Obligatory warnings and disclaimers:
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If reading this is in any way illegal where you are or at your age, or you don't want to read about male/male relationships, go away. You shouldn't be here.
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I don't know any of the celebrities in this story, and this story in no way is meant to imply anything about their sexualities, personalities, or anything else. This is a work of pure fiction.
Questions and commentary can be sent to "writerboy69@hotmail.com". I've enjoyed hearing from all of you.
This season would not have happened if not for a discussion I had with Clive, who is generous enough to cohost this story on his site. Stop and tell him hello at www.authorclive.co.uk.
That said, back to the show.
Justin
For the next three or four days, things were more or less quiet at my house. The phone calls about me and Brit tapered off, and the ones about Josh and Jack had dropped off a while ago. Josh still drifted around the house, carrying around his notebook, but he didn't seem to be crying quite so much. Either that, or he was doing it alone at night behind his closed door. We didn't talk about either breakup, and I didn't mention the postcard, but we weren't ever more than a room or two apart, no matter what we were doing. If Josh went for a swim, I hit some golf balls around, or got in the pool with him. If I went to the music room, or to the living room to play video games, Josh came and sat with me. We spent hours playing chess, or cards. On one interminable evening we tried to play Trivial Pursuit, but the game took forever, because neither one of us are very good at it.
Our dinner with Chris was fun, but there was a lot of press. We had thought we'd be largely unnoticed, since we usually were in Orlando, but while we were inside the restaurant somebody called some reporter, who called some other reporter, and by the time we finished dinner there was a little crowd waiting at the door of the restaurant with their cameras out. Chris and I put Josh in between us, as he was still kind of fragile, and we didn't know how he'd do. We tried to walk through without saying anything, not even a "No comment," but it was hard.
"Justin, have you talked to Britney?"
"Is it true that she's dating Ashley from O-Town? How do you feel about that?
"Chris, who are you dating?"
"Josh, why did you and Jack break up?"
"Were you cheating on him?"
Josh spun, his eyes watering, about to say something, and I could tell he was ready to scream. I grabbed his shoulders and pushed him into the car as the reporters continued to scream questions at us, directing most of them toward Josh now that they'd seen they'd almost gotten a response. I wondered what kind of vulture would pick at someone who was so obviously in pain as I climbed into the back of Chris's jeep with Josh, pushing him across the seat as he wiped at his eyes. I thought Chris was going to get in, too, since he had taken the keys back from the valet already, but he turned back toward the crowd of press as I closed my door.
"Look, I know you're just trying to do your jobs, but these are my friends, my brothers, and they're in a lot of pain. Why don't you just back off, and leave them alone?"
It was a good thought, but it had no effect whatsoever. There was a moment's pause, just for a second, and then the questions started up again as Chris climbed into the car.
"Chris, is that the band's official statement?"
"Do you speak for Lance and Joey, too?"
"Chris, just one picture!"
Chris peeled out rather quickly, giving them just one picture of his flashing taillights. In the back of the car, Josh sat leaning on me, trying to wipe the tears that kept trickling down his cheeks away.
"How can they say that? How can they say stuff like that, Justin?" he asked quietly. "I would never cheat on Jack. I never cheated on Jack, never. How can they say that? How can they even ask that, how can they think it's my fault, Justin?"
"I don't know, Josh," I answered, cradling him against me as he pressed his face against my chest. I noticed Chris watching us in the rearview mirror, but he didn't say anything, and his eyes were impossible to read. "They don't know you, Josh, they don't know anything about you. They don't mean anything by it."
"I just don't understand," Josh said quietly, letting me cradle him against me even though he was done crying. He had one hand up on my shoulder, and the other around my waist, as he leaned against me with his eyes closed.
"It'll be ok, Josh," I said, smoothing his hair off of his forehead with one hand while I ran the other in steady circles around his back. "It'll be ok."
