FIVE

 

 

It wasn’t really that Justin was a coward. He was almost positive about that. He hadn’t decided to take off in a hurry because Ken had been coming close to him, and because Justin was starting to feel shades of the same intimacy that he’d felt in the elevator. It didn’t have anything to do with that.

It was just that one thing that he could not be late for was picking up his daughter from school. That was all it was. It had nothing to do with Ken at all. Jade had to make it to dance, and she was counting on him, and really, he was the only person that she could count on.

Getting away from Ken—who was even more terrifying to Justin now that they had had those oddly intimate conversations and since Ken had stood up for Justin and tried to save his job—that was just a welcome side bonus.

Or so he thought, anyway. As it turned out, maybe he didn’t get away from Ken quite as much as he would have thought. As he sat, waiting, outside of his daughter’s school, scanning the empty playground and air conditioning on full blast to try to counteract the sun which beat down on everything and turned the world into an enormous oven, his phone beeped at him and he turned to look at it, sort of like he would look at a highly venomous snake.

The thing was, he sort of thought about it the same way that he would about the snake. The gleam of the sunlight on the glass and plastic seemed like the cold, flat look that he might expect to see in the emotionless eyes of a reptile who was seriously considering if it should bite him or not. The beeping might as well be the rattle of a rattlesnake …

And sometimes—he told himself firmly—he let his mind get away from him. More than sometimes. Creative people could see things when there was nothing to see, and his phone was just a phone.

Not that a lot of good news had come to him lately from his phone, but still, there was no reason not to pick it up and see who was texting him. When he saw, his heart gave a painful little lurch and his stomach clenched up into a tight little ball, making him feel either exhilarated or nauseated and even he wasn’t sure which.

Ken. It was Ken texting him, and Justin took a deep, deep breath before slipping the pad of his thumb over the smooth, warm glass, looking down at the conversation with Ken.

To this point, the only things in the window were business things. Nothing social, all professional, which was exactly how Justin had wanted it. But in a split second, all of that changed.

So when can we meet? I want to get going on this.

Get going on this. Damned if Justin couldn’t think of a few things that he wouldn’t mind getting going with the gorgeous young man, but even this, while it was the most personal, intimate text message that Ken had ever sent him, it was still—he reminded himself—about business.

The song? I don’t think there’s any hurry. My contract says that I get six months to write the song after it’s commissioned. Maybe after the summer we can get serious.

After the summer would be better. Very soon, Jade was going to be out of school for the summer, and then Justin would have almost no spare time. He had a very sweet older lady as a neighbor who didn’t mind watching Jade when she had to, but Justin didn’t like to impose too much on her.

There was a long, long pause, and Justin sort of kicked himself for continuing to look down at the blank, unresponsive screen. Just when he’d decided that Ken wasn’t going to respond at all, just when his thumb hit the button on the side of his phone which turned the screen blank, it started to ring and vibrate in his hand, cheerfully flashing Ken’s name at him.

“Hey,” Justin answered, sure that he must sound incredibly awkward, just as awkward as he felt. All of a sudden, the years flew backward at an alarming rate, and he was right back in high school, dismay and exhilaration pumping through him all at once, making him want the conversation to both stop and to never stop as he spoke to his crush for the very first time.

“No way,” Ken’s voice was emphatic, vivacious. There was no way in the world that Justin could have ever mistaken it for anyone else. Ken’s energy was obvious even over the phone, and Justin sort of hated himself for the way that it made him feel.

What was he, some old man who was desperate to reclaim some semblance of his own youthful energy? He shook his head. How pathetic was that? This whole stupid crush on Ken was probably the most ridiculous thing he’d ever allowed himself to do.

“Um …” Justin let the one word trail off, and one eyebrow arched as he tried to make sense of those two words.

“I want the song done soon,” Ken spoke with an assurance that Justin couldn’t help but admire. There was something about being young which let you think that you knew everything, and sometimes, Justin missed that feeling. “My sister is getting married soon.”

“Yeah, you told me,” Justin told him, his voice pointed. Ken had told him, and he’d also told Justin that he was intending to take Aaron to the wedding, and that had been a whole big thing. Justin definitely remembered it.

“Right. Well, I want the song done before the wedding,” Ken spoke briskly, as if it was no big deal, what he was asking.

