Shit. Shit, shit, shit. What with everything going on, Justin had almost completely forgotten her dance recital, and he had very vivid memories of how it had gone last year. Justin was good at a lot of things, but doing stage makeup for a child was not one of them.
“I’m on it,” he promised, and she grinned at him and scampered off. Her trust in him was flattering, but now, on top of everything else, he had to find someone to do her makeup, and he didn’t have a lot of time.
The recital was in a week and a half, and he made a mental note to figure something out. Maybe he should just Google it?
Well, as always, he had work to do, and once Jade was safely with her friends and they were all heading into the school, he drove off to get that work done.
* * *
Alone, unnoticed, Justin watched as the Lost Boys rehearsed. Truth to be told, he had done this quite a few times ever since he’d been brought on as the main songwriter for the band, and if anyone had ever called him on it, he would have just said that he wanted to see how the songs were working out, in case he needed to tweak anything. He was, after all, known for his consummate professionalism, for the way that he would keep going on a song until it was perfect.
It wasn’t like that wasn’t true, either. He did want to make sure that the songs were good, but more than anything else, he wanted to watch Ken. It had been that way almost from the first moment that he’d met the guy, and now that they were sharing each other’s beds, now that their relationship seemed to be growing and changing into something different, that was only more intense.
Today they were rehearsing the songs that Justin had already written for the new album, and he couldn’t help but be pleased with the end result. The songs were a little bit more mature, he thought, but then, these boys were growing up, too. All in all, he thought it worked.
There was just one song missing for the album now, and in truth, it was a song that Justin was struggling with. The song, Ken’s song, wasn’t quite behaving itself. It had been so easy to write at first. The words had just come pouring out of him.
And that hadn’t changed, that wasn’t the problem. He softly sighed as he tugged out his notebook and gazed down at the scribbled pencil on the white lined page, shaking his head.
No, the words were coming out a little too easily, but they were the wrong words.
“Justin?”
It was Ken’s voice. Ken, who had never noticed Justin watching before, at least as far as Justin knew. He glanced up, his eyes skimming over Ken’s lips, which were smiling, to his welcoming eyes. Justin being here, it seemed, wasn’t a bad thing. In fact, Ken seemed downright happy about it.
“Yeah. Hey. What are you up to?” Justin tried to sound casual, but what had happened the night before seemed to hang between them, something that neither of them spoke about but which they were both far too aware of.
“Nothing. Why?” Ken’s voice was breezy, almost too casual, and Justin smirked a bit to himself. Somehow, though it seemed impossible to Justin, he had gotten Ken interested in him. Funny, he’d always thought that his little crush would never amount to much of anything.
“If you’ve got a few minutes, I’d like to go over the song.” Justin leaned closer, drawn in by the magnetism of Ken’s hot body, of his warm, welcoming eyes. Though for a moment, he glanced away, drawn by some sort of movement out of his peripheral vision.
Aaron was standing there, though Lance and Jamie were completely ignoring all of this. They were, as they usually seemed to be, wrapped up in each other, but Aaron was watching, and there was a look on his face that Justin had no idea how to interpret. A sort of wistful quality, maybe? Though it was gone as soon as Justin had noticed it was there, like Aaron had noticed Justin watching, and he looked away from Justin’s eyes immediately.
Was Aaron upset that Justin and Ken were, well, whatever it was that they were? Did he miss Ken mooning over him? It was hard to say, and then Ken shifted in closer and he drew Justin’s attention back to himself effortlessly.
“Yeah, of course. We can use the studio,” Ken reached out and touched the small of Justin’s back, just a slight gesture, but such a possessive one, as he directed Justin toward the door. When he thought to look back, Aaron was packing up his own things, not even looking at them anymore.
Still, it rankled a bit. Justin had told Ken that he didn’t think that Ken had a chance with Aaron, and he had legitimately meant it. So what if he’d been wrong? He shook his head and looked up at the man at his side—the man who was still touching the small of his back in that curiously intimate way—and smiled a bit.
He didn’t think things had worked out so badly, and hopefully, Ken agreed. The question he still had, though, was what about Aaron? Did he agree? And if he didn’t, and if he tried to do something about it, would Ken be able to resist someone that he’d had such a thing for?
“You’re wearing my hoodie,” Ken murmured, softly enough that only Justin could hear but still able to pull Justin’s full attention effortlessly back to himself. It was actually a little inconvenient. Justin had always thought Ken was oblivious, and it seemed that he was, about a lot of things. But he noticed some things.
“Yeah. You left it at my place.” Justin sighed in relief when the studio door closed behind them, leaving them alone together. It was so weird, not knowing quite how to act around Ken, whether Ken was okay with people knowing that they were dating, or sleeping together, or whatever it was that Ken thought they were.
“It looks good on you,” Ken grinned, and then, much to Justin’s delight, the bigger, strong man was wrapping his arms around Justin and hauling him close, kissing him firmly. With a soft groan, Justin melted against him, pulling Ken just as close, giving himself over utterly to the sweet kiss.
“Jade saw it,” Justin admitted when the kiss finally ended. “It was a bit awkward. She asked me why I was wearing someone else’s hoodie.”
Ken arched an eyebrow in eloquent question, and Justin wondered if he should have gotten into this at all. He actually wasn’t sure why he’d brought it up, it had been largely instinctive, but then his daughter’s thoughtful little face came into his mind and he knew.
I think I should probably meet this guy …
Justin hadn’t been interested in allowing anyone to meet his daughter, and it was part of the reason that he hadn’t dated much, or at all. Maybe even the main reason. But this time, Jade had shown interest, and Justin was finding that he wasn’t as opposed to the idea as he would have thought. Not if the guy Jade would be meeting was Ken.
“Oh, man,” Ken sympathized. “That must have been pretty awkward.”
There was a moment of silence, both of them gazing into each other’s eyes, the tension between them spiraling, becoming more intense by the second. In Justin’s experience, usually the sex broke the tension, but in this case it seemed to have only made it stronger than ever.
