My Girlfriend Made Me Do It

Oh yeah, don't read this if you're illegally emigrated from Nairobi, you don't know what the internet is, or you have a problem with demonstrative pronouns in the subjunctive mood. (that's called a joke. You can laugh). Seriously though, don't read if you're under 18, if you think this is real life, like that psycho played by Kim Basinger on Friends that one time, or if you have moral issues with this kind of...erotic material.

I'll level with you. This is a LONG ASS chapter, and I have a lot of things going on at the same time in the same chapter. If its hard to follow, please let me know. Its also like, 4 pages longer than usual in Word. And I left my famous cliffhanger at the end, because I just couldn't find a good place to stop. Sorry, but I had to do it this way, so if you don't like my main character that much, save yourself from time. Be patient, and be sure to read my little blurb at the end for when my next update will be.

I was back in Purgatory, that tasteful, yet god-forsaken waiting room in Josh's studio. Having seen all there is to see of that room, I opened the Levelor-blind covered windows, which offered me a tantalizing view of Studio 5, a radio station that was attached to the Jive corporation.

Studio 5 went all out in terms of architectural prowess and mystique. The beige-tan stucco is hardly ever seen these days, especially in Southern California, and the landscaping work done in asphalt is absolutely brilliant. And those rolling garage doors with the huge number 5 spray painted on, sheer magic.

Josh, Joey, Lance, and It (aka Chris) were having a meeting with their executive producers, right now, and I had been told to wait in the lobby like a good boy until all the damage could be dealt with. Chris still was number one on my hit list, and I had considered the idea of finding his red Porsche in the parking lot and doing ten times more damage than he had done to Josh's Jag.

But I was smart enough not to consider actually doing it. I would be immediately arrested, and probably forbidden to go near N'Sync ever again.

I instead was trying to think of other, more subtle ways of getting even with him. But us dumb ass jock boys aren't very good with subtlety, and outside of beating the shit out of Chris the next time I saw him, there wasn't much I could think of for revenge.

So instead I thought about my other problem, the problem with Justin. I didn't really think there was a problem until Joey and Lance told me they knew he was gay, and that they thought he was hot for me. Which was ridiculous.

But then again...was it so ridiculous? Justin had been spending an awful lot of time with me lately. And I had caught him looking at me a few times in the gym earlier. But I had shrugged it off as a typical guy thing, you know. Checking out the other guys equipment, that sort of thing. I didn't think he could be attracted to me. Plus, where was this kind of thinking going to leave me? Was I going to worry about guys now? Because I didn't know if I wanted that. Being with Josh was one thing; thinking of every other guy on earth as a potential sex partner was quite another. That was just one step further on the gay trail, when I thought I had already walked far enough.

But now that the idea was out there, I couldn't help thinking about it. Why would Justin be interested in me? Could it be because he doesn't know any gay guys except Josh and me, and he's already tried Josh, so by default, I was next? Maybe.

If I thought of Justin as a girl with a crush, then I thought that maybe I had kind of led him on, by being so buddy-buddy with him all of a sudden. I had agreed to lie for him, and had spent a lot of time talking to him. I was kidding myself if I thought that Justin was going to be just a typical buddy. I had told him a lot of personal stuff last night. Stuff you usually only tell your girlfriend. Or, in this case, boyfriend. There's that word again. I was still a little touchy about it. Would that ever change? Maybe Justin thought there was something more to that. Maybe he thought that since I was so willing to pour myself out to him, and lie to Josh to cover his ass, that I wasn't very happy with Josh.

But I was happy with Josh, right? Josh made me feel special. Whenever I walked in the room, his eyes lit up like sparklers. He was so quiet, and kind and gentle. He always put my needs ahead of his own. He made me feel like I was the king, and I was nothing in front of all his fame and talent. He deserved so much better, I was starting to worry that I wouldn't be able to give him all he needed.

And just like Josh had worried I would, I wasn't really handling all this music business very well. I couldn't stand the long hours, because in the mean time, instead of pining away for Josh, like the love sick clown I was supposed to be, I was worrying about everything except Josh. Like my own sexuality when I thought about Josh or Lisa. Chris. Now Justin.

Justin couldn't like me in that way. Plus, Justin was a guy, and I had pretty much convinced myself that if there wasn't a Josh in the picture, there wouldn't be any more guys. Sort of a way to deny that I was...whatever I was. Even I didn't know yet if I was bi, straight, or gay. I just wanted to try this thing with Josh out. I really liked Josh. A lot. He was so spirited and caring. And man, the sex? It blew my mind! Sex with Josh was unlike anything in this world, seriously. I know we had only done it once or twice, but all he had to do was say the word, it was so much better than I had ever thought it would be. I never lasted very long when I was with Josh. And because he was a guy, it made it almost...wrong, which oddly enough made it even more exciting. If only he wasn't a guy. Then everything would be perfect.

But also...Josh was much more sensitive and emotional than most guys. He was a total fighter, but he would willingly toss in the towel if any one of his friends was hurting. He was also the only one that I could turn to, and really feel like he knew what I was saying or feeling. I needed someone who could be strong for me when I was weak, but also someone who needed me as much as I needed them. I knew that Josh was perfect for that role. He was strong when he needed to be, but also almost delicate at times, that it made me want to defend him with my life, because I wouldn't want anyone to take away that smile that I had fallen in love with.

So that was it. Josh was the perfect guy for me, if it was a guy that I was destined to be with. I just couldn't like another guy in that way. But Justin? Voted Sexiest Guy Alive by one of these magazines left strewn about the lounge? He was interested in me? He just couldn't. Couldn't, because even the thought of me being intrigued by his interest just downplayed everything that I just tried to rationalize about Josh. Justin can't like me, because I don't know what I would do if I weren't with Josh. What would I do? Would I be interested in him? If I had never met Josh, and it had been Justin who had run after me that day of the concert instead, what would have happened? Would I still have all these weird feelings about maybe being gay to sort out?

My mind just wouldn't let go of it, and it haunted me all the rest of the day, even when the rest of the guys finished their meeting and took me out to lunch.

Josh insisted that I change out of my workout clothes, and he tried to get me to wear some of his stuff that he had stashed in his dressing room, but nothing of his fit. Everything he thought looked sexy was really tight and, kind of "gay" in my opinion. When I told him this, he scrunched up his face, and kind of got quiet for a second. I felt terrible. But we didn't have long to brood: Josh and I both needed to pack, and get ready for something that night that Mr. Wright had arranged for us both as a reward for Josh's tireless efforts in the studio the past few weeks. Some sort of night on the town kind of thing, and we had to be ready by seven o'clock.

So, with only three of the guys in attendance, Joey suggested that we all go to Houston's for lunch, this restaurant he knew that was close by and served seafood.

Chris obviously declined the invite, if Joey had even asked him, so the four of us all got into Lance's 4x4 and headed out to lunch. I'll get back to Chris in a while. I know you all are wondering when he'll finally grow up.

During the ride, Josh told me that Johnny had said that Justin was fine. He needed to stay off his ankle, and he was being wrapped up and given crutches to carry. Mr. Wright had then asked him if it was a good idea to cancel the Cancun performance, but Justin had insisted on going through with it. He wouldn't be able to dance, but everyone agreed that he would be getting some mad sympathy from the fans if he came out in crutches, and then MTV could bank on that. I told you, pop music is 90% image, 10% talent.

Nobody seemed particularly disturbed, or even surprised by this change of plans. Mr. Wright himself had probably not put up much of an argument for canceling the performance anyway, and nobody even griped about it. But I was trying to put thoughts of Justin out of mind, so I tried to change the subject. It was relatively easy, as Josh was still a little touchy about me and Justin, and Lance and Joey knew that if it was touchy between us, they shouldn't bring it up.

We entered the restaurant with Josh, Joey and Lance in partial disguises. I had borrowed some of Lance's clothes, a plain white polo and dark blue jeans. Although Lance and Josh were the same height, a few inches shorter than me, Lance had a much more conservative taste. And since we were going out in public, they had all changed into regular street clothes after the extra rehearsals were cancelled, and before we went in, they donned baseball caps and sunglasses. Josh was wearing my Huskies cap, backwards. Alright, it was a little cute, but shut up.

We talked about a lot of different things, but it was obvious that there was a tension over lunch. Joey and Lance asked us quietly if everything was ok between the two of us, and we looked at each other briefly before responding.

"We'll be ok, we just need a little time alone together," Josh said. I quietly ate my salmon in silent agreement, my reticence exemplified.

Even though lunch was kind of boring, the three of them talking about business, I couldn't help reflecting on what a great looking guy Josh was. He was sitting with his back to the windows, so that the light came off him just right, framing him in the sun.

The entire time we were talking, I just kept looking at Josh as he talked, noting the way the light played off his long dark lashes, the way his brilliantly white teeth were in his wide smile, the way his laugh was just as musical as his songs. I loved his firm jaw on his tanned, flawless face, the little beard so cute and mischievous.

I liked his dark hair now. I know it had been professionally styled and everything, but it still managed to look carefree and sexy as hell. It was still long, to about his shoulders, but long hair on a guy with strong shoulders like Josh can be so hot. Did I just say that? God, the next thing I know I'll be wearing tight pants and purple tank tops, singing show tunes. But I couldn't quit looking at him.

