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a slow beating between them
by tiffany rawlins

chorusing: A type of signal processing based on a psychoacoustic effect wherein the ear perceives an exact copy of a signal that is delayed by about twenty to sixty milliseconds to be a second source of sound. The simplest way to achieve chorusing is to detune one synthesizer oscillator from another to produce a slow beating between them.

One day JC is sitting cross-legged on his bed in his underwear, playing his keyboard, and the next he has a hit song, a record deal and a boyfriend.

Not really. Of course it doesn't happen overnight.

//

JC is twenty-seven years old, and he lives in the garage behind his parents' house. He's an assistant manager at Boston Market, mostly because everyone else who has worked there as long as he has quit or gotten fired for stealing or can't operate the deep fry without burning themselves.

His parents barely charge him any rent, so he has plenty of cash for the things that really matter. He's got a decent Yamaha and a G4 and DSL that his dad split off from the family computer, the long blue cable hanging parallel to the clothesline across the driveway. He helps run a website for DJs and musicians to post their work in progress for critique.

He's got over a thousand songs he's written since he was sixteen on seven hard drives and a sweet new mic for vocals that he bought with birthday money. With his headphones on, he can almost pretend the rhythmic thudding of sneakers in the dryer is part of the beat he's writing. He's got his tunes, and his internet, and cash to spare for old vinyl.

He's got everything he needs.

//

Lance is twenty-four years old, and he lives in a Williamsburg loft overlooking the East River and downtown Manhattan.

He's doing okay for himself, working his ass off and waiting for his great leap up the corporate ladder. He's got a good job in A&R at growing label, long hours but it's not quite the sweatshop some labels are. He's got six, almost seven years of city living under his belt, ever since he came up from Mississippi to go to NYU.

He hasn't seen one of his roommates in three days, which means the guy's probably on another crystal binge and spent his rent money. Lance has to share because the space was cheap when he moved in but it isn't anymore. This one only lasted six weeks. His other roommate has a stockbroker boyfriend with a place in the new Trump building and mostly just uses his room for storage.

Lance wants to buy a one-bedroom in Chelsea. He wants a membership to David Barton Gym and casual invitations to the A-list gay parties his friend Jeff is always getting taken to. He wants a full share on Fire Island this summer so he doesn't have to take his every other Friday and act like it's enough. He wants an Armani model for a boyfriend.

He wants everything every other young ambitious gay guy in New York wants in order to feel like he's made good, that leaving home and only talking to his folks once a month and having had gonorrhea twice this year alone was all, ultimately, worth it.

He just wants to be successful.

//

JC doesn't get laid all that often, which is okay because mostly he'd rather be working on his music. Most of the guys he hooks up with he meets on nights when his car isn't running while he's waiting for the bus home, or else at work.

There was one guy who came in and spent twenty minutes asking JC questions about the mashed potatoes until JC finally got tired of waiting for him to ask for more and said he had a break if the guy wanted to go out back. But after, when JC asked for his number, he said no, running his hands through his black hair and shaking his head. He looked like a movie star except his teeth were yellow and he tasted like stale coffee. "You work at Boston Market, kid," he said. JC climbed out of the car, thinking, but. But you eat here.

There was this guy, Kyle, who JC met at the Recycled Records while trading in CDs on his lunch break. Kyle had shaggy red hair and broad shoulders like a construction worker and was buying a German techno import. JC never asked for his number, but they ran into each other another four or five times, often enough that when Kyle said he was moving to Seattle, JC thought he might miss the way he would tug at JC's hair when he was coming.

He doesn't, though, not really. He just misses the idea of it.

//

Lance can afford to go out almost every night, and he does, first to little clubs with open mics where he might find someone worth signing, then to meet guys at Hell or the Cock. He loves New York because the guys usually have good jobs and hot bodies and none of the gay bars pretend to be anything other than a place to get yourself in trouble.

This guy Alex who picked him up tonight turns out to be kind of an asshole, but at least he has nice arms and great speakers in his bedroom. Alex throws parties for Interview magazine and in between gossip he put his hand on Lance's ass and said something about how Depeche Mode was the best music to fuck to. Lance thinks now maybe it was more than just a line, because the album is retro and synth without being as faggy as Erasure. It's sensual. It's rhythmic. The singer's voice is low and coarsely ground and sexy and distracting.

Alex is trying too hard, dropping names on Lance's skin with every stroke in and out, but the bass lines pulse and throb and Lance comes hard enough to forget for a minute that he already doesn't like this guy enough to want to see him again.

//

JC's mother wakes him up by yelling "Josh!" through the intercom. It's very early in the morning, and he is very, very sorry he ever let her talk him into installing the two-way speakers. "Your dad's ready to move that bureau," she says, voice crackling, and he puts his head under his pillow. He's not sure if he actually falls asleep or she can just tell by how he doesn't respond, but she starts saying his name over and over again like he's a terrible two-year-old, and finally he gets out of bed.

They move the dresser and his dad claps him on the back and says, "Thanks, Josh." That's what everyone calls him. It's his name. He likes his name. He loves his last name even if no one can say it right, because before that last name he just had to carry around the history of people who didn't really want him.

JC is what his high school band director used to call him, because there were already two Joshes, a trumpet player and a flautist. JC mostly played xylophone and he didn't think anyone would get confused, but when he turned in his first composition for jazz band, he wrote JC Chasez on the top of the page so the grade didn't go to the wrong person. He still uses that when he makes music, even if he doesn't do anything with it except put it up on his site.

He comes home from Boston Market on a Tuesday and his computer has crashed in the middle of a download again. When he reboots he has a zillion emails, porn spam and responses to comments he made on new songs he posted, something from his cousin about buying their grandparents an anniversary present, and this weird thing from some guy supposedly named Mark, who's pretending to work at an ad agency.

"Mark" says that "Melancholy #34" would be the perfect soundtrack for a new spot featuring the VW Jetta. He calls JC "Mr. Chasez" except he says it wrong. JC rolls his eyes and deletes the message. It's probably his brother trying to be funny.

On Wednesday he comes home and there's a note from his mom on the kitchen counter about how some guy from a company with too many last names for her to remember called for JC and left this number. There is a tremulous question mark under "JC," like maybe she thinks he's in some kind of trouble.

He puts the message in his pocket and accidentally washes it with his dark load the next morning. On Friday he comes home to two e-mails from "Mark," one sent to his account, one to the address for the webmaster of the site, which is also him, asking to be put in touch with himself, and one from this guy he co-wrote a song with last year, saying a bill collector named Mark keeps harassing him for JC's number.

JC fishes his phone out from under a stack of clean towels to call and tell this guy to lay off the joke. A woman with an English accent answers with a generic-sounding "good afternoon," and there's some really awful hold music and then a booming voice that introduces itself as Mark Matheson of Smith, Hoff and Something Advertising.

