NINETEEN

 

 

Every year, this whole process got just a step more complicated. This year was no different, it seemed, and Justin paced through his living room, followed by the amused eyes of his daughter, who arched her eyebrows at him and seemed altogether too calm about the whole thing.

But then, she had less to worry about, in a way. Justin was the one who was responsible for getting her ready for the recital, and this year, part of that was that she needed to have her costume on, and her full stage makeup, to get pictures taken ahead of time.

“Dad, you’re going to break the floor if you keep stomping on it like that,” Jade observed, and Justin gripped his hands together and nodded, then fell down onto the couch. She was right, whether he liked it or not.

He just tended to take things too seriously, and anything he did, he wanted to do right. But it was fine. It would all go fine, and he would handle it. No one thought he was a bad father, right?

“When is Ken going to be here?” Jade asked, and as if on cue, there was a knock at the door. Immediately, despite all of his nerves, Justin felt a smile twitching at the corners of his lips. Despite how strained things could sometimes be between them, he loved having the other man around and couldn’t get enough of him, really.

By the time he had come to answer the door, his smile was wide and full, but it slipped a bit when he saw just who was there. Ken, yes, but also Jamie and Lance, who grinned and waved at Justin.

Numbly, Justin waved back, then bowed to the inevitable and stepped away so that the three men could come in. He didn’t have a lot of new people into his house, and Ken absolutely knew that, so why had he brought his friends?

“Hey,” Ken murmured, with an intimate little look at Justin that made his knees a little weak, despite the awkwardness of the situation. “So I realized that I don’t really know much about makeup, but Lance and Jamie do, so they said they’d come.”

Well, that was completely logical, right? It made perfect sense. But that somehow didn’t quite soothe Justin, who couldn’t help but think that Ken could have at least asked before he brought people traipsing through his house.

“Oh my God,” Jade whispered when they all came in, and her eyes seemed to take up most of her face. “Dad, this is amazing. You got most of the Lost Boys to come to our house?”

Maybe it was a good thing that Justin hadn’t known about this ahead of time, or else he would have had one more thing to worry about. He kept his work private, and he didn’t talk about it even to Jade, but there was no way that she could avoid knowing that he worked with one of the biggest boy band acts in the United States.

Well, it was done now, and Justin stayed silent and out of the way as Lance and Jamie got to work. They did know what they were doing—he had to admit—far better than he had.

Still, it felt weird. These were people that he worked with, and they were now aware of the existence of his daughter, which he tended to try to avoid. Not only that, but there were just people in his house that he hadn’t invited there, but they were doing him such a huge favor, what was he supposed to do? Kick them out?

Ken seemed as out of place as Justin felt, falling down onto the couch beside him, just a little bit too close to Justin for his comfort. It wasn’t a secret that he and Ken were together, but he hadn’t told anyone, either.

It seemed that Ken liked to play just a little bit fast and loose with this sort of thing, and Justin couldn’t help but wonder if he hadn’t made a terrible, terrible mistake in letting this man into his life. Ken was so young and so impulsive, and Justin was neither of those things.

Far quicker, and better, than Justin could have done, Jamie and Lance stepped back, smiling proudly at their handiwork. And they were pretty justified in that pride because Jade had been transformed, utterly, into a dancer. Her hair was perfect, her makeup flawless, even if it was pretty strange to see her wearing makeup.

It was just part of the industry, he supposed, but all of a sudden, she looked about five years older than she was and he couldn’t help but rapidly blink a few times to try to keep himself under control.

“Thanks, guys,” Justin said sincerely. He really had nothing against these men. In fact, he liked both Jamie and Lance a lot and had been happy for them both when they’d found each other. So it wasn’t so much that he minded them being here, but that it hadn’t been his choice that they were.

“Anytime,” Lance said, and Jamie nodded his agreement, his slender arm sliding around Lance’s waist. They were adorable together, they really were, and Justin had to admit that it could have gone a lot worse.

Still, Ken didn’t even seem to understand what it would mean to Justin to have something like this happen. Justin had told him how private he was, but Ken had invited these men anyway, and the fact that it had turned out okay only sort of made up for that.

Even so, he couldn’t deny that Ken had only done it with good intentions, which made up for a lot. Ken had wanted to do something nice for Jade, and for Justin, and he had done so, so when Ken came up to him and pressed a light kiss onto his cheek, Justin smiled slightly at him.

“Hey. Can I come by later?” Ken whispered in Justin’s ear, bending down to do it, and Justin felt the warm sensation which Ken so easily brought up in him spreading through his whole body, slowly making him feel content, happy, even though he had been so worried not very long ago.

“Yeah. We should be back from this thing by eight,” Justin replied, and even though Jamie and Lance were watching, and even though he could already see how surprised they were by the whole thing, Justin rose up onto his tiptoes and brushed a brief kiss against Ken’s lips.

There was really no point in keeping this a secret. Anyway, Lester already knew, and Justin knew that he, at least, wasn’t ashamed of it. Ken didn’t seem to be, either, with how close he’d been sitting to Justin on the couch, or how intimately he’d been whispering in Justin’s ear.

“Oh, really now?” Lance asked, but before Justin could even think to worry that Lance might be upset, he noticed how the other man was grinning. Despite the fake relationship that Lance and Ken had been pushed into, it seemed that Lance had never had any feelings other than friendship.

