Besame
Summary: Dance, Justin, dance!
Word Count: 5,330
Rating: R for language, sexual references
Characters: Justin Taylor, Brian Kinney, Jennifer Taylor
Timeframe: Post-314
Genres: Humor
Spoilers: Possible Season Four
Note: This is unbeta'ed. All mistakes are mine!
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters nor am I associated with Queer
as Folk, CowLip Productions, Russell T. Davies, or any other.
Part 2
By the time I close the bathroom door, Justin has hopped up onto the counter
and is sitting next to the sink, his legs dangling, that same goofy smile plastered
on his face. “What we gonna do now?” he asks like a kindergartner waiting for
the finger painting to begin.
For a moment, I can only smile and shake my head. He’s created a huge fuckin’
mess I’ll be cleaning up shortly, but I’m still having a hard time being angry
with him. When the fuck did I start being so nice? I built my entire reputation
around being a bastard and it’s all been undone by a cute, blond twink? “We’re
going to get you in the shower,” I say, stepping closer, not surprised when
he spreads his legs for me.
“But first we’re gonna fuck?” he asks breathlessly, reaching for my pants to
undo the top button.
Shit. I can’t do it. Not even big, bad Brian Kinney can fuck someone when their
mother is in the next room ... at least, not this someone. No, I’ve miraculously
risen to a place of honor in Jennifer Taylor’s eyes, and I’m not risking that
for a quick bathroom thrill. Besides, given Justin’s condition, he’d do a lot
of screaming the minute we started. Just my luck. “No, we’re just going to shower.”
Justin sticks out his lower lip in a massive pout and, hands on my shoulders,
looks into my eyes with the sustained gravity only someone so drunk could maintain.
“World’s best Brian? That’s wrong. You know that’s wrong, don’t you?” he explains
to me in a tender voice. “Fucking is what we do, okay? We’re fags. We have dicks.
We fuck. Here lemme show you.” He reaches for my fly again.
“No, we’ll do that later, okay?” I say. “Right now, you need to undress and
get in the shower so we can sober you up, at least a little. Then you can have
dinner with your mommy.” I turn away and open the shower to start the water
flowing. As I do, I hear someone banging on the loft door.
“Company!” Justin cries like some of his playmates have arrived and, before
the motion even registers, he jumps off the counter and slides open the door.
“I’ll get it!” he calls, his voice growing fainter the further away he gets.
“Maybe it’s dessert!”
What made me think we were finished with this drunken drama? Turning off the
shower, I grab a towel and dry my hands. Following him, I catch up just as he
slides open the door.
“Michael!” Justin says in that same jubilant tone. “Brian, it’s Michael!”
“I can see that, Sunshine.” Standing in the hallway, Michael has something clutched
to his chest. Is that a book? Since when did Michael read anything other than
comics?
Michael’s brow furrows and he looks from Justin to me. “What’s up with him?”
“Isn’t that obvious?” I step back so he can come in. “What’re you doing here?”
Michael sees Jennifer and looks surprised, waving at her. “Wow, you’re having
a party and I wasn’t invited?” he says in that joking/whining voice of his.
“The only one having a party is Justin.”
“Michael!” Justin says on cue, crowding closer to him and patting his chest
with both hands. “My goo’ friend, Michael. Brian’s best friend, Michael. Best
Brian’s best friend!” Justin doubles over at his own wit, laughing uproariously.
“Wanna drink, Michael? I got plenty of drinks.” He pats Michael’s chest again.
“Have a Cosmo, okay? Lez get drunk and draw stuff and piss off Brian, ‘kay?”
Thankfully, his voice goes down. “But no fucking,” he says to Michael in a stage
whisper. “Can’t do that best Brian’s best friend ‘cos my mom’s here. Moms don’t
like fucking.”
Michael looks amused. “What the fuck did you do? Have a drinking contest with
him?”
My eyebrow goes up. “I know you won’t believe this, but he was already this
way when I got home. Why are you here, Michael?”
Humming, Justin begins to dance, circling around me as I talk to Michael.
