Escort
by Cecilia

The CD, it turned out, was labeled "Practice!" in Lance's mother's round handwriting, big loops and swirls that somehow managed to communicate that she meant business, and it had come with a stack of neatly stapled and photocopied sheets of paper, each of which had the name of a dance scrawled across it, along with a track number. He held the whole package up as evidence when he told them.

"A debutante ball?" JC said, the corner of his jaw twitching suspiciously.

Justin clambered over Joey to grab the stuff from Lance. He flipped through the papers disapprovingly, wrinkling his eyebrows. "Dude," he said. "You're missing two days of publicity in New York to go do the foxtrot with your fifty- second cousin twice removed? That's kind of messed up."

"Third cousin once removed," Lance snapped. He looked beseechingly around the room at the others. "Sorry?" he offered.

Chris raised an eyebrow. Joey rolled his eyes. JC was sort of grinning to himself, privately, gaze fixed firmly on his knees.

"Look," Lance said, defensive. "It's my mom, right? Angie's escort broke his ankle or whatever, and it's in three weeks, everyone else is going already, and it's not like there's a show or anything, and I just have to do it, OK, and JC what the fuck is your problem?"

"Nothing," JC said meekly, but his smile grew wider. Lance could see his teeth.

"He's wishing he could have a coming-out party," Chris said slyly, and laughed when JC did. Justin and Joey were laughing too, but couldn't seem to decide whether it was going to be at Lance or JC. Lance stood up.

"Fuck you all," he said. "Dickheads. I wanted your help learning the fucking dances, but never mind. I can read the instructions on my fucking own." He slammed the door on his way out.


"Sorry," JC said, standing in Lance's doorway with his hands in his pockets. It was hard to stay mad at JC for long, mostly because he couldn't stand it when you were and would show up and apologize abjectly, even if he hadn't been the one in the wrong, and widen his eyes like a kicked kitten until you gave in and stroked his hair and said it was partly your fault too, which in this case Lance guessed it was, so he stood up and wandered over to the window, waving a hand to invite JC the rest of the way in.

"I shouldn't have been so sensitive about it," he said. "I'm not mad. I just. I don't really want to do this either, you know? It's not like a whole night being polite to girls in wedding dresses is my idea of a great time." JC grinned at him, relieved. Then he shoved his hands in his pockets and said

"Look, I know a lot of those dances. If you still want someone to, you know, help you out."


Although God knew JC could dance, Lance wasn't really expecting him to be much of a teacher for the, like, Arthur Murray stuff. But apparently there'd been some kind of unit in ninth-grade gym and - "fuckin' typical," Lance groused to Joey the night after their first practice - he still more or less retained the sense memories. He could even follow pretty well.

"There were too many boys," he explained, his face hidden as he pulled a practice shirt over his head. "So they had some of us follow for a while." He didn't say the faggoty ones, although from the slight twist of his mouth as he emerged from the shirt Lance thought that might have been the case. He'd always been quietly under the impression that there had been more reasons than one for JC to be so enthusiastic about getting out of Maryland, working in show business.

"OK," JC said, facing him in the harsh light of the portable studio. They'd gutted their first bus and lined the walls with mirrors, hung a few fluorescent lights, and there was enough room for warming up and practicing a little; it went with them everywhere. "You know ballroom hold, right? So do that, but you've got to keep your arms pretty firm." He rested his left hand just behind Lance's right shoulder.

Lance went ahead and pulled him in, settled his own hand at the back of JC's narrow waist. He hadn't done this since the Showstoppers, and his partner then had been a tiny blonde thing with pigtails. JC, who was looselimbed and had restrained his hair under an Oakland baseball cap some chick had given Justin, hit a button on the wrist remote he'd borrowed from Wade, and the music came on. "So first you step forward on your left foot, and I step back. And you step in threes and kind of steer me around the room. I'm going backwards, so if there are other people dancing, you have to make sure we don't bump into them. So...one, two, three, one two three, now."

Lance stepped.

"Fuck!" JC yelped.

