EIGHTEEN

 

Leaving Dom the first time had been the hardest thing that Jamie had done in his entire life. Leaving him the second time, though, and this time having said goodbye, it was surprisingly easy to walk away. He did it without even looking back.

It wasn’t that Jamie had no heart because he did. And he was very aware that he and Dom had had good times together, too. But mostly, Dom was a controlling asshole, and Jamie had just been too smitten to see it before.

Smiling a little, he made his way into the elevator and up to the floor where their suite was. It wasn’t exactly a super happy moment for him, it was sort of bittersweet, but there was the sense of closure that he had been hoping for, and he felt lighter, like the soles of his sneakers barely touched the ground.

He heard the raised voices even before he got out of the elevator. As he drew closer, his steps slowed, because loud, angry voices were coming from behind the door which led to the rooms where he was staying. He paused outside of it, stopping just short of actually shoving his ear up against the door, and listened.

There were too many voices, though, and everyone was talking at the same time, and the door was thick and heavy on top of everything else. So after a moment of fruitlessly trying to hear through everything, Jamie frowned, took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and pushed open the door.

“Go ahead and fire me,” Lance spoke—his tone not so much defiant as it was determined. The man wasn’t pouting, he was just, by some miracle, not going to let himself be pushed around anymore.

For a moment, Jamie was sure that he must be dreaming. That there was no way this could actually be happening. It was all of his wildest dreams come true, and for a moment, all he could do was stand and stare at the scene in front of him.

Ken was there, looking embarrassed by the whole thing, and Aaron stood nearby, arms crossed over his chest. They were both silent. The loud voices he’d heard from all the way down the hall came from Lance and Lester, who were facing each other across the coffee table, Lester red in the face and with his arms defensively crossed over his chest, while Lance, by way of contrast, seemed completely calm.

“Don’t think I won’t. I replaced Darien, and I can replace you, too,” Lester blustered, his back to the door so that he couldn’t see Jamie as he walked in. Jamie frowned, his eyes scanning over Ken’s face, watching the sudden, pained look on it, and then going over to Lance, who had turned pale, but who looked no less sure of himself.

Darien? Well, maybe that cleared some stuff up. He knew who Darien was, of course. He had been a fan of the band before he’d ever considered that he might have a chance to join it. Darien had dramatically left the band, and he had thereby opened up a space which Jamie had taken.

It had never—for whatever reason—occurred to him to worry that people might resent that for him. The fans, yes, but not the men, the professionals, that he worked with. But the way Ken was glaring at Lester, all of a sudden the other man’s anger became crystal clear to him.

“So do it. Replace me,” Lance had his feet planted shoulder width apart, and his green eyes gleamed with the force of his will, uncompromising. Jamie shifted uneasily, and Lance raised his gaze to look at Jamie, and there was genuine surprise there.

Lance was saying these things, and Lance hadn’t even known that Jamie was there. There was no chance that this was some sort of meaningless, staged gesture, put on just for Jamie’s benefit.

“Don’t think I won’t,” Lester sounded deeply uneasy, in the way that only men who were used to getting their way all the time, and who sensed that they might not this time, could sound.

“Okay. But I’m not even sure it’s legal for you to require me to date someone. I don’t know. If you sue me, I guess I’ll probably just countersue. We can find out what the court says. I won’t let you dictate who I date anymore.”

Aaron finally spoke up, and like most quiet people, when he had something to say people tended to listen. His deep voice cut through Lester’s bluster, silencing him as effectively as a hand placed over the man’s mouth.

“Yeah, I’m pretty done with that too,” Aaron said. “So if you want to replace Lance, you’ll have to replace me, too.”

The silence in the room was louder than a scream, somehow, seeming to echo around, bouncing in between the five men standing there. A gauntlet had been thrown down, and Jamie closed his eyes, which were burning and stinging, taking a deep breath to try to tamp down the emotion which rose in him and threatened to explode.

Aaron didn’t have to do that. Aaron wasn’t, at least as far as Jamie knew, even dating anyone, or interested. But he had stepped forward, he had gazed right down the barrel of the gun that Lester had pointed at all of them, and he was facing it without fear.

“Me too,” Jamie managed to say, finally breaking that silence, and revealing himself to Lester, who was the only one who had had his back to him and who had been too busy to know that Jamie was there, at all. “If Lance goes, so do I.”

He went to stand beside Lance, and his fingers itched with the desire to take Lance’s hand into his own. He reached for him, and the back of their hands kissed sweetly together, and then Lance was slipping his fingers into Jamie’s and holding him intimately, palms warm against each other, and at that moment, Jamie knew that there was still real true hope.

Lester looked around, from Jamie to Aaron, and finally to Lance, who Jamie could see through his peripheral vision looked utterly stunned by this unexpected support. He had really thought that he was making a stand alone, hadn’t he? And he was still prepared to do it.

“I have you all under contract,” Lester finally managed, and his dark eyes glared into Jamie’s, demanding that he relent. That they let him do what he wanted to do, have the control that he wanted to have. “Is this because you two want to be together? Because we could work that …”

Ken spoke up, the only one of them who hadn’t said anything. When he opened his mouth, Jamie had no idea what to expect. He thought there was a pretty good chance that Ken would offer to stick around, and that they could rebuild the Lost Boys off of him. And maybe it would even work. As long as one of the original members was around, it might be okay.

