TWO

 

 

This morning, there wasn’t going to be time to go to the gym. There was an early dance rehearsal in just a few hours, and all Ken was going to be able to squeeze in was a quick workout at home.

No big deal, he supposed. He had the equipment here, but the gym had more variety. Not to mention, there were other people there. Even though they were all working out separately, there was a sort of brotherhood to it, all of them doing the same thing.

It sure beat working out alone, anyway. Alone, his thoughts wandered, and he wasn’t sure that he particularly wanted to face them. To think about the men who had been in his life, who had come and gone. Men that he, in some way or another, had made an idiot of himself for.

First Darien, who had been his lover, but who had outright left the band to be with his boyfriend, Noah. No, he reminded himself. Not boyfriend. Husband now. Ken had been at his wedding in Vegas, had seen it happen. He had no problem with Noah, but he still wasn’t sure why Darien had chosen the little computer nerd over him.

And then there was Lance, who had been Ken’s temporary fake boyfriend before the idiot had gone off and fallen in love with Jamie, Darien’s replacement in the band. Ken had just been starting to think that maybe, just maybe, he had found someone in Lance. His best friend could have turned into his boyfriend for real. Or so he’d been allowing himself to consider, but he’d been a fool because the whole time Lance had been sneaking around with Jamie and falling in love with him.

Two men in two years had rejected him, both of them now married to someone else. Ken closed his eyes, pressed his finger onto the speed control button of his treadmill, and cranked his music until he couldn’t hear his own thoughts. It was better that way.

Only, almost against his will, another face snuck into his mind. The dramatic, sharp, beautiful features which had haunted him since even before Darien, if Ken were honest with himself. The shimmering, cold eyes, a shade of blue so rich that it almost looked purple in some lighting. The shock of brilliant red hair falling messily over a pale forehead. Dramatic, that was the word for it, but Ken had always known better than to try with that particular man.

Aaron was the one member of the band that Ken still barely felt like he knew, even as long as they’d been working together. Jamie was a much newer member, but he was also much more of an open book. Aaron kept to himself, and he probably had no idea how he had started to figure more and more prominently in Ken’s daydreams.

No matter how hard Ken pushed his body, Aaron’s face, Aaron’s slender, beautifully formed body, forced its way into his mind. Aaron singing, with that gorgeous deep voice. Aaron dancing, flinging messy, brilliant red hair out of his face. Aaron intense and focused, which he was, well, pretty much all the damn time.

Not that Ken would be stupid enough to go after yet another member of his band. Especially not the remote, aloof Aaron, who was a complete mystery to Ken. To everyone, Ken was pretty sure.

It would be idiotic to try. Wouldn’t it? Ken wiped sweat as it dripped down his face, enjoying the slightly rough scratch of the terrycloth. Aaron had never shown the slightest interest in Ken, or in anyone as far as Ken knew. He had stayed completely out of the whole thing, never involving himself in the ongoing soap opera as the members of the band sorted their romantic entanglements out.

So why couldn’t Ken get him out of his mind? It wasn’t so much fun being rejected that he was going to eagerly seek it out, right? But then, how did he know that Aaron wouldn’t go for it since he had never tried asking?

Ken knew he wasn’t hideous or anything. Maybe Aaron was just shy. Or it had just never occurred to him to give anything a try. Maybe Aaron had some sort of tragic past … Ken let his mind run away from him as he threw himself into the workout, feet pounding, heart racing with more than the exercise as he wondered what would happen if he let himself go to Aaron. Ask if he wanted to hang out sometime. It didn’t have to be any sort of big deal, right?

It was probably a ridiculous fantasy, but as Ken ran, as the endorphins started to flood through his body, it started to seem more and more possible. Probable, well, maybe not, but how would he ever know if he didn’t give it a try?

A slight smile formed on Ken’s lips as he thought about it. He and Aaron weren’t friends, were little more than acquaintances, so there would be no awkward best friend thing to get past like there had been with Lance. Aaron was strong, and he knew what he wanted, not like Darien. Well, not until Darien had hooked up with Noah, anyway.

So why not? Just invite Aaron out. He could always say no if he didn’t want to. It was a risk, but Ken had never been the sort of person to shy away from risks. The little smile formed into a fully formed, goofy grin, and he allowed his daydreams to take a much more interesting turn. Kissing Aaron. Seeing if that pale skin was as soft, as smooth, as it looked …

His music, piped into his ears from his phone, cut off suddenly, and instead, he heard the sound of his ringtone through the earbuds. Someone was calling him? Well, it had to be a work thing, then, or a family thing, because everyone else knew that texting him was far better.

Glancing down at his screen, he softly groaned when he saw what the call display said. But ignoring the call wasn’t really an option. She would just keep on calling back—he knew that. Better to get it over with, and he let his thumb slip over the screen, accepting the call.