Josh was wearing a plain black windbreaker, and he made it look fantastic. But that was josh, he was so good-looking, he could make a burlap sap look sexy. His tight shoulders strained against the material, and his thin frame was just perfect for his slightly baggy black jeans. Even his Topsiders were sexy. Dark blue with white trim. Josh knew clothes, man. Everything he wore was carefully picked out.

About halfway through the rather sober meal, Justin called Josh's cell. He said he was back at the condo. He and Josh talked briefly about something, Josh answering crisply in very short Yes's and No's, obviously irritated at Justin's insidious interruption. Then, he asked to talk to me.

Josh's face looked very funny as he passed the phone over, and I saw Lance and Joey watching us out of the corner of my eye.

"Hello?" I said distantly. Even if I was right and Justin had no interest in me, it was obvious that Josh thought otherwise. Could Justin be so stupid that he didn't even realize what he was doing to Josh and me? Or was he doing it on purpose?

"Hey there, sexy. Thought I'd died on the operating table, did ya?" he joked, his calm tone sounding cheerful. Quite the opposite of Josh in his dark little mood swings.

"Of course not. Are you ok?" I said gingerly, still hearing his words, hey there sexy, ringing in my head.

"Nah. It takes more than a twisted ankle to knock out the great Timberlake," Justin said nonchalantly.

"What did the doctor say?"

"I'll be fine, just need some crutches for about a week. No biggie."

"And what about Saturday? They said you're going through with it. How come?"

"Come on man, those teenage girls will eat me up if I come out on crutches. Females. They're all little Florence Nightingales."

"You really worried me, Justin. Why didn't you just go when I said to?"

"And miss hearing that you care about me? Of course not!"

I paused. What did that mean? I hadn't meant...wait, what had I said?

"Austin? You still there, buddy?"

"Yeah, I'm here." I said distantly, still kind of lost in thought.

"Can you do me a favor?"

"Yeah?" I said hesitantly.

"Can you bring my car back for me? I think I left all my stuff in it. I'd really appreciate it." Suddenly I was his butler?

I didn't say anything for a few seconds.

"Dude, I was kidding." He said.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Justin laughed. He laughed like a little kid, giggling uncontrollably.

"Hey, you wanna watch a movie or something tonight?" he said.

"Um, actually, your manager gave Josh and me some tickets to some outdoor downtown performance tonight," I said.

"Oh yeah, the Lizhettis, I forgot about that." Justin said. "Hey, let me go get something new to wear, I'll go with you guys."

"But we only have two tickets." I said.

"So? I'll buy one at the door. It's not exactly a sold out show. Its an acrobatics act, for crying out loud," he said sarcastically.

Running out of excuses, I looked up at Josh, and covered the mouthpiece with my hand. "He wants to go with us to the thingy tonight. Should I tell him no?"

Josh looked at me, his expression blank. Whatever I did next would either keep me out of his ice storm for a few more hours, or would keep me forever in the doghouse.

"Justin, I don't know if you would want to come. It's going to be really boring," I said, trying my best not to sound as if I were saying 'Josh doesn't want you to go.'

"Sure I do. Its our last night in LA man, I'd do anything with you. I mean, I'd do anything," he said, correcting himself.

"Justin...I don't know how to say this...but Josh and I kind of need some time alone, tonight, is that ok?" I said finally. Surely he could get that hint.

"Oh. Right. Josh." He said awkwardly. An uneasy silence followed this.

"Are you ok with that?" I said, seeing as how no one, not Josh, Justin, Lance or Joey was saying anything.

"Yeah, sure Austin. I mean, like its not like we were going on a date or anything, right? Heh heh," he said nervously.

I laughed slightly, more than was necessary out of tension, but I cut it out. "Look, Justin, we need to talk," I said, but he interrupted.

"Hey Austin, I have to get going ok, I'll talk to you tomorrow on the plane," he said abruptly.

"Justin, wait," I said, but he hung up quickly before I could try and clue him in.

I looked back at the phone sadly, then turned to look at the other guys. None of them wanted to look at me.

I placed the phone back on the table. "Josh," I started, but he sighed, not looking at me, then signaled our waitress for the check.

"Josh, wait a second, ok? Stop." He pursed his lips and crossed his arms stiffly across his chest.

"I said no, ok? I said he couldn't go because it's supposed to be just us tonight."

Josh still didn't say anything, and instead concentrated on something way off to the right of me.

"I didn't even invite him, he just invited himself. What else do you want me to say? He isn't coming," I said.

"You could at least look at me. Or are you just too damn stubborn?" I said, annoyed. Josh shouldn't embarrass me like this in front of Joey and Lance. I didn't even do anything.

"Austin, I just don't like this, ok? I trust you, I do, I just...I just don't trust him."

"What are you talking about?"

Finally, Josh directed his blue-jeweled gaze back at me. Joey, obviously sensing a private talk coming between Josh and me, suddenly stood up, saying to Lance: "Have you seen the new smoker's patio? They say you can actually hear the carcinogens burning away your lungs!"

"Fascinating!" countered Lance. "Shall we?" They both hurried away.

Watching them leave, I turned to Josh.

"Josh, there is nothing going on between me and Justin, ok? Absolutely nothing. You are the one I can't stop thinking about, how could you even accuse me of something like this?"

"I didn't accuse you," said Josh. "Yet," He added.

"Getting pissed off because he called, which I have no control of by the way, is pretty much accusing me," I said angrily.

Josh responded by picking at his plate, rolling the green parsley sprig around in the dark brown sauce from his fillet.

"You say you trust me, but you really don't Josh." Josh still didn't way anything.

"If you did, then you'd have enough confidence in me that I would make my own decisions. I think you are totally wrong about him. I think he's just trying to be real friendly to make up for being such an ass earlier this week."

Josh's face hardened. "I so knew that this was going to happen. Justin has always wanted to take what I have. Always." Which didn't exactly answer my question...

"Josh..." I started to interrupt, but Josh wasn't really listening to me anyway.

"Ever since the very beginning, he's been nothing but a stage hogging spoiled little selfish prima donna, snapping up all the interviews and grabbing all the hot spots. It was my dream to be a singer, not his. He was just this pesky little kid, I was the one who wanted to make it big. But as soon as they heard him, they were all over him. Oh how cute he is, oh he's going to be a crowd pleaser that Justin, oh what a voice."

I stayed quiet. Somehow I knew Josh had been harboring a deep seated resentment toward Justin. Justin seemed to get all the glory while josh, the obviously better singer, had nothing to hold onto. It was Justin everyone remembered. Josh was the one they forgot. It was so obvious. On all of those magazine covers Justin had thrown at me a few days ago, Justin was always in the center, the biggest face, the widest smile.

Josh's phone started ringing again, but Josh didn't reach for it. Instead, he continued to gaze sadly into his calamari, years of resentment behind his words. I shut off the phone.

"Josh, I understand a little of how you are feeling right now, but just because you resent Justin doesn't mean you can take it out on me." I said abruptly.

"I never said I..."

"You didn't actually say the words, but you might as well have said them anyway." Josh sat in silence still, a tacit admission of guilt.

"Josh, why do you do this? Why can't you just talk to me, instead of blowing things out of proportion like this?"

Josh suddenly looked back up at me. His gaze like a beacon, beckoning me further into those blue tinted orbs. I slowly started to melt as I thought about how piercing and blue those eyes were, and how full of hope and need...

"Austin, what's happened to me? Why do I feel this way? It's like...everything you say or do is like ...it's like I feel you're slowly sliding away from me. When I barely even got a chance to hold on to you."

"Josh..."I said tenderly, gazing into those soulful eyes.

"It's like, I finally got what I've been looking for my whole life, and now I see everything as an attempt to take him away from me."

"I'm not going anywhere, Josh," I said softly.

"I know. God, I'm so screwed up! I think its because I haven't been with anyone so long, I'm trying really hard not to fall for you so that I don't get hurt," he finally said. And that was it, that had to be it. It wasn't Justin, or his job, or the thousands of other things that kept coming between us. He was afraid to get close to me, just like I had been.

Both of us were in tears, obviously. Jesus, and I thought I'd cried myself out this week. I needed to go to a football game soon or something, all there was left to do was cry.

"What the hell do you think I've been doing? I keep putting things in my mind so that I don't have to think about how much in love I am with you, Josh. I was afraid that...I was afraid that you didn't want me to get that close. I thought that's why you kept pushing me away."

"Of course not, Austin, I love you more than life itself, there isn't a minute that goes by when I'm not thinking about you," he dribbled. I cupped his chin with my hand, and we stayed like that, looking into each other's eyes as our tears faded, and we became cognizant of the fact that we were in the middle of a crowded restaurant. I quickly smeared my sleeve over my tears. If anyone asked, I got some tartar sauce in my eye.

Lance and Joey came back, took one look at us and beamed.

"I knew you guys would work it out," said Joey, as he cuffed me roughly on the shoulder."

"Oh yeah, and now that we see you guys are pretty serious, we're going to have to give you the standard big brother warning, Austin," said Lance seriously.