Chris dropped us off at my house, wishing us a good night, and apologizing that it hadn't gone well. I promised we would do something again soon, but Josh didn't say anything, just wished Chris a good night and walked toward the door to wait for me to follow. I know he had his own house key, because I gave it to him, but he had yet to actually go into the house by himself. I think it was part of the manners his mom had worked so hard to instill in him or something. He still felt like a guest in my house, no matter how many times I told him not to. I told Chris goodnight, and he stared at me for a second, a strange look on his face as if he was thinking of saying something, but then decided not to. I called him later and told him about the postcard, telling him where it was mailed from and what it said, and he promised to send his investigator there, too, but neither of us were very hopeful. I sensed something in our conversation, some awkwardness, as if Chris was holding something in, but whatever it was, he didn't say it.
Josh and I stayed in the next day. I was up before him, so I thought I'd surprise him with breakfast, and I put together some waffles and sausage while he showered upstairs above my head. When he came down, as I was setting it all out and putting on a pot for his tea (Josh hadn't picked up Jack's coffee habit; instead, he drank tea, with lemon, for his throat, the way he always had), he looked at the table and smiled, a real smile, one of the first I'd seen since this whole thing started. Watching his eyes light up like that, watching his face crease in that old, familiar, smiling way, in a real, teeth showing grin, I decided it was well worth the pound of burned sausage that I'd already stuffed into the garbage disposal. The day after that, Josh surprised me with breakfast, getting up early on purpose to make omelets, grinning proudly as he carefully ladled one onto my plate, cheese and peppers bulging out of the sides, the way I liked it.
Later that day I was in the music room again, playing around on my mixing boards, when I suddenly felt like playing with the piano. Josh was out in the living room, watching something on the History Channel, so I didn't think I'd bother him. He hadn't been watching much television, preferring to stare at the wall or work in that notebook, but gradually he was starting to do it again, which I thought might be a positive sign. Sitting down in front of the piano, I folded back the keyboard cover, and then just stared at it. I didn't know how to play the piano, actually. I had bought one because the decorator thought I should, because it seemed like there should be an actual instrument in the music room, and not just gold records, the stereo and all my discs, and all of our awards, but the only thing I could actually play was a bad rendition of "Chopsticks", the song everyone who doesn't know how to play the piano can play. Maybe now that I had some time on my hands I should hire a piano tutor.
I was tapping tentatively away, tinkling my way through the same part of the song over and over, when I heard Josh behind me in the doorway.
"What are you doing?" he asked, leaning on the frame.
"I don't know," I answered, smiling. "I felt like playing on the piano."
"That's all you know how to play, isn't it?" Josh asked, smiling a little.
"Yeah," I answered, grinning sheepishly as I felt myself blush. Josh was pretty skilled on the piano, like he was at everything.
Josh sauntered across the room toward me, moving with the easy natural grace that everything he did projected, hips rolling a little, arms swinging back and forth just enough to pull his shirt tight across his chest. He sat next to me on the bench, his warm side pressing against mine, his thigh against my leg. Our arms, both bare in our short sleeved shirts, pressed against each other, muscle to muscle, skin to skin. Josh looked at me, still smiling.
"Move over a little," he said softly, and I did. I wondered for a second if he thought I was too close, if he didn't want to be near me, but then realized that he needed room for both of us to move. He set his hands on the keyboard. "Put your hands where mine are, Justin, down there at your end."
"OK," I said, following directions. I waited to see what he would do next, looking at his face, following the line of his cheekbones and the slant of his jaw.
"Justin, watch my hands," Josh said, shaking me from my reverie. "Watch what I do, and then you do it."
He went really slowly, playing a few notes at a time, and eventually had me playing the same melody over and over. I slipped up a little, but I was basically a quick study, and soon I had it to his satisfaction. I knew the song, but couldn't place it.
"OK, now we're going to change it up a little," Josh said, putting a hand on mine to stop me. His hand, as always, was soft and warm. "You keep playing your part, keep it right at that speed, and I'm going to play a harmony, ok?"
