Lance hasn't had time to be distracted in years, so he's going to take this opportunity and hold tightly to it for as long as he can.
Chris notices first, because for all his ADD he's the one who actually pays the most attention to what's going on around them. He's probably the only one who knows the name of the girl who brought lunch and some papers out to his house, for example. Lance thinks her name is Amy. Whatever, he's distracted. She got their orders right, so he doesn't really need to know her name.
"Why do you keep stopping on those phone commercials?" Chris asks, hitting him in the shoulder with the remote.
"What? I am not." They're watching. He doesn't know what. Something with food. "I thought the game was on," he says. Some game is surely on.
Chris nods and flips to basketball, handing Lance the remote. One run down the court, one throw from the line, and the announcers remind them not to change the channel. If they took as many breaks as a basketball game during tours, folks would probably leave.
He flips up two channels to MTV -- Nike ad -- and then down three back to the Food Channel. Pampers. The Food Channel always thinks he's a mom. Nickelodeon. Barbies. Back to TNT for the game. BMWs are cool. They should have a song on a car commercial. The Sprint guy wants to save them from cellular static. He has a really nice suit for a traveling salesman.
Chris slugs him again, this time with the bag of chips. "Dude," he says. "You already have a phone."
"What? I know." Lance flicks up one and back down, then again. Finally the game is back. Pass, pass, shoot, miss, rebound, pass. Time out. Commercial. He switches before the theme music has faded but it's like he's got five hundred channels and nothing but ads. Reebok. Gatorade. Milk. Burger King. This asshole from Burger King corporate once told them they were the musical equivalent of the kid's meal toy picked for the last week of a special. Asshole. Coors. Mitsubishi. Verizon guy. Verizon's VP for marketing came on to one of the dancers during the last tour. Lance can't remember which girl. Budweiser. Sprint guy.
Chris kicks him. "Why were you making that face?"
"I'm not," Lance says, rubbing his ankle. Chris has pointy feet. "What face?"
"I dunno. Like you're. Hungry. Interested in something."
Lance wipes Cool Ranch crumbs on Chris' jeans. The Sprint guy is on some other channel now, still talking. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Chris studies him. "You look horny," he says finally.
"What? No I -- what does that even mean. How do you look horny?"
"Go look in the mirror, boy."
For everything else there's MasterCard, and when Gideon Yago says something about Kid Rock, Lance realizes he switched from TNT to MTV and so they're waiting for the wrong show to come back. The game's on again, though, so he just rolls his eyes and says, "Chris."
Chris shakes his head, clearly determined to mock Lance for all it's worth. "I look like shit today, man, this can't be about me."
Lance opens his mouth to protest and Chris waves him off, laughing.
"What were you thinking about just now?"
"Just when?" The audience stomps their feet and sing along to something and Lance tries very hard to keep his eyes on the ball.
"Just now. Before I started giving you shit."
"Well, I don't know, I'm not sure I can remember my life before that." And Jesus, when do they actually play the game? Cars, soda, Sprint guy. He sighs.
"Ohhh," Chris says, low and laughing.
"What?" Lance crosses his arms. "What?"
"That's it," Chris says, triumphantly. "Sprint guy!" Lance realizes that he actually was kind of idly wondering what it would be like to just lean against a wall somewhere and let the Sprint guy fuck him with his coat still on. Chris leaps for the remote and jacks the volume so it's like the guy's speaking from on high.
Lance crosses his legs. There's only one way to ever win with Chris. "Oh, him?" he says, raising one eyebrow. He shrugs. "Yeah, he's pretty hot."
"Pretty hot."
Lance makes his face very very blank. "Yeah," he says. "You don't think so?"
Chris stares at him hard, looks back at the TV, but by now there's a Victoria's Secret ad instead. Chris tilts his head to one side and smiles slowly. "Mmm," he says. "Pretty hot."
Lance has a no exceptions policy to his no more drama rule, but when he realizes the hour of Anna Nicole that TiVo wants him to watch has three different Sprint guy spots on it, he officially decides that a little harmless rewinding isn't a violation of anything. Seriously, what's he supposed to do, watch CSPAN and PBS all the damn time? Hot Sprint guy never hurt anyone.
