Do not read this if you are unsure of the meaning of the word fiction, or feel it is your moral obligation to infect the world with hate. (That should cover anyone under 18, objected to gay material, and anyone assuming I know anyone from N'sync, or any of their intentions/personalities/orientation etc.)
Again, I am really sorry about the delay, but like I told several people who emailed me, I have almost no time to write anymore. And judging by the C I got on my English paper (how's that for ironic), each chapter will probably take a week to write. Anyway, this chapter should really get some personalities going. Also, there was a little too much drama in that last chapter, so I want to go in a new direction. Hopefully it will answer some of your questions. A lot of people have told me that it is unbelievable that my main character would know nothing about the band, but I am living proof: I didn't learn their names until reading some of the stories posted in the archive, and I never listen to any of their music either, so it's not so unbelievable. For all the rest of you, I really appreciate the feedback, but give me some real info, not just "Love it, keep posting, Bob" or whatever.
We might have stayed that way. I had completely forgotten that Josh was already a half an hour late and I didn't know that their tour manager was currently chewing out the rest of the group for putting them off schedule. I would have just kept kissing him until everything went away, all the hurt, all the fear, all the noise, if it hadn't been for one thing. Josh dropped his hand onto my crotch.
I felt like I had been hit by a ton of bricks. Any passion I had felt; gone. Completely. I pulled my lips off of Josh's, my eyes wide open and afraid, and I abruptly stood up. This was it: this was THE decision. I would be crossing a line that I would never be able to recross.
Forget the whole friend-to-relationship hang-up and how much this would hurt me and Josh's friendship. This was a lot bigger than that. Josh was a guy. A boy. A man. This was completely uncharted territory. If I kissed him any longer, that would be it. Grade A homo, right here.
It was one thing to be okay with Josh being gay. That meant nothing to me: as I said, I don't care if you are gay or not, if you're cool, then I'll like you. But, I had never even thought about being gay myself. Until I met Josh.
I put my hands out in a gesture of defense, and took a step away from Josh. "I...ma...I...so sorry," I said absently, shrinking back away from him against the far wall of the stairwell, mortally afraid that if he touched me again, just once, that my life would never be the same.
"What?" he said, looking shocked. He stood up, and I immediately melted into the concrete wall, my arms splayed out behind me, gripping the concrete, my palms so sweaty that they slipped off its smooth surface.
"I'm so sorry Josh, I have to go," I said lamely. I still couldn't move. My heart was beating like a jackhammer, and I was terrified. I didn't know what else to do. Josh took a step towards me.
"NO! Stop! Stay back!" I whispered.
"Austin..." started Josh slowly, as he if were talking to a crazy person. Actually, he was. "It's ok. Calm down."
"No it isn't Josh! What the hell just happened???" I stammered. He took another step towards me. My back was already against the wall, so I slid across the wall over to the left, towards the stairs.
He smiled. "I think you kissed me," he said. God damn it, he was looking at me with that cute little-boy lost look.
"No!" I screamed again, and this time, I bolted. I took the stairs two-three at a time. Hell, I jumped the last flight. I was so terrified I didn't hear Josh yelling after me. I ran all the way down ten flights of stairs, and slammed out of the stairwell through the emergency exit, filling the confusion in my head with a very jarring alarm. Luckily the damn door was on the other side of the hotel, away from the mob.
I tore ass all the way across the compound on the east side of the hotel, and escaped into the woods. I forgot that my car was still in the parking lot across the street from the hotel, and I forgot that my cell phone was sitting in Josh's hotel room, when I had taken it out of my pocket earlier. I just wanted to get the fuck out of there.
What was I running from? I guess I would have to say the truth. Maybe I could admit that Josh was an attractive guy, but I couldn't admit that I was attracted to him. Maybe I could admit that we had kissed, but I couldn't admit that I had kissed him first. And both of these things were true.
I was running from the fact that I didn't want these things to be true. I didn't want to be gay; I didn't want to be in love with Josh; I wanted everything to be the same. I wanted this weekend to have never happened.
I kept running, but eventually I had to sit down. I found a suitable rock, and I fell against it, not sitting on it, but sitting on the ground, leaning up against it, pulling my knees to my chin. And I cried. I guess since I haven't cried in so long, I was long overdue, because all I seemed to be doing was crying all day, but I couldn't help it. I had just fucked everything up, again. Why couldn't I keep my damn hands to myself?
