Joey Fatone is the best thing to happen to Broadway since The Producers. Everyone agrees, the Post, the Daily News, even the Times. It hasn't even opened for real yet and tickets to his show are worth five or ten times the selling price When Joey's on Late Night, Letterman asks for a pair because even he can't get decent seats.
This is supposed to be a break between albums, a longer break this time because the last go round they didn't have any time off at all, what with back-to-back tours. No one's on vacation, though. JC's busy producing for two different girl groups and Chris is busy launching a new line for pregnant moms and Justin is busy pretending not to be working on material for a solo album.
Joey is busy being Broadway's favorite son and Lance is holed up in LA with the new film's editor trying to fix the mess left behind by the third director. He knows already that it's going to be a long stupid battle with the guild over whose name goes where. Lance is so busy, he has a million things to do, but mostly he's just checking the weather.
*
Joey's nervous about the audition, which freaks Lance out a little because Joey's the one who never gets scared about anything. He's making Lance sing the girl's part, which is just ridiculous because Lance has to take everything down an octave. Joey insists he needs more practice, that even if the crowd is smaller, being in a musical is harder than it looks. Lance knows Joey will get the part. Joey's brand of vaudeville mania was made for a theater stage. His smile is fierce and bright enough to warm even the cheap seats.
"Lannnnnce," Joey pleads, waving the sheet music even though they've both got it memorized already.
They sing it again.
*
"This makes no fucking sense," Lance says, slamming a palm against the table.
"Maybe if we move --"
"No, not even then," Lance says. Tim is a good editor but no one is this good. There are three different endings and three different audiences described in florid detail how much each one sucks. They used words like "pathetic" and "ridiculous" and "unbelievable," and of course that's the one that kills Lance because this was supposed to be the movie that felt real. Not sappy-sweet. No pop music montages. True to life. Verite. They can't shoot another ending without blowing the budget out of the water and anyway probably that wouldn't help.
"I need a break," Lance says. The lounge is set up with food and televisions and Lance watches the Today Show. He wanted to get an early start, he said, and Tim said okay because even if things are all fucked up Lance is still in charge. They go out on the street to Al Roker in a big yellow slicker because it's raining in New York. Three hours ago it was raining in New York.
*
The only other time Lance has seen Joey not entirely sure of himself was a long time ago. A long long time ago, in Germany, before things really hit, all of them three sheets to the wind in some club. Even drunk it was like Joey knew he was out of his league. Lance could tell he was following some guy out by the hand in order to keep up with the rest of them. Joey didn't want to be left behind, and when that meant everyone else was fucking guys to see if it was any better, Joey tried it too.
Lance knows this because after the guy left Joey came banging on his door, sobered up and still kind of scared.
"That's, uh -- I'm not sure that's how it was supposed to be, man, unless you all have been seriously exaggerating," Joey said, rubbing a hand across his mouth and staring at his feet.
"C'mere," Lance said, not at all shy anymore, and he kissed Joey, long and persuasively, tongue pushing soft and then harder into Joey's salty mouth, washing it clean, licking his face with baby kisses, rubbing his thumb into the base of Joey's neck. Joey put his arms around Lance's waist and Lance sighed up into Joey's mouth because maybe it was a fucked up way to get there, it was a crazy end run of some kind for sure, but it wasn't a bad place to be.
And then Joey pulled back, and he put a hand on Lance's cheek and smiled a little. "I believe you," he said. And then he left.
*
"Uh, Mr. Bass?"
Lance hits the remote. The PA is maybe 19, some thin blonde girl whose father does something he needed a while ago but now he can't remember what. "Yeah," he says.
"There's a guy from Dreamworks on four who says he needs you today."
He stands up and smoothes the wrinkles from his khakis. "Take a message," he says, and she says okay like she knows that won't work but leaves anyway.
Tim has a shot from ending B up on one monitor and a cable feed with Regis and Kelly on the other. The city skyline behind the desk on Regis is sunny and bland and Lance never noticed before that it was a photograph. It kind of pisses him off.