Justin, on the other hand, is both silent and deadly.
"How many times you gonna watch that?" he says from behind Lance. Lance whips his head around. Justin's casually propped one shoulder against the wall. "Your cleaning lady let me in," he explains, grinning. "Is this some kind of weird porn I've never heard of?"
"Please," Lance says. "I was thinking maybe we should do a phone endorsement, that's all."
"Oh," Justin says. "I thought you were just hot for the Sprint guy."
Lance turns off the TV and stands up, smoothing his khakis. He's not really uncomfortably hard. "Can I get you something to drink?" It's not a genuine offer, but he can't have people in his houseand not extend himself at least that far. Justin's the same way. They never take each other up on it.
"I'm good," Justin says.
"So, uh." Lance looks at him expectantly.
"Does he have a name?"
"What?"
"The guy. The hot man with the phone. Do you know his name?"
"No. What? Why would I know his name?" Lance walks into his kitchen and pours himself a glass of orange juice.
Justin hops up to sit on the island. "You're hot for him. Don't you think it'll be easier to ask him out if you know his name?"
Lance laughs. "Who taught you about gay sex, anyway, man? Names? What?"
Justin smiles but also nods insistently. Lance wants to be distracted. Justin wants to be determined. This is going to take a while.
"He's just some guy in a trench coat," Lance says, leaving the room. Justin trails after him and Lance sits down at the table where his laptop's plugged in. Maybe Justin will assume he wants to do some actual work and leave.
"Oh!" Justin says. "Can't you just --" He waves at the computer.
"What?"
"You know. Look him up. In there."
Justin has these charming ideas about the all-powerful internet, encouraged no doubt by Chris. Mostly they're a result of Justin's intense avoidance of all things online. It's kind of like talking to someone who thinks there's actually a Wizard of Oz with all the answers. He seems genuinely convinced that every piece of information you could ever want about anyone is right there for the taking. To be fair, anything you could ever want to know about Justin pretty much is, and so he’d just rather avoid the whole vague space. Lance is generally sure he's better off knowing exactly what kind of shit people are saying about him.
Lance snaps the screen shut. "Don't take this the wrong way, but what are you doing here?"
"Brit."
"Ah." Justin sits down. Lance sits down. These talks are getting distressingly frequent. Somehow Justin decided that Lance was the most enthusiastic that he and Britney were dating in the first place, and therefore could help solve any problem they'd created for themselves.
Lance loves Justin, and when she's not being a brat, he's real fond of Brit, too. But this is not the kind of distraction he's been shooting for. One more month before they're completely tied up in rehearsals for the new tour and he's plenty happy spending it going to the gym, sitting in on conference calls from the deck, and not thinking about things he shouldn't be thinking about.
Complicated relationships are on the top of his no more drama list of verboten topics. Even other people's relationships. He listens to Justin for twenty minutes, hugs him tight and tells him he thinks Chris had mentioned golfing later on.
Justin smiles and says, "You should really call him."
"I just saw him," Lance says.
"Not Chris."
"What? Who?"
Justin furrows his brow and bites his lip. Finally he nods like he's made up his mind about something. "I bet the Sprint dude has an agent," he says, waving goodbye.
Lance rewards himself for a morning of other people's drama with five minutes on Google. It takes two, and only that many because first he searches for "Sprint spokesman" and doesn't find what he's looking for until he tries with "Sprint guy" instead.
God bless the all-powerful internet. He has three minutes remaining, so he leaves a message for Wendy, asking her to have someone track down Brian Baker's agent. He used to play semi-pro football, it turns out. And he's got a great voice. He could do voiceovers for one of the cartoons they've got in development. It's tough making it as a commercial actor. Even hot Sprint guy could use more work.
He goes out dancing with JC and some guys they know and it's winter in Florida, cold enough for a nice leather jacket that he checks the minute he walks in the door. The problem with someplace where the weather's as perfect as Florida is how no one wears real coats. Like trench coats.
