Chapter Twenty

JC and Rachel walked down the sidewalk side by side as a light crowd passed them by off to their favorite bar or restaurant. She could see recognition don on the passer-bys' faces when they realized who they were. She was certain they craned their necks to look back at them after they walked by.

As they walked next to each other, Rachel missed the presence of JC's hand on her back in the light guiding touch he used as they walked from the Grille. Once they were outside, JC had dropped his hand. Now, every so often their hands would brush. She wanted to snag his fingers on one of those touches and entwine their hands.

Their relationship wasn't exactly the best kept secret. No one knew for sure. The only thing they had to go off of were the rumors Ben had started. Her Twitter mentions were filled questions asking about her and JC. She knew if they came out now, it would just fuel the rumors that they had been dating well before she had broken up with Ben. There were no truths to the rumors, nothing anywhere near, but everyone would form their own opinion no matter what.

'So why are we still hiding?'

It was a good thought. Why were they still hiding? People were going to think what they wanted. It was the way of life. People out there believed the tabloids and rumors no matter if the truth was staring them in the face. So why hadn't they let anyone know they were dating? They didn't have to announce it, but they didn't have to out right hide it either.

If that was the case, Rachel could take his hand right now or JC could wrap his arm around her waist, holding her securely to his side. His fingers brushed against hers once again. This time she snagged his pointer finger holding his hand to her as she threaded their fingers together.

Rachel could feel JC's eyes on her and she turned her head to look at him. She smiled brightly before looking back to the front.

JC's lips parted as he grinned widely. He adjusted their hands to get a better hold and squeezed her hand. He wasn't sure what spurned this turn of events or what was going on in Rachel's head at the moment, but he wasn't complaining. Judging by the looks they were getting now, he was sure photos would pop up on the Internet very soon.

When he got to his car, he dug the keys from the front pocket of his jeans. He hit the remote, unlocking his car before he opened the passenger door for her. Sweeping his hand in front of him motioning toward the car, he grinned.

"Thanks," Rachel giggled. Before she sat in the car, she turn toward him and gave him a short peck on the lips. With a wink she sat in the seat, swinging her legs in.

With a small shake of his head, JC shut the door. The smile stayed on his lips as he crossed in front of his car. Sitting in the driver's seat he made no move to start the car. Instead he angled his body toward Rachel. The only light in the car came from the shop fronts and street lamps. "Are you going to tell me what happened?" He watched as the smile fell from Rachel's face as she read his words.

"Can we get out of here?" Rachel asked softly not meeting JC's eyes.

"Uh, sure," JC shifted in his seat and started the car as he buckled his seat belt. Putting on his blinker, he checked his mirrors as he pulled out from his parking spot, merging into traffic. Glancing at Rachel out of the corner of his eye he frowned seeing her troubled look. If he hadn't been worried before, he was now. Stopping at a red light, he reached over taking her hand.

"Can we go to the beach?"

"I thought..." JC started before stopping. He had thought he wanted to go home but if she wanted to go somewhere else. Well he wasn't going to complain. "Sure."

It didn't take long for him to get through the early night time traffic of Los Angeles. The car was silent the entire trip. Even the radio was turned down. He had gotten into the habit when Rachel was in his car, to keep the radio down or off. He felt funny listening to music when she couldn't.

When JC parked the car in the parking lot near a walkway that lead down to the beach, Rachel leaned over and removed her socks and shoes. "Come on," she smiled softly at him reaching for the door. She climbed out and moved to the front of the car, waiting for JC to appear. It didn't take long.

JC came to a stop in front of Rachel where she leaned back against the hood of his car. He wanted to close the distance between them and kiss her. 'Why can't you? She was just holding your hand earlier.' His thoughts rang true. She didn't care they were in public when she took his hand. She didn't care who saw. Deciding to take a chance he reached a hand out cupping the side of her face. Running his thumb along her cheek bone he lowered his head to touch his lips to hers. Feeling her smile into the kiss, he stepped forward threading his hand through her hair.