“Okay. So you have us all under contract,” Ken started, and Jamie felt the tension in Lance’s fingers, tension which was echoed in the knots which started to form in the muscles of Jamie’s shoulders. “So what would happen if you took us to court? If we all go, you have nothing anyway. The band is over, and plus, we would tell them everything. How sympathetic would the world be if they knew that you’d been trying to control our love lives like that? Illegal or not, I think it would ruin you.”

Jamie stared, to the point where he wondered if his eyes might fall right out of their sockets. Never, not in a million years, had he expected something like that from Ken. Not only his loyalty, even though Jamie knew Ken hated him, so it was remarkable enough, but such a reasoned, logical comment.

Jamie smiled at the other members of the band. It was hard to believe that he’d come as far as he had. That he was with these three other men, and they were standing by him, and that it seemed like he maybe, just maybe, might have a chance at fixing things with Lance.

Lester was nothing but a paper tiger. With the four of them united, they could form their own band, if they wanted to. They probably couldn’t call themselves the Lost Boys, but they could work it out, and Jamie was willing to bet that they were a big enough phenomenon that they would keep their fans.

“What do you little assholes want?” Lester finally spoke, and there was a fine tremor of rage in his voice, in the set of his shoulders and lips, in the way his hands clenched into fists at his side. He looked a little bit like he was going to strangle all of them, and Jamie watched him curiously.

“I think what we want is for you to butt the fuck out of our personal lives.” It was Aaron who was speaking, oddly. Or maybe it wasn’t that odd since he was probably the most private of any of them. After all, wasn’t it possible that, if they let Lester get away with controlling their romantic lives any longer, he would start poking around at other things?

It stopped here, and Jamie shook his head in disbelief as he realized that these people, who had been strangers only a few months ago, were standing by him. He had friends. Not just acquaintances, not people that he only knew through his lovers, but friends, real friends, who would have his back. Who would take risks for him.

“Agreed,” Jamie managed, his voice coming out a bit too quiet, but he was close enough to Lester that he was sure that the other man heard him.

“Yep,” Lance said, and Ken just nodded. How much had it hurt Ken to step forward? To choose loyalty to Lance, and to the band, over his very obvious dislike of Jamie?

Then Ken met his eyes and gave him the slightest trace of a smile before the dark-haired man looked away again. It was possible even Ken wasn’t a totally lost cause. It would take some time since Jamie wasn’t sure he could so easily forgive the crap that Ken had put him through for the past few months.

But it wasn’t a lost cause. At the very least, that brief gaze acknowledged, they could work together. Maybe even try to get along, for Lance’s sake, if nothing else.

Lester let out a huff of air, and then he turned abruptly on his heel without saying even one more word. Just like that, he was gone. Just like that, the specter of looming disaster which had been hanging over Jamie for what felt like forever was gone, too, departed with their controlling manager.

Well, he was done with people trying to control his life. Never again. He’d kicked Dom to the curb, and now Lester knew how it was going to be, too. The four of them united had power. More than any of them had apart, definitely, and possibly even more than Lester did.

“Jamie,” Lance whispered, and Jamie turned to face him, meeting those brilliant, shimmering green eyes, so warm, so welcoming. Like coming home again, that’s what it felt like. Like he could wrap himself up in those beautiful green eyes.

“I’m sorry, Lance,” Jamie told him, and he didn’t think the words out at all before he said them, they just spilled out of him, a bubbling fountain that he couldn’t seem to control once it started. “I said goodbye to Dom—”

“I’m not going to see Amy again—” Lance was speaking at the same time, and they stopped to just grin at each other, almost bashful as they locked eyes with each other.

They’d come all the way back to the beginning, Jamie realized. Full circle. That might mean that they could start over again, or was that too wonderful to be possible? He could still remember, as clearly as it had been yesterday, how it had felt to blunder into his audition, only to be caught up in those strong arms and that beautiful gaze.

“I love you,” Jamie admitted, and he didn’t even care that Aaron and Ken were watching. They could deal with it, or not. Not his problem. All he really knew was that he couldn’t go even one more second without Lance knowing that. Whatever happened between them, he wanted it all to happen with perfect honesty.

“I love you, too,” Lance admitted. And then, Jamie wasn’t sure how, but they were kissing, arms locked around each other in a desperate embrace, lips parting as they both deepened it, melting and flowing into each other, no more barriers between them.

How long they would have stayed like that, wrapped around each other, kissing and touching and holding and being held, Jamie didn’t even know. Forever, maybe, or until something interrupted them.

In this case, that something was Ken, who was making overly dramatic, deliberately loud barfing noises.

“Get a room, guys,” he said, but Jamie was pretty damn happy to see the slight smile on his lips. He didn’t mind nearly as much as he was pretending to, that much was obvious.

“That sounds like a good idea,” Lance purred, and he kept his warm, strong arm around Jamie’s waist as he swept Jamie right up off of his feet and into the nearest bedroom.