TWENTY-THREE

 

 

Justin hung up the phone, and he should have been furious. With himself, if nothing else. After all, it was he who had waited for the last minute to get his daughter’s makeup in order, and it was he who had pissed off Ken and probably all of the rest of the band, too.

No one was available on this short of notice. Not a single makeup artist, because this was the weekend that most of the dance schools in town were having their recitals. So yes, Justin should have been ready to throw things at the wall, should have been kicking himself, but instead, he felt the strangest sense of calmness stealing over him.

Of course, it could all go so badly. He could ruin this for his daughter, or maybe he had already, but there wasn’t much he could do about that. He could just try to fix it.

“Hey, Dad!” Jade skipped through, her long, dark hair bouncing on her back, giving him a grin. She trusted him so much, and he would be damned if he would give her cause to regret that.

“Hey, baby girl,” he returned her greeting and then reached out a hand and caught her slender wrist as she tried to go bouncing past him. “I gotta ask you something. If I could get Ken to your recital, and maybe Lance and Jamie, too, would you be into that?”

The smile which spread across her face was answer enough, but she also flung herself at him, her slender arms surprisingly strong as she hugged him tightly.

“Aaron, too?” she asked. Because with kids—he’d noticed—hope really did spring eternal. Nor was she ever shy about asking for what she wanted, which was actually a habit that he wanted to encourage. The world needed more strong-willed people, in his opinion.

“We’ll see. No promises, but I’m gonna do my best,” Justin promised. She grinned at him, and in her eyes, he saw the sure knowledge shining there that made him feel about a thousand feet tall. In that gaze, so trusting and innocent, he saw that she truly believed that he could do anything.

Settling down beside him, she watched him expectantly, as he pulled out his phone again and made a phone call. Though Ken was the first person that he wanted to talk to, of course, he wanted to do that in person. If he was going to make some sort of appeal, he figured he should at least give Ken the chance to look into his eyes and tell him that he blew it.

Funny how, at one point, getting fired would have been the worst thing that he could expect. But he would find another job, he was sure of that, and really, a little bit to his surprise, getting Ken back was more important to him.

He didn’t manage to reach Jamie, but he did get to Lance, and that was good enough. In seconds, it was all arranged, and Justin gazed down into his daughter’s eyes and gave her a nod.

“Lance will make sure it happens,” he promised her and then softly laughed when he saw the look in her eyes. “Maybe not Aaron. Don’t get your hopes up about Aaron.”

There were a few more steps, but with that one phone call, Justin had cleared up most of his problems. Now, with any sort of luck, hopefully he should be able to deal with the rest of it, and then he would just have to see where the dice fell. He’d certainly shaken them up well enough.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It was sort of funny, Justin realized, that he and Ken had only started to fall in love with each other three weeks ago. The whole thing had taken place on a different sort of time, and for Justin, who didn’t trust so easily, that was weird to start with. Maybe it was no wonder that there had been some snags along the way.

Already, Ken meant more to Justin than any other human being in the world, except for, of course, Jade. But Justin had done what he could, and he nodded his thanks to Lance and Jamie, who were just putting the final touches onto Jade’s stage makeup, as the little girl in question tried to sit as still as she could but was clearly far too excited to manage it completely.

“Thanks,” Justin told them both, and it was quite sincere, but he wanted to ask so many questions. Why were they acting so strangely around him? They kept giving him these furtive little glances, then looking over at each other, sharing a secret that Justin wasn’t in on.

And, of course, more importantly, he wanted to grab them and demand if Ken would be here. Justin had bought, and sent over, tickets for all of the Lost Boys, but he wasn’t sure if Aaron or Ken would even bother to come. Ken had every right to be angry with Justin, with how Justin had stormed off, after picking a fight with him.

“No problem.” Jamie was almost bouncing on the balls of his feet, grinning, giving Justin a deeply knowing look that he didn’t quite know how to interpret. He looked like he was about to explode, and Justin fixed his gaze on him, trying to make him spill.

Obviously he knew something, and if Justin had his way, he would get whatever it was out of him. But just as Jamie was really starting to squirm, Lance wrapped his arm around Jamie’s waist and tugged him close.

“Come on, babe, let’s go get our seats,” he said, giving Justin a bit of an amused look, obviously not about to let him get away with it. Unrepentant, Justin shrugged and gave him a bit of a smile. Of course he wanted to know, but there wasn’t a lot of time right now to ask.