Maybe the problem is that he only ever meets guys who do things in the business. Producers, promoters, publicists, their assorted posses. None of those guys wear trench coats. Lance swallows his drink down, scans the crowd. What he needs is a good government agent. Or maybe just a real businessman. This guy Martin they've been hanging out with lately is a stockbroker, but he's an asshole. Will is some kind of librarian. He wears librarian suits. Freddy's a businessman, but he never even wears a tie, let alone a suit or coat.
JC bobs and weaves through the crowd to him. "You ready to go?" JC shouts, grinning. It's JC's I'm-trying-to-be-endearing-rather-than-a-pissy-bitch look. Lance tugs JC's hat down over his eyes and grabs his wrist, leading them out.
They're leaning against each other in the backseat of the Escalade. JC elbows him. "J says you got a new boy."
"What? No." Lance rubs his eyes. Too much smoke in the club. Too much watching things on rewind. He's beat.
"I thought we were gonna tell each other first, I thought that was the deal."
Lance wakes up fast. "It was," he says.
JC's staring resolutely at the back of the driver seat. That was the truce they made, the truce after the ice age after the friendly breakup after the months of drama.
"It is," Lance says, curling his hand into the crook of JC's arm. "But I'm not. I mean, I don't."
JC turns to look at him, squinting in the dim passing lights of the freeway.
"I really don't," Lance says. "I'd tell you, really."
"And Joey --"
"No," Lance says. "I told you, that's not ever gonna --"
"Yeah," JC sighs. "Oh, honey. You deserve someone nice and normal who, you know."
Lance tilts his head onto JC's shoulder. "Who what?"
"Who takes your mind off everything instead of just reminding you."
Lance heaves a big dramatic sigh and tickles JC under the ribs. "Fucking tell me about it," he says, and JC giggles sweet and soft.
Lance didn't drink enough water and so he wakes up early and drags his ass to the gym by six-thirty. He's home answering e-mail with Katie Couric and Matt Lauer in the background. The theme music fades into the sound of static and then a clear bell-tone and Sprint guy talking about dogs or something. Goddammit. It's too early to call LA and find out why Wendy hasn't gotten back to him yet. Plus it's Tuesday. Tuesdays and Thursdays she takes her son to pre-kindergarten or whatever and comes in late.
Lance is almost itchy with impatience to do something, to change something about himself or his life. Something just enough to make things different but not totally unrecognizable. He looks at the clock again. Eight-oh-five. And it's Tuesday. Joey's probably up with the baby by now.
Joey said having a kid changed his life but not the world around them, and Lance bit his lip and didn't say anything about anything. How Lance felt didn't really seem to factor into the equation. Last time he went over in the morning and watched Briahna scarf down something smooshed and orange, Joey spent the whole time bitching about Kelly in this good-natured tone that was worse than when he was going on about how much he still loved her anyway. "That whole idea that the love of a good woman," he said, wiping Bri's mouth. "Or whatever. That it can change everything. I don't get that. Aren't you still the same fucked-up guy you were before they fell in love with you?"
"Yeah," Lance said, letting Briahna wrap her tight little grip around his thumb. "Yeah, I guess you are."
He turns off his computer and the TV. He can go run errands. Stores are open. He needs. Things. House things. Or maybe clothes. He has a thing on Friday he could maybe use a new shirt for. Or he could go to the Sharper Image store downtown and get a new cup-holder thing for his car, so he doesn't have to worry about holding coffee between his knees while he drives. Which just means he never drinks coffee in the car anymore.
By the time he changes his shoes and washes out the coffeepot and closes the drapes in the back room so the plants don't burn in the morning sun, it's quarter to nine. Driving downtown takes another forty-five minutes and Lance loves being off tour, he loves having time to do very little at all and call his mom over breakfast or go out every night without having to think about dancing the next day. But sometimes, having all the goddamn time in the world is just not what he needs to feel like his life is moving forward.
Half the stores in the mall aren't open yet. Including Sharper Image. He walks back out to the car and on the far side of the deserted parking lot is a cell phone store. He thinks it's one of Freddy's. He owns a bunch, but Lance thinks this is the one he said he usually works at. He throws his sweater in the backseat and decides to walk across the acres of asphalt rather than drive.