*
"You were right," Joey said, after the second time, one arm up on Lance's half-open door. "So, you know. Thank you. For, yeah."
Lance nodded, ignoring the sick-sweet flop in his stomach. He'd been right. Joey was glad.
Joey was, in fact, grateful. He put a hand on Lance's shoulder and kissed him soft and slow. "Thank you," he said.
*
Joey starts at the beginning of the song and Lance puts one arm up on the back of the sofa. Joey's nodding along with the lyrics, adding emotion every time, and Lance almost misses his cue.
Lance has fucked a lot of guys. Everyone tried it. Lance is really the only one who knew it was what he'd been looking for all along, and he was still pretty young himself then, so it's been a while and he's been with a lot of guys. He's never had a boyfriend, but he watched JC and a guy they knew in Orlando do it for a year, so he thinks he knows how it would work.
None of the guys he's fucked is remotely like Joey, which Lance decides is a good thing because Joey's his best friend, not his boyfriend, and there's no reason to confuse the two when he doesn't have to. Lance's guys are younger, or older, students or models or businessmen, usually slightly built and easily convinced. They don't really expect Lance to call them again even if they wish he would. Sometimes, if it's a city they come back to a lot, he does. Mostly he just likes them because they're eager, or play hard-to-get but aren't really, or they have a gently sloping hipbone that disappears like a tease into a pair of lowslung jeans.
He has that, and he has these four guys he loves more than life itself, and altogether it isn't like he's been lonely, exactly. He isn't ever alone.
*
Tim has a cigarette and Lance stretches his legs down the hall and flips on whatever comes after the Today Show, the one Joey always called the junior varsity squad, as if Katie got sick or something they could bring up one of these women with copycat haircuts and no personality and it would be fine. It's shot inside but there's a man on the street thing, or maybe for daytime TV they call it woman on the street, a bunch of middle-aged ladies in Rockefeller Plaza weighing in on the effects of school uniforms on girls' self-esteem. It's drizzling a little and one mom has on a clear plastic bonnet to protect her hairdo. Lance is kind of embarrassed for her.
He dodges a second call from the distributors and gets his assistant to fend off the movie's supporting star, some guy with two years at USC who thinks he can save the movie if they'd just let him have an hour to work things out. Back East it's after lunch and people there are on to afternoon problems, halfway to halfway to after-work drinks and dinner. Dinner and a show.
*
Joey gets campier with each runthrough, more relaxed, more confident that he knows what he's doing and maybe even sounds good. He sounds great. He's gonna get the part for sure. By the time they're on take ten or twelve he's swinging Lance around and dipping him, one knee locked against the hotel bed. Joey's thigh is warm and solid between Lance's legs and Lance thinks he's just dizzy from all the dancing. Joey's making up new lyrics and in his head Lance can hear Chris joking that Joey'd be better suited for The Full Monty than some romantic lead.
Joey's laughing right in Lance's face, wide toothy grin, beard almost brushing Lance's chin, eyes wet from how hard they were giggling just a minute before, and he kind of pushes against Lance's leg again and Lance kisses him mid-lyric, because, well, the song is all a big set-up into the couple kissing, and Joey's there and warm and then Lance has done it, it's too late to take it back or really blame it on the dancing. Joey's mouth is warm and he kisses Lance like a standing ovation. He pulls Lance up with a firm hand on his back and their teeth hit but they don't break apart.
Joey has his hands on Lance's face and Lance could swear Joey's still humming under his breath, into Lance's mouth.
Then Joey talks against Lance's chin, his voice all serious and tender and Lance thinks, so this is what it's like. "Are you okay?" Joey asks, and he's more considerate like that than Lance would have thought.
Lance mumbles yes and kisses Joey again. Lance feels like he's been spun around a hundred times and Joey is the centripetal force that turns him into himself.