"Sorry."

"Forward on the left."

"Sorry."

"It's OK."

It wasn't as bad as it had had the potential to be, though. After about ten minutes, when he had pretty much gotten it and could take over on the steering part, JC stopped leading and relaxed. He was a couple of inches taller than Lance, which was a little strange, but he was slight in Lance's arms, and he moved smoothly at the least touch. When Lance tried a move he'd done in choir, spinning JC out to the end of their joined arms, he went out and came back without breaking the rhythm.

JC smiling at close quarters was nearly always more than Lance had remembered to bargain for.

"OK," he said, when they'd safely navigated the studio three or four times more. "Let me lead again for a second and I'll show you how to do a dip."

"Yeah," Lance said, and tried to relax his shoulders, his arms, to let the press of JC's hands guide him, and as the music wound down to an end JC slid out of the ballroom hold, turned himself under Lance's loose arms, spun himself across Lance's chest, and threw himself backwards into Lance's right arm, and Lance wasn't ready for it at all, nearly dropped him, but just in time he put the strength back in his arms and caught him, held him. "Jesus Christ," he said. "I could have dropped you."

JC's forehead wrinkled a little. "well," he said. "but. you didn't. um. you need to help me up."

"oh," Lance said. He brought JC back to his feet, his arm sliding the length of JC's torso, his t-shirt slightly damp, a little clammy against Lance's skin, and they were facing each other again.

"um, OK," JC said after a second. "That was. good. water?"

"Yes," Lance said. "Yeah," dropped his hand from JC's back, "let's take five."


They snuck the time in, an hour after lunch, half an hour before dinner, once two hours well after midnight, after a club, still drunk and falling over each other's feet so it took them that long to achieve a credible version of the foxtrot without anyone being stepped on, but mostly in the morning, JC shuffling out the hotel's service entrance and onto the bus with coffee, Lance cuing up the CD and already muttering "one two three, one two three" under his breath. He'd left high school right before his senior year, when most everyone had had to take the ballroom-dancing class at the country club, and he remembered, at the time, feeling relieved about that, although he hadn't really understood that he was about to be into the fire. Now he wished he'd had it; although, since he had to give up his two days' "break" in New York, and he was a little pissed off about that, he had to admit it was kind of nice to be doing this. He'd had dance lessons with JC before, at the beginning, just the two of them because JC had like five times as much patience as the rest of them put together, but it hadn't really been like this. For one thing, JC had been significantly dorkier then, with significantly worse hair, and he'd made painfully bad jokes. For another, he hadn't had to really worry about the way their bodies moved together; if one of them messed up, it hadn't necessarily affected the other one. They hadn't been extensions of each other then. At least it wasn't only Lance who was screwing up this time. For instance, it had become apparent by the fifth day that JC couldn't follow for crap when it came to the mambo.

"Sorry, sorry," he said when he'd turned the wrong way for the third time. "I can't seem to tell you what to do and tell me what to do at the same time." He stared into the middle distance, biting his lower lip, then his face cleared and he went out into the main room of their suite. When he came back he had Britney in tow.

"Jesus fuck, JC!" Britney was saying. "You know Justin's not gonna wait til I get back!"

"Yeah, well, you're not going back, so it's OK," JC said amiably. "You're shorter than he is, and you're a girl, so. dance." He attached Britney's hands to Lance's shoulder and hand, then darted over to the dresser and hit play.

"Please, Brit," Lance said while JC was dealing with the music. "I've got to get this somehow." Britney sighed, but she stayed. When JC came back he stood behind Lance and held Lance's waist with both hands.

"Now," he said. "One, two, three, four. Arms stiff. Remember about personal space." And they started. But even if technically there was plenty of personal space, not only between Britney and Lance, but between Lance and JC at his back, he could feel the air warm between them, JC's low voice directing him, JC's hard hands guiding his waist, and he concentrated so hard on that that he forgot to look at Britney until JC briefly lifted a hand off to smack him in the shoulder and say "Eye contact!" And even after less than a week it was already strange to look down instead of up into his partner's eyes.