"What warning?" I said, looking from one to the other.

"The 'don't fuck with Josh or we'll kill you warning'", said Joey.

Josh burst into outrage, but we could all see it was superficial.

"Excuse me, but that's my boyfriend you're talking to!" he said, grinning.

"Would I ever to hurt a hair on his pretty little head, may I be six feet under before you guys find out," I assured Lance and Joey, who both laughed.

After lunch, Joey and Lance took us back to the condo. Josh offered for us all to go shopping, but they declined, saying that they wanted to do something "straight" for once. In jest, of course.

As we were walking back to Josh's though, we could see Justin and Chris having a conversation in the garden. They both looked up at us and fell silent, Justin holding a pair of crutches to his chest, Chris drinking what was left of a Corona.

Since they were still out of ear shot, I whispered to josh, "Are you still angry at Justin now? He's only trying to be nice to me because he's your friend."

Josh considered this, then finally came to a conclusion. "I guess you're right. I just jumped to all the wrong conclusions. I'm sorry baby."

I wrapped my arms around him from behind, and tenderly kissed his neck, in full view of both of them.

"Apology accepted."

"Let's just ignore them," Josh murmured, as he unlocked his door.

Have I told you what the complex looks like? I might have described it briefly a while back, but just to refresh your memory, the lot is in the shape of a square with the southwest corner cut off. On that diagonal is the main street, Sandalias. The parking lot is in a long strip that goes across the whole property on the south side, and it's guarded by wrought iron gates painted pink. The actual living part features an alley that covers the east side, and an elaborate pool deck that's on the west side along the diagonal. The six condos are arranged like this. As soon as you enter the complex from the parking lot, going north, there are three two story separate buildings aligned along the east wall. They have a cement path leading from their front doors down a sidewalk to the parking lot, and to the sitting area in the middle of the lot, which has the fountain and a patio and I think a barbeque. You can't see the pool at all from there, and is usually pretty quiet. The three condos on the west side are lined up parallel to Sandalias Boulevard, so they're staggered in a diagonal, and they lead away from the focal point, making the lot look a lot bigger than it actually is.

Josh has the middle condo on the east side, Joey's is directly across from his. Lance has the first pool side condo to the south, and Justin has the one furthest from the parking lot, bordering the pool. Chris lives in one of the two condos bordering Josh, making them neighbors, but I didn't know if it was the northern most building, or the one closest to the parking lot.

At the very northern tip of the property was a larger building that Josh said was the owner's property, though I have never seen an owner or anyone living there. He said it used to be a social hall, but was now being used for storage. The other sixth condo was also unoccupied, or else was used for guests. I'm not sure which.

Forgive my little architecture lesson for a minute. It'll come in handy later, though.

Even though josh felt like ignoring the whole issue with both Justin and Chris, I was not so easy to forgive and forget. Now that I saw Chris, I realized that right now was the perfect opportunity to confront him for once and for all. Joey and Lance weren't here to hold me down, and Justin was in crutches.

Josh walked into his condo and set his bag down on the table in the hall, while I advanced over to the patio towards Chris and Justin.

"Austin, hey..." Justin started to say, but I walked right by him, ignoring him. Chris got up out of his seat as he saw my steely determination, and he backed off a few steps. He still hadn't said anything, but I think he knew what I was just about to do.

He threw up his hands in a gesture of defense.

"Slow down, you fucking psycho, I didn't do anything to you!" he said, almost jogging back as he saw me come after him.

I kept going after him, and he kept trotting backward until his back hit the wall of Joey's condo.

I stepped up until I was two feet away from him and grabbed his shirt collar, forcing him to look into my eyes. Chris is only about 5'7". It wasn't that hard.

I yanked him up against me, ignoring Justin's shrill cries behind me and attempts to stumble over towards us on crutches.

"Listen you little pinhead. I've tolerated just about enough your little bullshit. And if I hear one more fucking word out of your mouth about me or Josh, I'm going to take you, jam my hand down your throat, and pull your pathetic little balls out from the inside. Got it?" I snarled, my face about two inches from his.

Abject fear was in Chris' eyes, and he knew from experience that I didn't mess around. He was probably half wondering if I was the one who'd broken Justin's foot. I had knocked Justin out before, and I had even muscled Joey and Lance around, when they were back in Seattle on their album tour. Top that with the fact that I was a good five inches taller, twenty pounds heavier, and an athlete, and I thought that I would certainly be able to put a stop to these little childish antics.

I wasn't counting on Chris being a little pussy, as I suddenly felt a hard fist slam into my stomach.

Pain coupled with disbelief crowded my vision, and as I bent over to recover, Chris pounded me in the middle of my back, at the same time cussing up a storm.

Chris's legs were spread far apart, and I took advantage of it by grabbing his ankle and shoving it over, so that he toppled, slamming his face into the concrete of the sidewalk. Regaining my composure, I waited for him to get up, not wanting to hit someone when they're down, even if it is Chris, but he instead launched himself at me like a football player, tackling me against my already sore stomach, slamming me against the wall.

I'd had enough of this bullshit, and I slammed my fist into his face, yanked him off me, and kept hammering my fist into his head. Chris had no idea how to fight, and instead covered up his head with his hands, so that I could start working on his body.

I was so angry, I couldn't even stop myself; I just kept hitting Chris. The rest was a blur.

Josh and Justin I guess tackled me from behind, and managed to throw me off, while Chris started talking about calling the police for assault, even though I hadn't even done enough to make him bleed. Apparently I hadn't hit him hard enough.

I tried to chase him off, but Josh and Justin both held me down.

"Chris, just get out of here, right now," said Josh.

"I don't have to listen to you, you fucking queer," he retorted. Justin threw his crutch at him.

"Stop saying that you fucking dickhead. We just talked about this, Chris, what the hell?" said Justin from on top of me.

"Get out NOW!" Josh yelled. "I could just let him up you know," he said nonchalantly, referring to me. I was still glaring at Chris.

Chris hesitated, debating on whether to save his pansy ass from me, or to stand up to Josh, his sudden mortal enemy. He took the coward's way out, as usual.

"I'm talking to Johnny about this, Fag. I'll tell him...I'll have your psycho fag lover locked up, you little bitch," he said as he ran off to his condo, nearly tripping over the barbecue grill because he was walking backwards, glaring at all three of us.

After he was gone, Justin and Josh started worrying about what Chris could do. I wasn't afraid of him physically, but I had hit him pretty hard, and I could go to jail for it, I realized. It wasn't fair, but it was true. God damn it, all I had wanted was him to just leave us the fuck alone.

Justin seemed to think that Chris wouldn't call the police. He hated cops, and thought that they were nothing but a bunch of lazy pigs with nothing to do but mess with people. But Chris had also threatened to call Johnny Wright, and Josh had gone pale. What would the company do to Josh? That's what I worried about.

Although Justin's claim relaxed me a little about the police thing, we had a new problem once Josh and I walked back to his condo and we found Justin behind us. He was getting pretty adept at hobbling around on his crutches, and now he seemed to be almost as adroit as he had been without them. I assumed that he had probably already used crutches before. I know I have.

I wanted to talk to Josh alone however, to figure out what our next move should be. I didn't want Justin getting involved. Unfortunately, we found that we couldn't shake him off, he just followed us back to the condo and started apologizing for Chris, that he was just real nervous about how the band could possibly survive if one of the members was gay, when it was already past its peak. Which was a total crock of bull. Chris was just an asshole, with simplistic, unfounded beliefs and screwed up morals. But Justin insisted that it would only be a short time before even Chris would at least be civil.

Josh was worried about who Chris might tell, and he moaned that it might mean the end of the band if this went on any longer. Chris was known to hold grudges. How would they be able to perform together on stage? Justin seemed to think that we were worrying over nothing, and that somehow Joey would get through to him. Right now, Joey wasn't speaking to Chris, and was treating him like the weasel he was, but since they had been best friends since they were babies practically, Justin was confident that Chris would crack under pressure from Joey. I realized with a twinge of guilt that Joey's decision to support Josh and me ripped apart the friendship between Joey and Chris, and I know how hard it is to lose your best friend.

Justin's chipper attitude served as a good distraction, and when nothing happened an hour after the incident, we assumed that either Chris was too chicken to do anything, or even if he did tell the whole world, nothing major would happen. At around 2 o'clock we were in for a nasty surprise. The three of us were sitting in Justin's kitchen, drinking lemonade and talking about what our plans were for tomorrow, when Josh's phone rang shrilly.

We all looked at it in surprise. We were oddly enough having a pretty good time together, the three of us, even though there was a little bit of awkwardness that lingered after every laugh. It was perfectly normal for Josh to feel a little stiffness, because he still kind of thought Justin was after me, no matter how much he tried to deny it. I caught the way his eyes narrowed, however subtly, when I laughed at Justin's jokes, but why was Justin suddenly acting so forlorn? Maybe it was like I had thought before, and that seeing us just made him miss a real relationship. Either way, the three of us were still a little iffy at this point.

"Yes sir," Josh said after sighing when he caught sight of the caller ID. It must have been Mr. Wright. Then there was a long pause, Josh's face getting longer and longer. Justin and I traded shrugs. This must be it, the call we had been dreading and hoping wouldn't come.