“Hey, Mom,” he said, bowing to the inevitable. Thoughts, as pleasant as they had been, of Aaron slipped right away, and he turned the treadmill off. By the time he got his mother off of the phone, it would be time for him to shower and then go.

“Ken, darling,” her familiar, well-loved voice came through his headphones, and Ken mopped himself with the towel as he tried to get some stretching in while she spoke. “I wanted to talk to you about Luna’s wedding.”

Ken sighed, only barely managing to keep it soft enough that she probably didn’t hear. He loved his family, but it seemed like all they were talking about these days was the wedding. Not that he begrudged his only older sister her happiness, but it would be a relief when the whole thing was over.

“What about it? I’m ready,” Ken told her. Through long experience with her, he knew better than to let his impatience into his voice. She could be quite touchy, and the whole thing could devolve so easily into a fight, which he just didn’t have time for.

“I was hoping that your brothers could stay with you.” Her voice was bright, determinedly cheerful, like she didn’t realize what she was asking. Ken’s place was nice enough, but it wasn’t exactly huge. He only had the two bedrooms.

“Mom,” Ken’s patience was starting to fray. It was always like this. No matter how hard he tried to keep himself together, she could get to him like no one else. Or maybe it was just that everyone else realized that Ken had a temper, and they didn’t irritate him deliberately. But that was just her way. “All of them?”

There were a lot of brothers, after all. Three of them and the youngest was only five years old. He cared about all of his family and he, of course, like everyone, had a soft spot for Caleb, the baby of the family, but he just plain didn’t have the time to babysit.

“No, of course not. Caleb will stay with me in the hotel. But for some reason, Mason doesn’t want to stay with us, and I can’t just let a fourteen-year-old stay at your place alone. Not with the crazy hours you keep and your”—her voice trailed off before she delicately added—“lifestyle. So I’ve asked Liam to go along with him …”

She spoke more, of course. She was pretty much always speaking, but Ken was busy trying to calm himself down. He breathed deeply. He did all the things that he knew he was supposed to do. He counted backward from ten, slowly, but that didn’t stop the wave of anger from rising up in him.

“So I’m not safe for Mason to be around?” Ken tried to keep his voice even, tried hard enough that the force of that trying had him gritting his teeth so hard that he could almost swear he felt his jaw groaning with the force of it. “Why not?”

“Well, sweetheart, you know how it is. Your friends …” Her voice trailed off once more like she wouldn’t sully her lips with the words, and Ken dropped down into a chair and closed his eyes, his jaw straining as he tried to bite back the words. There was no point—he reminded himself. No point at all. She was going to be who she was, and Ken should have given up a long time ago on changing her.

She was the master at insinuating things without actually coming right out and saying them, and it drove him psychotic sometimes.

“What about my friends?” Ken’s voice was short of a snarl, but only just, and it was then that he realized that he had lost the fight. His temper was getting the best of him again, just as it seemed to do every time he spoke to his mother. No one could trigger him, could press his buttons, like she did.

“You know. Their lifestyle,” she spoke the word a little bit less delicately this time, with an emphasis on the second word that made Ken see red behind his closed eyelids. “Not appropriate for a fourteen-year-old boy to be around. Not really appropriate for you to be around either, Kenny, but you know how I feel about that already.”

Yes. Yes, of course, he knew. How could he not? She had never made it a secret, after all.

“Mom. I’m gay,” he said and heard her shocked gasp at the bluntness of his statement. Which only pissed him off more. This wasn’t news to her, or shouldn’t be, anyway. “I came out to you when I was younger than Mason is now. Stop trying to pretend …”

“I don’t want to hear it.” She spoke with finality, and Ken fought back a growl. It was a near thing, though. “But I know Liam is a good boy, and I suppose it’s better for Mason to stay with family, especially if Liam is around to watch over him.”

What she meant, Ken knew, was that Liam would act as some sort of magical anti-gay force field, she hoped. Liam with his girlfriend that he’d been seeing for two years now. Straight, acceptable Liam.

There was a beep on the line, alerting Ken that there was another call coming in, and Ken leaped on it and clung to it with both arms and legs figuratively wrapped tightly around it. This was how he could get away from this conversation, which was going how all of his conversations with his mother went, but he had an escape now.

“Mom, there’s a call on the other line.” Ken didn’t even care who it was. Let it be a telemarketer, for all he cared. “I gotta go. It could be work.”

All he got in response to that was a disdainful sniff. She wasn’t going to lower herself, that sniff said, clear as day, to speaking about Ken’s job. She did her best to pretend that he didn’t work for a queer boy band, and in general, Ken was sure that she did a pretty good job. She was definitely a pro at ignoring the things she didn’t like.

“Okay, then I’ll tell Liam and Mason they can stay with you,” she decided, and Ken rolled his eyes. He didn’t actually remember saying that he was okay with that, but she had apparently managed it as far as she was concerned.

