Mid October

 "Oh hell yes!" JC says dropping his bag to the ground in the doorway, running across the room to a fully stocked bar. Perfect ice cubes clinked into the bottom of a crystal scotch glass. JC's eyes wondered around the spacious room, noticing the golden spiral staircase leading to the second level of the suite. An architected beauty he hasn't cared to take notice of in recent times. Reaching for the aged bottle, he poured the deep auburn colored scotch into the ice. Tipping it back, the smooth liquid flowed down his throat causing his eyelids to flutter. "Yum." He expressed graciously, swaying the glass beneath his nose, inhaling the scent he knew so well. "Has to be aged at least twenty years..." he gushed.

Tyler enters the suite behind him, tripping over his bag and crashes to the floor. "JC..." he screams. "Your fucking bag..." Tyler seemed to be in the worst mood ever. He fumbled around the suitcase, finally standing back to his feet. He was not happy; his brother was on the worst path of his life and wouldn't listen to anyone that loved him. Tyler was almost at the point where he was going to give up the way everyone else has. "Joshua, that's probably a five hundred dollar bottle of scotch you're sucking dry there... and it's only..." Tyler looked down at his platinum watch on his left arm, "It's ten in the morning. You need to put the drink down."

"You are not my here to babysit me Ty." He lifted the glass into the air, nodding his head "Have fun and not act like... we're not going there." He swung the glass back in the air chugging the rest of the liquid.

"You were just bitching that Cara-"

"DON'T" JC said with pure hatred across his face.

In frustration his arms went into the air, "You just said you haven't been working... do you really think it's smart to be chugging a five hundred..."

JC cut him off again. "I'm not paying for the room or the bill... what's it matter?" he shrugged his shoulders, "Justin's paying for it. He has no worries..." He rolled his eyes turning away from Tyler and picking up the glass bottle, pouring another drink into his glass.

Justin entered the room dropping his bags near the ottoman, with Trace in tow. "What am I paying for and having no worries about?"

"Nothing" JC rolled his eyes, escaping through the suite, down the hallway to one of the many bedrooms.

Sighing, Justin turned to look at the view of downtown Las Vegas through the floor-to-ceiling glass panel windows. He has been in every major city in the world, seen some of the best places there was to see on this earth... yet this view still made his breath escape. There was something about this city that could just do that for him.            

In that sigh, he says everything he is feeling at the moment. Frustration. All the years they have known each other, this was the most difficult time for them. It's been over a year since Justin and JC have even been in the same room with each other and if it weren't for one of their mutual friends getting married, JC would be nowhere near the rest of this clan. Justin was out of ideas and frustrated as to what he needed to do to get his friend back. Justin had his own demons to deal with, he didn't need JC's.

JC's time was spent better in a dark, less crowded West Hollywood club somewhere, scoping out who he was taking home that night. He became distant from everyone and everything he has known. Work... vanished, the only music in his life, existed in those clubs he ended up at, and women became something of a right here, right now basis. It was not a place that anyone who knew him expected.

Justin hated the place they were in. He wasn't sure what was going on in ‘JC's world' and why over the years their friendship simply disappeared but at the end of a bad day he wanted to call him to come over, have a beer, and watch a basketball game but it wasn't like that anymore. There were a lot of things that Justin has chosen to do over the last decade that JC, and others for that matter, weren't so happy he had done. He took all the heat and the pressure of destroying the career of his so called best friends. Justin may still have a thriving career and still in demand but his life outside of the office, so to speak, wasn't so grand.

"Here's to Chris!" Joey lifted his hand in a toast. "May this night be just the start of a marriage that finally is going to happen..." The room full of guys lifted their glass in a toast.

"To Chris." Everyone said in sync.

Justin's arm and glass lifted back into the air, "And to the last birthday you will ever have without a nagging wife to tell you want you can't do for your birthday." He added chugging the rest of his jack and coke, the first of many and far from the last.

Joey and Lance entered the club like they had done many times before, heading straight to the VIP area which had been blocked off for them courtesy of Justin, which was pointed out several times by JC. Joey, Chris and Lance found a comfortable spot to park themselves for a long haul of drinking, it was the plan anyways. They had no reason to be on the dance floor, or checking out girls.

Joey was still happily married to the one person he could never see life without. He enjoyed being married with children; it was the best choice he had made in his life. Lance on the other hand was in a committed relationship however when there is a high level of alcohol in his system, he was pretty good at making the wrong choices. He thought if he stayed in their designated area, he wouldn't have any decisions to make.

They lined up shots along the table, tipping them back one by one.

