped onto her lap. "Not that it's any of your business, but we just lay down for a while. We didn't even talk much."

"Aww," Kathy returned, putting on a sappy face and making the others laugh.

"If you weren't such a bitch, you might just be cute," I grinned. "For a girl, that is."

Seeing Kathy about to retaliate, Kevin broke into the conversation. "So where's Brian? Did he fall asleep?"

I shook my head and looked over at him, knowing that he was likely the only one in the room who would catch the implication in what I was about to say. "He's talking to his dad for a bit."

I was apparently wrong about Kevin being the only one to get it. Kathy inhaled sharply at the same time that Kevin did. "Why's he calling Harold?"

"Nothing major. We were talking, and he said he hadn't talked to Harold since we were in Lexington. So, he thought it was about time that he did."

"Did he call the house?" Kevin asked, his thoughts clear.

"Would I have left him alone if he had?" I asked back. "He called the office."

The three of us suddenly noticed that everyone else in the room was watching our exchange with confused expressions on their faces. I didn't particularly feel like going through it all again, especially without talking to Brian first, so I just smiled. "Long story, all."

"Too long," Kevin agreed as I climbed off of Kathy's lap and dropped onto the floor in front of his chair, resting my back against it.

No one seemed to feel the need to say anything more. They all nodded and let it drop. I tilted my head to the side and let it come to rest against Kevin's knee. He leaned forward and tapped the top of my head. His smile greeted me when I looked up.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm good."

"Don't tell me you miss him already," Kathy laughed.

"No, I'm just a little tired." That was definitely true. Now that I was at rest without Brian's presence to keep me focussed, I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. "And the little bugger in there already thinks I'm going to sleep on the way to New Orleans."

"You will."

I briefly considered biting Kevin's knee, but smacked him instead. "No one asked for your opinion."

"If you're going to be sleeping with your head on my knee, my friend, I at least get to give my opinions."

"Don't make me kick your ass in front of everyone, Kev," I smiled. "I mean, Justin just got here, and he doesn't need to see you take a beating right away."

"I'm sure Justin would love to watch you beat Kevin," Kathy supplied helpfully.

"Um... no," Justin laughed. "I think I'll pass."

"Just what were you doing peeping in the windows, anyway?" I asked him, once more resting my head against Kevin's knee.

"I got here early, and no one was here. Rather than sit out there where everyone could see me and recognise me, I went around to the deck to sit and wait. I looked up and caught movement in here, so I decided to knock rather than try and get all the way back to the front door again."

"Understandable, I guess," I said, looking at his crutches. It would obviously have been a trek to get around the house, especially with his bag over his shoulder. That cast on his leg didn't look like it would be very conducive to getting around.

"I was about to knock so that you could let me in when I saw what you were doing in here. Kind of a surprise."

"Tell me about it," I laughed. "I had meant to ask if you knew, but it got lost along the way somewhere. Guess I could have saved you a heart attack on top of the broken leg."

"I doubt it," JC grinned. "If I'd known this was going to happen, there's no way I would have told him. Even if you had told me it was okay."

Justin thumped JC in the leg with his crutch as we laughed. "I still can't believe I didn't know. I mean, how do you keep that a secret?"

"Ahem," JC laughed, waving his arms at Justin. "What do you think we're doing with me?"

I smiled as I saw Matt and Kathy exchange an eye-roll at Justin's expense. Justin started to make some comment to try and appear slightly less stupid, but I missed it. Instead, I fell asleep with the edge of Kevin's knee pressed to my temple.

I awoke with a jerk as I keeled over onto the floor, my support suddenly shifting. I heard Kevin laughing and opened my eyes just in time to see Brian and Matt come into the room. Brian gave me an odd look.

"What are you doing, sweetie?"

"Um, nothing," I mumbled, as Kevin started chuckling again. I grabbed the muscle of his calf and pulled as I sat back up, effectively shutting him up.

"I just fell over."

"Sure you did," Brian smiled, coming and sitting between my legs. "Dad says hi."

"How're you doing?"

"Good. It was kind of awkward at first, but it was okay. He really just wanted to make sure that we were okay."

"And what did you tell him?" I asked, putting my arms around his waist and kissing the back of his neck.

"I told him that we're doing good. I told him about what happened, and that it got weird for a bit, but that it's over now."

"And?"

"And he's behind us," Brian smiled. "He wanted to know if you were still smoking."

I grinned. "I could definitely have used one last night."

"Oh, you smoke after?" Kathy asked, her eyes sparkling. "By the sound of it, you could have used a whole pack."

I saw the colour on Brian's neck and smiled. "If you were up, you should have come in. Maybe we could teach you a thing or two."

"I doubt that," Kathy and Kevin said together, making us all laugh.

"Nate smokes when he's upset," Brian finally informed her. "But he's not going to be smoking anymore, is he?" he added, pulling the hair on my leg.

"We're going to do our damnedest to make that happen," I said with a smile.

"Though if Kevin keeps turning me down, I'm bound to get depressed."

"You keep this up," Brian laughed, elbowing me in the stomach. "One of these days, he's going to take you up on your offers, and then what will you do?"

"Oh, the things that come to mind," I grinned, biting his neck.

"Keep dreaming, boy," Kevin laughed, moving his leg to the side to kick both of us. "You're never going to have me."

"That's it, Kev," Matt said. "Make it a challenge for him. That'll get him to stop."

I smiled at Matt and nodded. "You got to see him naked. I think it's only fair that I get the same opportunity."

"Why did Matt get to see Kevin naked?" Justin asked, looking around the room.

"Because he climbed into the shower with him," JC laughed, nudging Matt.

"I thought it was you!" Matt insisted.

Kathy and I looked at each other and started to laugh, remembering her using the same line on me in the parking lot of the convenience store the night before. Everyone turned their attention to us, since we were laughing harder than we should have been, but we kept the explanations to ourselves. It wasn't one of those things that translate easily. You really did have to be there to get it.

We continued the discussion for a little while, until Matt declared it time to get ready to go. Brian and I gathered our bags from the middle of the room and carried them down to the bedroom, really going to pack this time. We both hung our suits back up in the closet, and then started to pack up an overnight bag. We both packed a change of clothes for the dance that night, and then something for the next day to wear back to Matt's house.

"Should I pack this?" Brian asked, holding up the shirt that I had bought him as a joke. It really was hideous.

"You're sleeping alone if you do," I told him, tossing some boxers and socks into the bag.

"But it might keep some of the girls away, you know? Make them go after the others and leave me there all alone and in need of comfort."

I thought the odds of that happening were about a million to one, though I did have to admit that the shirt made him less sexy. Not much less, but less. "If you pack that shirt, I guarantee you you're not getting any," I smiled, then went back to packing my own things. I turned back to the closet to grab another shirt when the one he had been holding went whizzing past my head, slamming into the back of the closet and falling to the floor in a heap. I turned around and gave him a questioning look.

"Changed my mind," he smiled, then came over, pushing me out of the way so that he could get into the closet again.

"Good move." I kissed his cheek, pushed my was in long enough to get the shirt I had been looking for, then backed away. I folded it and put it in the bag, then zipped it up and sat on the bed to wait for him to finish. "Brian, we're only going to be away for a night. Do you really think you need that much clothing?"

He arched his eyebrow and added the one in his hands. It was the fourth that I had seen him pack. "You never know. You've seen the crowds we get, and how rowdy they can be. And that's with security. Tonight, we're going to be surrounded by teenage girls, with no protection."

"And they're going to what? Rip your clothes off your body?"

He nodded seriously. "It's happened before. On girl gave AJ a pretty good set of scratches up his back when she grabbed him and ripped the entire back of his shirt off him." I gave him a skeptical look, which prompted him to shrug and take one last shirt out of the closet. I winced as he crammed it into the bag. It was the way he always packed his things, just shoving them in wherever they would fit. "You ask Kevin if you don't believe me. And JC and Justin too, for that matter. I'm sure they've had it happen."

He zipped up his bag and smiled at me. "Maybe you just need someone to rip your clothes off and you'd know how it feels." Walking over to me, he sat facing me on my lap, his knees to either side of me. "It's actually kind of fun for the first few seconds, but it gets a little scary when you realise that they don't care much whether they take a chunk of your hide with the shirt."

"I kinda like my hide intact," I smiled. "If it's all the same to you."

"Mmm... me, too." He leaned in and pressed his lips to mine. His hands slid down his own thighs, over his knees, then started to travel up my body, bringing my shirt with them. Just as my hands worked their way down his back and over his ass, he lifted himself up on his knees, rubbing against me more and causing me to crane my neck to sustain the kiss. When my hands had traveled far enough, he sat back down, pinning them against my legs.

"Um, sweetie," I laughed, breaking contact with him briefly. "You seem to be sitting on my hands."

"Shhh," he said, turning his face into my neck. I knew he would be grinning. I started to grin myself, as I began pinching him. "Hey hey hey!" he laughed, jumping enough for me to slide my hands out from under him.

"We're gonna get carried away," I warned him, running my hands back up and under his shirt. "And you know they're not going to wait."

"Then they're going to get an eyeful, aren't they?" he whispered back, then pushed me back onto the bed. I tightened my hold on him just in time to bring him down with me.

"You know we can't do this, pookie."

"I can," he laughed, biting my earlobe. "I definitely can."

I rolled my eyes behind the closed lids and smiled. "Okay, we both can, but you know we shouldn't."

"He's right," Kevin said, startling us both. Brian pulled back enough to allow me to turn my eyes toward the doorway. Kevin was standing there, leaning against the side and smiling like a fool. "You shouldn't."

"I wonder how long he was watching," Brian whispered, making me laugh. He climbed down off of me, then gave me a hand and pulled me to my feet. "We're coming, Kev."

"You need any help with your things?"

"No, we're fine. There's just the two bags."

"'Kay. We're all set out here."

I smiled, knowing that Kevin wasn't going to leave until we were following right behind him, just to make sure that we actually did follow. Picking up my bag, I put it in my left hand, then grabbed Brian's hand with my right. He just smiled, picked up his own bag, and then we both pushed Kevin out of the doorway and up the hall.

"Found 'em making out in their room," Kevin announced with a smartass grin on his face as we joined everyone else in the living room. All of their things were packed and sitting in the doorway.

"We weren't making out," Brian argued. "We were sharing a moment."

"And several moments to follow, by the look of it, if I hadn't come and gotten you."

"Well, I guess we'll never know now, will we?" I laughed, kicking Kevin. "Did I ever tell you that you really know how to spoil the mood?"

"That's my job, young'un," he laughed. "Someone's got to be an adult around here."

"You know," Kathy said with a grin. "There was a time when Kevin was actually known to have some fun."

"Noooo," Brian and I said together, feigning disbelief.

"Oh yeah. He's even been caught making out once or twice himself."

Kevin blushed and told Kathy to shut up. I smiled to myself, wondering just what sort of stories she could tell, and deciding that I didn't really want to find out. As attractive as Kevin was, and as much joking around as I did, I didn't really have much of a desire to think about him that way. He was becoming family. It was a shame, really.

"Let's go before Kathy destroys Kevin's reputation completely," Matt laughed, and led the way out of the house. He stood just outside the door until we were all out, then closed and locked the door.

There was no arguing for shotgun. Matt was driving, and it didn't take much to figure out who would be sitting with him. There really wasn't much arguing over the rest of the seats either. As was becoming customary, Brian and I took the very back seat, with me at the window, and Kathy and Kevin took the middle seat. Because of his outstretched leg, Justin sat beside Brian and laid his crutches and his leg out in front of him, beside the middle seat.

Once we were all buckled in, Matt pulled out into the street and we were underway. Before we had even cleared Matt's block, Brian's hand was in mine. I smiled over at him and relaxed in the seat, knowing that it was going to be a long ride, and already knowing that Brian had been right about my falling asleep. My eyes were already getting tired.

"Hey, guys," I said, remembering my conversation with Brian earlier. "How many changes of clothes did you bring?"

"Two," Matt said, and Kathy nodded her head.

"Four," Kevin and Justin said together. JC laughed and told me that he had brought five shirts and a couple extra pairs of pants.

"Why?" Kevin asked me.

"No reason," I smiled back at him, falling silent.

Brian, however, decided to take it up with them. "He was giving me a hard time about packing so much, and didn't believe me when I told him that they'll rip the clothes right off of you sometimes. I told him to ask you guys."

"It's true, Nate," JC grinned from the front seat. "When you're this hot, you've got to expect stuff like that."

Justin started to laugh. "How would you know? It's only happened to you once, and I still say they thought you were Lance!"

"Ooh, Lance," I purred into Brian's ear, earning an elbow in the stomach.

"They knew it was me!" JC said, turning around to shoot Justin a mock-irritated look.

"I'm sure they did," Matt said, nodding his head and patting JC's knee without looking from the road. We all assured JC that we thought so too. Though there was a definite hint of sarcasm in the assurances.

He picked it up. "They knew!" he said again, trying not to laugh. "I'm no albino!"

"I'm telling Scoop," Justin laughed. "You know he hates that!"

"Well, you can make him feel better by telling him that Nate's got a crush on him," Kevin grinned, turning the attention back to me. Justin looked over, and I started to blush, which made him laugh again.

"Oh, he's going to love this."

"Well he better not love it too much," Brian broke in. "Nate's taken."

"Don't worry, Brian. I'm pretty sure you're safe. Lance is normal like me."

He knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as he said it. Instantly, the four 'abnormal' ones among us started in on him. Brian and I both reached over to hit him, and JC started pointing out all of Justin's abnormalities. Matt did what he could to join in without taking his attention off the road. Kathy and Kevin just sat back and enjoyed, happy that they'd fall under Justin's definition of normal. By the time we were done berating the youngest among us, there were already a number of miles between Matt's house and us.

I woke up with a kink in my neck. Lifting my head carefully from its resting-place on Brian's shoulder, I blinked a few times to clear my vision, and looked around me. Kathy and Kevin were chatting back and forth with Matt and JC. Looking over, I found Justin reading, and Brian sound asleep with his head on Justin's shoulder.

Clearing my throat, I stretched as much as I could with Brian's hand still in mine. I leaned forward and returned the smile Justin was giving me. "Sorry about that," I said, indicating Brian's head.

"Don't worry about it," he chuckled. "It's no big deal."

"But it is a great picture opportunity," Kathy said, making me look around. "Hey there, sleeping beauty."

"Hi," I grinned. "Please tell me you brought your camera with you. Mine's in my computer bag back at the house."

"I brought it, and I already got a couple of shots."

"Good." I turned back around and reached over to ease Brian's head off of Justin's shoulder and onto mine. "He didn't drool on you, did he?" I asked.

Justin surprised me by nodding. "Just a little." He indicated a small wet spot on his shirt. "No big deal."

"Enough to tease him about," Kevin laughed.

"You must have really tired him out last night."

I stuck my tongue out at Kathy and leaned back in my seat, wondering if I was done sleeping or not. "It was sort of a mutual thing," I told her.

"I'm sure it was," she nodded. "You hungry?"

"I could eat."

She passed me a bag of Doritos with a smile. "We don't have anything to drink, though, so be warned."

"How could we forget drinks?" I asked, taking the bag.

"I blame Matt."

"Hey!" came the protest from the front seat. "How come it's my fault?"

"Your car," everyone but Brian responded. The noise disturbed him, but not enough to actually wake up. He just shifted against me and put his hand on my leg.

"He really is adorable," Kathy smiled, reaching out to brush his hair away from his forehead. I watched her, then smiled. I had done that exact thing so many times. "You're lucky, you know."

"I know," I answered, nodding. "I know."

"So's he," JC put in.

I craned lifted my gaze to the front and smiled at JC. "Now that one, I'm not so sure of. He's been through a lot because of me."

"Everyone in love goes through a lot," Kathy said. "Not all that he has, but a lot. He went through a lot just to get to the point where he could be with you. That should tell you how much it means to him."

"And not all that he's been through since has been your fault, either," Kevin added. "Everything with Jackie would still have happened. He's just lucky you were there to be with him."

"What did happen with Jackie?" Kathy asked, looking back to make sure Brian was still sleeping.

"Too much. Jackie and Brian fought about Nate being on tour, and Brian outed himself while he was defending Nate. They fought about that, and then she kicked Brian out of the house." He saw me raise my hand to my cheek, and nodded. "She hit Nate as we were leaving. Brian was pretty rough for a while."

"Harold wasn't home when it happened," I took it up. "But he came to the hotel wanting to speak with Brian. Once I found out that he wasn't there to fight, I took him up to the room."

"And Brian wanted to talk to him, after what had happened?" JC asked. His disbelief was clear in his voice.

"No, but I sort of made him do it," I answered. "They talked it out, and then I left them alone for a while so they could get it all straightened out."

"So Harold's okay with this?" Kathy asked, nodding her head from Brian to me.

"He's been pretty good, yeah," Kevin answered her, then looked back at me. "Do you have any idea what's going on now?"

I shook my head. "I haven't asked. I don't know whether he and Harold talked about her or not. I doubt Brian would have brought it up, but I don't know about Harold."

"What about his brother?"

I shook my head again. "Don't know that either, Kev. He didn't say much other than that things are still good with his dad. I'll try and find out later, though. I'm sort of curious about that, too."

"I take it brother Harold doesn't know about you and Brian?" Kathy asked.

"I don't know. Harold said he would talk to him, but I don't know if he's done that yet."

"He probably has," Kevin said. "Jackie would likely have said something about it by now, and Harold would have wanted to get to him before that, just to make sure that he got the whole story. I think it's pretty likely that he's been told."

"Well," Kathy said. "You know him pretty well, Kev. How do you think he's going to take it?"

Kevin sighed and ran his hand through his hair. "Honestly? I don't know. I would have thought that it wouldn't be too hard on him. It's not like he has to wonder what he did wrong or anything like that. And he and Brian have always been really close. They don't speak all that often, but they're still close. Then again, the fact that he hasn't called to talk to Brian is odd. If he's cool with it, I would have expected him to call by now."

"Maybe Jackie won't let him?" I put in hopefully.

"Maybe," Kevin said, nodding. "But not too likely. I just don't know. I'd be surprised if Brian and his dad didn't talk about it today, though. I'm sure Brian'll tell you later if you ask him."

I nodded and fell silent, sending out a brief prayer to the deities that Kevin would be right, and that both Harold Littrells would be on our side in this. Though I had a feeling that it would take more than the two of them combined to bring Jackie around. Brian shifted against me once more, sighing in his sleep, and I smiled, tilting my head so that it rested against the top of his.

We stopped shortly after that to get some drinks. As soon as Matt killed the engine, I nudged Brian. He moaned, but didn't wake up. Smiling to myself, I leaned over and kissed him, running my tongue across his bottom lip. It didn't take long for his mouth to open slightly, and his hand started to rise up my leg. I kissed him for a moment longer, and then backed away and watched as his eyes flickered open.

"Wakey wakey," Kathy laughed.

"Are we there?" Brian asked, looking around.

"Nope. Just stopped for a drink," I told him, kissing him again quickly. "I wouldn't have bothered waking you up, but I have to pee."

"Announce it to the whole car, why don't you," Kevin laughed.

"Everyone," I said, raising my voice. "I have to pee."

"Funny guy," Kevin muttered opening the door. He climbed out over Justin's leg and crutches, then took out the crutches and held them while Justin managed to get out of the vehicle. He thanked Kevin, taking them, then moved back to let the rest of us out.

"You're driving the rest of the way," Matt told Kathy as he came around to our side. He handed her the keys. "I'm getting tired." Kathy sighed dramatically, but she took the keys and slipped them into her pocket. "So who's going in, and who's staying out here to avoid being recognised?"

"Out here," Kevin announced. Justin and Brian both agreed with him. Brian was still half-asleep, and Justin wouldn't have been able to outrun a crowd if his life depended on it.

"I'll come," JC said. He slipped on his sunglasses with a smile.

"I don't know if that's a good idea," Justin grinned. "You know how popular Lance is."

"You're just itching to have another broken leg, aren't you, Curly?" JC said sourly.

"Well, I do happen to have brought my private nurse with me," Justin laughed.

"Your private nurse is sleeping with the enemy," I pointed out with a smile. "I'm coming in. Since I have to pee and everything," I added, looking directly at Kevin.

"Me, too," Kathy grinned, putting her arm over my shoulder. "Not the pee thing, but the going in thing."

Kevin rolled his eyes at the two of us. "You girls have fun, then," he smiled.

"Oh, the ass-kicking you're going to get for that one, Kevvie," I purred, slipping my arm around his waist and putting my head on his shoulder.

"Get off of me." Kevin nudged me to the side as he laughed.

"Hey, you call me a girl, you put up with the flamin', sweetie. Just be thankful I'm not jumping in your arms right now."

"No, you be thankful you're not jumping in his arms right now," Brian said from behind me. "Or I'd have Justin beat you off with his crutch."

"Don't put me in the middle of this," Justin laughed.

"Let's just go in and get something to drink," Matt suggested, shaking his head in mock-dismay at us. "Boy, you can dress you guys up, but you sure can't take you anywhere."

I winked at Brian, then put my arm around Kathy's waist and started walking with her toward the door. She put her arm around me as well, and we let JC and Matt walk ahead of us. I purposefully slowed our walking as soon as we got out of earshot of the rest back at the car. "So, pretty lady, when am I going to get it?"

"Get what?" she asked, looking over at me. "What are you talking about?"

