When I stepped out of the office I noticed how bland the colour and decorations really were. Chris had said so the moment we'd stepped into the waiting room, but I hadn't really noticed until now. I supposed the scheme was mostly to prevent patients from have a psychotic episode. Boy, that was a comforting thought.
I saw Chris sitting curled up on a couch and reading a magazine. He was all the way across the room from where I'd left him and, if I knew him, he'd probably spent most of his time wandering, pacing or bouncing. Patient, he was not. He hadn't noticed me yet, so I took a moment just to look at him.
His hair was getting longer again and was still slightly damp from the shower--we'd managed to go for our morning run both yesterday and today, but this morning we'd cut it a little close, barely getting to my appointment on time. He had his own pants on, having dug them out of one of the suitcases--he still hadn't unpacked--but he'd stolen my sweatshirt to wear over it. It was a little big on him, but it looked kinda cute.
"Chris," I said softly so I wouldn't startle him. He looked up and smiled brightly at me. "Time to get out of here."
He glanced at his watch and nodded. "I guess I lost track of time," he admitted, putting the magazine down. I noticed with amusement that it was a copy of Seventeen. Well, maybe he was getting some good make-up tips out of it, or advice on how to land that cute guy in his algebra class.
"There's a coffee shop just up the street a little," I told him as we started for the door. "Why don't we walk?"
He frowned a little. "This is a pretty busy area of town, Joey. I don't want us to get mobbed."
His concerns were valid, but they didn't really reach me right then. "No, really, it's not far. And it's dark inside. We'll be fine."
"Well, if you say so," he said, more agreeably. I wasn't sure if he conceded that I was right, or he just didn't want to argue about it right now. I led him out of the building and onto the street, on the opposite side from where we'd parked. We'd gone less than a block before I saw the first stare out of the corner of my eye.
"Shit," I whispered, losing all confidence that we'd make it to the coffee shop unnoticed. Chris glanced the way I had and saw the trio of girls watching us, but his reaction was a lot more laid back than mine. He didn't do anything to encourage them, but he didn't race us away either. He knew as well as I did that there were a couple security people tailing us in case of trouble, but was more comforted by that fact than I. At least he wasn't saying 'I told you so'.
"You up for a few autographs, Joe?" he whispered, keeping the neutral expression on his face.
"I guess I'd better be," I whispered back, and smiled as the girls approached us nervously. We moved a little closer to the buildings to make sure no one was in danger of being pushed out on the street and paused to wait for them.
"Um, are you guys Joey and Chris from NSync?" one of them asked as the other two hid behind her, giggling nervously.
Chris answered for us. "We sure are," he said. "Do you want an autograph?" She nodded her head vigorously, and reached into her backpack for a pen and paper. As we signed a few other people approached. No more than a dozen people all told, but I was jittery anyway, and it showed. One by one, two by two, they drifted away.
The last woman, though, paused for a moment before turning. She was young, but not as young as the others. Maybe 18 or 19; probably legal. She looked like she wanted to say something, but was too shy. Finally, she did. "You doing okay?" she asked me quietly, looking from side to side to make sure no one else--not even Chris--heard.
I must have looked startled, because she gave me a shy but reassuring smile. "Yeah," I said finally. "Better every day."
"I'm glad," she said, clutching her autographs to her chest and beginning to back away. "Good luck." Then she turned and we were alone again. We looked at one another and walked a little faster to the coffee shop. I love the fans and all, but I didn't need that today. Not yet at all.
We sat inside, in a back corner, and ordered our drinks unobtrusively. The air conditioning was turned up too high, and I wrapped my hands around my mug of coffee to keep them warm.
"So," said Chris, raising an eyebrow at me. "How are you doing?"
I grinned at him. "You can ask, you know. If you want to know what we talked about. You know I might not tell you, but you are free to ask. Isn't that what we planned coffee for in the first place?"
"Okay, then," he said. "Do you want to tell me what you talked about today?"
I shouldn't have offered that, because I wasn't sure if I did. Still, this was Chris, and I wanted to try, and I'd been encouraged to try, not half an hour ago. "Stuff," I said, vaguely, giving him a sheepish smile. "Stuff about going back on tour, and what it was like to be with you guys again."
"You talk about us?" he asked, sipping his coffee.
"I talk about everything," I said. "That's what I'm supposed to do. There's stuff...you know there's stuff that I've talked about with Karen that I've never said to anyone else. I'm not sure I'm ready to get into that stuff just yet. But some of it...we talked about you, a bit."
"About me? Like, in particular?" he asked, curious now.
I nodded. I was okay with telling him this part; it was relatively innocuous. "How you're living in one of my spare rooms now. And how we've been talking a little. She already knew that part though...I talked about you a bit when I was still in rehab. And I talked about Justin today...about that whole scene at my place? You remember?"
"Yeah," he said somberly. "I remember."
"I guess I've got some issues with that," I said, shrugging. "I doubt that's much of a surprise."
"No," he said, smiling at me a little. "I think I have some issues with that, too. And Justin...I definitely think Justin has some issues with that."
"I have a question," I said tentatively. "And I was thinking about this even before Karen brought it up."
"What?" he asked, draining his cup.
"Has Justin ever talked to anyone about it? I mean...well, you know what I mean."
"I know what you mean," he agreed. "But I don't know if he has or not. I don't even know if he's thought about it. I mean...you can imagine there might be a little resistance."
"Or, in my case, a lot of resistance," I admitted to him. "But it might help. I know what happened hit him pretty deep."
"It hit all of us pretty deep, Joey," said Chris, his voice low. "Don't you dare start feeling guilty, though! There are a lot of reasons for that."
"Reasons we should talk about?" I asked him, the pain still lining my face though I was trying to banish it.
Chris nodded. "Maybe some time," he said. "But not now."
"Okay," I said, and quietly sipped my coffee for a moment. "There's another thing," I added after a while. "Daisy."
"Daisy, Joe?" he asked quietly, almost as though trying to avoid tripping an explosion.
"Yeah," I said. "I don't want to talk about her right now...but I think I need to find her. I think I need closure with her."
"I think you do, too," he agreed, still quietly. "But are you ready for that yet?"
"No," I admitted. "But will you be there to help me when I am?"
"You don't even have to ask," he said, his eyes locking with mine for a moment. "Of course I will." There was a tense silence between us for a moment, then we both looked away.
"I'm about ready to go," I told him, pushing my empty mug away. "We can pick this up later." I didn't wait for him to respond, standing up and stepping away from the table. He followed shortly after, and we made it back to the car without incident.