"But...I'm sorry but...," Josh kept trying to say, but Mr. Wright apparently kept interrupting, because he fell silent for awhile.

"You can't do that!" he insisted suddenly. Justin and I both looked up at him.

"I already arranged everything!... ... ... No!... ... ...Fine! I'll just book my own god damn plane!" Josh said, then hung up.

We sat in silence for a minute, Justin and I glancing at each other over Josh's head.

Josh started to talk, in a small, woeful voice that told us he was really worried, and that he didn't know what to do. I quickly wrapped him in a hug, but he failed to respond to it, and just kept staring at the window over the table as he talked.

"That was Johnny." Josh said hollowly. "Chris just called him and told him everything. About me. And Austin. Then he said that he wasn't going to Cancun and that we would have to cancel the performance."

Justin was dumbfounded. "What? If we aren't canceling the performance because of me, why the hell would we cancel the performance because of this? That is such bullshit JC. Give me that phone. I'm calling him back."

"But..." Josh said loudly, interrupting Justin. Justin dropped the hand that he had held out for Josh's cell, though his eyes were still steely determined.

"Johnny told him that he had a contract to fulfill, and that whatever me or Austin did was our own business, and he couldn't use it as an excuse to bail."

"Well that's good!" I said brightly, squeezing Josh's shoulders.

"But now we have to sign confidentially agreements, and some more papers that will restrict our public relationship, and I can't go with you guys on the jet tomorrow."

"What!?!" Justin thundered. "Why the fuck not? That little fucking idiot, I'm going to kick his redneck ass, the little..."

"What kind of papers?" I asked curiously.

Justin answered me on that one. "Confidentiality agreements. They usually make all our bodyguards sign one, as well as everyone at Jive. I didn't think they could make friends sign one..."

"Basically it means that you can't tell anyone outside of the business anything personal about me, to ruin my reputation. As if I had one."

"Why would they make Austin sign one?" Justin wondered aloud.

I had a pretty good idea why. Josh still had an image to protect, and that my involvement with him might threaten their business interests. It made me feel a little queasy.

"We'll figure this out, Josh. Chris isn't going to get away with this." Justin said.

"It's already done. Johnny booked me two tickets on a public airline to avoid confrontation. He said that he hoped I would be mature enough to handle the mess that I got myself in to." Josh said bitterly. Nobody knew quite what to say at this point. Then Justin quickly made it his mission to distract Josh and me from the gloomy change of plans that was a direct signal of disapproval from Josh's superiors. His little quirky attitude was kind of uplifting, and his golden hair in the light made him appear almost angelic. But Josh seemed too defeated to try and fight his boss on the issue, and I told him that I would stand by him no matter what. He decided to take the plane tickets Johnny gave him, do the performance that weekend, but after that he would stop being Johnny's slave, and he would stop doing anything more than was absolutely necessary for the band. His sense of obligation to the band was rapidly deteriorating, and nothing Justin or I could say would be able to convince Josh to stand up for himself and fight for what was right.

Realistically, it was a more of a lack of conviction on Justin and my part than a determination to submit to the rules by Josh. Justin and I both were struggling with our sexuality, and we both knew that we couldn't encourage Josh to be assertive about himself if we weren't willing to do it ourselves. Neither of us wanted to be in Josh's shoes, and I would have done the same thing in this situation. Bow down. You can't fight for something if you aren't sure that it's right. I think this little incident just shoved both Justin and me about twenty feet back into our respective closets.

So we tried the distraction approach, and I tried to pretend to be thrilled that I would be taking a long, stuffy public plane to Mexico. Justin quickly launched into a series of jokes about Chris, and we laughed at every single one of them, each one more unlikely than the last.

Eventually, we forgot about everything, and just started spending the afternoon together like three old friends, talking about all that we would see and do tomorrow when we landed. Josh shrugged off his stipulations from Johnny, and got into a really good mood. So good, it was almost like this morning had never happened.

But even with that issue on the backburner, I remembered the other issue that was still up in the air, as I felt Justin grabbing my shoulder again to help him upstairs. The issue between me and Justin.

Right after that phone call, Josh and I had quickly warmed up to Justin and his cheerful attitude. We also kind of felt bad for him with his messed up foot and everything. Justin realized this of course and milked it for all he was worth, pretending to need my help to do simple things like open doors for him. Justin had been playing his feel-sorry-for-me role so hard, we couldn't resist him, and we let him walk all over us all afternoon. At first, we didn't even really mind the constant interruptions and the zero alone time we were getting because Justin was turning on the charm for both of us. He was a really funny guy, always had a joke for everything. Justin just has that kind of power over people, I don't know. It's hard to resist him. But I think his charm was working a little too hard on me, and I was starting to overanalyze everything Justin said and did, even if I knew there was nothing there.

Justin followed me everywhere, and complimented me at every turn. As I was carrying Josh's three heavy suitcases downstairs, he remarked on how buff I looked in Lance's white polo shirt. He said that it was so great that Josh found someone so hot.

When I was bending over to grab a sock that had fallen under my bed, he said that I had a nice ass, and that Josh had great taste. Josh was in the room at the time, and he flushed as if it were a compliment to him, but I kept thinking that Justin had meant something else.

Justin continued to pepper compliments to Josh, usually in reference to me, all afternoon, until he relented and decided that Justin could go to the Lizhetti Acrobatics Act tonight, more so to try and prove to me that he wasn't still jealous than a favor to Justin. It was flimsy, however, because I saw how he kept "casually" dropping by my room where Justin was talking to me to make sure we weren't up to something. But it was different than before. He wasn't acting sharp or mean to either of us, and I think he was just trying to get used to the fact that Justin and I were going to be friends. Besides, Justin was his best friend, right?

Still, I seemed to become overly sensitive to everything Justin did. Every little joke he made seemed like flirting to me, even though in ordinary times I'm sure was nothing. I knew that Justin didn't really have an interest in me, but he sure touched me a lot. He was always grabbing my shoulder or smacking me on the arm or leg. Did that mean anything? Did it mean anything when I said, "Dude, you need to get laid," when I had commented on his tendency to always interrupt us, and he had winked and answered, "Just name the time and place, stud." Was it just a joke?

Regardless, Justin stayed with us all afternoon, helping us pack. Really, he helped me pack much more than Josh, but that was probably just my hypersensitivity to the whole issue. He was probably being just as helpful to Josh. It just seemed like he spent an awful lot of time with me. I think it was because Joey and Lance had put the idea that Justin liked me in my head, and now I thought everything that Justin did was somehow a come-on. If Joey and Lance hadn't said anything, then I would have seen nothing abnormal about the way Justin was acting.

The time seemed to pass in slow motion. I decided to distract myself from overanalyzing every move of Justin's by concentrating on Josh. I remembered all the times Justin had interrupted us halfway through something really hot, and I started to get horny. As I was packing, all I could think about was sex with Josh. How good it was. How hot he made me, and how hot he looked with that little horny grin in his eyes. It didn't take very long for me to pack, since I was practically living out of my suitcase anyway, and then Justin and I got into this long talk about baseball. He seemed to talk forever about nothing, it was such a chore to try and carry on a conversation when all I was thinking about was getting freaky with Josh.

Unfortunately, as the afternoon went on, I started to get antsy. Justin never left Josh and me alone, not even for a quick kiss. It was always either him and me, or him and Josh, or the three of us, and all day, there was nothing I wanted more than to be alone with my sexy ass Josh. I was getting a bad case of blue balls, and I was starting to get irritated every time Justin walked into wherever we were at, with a sample CD or some food he wanted us to try.

Whenever we did manage to walk into a room alone for something, like film for the camera, it would only be a few seconds before we heard him behind us. Justin, our shadow. I think he was purposely preventing us from hooking up, which of course made us want each other even more.

At around five thirty, I could tell that Josh felt exactly the same I did. The three of us were at Justin's place, and he was trying to decide on what he wanted to wear to the thing tonight. I caught Josh's eyes over his head and saw total lust in them, locked back on me. I licked my lips, but he nodded to Justin, who was still bent over, trying to compare one pair of black boots to an almost identical pair.

He kept talking: "I don't know if I want to wear these, because the pants I want to wear are going to cover them anyway. But they're Gucci, and they probably look better with black..." Oh my god, shut up and get out of here! I wanted to scream at him. But I held my tongue. I instead looked back at Josh, widening my eyes as if to say, "Oh my god, shut up!" Josh giggled, then tried to cover it up. Luckily, Justin didn't notice.

About twenty minutes after that, we went back to Josh's place and sat on the couch, wondering what we wanted to do for dinner while we channel surfed a little while. Josh and I sat real close next to each other, hoping to be able to at least sneak in one kiss if we found something to keep Justin's attention long enough, when Justin started to sit in both our laps, and somehow managed to squeeze in between the two of us. I wanted to smack him. So did Josh. But within a few minutes, he had us feeling sorry for him as he claimed that the end of the couch would make it harder for him to get in and out on his crutches.

Finally, FINALLY, six thirty rolled around, and Justin said that he needed to go get changed for tonight, and said he'd be back in about fifteen minutes, then slowly made for the door.