"Brian told me you had yourself a little verbal explosion at everyone this morning. Just wondering when the fallout is heading my way."

Kathy laughed and pinched my side. "Would you listen if I did?"

"Of course I would. I might not like it, or follow it, but I'd listen."

She stopped walking, bringing me to a halt as well. When Matt looked back at us, she merely waved him on. He looked at my face, then turned and the two of them entered the store. "I have a feeling that you've already got a good idea what I'd say anyway."

That I did. "Lighten up?"

"In a nutshell, yes," she smiled.

"It's just that..."

"You're worried about what your loving him might cost him. I know that, Nate. And you're right to be worried about it. If people found out about you and Brian before you're both willing to tell them, it probably wouldn't be good. Believe me, I've got a pretty good idea what it's like to have a secret that could be harmful to them if it came out."

"What's that?" I asked. "It's not like your relationship with Kevin would wreck their image like mine with Brian might."

Kathy just smiled. "It's not important right now, Nate. You'll likely find out eventually, but not right now. Just don't ask anyone else about it, okay? As a favour for me?"

"Sure. If you don't want me to, I won't." I was starting to think that I had a pretty good idea, anyway.

She had asked us to visit so that she could talk to Kevin, and so far as I knew, they hadn't done much talking yet. Not about anything that would warrant his flying all the way to Memphis. She had passed up a pancake breakfast in favour of a piece of toast. Exactly what Nana had always suggested I eat if I were feeling queasy. She had suggested that we get champagne at dinner the night before, yet hadn't actually had more than a sip from her glass. And now she was talking about having a secret that might do the guys some harm. All signs pointed to a bundle of joy.

"Thanks. Now, what I was saying was, you're right to worry about it, but you can't let it run your life, or you won't have a life to worry about. If you're constantly thinking about what might happen, nothing will happen. Things are good now, and that's all any of us have any right to expect."

"It's just so hard not to think about, Kathy." I glanced back at the car, and saw Brian looking at us, obviously curious what was up, but not daring to interrupt. I smiled at him and he smiled back, then I turned my attention back to Kathy. "I could cost him everything."

"Or, you could make him see that what he thinks is everything really isn't.

You won't know until you have to, Nate. Don't rush things. Just enjoy now. Five minutes from now might never happen."

"My, what a cheery thought," I laughed, knowing that she was right.

"Well, that's what I would have said to you this morning if you had been there. Of course, I would have said it louder, and probably not as politely, but you would have gotten the gist."

"See? Not only did I listen, but I might even try to follow it," I smiled, taking her hand just as I had on our walk the night before and starting for the store again. "And thank you. For wanting to say something, and for what you told Brian this morning."

"No problem. I just can't stand to see stupidity," she laughed, opening the door.

"What are you two fools laughing at?" Matt asked as we walked up behind them at the cooler. He handed Kathy a few bottles, and JC unloaded himself on me, then they both loaded up again.

"Nothing you need to be concerned about, handsome," Kathy told him, winking at me. "Just trying to decide which one of us was going to steal JC away from you."

"Sorry, Kathy, but I'd have to say Nate's got the inside track on that one," JC laughed as he closed the cooler door.

"Excuse me?" Matt asked, looking at him and arching his eyebrow.

JC grinned. "Well, you know, if I had to have one of them steal me away, it would have to be Nate. He's got... character."

"Yeah, it's his character you'd be after," Matt chuckled, promising to kick his ass later, and mine and Kathy's for good measure. "Think this is enough?"

I looked at the drinks as we set them on the counter. "I'm going to grab a few bottles of water, just in case," I said, and headed back to the cooler. I took down four bottles and added them to what was on the counter already, then hurriedly passed the guy some cash before Matt or anyone else could insist on paying. Matt gave me an exasperated look, then smiled.

Once the drinks were paid for and put into bags, we headed back out to the car.

They were sitting waiting for us when we got there. Kevin, assuming that Kathy's driving meant that he got the passenger seat, was sitting in it sideways, with the door open. Brian was leaning against the vehicle and chatting with Justin, who was sitting in the side door, his leg stuck out in front of him like the proverbial sore thumb.

"Hey, Nate?" JC asked when we were still about half-way to the car. I turned my head back to look at him and arched my eyebrow. "I know it's sort of your spot this week, but do you mind if we take the back seat? I'd like to talk to Justin for a bit."

I smiled at him as I shook my head. "No problem. He'll likely want to talk to you, too, and Brian and I can do what we were doing just about anywhere."

"You know, if you sleep all the way there, you're never going to get any rest tonight," Kathy laughed, squeezing the hand she was holding. Matt and JC snickered behind us.

"Well, then I guess we'll just have to find something to keep us occupied, won't we?"

"Hmm... On second thought, maybe I'll sleep instead of talking to Curly," JC grinned.

"Just don't drool on him," I laughed as we joined the others. "That's apparently Brian's job."

"What's my job?" he asked, looking up with a smile.

"Oh, so many things, pookie. But the particular one we're talking about is drooling on Justin's shoulder. You staked your claim earlier."

"I did not!" He looked around at our smiling faces, then looked down at Justin. "I didn't, did I?" Justin merely smiled, arching his eyebrow.

"Don't worry, Brian," Kathy stepped in. "I've got pictures."

Brian sighed and rolled his eyes at me. "There's been way too much picture-taking this week, you know."

"There's never too many pictures of you," I said sweetly, which prompted the appearance of gagging sounds from every other member of the group.

"Let's get on the road before they're going at it in the parking lot," Kathy laughed. She took the keys out of her pocket and started to walk around to the other side to get in. "Let's load 'em up and move 'em out!"

Brian started to climb back into the rear seat, but I grabbed him by the back pocket. It was a handy place to grab him. When he looked back at me, I indicated the middle seat with a smile. He shrugged and sat down, taking the window seat, and I got in with him. Kevin swiveled in his seat as Matt and JC got in, then JC and I helped Justin get situated and we were on the road again.

As we got under way, Justin complained about his foot being cold, and Matt checked him over, making sure that his circulation was okay. Announcing that it was, he told Justin that his foot was cold because his toes were bare.

"Well, duh. Even I could have told you that," Brian said with a grin, turning sideways to look at them behind us.

"Brian, sweetie, can I see your arm?"

As soon as I heard the tone of Matt's voice, I knew it wasn't a good idea to do as he said. Brian looked like he knew it too, but he still offered his arm. As soon as he did, Matt jabbed him with a knuckle.

"OW!" he yelled, jerking his arm with the pain. "He's picking on me," he whined, turning to me.

"Don't look at me," I smiled. "You got yourself into this one. You can get yourself out." Thinking I'd likely get the same treatment if I came to his aid, I laughed. "Besides, that looked like it hurt."

"It did!"

"Then I'm not messing with him," I grinned.

"Smart boy," Matt said. "Now, will you put your freak on a leash?" I smiled as Brian reacted to being called a freak, then Matt came back with "You want some more of this?"

"Well," Brian said, looking over at me. "Maybe if this whole thing with Nate doesn't work out..."

"Forget it. If I'm trading in JC for a Backstreet Boy, your cousin's got first dibs."

"Who the hell said I wanted them?" Kevin asked, looking around from his seat. I just smiled as they argued back and forth about whether or not Kevin was interested. My wrestling match with him at the hotel in Boulder was even brought up again.

"If you're really good," Matt chuckled, "we'll go at it tomorrow, and I'll bring some baby oil." Kathy and I immediately expressed our desires for pictures of the event, and Kevin finally fell silent, afraid to argue any more. Justin took pity on him, asking if we were picking on him.

"Come back here, and Curly'll make it all better," JC said, letting the lilt in his voice convey the suggestive nature of the comment.

We all started laughing at the expression on both Kevin and Justin's face. When he had recovered enough, Justin made a particularly tasteless comment about what he was going to do with his crutch if JC didn't learn to hold his tongue.

"I told you he wanted me," JC said to Matt, and Brian started laughing again. Justin quickly gave up, but they didn't let up.

"Ooh, submissive," Matt smiled. "I like that. Who's got handcuffs?"

I knew he was going to say it, but didn't react quickly enough before Brian opened his mouth. "Not me. Nate won't go for those." I elbowed him in the gut, and he quieted again. He looked to me briefly to see if he might have said too much, but I just smiled at him. Not being into handcuffs wasn't something to be all that ashamed of. At least he hadn't given them the details of how it had come up between us.

"You can borrow mine," Kathy offered with a laugh. That immediately instigated another volley of comments, this time about the difficulty we had believing that Kevin was into that sort of thing, and the lack of difficulty we had believing it of Kathy.

By the time Kathy had made a couple of comments back, Brian looked like he'd rather be talking about anything else. "Please tell me Kevin had nothing to do with that." I smiled and patted his knee as Justin laughed and asked if he was bothered by the image and he answered in the affirmative immediately, as I knew he would.

Deciding to mess with his mind a little more, I leaned in and stroked his cheek. "Damn. And here I was getting primed for a threesome with you two."

JC laughed behind us. "I'll settle for watching the two of them. The whole kissing cousins thing just does something for me."

Kevin pretended to gag, letting us all know the effect that the mental image had on him. "You need to work on that, Kev," I laughed, then Brian finally decided he'd had enough and nudged me with his knee. I smiled at him while Matt took up the topic, informing Kevin of the benefits of overcoming his gag reflex.

Kevin announced his intentions of going to sleep to escape us, and Brian immediately agreed, though the smile on his face betrayed him. The rest of us all decided that we were fine with the topic of conversation. We kept it up for a few more minutes before finally deciding to let it go, and we fell quiet once more. Quiet enough that I fell asleep again, leaning against Brian's shoulder.

To be awakened with a jerk as we suddenly slowed down, throwing us all forward in our seats. Except, apparently, for Matt, who was for some reason leaning over Kevin's lap.

"What's this?" I laughed, enjoying the spectacle in front of us. "I got to sleep for a few hours, and I wake up to find Kevin switched teams on me and wound up with Matt." Matt sat back up and both he and Kevin mock-glared at me. "Who the hell'd want to sleep with him, anyway?"

"I would." I had expected it from JC, of course, but Brian's voice joining in surprised me.

"Excuse me?" I asked, turning to look at him.

"Well..."

Justin joined in. "Yeah, if it had to be one of the two of you, it'd definitely be Matt."

"Now wait just a damn minute," I said, trying to hide the smile on my face.

"I think so, too," I heard Kevin say from the front, and turned around to face him.

To be met by a handful of chips flying at my face. "So nah!" Matt said with a grin.

"Oh, you're all so dead."

Matt got a smug look on his face. "What are you gonna do about it? It's not my fault if you've failed to hold even the straight guy's attention."

I watched the look on his face as he tried not to laugh, and searched my brain for a suitable, cool-sounding come-back. "Keep it up, Nancy Nurse, and you and me are going to throw down," I grinned. Cut me some slack. I was barely awake.

The smile finally dawned again, and Matt leaned back against Kevin's seat. "Ooh, awfully ethnic all of the sudden. Maybe you could give Justin some pointers."

That got Justin's attention, but he got no sympathy from me. "That's what you get for picking him," I smiled back at him.

"As for your threat of throwing down," Matt laughed. "For starters, I'm not interested in a roll in the hay with some Eskimo. I do have standards."

"The proper term is 'Inuit', redneck," I informed him. I was about to make a comment about what kind of standards anyone sleeping with JC could possibly have when he started again.

"And if you're threatening physical violence, I'm not intimidated. Kevin already said you hit like a bitch."

Kevin didn't seem all that happy about being dragged into the conversation, and made it known to the rest of us.

"Oh, shut up," I told him with a smile. "You know you'd give anything to be sandwiched in the middle of Matt and I." While it was not something that I would normally have actually said out loud - just a little too blatant for my normal tastes - it had the effect I had intended. Kevin went red and Brian shifted against me, obviously uncomfortable with the image. Teach him to find another man sexy.

"And as for you," I added, turning my attention away from Kevin and onto Matt again. "Don't say you weren't warned." With a laugh, I jumped off the seat and grabbed him, throwing him back against Kevin's seat.

I had definitely taken him by surprise, but it didn't last long. He braced himself against the seat and pushed back, shoving me back against Brian, who grunted, then started to complain. When I remained pressed against him, he finally decided to join in my defense, and the two of us managed to push Matt back against Kevin's seat again.

Matt slipped off to the side and tried to vault the seat Brian and I had been in, no doubt trying to get back to the safety of JC's arms. Brian and I both tried to grab him, but all we wound up doing was pushing him over the seat. Directly onto Justin's leg.

Justin yelled, immediately killing the jovial mood in the car, and Matt was quickly at Justin's side, checking him out. Brian and I sat back down, this time with me at the window, turning around so that we could see. "Justin, are you okay?" I asked, cringing at the pain that was still visible on his face.

"Yeah, just stung for a second. It's fine."

"Are you sure?"

Justin reached out and patted Brian's shoulder as he nodded and once more assured us that he was fine. Matt and Justin spiraled downward from there into a series of tasteless comments and innuendo. Brian and I turned back around and sat, Brian leaning against me.

"I didn't mean it about Matt, sweetie," he purred, kissing my cheek.

I brushed his hand away from my knee with a smile. "It's not going to be that easy. I don't get over complete rejection quite that quickly."

Brian chuckled and gave up, snuggling into my side and closing his eyes. I took his hand and rested my head against the top of his, but I didn't close my eyes again. I watched as the road passed us by, listening as Kathy sang along softly with the radio, likely believing she was the only one of us that was awake.

PART 93

I stretched as Kathy pulled into the hotel lot, and roused Brian just as she killed the engine and nudged Kevin. Kevin got out and opened the side door, removing Justin's crutches. Brian and I waved him off and helped Justin out, trying to make ourselves feel a little better for having thrown Matt on his leg.

By the time we got Justin out and on his feet again, Kathy was making comments at Matt and JC, who were still in the back of the car. They both grinned as they got out, and we started to collect our bags. As we did that, we fell into another talk about who was going to go inside and who was waiting at the car. Matt finally took matters into his own hands. Literally. He grabbed both Kevin and Kathy by the arm and pulled them after him toward the door.

The rest of us finished with the bags and locked the car, then waited for them to get back. Resting our backs against the side of the vehicle, Brian hooked his baby finger in my pocket, and I smiled at him, knowing that no one would be able to see it unless they were right in front of us. JC, who was indeed standing right in front of us, grinned and rolled his eyes.

Kevin and the rest came back out, and he handed me a key for our room, since I was supposed to have one of my own, and Brian and Kevin were to look like they were sharing. Brian let go of my pocket and picked up his bag again, then we both followed the others to the rooms. I stopped in front of ours, and unlocked the door while Brian and Kevin continued to the next door, and Kevin put the key in the lock. I winked when Brian looked back at me, and then I opened the door and went inside.

As usual, the first thing I did was start to unpack. I no sooner had my bag on the bed and unzipped when Brian came walking through the door between rooms with a smile on his face. "Hi, honey, I'm home," he laughed, knocking my bag off of the bed and throwing me on it.

"Now my stuff's going to be messy," I complained half-heartedly as he pinned me on the mattress. "What's the matter? Was Matt busy?"

Brian smiled down at me and kissed my forehead. "If he's lucky."

"Get off of me, loser," I laughed, pushing him back. "I wanna get unpacked and showered before we have to go."

"You want some company?"

"Can you keep your hands to yourself?"

Brian smiled and looked me up and down. "I guess so."

"Then no," I grinned, pushing him off of me and standing back up. "If you're not going to make it interesting, you can wait your turn." I picked my bag back up and set it on the bed again, then started to take out the few articles of clothing that I had packed.

"Will you unpack for me, too, sweetie?"

"Forget it. You're the one who packed half of their wardrobe. Unpack it yourself."

"But I'm so comfortable," he whined, laying on his stomach and swiping at my leg as I passed by the bed. "Please?" Seeing that it wasn't going to work, he flipped back over and put his head on the pillows. "Fine, then. I guess I'll just have to stay packed and live out of the bag."

He knew I wouldn't let that happen. "Bitch," I muttered, lifting his bag from the floor and unzipping it.

"Thanks, sweetie."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. The least you could do is make yourself useful while I do this."

Brian immediately sat forward and started to unbutton my pants. Laughing, I swatted his hands away and turned his chin up for a kiss. "You leave those alone for now. Why don't you call Nicky and see when his flight comes into Toronto?"

"I don't want to talk to Nick right now," he grinned, pawing at my pants again.

"Well, I don't want to unpack your stuff, but it looks like I'm gonna do it, doesn't it? Call Nick, or one of us really is going to be sleeping with Kevin tonight."

"Not you," Brian chuckled, releasing me and falling back on the bed again.

He dug in his pocket for his phone while I went back to unpacking our things, shaking out his clothes in an attempt to get the wrinkles out of them.

Once all of our clothes were put away, I took both of our shaving kits and other personal stuff into the bathroom and set it on the counter, then joined him in the main room again, stuffing the two bags under the bed. Brian was laying there with his eyes closed, chatting away with Nick, completely oblivious to me and the rest of the world.

Smiling, I climbed onto the bed and straddled him. He opened his eyes and silently asked me if he needed to be off the phone. Shaking my head, I undid the bottom couple of buttons of his shirt, exposing the lower half of his stomach, then leaned in and started to gently kiss up his body, undoing more buttons as my mouth traveled higher.

When I got to the final button, I undid it with my teeth, then moved in on his Adam's apple. He hitched in a breath and swatted at the back of my head until I looked up. Giving me what might have passed as a disapproving look had he not been fighting a grin, he pointed to the phone, then started talking again. "Listen, Nick, I'm going to have to let you go... Yeah, that's it exactly... Yes, he is... Well, he did unpack for me... NICK! That's disgusting. You know I didn't mean that... Yeah yeah. Anyway, I really need to go... Yeah..."

I reached out and grabbed the phone, putting it to my ear. "Nicky?"

"Nate? Brian said you were going to have sex now."

I laughed and looked down at Brian, who was grinning up at me, his hands starting to move up my leg. "Well, Brian's out of luck, because I'm talking to you now." I climbed off the bed, avoiding Brian's grabs, and backed away from him. When he started to come after me, I ran for the door and threw it open, standing in the doorway. He wouldn't dare grab me in broad daylight. "How're things, Nick?"

"Good. Brian tells me you still want me to come to Toronto, huh?"

"Damn right we do," I smiled, watching Brian creep up on me. "Did you give him your flight time and everything?"

"Yeah. Monday morning, at 7:00 is when I'm supposed to land. Think you can drag your ass out of bed and come get me?"

"For you, Nicky, anything."

"Aww, how sweet. So you're in New Orleans now?"

"Yup. Matt's daughters are having a school dance or something, and the guys are making an appearance."

"Just the guys? Not everyone's favourite author?"

"Everyone's favourite author will be basking in the glory of anonymity, thank you very much. Brian's managed to ruin that the one time I found it this week. We had the tour guide at Graceland convinced that I was nobody, and then Brian told her."

"He's such a bastard, being proud of his boyfriend like that."

I laughed and agreed whole-heartedly, then looked back in the room just in time to see Brian's arms coming at me. He shoved me out and slammed the door, and I heard the lock snick shut. "Well, you're at least right about him being a bastard, Nick. It looks like I've been locked out of my own room, and I didn't even get to shower yet."

"So what are you going to do about it?"

I looked around myself and started down to the next door. "I'm going to jump in the shower with his cousin, I think," I laughed. Knocking on the door, I heard a shuffling from inside, and then Kevin was standing there in his towel, obviously having just gotten out of the shower. "Ah, I'm in luck. He answered the door naked."

"What?"

"Nothing, Nick." I walked past Kevin, ignoring his curious look, and dropped onto the bed. "So everything's going well down there?"

"Sure. I was out in the boat again since the last time we talked. You sure I'm not going to get you out there?"

"I told you before. Not without a lot of drugs or alcohol. I'll stay on shore and pray to the gods that you don't go to a watery grave, if you like."

Nick laughed. "Well, I guess it can't hurt to have someone doing that. Brian let you in yet?"

"Nope. I'm in Kevin's bed now."

"ON Kevin's bed," Kevin corrected with a smile as he gathered some clothes and started for the bathroom to change.

"Sorry, Nick. On Kevin's bed. I'll get back in my room, though. Trust me."

"Oh, I have no doubt that you'll be able to do it," Nick assured me. "I should let you go and do that, though. Mom's yelling about something, and it's likely something I did."

"You young people today," I mocked. "No respect for their elders. I'm going to have to meet your mom sometime."

"Both of my parents. Of course, it's probably best if we actually tell them that you exist, and how you fit into the group, if you know what I mean."

"They don't know?"

"Nope. With the way Jackie reacted, we didn't figure it was all that safe to let the rest of the parents in on it. Kevin's mom might know, since they're family and all, but I haven't said anything to my parents, and AJ and Howie haven't either."

"Oh. Wow. Then yeah, I guess it would be better if they knew before meeting me, eh?"

"I'm sure we'll tell them soon, Nate. Hopefully Jackie'll soon figure out what a bitch she's being. Any word from Harold?"

"Brian talked to him today, but I haven't had a chance to talk to him about it yet. Nothing much can have changed, though, or he would have told me already." Kevin came walking back out of the bathroom, dressed except for his socks, and with his shirt unbuttoned. I whistled and got him blushing, then went back to the phone. "Listen, Nicky, I'm going to go. I'll steal Kev's shower for a couple of minutes, and then get back into my room."