I didn't really want to be in there any longer. He'd given me a lot to think about; and everything else I wanted to say needed a bit more privacy than we could get anywhere other than home.
Chris' cell phone rang almost the moment we walked in the front door, and he squeezed my arm as he stepped away from me to answer it. "Dani!" I heard him answer it before I stopped listening and went over to the fridge to find myself something to drink. I poured myself a glass of iced tea, then decided to pour another one for Chris. He was going to learn to like this stuff if it killed me--how else was I gonna convince him to help me keep the fridge stocked?
I walked out back and sat down on the edge of the deck to give him his privacy, sipping my drink and looking over the calm waters of the pool. That was a good way to describe what it was like out there at that moment--calm. A calm completely at odds with what was inside me. I hadn't gotten over the crowd scene yet; it still left me shaky and unsettled inside. I couldn't predict how people were going to act around me, I could never know what the fans and the media and, well, everyone were thinking of me. I couldn't control it.
I recognized that I couldn't control it, we'd never been able to control it, but right now that scared the hell out of me more than ever before. I'd even talked about this with Karen this morning, how I was becoming more comfortable with my bandmates as I began to understand their reactions to me, but that I wasn't going to be able to do that with everyone. But she seemed to think that as long as I had a stable base of friends around me, who could support me, then that would get better too.
I had friends, of that I had no doubt, but I needed to know that that was nothing lurking inside them that was going to come out and bite me when I least could handle it. I needed to know what to expect from them. With Justin, I knew what was going on. I knew how he was scared and angry and I knew why, but I also knew how much he cared about me and how much that drove the other emotions. I felt more comfortable with him just knowing that. With JC and Lance, well, I didn't know as much, but I knew they were being as open with me as they could be, and that if I spent some more time with them, the truth would come out.
With Chris, though...with Chris I knew he was too busy protecting me--from everything, including himself--that was I wasn't going to easily see the darker parts of his own thoughts. Darker parts that I knew were there, somewhere, categorized under 'things that would upset Joey'. I loved the protection he offered me, and I valued it and his friendship more than I could tell him. He'd sacrificed so much to be there for me. But I couldn't--couldn't--be totally comfortable and open with him until I knew.
And yeah, part of me didn't want to know. Part of me was scared of what he might say, scared of rejection, scared of finding out that this partnership of ours was more fragile than it seemed. But I knew that Karen was right about this, that I wouldn't be able to share all the things I needed to share until I knew that he would do the same. And that meant telling me, finally telling me, the things I needed to know.
I heard noises from the kitchen through the open door and got up to wander back inside. "This for me?" asked Chris, holding up the glass of iced tea and smiling.
I nodded as I shut the door. "How's Dani?" I asked him, noting that his phone was nowhere to be seen.
He swallowed before answering, nodding his head to indicate that he had something to say. "Her flight gets in at quarter after four, instead of five, so I need to remember to be at the airport a little earlier than I thought."
"She knows you're going to be late, though, right?" I teased gently, opening the fridge to refill my glass and bumping my hip against Chris deliberately.
"I think she's known me long enough, Joe," he replied, bumping me back and making me spill on the floor.
"Shit!" I said putting the glass on the counter and closing the fridge. I grabbed for the paper towel that I kept on top of it and began mopping it up.
"Sorry, man," he said unapologetically, hopping up on the counter and drinking the iced tea. "This isn't bad, you know." That was enough to get a tentative smile out of me as I tossed the soggy paper towel in the garbage.
"Listen, Chris," I began. "There's something else I want to talk about."
At those words he transformed into the concerned, protective Chris that I was coming to know so well. "Anything, Joe. You know that."
"I hope you mean that," I said warningly. From the change in his expression, I think he knew that this conversation was going to be something new. Something that might be as hard for him as it was for me. "Because I need to know things, Chris."
"What do you mean?" he asked, frowning and putting his drink down.
"Things about you," I said. "You know so much about what's happening with me, and you're a mystery to me sometimes. I don't know how you felt, back when this happened. We were supposed to talk about that before the press conference and we never did. I still don't know. And I need to."
"But it's in the past, now," he said, shrugging it off. "I got past it, Joey. I'm here now."
"Everything that's happened to me is in the past, too," I said quietly but firmly. "That's the important stuff. That's what makes us who we are." He shook his head a little, so I went on. "Chris...how can I keep trusting you with things, if you won't trust me. If you won't trust me with the important things that are inside you?"
Chris hopped off the counter and moved away from me a little. I could feel the distance acutely, feel him pushing me away emotionally as well as physically. "It's not important," he said softly.
"It is important," I argued. "It's important to me. You've seen the ugliest side of me, Chris--I'm baring it all to you. But I need to know you, too. I need to see you, all of you. Please."
"God," said Chris, shaking his head and looking away. "You push and you push...and you don't realize that you really don't want to know the answers to the questions you're asking."
"I wouldn't ask if I didn't want to know," I told him, as calmly as I could. I was still a little afraid of what he might tell me, but Karen had said this would probably be good, for both of us, and I trusted her. Trusted her not to set me up for something that would turn me into a gibbering wreck. "What was it you thought, Chris? In those days before you had to face me? In that time before you knew what was going to happen? How did you feel? I need to know."
"Fuck," he swore, the word shooting out of him like a bullet. "I was angry, Joey. I was mad at Daisy, and at management, and at the press, and at our fans...and at you. I was so mad at you, Joey. Mad at you for hurting yourself. Mad at you for hurting me. I hurt, Joey. I hurt so much for so long, seeing you do that to yourself, not facing up to what was happening. And then when you crashed...it killed me to see you like that. I hated you for hurting me!"
The words just spilled out of him now, like the tears he had yet to notice. I felt strangely calm, hearing the words I'd feared. I thought they'd hurt me more coming from him than from anyone, but instead they came out wrapped in the caring and safety that I felt around Chris now. It was less like an attack and more like lancing a wound, spilling the poison that would have consumed him--us--if it had stayed inside much longer.
But I felt the guilt. It was a dark, heavy thing that coiled around me. I remembered all the things I'd done, the things that might have hurt someone, and I cringed. Inside, where no one could see, I curled up for a moment and tried to hide from the torrent of memories that threatened to sweep me away.
Chris' voice brought me back; it was full of anger, but it was still Chris.
"You wanted to know? Well, you're gonna know," he said; the torrent hadn't ceased yet. "You scared me to death, and I don't like being scared. I don't like not knowing if my best friend is going to live or die, or be a fucking vegetable. Or maybe just stay clean for a few weeks and then go back to the way things were. I'm still scared that's gonna happen, Joey. And I hate that I'm scared!"