“You wanted that book Ben had, the architecture one?” Michael says, holding
it out. “Remember? I said I’d drop it off after the shop closed?”
“Oh, right.”
Justin is suddenly between us, his hips moving, his arms doing that waving thing,
the Bunny Hop going full tilt. “Michael, Michael bo-bichael,” he sings as he
dances, “banana-fana fo-fichael, fe-fy-mo-michael—Michael!”
I put my hands on his waist and move him aside. “I forgot. Thanks. I just want
to get some ideas before I talk to the architect.”
Michael’s head is going up and down as he watches Justin’s jumps. “Yeah, uh—that’s
pretty exciting, about the building and all.”
“Brian, Brian, bo-Brian—” Justin sings as he comes into view again.
“Yeah, all we need to do is sign the lease papers,” I say to Michael as Justin
sashays in front of me.
“—banana-fana fo-frian, fe-fy-mo-mrian—Brian!”
Michael eyes widen, he throws back his head, and laughs. “Oh, man, he is so
plastered!”
“Plastered, plastered bo-blastered, banana-fana fo-flastered, fe-fy-mo-mlastered—plastered!”
Justin sings without missing a beat.
“Yeah, he’s very entertaining,” I tell Michael. Shit, I realize just then that
Justin is now officially screwed. Michael is his mother’s son, so this little
incident is going to be on the Novotny grapevine about ten minutes after Michael
leaves. Justin’s about to get his full fifteen minutes of fame, but I have a
hunch it’ll last a lot longer than that.
“Hi, Michael,” Jennifer says as she finishes setting up the food and crosses
to where we’re standing. “We’ve got dinner.” She looks at me, probably wondering
if it’s okay to ask him. “Lots of it.”
“Yeah, Justin ordered half the items off Little Italy’s menu and you’re welcome
to—“
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Justin announces just then in a commanding though slurred
voice, and I realize he’s no longer with us.
We all whirl around. Shit! He’s standing on the fuckin’ dinning room table!
“Justin, what’re you doing?” I call to him, once more concerned that he might
get hurt in his drunken state.
“Justin!” Jennifer echoes as we cross toward him, probably envisioning the mess
he’s going to make when he puts his foot in the spaghetti.
“I am going to sing a little something for you, a favorite tune from my childhood,
one I know you’re all familiar with,” Justin tells us, back in performer mode
as he tries to sound smooth and suave. “This is dedicated to my mother, the
world’s best mother there ever was.” Justin makes another of those wide, sweeping
gestures as he throws out his arms, and then straightens up, one hand clasping
the other as he takes a deep breath:
Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener
That is what I truly wish to be
'Cause if I were an Oscar Mayer wiener
Everyone would be in love with me!
With a strangled gasp, Jennifer begins to laugh so hard I fear the woman might
have a coronary. Behind me, Michael is also howling, and, yeah, I have to admit,
I’m finding it way too funny to sound stern, but I try—God knows, I try. “Justin,
get down off that table,” I tell him as I walk closer.
“Oooooohhhhhhhh,” Justin begins again, hands waving, his voice rising.
And that’s when his fate is sealed because, as he goes through this esteemed
and widely recognized song of American consumerism a second time, Michael has
his cell phone out and is holding it up toward Justin. Oh, shit! It’s the fancy
phone Dr. David gave him, the one that has video on it. He’s recording Justin
in all his drunken glory. “Fuck!” I say as Justin ends the second round of the
wiener song, and I step up onto a chair, grabbing him around the waist. “You
are so busted, little boy,” I murmur against his sweaty neck, and drag him off
the table without destroying the food we’ll be eating for the next week.
Justin doesn’t fight me and when we’re safely back on terra firma, he remains
compliant. “Don’t wanna sing anymore, Brian,” he murmurs against my chest, where
he’s laid his head. “’kay? Need to take a little …” His eyes close then and
he goes limp, completely unconscious.