"Okay, Natey."

"Natey?"

"Well, if you get to call me Nicky..."

"That doesn't mean that you get to call me Natey, my friend. Do it again and I'll kick your ass."

"You don't scare me."

"Big talk from such a little weasel," I laughed. "Now, I'm going to go jump in the shower. You wanna talk to Kev? It's Brian's phone, so we may as well rack up a nice bill."

"Sure, put him on for a minute."

"Alright, I'll talk to you Monday morning, if not before."

"Sure thing. Bye, Nate."

"Bye, Nicky," I laughed, then handed the phone to Kevin. "I'm going to grab a shower, and then you're helping me get back in my room," I told him.

He smiled and took the phone. "He lock you out?"

"How did you handle growing up with him?"

"Kick his ass a few times, he'll treat you right."

"I'll keep it in mind," I laughed, then jumped up off the bed and headed into the bathroom.

When I was done in the shower, I gathered up my clothes, wrapped a towel around my waist, and walked back out into the main room. Kevin was sitting on the bed, flipping through the channels and still talking to Nick.

"Oh, I've got to go get Nate back into his room, Nick... Yeah, I will... Thanks... Bye." Kevin ended the call and started to throw me the phone before realising that I had my hands full of clothes and nowhere to put the phone anyway. Pocketing it, he stood up from the bed and looked at me. "You must have a plan."

"I was hoping you would," I laughed.

"Lucky you." Kevin walked to the door that connected the two rooms and banged on it. "BRIAN! Are you and Nate ready yet?"

I smiled and nodded my approval as Brian's voice came from the other side of the door. "He's not in there with you?"

"No! Why would he be in here with me? Did you guys fight?"

The door unlocked and Brian opened it, letting Kevin step into the room. As soon as he was through, Kevin grabbed Brian and carried him away from the door, and I charged around through it.

"Hey!" Brian yelled, kicking from his spot over Kevin's shoulder. "What are you doing naked and wet in Kevin's room?"

Kevin set him down as I started to go through the closet and took out the clothes I wanted. "My boyfriend kicked me out of my own room, so I had to move on with the best-looking guy I could find. Luckily, there was a boyband member right next door."

"And you helped him," Brian laughed, smacking Kevin's shoulder. "You're supposed to be on my side!"

"Hey, if being on your side means that he winds up on my bed and in my shower, I'm completely on his side," Kevin smiled. "Now, if you two queens are done, I'm going to go finish getting ready. I'd imagine they want to get going in half an hour or so."

"Thanks Kev," I smiled, watching him head back through the door. He smiled back, then closed it.

"You bastard."

"Nope, my parents were married," I said, sticking my tongue out at him. "Now, you should go and get showered, pookie."

"But you were supposed to be my company," he pouted.

"Which is pretty much the opposite of the message that you get when someone shoves you out the door and locks it." I took off the towel and crossed the room to the dresser to get some underwear. "You should have thought of that before you got carried away."

"Speaking of being carried away," Brian said, walking up behind me as I opened the drawer. He put his hands on my hips and pulled be back against him, his lips closing on my neck.

"That's exactly what we would have had time to do if you hadn't locked me out," I laughed, stepping on his foot and pushing him away. I slipped on the boxers and grinned at him. "Now, you go get showered. I want to talk to you before we go."

"'Bout what?"

"I'll tell you when you're done. Now go," I smiled, pushing him toward the bathroom. He gave me a brief look, then turned and did as he was told. I climbed onto the bed and grabbed the remote to amuse myself while I waited for him to finish.

"Ooh," Brian smiled as he returned to the room. "You're looking good."

I looked down at myself and started to laugh. I was still just in my boxers, having thrown my clothes over the back of one of the chairs. "Thanks. You're not so bad yourself." He wasn't even wearing a towel.

"Now what did you want to talk about?" Brian didn't bother with boxers as he came and sat on the edge of the bed, then lay down beside me, pulling me to him and curling up with me. "Is it something big?"

I let the entendre go and shrugged against him. "I don't know. That's what you're going to have to tell me. I wanted to talk about what you and your dad talked about earlier."

"Oh."

"My, what an enthusiastic and encouraging 'oh' that was. Nothing good, eh?"

"I don't know. Dad's still behind us, and he's glad that things are good between us. Mom's still freaking out. He said that he'd tried to talk to her and let her know how in love we were and everything, but she won't even talk about it. He didn't come right out and say it, but it sounds like she's pretending like she's only got one son now."

I turned in his arms and rested my forehead against his. "I'm sorry, sweetie. I was hoping that he'd have been able to come around a little bit by now."

"Me too," he sighed. "But, she'll either deal with it or not. There's not a whole lot that I can do about it, right?"

"Right."

"And, there's not a whole lot that she can do to break us up, right?"

"Right."

"Then I'm not going to get all depressed about it, and hope that Dad and Harold can bring her around."

"Harold? Then they told him?"

"Dad got to him first. He met Harold in the driveway and made him get back in the car. They went out for dinner so that they could talk before Harold had to hear Mom's version of everything."

"And how'd he take it?"

"Not good, at first. Dad didn't really want to talk about it, which only made me more determined to hear it. Apparently, Harold said some things that might as well have come straight from Mom's mouth. He wasn't happy about it at all."

"But?"

"But, Dad made him listen, and told him about what Mom had done to both of us, and about his trip to the hotel to meet you and talk to me." Brian's hand ran up my leg until it met my hand, then closed around it. "He told Harold how great you were, and how we were with each other, and basically told him that he wouldn't put up with another attitude like Mom's. They rode around for most of the night talking about it, and Harold came around. Or, as he put it, he 'reserved judgement' until he's met you and talked to me."

"Well, that's something, at least," I smiled, shifting my head just enough to kiss him. "At least he's not being totally unreasonable like Jackie is. But why hasn't he called you to talk, then?"

"I asked that, too. Dad says he doesn't want to talk about something like this over the phone, because it's too easy to misunderstand and get upset. If we're face to face, we'll be able to see each other's expressions, and hopefully have a real conversation about it."

"Smart guy."

"What did you expect?" Brian laughed, nudging me. "Anyway, he's supposed to come out and join us for a few days once the tour starts up again, so that we can talk. That way, he can talk to me, and to the rest of the guys, and he can meet my wonderful boyfriend. Once he meets you, I know he's going to love you."

"Yeah, worked on Jackie," I said sourly. "But at least he's willing to try. That's a good sign, and it doesn't sound like your dad's giving him much choice but to be okay with it."

"That's true, but he's not the only parent. According to Dad, Mom's been pushing Harold to agree with her. It's gotten bad enough that Harold's been finding any excuse not to be home without Dad there to keep Mom from getting too out of hand about it."

I sighed and nuzzled in with him. "Sweetie?"

"Mm hmm?"

"If you had known, that night in the cafe in LA, or that morning on Rosie, that all of this was going to happen. Everything with your family, I mean. If you had known then that it was coming, would you still have stayed to talk with me after the show?"

Brian pulled away and looked me in the eye, releasing my hand long enough to bring his up to cup my cheek. "Absolutely. This stuff with my family will work out, I think. Besides, it's not all of my family. Just mom. Harold's at least half-way on our side, and dad's on our side. The only other family that knows is Kevin, and you know how great he's been."

"Yeah, but I also know how close you and your mom are. Were. Whatever. I saw the way you were with each other before she found out about us."

"She'll be that way again, sweetie. It'll just take some time."

I had my doubts, but I decided to let them slide for the time being. "Okay, sweetie."

Brian nestled into my shoulder again and was quiet for a minute, then spoke once more. "Nate?"

"Yes, dear?"

"Would you have come and found me in the lobby?"

"What?"

"That night at your hotel in New York, when Nick came to see you. If you had known what was in store, would you have come down and gotten me?"

I thought very briefly about that, and immediately told him that I would have. I would have gone down and seen him. But that hadn't been the start of the relationship. That had been about being sure that a potential friend wasn't hurting. Apparently, he realised that around the same time I did.

"Would you have kissed me back that morning in my hotel room?"

That one I had to think about longer. I loved Brian more than I would have ever though I was capable of loving anyone. But I had also caused him more hurt than I would ever have wanted to. His being with me had totally knocked his life off-course in a lot of ways. The pain of Jackie's rejection was the biggest, but not the only one.

Brian pulled away from me. "Sweetie, you would have kissed me back, wouldn't you?"

Looking into his eyes, I wanted nothing more than to reassure him by telling him that I absolutely would have. But I couldn't do that. "I'm not sure, Brian."

"What?"

"You don't doubt how much I love you, do you?"

"No, but..."

"Shh," I said, putting my finger to his lips. "Just hear me out. You know I love you, and I love being here with you. But, along with that is not wanting to see you hurt, and you have been."

"But..."

"Shh," I said again. "No matter what romantic notions we might have, I know that you could be happy with someone else. Even now, you could be. I'd like to think that it would take you a while, but it would happen. Back then, if I had told you that I didn't want to take it further, you would have been disappointed, but you would have gotten over it, and we would be friends. If we were just friends, I wouldn't have been on tour with you, and you wouldn't have had to come out to Jackie like you did. You would have had more time to bring her around before coming out."

"But I wouldn't be with you."

"No, you wouldn't. So you wouldn't have felt pressured to come out until you were more ready, and hopefully you would have had the time to work on your mom a bit before it happened. And, you wouldn't have all of this tension keeping us a secret if we were just friends. It's a whole lot easier being in the closet if you're not also trying to hide a relationship."

"But I wouldn't be with you."

I smiled and kissed his nose. "But you'd have it easier. There's no escaping that."

Brian reached out and took my head in his hands. "You don't understand. It doesn't matter what I would have. I wouldn't have you. " He leaned in and kissed me, continuing the movement until I was on my back and he was on my front. There was no way to hide his excitement as he deepened the kiss, given that he was naked as a jay bird. His hands descended on my legs, then ran up into the leg of my boxers, gently kneading.

He certainly was making a convincing argument. I wrapped my arms around him, resting my hands together on the small of his back and pulling him down, helping gravity crush him against me. He continued to shift around as he kissed me, rubbing every inch of himself against every inch of me, seemingly, until I was also shifting around, though my movements weren't entirely voluntary.

"Guys, we need to get... JESUS!"

Brian was off of me like a shot, slipping off and beside me, trying to use me to cover himself. I reached over and grabbed the blanket, pulling it around us both, and looked up to find Kathy blushing in the doorway connecting our room to Kevin's. For once, she was at a loss for words. "Um... um..." seemed to be all she could manage to say.

"Kathy, can you give us a sec?" I asked. "We'll be dressed and ready in a couple of minutes." She nodded and turned back around, closing the door behind her, and Brian climbed off of the bed, his entire body red. "Guess my bare ass isn't the only one she gets to see today," I chuckled, sitting up as he got to the dresser and pulled on some underwear.

"Not funny, Nate. Not funny."

I got up and put my arms around him, stopping his movement to the closet. "I beg to differ, pookie," I laughed.

He started to say something else, but then Kathy's voice boomed through the door. "You KNEW! You knew and you STILL sent me in there?"

I laughed and released Brian, grabbing the clothes I had thrown over the chair. "Hurry up, sweetie. Sounds like we might just have time to see Kathy dragging Kevin out into the street to be shot."

"I'll hold the gun," Brian muttered, pulling down a shirt and putting it on.

I continued to chuckle to myself as we finished getting dressed, then quickly did our hair in the bathroom mirror. "How do I look, pookie?" I asked with a smile, spinning for him.

"Preppy as usual."

"Excuse me?" I arched my eyebrow at him.

"Um... pretty as usual?"

"That's better," I laughed. "Now let's get out there." We headed back out, just in time to meet Kevin and Kathy outside. Kathy was still blushing slightly, but Kevin had a huge grin on his face when he saw us. Brian immediately punched him in the stomach, which took the smile off of his face pretty quickly.

I just laughed and pulled Brian away from his cousin. I detected a hint of a smile from him as I did so, and knew he was pretty much over the embarrassment. After all, Kathy had seen much more of me that morning than she just had of Brian. Matt and JC finally joined us, both of them obviously wondering what was going on, but none of us were about to fill them in. Kevin might have, but he was slightly out of breath at the time.

Rather than discuss it, we piled back into the car and Matt took off for the school, obviously looking forward to seeing his girls again. To tell the truth, I was actually looking forward to meeting them as well. It was still odd to think about a friend of mine actually having kids that old. Not to mention the oddity of his having kids at all.

Matt showed the guard his ID when we got to the school, and we drove up to a large building, which he informed us was the dorm that the girls lived in.

Once inside, we were taken to a sitting room while we waited for the housemother. The girl who had greeted us at the door looked about ready to faint when she realised who some of us were.

Finally, a rather large woman entered and Matt stood to shake hands with her. Once they had said hello, and the sister had also greeted Kathy and Kevin, whom she must have met before, Matt introduced each of us to her. Turned out her name was Sister Marie, and she was the housemother for the dorm. I smiled as she shook my hand, already dismissing my name entirely and focussing her attention on the celebrities in the room, and offered to escort us up to the room. I figured that Matt and Kathy, and apparently Kevin, could have found the way without her, but then I realised that she wanted to be there for the girl's reaction.

We had a brief moment of trouble when it came to getting Justin up the stairs, but JC and Matt made a chair for him in their arms, and carried him up. But not before Matt could embarrass himself by cursing in front of a nun. When we finally got to the door of the girls' suite, Kathy knocked. The door was almost immediately opened by a teenage girl, who I knew was too old to be one of Matt's. She screamed when she saw who was at the door, and then almost died when she realised that she was only wearing her slip. We all chuckled as she took off running out of the room.

We were almost instantly joined by another girl, and the look on Matt's face made it clear that this was one of his. She was wearing a very nice violet silk dress, and was fastening a pearl earring as she walked into the room. The earring matched a strand of pearls that she wore, and she really was a beautiful young woman. Matt's pride was quite clear on his face, as was Kathy's. Even Kevin seemed proud.

She said hi to her father, giving him a kiss, then made the rounds, greeting Kathy, Kevin, JC and Justin with kisses, too. When she got to Brian and I, she offered her hand to him, and he brought it to his lips with a smile as Matt introduced them.

"Honey, this is Brian and Kevin's friend, Nate," Matt said once Brian had given the girl her hand back. "Nate, this is Colleen. You'll meet the smartass in a minute." I smiled and shook Colleen's hand, and she said hello, obviously having no idea who I was. I merely smiled and enjoyed it. We had no sooner released hands when Kathy was summoned from another room of the suite. There was no doubt that the voice belonged to 'the smartass', as Matt had called her, and Kathy immediately excused herself.

We sat down with Colleen and started to talk amongst ourselves, getting to know her a bit. Kevin led the discussion, since he knew her best. It didn't take long for Matt to follow Kathy into the other room to say hello to his other girl. It didn't take long for the girl who had met us at the door to rejoin us, this time fully clothed. She was introduced by Colleen as Margaret, and she proceeded to gush. She paid particular attention to Justin. I'm not sure if that's because she liked him the most, or because he couldn't make a break for it. I contented myself by sitting in the corner and watching my boys go into celebrity mode.

Before long, we got to meet the other two suite-mates. Lydia, and Caitlin, who was the smartass that we'd been told about. Once the introductions were out of the way, and we had exchanged a little bit of small-talk, the girls fawning all the while, we decided that it was time to get to the hall for the dance, where the boys from another school were undoubtedly already waiting.

There was an awkward moment when Matt asked if he could escort one of his daughters and was turned down in favour of the more glittery men in the room. Matt was obviously more than a little taken aback by the request, but he quickly shrugged it off and agreed, knowing that being on the arm of a boyband member was a lot more attention-grabbing than being on the arm of your father, no matter how attractive and young your father might be compared to the other girls.

JC extended his arm to Colleen, and Kevin did the same with Caitlin. Brian wound up with Lydia on his arm, her blush deepening as she actually got to touch him, and Margaret was practically jumping up and down at the prospect of being on Justin's arm, even though they had to go slow since he was only on one crutch.

Seeing that I was in danger of being left out, I took Kathy's arm just before Matt could. "May I escort you to the shin-dig, ma'am," I asked with a drawl, making her laugh as she placed her arm in mine.

"Hey!" Matt said, looking around. "Who does that leave me with?"

I smiled as the Sister stepped forward and took his arm, reminding us all that we were going to be late.

"And Justin's other crutch," I added with a laugh, picking it up from the chair it was resting on and handing it to him.

I gave Kathy back her arm when we got to the hall, so she could be sure to get a good vantage point for when the guys were recognised. She barely had a chance to move, though. Instantly, the sound in the room dropped, and everyone turned to look at us.

Rather than get in the middle and have people wondering what kind of lackey I was following around the guys, I casually melted into the background, and found a seat at an empty table. It didn't take long before Matt and Kathy joined me, leaving the celebrities to fend for themselves.

I was busy watching the girls fawn over them, and wondering how close to that I had been that first night I had met Brian and the rest of the Boys. I was thinking about that when Matt nudged me and indicated a few of the guys in the room who had very much the same expression as many of the girls.

I started laughing and thinking about all of the things you hear about private boys schools. Kathy didn't pick up on any of it, so we let her in on the joke without actually pointing out the kids in question. No sense drawing even more attention to them.

Sister Marie arrived at the table and asked if we thought that they guys would be willing to perform a few songs, just to sort of break the hypnotic state that everyone was in from staring at them. The three of us shared a look, each of us thinking about what 'our' boys would be up for. I assume Matt sort of adopted Justin as 'his' as well. Shrugging, we told her that we didn't think there'd be a problem, but that we would have to ask them to make sure.

Matt asked the Sister to round the guys up and bring them over to the table so that we could make the proposal. When they got there and sat down, Caitlin and Colleen came along as well with their dates. Matt gave the girls a look, and they sent their dates in search of punch.

As soon as they were gone, Matt turned to JC and used his influence to get both JC and Justin to agree to sing. While he was doing that, Brian nudged me with his elbow and gave me a smile. "You'd owe me."

"Excuse me? I believe you owe me for locking me out earlier, and forcing me to see Kevin in a towel." I whispered.

"Hey!" Kevin said, cuffing me in the head.

"You're going to pay me back by singing, pookie," I added with a grin, rubbing the back of my head. "And your brutish cousin here's going to do it because he'll look stupid if he's the only one not doing it."

Brian started to smile. "Okay, I'm in, but you still owe me."

"Any requests?" JC laughed beside us, and I knew Matt had been successful. At least with JC. Justin needed an invitation to sleep with them before he agreed.

"Okay," Caitlin laughed, rolling her eyes. "This is getting to be too much. First, JC, now Justin. Anybody else I should know about?"

None of us spoke for a second, and Matt and I shared a look while Brian's foot nudged mine. Luckily, the dates returned before any of us had to answer the question, and JC stood up and asked the girls to introduce them. They both agreed immediately and pulled their dates along behind them.

"Anything you want to hear?" Brian whispered as he stood up.

I grabbed his arm and pulled him back down so I could whisper in his ear. "Think you can pull off 'I'll Never Break Your Heart' without the rest of the guys?"

"Sure. Why that one?"

"Because you're so cute in the Canadian video," I laughed.

"I haven't seen that one in ages," Brian grinned. "They still play it?"

"Every now and then, yeah. Andy and I saw it when I was in Toronto."

"Your wish is my command, sweetie," he whispered. With a quick wink, he stood back up. "What are we going to sing?" he asked the rest of the guys.

JC suggested that they do a few NSYNC songs, and then a few Backstreet Boys songs, choosing ones that they could do with the members that were there. Brian, Kevin and Justin all agreed, and Kevin helped Justin to his feet. They were still debating the songs as they walked to the stage.

Both Colleen and Caitlin were practically glowing as they called for everyone's attention and introduced their guests. Colleen got as far as announcing that they were going to perform, and JC and Justin's names, then Caitlin bumped her out of the way to finish the introductions. I looked to Matt and caught the grin on his face.

Then all thought was drowned out by the wave of applause. It was a pretty big hall, and it seemed that even those guys who had been casting envious glances at our little party all evening so far didn't really hold much ill will. Everyone was cheering just as loudly as the person next to them.

The guys talked for a second, then agreed and separated on the stage, each of them taking a mic. As soon as Justin started singing 'God Must Have Spent', it seemed like the entire audience smiled, and just about everyone in the room started to sing along quietly.

It was clear that Brian and Kevin weren't entirely familiar with the lyrics, but they muddled through what they didn't know, and all in all, it turned out really well. Considering that they hadn't practised, it was pretty remarkable.

The next song went even better, since it was one that everyone had heard a million times. NSYNC's cover of 'Sailing' was instantly recognisable, and Brian and Kevin were much more in their element. When they were done with that one, JC announce that they were going to do a song that they had recorded for a soundtrack to a movie that wasn't out yet, and talked for a few minutes to Brian and Kevin, likely filling them in on what they were going to have to do.

Once they were done, the guys all took up positions at various instruments on the stage and began the song. It looked like Brian and Kevin's roles were basically harmonising where necessary and not getting in the way. They did an admirable job. Once the song finished, the crowd went nuts, and Brian had to wait with the mic in his hand before they quieted enough to hear him. He made a few comments, then he and Kevin shared a smile and he started to sing.

