He likes the quiet.
He rarely gets much quiet time to himself anymore when you take into account all of the practicing they’ve been doing and the constant activity and buzzing that inevitably happens when five guys move in together.
When they do get a few days off and he’s able to come home to Maryland, he always makes sure to appreciate every moment he can get.
He yawns and looks down at his watch, it’s well after one am. Just as he is about to slide off of the window seat, movement in the corner of his eye catches his attention. He turns back toward the window in time to see a shadowy figure walk across the lawn and head toward the small, long out of use, tree house which sits on a large tree which borders both his and Kyra’s backyard.
There is no mistaking who the figure is, especially when he watches her take off her heels and hike her gown high above her knees with one hand then uses the other to expertly climb the ladder up into the tree house.
He wonders what she’s doing out there tonight of all nights.
Tonight was her senior prom. He’d seen her off earlier in the evening along with her mom and his parents. They had taken the obligatory neighbor kid “ oh look how they’ve grown! “ pictures before her date had shown up.
Douche sac.
Dude hadn’t even told her how pretty she looked in her lavender dress.
Or helped her across the lawn in her unsteady heels.
Worst of all, he hadn’t even thought of a corsage.
Douche rag.
She’d said it was fine and she didn’t need one anyway, but JC could tell that she was a little disappointed.
It seemed like Dude had already started partying earlier in the day and that he wasn’t going to be much company that night.
What a douche bag.
When JC had noticed the smell of liquor on his breath, he’d offered to drive them to the hotel where the Prom was taking place in the ballroom.
When Dude declined, JC told him he would be driving them.
He had hated to leave her with Douche/Dude but she’d chosen him as her date and she seemed excited to be going with him. He hadn’t wanted to ruin her night by getting into Dude’s face so he’d been a good little boy and he’d dropped them off at the hotel and waved them off with the wishes of a good night.
Apparently it hadn’t been that great of a night.
He sighs as he sees her make it to the top of the ladder and disappear into the little tree house.
That place can’t be very safe anymore. It has to have been years since he’s been up there, probably years since either Tyler or Heather have either.
So much for sleep.
He stands up and slips his feet into a pair a flip flops, pulls on a sweater and quietly makes his way downstairs and outside into the backyard.
When he’s at the bottom of the ladder he calls up in a loud whisper. “Ky!” When he doesn’t get an answer he calls her name again.
Again, no answer.
“Ky? Are you okay? Just…just come down, honey. It’s not safe up there anymore.”
After a few beats, he hears her say “I’m fine Josh, go back inside.”
He sighs again and shakes his head, “I’d rather you come down before I do, I don’t like it that you’re up there.”
“It’s fiiiiine. I come up here all the time.”
JC eyes the ladder for a moment while gnawing on his thumb nail. With a groan he shakes his head again and makes his way up. When he ducks his head in order to enter the little room, he is surprised to find that it is softly illuminated by the glow of twinkle lights on the ceiling. The rough wood planked floor is littered with colourful different sized throw pillows, a couple of sleeping bags and some blankets.
“Well, this is the coziest den of death I’ve ever seen…”
He grins at his own joke but she doesn’t even crack a smile. He shuffles carefully across the room to where she is sitting on a well worn bean bag chair.
“How come you’re back so early? Didn’t you ‘have a room booked with Jennifer’?” he asks, using his fingers to motion them into air quotations to accompany his smirk.
She chuckles softly and licks her lips. “You didn’t fall for that one either huh?”
He laughs and takes a seat on a large pillow near her. “Nope. So what happened with Douche…I mean Dude…I mean…What the fuck is his name again?”
She rolls her eyes and huffs. “Duke.”
“What kind of name is that?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know, I didn’t name him. Anyway, I don’t really care what his name is anymore…”
He leans back on his hands. “What happened?”
