Part One

“Tell me a story, daddy.”

Lance looked up to see his daughter’s pleading face peering over the top of his case files. He smiled at her and set down the papers.

“A story, huh?” With a fast swoop, he gathered her onto his lap. “What kind of story?”

“Tell me the story about the angel.” She squirmed to get comfortable on his knees, leaning back against his chest. He rubbed a hand on her stomach, smoothing away the wrinkles from her Powerpuff Girls nightshirt.

Shelby loved the story of her father’s guardian angel, the man who’d saved Lance from the fire years ago so he could live a long life and be her daddy. He’d shown her a picture, once, of the man with his arms wrapped around Lance’s shoulders protectively. It wasn’t particularly flattering, but it was the only one Lance had.

To her, it was a fairy tale. To Lance, it was a way of remembering and perhaps even honoring the man he’d loved.

**

Lance worked in an old brick building on Union Street, just off the main drag in the small city of Portsmouth. It was a good location for the law office, where he’d been taken in by his grandfather’s team days after his graduation from law school.

He arrived at eight every morning after dropping Shelby off at her all-day kindergarten program. He parked in the back alley, said hello to his cousin Leslie, their receptionist, and went straight back to his office.

Most of the heavy leather-bound books that lined the walls had been there when Lance had arrived, and those he’d added blended seamlessly with the rest to create a dark, somber atmosphere. There were few personal touches in the austere room- a picture of Shelby on his desk, a few framed diplomas on the wall. He kept his office clear of personal effects on purpose, as if by doing so he could somehow separate his current work from his shady past.

“Good morning,” a voice sang from the doorway, and Lance looked up from his desk to see Joey Fatone, another young associate and one of his closest friends.

“Hey, Joe. Want some coffee?” Lance moved to the small wet bar at the side of the office and poured himself a cup.

“No, thanks.” Joey sat down on one of the leather clients’ chairs and waited until Lance had fixed his coffee and taken his seat before speaking. “Michaels wants you to take the Timberlake case,” he said.

Lance paled. His stomach dropped into a bottomless well. “Joey, no,” he whispered fervently.

“Lance, I know this has got to be hard on you, but it’s time you got over this. It’s been eight years.”

Lance closed his eyes, the memories washing back over him. The smell of smoke, the sirens, the cracking of the garage’s second story floor as it began to give way. He’d surreptitiously avoided any and all arson cases all the way through law school and his internship. They just brought back too many memories.

He forced his eyes opening, banishing the painful thoughts. Joey was staring at him, expression nothing but soft concern.

“Lance, Michaels has it out for you, you know that.” Joey spoke softly, soothingly.

“I’ve never done anything to him.” Aimlessly, Lance sipped his coffee. John Michaels was a middle-aged, mediocre lawyer who’d come into the firm the same way Lance had-- family connections. His father had retired years ago, and Michaels was still waiting to step up as a partner to take his place.

“You’re the boss’s grandson,” Joey explained. “You came in here and sailed right into a corner office and your pick of clients. He’s jealous. He gave you this one because he wants you to fail. He wants to make you look bad.”

Lance set down the half-empty mug and sighed. He turned to the window, watching people go by on the sidewalk outside. “I’ll talk to Grandfather. Maybe he can--“

“He can’t,” Joey cut him off. “He’s already signed off on this.” Joey dropped the file on the desk.

Lance stared at the manila folder as if it were a rattlesnake, poised to strike.

Joey left without a word.

With a sigh, Lance opened the file gingerly, staring at the picture paper clipped inside. Shaved head, stubbly-chinned Justin Timberlake, accused of one count of arson, two of second degree murder. Lance knew the story; hell, it’d been all over the news. The Old Carter place had gone up in smoke in the middle of the night, killing the two brothers who lived there. Timberlake had hated Carter for as long as they’d known each other, a spat over a girl that had turned ugly back in high school and ruined both of their lives.

Timberlake was from the wrong side of the tracks, raised by a single mom waitress. He worked at a garage to put himself through college, majoring in business and music, working slowly toward a degree. He was 24. He’d had a few run-ins with the law, the file listed neatly. A juvie count of possession of marijuana, one indictment for reckless endangerment for driving his motorcycle 100 mph last year that had landed him 30 days in county lockup, and an assault charge on Carter that was mysteriously dropped six months ago. Then this.

It looked like an open and shut case. The kid’s fingerprints were all over the gas can they’d found at the scene, and he’d been seen in the local bar fighting with Carter that night. Timberlake had no alibi for the hours between 12, when he left the bar, and 3, when the cops had shown up at his house with handcuffs.

Lance sighed. Not only was this a subject he preferred not to touch, given his own treacherous history with arson, but it was an impossible case. The kid looked guilty from every angle.