*
They'd been rehearsing for the second tour and Lance stared into the wall of mirrors and knew for sure that Joey would never fall in love back. He watched Joey smile carelessly at one of the dancers, and then Lance bent over and tried to catch his breath. Justin had smacked him between his shoulderblades a couple times until he decided Lance wasn't choking but had a leg cramp or something. They sat there on the floor, Justin's strong hands kneading his calf until it really did start to hurt, and Joey looked over to make sure Lance was okay and Lance nodded and Joey nodded and kept talking with the girl.
So it had been a lot of that, a lot of Joey with a lot of girls, even after Brianna was born. Joey likes it so much it almost convinced Lance he should try girls, too. Almost.
Lance catches himself sometimes when it's just the two of them, leaning against his kitchen counter and watching Brianna slam Lance's hundred-dollar William & Sonoma copper-plated pots and pans together. He makes himself stop when he thinks that this is the part that will last, because even though he knows that Joey and Kelly aren't gonna suddenly fall happily-ever-after-in-love with each other after all this time, Kelly still had a part in making Brianna. It took one of Joey's famed legion of girls to make possible the moments when he and Joey get down on the tile floor and gurgle like silly boys instead of grown men. Joey loves Brianna like Lance does times a thousand and Lance is still trying to decide if it's changed Joey somehow.
*
Joey's not nervous anymore. He's acting like they've done this a million times before, like they've spent years with Lance's hands pinned to the pillow and Joey pushing against him, sucking on Lance's neck. Like they know what they look like in the dark, like Lance can find Joey's breastbone with his tongue by taste alone, like he knows what it feels like to sink down onto Joey inch by inch, knees trembling against the mattress. Like he's ever known exactly how Joey would sound when he comes. What it feels like after to have Joey rolled on top of him, wet and hot and limber and wrapping his arms around Lance's back and dragging scratchy sloppy kisses across Lance's stomach.
*
Tim says, politely but convincingly, that maybe taking a break for some food might help them concentrate. Lance bites his lip and says sure, waving Tim off to lunch. A late lunch, and in New York it's rush hour.
Lance smokes one of Tim's cigarettes in the unventilated editing bay and puts his feet up on the desk. He fingers the antenna on his cell phone and flips one of the monitors to MTV. None of their videos is on TRL and behind Carson the picture window is covered with teardrops and dusky dim afternoon light. Lance likes Carson okay, he's known them all a long time and never really acted like having them on the show is proof of further erosion of the American rock scene. Carson has more in common with Joey than the rest of them, the two actually went out and got drunk a few times over the years, never got in any real trouble but only by accident.
Someone down on the street is waving a sign for Joey McIntyre and Lance imagines himself telling Carson how his new movie isn't supposed to have a happy ending because you never do in real life. This will be the first set of junkets he does without playing straight man to Joey's joking routine and he can't quite wrap his mind around how to blurb such a depressing fucked-up movie in a way Carson would find funny. It's been a long time since the giddiness of live television made Lance say the wrong thing, something he couldn't take back because it was out there in the world, trapped in some digital archive as soon as it passed his lips. He thinks if he'd had a seven-second delay in New York he might have had time to fix things before they got all fucked up.
*
Lance rolls over in the middle of the night and so he wakes up in Joey's chest. Joey's got one arm slung around Lance's waist and the other under his head like he's relaxing on a beach or something. He's snoring lightly, evenly, and Lance's hand was already resting on Joey's stomach so instead of stretching his neck Lance just plays his fingers through the short hair there and blinks the cotton from his eyes.
Joey's chest rises and falls and Lance lets it soothe him into near-sleep, so when Joey stirs a little while later Lance can just nuzzle into his shoulder and let Joey kiss him without thinking about it too much. He's not really awake yet, anyway, it's not a decision to do it again, it's just warm and when he's warm enough to come into Joey's hard palm, his eyes fly open. Joey's there above him, panting and flushed, dipping to kiss Lance, calling Lance "baby" in his ear, licking a river of sweat off his throat. Lance's hips arch against the bed and then Joey's rolled them over and is stroking Lance's back, broad fingers painting from his tailbone to his shoulders and Lance closes his eyes into Joey's neck and doesn't think about what comes next.