She stays quiet for a moment and picks at her dress. “He was a jerk. He started drinking from his flask as soon as we got there. He only danced with me once and then he disappeared for a while. When I found him again, he was making out with a girl from the cheer team. There’s six months of my life I won’t get back.”
He makes a face. “I’m sorry Ky. I could have told you from minute one that he was a jerk.”
She sighs. “I know, I know. It’s just that he was my first real boyfriend…I’ve known for a while that it wouldn’t work out.”
He narrows his eyes at her. “Then why didn’t you break it off? Why did you go to Prom with him?”
“I just…I didn’t want to end up with no date you know? I figured we’d go to Prom, get the pictures, have the experience and then I wouldn’t have to go off to college a virgin.”
He coughs when the saliva in his mouth somehow goes down the wrong pipe and it takes a few moments for him to catch his breath again.
“You were going to sleep with him?!”
She shrugs again and he can tell that she’s blushing a bit. “Maybe. Yeah. I guess.”
“Why would you want to sleep with that guy? He doesn’t deserve you.” He clears his throat when he realizes that he’s said the last part out loud.
“I don’t know… I guess I just didn’t want to go to college super lame and boring.”
He laughs. “That doesn’t make you lame and boring. You’re anything but.”
She looks up and smiles at him a little and he’s happy to see that she’s getting out of her funk slowly. He notices that she is rubbing her bare arms and figures that she is cold, so he grabs a thick blanket from close to him and motions her forward.
“Come here, you must be freezing.”
She seems to hesitate for a moment and he bites his lip. Ever since they’d kissed a couple of years ago, they had been extra careful about prolonged physical contact. It had been easy as he’d been in Florida most of the time since and when he came home they never usually had very much alone time anymore.
He tried to convince himself that this wasn’t on purpose but who was he kidding.
He smiles his most disarming smile and motions her forward again. “Come on. As long as this doesn’t turn into a ‘be my first kiss’ style conversation in regards to sleeping together, I think we’re good.”
She laughs, rolls her eyes and then carefully makes her way closer to him. When he pulls her against him, they recline against a few think pillows and she nestles her head in the crook of his neck.
“I miss having you around, Josh. A lot.”
He nods quietly and closes his eyes as he takes a deep inhale of her hair. “Yeah…I miss being around too.”
They stay quiet for a few more moments before he tells her what he’d been keeping from her until now. “We’re moving to Germany.”
He feels her literally stop breathing for a second before she speaks in a small voice. “Oh? That’s...great. When?”
“In a few months. We still need some work here before we go for a showcase there. There’s a record company interested in us. We just need to get Lance caught up to what we’ve been doing before we go.”
“It sounds like…a great opportunity. I’m happy for you.”
He nods and presses his lips to her cheek gently. “You’ll be off to college anyway, and you won’t have time to miss me.”
She chuckles sleepily as she settles against him more comfortably. “I’ll always miss you. Will you write to me?” He nods and she adds, “Maybe one day you can write me a song…” She yawns and her eyes flutter closed slowly.
As he watches her drift off to sleep, he presses his lips to the top of her head gently and whispers, “I already have.”
*********************************
Lance pushed open the “Quiet Room” door and walked in. He’d seen JC go in there straight after sound check and wanted to make sure he was okay.
Although the guys were mostly used to JC’s ever changing moods, his behavior last night was out of the ordinary. Even for him.
As the door shut and the noise from the hallway got muted, he heard the soft strain of a piano melody coming from the other side of the room.
Figures.
Lance didn’t immediately recognize the song so he listened for a moment before his eyes settled on a hardcover novel sitting on one of the coffee tables. He picked it up and looked at the front cover, then flipped it over to see a picture of someone familiar on the back.
He’d seen that girl before.
When he turned the book so he could look at its spine and see the author’s name, a click happened in his head.
Kyra.
JC’s friend from way back.
She’d been around often when they first started but come to think of it, JC hadn’t mentioned her name in years. Lance seemed to remember her being on tour one day and gone the next and since by principle the guys kind of didn’t snoop into each other’s private lives without invitation, he’d never asked what happened.
