TWO

 

Fingers plucking nervously at the worn threads of his black pants, which threatened to give way at any point, Jamie stood outside the office door where his boss lurked. In theory, they were supposed to have an open door, always ready to listen to the employees, but in reality, Jamie wasn’t sure he had ever met anyone less approachable in his life.

Forcing his fingers to still, Jamie took a deep, deep breath, then let it out slowly. He couldn’t afford to ruin these pants. They were close to falling apart as it was, and while the fast food chain where he worked supplied them with shirts, he had to use his own pants. So he had to be careful, because his money, most of it, went to pay his rent.

The door was, technically, open. Just a crack, not even enough for Jamie to put two fingers through, but he supposed that it counted. Swallowing down his heart, which beat hot and heavy and too damn fast in the back of his throat and raised an odd, metallic taste on his tongue.

His boss was an ogre. As in, Jamie had never met another human being that was as repulsively unprepossessing than this man. The only good thing about him was that he tended to stay away from the rest of the employees unless he absolutely had to.

And now Jamie had to ask him for a favor. He knew that he was lucky that he’d gotten the phone call at all, the one that had told him that he could come down this afternoon and audition because someone else had pulled out and there was room for him.

The Lost Boys. The chances of him getting in were probably worse than winning the lottery, but didn’t he have to try? He could sing, and he could dance, and he might as well put his only marketable skills to use. And if—by some miracle—he did get in, it would be his ticket to freedom, to adventure.

Dom’s voice echoed in his head, telling him very clearly that he would never get in. That he was wasting his time, and that he was never going to amount to anything if he didn’t get serious. He pushed that deep voice away, but it was compelling, and it came back to him every time he lowered his guard.

Tears threatened, and he pushed those away, too. He couldn’t keep thinking about what Dom would say, or how his handsome face would twist with derision at the very idea. Instead, he used the surge of emotion that his ex-boyfriend brought out in him to finally propel himself forward, to push the door open and come face to face with his boss.

The man looked up from his computer, shock on his thick, blocky face, straggles of black hair hanging into his face and thin lips the exact color of liver tightening when he saw Jamie. Hastily, he closed the lid of his laptop, and Jamie tried not to think too much about what the guy was doing on that computer that made him so nervous.

“I have to ask a favor,” Jamie got right to it, though he could hear the pounding of his heart in his voice, making it a little bit shaky. And his boss didn’t make it any easier, peering at him from behind the thin strands of his hair, his eyes a creepy, strange light green.

Still, this was his future, or at least, potentially. So Jamie forged on, and he forced his voice to strengthen, even as he had to lock his legs to keep them from shaking.

“I have to leave early. Please.” Jamie should have spent some of the time during which he’d been freaking out to think about what he was going to say. Now, he was without any sort of script, so he was pretty much stuck with the truth. “I got this chance to try out for …”

“No.” His boss glared at him, and Jamie felt his heart, which had been racing, suddenly clench as his stomach sank like a brick had been stuffed into it. Just like that. No. All of his hopes and dreams were dashed.

“Look, I’ll come in after, I promise. I just need a few hours,” Jamie tried, though he sort of thought that it was pointless. But if he wasn’t going to fight for his future, who was going to? He was alone now, and the thought was both liberating and terrifying, in pretty much equal measure.

“I said no.” There was a pause, and Jamie had to force himself to look his boss in the eye, though he wasn’t used to such things. He wasn’t used to standing his ground. But this was worth gambling on. The rewards were great enough, and he took in deep breath after deep breath as he met his boss’s eyes.

“You can go now.”

Jamie shook his head and just kept staring. He couldn’t let this go. He just couldn’t. This was everything to him, something he could do with his own talents to bring himself up in the world. Something other than peddling burgers and asking people who were screaming at him if they wanted fries with that.

“Dismissed! Get out of here,” the bastard commented, but Jamie stood firm. He had to know that he had tried his best, at least, even if it was pointless.

“Look, go get back to work, or you’re fired.”

The words echoed through Jamie’s brain, resonating in the very back of his skull, right where it met the column of his neck. Just like that, even the small existence that he’d carved out for himself could be taken away, by this greasy, pudgy, repulsive man.

