May 27th

I really, really hate admitting this.

Allie may not actually be all that bad.

But she still talks too much.

She also has way too much buyer anxiety. I must have gone over those catalogues with her about seven million times and explained every piece of equipment in there at least twice, even the ones I had already repeatedly told her not to worry about. I get that she wants this gift to be perfect and doesn't want to mess up Justin's studio or anything, but there's such a thing as worrying too much. I already did my whole sneaky recon thing and manoeuvred Justin into a discussion about what he has in the studio and what he wants. Heck, it's probably the most I've got out of him in a week, he's been what my mother would like to call a 'grouchy pants' and what normal people would call a moody son of a bitch.

Heck, he can be a grouch, I'm just happy to be back on US soil where the currency makes all kinds of sense. And where the food is normal. And where I don't have to get out a phrase book just to ask for water. I actually had a kind of funny discussion with Allie about that, she was telling me about all the times she's stuck her foot in it at movie premieres pronouncing shit wrong. Hell, I think I've hung out more with Allie than anybody this week; I've been keeping myself to myself for the most part.

That's mostly because my God forsaken male parental is STILL calling - it may seem stupid to avoid other people because of that, but whenever I hear from him it puts me in a bad mood and I'm hearing from he way too regularly right now. I don't get it. I have already confirmed that he's not sick or dying. He's not in any kind of trouble he might plausibly want to hit me up to bail him out of. People in all their unknowing optimism have suggested he just wants to speak to me and patch things up, but I know that's not true. This guy has never given and will never give a shit about me. He has his own family and it's nothing to do with mine, which is Mom and my grandparents.

Pah. Oh shit, here comes Allie, with yet more questions no doubt. I take it as a clear mark I'm going soft in my old age that I haven't told her to fuck off and stop asking yet.

"So guess who finally actually ordered something today?"

"Huh. I didn't see any pigs flying."

"Oh very funny." Allie lightly smacked Luca's arm, smiling broadly. "I finally told Tim who's going to sneakily arrange to get all the stuff set up before we get back to Cali."

"We? You're staying then? On the tour, I mean?"

"Yeah, I don't have to film for a while and I'd only be bumming around LA with nothing to do."

Luca was almost surprised by how okay he was with that idea. Allie was never going to be his best friend and he still had some serious envy, but he no longer found her as annoying as he once had. As such, it was a lot easier to deal with her presence both on the tour and as the woman who had what he wanted. He'd never admit it to his mother, but she had been right' talking to Allie had humanised her a little for him, shown him some common ground. She was still too perky and still too perfect and still a little ditzy, but she'd managed to endear herself enough to him that these quirks were vaguely tolerable.

"Cool."

"I meant to ask you; actually, we're all out with the dancers tonight, you coming?"

"The sound crew and the band are supposed to be having a thing tonight."

"I know."

"Trying to poach the other party's guests now?"

"Yes. I need at least one other person there who isn't hot shit on a dance floor and isn't going to show me and my two left feet up." She linked her arm through Luca's as they walked towards the concourse, and amazingly enough he actually let her.

"There's always Trace."

"Trace never dances though," she whined as though it were a great crime.

"You think I will?"

"I think if I get you drunk enough you might."

"It's been known," he admitted grudgingly. He was after all gay, dancing came with the territory. Despite the stereotype not all homosexuals were disco queens, but all the bars orientated to gay men where he lived were so dance music heavy he'd had to learn to adapt - when in Rome, as they said. He could stand to dance a little so long as the music wasn't too cheesy - he refused to have anything to do with Abba.

Allie grinned a very famous grin at him, the one that had landed her no less than four Glamour covers thus far. "So have I talked you into it?"

"Only if you explain why I'm ducking out on everybody else."

"Done." She waved a hand dismissively as they stopped at a souvenir stand where some of the arena's own staff were unpacking merchandise. "Hey, I like that track jacket," she said as she peered at the tour clothing. "Note to self, get Johnny to grab me one."

"Do you ever pay for anything?" Luca asked. Normally it could have been taken for him being in one of his ruder moods, but they'd actually had that joke with each other yesterday when Allie had told him she'd been set yet another set of free make up. "Only my boyfriend's presents, funnily enough," she laughed gaily. "There has to be some perk to having to share my guy with million of teenage crushes, right?"

Doing his best to swallow down his laugh - not all the people crushing on Justin were teenage girls - Luca pushed his free hand through his long hair and thought idly to himself that he needed to cut it. He also needed to condition it, it was dry as hell - he had to be the only man he knew who had to be bothered about conditioner. This was the price he paid for having such long, bohemian hair.

"Suppose."

"Speaking of which…" Allie tugged him away as they started heading back into the arena. Luca would soon be needed to oversee sound check and Allie had taken to watching them from various different vantage points in the arena, she claimed to 'see how it feels for different parts of the audience.' Everybody else agreed she was just bored. "You're single, right?"

"Yeeeees…" He answered warily.

"Are you single and open or are you the kind of single that wishes interfering busybodies would stop assuming you're dying for a date?"

"The latter. I appreciate you asking, you have no idea how many people do assume I want a date."

"Oh, that so used to be me before J," she rolled her eyes. "Why people have such a hard time with the idea that being single does not mean you're pathetically lonely and desperate I have no clue. It just used to annoy the crap out of me when people assumed I wanted to be set up."

"You weren't about to try and set me up, were you?" Luca couldn't quite knock the horrified edge off of his voice, and she burst out laughing.

"Not so much as tell you my friend Cheryl is visiting over the next few days and that I think you two would suit each other. She's just as sarcastic as you. I wasn't going to, like, make you ask her out or anything though. I was just going to mention it so you could, you know, consider it. But hey, if you're not interested it's fine. Besides she'd kill me if I sent her on a blind date."

"She'd have had to get in line."

Once again, Allie threw back her head and laughed that high pitched giggle that Luca had once found so grating. He found he could stomach it now.

"Hey, you over there being all touchy feely with my girlfriend!"

Again Allie giggled, letting go of Luca's arm and blowing a kiss to Justin as she meandered over the stage.

"Sorry!" Luca yelled back good naturedly.

"Not as sorry as you'll be next time buddy, I will kick your ass!"

Merrily flipping a finger at Justin as a joking response, Luca jogged up the small set of steps to the sound booth and slid into his seat, immediately begin to flip switches and start running through the programmed sequences for the show later that night. He'd managed to miss the small hint of truth to what had seemed to be just one of Justin's usual jests, as well as missed the daggers Justin had glared at him when they'd walked in.

The idea that Luca might want female attention was so ludicrous to Luca that he sometimes forgot it wasn't so ludicrous to people who didn't know better - especially those he'd worked so hard to hide his sexuality from.