Or was he just scared of what the answer might be? Maybe that was part of it because he had certainly had the time to demand answers before if he’d really wanted to. But for now, he could exist in a state of hope, of uncertainty, that would certainly be better than the feeling he would get if it turned out Ken was just flat out done with him.

“Dad, you can go, too,” Jade hissed at him, her gaze swinging back and forth from Justin to her friends, the other girls that she’d met through her dance class. He had to smile and shake his head. Once, she would have been clinging to his hand, silently begging him to stay.

She was growing up, and part of his job was to let her. Besides, her dance teacher, a strong, capable woman if he had ever met one, was standing right there, and he knew that his daughter would be fine.

“Break a leg,” he told her, and she grinned at him and waved him off. It was almost sad, a few years ago when he’d first said that to her, she had been shocked by the expression. Now, she just took it in stride.

Walking through the backstage area, Justin tried to calm himself down. Even if Ken couldn’t get here on such short notice, that didn’t necessarily mean that the whole thing was hopeless. Luna’s wedding was tomorrow, after all, and Ken was probably busy.

Still, it took an act of supreme willpower for him to push open the door which led from the backstage area into the auditorium. He felt like he stood on the edge of a sharp cliff, staring down into the darkness beneath, having no idea if what awaited him if he dared to jump off would be water deep enough to catch his fall or the jagged rocks of utter disaster.

In the end, though, he had to know, so he pushed open the door, and his gaze immediately went to the row where he knew that his seats, the ones that he’d bought, were. Jamie and Lance were there, of course, just as he would have expected, but more shockingly, there was a bright red head of hair that could only belong to one man.

Aaron. Aaron had come, though Justin would have, despite his cheerful words to his daughter, been willing to lay some serious odds against that happening. Was there some change in Aaron? Or was it just that most people weren’t brave enough to ask him to do things, so mostly, he didn’t come?

Then his gaze moved on, because even Aaron, as beautiful as he was, couldn’t compare to the sight of the other man who was sitting there. It was Jamie, then Lance, then Aaron, and then there was a space, a space which was obviously meant for Justin, and then Ken. And maybe it was stupid, but the sight of that empty chair made Justin start to feel his heart beating rapidly in his chest.

Ken could have chosen to sit with Aaron, but he wasn’t. Instead, he was sitting alone, while clearly hoping that Justin would come and sit beside him. For a moment, Justin could barely breathe, and everything seemed to slow down while at the same time going into sharp relief so that he saw everything.

Somehow, at that moment, he felt like it really wasn’t hopeless. For so long, he’d been worried that Ken would never be able to let go of Aaron, and even that Aaron had started to get feelings for Ken, too, but that seat between the two men said everything.

Only the more Justin looked, the more he realized that the signs had been there all along. He’d been so determined not to get his heart stepped on all over again that he’d let himself see things that just weren’t there. And, as he watched, Aaron glanced back, then reached over and touched Ken on the shoulder, getting his attention.

And there was no jealousy.

Even with his ex, with every relationship that he’d ever had, he had always had a hard time trusting, and it had led to him being far too intense and possessive. With Ken, though, he felt like he wouldn’t have to be because he knew that he could trust him. And that was such an incredibly liberating feeling that he felt like he could fly.

Ken slowly turned around, and there was this look on his face, pure, incredulous joy, that somehow, without knowing exactly how, Justin knew that it would all be okay.

Silently, though so uplifted with joy that he hardly felt like he felt the ground under his sneakers at all, Justin moved down the aisle and past Jamie, Lance, and Aaron. He settled down between Aaron and Ken, though his attention was all for Ken.

There was so much that he wanted to say at that moment. He wanted to beg for Ken to forgive him, to tell him that the jealousy wouldn’t be an issue anymore. Tell him that he was sorry for not trusting him, that he should have worked past his issues more.

But there was no time for any of that, because the lights went down, and from his experience in previous years, Justin knew very well what that meant. The show was about to begin, so instead of saying anything, he reached into the short distance that still separated Ken and Justin and took Ken’s hand, though lightly enough that the other man could pull away if he wanted to.

He didn’t, and Justin allowed himself the tiniest of smiles, and the hope which persisted in growing inside of him only got stronger and grew deeper roots. It was going to hurt more than ever if Ken turned him down, but for the first time he really, truly understood that this was a situation where the risks were worth the potential reward.