“I think the entertainment portion of the evening is finally over,” I say as
I haul him up into my arms. Damn, he’s a lot heavier when he’s a dead weight,
but I manage to get him upstairs and into the bedroom where I lay him onto the
bed, on his side. I begin packing pillows around him so he can’t roll onto his
back.
“Best Brian?” he whispers after a few minutes of this, and I have to admit I’m
going to miss the name he’s given me. Not that I’m sentimental or anything,
it’s just that it’s … part of the evening, that’s all. “Don’t feel so good.”
I sit on the bed’s edge and brush the hair off his forehead. “You drank too
much. See if you can get some sleep.”
“Can’t dance anymore,” he mutters as his eyes drift shut.
“That’s okay. Somehow, we’ll manage without you.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Love you, best Brian,” he whispers. Then he’s sound asleep, his chest slowly
rising and falling.
“Yeah, Sunshine,” I say softly as I continue to stroke his hair, my throat constricting
despite my best efforts to maintain my cool indifference. “I love you too.”
The next day is a day I’ll be referring to as “Death Day” for as long as I live.
Because that’s what it is, a fuckin’ day where I wish I was dead. I’m lying
in bed, sleeping like any other morning, a nineteen-year-old ex-college student
who’s blissfully unaware of the horrors that await him, when suddenly a deadly
something begins to nudge my consciousness, demanding that I wake up.
I don’t want to and I resist, attempting to dive deeper into my sleep, but eventually
that something wins out. After pushing through lots of cobwebs, my brain finally
begins to come back online.
As soon as consciousness hits, I realize that I’m about to be sick—really, really
sick.
Somehow, on legs that have turned to rubber, I stumble out of the bed and into
the bathroom where I slam myself down on my knees and vomit repeatedly into
the toilet. And I’m not talking your garden variety barfing either. No, we’re
talking world-class vomiting, the kind that you know, for certain, means you’ve
thrown up everything in your stomach as well as your stomach itself.
Even when it’s all gone, I am still dry puking, heaving and retching
and being more miserable than I’ve ever been in my entire life. All right, given
the bashing, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but not by much.
Dimly, I realize that Brian is with me. Brave man. I guess he’s seen worse although
at that moment, I doubt it. He holds back my hair every time I bend over the
bowl, and keeps his warm hand on my shoulder like he wants me to know he understands
what I’m going through.
I don’t think I ever loved him more.
Finally, after hours and hours of this torture—okay, it’s about ten minutes—I
struggle to my feet and stagger to the sink. Turning on the cold water, I rinse
my mouth repeatedly, then brush my teeth and use mouthwash although when I do,
it feels like I’m gonna barf once more. After doing that, I stand there in a
daze, not sure what to do, where to go, anything. My head is pounding like someone’s
using it for a gong, but at least I won’t have puke breath.
Brian grabs a washcloth, wets it with warm water, and begins to wash my face.
Did I mention how much I love him? Right then, I think marrying him might be
a very good option, if only I could talk him into it. He’s too wonderful, too
perfect to be part of the general populace, i.e., Babylon’s backroom. I almost
wish I was a girl so I could have his babies—that’s how intense my gratitude
is. Of course, I don’t understand right then that I’m still a little drunk and
maybe that has something to do with the swooning reaction. Maybe.
“Thanks,” I say as his unbuttons my shirt and wipes my chest with gentle strokes.
I touch my stomach, which he hasn’t gotten to yet. “I’m sticky.”
“Yep.”
Oh, God. Right then, I have this memory of mixing drinks … last night? It’s
the next day, right? Last night I was all hot on getting a job as a bartender
at this trendy restaurant. Not a sleazy joint like Woody’s, but a classy place
where the big-spenders would tip well and I wouldn’t get hit on like every ten
seconds. Somehow the idea seemed brilliant, especially after I mixed and consumed
a Tom Collins and a Cosmo. Shit! I was mixing drinks? “Why do I smell like a
brewery?” I ask Brian cautiously, afraid what the answer might be.