He had barely gotten 'You are my fire' out before the audience started to sing along. Given that it was their current single, and that it was everywhere, it wasn't surprising that even the few adults in the room were singing along. I smiled and watched them work, surprised when JC came in and took AJs part, and Justin took Nick's. It certainly gave the song a new sound, but it was pretty good. I made a mental note to let Nicky know that Justin could fill his shoes. I was sure he'd be happy to hear it.

After 'I Want It That Way', they did 'All I Have To Give'. It was odd to hear it without music, but good, too. You could really hear their voices, and how they worked together. With new voices to listen to, that was even better. Brian looked quickly to me before they started 'I'll Never Break Your Heart', and kept stealing glances at our table whenever he could. I watched him moving around the stage, invariably locking eyes with him when he looked my way until I noticed that both Matt and Kathy were looking at me, and I started to blush.

When they were done with the song, Brian smiled at me and they got down off of the stage and Sister Marie thanked them and asked the audience to leave them alone so that they could enjoy themselves. Incredibly, they actually did for the most part. There were still a lot of stares and adoring looks, but very few people came up to the table.

We spent quite a bit of time just sitting at the table and chatting. Matt, Kathy and I spent most of the time talking together, since the guys were chatting about the songs they had done, and dealing with wayward girls who came up to talk to them. There was even a wayward boy. Brian and JC were sure to spend a few minutes with him, smiling at being friendly.

I glanced at Matt and knew that the boy was pinging his gaydar as much as he was mine, and apparently JC and Brian's as well. They spoke with him for much longer than they had with any of the girls. I glanced around, but there didn't seem to be a date waiting for him, and realised that he must have come stag. Not that it was terribly surprising. Brian even turned in his seat and introduced him to Matt, Kathy and I. He looked like he was about to bust, having one of the guys take that much interest in him.

"Guys, this is Brad. Brad, this is Nate, Kathy, and Matt, some friends of ours," he smiled, likely knowing from Matt and I had caught the same vibe from the kid as he had.

Matt and Kathy both said hello, and I sat forward in my seat to shake his hand. "Hey Brad, nice to meet you."

"You, too," he smiled back. "You're Nathaniel Healy, right?"

Brian started to laugh behind Brad's back, being careful not to be heard so that Brad wouldn't misunderstand. He was laughing at me. "That's right," I said with a rueful smile. "How'd you recognise me?"

"Oh, I read that they all read your book, and I heard about the story about you and Nick in the papers, and just figured..." Brad caught himself and blushed deeply. I felt bad for him, not being able to talk freely.

"Don't worry about it, Brad," I smiled. "It doesn't matter how you knew it was me, as long as you knew. Pull up a chair." I grabbed the back of Brian's chair and planted my foot on his hip, shoving him off the other side, then offered it to Brad while Brian tried not to laugh. Brad blushed and even giggled a little, then sat down.

"So what grade are you in?"

"Ten," he said, looking like he couldn't believe he was actually sitting at a table surrounded by the guys and their friends.

"What's your favourite subject?"

"English," he answered immediately, and I smiled.

"That was mine, too, you know."

"Yup, you have a degree in it, don't you?"

Those at the table who were close enough to be following our conversation looked up and smiled along with me. "Someone's been reading my bio," I laughed, making him smile. "Yes, I do have my degree. You're going to college, right?"

"Yessir."

"So why do you like English so much?"

He shrugged, and went even redder, if that were possible. "I guess... I guess because I like seeing how everyone else describes stuff. How they make their world so that it's one that I want to be in. That sounds so stupid, but..."

I punched him in the leg and shook my head. "It's not stupid at all. It's probably the best answer there is to that question, actually. There's something pretty cool about the way a bunch of people can look at the same thing and recreate it differently every time." There was a flash in his eye that I instantly recognised. "You probably write stuff yourself, don't you?"

His shy look away from my face was more than answer enough.

"Hey, don't worry about it, Brad."

"But it's girl stuff."

"Hey! I make a good living with girl stuff," I laughed, trying to make him feel better about it. "Who told you it's girl stuff?"

"Everyone," he muttered. "They all say I should be out playing football and soccer instead of writing stupid stories and poems."

"The other guys at your school?" He nodded. "Well, they're all wrong," I smiled. "Don't let them tell you what you should be doing. Personally, I hate football and soccer, and I'd much rather stay inside and write. Ask these guys," I said, looking around the table.

Brad looked up and found Brian nodding. "It's true, Brad. Sometimes you can't tear him away from the computer, no matter how hard you try."

"So what kind of things do you like to write about?" I asked him, getting his attention again.

"Well..."

I leaned in and winked at him. "I promise I won't steal it and sell it."

He laughed and relaxed a little bit. "Right now, I'm writing a story for English class..." He proceeded to fill in some details for me on what the story was about, and why he chose the topic. Basically, I asked him all of the questions that I was asked about my stuff, only on a little smaller scale.

"Sounds interesting," I commented. "Just remember to make sure it's always fun. Once it starts being work, you've gone down a wrong street somewhere."

Brad promised to keep that in mind, then looked around us and stood up. "I should get going, or they're going to start asking questions. It was nice meeting you, Mr. Healy." He offered me his hand while I tried to figure out what he was talking about. I spotted a group of boys his age standing against the far wall, watching him and laughing. It didn't take much to take it from there.

They weren't seeing a kid hanging out with us. They were seeing the loner kid who was into girl stuff hanging out with a table full of boy band members and chatting with one openly gay author. Providing that they had any idea who I was, of course. I was seeing a kid very much like myself, about to return to quite likely one of the most hostile environments he could be at his age and in his situation.

"Listen, Brad. Would you like me to take a look at some of your stuff? It's entirely up to you, but I'd be more than happy to do it, and give you a few pointers if you like."

His face glowed for a second, then fell. "I don't have anything with me, Mr. Healy. I don't even keep it printed out."

"First of all," I smiled. "I was introduced to you as Nate, and I'd appreciate it if you'd stick to that. It's what all of my friends call me. And second, I take it you have a computer?"

"Sure."

"And email?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Then you can send me whatever you want me to check out. I'll just give you my address." I dug in my pocket and came up with nothing. "Um, does anyone have paper and a pen?" I asked the table. Everyone shook their head, but Brad reached in his shirt pocket under his jacket and came up with a pen. I really hoped there wasn't a pocket-protector under there, or the kid was really in trouble.

I considered writing my address on his hand, but realised that as hot as it was in there, he'd likely smudge it before he got back to his room. Thinking for a second, I pulled out my wallet and removed a twenty, the smallest bill I was carrying. I wrote my name and email on the bill.

"Hey!" Brian protested with a grin. "You can't just deface the currency like that!"

"I'd never dream of defacing Canadian money, but this is just one of yours," I laughed, finishing writing and handing the bill to Brad.

"Are you sure?" he asked, looking at it.

"About sending stuff? I'm sure. About the money, I'm sure, too. write the address down somewhere and then go out and buy yourself something."

"Thanks," he returned as we shook hands again.

"No problem. I'll be waiting to hear from you, Brad."

He smiled back at me for a second, then said a quick goodbye to the table, stuffed the twenty in his pocket and headed off through the crowd, away from the group of boys that had been watching him.

"Gee, remind you of someone?" Brian asked, sliding back into his seat.

"Someone I used to know," I said seriously, nodding. "He's about the same age."

"I know," Brian nodded. "We'll talk about it later?"

"If you want," I smiled, brushing his leg under the table with my foot.

We managed not to draw undo attention to ourselves for a few more minutes, when Kathy disappeared from the table with a smile and jumped up on the stage. She called for attention, and then announced that there was one last surprise for everyone. From the look on Matt's face, it really was going to be a surprise for everyone. He had no clue what she was up to. Kathy smiled at him and then turned her attention back to the audience and announced that 98 Degrees was at the dance as well.

I laughed, thinking that she had to be kidding, making a joke about the number of band members already there, but then they really did come out on stage and start to sing. While the attention was diverted, Brian leaned over and whispered in my ear. "You have any idea why they're here?"

I shook my head, putting my mouth beside his ear as well. "Not a clue. You're the ones who would know them, not me."

Brian backed up again and shrugged, then started to smile and leaned back in. "How did you like my serenading you earlier?" His tongue ran around the inside of my ear quickly, then retreated. I chuckled and bit his earlobe, which was still right beside my mouth.

"I'll thank you properly later," I whispered, kissing his cheek as I pulled away from him.

When the song was finished, they promised to be back in a few minutes, and jumped off the stage and started to come toward us. I expected them to say hi to Brian and the rest of the guys first, but was surprised when Matt grabbed one of them in a hug and asked what they were doing there.

It took a few minutes of talking, but we were soon all up to speed on the fact that two of the group were actually cousins of Matt's. Nick and Drew, apparently, though I didn't have a clue who was who until I heard them called by name. I wasn't much of a follower of the group.

Once all was made clear, Brian nudged me. "Come on. I'm sick of punch. There's got to be a Coke machine around here someplace."

I laughed and got up with him, and we both slipped out the doors into the hall. Looking around, Brian pointed in one direction, and we started that way. We didn't see anyone in the halls, which wasn't entirely surprising. Not with so many celebrities concentrated at the dance. We also didn't see a pop machine. Finally, Brian turned another corner and started to laugh to himself. He pulled me over to the janitor's closet and opened the door.

"Brian, I really don't think that there's going to be a pop machine in the janitor's..." my words were cut off as he pulled me quickly inside and closed the door, leaving us in almost total darkness. The little amount of light was filtering through a dingy little window set near the ceiling on the wall opposite the door.

"I guess I'll just have to do without," Brian whispered, pushing against me until he had walked me backward and against the sink. He pushed a little more, getting me to sit on the edge of it as his lips found mine in the dark.

"Um, sweetie," I managed, pulling away a little bit. Without skipping a beat, Brian's mouth moved to my neck, his tongue venturing just under the edge of my collar. "I hardly think this would be considered doing without."

He laughed and dropped one hand to my thigh while the other went through my hair and to the back of my neck, pressing me to him. "Shut up and kiss me," he whispered, returning his mouth to mine.

As his tongue met my own, I did as he told me. Then I thought about what had already happened to us that week because of a public display of affection, and pulled away again after a few seconds. "We can't do this. Not here. What if someone sees us?"

Brian's dark outline pulled away from my neck, and he took my head in his hands and kissed me again quickly. "I've been going crazy since Kathy interrupted us. I doubt there are any reporters hiding in the janitor's closet, sweetie. And if there are, they've already got their story. Now work with me here." He chuckled and began kissing me again for all he was worth, likely trying to get my mind off of the track it was on.

I thought about what Kathy and I had talked about during our stop on the road to New Orleans earlier that day. This was exactly what she had been talking about. Live for now, not for what might be five minutes from now. If things were good now, who was I to complain? And as Brian's mouth moved to the back of my ear, I couldn't argue that things were definitely good at that very moment.

Repositioning myself on the edge of the sink, I made up my mind to let it go for now. If ever there was a good place to be hiding, we were there. Dark little room that wouldn't be in use until the next morning at least, and seven boyband members at the dance to keep people occupied. Surely they wouldn't notice that I had stolen one.

Pulling Brian's head away from my ear, I smiled at him. It didn't matter that he wouldn't be able to see it clearly. I put my hand to his chin and tilted it to the side and back, then moved in and started to lick his Adam's apple and listened as his breathing changed, coming in shorter, quicker gasps with each movement of my tongue.

I kept that up for a while, then ran my tongue up over his chin and into his mouth, where it was immediately met by his. While we kissed, I pulled at his shirt until it came out of his waistband and lifted it enough to slide my hands underneath and up his back, running over the muscles there, then back down and into the waist of his pants.

I shifted again so that I could put my legs around his thighs and lean against him as his arms came around me. Finally, he pulled his head away, gave me a peck on the nose, and then put his mouth to my ear. "There's not much room in here."

I smiled and bit his earlobe, then ran my tongue around the rim of his ear.

"Doesn't matter. Anything we need a lot of room for can wait until later.

I don't really want to do that in a dirty little closet, pookie."

"Spoiled sport," he whispered back, then pulled my shirt up and started undoing buttons.

"What are you doing?"

"Just um... making you more comfortable."

"I'm plenty comfortable."

"Listen, you can either let me undo them, or I can rip them. If I rip them, you're going to have to find an excuse for why you have no more buttons."

Sighing, I leaned back a little and let him finish. "But that's it. You're not undoing anything else until we're back at the hotel." Remembering what he had done to me in front of Kevin and Kathy the night before, I quickly added "Alone, in our room."

"Deal." He finished with the buttons and pushed my shirt open, then started to move in with his mouth, aiming right for the spot just above my breastbone. I put a hand to the top of his head and held him off.

"Fair's fair." I pushed him away for a minute and quickly unbuttoned him. As I finished with the bottom button, my hands came to rest on the waist of his pants.

"I dare you to do that one, too," he said softly, rising up on his toes to press against my hands.

"I double-dare you to ask me again tonight," I laughed, sliding my hands around his waist and kissing him again.

"I better not have to ask."

"How long do you think we have before someone realises that we're gone?" I asked, pulling him against me as I slipped off the sink and regained my feet so that we were both leaning against it.

"I don't know. But it's not like they can launch a huge search without some explaining." His lips finally made their way to the spot they had been angling for a few moments earlier, his head nudging mine back.

I took in the faint glow around the window above me, not really illuminating anything, and wondered where the light was coming from. Then my mind was stilled from asking such questions as his tongue shot out and started flicking back and forth across my skin. I inhaled sharply and closed my eyes, relishing the sensation.

"You like that?"

"Why are you stopping?" I asked, making him laugh. I looked back down and opened my eyes to see him smiling at me. "Yes, I like that."

"Good." His tongue came back out and licked my chin before he kissed me, releasing a soft moan into my mouth.

"Mmmm," I moaned in return, my hands kneading the muscles of his back under his shirt.

"Anyone in here?" The room suddenly seemed flooded with light as the door opened a little and there was a knock on it. One of Matt's girls stepped into the room and flicked on the light. From her vantage point, we would have been hidden by the door, which was still mostly closed. As soon as the lights came on, Brian gasped and stepped back, bumping a shelf beside us.

"Guys? Brian? Nate?" She took another step into the room, then turned her head and saw us standing there, our shirts wide open and our entire bodies one big blush. Her eyes shot open wide. "Holy shi... crap."

Brian stuck his foot out and kicked the door shut before someone saw and wondered what she was doing in the closet.

"Are any of you straight?"

Brian and I looked at each other and smiled. "One or two, yeah," I laughed. "You can't tell..."

"Anyone about this. I know, I know. Why does everyone insist on thinking we're that stupid?"

"Which one are you?" Brian asked with a smile.

"Caitlin," I said, just as she did.

"How'd you know?" she added, giving me a perplexed look.

"Your dad said you were the smartass of the two," I laughed. I started to button my shirt, and Brian took his cue from me. "And, you're the one in the black dress with diamonds. Colleen is in violet and pearls."

"I didn't catch that," Brian smiled at me.

"You didn't?" Caitlin broke in with a laugh. "So much for the fashion stereotype, huh?"

I laughed and elbowed Brian, giving her an approving nod. "Now, not that I think you're stupid, just that we need to be careful. I'm sure you understand."

"I do," she assured me, nodding. "Just like Dad and JC."

"Sorta like that, yeah," I responded, thinking that her dad and JC hadn't been nearly outed recently, so it was a little different.

"Don't worry. I won't say anything."

"Good," Brian said, finishing with his buttons and starting to tuck his shirt in again. "In fact, it might be a good idea if you didn't say anything to anyone at all, even the rest of our group."

I laughed and nodded my agreement. "Kevin would absolutely freak."

"He's the one that started everyone wondering where you were," Caitlin supplied. "They sent me and Colleen, Dad and Kathy to look, since we wouldn't be missed like they would."

"That sounds like Kevin's reasoning," I smiled. "So let's just say you found us wandering around the hall, okay?"

"Sure," she smiled, her eyes sparkling. Obviously, the thought of having a secret appealed to her. I recognised the look as the same one that Matt got sometimes. She didn't really remind me of him physically, but her mannerisms and expressions were definitely 100% Matt. "Though I have to tell Colleen."

Brian laughed and agreed. Neither one of us really expected her to keep it from her twin. That was almost always a relationship that knew very few, if any, boundaries.

"So do I get to at least know about you two, or do I have to keep that a secret from them, too?"

I released Brian's hand and leaned against the sink again. "Tell you what." I let myself slip into writer mode slightly, coming up with a little story for her to tell. Just detailed enough to be believable, and just simple enough to be remembered and to keep from being tripped up if it came to that. "You found us wandering around in the hall, holding hands. We gave you some lame-ass excuse that you didn't buy, and you finally wore us down after promising not to tell anyone but your sister. That should satisfy everyone about where we were, and why you know, and Kevin will be happy that you've promised to keep it to yourself." I looked over at Brian, and he nodded.

"Sounds good."

"Works for me," Caitlin said happily, her voice ringing with joy at the prospect of not only knowing a secret but also actually being asked to lie to her father and the others. "Now, were you two done, or do you need me to wait outside?"

Brian and I shared another look, then started to laugh, and I punched her shoulder lightly. "Your father was right. You are a smartass. Let's go."

We got back to the dance just in time to hear Colleen inform the one named Jeff that he was next in the running to be her suitor, since Kevin and Justin were taken for the night. "I'm third string?" Jeff asked, trying to hide his smile.

"Better than sloppy seconds," I heard Brian whisper, leaning in so only Matt and I would hear him. I elbowed him to get him to shut up while we all laughed. Caitlin left our side and grabbed Colleen's hand and pulled her off to the side.

"What's that all about?" Matt asked, looking at us.

I smiled at him. "I imagine it's to tell Colleen about Brian and I." I wondered if he were going to ask how she had found out, but he didn't. Probably afraid of the answer.

"She already knows." We were surprised by that, but Matt explained. "She notices things that most people miss."

Thinking about JC's comment about Matt's ability to do that from earlier in the week, I laughed. "Her father's daughter."

Matt agreed with a proud smile and then decided to go and tell them about coming to the hotel the next morning for breakfast and then making a break for it with the guys. We agreed, and he turned to find out how 98 Degrees had gotten to the dance. Since they had rented a car, they agreed to follow us back to the hotel. I smiled when I realised why Kathy had been so gung-ho about getting two extra rooms.

After piling into the car again, we made good time back to the hotel. Brian and I cuddled for the entirety of the trip, and everyone else was subdued as well, none of us really bothering to talk. I imagine we were all just glad to be out of the noise of the dance, and the attention of masses of hormone factories.

Practically the moment we got out of the car, Brian put his arm around my shoulder in a gesture that likely would have been friendly-looking from a distance and asked everyone if they would excuse us. They all smiled and assured us that they understood, promising to call us for breakfast in the morning. Brian smiled and nudged me along until we got to the room.

Once we were inside, Brian made me sit down on the bed while he went to the washroom. I sat back against the headboard and waited for him, drumming my fingers on my knees. When he did come out, he crawled up onto the bed beside me and gave me a kiss.

"Woo! Someone brushed!" I laughed. "Gimme a second, and I'll..."

He reached out and stopped me from getting up, pulling me back against the headboard. "Just a second, sweetie. I wanted to talk to you."

I relaxed again and nodded. "Okay. What's on your mind?"

"You really connected with that Brad kid, didn't you? You okay?" Brian asked, reaching over and running his hand through my hair. I tilted my head to the side, into his hand, and smiled.

"Yeah, I did, and yeah, I am. It's weird, though. I mean, I only talked to him for a couple of minutes."

Brian kissed my temple and put his head on my shoulder. "You were him, sweetie. I don't think that it's weird at all that you had a connection. And I think it's sweet that you'd want to help him and read his stuff for him."

"I just couldn't stop thinking about how hard it was, and must be for him. I went to a public school. He's stuck in a private school, away from his family and surrounded by guys who don't understand him, from the sound of it." I sighed and ran a finger over the scar at my temple. "There doesn't seem to be any getting away from that today, eh?"

"I don't think you'll ever get away from it, will you?"

"Not likely. I'm starting to wonder if I really want to. It makes up a huge part of who I am."

"Then you definitely shouldn't," he smiled, his hand falling on my leg. "I kinda like you."

"You're pretty okay, too," I grinned, turning my head to kiss his. "I think Brad would agree."

Brian started to laugh. "Quiet, you. You don't even know for sure that he plays for our team."

"No, I suppose I don't, but you felt it, JC felt it, Matt felt it, and I felt it. And, he said that he'd read that you and the guys all read my book. There's only one place that you've said that."

Brian turned his head to smile at me. "That teen magasine."

"Yup. And I doubt that there's a whole lot of straight teen boys who would be reading those."

"Well, I still say he was infatuated with you. And who could blame him?"

I grinned and patted his leg. "If you're trying to get lucky, it's working," I laughed. "But he had to have a reason to be reading an interview with you guys in the first place, and he certainly seemed to be paying enough attention to you before you introduced him to us."

"Jealous?"

"Nah. He's a little young. Even for a pervert like you," I said, starting to laugh until he punched me in the stomach.

"You think he'll send you any of his stuff?"

I sighed and rested my head against his. "I don't know. I hope so, though. I would have killed for an opportunity like that when I was his age. Especially since it doesn't sound like he gets much encouragement to write. At least my father was okay with it as long as it didn't interfere with my 'real' schoolwork. I wasn't actively discouraged from it, and Dr. Lauler thought it was a great idea."

"Did you ever show your parents any of your stuff?" Brian asked, snuggling into my shoulder a little more. "Did they ever want to see it?"