Drink after drink, JC's intoxication level seemed to slowly begin to take over his words that were coming out loud and clear for the room to hear. "Oh shut up ‘Mr. In Demand" He blasted the words at Justin."Making music and movies...living the perfect life with the gorgeous girlfriend... soon to be fiancé'..." JC slurred tipping the bottle back over his glass.

Justin slammed back his drink, "I may still have my career kind of in demand, but I'm far from happy."

"Whatever." JC said annoyed by the idea that Justin wanted sympathy for the perfect life he lead.

"Things aren't so crystal clear." Justin said quietly. "Things aren't so perfect..."

 "Yeah, yeah." JC said walking away.

The idea that Justin's best friend, one who knew more about him than most, was walking away from him, hurt. His words flew out before he could stop them. "You have been in your own little world for so long JC... you don't see anything or anyone around you. Maybe if you opened your eyes you would see that there are people who still care. If for a moment you looked at the ones sitting right here with you... there's a lot that's changed and you won't face any of it..."

"Fuck shit!" His arms tossed in the air, spilling his drink on the floor. "It's, lets blame JC for the world gone wrong night." His arms swayed his top heavy body now.

Friendships were hard to repair sometimes. There are things that can't be repaired and sometimes the people involved are so forever changed that they themselves can't be repaired. There has to come a point when you let the past be just that, that past. Live and learn, but never let it take over.

Justin shook his head, taking back another shot. As his head came back to eye level there was a gorgeous brunette sitting with her legs straddled around his. Leaning into him, she ran her hands over the tight muscle of his thighs, slowly bringing her body closer to his. "I'm Anya." She whispered into his ear, as she nipped down, teasing him. He swallowed hard, feeling other areas of him starting to stiffen. "Yes..." he started to slowly caress the tip of his nose on her silky smooth skin, exhaling heated air down on her shoulders. "Yes... you are on me..." He wasted no time pulling her into his face. Their lips touched softly, embracing that warm genuine feeling of the unknown. He allowed her to take her time to grant him access, but when she did he took her lips on if it were the last lips he would ever kiss again.

She liked the way his lips felt and tasted against hers. But she pulled back, "The name's Anya..." She corrected him. "You wanna dance?" She stood puckering her lips at him with a smirk, extending her arm she swayed her hips trying to get him to agree in joining her.

With his focus staying on Anya he didn't notice Lance, Joey and Chris make their way to the dance floor with yet another beer in hand, grinding around a group of girls who welcomed them in with open arms. Savannah, the blonde bombshell jumps in front of Lance, while the other blonde, Carmen completes a Lance sandwich as they grind against one another, song after song, hour after hour.

"Dude..." JC said turning to Trace, beer bottle in hand. He seemed to let loose for a moment. He wasn't that same JC that walked into the suite hours earlier.

"SWEEEET!" Trace roared back across the room.

Tyler became quickly annoyed by the random famous movie quotes. The entire night they were bouncing back and forth with lines, thinking it was the funniest thing they have heard in a decade which resulted in Tyler consuming more drinks, walking away from the table and eventually disappearing all together with a couple females.

Trace began the infamous quote of the night. "Bad Motha..."

"SHUT YO MOUTH!" JC slurred back at him finishing the quote.

Trace and JC had become this unit of the night. They had spent so much time together over the years, it felt like old times again. It was as if this was the time in their lives to come back together. "Why have you been distant man...?" Trace asked, not expecting JC to answer him. After all it had been years since JC picked up the other side of a phone when Trace had called him. His voicemail had gotten an ear full from Trace, but it seemed to always be a one-sided conversation with the voicemail.

Just as he thought, JC sat there shaking his head trying to come up with some excuse, some story, but the word Trace never expected blurted out. "Justin."

"Justin?" he questioned confused, "Justin never wanted to stay away from you, he's just busy." Trace stated.

"Of course he is. Justin has it all." JC admitted speaking in a calm and honest tone. "He has everything I want... I couldn't be in a room with him, having a civil conversation knowing he had taken everything away from me..."

His words took Trace by surprise, shutting the mouth of someone that never gets stunned.

"He is that person that just has everything..." JC continued. "What I would give to simply have a piece of his perfect little world."

Trace couldn't believe the statements there were coming from him. "JC, there is a lot you don't know about Justin's current life ..." Trace swung his drink back in the air, taking yet another shot down. "You know what... maybe you should ask him how he is doing, maybe you should bury whatever hatchet it is that you have with him and be the friend he needs."

"Justin has never needed me."

"Believe what you want." Trace mumbled.

            His words boggled through JC's highly intoxicated mind. In all the years he has known Justin, he has been the strong one through everything. Even in the face of the worst thing imaginable, Justin stood strong. Or did he? JC thought to himself. Could Justin have needed me then? Could he really need me now? I couldn't have been that oblivious to that, could I have?