*
Joey's already dressed when Lance opens his eyes again, and he's poking Lance's foot with a finger, saying, "Get up, baby, don't wanna be late for the big day." Joey is wearing his audition clothes and Lance remembers arguing the merits of collar versus henley at Bloomingdale's the day before, and then they had dinner, and then Joey made him help practice the song. And then.
Lance sits up, dragging the sheet around his waist. "What time is it?" he says, voice cracking.
"Time to hit the bigtime," Joey says, grinning like his old unflappable self. "Seriously, man, you're fucking adorable when you're asleep but if we don't leave in, like, twenty minutes I'm gonna miss my thing." He throws Lance a t-shirt. Lance thinks it's what he wore yesterday but it hangs off his shoulders and smells like Joey. "Get your sweet ass outta my bed, Bass."
*
The limo's stuck at 50th Street because, well, because it's New York and traffic sucks in New York and Lance doesn't know why they didn't just walk, it was all of fifteen blocks from the hotel to the theater.
Joey's muttering lyrics to himself and absentmindedly rubbing his hand over Lance's thigh. He told Lance to get dressed already, so Lance did. He asked if Lance wanted anything like coffee or a bagel or something even though he was way too hyped-up to put something in his stomach, and Lance didn't. And now they're eight and a half blocks from the audition and Lance isn't sure it's such a good time for them to talk, anyway. Also he has no idea what to say. He's decided this is all Joey's idea, that it's all like a summer vacation type thing cause they're on break, so that means Joey should be the one to say something first because Lance can't even tell if this is something Joey really wanted to happen or if it just happened.
Or maybe Lance is supposed to say something because Joey thinks he's done this before? Whatever this is, Lance doesn't think he's done anything like it before. There's a bus ad filling the passenger side view, this really stupid romantic comedy that bombed three weekends before and Lance thinks that's almost as bad as seeing stacks of DVDs with their faces in the clearance bin at Walmart when they stopped at three a.m. because they were hungry and nothing else in Kansas was open. No, the DVD thing was worse.
They're a block away when they get stuck again. "Let's get out?" Joey says, and Lance shrugs and reaches for the handle.
"Wait," Joey says, grabbing his wrist. "Hang on, hang on." Joey threads his fingers through Lance's and takes a deep breath and Lance still thinks it's not the best time to talk but if Joey wants, then maybe. "Okay," Joey says. "Okay, okay. Wish me luck?"
Lance bites his lip and opens the door. "Break a leg, Joe," he says, one foot on the sidewalk.
Joey nails it, of course. Lance is standing at the rear of the lower mezzanine, behind dozens of empty rows. The director and his assistants have a table set up with a little light and everything just like in A Chorus Line but they don't ask Joey much except if he's ready, if he needs anything. He doesn't. The girl is already cast and is some old acquaintance of Joey's. Lance thinks her name is Missy. She's really good, way better at her part than Lance was, and Joey twirls her and catches her and sings down at her with a smile like the day Brianna first said daddy. Missy is half in love with Joey already, Lance can tell, and the director is rapt, totally sold, nodding enthusiastically to the lady sitting next to him.
Missy hangs on to one hand and Joey throws out his other arm. He hits the last note strong and steady and he'd bring down the house if it was full. As it is the small crowd that's trickled over from backstage hoots and hollers and rushes the stage, clapping Joey on the back and talking big dreams, big plans to crown the new king of Broadway.
Lance is leaning against the back doors and thinking about how he's supposed to be in LA on Monday to deal with movie stuff and how a month ago Joey'd said he'd come along, why the hell not, it's always sunny in LA, he didn't have anything else going on. Lance was the one who'd passed along the idea from Rosie's musical director that Joey audition for a stunt casting replacement in one of the long running things, maybe The Music Man or Rent. Something with an LA booking, and they'd go out to the beach on Mondays if Lance wasn't working.