"Father didn't. He didn't care about anything but my math and science marks, really. Anything that wasn't on the track to getting me into an office wasn't of any interest to him. Remember when I told you that he used to say that I would live a dozen lifetimes in my head by the time I was his age?"

"Yeah, I remember. That first night. In the cafe."

"Well, he didn't really think of that as a good thing. He used to also say that I was wasting my energy on lifetimes that would never exist, and missing out on the one that I had."

"What about your mom? She was more artsy, wasn't she?"

I smiled and nodded. "I guess so, though she would likely have killed you for calling her that. She was really into music, but she didn't get what writing meant to me. She knew that I did it when I was younger, but not what I wrote. Then I didn't write for so long, and she got curious once I started again in grade ten. She asked to read something."

"Were you surprised?"

"Oh yeah. I told her to wait for a couple of days while I finished something to show her. I really just needed some time to find something that wouldn't give me away, and that she would approve of."

"What did you finally come up with?"

"A short story that I had written a few months before. It wasn't very long, but it was enough to satisfy her. It was about a man trying to deal with a broken heart. In my mind, he was getting over another guy, but that didn't really come through in the story unless you were looking for it. She never saw it, and just took it at face value. She read it, then gave it back to me and told me it was nice."

"That's it?"

"That's it. She said 'It's nice, Nathan.' and let it go. She never really asked to read anything else, but she didn't bother me about writing, either."

"Nathan?"

"Nathan went to public and high school. Nate didn't show up until university."

"I'm glad you changed it. Nathan is an ugly name."

"Nathan had an ugly life," I countered, then smiled. "Nate's got a good one."

"Good," Brian whispered. "I love you, but I don't want to be with Nathan."

He kissed my neck and patted my knee.

"Me neither, pookie. Me neither. Now, let me go brush, and I'll be right back."

"Hurry."

I grinned and jumped off the bed. Walking into the bathroom, I grabbed my toothbrush and quickly brushed, then rinsed. Once I was sure that my mouth was as minty fresh as his was, I shut off the light and walked back out into the main room.

As soon as I was through the doorway, Brian was at me. It was like he had been lying in wait for me. Grabbing at my shirt and pulling it out of my pants, I could hear him chuckling quietly. I laughed and started to grab at him as well, holding him against me as our lips met. That made it harder for him to get me undressed, but he didn't seem to mind the challenge. He tried to spin me around, but I held on, and we both wound up toppling to the floor.

Brian was immediately on me, straddling my hips as he undid my shirt and let it fall open.

"Pookie?" I smiled running my hands over his thighs. "Are we at least going to get to the bed?"

He undid my belt and pulled it out of the loops in one quick jerk and smiled at me. Looking from me to the bed and back again, as though gauging the distance, he shook his head and popped the button on my pants. "Maybe next time."

PART 94

I woke up first, which was surprising in itself. What was more surprising was that I came wide awake instantly, which was practically unheard of. Looking around the room, I tried to find something that had fallen over or made some sort of noise to wake me so suddenly, but there didn't appear to be anything. Besides, Brian was still sleeping soundly beside me, lying on his front with his arm thrown over my stomach.

I lay back and put my hands behind my head, relaxing for a bit before we had to be up. I didn't have a clue what time it was, but I wasn't planning on moving until I absolutely had to. The only thing I would have changed was the temperature. We hadn't turned on the air conditioning, and while Matt's 'Eskimo' comment the day before had been politically incorrect, it wasn't without merit. This was just too damn hot.

I moved the blankets down, noting that there was a thin sheen of sweat on Brian's back as well, and kicked my feet around gently until I managed to extricate my legs from the sheets, so that there was only the space from my navel to just above my knee still covered.

Sighing with the new-found coolness that I knew would soon wear off, I let my mind wander. My first instinct was to get my computer out, but since Brian had forbidden me to bring it along, that was out. Instead, I let my mind wander through what I had already written, making sure that it all felt right and was working, rather than think about where it was going next.

I discovered a couple of instances where one of my main characters, Mathilda, had done things that seemed out of character for her. They weren't, but I knew I had to develop the character a little more in order for the reader to understand her actions. I also knew that I didn't really like her much. She was a good character, but very draining to write, and not one that I enjoyed being in the head of. Luckily, I was going to kill her off.

I smiled at that thought, realising that even I wasn't sure how it was going to happen, only that it was. Sarah, of course, was going to be there until the very end. Not only because was she my heroine in many ways, but because there was simply no way that I could have my mother die again, in any way, shape, or form.

Which brought my thoughts around to my conversation with Brian the night before about her, and the one time I had shown her some of my work. I had had to read through everything I had ever written in order to find that one story that I liked enough to show, and that wouldn't get me in trouble. She had dismissed it almost immediately. I don't know whether she had been looking for anything specific in it, but if she had been, she apparently hadn't found it.

Still, almost invariably, I heard her voice when I finished reading through my work, whether it was a short story, a poem, or a section of the main work I was working on at any particular time. Every time the section worked, and I liked it, I heard her, telling me that it was nice. Every time it didn't work and needed redoing, I heard my father tell me it was a waste. So it had always been, and so it seemed like it would always be.

But, it was a connection. That was something, at least. Some sort of pseudo-tangible proof that I kept them with me and hadn't completely forgotten them, even when I had tried to do just that. It didn't, and still doesn't, feel right that two people could have that much control over one. With only a couple of words, your parents could lift you up or tear you down better than anyone else on the planet.

Brian shifted against me, and I amended that. They could tear you down better than anyone, but, if you were lucky, there were a few people out there who could lift you back up. I smiled and moved my hand out from under my head to play with his hair, twisting it around my index finger then letting it spring back, sticking up off of his head a little more each time.

I chuckled to myself as I set about giving him devil horns.

By the time he finally woke up, I was finished with his hair and completely lost in my book. I had my eyes closed, and was running through my plans for the parts that I had in mind but that were still unwritten. I rarely planned like that, because things inevitably changed to mess me up, but one advantage to it was the way the characters developed. Even if you didn't use all of the things you had in mind, at least you wound up with more complete characters.

I was just turning my mental picture of Sarah around in my head, adding features and other traits to her - to the basic frame of my mother - when I felt a tongue in my ear.

"Was there something you needed?" I asked, smiling.

Brian jerked back and started to laugh. "I thought you were still asleep."

"Nope. I've been up for a while." I opened my eyes and turned to see his smiling face. "I was just thinking about the book and enjoying being here with you."

"Liar. You weren't thinking about me at all."

I gave him a quick kiss. "I'm thinking about you now."

Brian grinned and lifted the small amount of blanket over me. "I can see that."

I cuffed him in the arm and lowered the blankets again. "You're terrible."

"That's not what you said last night," he chuckled, putting his leg between mine and rolling me into him.

"That's funny, I don't remember forming any words last night."

"Hmm... I seem to recall you being pretty vocal."

I grinned and rolled over onto him. "I didn't say anything about not being vocal."

When the phone rang, we were both drowsing lightly again, Brian cuddled up to my back, spooning me with his head beside mine and his arms around my waist. We both groaned when it rang, but I stretched my arm out and lifted the phone from its cradle. "Hello?"

"You're up?"

"Sort of. What is it, Kev? You calling about breakfast?"

Kevin laughed. "Yeah, I am. I just thought I should warn you that breakfast will be ready at nine."

I lifted my head and checked the clock. It was only twenty after eight. "Okay, Kev. Wait a minute, what did you mean by warning me about breakfast?"

"It's going to be at your door at nine," he laughed. "Kathy and I are on the road to the school to pick up the girls."

"And you volunteered our room?" I asked, sitting up a little and suddenly more awake. Brian groaned and pulled the covers up over his head.

"You've got a big room," Kevin defended himself. "We would have used Matt and JCs room, but Matt's out for a run, and I figured that he'd need to come back and shower and everything. So, you got picked."

"You little bastard," I laughed, falling back to the mattress. "You just wanted to make us get out of bed early." The hump under the covers started to move, and Brian started to nip at my stomach. I swatted gently at his head, but he didn't seem to want to stop.

"Hey," Kevin argued. "You kept me up half the night, the least you can do is host breakfast. I couldn't very well ask Justin to hobble around and do it, and Kathy and I are gone, and the others are sort of like our guests, since they weren't planning on staying over in the first place. You two are the only ones left." I started to feel bad about calling him a bastard until he decided to prove me right. "Besides, there's a certain pleasure in making you get out of bed early."

Lifting the blankets, I smiled down at Brian. He removed his tongue from my navel just long enough to smile up at me. "Pookie, your cousin is a bitch."

"I know," he answered, then pulled the blankets out of my hand and covered himself again.

I laughed and went back to the phone. "Okay, Kev. Nine, right?"

"Yeah. Kathy and I should be back by then, but I didn't want to take the chance of having them bring the food and not being there. JC and Justin already know, and I'll call the rest and tell them, too."

"Okay, we'll get ready."

"And clean up any mess you two might have made!" I heard Kathy yell. She was presumably driving, or I was certain she would have just stolen the phone. "We're going to be bringing impressionable children with us!"

"Hey Kev?"

"What?"

"You don't really have to bring Kathy back with you, you know."

"I'll keep it in mind, Nate," he laughed. "Now I'm going to go and make the rest of the calls. You get your two lazy asses out of bed and into a shower. A quick shower."

"Will-do. Talk to you in a bit." I hung up the phone again and lifted the covers. "You'd better stop that now. There's no time."

Brian looked up with a grin. "What'd he do?"

"Volunteered us to host breakfast in just over half an hour. We gotta get showered and dressed."

"How about you get showered and dressed, and I'll just lay in bed with the covers wrapped around me?"

I laughed and threw the blankets back. "That would work for about the first five seconds, and then you know someone would have to unwrap you. Come on. I'll let you shower with me if you promise to behave."

"I make no promises, sweetie."

I looked at his smile and started to laugh. "I'll let you shower with me anyway."

He let me up and I took his hand, pulling him from the bed and into the bathroom.

I was just putting on my shirt when there was a knock at the door. Opening it, I found Kevin, Kathy, and the girls standing there. "Come on in, girls," I smiled, then pointed at Kevin and Kathy. "You two can stay out there until you learn to be nicer." Caitlin and Colleen laughed and came in. When Kevin tried, I pushed him back out and closed the door again, locking it.

"Doesn't Kevin have the connecting room?" Colleen pointed out, smiling at me.

"Yup. But at least he'll have to work for it. You two grab a seat wherever. Breakfast's not here yet."

"Do you think you'll ever meet me at a doorway fully-clothed?" Caitlin laughed, indicating my unbuttoned shirt.

"Sweetie, did you unpack my..." Brian started, coming into the room in his towel with shaving cream all over his chin. "Oh!"

"At least I'm more clothed than he is," I said, grinning at Caitlin. "Did I unpack your what, Brian?"

"Extra razor blades," he answered, turning back into the bathroom. "This one's duller than dull."

"Nope, haven't seen them. Use mine."

"'Kay."

I motioned the girls toward the couch and chairs in the room, watching them laugh about Brian's running around in a towel, then turned to the closet and got some clothes for him. Kevin and Kathy entered from Kev's room just as I started for the bathroom.

"You've got some nerve, little man," Kevin said, punching me in the shoulder.

"Keep it up and the girls will get to see a repeat performance of our wrestling match," I smiled back at him. "And as I recall, I kicked your ass."

"I don't remember anything of the sort."

"You wouldn't," I laughed. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to take some clothes to your cousin before he traumatises the young'uns in the room any more than he has already." I opened the bathroom door and stepped inside, pulling it closed behind me. "Here you go, pookie."

"You could have warned me that they were there, you know," Brian smiled in the mirror. I noticed my razor in his hand.

"They'd just gotten through the door. I brought you some clothes, though. You need some help getting dressed?"

He laughed and shook his head. "I think I can manage."

"Okay." I kissed the back of his neck and rejoined the party.

"And that's why we let Nate hang out with us," Kevin finished saying as I entered the room.

"Excuse me?"

Kevin looked up with a devious grin on his face. "The girls asked why you were with us. I was just explaining that you were so pathetic that we took pity on you and let you tag along."

"Is that so? Did you also tell them that your girlfriend is only your girlfriend because I introduced you to her? Or maybe how happy I make your cousin? Or how much you seem to like interrupting romantic moments?"

"He did tell us how happy you make Brian," Caitlin spoke up, making me smile. "But he didn't say anything about the girlfriend or the romantic moments."

"Is that so?" I asked, dropping onto the bed. "So he didn't tell you about how he was making out with her on the roof of our hotel?"

"Nate!" Kevin laughed as Caitlin and Colleen both smiled and turned their attention to his rapidly reddening face.

"You play with fire, you get burned," I grinned, just as there was a knock on the door. "Get that, would you, Kevvie? I'm comfortable, and it's probably the food that you ordered anyway."

Kevin glared at me for a second and then smiled and answered the door. It was indeed the breakfast he had asked to be delivered. He stood aside while it was brought in, and then signed for it, said thanks, and closed the door again. "Do we wait for the slowpokes?"

"I vote no," Brian said, coming back into the room fully clothed and cleaned. His shirt was unbuttoned though, and I saw Caitlin start to grin when she saw him. He climbed up onto the bed, lying down on my back and putting his head down on the base of my neck. "They're late, they don't get to eat."

Kathy rolled her eyes. "The only reason you two aren't late is because it's your room."

"The only reason it's in our room is because Kevin's a bitch," Brian announced. "Isn't that right, sweetie?"

"That's right," I agreed. "Kathy's a bitch, too, but at least she's a lovable bitch."

"Aww, thanks," Kathy mocked, leaning over to kiss my cheek. "Too bad you're gay, because you certainly know how to talk to a lady."

"How would you know? You've never seen me talk to a lady."

Caitlin and Colleen both went "ooh," and waited for her to retaliate, but she just sat back down and smiled. "You're so pleasant."

"Though I don't know if the female population will ever forgive you and dad for taking Brian and JC off of the market," Caitlin added. "Are you ever going to tell people?"

Brian tightened his grip on me, and kissed the back of my head. "We will eventually. When we think we can do it without everyone freaking out."

"It'll definitely get to your fans, though," Colleen said, and the difference between them was clear. Colleen seemed to exude an aura of sobriety and thought, whereas Caitlin was practically overflowing with spontaneity. "Not that it really makes much of a difference, though. It's not like all those girls had a chance with you anyway."

"Try telling them that, Caitlin."

I chuckled and turned my head to look back at him. "That's Colleen, pookie."

"How do you know?"

I looked at her. "Which one are you?"

"Colleen."

"See?" I asked, starting to laugh.

"Hoe did you know?" he asked again, pinching my waist.

I squirmed under him. "I just did. I don't know. Twins never really confused me. Colleen looks different to me. Plus, their voices are different, and they don't talk the same way."

"Show off," Brian muttered, putting his head back down with his chin digging into my shoulder. Caitlin and Colleen looked like they were enjoying themselves.

When the knock came on the door, we all looked at it. "Kevin?" I asked, giving him the puppy eyes.

"Dammit, we may as well have used my room," he grumbled, moving to the door and looking through the peephole to make sure that Brian and I didn't have to separate. He smiled at us, and opened the door. Justin hobbled through on his crutches, with Matt and JC behind them, and Nick, Drew, Jeff and Justin bringing up the rear.

I noticed the way all of the newcomers sort of turned their heads or blushed when they caught sight of Brian and I. Either they didn't know, or they didn't think it was their place to say anything. I figured that they were all cool with it, since they undoubtedly knew about Matt and JC.

I nudged Brian to get him off of me, and sat up on the bed, offering them each my hand. "We weren't really properly introduced last night, I guess. I'm Nate Healy."

They all smiled, knowing that I had caught their behaviour, and then blushed. Each introduced themselves, shaking my hand. And every one of them smiled over at Brian as they shook. I got the distinct impression that they had known about us, but didn't know if they had been supposed to know. I would have thought that they way we both disappeared at the same time into the same room the night before would have been more than enough of a tip off. Not to mention the fact that Brian was actually on top of me when they entered.

"You wandering around like that in front of my kids?" Matt chastised with a laugh as he gave each of the girls a kiss.

"Brian was a lot more naked when we got here," Caitlin put in helpfully, and Brian shushed her. Matt gave us an appraising look, but we both smiled.

"Kevin should have given us more warning that we were hosting," I told him.

"At least he called. I wouldn't have."

"You ever get the feeling that everyone's out to get you?" Brian whispered, shifting on the bed until he was sitting beside and behind me, resting his head on my shoulder.

"No, but I often get the feeling that I'm surrounded by evil," I smiled.

"Hey, you've got no right to complain about this one. I'll bet you still got at least a couple of hours more sleep than I did. Jeff dragged me out of my nice warm bed to go running."

"Hey!" Jeff said, overhearing. "You wanted to go!"

"Sure, after I was already awake," Matt laughed. "If you hadn't knocked, I don't think you'd hear me complaining about it."

"Lord knows you'll be hearing about pulling him away from JC, though," Kathy grinned.

"Well, if JC hadn't been cuddled up to Justin, he could have come along," Matt countered, smiling at JC, who was across the room talking with Kevin. He didn't hear it, but Justin did, and I saw the colour rise on his cheek. Whatever Matt was talking about, there was just enough truth to it to do the trick.

"Well, no offense to anyone, but I'd just as soon be cuddled up with Nate than have all of you over for breakfast," Brian said, laughing.

"Good news, then." Kathy pointed at us. "You've got both. You two get any closer, and I'm going to have to cover the girls' eyes."

I looked over at the girls and started to grin. Particularly at Caitlin. She had come seconds away from finding us much closer than we were. "If they've seen cable, they've seen more than this."

"I'll warn you both right now," Matt said, leveling a finger at us. "You warp my kids and I'll kick your ass."

"If having you for a father hasn't warped them already, I don't think we're much of a threat," Brian grinned, then ducked behind me when Matt made as if to smack him. "Gaybashing!" he yelled, still laughing. "What kind of example is that setting?"

I leaned to the side so that Matt would have a good shot. He took it, punching Brian in the shoulder hard enough to knock him onto his back, and then laughing. "It's got nothing to do with you being gay, Brian. But everything to do with you being an idiot." He smiled and started to shake his head. "Nate could do so much better."

I looked from Matt's smile to Brian's. "Yeah, I could. But I've already started training this one. I might as well stick with it."

Brian reached out and flicked my nose, then sat up. "Let's eat while I can still stand you." No one seemed willing to argue, and we all converged on the food.

While we ate, the room broke up into several smaller groups, much as it had before we'd started breakfast. Everyone sort of wandered around, carrying their plates with them as they talked for a few minutes, then moved on. I finished with my eggs and set my plate down, then poured myself a glass of water. Knowing how much I hated OJ, Kevin had ordered it just for me. Picking up the glass, I turned and looked around the room, trying to decide where to go next.

The decision was made for me when I caught sight of Kevin, sitting by the window with Matt and Drew. He was waving at me, indicating for me to join them. I nodded and started over, but ran into Justin. He gave me an odd smile as we tried to maneuver around each other, him trying not to club me with a crutch, but didn't say anything. I smiled back, wondering what was going on, then continued on my way.

"Hey," I smiled, dropping onto the couch beside Kevin. "What's up?"

"That's what I wanted you to tell me."

Taking a drink, I gave him a curious look. "I don't get it."

"Did you get a chance to ask Brian about his conversation with Harold?"

"Oh. Yeah, I asked him about it last night before we went to the dance. Not much has changed, really."

"Is Harold still backing you?"

"Yeah, he's being great. Jackie's another story."

Kevin sighed and ran his hand through his hair. "She hasn't budged at all?"

"Nope." I looked at Matt and Drew and realised that they didn't feel comfortable being there for the discussion. "Brian's mom didn't take kindly to my being around," I told them. Matt had been driving when we had discussed it in the car, so he probably hadn't heard much of it, and Drew would have been completely in the dark.

Matt nodded. "I know. I caught a bit of what happened yesterday on the way here, and Brian and I talked after he talked with his dad."

"Oh, well, according to Harold, Jackie hasn't moved an inch."

"What about brother Harold?" Kevin asked.

"Undecided. Harold got to him first and took him out to talk to him. Apparently he didn't take it well at first, but Harold managed to bring him around to the point where he wants to meet me and talk to Brian before he goes either way."

Kevin smiled. "That's something, at least. Maybe the two of them can gang up on Jackie."

I shook my head. "I wouldn't hold my breath. Brian got the feeling that Jackie's starting to act like she's only got the one son, and she's pressuring him on this. To the point where he apparently doesn't want to be around the house with her alone."

"It was that bad?" Drew asked.

I looked over to him and nodded, then saw that Matt wasn't paying attention to us anymore. He was watching Caitlin and Colleen. They were messing around with Kathy, Nick and Jeff on the other side of the room. "Matt?"

He looked back around, and shook his head a little bit. "Sorry. Just thinking for a second. I can't imagine them doing anything that would ever get me to hit them the way she did Brian."

My hand clenched around the glass. "What?"

He gave me an odd look, and Kevin sat forward. "Brian told me yesterday that she hit him."

That was certainly news to me. "Kevin?"

"He didn't want us to tell you," Kevin said quietly.

My next words were driven from my mind by the sharp pain in my hand as the glass broke. Water went everywhere, and the pieces of the glass fell to the floor as I managed to relax my hand again, looking down at it as the first traces of blood started to appear. "Dammit," I cursed, closing it again.