**

The buzz of a door echoed in Lance’s head painfully. Nervously, he straightened his tie. The firm had picked up this case as a favor to his grandfather’s personal assistant, who was the kid’s mom’s best friend-- or something like that. Whatever, Lance knew he wouldn’t be getting rich off of this one.

Lance was seated at the table in the cold, gray room. He pulled out his laptop and powered it up. It was so much easier than taking notes on a legal pad. He waited, tapping away at the keys to set up a heading on the page.

The door opposite opened and a burly guard shoved Timberlake through the door. He was taller than Lance had expected, and wiry. The jeans he wore slid low on his hips, the sleeves of his white shirt baggy even rolled above his elbows. His head was still shorn, and his face-- Lance had never seen someone who better fit the phrase “pissed off.”

“Mr. Timberlake.” Lance stood and offered his hand. The kid eyed it warily before gripping it so hard that Lance nearly buckled. When he didn’t, Timberlake offered a curt nod and released, easing down into the chair opposite Lance.

“Do you want some water?” Lance asked, offering the bottle of pre-tested, pre-approved Dasani in Justin’s direction. He always brought his own water to interviews. Justin’s eyes flicked to the guard.

“Thanks,” he said, twisting off the cap and downing the cold liquid. Lance watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallowed.

With a gasp of relief, Justin set down the empty plastic bottle. ‘Thanks. Stuff in here tastes like piss.”

“I’m sure,” Lance said, turning his attention on the computer. “I’m going to do everything I can to get you out of here, but first I’m going to hear your side of the story.”

“Wait,” Justin said, leaning forward in his chair. “First, tell me one thing.”

Lance gulped. “OK.”

“Who the fuck are you?”

Lance blinked in surprise. “I’m your attorney. Lance Bass.” He pulled a card from the sleek silver case in his breast pocket. Justin read it carefully before setting it down on the table between them.

“What happened to the other guy, the court guy, Michael something.”

“John Michaels,” he said blankly. “He’d been taken off the case. I’m your new legal counsel. That’s all I know.”

Justin waited for a long pause, mulling over the information. “Well, you can’t be worse than that guy. He a friend of yours?”

Lance grimaced, hopefully not noticeably. “An associate.”

“Well, he sucked.”

Justin’s attitude sucked, but Lance appreciated his candid tone. It would make the interview that much easier. “So,” he said, getting back to business, “like I said, I’m going to need to get your side of the story.”

Justin scowled. "What for? I bet you’ve already made up your mind.”

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” Lance said, and oh, he hoped it was true. He’d never had to argue a case where the evidence so clearly pointed fingers at his client.

Justin slammed his palms on the table and leaned forward, so close to Lance that the guard took a precautionary step toward them.

“It matters to me,” he said through clenched teeth.

Lance stared him down. Never let them know you’re afraid, his law professor’s voice warned in his head. “Fine. Then why don’t you tell me your side of the story and we’ll see where we stand?”

Justin at least sat back down. He studied Lance curiously. “Do I know you?”

Lance quirked up a corner of his lip, almost a smirk. “I don’t think so.”

Justin shrugged. “You look familiar.”

With a sigh, Lance moved his hands to his laptop. “Am I wasting my time here, or are you going to start talking?”

Justin leaned his elbows rest on the table edge, letting his head fall to his hands. “This is so fucked up,” he whispered. Lance could tell that all of the evasive chatter had been to avoid the real issue- the kid was hurting over this, whatever his version of things may be. He didn’t reply, just waited for Justin to begin.

“I didn’t do it,” he said in a meek voice. “Me and Nick, we’ve got bad blood between us, a lot of shit, but I wouldn’t kill him. That night, we were fighting, same old stuff. Nick got into some real bad shit, years ago. Real bad. And he’s been kind of skimming the edge of that ever since. And, like, there’s this girl, and we aren’t together any more, but she’s been seen with him. And like, I still care about her, you know? I don’t want her dragged into his shit. So I ran into him, and told him to leave her alone, you know, break it off. I said a lot of shit, like if he really cared about her he’d let her go. He basically told me to fuck off, I called him an asshole- his brother came and dragged him away before anything really serious started. I went home, crashed. Next thing I know, the cops are at my door dragging me downtown for burning down his fucking house. See this--“ he held out his wrists, which were swollen with deep purple bruises, “fucking police brutality, man.”

Lance glanced briefly but didn’t comment.

“OK. The police say you can’t be accounted for between 12 and 3. No one saw you go up to your apartment, no landlord, no neighbor?”

Justin grimaced. “No. My roommate works nights at the Lizard Lounge. He was out, and the guy who lives below us is a drunk. He wouldn’t notice if Jesus Christ came through the door and blessed him.”