When they finished and went to dinner that night, Justin slid up behind Lance on the way to the table, dug his elbow into Lance's arm.

"Dancing with my girl, huh?" he said, and he was smiling, a familiar possessive sparkle on his skin when Lance cut his eyes sideways to smile back.

He didn't say that he thought he pretty much mostly preferred JC.


He was getting used to the routine, to the time taken out of every day. It didn't really interfere with their own schedule, there was just a little less free time, but he was used to that, and nobody ever made a fuss about it, except in the middle of the second week when JC came down wrong trying to do the lindy hop, and twisted his ankle. "Fuck fuck fuck," he chanted under his breath, and Lance, panicked, got an arm under his shoulders and helped him over to the mirrors, set him down, and ran outside to get help. Then instead of a quiet practice session there was a doctor and Wade and Johnny and Chris, who happened to be around the hotel, and two wardrobe girls trying to decide if they could work an ankle support in under the tightest pair of JC's pants, and in the middle of it all JC sitting calmly, with his mouth drawn a little maybe but not so bad, saying he'd had worse, and he'd be fine, and if they would just tape his ankle and let him go take a nap he'd be fine. And thank God, he was, ready for the show that night, although Lance felt so guilty that he didn't ask JC to practice for the next two days, until finally on Saturday JC rolled his eyes, said "Don't be stupid," and went to get the keys for the bus from Randy.

One day, JC turned up in a skirt. It was made of eyelet and trimmed in lace around the edges, and it was probably a little too small at the waist and too wide in the hips so it bunched in strange places.

"What is that?" Lance said. "A tablecloth?"

"No," JC said defensively. He smoothed his hands down over his hips, fingering the lace. "I borrowed it from Diana in wardrobe. It was the only thing she had that was long enough."

"Uhuh," Lance said.

"You need to practice the --" he flapped his hand. "The thing. The curtsey, you know."

Actually, Lance did, although he'd been putting it off as long as possible. Dancing, he could handle. Standing up in front of an auditorium of teenagers and their parents, them whispering about him instead of about Angie, that was not going to be fun; and if he dropped her he'd never hear the end of it; everyone would be looking, and he didn't want to think about it. But. JC in a skirt. He tried not to smile, and held out his hand. "OK, Scarlett," he said. "You have any idea how this works?"


The other thing was that JC was sort of schizophrenic these days, Lance thought, and the older he'd gotten the more he curled into himself, curved his narrow shoulders around and slumped in photographs until he seemed shorter than Lance, in every picture he looked like he was asking himself why he was there, and when he spoke they had to finish his sentences for him.

Get him dancing, though.

Get him into a studio, and it was like he used to be all the time, when they were children in that hellish warehouse in the worst part of Orlando, Lynn and Diane frowning and Chris promising that it was all right, that he had friends who would make sure nothing happened, and no air-conditioning in August, and JC had stood perfectly straight and given orders without thinking, expecting them to be obeyed just because he was right, and he knew it and so did everyone else, and he moved, he moved, he glided on the floor and it had been like the dirt couldn't touch his shoes. He had been like that all the time, once.


Lance dipped JC, right on the last chord.

"By George, I think he's got it," Joey said from the sidelines. He was lounging against the mirror, working the boombox for them.

"Shut up, Fatone," Lance said, but he was grinning as he toweled the back of his neck.


The day Lance flew to Mississippi they had one last practice, in the dead space of the afternoon between soundcheck and the show. There was actually a dance studio in this stadium, meant for the football players who took ballet classes, and it was large and airy, with a floor they weren't allowed to wear hard-soled shoes on.