"OK," I said. I sat, staring at him, as he sat ready with his hands on the keys.
"Justin?" Josh asked, looking at me again.
"Yeah?" I answered, staring into his bright blue eyes. I'd never noticed before that they had little flecks in them, little shades of darker blue.
"Play," he said, smiling again. "I'm waiting for you to start."
"Oh, sorry," I said, wondering what was wrong with me.
Josh wasn't any cuter today than he had been yesterday. Why did I keep zoning out? I started playing, slowly and carefully, and after I played through one time Josh added the harmony, tapping it out carefully. I laughed, realizing that we were playing together, grinning at my accomplishment, and heard Josh chuckle as well. He started to play around with his part, adding little flourishes, playing it with both hands on two different octaves while I continued painstakingly tapping out the melody on my end. Josh's foot was tapping along, and I was bobbing my head as we continued our little duet.
"Josh, I know this song," I said, smiling. "What is it?"
"It's 'Heart and Soul', Justin," he answered, dropping back into the simple harmony he had started out with. "It's the other song that people who can't play the piano know how to play."
We both laughed, and then I slipped up, and our little duet broke down and fell apart.
"Josh, will you play something for me?" I asked.
"Sure," he answered, not hesitating. "What do you want to hear?"
"I don't know," I answered, just happy to see him at the piano. "Just play something."
I sat back, watching, as Josh began to play. The song that came out was soft, and light, but kind of happy, and as he played it I watched Josh's face, watched him smile as he put on this little private concert for me, his feet working the pedals as his tanned hands flashed back and forth over the keys. When he finished, I clapped excitedly, and he turned toward me, blushing.
"Josh, that was great!" I said, hugging him quickly. He hugged me back tightly, and when he pulled back I saw that he was still smiling, his face red as he looked away uncomfortably. Josh doesn't take flattery well.
"Thanks," he said, looking down.
"Josh, maybe after dinner, do you think you could play something else for me?" I asked. "Please?"
He smiled at me again.
"Sure, Justin," he answered, smiling wider. He squeezed my shoulder. "I think maybe I can."
And after dinner, he did play, for a good hour or so, just sliding from one song to another as I sat curled up on one of the couches in there, watching and listening. As Josh was playing, I wondered if he had missed the piano, if he had missed letting the music pour out of himself these past two weeks. I hadn't realized that much time had gone by, but it really had been almost two weeks since Jack left him, since we had stood in that club and waited for Jack to come back from the bathroom, two weeks since Jack had walked away, and left Josh blasted and empty, hollow inside. Josh played like he'd just discovered the piano, like he hadn't realized it was here in the house. He switched back and forth between popular music and classical, falling into jazz and ragtime, mixing it with Mozart, Bach, and some riffs of songs I'd heard yesterday on the Top 40.
When he finally paused, I jumped up, clapping again, and handed him a bottle of water.
"That was great, like my own little concert," I said, dancing back and forth from foot to foot. "You didn't even have any practice. I can't believe you haven't played in so long and you still sound that good."
Josh glanced away suddenly, his face folding up again, almost guiltily.
"I guess I just, you know, haven't felt like it," he said quickly, turning away.
"Josh?" I asked, wondering if I should reach out to him.
"I, um, I'm gonna go soak in my tub for a while, ok?" he said, walking away, keeping his face turned away from me. "I'm kind of tired, you know?"
"Yeah, ok," I said, trying to be understanding. Did he feel bad for enjoying something, for having fun, or did he feel bad because I'd enjoyed something he did? "Thanks for playing for me."
"You're welcome," he said quickly, walking out of the room. "Good night, Justin."
"Good night, Josh," I called after him, sinking into the couch.