Lance smiled a bit at that. The kid had grit, keeping up the wry sense of humor after what he’d been through. The story wouldn’t hold up in court, not at all, but there was something believable in Justin’s story.

“What about phone calls? Did you make any?”

“Yeah. I called someone, like, 12:30. But he’s inaccessible. He can’t come to court or anything” The tone of Justin’s voice told Lance not to press it.

“Well, then they’re phone records, right?”

“I’ve got one of those pay-as-you-go cells. I don’t have, like, a record or anything.”

Shit. Those things were the bane of a lawyers existence, prosecutor or defender. Still, the case had holes, and no one could put Justin at the scene either, which helped.

“Your fingerprints were on the gas can,” Lance said quietly.

Justin looked up, stared Lance right in the eye. “I work at. a. gas. station.” He said, enunciating each word slowly, as if Lance were too stupid to add two and two.

Which he had been. “Was the can from your station?”

Justin shrugged. “I handle dozens of those things every day. I never even saw the one they’ve got. Like I said, that lawyer guy sucked.”

Lance resisted the urge to agree. “OK. Let me get to work on this. I should be able to get a new arraignment and at least get you bail.”

“Like I could ever afford it,” Justin scoffed.

“We put up bail and set up a payment plan,” Lance clapped shut his laptop and slid it into its case.

Justin was still staring at him with wide blue eyes. “You’re serious.”

“As a heart attack, Mr. Timberlake.” Lance stood and offered his hand. Again, Justin did not take it right away.

“So you believe me?”

Lance looked Justin straight in the eye. He didn’t, not for a moment, but he knew the game to play here. “I do.”

Justin took his hand. “Call me Justin,” he said.

Lance took his card and scribbled his cell number on the back. “Call me anytime you think of something,” he said.

If he could pull this off, it was going to be a miracle.

**

Back at the office, Lance stormed into his grandfather’s suite, scaring his assistant as he flew past.

“How could you do this to me?” he shouted.

“Now, Jimmy, let’s be reasonable here.” The old man’s gentle Southern accent was soothing but Lance’s anger was too powerful to be assuaged with simple platitudes. And it burned to be referred to by his childhood nickname.

“You KNOW I don’t do arson cases. Not after…” his voice trailed off. “How could you dump this on me?”

“Jimmy, that was a long time ago and you’re through all that nonsense. All that fancy therapy your parents paid for.”

“Therapy doesn’t make him any less dead.” Lance’s voice was cold and calculated.

His grandfather sighed. “Lance, you need to let that go. We need you here and you’re going to have to step up now.”

“What if I don’t?” he snapped.

“Now listen,” his grandfather called, voice now harsh. “You may be my grandson and I love you deeply, but I’m still the boss here. I still decide who gets which cases. So you watch your tone with me, boy.”

Lance gritted his teeth but took the fire out of his voice. “I just don’t see how this can be a good situation.”

“Jimmy,” his grandfather said, “I need someone I trust on this one. It’s a big deal for us. Michaels was screwing it all up. I know he thinks he’s dumping it on you, but I was eager for him to be off of this one.”

“Why not someone else, then? Joey, or someone else?”

“Fatone’s got no criminal experience, and Faith’s still too green. You’re the best I’ve got, and I’m trusting you not to let me down.”

Lance paced, frantic to find an out. “Why can’t you take this one, then? If it’s so damned important.”

“Because,” his grandfather took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I’m old, Lance. I’m getting ready to retire. A case like this, it’s for someone young. You win this one, you’ll make a name for yourself. Then I can leave the firm to you.”

Wow. That was just. Wow. Lance stopped walking and stared at his grandfather. “You’re serious,” he said. The old man nodded.

“Don’t let me down, Jimmy.”

**

Lance arranged for Shelby to go into the after-school day care program in anticipation of the long hours ahead of him. She wasn’t happy about it, so he carved out Saturday afternoon to take her down to the waterfront. She loved to feed the ducks that swam in the tributaries criss-crossing Riverfront Park.

“Come here, ducky. Come here.” She held out a cracker, pouting when the birds didn’t swim close enough to take it from her hands.

“Drop it in the water, honey.” Lance dropped a few crumbs and waited for the ducks to descend on the food.

Soon, Shelby was bored so they wandered down to the flower vender for the second part of their waterfront ritual.

“Go to mommy,” she cried, flinging the blossoms from the edge of the pier. Lance watched as the petals bobbed and rippled before the current of the Portsmouth River carried them down towards the Atlantic Ocean.