It's still early but the store has a half-dozen customers already. There are big color charts showing service areas and grids comparing plans and there, in the corner, is a life-size cut-out of the Sprint guy. Jesus. The guy is stalking him or something. Or maybe he's stalking the guy, Lance thinks, and checks his phone to make sure Wendy hasn't called. No messages. A young guy in a polo shirt stands too close to his shoulder and asks him if he needs anything.
"Just looking," Lance says, trying to gauge whether it's really life-size or if the Sprint guy is just really tall.
"Do you have a cell phone?" the sales guy asks, and Lance finally turns to look at him. Does he have a cell phone. That's kind of a new one. Then the guy smiles toothily, like he recognizes him, or maybe it's just that he's actually a decent salesman.
"I have a phone, yeah," Lance says, but he smiles. "Hey, is this the store where Freddy works?"
"He's in the back," the guy says, looking a little annoyed that he's not going to be getting any kind of commission out of this.
"Can you tell him Lance is here?"
"Sure thing," the guy says, but he gets stopped twice on his way and Lance goes back to looking at the folds in the Sprint guy's jacket. An old man is standing about five feet away trying to explain that he can't get his speed dial to work, and the guy helping him finally gives up and says, "Look, do you have grandkids? Get one of them to explain it."
"Hey," Freddy says from behind Lance. He's wearing a white button-down shirt open at the neck and nice slacks. He looks good. "You guys having some problems with your phones?"
Lance is trying to remember the last time he saw Freddy when they weren't all at a restaurant or a bar or a club or something. He's a nice enough guy. "Oh, no," Lance says. He'd almost forgotten that Freddy had gotten them all better deals after some of the bills on the last tour came back insanely high. "No, no, the phones are fine."
"Okay..." Freddy says, but he smiles, too.
"I was just --" Lance waves toward the parking lot and the mall beyond. "I'm thinkin' we should maybe do a deal with Sprint," he says instead. Freddy comes around behind him to stand next to the big cut-out Sprint guy, who is definitely bigger than real life. He's huge.
"You want new phones?" Freddy asks. He speaks rapidly and Lance always thought it was meth or coke or something but, no, he's maybe just like that because it's pretty early in the day for heavy drugs. "I'd have to switch the deals around a little, and you'd probably need new numbers again, but I could get you all --"
"No," Lance says. "I mean. Like, an endorsement. So I was just. Uh, wondering. What you think of the product."
"Oh, that's --" He feels Freddy give him a longer, more serious look, like he's being reappraised. "That's smart," Freddy says finally.
When he tilts his head, the long barbed-wire tattoo on his neck flexes with the tendons. It looks like rippling, molten steel. It's really kind of mesmerizing. Freddy's saying something about customer service and retention and leasing plans and Lance nods when it seems like he should but really he's just watching ink moving on skin like an oil slick on the ocean. He's pretty sure he's never seen Freddy in full daylight before.
"So you probably want someone you can ask about their marketing plan," Freddy's saying, "but I think if --"
"That's great," Lance says, clapping Freddy on the shoulder. He seriously needs to get laid. "I gotta run some errands," he says. "I'll call you."
He goes out with JC that night and at one of the clubs there's a guy across the room who sort of looks like Freddy from the back. Freddy or the Sprint Guy and then when he turns maybe a little like Joey but it's not any of them, not even close. Freddy sort of looks like the Sprint guy, who sort of looks like Joey, so the fact that maybe he's keeping one eye on the room and one on whatever it is JC's trying to explain with sudden, jerky hand movements isn't some kind of replacement fantasy. It's like how a copy of a copy is its own real thing. Like copyright law and samples and fifty-one percent original content constitutes fair use. Like that.
The next morning he works out and makes calls and e-mails his sister and wanders into Freddy's store around noon. Some other 15-year-old with a zit on his chin goes back to find him and Lance stares at the big digital coverage map, trying to remember the capital of Ohio. It's not Cleveland. Fuck.
Freddy's wearing a light gray dress shirt open to the third button, and his tattoo curls like a snake. "Hey," he says, reaching out to shake hands even as he's still walking across the room. He has a really firm, strong grip. He pumps Lance's hand twice and lets it go, like a dance step practiced a thousand times.
"You wanna have lunch?" Lance asks, staring him right in the eye.
