SEVENTEEN

 

After the concert where everything had gone so thoroughly to shit, Lance went out to a party and then to another one, seeing and being seen. He’d drunk until his vision blurred like he was underwater, and when he’d finally stumbled into his bed, it was so late that it was early, the sky turning a dark gold at the horizon as he passed out.

When he woke, it was afternoon, and his eyes felt like he’d dumped a whole bucket of sand in them. He hadn’t gotten nearly enough sleep, and he groaned as he rolled out of bed. He needed coffee.

He needed Jamie. He’d tried to drink the man out of his system, but it was no use. He might as well try to stop needing to breathe. All he had to show for his attempt was a nasty headache, and he pulled on the first clothes that came to mind, tossed his hair back in a careless ponytail, and stumbled out into the living area of the suite to put on some coffee.

“Hey, princess,” Despite his misery, Lance couldn’t help but smile as he felt something small and furry wind around his ankles. He glanced down at the kitten, who was, he swore, getting bigger by the day, and then reached down to pick her soft, solid little body into his arms, where she settled. How a purr that loud came from such a tiny body, he wasn’t even sure.

Still, the low rumbling seemed to help, and he settled into the chair of the breakfast nook, focusing only on the cat. The cat Jamie had given him, who still somehow loved him even though Lance knew he’d messed everything up.

Jamie. Beautiful Jamie, who hadn’t even been able to hide his hurt the night before. Lance had known that the secret was taking a toll on them, but he hadn’t known just how much. Not until Jamie had exploded and left him.

And that brought him to Amy. Seeing her had felt wrong, he realized now. At the moment, even, he’d noticed something was off. Groaning softly, he picked up his phone with his free hand, the one not petting the sweet, fierce little kitten, and tapped on the entry for Amy’s number, which he had gotten from a security guard the previous night.

Why did you leave?

Maybe he was too hungover for this, but he didn’t care. He suddenly needed, more than anything, to get this over with. To find out, once and for all, what had tormented him for the last five years.

Too intense. We were moving too fast.

The answer came back almost immediately, and Lance was still staring at it when the phone beeped at him once more.

It was just something I had to do. I’m ready now.

Just something she had to do. Let him think the worst? Really? She’d had to do that? She couldn’t even give him the benefit of an explanation? And why was she back now?

“Lance?” a familiar voice asked, and he turned to look at Aaron, who was looking distinctly less glamorous with his bright red hair disheveled and wearing comfortable, loose sweats. “What’s going on?”

Grabbing his coffee, and pouring one for Aaron, too, Jamie went over to the couch, and Aaron followed. He started to talk once more, telling Aaron things that he hadn’t last time. Not his feelings for Jamie, which Aaron already knew, but the truth about his past, about Amy.

It was the second time he had said the words, and it hurt a little bit less, like the wound was there, but all of the poison had been taken out of it. He would heal now.

When Lance was done, Aaron sat there, a slight frown on his face as he processed through all of that. It was a lot—Lance had to admit to that. He’d been weighed down under it for long enough to know. And he and Aaron, despite knowing each other for almost two years now, hadn’t been exactly on the sort of terms to talk about stuff like this.

“So this girl, she just took off. Things were going too fast,” Aaron finally concluded, and Lance sighed and nodded a little.

“I guess I got a little bit too clingy. I just thought, you know, someday, she and I would …”

He let his voice trail off, and Aaron frowned and shook his head, something in his eyes that Lance wouldn’t have expected to see, something like compassion.

“You thought you lost her, and she let you think that. Lance, you didn’t do anything wrong. She’s the jerk, and because of that, you’ve had to hold on to this shit for way too long.”

It was funny, Lance mused, how just a few words could pull something from over his eyes. It was like he’d been wearing a scarf this whole time, one which he could see through but which obscured his vision, and he hadn’t even known it.

In those few words, Aaron ripped the scarf away, and Lance, who had felt all sorts of things ever since losing Amy, who had mourned, who had been depressed, felt a whole new emotion come into play.

Anger. And when he looked at Aaron, he felt like the other man saw the anger, and approved of it. Why shouldn’t he be mad?

“Why did she have to come back?” Lance asked, his voice almost plaintive, relying on Aaron to have an answer when he knew logically that the other man couldn’t know.