The storm that had sent Shelby’s mom’s plane crashing into the ocean two years ago had come up so quickly there had been no way to avoid its wrath. They’d searched for days until the flight’s remains were found. For the second time in his life, Lance had lost someone he’d loved to a fateful accident. He’d moved numbly for months- without his daughter, he likely wouldn’t have made it through this time.

Suddenly, he thought of Timberlake, the forlorn man locked up pleading innocence, likely facing a lifetime behind bars. Did he feel as hopeless as Lance had been after Wendy’s death? Lance shook the thought from his head. He couldn’t get emotional about a client. It would only lead to trouble.

**

Monday morning, Lance walked into the city jail with an order for Justin’s release. Half an hour earlier, he’d met with the prosecutor and judge. After swiftly presenting his case, he’d obtained bond.

“But he’s a danger to society!” The prosecutor argued. She was new on the job. Lance eyed her with pity. It would be a shame to crush such a promising young talent. In the past week, he’d managed to come up with a dozen solid cracks in the prosecution’s case.

“You alleged this was a deliberate attack on a long time enemy,” Lance had coolly explained. “Carter’s dead. Mr. Timberlake has no other known feuds. To whom, exactly, is he a threat?”

On the steps of county jail, a pretty middle-aged woman in a waitress’s uniform paced nervously. She stepped up, blocking Lance’s path.

“Are you Mr. Bass?” she asked in a sweet, if slightly anxious, Southern twang. Lance nodded, extending a hand.

She shook it, gratefully. “I’m Lynn Harless, Justin’s mother. I just had to wait when Justin said you were coming by this morning. He said you were going to meet with the judge. I’m so glad you got back before my shift started, Mr. Bass.”

“Lance, please.” He released her hand, shifting his briefcase from hand to hand. “If you wait a few minutes, I’ll be back with Justin,” Lance offered. He smiled a bit as her jaw dropped.

“You got him out?”

‘Temporarily. On bail. We’ll have to talk about a payment plan for you to reimburse the firm, but for now, he’s able to stay at home until the trial.” Tears leaked at the corner of her eyes.

She grabbed in a fierce hug, catching him off-guard. “You really are an angel, aren’t you? Now go,” she said, releasing him, “quit wasting your time here and get my boy out of there.”

It took longer than it should have, each official eyeing the paperwork skeptically, but eventually the door opened and Justin walked through in a pair of track pants and a T-shirt. Lance remembered he’d been taken in the middle of the night and scolded himself for not thinking of it and bringing the kid a change of clothes.

Outside, Justin hugged his mother and they jogged down the steps, quickly avoiding the mob of gathering reporters.

“Mr. Bass, why don’t you swing by the café, have lunch. On me. It’s the least I can do.”

Lance glanced at Justin’s mother in the passenger seat of his car, then at the clock on the dash. “I really should get back to the office.”

“You have to eat,” she pleaded. Lance looked in the review mirror at Justin, who sat scowling, attention focused out the window.

“Can we make it a working lunch, then?” Lance asked. “I have some more questions for you.”

“I already told you,” Justin began, but a sharp look from his mother cut him off.

“Of course. Justin’s going to be as cooperative as possible, right baby?”

He sighed. “Sure. But I already told you everything.”

“We’ll see,” was all Lance replied.

**

Justin ate more than Lance had seen any one person consume. Ever. At least, ever in one sitting. He watched almost fascinated as Justin devoured half of a sandwich in one bite, washing it down with huge gulps of water.

"OK," Lance said, setting down his own Reuben and wiping his mouth on a napkin. "I want you to tell me what happened, again, but this time I'm going to stop you and ask questions."

Justin nodded, popping a pickle into his mouth. "OK."

"Let's start with your history with Nick Carter. You met in high school?"

Justin let out a sharp laugh. "Hell, we met in diapers. I've known the kid since we were in the same preschool class and he used to go around stealing other kids' toys. Nick's what you call the classic bully." He used air quotes on the last two words, something that Chris used to do all the time. The sight of it made Lance's stomach jump- he hadn't seen anyone do that in a long time.

"So you were never friends." Lance clicked the information into his laptop file. He'd need to find other people to back this up, though the prosecution probably had a long list of witnesses ready to testify that Justin had a long-time rivalry with Nick Carter.

"Nick didn't really have any friends. Not until high school when he got in with those guys."

"Who?"

"They run down on the South side of the River. Guy in charge's named Snake, I don't know his real name. Nick got in with them, like, eight years ago or something. Yeah, cause it was right when I got my license, they screwed with my car a few times."

Lance raised an eyebrow. "Screwed with it how?"

"Smashed the windows up, took a side mirror."