As I was sitting there, the sky slowly darkened, and I realized that I didn't know where I was, and it was getting dark. I had blindly run into the forest, with no sense of direction, and I had no idea where the hotel was. The evergreens were so tall, that I couldn't see the twenty-story building. The hotel wasn't downtown, or anywhere near campus: it was on Ripley Island, which was mostly covered with forests. If I headed in the exact opposite direction of where I came, eventually I would come out onto the I-147, and I could follow that to get back to the hotel. If I headed straight back, I'd hit the road. On the other hand, if I was facing north or south, I could keep walking until I hit shore, then I would have to circle around the godddamn island. All the stores were in the center, and the hotel and some houses were the only things enjoying the waterfront real estate.
Fuck. Things just kept getting better and better, didn't they? I had now fucked things up with Jen, fucked things up with Josh, and was now lost in the woods at night. Weren't there wolves in the forest?
I couldn't just sit here, waiting to die. I got up, and searched my pockets for my phone, thinking vaguely of calling Tony to see if he could get me. Of course, I discovered that my phone wasn't there, and remembered setting it on Josh's hotel nightstand so that it wouldn't break when I had carried all of his bags at once down to the bus.
Well, time to suck it up, Rieter, I told myself. Now that the sun had set, I couldn't tell which way was west, and the forest was so dark, I couldn't tell where I was going. I decided to just pick one direction and keep going.
Hooting owls greeted me, and the omnipresent fog that surrounds the whole state every night was mysteriously absent, so I considered myself extremely lucky.
I was already terrified of seeing Josh again, of seeing any of them again, and now I was terrified for my life. Did you think it could get any worse? Hell no, as I pushed through a large clump of trees, muttering angrily in the dark, I found the highway, and nearly got ran over by a maniac going 95 mph.
I jumped backwards, and the driver squealed its brakes and turned the car sharply to the left. Thanks God it wasn't an SUV, or the driver would have been toast. Unfortunately for me, the driver got out of his car and ran over to me, to chew me out for having the nerve to almost get run over.
"You mother fucking asshole! Why the hell did you run like that!?!" screamed the driver. The cars headlights were behind him, so I couldn't see his face, but he sounded oddly familiar...
"Joey?" I said, shielding my eyes from the glare of the headlights.
"Yes, Austin, goddamn it, where the hell did you go? You know the streets are really fucked up in this city, it took me twenty minutes before I realized that I was heading south! Now why did you run away like that?!"
"I...I..." I stammered. Why can't people just leave me alone?
"You have us all worried, Jesus Christ, and I am not a good person when I am panicking, god damn. Are you alright?"
"Yes, I'm fine."
"Now please to explain to me why you do this?" he said, in a ridiculous Jar Jar Binks impression.
I couldn't even laugh. I was just so terrified about having to face Josh. What if he told everyone we had kissed? Why had they bothered to come looking for me at all? I had been hoping that they would just think Oh well, and go on their stupid tour, and I could go back to my stupid normal life. Damn, stupid, considerate Josh.
I also had the added guilt of what I had done to Joey. I had knocked him down, and he had only been trying to help. I looked back at him, ghostlike, and I couldn't even laugh. He dropped the act, realizing somehow that now was not the time for jokes.
"Look, just get in the damn car and we'll go back to the hotel and figure this all out," he said, pointing to the black Mazda Miata that was currently parked half on the leftmost lane and half on the shoulder. Luckily, the highway was deserted on this island.
"I...I...can't, Joey. I just can't go back there, after what I did to everyone...after what I did to you..."
"Do I look like I care what you did to me? I think you have some balls to push me out of the way like that, but don't go feeling guilty about it. I was out of line. I didn't know. Josh told me..."
I whipped my head to stare back at him, the fear very evident in my haunting, gaunt façade, because he trailed off. He probably thought I was going to lash out again. Is that my solution to everything? Hit the first thing I see? No wonder I am so fucked up and Jen didn't want me.
"He told me why you two're so close, and you don't want to get close to people, and its ok! Look, I know you and Josh have only known each other, like a day, but you really hurt him by running away like that. Josh is a very private person, and whatever connection you two made has affected him, and me too. He's like a brother to me, and when he's hurt, I'm hurt."
"So what are you saying?"