I had been almost there, damn it. Over the past couple of days, I had done so much to pull Josh out of his shell, to get him to smile again. Tonight, for just an hour or so, he'd almost seemed like the old Josh, had almost seemed like himself again, but just like that he'd folded up again, pulled back in. Every time it seemed like I was getting somewhere, some specter of Jack would appear, some dark cloud on Josh's horizon to remind him of what he'd lost. And I wasn't doing this for myself, wasn't trying to move into Jack's place. I just wanted Josh to be happy. I just wanted Josh to smile again, to laugh again. That was all. I might want Josh, might think I was starting to actually fall in love with him, but that wasn't important. That would just get in the way of Josh's healing, and that was the most important thing.
At least, that's what I kept telling myself.
The next morning he was quiet again, not fully withdrawn, but not as bright as he'd been for the past few days. He didn't look as if he'd slept very well, and I wondered if he was ok. We spent the day reading mail and magazines, and playing chess, and then after dinner I was in my exercise room, working out, when the CD on the stereo switched to the next disc, and I heard the piano playing in the pause between. Walking carefully through the house, I peered into the music room, keeping myself mostly in the hallway, and saw Josh hunched over the piano again. He was playing slowly, tentatively, and had that notebook open before him on the stand. He would play for a while, and then stop and write something in the book, and I realized he was writing music to the words of his "Dear Jack" letter.
I don't know what Josh's usual writing style was, but this song was a far from painless process. He would play, or look back over the words again, and wipe at his eyes, or hold his head in his hands. A few times he broke out in full-fledged sobbing, his shoulders shaking, rather than just letting tears trickle out, and sometimes when he went back to playing his fingers were almost pounding on the keys. Jack had told me that sometimes when he and Josh had an argument that Josh would take it out on his electric keyboard, and I could see some of that now. I wanted to go to Josh, but instead I went back to my weight bench, not wanting to push. If he was trying to find peace, trying to reach inside himself, I needed to let him do it.
When I finished my work out, I walked past the music room again, on my way to the shower, and saw that he had closed the cover and the notebook again. He sat with his head on top of the piano, on his folded arms. He wasn't crying, but had been. I think he was trying to collect himself.
"Josh?" I asked from the doorway. "You ok?"
"Not really," he answered, looking up at me. His face was red and blotchy, and his eyes were still wet.
"Can I do anything, Josh?" I asked, walking over to him. I knelt on the floor, so that my eyes were at the same level as his.
"Justin, why does it hurt so much?" he asked quietly, wiping at his eyes with one hand while he reached out for my hand with the other. "Is this what love is really like? This kind of pain?"
"I, I don't really know, Josh," I answered, holding his hand, brushing my thumb over the back of his hand. I thought about love, real love, the kind of love I thought I felt for him. "Sometimes love hurts, Josh. I know that sounds kind of cliched, but sometimes you can want something so badly, want to be with someone so much, that all you feel inside is hurt, unless you're with them."
"But Justin, why don't you feel like this?" he asked. I must have looked hurt, because he squeezed my hand. "I'm sorry, that didn't come out right. I just, you know, you don't seem like you miss Brit this much. It doesn't seem to hurt you like it does me. Are you just covering it up?"
I thought about it for a second, trying to put my feelings in order, trying to figure out what I should say.
"You're right," I said quietly. "I don't miss Brit like you miss Jack. I miss her as a friend, but what you felt for him, what you guys had, we never had that. I never felt that way about her, and I don't think she ever did about me. We told ourselves we felt that way, and we tried to make ourselves believe it, but the kind of love you guys had? We never did, Josh."
Josh reached out, taking my face in his hands, his thumbs brushing over my cheeks, one of them just below the stitches that I needed to have taken out soon. He was looking at me with such warmth, such compassion, that I thought I might start crying after all. Our faces were so close, and his eyes were so wide, filled suddenly with nothing but concern for me.
"Justin, I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I know you didn't have to just tell me that, and I want to thank you for being honest with me, but I'm also sorry you've never felt this way. I'm sorry you've never known what it's like to totally be a part of another person, to completely share their thoughts and their feelings. I miss Jack, Justin, I miss him so badly that it feels like it's eating my soul sometimes, and maybe sometimes I hate him, maybe sometimes I'm angry at him, because I don't understand, but what we had? I wouldn't give that up for anything. I might never feel that way again, Justin, but I'd never give up the chance I had to feel it once, at least for just a little while."