“Mom …” he started, not even sure what he was going to say next. But she interrupted him before he could get more than that one word out.

“You’d better go, darling. Your other call. I’ll talk to you later,” she paused, and then, with her voice ringing with special significance that Ken didn’t exactly need a UN translator to figure out, she spoke again. “Remember that I’m thinking about you. Praying for you.”

Praying for him. That had been her reaction when he’d told her that he was gay, that she would pray for him to see the error of his ways. Well, that had been nearly ten years ago, so Ken had to hope that she wasn’t also holding her breath as well as praying. She would pass right out because Ken would never be anything but what he was.

Before he could say anything, she’d disconnected the call, but it was too late. He’d already missed the other call, and when he looked at his phone to see who it was, he softly groaned when he saw Lester’s name.

He’d missed a call from his boss. Lester tended not to like that. Rubbing his fingers into his temples hard enough that it actually hurt, though not more than the headache which was starting to form there, Ken called him back.

 

* * *

 

The shower was not something that could be skipped, not with how much he’d been sweating, so Ken dashed through it as fast as he could and threw on the first clothes that came to hand and seemed at least relatively clean. He was out the door in record time, but the shower hadn’t been instant, and he knew that he was going to be late.

Lester wasn’t going to be happy, but then, he hardly would have been happy if Ken had shown up still stinky from his run. There was really no way to win with this one, and Ken groaned as he raced into the building. The parking lot had been full, on top of everything else, so he’d had to find another place to park, which had only delayed him more.

As he ran into the building, covered in sweat once more from his mad dash through the late spring sun, he gave a cry of denial when he saw that the elevator doors were already closing. Putting on a burst of speed, he flung himself at it and just barely made it. His t-shirt almost got caught in the closing doors, but he was in.

In, and off balance. In, and unable to stop his speed in time. He tried to throw on the brakes, but he had been going too fast for that to be an instant process, and he didn’t even really see the man until he was plowing into him, knocking them both to the floor, Ken sprawled on top of the stranger.

No, not a stranger. He knew this man, though he wasn’t sure if that made the whole thing better or worse. A complete stranger might have sued or something, but this man knew him and could tell everyone, if he wanted to, just how much of an ass he’d made of himself.

Not that Justin was well known for talking much. His words mostly came out through his songs, and Justin himself tended to be quiet, speaking only when necessary. So Ken was probably safe, though he still felt like a world class asshole for pretty much assaulting the guy.

“Sorry,” he admitted, and he struggled to push his body up off of Justin’s. But just then, the elevator gave a little lurch, made an odd whining sound, and then started to rise, knocking Ken off balance all over again.

His eyes met Justin’s, and for some reason, it was like there wasn’t enough air in the elevator. Ken had been winded, had had the air knocked from his lungs, more than a few times. No one who was as active as he was could avoid that. But that usually involved some sort of sharp blow. Had the impact of their bodies meeting been enough to do it?

Justin’s eyes were gray. Not blue, like Darien’s or Aaron’s, but the color of steel, the color of the storm clouds which came in off of the Pacific sometimes. This close, Ken could see that the other man had light freckles sprinkled over his nose and cheeks and that his lips were full and pouty and surprisingly sensual and that the intensity which Justin gave off was even stronger once Ken was close to him.

Justin didn’t move, and for a moment or two, Ken didn’t, either. They just looked at each other, and Ken became aware not only of Justin’s eyes but of the way he felt under him. His body was slender but harder than Ken would have expected. More muscle tone.

In short, Justin was hot. How had Ken never noticed? Of course, he would never be able to do anything about it, because Justin was also at least ten years older than Ken, but that didn’t change the fact that he was a handsome man, almost beautiful, though in a completely masculine way.

Ken should move. He was still straddling Justin’s hips, and the position was the most intimate one that Ken had been in for far too long. His body was going to get the completely wrong idea, was, in fact, already doing so, but just when Ken was once more pushing himself off of Justin, that’s when all hell seemed to break loose.

The elevator lurched once more and stopped, but the doors didn’t slide open. Instead, the lights went out, leaving them in complete darkness, and the elevator didn’t so much as budge.

He was locked in here, with this strangely awkward, intense moment with a beautiful man. He was late, and it seemed likely that Justin was, too, and all Ken could really think about was the way Justin’s body tensed under his. And the nearly overwhelming desire that Ken had to wrap his arms around him and hold him close and comfort him, protect him from what was going on which had obviously freaked him out more than a little.

What was even going on with Ken these days? Was he that desperate to be touched that he was willing to seek it out from anyone? It was ridiculous, Justin was far too old from him, but that didn’t change what Ken found himself wanting.

Ridiculous. Laughable. Like Justin would probably literally laugh at him if he knew, but the front of Ken’s pants were getting uncomfortably tight as all the blood rushed there all at once.