When the kiss ended he lifted his head. He smiled down at her placing both his hands on her upper arms. He froze when Rachel winced in pain. "What's wrong?" He looked down at her arms hidden beneath the olive denim jacket she wore. "Rachel?"

Rachel shrugged her shoulders, slipping out of her jacket. She shivered slightly at the cooler temperature coming off the water. She clasped her hands in front of her, holding onto her jacket with her fingers.

"What..." JC searched Rachel's face before looking down at her arms. He gently gripped one of her arms at her elbow. His eyes narrowed when he saw the blemishes and he bent to get a closer look. On the inside of her upper arm was a perfect thumb print. As he struggled to keep his anger in check, he rotated her arm and saw four more prints on the outside of her arm.

"Ben cornered me in the bathroom..."

JC's head snapped up. "Ben did this to you?"

Lifting the jacket, she reached into one of the pockets to pull out her cell phone. This gave JC a view of matching marks on her other arm. She waited while he looked at that arm. She could see the anger rolling off him and knew he was pissed.

With his index finger, he lifted Rachel's head meeting her gaze. He tried to get his temper under control but it was hard. He wanted to know what happened in that bathroom. A muscle jumped in his jaw. "Ben did this to you? He hurt you?"

"He cornered me in the bathroom, wouldn't let me go until I heard him out."

"What did he say? I didn't see him there." JC tried to remember the people he saw sitting around the Grille. Aside from his table, he hadn't recognized anyone. That didn't mean Ben hadn't been lurking in a corner out of their sight. He was one hundred percent sure Lance hadn't known he was there either.

"I didn't know he was there either. I came out of the stall and there he was," Holding onto her phone, she threaded her arms back through her sleeves. She smiled appreciatively at JC when he pulled her hair out from under the jacket. "Thank you," she spoke. Hooking her arm through his, she started walking down the short boardwalk to the sand. They walked down the beach with Rachel telling JC what had happened in the bathroom.

"He kissed you!"

"I bit his tongue; he didn't much appreciate it" Rachel said in response.

"That bastard," JC seethed. "What the hell was he thinking? I have half a notion to find out where he is and pay him a little visit. He has a little payback coming anyway."

"This was why I didn't say anything while we were still there," Rachel said as she read what JC said. "I knew you, Lance, and Michael would get angry..."

"Of course we'd get angry! He basically assaulted you in the bathroom! He kissed you. He left marks on you," JC ranted. "My God, Rachel it could have been worse."

"I know JC," she pulled him to a stop and faced him. "But he didn't," she raised a hand to his cheek. "I know that's not a consolation."

JC held her hand to his face and sighed. "It's not. Because I thought he was harmless. Just a leech. Once his game was revealed, he'd leech on to someone else and forget about you. I don't think that's going to happen."

Rachel thought about the text she'd received. How she felt it was a threat. The shivered that coursed through her body this time had less to do with the chill in the air.

"What?" He asked, searching her face. There was something else Rachel wasn't saying. "Did something else happen?"

"He sent this to me when I got back to the table." Rachel exited out of the talk-to-text application and pulled up her text messages. When Ben's text was on the screen she showed it to JC. "It could be nothing..."

'This isn't over.' JC read the words. His anger built up all over again. The text just proved that Ben wasn't going to let Rachel go. He wasn't going to move on to some other poor unsuspecting woman. After pulling back up the talk-to-text application, he handed the phone back to Rachel. "You need to watch yourself. From now on, don't go anywhere by yourself."

"JC, I'll be fine..."

"Fine?" JC looked at her. "He cornered you in a bathroom fifty feet from where I sat, from where Lance sat. He hurt you," he ran out of steam when Rachel's head lower. He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her into his arms. "I just don't want anything to happen to you."

"Oh JC..." Rachel wrapped her arms around his neck. "Nothing's going to happen to me. He had the chance to tonight and he didn't do anything... significant anyway."

JC snorted dropping his hands to her hips. "Rachel, you have perfect replicas of his fingerprints on your arms. That's pretty significant to me."