His words fell away as the sobs overtook him. I wasn't used to being the comforter in this relationship, but I wrapped my arms around him and let the tears flow for as long as he needed them to. There had already been enough tears spilled in this house this week, so what harm could a few more do. He pounded his fist weakly against me chest a couple times, then it feel away and he let me hold him, as he'd done for me.
"Fuck," he said again when the sobs stopped, pulling away from me. "I'm sorry...I shouldn't have said..."
"Fuck that," I told him, not letting him undo everything that we'd accomplished already. "You should have said. You probably should have done it a long time ago. Because now--" I held him out at arms length and made him look at me. "--now we're totally honest. Now I know what you felt. Neither of us is perfect, Chris. You don't have to be perfect to help me. You don't have to be perfect to be my friend."
"Damn, when did you get so smart," he said, the beginnings of a smile showing.
"I'm not," I whispered to him, like a confession. "I'm quoting Karen. She's one smart lady."
Chris laughed and fell into my arms again, and we just held one another for a while.
"That felt good," he admitted. "Um, you know I don't really hate you, right?"
"I know," I said, stroking his hair gently. He was the vulnerable one right now, and I was in control. It was a heady, scary, wonderful feeling. Like, finally, we were equals again. Like I could protect him the way he'd been protecting me. "And you know I never wanted to hurt you, right?"
"Yeah, I know that," he said quietly. "I'm still gonna take care of you, you know."
I chuckled. "Yeah, I figured," I told him. "It's part of who you are now, and I wouldn't change it for the world."
We made our way into the living room and sat down quietly for a while, I keep his hand in mine, and it seemed to comfort both of us as we came down from the adrenaline rush the confrontation had caused. I felt strangely euphoric, looking at Chris beside me, his eyes closed and leaning into me wearily, and knowing that now there was a real chance I was going to get to know him, too.
Unexpectedly my phone rang--not the cell phone that I carried with me but the phone on my end table. Reluctantly I reached out to answer it. "Hello?" I said, my voice thicker than I thought it would be.
"Mr. Fatone?" came Jan's voice on the other end of the line. "I'm glad I caught you at home."
"What can I do for you?" I asked, sitting up a little straighter. Chris moved off of me and leaned against the other arm of the couch, but his eyes were open now. Jan had been good to me, but her calling was probably going to bring bad news.
"We have some information on the interview that Daisy Nishida gave and we need to go over the details of it with you. Are you available this afternoon?"
I covered the receiver of the phone and groaned momentarily. "Does it have to be now?" I asked her. "I have a guest coming."
"The sooner the better," she replied, and I nodded reluctantly. "I can arrange a meeting for one o'clock."
I glanced at my watch; that would give me an hour to get there. "Okay, I can be there," I told her before I could change my mind. I jotted down the room number she gave me--I knew how to get to Jive's Orlando offices easily enough--and hung up the phone.
"What's going on?" Chris asked me.
"Meeting with PR," I said shortly. "About the whole Daisy thing. I have to be there in an hour."
He nodded and began to get. "Okay, we can be ready by then."
I shook my head. "I think I need to do this one alone, Chris." I didn't want to, not at all, but my past with Daisy was something I was going to have to face, and I didn't want Chris to be hearing things for the first time as I dictated them to some PR flunky. If--when--I was going to tell him, it was going to be on my terms, in a situation that was comfortable for both of us.
"Are you sure?" he asked me. "Because I'm willing."
"I'm sure," I told him, reaching out and squeezing his hand one last time. "But thanks."
He nodded and didn't push the issue. "Do you want a ride at least?"
"I'll get a cab," I told him. "You keep the car to go get Dani later." I could see his skeptical look. "I'll be fine," I assured him. "I am capable of going out on my own."
"I know," he said. "It's just...I know Daisy's an issue for you. I wanted to be there."
"You already are," I told him. "This, this PR thing, I'm not going to let it get emotional. It's just facts. There's nothing to be upset about." He looked like he believed that bullshit about as much as I did, but he let it go.
"Okay," he said. "I think maybe I'm going to go shopping, then. Pick up a little something for Danielle. I haven't seen her in a while, and I think she was a little pissed that I couldn't make it out to California to spend time with her."
"Probably not a bad idea," I told him. "I can meet you both here when you get back from the airport. And don't worry, Chris," I added. "I will be fine."
The cab dropped me off on the crowded street and, not for the first time, I was glad I'd foregone the limo. Sure, they're comfortable, and they're great if you want to arrive in style, but they draw entirely too much attention for everyday use, if you ask me. Attention I'd been wanting less and less of.
I braced myself to be recognized again, like we had this morning, but without Chris to act as a buffer between myself and the fans this time. However, I wasn't stopped as I made my way inside the building and down the corridors to the meeting room Jan had indicated on the phone. I knocked lightly then opened the door, stepping inside.
I'd lied. I really didn't want to be here without Chris by my side, but I knew I had to. I knew I needed to face this. Daisy had been a huge driving force in my life for months, and nothing was ever going to be resolved for me until I faced her, faced the past, and faced who she really was. Jan was here, which was at least one familiar face, but there were two other gentlemen with her that I didn't know.
I was uncomfortable. Hell, uncomfortable was an understatement. One of them seemed pretty businesslike, spreading a few papers out on the table in front of him, and examining them; the other looked at me like I was dirt. More PR folk.
"Thanks for coming down, Mr. Fatone," said Jan, sitting down at the head of the conference table. "I think the sooner we sort this mess out, the better. We were lucky--only a couple of regional papers ran with the 'Daisy' story--but next time it could be much worse."
"Whatever she said was completely false," I told her firmly.
"I'd suggest you read it first," she said, sliding a newspaper clipping down the table at me. I looked up at her, then at the other two men, then down at the paper to read it. The worst thing was, some of the stuff was true, but the way she'd said it...the way she'd said it to make herself sound like a victim...it just made me sick. Literally sick.
I looked up when I was finished, surprised to see the sympathy in Jan's eyes. "So," she said. "We need to know your version of the events that she describes. We may never need to use it, but if anyone else picks this story up, it'll be good to have on hand."
"So we're not issuing a statement?" I asked her.
She looked pointedly at the more-professional man, who cleared his throat to answer. "At this point, we feel that would do more harm than good, drawing attention to something that hasn't been deemed newsworthy yet. We tracked down the source of the article, but we aren't certain of Daisy Nishida's whereabouts at this time. Can you help?"
"I have no idea where she is," I told them flatly. And I didn't want to know yet. One day, yes, I was going to see her face to face, but not today. Not next week. Not soon. I'd had a couple days now to come to terms with how she'd betrayed me, and it wasn't as hurtful or shocking now, but I still felt my blood begin to boil when I thought about it. "How much did she get paid to do the story?"