But Brian is earning all his good guy points for the rest of the year because
he doesn’t answer. Instead, he helps me go back to bed. He says I can shower
when I’m steady on my feet, but right now he wants me to take some aspirin and
eat breakfast. The thought of food is almost enough to make me hurl again, but
I agree to coffee, which leads to toast a little later on, and then the pain
reliever. Yeah, my head is a motherfucker, and, as I lay there listening to
the sounds of Brian moving around in the kitchen, I have a very bad feeling
about all of this. Sure, I’ve been hammered before. More than once. I’ve come
home with Brian supporting me all the way. But, see, I remember those
times, vividly. Most of them ended in sex, good sex. This time I’m not remembering
anything after I mixed those stupid drinks and tasted them to make sure they
were okay.
I must’ve lost my mind. That’s the only answer. It was pre-Death Day, right?
Crazy Day, maybe, when all my pent up frustration at being out of school and
without a real job just exploded. It didn’t even occur to me, in that state,
that Brad Whittier, the guy we met who wanted me to work at his restaurant,
couldn’t hire me as a bartender at age nineteen. What was he thinking? Fuck,
was he coming on to me the whole time, and I was just dumb enough to buy it?
What was I thinking?
About two hours later, I’ve had a long, hot shower, more toast, more aspirin
and coffee. I’m beginning to think I might live. Brian comes to sit with me
on the couch where I’m now recuperating. I can tell he’s ready to answer questions,
but I don’t even want to ask. I made a fool of myself, I’m pretty sure of that.
Did I take off all my clothes and run around the loft naked? Or outside? God,
I hope it wasn’t outside. And why did I smell like I was bathing in the alcohol
instead of drinking it? Finally, trying to gather up the shreds of my courage,
I ask him to tell me. So, being Brian, he does and in doing so, he pulls no
punches.
Soon, I'm moaning, my legs pulled up against my chest, my face mashed against
them, wishing I was dead. Death Day, remember? Not only did I make a total ass
of myself, I did it in front of my mother! And that’s before Brian gets
to the killing blow, the one that’ll make me want to start drinking again. It’s
so bad, even Brian hesitates to tell me, but eventually I square my shoulders
and command him to do so. I mean, how bad can it be? I’ve already mixed a dozen
drinks and drank many of them, ordered enough Italian food to feed twenty, and
danced all over the loft in front of my mother. It can’t get much worse than
that, can it? Please tell me it can’t!
Of course, it can. When Brian tells me about standing on the table and warbling
the wiener song, well, I laugh. When he tells me Michael recorded me doing it,
I howl in agony and hide my face again. “No, no! Why didn’t you stop him? Oh,
God, my life has come to an end! Fuck! I’m dead, I’m dead meat, dead man walking,
dead to the world.” I’m getting so carried away with the dead thing I’ve lost
track of my point.
“It’s not that bad,” Brian says next to me, and when I peek through my fingers,
I see that he’s smiling—a little.
“You’re enjoying this!” I say with all the outrage I can muster.
He shrugs. “Yeah, a little.” His smile gets wider as he looks dreamily off into
space. “It was a sight to behold, Sunshine. You on the dining room table narrowly
avoiding the antipasto platter as you flapped your arms and enthusiastically
extolled the virtues of wieners.” He gives me his best leer. “Not that I didn’t
already know, but—”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” I yelp because I can imagine it all too well. “And
you didn’t tackle Michael, grab the cell phone from him, smash it on the floor?
What kind of boyfriend are you?”
“The non-defined, non-conventional kind.”
I press my face against my knees and think about leaving town for a year or
two. I could go to L.A. and become a world-famous surfer … except for the fact
that I turn an alarming shade of red if I’m in the sun longer than ten minutes.
Okay, I’ll go to San Francisco and be a street performer. Maybe I should perfect
the act I’m already doing and perform it on the streets for everyone to see.
I mean, why am I limiting my audience to people who are related to me or fuck
me? Oh, God! “How could you let Michael do that?” I say to Brian in my
most pitiful voice.
“Michael doesn’t belong to me, so I have no control over him.” Brian sounds
a little less amused.
