"Valencia Singers," the waiter said, snapping his fingers. Howie stopped mid-order and looked up from his menu, squinting. "VCC, man. '93. I stood behind you to the right. I knew that I knew you from somewhere. I've been trying to figure it out for the last few weeks. You guys are here all the damn time." Kevin stopped scanning his menu, trying to make a last minute decision on what to order and looked up at the waiter. Brian was looking at Howie. It was true; the three of them went there almost every Friday those first few years, every Friday after they were set free from their routine afternoon of rehearsals and vocal training. Sometimes AJ and Nick came with them, but it was more often just the three. Brian loved steak and it was either that or order pizza again, but they had pizza enough during the week that even that was starting to lose its novelty. None of them were particularly adept in the kitchen. "Oh yeah," Howie said, and Kevin couldn't quite tell if there was actual recognition there or if he was just being polite. "How's it going, man?" He looked at the waiter's nametag and Kevin guessed that he was probably just being polite. That was Howie. "Chris." "Great," Chris said, dropping his pad onto their table and pulling out the fourth chair to sit down. Kevin looked at Brian and Brian just shrugged and set his menu on the table, folding his hands over the cover. Kevin had been many things, but never a waiter. Still he knew enough to guess that it was probably bad form to sit with the patrons. "So, what have you been up to, um, Howie?" "Yeah. Howie," Howie nodded. "I'm. We're a vocal group," Howie explained, gesturing to Brian and Kevin. "Nice," Chris said. He grinned, exposing a set of charmingly crooked teeth. He was a small guy, though bigger than both Howie and Brian. His brown hair was parted in the middle and it flopped down over his forehead. His dark eyes bounced back and forth around the table, never settling on any one thing in particular and giving an anxious air to his person. "So like, you do local stuff?" Howie opened his mouth to answer, but Kevin cut in. "Well, sort of. We have a record deal, but things are slow going," he said. Howie would have agreed with Chris and said that yeah, they only did local things. Howie had always been a little too modest. Chris's shifting gaze did settle on Kevin then and Kevin held it, looking steadily back at Chris. "We were signed to a label last year and we just finished recording most of our first album. We did a tour of high schools last year," Howie added. "All over the country." "Awesome," Chris said. He was still looking at Kevin and then Chris winked, quick and followed by a secretive little smile. Kevin blinked in surprise, it wasn't what he had expected, and looked down at his menu. "So you guys have names?" Chris asked. "Oh, sorry," Howie stammered. He gestured at Brian. "This is Brian, and that's Kev. Kevin." Kevin nodded but didn't look up. He was used to the winks and the nudges, it was the reason he'd tried moonlighting as a model, but found that that wasn't really his scene. Still, Chris unnerved Kevin a bit, and Kevin was shy by nature, though he hid it well. Consequently he thought that he often came off as perhaps a bit up tight, full of himself, but it wasn't that. It was plain old shyness, and it kicked in as soon as Kevin was caught off guard. Brian smiled, waved, and mumbled a "hey." "Nice to meet you both," Chris said, the sudden pleasantries somewhat unexpected. Kevin wasn't looking at him anymore. Kevin was watching Brian pick at his non-existent fingernails instead, but he felt Chris's eyes leave him and looked up to see Chris glancing around the dining room. "Oh, hey," Chris said suddenly, jumping up from his chair and grabbing his pad and pencil. "I'll get my ass kicked if they see me sitting down on the job. So are you guys gonna order, or what?" "Your friend seems nice," Brian said later in the car on the way back to their apartment. He stopped at a red light and turned to look at Howie in the back seat. Kevin flipped channels on the radio, trying to find something decent to listen to. Brian only really liked country, and Howie turned his nose up at anything that wasn't Jon Secada or Menudo, and Kevin didn't care for Jon Secada or country. So far Kevin was failing miserably. Howie shrugged. "I guess. He's not really my friend." Kevin stopped the radio on Meatloaf and Brian began humming along, and Howie was still thinking about Chris, so Kevin left it there. "He seemed friendly enough," Kevin said. He thought that maybe Chris seemed just a little too friendly, but Kevin had a tendency to misinterpret things out of context, so it might have been his imagination, which sort of supported the full of himself vibe that Kevin tried so hard to avoid. He stopped flipping stations and shook his head. No, not true. "Yeah. Like I say, he's just some guy I didn't really know from college. He has a good voice, I guess. Really high." The light changed to green and Meatloaf would do anything for love, but he won't do that, and the three sang along in sharp falsetto the