"Nice," JC said appreciatively when they turned on the light. Lance got the feeling that he was a little sick of having to tone down spins to suit the small space of the bus. They warmed up quickly, put the CD on and ran through the foxtrot, the mambo, the cha-cha, the rhumba. It was kind of fun, Lance had to admit, now that he more or less knew what he was doing; they finished up with a wildly exaggerated tango, JC tossing his head and hair flying everywhere, and Lance knew the music well enough by now that with five measures to go he could start an elaborate sequence that ended with JC dipped all the way down to the floor, the top of his head brushing the Marley, saying "so help me God, Bass, if you drop me I'm suing. workman's comp" and then he laughed so hard that he was no help at all getting back on his feet and Lance almost did drop him, because JC was light and all, but cracking up he was 150 pounds of long spidery tangled limbs, trembling helplessly and total dead weight, and it wasn't like Lance was all that huge himself.

When he'd tossed half a water bottle in JC's face - "it's not like it was even that funny, JC, Jesus. you are some kind of weirdo, dude" - and JC had calmed down enough to explain, as if Lance hadn't seen him do this a hundred million times, that once you got started it was just hard to stop, they leaned against the mirrors and drank Gatorade and smiled at each other, JC, Lance thought, with the tangible grace that invaded him every time he got onto a dance floor, started to move, and they were enjoying the temporary calm spot, the CD's last track ended, and it reverted to the beginning again. The first number was a waltz, a really pretty one with piano and violin and flute and a very soft accordion, and they'd heard it often but it still made Lance want to move. When it came on JC shifted against the mirror, briefly awkward and more like ordinary everyday JC.

"Um," he said, scuffing the toe of his sneaker against the stadium's precious dance floor. "I've been meaning to, I mean. There's one more thing you really ought to know how to do. In case you want to, I mean if you, like somebody or something, you should know, I mean --"

Lance raised an eyebrow. "Breathe, JC," he said.

"yeah," JC said. "I mean, you should know how to do this kind of waltz." He pushed off from the mirror and went to the middle of the room, waiting for Lance to join him and settle into ballroom hold before he said "Like, you might want to move in closer when you're waltzing with somebody, and it's kind of complicated, so you should have some practice." He was quiet for a moment, then added, "You don't really offer to do this unless you're asking to be kissed."

"Oh," Lance said. "OK."

"Yeah," JC said. "So, just, kind of pull the girl in closer, to your chest, so you're touching, and just try to be careful with your legs."

He did, although JC wasn't a girl; brought him in close, and found that the only thing to do was to stare directly into JC's eyes. There wasn't really anywhere else to look. He saw what JC meant about the legs almost immediately, because when there wasn't much space - no space at all, really - between the top halves of their bodies, their legs were so close that they got all tangled up, and Lance stepped on JC's feet and felt clumsy for the first time in a while, like he had too many body parts and no place to put them except between JC's thighs, or rubbing up against his hips, and if Lance had thought they were dependent on each other before, that wasn't very much like this at all, after all, because suddenly if they didn't keep in step, didn't respond to every minute shift of direction, every flicker of the eyes, they would fall over, as wrapped up as they were. Wrapped up. Tangled. Lance was sweating, damp behind the knees and elbows, damp shirt pressed against JC's. He looked into JC's eyes. They danced, carefully, pressed together, undulating, JC's breath close enough to stir the air on Lance's face. JC's eyes. Look into JC's eyes. JC's face, JC's eyes, JC's mouth. You don't really offer to do this unless you're asking to be kissed.

The song ended.

Lance hadn't realized it in time to do anything, twirl JC or dip him or whatever, so they were caught flat-footed, one of Lance's thighs between JC's, JC resting on it a bit, bearing down, and then the music stopped and two seconds later turned into a rhumba, and suddenly Lance felt ridiculous, realized he was staring, released JC's waist and his hand. They both laughed a little. Lance wasn't really sure what to say; "thanks" seemed inadequate for the last few weeks. "It was fun" would sound lame, and possibly a little weird. He ended up not having to say anything at all, because Joey banged on the door to call them for costumes, they'd lost track of time and were late, and he went to get chewed out by wardrobe, obscurely grateful for the revengeful prick of pins. JC was next to the other mirror, standing still patiently to be dressed and harnessed and painted and jeweled, but Lance didn't look up to catch his eye.