“Why do you think? You’re famous now,” Aaron commented, and he had this way of putting things—when he spoke at all—that seemed to put everything into perspective. All of a sudden, it did make sense. Why Amy had left in the first place, well, it wasn’t his fault, and why she was back …

She saw a bad investment, one that she’d run out on, turn good, and she wanted in. But the joke was on her. Not only did Lance not even want to be with her anymore, not only had he well and truly moved on, but he couldn’t be, even if he did. Lester would never allow it.

“Aaron, I …” Lance wasn’t sure what he was going to say, but Ken jogged into the room, giving them both a little bit of a wave.

“Oh, coffee!” He had clearly been running once more, and he was covered in sweat, but he had far too much energy as he jogged over to the coffee machine and poured the last of it into a mug for himself.

“No,” Lance said, his voice surprising even himself. He looked at both of the other men, his bandmates. The Lost Boys. Well, Lance wasn’t lost anymore.

“Huh?” Ken asked, perhaps understandably, though Aaron seemed to understand. There was actually the slightest trace of a smile on his lips. As for Lance, well, he felt like the sun had come out and like things had been illuminated which he had been ignoring, or unaware of completely.

“No. Ken, I’m done. I’m sorry. I like you, and I like being in the band, but I’m not dating you anymore,” Lance told him. “We were way better as best friends than as boyfriends, even fake boyfriends.”

Ken shrugged, and then his eyes narrowed a little bit as he looked at Lance.

“This is about Jamie, isn’t it? You’re going to get kicked out of the band because of Jamie,” Ken stated, and Lance just shrugged. That wasn’t entirely accurate, but it was close enough.

“Lester won’t like it,” Aaron warned, and then it was Lance’s turn to shrug. Let Lester not like it. He was beyond giving a damn.

“I don’t care. I want to be with Jamie, but even if he’s not interested anymore, I’m not going to fake anything.”

For some reason, Ken suddenly looked very interested in his cup of coffee, refusing to meet Lance’s eyes, and Lance looked at him thoughtfully. Ken’s face usually showed his emotions, but Ken was looking down, and Lance couldn’t see most of that face. Still, he was willing to bet that Ken knew something.

“What is it?” Lance went over to Ken, who continued to avoid his gaze, who refused even to look up from his coffee mug. “Ken, what happened?”

Ken was his friend, and slowly, the other man looked up at him, raising his eyes, his own not slippery anymore.

“I’m sorry. But Jamie … I heard him talking to someone. He called him Dom. And he agreed to go out on a date with him. That’s where he is now.”

First Amy, and then Dom. God, what a mess. Lance gazed down at the kitten who was still curled up, fast asleep in his arms and had been the whole time they’d been talking.

“I guess I’ll just have to see what happens,” he whispered, but from the looks in Ken’s eyes, and even Aaron’s, maybe he was just fooling himself. Maybe Jamie had run back to his ex, and from what Lance had heard about the guy, it wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility that Dom might try to get Jamie to leave the band completely.

Either way, Lance was going to do something terrifying. And he needed his friends by his side.

“Guys … can I count on you?” Lance asked, and he saw the answer in their faces before the words were even out of his mouth. Things had been weird with Ken lately, no doubt, but at the very base of it, Ken was his friend before anything else. And this friendship with Aaron might be relatively new, but it was real.

These guys had his back, and that was good because Lance was going to step out into new territory. For the first time since Amy had broken his heart, he was going to take a stand, and fight for the man that he’d fallen in love with.

Thinking of Amy, he looked down at his phone, resting on his knee, and gazed at her last message. She hadn’t even blown up his phone, he realized. Just the one message and she probably expected him to come running back to her like he’d just been waiting all of these years.

Smiling, he typed out a brief reply to her and then blocked her number. She’d had her chance. She’d given up on something which could have been good, and that was her loss, ultimately, and not his.

“Let’s do this,” Lance said, and while he waited, he pulled out the sketch that he’d done of Jamie, looking into the eyes of the sketch. He could do much better than that. Maybe he could never actually portray Jamie’s beauty, never really do him justice, he soon lost himself in the project of doing his very best.