And now, he seemed legitimately thrilled that Ken could be happy. There seemed to be no falseness to it at all, no hidden layers, and Justin relaxed a little bit as he nodded at Lance.

“Yeah,” Ken said casually and draped an arm around Justin’s shoulders. Clearly, he wasn’t ashamed to be seen with him, though a nagging little thought snuck into the back of his brain, then caught at his attention and refused to let go.

Would Ken have been quite as willing to act like this if it had been Aaron, and not Lance and Jamie, who were clearly so happy together?

The truth was, he didn’t know, and once the idea had occurred to him, it captivated him, held him even as he tried to flop free of it like a fish on a line.

“I gotta go,” Justin spoke abruptly, and he could hear that in his own voice, but it was also nothing more than the truth. He had a set time that he needed to be there, but it was also the truth that he suddenly felt awkward all over again.

It was easiest to retreat into habit. He nodded at Jamie and Lance and then put his arm around his daughter and led her out of the house. He waited just outside, watching until Ken and Lance and Jamie had all left the house, and he could lock the door. Luckily, it didn’t take too long, and soon it was just himself and Jade once more.

Well, no one had ever said that love would be easy, he supposed. Now, should he tell Ken that it wasn’t really okay to bring Lance and Jamie by? Should he get into that with him?

The truth was, he wasn’t even sure that it was much to do with that, and more to do with his own feelings about Aaron. No matter how things went, no matter what they said and did together, he and Ken, he couldn’t get over the feeling that he had that he was, and would always be, nothing more than a replacement for Aaron, the man that Ken actually wanted.

 

* * *

 

The night was long and strange, and Justin knew that it was his fault. Ken had shown up, and he’d been cheerful and upbeat, but every time Justin looked at him, he couldn’t help but think that this was the man who really didn’t take anything seriously, so why was he allowing himself to get involved with him?

Ken had been there, but in a very real way, Justin hadn’t been. He hadn’t allowed himself to be. He and Ken had watched a movie and then passed out, and it was the first time since they’d gotten together that they’d had the chance to have sex, and hadn’t.

Though Justin was trying to keep this all to himself, Ken seemed to figure out something was up. People really didn’t give Ken enough credit. He seemed oblivious, but he wasn’t, and in the morning he stuck around only long enough to smile at Jade, to say good morning to her and ruffle her hair, and then he was out the door.

How could Justin even blame him? He was the one messing this up, and all because he wasn’t sure how hard he should hang on to this. Was he pushing Ken away too much? Or was Ken all too willing to be pushed away?

“Hey, Dad?” Jade frowned a little bit, looking at him with eyes that seemed to see way too much. Wasn’t this part of why he hadn’t dated? Because he hadn’t wanted her to see him when he was in the grips of love? God knew that he could get intense when he was really into someone.

“Yeah?” Justin replied.

“Did you get tickets for the show yet? Because I want Ken to be there, and Lance and Jamie, too. All of the Lost Boys. Do you think they’ll come?”

Just like that, it felt like Justin had had a knife shoved into his heart and twisted hard enough to tear it apart. His daughter had fallen in love, too, in her own way. She’d been so happy to have these people around, and what would happen to her if something went wrong?

He’d gotten into this far too quickly, far too impulsively, and it was probably time to step back, to just chill out about this whole thing for a bit, so no one got hurt. He had gotten his daughter involved in this far too soon, but it had seemed so right at the time.

“Uh, no,” Justin forced himself to look directly into his daughter’s innocent eyes and steeled himself for what he was about to have to do. “No, baby girl. Ken is busy. I don’t think he’ll be able to come.”

It was just as bad as he had thought, to see the light leave her eyes and watch as the disappointment took its place. This, this right here, was why he didn’t get involved with people. This was why he’d kept his heart safe and locked up for so long. Only Ken had busted right through that, damn him.

“I guess that he should go to his sister’s wedding,” she said very seriously like she had been actually considering asking Ken to miss it. Which she probably had. This dance recital was everything to her. But even so she obviously knew that Ken couldn’t just leave his sister’s wedding.

“Yeah,” Justin said, fighting down a surge of guilt. He was actually pretty sure that Ken’s sister was getting married on Sunday, and the recital was on Saturday, but Ken was going to be busy with the wedding, right? So he was still doing the right thing.

“Okay. Let’s get you to school.” Justin tried to lose himself in the bustle of his normal morning routine, to try to tell himself that he didn’t remember the bleak look in her eyes, but he knew better deep down.

He had seen what he had seen, and the hell of it was that how upset she was going to be about losing Ken, if it happened, was going to be utterly dwarfed by how devastated Justin knew that he would be.

He’d gotten himself into this. He had let himself fall in love, and now, he was going to pay the price. It was his choice, and he’d made it, but poor Jade hadn’t made any such choice.

Definitely time to pull back. He and Ken had just let themselves jump into this head first, but if this was something that was going to last, didn’t they need to hold back? Just a little.

Justin had no intention of giving up Ken completely, though. Slowing down didn’t mean outright stopping. He wasn’t sure he could make himself do that, even if it did seem necessary, which it didn’t.

He just hoped that backing off now would work. He was already in way, way over his head when it came to Ken.