Matt grabbed my hand and looked at the cut. "It's not bad," he announced, and I noticed that all the sound in the room had disappeared. Matt pulled me from the couch and led me into the bathroom to wash the cut.

Brian took my other hand and followed. "What did you do?"

"Cut myself on the glass," I said simply as Matt put my hand under the cold water and told me to hold it there for a minute or two, and that he'd be right back. As soon as we were alone, I turned and faced Brian. "Shut the door."

He frowned, but he did it. "What's going on?"

"Why didn't you tell me that Jackie hit you?"

The surprise was clear on his face. "How did you find out?"

"Matt just told me. Why didn't you tell me?"

Brian sighed and sat on the counter beside me. "At first, I didn't want to think about it. You were already too worried about me, and trying to take care of me. Then afterwards, I just wanted to forget about it."

"You should have told me." I pulled my hand out from under the water and checked it, then put if back, figuring that Matt knew what he was talking about.

"Sweetie, if I hadn't been there when she slapped you, would you have told me about it?"

"No."

"There you go." Brian smiled and kissed my cheek. "It's not a big deal, Nate. Well, it is a big deal, but it's nothing to get all excited about right now. She'll either come around or she won't."

"Does Harold know?"

"No, I didn't tell him, and I doubt that she would have. I don't want him to know, either. He wouldn't take it well."

"Who cares?"

"I do," he said, slipping off the counter and putting his arms around me. We looked at each other in the mirror. "He's got more than enough just dealing with the fact that his wife hates their son. He doesn't need to know."

Matt knocked on the door and opened it slightly. "Okay to come in?"

"Yeah, come on in," I said, looking over.

Matt entered and came over to the counter. "Always prepared," he smiled, holding up a bandage. "I keep a first aid kit in the car. How's the hand?"

I pulled it out of the water again and held it out. "Numb."

Matt laughed and checked it, making sure there weren't any bits of glass in it, then grabbed a towel and dried it before putting the bandage on. "Try not to do any more glass crushing for a while, okay?"

"Is it going to mess him up for writing?" Brian asked, looking at the bandage.

"I don't think so," I told him, wriggling my fingers. There was some soreness in the palm itself, but I didn't think it would bother me at all.

"He'll be fine," Matt assured Brian with a smile. "I guess I shouldn't have said anything out there, huh?"

"No, don't worry about it," Brian said. "I probably should have told him anyway."

"Probably?" I asked, arching my eyebrow.

"Okay, I should have told you. But that doesn't mean that you have to go around crushing glasses into your hand. You could have really hurt yourself."

"But I didn't," I reminded him. "Let's go. I need another glass of water."

"You want me to hold it for you?" Matt asked with a grin.

"I think I can manage, smart-ass," I laughed, pushing him out the door.

Brian and I took a seat on the bed, resting against the headboard. Justin was already there, sitting with his leg outstretched in front of him. By the time we got settled, I was between him and Justin, with Brian's legs resting on top of mine.

"Okay?" Justin asked, nodding at my hand.

"Yup, not much more than a scratch," I smiled, holding up the palm so that he could see the bandage. "Could have been a lot worse than it was."

"What happened?"

"Involuntary hand spasm," I said, and Brian nudged me. "Matt told me something Brian should have, and it caught me off-guard, that's all. No big deal."

Justin looked across me to Brian, and found him nodding his agreement with my statement. "Okay, I guess. So how'd you two sleep?" That strange grin that I had noticed earlier returned, and I thought I finally understood it. Judging by the way he laughed when I blushed, at least.

Brian and I didn't say anything, and he didn't push any further, having had his fun. It was easy to see why JC was so close to him. It was almost impossible not to like him. I was almost afraid to think about what he'd be like with two working legs. You could see how frustrating it was for him to be so full of energy and not be able to expend it.

Brian and I talked with Justin for a while, and Kevin eventually worked his way over to us to apologise to me for not telling me about Jackie, and to have a whispered conversation about Brian's phone call to Harold. He basically reiterated what I'd already told him, but Kevin seemed to want to hear it from Brian's mouth.

Just after Brian got done talking, Matt crossed the room in front of us and knelt over the coffee table, talking to the girls. They both nodded and stood up, and Matt turned to face us.

"Kev? Is it okay if we use your room?"

"Sure, go ahead."

Matt thanked him and led his daughters through the connecting door and closed it behind him. As soon as he had asked about the room, everyone had quieted. I knew it probably did nothing to set the girls' minds at ease about whatever it was they thought was coming, but there didn't seem to be any way to start talking again without drawing attention to the silence even more.

Brian's hand found mine on the bed and squeezed it. I squeezed back and tried to give him a smile. There wasn't a doubt in any of our minds what they were going in there to talk about, and none of us were looking forward to the reaction. At best, they were going to be heartbroken. At worst, they were going to be just plain broken.

The conversation in the room gradually started up again, more to fill the silence than out of any interest in what people were talking about. Justin turned on the bed and got JC's attention, leaving Brian and I together and as alone as we could be in the room full of people. Brian rested his head against mine and put his arm around me, holding me tight but not saying anything.

A few minutes after they had disappeared into Kevin's room, the conversation broke down again when one of the girls screamed "It's not true!", followed by a brief pause, and then "Don't touch me!" Almost immediately, the door opened, and Caitlin came walking out.

Looking back inside Kevin's room, I saw Matt motion Kathy inside to look after Caitlin, who was crying on the bed, and then he got up to follow his other daughter. He stopped in his tracks when she came to stand in front of JC, then slapped him. "This is all your fault! He was fine until you came along!" JC's mouth fell open, but he didn't say anything. Colleen glared at him, then started screaming again. "I hate you! Why can't you die instead of him? Why don't you die?" With that, she turned again and ran from the room.

Matt came to JC and looked him in the eye. JC managed a very small smile and told him to go after Colleen. After sending Drew to sit with Caitlin and Kathy, and securing a promise from Brian, Kevin, Justin and I to watch out for JC, he recruited Nick, Justin and Jeff to help him look for Colleen.

I got up off of the bed, giving Brian what I hoped was a reassuring look, and walked over to JC. "Hey," I said gently, taking in the shocked expression on his face. "Come with me for a minute. Maybe I can pay you back for the conversation on the balcony the other night."

He didn't say anything, but he came when I pulled on his arm. Considering that Caitlin was still in Kevin's room, and Colleen and the others had left the room, I led JC into the washroom, the only other private area of the room. Closing the door, I urged him up onto the counter, where Brian had been not long before.

"You know she didn't mean that, don't you?" I asked, sitting on the edge of the bathtub. "She didn't really know what she was saying."

"She seemed like she knew," JC said sadly. "She blames me for all of this."

"JC, she's going to see how ridiculous that is once she calms down."

"She hates me."

"She doesn't hate you," I told him, putting up my hand to quiet him when he went to reply. "Trust me. I'm going to tell you something that I haven't told anyone. Not Brian, not any of my friends."

That got his attention, and he raised his eyebrows, waiting to hear the rest of it.

"I don't know how much you and Matt know about me," I started. "So I guess the fundamentals would be a good place to start. My parents were killed in a car accident when I was in my final year of high school." I saw in his eyes that he made the connection between my parent's deaths and his fiance's.

"They were killed while on their way to a party, after having a fight with me over what I wanted to do with my life. It wasn't the first time we'd fought over it, but it was the biggest one we'd had. The fight made them late for the party, and I have no doubt that my father was speeding in order to make up the time. That's just what kind of person he was.

"That night, right before they left the house, my father and I really got into it. By that point, I was really not much more than a shadow in the apartment. I was there, but trying desperately not to be noticed. Well, he definitely noticed. I was getting ready to go off to university before long, and I finally found my voice.

"I wouldn't be surprised if every person in the building heard us that night. I won't give you all the details of what was said, because really only the last thing is relevant here. JC, the last thing I ever said to my father was that I hated him." JC's eyes widened, and I nodded. "Try living with that for the rest of your life. From experience, I can tell you that she didn't mean it."

"Nate, I'm sorry. Really I am, but you were fighting. That's one of those things that comes out when you're yelling at each other. She wasn't fighting with me. She just out and said it."

I smiled and shook my head. "You don't understand. See, when I said it, I believed it. I thought it was the most honest, truthful thing I'd ever said. My father was a hard man to be around, even under the best of circumstances. And I certainly wasn't in the best of circumstances.

"Long story short, a psychiatrist would likely say that by that point, I had been exposed to years of emotional abuse. When I told him I hated him, it was the culmination of years of wishing him dead. No joke. I couldn't count the number of times I had wished him dead. I totally believed that I hated him.

"Now, I can see that that's not true. I hated parts of him, because of what he had done to me, and what he had done to my mother and her spirit, and because of what he was planning on doing to us in the future. But underneath it all, I did love him, and on some level, I even understood. It took me a long time to see that, but I do finally see it.

"Colleen just found out that there's a very real possibility that she's going to lose her father. That threw her, and you were the safest way to lash out. She can't do it to Matt, JC, because he's already hurting. She can't do it to Kathy, because Kathy's essentially her mom. The rest of us are just strange faces to her for the most part. You're the only target that she could identify. None of us would be hurt by her words like you were. She needed to hurt someone.

"I had years to draw on when I told my father that I hated him, and I didn't mean it. She had seconds, and she didn't mean it either. Trust me on that, JC, if nothing else. I would be surprised if she weren't already regretting it."

JC sighed and sat back on the counter, resting his back against the mirror.

"But what if she did mean it? What if hating me is the only way she can get through this?"

"It's not. She's got Matt, and Kathy, and Nick and Drew, and a bunch of other people who are just a phone call away if she needs them. She'll get through this just fine. Just like Matt will. Eventually, she's going to thank you for being with him through everything. Ten years from now, when you're all hanging out and looking back on this, She'll thank you for your strength. And you'll be able to remind her of this morning and milk it for all the guilt it's worth."

JC laughed despite himself and gave me an approving nod. "Thanks."

"Not a problem. Like I said, I owe you after our talk the other night."

"You don't owe me anything," he assured me. Neither one of us said anything for a minute. "You've really never told Brian about that? About your father?"

"No, I haven't. He knows most of what happened, but some of the details were ones that I decided to keep to myself. Not that I don't trust him with them or anything, but they just didn't seem important to get into all over again. It's not exactly something that I really want to revisit if I don't have to, eh?"

"Thanks for telling me, then," he smiled. "I won't say anything."

"I know you won't. Though, again, it wouldn't be much of a catastrophe if you did. I didn't hide it because it needed hiding. It's just not something that I wanted to share at the time we were talking about it. He'll probably eventually find out about it."

JC nodded, then started to grin. "No mom-quote for me, to make everything clear and okay?"

I thought about it and smiled. "If you need one, sure. Ralph Waldo Emerson. 'A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic'."

He laughed and got off the counter. "That works, thanks."

"Go find them. I practically guarantee you get an apology."

"Do I need one?"

"From what I know of you, probably not. But if she's anything like her father, there's going to be one waiting for you anyway." I opened the door and let him go through first. Justin was sitting on the end of the bed, and asked if he was okay. He just nodded, told us that he was going looking for Matt and Colleen, and was gone.

"What did you say to him?" Kevin asked as I sat down with Brian again.

"Enough, apparently," I said, then fell silent again.

When they finally returned, JC was carrying Colleen, and it was clear that they'd worked things out. Caitlin had calmed down somewhat, but she was still crying as she gave her father a hug. They remained that way for a few seconds, and then the girls shared a look and walked into the bathroom together to talk.

JC and Matt fell onto the bed with Justin, and Kathy joined them, pulling both of them back into a hug while we all waited for someone to be the first to speak. No one did. Kathy got back up to check on the girls, then reappeared. Assuring Matt and every one else in the room, she grabbed Matt by the arm and ordered him outside.

The conversation gradually started up again, now that it looked like the drama was over for the time being. Brian was nuzzling my neck gently, and I was trying very hard not to show much of a reaction, given the fact that the room was full of people who wouldn't likely appreciate the first reaction that came to mind.

Things were returning to normal by the time Matt and Kathy rejoined us. Catching the tail end of the conversation, we heard Kathy say "What am I? Some kind of dog?"

Brian and I shared a look, both of us knowing that someone would have to speak up at that. Turned out, it was Nick and Drew, assuring her that she was the biggest bitch they knew.

"Fuck you. Fuck you both." She looked around at all of us smiling. "On second thought, fuck you all."

"Been there," Kevin said, laughing.

"Done that." We all turned to look at Jeff, surprised by his admission. I risked a glance at Matt, and saw that he was just as shocked as any of us. Jeff blushed and started to head for the door. "I think I need to get packed," he said, hoping for escape.

The others started after him, but Matt stopped them, giving Jeff just enough time to think he was safe. Instead, he turned his - and our - attention back to Kathy. "Anything you want to tell us?"

They finally got her to admit to having slept with Jeff. When asked why, her response was immediate. "Have you seen that boy? He's built like a brick shit-house, and he's hung like a Kentucky thoroughbred."

"I don't need to hear this," Kevin mumbled, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else.

"Speak for yourself," Brian said, grinning.

I had been laying down, with him sitting beside me. Now I sat up and smacked him. "Hey!"

"What?" came the innocent reply. "He's not my cousin."

I shook my head, wondering if I could trade him in for another popstar from the room while they all stared with the jokes again. I contented myself with slipping my hand up the back of Brian's shirt and pinching him repeatedly.

"I am gonna get some details from you later on how you and my cousin's best friend wound up together," Matt promised Kathy with a smile, "but for not, I'd better go check on Jeff and the others. They'll be leaving shortly."

Before he could get out the door, he had attracted the rest of the people in the room, like the Pied Piper. He turned to Brian and I, the last two left, and gave us a questioning look. Brian's hand brushed across the top of mine, his thumb lightly rubbing along the side of my hand.

"Would they be terribly upset if we didn't come?" I asked, glancing briefly to Brian's face. He had a pleased smile directed at Matt. I didn't think that Jeff would mind losing two people from his audience of questioners at all.

Matt looked from me to Brian, then I noticed his eyes drop to take in our hands on the bed. "Not at all," he smiled at us. "You two stay here."

"Now," I said, as soon as Matt was out the door. "Let's talk about this apparent infatuation you have with Jeff."

Brian smiled and pushed me down on my stomach, then climbed on top of me, sitting on my ass while his hands descended onto my back. "You can't tell me you don't find him attractive."

"I only have eyes for you, sweetie."

"Liar." He dug a knuckle into my back as he laughed, then went back to kneading my shoulders. "I say that if you get to think my cousin is sexy, I get to think that Matt's cousin is sexy."

"Fine, but it's not fair to Matt's cousin. He's got a freak admiring him. Kevin's got a sexy young author."

Brian laughed again, and pulled my shirt up, bunching it up across my shoulders and working his hands over my lower back and sides. "As long as he doesn't have you, I guess it's okay."

"Then it's okay, pookie," I smiled, relaxing under his weight. "Though are you sure you don't want to go after Jeff? After all, he is hung like a..."

"Ahem."

I jumped under Brian's weight and we both looked up to find Caitlin and Colleen looking at us from the bathroom door.

"Hung like a what?" Caitlin asked with a grin.

"Nevermind," Brian said immediately. "Are you guys okay?"

They shared a look, then nodded. "I guess we will be," Colleen said. "Where did everyone go?"

I brought my arms out and crossed them under my chin while Brian pulled my shirt back down to cover me. "They're down in Jeff's room, bothering him."

"I guess we should go, then."

"You don't have to," Brian told them, getting off of me and sitting on the end of the bed beside me. "I mean, you just got quite a shock. Nate and I are just hanging around. You can stay if you want. Or, you could use Kevin's room if you wanted to be alone for a while. I'm sure he wouldn't mind."

"Are you sure?" Caitlin asked, smiling. "You seemed to be in the middle of something."

"Cut it out, you, or the invitation is revoked," I laughed, sitting up.

They both grinned and took seats on the couch. "Guess we could have handled all of this better, huh?" Caitlin asked, looking over at us. "Not very mature to scream and bawl."

"I don't know about that," I said, turning to face them. "Think about it. What would have been a better way to handle it? If you had just accepted it with a smile, your dad would be upset that you didn't seem to care. If you'd broken down totally, he'd be upset because he'd brought all of this down on you. There's no right way to handle something like this."

"And as for maturity," Brian added, "you're eleven. You shouldn't be worrying about stuff like that."

"Brian's more than double that, and he doesn't worry about it at all," I put in helpfully, making them laugh as Brian scowled at me. "Seriously, girls, don't beat yourself up about how you deal with this. As long as you're dealing with it, you're doing just fine. It's when you stop dealing with the situation and try to ignore it that you get into trouble."

My thoughts turned to my own parents yet again, and the problems that my trying to forget about them and the problems that we'd had had caused me. Eventually, things like that caught up with you, and it was definitely best to deal with them when they happened, rather than give them time to build up steam. Brian must have been thinking along the same lines I was, because his hand landed on the centre of my back, rubbing back and forth across my shoulder blades.

Caitlin and Colleen watched this, obviously knowing that there was something more to it than what they were privy to, but unwilling to intrude.

They did nod, though, letting me know that they understood my point. We talked for a few more minutes, Brian and I both trying to cheer them up a bit. It seemed to work, though I knew that the upset was still there, and would be until Matt sat them down to tell them that he was okay. If Matt sat them down to tell them that he was okay.

Brian was his usual entertaining self, and by the time the girls excused themselves to go in search of their father and cousins, they were both smiling. They promised to stop and say goodbye before Matt took them back to the school, and then they left us alone again. The door was no sooner closed than Brian was pushing me back down to finish the back rub.

"Do you think the girls are going to be okay?" Brian asked, sitting on the edge of the bed. We were alone once again. Matt and the rest of us had said goodbye to his cousins, since they had a plane to catch, and then Matt and JC had loaded up the girls and driven them back to the school.

I had been surprised when they gave Brian and I hugs before they left. We had really only known them for a little more than twelve hours, but they came to us without reservation. I imagine part of it was their faith in their father's ability to choose friends, and part of it because they were in on our secret. There was a certain tie in that.

Brian and I had both returned their hugs and promised that we'd see them another time, then watched as they climbed in and closed the door. Matt had smiled at us both, then gotten in as well and started the motor.

"I think so," I said finally, after having run the scene through my head once more. "I think they'll be able to manage. They've got a pretty good support network around them. Losing your parents isn't easy, of course. They've never known a life with their mother, so Matt's become even more important to them. That's plain to see. I was quite a bit older than they were when I lost mine, and you know how that's been."

Brian stopped me on my way to the closet. He had conned me into packing for him somehow, and since I actually folded stuff, it was taking a little longer than he would have taken. "You're talking like Matt's going to die."

"He might, Brian. You asked if the girls are going to be okay. If he survives, they'll be fine. There's only real reason to worry if he doesn't.

Worst case scenario, he dies and they need the support around them. It'll be rough, but they're pretty mature little girls. I think they can get through it."

I started for the closet again and pulled down one of his shirts.

"Sweetie?"

Turning around, I arched my eyebrows.

"Do you think Matt's going to make it?"

I dropped the shirt to my side, letting it hang from my hand as I looked at him. Before I spoke, I walked over to him and sat beside him on the bed. "I don't know. I want to think so, but realistically, I can't. The deck's stacked against him, from what he's told me. I think that, if he's got a say in the matter at all, he'll be okay. The question is whether or not he's got a say. Realistically, he might be one of those cases where nothing's going to work, and he's practically dead already."

"Don't say that."

"You asked what I thought, sweetie. I'm telling you. I hope like hell that he's going to be fine, but there's a very real possibility - a very real probability - that he won't. I can't ignore that. It's not fair, and it's frustrating, but it's true."

"So what happens to JC if he doesn't make it?"

"You know that as well as I do, Brian. JC mourns, and he goes on."

"Just like that?"

"No, not just like that. It'll take some time, and it'll be hard, but he'll have to do it. It's what Matt will want, if it comes down to that. It's what I'd want, if I had to leave you like that. I'd want you to mourn me, and remember me, but not to keep me so close that no one else could take my place."

"No one could take your place."

I smiled. "I'll give you that. But you've got other places in your heart.

I wouldn't want you keeping them closed just because I wasn't the one filling them. I'd want you to find someone else and to be happy." I put my hand to the side of his face and kissed his cheek. "That's all I want for you, even right now. I just want you happy."

"I am happy. With you."

"I know you are. And I'm happy with you. But, we've both got other things in our lives that make us happy, too. I'd want you to recognise that, and to know that loving me doesn't mean that you could never love someone else, if it came to that."

"But it won't come to that, right?"

"Trying to guess at the future is futile. Fate'll just come up with a more imaginative way to mess you up. I'm just telling you what I'd want if I were in Matt's position, Brian. I don't want to upset you." I kissed him again, then got back up and started to pack once more.

Brian sat on the bed and watched me move from the closet to the bed until I was done, and then had gathered the things from the bathroom and put them away as well. When both of the bags were packed up, he put them on the floor and took my hand, leading me to the couch underneath the window. He sat at the end and pulled me down so that I was lying across it, with my head on his lap.

"I'm so glad I have you," he whispered, holding my hand on my chest.

"I'm glad to be had," I smiled.

"No joking," he said seriously. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

"No joke, you'd muddle through. It'd get easier eventually, I guess. I hope."

"I don't think so."