Justin's mother had come up to the table with a pot of coffee as Justin spoke. "Those Carter boys were never anything but trouble. It's sure been quiet around here since the fire. Not that I'd ever have wished them dead. Lord knows, it's not their fault. That mother of theirs was nothing but an alcoholic street whore."

Lance didn't know what to say to that, surprised at how deeply the sentiment against the Carters seemed to run in the Timberlake family.

"Don't pay any attention to her," Justin said. "She's never liked them. Me, I just mostly ignored them."

"OK," Lance said, turning back to his notes. "Why did Nick rough up your car?"

"I don't know if it was Nick, exactly, or one of his friends. They've got each other's back, you know? See, Nick had a thing for this girl, and she had a thing for me. He found out, and. That was his way of warning me to stay away from her."

Lance raised an eyebrow. "That's a pretty severe warning."

Justin shrugged, as if a smashed windshield wasn't that our of the ordinary. In his world, Lance thought grimly, it probably wasn't. "Whatever. I wasn't interested in her anyway, but. She wouldn't give up, and he blamed me. After that, I was kind of his prime target whenever shit was going down."

With a sigh, Lance sipped at his coffee. "So, fast forward to last year. The assault thing, cause that's sure to come up."

Justin glanced at the counter, where his mom was smiling, pouring coffee. "That shit was so fucked up," he said.

Lance raised an eyebrow. "The paperwork I've seen says you went after him with a baseball bat outside of a restaurant."

"Yeah, this one." Justin kept his gaze on his mother. "There was some pressure on her to sell the place a while back. She's got, like, power of attorney over it or something, since the guys who own the place are out of the country. Some corporation came in, wanting her to sell off the land so they could put up a warehouse or some shit. Nick's people had some say in it, I guess. He came in here, tried to convince her to sell." His face was contorted with pain as he spoke. "I found him in the back with her pressed up against the refrigerator. He had…"

Justin's voice broke. Lance waited mutely until Justin regained some composure, watching as the ragged breaths evened out. The case was getting pretty damned complicated.

"He had his hands on her," Justin whispered hoarsely, and Lance balked at the image. He glanced over at the counter, where Lynn was smiling as she rang up a customer's bill. Carter was lucky he'd gotten away alive. If it'd been his mother, Lance probably would have killed the guy on the spot.

"They dropped the charges when they found out all of that, but Nick was playing it off that he came in for coffee and I chased him out with a bat." Justin crumpled a napkin into a ball and tossed it into his empty water glass. "He's bad news. But I didn't so much as touch him, then, just kind of shoved him out the door. And I didn't kill him now," Justin swore. He had a habit of avoiding eye contact through their entire conversations but looking right at Lance whenever he pledged his innocence. It was quite unnerving, and Lance squirmed uncomfortably.

"Ok. I think that's enough for today," he said, closing his computer. "You need to come by my office tomorrow, and we'll talk some more." In the mean time, Lance needed to start talking to other people, find out exactly how many enemies the Carter brothers had. Justin's stories left the impression that there were many of them.

"What time?" Justin asked. "I'm gonna try to get back to work, if they'd let me."

"What's good for you?" Lance asked. Justin frowned.

"Afternoon's better. The station's pretty busy in the morning."

"OK. Come by around one and we'll work on this some more." Lance stood up, holding out a hand to shake. Justin didn't take it.

"It looks real bad, doesn't it?" he said quietly. "I mean, all this old shit and now. It just looks really bad."

"Don't worry about that," Lance promised. "Just get back to work. Don't talk to anyone about the case, not your friends, not the reporters, no one."

"I promise," Justin pledged.

"I'm serious, Justin. They'll offer you money, a lot of money. Don't so much as tell them to fuck off. Just hang up the phone."

Justin nodded grimly. Lance left him at the table, waving good bye to Lynn as she walked past with two plates of dessert in each hand.

**

Lance didn't have many contacts in that part of town, but there were a few guys he thought might still talk to him, after all that time.

As he pulled his car into Enrique's place, he couldn't help but fight down the bile in his throat. The old hot dog stand was still set up on the corner, and the bells still jangled over the door as a customer exited the building.

Inside, the parts shop smelled like rubber and carpet cleaner. Tires hung from the ceilings, and radios blasted music from the wall behind the counter. He took a moment to circle the aisles of touch-up paint and wiper blades before stepping up to the service desk.

A kid whose nametag read "Alec" gave him an up-nod greeting. "Can I help you?"

Lance was sure he looked out of place in his Gucci suit and polished shoes. He shrugged carelessly.

"Enrique around?" he asked.

The kid's eyes narrowed. So young, so jaded. "Who's asking?"

"An old friend." He left it at that, raising an eyebrow expectantly. The kid disappeared into the back, and Lance could hear a murmured conversation. He glanced around the shop, noticing the improvements that had been made since the last time he'd been in. It looked a lot better kept, as if some serious money had been poured into the place.