"I am saying that he thinks this is his fault. Now I am not blaming you or saying it's your fault for what that...girl...did to you," and I managed a very small smile, seeing as how I had 'trained' Joey not to use the b-word in reference to Jen, "But Josh thinks he made it worse. All I want to know is, what do you think?" Joey crossed his arms in front of his chest, just like Tony had done to me earlier, except Tony had been standing over me while I sat on a bench at the batting cages, while Joey stood next to me on a deserted highway, with a glaring headlight blinding me.
How did I feel? Would Joey understand how I really felt? Should I tell him that Josh was the only person I had left in my life, and I had met him a fucking day ago???
Or maybe I should tell him I was in love with Josh, now that Jen had decided her Bunsen Burner, coupled with Justin Timberlake, made a better substitute for me.
Or maybe I should tell him I had just made out with his brother in a hotel stairwell, and wanted to rip my arm off for enjoying it, because it scared the hell out of me.
"Look," I started, but before I could say even another word, Joey dropped his hands in frustration and looked to the sky for help.
"Just listen, god damn it!!" I insisted. I had to tell him something, even if wasn't the whole truth.
"I told Josh a lot last night, and tonight too, and he told me a lot. Something was there, some connection, maybe we were destined to be best friends or something, I don't know. But I am not worth being late on your tour! I have done fine all by myself, ok? I am not going to crumple and die; I have had a lot of shit happen to me, and I've pulled through. Tell him that I am not worth worrying over!"
"How can you say that? Don't you have any self-esteem?!? You're coming with me, and you are telling Josh yourself. Let's go," he said, and he strided over to me.
"No, I'm not..." I resisted, taking a few steps back.
"Move it!" he said in a commanding voice. I had no choice. I felt like that day in high school when my dad had forced me to snitch on my friend for smoking pot in the bathroom.
I led the way to his car, and waited outside the door, thinking vaguely, why the hell did he have a car if he was on a tour bus? And shouldn't celebrities drive better cars than Mazda's? But I didn't ask him. I was actually afraid of Joey.
Joey opened the door, and grabbed my shoulders, forcing me to sit down, probably thinking I would bolt again at the slightest opportunity. I was pretty predictable: fight or flight.
He drove me back to the hotel in silence, his face set in stone. Mental note: never cross him again. I was lucky that Josh thought so highly of me, because I was willing to bet Joey would not go to such lengths to help out a stranger.
As we were rounding the turn on the turnpike, I saw that the mob was still there, and had grown considerably with the addition of several local news vans. (No, they weren't searching for me: it was big news that the N'Sync tour had been delayed two hours).
Since Joey's car was fairly inconspicuous, and the crowd was waiting for people to come out of the hotel, not into it, we were able to circle the hotel to get to the gated back parking lot, which was guarded. They let us through, and I felt like I was entering the gates of hell. What would Josh think of me now? I was the stupidest, most selfish asshole in the world, and now I had to beg for his forgiveness for being such a psycho. Could I do it? * * *
Well, I couldn't imagine a scenario worse than what I had to deal with, but now that it is behind me, I can just say this: I am glad that Justin wasn't there.
I was yelled at by their tour manager, I was threatened with a lawsuit by a legal representative, I was yelled at by Mike, for engaging the Joey in a potentially harmful situation, and I was yelled at by the hotel manager for throwing up in the lobby. But that wasn't the worst of it. I also had to face Josh, looking dejected and mournful. I had to apologize to him in front of everyone, and when I had tried to tell him I wanted to still be friends, he had handed me my phone, and quietly said goodbye.
Still, I didn't cry. I didn't break. I was totally the rock, and that was probably what threatened everyone. Maybe they thought that if they yelled at me enough I would appear to be sorry, but that has never been one of my strong points. I take abuse, but I never let it show. Even though I felt like the worst person in the world, I probably looked like I could care less.
But Josh knew. Somehow, he knew I was putting on the tough act for his manager and the rest of those people. Because he had to put on an act too; he was pretending everything was fine, too, because nobody knew about us, and nobody knew about him. He never told anyone, and he kept his secret to everyone except me, Justin and Lance. How did I know that he had forgiven me? He left me 40 emails by the time I finally got around to checking my email, telling me so. Austin,
I know you're scared, but I want you to know that I will wait for you. I can't imagine how hard it is for you, but I think you're so strong for being able to handle it. I don't want to open old wounds, or try to put blame on things, but I do want to stay in touch. You touched my life in a way no one has, and no matter what happens, I always want to be friends. Josh That was on Sunday, at 5 AM.
