It's the parents that get him every time.
Lance thinks, if he could just be rude. If he could just be the kind of guy who walks into his date's house with a chip on his shoulder. Or, better yet, honks his car horn from out in the street. If he could just be that guy, everything would be a lot easier.
But no. No way, not ever. He has to be the boy who goes inside, who shows up wearing ironed pants, who actually recognizes the old jazz record the mom is playing in the living room and can reassure the dad everyone will be home by curfew. Three feet always stay on the floor.
He's the perfect fucking date, and it kills him every time.
Lance blames his own parents. He genuinely likes his folks and really, except for about twelve minutes when he thought his mom wouldn't let him go to Florida and another five or six when she said "you know we love you no matter what" instead of "it doesn't matter," they've always gotten along well. His dad doesn't say much but it only makes the things he does say more important.
He likes his parents. He likes his friends' parents. The thing that kills him is how sometimes the parents are so great they make him believe that making dinner conversation and making a relationship work are the same thing.
Like, he never would have wound up dating his last girlfriend if her mom hadn't talked him into coming over for Labor Day barbecue. Aunts and uncles and third cousins twice removed, and Lance knew what to say to everyone. She smiled and glowed in a pale sundress with orange embroidery like she was perched on top of a Creamsicle wedding cake. Before that got too scary, her mom was squeezing his elbow, asking him if he was ready for more pie.
He brought his last boyfriend with him to Russia, despite the fact that they'd broken up twice already, just because the guy's mom never stopped calling to say what a great couple they'd made. Also because at least at those family dinners Lance didn't have to pretend he wasn't usually gay. Off and on and on and off again and Lance thinks maybe the problem with other people's parents is they always have their own kids' best interests in mind.
Still, Lance is such a good date that even when it's just him and Joey going to the movies, he tells Joey they should meet at Joey's folks' house so Lance can say hi. Lance is going back to train as soon as they sign the deal. Joey's going to New York as soon as they schedule rehearsals. Everybody else has somewhere to be. Joey and Lance are both just waiting for someone to tell them it's time.
Of course Lance is early and Joey is late, and of course Joe Senior is more than happy to entertain. "Have you seen this one?" Joe asks, pointing with the remote at the television. "Here, this was junior year, and they gave him the lead. Have you seen this one?"
Lance says, "I've seen it."
"Oh, if you had been around then, Lance. If you coulda been there for real." Lance loves that sometimes he looks at Joey's dad and looks at Joey and he can trace everything back. The five of them made so much of who they are now out of each other. It's nice to remember that Joey was Joey before he ever came to Florida, let alone met Chris or JC or Justin. Or Lance.
Lance leans forward. "Tell me what he was like, back then. For real."
"You did this kinda thing, in high school, right?"
"Not like that," Lance says. "Not like Joey."
"Nobody did it like Joey," he says. "And everybody fell for it. I remember, his twelfth birthday, right, the first time we do a boy-girl thing down in the rec room instead of kids in silly hats. Twelve years old and when I turn my back for a second, this girl Francesca who lived down on Eighty-Sixth Street has grabbed him and laid one right on him."
Lance can't do anything but laugh. Joey makes it too easy. "Some things never change," he says.
Joe grins, eyes bright like his son after spotting a pretty girl across a bar. "It was like the floodgates were down, yeah. But he and Richie. Couldn't do nothing without the other. You know Richie, right?"
"I know Richie," Lance says. They all had a Richie. Everybody had somebody who wasn't like all the others, who made you realize you had options no one had thought to mention. Some of them needed those options more than others.
"They ran around so much together, my wife started to worry," Joe says. "Worry about this, worry about that, she's always gotta have something to worry about. You raise a boy like that, a boy who likes to sing those kinda songs." He looks at Lance from the corner of his eye, almost like an apology. "You know," he says.
"I know," Lance says. Joey's dad loves Lance anyway, too.
"Your best hope, the biggest wish you sit around and bullshit about with the guys on a Sunday, is that a boy like that ends up on Broadway," Joe says. "Maybe you say, a star on Broadway. But you think, chorus boy. My son wants to be a chorus boy. And that, that wouldn't be a bad thing, it wouldn't be a thing you couldn't tell your next-door neighbor."
"Nobody knew it would be like this," Lance says, even though they had. They'd all watched MTV growing up. They maybe knew how they'd end up, except that honestly they'd had no idea at all.
