Hi everyone...
In order to accommodate people who are asking me about notification lists, I've finally created an YahooGroup (Gods, Yahoo is like the Borg!) to do so: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Dale_writings
As always, Gabriella is my main cheerleader. Mark has also been great. I've even inspired him! Check out his story "Blind Date", it's also here in the Boyband section.
I'm a bit nervous--so if people could please e-mail me at bwicub@hotmail.com--I'd really appreciate it. I love e-mail!!
My story is hosted on another website. Here's it is: http://railwayshoes.net/hosted
It's partway down the site, just look for "Lottery Winner". There's lots of other great stories there so check them out.
DISCLAIMER: The names of the people are fictional (well, except for the members of the group). This is a fictional story that came right out of my own mind. I have no knowledge if any member of N Sync are gay or whatever. That being said, please enjoy the story and remember-- write me!!! (Especially write me if you're a member of the group! GRIN)
Thanks guys and gals, Hope you like it.
Dale
--THE LOTTERY WINNER...
"Dale...
"Go ahead and answer it Mark."
"Hello this is the shithead's phone...
"Um, Dale? Did I dial a wrong number or something?"
Mark laughed. "No you got the right phone. He's in the other room paying the pizza guy. Hang on a sec." Mark pulled the phone away from his face and let out his patented bellow.
"DALEGETYOURASSINHERENOW!!!!!"
"Can I tell him who's calling?"
"He'll know...
I walked into the room carrying a pizza box. "Gods, I'm away for two minutes and you can't bear to be without me or something?"
He wiggled my cellphone at me. "Some man. Sexy voice. Wouldn't say who he was. Very mysterious."
I took the phone from him and went into the kitchen to get myself something to drink.
"Hello?"
"Dale? Was that Mark?"
"Hi Joey. Yeah that's him. Where are you guys?"
I heard a rustle followed by a clang. "We just finished the San Diego meet and greet. After tonight's show we head to Vegas then on to Phoenix!" I heard someone say something to him, followed by him covering up the phone and talking briefly to whoever it was. "Sorry about that Dale, I'm back. I already told Johnny that we're going to be staying around Phoenix for a day or two after the concert ends. I think the only one who's going back to Orlando is Justin."
"How's Lance doing?"
"He's putting on a good show, but I can tell he's depressed. Chris won't hardly talk to anyone either. JC and Justin and I are doing all we can to draw them out and it's not working.
What're you and Mark doing tonight?"
I headed back into the living room. "We're going to gorge on pizza and watch really bad horror movies. Tomorrow we're going to go camping and get away from everything. Call my cell when you guys get into town and we'll head over and meet you. I gotta scoot for now Joey."
"Me to babe. Hey Dale...
"You too Joe."
Mark and I had a great time that night. And it was nice to getting out of town the next morning. The drive out to the desert was pretty uneventful. I felt the stress levels lowering, and somewhere inside was a pang of nostalgia since I hadn't been in the desert for awhile (I used to live in the Mojave Desert out in CA). My cell phone kept ringing with random people calling me "to check on me", so I gave it to Mark and told him that the only person I'd talk to was Joey when he called in a few days.
We set up our tent, the place he picked out for camping was great! The campground is at the edge of a bluff that's a couple of hundred feet tall. You could look down and the view was so breathtaking, it truly is a beautiful place. We sat around just talking about random stuff, I think he could tell that something was bugging me...
"So Dale," he took a swig of his beer, "how does it feel knowing that you can have whatever you want and do anything?"
I didn't say anything, thinking about how to answer that. "Mark, did you ever want everything and know that you''ll never get it so you wonder why even bother?"
He finished his beer and put the bottle back in the box. "That's bullshit Dale. You are only as limited as you allow yourself to be."
I got up and began pacing around the fire that he'd started. Grabbing a beer, I opened it and drank about half the bottle in a single gulp. "You know that big charity concert that's taking place here next week? I put that on."
"WHAT? No way! That's so great." He gave me a quick hug then sat back down. "They're saying that it's going to pull in like almost a million for charity. Wait a second, the group's N'Sync." His face drained of color. "Holy fuck. You weren't lying were you?"