The two men looked at one another. "We aren't privy to that information," said the businesslike one.
"But she did get paid," I said, letting out something between a snort and a laugh. "Of course she did. They probably gave her enough to keep her going for a month. She would have told them anything."
Jan's lips tightened. "The truth, then, Mr. Fatone."
And so I told them everything they needed to know. And I do mean needed. I told them the truth about everything that Daisy had mentioned in the article, and that was it. I didn't get into how Daisy was the one who introduced me to just about every drug that I ever used aside from alcohol and pot. Didn't talk about our little ritual of shooters before sex. Didn't mention all the little white lies she told--we told--that just made everything worse and worse.
Because they didn't need to know that. Not yet. There were other people who needed to know first.
Finally Jan nodded her head an closed her eyes. "Thank you," she said quietly. The creep who'd given me the dirty looks had been taping the whole thing on one of those little recorders, which just made me feel worse. I wasn't exactly proud of any of that stuff, and now it was a part of the permanent record.
"Can I go?" I asked. "Are we done?"
"We're done," she assured me. "Go home. We'll be in touch."
"Great," I said, nodding at each of them before slipping out the door.
I was barely three steps out of the room when my cell phone vibrated in my pocket. I smiled as I grabbed it and brought it to my ear. "Chris?"
"No, it's me," said Lance, laughing a little. "You're expecting a call from Chris?"
"Oh, hey," I said, a bit sheepishly. "No, I wasn't, but he knew I was going into a meeting with PR about the whole Daisy thing and I figured...well, you know how Chris is."
"Yeah, I know how he's been," agreed Lance. "He's looking out for you, Joe. Big time. How was the meeting?"
"Long," I said. "Painful. The less said about it the better. So what are you calling about?" I reached the elevators and punched the button that would take me back down to the lobby.
"Oh, right," said Lance, and I could hear the sounds of voices and shuffling papers in the background. "We're just going over the tour dates and schedule and stuff, trying to get it worked out. They want to call a press conference for Monday to announce it, so we need to get it finalized soon. I'll probably be here all weekend."
"You know, you don't actually have to be doing that, Lance," I told him as I continued to wait for the elevator. "I know you like to get involved, but don't burn yourself out, man."
"I like doing this," he protested. "It's good training for me. So I have some questions for you, if that's cool."
"Yeah, sure," I said, then paused as I thought I heard a familiar voice. "Where are you anyway, Lance?" I asked. The elevator finally arrived and I stepped in.
"Bryan's office," he said, covering the phone with his hand for a moment and issuing a muffled request to someone else in the room. He soon returned. "Why?"
"Well, shit," I said, punching the button for the fifth floor. "I'm two floors up from you right now," I told him. "I'll be right there." Seeing Lance about business stuff, about tour stuff, about normal stuff--at least to us--was probably exactly what I needed to get my mind off that meeting.
Lance laughed. "I had no idea you were here. I would have given you a ride if I'd known; I just got here a couple hours ago. I can't imagine the meeting went on much longer than that?"
"I took a cab," I told him, avoiding the topic of my meeting altogether. "It was fine. So how much stuff is worked out so far?"
"Crew's hired. Sets are being moved out of storage. We've got about half the dates confirmed now..." The list went on as I got off the elevator and made my way down the hall to where I knew Lance would be holed up. He did remember to stop and breathe a couple of times, but that was about it. I was sitting in a chair just inside the door when he finally realized I was in the room.
"Hey, Joey," he said, cell phone still at his ear, as he looked at me and smiled.
"Hey Lance," I said, grinning in spite of the awkwardness I was still feeling. "How's it going?"
He broke down and laughed, shutting his cell phone off and slipping it back into his pocket. After a moment I did the same. "So what did you need to ask me about?"
"Oh, right," he said, sitting down next to me. "Shit, I'm losing my mind around here today. I wanted to show you the tour dates, first of all. We have two weeks for rehearsals like we thought, starting Monday morning." Lance let out the obligatory groan before going on. "Then we're picking up the tour out on the west coast and making our way back home to Orlando. Sixteen shows, all told, over five weeks."
I nodded at him, calculating how much time that would give us between shows. It was a more lenient schedule than I ever remembered us having, and I wondered how much of that was Lance's influence.
"We're anticipating a glut of appearances and press during it," he apologized, looking at the papers in his hands then up at me. "I guess that doesn't come as much of a surprise. We tried to space everything out as much as we could but I think it's safe to say they'll get filled in pretty quick."
I nodded again. Free spaces always managed to get filled in; right now it would probably be worse than ever. Because of me. I sighed quietly and hoped that Lance wouldn't notice, wouldn't make me talk about it.
"I needed to know..." He suddenly looked uncomfortable, and I wondered what was coming. I felt that clench inside that I'd come to associate with the questions, with the dread of anticipation, wondering when they were going to ask the one that would break me, that I couldn't answer. "Do you have anything we need to schedule around? I mean...meetings or something? Because you haven't said..."
I shook my head and waited a moment for the clench to loosen. I told myself this wasn't a scary question, it was just something he didn't know. "I'm not doing it that way," I told him, wondering how much detail I should go into. How much Lance really wanted to know. "I'm keeping in touch with my therapist by phone," I finally added. "Fridays...but I can move it around to whenever, if I have to."
I cocked my head to the side and looked for Lance's reaction. "Okay," was all he said, but there was more than that in his expression. Like he wanted to know more, and wanted it to go away, both at the same time. It scared me a little that I couldn't read him so well anymore, scared me that there was a little bit of darkness in him now that I didn't remember, but that was probably put there by me.
"Does that make it easier than you thought?" I asked, trying to sound light when I didn't feel it. Not at all.
"Yeah," he said. "I was worried that we were going to have to make a major adjustment. To the schedule, I mean. We're already...nevermind."
"Yeah, I know," I said anyway, knowing exactly what he meant to express. "I think we're all doing okay."
"Yeah," he agreed softly. "I think maybe we are." Suddenly he was Lance again. The shy, sweet but savvy Lance that I'd always known. Impulsively, I leaned over and pulled him into a hug. A few heads turned at that, but I didn't give a fuck. My Lance was still in there, somewhere. He stiffened for a moment, then laughed and hugged me back.
"That was good," he said as we pulled apart, a smile playing at his lips. "So, is Chris around here somewhere? I need to get ahold of him about all this, too. He was supposed to call me this morning, but..."
"I came alone," I interrupted him. "Dani's coming into town today."