Jamie took a deep breath and then turned on his heel and left the office. His mind whirled, his head spinning almost like he’d drunk far too much, too quickly.

What was this life, anyway? He could get another fast food job, but when would he ever have another chance to do something like audition for one of the biggest bands in the country? In reality, he knew what he was going to do from the moment that his boss, or should he say, his former boss, laid the law down.

He was going to take a risk. He was going to leap blindly, a leap of faith, and trust that whatever happened, he would be okay. Wasn’t he resilient? Hadn’t he landed on his feet when he’d left Dom?

Well, if not on his feet, at least not on his knees, which was where he’d ended up when he was with his ex. He would be okay, and even if he wasn’t, at least he would know he tried.

He had just enough time to run home, to get himself changed and showered, and then to make it to the audition. So he burst out of the fast food joint, and he didn’t even look back. The restaurant was a symbol of him staying where he was, never able to move forward, barely treading water and only just keeping his head above the surface.

He was running by the time he made it to his beat-up junker of a car, one which never started on the first try and sometimes didn’t go until the fourth or fifth time he turned the key in the ignition.

Even that couldn’t dampen his mood. High strung, tightly wound up, only time and luck would dictate where he would end up when that spring deep inside of him unwound. But at least he could know that he had tried, and he took a deep breath as he headed off to his apartment. The apartment where the heat barely worked and where it was boiling hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter, and where the lobby doors were made up of air since they always got broken by people breaking in.

All of that could change if he could be bold. It had been a long time since he’d felt very brave, but maybe that just meant that it was about time.

 

* * *

 

Jamie hit his place like a hurricane, leaving piles of clothes in his wake. They were all so shabby, and he felt like he was going to scream in frustration as he looked at them. Clothes that Dom had bought for him back when they’d still been together, reflecting Dom’s style and not his own, and now half falling apart.

Finally, Jamie pulled on a pair of dark wash skinny jeans and a bright blue button-up shirt that matched his eyes. He looked in the mirror, then ran his fingers through his auburn curls, fluffing them up a little. He looked good. The thought was a bit of a surprising one to him since he had been told that this look was messy, unrefined, but he looked like …

He looked like he could be a member of a band.

A slow smile tugged at the corners of his lips, and Jamie saw something in the reflected image of his eyes, something that he hadn’t seen in a long time. Hope? Happiness, maybe even? He certainly felt a sense of forward momentum, and even that was such a new feeling for him.

“I’ve got this,” Jamie whispered, and his reflection mouthed the words back to him. Shoving his feet into sneakers, Jamie grabbed the beat up old guitar which was nevertheless his most prized possession, and then he was back in the car, warming up his voice as he drove toward the audition site.

He was running late, he realized. Too much time waiting outside his boss’s door, too much time fighting with his clothes, trying to pull together a look that stood a chance of getting him this gig. He had been told to be there at two-thirty, and his phone informed him in brightly glowing, cheerful numbers that it was almost five minutes past that.

Hopefully, they were running as late as he was. All he could do was rush, and rush, he did. Luckily, some kind, benevolent soul had put up signs, directing him through the theater where the auditions were being held.

There was no lineup. That was a bad sign, wasn’t it? Maybe the auditions were over. Maybe he’d lost his job for nothing, and he’d missed his chance. Half-panicked, Jamie yanked open the door and ran right into a brick wall.

That was literally what it felt like, too. Jamie shook his head, a little bit dazed, and when his eyes cleared he realized that he was looking right at an incredibly broad, muscular chest, a tank top stretched over it in the way that was most designed to draw attention.

“Shit,” Jamie whispered, clutching at his guitar, which he’d almost dropped in his surprise. A pair of strong hands settled on his shoulders, stabilizing him, and Jamie looked up to apologize, intending to thank the man who had kept him from falling over as Jamie had rushed heedlessly into his arms.

Only to be utterly stopped in his tracks, all of the air stolen from his lungs as he gazed up into eyes the exact color of jade. Brilliant, dark green eyes, full lips, and waves of golden streaked dark hair which just brushed over the man’s broad, strong shoulders.