As soon as the front door closed, Josh and I jumped each other. We were in Josh's kitchen, putting the leftovers from Houston's into matching Tupperware containers, when he just tackled me and I fell backwards into the counter, his teeth sinking into my earlobe as his legs pushed me back, knocking over several containers of Salmon. His legs tangled into mine, his hard cock right up against my thigh as his tongue did a lap dance in my ear. At the same time, his hands felt all over the muscles in my arms and chest, his thigh rubbing up against my jeans.

"Hurry, he only said he'd be out for fifteen minutes," Josh said huskily, his sexy voice sounding so full of need that I was going crazy. He reached out and grabbed the bottom of my shirt, yanking it over my head. At the same time, I grabbed the zipper of his jeans and quickly tore them down.

"That's enough time," I groaned, as I grabbed his now freed muscular ass, cupping him against my thigh, his thick rod practically stabbing me in the leg.

I slid his jeans down his long, sexy legs, my hand parting them just barely as I trailed it back up, lightly pressing his asshole through his boxers, which I determined to be my next prize. Meanwhile, my tongue was raping his the tender skin between his shoulder and his neck, biting and sucking the flesh just above his collar bone.

Josh's hands were still kneading my chest, as his head abruptly dipped down to shove his tongue into my mouth. He pressed even harder into my thigh, if that were possible, and I gave up trying to take his boxers off. I couldn't slide my hand in between us. My hands instead grabbed a hold of his hips, and slammed them into mine, forcing him even harder into me as I leaned back against the counter.

With Josh's tongue still halfway down my throat, I stood up straight, bringing him up with me until I was able to lean him against the counter, and press his back into it, while my hand found the opportunity to move in and grab his fully-tented bulge in his Tommy boxers. He moaned huskily into my mouth, and my dick got about a hundred degrees hotter as I felt his hands circle and grab my ass, his fingers folding into the waistband of my blue jeans, eagerly trying to get them off of me.

I released my hold on his ass to quickly unbutton my own jeans, and I yanked them down, along with my boxer briefs, till I was completely naked.

Josh sighed contentedly seeing me in all my glory, and he quickly hopped up on the counter and peeled off his boxers, leaving him in just a T-shirt as I quickly closed the gap between us and kicked my clothes away.

Josh put his hands around my neck and dove in for a long, sensuous kiss, teasing me with his lips and tongue as his hands roamed all over my short hair and kneaded my shoulders.

I grabbed his hips and scooted him across the counter towards me, so that I could grind my naked dick into his, the slickness of his pre-cum catching the side of my leg as his thighs spread and his calves locked around my waist.

Josh's hand flicked around and he accidentally turned on the garbage disposal for a second which churned to life before we could do anything.

But as much as I loved kissing Josh and feeling his hot tongue swarming around me and twisting through my lips as I probed his mouth, I needed to be in him more than anything, so I leaned him back as far as I could until he was leaned back against the upper kitchen cabinet, and his arm knocked over the takeout boxes of food which splattered to the ground.

I swept the rest of the stuff on the counter into the sink, and I broke our lip lock for a second to poke my finger into my mouth to prepare Josh for the rough entrance I was about to make. Josh, already well in advance of me, held up a condom that he had stashed somewhere, as well as a small tube of lube, and I shoved my tongue back in him in appreciation.

Though my eyes were closed, I was able to slide the condom on and smear a little bit of lube onto my dick in the limited space that there was left between our hot, sweaty bodies. Josh was panting in anticipation, his ass flexing and his heels digging into my lower back. His fingers were digging into my back, and it felt so hot, I thought I would explode. Once I was ready, one hand started playing with his hole, lightly teasing it before I went in, while the other started pinching Josh's nipple and rubbing the fine muscles in his chest.

Josh stopped kissing me, and we both panted for air.

"Don't tease me man, just fuck me. Now. I need it so fucking bad, babe, just slam it in, as hard as you can, we only have ten minutes." Josh panted, his eyes locked on mine. Then he bit right down on my neck, and I thought I would cum right then.

I took a step closer, the blunt end of my cock sliding too low so that it slid underneath his body, sliding up his ass crack in all the sweat he had down there, the pre-jizz that was till leaking out of his dick, which was facing straight up, aiming at me, and the lube I had hastily smeared all over the place.

I slid right past his asshole, and I groaned in frustration. The heat and sweat from hour bodies and the lube I had smeared everywhere made it hard to get a good grip on anything. Finally, I stuck my right arm out for balance and guided my cock straight for his chute, and I felt Josh take a breath from sucking on my neck as he felt it slowly slide into his little puckered hole. Remembering how hard it had been last time, I roughly yanked Josh's hips toward me as I felt his dick crush between my abs, his head smearing me with the paste from his pre-cum. My mouth was busy planting rough kisses across his neck, and I felt one of Josh's hands reach behind me and grab my ass, forcing me in.

I slid in a full three inches, one of my hands shoving Josh's thigh down so that I could spread him wider. Josh wrapped his arm around me, and I felt his bicep across my back, as I continued to force my dick further in, my other arm wrapping around his hips and pulling him up me. He groaned a low, sexy groan, his fingers digging into my back as I kept pushing into him.

Once I was all the way in, Josh was chewing on the other side of my neck, and I was able to get a better gripping as I pulled out until my cock was just barely inside, then rammed it back into him, hearing Josh moan that sexy moan into the flesh of my neck.

I thrust into him again, my hot hands trying to spread his ass more for me, my stomach doing most of the work as my pole impaled his tight little butt a little deeper. We had no time to spare, as I just slammed my cock in as far as I could go, feeling the tip of my dick force into his chute. I felt his ass muscles harshly squeezing the length of my shaft as I fucked into him. Each time I fucked his little hole, he got a little tighter, and I was too far into the moment to see that he was squeezing his ass muscles with each of my forceful thrusts, matching my inward fucks with upward thrusts of his own, trying to impale himself even further on my throbbing cock. We were panting like crazy, sweat pouring over our shoulders in buckets,. As I lapped it all up from Josh neck, I felt his hands move to my chest as he started to pinch and tweak my nipples, sending waves of pleasure to my brain. Each pinch he made resulted in my fucking into him even harder, until I was driving in and out of him as fast as I possibly could, feeling his calves lock even tighter as his ass squeezed me dry. In, in, in!

I was also unintentionally banging his head against the cupboard, which I quickly brought up my arm to prevent, slowing down my thrusts, but keeping me fully lodged in that hot tight ass. It felt like I couldn't even tug myself back out of that tight chute, Josh was gripping me so tight. My other hand was still on his ass, holding his hips towards mine, and I felt him start to breathe hard, licking up my neck to meet my mouth, where he nearly devoured my spit as I practically fucked him through the cabinet behind him.

I pushed Josh's locked calves further down until they were settled right over my ass, so that he was totally open for me to drive into him like a madman. I could still feel his dick poking me in my stomach, and I grabbed it with my right hand and jacked him as fast I could, sliding my palm over the slick, sticky shaft while still pushing deeper into his bowels. I had to stand on my tiptoes to get full access to Josh's ass, and I leaned down into him to get my dick even further up his little chute, when suddenly, I felt a sticky wetness coat my pecs and hands as I heard Josh scream into my throat, and I knew that he had come. That was it for me as I shoved into him one final time and felt my jizz squirt what seemed like gallons into his little boy butt, and he squeezed every last drop out of my completely spent cock.

Still panting, we stopped kissing and I fell into him, my knees suddenly weak, as I felt his forehead meet mine, and I looked into those fire filled blue jewels. He looked completely satisfied. It was totally worth the wait.

After a second, we realized what a mess we had made. The leftovers from the restaurant were all over the floor, and Josh had knocked over a bottle of wine that spilled everywhere. We slid apart from each other, with a final hot little French, then he hopped down off the counter and helped pull the condom off me with his boxers. We got dressed as fast as we could, then quickly set to work throwing out all the food and mopping up, knowing that Justin was bound to walk in any second now.

When we were playing with the garbage disposal, we hadn't realized that something white and papery was in it, but now we could see that the disposal had chucked what was left of it all over the sink. I saw Josh look into it curiously, picking at the pieces of what had probably been a grocery list or his mom's dinner instructions or...

"Look at this," said Josh, holding up what looked like a tiny piece of paper.

"What is it?" I said, taking it and examining the piece of wet paper. It looked like an old postcard, because the paper was too thick to be receipt or notebook paper.

"That's the Lizhetti tickets!" Josh groaned, and I laughed. "I set them on the counter a while ago, and we must have knocked them into the garbage disposal," he said, peering down into the drain.

As I pulled my white shirt back over my head, the bottom somewhat stained with wine, I figured that it wasn't much of a loss. We would just have to get door tickets like Justin.

"He's going to think its weird that we'll have to buy the tickets..." Josh said, thinking ahead.

"So let's not go. There's always other things we could do." I said logically.

"I can think of a million things for two people to do, but not much for three. Besides... he's getting to be kind of a pain the ass, you know what I mean?"

I grinned. "Totally. OK, let's tell him we want to be by ourselves." I walked over and kissed Josh deeply on the mouth as he finished hastily cleaning up the kitchen.