Joey called his agent and his agent called back with a better idea. Do this new show, she said, this great Broadway staging of Singin' in the Rain, way better than the last one, as good as the movie. The guy just broke his leg skiing and they're ready to get someone who can learn it fast and make a big splash. It's gonna be huge.
Joey's gonna be huge, Lance thinks. The girl laughs and Lance lets the door fall shut behind him.
*
Lance gets off the plane in LA eight hours later and there are two voicemails from Joey. The first is jubilant and Joey's yelling about getting the part and how he's gonna have to, like, live at the theater trying to get ready in the three weeks before previews, and they're all going to some place called Joe Allen's to celebrate. Lance saves the message. Then he deletes it. Then he spends five minutes trying to figure out how to un-delete a message. He can't.
The second one is from four hours later. "Are you okay?" Joey asks, which sounds normal and familiar, except then Joey's laughing and there are other voices on the edge and Joey's saying things like, "You didn't, like, get kidnapped or anything, right, dude? Cause you were there one minute and then boom, and, you know, we just want to make sure you're okay and everything. Wherever you are, get your ass over here, cause we're celebrating. Cel-e-brate good times, come on!"
Lance saves that message, but his cell battery is almost dead so he waits to call back until he gets to the hotel. Joey doesn't answer. He doesn't answer any of the next five times Lance calls that night, probably he can't hear the cell over everyone celebrating so much, probably Missy's hanging on his neck and laughing in his ear. Finally Lance leaves a voicemail message saying he's fine, he just decided to go out to California early.
He's unpacking the small bag of stuff he'd brought to New York into the oversized cherry wardrobe and making a mental list of things to have sent from Florida when it occurs to him that that message was not as long as it probably should have been. He calls back.
"It's me. Again. And, yeah, I'm here, in LA, we're gonna start shooting with the new guy tomorrow and things are gonna be good, I think. And, uh, right, I, last time, when I called? I meant, what I meant to say was, look. Me just taking off like that -- it wasn't about, yeah. I just, you were great, your audition was so good, and I knew you had it, and, look, will you just call me? Just call me. I want to talk to you about this."
Joey doesn't call. Lance checks his voicemail every half hour the first two days, and the third day he's so busy trying to get the director to talk to the D.P. that he doesn't think to check at all. They're just all really busy.
There's a message the fourth day from when the phone was turned off in his pocket during shooting, and Joey sounds really quiet and intense and just says, "I think you should call me, like, when you know I'm going to be around. There are things I want to tell you."
Lance has been to nineteen countries and almost every state with Joey by his side. He has, he thinks, heard Joey give the patented Fatone kiss-off to an almost uncountable number of fans and even girls he professed to love. "I love you," she'd say, whichever she it was that year, cause Joey really only got semi-serious maybe once a year. And Joey'd grin and kiss her forehead and say, "And I love you, baby," like he meant it. Maybe he did. Maybe he meant it at the time.
Maybe he always means it, and maybe he means it differently when he says it to Lance, which he does, or did, often, often and unprompted and seemingly heart-felt. "You know I love you, man," he'd say, arms tight around Lance's shoulders, and Lance would say it back and they didn't need long talks about their friendship or whatever because things were usually just fine. Lance thinks he can handle anything in the world, anything some primadonna hissy-fit-throwing director has to throw at him and then some, anything is possible if he can avoid ever hearing even the beginning to the Fatone fuck-off speech aimed in his direction.
He doesn't call Joey for a week, and then he starts calling him again because at least there's the familiar rumble of the outgoing message when Joey doesn't pick up. "What's up?" Lance says, lamely, not understanding how he can sound familiar on an album from seven years before but like a stranger in the tinny reverb of his receiver. "Yeah, you should, dude, call me back, okay? Things here are insane but, you know. You can call me whenever."