It was Lance. A Lost Boy, and the one that Jamie had always found the most attractive, though they were all far too beautiful to even be human. And yet, here he was, and Lance had his hands on Jamie’s shoulders, he was touching him, and Jamie couldn’t seem to think of a single thing to say.

Hell, he could barely breathe, let alone talk.

For a long moment, they just looked at each other. Neither of them moved, and neither of them spoke. Lance’s hands lingered, his warmth seeping through the thin material of the shirt Jamie wore, and their eyes locked.

Those eyes. Green wasn’t a good enough way to describe them. They had little flecks of gold in them, which warmed them up and made them bright. So beautiful. Beautiful enough to get lost in, beautiful enough to spend his life in …

What a weird thought to have about somebody that he had literally only just met. And yet, Jamie couldn’t pull himself away from that intense gaze, and he could almost swear that it was the same for Lance, too.

He should say something. Even something as trite as hello would be better than nothing. But his tongue seemed stuck to the roof of his mouth, which was suddenly as dry as the Sahara.

“Jamie!” A voice called out his name, and Jamie was finally freed from the spell of those jade eyes. He looked away, startled, and pulled away from those hands on his shoulders.

It took him a second to figure it out, and it seemed like every set of eyes in the room were looking at him. He felt pinned to the spot, a bug under a microscope, and was suddenly very aware that his sneakers were old and probably too dirty, feeling out of place and uncomfortable and so poor, so very poor.

They would laugh him out of the building.

And then his eyes chanced to look at Lance’s again, and something about the look in them helped him to fortify himself. He took a deep breath, all the way down into his toes.

“Uh, I should …” And those were the very first words he said to Lance, the most gorgeous man that Jamie had ever been around. He stammered like an idiot, gesturing to the raised stage, and Lance nodded and waved him off. What did his speaking voice sound like? Jamie had heard it in interviews, but never in person.

What would it be like to have Lance singing to him, and only to him?

A silly smile touched Jamie’s lips as he finally managed to pull himself away from the magnetic pull of Lance’s eyes. Somehow, he didn’t feel the dirty soles of his shoes touch the ground, and he seemed to almost float up to the stage.

How pathetic for him that a ten-second meeting with a celebrity was the high point of his life so far and that it could make him feel so much hope. Jamie went up there, he sang his heart out, and he put his everything into the song he’d chosen.

And there were green eyes on him the whole time. Jamie could feel them. He didn’t even dare to look at Lance, because he would be sure that all of his stupid fanboy adoration would be right there in his gaze if he let it be.

He sang, and he danced, and his body seemed to flow through the motions. Back when he was a kid, he’d been in modern dance, and while he hadn’t been keeping up with it, he still remembered.

When it was all over, he stood on the stage, tossing his curls back out of his sweaty face. He shot an arrogant smirk at the judges, cocking his hip and putting a hand on it, as though demanding their attention. Demanding the spot which was his right.

Of course, inside, he was nowhere near as confident. Inside, he was sure that these people, all of them, must have seen much better than him. But he was here to play a part, and he knew that he had done his very best.

He could do this. He could. He could fit in with the Lost Boys, and they would never find anyone as motivated as he was. As hungry for it. Soundlessly, he tried to convey that, and for a long moment, the theater was utterly silent, and Jamie was sure that he’d messed up.

There were a group of people talking amongst themselves, and Jamie stood where he was, his pose starting to feel more and more strained. As he looked around the rows of seats, he saw another man, another face he recognized. Ken, who was looking at him with a look that seemed very much like hatred.

But why? Why would Ken hate Jamie? They hadn’t even been introduced. As Jamie waited, as the group of people conferred, Ken turned and made a comment to Lance, and Jamie gave himself the treat of looking at those beautiful features again. He let himself bask in him, remembering the moment that they’d had together.

It meant nothing to Lance, probably, but everything to Jamie. He would keep that information to himself because he didn’t like being laughed at, but he clutched the memory of that moment to his heart and let it bolster him, shield him against the rejection which was surely inevitable.

A slender, handsome, though somehow creepy man suddenly stood up, dark eyes fixing on Jamie, one hand raising to beckon him over.

“Jamie, you’re in,” he said simply, and just like that, it seemed, Jamie’s life changed completely.