rest of the way home. Kevin hung up the phone and sighed, fingered the change slot just in case and leaned his forehead against the edge of the box. Kristin's big-mouthed friend Tamara had seen him dancing with a girl at Heroes the Friday before. It was no big deal. Kevin had gone with Howie after stopping back at the apartment and grabbing his own car, and Kevin left afterward with Howie. He didn't pull that shit, and it was only dancing. Tamara had a jealous streak a mile wide and Kristin wasn't usually like that but she hated hearing things from her friends first. She hated being the subject of speculation. Kevin hadn't even noticed that Tamara was at the club, which was probably exactly how she wanted it. So all plans for the evening were off and Kristin and Kevin were fighting again. It was only a matter of time before one of them broke it off, Kevin knew, and it would probably be best, but Kevin would miss the girl that smiled at him from across the cafeteria. He already caught himself missing that girl and she wasn't even gone. Kevin closed his eyes for a moment, tried to figure out if he could fix things with her, if it was worth fixing things, and when he opened them again Nick was standing there. "My mom says I can hang out with you guys tonight," Nick said. "As long as I'm home by midnight." "I dunno," Kevin said, doubtfully. Having Nick along with them really limited their options. And it was a Friday. "Maybe next week." "Brian already said I could come." Nick was frowning now and Kevin looked around but Brian must still be inside. Kevin hadn't really planned to spend the evening with Brian either. Dinner, maybe, but Brian was only just twenty and there were plenty of things Brian didn't get to do. Hanging out with Kevin on a Friday night was definitely one of them. "You can come to dinner with us," he conceded. Kevin reached out to shuffle Nick's hair and Nick dodged his hand and scowled. "We could do dinner and a movie," Howie suggested, coming out of nowhere. He must have been standing behind Kevin, listening, or more likely waiting for Brian to come unlock the car. "Yeah!" Nick said. Kevin frowned, but Nick was already excited and Kevin knew he'd go along. Kevin would have plenty of time later to think about what he was going to do about Kristin. They were all creatures of habit and so they predictably ended up at Outback Steakhouse again. It was close to their apartment, and it had things on the menu that both Brian and Nick would eat. Brian was surprisingly the pickiest eater of the group. He liked pizza, steak, potatoes, and macaroni and cheese, and very few things that didn't fall close to one of those groups. Nick liked just about anything that wasn't green and didn't contain mushrooms or any kind of sausage but if Brian turned his nose up at a dish, it was likely that Nick would too. Since they already had Nick tagging along, Kevin made it a point to ask AJ to come out with them, make it a group night, but AJ had a new girlfriend, a 'real' girlfriend this time, AJ had claimed, seeing as he was seventeen now and all, and so he scrunched up his nose at spending a Friday night out with the boys. They discussed what movie they were going to see as they perused the menu and Nick bickered with Howie about ratings. Kevin knew for a fact that Nick's parents did not allow him to see rated R films and nothing was going to convince Howie otherwise, but Kevin let them bicker and concentrated on the beer list instead. "I won't be scared," Nick insisted, slapping Kevin's arm for support. Kevin snorted. "You sleep with a night light, Nick." "What if I sleep over at your apartment," Nick suggested. "Then I won't be scared. I can go call my mom right now." "Hey, can I get you guys some drinks?" Chris asked, coming up to their table and setting a hand on Nick's shoulder. Nick looked up and gave him a dirty look, shrugging the hand off his shoulder. "Hey. Don't," Nick said, and it sounded rude, but even in the year or so that Kevin had known Nick, he was already thankful for Nick's blunt refusals when it came to unwanted touching. Chris pulled his hand away and nudged Kevin instead. "This your little brother?" Chris asked. Kevin stared at Nick and didn't answer, instead wondering how anyone could possibly think they were related. "No way," Nick answered for Kevin. "This is Nick. He's part of the group," Brian said. "I'll have a coke, please." "Cool," Chris said, writing down Brian's order, and then Howie's when he ordered the same. "I'm in a group over at Universal," he said, mostly to Nick. "My other job. You should come check us out." Nick shrugged and ordered a 7-Up and then he and Brian left to go call Nick's mother. "We're not taking him to that movie," Kevin stated after the rest of the drinks had been ordered and Chris shut up and left. Kevin was the first to admit that he didn't know one thing about being an older brother, but he often caught himself sounding just like one of his own, so Kevin figured he couldn't be that far off. "I know," Howie agreed. They'd end up sleeping with all of the lights on and Nick in the same bed, and