"What can I do for you?" Enrique came from the bag, dark hair hanging in his eyes. Lance took in his well-built frame, the expensive earring glittering in his lobe- he'd done all right for himself.

In this part of town, that made Lance cautious.

"Hey, Rick," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets for lack of anything better to do with them. "It's been a while."

"Holy, shit, Lance Bass. What're you doing in this part of town? I haven't seen you since--"

"The memorial." The words hung in the air between them, heavy with memories. There hadn't been a funeral. The fire had made sure they didn't even have a body to cry over.

"It's been a long time, man." Enrique nodded slowly, remembering. "What're you up to?"

"Same old. Got my degree."

"No shit? You're a lawyer?" Lance grinned, and Enrique laughed. "That's the fucking bomb, man."

"It has its perks. I'm trying to help out a kid," he said, tossing the picture down on the glass counter. "Justin Timberlake."

"Fuck, the arson kid. He really take down the Carter brothers?" Enrique turned the photo to get a better look at him. "He looks like a mean son of a bitch."

Lance thought of Justin's mother and how she wasn't a bitch at all. Then he thought of Justin pulling Nick off her with a baseball bat and suddenly had the urge to defend his client. "He's tough," he said, hoping the distinction would suffice.

"Yeah? He'd have to be, messing with the Carters."

"So you knew them?" Lance stuck the picture back in his pocket and flipped idly through a display of car airfreshners.

"Hell, yeah. Those boys walked around this part of town like they owned it. They were part of the gang that moved in, well. After Chris died, there was a big turn around in these parts."

The mention of Chris's name sent a chill through Lance's body. He stared back at Enrique coldly. "How so?"

"Snake and his boys moved in, started pushing on the streets. Carter's his little fucking lap dog, running off to do his dirty work. They were grooming the little one, too, getting him ready to step in as soon as he's old enough to hold his own. They never suspect the young ones."

'They' being the cops, who were constantly battling the gang leaders for control of the neighborhood on this side of the river. Last Lance had heard, the Cobras were winning that war. It had been a long time, though, since he'd ventured into this neighborhood, and was admittedly rusty on the gossip.

"So, Timberlake's not the only one who's got trouble with Carter, then." Lance stopped playing with the displays. "You don't have to give me names, though they help."

Enrique nodded, glancing over his shoulder at the back. Lance could just see the kid through the door, a big broom in his hands. He had on a pair of headphones and was dancing along to something. Satisfied he wasn't listening, the owner turned back to Lance but kept his voice quiet.

"Carter's been making problems for a lot of people lately. Most anyone who's got an interest in the waterfront area has probably entertained a thought or two of dropping him into the harbor. He's tight with Snake, but he's also hired himself out to some downtown corp trying to buy up land around here, force out the respectable businessmen. People don't like that."

What he was saying corroborated Justin's story. "Names, Rick. Don't leave me dangling. I'm trying to find out if this kid's guilty and I've got nothing to go on."

"Try Littrell. Lives over on Newbury now. He used to run with Carter, might be more help. He could tell you if there's been any below the radar stuff going on lately."

Lance nodded, filing the information away in his brain. "Thanks, man. That's a big help."

"Hey, you let me know if you find out who whacked him. I'm gonna send them a little thank you note or something. Certainly got the ape off my back. Fucking kid used to come in here all the time, not buy anything, just looking around. Spooky."

Lance left with more questions than he'd had going in, which wasn't much help at all. He glanced at the clock on the dashboard of his car. He really wanted to get in a visit with Littrell today, but Shelby needed to be picked up at five and he'd barely make it across town on time as it was.

**

Joey came with him the next day to meet with Littrell. Rule number one: when going into unknown situations, always take back-up.

The house was just over the river, in a small neighborhood with chain link fences and barking dogs. Lance paused in front of the house, flipping open his small notebook to check the address.

"This is it," he said.

"What makes you think he's gonna talk to you, if Timberlake offed his friend?"

Lance shrugged. "It's worth a shot." Enrique wouldn't have steered him here if it Littrell wouldn't talk.

They knocked twice and waited. Inside, a baby cried. It was several minutes before the door opened. Behind the screen was a man a little older than Lance, about his height, with curly strawberry blonde hair. In his arms was a red-faced toddler.

"Yeah? Who are you?" he asked.

"Mr. Littrell?" Lance noticed that Littrell kept one hand on the doorknob of the screen, holding it closed. He respected that, and didn't move forward. "I'm Lance Bass; this is my associate Joey Fatone."

Joey raised a hand and smiled, amicably.