After the show, instead of jumping into the bus with the rest of them, Lance made his own dash for a car. Tiny was already in the driver's seat, and Lance clambered in, still sweaty and disgusting. Tiny wrinkled his nose, grinning, and Lance rolled his eyes. "I know," he said. "Sorry." He collapsed back into the upholstery; he could get a quick shower at the airport hotel before he caught his plane for Jackson. While he was running for the car, still toweling off his hair, he had heard JC holler "Good luck" behind him.


Lance got back at four in the morning, bone-tired and a little drunk. Lonnie, who'd picked him up at the airport, had a quick conference with the guard on duty in the main room of their suite and directed Lance towards a door which, he desperately hoped, didn't have anyone engaged in sex or video games behind it. It was blessedly empty, though, the bed turned down just the way he liked it, a chocolate on the pillow, even, which he loved although he never ate them. There was an open connecting door, though, with light shining through from the room next door. Lance frowned and checked. It was JC, keyboard on and headphones over his ears. When he caught Lance's movement out of the corner of one eye, he lifted the phones off one ear and looked up briefly.

"How was it?" JC asked.

"Fine," Lance said. "Hot. Boring."

"Oh," JC said after a moment. "Good." He put the headphones back over his ears.


He didn't tell anyone what it had really been like, namely that while Angie was really a nice girl, blonde and innocent and shy and polite and all the things he told magazines he looked for, it had been strange to make contact with brown eyes, strange to have to push a little hard at someone's shoulders, to have a girl turn and step on his foot because they weren't used to the tilt of each others' bodies, didn't know the right rhythm to move together cleanly on the floor.


The routine should have come back quickly. They had a show that night and the next, then a travel day, a rest day, a show, a travel day, a show, a show. Something was different, though, a subtle shade away from normal, and Lance felt out of step with the others, two days in Mississippi having broken his rhythm, maybe, sitting in between him and the rest, although none of them seemed to notice. He missed the dance lessons, he realized early in the first week; and two days later admitted to himself that what he really missed was JC. At night, during the show or in clubs, they danced together but never touched, and he watched JC across the length of the stage and wished that JC were next to him, a hand resting high on his back. He missed having JC's undivided attention every day, having JC warm and responsive in his arms, and no matter how lightly or how far he spun away, knowing that in less than a measure he would always come back.

"I've been thinking," he said one night after the show, back at the hotel, raising his voice to be heard above the sounds of Justin chasing Joey through the common room outside. He was running gel through his just-dried hair, wearing Chris' ratty old striped bathrobe, which Chris had left in the suite's bathroom that morning. JC, with whom he had a connecting door again - it seemed to happen a lot, for no particular reason - made an encouraging noise from the other room and came to stand in the doorway. He was already mostly dressed, old ripped jeans and a t-shirt, but he'd declined the club Joey had proposed, so his hair was airdrying, and it lay a little flat on his skull, curling in little tight wet curls at the base of his skull. He was retying his pendant, both hands busy at the back of his neck.

"Where'd you get that thing, anyway," Lance said, not so much asking as renewing an old joke. JC wouldn't tell; according to Justin he'd had it since midway through the Mouse Club, but whenever anybody asked he smiled mysteriously, cheesily really since all JC's emotions were too outsize for his face, and mysterious was no exception, and declined to say, or sometimes said that he'd gotten it from the Crown Princess of Monaco, or Bill Gates, or whoever was in the news that day. Lance had long ago gotten over any real curiosity as to where it came from.

JC smiled. "I'll tell you someday," he said. "What's up?"

"Yeah," Lance said. He was finished with his hair; he turned around and half- sat on the dresser. "I was just thinking, you know, that I shouldn't - I mean, it would be a shame to lose that, being able to dance like that." He paused. "It was really nice of you to spend all that time teaching me."

JC's grin was broad, infectious. "No problem, man," he said. "I had a good time." He bit his bottom lip a little, considering, then said "Well, we'll be in Washington in a week, right? There's a ballroom night at a big park in Maryland, we could go there."