Kevin was not up for that. Not this week. "No way," Kevin said. And they didn't, they took him to an adventure flick that was PG-13 and then Howie and Brian pulled their mattresses into the living room and the three of them had a slumber party. Kevin shut himself in his bedroom and tried to get a good night's rest, but Nick was climbing into bed with him by 3 am anyway, complaining about the dark and Howie's snoring. Kevin sighed and pulled back the covers to let Nick in, remembering all of the times that his brothers had done the same for him. Kristin broke up with Kevin on Wednesday. "All we do is fight," she reasoned, and Kevin knew, they'd both seen it coming, but it hurt like hell to get dumped over something he hadn't even done. They'd been together a year, almost two and this was the third time they'd called it quits. So this probably wasn't a break up, just more of a break. And they didn't say it, but Kevin knew that they both hoped that was the case. She kissed Kevin on the cheek and climbed out of his car. Kevin watched her until she disappeared behind the door to her building and she didn't look back once. Kevin sat there for a few more minutes before he drove home and shut himself in his room, ignoring Howie when he asked what was wrong. Howie would figure it out. He'd been around the last two times it had happened. "What crawled up his ass?" Kevin overheard AJ ask the next morning, shortly after they'd all gathered at the studio. They were recording new demos. Always recording demos. They'd thought they were through when they were signed with Mercury, but Mercury dropped them shortly after. It was almost back to Johnny's closet for them all, but David McPherson had had faith in them, enough faith to leave Mercury and sign the boys with Jive. They thought they were through with the demos for at least a little while when Jive sent them to Sweden and they returned with several songs under their belts. They had nearly an entire album, just waiting. And yet, here they were, still recording demos because Jive wasn't completely happy with the material. And on the days that Park Studios wasn't available, on the days they couldn't get into Platinum Post, they were back in Johnny's closet, rehearsing in his 'studio' closet with the mattresses tied up against the walls for sound proofing. This week though they were at Park Studios and during breaks from recording, the fellas crowded around the small computer in the lobby, which only had one game. Golf. Kevin watched them once in awhile, but thought it was probably the most boring video game he'd ever seen. Who in their right mind would create a video game out of golf? "Two guesses," Brian said, nudging AJ's shoulder and glancing at Kevin, and so yeah, they had figured it out. AJ didn't even bother to guess, just nodded and walked off to bother Nick. So Kevin admittedly acted like a bear for two days, and the guys put up with it, giving him space, and no one complained when Kevin backed out of their usual Friday night dinner and hit the clubs early instead. His car was in the shop again and Brian even lent Kevin his own with only a promise that Kevin wouldn't drive it drunk. Kevin laughed, and assured Brian that he would do no such thing, meanwhile wondering when the hell his little cousin had become so responsible. Kevin guessed that's what happened when you started paying your own bills. That's what did it for him, anyway. Kevin was suddenly single again and so he picked up a girl, a brunette that didn't look anything like Kristin but did look slightly like Tamara. The girl turned out to be some kind of astronomy buff and she pointed out Jupiter and Orion in the parking lot, and Kevin feigned interest until he could push her up against the car and kiss her. Astronomy was great but that wasn't what he was looking for. Kevin didn't take her home, but she gave him a blowjob in the backseat of Brian's Civic and Kevin did feel a little better afterward. He went out again Saturday night and hooked up with a muscular boy with mocha skin in a hallway in the rear of the club and then again on Sunday when he ran into Chris the waiter. Kevin saw Chris from across the room, streaks of dark hair and pale skin, and thought maybe he could avoid him, but then there was a flash of chocolate eyes and Chris was already headed Kevin's way. "Finally get a night off from work and look who I run into," Chris said, leaning against the bar beside Kevin. Kevin grunted and scanned the club. He was looking to hook up, lose myself in someone else, and the last thing he wanted to do was chat with his waiter from Outback Steakhouse. Chris tried to make small talk, and Kevin actively didn't listen, looking anywhere but over at Chris. "And so then I said, 'fuck you too.' Hey, what the hell is wrong with you?" Chris asked finally. He hit Kevin's shoulder and Kevin turned, mostly to tell him to fuck off, but Chris was pushing a beer toward him. Kevin stared at it, still contemplating telling Chris off, but a free beer was a free beer and so he took it and shrugged. "My girlfriend broke up with me. Again." Kevin downed half of