"Sure," Freddy says.
"Great." Lance reaches in his pocket for his keys.
"Right now," Freddy says. He smiles a little at the corner of his mouth and Lance can see his eyes flick up to the clock above the counter.
"Yeah."
Freddy looks at him like he can tell Lance doesn't know the capital of Ohio and might just fuck him anyway. He nods slowly, then again. "Give me five minutes," he says, and turns around and walks off.
Lance is staring at the Sprint guy again when Freddy comes up from behind, whispering in Lance's ear, "He's pretty hot, huh."
Lance smiles and leans back a fraction of an inch. "I like his coat."
Freddy holds open the glass door with one arm and urges Lance forward with a hand on the small of his back. It's humid outside in comparison to the climate-controlled store and Lance can feel a blush of sweat on his hairline. He nods toward his car, and Freddy waits with one hand on the passenger door handle until Lance flips the locks. He's settled in his seat and staring hard at Lance by the time Lance has the ignition on and the AC running.
"So," Lance says. Freddy leans back against the door, one hand on his thigh. "Where do you want to go?"
Freddy shrugs, but Lance can tell he's already decided. It's too deliberately casual. He likes this daytime Freddy, fast-talking and confident and sort of like a really hot traveling salesman. "I live pretty close," he says, and Lance smiles and puts the car into drive.
Freddy's condo is boring gay chic and his sheets are boring-but-soft Egyptian cotton and his hold is even stronger on Lance's hips than it was shaking his hand. His skin is the color of one of the walls in Lance's old house, terra firma or terra mocha or terra something that actually has almost nothing to do with the golden brown flesh moving against him or how it tastes kind of like buttered rum.
The tattoo runs in spiky detail down around his arm and it's predictable, Lance knows there's no way he's the first guy to do it but he can't stop licking from one end to the other. Lance whispers something stupid in Freddy's ear and he bucks up, grabs Lance's ass and tells him to keep talking.
Lance fucking loves really great random sex, like this, like when you hit the right spot on the first try and everybody's little turn-ons are compatible enough that all you need to know is "he got that tattoo there on purpose" or "of course he likes it when I use my porn voice." Lance doesn't much mind, and he sinks his teeth into Freddy's bicep between each word.
It's good, not too fast but not some kind of marathon meant to prove something, either, and Lance pants into the sweat-damp pillow after and tries to catch his breath. "Nice place," he says belatedly.
"Oh," Freddy says, still a little winded himself. "Thanks. I've got a bigger one down in South Beach."
Lance has a way bigger place just across town but he's pretty happy about the fact Freddy didn't seem to care if they went there. "You wanna catch your breath and do that again?" he asks, rolling onto his side.
Freddy grins and kisses him, not too sloppy and more than a little sweet. He puts a hand on Lance's chest. "I gotta go back to the store," he says. "Buncha kids working today, they're likely to make off with the merchandise if I'm gone too long."
"Oh," Lance says. He's pretty used to fucking the kind of businessman whose business it is to keep him happy, he realizes. "That's cool," he says, sitting up and putting his feet on the floor. His shirt is... Somewhere near the door, he thinks.
He feels the mattress shift behind him and Freddy presses up against his bare back, knees on either side of Lance's ass. There's a long hot lick along his throat and Freddy turns Lance's head into the kiss. "We could do it again some other time," he says. "You give me a little warning I might even be able to find my trench coat."
Lance laughs and Freddy's fingers trace over his ribs like they're looking for the source. "You make it sound so dirty," he says.
Freddy slides his palm down Lance's stomach, stroking his cock. "It's fucking hot," he says, "the idea of fucking you with that coat on." He dips his tongue in Lance's ear and Lance loses whatever breath he's caught, arching his spine and leaning back hard into Freddy's arms.
"Oh god," he says, turning his face into Freddy's shoulder. Freddy's hand is fast and tight, fucking his cock like they could just stop and start this all day, fucking all night and maybe into sometime next month so he doesn't even have to rehearse, he can just show up one day and be back to the crowds and the rush and the upturned faces.
Freddy bites down on Lance's shoulder and Lance braces himself with his hands spread wide on the bed. He's so close when Freddy pulls away and Lance groans loud and annoyed.