The rest of them, equally Hallmark-y, were in my mailbox by noon, and I decided to swallow my pride and finally call him at 8 o'clock the following Thursday, him having left his phone number on thirty of his messages.
It rang once, before Josh hurriedly picked it up.
"Austin?" he said immediately. He must have taken my number from my phone and plugged it into his to activate caller ID. Either that or he was psychic.
"Josh?" I answered. "I miss you."
"Oh, god, I miss you something bad, buddy. Why did it take you so long to call???"
"Josh, it's only been three days since I last saw you," I said.
"I know, we're already packing up in Vancouver right now." He answered.
"How did you know I would call?"
"Because I know you." He said simply. God, I wish I could see his face instead of just hearing his voice.
"You know me?" I repeated.
"I knew you would call, because I know how considerate you are. You wouldn't just forget about me, just like I can't forget about you. I'm just glad it's me you called instead of Jen." Damn, he did know me. I had been debating which one of them to call too.
"So what do we do now?" I said. We couldn't just forget about Saturday night.
"First, I have talked to Joey, and he says you're a crazy son of a bitch, but he really likes you," said Josh. I smiled.
"Second, Justin thinks you're demented, but him drop that piece of shit assault charge against you," Josh continued. I sighed. I really have to stop hitting people that try to steal my girlfriends.
"And now Chris and Lance want to meet you," said Josh. Great. A week ago, I was blissfully ignorant of the actions of N'Sync, and now I was wondering how many of them hated me. I think I had two allies, but Josh was biased.
Well, it could be worse. At least Josh had wanted to stick with me. But we were both evading the glaring question that was staring us in the face: what did this mean about US? I had kissed him, and he had kissed me. Did I love him? Did I want to be with him? Yes. Was I afraid of what that would mean? Yes.
I don't know how the team would react to my being gay, or any of my friends. One of the reasons I am not close to anybody here is because most of the "friends" I hang out with are shallow snobs and jocks. The girls somehow think I am handsome, and the guys think I am cool to shoot the shit with, so it works out ok. But I would lose that.
What about my dad? He had raised me since I was twelve, never having been a father before in his life, and suddenly having to raise a teenager. Would he disown me? What would everyone think?
Most importantly, what did I think? I thought I was a guy, a guy's guy; I played sports, I drank, I could talk the talk, I treated Jen with respect, people liked me (maybe). Being gay would change all of that. My whole life would be one glaring label: gay.
When you say you don't care if someone's gay, you really do care; otherwise it wouldn't be such a big deal to me. But this was all I had: school was my life. I didn't want to throw it away.
And what about Josh? He had opened up to me, but he hadn't been anymore honest with anyone else. He had felt the strain of singing songs about love when he wasn't allowed to love anyone, and he had been forced to live a lie. Would he be any more willing to tell everyone than I was?
There was always one solution: see each other in secret. If other people wouldn't allow us to be together, then we could just be there for each other. The problem with that was, Josh was in town once a year, and I was tied to my schoolwork. We would be apart too much to allow a real relationship to work, especially one done in secret.
"Josh, I don't know what it is, but I want to be with you, in more than a friendship," I said slowly. Why did this have to be over the phone?
"I want to be with you too," he said quickly. I could hear his hopes rising all the way from Vancouver.
"But I don't think either of wants everyone in the world knowing, ok?" I said quietly.
"I'll do anything, Austin, if it means I can be there for you. I need you, and you need me," he said thickly. I felt myself similarly losing the ability to speak, as tears fell out of my swollen eyes.
"God, it's not fair," I squeaked. Didn't I have a tissue? Thank god my roommate was still asleep; the last thing I needed was for him to see me crying my eyes out.
"Austin? I still have to ask you something." Said Josh.
"Yeah?" I said weakly. I wiped my eyes with my sleeve.
"Will you be my boyfriend?"
I half laughed, half sobbed. Was a guy actually asking me this? Who cares.
"Yeah, ok," I said into the phone. It slipped from my hand and fell on to the bed from the slickness of my tears.
"Josh!?" I said, worried I had hung up on him.
"Yeah?" he answered.
"I...I...miss you," I said, not wanting to spoil the moment by my inability to hold a phone properly.
"I miss you too, now when can I see you?" he said.
"Well, I don't know..." I answered. When he had talked about this earlier, he had said not till late in the summer.