"You," Joe says suddenly. "You and that guy."
"He's not," Lance says. He folds his hands. "I don't think. If I go back I don't think he's coming."
Joe presses his fingers together like a steeple and nods. He doesn't say "good" but it's all over his face and Lance doesn't take it the wrong way, he knows how it's meant. Parents are parents and they don't take kindly to kids with big mouths making things tough on the rest of them. Joey never really liked the guy either.
"Oh, this is my favorite," Joe says, rewinding the tape a little and turning up the sound on West Side Story. "I know, I know, all that Shakespeare, right, how do you beat that? But this was always the one that got me. You don't know, but being here in New York in the fifties. Gangs meant something different but still plenty scary."
The girls flounce their skirts and the boys stomp their feet and Lance can pick out Joey like there's a special spotlight. Joey was never just a chorus boy. "I love this song," Lance says. He crosses his legs, one ankle up on his knee, and sits back.
The VCR keeps running and Joe hums along under his breath, "one of your own kind, stick to your own kind." Lance listens carefully to his friends' parents, but he doesn't know always know what they're trying to tell him. Maybe Joe's just singing to hear the sound of his own voice.
Lance was early, of course, but still he thinks Joey's probably late. They were going to see a nine o'clock movie, something with car chases and explosions and buddies watching each others' backs. He loves Joey's folks but when dad gets on a nostalgia kick, that's all she wrote. It's how Joey talks about Germany, sometimes, like it was all tiring but fun and then everybody got exactly what they wanted. Lance thinks maybe they wanted different things more than they sometimes like to admit.
On the television, Joey takes a bow and the curtain comes down. "My boy, my flesh and blood," Joe says. "I know you guys have been all around the world and everything, but that's my boy, gonna have his name in lights, in Times Square. A Broadway star. I couldn't be prouder if I gave birth to him myself."
Lance traces the houndstooth pattern of the couch with his fingernail. He's known the Fatones a long time. They love him no matter what. Lance says, "You should really tell him."
Joe says, "I know. I know, I know I never do it enough. God knows I mean it." Joe slaps Lance on the shoulder and Lance breathes out. Never meddle with another boy's folks, his mom said. Never tell them how to do their job. Moms should take sides when they have to but only with each other, and then only against people messing with their kids.
Lance clears his throat and looks at the clock on the mantle. Twenty minutes until the movie but really if Joey would just show up that would be perfectly okay. Lance loves Joey's parents but he and Joey won't have a lot of time to themselves before they're both off doing their own thing again. Joe is being really quiet. "I mean," Lance says. "He knows you're proud. He does."
"I'll tell him the rest, you're right," Joe says. Lance nods. Joe puts his arm up on the back of the sofa, then grips Lance in a tight hug from the side, pulling him close. "I love him so much I can't figure how to say it, sometimes."
"I know," Lance says, chest constricted.
Joe loosens his grip, pats Lance's knee and says, "You should tell him, too."
Lance opens his mouth.
Joe says, "I think sometimes, I think I did a horrible thing not knowing how to tell them how I really feel." His eyes water and Lance looks down, reels in his jaw. "It's like they think that's how you're supposed to be, when you're with. You know. The people you love most."
"It's not your fault," Lance says. His voice barely trembles. "He knows you --"
Joe shakes his head. "If he's bad at this, it's my fault. Good voice, no idea how to use it, that's gotta be a kid of mine."
The front door opens with a crack, loud like it's broken but it's just the sticky molding and the screen slamming shut behind Joey. Lance stands up. He wipes his hands on his khakis because they're kind of damp. Joey's just never known how to say things out loud, that's all.
"Oh no," Joey says. "He's making you watch the tapes."
Lance smiles and sing a little. "A boy like that, who killed your brother."
Joey picks it right up with "forget that boy, and find another," pulling at his chin like he's hoping he won't really have to shave it all off. Joey used to rub his bare face against Lance's forearm like a lonely kitten, and Lance would smell aftershave on his sleeves for days. "If we'd done that senior year, I could've had the lead," Joey says.
Lance shakes his head and Joey laughs.
"Right," Joey says. "There's always something money can't buy back, right, daddio?"
Joe flips off the TV and grabs both of them in a bear hug. "I love you guys," he says. His voice is muffled but Lance thinks he hears something like "give my regards to Broadway" whispered into Joey's throat.
Lance says, "I love you, too."