"Oh," Lance said. "No." The back of his throat hurt abruptly, seizing up. He hadn't even known he was going to say this. He'd be hoarse by morning if he stayed this tense for long. "I kind of meant. I missed. I kind of want to dance with you." That seemed like too much, so he added "I just got used to it, and all," which only made it worse, so he shut up, turned around to scrabble through the jewelry he had on the dresser. Maybe a necklace. Maybe he should get his ears pierced. Everyone else had done it, after all.

He hadn't heard JC go, but when he turned around there was nobody in the doorway. Jesus. He was abruptly furious with himself, yanking a shirt over his head, boxers, flipping through the closet that somebody had unpacked into for him while they'd rehearsed that afternoon. He had no idea what kind of pants to wear. Not tight. He couldn't wear khakis either. Maybe black. He couldn't find anything; he hated it when there wasn't time to empty suitcases himself, even worse than when there wasn't time to empty them at all. Sometimes during the first tour they'd just parked in the lot of a KMart or something and slept, all five of them plus the driver, right there in the bus, and it had been pretty fantastic, always having your clothing right where you'd left it, in the little closet you were sharing with five other people. That was the bus they practiced in now. This closet was too large for just him, but he had so much clothing with him on this tour, almost his whole wardrobe except for heavy winter things, so it was full and he couldn't find a damn thing and it was just, it was just - he was ready to cry when JC came back.

He looked perfectly normal, just like he had when he left, except that he had sneakers on now, not angry or freaked out or anything, really, just smiling an open friendly smile and saying "OK, I got the keys, let's go."

Lance stared, but he felt his throat relax. JC had the big plastic ring that Randy kept the bus keys on. "I have my period," he muttered under his breath, shaking his head when JC said

"What?" and turning back, saying

"Never mind, nothing, just let me put some pants on." He grabbed for the nearest pair, which happened to be black slacks. With bright Indian silk wrapped around the cuffs, but still. Found his shoes. Felt strangely calm.

Justin and Joey and Chris were long gone by now. They went down to the enclosed parking lot, the one totally secure from teenagers and hotel staff. It was awfully late now, Lance supposed. By this point in the tour all their body clocks were completely skewed anyway, and he was still a little pumped, could feel the adrenaline coursing through his system. It was a little like sticking your hand into a socket for two hours every night; sometimes it was like being very very drunk, drunk enough to stay that way all night, and he woke up the next morning still feeling thrills passing through his heart. They were near Denver, but not too near, and it was still and dark and a little chilly as they crossed the lot to the bus. Summer constellations, Lance thought, looking up, and missed Orion; he always did, when it wasn't winter.

JC unlocked the bus doors and flicked on the lights, and they climbed in. It had been a while since Lance had been in here, nearly two weeks; they were far enough along that they rarely needed to practice too much, and he was busy. He knew JC came every day whether he needed it or not, went over all the moves; if he'd missed anything the night before, did it twice, three times.

"D'you have the CD?" JC asked, going over to plug in the boombox they kept under the drivers' seat, safe from harm.

"Yeah," Lance said. He'd put it into his pocket before they came down. "If we keep doing this, we're going to have to get more. I'm getting kind of sick of these songs."

"Yeah," JC said, and he met Lance's eyes, and his smile was bright.

Lance hit play. "You wanna lead?" he asked.

"Nah," JC said. "We're used to this now."

"OK," Lance said, and held out his arms.

They danced the pasodoble and the lindy-hop and the hambo and the merengue, kind of, although they didn't really get through that one all that well because JC wound up halfway through doing an imitation of Justin, rolling his hips and thrusting to the beat, and three-quarters of the way through he stopped with the impression but kept shaking it until Lance couldn't take it anymore and cracked up, and they did the foxtrot twice because they liked it and skipped the rhumba because Lance said it had always made him feel like a dirty old man, always, and he didn't even know why he'd bothered learning it, since he'd made an excuse to sit out every time the band played it in Clinton.