"All he'll have to do is bat those big blue eyes and you know that we'll give in to whatever he wants. If only you didn't break his god damn foot we wouldn't feel so sorry for him," Josh said. I started to protest.

"I didn't break it..." but he silenced me with a soft kiss with his cute little lips.

"I'm just playing. But we have to think of something."

We stayed in silence a minute, trying to find a polite way to get Justin out of the way.

"I guess we have no choice. The three of us could just stay in tonight," I said sadly, already picturing a long night of the three of us on Josh's couch, Justin in between Josh and me, as we went crazy with desire.

"Or..." said Josh smiling.

I was surprised our plan worked so well. While I started up a conversation with Justin, Josh went into the other room to try to con Joey into our scheme, but it didn't require much effort on our part. Joey was more than willing to help secure a night alone for Josh and me, as long as we were willing to do the same for him and a choice lady if the opportunity arose. We readily agreed.

Joey told Justin that he also wanted to go to the performance, and he volunteered to drive Justin there, while Josh and I would go separately in Josh's other car parked in the parking lot, a silver Z4. Then Josh and I would just "forget" to show up, and Justin would simply think that he couldn't find us and would have a good time anyway with Joey.

But as it turned out, Justin decided that he didn't want to go after all. Surprising, huh? So Joey drove the car away for us, then walked back, and Justin assumed that we went without him.

Only marginally disappointed at not being able to see the acrobatics act that Mr. Wright had booked for us, I decided that a nice comfortable night in with Josh would be the perfect end to a not-so-perfect week. Josh and I wanted to be able to preserve our relationship by not letting everything else get in the way all the time.

Of course, this meant that we couldn't go out for pizza or anything, so we had to make do with what was in Josh's kitchen. Neither of us being much of a chef, the task was somewhat disheartening, but we had a pretty good time together anyway. Josh's mom was a total freak, and she had neatly detailed a list of instructions to prepare each entrée that sat in Tupperware in Josh's ice box, which we were able to follow relatively closely. We kept getting distracted by each other, and I almost let the noodles burn because I was too busy staring at Josh to hear the timer go off.

I honestly couldn't tell you what we were eating, and it didn't matter, it was a romantic evening anyway, just me and him, sitting on top of Josh's counter eating cold turkey meat straight out of the Tupperware containers because he permanently welded the chicken dumplings we were going to have to the oven pan.

"This is nice," I said, digging further into some Chinese take out container that had probably been in there since the birth of Christ.

"Sorry I'm not much of a cook..." Josh said, as he continued to scrape the last chards of the dumplings into the garbage disposal.

"Sorry nothing. You're better tasting than anything your mom could make anyway," I said, as I licked my way over his neck.

Once we cleaned up the kitchen, Josh suggested we watch a movie, but after browsing his DVD collection, there wasn't really anything we both wanted to see, so we decided just to find something on the tube.

We went into Josh's expensively decorated den and turned on the 62" big screen tv, Josh grabbing a huge remote control that was the size of a cereal box. It had a lighted screen on it, so that all Josh had to do was touch the screen, and the same image would appear on the big screen. It was a cool piece of technology, and I immediately wanted to check it out, but I decided that it was Josh' tv, so I'd let him pick. I got completely comfortable sprawled out on Josh's couch, and Josh leaned back against me. I instinctively wrapped my arms possessively around him, and he sighed contentedly. He grabbed the remote with one hand, the other placed on top of my entwined arms, and I let him pick whatever. It was his house, his TV, and my hands were busy anyway.

Josh had about 600 different channels, but only about 40 of them were "real" channels, you know, not weather reports from Moscow or those stupid channels of music on a black screen. He flicked through the local news stations, then stopped on channel 2. It was a rerun of 3rd Rock From the Sun, and I smiled, glad that Josh's TV preferences weren't dramas. We had enough of that in real life.

Since it was just barely seven thirty, the show was just starting. It was that one episode with Chyna, the buff female wrestler, who poses a threat to Sally. For awhile, Josh and I didn't really talk much, we just watched the show, occasionally laughing at the pratfalls the characters kept making. About fifteen minutes later though, Josh's cell phone started ringing, and he had to get up off of me to grab it off the table in the hall, where he stacks all his stuff every night.

"Hello?" he said, finally sitting back down into my arms. I put my chin on his shoulder, and tried to watch the TV and give him some privacy, even though I was curious as to who would be calling Josh so late.

"Oh, hi mom," he said hesitantly. Suddenly, John Lithgow was the least most important person on the planet right now. I tuned in to The Josh Show.

"No, I'm fine, I'm just watching TV," he answered. I caught the irritation in his voice.

"It's only seven thirty, ma," he answered, as his mother said something.

"I know, I know."

"Yes, I did. Thank you. I ate it last night," he said, then looked at me and fake gagged. I tried my best not to giggle. Last night, I had grabbed take-out from this Japanese place after Mike and I had hit the beach, and Josh had been in the studio all day, so you know he hadn't run home to open one of his mom's Tupperware surprises.

"Oh really?"

After a long silence (not really silence, apart from the canned set laughter, I could also hear his mother's high pitched voice coming from the phone), Josh finally said, "I'm sure she would be, but I'm fine, really. I can find my own dates." He smiled, a smile meant for me even though we weren't facing each other.

I laughed silently. Josh's mom was trying to set him up. Classic. I felt like I was on a tv show.

After awhile, Josh and his mom started really talking to each other, and I got bored listening to only one half of the conversation, so I just watched TV until I couldn't stand it anymore, then stole the remote from Josh. He audibly said, "Hey. Give that back!" and I teased him with it by holding it out of his grasp.

Suddenly, his whole body froze, his mouth hanging wide open, and I realized our mistake.

"Who's that, um no one...just...just...Justin, yeah. It's Justin." Josh said. Nice lie, Josh.

"You want to talk to him?" Josh repeated into the phone.

He looked at me, and started silently freaking out, waving his hands around as if to say, "What do I do?"

Thinking quickly, I indicated to my throat frantically.

"He...um...he has...a sore throat," JC said, looking at me strangely. I vigorously shook my head. I put my hands together as a symbol for sleep, then pointed to my throat again.

"I..., hold on," Josh said. He put his hand over the receiver.

"What the hell are you trying to say?" he hissed.

"You are terrible at charades!" I moaned. "Tell her he has to rest his voice to sing tomorrow!"

"Ohhh...," Josh said, catching on.

"That's right, I forgot, Mom. Justin has to rest his voice to sing tomorrow."

A pause. "yeah, I'll tell him. Ok, well I guess I'll talk to you tomorrow then, when I land, to let you know I got there ok. Love you."

Finally, Josh hung up.

"That was close," I said. Josh responded by smacking me on the head with a pillow.

"Ow!" I said in surprise. "Wha-?"

"You big doofus, why didn't you just sit still!" he hissed, his smile giving himself away.

"Sorry, baby," I said, giving him my best Puppy-dog Eyes. Josh melted.

"Come here," he said, grinning. He jumped on top of me, and in his haste, he made me drop the remote, which fell onto the rug with a soft plop.

His lips were so soft, they were almost like butter as I darted my tongue in between them, tasting Josh tenderly. I loved having him on top of me, my hands on his ass, as we kissed.

We made out for almost an hour, until the evening news came on at ten, and we looked up to see some chick in a bad haircut telling us that about sixty out of a hundred people interviewed would choose sex as one of their final acts on earth.

How appropriate, we thought as we turned off the TV, my arm crushing Josh to me as I fought the urge to christen the den with our animalistic desire to rip each other's clothes off and fuck right on the designer glass-metal coffee table.

Josh's hand found a master control panel at the foot of the stairs that turned off all the lights in the downstairs, which I found a very handy home feature, and he led me upstairs where I assumed I was welcome to share his bed, for a repeat of our pre-dinner fuck that we had had to rush while Justin was gone.

Josh had that sexy smile of his all over himself as he pulled me into his room, him walking backwards (and a little funny by the way) until he felt the bed touch the back of his legs and he plopped onto it, dragging me with him until I was on top of him again, my dick already ready for more action.

Sparing you the saucy details, let's just say we had a very long, slow fuck, to make up for the McSex that we had had to improvise while Justin had left to change. Each time I thrust into Josh that night, I felt I was falling even further in love with him, and just seeing him gaze up at me with those sparkling blue eyes that were so full of love and trust just set my heart on fire. I reminded myself again and again on how much better off I was with Josh, and that even though times were tough right now, as long as we had each other, we would be just fine. We fell asleep with him curled into my arms, gripping me as tight as he possibly could without choking me, and I felt on top of the world.

We were up relatively early, but probably not as early as we would have been had we caught the company jet with the rest of the group. The earliest plane that Mr. Wright could book two tickets for at such short notice left at 7:20 AM, and it would be a very long plane trip, because we had a stopover in Phoenix. In retrospect, I was thankful that Justin's presence had forced us to pack all afternoon instead of screwing each other blind, like I had wanted, because we really had no time to mess around that morning, even with everything packed. I kept wandering through the rooms, double-checking everything to make sure that everything I had brought with me to LA was packed up, and that there wasn't a trace of me left in Josh's apartment.