"We can offer you ten thousand to license the song, Mr. Chasez," Mark says. JC holds the phone out and looks at it, then sits down on the bed. Maybe it's not his brother playing a joke. Maybe it's not a joke. Maybe it's a friend of Kathryn's, his old music theory prof who he has lunch with in College Park every month. She's always saying that he should send out demos, even when he tries to tell her that's not why he makes music. He never really thought she had that great a sense of humor, though.

"I, uh. Really?" One of the forums on his message board is about marketing your music. Maybe someone there has heard of this Mark guy or could tell him what to do.

"Absolutely!" Mark says.

"Ten thousand?"

"I know, it's not much, but it's a great start." Mark reminds JC of the Boston Market district manager, who wears shiny suits when he comes down from Philly every three months to talk about franchise opportunities and health code violations. "This is a great chance to get your music out there," Mark says. "Just a great opportunity."

JC's been saving up for a new PowerBook, and maybe a new synthesizer. He could buy the computer and a new sequencer, maybe even a decent preamp to clean up the vocal tracks. And get the alternator on his car fixed. And buy his grandparents a really cool anniversary gift. Wow. Ten thousand dollars. It's way too big a number for him to handle on his own.

"I, um. I should probably talk to some people," he says.

"Oh, but Mr. Chasez."

"JC," he says, because it's embarrassing to correct someone like that.

Mark lowers his voice a notch. "JC. JC, we have our own deadlines to meet."

And then Mark is talking fast, about clients and deliverables and launch dates and JC didn't know he wanted to be a part of any of that, but now that the guy sounds a bit frustrated, JC's a little scared the offer might get taken back. He doesn't want to disappoint all these people Mark keeps saying love his song.

He says okay finally and Mark stops mid-sentence, says, "That's great, that's really great, this is going to be great," and makes JC tell him his address so they can FedEx something to sign.

JC hangs up. He's still sitting on the edge of the bed, in the garage behind his parents' house, just like last week, except now someone might give him ten thousand dollars for a song he wrote maybe six months ago. He goes over to the computer to figure out which one is number 34.

//

Lance gets home at four a.m. This guy Maurice he picked up in the back room at the Cock had a noisy illegal sublet on Avenue D and there was no way he was going to stay there when he could practically spit across the river to his apartment. Someday he wouldn't mind getting more than four hours of sleep a night and maybe finding someone who was good in bed and interesting enough to have breakfast with, too. After he makes it.

He leans out his window and smokes, watching the little lights still twinkling downtown. Probably just cleaning crews. Nobody else is home, either, and it's one of those long moments when New York feels abandoned and empty. He stubs out the cigarette in the clay pot on the fire escape and turns on the TV in the living room. MTV's repeating TRL from the day before and Lance is nodding off on the couch when they start playing this song he's never heard before.

The music business is his life, it's his job to know new songs worth knowing before they ever become hits, and he's still never heard this. Stuttered melody and smooth vocals, a guy but only vaguely so. He pushes up on the couch with one elbow, blinking.

It's a goddamned car commercial. Of course it is. It's a sixty-second spot that seems to last forever, waves of beats breaking over him, and he sinks back into the cushions and falls asleep because it just fucking figures that something that sounds so beautiful is trying to sell him something he doesn't need.

When he wakes up with sun in his face the same goddamned TRL is on TV, again, like he never slept at all. There are five hundred songs sent to radio a week and the only people who make money are the ones who get theirs played every hour, singers like that kid Timberlake who just sold nearly a million out of the gate. Him and the people who find and sign guys like him.

He showers and shaves with the bathroom door open and the TV cranked up. Right at the same break in the show is the same car commercial. Lance stands in the living room in his boxer briefs with his toothbrush hanging out of his mouth and watches carefully from start to finish.

It's a VW ad, of course. The ad is sleek, full of night sky and old friends and the possibility that a shiny new car is all that's standing between you and your perfect life. Lance fucked a guy who won a Clio for a spot like that. This is much better, though. The song is much better.

He digs his cell phone out of his jacket. "This is you," he says into his work voicemail. "Jetta ad, trippy song, call and find out who it is."

One day, one of these flukes is going to play out right. One night he'll hear a singer at some cafe or college coffeehouse fundraiser, and it'll be someone who is more than just one song, someone who is actually the next big thing, and then finally everything else will fall into place.

//

JC buys himself the PowerBook and helps his cousins send their grandparents on a cruise. His parents spend about a week telling him he should ask Mark if maybe there are some other car commercials that need music, but then they go back to leaving him alone. He worries they'll want him to move out and so he offers to pay another hundred dollars a month in rent, because he can.

He doesn't wind up posting about any of it on his site because the first time he sees the ad it kind of makes him sick to his stomach. The commercial is pretty and expensive-looking, and his parents are so excited they buzz him on the intercom every time it plays during their crime show. His dad says he's proud of JC for showing some initiative, and his mom rubs his shoulder and says it's just the beginning.

JC doesn't think he had much to do with things happening, and he doesn't know what exactly it's supposed to be the beginning of. Mostly he feels like he wrote a song about something real and now a bunch of kids in tight clothes are driving a car he still can't afford with his music as the soundtrack for their lives. It makes him feel like he's lying.

He sleeps through the first day of his Wednesday/Thursday weekend and on the second takes Kathryn out to a nice, long lunch because it's nice to be able to pay for a change. She drinks four iced teas and tells him again that he should be sending out demos to DJs and radio stations and record labels, and she knows some people who could help. JC keeps getting distracted by her new square-cut black bangs, but she's saying something about how it would be a real shame not to take this opportunity and make something more of it.

"Maybe," he says.

Kathryn bites at her straw and says, looking at the table, "What are you so afraid of, anyway?"

"People just never really get my stuff," he says. Sometimes JC has this idea that his music could be like a bridge between his life and the rest of the world. But even if that's true on the other side would probably just be people who don't speak his language at all.

"They don't have to get it," she says. "They just have to like it."

"I like it already," he says. He pays the check and kisses her cheek and goes home.

His mom has left a note saying she's at the grocery store and will he load the dishwasher, please. He's scrubbing chicken parmesan off his dad's nice copper-bottomed pots when the phone rings.

A guy with a low voice asks to speak to JC.

"Uh, yeah?"

"I got your number from Mark at Smith Hoff," the guy says. JC turns off the faucet. He doesn't want to just let the water run while he's on the phone. The guy pauses. "This is JC Chasez?" His pronunciation sounds rehearsed, but he gets it right.

"Yes," JC says, and leans against the counter. "Who's this?"

"Oh," the guy says, and then laughs, a low rumble that seems to echo, like snow before it avalanches down a mountain. "Sorry, I got ahead of myself."

His name is Lance and he's with Infinity Records, some company JC's never heard of. Lance is putting together tracks from commercials for a dance club CD.

"You work for a record label?" JC asks, and he realizes he's gripping the nubby blue and green sponge until water runs down his wrist.

It's not that he's afraid of anything in particular. It's just that in his experience people don't get his music, and no matter what Kathryn says, people don't really like what they don't understand. And now that he knows what it's worth, he'd rather have no one hear his music than have them misunderstand it.