The messages get progressively incoherent, until finally Lance remembers that he can say whatever, Joey is three thousand miles away and busy with the show and nothing is gonna change because he says it over the phone, and so he calls back. If they can skip the fuck-off part and go back to being friends Lance is really almost ready to call it even.
Joey still doesn't answer. "Look, Joey, the thing is. The thing is it all just kind of got fucked up, and I want to make it up to you, okay? So, like, call me, so I can, I don't know. Figure out how to make it up to you, like I said. Okay. Okay? I'll talk to you. I'll talk with you later." He claps the phone shut and glares at it like it's betrayed him. Stupid phone, making him sound so fucking stupid. He hates phones.
*
None of the guys knows there's a problem. Everyone's busy, and whenever JC or Chris or Justin actually takes the time to check in, Lance says something about Joey like there's no big deal, like, Did you see Joe on Rosie again? Like it's something he knows from them actually being on speaking terms and not too many hours lying in a darkened hotel room watching daytime TV and hoping his movie fixes itself.
Tim went to double-check something with the location people about rights to the college campus footage and Lance paces back and forth across the lounge. It's been almost six weeks and he keeps calling Joey like somehow the fiftieth time will be different from the forty-ninth. It gets so if he has a few minutes between shots and the cell in his hand he's dialing and the phone rings before he's even fully realized what he's done. Calling Joey has become Lance's nervous habit, and Joey never calls back, and still everyone is too busy to realize something's gone horribly wrong.
Then Lance mentions to Justin that he's going to have to miss Joey's opening night and everyone knows there's a problem. JC calls him an hour later.
"It's just that the director, he just up and walked out in the middle of a fucking shoot. Fucking on location," Lance tells JC, taking a stack of pink message slips from an assistant and crumpling them as she walks away. "So, you know, I just, we've only got a couple more days to get this stuff cut before the distributors send, I don't know, goons with, like, baseball bats after me, and I told the editor we'd be working late --"
"Take the red-eye," JC says, quietly. "Or, curtain's not till eight, you could come tomorrow morning even."
"Yeah, Jayce, I don't..." Lance sighs. "It's maybe not, I think this is better anyway," he says, because no way his absence is going to go without comment, and sometimes JC understands that Lance isn't quite the asshole he seems to be. Maybe JC would get what had happened. Maybe JC could explain it to him.
But, "You're right," JC says, a little tersely, so Lance guesses maybe he knew already. "If it's -- you probably should stay there. Just --" He stops.
"What?" Lance says, annoyed. JC knew and hadn't said anything. He wonders what Joey said. He wonders if Joey said what he wanted.
"You should, you know. Send something. Flowers or, I don't know, do something nice, all right?"
"Jesus, man, what kind of asshole do you think I am?" Lance says without thinking.
JC is quiet for a long time, and finally Lance apologizes for snapping and says of course he'll send something, lots of something, something really nice, and tell everyone he'll be out to see them as soon as things calm down.
"Okay," JC says, like he thinks Lance is lying about part of it. Maybe all of it. "Look, I don't even really know what's -- it's just, man, Lance. Lance." JC sighs. "I went to one, like a dress rehearsal? And it's good, it's all great. I've just never seen Joey have to act so hard to seem happy."
*
Tim goes home at ten thirty and Lance says he's just gonna watch what they've done so far one more time and then head out himself. But he's just finishing Tim's Camel Lights and choking on the accumulated smoke and flicking a fingernail against one of the monitors. There's an old beige phone sitting on a stack of take-out menus and Lance dials without looking. He wonders what pops up on the caller ID because Joey answers on the first ring, sounding awake and expectant and unburdened until Lance says hello back.
"Oh," Joey says. And then, "so how's it going out there," flatly.