"Josh, you'll feel it again," I said, my hands over his, holding them to my face. "You'll find someone again someday, maybe when you least expect it, and you'll be whole again."
"Maybe I will," he said, looking down, but not letting go. "But right now I don't want to."
We were both quiet, and then I stood, trying not to feel like Josh had just stabbed me. I know it was selfish of me to hope that he'd reach out to me that way, but I hoped it just the same. I hoped that he would open his eyes, and that some morning he might look at me that way, just for a second, or maybe forever. He looked up at me as my face slid from his hands.
"I'm gonna go get in the shower now, ok?" I said. "Let me know if you need me."
"OK," he said, looking down at his hands again.
The house was quiet when I got out of the shower. I got dressed and went downstairs, looking for Josh, thinking that we might make some popcorn and watch a movie or something, but when I found him he was out on the back patio, looking out over the dark backyard with a bottle of scotch and a glass. His face was wet, and I wondered what could have happened in the half hour I was gone, while I had stood beneath the steaming spray, trying to collect myself and get my heart under control, trying to put all my thoughts and feelings back under the shield I'd kept around them my entire life.
"Josh?" I asked, standing in the patio doorway.
"Justin," he said, smiling. He raised his glass, drained it in one long swallow, and then refilled it. "Come sit with me. Grab a glass if you want. Hell, grab another bottle."
I'd never seen Josh quite like this. I had seen him sad, depressed, and tearful, and I'd seen him angry, but I don't think I'd ever seen him seem so, so bitter? Was that the word I wanted? Maybe it was. He looked miserable, but he smiled when he looked at me, a sad smile, the wry kind of smile people have when they know the joke's on them. I figured he might talk more if I drank with him, so I grabbed a glass from the kitchen and joined him at the table. When I sat, he poured me a glass, and raised his in a toast.
"Cheers!" he said loudly, clinking our glasses. I took a swallow, feeling it slide down my throat. My housekeeper picked out nothing but the best when she kept me stocked up on groceries.
"Josh, what happened?" I asked, setting my glass down on the table and watching as he refilled us both.
"Carla called," he answered, sipping again.
"Oh," I said quietly. That explained quite a lot. I took another sip, and waited for him to continue.
"She says hi," Josh said, sipping slowly. "She also says that I threw things away with Jack, that I should have stayed in LA and tried to find him. She says that if I really cared about him the way I said I did that I wouldn't have been so quick to believe that he meant it."
"Has she heard from him?" I asked, holding out my glass for another refill as he topped off his own.
"Nope, but she says that he can't have really been serious," Josh said, sipping again. "She says that it was probably just some dumb little Jack thing again, but that now I've made sure it was permanent by just walking away. Is she right, Justin? Do you think she's right? Was Jack testing me, and did I really just throw it all away like that?"
"No, Josh, no," I said, taking his hand. He shook my hand off so that he could refill his glass again. "Josh, if anyone threw anything away, it was Jack. He threw it away the moment he left that note, the moment he took his ring off and walked away from you. He walked away from you, Josh, not the other way around. You left, but you were the second one who did, and even if you haven't looked for him, well, he hasn't looked for you, either. He threw away everything you gave him, Josh, everything the two of you built together. Him, Josh, not you."
"Maybe," Josh said, not agreeing with me, but not disagreeing, either. We sipped our scotch for a few minutes, Josh refilling us, and I realized that we were draining the bottle pretty quickly. I was starting to feel a bit of a buzz coming on, and could only imagine that Josh, a much lighter drinker than I am, was feeling one pretty strongly as well. "Justin, he left. I know he didn't take anything with him, but I think he threw his phone away like he threw me away. I think he just walked away from everything, and didn't want to keep anything from me. That's why his phone was out under the dumpster, Justin. And he sent me a postcard, too. A written one, not typed. I had someone bring my mail over here the other day, and there it was. He really did leave me, and when I told Carla that, she didn't say anything."