"Yes," Lance says. "It's just the one track from the commercial for this compilation, but I'd really like to hear what else you have, whatever you're working on. I'm always looking for new talent."

"Well," JC says.

"I can only offer you about fifteen for the track, including the master licensing. And there are some really great DJs already signed on, too."

"Oh." JC covers his mouth with his hand. It's not like he gets to take that song back, anyway, it's already out there and people have heard it and liked it by now.

"Okay, I can go to eighteen."

"Um, okay."

"Okay?" Lance asks.

"Uh, yeah, okay, that sounds all right."

"All right!" Lance sounds like he has a nice smile. "And I'm serious about the rest of it. If you have something else I can play for my boss, I might be able to get you a decent deal for an album."

"I might have some other songs," JC says after a little while. "But I'm not really sure they're what you're looking for, because they're more -- they're like that one, except more complicated. So."

There's a silence on the other end like that was the wrong thing to say. But then Lance says, "Great, that's just great. Can you come to New York tomorrow?"

Tomorrow is Friday, JC's Monday. "I have to work."

Lance goes "hmmm" and then says, slowly, with the hint of a Southern accent, "Do you think maybe you could take a day off? We'll cover your train and a hotel, of course. You could stay for the weekend in the city if you want."

JC tells the manager at work that he's sick, which isn't true but he feels weird trying to explain the whole thing. Really sick. He'll probably be out a few days, maybe until Monday. He tells his parents he's working a double-shift and changes out of his Boston Market shirt in the train station. His work pants are the only remotely dressy slacks that fit him right now, and he buttons the shirt he wore at his brother's wedding with shaking fingers. He guesses he's nervous.

There's a ticket waiting for him at the counter and he worries for a minute when the clerk looks at his ID because his license says Joshua and the reservation is for JC. But she just smiles and then he's on the train, tall green trees and abandoned railyards zooming past.

New York is loud, a million sound effects overlapping, crowding each other for space in his head, like a roomful of people all talking at once. None of the sounds are talking to him, but he's trying to listen to them all anyway, his attention bouncing like the bug eyes of a tennis judge. He comes up the escalator at Penn Station and gets pushed through a crowd underneath a huge hanging sign, clapping waves of train numbers and names like an audience on the ceiling.

He ends up on the street in a line for a taxi almost by accident, cars honking and sirens like a haze, and he grips his printout of Lance's directions in sweaty palms. "Sure, I've been to New York before," he told Lance, when Lance asked if he'd be able to get to Infinity's offices okay. He shouldn't have counted school or a family vacation to go to a cousin's wedding somewhere on Long Island.

When it's his turn, JC tells the cabbie the street number and that seems to be enough. He sits back against the cracked vinyl seat and tries to catch his breath. The windows are rolled up and some kind of Indian instrumental music is playing. It's the calmest JC's felt since he left home.

//

Lance allows himself whipped cream on his mocha once a week, on Friday mornings. It's lunchtime and he's already had two meetings and three conference calls. The commercial kid, JC, is supposed to show up this afternoon to sign some paperwork.

He was weirdly emphatic on the phone and in the two e-mails they've exchanged since, going on about how he didn't like the ad in the end. Lance is trying to talk himself out of this gut feeling he'd gotten that JC is secretly some kind of undiscovered musical genius. Even if he's just a pissy bitch, the song is good and it will be perfect for the club CD project Lance inherited when Michael left to travel around Italy with his rich boyfriend.

He goes out for more coffee around two, no whip, and drinks it in the lobby, leaning against the receptionist's desk and talking with her about which guys on the 23rd floor are cute. Not many. Tonight he's supposed to go to this girl group showcase and then to NoHo for drinks with some people who are talking about starting a new club magazine. Maybe he'll meet a cute boy there, Brenda says.

The elevator dings and a lanky guy with curly hair steps into the hallway, looking confused. He backs into the elevator and the doors close again.

Lance looks at Brenda and says, "Bet you a week's worth of Starbucks that's my guy." She laughs and shoos him away. Lance is barely through his office door when his intercom buzzes.

"I never said I'd take the bet," Brenda says. Lance tells her to send him back.

JC knocks on the open door and then shoves his fists in his pockets. Lance stands and holds a hand out across the desk until JC reaches out and takes it. JC says "um" before introducing himself, and it's not until Lance kicks up his feet and takes a good look at the boy that he realizes JC is really goddamned striking.

His hair is hanging in his face and he could use a decent shave, but underneath there are shocky bright blue eyes and high cheekbones and Lance tries and fails to stop himself from imagining what such a pretty boy looks like during sex.

Not to mention that pretty is good for the job. Pretty is marketable. JC could be like Moby, but hot.

"We can deal with the paperwork in a minute," Lance says, and JC nods, looking slightly relieved. "Did you bring a demo?"

JC wipes his hands on his pants, shiny black polyester and Lance wonders if he's some kind of boho raver or something, the kind who picks out his nice clothes at the thrift store. His shirt is indigo, vaguely silky and a little too big, but it doesn't matter because the color is perfect. JC looks like a supermodel on the lam.

"Um, yes?" JC says, and Lance smiles, trying to look reassuring.

"Let's listen to it?"

JC nods, roots around his bag. "Um, I, I put some songs on here but on the train I started thinking, I don't know. I'm not sure they're really what I wanted you to hear, so I was thinking, if you have a computer -- I mean, of course you have a computer, but if you have, you know. Sound? We could maybe listen to some of the others."

Lance smiles again. This kid, jesus. "Did you email them or something?"

"No," JC says. "They're on my site. I have, most of the songs I've written are up on my site. There's about a thousand, so I thought it would be confusing to just send you a link."

Lance pauses and makes himself sip his afternoon coffee very slowly. Then he says, calmly, "A thousand songs?"

"Oh," JC says, "yeah. I mean, I haven't put vocals on all of them, but a lot are finished, yeah."

Lance sits forward. "Those are your vocals on track we talked about? You sing?"

JC looks at him like he thinks Lance is lying about something. "I mean, not very well, but trying to find someone else to record stuff is just --"

"You sing very well, JC." Lance wants JC to trust that he's telling the truth. "Very well," he says again, because that much is a serious understatement.

JC shrugs like he's conceding the point. He doesn't seem convinced but it doesn't really matter because Lance is very very sure, so sure he almost thinks he's going to have to excuse himself to turn cartwheels down the hall.

This guy is beautiful, he can sing, he has a thousand songs and there's got to be ten or twelve out of those that are worth putting on a CD. He's not flaming, but he's too cute to be straight, so they can book him for all the gay magazines and the club DJs will love his stuff.

And Lance will be the one who found him.

//

Lance is smirkingly beautiful and JC kind of wants to lick the perfect arch of his eyebrows. Lance's shirt has perfect starched cuffs, sharp white-on-white angles when he crosses his arms. His breath is hot on JC's neck every time JC leans over to adjust the volume on the speakers. They need a lot of adjusting, and Lance presses his shoulder to JC's and nods along with music in all the right places.