Joey slaps his dad on the back and pulls away. "We're just catching a movie," he says. "Not even gonna leave Orlando tonight, I promise." He looks at Lance, holding his bicep lightly. "You got me until at least next week or the one after."
Joe opens the door and waves them towards it. "Whattya wasting your time on me, then? Go buy Lance some popcorn. I bet they don't have popcorn over there like we got here." He's framed by warm living room light as Joey and Lance back down the walk, Joey and his dad still giving each other a hard time step by step. It's like Lance can see Joey in twenty years, twenty-five. Like he can see Joey's future. Lance kind of likes knowing how Joey ends up.
They leave Lance's car because Joey feels like driving and if he's separated too long from the soundtrack in his stereo he gets cranky. Three stoplights down Lance touches his knuckles to Joey's knee. "Let's not go to the movie," he says.
"I'm sorry I was so late," Joey says, pulling onto the highway. "She decided today that it's a good idea to scream as soon as you try to touch her hair. For, like, hours. Even after you've sworn she can leave the house looking like a cavewoman instead of ever trying pigtails ever again."
"Was Kelly pissed?"
"She's out. Her folks are on babysitting duty tonight." Joey changes lanes and reaches his arm up around the back of Lance's seat as he flicks his eyes to the mirror. "You wanna catch the next show, get something to eat?" He pats the neck of the leather seat.
"No," Lance says, fingers curling around the door handle. They've both just been waiting for someone to tell them it's time, and Joey's no good at saying things out loud.
Joey looks away from the road. "You wanna make a run for it? We could probably get to Mexico before the KGB catches us."
Lance shakes his head, laughing under his breath. "Just take me home," he says.
Joey glances sideways. "You okay?"
Lance puts his hand on Joey's thigh. "I want you to take me home," he says, and Joey breathes in sharp and tight. He looks at Lance again, squinting in the dusk. Lance stares right back. Joey looks up at an exit sign and Lance nods towards the turnoff.
"I have to --" Joey grips the wheel with one hand, moving the other arm back so his shoulder brushes Lance's. "I have to downshift," he says. Lance leans into the touch.
The security guy waves them through before Joey can stop or even really slow down. Lance is moving his hand up in quarter-inches and his thumb curves around the crease of Joey's hip like it's custom-fit. In Lance's driveway, Joey swallows loudly and switches off the car.
"What did he say?" Joey asks, voice rough.
Lance unclicks his seatbelt, and then Joey's, and runs his hand from Joey's leg diagonally up across his chest. He slips his fingers under the worn collar of Joey's t-shirt and turns, tugging so they're both sitting sideways. Lights from his house filter through the deeply tinted windows, and Lance hooks his hand around Joey's neck, hauling him forward. Joey closes his eyes first and Lance kisses him so he'll remember from five thousand miles away.
Joey kisses like he's trying to say something, and his hands are tight on Lance's arms when they pull apart. "What did he say?" Joey asks again.
"Who," Lance mutters, licking at Joey's neck, at the edge of his chin where the beard tapers off. It's like getting lost at the edge of a forest.
"My dad," Joey says. "What the hell were you two --"
Lance presses his hand to Joey's mouth. "We are so not talking about your parents right now," he says.
"My folks love you," Joey says.
Lance folds his fingers around Joey's crotch, hard and hot through a layer of denim. "Not talking," he says. Joey moans and pushes the heel of his hand up Lance's back, shirt bunching under his palm.
"I'm shutting up," Joey grunts, bumping his knee into the steering wheel. He bites his lip. "I'm just saying, you know. You have a bed like eight feet from here."
Lance tilts his head up and Joey kisses his jaw. "I do," Lance says.
"That's, that's my way of saying I'd kind of rather that, you know."
Lance waits and Joey closes his eyes for a second, shakes his head and smiles. The security lights hanging over Lance's garage time out and they're in the dark again.
"Let's do this right," Joey says. "Okay, I mean, I love you, I'd kind of like to at least get all your clothes off if we're doing this for real."
Lance grins. "You want to get my clothes off?"
"I --" Joey squints at Lance. "You little fuck, get in the house already, you know I do."
"Yeah, I know," Lance says, and he climbs out of the car.
END.
Credits: Kel, Younger and STO(k) poked and prodded. Glace did double-duty. But really it's all about Papa Fatone. This is the story he didn't get to tell on Driven.