"You're in school, right? Don't you have spring break or something?" he said. Duh. I felt like an idiot. Spring break was in two weeks.
"Oh, oh yeah! Its on the 16th of March," I said, my heart leaping. Yay!
"We're in Los Angeles then," said Josh.
"Fuck!" I said loudly.
"Mmm, wha?" yawned Rye, my roommate. Great, now I had woken him up.
"No, no, you don't understand. We're in LA the whole week, because we have a lot of promotional stuff to do with MTV," said Josh.
"Isn't MTV in New York?" I said, knowing full well that it was.
"Yeah, but the Spring Break Special is in Palm Springs, and we are performing there on the 23rd."
"So, the closest I can get to you is watching you on MTV?" I said, dismayed. What the hell good would that do? I could probably turn MTV on right now and see him.
"No! You can come stay with me in LA!" he said brightly.
"How? I don't have any money to fly down there," I said. That was me; Mr. Practicality.
"Who do you think you are talking to, boy? I am flying you out there, first class, all expenses paid."
"What? No, I would owe you for life. Forget it, maybe I can borrow money from my dad," I said.
"Are you refusing me from flying my boyfriend out to see me?" he said in mock surprise.
"Shh! And no, but I don't want you to go to that much trouble for me."
"Trouble, I would cut off my leg if it would get you there faster."
'But then there would be less of you I would get to see," I said.
"I have bigger organs than my leg, you know," he said seductively.
"Josh!!" I said. He had better be alone, wherever he was.
"Ok, ok, but you are coming anyway. I am booking you a flight right now."
"What?" I said. I heard him typing, and imagined him sitting there with his laptop, looking cute, hunched over it.
"Ok, all set. You have a flight at seven o'clock on Saturday morning, at Seattle SEA Airport, Gate 213. I'd fax you the itinerary, but you probably don't have a fax in your dorm room..." he said.
"You did all that that fast?!? In like two seconds?? How?" I said.
"Shhh!" growled my roommate. I checked my alarm. It was 8:45. My lazy roommate had arranged his schedule so that his first class wasn't until 12:15, while I had to be in calc in 45 minutes.
"Of course, when you're a web wizard like me, anything is possible," he said.
"Josh that must cost a lot of money. First class? Come on. I'm not taking your money. I want to see you, but not so that I have to sell my soul to the devil to pay you back."
"I just spoke to the devil online at devil.com, and he says all legal transactions pending, your soul is safe if you invest in me," said Josh.
I laughed. "Well, I have to ask my dad, but I'm sure it'll be ok! I can't wait!!!" I said excitedly.
"You can't wait? How do you think I feel? I have to dance in front of a few thousand girls in five hours, and I can barely even remember my routine," he said.
"You'll be fine, because you're you," I said.
"I...what?" said Josh. Someone had said something to him. I was very quiet for a second, straining to hear if I had gotten Josh into any more trouble, and was relieved when he came back on a second later.
"Austin? That was Johnny, our manager. I have to go. I'll call you right back though, as soon as I'm done, in about an hour." He said. I groaned. "What?"
"I have class in an hour. Try me later today," I said.
"I'm busy all day after ten. What about tomorrow?"
"I have a game tomorrow," I answered.
"Shoot!" Ok, well we'll leave text messages all day then, but I gotta go," he said. "Llluu...I mean later," he said, and hung up. Sigh. * * * It was a miracle I survived those last two weeks. My mind was completely focused on Josh. Strangely enough, it didn't affect my game: we won that Friday 6 to 3, and I had hit in a nice double late in the seventh inning.
The team had celebrated at Chevy's, a bar on Sixth Street near the Space Needle, and I kept looking at it, imagining Josh there posing for a picture at the top.
I'd like to say that things were that easy, but they weren't. Outside of baseball practice, I was a total recluse. Tony hung around with me every day, and drank with me when the loneliness got too much, and I greatly appreciated it. He was trying his best to be my best bud, and I gladly let him fill the role. I guess I was just a one-person guy: with Jen not speaking to me, and me avoiding her, and Josh in Canada, I was just so glad that someone still wanted to be my friend after all the fucking up I had done.
Word had spread about me and Jen, and as I had suspected, my "friends" had dropped Jen like the plague. The girls were jealous of her, because she was so smart and active and beautiful, and the guys thought she was an ice queen. She was also branded a nerd.