When I had just barely woken up and looked into the bathroom mirror for a quick shave, I realized that my neck was crowned with little red bite marks. They were huge, and especially noticeable against the white T shirt I was wearing.

"Holy shit," I said to myself as I ran my hand across my neck. I looked I had been hanged.

Josh came into the bathroom a minute later, smiling foolishly.

"Hey babe. You almost ready to go?" he said, kissing the side of my cheek as his hand encircled my waist.

I quickly looked at Josh. I had scarred him less than he had hickeyed me, but there was still a few definite red marks all over his neck. Too bad it was hot, and we couldn't wear turtlenecks.

Later on, we realized that since Mike had left with the rest of the guys really early this morning, Josh and I had to load up our own stuff into a cab to head to the airport. It was almost like Josh was a regular person, now that he was without the Jag and a bodyguard.

It was a relatively quiet morning. I know that Josh must have been feeling really abandoned, even if it wasn't anybody's fault that the rest of the group had to go by private jet. I suppose if things had been different, they might have decided to forego the jet too to show their support for Josh, but their producers had them by their balls, and all they could do was follow their orders, lest some executive wave their contract back in their face. He locked up his door quietly, and we walked down to the parking lot in silence, where the cabby, a fat, greasy-haired dude, was waiting with his trunk open.

Josh kind of just got in the car and sat there, leaving me to put all our suitcases and stuff into the trunk. He didn't do it on purpose, he was just kind of lost in thought. I decided maybe he needed some time to himself to think, and since I needed more than my share of quiet time, it was fair to leave him to himself without worrying about anything.

We both sat in the backseat, but a distance apart from each other. I popped on my headphones and listened all the way through my Disturbed "the Sickness" CD, not really thinking anything and watching the scenery pass by through the window while Josh sort of listlessly fumbled around, kneading my baseball cap in his hands.

Unfortunately, the cabby was relatively chatty, and kept trying to start a conversation. After realizing that I had put on headphones for a reason, and that Josh was obviously depressed, he finally quieted down, and the only sounds that could be heard in the car apart from my Discman was the clicking of the taxi meter as we breezed our way through the hills north of the city.

At the airport, we met our bodyguard for the day, a huge mountain of a man called Sergio. The opposite of Mike in every possible way, he was short and dark, irritable and silent. He hardly said a word as Josh shook his hand, and mutely trailed behind us as we checked in our bags and headed for the gate.

We still had about ten minutes until our flight left, so we just sat down in the corporate lounge, Josh flipping through his day planner, me looking around at the other people in the lounge. We still weren't talking to each other, but what was there to say? Gee, it sucks that your group leaves you out of everything?

There weren't really that many people taking an early flight to Cancun this morning. All the college kids were already there. There were a few businessmen, several on cell phones or laptops. There was a young couple that looked obviously ready to start their honeymoon. The only person my age was this one guy sitting by himself over near the windows. He caught my eye briefly, and I realized he was probably thinking the same thing. How boring.

A male flight attendant came in a few minutes later and said they were ready to board, so I grabbed both Josh and my bags and we followed the guy steward into the first class boarding dock, and then into the cab itself. It was nice, the chairs were real leather, and there were two of them to a row, instead of the sardine can three like in coach. It wasn't much different from the first class seats from Seattle Josh had booked me, so I wasn't too impressed.

We sat down, settled ourselves and put our seatbelts on. Josh still didn't feel like talking, as he pulled out his laptop and started up a program. He was telling me that it was some sort of hi-tech music program, but I wasn't too interested. I instead took out my Discman, made sure that my Korn CD was in it, and pulled out my calculus project.

My homework for calculus is like this. In a half-assed attempt to make calc more interesting, my prof had assigned a project in which the scenario is we are the owners of a successful amusement park, and there are several problems that have come up. I'm sure you've had similar experiments in which a horrible, complicated course is made even more disinteresting by some teacher who thinks they're doing something different. Anyway, the project lists six "problems" with your park that all require calculus, none of which would ever really be even considered in real life. For example, the first one is about how much to charge for admission. It's a max-min problem, so I have to use differential equations, and they give me two equations to work with. I'm supposed to figure out at which price I should set tickets to maximize profits, so I graph both equations, and solve for the minimum, then differentiate the second one to get the answer I need to integrate the first one. Sound easy?

All six problems are a little difficult, and although we've had quite a while to be working on this, I still had the last three to go. Unfortunately, the problems went from easiest to hardest, so I was pretty much fucked unless I found some genius friend of mine who could explain partial differentiation to me.

As I started the work though, it didn't seem that hard. It took me a long time to figure out what it was asking, but I got the first one done relatively quickly. The second one took a while. It was asking about using the calculus of volumes to determine the shape of the wave pool. This was easier to understand, but longer to calculate. It gave me five shapes to choose from, and I simply had to show which one had more volume. Don't think that the "shapes" were rectangle, circle, and square. More like, parabolic prism, ellipsoid, and hyperbola. Like anyone is going to consider buying a parabolic shaped pool, at max point x = 12.

About two hours into the flight, I realized that I wasn't even concentrating on my calculus. I had been trying to decide how to factor the last problem so that I could use the formula, and my mind began to wander. It wandered and landed on that guy that I had noticed staring at Josh and me in the corporate lounge. He was sitting across the aisle from us...and I had the feeling that it wasn't a coincidence.

There was something about that guy that just seemed...familiar to me. I mean, I had never seen him before in my life. It was just...I thought he might be gay.

How did I know this? I don't know. He wasn't wearing a rainbow colored T-shirt and a purple bandana, carrying a little flag or anything. And he wasn't one of those guys that walks and acts all flamboyant, like a girl. If anything, he looked like a total jock, except for the small hoop earring in the top of his right ear. Short haircut, chiseled good looks. He obviously worked out, was very athletic looking, and was decked out in Abercrombie.

Then why did I have this feeling? Maybe it was the way he had followed Josh and I with his eyes as we selected our seats. Maybe it was the way he kept glancing over at us every few minutes. I had caught him twice already, and each time, he had pretended to be looking slightly to the left of us.

Maybe he recognized Josh as the lead singer from N'sync. Josh had foregone the disguise route, because Sergio was sitting right behind us, so it might have been possible. And jocks don't usually listen to N'sync...that must be it, I concluded. He keeps looking at us because he's gay and listens to N'sync, and is probably wondering if we are together. Yes, it was a little stereotypical. Not all guys that listen to boy bands are gay, but I was willing to let the stereotype stand because other than a faint feeling, it was my only proof. I decided to ask my boyfriend to see if he concurred with my analysis.

"Babe," I said, nudging Josh with my shoulder.

"Mmm?" he muttered, his eyes still glued to his laptop screen, his fingers moving over the little pad that takes the place of a mouse.

"I think that guy over there might be gay," I said, looking at him to gauge his reaction.

"What guy?" he said absentmindedly, still concentrating on his software.

"That guy across the aisle. With the earring."

Josh finally tore his eyes away, leaned his head forward so that he could look past me, and peered across the aisle.

"Yep," he said after looking for two seconds. He leaned back.

I smiled to myself. "I think I'm getting pretty good at this gaydar thing," I said.

Josh rolled his eyes.

"You seem to be an expert. You only had to look for half a second and you already knew," I teased him.

"You want to know how I know?" he said, his fingers briefly clicking as he typed in something into his computer.

"How?"

"He can't stop staring at you." Oh yeah, that's it. It was my turn to roll my eyes.

"Riiiight. I think he's staring at the famous singer next to me."

"No, he can barely see me. You're in the way. But he is literally drooling over you."

"Whatever Josh."

"Look!" he insisted, his eyes back to the computer screen.

I turned to look, still skeptical. Why would anyone want to look at me?

I saw that the guy apparently wanted to. When I looked over at him, he was staring right at me, and when he saw that I was looking at him, he quickly snapped his head forward and looked down.

"Maybe we should give him something to stare at," Josh said, grinning. I smiled back at him, thankful that he wasn't going to go all jealous on me again.

"Ok."

Josh glanced around to see if anyone was looking, then leaned around me to see if the guy was still checking me out. I willed myself not to look over at the guy, and I felt Josh put his hand on my knee.

I couldn't help it. I had to see if the guy was watching. When I looked over at him, his eyes followed Josh's hand, and his mouth made a little o of surprise. When he saw that I was looking too, he turned red with embarrassment, and faced forward again. His curiosity was stronger than his embarrassment, as it took him all of five seconds to glance our way again.

Josh and I laughed so hard! It was just what we needed to get over the awkward silence between us that had been present all morning. We had to put our fists in our mouths to stifle our giggling. The people in the seats in front of us turned around to see what was with the noise, but Josh and I couldn't stop. Finally, we calmed down, and everyone stopped looking, except you know who. Josh went back to his computer and I picked up my calculator.

Half an hour passed. I finished the last of my calculus and, feeling very satisfied with myself, crossed it off my list of shit to do. That left a paper for my creative writing class, preparing for a vocab test in Japanese, and all these stupid chemistry problems, plus a lab write up. I decided to do my least favorite first, so I pulled out my chem notes. Feeling a little thirsty, I glanced around for the flight attendant and saw that the Abercrombie guy was still looking at me.