Lance has a deal memo for a full album sitting on the desk, alreadyokayed by his boss. Even so, JC's not just going to sign on the dotted line without some kind of guarantee that he won't end up hating how these songs sound, too. "I, um. My uncle wants to look this over," he says, and Lance seems a little disappointed.

JC's uncle is a lawyer, and he doesn't know he's in New York any more than JC's parents do. But JC's dad had told his uncle about the VW contract and his uncle had given his dad a long speech about lawyers and reading things before you sign them, and then JC's dad had come home and given the whole speech to JC and his mom, too.

JC doesn't even want to think what his uncle would say if he signed something with this many paragraphs and subparagraphs and places to initial right now. That seems easier that trying to explain again about how the commercial makes him feel like throwing up.

"Well, okay," Lance says, rubbing at his smooth jaw. "But I can only give you the weekend. It's not like I go around offering this kind of deal to just anyone who walks in the door with a bunch of songs."

JC doesn't know that, but he wants it to be true, because Lance has been saying things like, "This one's a little more ambient than the others" and "oh, yeah, you know there can be a bad place to use a disco clap, no one ever seems to know that," which means he's actually listening and maybe not just saying things he thinks JC wants to hear.

"I'll go home tonight and have it done by Monday," he promises, and Lance relents a little, smiling like he can't make himself stop.

When JC leaves, Lance shakes his hand and pulls him in for half a hug, clapping him on the back. JC hums the whole way back, through the busy streets and the crowded station and the stop and start of the train. His parents are asleep when he gets home, the driveway dark and quiet. He writes three songs about love in a wave of crescendo and decrescendo before he falls asleep in his underwear on top of the covers.

His uncle says things look mostly okay and the guys on his message board say it's not the worst offer they've ever seen, especially for someone with no previous professional releases, someone who doesn't even DJ or promote clubs or anything. When he calls Lance's office on Monday morning he uses the direct number Lance gave him.

"Um, hi," JC says. His mom is sitting at the kitchen table. "This is JC," he says, and his mom frowns and then goes back to eating her Grape Nuts.

"Hey there," Lance says, casual and so calm and cool.

Lance is far cooler than any of the guys JC has met online who say they know people, that they're going to sign huge deals and be famous. Lance isn't really famous, but he could be, the way he walks and talks and his perfect highlights and tight-cut shirts. But JC is trying not to think about that right now because he doesn't want to sound like an idiot on the phone.

"I've got a meeting with my boss in ten minutes," Lance says. "Tell me you've got good news." JC hides his grin in his sleeve and spins a spoon around the table in happy circles.

//

"Lance, please." Rachel is leaning on his office door like she might collapse if he doesn't help her. "Please. I can't get anything usable here at all."

"Well, that's your job," he says, as a sheaf of photos and demos slide off the edge of his desk. He sighs. It's already been a long day.

Picking fourteen songs off JC's website has been the easiest part of the whole deal. He's back up in New York remixing vocals and going through an album title a day, and every time they run into each other, it makes Lance feel like he's going to blush right through his skin.

And still that's not the biggest challenge. Now they need photos and a few usable quotes for the release and it turns out that everyone says JC is some kind of musical savant, a total fucking genius at making potential club hits. But it turns out he is completely useless when it comes to promotion.

"I'll clean that up," Rachel offers. She's a good publicist but right now she looks like shit, totally desperate. She has lipstick on her teeth like she's been biting her lip and maybe trying not to cry.

Lance stands, smoothing his hands on his new Marc Jacobs pants. "Alphabetical order," he says, because he might still be too much of a gentleman to make Rachel cry but he's not doing her a favor for nothing. She nods. "Plus that stack on the filing cabinet."

"Anything," she says. "The boy just makes no sense."

JC's waiting in one of the small conference rooms, kicking his heels on the carpet and looking miserable. "I'm really sorry," he says right off, biting at his thumbnail. "I'm not trying to be difficult, I just --"

"Hey, how's it going," Lance says, squeezing JC's shoulder as he circles the table. "Don't freak out, you're not in trouble or anything."

"I don't think I'm very good at this," JC says. He's frowning and shrugging into himself and Lance almost wants to hug him.

"Why don't you tell me where you and Rachel were when she had to go."

JC frowns. "We were talking about what my songs are about."

Lance spreads his hands wide on the table, palms flat down. "So what are your songs about?"

"She says they're about sex."

Lance grins. He loves this job, and talking to JC about sex is a hundred times better than whatever he'd had planned. He's going to buy Rachel flowers. "So they're about sex," he says.

"They're about love," JC says, shrugging.

"Okay." Same difference. Lance reaches for a blank legal pad from the stack in the middle of the table. "Which one were you talking about?"

JC runs his hands through his hair. "All of them."

"Right, but which in particular?" Lance says, and JC pushes back from the table.

"See, I told you --"

"No, no." Lance waves his hand. "No, c'mon. Let's. Let's go track by track, okay? This is gonna be fine, I promise."

Thirty minutes later, JC has used every synonym for love Lance has ever heard and a few he hasn't. He squints at his notes. They look like they say ardor (sp?). Adore? He doodles hearts up one side of the notebook and underlines the sexiest-sounding words. He looks up when JC stops talking.

"I'm sorry," JC says, like a child who's still not sure exactly what he's apologizing for.

"Don't be sorry," Lance says, and he sounds a little too much like his goddamned father for his taste, but he can't help it. He throws the pad on the table. "You got a lot of love, nothing wrong about that."

JC looks really intensely right at Lance for a long minute and then seems to decide something. "Let's start over," he says, reaching across to pluck the pen from Lance's fingers. His hands are smooth but his cuticles are raw and red and Lance wants to kiss each one softly.

"You're being really helpful, and I'm sure if you ask me again I can get it right this time." To JC's credit, even when he's being redundant and confusing, he's very focused. Way more than Lance seems capable of being when JC is right there, chewing on his lip and looking like he's waiting to be sent to his room.

"No," Lance says. "No, you're right. Whatever. It's dumb to make people talk about what their lyrics mean. That's what the lyrics are for."

JC breaks into a sudden smile, wide and beautiful and Lance puts his hand on his chest before he can take it back. Jesus. Lord Jesus, if they can get this boy to smile like that in a photo and talk about his music without sounding like a twelve-year-old girl, JC is going to be a star, and Lance is going to be able to write his own ticket.

"Let's, maybe we should just back up and talk about whoever these are about," he says.

"It's not really one person."

"Okay," Lance says, because sometimes guys can be so cute when they're trying to avoid saying they're gay. "So pick one. Of those people."

"It's not really about people. I mean, it's about people, it's not about chickens or something. But it's more like --" JC is squinting and earnest. "You know how sometimes you just have the idea of a person? Just this picture in your head and you're like, they could really be cool, that person could be the one?"

"Sure," Lance says, and he can feel a flush of sweat break out under his shirt. He swallows. "So how, uh, how exactly do you feel about this idea-person?"

JC picks at his thumbnail. "You know. Love. I feel like."

He looks up from the table and his blue eyes are clear and honest. Lance feels kicked in the stomach. The wind just gets knocked right out of him.