"I'm an attorney representing Justin Timberlake."

Littrell scowled at him. "I don't know anything about that," he said forcefully.

"We don't think you do," Lance offered, trying to sound as soothing as possible. "We're just here to ask you a few questions about Nick Carter. I've been told you were a friend of his."

"Was a friend," Littrell said. "As in, past tense. I haven’t had anything to do with Nick in a couple of years."

"Please," Joey said, stepping forward. "May we come in and talk? Just questions, nothing more."

Littrell glanced around nervously. "I've got two kids here, and my wife's at work. I'm telling you, I haven't had anything to do with that in a long time." Clearly, he was nervous about letting the two men into his home. He must have been into some messed up shit, Lance thought, wondering how deep this was going to go before he hit bottom.

"Then perhaps we could talk out here," Lance offered. There were chairs set up on the front porch.

Littrell thought about it for a moment before finally agreeing. He carried the baby with him, pulling the door almost closed behind him.

"What's your daughter's name?" Lance asked, smiling as Brian let her stand between his legs. She gurgled happily.

"Britta. Her sister Bailey's asleep upstairs. Twins," he said with a smile. Lance grinned back easily.

"My daughter's five," he said. "I miss her at this age."

Warmed up by talk of his children, Littrell's shoulders lost a great deal of their defensive hunch. "What do you want to know about Nick?" he asked.

"We're just looking for some basic information. Friends, enemies, anyone who may have had it in for him."

He shrugged. "I haven't really spent any time with him in a while. Like I said, I got out of that life."

"You ran with the Snakes?" Joey asked, unbelieving. Lance had to agree- this guy didn't look like the organized crime type. He looked like a Bible study leader.

But Brian nodded, surprising them both. "Yeah. I've got, well. Family ties. Which is why I was able to walk away without any serious consequences."

"Nick was one of you."

Brian shrugged. "He hung with us sometimes."

"Mr. Littrell, do you think it's possible that someone inside the group killed Nick and his brother?"

Brian shook his head dismissively. "Not even for a second. Number one, they don't kill off people, they find other ways to make their lives miserable. They have this theory, it's better to live in pain than die for relief. So, yeah, they wouldn't have killed Nick. And number two, last I heard Nick was working on some big stuff for them."

"You sound pretty sure," Joey said skeptically.

"I am." Brian picked up his daughter and held her close to his chest. "You don't know these guys. The whole thing isn't their style. And framing Timberlake for it- even if they had done it, they would have made it seem like an accident-- leaky gas pipe or something."

Lance raised an eyebrow. "You think Mr. Timberlake was framed."

Brian laughed, causing Lance to send a long look at Joey. "Justin Timberlake no more killed Nick and Aaron Carter than I did," Brian said. "No way. Justin's one of those guys who's going places. He's managed to avoid this shit his whole life. I've known him forever, and he's never once gone after Nick unless Nick came at him first. No way he just up and decided to blow the house."

"Mr. Littrell," Lance began. "This is serious. Can you think of anyone who might have framed Justin? Anyone who maybe knew of his history with Nick and used it to their advantage?"

Sadly, Brian shook his head. "I've been trying to figure that out since I found out about this whole thing, and I can't think of anyone. I'd love to be able to help you- despite his problems, Nick was a good guy and I'm really sorry he's gone."

Lance nodded. He gave Brian a card before he left, latching the chain link fence behind him as he left the yard.

"So, do you still think the kid's guilty?" Joey asked. "Cause I'm starting to have my doubts."

Lance was too, but he didn't answer, just walked faster back to their car.

**

He parked in the back of the building, groaning when he saw Jessica Simpson sitting on the bench by the front door as he drove past. She worked as a nurse at Portsmouth Memorial Hospital, and had latched onto Lance when Shelby had her tonsils out last year. She’d been following him around ever since.

“Lance,” she called, “Oh, Lance tell me what I read in the paper this morning isn’t true.”

He tried to sidestep past her, but she was too quick, blocking his path. “What, Jessica?”

“It says you’re defending that awful boy who burned down the house with those two brothers in it.” Her pouty lips were set in a dissatisfied line.

Lance ran a hand over his face. “Yes, I’m defending Justin. And actually, I’m late-“

“But he’s dangerous!” She cried. “You’ve got a daughter, you can’t be getting involved with people like him.”

“I’m a defense lawyer. That’s what I do.”

“But he killed those poor boys!” She grabbed onto his arm, sharp nails digging through his suit jacket to bite at his bicep.

“That hasn’t been proven yet,” Lance said, yanking himself away. She dropped her hand, smoothing her dress carefully as she stepped away.

“You really should move into corporate law, Lance. I know my daddy would love to have you working for his company. Real estate, wouldn’t that be nice?”