"Shit," he swore. "I totally forgot about that. No wonder he forgot to call...he hasn't seen her in ages."
"How long?" I asked him.
"Huh?" He looked at me, confused.
"How long since he last saw her?" I repeated curiously.
He shrugged. "He only saw her one time the whole time you were in, uh, rehab," he replied slowly. "That I know of, anyway. I mean, I went back home for a while so I might have missed--"
"No," I interrupted him again, thoughtfully this time. "I don't think you did." I looked at my watch and then back up at Lance. "Was there anything else we needed to go over right now?"
He shook his head. "I'll give you guys a call when the whole thing is sorted out. Maybe tonight if we're lucky." He looked around the room. "It's a decent enough place, but I don't want to be spending another night here."
I frowned. "Don't burn yourself out, Lance."
He laughed reassuringly. "I know you wouldn't do it, Joe, but when are you guys gonna get that I like this?"
"Just because you like something doesn't mean it's good for you," I told him, but he didn't respond to that. "I'm gonna give Chris a call," I said after a moment. "See if he has enough time to give me a ride home before he heads for the airport."
He moved away a little to give me some privacy, going over to Bryan to review some more details and resting his head against the desk as he waited for the other man to finish his phone call. I hit the speed dial for Chris' cell phone and waited, hoping he would pick up.
"'Lo?" he said, and I could hear the sounds of dozens of other people around him. I could picture him turning his face towards a wall or a post or a plant or anything that was nearby that wasn't people, and covering his other ear with his hand.
"Hey, it's me," I said. "How's the shopping going?"
"I hate shopping," he said vehemently.
"You love shopping," I argued, laughing in spite of my mood, amused by the petulant tone in his voice.
"Not today, I don't," he said darkly. "I got recognized out on the street before I even got any done. Security practically had to pull people off." I knew the score--we'd all been there countless times--but it sometimes felt worse when it happened to you alone, and there was no one there to help you shake it off afterwards.
"Shit," I said aloud. "I was hoping maybe you could give me a ride home before you went to get Dani. But I guess you won't have the time, huh."
"No, no, I can do that," he said. "I'm done now. How did things go, Joe?" Suddenly his voice had gone from cranky to concerned. "Is everything okay?"
I shrugged, almost forgetting he couldn't see it. I saw Lance watching me from the other side of the room, though, probably wondering the same thing, though he hadn't pushed. Hadn't asked. "I went as well as I expected it to," I said vaguely. "We can talk about it later."
"Sure," he said, then paused. "Dani'll be around, though."
"Another time, then," I said. I was almost grateful that I didn't have to talk about it yet. Daisy was a wound that had barely started to heal yet, and I wasn't sure picking at it was going to help. I'd told Karen how I'd been talking to Chris about stuff and she'd seemed to think that was a good thing, but Daisy was...shit, Daisy was the very thing I probably should be talking about, but didn't feel able. I sighed.
"I'm sorry, Joey," he said. "I'll make it up to you."
"You don't have to do that," I told him.
"I want to," he persisted. "You're still at the Jive offices?" The noise of people in the background faded as he moved away from them, probably towards my car.
"Yeah, I'm here with Lance, actually." I could picture him frowning in confusion at that, and elaborated before he had to ask. "It's coincidence--we happened to be here at the same time, so we went over some of the tour stuff."
"I'll be there in twenty minutes," he said. "You know that door by the parking garage?"
"Yeah?" I said. I heard the sound of a car door open and close, then the sound of an engine starting.
"Meet me there so we can avoid the whole crowd thing. Do you mind riding with me to the airport though? I'm not sure I'll have time to swing by your place and still make it to pick up Dani on time. I know there'll be crowds and all..."
"No, I'll deal," I said firmly. I didn't quite believe it, but I wanted Chris to. "That'll be fine. It'll be good to see her again."
"Yeah, it will," he agreed. I knew him too well; once again I could picture his facial expression as he said that, the slow smile that would spread across his face, becoming goofier by the second as he thought about her. "I'll see you in a bit, Joey."
"Okay, bye Chris," I said, shutting the cell phone off and slipping it back in my pocket again. Lance made his way back to me as soon as I was off the phone; I guess he watched the whole conversation.
"You saw him this morning," he teased me as he sat down again. "How can you miss him already?"
"Huh?"
"You're smiling, Joe," he explained. "It hasn't left your face since you got on the phone. Are you getting a ride?"
"Yeah, he's on his way already," I said. "If you need anything else, call, ok?"
"That was the original plan anyway," he reminded me. "Listen, Joey, before you go..." He paused and weighed his words. "I'm not supposed to mention this to you, but...a bunch of us are going out to a club tomorrow night. I'm not sure if you'd want to or not, but I want you to know you're invited."
I frowned. "Who said not to mention it?" I asked him testily. I was capable of making up my own mind about that, and getting more capable every day. Even when I didn't seem like it.
He shrugged. 'It doesn't matter," he said, obviously protecting whoever it was. Justin or Chris, unless I missed my guess. "I didn't feel right about it. I wanted you to at least know what was going on. Justin and JC and I will be there for sure."
"And Chris?"
"Said he wasn't going since you weren't. But honestly? Joe...I think he wants to go. That's also why I said something--"
"I'll think about it, okay?"
"I totally don't want to pressure you...but maybe let him know it's okay to go without you? He won't believe it from any of the rest of us." Half of me didn't want him to go without me; I enjoyed the evenings we spent together and I was already missing tonight's since Dani would be in town.
"Maybe we'll both go," I told him finally. "We'll have to see."
He nodded. "I just wanted you to have that choice," he said, and I appreciated it, I did, but this whole meeting with Lance was starting to make me uncomfortable.
"I've gotta head down," I told him, gesturing at the door behind us. "Call me later, okay?"
He gestured broadly at the rest of the office. "You can pretty much count on it," he confessed. "Say hi to Chris for me, would you?"
"I will," I said, nodding at him. "Thanks for the invite, Lance."
"You're welcome," he said. "I'm sorry it had to come the way it did."
"Well," I said, then shrugged to show I had no more words for it. I gave him a half-hearted wave and walked back out into the corridor, heading to the elevators once again. It had been strange, this last few minutes with Lance--my fake smiles, the false bravado...why hadn't he recognized I'd been acting? He'd seen that guy before, countless times, in interviews, meeting fans, on stage. Did he think that was me, or did he just not want to call me on it?
I was left with that thought as I went to meet up with Chris.
"Lance works too much," I said as Chris turned a sharp corner too fast and leaned into me. "Don't you think?"