"C'mon," Freddy says, sliding down around him and off the bed. "I'll suck you off in the shower. But then I really have to go."
The third or fourth time Lance picks Freddy up from one of his stores and they go somewhere to fuck, he puts his head on Lance's chest after and says, slowly, "You looking for a boyfriend?"
"No," Lance says. "No," he says again, slower. He's got tour rehearsals and business to do and he's just looking for something fun, something to kill a little time. "I'm just looking for a distraction."
Freddy rolls over and smirks up at him. "Yeah, I'll distract you all right."
JC says, "I'm really glad, honey, that's great."
Joey puts his hand over the phone and yells at Kelly that he's coming, goddammit, just wait a second. Then he says, "Good sex?" and tells Lance it's about time he found himself some repeat business.
Justin tells three long and complicated stories about Britney and caller ID, then lays his head on Lance's shoulder and says, "Wait, are you being serious?"
Chris grabs the remote back and says, "That guy who sold us our phones? That's the best you can do? Jesus. Fucking use your celebrity advantage once in a while, why don't you."
"Fuck off."
Chris flips to a basketball game. "Whatever. You know who's hot? That Verizon guy."
"He is not." Freddy has this other tattoo, way down in the curve where his leg meets his hip, so small Lance missed it the first time they fucked. It fits on the tip of his tongue.
Chris kicks his leg and changes the channel. "He is too! 'Can you hear me now?' Verizon guy is like one step from phone sex, dude."
"He is not hot. Sprint guy is hot."
"Not as hot as Verizon guy."
"Yes he is."
"No he isn't."
"Yes he -- oh, good Lord." Lance tosses one of the smaller pillows at Chris' head. "I am not having this conversation."
Chris grins. "Yes you are."
"No I'm --" Lance sighs. "Chris, whatever, I don't care, you win. It's not worth fighting about. He was just a distraction."
Chris lets some stupid commercial for pull-up diapers play, kids putting toilet seats up and down with big self-satisfied smiles. "Until you found the real thing," Chris says, staring right at the TV.
Lance crosses his legs. "Yes. No. Until I found, you know. A real thing. A real person."
Chris kicks his heel against the coffee table, flipping again through other games and videos and their Chili's commercial. They still laugh at Joey's legs under the big box, every time. Chris changes back to basketball and says, evenly, "So the Sprint guy's just some fantasy and Freddy's your boyfriend."
Lance says, "He's not my boyfriend." Not that Freddy would be such an awful boyfriend. He has his own money, his own house, his own friends. His brother's always around taking pictures, so it's already kind of like being out with Joey and Steve. He doesn't know anything about space, but he knows how to talk business, or at least how to nod at the right times when Lance does.
"But he's coming to Chicago," Chris says.
Freddy's going on tour with them for a week or so. He always takes a vacation in April. It's not like anyone's promising anything in between. "I deserve someone nice and normal," Lance says.
"Don't we all, man, don't we all." Chris hits one of the eight thousand buttons on the remote and TiVo tries to tell Lance what he wants to watch again. "I have bad news," Chris says.
"You don't like him," Lance says. He can tell. Chris never likes anyone who gets too close. He just doesn't trust anyone any of them hasn't known forever.
"Who? Whatever. What does it matter, dude, if you're happy. That's not my point."
Lance puts his arm up on the back of the couch. He knows Chris won’t really give up this easily. "What is your point?"
"My point," Chris says. "Is that your television here has completely figured out what millions of teenage girls refuse to admit. Look at that." TiVo wants him to watch Anna Nicole, Isaac Mizrahi, Trading Spaces and Queer as Folk. "Your TV totally knows you're gay."
"I am gay," Lance says. He's got it programmed to catch every movie with Russell Crowe in it, too, but there's no reason to tell Chris that. "You miss the part where we just had this long inane conversation about the guy I'm dating?"
"Ohhh," Chris says. "That's funny. I thought you were just distracted."
END.
Credits: Claire, my virtual service representative. Also Jamie, Jae, Amber, Lesa, Dafna, LaDi and Glace, who wanted him bent over a couch. Almost!