I look up and see that a modest amount of steel has crept into his gaze. “You
think I deserve what I get?”
“I think you knew damn well that you shouldn’t be doing all that drinking and
at some moment in the evening you made the choice to ignore that.”
I cringe, getting markedly smaller. I don’t say a word.
“Plus, while you were cavorting around the loft, making messes everywhere you
went, who do you think was left to clean up after you passed out?”
I shrink into myself even more.
“That’s right, yours truly. So let’s not talk about poor, martyred Justin anymore,
okay?” Brian straightens out, still pinning me to the spot with his death-stare
(see? death again!). “And here’s another memo for you, honey. Tonight’s
the family dinner.”
“Oh, no. No, no, no!” I’m whimpering now, pulled into a tight ball, wishing
I could go back to the barfing portion of this experience because it was much
less painful. “I can’t. Brian, I can’t. They’ll tease me mercilessly. They’ll
torture and mock me. They’ll … I’ll never, ever, in a million years live this
down! You know Michael will show the video to every fucking one of them! You
know he’ll download it onto his computer and e-mail it to everyone in Pennsylvania.”
Brian’s hand falls onto my head, not unpleasantly. “Courage, Grasshopper,” he
intones. “He who walks into the ring of fire comes out with burned feet.”
That makes me laugh and before I know it, I’ve uncurled from my position so
that I can kiss Brian. He’s been really good about everything. No yelling, no
murder or mayhem. He didn’t even try to spank me (damn). Just a little slap
on the wrist, if that. Soon he’s convinced me that the best way to get over
the hangover is to sweat it out. And, of course, he has the perfect way to do
that, which doesn’t involve saunas or wrapping yourself in plastic. Before
I know it, we’re fucking and guess what? His “cure” works. I don’t feel 100%
like my old self, but I sure as hell feel a lot better after we’ve re-christened
a few surfaces I “damaged” with my “witless” behavior.
“What am I going to do about the family dinner?” I ask him a few hours later
as we lay together on the couch, the scene of our third encounter. I’m halfway
on top of Brian, looking down into his eyes, and, yeah, I’m still worried about
the embarrassing scene to come. “I have to find some way to get that video from
Michael. He’ll never let me live it down.”
Brian rakes a hand through my hair, his eyes sleepy and soft. “Not gonna be
easy, Snoopy Boy,” he says. He’s having fun with the names, at my expense of
course, but I’m not about to complain. Actually, although he doesn’t know it,
they sound kind of like endearments. But I won’t tell him that.
“You think he’s got it on his computer?”
“He’s not that computer savvy and Ben’s out of town so—”
I lean closer. “All I have to do is erase it from the phone, right? If I can
do that, he won’t be able to use it like a weapon over my head for the next
five years.”
Deadpan, Brian stares. “You underestimate Michael.”
“Why?
“It’ll be ten years at least.”
I lay my head down on his chest. “Shit. There has to be a way to get that video.
There has to be…”
When I come into the Novotny household that night, there’s an air about the
place, an air very much like you find in a theatre just before the curtain goes
up. I make a careful inspection, and notice that everyone is already there,
that they’re seated on every available chair, and that their attention is focused
on my arrival. Yet, I know it isn’t me they came to see.
“Where’s Justin?” Debbie says when she realizes he isn’t cowering somewhere
behind me. She crosses her arms over her chest like she’s waiting for me to
pull him out of my pocket.
I shrug, keeping my face noncommittal. “I told him he ought to stay home.”
Michael comes to stand next to his mom. “Oh, fuck, are you kidding me? He’s
too scared to show his face now that he realizes what an idiot he made of himself?”
“That’s part of it.” I take off my coat, and hang it on the coat rack. Then,
going around the couch, I come a little further into the room, wanting maximum
impact for my next statement. “I’m afraid he may have taken what you did a little
too personally,” I say to Michael, who’s followed me, my voice dropping just
a tad. “He’s pretty upset.”
“Oh, I told you, Michael. You shouldn’t have done that,” Lindsay says on cue,
just like I knew she would.