"You're significant to me." Their lips met in a soft kiss. Her lips opened and closed over his bottom lip. She pressed herself closer to him, carding her free hand through his short hair. She felt his hands splayed on her back beneath her jacket. This was nothing like the angry kiss from Ben earlier. She gave his bottom lip a teasing swipe with her tongue as she broke the kiss.

JC's sparkling blue eyes met hers when she opened her eyes and she smiled. "Can we not keep our relationship a secret any longer? Because I want to do that whenever I want and not when it's just us."

JC's answer was to kiss Rachel once more. He tightened the hold he had on her as he worked his lips against hers. This was the happiest he'd been in a long time. When he broke the kiss, he wrapped his arms around her, hugging her to him. Rachel's arms went around his neck.

"Good," Rachel whispered in his ear. "I'm happy with you and I don't want to hide that anymore. I can take any of the tabloid rumors."

JC smiled and leaned back. He lifted a hand, brushing a strand of hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear. "That's good. Because with this lovely PDA we have going on, we'll be in every rumor on the Internet tomorrow."

Rachel flicked her eyes to her phone laughing when she saw his words. "Are you kidding me? We're part of rumors right now on the Internet. Someone has already seen us, taken a photo and posted it on Twitter."

"Doubtful."

"Oh JC," Rachel shook her head. "Silly man. You have so much to learn about social media. Come on," she stepped from his arms and took his hand leading him closer to the water. Finding a good spot, she lowered herself to the ground and pulled on JC's hand. "Get your phone out and sit," she patted the sand behind her. When he settled in behind her, with his legs on either side of her, she leaned back against his chest. "Pull up the text to talk application on your phone. Now," she said once she closed out the application on her phone and pulled up Twitter. "I'm gonna teach you the power of social media and make you so damn happy this wasn't invented during the NSYNC days."

~*~

"So Lance, how do you feel about Rachel dating one of your NSYNC friends?" Heather asked as she grabbed a French fry from the basket. Their table was littered with glasses and pitchers and baskets of greasy food. She had switched to water an hour ago, so she'd be sober enough to drive.

"I'm fine with it. Happy," Lance said as he took a drink. "JC's great."

Lisa nodded, "Yeah, he's so sweet."

"They look cute together," Heather said. "And they don't do a very good job hiding it."

Michael laughed. "No; they are totally obvious."

"They'll be the next music power couple. Move over Beyonce and Jay-Z."

"The next Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake!" Lisa said proudly. "They were the first super couple."

"They broke up and went on to marry other people," Heather pointed out. "Not a very good super couple."

"I am still holding out that they will get back together," Lisa said drawing laughs.

"I love my sister and JC," Lance began. He felt his pocket vibrate and dug his phone out as he continued. "But no way do they become music's number one couple over Beyonce and Jay-Z." Seeing the unfamiliar phone number flashing on his screen, he hit ignore and sat his phone screen down on the table in front of him.

"Yeah. Beyonce is bigger than Rachel."

"And JC... well he's like me. We aren't exactly having people fight over getting our faces to their events anymore."

"Imagine if," Lisa started, stopping to take a drink. "If Rachel and JC had dated during NSYNC..."

Lance shook his head, "Still wouldn't be a power couple."

"You didn't let me finish. If Rachel and JC had dated during NSYNC and Rachel had the career she has now, then."

"They might have knocked the Pop Prince and Princess off," Heather conceded, nodding.

"No," Lisa gasped. "Never."

"You brought the topic up." Lance pointed out. "And you don't think in that scenario Rachel and JC would be more popular?"

"No way. Justin and Britney would definitely be on top."

"I don't know," Michael said. "Rachel would bring a lot of fans. Justin and Britney had the same pop fans. Between JC and Rachel, they would cross over two genres. Country and Pop. I think they would have been a super couple."

"No way," Lisa shook her head. "Justin and Britney have more star power."

"Like Michael said, they share the same fans."

"Justin was more popular than JC."

"Yes but JC still had his fair share of fans. JT versus JC was almost as bad as NSYNC versus Backstreet Boys."