I realized that he had been thinking it through the whole time. Chris and I thought he'd been too distraught to face things, that he had missed all of those oddities and just didn't want to see them, but he had been right on top of it all along. Everything he said made sense, suddenly, except for the inexplicable fact of Jack leaving him in the first place.
"Justin, can I ask you a question?" Josh asked, looking up at me.
"Sure, Josh," I answered, swallowing another mouthful. "You can ask me anything."
"What happened with you and Brit?" he asked, looking me in the eye. "I heard you guys arguing, but what did you tell her? What did you say to her?"
I decided to just be honest. After all, it was Josh. He'd been there for what happened, had been an active participant.
"I told her about us," I answered, suddenly glad for the scotch. "I told her about sleeping with you and Jack. I didn't tell her in the best way, it didn't come out quite right, but that's what I told her."
"Wow," Josh said quietly. "You told her everything?"
"Not quite," I said, slamming back another glass. I held my empty out, and Josh granted another refill. I must have been drunker than I thought, because what came out next surprised even me. "I didn't tell her about how hot it was. I didn't tell her what it felt like to have your mouth on me, or Jack's. I didn't tell her what it felt like to feel your heart beating under my lips, or feel your bodies sliding over mine. I didn't tell her that it was the most amazing sexual experience of my life, or that I'd do it again in a heartbeat."
Josh blinked at me, his mouth open. Little beads of sweat had broken out on his forehead.
"You, that's how you think about it?" Josh asked. "That way?"
"Yeah, it is," I answered, staring right back into his eyes. I realized that I was hard, and wondered if he was, too. "Do you ever think about it, Josh?"
"Sometimes," he answered, swallowing, his voice barely a whisper.
"Me, too," I said.
We continued staring at each other, blue eyes locked together, Josh breathing heavily through his parted lips, me throbbing painfully in my track pants. I realized that we had, between us, consumed the entire bottle of scotch, and I wondered if that had something to do with my feeling that the whole world was spinning right out of control. Josh swallowed again, and then looked away finally, breaking the moment.
"I think we should head to bed, now," he said quietly.
"Sure," I answered.
In the hallway we told each other goodnight, and went to our separate rooms. I stripped down to my briefs, my painfully throbbing cock tenting the front of them, and then I just decided what the hell, and kicked them off, too. I climbed into bed, shutting off my lights, and spent what seemed like hours tossing and turning, before I finally ended up just lying flat on my back, staring up at the ceiling.
Now that I'd thought about it, had allowed my mind to start replaying the one hot night, I couldn't get it out of my head. Every time I closed my eyes I saw it all again, Josh's sweating chest, Jack's eyes squeezed closed with lust, my cock pushing between both their lips as they attacked me together. Every time I shifted in bed, the sheets slid against me, but it wasn't the sheets I felt, wasn't the cotton. Instead it was their hands, sliding over me, touching me, caressing my body. It was their hands, and their lips, and in my ears I heard the sighs, the pants, the groans, the little yelps of pleasure. I dropped my hand down to my cock, figuring that I needed to just jerk off and be done with it, when I heard my bedroom door open.
Sitting up, I saw Josh in the doorway, dressed only in a pair of clinging boxer briefs. I couldn't see his face, because the only light was coming from behind him, but he walked slowly, carefully, over to the bed, and stood next to it, staring down at me. His chest was rising and falling, all but heaving as he stared down at me, panting heavily, and I blinked up at him, trying to make out his features in the darkness.
"Josh, do you need something?" I asked quietly.
He dropped down, not answering me, and grabbed my face roughly with both hands. Pulling my head up toward him as he dropped toward the bed, I felt his soft lips close over mine, and then his tongue, scotch flavored, wet, and warm, slid into my mouth.
More to come soon.