He nodded, utterly unsurprised by the assessment. "He loses himself in it," he explained. "He's been doing it ever since..." He shrugged, his eyes still on the road, and didn't finish the sentence.
"Another fucking coping mechanism," I muttered, even though I'd already come to that conclusion myself. It was hard, hearing Chris confirm it. "I fucked you guys up something good."
"No," said Chris. "Shit, Joe...you were a symptom, not the problem. I mean that. I know you don't see that right now but...I've been doing some thinking. And there are things that we all--that all of us went through, that made us who we are. And they did different things to different people. And yeah, you were the most dramatic, but...well, we'll talk about it later."
"That's probably a good idea," I said. I didn't have arguments for his points yet, and a perverse side of me wanted to be able to prove to him, to them, that everything was all my fault. We were also pulling into the short-term parking of the airport, and neither one of us wanted to be talking about anything 'deep' or 'meaningful' when Dani got here. Hell, Chris' brain was probably gonna short-circuit the moment he saw her anyway.
She was standing by the baggage carousel, leaning on a railing and watching the door. Her long blond hair was tied back and a pair of sunglasses was perched on her nose. She got recognized, too, even if not as often as we did. Chris took her arm and gave her a swift kiss on the cheek and we were out the doors again before anyone noticed us.
We paused by the car, hidden by the shadows that the roof created, and talked for a moment. I leaned against the hood, away from where Dani and Chris stood, and closed my eyes, but I could still hear what they were saying. There's not a lot of privacy in a parking garage, no matter how you slice it, and security would freak if we started wandering around alone in airport parking.
"Hey," said Chris softly and I could hear him kissing her. Well, I couldn't hear the kiss exactly, but I could hear the rustle of their clothing as it rubbed together, the light swish of her hair as it was brushed away and the soft sighs they each let out when they parted. "I missed you."
"I missed you, too," she said, and then there were no words again for a moment. I could hear Chris digging into his pockets for something, and almost snickered aloud as I imagined what else he might pull out of there before finding what he was looking for. "I want us to go out tonight," she said. "Just us."
"Of course," said Chris, and I finally heard the rummaging stop. "Listen, I know we've been apart a lot lately, and I'm sorry, but I got you something..."
The sounds of hinges opening, and a gasp of surprise. "Oh Chris, it's beautiful," she said.
"Let me put it on you." It turned my head momentarily and saw Chris fastening a necklace around her neck as Dani tilted her head and held her hair out of the way. "I hope you like it."
I knew she would--why wouldn't she? Even if it hadn't been something she would have gotten for herself, the very fact that Chris had gotten it for her would have made it beautiful. And they were going out tonight, which meant I would be left to my own devices. The thought of spending the whole evening alone, though, didn't appeal to me at all. Even if I'd never had much privacy over the last couple months, I knew the feeling of loneliness all too well.
I took a few steps away from the car so I wouldn't interrupt them, and pulled out my cell phone again. I stared at it blankly for a moment, wondering just what I intended to do with it, then dialed JC's number.
"Hey, Joey," he answered, somewhat enthusiastically. "Or...is this Chris?" he added as an afterthought.
"It's Joey," I said. "What are you up to tonight?"
"Not much," he replied. "I was going to fiddle around with this song I'm working on for a while. Maybe get Justin to try it out with me if I can track him down. Why?"
"Chris is going out," I said. "So I haven't got any plans for tonight. I was wondering if you wanted to come by. Hang out. Maybe talk?" I left the last suggestion hanging, so he'd know he was free to come whether he wanted to talk or not.
The pause was a little longer that it might have been if I hadn't added that. "Yeah," he said finally. "I'd like that. I just have some stuff to finish up around here--"
"Just call me to let me know when you'll be over," I interrupted him. "I'll be home. We're gonna head back there right away, I think."
"Okay, I will," he said. "And thanks, Joey. I'm looking forward to it."
"Yeah, me too," I said, surprising myself with how honest that was. "See you later."
I jumped as I felt a pair of arms wrap around me as I put my phone away. Then I felt Dani's cheek against my back and I relaxed.
"How are you doing, Joey?" she asked, and I knew her concern was sincere.
"I'm good," I said turning to face her. "I'm very happy to be home."
"I'm sure you are," she said, smiling at me. "I've told Chris to give you a hug from me from time to time, but the big goof probably forgot, so here's one to make up for all the others you missed." She wrapped her arms around me again and squeezed me tightly, and it actually felt really nice. "I'm glad you're feeling better," she added.
Feeling better was an interesting euphemism to use, but it was pretty accurate. I was feeling better. But I was feeling a lot of other things to.
"Let's head out," said Chris, starting to unlock the car. Dani released me and got inside, and we were soon on our way.
I met JC on the front steps of my house. It was too nice an evening to be indoors, but I was feeling too lazy to answer the door from the backyard, so I was sitting on the concrete and waiting for him to show up. I knew he'd be late, but that was okay because I was surprisingly comfortable, and it was a new thing for me to just watch the goings-on on my street.
I waved as JC pulled his Jeep into my driveway, and remained on the step as he got out of the car and came to me. "Man, it's weird to see you without Chris attached at the hip," he confessed, laughing a little.
I smiled a little self-consciously, knowing how right he was. But I liked it that way, so I shouldn't have been embarrassed. "He and Dani really needed some time alone," I said, feeling the need to offer an explanation of some sort, even though he already knew where Chris was.
JC nodded. "So...do you really want to go out and get something to eat?" he asked me, taking in the fact that I hadn't even stood up when he got there. "Or should we stick around here?" He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, nervously, and I wondered which of the two options he wanted me to pick. Which one would be more comfortable for him.
"If it's all the same to you," I said, looking up at him and squinting a bit in the sunshine, "I'd rather stick around here. We can hang out in the backyard and grab something to eat later. Chris went shopping yesterday so we're all stocked up." I paused for a second, realizing what I'd just said. "Stocked up with what, I'm not sure..." I admitted.
He smiled, so I figured I'd given an acceptable answer. "You took your life in your hands there, Joey. You didn't send anyone to supervise?" He held out his hand to help me up, and I opened the door to let us inside.
"Are you telling me I now have a house full of Doritos and those powdery white donuts?" I asked him as we passed through straight to the sliding doors that led onto the deck.
"I'm just saying don't be surprised to open your cupboards to an abundance of snack foods," said JC, raising his hands innocently. "Far be it for me to accuse Chris of being a poor shopper."
"Well, it would be nothing new," I admitted to him. "Junk food is no stranger to these cupboards. Actually, I'm not sure they know much else, other than a few bottles." This drew an uncomfortable frown from him. I almost decided to change the subject, but when I'd talked to him on the phone JC'd said he wanted to talk to me, so I wasn't going to hide things. "I'd like to think he stuck to the list we made."