“Oh, fuck. So he’s gonna be a wuss about the whole thing?” Michael asks, not
bothering to hide the disappointment in his voice.
“He’s afraid you’ll post it online, that you’ll—”
“I don’t know how to do that!” Michael protests immediately. “It’s just on my
phone.”
Bingo. “Well, what can I tell you?” Again, I shrug. “He was upset and …” I look
around the room, wondering why I never considered a career on the stage. “He
started drinking again.”
Debbie gives her son a massive glare then smacks him on the arm. “Asshole!”
“Ow!” He clutches his arm. “Why am I to blame?”
“Because you hurt Sunshine’s feelings! You shouldn’t have been recording him
while he was drunk!”
“It was a joke!”
“Some joke!”
“Oh, come on!” Michael says, still rubbing the spot on his arm as he glares
at his mother. “He’s a grown man just like the rest of us. He’s responsible
for his actions.”
“Some of us are grown women,” Melanie growls from her corner of the room.
"And some of us refuse to admit to any maturity," Ted adds with a chuckle.
“Still, you shouldn’t have—”
Just then, the doorbell rings.
Raising an eyebrow, I keep my face blank so as not to give away the fact that
I know who’s just arrived.
Chewing furiously on her gum, Debbie goes around me. “Now, who in the fuck is
that?” A moment later, she’s yanking open the door.
“Debbie!” Justin crows. “My goo’ friend, Debbie! How ya doing, Deb?”
“Sunshine!” Debbie says, watching as he goes around her and weaves his way toward
me. “How the hell did you get here?”
“Taxi—great thing, taxi, takes you where you want to go and—” His face lights
up as he spots me. “Brian!” Pulling off his jacket, he holds it out as if to
hook it onto the coat rack, but it drops to the floor instead. “World’s best
Brian!” Coming into the living room, he throws himself at me, and, like a trapeze
artist on cue, I catch him. “Why’d you leave me, BB? I thought we were going
to the fami’y dinner.”
He smells like a brewery—his breath, in particular. I turn my head, grimacing.
“What the fuck? Just how much have you had to drink?”
He looks up at me and I see the glint come into his eyes before he squelches
it. “It’s party time, best Brian!” he says as he pushes back from me. “Hey!”
He throws up his hands as he looks at the family—the open-mouthed people in
the room who are gawking at him like he has three heads. “Why so glum and gloomy
and grave and ghoulish and …” He giggles, staggering a bit as he walks toward
them. “Got 1500 on my SAT, you know. Great grasp of vocab-vocabul-vocabulerry.”
He wobbles back to Debbie who’s followed him into the living room and is standing
behind me. “Deb, lez get this party rolling. Come on, Deb!” He grabs her hand
and begins his little hopping/flapping dance, the one he’s now famous for, singing
along as he does. “Dat-dat-dat-dat-dat-dat-dat-dat-dat—do the Hustle!” he warbles,
bumping his hip against hers, shaking his head back and forth, his hair flying.
“Come on, Vic!” He waves a hand Vic’s way. “Dat-dat-dat-dat-dat-dat-dat-dat-dat—do
the Hustle!”
Laughing, Vic stands up and dances with him, to be followed soon enough by a
giggling Lindsay and Emmett. They all join in the singing too, dat-dat-datting
away in their best off-key voices. As they do, Justin does his most inspired
Snoopy dance, hands held high, legs kicking as he waltzes from one dancer to
the next, giving each one a moment with him as he wiggles and shakes his ass,
and makes a spectacle of himself.
“How could you let him get this drunk, again?” Michael asks, sounding a little
hysterical.
“I wasn’t there, remember?”
“You have to do something!” he demands.
“Like what? Make him some black coffee? You’re the one who set him off by taping
him, opening him up for ridicule and disgrace in his family.” Wow, I’m way over
the top, but enjoying it. “He’s a young boy, Michael, with tender feelings,”
I tell him in a voice that actually sounds serious. “His psyche is still forming,
and you’re messing with it when you—”
“Don’t blame this on me!” he shrieks as Justin comes closer, turning in neat
circles as he performs his famed whirling dervish maneuver. “All I did was take
a few pictures to—”
“—humiliate him? Make him feel even younger and that he can’t handle his liquor?