the beer. "Thanks." "That's harsh," Chris nodded. "Sorry, man. You want to go back to my place? I've got like, well, I've got beer anyway." "Yeah?" Kevin said. He looked over at Chris for the first time since he'd noticed him heading across the club. Chris was wearing loose jeans and a faded T-shirt that was ripped a little at the hem. His eyes were bright beneath the hair that hung limp over his forehead and his cheeks were a little flushed. He looked alive and a bit messy. Not what Kevin usually went for but he found himself saying "sure" anyway. Chris looked surprised by Kevin's answer. His fingers scrambled over the edge of his shirt before grabbing his beer from where it rested on the bar. The bottle clanked against the wood and then he had it in his hand. Kevin thought that maybe he was used to getting shot down. Chris recovered quickly after that, finishing the rest of his beer. Kevin followed suit, setting his empty glass on the bar. Chris grabbed Kevin's arm and Kevin let him, let Chris drag him out of the club and into the night. "Sorry, man. It's a mess in here. I didn't think, you know, that I'd have visitors or whatever." Chris's apartment was tiny, a studio with a sink and oven in one corner and a bed in the other. The bathroom was small, a closet off the kitchen. Despite what Chris would have Kevin believe, the whole place was surprisingly tidy and looked like the Ritz compared to Brian's side of their own three bedroom. Kevin gestured toward the bathroom and Chris nodded. Kevin heard Chris clanking bottles in the fridge as he relieved himself and then glanced in the smudged mirror. He ran a damp hand through his hair, trying to tidy it up. A few pieces fell forward into his eyes and Kevin pushed them back and then shrugged. Chris had holes in his T-shirt and they were here for beer. Kevin looked fine. There was no towel in the bathroom so Kevin wiped his hands on his pants and opened the door. Chris was banging on the top of the television and swearing under his breath but he looked up when he heard the door open. "I only get two channels," he said. He handed Kevin a beer and gestured toward the bed, the only place to sit other than the floor. Kevin smiled, because hey, isn't that what he'd gone to the club for anyway? And no, Chris wasn't his type, but Chris was there, and Kevin had a ways to go before completing all of things that Tamara already believed that he'd done. The television was fuzzy and Chris was fiddling with nobs and antennae, but the sound was clear, and it looked like it was just some news program anyway. "Come here," Kevin said, and Chris whipped his head around to look at Kevin. "I'm just gonna -" "Turn the TV off?" Kevin suggested, remembering the wink in the restaurant. Chris stared at Kevin and then blinked and said, "Yeah." His fingers fumbled over the television nobs but he didn't turn it off. "So you wanna -" Chris started, sitting on the edge of the bed beside Kevin. "You wanna talk about it or something?" "About what?" Kevin took a sip of the beer Chris had handed him and then leaned over the edge of the bed to set the bottle on the floor. He'd had enough beer tonight and he wanted to be able to find the club again later, to pick up his car and drive home. "Your girlfriend. The one that just dumped you," Chris said. He picked at the label on his bottle, shredding the scraps of paper and discarding them on the edge of the bed. The comforter was blue and plaid and ugly, but it looked thick and more comfortable than the throw on Kevin's own bed. Kevin ran a hand over it and his fingers got caught in some of the plastic threads that had come loose. Chris nudged Kevin's knee and Kevin figured maybe he really should 'talk about it.' Lord knows he'd been avoiding it for days. "It's nothing really. Her friend thought I'd cheated. Kris believed her friend, and I was kicked to the curb. Not the first time, and I doubt it'll be the last." Kevin shrugged. "So in the mean time you're picking up strange little men with your girlfriend's name in clubs," Chris supplied. Kevin looked at Chris, and yeah, that seemed to be the way that things were going. Chris was smiling down at his beer, still picking at the label. His mouth was working as though he was rehearsing what to say next, or had a running commentary of the evening going in his head. "I think you picked me up," Kevin said. He had no complaints about where he'd ended up, but let's face it, Kevin was minding his own business in that club, actively avoiding anyone that he knew. Actively avoiding Chris. Chris nodded and made a comment about the television working now. He tried chatting a while longer and then finally leaned over just when Kevin was starting to suspect that it hadn't been the plan all along. Kevin was about to stand up, give up all together on the talkative waiter when Chris finally leaned over, a small hand on Kevin's knee, and kissed the corner of Kevin's mouth. He kissed with the messy uncertainty of someone who was often rejected, pushed away before he was able to begin, and Kevin was more surprised by that than he would have guessed. "This is