"I mean, sometimes it's not me, it's this other person, some other person and I'm just telling a story. But sometimes it's me and I feel -- in, okay, in this one it's like. I feel like I could love them." JC's lips curl up like he's trying to hold in a sad smile.

Lance pushes back from the table. "Are you hungry?"

JC frowns. "I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be difficult about --"

Lance shakes his head. "No, I'm just." JC stands up slowly and Lance wants to grab his hand, wants to run down the street with him and take him to dinner and home and never let him go. "I'm starving," he says instead. "We can work the rest of this out later."

//

Dinner happens really fast. This is all happening so fast, but especially dinner, like the waiter is getting a bonus or something if he gets them out of there in less than an hour. JC has some kind of beef he's not even sure he ordered for himself. There's a lot of wine, too, red and expensive-tasting.

He's been trying to explain to Lance about his songs, about how they're different from each other, and how just because some of them seem like they're all about sex doesn't mean they're not also about love. Lance has been drinking a lot of wine and nodding and staring at him like maybe he's got something caught in his teeth. But JC went to the bathroom between the very fast salad and the even faster entrée and he didn't see anything in his teeth.

Lance has bright pink spots on his cheeks, like the twin patterns on a butterfly's wings. Maybe Lance is just a little drunk.

JC feels a little drunk, drunk and dizzy and actually very, very happy. He's in New York, and after a couple glasses of wine everything is so fast it's just blurry, which JC likes. The edges are fuzzy and there's Lance, perfectly in focus in the middle of the frame, signing his name on the credit card slip with a flourish, grinning toothily at JC and saying something about this place down the block where they have to go next.

Maybe JC's more than a little drunk, because when he stands up he sways a bit and Lance has to put his arm around him. Warm and tight against his shoulders and "are you okay?" in his ear and JC nods. He's okay. He's very okay.

The place down the block is small, mirrors in the entrance to make it seem bigger, dark purple lights everywhere. The music is perfect, breakbeats and skittish melodies and there are all these gorgeous guys with their hands all over each other. This is what JC sees when he makes music in his head, not women with long blonde hair driving icy-blue cars.

Lance's arm is around his waist, pulling him onto the dance floor. JC doesn't really dance but the music is so good, like a drug, like the best drug ever invented, and anyway Lance isn't giving him a choice. Lance is so cute and he's never mentioned a girlfriend and he's holding his body so close to JC's, moving them together. Maybe Lance is gay.

JC puts his arms up above his head and just lets the beat sink into his skin, swallows the music like something wonderful and wet and for a second he thinks Lance's fingers tangle with his own but then they're moving down the inside of his arm, almost like a tickle, like a tease. JC doesn't go out very often, doesn't go out dancing because he's working or saving his money or home writing but he thinks he could like this kind of club, this kind of dancing with Lance almost but not quite touching him.

One song bleeds into another and Lance steers them over to the bar, passing something pink and cold back over his shoulder to JC. It doesn't taste like alcohol at all. They move around the edges of the busy dance floor, back to a corner in the dark. Lance puts one hand on the wall next to JC's shoulder. "What about now?" Lance shouts over the music, like they've been having a conversation all along, all through the dinner and the dancing up close and the drinking.

"What?" Lance moves against him in time to the rhythm of the song. The wall is like a big strong hand behind JC, holding him up, and so he dances a little, too, Lance's body hot against his. It's really hot in the club. It's really crowded.

"Are you in love now?" Lance raises an eyebrow and JC tries to take another sip of his drink but there's nothing left. Lance takes the glass out of his hand and balances it on a ledge next to an empty bottle.

"What?"

Lance grins and bends in to speak right in JC's ear. "I said, are you in love right now? Is there, like, someone special now?"

JC pulls back. Lance is waiting for an answer. He actually wants to talk about this. Right now. JC shouts, "Do you really think someone is going to ask me that?"

"Sure," Lance shrugs, then shakes his head. "No." He laughs. "I have absolutely no idea."

JC giggles and claps a hand over his mouth, but Lance just smiles and leans the full weight of his body into JC's.

"I just want to know," Lance says. "For me. This question's just for me."

"Oh," JC says.

Lance steps back and forth, tilts into JC and then away. He's thrusting against JC's thigh, hot and hard and JC closes his eyes and hits the back of his head on the wall because, oh, oh. Lance is very gay, which works out okay because JC is pretty gay, he's just been waiting to see what it meant to be gay somewhere where it would really feel different, somewhere it would feel real.

He opens his eyes because he's been wanting to stare at Lance all day, Lance and those clear eyes like spring and the down on his cheeks and his perfect white smile. "There's not a person," he breathes, not shouting because Lance's ear is right there, and his cheekbone, and his mouth.

Lance's lips move against JC's. "Just an idea," Lance says, and then his hand slides into JC's pants and around his dick and oh god, this is, Lance is licking his jaw and his neck and Lance's hand is fast and tight, and god, they're in some club in New York and this beautiful confident man is jerking him off in front of everyone.

"There, there are people here," he manages, and Lance presses him harder back against the wall, tilting his head down and sucking on JC's throat. His brain reaches out feebly for something that makes sense because mostly there is music and there is Lance and everything just feels good and makes its own kind of sense. "People can see us here," he says, between kissing.

Lance bites his ear and says, "Don't worry about them, they don't know you." JC moans and Lance's hand speeds up, his hand and his lips at JC's ear and words over and over like a perfect time-corrected loop, breathy and full of ideas that burn like fire. "They don't know you, they don't know you but they will, you're so sexy, you're gonna be so famous, you're gonna be a star."

And JC comes, right there, Lance's hand down his one nice pair of pants, the same ones he wore to New York to sign the contract and wore today because he was hoping he might see Lance, but he didn't know this was going to happen, and it has, and then he's fumbling for Lance. Lance is pushing against the back of JC's hand, zipper digging into JC's wrist, and when he comes he grunts and then props himself up with his cheek on JC's shoulder, licking lazily at JC's throat.

Wow. JC can feel his heart trembling down to the pit of his stomach and Lance is still touching his chest with steady hands, like this is exactly what he thought they would do tonight, like he just saw what he wanted and took it. He wants JC. JC knows Lance is ambitious. He's just never felt quite so personally the target of that drive.

It's hotter than anything JC has ever imagined and the music hasn't even stopped, everything's happening right on top of itself and three months ago he was just a guy in his parents' garage and now he has a record, almost, and this, this gorgeous man trying to eat him whole in front of a room full of people.

JC has everything he needs and more than he ever thought he wanted. Lance's lips are sucking softly anywhere he can find skin, trying to tell him what he's been writing songs about all this time, and for the first time, he thinks maybe he had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. But, oh god, he wants to.

//

Lance walks across the hotel lobby holding JC's hand because he's got this idea that if he doesn't let go, he might not fuck this up. JC trips over his own feet as they climb the marble steps up to the glass elevator and, bless the lord, Lance just wants to catch him and carry him to the safety.