All of my friends had taken my side, and blamed Jen for the breakup, and although it wasn't fair, nobody let me take any blame. One of my "friends", a sorority sister named Shelly, I had heard had even verbally assaulted her in the student lounge, saying something about her hurting a good man like me, or something. What an idiot. Jen didn't deserve all the blame: she had been unhappy. And I wasn't any better than she was: I had done a lot to build a rift between us, and I was as much to blame as she was. I understood I didn't deserve all the blame, as Tony and Josh kept telling me, but I deserved some.
Even so, now all the girls were all over me, trying to "help" me "get over" Jen. They all wanted in my pants. A lot of girls I know think I am attractive for some reason, but I know its just because I'm a jock.
I had to see Jen every Tuesday and Thursday anyway, because we had a class together: Japanese. At the beginning of the year, when he had been registering for this semester, we had decided to try and sign up for a class we could both be in. Her math and science classes were much too advanced for the basic crap I had to take, and after her English 101 credit, she didn't need any of the literary classes I was taking. We decided to try a language course, and decided on Japanese, something she had always wanted to learn, her ancestors being form Japan and all.
Now we avoided each other's direct gaze, but I kept looking at her, trying to see if she still felt anything. Regret, sorrow, anything. But she acted like she always did; haughty and unruffled. I stopped looking when the 18th approached, and I was finally going to see my sigh boyfriend again. (I was still touchy about the term, but decided I could get used to it)
Unfortunately for me, my teachers decided to kill me with homework over spring break. I was getting an A in my Creative Writing course, an A- in Japanese, a C in Chemistry, and a C- in Calculus. My calc teacher had assigned a very large project due right after spring break, so I imagined that a great deal of my time in California would be spent not basking on a beach with the rest of the college crop, but stuck in Josh's hotel, slaving away. I also had a research paper due in English, and some chemistry problems that were due. More than usual, since we would be gone a week.
Consequently, the bags I packed for my trip were 50% schoolwork. The flight Josh had arranged for me was about two and a half hours long, so I would have enough time to maybe do those chemistry problems. I hoped that I wouldn't procrastinate too much.
On that Saturday morning, I was ready, my chemistry book and notes in my carryon, along with my Discman and some CDs. I purposely did not put a magazine in there, because I knew I would just read the magazine instead of working.
My dad dropped me off at the airport. He had of course said that I could go; I was almost twenty years old, and could make my own decisions. But he looked a little teary eyed as he let me go, and I realized that this was the first time I was going to be away form him for more than a day.
"Dad, are you going to be ok?" I said, as he sobbed a little.
"Of course, I'm just so sad that you're already grown up," he said, wiping his eyes with his sleeves.
"I'll only be gone a week," I said, hugging him as the flight girl called out my flight number.
"I know, but this is like your first trip away from home without me," he said. This was almost like when I had moved into my dorm for the first time. My dad is such a wuss:)
"Come on, dad, get a grip," I said. I hugged him extra tight, and waved goodbye as I walked through the terminal and boarded the plane, eager to see my boyfriend, JC, but also nervous as hell.
The flight was long and quiet, and I finished only a third of my homework. The flight attendant kept bugging me every five seconds, wanting to know if I wanted champagne or a pillow, until I paid her to go away. She probably thought I was someone important's son, being young and in first class. Later, the old woman next to me whispered that she thought the flight attendant like me. I smiled thinly, but didn't say anything. I was tired of women "liking" me. Instead, I worried about Josh. Would he be excited to see me?
I was really nervous getting off that plane. How would Josh greet me? Would another mob be waiting with him? Would he kiss me, in front of everyone?
It turned out that I had nothing to worry about. He had given me first class tickets, and I deboarded in a private lounge-like area, and there were only about twenty people in there. And then I saw him.
My god, he looked so hot I wanted to take him right there. He had changed a lot, and dyed his blond streaked mop a medium brown, and cut it, but it was still long enough to be playful and stylish. He looked better than I remember, and I almost ran right up to him and enveloped him in my own version of one of Joey's bear hugs. Almost.
As I strode towards him, ready to hug him, my eyes bright with a mixture of happiness and lust, I saw that he hadn't come alone. He had brought Justin with him to the airport.
Chapter 7 will come out SOON, I hope. Feedback is well appreciated, and I apologize to everyone who I have not answered: I have been really busy this semester. scottiescot@hotmail.com