I smiled at him as I finished one beer and opened another. "About what?"
He got up and was in my face. "You know damn well about what! When you showed me the picture of Joey from the group and said he was your boyfriend you weren't lying were you?"
"No Mark, I wasn't. You have to swear by everything that you hold sacred, not the least of which is our friendship, that you won't tell ANYONE."
"Hhmmm...
"DAMMIT MARK!"
He let out a laugh at that. "Jesus Dale, chill. I'm only kidding. I would never out anyone. That's a personal choice. So, spill bitch. How'd you two meet?"
For the next three hours I told him about the past months. I didn't hold anything back. His eyes lit up when I told him about Lance being gay. "Hot damn, he's the cutie of the group!" After I finished filling him in, I told him about buying the house just before coming out here.
"Hey Dale, think I could room with you when I get to Orlando?"
I did a doubletake. "'When you get to Orlando?'"
He giggled since he was now a bit drunk. "Guess this now as good a time as any to tell you. I got hired by Universal Studios for their Event Planning Division, and my start date is in three weeks. I was going to fly there this weekend, then decided to wait when I heard you were coming here. Thought I could probably guilt ya into letting me stay with you for a few months then I can move into my own place."
"We'll figure something out. Just make sure you don't bug my cat." We finished a twelve pack of beer between us, and staggered to our sleeping bags.
I was only lying down for an hour or so and felt like I couldn't stay in the tent any longer. I pulled on sweats and tennis shoes and staggered over to the rocks by the bluff. I sat there near the edge for awhile just staring into space and thinking. I was racked by a crying jag, and after about twenty minutes it lapsed off. I heard a noise from the tent, and the door being unzipped.
"Dale? Where are, DALE!"
"Dale what are you doing out there? Come back in please!!!"
Huh? Out there?
I looked around at where I was sitting. How did I get this far down the rocks? I pulled myself up and slowly made my way back to where Mark was standing. As soon as I was by him he grabbed me by my shoulders and began shaking me.
"WHATTHEHELLWEREYOUDOING?"
"I don't know Mark. I'm going to go back to bed." I headed back to the tent and crawled into my sleeping bag. I heard him come back in a few minutes later.
"Dale?"
sigh "What Mark?"
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, just stressed over the past few weeks. Good night." I rolled over and went to sleep. About an hour later I remember hearing a ringing noise, but I couldn't wake myself up enough to care.
Mark wasn't able to sleep, and he jumped when Dale's phone rang. "Hello, Dale's phone...
"Is Dale still awake?"
"No, he's sleeping. Hang on a second though... walked outside. "Is this Joey?"
"Yeah, is this Mark?"
"Yeah. Hey, there. I'm worried." Mark then told Joey about what he'd seen earlier. After he'd finished he could hear crying on the other end of the phone. "Dale said he was under a lot of stress lately, but this seems like more than stress. When do you guys get in town?"
"Tomorrow morning. The group decided to skip getting rooms here and just crash on the bus for a few hours. We have rooms set aside for us at the Biltmore, I'll be able to be reached there anytime after eleven in the morning. When are you two getting back into town?"
Mark glanced at his watch and saw it was almost three in the morning. "I'll time it so we're meeting you at the hotel. I'll swing by my place about an hour before so we can clean up and be presentable. Is your security gonna need to know what kind of car I drive or something?"
Joey took down the info on Mark's jeep, and promised to give it to their security people. "Mark, please keep an eye on him. I'm worried now."
Mark promised, and hung up to go back to bed. Joey hung up his cell phone and headed to the front of the bus. Chris was playing Nintendo, and Lance was sitting over in the corner reading some papers that had been forwarded from FreeLance for him to look over. Lance looked up at Joey, and saw that he had been crying.
"Hey Joey, what's wrong?"
Joey smiled sadly at Lance. He didn't want to burden his friend right now since Lance was going through some issues of his own. "I'll be fine Lance. Just a little worried about some stuff."
Lance put his papers down and glared at Joey. "Stuff? Come on Fatone, talk."