"Oh, there was a list," said JC with exaggerated relief. "You're okay then. There'll only be a few extra bags of cookies." He sat down on Chris' deck chair and leaned back. "Wow, these are nice."
It suddenly felt very, very strange to have someone sitting there other than Chris. It was our spot now, and I wondered in the back of my head just how and when that had happened. "It's hot out," I said, still standing. "Why don't we sit by the edge of the pool. Get our feet wet. I'll help cool off."
JC grinned. "Hey, you know me and water," he said agreeably, getting up off the chair and ambling down the steps towards the pool. Yeah, I did know about him and water, which is why it wasn't much of a coincidence that I was suggesting we go somewhere he would be comfortable.
"It's good to see you," I said, sitting down and sending little splashes of water outwards with my toes. Nervously. He wasn't the only one who realised that there were going to be things said today. "I'm glad we got this chance."
JC nodded, sitting down next to me. I noticed he sat almost the way Chris would have; far enough away to give me my space, but close enough to touch, if necessary. I wasn't sure yet if that made me more comfortable, or less. He didn't say anything for a moment, but I caught a couple of sidelong glances at me, as if he was wanting to say something that just wouldn't come.
"I don't know where to start either," I admitted. He looked up, almost stunned that I'd been able to read him so easily. I guess the Old Joey hadn't been much good at that, or if he was, it'd been well hidden under the oblivion of alcohol. "I guess there's a lot that's gone on in both our lives since the last time we really talked." I gave him a bit of a grin, thinking about Tate, and he gave me one back.
"You're okay to talk about this?" he asked. "Honestly?"
I nodded at him. Okay still wasn't the right word, but it was the closest one I could think of. We needed to talk, the way I needed to talk to all of my friends, sooner or later.
He nodded, too, but more to himself, as though gathering his thoughts now that he felt relatively free to speak them. "It's that first day," he said finally. "The day you were in the hospital, and I told you...I can't get that out of my head." He twisted his hands in his lap, then forced them apart and gripped the edge of the pool. "Do you blame me, Joey?"
"Blame you?" I repeated. "C..." I knew what he was asking, even though he hadn't stated it outright. He'd been the one to come in that day, to my hospital room, and tell me that I'd be spending the rest of my stay somewhere very, very different, and that I'd be inside for a lot longer than I'd imagined. I'd felt a lot of things towards JC in those first few days, and I wondered if he really wanted to hear it. "I didn't blame you..." I started.
"But?" he said, hearing the hesitation. "Tell me, Joey. Please."
"Maybe I hated you for a little while," I admitted. "Not for real, just..." I sighed, powerless to verbalize the mix of things I felt, both then and now. "That was the first time I'd been sober in, well, a while, and it didn't feel good. My body was craving alcohol in a way that...I can't even tell you, JC. I can't even tell you what that felt like. So it was easy, after you came in, to make you the bad guy. To hate you for how I was feeling, and what would be happening."
"You hated me," he whispered, with a pain so intense I could almost feel it radiating off him.
"I didn't, JC," I said, quiet but with an intensity to match his. "I didn't really. Not after...somehow--I'm still not sure how--I got through detox and I started thinking about things again. A lot. And damn...you were brave to do that. To be the one to come in and tell me and...to face me, when I was like that. I wasn't nice."
JC barked out a laugh. "No, no you weren't."
"I was hitting bottom, and still you weren't afraid to be right there in my face. To try and save me. To do the one thing I'd been needing someone to do for a while. You were there, C. I stopped thinking I hated you and realized I admired you. For your strength. For having something I didn't."
JC nodded and, though I could see my words were a surprise to him, he found little to say for a moment. "I feel like I don't know you anymore," he admitted. "I'm not sure what to say or do. And I'm trying to treat you like I always did, but...it's not working."
I shook my head in disagreement. "It's not working as bad as you think," I told him. "I mean, there's some stuff...well, there's a lot of stuff that's just not me anymore. But it's nice to have at least one person treating me like a normal human being right now. Not like I'm going to break at any moment."
JC frowned, unexpectedly. "What about Chris?" he asked softly.
I shook my head. "Chris is...different," I said. "Chris treats me the way be does because he knows me. He knows the person I've become. Hell, I think he's the only person who really knows me right now."
"Because you let him in," said JC, so quietly I almost missed it. "I know I haven't been there as much as I could have," he admitted. "It was hard. I don't even know what it was like for you in there...we weren't supposed to ask much. Or tell much. It made us feel so isolated."
"I know," I said, nodding. He was going to want to know what it was like, eventually, but I was going to wait for him to ask. "Can I ask you something, though?"
"Yeah, sure," he said. "Anything." There was once a time when he probably would have known what I was about to ask, because it would have been the only thing I didn't know about him. Now, it could have been anything.
"How did it end up being you? No one's ever told me."
He hesitated--he very clearly hesitated--before answering, and I wondered what it was he didn't want to tell me. "Well, it couldn't be Justin," he began. "After he found you...he was a wreck for a while.. Lynne came to the hospital to be with him; he didn't want to leave you, but he needed his mom. Badly. And Lance...he was so quiet. He suddenly had a lot weighing on his mind. I don't think he could have handled dealing with you, on top of that. It hurt him too much to see you."
"He wasn't the only one, was he."
JC shook his head. "No, he wasn't. It was supposed to be Chris, to tell you. To talk to you about it. But something happened to him, Joe. He looked at you, sleeping, stitched up and looking almost, well, dead, and something happened. He couldn't do it. I think maybe he was afraid of hurting you, of having you turn on him. Look...maybe I don't know what I'm talking about here, because I don't know what he was thinking at all, but maybe...I dunno...I think maybe he wanted someone else to be the villain, so he could be your hero. So...that left me. And I did it, because I didn't want it to be anyone other than one of us."
"Thank you," I said, thinking about everything he'd just told me. Thinking about him and Justin and Lance and Chris and what I'd done to their lives. "I don't know what else to say, JC," I admitted. "I seem to be saying 'thank you' a lot, lately."
He shrugged and smiled, a little. "I'd do it again," he said finally. "If I had to. But god help us if we ever had to go through that again. For anyone."
"Amen," I said quietly. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye and I wondered how uncomfortable he was feeling. It wasn't even a question of if he was uncomfortable anymore. The only person I really felt was comfortable with me was Chris, and even then there was that edge to him that wondered if I was real. Wondered if I'd really come back to them all or if I was going to fall again.