"Put them all together now and Beyonce and Jay-Z win by a landslide," Heather said. "Britney doesn't have the fan base she once had and neither does JC."

"If he'd put out new music, they'd be back in a heartbeat," Lance said. "My mentions were flooded after he sang the Lumineers' cover."

"Britney's still popular," Lisa said, not willing to concede. "She has new music coming."

"Yeah," Michael said slowly, "but she isn't as popular as she was. She won't be that popular again."

"What do you think their moniker should be?" Heather asked, slightly changing the topic. "Does the media even give monikers to music people or is that just an actor sort of thing?"

"TimberSpears," Lisa said quickly.

Heather rolled her eyes. "You've thought of this already haven't you?"

"Of course."

Michael laughed as he pulled his cell phone from his pocket feeling it vibrate. The phone number was unfamiliar to him so he ignored it. "Kind of hard to combine names when one goes by initials."

"True," Heather said. "What about you guys? What's your name?"

Lance and Michael looked at each other and chuckled. "We don't have one," Lance said.

"You've been dating for two years; it's way past time you got your own celebrity moniker." Heather said and the table started throwing out smashed up names combining Lance and Michael's names.

"Those are terrible," Lance laughed. "I guess there's a reason we don't have one."

"What about Baschin?" Lisa said. "There are no rules about combining last names are there?"

Michael and Lance looked at each other again and smiled. Baschin had a nice ring.

"From here on out, you two will be known as Baschin," Heather said. She held up her phone and aimed it across the table.

Lance wrapped his arm around Michael's neck, letting his hand dangle down. Michael reached up taking his fingers, leaning into him. Lance titled his head toward Michael's smiling at Heather as she took the picture.

"Hey!" Heather grinned as she finished posting the picture she just took to Twitter and tagging Lance and Michael in the tweet. "I got it!"

"What?" Lisa asked.

"Bassez!"

"Bassez?" Lance asked arching an eyebrow.

"The name for Rachel and JC! Bass and Chasez... Bassez!" She was pretty proud of herself. She saw her friend's nodding and grinned. "We have Baschin and Bassez! They almost sound a like. Perfect for twins!"

Lisa opened her mouth to reply but was cut off when her phone started to ring. An unfamiliar number flashed on her screen and she frowned.

"Who is it?" Lance asked seeing his assistant's face.

"I don't know," she pushed her phone across the table to him.

Lance frowned when he saw the numbers on Lisa's phone. He turned his phone over and pressed the bottom button. His locked screen appeared with the notification of a missed call. The numbers were the same. "It's the number that tried calling me earlier. Answer it."

Michael looked at the number on Lance's phone as he pulled up the call he had ignored a few minutes ago. "They tried calling me too," he said showing Lance the number. He took a drink of his water as he listened to Lisa's conversation.

After confirming who she was, Lisa listened to the gentlemen on the other side of the phone. When she heard who it was and what the problem was her eyes shot to Lance. "I am actually sitting with them right now."

"What's going on? What is it?" Lance asked.

"The alarm company. Your alarm is going off at the house. When you and Michael didn't answer they dispatched the cops." Lisa spoke into the phone for a minute longer before disconnecting.

"Any chance Rachel set the alarm off when she got home?" Heather asked looking at her friends. "She'd know it was going off right? She wouldn't be sitting in the house with your alarm blasting, would she?"

"The keypad would tell her the alarm was tripped," Lance said reaching pulling up his text messages. There was nothing from Rachel. "Did she text you?" He asked Michael, growing worried when his boyfriend shook his head.

"Go Lance," Lisa said. "We'll take care of everything here."

"Yeah, you and Michael head home and see what's wrong," Heather reached for her purse. "Text Rachel on the way. Call JC. Maybe he's still with her."

Lance grabbed the brown leather jacket from the back of his chair, slipping it on. His phone was already to his ear before he was a step away from the table as he tried to get a hold of JC. He could only hope that Rachel was with JC far away from whatever was going down at his house.