"Okay, I'll talk about mine if you talk about yours."
Lance sat and stared at Joey for a bit, and finally said softly, "deal".
Joey led Lance back to the bunks, and they squeezed into the one that Joey usually uses. They sat facing each other, and just started talking. It was the first time in months that the two friends had talked about what was really going on in their lives and in their hearts. Joey started crying, Lance put his arms around Joey and held him tight. Joey returned the favor when Lance started crying over things with Chris.
They fell asleep in the bunk holding onto each other. Joey woke up a few hours later from a nightmare, and missed Dale terribly. He had been looking for Dale and couldn't find him. The guys weren't helping, just standing around telling him what a mistake he was making. Joey lay in the bunk crying softly so he wouldn't wake up Lance.
"Joey, wake up. Lance, come on."
Joey felt someone shaking him softly. It was JC. "Come on guys, we're in Phoenix. Lance, you're supposed to give Johnny a call."
Joey remembered the conversation with Mark, and wondered what Dale wasn't telling him. He got out of the bunk, stretching and feeling the muscles protest. Lance got out of the bunk and staggered to the front of the bus where he'd left his cell phone. He grabbed the phone and the folder of papers and headed in to the hotel so he could settle into his room.
After throwing his bags into the corner of the room, he called to check in with his company. He knew from talking to Joey last night that the plan was for Dale and his friend to meet them at the hotel in a few hours. He decided to try and get to the bottom of his questions. He called JC's room from the hotel phone and got a number, then called it from his cell.
"JesusChrist! It's awful early in the fuckin' morning so someone BETTER be dead!!!"
Lance had to laugh at that. "Not that I know of Gabriella, but then again the day's just started."
She squealed. "OOH, my favorite dirty talker. Say something kinky big daddy!"
Lance felt his cheeks heat up as he blushed. "Yeah whatever Gab."
"Aw, don't get upset Lance. You just have the perfect voice for phone sex. Both sexes get wet when you say anything! So what do I owe the phone call at this ungodly hour?"
He laughed. "It's after nine in the morning there, so if you're still sleeping then it's your own fault because every one else is awake."
"Hey, I didn't go to sleep until like four, so don't get all high and mighty on me. I have to get up anyway so I can look pretty for class."
"Anyway Gabriella, I'm calling about Dale."
"Oh."
"How bad has he gotten?"
"Don't really know Lance, for some reason I've been on Dale's shit list or something. I was going to the hearings to be moral support and after one of the sessions he suddenly got all weird. Stopped answering the phone, wouldn't call me back. I tried talking to him at the house and he blew me off, closed the door on my face even!"
She took a deep sigh. "I'm worried."
"Join the club Gabriella. Joey and I are going to see him today. Maybe those two will finally talk and Dale will tell him what's going on. Okay, I'm going to go nap before we start our running around. I'll fill you in on how things go with Dale. Deal?"
"DEAL! Stay cute blondie...
Lance curled up on his bed and promptly fell asleep. He was woken up a few hours later by someone pounding on the door.
"Open the door, it's Dale!"
Lance opened the door and felt a shock as he saw how haggard Dale looked. Standing next to Dale was...
Was...
--/"That is one of the most handsome men I think I've ever seen."--/
Lance tried hugging Dale, but was stopped from that when Dale pulled away.
"Um, Lance. This is my friend Mark. I've been staying with him for a few days until you guys got here. Mark, this is Lance. Well, really James."
Mark was speechless. Lance was speechless. Finally, Lance giggled as he shyly asked Mark a question.
"Mark, do you want to go for a swim?"
Lance pulled Mark into the room, "you can come in while I change in the bathroom. Dale we'll catch up with you later." Mark shut the door behind him with a resounding thud.
Dale was left standing in the hallway. After staring at the door for a few minutes he slowly walked down the hall to another room. He knocked softly on the door and waited.
The door swung open, and Joey was standing there. Joey grinned. "Oh baby, I've missed you." He pulled Dale into his arms and hugged him tightly.
Dale tensed, and pulled away slightly.