“You said three weeks. You want me to write a song for you in three weeks?” Justin asked, and he wasn’t honestly sure if he was more affronted or amused by the whole thing. Ken was so presumptuous. Everyone else who had employed him had realized that it could take a fair bit of time to write a really good song, depending on how friendly the muse was.

“You did it for Darien and Noah,” Ken pointed out, and Justin rolled his eyes. He probably should have known better than to help out. No good deed, as he should have learned a long time ago, went unrewarded, and when you showed that you could do something, people expected it to be the same all of the time.

“Yeah, but I don’t need to do it for you. We have time. No need to get your panties in a twist,” Justin pointed out, smirking a little. With Ken, everything was so urgent. It led the guy to some mistakes, for sure, but at least they were mistakes that he made with gusto.

“Come on. Let’s just at least get started today,” Ken’s voice took on a wheedling, plaintive sound, and Justin felt something deep inside of him melting. Why did Ken have to be so damn adorable? On anyone else, that noise would be incredibly annoying, but with Ken, he just found himself wanting to pull the other man into his arms and hold him close and promise him anything that he wanted. “I mean, Lester wants a new album this month anyway, right? This song could go on it.

Probably a good thing that they weren’t there in person. Justin had always found resolve, determination, to be hot as hell. Ken was basically demanding that Justin meet up with him, wasn’t he? And while it would be hell to be around him, it would also be more than a little bit of heaven, too.

“I can’t. I’m busy,” Justin steeled his resolve, made his voice as firm as he could, even if that damn smile wouldn’t leave the corners of his lips. “Sorry. Maybe tomorrow.”

“Well, what are you doing right now?” Ken was nothing, Justin was coming to learn, if not persistent. “I could come with you.”

Oh, could he really, now. Justin shook his head, amused by how assumptive Ken was, but also starting to feel his resolve weaken. Outside, there was the pulsing tone of the school bell, and within a few seconds, kids, freed from their day of servitude to the higher mind, would come pouring out.

His time was officially running short, and Justin took a deep breath, wracking his mind. Obviously, he wasn’t going to tell Ken where he actually was, or what he was actually doing, but in that case, what was he going to tell him?

“I’m going to the gym,” Justin admitted, taking refuge in the truth. During the two hours that his daughter was in dance, Justin took the chance to get his own workout in, since there wasn’t a lot of other time for him to squeeze it in.

“Oh, cool! I could go for another workout today,” Ken said, and Justin winced when he realized the mistake that he’d made there. Ken thought that Justin had agreed to see him, and the hell of it was, Justin wasn’t even sure that he wanted to correct that misconception.

When Justin was silent, fighting with himself, a fight that he was bound, he had realized, to lose, Ken continued on, utterly oblivious to Justin’s struggle.

“Text me the address of your gym. I’ll meet you there in half an hour.”

Outside his window, he saw the bounce of shiny dark hair, a familiar grin, as his daughter spotted his car and came rushing over. Justin had, well and truly, ran out of time, because unless he wanted to try to juggle two different conversations, which both Jade and Ken would naturally have questions about, he was going to have to get off of the phone with Ken.

So he bowed to the inevitable. It looked like Ken got his way. Just as the door opened and Jade bounded happily into the car, Justin sighed and then spoke.

“Okay. I will,” he agreed, and then, before Ken could say anything, Justin pressed the screen to end the call. “Hey, sweetheart. How was school?”

As always, it took very little for Jade to start to babble about whatever was interesting to her these days, and Justin mostly just left her to it as he got them headed for Jade’s dance school. It was one of the best ones in town—because Jade was talented and she deserved the best chance that she could get—but it was nowhere near her school. And Justin still had to get her there, help her put her hair up and into her outfit so that she would adhere to the incredibly strict dress code that the school had in place.

It was a pain in the ass, but there was no question that Jade adored the place and that Daphne, her teacher, adored Jade. Some things were a giant pain in the ass, but they were still worth it, and this definitely fell into that category.

Besides, keeping himself so busy, it helped him to avoid thinking about the workout date that he had just made with Ken. Of course, that was all business, and as long as he kept that in mind he should be fine.

It didn’t exactly break his heart, though, to think of getting to see Ken all sweaty, wearing very little, straining his gorgeous body. And there was probably no harm in that because it wasn’t like Justin had any misapprehensions about what he and Ken could ever be.

So then why was he so damn excited to see the guy? Why did his heart race whenever he thought about it?