FIFTEEN
“Justin wanted to know when you want to do your song.”
Aaron was not going to strangle Ken. He wasn’t, swear to God. It was just that they had been on the plane for four hours now, and Aaron had been trying to be alone with Brad for that whole damn time, but one after the other, the Lost Boys had popped up to chatter at Aaron.
It was tempting to think that it was some sort of conspiracy, but they didn’t even know that Aaron and Brad were together, or whatever they were. They had never, not in several years of Aaron trying to get them to, given up on making friends with him, and this wasn’t actually out of character for them at all.
Aaron turned to look at Ken, trying to keep his annoyance out of his face. He had just spied Brad sitting by a window, gazing out of it, the sunlight flickering on his face and making his eyes gleam a lovely, bright gold. Surely it wouldn’t look that strange for Aaron to go over and sit with him?
Well, he couldn’t exactly do that when Ken was busy chattering at him. And about a song which was never going to happen, at that. Every Lost Boy to date had had a song written for them, by Ken’s boyfriend Justin, and each of the songs had been enormous hits.
No doubt, if Aaron had stuck around, he would have had to write something with Justin, but now, he was leaving. So it was pointless to talk about it, and he sighed as he flopped down into a chair, staring at Ken, trying to will him to leave.
What if he told the other man that he was planning to go after this tour? Would that drive Ken away? More likely, it would just encourage him to keep on chattering, demanding more and more from Aaron.
See, this was why he had done his best not to engage with these people.
Oblivious, Ken dropped down in a chair nearby, his bright, energetic eyes fixated on Aaron. Jamie and Lance had been much easier to dissuade, to drive away, because they were so often interested in being alone together, anyway. They both tried to make friends, but it seemed that they couldn’t keep their hands off of each other long enough to become really annoying.
Ken was different. He had always been pushier when it came to trying to be around Aaron to start with, and since he’d now been separated from his boyfriend, Justin, who had to stay back in Los Angeles with his daughter, he was utterly insufferable.
“I told him that my song was just on the last album,” Ken continued, blithely unaware, or uncaring, about Aaron’s complete lack of interest in speaking about this. “And we’re going on tour for half a year, right? So we won’t even be thinking about a new album until we’re back.”
Aaron sighed softly, resting his head back onto the headrest of the seat, looking at Ken, and then past him, to where Brad was looking out the window. Only Brad wasn’t, not anymore. Instead, he had turned his gaze toward Aaron and was giving him a small, intimate little smile.
Aaron knew that smile all too well. It was the smile that meant, if they were alone, they would soon be naked and pressed together. For such a proper businessman, Brad was surprisingly sensual, and he seemed ready to go pretty much all of the time. Or was this just what it was like when things were new and exciting?
Either way, Aaron wanted to see where that smile would go, and maybe he and Brad could have even found somewhere to sneak off, even if all they could do was hastily jerk each other off. But as long as Ken was there, that wasn’t going to happen.
“You should think about what you want your song to be about,” Ken continued, not particularly worried, it seemed, about the fact that he was carrying on one hundred percent of the conversation on his own. But then, Ken never worried much about that. “You have more time to think about it than any of us did. I bet you could come up with something really good.”
Behind Ken, Brad shot Aaron a wink and a roguish grin that suggested that he knew very well how irritating Ken was, that he knew that Aaron wanted no more than to go to Brad and kiss him until neither of them could breathe anymore. Brad turned back to look out the window, but to Aaron, he gave the distinct impression of waiting.
If Aaron left, Brad would find him. Aaron knew that just as clearly as if Brad had spoken the words out loud. Aaron’s fingers gripped the armrests of his seats, and suddenly, he had just had enough. He was going to come off as rude to Ken, but then, Ken was pretty used to that.
So Aaron went to stand, to walk away from Ken, but just as he had raised himself off the chair only about an inch or so, Jamie and Lance came over, settling down around Aaron so that he was trapped. Trapped by the pitiless, well-meaning presence of the only people he could really, truly call friends, if he could say that about anyone.
“I’m bored,” Jamie informed them all, which Aaron translated to mean that Jamie couldn’t molest his husband in front of all of them, that he wouldn’t go quite that far, so he needed some sort of entertainment.
Lance perked up suddenly, grinning at all of them.
“Why don’t we practice? I mean, we might as well, right?”
Aaron kept, through the habit of many years, his low growl of annoyance to himself. He didn’t want to practice. He wanted to find Brad and find somewhere private and …
But when he looked over at Brad, the older man seemed to have given up. He had curled up on the airplane seat, which, on this chartered flight, were actually pretty comfortable, and had a blanket draped around himself as he drifted off to sleep.
Damn it. Unless he wanted to try to wake the guy up, that left Aaron on his own, for now. Oh well. It probably wouldn’t have been a great idea for him to get into anything on the plane, anyway, no matter how tempting it would be.
Which meant he might as well practice, he supposed. After all, if he was going to be some sort of big deal solo artist … No. Why had he thought that? He cared about doing a good job because of his own professionalism and perfectionism, and because he wanted the band to do well so that he could walk away from this with enough money to take care of his sister.
So he fell back into the chair with a soft sigh that he was relatively sure he was the only one that could hear and nodded a bit. He was in. Maybe, if he lost himself in song, he could forget Brad for more than a few seconds at a time.
Probably not, but it was worth a try.
* * *
After the plane ride, it seemed like there was hardly time for Aaron to breathe, or for any of them. They all got to catch a quick nap, then they were up for hair and makeup, ready to perform their first ever show overseas.