There was a point earlier in the day where this had all seemed to be a logical extension of the plan. Get JC signed, get his record made, get him and his pretty face out there and get the fuck up the food chain into a better job, a corner office.

Even if he let it go a little further. He could just get JC talking, get him comfortable, get him confident enough that he could sell himself. Get him drunk enough that he wouldn't notice how much Lance stares at his mouth, at his eyes, at his cheekbones and his hips and his shoulders. Get them both drunk enough that Lance could get some flirting out of his system and go back to being a guy who wants to get ahead. 

JC holds the brass railing with his other hand and stares down at the lobby as the elevator rushes upward. His eyes are big and he squeezes Lance's fingers. Never at any point in Lance's plan had he considered that this crazy genius of a musician would make his ambition narrow to the most immediate, basic hierarchy of needs, that he would get fast and rushed out of his system and it wouldn't be enough. Now he wants more. More skin. More lips. More. He doesn't give a fuck about work right now.

JC smiles to himself, then bends to touch his lips to Lance's temple and whispers, "Have you ever done that before?"

Lance has no idea what JC is talking about. He slides one hand around JC's waist.

"In, in front of people," JC says, and Lance tries not to but laughs. Last week he got blown by someone at a party and never even got his name.

"You wanna try it here?" Lance nods out the glass walls and winds his fingers into JC's beltloops. "I think we might run out of floors."

JC blushes. "I just mean. I've, outside or in a car or whatever, yeah, but never when there were --"

Lance bites JC's lip. "Pretty soon people are gonna stare at you everywhere you go. No matter what you're doing."

"I don't know." JC dips his head and nuzzles Lance's jaw. Lance is ready to drop to his knees right there and see how far he can get when the doors ding. JC looks up, confused, and Lance kisses him on the lips and pushes him out into the hall.

The room is swank, because Lance got the expense approved back when they thought JC might need something put on display to make up for a bunch of suits taking over his life. JC's not a pushover but he's not a diva either. Once everybody agreed that less polish on the existing tracks was best, things have been calm. JC is brilliant and easy, which is Lance's favorite combination.

The room is half the size of Lance's entire apartment and makes the king bed look small. It seems just the right size when JC is spread out naked on his back, skin smooth against the sheets. Lance never gets to do this, fuck like this, languid and lazy.

He's laying between JC's legs, elbows on the thick mattress, sucking and touching all the places he'd never have gotten a good chance at if they hadn't gotten this far. He hooks his elbows under JC's knees, pushing his body up the bed. There's not an inch of this Lance wants to miss tonguing.

JC moans and grabs at Lance's hair, lifting his hips up even more. He's wriggling on his back and Lance keeps following him across the covers until JC's head is hanging off the edge of the mattress, sweat running backwards down his long neck. His breaths are choppy, his thigh muscles quiver against Lance's cheeks, and when Lance chases his tongue with a finger JC comes with a high, beautiful scream.

Eventually JC sits up, his face flushed. He shakes his head a little and one wet curl stays stuck to his forehead. Lance wants to push up and wipe it away but now that he's summoned the energy to raise his head, he's too busy licking JC's chest clean to go any farther.

"That was," JC says, but then he has to gulp in some air. "I had no idea that --"

Lance tilts his head up and JC curves down to kiss him. Then JC is pushing Lance onto his back and covering him with his body, attacking Lance's mouth with bites and short, sharp kisses. He's making this noise as he does it, this hungry whine, like a scrappy alley cat clawing to get under Lance's skin.

Lance wants to let him. Lance has never been fucked by someone who made him shiver with lust, not like this. Not like he's ready to start making promises he has no idea how he'll keep, about how great they'll be, how great he'll make JC feel, except he has no idea if that's really true. He's used to telling people what they need to hear until it either becomes the truth or they both stop caring, whichever comes first.

He doesn't want JC to stop caring. He wants to lock his legs around JC's waist and push and pull until JC's hard enough to fuck him crazy, until he roars into Lance's neck and bites him so wild he'll feel it for a week. He wants more.

//

"Do you have a house?" JC asks after a week of messing up his hotel sheets, and Lance laughs low and long. They're having breakfast somewhere in the Village, half-underground, brick and iron making a little garden that reminds JC of the nursing home where his grandma lives.

"Nobody in New York has houses," Lance says. "Not unless you live out on Staten Island."

"Is there really a ferry? Like in that Madonna video?"

Lance nods and leans across the table to kiss JC. He sits back and licks his lips. "You had some jam there," he says, and JC feels his mouth stretch wide in a grin. "If I take you out on the ferry, do you think I could get you to spend a night in my apartment?" He's offered before but JC feels greedy and wasteful letting the room go to waste.

Last night JC woke up Lance at three a.m. when he had this idea for a song and didn't realize the plug for his headphones wasn't all the way pushed into the keyboard jack. Lance said he wasn't mad but he tossed and turned a lot and sighed until JC finally gave up and crawled back into the big bed.

This is all so new and weird and every other minute JC's a little afraid it's all been a big mistake, that Lance will realize something serious is happening and start making excuses not to come by the studio and pick JC up. Instead Rachel will be the one with him at whatever show they're at, pointing out who he should smile and shake hands with, and JC can stand all of that bullshit but only with Lance by his side. Lance makes it look easy.

"I thought you lived in Brooklyn," he says, feeling young and stupid. "I mean, I thought you liked the hotel."

"Sure," Lance shrugs. "I meant after we take the ferry."

"You liked how big the bathroom was," JC says, looking down at the napkin in his lap. There's a smear of raspberry along one fold.

"Jayce," Lance says, softly, and JC's heart does cartwheels because that's this thing Lance calls him that no one's ever said before. It makes him feel like JC was just a step on some evolutionary scale between who he was and who he's going to be. He looks up and Lance's arm is outstretched across the table, his palm up. JC slides his fingers between Lance's. "Mostly I just liked how you looked in the bathtub," Lance says.

They walk down to the tip of Manhattan and JC grips the yellow rail on the ferry deck until his knuckles feel like they'll burst through his fingers. There's ocean in Baltimore, sure, but here it's more obvious they're on the edge of a continent. The water is this big unbridled monster that could swallow him and Lance and all of New York, and just when all that starts to actually make him worry a little, make him wonder what he's doing there finishing an album and having breakfast with a guy he wants to write songs about, Lance wraps his arms around JC from behind and sucks at his earlobe.

"Come home with me," Lance says.

JC packs his bag and they take a car from the hotel, across a river and through a valley of warehouses. Lance's loft is vast and echoey, and one night raindrops hammer the metal roof and JC climbs out on the fire escape with a microphone to catch the noise.

Then there are three days of interviews with Rachel hovering in the back of the room, and one long awkward photo shoot where mostly he waits around for things to start and then tilts his chin a degree at a time until the photographer stops frowning at him. More parties where Lance knows almost everyone and drinks in every color of the rainbow, sweet like sugar on his tongue and warm in his throat.