Lance laughs nervously. "Man, we're so -- it's just pretty fucked up," he says. He thinks, not for the first time, that he relied on Joey's input the last movie more than he admitted. It wasn't like Joey was trying to co-produce, he was just there every day, even when he wasn't in scenes, listening to Lance ramble about what had gone right that day and what was going wrong. And during post- Joey was still around, would say he liked A better than B, the close shot better than something wide, and knowing what Joey wanted made a difference. Lance doesn't know how to explain that or how much harder it is without Joey around.
So he talks about Joey's show, about how he read the thing in the Sunday Times that Chris sent everyone about how it's going to be a whole new kind of Broadway without alienating old fans, how it's gonna change everything, bring in the kids. He's rambling, and he knows it, and he can't stop, because when he stops Joey has to say something back and Lance knows, he just knows, that what Joey has to say isn't going to be what Lance wants to hear.
"I'm sure you're great," Lance says, again. "I mean, everybody says it's, that the previews are great and you're great. But I'm sure, I'm sure you really are, too."
Lance takes a breath and Joey says, "You wouldn't really know." It's all he says.
"I said I'm coming next -- as soon as we're done here, by the beginning of the month at the latest," Lance says. "I'll be there. I'm gonna come tell you myself."
It's totally quiet where Joey is and Lance wonders if they've been cut off, and then Joey says, "Sure, Lance. Sure you are." There is disbelief so thick that Lance coughs. "So what did you need?" Joey says.
The TV's muted and Diane Sawyer is standing on a balcony with Times Square all lit up behind her. Over her left shoulder is half the oversized billboard for Joey's show, the part with the girl in a yellow slicker holding onto half of Joey's arm. "It's still raining in New York," Lance says.
"I know, I'm here." Joey doesn't say it but Lance wants to call himself an asshole. He knows what he sounds like on the phone.
"Only a few weeks and I'm almost forgetting what you look like," he says. He wants it to sound like a joke, but it just sounds strange. Pathetic. It's just a thing to say because he's got Joey on the phone, finally, and even if Joey's pissed his voice is there at the end of some impossibly long wire, or beamed back and forth a million times from earth to sky, and that's the closest they've been since.
Joey snorts in outrage and Lance cringes. It's the noise Joey makes when he's hurt, Lance realizes. Not hurt like with his leg. Hurt like Lance in a hospital bed and messages from Lou about the show going on and Joey snorting and squeezing a vase of flowers so hard it breaks. Hurt like Justin's face all broken from being mauled by a fan and not a damn thing any of them can do to make that less scary. Hurt like Kelly saying there's no way Joey could be a worse father than he is boyfriend so maybe the baby's got a chance of not being fucked up from the get-go.
"I'll be on the View tomorrow," Joey says, and slams down the phone. Maybe he threw it, Lance can't tell, he's so far away and really it would sound the same either way on his end. It's almost two in the morning there and if it was thrown Joey probably woke up the eighty-year-old lady who lives next door. It was two in the morning and Joey shouted Lance's name when he came and then shushed them both with a giggle and a finger on Lance's lips.
Lance tears the heavy phone out of its socket and hurls it across the room in case it makes him feel better. It doesn't. It's just something else that needs to be fixed.
Diane is signing off and Lance thinks about the special she did, or maybe it was 20/20, about how once the telegraph was invented the weather forecast was, too, finding someone a day to the west and asking what it was like there, because weather systems move from west to east. Everything on television is three hours behind but the weather is still a day or two ahead, so three hours ago it was raining in New York but in LA there's a clear night sky. It's always clear and sunny in southern California, but on the weather channel there is a broad red bar moving eastward across the country like a ray of warm light, and by the weekend it's supposed to be seventy in New York.
Lance is almost sick with how much he wants to be someplace warm with Joey. He digs out his cell and calls back and of course he gets the voicemail. "I remember everything," Lance says into the cold plastic of his phone. "And I guess, I think I'm gonna come tell you myself, so. Yeah. The reason I called, what I meant to say before was, you're gonna bring down the house tomorrow. I know it."