"I don't think he got the message," I said out loud, not expecting Josh to be paying much attention.

"Let's try a more direct approach," said Josh suddenly, putting his computer to sleep. He slipped it into his carryon, then took my homework out of my lap and stacked it neatly on the floor.

"Wha..." I managed to say, as Josh leaned over, then slipped his tongue in my mouth. His hand traced a line across my chest, setting me on fire. I pulled off quickly.

"Josh!" I managed not to scream. He smiled, licking his lips.

Whenever Josh smiles, I have to smile too. Its contagious. However, I was still a little concerned. "Josh, no more of that. What if someone sees and recognizes you?"

Josh waved his hand as if to dismiss the idea. "There was only one person who saw, and his eyes were most likely too concentrated on the hottie sitting next to me to even consider I might be anything other than a rival."

We both glanced across the aisle again, and we saw that the guy had finally found something more interesting to do then gawk at us. He had pulled out a laptop, but his face was still bright red with embarrassment.

"Still..." I said, bending down to retrieve my homework. "No more PDA. The risk is too great," I said.

"Awww," Josh groaned. I giggled.

"Can I get you anything, sirs?" the guy flight attendant appeared suddenly. His nametag read Zachary.

"Yeah, can I get some more champagne?" I said enthusiastically. I knew Josh so well that I could practically feel him raise his eyebrows and purse his lips next to me. Well, this was payback for trying to kiss me in public.

"Certainly. Anything for you, sir?"

"I just want an iced tea, thank you," said Josh.

As soon as the guy left, Josh crossed his arms.

"Austin, how old are you again?"

"Oh come on, we're over international waters," I protested before he could start his dad speech.

"I'm just saying..."

"Its not illegal in Mexico," I said. To give Josh the hint that I wanted to avoid an argument with him, I slipped my headphones back on over my ears and drowned him out with The Offspring. I reopened my chemistry notebook, and settled on trying to memorize the solubility rules.

Josh decided to drop it, which was probably quite a challenge for him, and I saw that he had turned the computer off, and was now sort of just looking around. I noticed him looking past me to see if that guy was still gawking at me, but either the guy knew better now, or Josh didn't really feel like commenting on it. I wondered if he was still thinking about Justin.

As for me, I was whipping through my homework relatively quickly. I knew that the only time I would have the self-discipline to actually do my work was when I wasn't allowed to do anything else, i.e. on the plane, so I was glad that I was actually getting it done. Once I was pretty sure I had the rules memorized, I had about fifty reactions to solve, then a lab to write up, and I was done with chemistry for the week.

I started to really flip out when the flight attendant came back with my wine and Josh and I were obliviously holding hands. He took one look at us and his mouth just about dropped. I quickly dropped Josh's hand, panic coursing through me, but it was too late. He had seen. He didn't say anything, just dumped our glasses pretty rudely next to us and walked off, muttering something.

I started to freak out. Having that guy over there see us was one thing, but not everyone was gay. What if they tried to stop the plane, or spat in our food or something? But Josh didn't look the slightest bit uncomfortable, except when I dropped his hand. I wondered if he was mad about that, but I just wasn't ready to deal with doing stuff in public yet. If I ever would be. I hoped that he wasn't too angry, but he seemed to understand, because just as I picked up my chemistry text to start on the reactions, Josh nudged me, and I took off my headphones.

"What?"

"Ok, listen to this electronic mix I made up," he said, offering me another set of headphones that were plugged into his computer. The screen was back on, and had a bunch of technical looking bars and lines and waves. Apparently, Josh wasn't mad at all, and he seemed to silently be saying that he understood that I still wasn't comfortable with us out in the open yet, and he would give me time. I sighed in relief as I put them on, Josh hit the enter key, and I suddenly heard a mix of hip-hop rhythm, while the lines and bars on the screen went wild in tune to the beat.

The mix was pretty good, it contained what sounded like maracas and some distinct Latin instruments, as well as a very upbeat drum rhythm.

Josh stopped the demo. "See, I added this little mariachi rift in 3:4 time, but on the down beat, so that after every half step, you get a double harmony," he said.

He might as well have said something in another language. Seeing my completely glazed over look, he snickered.

"This software is great, because I can access my share files from my home pc, and use the bass parts from my songs to change them up with this plug-in," he said.

"You're such a techno geek," I commented, handing him back the headphones.

"Maybe so, but it's a great way to write songs if I already know what rhythm I want," he said. He slipped the headphones back over his own ears and fiddled with the mix for a while. He looked completely at home with that thing, like he had been born with a keyboard attached to his fingers.

Meanwhile, I was trying to remember if copper chloride was soluble or not. According to my teacher, it wasn't, but according to the book, it was. Technically it mattered, since it would change the (s) I put after it in the reaction into an (aq), but technically, I didn't give a shit, so there you go.

I dumped my chemistry book back into my bag. I rummaged around in it, and I saw that I had packed nothing but schoolwork, and I really was not in the mood to work anymore. I glanced at Josh. I didn't know if he was just fooling around on his computer, or if he was seriously working on a new song, so I didn't want to bug him. What was I going to do? We still had four more hours before we landed.

I glanced around the plane. First class had about two dozen seats in it, and only about three quarters of them were occupied. There were six rows on the left of two leather chairs each, and six on the right. The middle of the plane had a huge gap, so that that gay guy across the aisle was a good twenty feet away. He was sitting by himself, apparently.

The rest of the passengers were mostly business men, and a few older couples. The only chick that was even close to my age was obviously this dude's mistress/secretary on the last row on the left side. Since the seatbelt light had clicked off, I decided to go exploring. I told Josh that I was going to the bathroom, and he barely heard me.

Sergio barely glanced up at me as he sat reading a Car and Driver magazine behind us, his huge legs tucked up and crowded even in the ample leg room of first class.

You can't really explore much on a plane, obviously, except the row of bathrooms next to the stewardess station, where I found Zachary and three other stewardesses talking. They glanced up at me, and they all got real quiet, eyeing me. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what they were talking about. Suddenly, I worried. What if one of them recognized Josh? And they started talking about it? It wouldn't take long for the press to get a hold of the fact that Josh had ridden in a separate plane from Nelly and the rest of the guys...and that would be weird, so it would be a story on MTV news... And if they interviewed the airline employees, they would say, oh, we saw him holding hands with a GUY in first class, because that was unusual, and Josh was famous, and they would want to be on tv...

OK, maybe I was being a little paranoid, but who knew? I couldn't out Josh and ruin his entire music career because we were feeling a little horny... How could I get us out of this?

My immediate thought was to simply flirt with one of the stewardesses. They would assume I was strait, and therefore, assume that I wasn't with josh. It had worked before, with Lisa. But...they could also assume I was bi, and was practically cheating on gay josh by flirting with them...they had to think josh was strait, and not by association with me. So...I would have to tell Josh to try and flirt with one of the girl stewardesses and at least get their number...she would tell her friends that he seemed straight to her, and they would blow it off. Especially if we knocked off the PDA. If that didn't make sense to you, don't worry about it. I was just completely paranoid. That's all you need to know.

I very casually went to the little sardine can bathroom, politely waited a few minutes, then exited and headed back to my seat, without seeming like I was in a hurry. I reached Josh and impatiently yanked his earphones off.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

"Listen up. You know how that guy flight attendant saw us holding hands?"

"Yeah," he said, plainly wondering what else. He didn't seem in the slightest uncomfortable.

"I saw him talking about us to the other flight attendants."

"So?"

"So?!? Josh, if they recognize you, it won't take much to get them to open their mouths and say JC Chasez? Yeah, we saw him with his gay lover on the plain to Cancun."

"So what? So someone has something dumb to say to their hick family in Iowa," he said, disinterested. He picked up his headphones, but I stopped him with my hand on his arm.

"Josh, how soon do you think some journalist can piece together the fact that you are riding a plane separate from the rest of the group and the fact that we were holding hands? A scandal like that would ruin your career! You might as well start learning how to sing gum jingles on the radio."

"Austin, calm down. Noone even knows I'm here."

"I don't think we can take that chance. So here's what we are going to do."

Josh listened to my plan in stride, then scoffed.

"Austin, I am not going to flirt with some girl in the off chance that she would be the one to talk to some press member, if they even know who I am."

"They already think you're gay. And women like to "straighten" out gay men. She'll tell everyone she knows that you are straight, and that way, it'll raise enough doubt that that stupid guy will probably think he made a mistake looking at us."

"Don't you think you're being a little bit paranoid?" Josh said, eyeing me suspiciously.

"I learn from the best," I retorted.

"Are you sure that this is an attempt to get ME out of something, or is it an attempt to get YOU out of something?"

"What are you talking about?"

K, I decided that instead of making everyone wait for my next update, then have them forget about it and not even read my latest when I finally update weeks later, I am going to start assigning release dates to each new chapter. If I have a certain deadline, then it will be more of an incentive to get things done in time. So, chapter 20 will be out no later than December 16th, 2002. I hope to see you then! scottiescot@hotmail.com. Email me!!