I squeezed his hand and brought it up to kiss it. "We are one. But, sometimes, half is all we're allowed in the end. It's not a pretty thought, but there it is."

"I don't like this side of your brain."

"What side is that?"

"The side that talks about death and loss so easily. Even your eyes go dull when you do it. You shut some part of yourself down, don't you?"

I thought about it and gradually started to nod. "I guess I do, in a way. There's a lot of hurt down that road for me, Brian. I've learned a lot, though. When you've actually faced it, there's a certain objectivity to be found in it. In a way, I know what it is to die. If I hadn't waken up in that hospital room, I wouldn't have known a different sensation before I closed my eyes. There are a lot of ways to die, but at it's base, I know what it is."

"And what is it?"

"You don't want to know, sweetie. Not until you need to."

"Matt knows, doesn't he?"

I nodded. "I would imagine he's got a pretty good idea, yeah." I didn't know if Brian knew that Matt had tried to drown himself when he was younger, and I wasn't about to divulge the information without permission.

"Tell me."

I looked him in the eye, then shook my head. "No."

He saw the determination on my face, and let it go. It wasn't often that I refused him outright, and he knew I was serious about it. It was the sort of knowledge that you learned when you needed to, and couldn't rightly be put into words. I sighed and flipped over on my side, looking out at the room while he ran his fingers through my hair.

PART 95

"So what are you reading, Justin?" I asked, seeing him take his book out and open it again. We were on our way back to Memphis, with Kathy driving and Kevin riding shotgun. Matt and JC had taken the back seat with Justin, and JC sat with his head on Matt's shoulder, looking like he might be ready to fall asleep any moment.

"Nothing much, really. Just something I picked up this week at my grandparents house." He closed the book and showed me the cover. "It's not very brainy, I guess, but it's entertaining."

I smiled and nodded. "I totally understand. My stuff's not particularly brainy, and you're talking to a huge coffee table book fan."

"But you're also talking to someone who has shelves full of literature in his bedroom," Brian added. "He's a brainiac."

"I just like to read," I defended myself. "'No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting'."

"See?" Brian asked Justin with a grin. "Brainiac."

I shook my head and winked at Justin. "'It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err'."

"Cut it out," Brian laughed, pushing me. "Now you're just showing off."

"'Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force truth upon our memory'."

Justin laughed and sat back in the seat, opening his book again. "I'll let you two fight this one out."

"I should have let you bring your computer," Brian mused with a smile. "Then at least you'd be quiet."

I turned around in the seat and leaned against him. "'An inability to stay quiet is one of the conspicuous failings of mankind'." As soon as I said it, the entire vehicle started to chuckle. Rather than try and take it back or explain myself and dig the hole deeper, I dropped it with a shake of my head. `"Remind me to check my mail when we get back," I said, putting my head down on his shoulder. "Carrie might have sent something. She probably would have called if she had a problem, but maybe not."

"You have to work, too?" Kevin asked, looking back at us.

I looked to Brian and smiled. "No, not tonight. Though I'll have to get some done on the plane tomorrow, and set aside some time next week to work, too."

"Whatever you have to do, sweetie. Just be sure to pencil me in there, too."

"Done and done," I grinned, nuzzling into his shoulder a little more.

The drive back was almost entirely unremarkable. Except for Kathy and maybe Kevin, everyone in the vehicle napped at some point, though usually not at the same time. JC and Matt slept almost the entire way, while Justin alternated between reading, napping, and watching the scenery pass by.

I slept for an hour or so, and was rather proud of myself for being able to limit it to that. Brian was unconscious for quite a bit longer than that. Eventually, he removed his seatbelt altogether and simply keeled over, resting his head in my lap. We tried to tell him that it wasn't the safest position, but he was already asleep.

Everyone was back in the land of the living by the time we finally pulled into Matt's driveway, but just barely. Matt and JC had woken up as we passed the little park that Brian and I had gone to several nights before, both of them looking refreshed. JC made a tasteless comment about being full of energy and wondering how he was going to burn it off, causing Matt to elbow him into silence.

Matt unlocked the front door and we all entered. Kathy made a bee-line for one washroom, and Justin made a slow-moving bee-line for the other one. Brian and I smiled as we watched them both disappear, and then we all gathered up our bags and went to deposit them in our respective rooms. With that accomplished, we all converged on the living room again, claiming seats while two of us were out of the room.

Brian and I settled for one of the chairs, him sitting on my lap. Matt and JC took the couch, with JC putting his feet up on the unused portion and claiming to be saving it for Justin. From the smile on his face as he said it, I had a feeling that Justin was going to be pulling up some floor before he got to sit on the couch.

Kevin took the other chair in the room just as Kathy came in. Noticing that there were no seats left, she dropped onto the couch, giving just enough warning for JC to be able to pull his feet out of the way to avoid having them broken. She smiled at his reaction and made herself comfortable.

I felt kind of bad about making Justin sit on the floor, crippled up the way he was. But not bad enough to trade places with him. Besides, he seemed to take it as a matter of course when he rejoined us, looking around with a sigh, then dropping down as gracefully as possible and resting his back against the front of the couch. Since he was the youngest, he was probably used to being the one who missed out.

"You thirsty?" Brian asked, standing up. I nodded, and he went to get us something to drink, after taking orders from the rest of the room.

I sighed and relaxed in the chair. "Does anyone else feel like they're tired enough to sleep for a month, but aren't sleepy?" I saw their smiles and rolled my eyes. "And the first one of you to say that I should have gotten more sleep last night is getting a smack in the head."

They looked around at each other. "Well," Kevin said finally, "if you had gotten more sleep..."

Brian stopped him by smacking him in the back of the head on his way back through the room, then handing him the Coke that he had asked for.

"Thanks sweetie," I smiled as he passed out the other drinks and came back to sit on my lap.

"Welcome."

"So what time do you two fly out?" JC asked from his seat beside Matt.

"The flight's at ten," Brian answered. That'll give us enough time to get there, and for this one to nap before dinner."

"Jeff and Cindy are going to be surprised to meet you," I laughed. "They're convinced that I'm with Nick."

"Don't they know you've got much better taste than that?"

"They will once they meet you, dear," I smiled, kissing his cheek. Brian relaxed against the arm of the chair and put his arm around me while the rest of the room groaned.

"One of these days, you two are actually going to make someone physically ill," Kevin laughed, rolling his eyes at us.

"Leave 'em alone," Kathy defended us. "They're cute."

"Yeah," Brian agreed immediately, as we had known he would. "We're cute."

"Well, I'm cute. And I reflect well on Brian," I added, then laughed as he elbowed me in the chest.

"And Nick's going to join you tomorrow?" Kevin asked.

"Nope, Monday morning."

"How early Monday morning?"

"Too early, but we'll manage. We'll pick him up, grab some food and stuff, get out of town as quickly as possible. The drive's about three hours or so."

"But it'll be worth it," Brian said. "We'll have the entire week out of anyone's way. Nate says we'll probably not even see another person all week."

"Unless we go into town, that should be true. Nothing but trees and the lake, for as far as you can see. At least, that's what it was like the last time I was there, and Jeff says nothing's changed."

"So you're going to be roughing it for the week?"

I smiled at JC, then couldn't help but chuckle a little bit. "Not exactly.

I call it a cabin because that's what Jeff and Cindy call it. It's actually a house. And a nice one, at that. Cindy's grandparents retired there and added onto it a lot. It started out as a cabin. Now it's a full-blown getaway home."

"Nick's expecting to have to camp out, you know," Kevin pointed out.

"Well, he can either be disappointed, or bring a tent and set it up in the yard, but I fully intend on being warm and dry inside with the TV, stereo, and computer."

"If there's a TV, Nick'll be happy," Brian put in. "I can't wait."

"Well, you're going to have to," I laughed. "But only for a couple of days. And you can keep Nicky entertained while I'm talking at the high school, then we'll go."

"What're you talking at a school for?" Matt asked.

"It's my old high school." I saw the look on their faces and nodded. "I know what you're thinking, but it's okay. I was there not long ago, and the principal asked me if I would mind talking to an English class. I agreed, so I thought I'd do it this week, on Monday, and get it out of the way so that I could get out of there as quickly as possible. She knows that there's somewhere I want to be, so it should only be one or two classes."

"Sounds good, if you're sure you can handle it. It can't be easy being there." Kathy gave me a concerned look. "Are you sure you want to do it?"

"No, but I'm going to. Being back there wasn't easy, but I managed. It should be better this time. I've got a purpose for being there, and a reason to get out. If it gets too much, I'll excuse myself. It's not like it's a paid appearance or anything. I can leave if I have to, but I don't think I'll have to."

"I wish I could be there," Brian said, resting his head against mine.

I patted his leg and nodded. "I know you do, but you'd be torn to pieces before we even found the room. You can keep Nick entertained, and I'll get back to the apartment as soon as I possibly can."

"What are you going to talk to them about?" JC asked. "Just being a writer?"

"I guess. I honestly don't know what I'm going to say. I'll tell them a bit about myself, and about being a writer, and then just answer any questions they might have. Who knows? I might prove to be so boring that I'm home before I know it."

"Works for me," Brian said with a smile, rubbing my shoulder.

"You two do realise that, eventually, you're going to have to be more than a few feet from each other for more than a few minutes, right?" Kathy asked.

She grinned when we both stuck our tongues out at her. I managed to retract mine before Brian could get a grab in at it.

After some brief deliberation, we decided on spending the evening playing a boardgame and relaxing. It soon became clear that Matt wasn't exactly prepared for a group of gamers, but Justin saved the day by delivering a belated birthday present for JC from Joey.

"Yep, it's from Joey," JC grinned as he pulled off the wrapping. He removed the Warner Brothers edition of Trivial Pursuit and pointed to a picture of Superman on the box.

Matt and Justin started messing around, and Matt finally wound up throwing him over his shoulder and carrying him toward the dining room table, the rest of us laughing and following behind them.

"I'm on Nate's team," Brian called, taking my hand and making me smile.

"Ooh, there's a shock."

We ignored her and took our seats beside each other at the table.

"I guess the real question is what team I'm on," Justin said, looking around the room. There was an odd number of people, and there were already natural pairings.

Trying to be helpful, I turned to Matt. "Well, since you're a complete moron, I guess you can have Justin, too. Just to make up for what you're lacking."

Of course, JC decided to let us all know that Matt wasn't lacking anything, which prompted Justin to practically beg us to just start the game already. Matt took the cover off of the game and removed the board, which exposed the pieces and the tokens. One immediately caught my eye.

"SCOOBY!"

"I guess that answers the question of which piece he and Brian want," JC said, laughing as I grabbed up the piece. Brian and I started to hum the 'Scooby Doo Where Are You' theme while the others decided on what character they wanted to be. There were a million jokes waiting to be made about Kevin being Tweety, but we all managed to avoid them as JC claimed the Batman, since there was no Superman piece.

We took turns rolling to see who went first. Brian and I rolled a six, and the game was on.

"What evil animated pirate fed his foes to an eel-like sea creature named Constrictus?" Brian asked, and we all turned to Kathy and Kevin, getting ready to be impressed if they got it right. We'd been playing for a little while, and Brian and I were kicking ass so far.

"Jesus Christ!"

I grinned and turned to her. "Is that your answer?"

Kathy started to laugh. "No, that was a swear, but it might as well be the answer, because I have no fucking clue."

Brian told them it was Captain Blot, and Matt picked up the die. JC and Justin didn't seem to even have a guess at their question, so Matt guessed but got it wrong, bringing it back to Brian and I.

"What movie had James Dean wishing: 'If only Dad had the guts to knock Mom cold once'?"

I looked over at Brian and found him looking back at me. I knew the answer, but that wasn't what the look was about, obviously. I arched my eyebrow slightly, silently questioning. The corners of his mouth twitched upward just enough to be noticeable, giving me my answer.

"Rebel Without A Cause," I said, looking back at the rest of the table. Justin confirmed the answer, then handed me the pie piece that we had just won. "It's the only James Dean movie I know," I smiled.

"He only made three," Kevin pointed out.

I laughed. "See, I know a third of them." I handed the die to Brian so that he could roll again. We wound up being on a roll. We answered several more questions before landing on the last space we needed to complete our piece of the pie. Justin read the question and groaned, and Brian and I shared a confident look.

"What talk show host invites audience members to open the show by saying, 'Hit it, John'?"

"ROSIE!" Brian and I laughed together.

"Of course you two would get that one," Kevin smiled. Brian leaned over and kissed my cheek, his hand resting on the back of my chair and running through my hair slowly.

"Why?" Justin asked.

"We got together after we were both on the show," Brian told him.

"No, Nate made you cry after you were both on the show," Kevin pointed out with a smile. "You got together after Nick stepped in and helped you straighten things out."

Brian blushed, and I laughed and stroked his cheek. "Sorry about that, pookie."

"Why'd you make him cry?" Justin asked, frowning at me. "That doesn't sound like you."

"I've got some pretty strong defensive mechanisms sometimes," I told him. He didn't look satisfied with the answer, though. Brian and I shared another look, and then we took turns outlining the basics of the story for him and anyone else at the table who didn't know what had happened. When I tried to gloss over the way Brian had behaved in the cafe in LA, he took over and made sure to be honest about it. I returned the favour when he tried to let me off the hook about my attitude in Rosie's greenroom.

Initially, the story brought down the mood of the room, but by the time we got around to talking about our first date, everyone was smiling again. We ended it there, since there wasn't much point in going over our entire relationship and Justin had really only asked for the Rosie connection anyway. Kevin picked up the die and handed it to Brian, and we continued playing, though there really wasn't much doubt about who was going to win. Brian and I had completed our pie and just had to get to the centre of the board.

When we finally succeeded in getting there, the question was what movie began with the line 'So you want me to tell you the story of my life'. Everyone at the table looked to know that it was 'Interview with a Vampire', and Brian and I declared ourselves trivia champs.

"That's just not fair," Kathy laughed, leaning over to flick Scooby off of the board. "There's got to be a rule against asking gay guys questions about Anne Rice movies starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Antonio Banderas. Like any of them are ever going to forget that."

JC laughed and smiled at the rest of us. "Ooh, Brad Pitt."

"I'll take Tom Cruise," I offered, getting a nudge from Brian. But the smile on his face assured me that he couldn't argue with my choice.

Neither could Matt, apparently, because he immediately agreed. "Loved those tighty-whities in 'Risky Business'."

Thinking back on it, I couldn't disagree. However, there was also a tighty-whitie shot in another, better movie. "I liked 'Top Gun' better," I said, then remembered Erron's absolute favourite line from any movie he'd ever seen, which happened to come from 'Top Gun'. "Maverick, you big stud..." Matt joined me as I finished the line. "...take me to bed or lose me forever."

Since we had won, the game was pretty much over. I thought maybe they'd keep playing to see which of them sucked the most, but it didn't look like that was going to happen. "Don't forget to check your email, sweetie," Brian whispered, leaning over to speak directly into my ear.

I thanked him for the reminder and then excused myself for a few minutes and headed for the bedroom. I sat down at the desk and started up the computer, promising myself that I'd just check my mail and then shut it down. Responses could wait until later.

There wasn't anything from Carrie, but there were six new messages. Every one of them was from Brad. The kid didn't waste any time. Laughing to myself, I downloaded the files that he had attached and saved them to their own folder on the computer, then signed off and shut everything down again.

When I got back out to the living room, I found Kathy and Kevin had disappeared. The rest of them had forgone the furniture and were all on the floor. JC had his head in Matt's lap and appeared to be sleeping while Matt played solitaire. Justin's book was open, but resting on his chest while he talked with Matt and Brian.

"That's sweet," Brian said with a smile.

"What's sweet?"

He looked up at me, then took my hand and pulled me down beside him. "I'll tell you later, sweetie." I nodded to let him know I understood, then fell silent while Matt picked up the thread of the conversation they had been having.

"Sounds like a good kid. Can't wait to meet him." He was running his fingers through JCs hair much the same way Brian and I were constantly doing, and I smiled at the tenderness in the motion.

"He is," Justin agreed. "But are you sure you're up to even more company next week?"

That's when it fell into place who they were talking about. It had to be JCs brother. I couldn't remember what his name was, but I had heard Matt mention that he'd been talking to JCs sister and that his family was going to be visiting them in Memphis the following week. Justin's question was the first one that I had thought of when I heard the plan as well.

Matt thought for a minute, then nodded. "Yeah. Having you all here has helped, and I want to meet his family while I still feel like myself. I'm not gonna feel like myself for a long time again." The look on his face betrayed his emotion just as clearly as if he had finished the statement the way I'm sure the rest of us had. He might never feel like himself again.

He must have realised that we were all thinking it, because he abruptly changed the subject. "So, did you have a lot of email, Nate?"

I gave him a confused look, surprised at the change being directed at me, and that he knew what I had been doing. When he explained that I hadn't been out of the room long enough to have been writing, I laughed and nodded.

"Yeah, a bit. Most of them were from Brad."

"The kid at the dance?" Brian asked, brushing my hand with his.

"Yeah. He's pretty eager, though I imagine it's more having someone to talk to who understands." No one really had anything more to say about that. Three of the four conscious people in the room understood exactly what it was like to need someone to talk to in that position, and the fourth had likely gone through enough of it with JC to have a pretty good understanding of it as well.

Kathy and Kevin came into the room, and I saw Matt's eyes focus on Kathy for a moment, as though he were trying to get something from her. I had a pretty good idea what that something was, but wasn't about to get involved quite yet. There weren't likely many things that Kathy needed to be alone with Kevin to talk about. By the look on Kevin's face, she hadn't dropped her bombshell yet.

When Matt dropped his gaze from Kathy, he settled it on me, meeting my eyes. I wondered if he had any clue that I knew what was going on with Kathy. That thought brought a little smile to my face, which in turn brought a slightly confused one to his, probably wondering what I knew. I stifled a yawn and broke eye contact with him.

"Well, everyone," I said, taking Brian's hand. "As much as I hate for this day to come to an end, we have an early morning tomorrow, and Brian and I should probably get to bed." They all said goodnight, with Matt supplying one in absentia for JC. "See you in the morning," I smiled. "Justin, do you want us to give you a hand?"

He closed his book with a snap and started to get to his feet. "Yeah, thanks."

They all said goodnight to Justin as well, and we started out of the room. Before we made it, I turned and smiled at Kevin. "Kevin, don't you thing you ought to get some sleep, too?"

"Why? I'm not flying out tomorrow."

"No, but you are going with us to the airport, and who knows when room service could arrive with breakfast in the morning." He likely knew it was an empty threat, since not even the prospect of giving him a taste of his own medicine would be enough to get me out of bed a second before I absolutely had to, but he started to get up.

"I guess I'm going to bed now," he laughed. He got to his feet and gave Kathy a kiss on the cheek, then patted Matt on the shoulder on his way by and to the doorway. Brian said his goodnights as well and he and I helped Justin down the hall.

"God, this is going to sound bad, but if you can just get me on the bed and help get my pants off, I should be fine," Justin said, blushing as we entered his room.

"Ooh, baby, I do believe he's propositioning us, sweetie," Brian laughed, taking Justin's crutches from him as he sat on the edge of the bed.

"You wish, fruitcake," Justin grinned, unbuckling his belt and undoing his pants. "I just need help getting them off over the cast."

"Sure you do, Justin, that's all you want."

Justin turned to me. "Isn't there anything you can do to shut him up?" He saw my smile started and corrected himself. "Something that won't totally gross me out," he laughed.

I thought about it for a minute, then reached out and stuck my finger in Brian's mouth. He grinned and closed his mouth on it, his tongue moving quickly around it as he sucked on it. "There you go," I told Justin, who was laughing and shaking his head as he unzipped. Using my one available hand and Brian's two, we soon had Justin's pants off of him and in a heap on the floor beside the bed.

"Thanks, guys," he said, then stood up, grabbing my shoulder for support, and turned down the blankets. Once he was sitting again, he pulled off his shirt and turned on the mattress, sliding down and covering himself. "I'll see you both in the morning?"

"Mmm hmm," Brian said around my finger.

"Yeah, see you in the morning, Justin," I smiled, trying to take my finger back now that there wasn't a need for it to be in his mouth anymore. Brian apparently disagreed, because he bit down on it when I moved it. That got Justin laughing more, and I gave up, leading Brian back to the doorway.

I said both of our goodnights to Justin, and then yanked my finger free when Brian didn't expect it as we were walking back down to our bedroom. I let him go on ahead while I used the washroom quickly, then brushed my teeth and rejoined him.

When I got back to the bedroom, he was laying back on the bed with his arms thrown out to the sides. I smiled and climbed up onto the bed, resting on my hands and knees over him. His eyes came open slowly and he started to smile. "I love you."

I smiled back and bent to kiss him. "Love you, too."

"No fair! You brushed."

I grinned and sat back up. "How come you're calling no fair? I'm the one that has to put up with your dragon breath."

He pushed me to the side and stood up. "I'll be right back." Swatting my leg, he headed for the bathroom. I sat on the end of the bed and looked around the room, taking it all in. My eye fell on my computer bag, and I had an idea.

Sitting down at the desk, I opened up one of the side pockets on the bag and took out four note cards and envelopes, silently thanking Nana for always insisting that I carry some when I traveled. You never knew who you were going to need to thank.

"What are you doing?" I looked up as Brian sat down on the end of the bed.

"You're not working, are you?"

"Nope. Just writing a few notes," I told him.

"Notes?"

"Yup. For Matt and the rest."