*
The sun's rising over the East River and the plane circles the city, waiting to land. Everything's a neat little grid and the green rectangle of Central Park is the size of postage stamp. It puts things in perspective, that little island and eight million people and Lance is squinting like he'll be able to pick out the one that counts.
He takes a cab over the bridge, through the city streets, too determined and hurried to wait for a limo, and on the window in the backseat someone's scrawled two names and the word amor. Lance doesn't have a pen but he runs his fingers over Luis y Lindarosa like it will rub off, like they're his good-luck charm.
The driver forgets that Lance doesn't have a bag and pops the trunk anyway. Lance hands him a wad of cash and stands on the sidewalk looking up at the big building, the doorman with one glove perched expectantly on the brass handle. Things are clean and fresh and the streets are still drying. The city has awakened behind him, horns and car stereos humming like an alarm clock.
Lance thinks he doesn't want to fix any of the broken things in his life as much as this. It's morning and they're in the same time zone so maybe anything is possible.
The guy at the desk recognizes Lance and waves him up and in the chilled elevator his heart stops like he hit a wrong note. He wipes his palms on his pants and closes his eyes, counting to ten, counting the steps to the big dance number like he'd done when Joey was first practicing. The elevator dings and Lance swallows hard, not at all sure what he's doing.
Joey answers the door in red-striped boxers and a rumpled white cotton v-neck, scratching his neck and yawning.
Lance knows exactly what he wants.
"I want to remember you like this," Lance says, and kisses him.
Joey pulls away, squints and mumbles something like "whatthefuck" under his breath.
Lance steps forward, close enough to feel the heat of Joey's body through his own clothes. He puts his hand on Joey's arm. "Please," Lance says. He kisses Joey again, and this time Joey doesn't immediately push him off.
Joey's face is soft and warm beneath Lance's fingers, his sideburns neatly trimmed. His lips are sleepy and Lance wraps his arms around Joey's neck, pressing against him. "Please," Lance says again. "I need you."
Joey rubs his eyes, disentangling Lance and pulling them both into the room. "Do you need me? Or do you need, like, this?" Joey asks. He closes the door and doesn't look at Lance, like he doesn't want the answer. It's dark in the big living room and Joey sniffs and paws at his eyes again and then draws the curtains open and they both cover their faces for a second to adjust to the brightness. The sun is shining down over the park at soft, textured angles, and Lance puts his hand on Joey's hip. They stare out the window together. The weather is perfect. "Because, I mean. I want you," Joey says. "I always wanted you."
"I need you," Lance says. He tips his forehead against the glass. "I don't think I'm any good at the rest of it," he says, low.
Joey rubs the base of Lance's neck and Lance melts into the touch. "You're not very good at this," Joey says, and Lance looks into the sun, his eyes tearing up at the bright glare.
"But I want to be," Lance says. "I really, really want to be good at this. Better. Can I get better at it? Can it work like that?"
"You want --" Joey stops. "Me. To give you notes?" Joey says, a smile in his voice, and Lance says yes emphatically, maybe even desperately. He can't hear anything but the rush of breath Joey blows out in one long sigh.
"Yes," Lance says again, like he thinks saying everything twice gives him a better chance of getting it right. Maybe three times, he thinks, and looks at Joey and says, "Please, Joey, I love you, please."
Joey puts a hand on his cheek and Lance leans into it. "I believe you," Joey says, and kisses him, and the sun is warm through the glass.
END.
They met as you and I
And they were only friends
But before the story ends
He'll kiss her with a sigh
Would you, would you
And if the girl were I
Would you, would you
And would you dare to say
Let's do the same as they
I would, would you-- Singin' in the Rain
Credits: This one's for J-Lo. For the ddddirtypop collective, always, 'specially Sandy the Older, who worked miracles. Willa brought tapes and BGL love. Singin' in the Rain and, of all things, the Dawson's Creek episode "The Anti-Prom." Every love story I write is equal parts "Anna Begins" and Say Anything... but I borrowed a little more heavily this time. Dafna and Sab get scene-setting shout-outs.