So she’d written a book?
He thumbed through the pages quickly until a message written in a bright orange sharpie caught his eyes.
I miss Josh.
x, Ky
Instantly Lance felt like he’d breeched some sort of privacy/bro code so he put the book down and made his way to the back of the room where behind a screen JC was still playing a melody on the keyboard. As Lance stood behind him, JC started singing
The best of friends like
Sister and Brother
We understood, we'd never be,
Alone
Those days are gone, and I want you so much
The night is long and I need your touch
Don't know what to say
I never meant to feel this way
Don't want to be
Alone tonight
What can I do, to make you mine
Falling so hard so fast this time
What did I say, what did you do?
How did I fall in love with you?
I hear your voice
And I start to tremble
Brings back the child that, I resemble
I cannot pretend, that we can still be friends
Don't want to be,
Alone tonight
He started feeling like a Peeping Tom again so he cleared his throat and then said quietly, “New song?”
JC jumped slightly in surprise, his fingers hitting a few wrong notes. “Uh…No, an old one actually,” he answered and turned on the seat to face Lance. “What’s up, man?”
Lance shrugged. “I was just wondering if you’re doing alright. You seemed really out of it last night…”
JC smiled uncomfortably and scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah, I guess. I’m just sort of reminiscing….I saw Kyra today and last night. I asked her to come to the show tonight.”
Lance nodded and bit his lip. “So, um. Is that song about her?”
Color flooded JC’s cheeks and he picked at something invisible on his pants before he nodded.
“So, is she going to come tonight?”
JC shrugged again. “Not sure. I hope so. We sort of…ended on a weird note. I’d really like to be able to talk it out with her a little. Get a few things off my chest, you know?”
Lance nodded and turned as he heard the unmistakable sound of Chris and Joey busting through the door of the room.
So much for getting into his head.
He watched as JC stood up from in front of the keyboard, grabbed his notebook from the stand and stretched. They both chuckled and rolled their eyes at the sound of a heavy body hitting the floor with a huff and the high pitched giggle of Chris.
Here we go.
*******************************
“So, tell me again how you know fuckin’ JC Chasez?” Alison questioned Kyra in the car on their way to the concert venue.
Kyra sighed and fidgeted with the buttons on her jacket. She’d been hoping that Alison wouldn’t be able to make arrangements to reschedule the dinner with the publishers tonight.
Of course Alison had been able to sweet talk her way into changing it over to tomorrow night instead.
Why didn’t she ever sweet talk Kyra?
A large part of her hadn’t wanted to go to the concert but the other small part really wanted to go. It had been years since she’d watched him perform and she missed the sound of his voice. She missed the way his whole body and soul got into a song and he closed his eyes to feel the music.
“Kyra!”
Kyra had had enough and snapped at Alison gruffly. “Would you cool it? Jesus Christ!”
With Alison looking somewhat demurred by Kyra’s uncharacteristic outburst, Kyra took a deep breath and answered in a somewhat more mollified voice, “We grew up together.”
Alison nodded. “He said you hadn’t seen each other in a while?”
“Yeah, a few years.”
“I don’t know how you stayed away. That man is sex on legs. Did you ever sleep with him?”
Kyra’s eyebrows shot up and she narrowed her eyes at Alison. Where the hell did she get off asking her personal questions like that? She’d never been interested in having a friendly relationship before.
Apparently unperturbed by Kyra’s facial expression, Alison repeated her question.“So? You ever sample the goods?”
Yes.
“No,” Kyra answered flatly and tries to cut off any further conversation by looking out of the window. She wondered what they would say to each other when they were alone again.
Would they be alone again?
Did she want to be alone with him again?
As she stepped out of the car and flashed her VIP pass at a security guard, she couldn’t help but think about how she absolutely wanted to be alone with him again.