"Whatcha writing?" He got up and tried to look over my shoulder.

"Never you mind," I smiled, covering the still-blank cards. "Write your own."

"You're holding out on me, sweetie," Brian laughed, trying to grab my arms and pull them off of the desk.

"Damn right. And if you don't want it to continue when I get into bed, you'll leave me alone," I grinned, fighting him.

Brian finally gave up and pulled his shirt off. "Fine, I'll just lie here and stare at you." He climbed up onto the bed, then lay down on his stomach, planting his chin in his hands and watching me.

"Fine then, you just do that." I turned back to the desk and pulled out a pen from my computer bag. After thinking for a moment, I started to write a note for Matt.

Ten minutes later, I had four sealed envelopes sitting in front of me, propped against the lamp on the desk. Each had a name written on the front of the envelope in my best handwriting. Nana would have been proud. I put my pen away and stood up, turning to find Brian's eyes still on me.

"You done?"

"Yep." I turned back around and pulled off my shirt, thinking about nothing more than climbing into the bed and getting to sleep. As much fun as we'd had the last couple of nights, I was tired. I had just started to undo my belt when Brian appeared behind me and put his arms around my waist, on top of mine.

"Sweetie?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you mind if we don't... you know?"

I smiled and shook my head. "I was just thinking about how much I'd rather just get to sleep than... you know." I turned around and kissed him. "I think we overdid it. I'm tired as all hell."

Brian laughed and nodded. "Me too. You tucker a guy out."

"Hmm, I think that's the first time I've been told I'm tuckering," I grinned. "But I'll take it as a compliment. Now, if you'll just let me get my pants off..."

"I never want to interfere with that," Brian smiled, releasing me and stepping away so that he could slip out of his own. "Are you going to pack tonight?"

"Nope, I'm going to sleep tonight. I'll pack in the morning."

"What if there's no time?"

I rolled my eyes. "Do you really think that Kevin would let us sleep in late enough that there wouldn't be time to pack? He knows us, pookie. I'll be surprised if we don't wake up to find him packing for us."

"He'd just be trying to sneak a peek," Brian laughed, folding down the blankets. "Now, get those boxers off, and get in here with me. I'm getting cold."

"Like hell you are," I grinned. "It's a bazillion degrees. Too damn hot."

I slipped out of my boxers and joined him, letting him wrap the blanket around me with an exaggerated sigh.

I rolled over onto my stomach so that I was half on top of him and rested my head in the crook of his neck, tracing my fingers over his chest and intertwining my legs with his. "It's still too hot, but it's okay."

Brian laughed and threw the blankets off of us again, leaving us exposed to the room. "I was wondering when you would complain. You can't tell me that Toronto is any cooler, though."

"It is, I think. Not much, this time of year, but a little. The apartment's air conditioned, though."

"It'll be hot when we get there."

"Nope. Remember, Erron's living with me, so he'll have it cranked. He hates the heat as much as I do or more."

"So no more walking around naked?"

"You don't do nearly enough of that now, dear," I smiled. "Besides, you'll look sexy all goose-bumpy."

"If it's goose-bumpy cold in there, I'm turning down the air conditioning."

"Erron'll chop off your fingers. He's normally got it just like an ice box. At least, he always did at his place. We keep telling him it's not healthy, but he won't listen. When there's a discernable difference in temperature between the apartment and the air-conditioned hallway, there's something wrong."

"He likes it that cold?"

I nodded against Brian's shoulder. "One time I slept over there, I woke up with blue fingernails. I woke Erron up when I tried to cover us with the blanket and snuggle to conserve body heat."

"I bet that wasn't the only cold appendage," Brian snickered.

"That was always well-covered," I laughed. "I told you Erron and I never slept together. Well, we slept, but no other stuff."

"Did he try?"

His tone told me it was a serious question, so I raised myself up on my elbow and looked him in the eye. "Are you okay with talking about Erron and me? I know we haven't talked about it much, but..."

Brian put his hand on my arm to get me to stop. "I'm okay with it, but I'm a little curious, too. You're so close, it's hard to know just how far things went."

I lay back down and nestled in again. "They went nowhere near as far as this. The closest we ever got was sleeping in the same bed, Brian. Always clothed where it counts."

"But did he try? You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I know. He did, sort of. Nothing really stressful, though. He made it clear that he wanted to sleep with me, but he also made it clear that he'd wait for me to be ready. We broke up before that happened."

"I'm glad, sweetie."

"You just wanted to be the one to..."

Brian laughed and covered my mouth before I could finish. "No, I'm glad that you waited, if you weren't sure. It was obviously the smart thing to do, right? Otherwise you'd still be with him."

I smiled under his hand and he let me go. "I think we both sort of knew from the beginning that it wasn't going to last all that long. We're destined to be friends. But let's not talk about what I did and didn't do with Erron. I'm sure, if you really wanted to know, he'd fill you in on the details this week. Though keep in mind that he's prone to embellishment."

Brian chuckled and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me closer to him. "Okay, sweetie. Love you."

I closed my eyes and patted his stomach. "Love you, too."

PART 96

"Sweetie?"

"Unh."

Brian laughed and brushed my hair away from my forehead. "Wake up."

I was laying on my stomach, and turned my head away from him. "Is the house burning?"

"No."

"Someone dying?"

"No."

"Then it can't be important," I grumbled, burrowing further into the pillow.

Rather than argue with me, Brian chose instead to climb onto my back, resting his head beside mine. He worked his hands underneath me as he laughed quietly. "Isn't there anything I can do to convince you that it is important?"

"You know, if someone comes in right now, they're going to get a totally different idea of what's going on."

I felt his lips on the back of my neck and he tightened his grip on me. "Maybe not."

Opening my eyes, I looked up at him. "We're frisky this morning, aren't we? What time is it?"

"About seven thirty or so. Matt said we should leave here around nine."

"So if we figure on half an hour to get packed up and ready to go..." I smiled, feeling him shift against me again.

"That leaves us an hour."

I rolled over with a laugh, dumping him back to the mattress. He grabbed my shoulder and kept me rolling until I was lying half on top of him, facing him. "Shouldn't we maybe be out there visiting?"

"I just checked. No one else but Matt is up. Not even Kevin. Looks like it's just you and me."

"You showered."

He smiled. "I thought it would be better if there weren't any distractions - even small ones - this morning. Now, are we going to chat or are we going to do something much more fun?"

I craned my neck to kiss him, slipping my leg in between his and resting a hand on his stomach. "Well, it's one sure-fire way to relax you before the flight."

"And with any luck, I'll be worn out enough to sleep most of the way there.

You're certainly not going to be much good, since you'll be working."

"Hey!" I slapped him on the stomach. "I'm always good. I just don't always pay as much attention as I could."

"I could have sex with every other guy on the plane, and you wouldn't notice unless we bumped your computer," Brian laughed, then seemed to consider it. "Hmm... it's definitely a way to pass the time..."

"They can have you," I told him with a grin. "Though good luck getting them to agree not to tell anyone."

"I've always wanted to be in the mile-high club, you know."

"Funny, I would have guessed as much. Maybe we'll have to do something about that sometime, pookie."

"Like Kevin would let that happen," Brian chuckled, running his hand lightly down the centre of my back. "Nick and AJ would help us set it up, and Howie would at least not say anything, but Kev would have a heart attack at the very thought."

"Well, I don't see why we would need to announce our intentions to any of them. Particularly Kevin. We don't now, do we?"

"Most of the time, it's not hard to guess what we're up to," Brian laughed.

"I can be quiet if I have to be," I argued, resting my head on his chest. "I just tend to lose concentration with you. Really, it's a compliment."

"Really, it's an announcement. That's what it is."

I planted a kiss at the base of his neck and nuzzled him. "Maybe there won't be any more announcements for a while, with the way you're making fun of me."

"Oh, I don't know," Brian said, smiling. He kissed the top of my head, then rolled us back over so that he was on top of me. He ran his hand down my side and onto my thigh, getting me to put my leg around him, then did the same with the other one. "I feel one coming on now."

I dug my knees into his side. "Don't get too sure of yourself, pookie. Over-confidence is a turn off."

"Shhhh..."

"You guys just about ready?" Kevin called an hour later, knocking on the door.

I stepped to the door and opened it, motioning him in. "Just about, Kev. We're almost packed up."

He took in my boxers and started to smile. "I hope you saved something to wear on the plane."

I pointed to the clothes laying on the edge of the bed. "Brian wouldn't let me get dressed until we absolutely had to," I laughed.

"So you need any help with anything?"

"Nope," Brian spoke up, taking a couple of handfuls of clothes from the closet and cramming them into his suitcase. I winced inwardly and continued folding mine. "We're good. Nate's slow, but he's getting there."

"Shut up," I grinned, removing the remainder of my shirts and setting them on the bed. "Is everyone else up, Kev?"

"Yeah. Justin and JC are putting together something quick for breakfast. Bagels and fruit and that sort of thing."

"Sounds good." Brian closed his suitcase and sat on the edge of the desk, lifting my computer bag up into the chair and starting to pack it up for me.

I finished with my suitcase as well and pulled the four notes I'd written the night before off of the top of the desk and slipped them into the side pocket of the computer bag so that I would be able to grab them when I wanted to. Brian finished with the computer, looking up at me and smiling.

"That's pretty good, pookie," I grinned, kissing his cheek. "Now, what do you say we get dressed and make an appearance?"

"Do we have to?" He reached out and pulled on the waistband of my boxers.

I took his hand and removed it. "Yes, we do. Now cover yourself or it'll be months before you even get to see me barefoot."

Brian laughed and stood up from the desk, heading toward his small pile of clothing on the bed. Kevin told us both to hurry up, then left us alone to get dressed.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked a moment later, seeing the shirt Brian was pulling on. It was the one that I had bought him as a joke at the start of the week. The one that was so ugly it made even Brian less attractive.

"You bought it for me. I thought the least I could do is wear it," he smirked, buttoning it. "Besides, this way no one will think we're together if we're seen. No gay man could possible like this shirt."

It was a lame excuse, but an excuse nonetheless. Besides, if he was willing to be seen in public looking like a reject from clown college, I wasn't going to argue with him. If it came right down to it, I could always pretend not to know him.

Brian seemed disappointed by my lack of interest in fighting with him over the shirt, watching me out of the corner of his eye as he pulled on a pair of shorts and fastened them, then slid his feet into his sandals. I followed suit, except for the fact that my shirt was actually tasteful, then sat on the edge of the bed. "You sure you want our friends to see you wearing that again? Don't you think once was enough? How much damage do you want to do to their retinas?"

"Come on, funnyman," Brian smiled, taking my hand and pulling me to my feet.

Justin gagged on his coffee when he saw Brian walk into the kitchen. "Oh my god, that's awful." He then clapped his hand over his mouth, afraid he might have offended Brian.

I patted his shoulder as I passed him to get to the coffee pot. "It's okay, Justin. He knows it's ugly. He's just being an idiot this morning."

Justin smiled and took the shirt in again. "That's something else," he commented, reaching out to feel it. "Where does one get something this bad?"

"One has one's boyfriend shop for him," Brian grinned. "Nate and Matt got it for me."

"I was there, but I had nothing to do with the purchase," Matt laughed, coming into the room with Kathy and Kevin behind him. "That's all Nate's doing."

"But I look good no matter what. Right, sweetie?" Brian asked, nudging me.

"Sure," I agreed noncommittally.

"My, what a glowing endorsement," JC laughed, then lifted a tray from the cupboard. "Now everyone get out of the kitchen and into the dining room."

Brian grabbed the second tray from the cupboard, since Justin had both of his hands full with the crutches, and we all made our way from the room. While hardly a gourmet meal, the breakfast that they'd put together looked inviting. My stomach growled gently as we sat down and Brian, who was the only one close enough to have heard it, started to laugh until I nudged him to silence.

"So when are you heading out, Kev?" I asked as we started to eat.

Kevin finished chewing, then wiped his mouth. "Another couple of days, I think. I talked to Carrie last night, and she's packing as much as possible into the next two or three, so we can actually spend some time together when I get there."

"I'll be sure to write a lot and send it just as your plane lands," I laughed, and he threw his balled-up napkin at me.

"We have to put up with your sorry ass for another couple of days?" JC asked with a grin.

"I believe we established that his ass is anything but sorry," Kathy pointed out, coming to Kevin's defense.

"Figure of speech," JC said, rolling his eyes. "You try to keep your eyes and your mind off of his ass. It's taken at the moment, apparently."

"That's quite alright. I've got my mental images to keep me occupied." Kathy sat back in her chair and closed her eyes. "Oh, yeah, work it Kevvy," she laughed, getting the rest of us going. Brian blushed, but he smiled. Kathy started to talk again, but Kevin reached over and stuffed the end of his bagel in her mouth to shut her up before we could hear what else her mind had come up with.

"My god, I'm surrounded by bad influences," Justin laughed, looking around him.

"When aren't you?" JC asked him, taking another bite. "When it's not these guys, it's Chris, Joey and Lance."

"Yeah, but they're the bad influences that I'm used to."

"New bad influences are always better than old ones," I pointed out with a smile. "There's less resistance, so it's easier to give in."

"The problem being that, if I give in, I might wind up a screaming queen like you guys."

"Hey!" Kevin protested, making us laugh.

"Oh, it's not so bad." Brian put his arm around my shoulders, running his fingers across my neck. "There's definite advantages to it."

"I'm sure there are, but I'm perfectly happy playing for the team I'm on now."

I took a bite of my bagel and started to laugh. "That's fine, Justin. But, if you ever change your mind, I'm sure I could come up with a few people who would be happy to make your acquaintance."

He looked at me with a wary smile. "I'll keep it in mind, thanks." He seemed less than enthusiastic about the idea.

We took a little longer than strictly necessary to finish with breakfast. Personally, I was a little sad to see it come to an end, since it basically marked the end of our stay in Memphis. There wasn't much left to do except head out to the airport. Kevin and Kathy cleared the table while Brian and I gathered our things together and set them inside the door. Once everyone was ready, we headed out and bundled into Matt's SUV.

Brian and I claimed our rightful places in the very back seat, then got Justin settled beside us as the others climbed in as well, and Matt whisked us off toward the airport.

"So what's the plan for this week?" Justin asked me. "You're hanging out by a pool somewhere?"

"Nope, no pool," I smiled. "There's a lake, though. You can't swim in it, but it's there."

"Why can't we swim in it?" Brian asked.

"Jeff says it's really silty. You'd sink right out of sight if you stepped in. But it's basically right out the back door of the cabin, and it's got a big cliff coming up on the other side of it, with trees all around. It's sort of like something out of a painting."

"Sounds good," Kevin commented. "And if Nick gets in the way, you can drown him in the lake. They'll never find the body."

"Another bonus," I laughed.

"It'll be nice to have Nick around again."

I nodded my agreement with Brian's statement, and rested my head on his shoulder. "It's kind of odd not having him around."

"That's because he's always underfoot," Kevin laughed.

"Kinda like Curly," JC added, peering back at us over his seat. "Damn kids."

"Exactly."

I reached out and smacked Kevin. "You can say that about everyone, old man."

We all had a laugh at Kevin's expense. He looked about ready to lunge over the seat to grab me, but once everyone else started in on the age jokes, he had too many potential targets and just sat there, bearing it. He was probably contenting himself with the fact that before long he would have two less to deal with.

Pestering Kevin provided us with entertainment until Matt pulled into the parking lot of the airport. Kevin looked around at everyone as Matt killed the engine.

"Okay, who's coming in?"

Brian and I smiled and raised our hand, making him roll his eyes. Kathy laughed and put her hand up as well. "I'm coming."

"Me, too," Justin said, lifting his crutches from their resting-place beside him on the seat.

"You sure?" Brian asked him. "If we get mobbed, you're going to be too lame to run."

Justin smacked Brian for calling him lame. "I'm sure. After all, how many fans are there going to be hanging out at the airport at ten in the morning?"

"If Curly's going, I'm going," JC said from the front. It didn't even require asking to know that Matt would be going if JC was going. Which made all of us, since Kevin was obviously going to see us off. He and Kathy got out and helped Justin with his crutches. While Brian slid across the seat, I slipped the four notes out of my computer case and rested them on the seat, where Justin would surely find them when they got back in after we were gone.

With that done, I climbed out behind Brian and walked with him around back to get the rest of our luggage. Kevin and Matt tried to take our bags for us, but Brian and I beat them to it, taking them out before there could be any protest.

Matt locked up the vehicle and we proceeded inside. The only thing we were carrying on the plane with us was my computer, so we checked our bags and retrieved our tickets, then headed to the lounge for the short wait for the flight to be called.

The room was basically quiet while we waited. There were a few other people in the lounge, which meant that Brian and I couldn't be too close. JC and Matt, of course, had the same problem.

Even with the reminder we had received earlier in the week, it was still an odd feeling to not be able to behave as though we were together. Being around people who both knew about us and accepted it easily had spoiled us, and I knew that we had another week of that ahead of us with Erron and Nick.

Soon enough, they called our flight. Brian and I stood and faced the little group before us. Kevin was the first to move. He surprised me by hugging me first. "Have fun this week, Nate. And if you're responsible for Carrie working a minute longer than she absolutely has to, being in a cabin in the woods isn't going to save you from the ass-kicking you'll be in for."

"You just want to be near my ass," I laughed, hugging him back. "Say hi to her for me, and I'll try not to interfere too much with you two this week. She's got to look over some stuff, or we'll both be in trouble, but I'll do my best. Besides, helping you spend time with her means that I can slack a little bit and spend time with my girl."

Brian heard is and punched me while we laughed. Kevin smiled and released me, then grabbed Brian and hugged him too. I didn't hear anything that he said to him, though, because Kathy was hugging me. "It was nice to meet you," she said as she squeezed me. "You've gotta come back and visit again, okay?"

I smiled and put my mouth up to her ear so no one else would hear me. "Oh, I'd say it's pretty likely. Say in about six or seven months? I'm sure there'll be cause to visit."

Kathy gasped quietly and pulled away to look me in the eye. I resisted the urge to wink at her, and smiled instead. She searched my face, then showed a smile of her own as she nodded. "Yeah, I guess there will be."

"I can't wait." I leaned in just long enough to kiss her on the cheek, and then she stepped over and hugged Brian, nudging Kevin out of the way. Matt stepped forward and put his arms out. We certainly were a huggy bunch. I smiled as I gave him a hug, not wanting to deprive anyone of the wonder that is a hug from Nathaniel James Healy.

"I'm glad you came," he said.

"You just wanted the autographed book," I laughed.

"Damn right. And I better get a copy of the next one, too. Considering that some of it was written at my house and all."

I assured him that he'd get one and then he stepped away. JC was about to give me a hug as well when I heard Matt talking with Brian as they embraced.

"Take care of yourself. And take care of him. He's a keeper."

I started to smile until Kathy ruined it. "Don't you mean that he's a screamer?" she laughed, getting everyone else going.

Matt let go of Brian and looked over at me. "He's both."

"Don't let him get to you," JC laughed, drawing me to him. "I'll be sure to give him a spanking later. It was nice meeting you, Nate."

"You too," I returned. "Thanks for all your help this week, eh?"

"Eh?" he mocked with a grin. "Don't mention it. You did your share of helping me, too. Kevin's got my email and phone number. Get it from him. If you need to talk about anything, or just wanna chat, let me know."

"Thanks, I'll do that. And the same goes for you." He already had my cell number and email address, but he didn't know it yet.

"Will-do," he smiled, then moved on to Brian. I looked back to find Justin standing in front of me. He looked like he was trying to figure out whether or not we knew each other well enough to hug.

Finally, he moved both crutches to one hand and put his free arm out. "What the hell. I figure that if a guy's helped you get your pants off and into bed, you're in hugging territory," he laughed.

"I'll cherish the memory," I grinned, hugging him.

"Me, too," Brian, JC and Justin all added.

"Y'all want me. I know it," Justin smiled as he hopped over to Brian and gave him a hug as well.

A few seconds later, they called the flight again, and everyone stood back.

I threw my computer bag over my shoulder and smiled at everyone. "I guess we'll see you all later. Kev, I'll be sure to keep my eye on Nicky this week. I'll make sure he doesn't get into any trouble."

"Then I guess the only question left is who's going to keep an eye on you?"

Brian smiled at his cousin. "Me."

Matt laughed. "Let me guess. Nick's going to keep an eye on Brian?"

"Sounds like a marvelous plan," I nodded. "Now, we really should get on that plane. You ready, pookie?" I asked, dropping my voice so it wouldn't carry to the others in the lounge.

"I'm never ready to fly," Brian grumbled. "But I guess. You going to buy me a drink like last time?"

"Whatever you like."

"Then let's get it over with," Brian smiled, stepping forward. He pretended to stumble, momentarily burying his face in my neck. I felt his lips press against my skin for a moment before he 'regained' his balance. I smiled at the multitude of rolling eyes from the others.

"Thanks for everything, guys," I said again as we started to back toward the door. "I'll talk to you later. Kev? See you next week."

"You bet. Behave, guys!"

Brian and I shared a look, then he turned his attention back to Kevin. "No promises."

To Be Continued...

There you go, folks. Hope it was worth the wait, and the effort to sit through it all. As I said above, the next one is written already, and ready to go. I'll probably tweak it a little bit here and there in the time between now and posting, but look for it two weeks after this one is posted.

Until then, thanks for reading. :)

Take care, ~D~