FOURTEEN

 

It was so messed up. Was he seriously doing this? Was he really allowing himself to fall for someone who was literally going on dates with someone else? With someone who snuck into Jamie’s bed whenever he felt like it, gave him the most stunning orgasms of his life, and then left again?

Maybe Jamie should be happy, because every single date that Lance and Ken went on that was successful, every bit of media attention that they got because of it, took potential suspicion away from Jamie and Lance. Who would think that Lance would be wasting his time with Jamie, after all, when he was so obviously in love with Ken?

So obviously.

No matter how many times Jamie told himself he was being stupid, that he knew the truth and that this situation wouldn’t last forever, doubts kept creeping back in. He kept creeping back online, looking at the gossip sites, and what he saw did nothing to help his jealousy.

Not that he would admit that jealousy to Lance. In fact, he wasn’t speaking much to Lance at all. The relationship had been so promising, but maybe Jamie had pushed it too far with the cat because now it seemed to have devolved into exactly what they’d first decided it would be. Sex. Just sex. Hot, deeply erotic, intense, fulfilling sex, but nothing more.

There were photographers backstage this time, so Lance was, as he always seemed to be, draped around Ken, an arm around the other man’s shoulder. Jamie stayed away, trying not to watch, trying to keep his treacherous eyes from even looking over.

But Ken and Lance, they looked so happy. Jamie felt the obnoxious tickle of something in his eyes, dust maybe, as he watched them. It was okay, he told himself. Even if Lance did decide that he wanted to make his thing with Ken more real, that would be okay with Jamie, because …

… he wanted Lance to be happy, even if it wasn’t with him.

“Jamie?”

The voice was a deep, familiar one. How funny that he would be speaking more to Aaron these days than he was to Lance. Well, to be honest, Jamie did most of the talking, but Aaron accepted it. Maybe he just felt badly for Jamie, who was on his way to being rejected. Or so it looked.

Regardless, Jamie would take it. His weird, slowly growing friendship with Aaron was one of the best things going on in his life right now, especially since he had no idea where anything with Lance stood.

“Yeah?” Jamie tossed the word off, giving a careless little shrug as he turned away from Lance and Ken as though it meant nothing. Although he really wasn’t even sure why he would bother. Aaron knew better. Aaron had seen them together, and Jamie had been so careless back then. He’d let his heart show.

Better not to make that mistake again, to err on the side of caution, no matter how pointless it probably was.

“Lance doesn’t love Ken,” Aaron leaned in and rested a hand on Jamie’s shoulder, which couldn’t have really shocked him more than if Aaron had started to tapdance on the ceiling. Aaron came off like such an asshole, cold and calculating and uninviting. In a lot of ways, he reminded Jamie of Dom, but deep down, there was a whole different human being in there.

So what was Aaron’s story? Why was he the way that he was? What was he defending against? Jamie would have loved to ask all of those questions, but the truth was, he really didn’t know Aaron very well. Not nearly well enough to be making those sorts of deeply personal inquiries.

Still, Jamie couldn’t help but wonder. But he just smiled at Aaron and gave him a little bit of a nod. He appreciated the comment, though he couldn’t really be completely sure that he believed it. Not when he looked over at Lance and saw the easy way that his strong arm rested over Ken’s shoulder, the sweet, seductive incline of his body toward Ken’s, the way they smiled at each other.

“It sure looks like they love each other,” Jamie mused, forgetting, for a moment, that he was even speaking to Aaron. His comment was mostly to himself, and he jumped, a little bit startled, when he felt Aaron’s hand squeeze his shoulder lightly.

“It’s supposed to. They’re just doing their job,” Aaron assured him, and more than anything, Jamie wanted to believe it. He would love to think that Ken and Lance were just so damn good at their jobs that they could pull this off so convincingly.

But they were singers and dancers. Pop stars, not actors. And the way that Ken, in particular, gazed and Lance made Jamie see red.

“It doesn’t even matter,” Jamie realized, his tone of voice far too sad, depression settling in the pit of his stomach as he looked over at the two of them. Lance was looking at them, at Jamie and Aaron, his expression unreadable, before he turned back to Ken. “If he likes Ken, or if he doesn’t. He and I, we’re not even …”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Aaron told him, and before Jamie could call him out on that, find out just what that was supposed to mean, they were given their five-minute warning, and Aaron slipped away before Jamie could say much of anything.

What had Aaron meant? What was Jamie being an idiot about? Because, from where he was standing, it seemed to him that the only way he would be an idiot was if he let himself get too caught up in this thing which was probably never going to be what he wanted.

Getting too involved, that would be the crazy thing. So once more, he made a resolution, pulling it tightly around himself. It was a bitter comfort, but if Lance did decide that he was going to make things real with Ken, Jamie would be ready for it.

He wouldn’t let himself get hurt again.

 

* * *

 

The crowd was still screaming. Jamie could hear it echoing through his mind, blowing everything else away. Everything other than what he’d just seen while on stage, which was, he was convinced, burned into his heart and mind and soul forever.

Of course, the audience had loved it when Ken had, after a song, seemingly impulsively thrown his arms around Lance’s neck and planted a hot kiss on his lips. Jamie’s eyes burned as he looked away, as he forced his gaze into the bright, white hot light of the spotlights which illuminated the stage and kept him from seeing any of the crowd at all.

They were kissing. Lance was kissing someone else, right in front of Jamie. Yes, it was just a part of the act, but that didn’t make it feel any less like a knife to the gut. Dom had pulled stuff like this, from time to time. Flirting with other boys, other men, to remind Jamie of his place,

though even Dom had never gotten to the point of kissing someone else to make his point.

It took everything in Jamie to keep on dancing. To keep his eyes wide open, his smile firmly in place as he flirted and spun and twirled for a crowd that he couldn’t even see.

And then it all got even crazier. While the crowd was still cheering after the kiss, loving the display of emotion between the two fan favorites, someone flung themselves onto the stage and knocked right into Jamie’s legs, knocking him sprawling. The ground seemed to rise up to meet him, the hard stage pushing the air from his lungs as he banged his left elbow hard enough on the wood that he was convinced, for a moment or two, at least, that he had just broken his arm.

Then the pain started to fade, to settle into a throbbing that seemed to pulse along with the beat of the song. He pushed himself to his knees and then watched as a pretty girl with strangely intense, focused brown eyes and silky dark hair sprang away from him, not even sparing a glance for him, as she made her way toward Lance and Ken.

Of course, she never made it. She barely got a few steps before security was on her, dragging her back and flinging her back into the crowd. Then Aaron was there, helping Jamie to his feet, as he cradled his bruised arm against himself.

There was the strangest look on Lance’s face. Like he wasn’t even in the building anymore. His body was still, his eyes stared at nothing, and his mouth hung open in shock.

It only lasted a second. Then Jamie turned back around, and the show went on. The show would always go on, because that was their job, to make it happen. And if tears threatened to roll down Jamie’s face, that just meant he would have to smile all the brighter.

Who was that girl? And why had Lance looked after her with that deeply stricken expression on his face?

It wasn’t until after the show that he got any answers whatsoever. It wasn’t until he was backstage, having been held back by Lester who was very concerned that Jamie was okay after his fall, that he knew just how screwed he really was.

Because when he finally did make it backstage, after assuring Lester that he was okay, that he didn’t need a doctor, it was only to see Ken, and Aaron, staring at a tableau that Jamie would never have expected in a million years.

The girl who had flung herself on stage was there, and she had her arms locked tightly around Lance, and was kissing him like her life depended on it.