okay, right?" Chris pulled back to say, and Kevin wiped the patch of wetness from the corner of his mouth. "I'm not great at picking up on these things," Chris explained, despite the fact that he'd been the one to invite Kevin home. A fact Kevin had already pointed out to him moments before. And Kevin had followed him home like an eager puppy, hadn't he? "This is good," Kevin assured him, expecting Chris to continue, but Chris appeared to be suddenly distracted, his eyes watching the subtitled ninja flick playing clearly on the television. "This is a great movie," Chris said, absently, seeming to forget that Kevin was there all together, until Kevin poked at his hand, still resting on Kevin's knee. Kevin pushed at the skin and felt the hidden sinews beneath. "I'm sure it is," Kevin said. Chris nodded and he reached over and unzipped Chris's pants, pushed up Chris's shirt and pulled a little at the dark hairs around Chris's navel, thinking, not for the first time, that he shouldn't be finding this completely sexy. "Wait, just a second," Chris said, the hand that had previously rested on Kevin's knee moved to grip Kevin's wrist as Chris's other hand brushed the hair that had flopped into his face. "That little guy is gonna do this kick flip thing and then totally beat the shit out of that dude with the guns." Kevin snorted but did remove his hand from beneath Chris's shirt, once again thinking that perhaps it was time to call it a night. Kevin picked some dirt from beneath a fingernail, concentrating enough on the process that he didn't immediately notice when Chris lifted his head to stare at Kevin. "Dude," Chris said to get Kevin's attention. Kevin looked up from his fingers, his eyes connecting with Chris's, wide and almond shaped, Chris's lips parted in a crooked grin. "I was totally kidding, man." Kevin blinked and shook his head. "I knew you were," Kevin grunted, though mostly he thought Chris was just one of the strangest men he'd ever met. "I mean, don't get me wrong," Chris continued, but he was undoing the rest of his jeans now and kicking off his shoes as he spoke. Kevin kicked off his own shoes and Chris went on. "The little kickass ninja dude totally rocks and I wasn't kidding about the scene, but man, you looked like you were about to fuck me or something and fucking beats little kickass ninja dudes nine times out of ten." It turned out that Chris was even more surprisingly sexy when out of his clothes. Confident and funny and really really tight. "Don't you fucking dare," Chris said when Kevin lined myself up. "I'm not fucking ready and you fucking know it, you bastard. Another finger. Come on." And Chris wasn't ready, and Kevin had known it, but fuck if it wasn't taking hours. It had only really been thirty minutes or so though, and it all should have been obnoxious. It should have killed the mood, but Chris's eyes were gleaming, his nostrils flared in rhythm with his heavy breathing, and Kevin felt himself chuckle against his own better judgement, chuckle as though it was all just really amusing and Kevin had all the time in the world. Kevin slid his fingers back inside. He groaned in satisfaction and yet with the torture of knowing that he was so close and yet still not quite there. And when Chris was finally ready and when Kevin thought he wouldn't be able to stand it if he had to wait one second longer, when Kevin had started to suspect that Chris was going to come right then before they'd even really gotten started, that was when Chris finally pushed Kevin's hand away and said, "Okay. Go." Kevin hesitated and it only took a moment before the tables were turned and Chris was the impatient one. "Go," he said again, pushing his feet into the bed, raising his hips in invitation. And when Kevin slid in, was finally inside, Chris was still so fucking tight that Kevin thought he must be killing him. Ripping him in half. But Kevin thought he heard Chris moaning - or maybe it was Kevin, himself - and in any case, Kevin was far too gone to do anything but close his eyes and thrust toward the big finish, hoping that Chris wouldn't kick his ass into the hallway when he got there and then finally, not caring either way. Chris didn't kick him out. Instead he came all over his stomach and laughed when Kevin leaned down afterward to lick him clean. He pushed at Kevin's head in protest when Kevin pulled at the hairs trailing back down toward Chris's groin with his teeth. And Kevin figured that maybe he should have known that Chris would absolutely be vocal about anything that he had gotten wrong, and perhaps for once Kevin had gotten it all right. When Kevin paused to make sure he had everything he'd arrived with, Chris said, "Hey, give me your number." "Why?" Kevin asked, fishing one of his socks from beneath the bed. "So I can call you to do something sometime. Unless you don't want to do something sometime." Kevin nodded and scribbled his number and name down on the first surface of paper Chris could find - a napkin from the kitchen counter. "I'll do something. Sometime," Kevin said, pulling the door to his apartment shut behind him. Next