It all happens that fast in his head, like a montage, except instead of a catchy melody there's just the cacophony of clanging city sounds overlaid with drum and bass and moans and gasps. He's trying to write a song that sounds like that, but he can't quite get the words right. He'll think he has them, humming in the back of a cab while Lance makes phone calls and strokes his thigh, but then Lance smiles or kisses him or touches his mouth and JC forgets all the words he wanted.

And Lance. Lance is like a slow motion salve, the softest, sweetest skin he's ever been inside. Sex like a round broad beat that rises and rises but never peaks, just repeats. Mornings the apartment is full of light and the bright blonde tips of Lance's hair sparkle like spun gold.

JC squints and spins his way through days in a recording studio and nights in loud sparkling clubs where Lance touches him like they're performing for the crowd, and then one day after the ninth or tenth time singing the first half of a hook, he looks out to the booth and Lance is there, smiling, and the producer flips a switch and Lance says, booming in JC's headphones, "I think we're done."

//

The train to Maryland runs through a wild green fairy tale forest, lush and leafy. Almost as soon as the city's behind them, Lance feels like he can breathe more deeply than he has in months. He remembers that he used to live somewhere he wasn't always trying to plan a getaway from.

JC is sitting next to the window, looking at the scenery like he's in a foreign country, and for the first time since he kissed JC in the club, Lance worries that New York and even a record deal aren't a good enough offer. JC turns back and catches Lance staring. His face erupts into a smile, toothy and wide-eyed, and he kisses Lance's cheek and takes his hand so gently that Lance wants to cry.

He remembers when thinking boys were pretty made him cry, and then he moved to New York and he isn't sorry about that, he doesn't wish he'd stayed down South and tried to be everything for everybody. But all the same a month ago he knew what he wanted out of life and his job and the city and now he's holding hands with a crazy musician on a train home to meet the parents. He should be more worried about how well the single's doing than whether JC's mom will like him. But the song's taking care of itself and this kind of visit is an uphill battle under the best of circumstances.

JC's mom smiles at Lance and hugs JC close and tight and reminds them to buckle their seatbelts. "That's where Josh used to work," she says, when they're stopped at a traffic light. She's pointing across the intersection at a Boston Market and JC says, "Mom, come on," and she calls him Josh again, says, "Josh, we all had to start somewhere."

The air is thick and humid and Lance misses home, misses his folks in this painful, almost nauseous way he hasn't felt in years. They eat a late supper in the dining room, table still fresh with Lemon Pledge and napkins carefully ironed. JC's dad is nice and kind of stiff and his mom is polite and they talk a lot about JC's brother and his new wife and Lance tries not to take that personally.

JC goes upstairs to help his dad move a bookshelf or a bed or something and Lance starts drying dishes so he's not just left staring at the rack of cookbooks above the stove. It's dark and fireflies buzz against the screen door and the window over the sink. "So, Lance," JC's mom says, and Lance braces his knee on the cabinet. "Josh says you're very good at your job."

"I work hard," Lance says. "It's a pretty tough business."

She flips over the sponge and scrubs at a greasy pan. "What are you working on now that Josh is done?" 

"Well, he's not done yet," Lance says, and her hands slip an inch on the handle of the pan. "There's still the video and the CD release and all." He trails off. That's not what she's asking. His mom always saves the hardest questions for when she's doing something else, too, disinterested tone as neat and tidy as her cleaning.

She rinses the sink off and squeezes the sponge dry. "Who are you working with next?" she asks.

He sets the plate he's drying on the counter and says, "This isn't about work, ma'am." He hears his words stretch, his accent comes right back and he blushes, too, because one thing he learned real quick was that in New York sounding Southern means sounding dumb. Dumb but sometimes earnest, and he means this, he needs this to come out right. "Working with your son is important to me," he says. "He's very talented."

"We know," she says.

"But I don't -- I don't come home for the weekend with the other talented people I sign. And he's not just --" Lance stops. "Look, your son is amazing, and this is my job, but if tomorrow he decided that he didn't want to make an album or a video and he only wanted to put songs up on his site and work at Boston Market, I wouldn't just go back to New York and never talk to him again."

There's a long, heavy pause and Lance can feel bright shocks behind his eyes because he's never meant any pitch the way he meant that but it's probably not enough, she's just peeling her plastic gloves off in slow motion and not saying anything. JC is the kind of pretty boy that can still make him cry and he doesn't care what the plan used to be because he likes this version better.

There's a cool touch to his arm and JC's mom is blinking hard. "Okay," she says, squeezing lightly and Lance accidentally hugs her. She pats his back and he pulls back, trying not to sniff. He really needs to call his mom.

"Hey," JC says from the doorway. Lance leans back against the sink and JC's mom starts putting glasses back in the cabinets. "You wanna see where I did the vocals?"

JC says good night to his mom, kisses her cheek and then takes Lance's hand as soon as the back door is slid shut. Lance almost trips over a crack in the concrete path.

"Careful," JC says, almost giggling, and Lance steadies himself with a hand on the base of JC's back. The inside of the garage looks more like a recording studio than a bedroom, thick eggshell insulation tacked to the walls, black cords and sound equipment everywhere. There's a mattress on the floor against one wall and bright batiks pinned over the windows.

JC stops walking and Lance pins himself against JC's body, hooking his chin over JC's shoulder. He feels obvious and clingy and he doesn't even care.

"That's where we built the bathroom," JC says, nodding to the square of sheetrock jutting up against a washer and dryer. "If you drag the mic in and stuff something under the door, you get this really cool reverb. You wanna try?"

Lance puts his hand down JC's pants. "No," he says.

JC twists his neck around to kiss Lance and then slips out of Lance's grasp. He pushes clothes and blankets off the bed until it's just them and a worn cotton sheet covering the mattress.

Lance stops halfway through pulling off JC's shirt to say, "What about your folks?" and JC shakes his head, kissing Lance's neck where it meets his shoulder.

"They won't come out here," he says, and then JC is biting him and Lance groans and stops asking questions.

It turns out JC loves to perform, and when they do it in public JC comes with a hoarse whimper. Lance doesn't mind but he also doesn't care about showing JC off. He loves it like this, just the two of them.

He's got his legs hooked around JC's waist, and JC sits back hard on his heels, hauling Lance with him, one hand pushing up under Lance's hips, the other wrapping tight around his dick, around and over and over again.

Lance's ass is balanced on JC's thighs, his back held up off the bed by JC's slippery fingers, and he doesn't mean to but he thinks he screams, or maybe JC does, he can't tell through all the noise in his head. He tries to say they should be quiet, but JC just jerks him off faster and laughs with his head thrown back, curls wet against his throat, saying something that sounds like, "Soundproof, it's soundproofed, god, I love you."

Lance scrapes his fingers on the brick wall and later, when JC is licking his neck and idly scratching his nails across Lance's nipples, Lance says, "I don't really do this, you know."

"Mmm?" JC sucks his Adam's apple and punctuates the question with a little chewing.

Lance smoothes his hand down JC's long perfect back. "Fall in love," he says, taking a breath.

JC pins him to the bed with a long leg and kisses him until Lance gasps. "I'm going to move to New York," he says, straddling Lance's waist and staring down at him.