Congratulations, Michael, you did it!” I sweep out a hand, showing him his great
work as Justin does one more dat-dat-dat lead-up to the song.
“Oh, shit.” Michael pulls his cell phone out of his pocket. “If you’re going
to be that way about it.” He pushes a few buttons and the video is suddenly
on the screen. “I’ll just—”
Justin makes it to Michael’s side and throws an arm around his shoulders. “Come
on, Mikey! Dance with me!” Through bleary eyes, he spots the phone. “What’s
dat?” He leans closer, staring at the tiny picture. “Me! Hey, me! Hi, me! How
ya doin’, me?”
“I am erasing it, Justin.” Michael enunciates each word. “Erasing it, you hear?
Okay, watch me.” He hits a button and I hear a faint beep. “See, it’s gone.”
Justin peers at the screen. “No’s not—best Brian’s best friend, Mikey. See?”
He points with a wavering finger. “Iz says, ‘Are you sure?’”
“Shit!” Michael murmurs and hits the button again. “Okay, it’s gone—totally
gone. Now would you quit leaning against me? You smell like a fucking bottle
of Beam.”
Justin straightens out, and drops his arm, working his shoulders. “That’s because
I sprinkled quite a bit onto my shirt,” he says in a normal, non-drunk voice,
and looks Michael right in the eye.
“What the fuck?” Michael yelps, taking a step back.
“Michael, what’s wrong?” Debbie asks him somewhere behind us.
“He’s not drunk!” Michael jabs a finger at Justin like he’s just discovered
the true identify of Batman. “He was scamming us!” Glaring at me, Michael waves
his hands. “And you knew that all along!”
I smile, moving a bit so I can put my arm around Justin’s shoulders. “Thank
you! Thanks everyone! We’ll be appearing in “Romeo and Juliet” at the Pittsburgh
Community Theatre this spring. And we’re happy to sign autographs right now
so if you’ll—”
“You lied to me!” Michael says, pointing the outraged finger my way.
“I prefer to think of it as creative relationship maintenance.”
Justin laughs, waiting while more of the gang comes around us so they can see
for themselves. “I had to get that video off your phone, Michael,” he says,
smiling at all of them.
“You were faking it!” Michael is still pointing, still stuck in that moment.
Justin shrugs. “So? You still got your show, didn’t you?”
“He’s got you there, Michael,” Emmett says, and touches Justin’s arm. “And personally,
I loved it. You are one talented young man.”
Justin bows his head. “Thanks.” He looks up to grin at me.
“And you do a mighty fine Hustle!” Vic says from somewhere.
Justin laughs, craning his neck until he sees Vic. “I learned it from the master!”
he tells the man.
“Yeah, aren’t we proud of ourselves?” Debbie says, giving her head a disgusted
shake. “Vic and I taught him how to do the Hustle, but that’s nothing compared
to what you taught him, Brian.”
Both my eyebrows go up. “Please, Deb. That’s a little too personal, don’t you
think? I know you’re one of the biggest fag hags in all of gay Pittsburgh, but
do you really want me discussing my sex life with Justin right here in front
of—”
“I meant, you taught him how to—”
“—go after what he wants, stand up for himself, acknowledge his mistakes, move
on?” I fire back before she can finish her sentence. Beaming an immediate smile,
I stick my tongue in my cheek and make a little bow. “And damn proud of it too,
Debbie. Damn proud!”
Emmett whoops, Lindsay laughs, and a second later the room bursts into applause
amid raucous laughter and many smiles.
Justin comes up on his toes to give me a lingering kiss. “Thanks,” he whispers
as the applause continues. “You’re the best.”
“Yeah.” I kiss his nose and favor him with my best smirk. “I know, Snoopy Boy.
I know.”
Fin