"We've all missed so much," he said, finally. "Of you, of each other, of everything. It's like...for a month now, ever since the press died down, we've been living in this separate world, outside the one we used to be in. And nothing's the same; everything's changed." He paused, but when I didn't say anything he went on. "Tate's helped me out with it a lot," he admitted. "Maybe that's why it's a little easier for me to deal with this than the other guys. I don't know."
I smiled as he finally brought up Tate. I'd been waiting for that, in the back of my mind, ever since he'd showed up. "I'd like to hear about him," I said encouragingly. I wasn't trying to change the subject, not at all. JC was here because we were trying to catch up on what we'd lost, and I think, for him, Tate was gonna be a big part of that.
He grinned happily, the first time I'd seen him do that in a while. "He's..." he broke off and shook his head, then looked at me, still grinning. "I don't know what Chris told you," he said. "I'm not even sure what Chris knows. I mean, I've talked to him about it, ever since he went into big brother mode, but there's stuff..." He shrugged. "There's stuff I haven't, that I don't know if he does or not."
"Then pretend he didn't tell me anything," I said, turning towards him and smiling encouragingly. Something good had happened in one of our lives in the midst of all this, and I wanted to soak that happiness in. Make it part of me. Let it change me, if only just a little. "I really do want to hear about it."
"Okay," he said, suddenly becoming a bit shy. He wasn't a huge talker, JC--never had been--but he'd been talking to me today so much already. I guess it just went to show just how much there was to say. "I guess...we met shortly after you went into rehab. The tour was postponed and I was spending a lot of time at the Jive offices, working out some stuff with PR and sometimes just taking over a room to do some songwriting or whatever. Tate had taken an internship there during a semester off from school."
"And you met?"
"Yeah," he said. The grin had slipped into a sweet smile, but it was still on his face as he thought about his boyfriend. "We met. He was running an errand for some higher-up and burst in on me when I was tinkering with this song on that piano they have in the upstairs lounge. I was kinda pissed, but then I turned around and saw him and...do you believe in love at first sight?"
"No."
He laughed, somehow expecting that answer, I think. These days my cynicism about relationships was no secret. "Well, maybe not love," he admitted. "But there was something there. So we became friends...and we told each other things. It felt safe, because I wasn't going to start messing around with an employee of my label, and I knew I could trust him because he was under contract. But then...his internship ended and he went back to school and...one thing led to another I guess."
I nodded. "How long have you been together?"
"Three weeks," he said. "Almost four. So...it's all pretty new, still. You know I've never really been with a guy before so...it's really new."
"But good?"
The smile returned full force. "Really good," he said. "Great, even. He's...I mean, he's helped me with how to deal with you being in rehab, because he's been through that before. His mother was an alcoholic so...I guess in a lot of ways he knew what we were going through. But besides that...I think maybe the best thing that he's done for me is helped me come to terms with being gay."
"So you're gay," I repeated, a knowing smile playing with my lips.
"Yeah," he said. "I am. You don't sound very surprised."
I shrugged. "It was something that I wondered, from time to time. And..." I hoped I wasn't betraying any confidence here, but it seemed like a safe enough thing to talk about. "Well, Chris and I talked about it a little, when he told me about Tate."
"So Chris knows, too," he noted.
"You've...you've never been like this with a girlfriend, C," I said. "I mean, I can tell just from talking to you. And if I can tell, well, you can be damn sure Chris can too. He's the perceptive one."
He laughed again. "Okay, yeah, you have a point. I wasn't lying before, though," he said. "When I told you guys I was bi. I mean...I really thought I was."
"I never thought you were lying," I said. "I just thought maybe you were wrong. When I was thinking at all, that is."
A slight frown passed across his face, but it vanished quickly. "Well, I wish someone would have clued me in," he joked. "But seriously, I'm glad it happened the way it did. Tate and I...things are good." He smiled again, self-consciously this time. "I doubt you want me to get into any more detail than that."
"You might be surprised," I said, but he left it at that with a blush and a shake of his head. I doubted they were sleeping together, but there was definitely something there or JC wouldn't be slowly turning that particular shade of pink. He'd never been embarrassed about sex before--maybe it was because this time it was accompanied by something more.
I wouldn't have been bothered about him talking about it, because it had been a long time since I'd really thought about sex. The last time I'd actually had it was a couple weeks before I went into rehab. With Daisy of course--I may have been a bastard for a while, but I hadn't cheated on her. Then everything had happened and suddenly my sex drive was gone. Entirely. I didn't want to think about women, or sex, or relationships, or any of that. It was like my desire for that kind of thing had been stripped away.
It was a strange state of being for me, but my feelings about it were so tied up with being sober that I hadn't given it a whole lot of thought, let alone talked about it. Not even to Karen, now that I thought about it, though I may have mentioned it in some offhand way one time. She certainly hadn't ever pushed the issue; it was relatively far down in my list of things to deal with, I supposed.
I suddenly became aware of JC standing up beside me. When I looked up, startled, he smiled. "You were off in your own world for a second there," he said, offering me a hand to help me up. "My feet are getting cold. You wanna go back in and make something to eat?"
"Sure," I said, getting to my feet. I paused for a moment before we started back into the house "We still have a lot of catching up to do," I said. "But I think maybe the hard part's over."
"Yeah, maybe it is," he said. "I hope so. It's about time we started getting back into the good stuff."
I was almost asleep, watching television in bed, when I heard Chris get home. He was a lot later than he'd said he'd be, but I figured he and Dani had a lot to catch up on and left it at that. I thought he'd head upstairs to say good night to me or something--it was the first night since I'd gotten out of rehab that we hadn't talked before going to bed--but when he didn't come upstairs after about twenty minutes I shrugged to myself and slipped out of the bed, padding down the stairs in just my boxers.
The lights were off in the kitchen and living room, the way I'd left them, so I went straight to Chris' room and pushed the door open a crack. "Hey, stranger--" I whispered, the stopped as I realized that Chris wasn't alone. The lights were out, and I could see two shapes moving on his bed, two voices whispering and sighing and moaning softly. As quietly as I could, I pulled the door closed and backed away, hoping my intrusion had gone unnoticed.
I cursed at myself aloud as soon as I was far enough away not to be heard. I should have know Chris would bring Dani back here with him, even though he hadn't said anything about it. This was his home now, and Danielle was his girlfriend, and of course he was going to want to sleep with her while she was in town.
I opened the fridge and pulled out the milk, drinking a gulp straight from the carton then carrying it with me to the dining room table where I sat down. In the dark. And wondered why the hell seeing Chris sleeping with Dani had suddenly made my world seem off balance again.