Lance puts his hands on JC's waist. JC stares like it's a challenge, like it's a dare, and Lance has never in his life had it this easy. "Good," he says, and JC beams.

//

JC's uncle paid the deposit and the broker's fee and three months' rent on the place Lance helped him find. JC got an advance but it wasn't really all that big and Lance says the most important thing is for him not to forget it's just a loan from the record company. "Call it an investment," JC's uncle said, "until you're rich and famous and have a better deal."

It's just a studio on the noisy main street of Williamsburg, with a bakery and a cell phone store downstairs and a half-sized fridge and scarred wooden floors from where the last person had a dog that always clawed to get out. But he's three blocks from Lance, two from the subway, and if he showers with the door open he can see the neon sign of the CD store across the street.

A week after he moves in, the place is still basically empty except for the big expensive bed Lance convinced him to buy from some store in SoHo. "No more sleeping on the floor," Lance said, and JC's not rich and famous but he's got a little money now. The delivery guys assembled it and leered a little and Lance just kissed JC's neck and gave them a big tip.

Now Lance is sitting on the floor in his boxers, putting JC's CDs in a stack against the wall in alphabetical order. "Jayce," he says, and JC looks back over his shoulder. He's hanging a poster he bought at MOMA over the bathroom sink. It's very green and makes him think of Baltimore. "You have three copies of Walking Wounded."

"I got one free with some magazine, I think. Do you want it?"

"I'm making a stack of duplicates for you to sell," Lance says, and when JC laughs it ricochets back against the tile.

"The sound in here is great," he says, picking his way through the mess of boxes and clothes and kissing the top of Lance's spiky bedhead hair.

"I thought the sound at Piano's was amazing last night. I'm going to see if we can book it for the release party."

JC clears a little space on the floor and sits behind Lance, his legs stretched carefully out on either side so he doesn't kick over a pile of CDs.

With Lance here, tucked up in front of him, time slows down a little bit, bends and curves, and it makes sense that three months ago he was selling chicken and mashed potatoes to tired commuters and last night he got up in front of a room of people and did four of his own songs. People clapped and cheered and JC felt like if he lifted his arms over his head he could fly.

"I think maybe I should get a job," he says, as Lance lifts three jewel cases to slip one underneath. "I mean, there are, there are like a million people in New York who are trying to make music and get people to listen, and what if this just isn't what they want to hear. I think the cafe on Tenth is hiring, and I could --"

Lance twists a little, hooks one leg over JC's so he's almost sitting on JC's lap. "What are you talking about?"

"I, you know, I still have the site to work on, and --"

Lance puts his hand on JC's chest, fingers splayed wide across his throat. "Okay, I think you're freaking out," he says. "Because your song is on the Hot 100, so I don't really think you need a job at a cafe --"

"I could be a one-hit wonder."

"Sure," Lance says reasonably and JC feels like throwing up. Lance touches JC's jaw with his fingertip. "Except you have about a thousand more like it, and if you do a couple more showcases like last night there's going to be even more buzz and --"

JC wraps his arms tight around Lance and Lance stops talking. "It's just that when I didn't actually live here it was okay for things to be crazy," he says, "and now it's like I have eight million neighbors I don't know and I can barely hear myself think sometimes, and if I can't hear myself, how will anyone else even notice me?"

"I love you anyway, you know," Lance mumbles against his collarbone, and JC exhales, listens to the slow sounds between them, hearts beating steady and almost even.

////

JC fixes his collar again and frowns in the mirror, then flicks his eyes up to meet Lance's. "I don't think anyone is going to come," he says.

Lance kisses the back of his neck and JC shivers. "Have you looked out there? People came. More people are coming. It's the release party. It's too late to freak out." 

"Won't they care?"

Lance brushes a piece of fluff off JC's shoulder. "Who?"

"I don't know. The people who we want to buy the record." Lance just raises an eyebrow and holds JC's face in one hand, stroking JC's cheek with his thumb. JC shrugs and says, "You know, about this. About what's in that article."

JC told Spin that he didn't think there were enough love songs about men. He said a lot of other stuff, too, about music and art and how most beats are just metaphors for relationships if you listen right to how the sounds come together, but the part they printed was about how his songs weren't about sex, they were just about men.

"They won't care," Lance says. "They're not that kind of people. It's not that kind of music."

JC tugs at his shirt again. This club DJ whose CD JC has four copies of is coming to do a live remix while JC does vocals, and Lance keeps telling him it will be okay but JC's not so sure. Rehearsals were okay but rushed, and maybe he should be used to that by now but he still feels like he's playing catch-up with his life.

Lance kisses his ear and turns him around so they're facing each other. "You're gonna be great out there," Lance says, and doesn't look away until JC nods. "You're impossible not to like when you get all lost in the music."

Somebody knocks on the door and yells two minutes and JC tries to make his hands stop shaking. "You're not really a fair judge," he says, tucking his thumbs into Lance's waistband. There. Calmer.

"Professional opinion," Lance says, smiling and kissing the corner of JC's mouth. "I'll have you know I'm an excellent judge of talent. I found you, after all."

"Yeah, but how did you know I'd be any good?"

Lance looks down as his cheeks turn a little pink. "Your song just. It was beautiful and I didn't know what it meant but they made sense anyway."

JC blushes, too, and says, "Love changes what things mean. That's what I was trying to tell that reporter, about how I wrote those songs before I knew you or had ever been in love but when I sing them now they mean something different. Something more." Lance glances up and JC kisses him quick between each word. "Love changes everything."

"Thank god," Lance says, and JC laughs and holds them close together. Lance rubs his hand softly between JC's shoulderblades and JC turns his head enough to press his lips to Lance's jaw. He sighs again and Lance stands them both up straight, holds JC by the placket of his shirt. "How did you get the idea, anyway? Before, I mean. Before we even met. How did you know how to make a love song?"

"I didn't," JC says, and when the guy knocks on the door again he's yelling that it's time to go on. Lance kisses him one more time. "I just knew how I wanted it to be."

//

END.

//

My head is a hurricane, my heart is a touch insane.

The following artists were not harmed in the writing of this story: BT. EBTG. George Michael. The Streets. Depeche Mode. Daniel Bedingfield. Basement Jaxx. Erasure. Peaches. Craig David. Hooverphonic. Dusty Trails. DJ BoyWonder and the Big Big BonusTrack Birthday Blowout Mix. And, of course, JC "Two-Step!" Chasez. His life is a catastrophaaaaaaay. We're waiting out the storm. Soundtrack/commentary here.

Universal invariants: So if JC never auditioned for MMC and there was no *NSYNC for Lance to join, JC would still get lost in his own head, and Lance would still be figuring out how to make things happen. They'd still be all fated and shit, though.

The chorus: Lance likes alphabetical order. Amber, G., Glace, JaeW, Jamie, Kate, Punk, Ray. Ten percent off the top split three ways between bitterchick, Corinna and nikitasan.

//

4.8.03/9.22.03