"What was it like, seriously," JC said after that, and Lance didn't answer him because a really raucous polka was next on the CD and instead he said "come on!" and dragged the boombox over to the doorway, turned the music up, jumped off the bus. You needed room for a polka, and there was enough light spilling out from the bus that they could see not to bump into anything, and he pulled JC after him and whirled him around the parking lot, picking him up a couple of times even, and at the end spinning them until they were both dizzy, sliding down the side of their own bus to collapse on the ground. Lance reached just inside the door and hit stop. His chest was heaving; JC was panting, head tipped back against the metal, eyes closed. He remembered suddenly that they'd done a full show not too long ago. He was only twenty- two, but his bones ached in sympathy for his future self, for a body which someday was going to have been pushed too far.

"OK," Lance said when they'd been quiet for a minute. "I'll tell you about it."

JC didn't say anything, but Lance went on anyway. "It was OK. It really was. I think my mom was surprised that I was dancing so much. I did the cha-cha with her, and Meredith was there, so I danced with her once, and a couple other people I used to know that you wouldn't - um, Deborah Harlow, Stacy used to babysit for her, Anne, she's my friend John's kid sister, you've met him. Mostly with Angie though, it's what you're supposed to do. We got through the curtsey all right" - under the cover of darkness, he grinned - "and it was all fine. She's a good kid, a good dancer. I think everyone was briefed, because I didn't have to sign an autograph all night." He could see JC smiling out of the corner of his eye, and JC reached over and touched the back of his hand briefly, two fingers. It was true, that was a pretty rare treat these days. JC's fingers were warm on his hand, and then withdrawn.

"Not much else to tell," he said. "I missed you all." Somehow that came out easily in the semi-dark outside. When he'd woken up the morning after he'd gotten home, he'd smacked Justin's hands away from his sunglasses, snapped at Chris to keep it down, refused to answer Joey when he wanted to know how many girls Lance had done during his twenty-four hours in the Delta, and he knew that they all knew what he really meant, but it was hard to just up and say it when they were all tearing around the suite in the middle of the morning, trying desperately to pull themselves together enough to face the day.

"Yeah?" JC said, and he was still smiling, unbearably sweet, head tipped back against the side of the bus and tousled hair shoved back from his face. "Good. We missed you."

Lance laughed. "We're nuts, you know? I was gone for one day and two nights."

"Well," JC said. "We need each other though."

Lance guessed they did. He was getting embarrassed again though, and he was about ready to say that they should really go inside when JC said, not looking at him,

"I kissed this boy once in tenth grade. And he gave it to me when I turned sixteen. That's all."

Lance stared. He couldn't think of what he could possibly say.

JC shrugged a little and got to his feet, dusting off the seat of his pants. "We should go in," he said, and this time he did make eye contact, his lips curving slightly. Lance was suddenly very aware of how dark it really was, out here in the parking lot, just a little bit of light from the bus doors next to them and then a vast expanse of black before the solid warm bulk of the hotel. He didn't want to go back just yet.

"um, JC," he heard himself saying. "You want to waltz before we go inside?"

JC looked up. "Sure," he said slowly.

Lance got up himself, reached back through the door again and hit the music. One two three, he thought, and although he didn't know what the hell he was doing it was true, all that practice, they fit together so smoothly now. The air smelled so good out here, he thought, it was almost tangible, heavy and wet and clear in the night, and slightly chilly, but JC's shoulder was warm through his thin shirt, the fabric sliding slightly under Lance's hand. you only do it if

They danced.

I could ask, he thought, asking to be kissed, but instead he just relaxed his outside arm and felt JC's go too, and when Lance put the slightest pressure on his shoulder he came the rest of the way, closer. Closer, JC's thigh was slipping between his own, he could feel the roll and shift of muscle at JC's trembling waist as they moved together, JC's slight body tucked against his own. only do it if And it was just like before, JC's breath on Lance's cheek, JC looking down a little, directly into his eyes and they were abruptly so luminous that he felt he could see right through them asking and all he had to do was reach out just a little, JC's mouth close enough to, to be kissed.

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