Lance thought about doing nothing but studying land contracts all day. Jumping into an active volcano held more appeal.

“No, thank you, Jessica. Now, please. I have a meeting.” He nearly broke into a run to get into the building, pushing the door closed behind him, not waiting for it to close on his own. Jessica had this crazy idea in his head that they would make a great couple, and while Lance thought she was kind of sweet, she wasn’t really all there. He could only imagine their daily lives, based on the few conversations they’d had. It wasn’t pretty. In fact, it was downright nauseating.

**

Justin was waiting when Lance got into the office, sitting in front of the desk.

“Sorry I’m late,” Lance said, closing the door.

“No, it’s fine.” Justin rubbed his knees nervously. He reached to the floor beside him and pulled out a bottle of water, taking a sip.

“It seems like you’re not the only one who hated Nick Carter,” Lance said without preamble, pulling his laptop out of his bag and docking it on the desk.

“Why, what’d you hear?” Justin leaned forward in anticipation.

Lance dropped into his chair, loosening his tie. “Nothing good, unfortunately.” He stared at Justin intently. “Something’s bothering me about this whole thing, though. And that’s why you’re still alive.” It had been weighing on his mind since leaving Littrell’s an hour earlier.

Justin’s face fell into a jumble of worry. Lance held up a hand.

“No, that’s good. If the Cobras really thought you’d killed the Carters, you’d be dead. So the fact that you’re sitting here in front of me means they know you didn’t do it, or else they’ve gotten awfully lenient lately.” He snorted at the idea.

Justin’s face relaxed. “I didn’t think of that.”

“That’s what you’re paying me for.” Lance smiled gracefully at Justin, trying to reassure him. “So, now I need to do a little more digging and find out exactly what Nick’s connection to the Cobras is, and where that takes us.”

“Shouldn’t you be, like, trying to prove I didn’t do this, rather than digging up stuff on Nick?”

Lance folded his hands in front of him. He knew Justin had to be scared and confused, but he really needed his cooperation here. “Unless you suddenly have an alibi, the only way we’re gonna get you off is to find who really did this.” He stopped, because, huh. It sunk in just then.

Somewhere in the past two days, he’d done a complete 180. Justin didn’t kill Nick Carter and his brother. He couldn’t explain it; he just knew it in his gut.

Now he only had to prove it.

**

“Nick got in with them right about when we started high school. I’m still not sure how, but suddenly, he was wearing their colors. He hung around with one of them a lot- AJ.”

“Do you know what that stands for?” Lance asked.

Justin shook his head. “Nah. He and Nick lived together for a while, before Nick took his brother in and they got the house. He and AJ had an apartment over on Long Wharf Ave.”

Lance jotted it down. It may be worth checking into, maybe an old neighbor with a grudge. “OK, back to Nick.”

“Right. So, he got in with those guys. Started representing, you know?”

“Drugs?” Lance knew some of the local gangs had problems. He’d heard a lot about it back with Chris. He swallowed, the thought always bringing a lump to his throat.

“Surprisingly, no.” Justin said, almost fondly. “He never touched the stuff, as far as I know, and definitely never pushed it. Nah, Nick was more into the financial side of things, loans and shit. And muscle. Snake used him as an enforcer a lot, especially with the other kids who’d gotten in over their heads.”

“Ok. So, you said there was a confrontation about a girl.”

“Yeah. Britney.” Justin smiled at the memory. “She was a cheerleader, a good girl. Real sweet. She moved here because her parents split. We were friends.”

“What happened?” Lance asked.

“Nick liked her. Got a big crush. He tried to coerce her into going with him. She said no, cause see, he had the rep, even then. He got real mad, and assumed I’d warned her off. That I was after her myself.”

“But you didn’t date, right?” Lance glanced at the notes he’d taken the day before.

In front of him, Justin’s knees jumped nervously. “No. I don’t really do girls, you know?”

Lance’s mind reeled. “Wait. You’re gay?”

Annoyed, Justin sighed. “It is possible to be gay and not look like a reject from Queer Eye, you know.”

Lance held up his hands and quietly said “sorry.”

“No,” Justin said, sinking back in his chair, long legs stretched out in front of him, “I’m just tense, I’m sorry.”

Lance waved it away, thinking of how-- comfortable-- Justin looked with it. It was a suit that had never fit Lance well, and since he’d shaken it off, he hadn’t associated with anyone else from that community.

Keeping mum about his thoughts, Lance pressed on. “So, you didn’t date Britney-- what was her last name?”

“Spears. And no. But Nick was over that pretty quickly. After the windows thing,” he said wryly. “See, there was a lot of shit going down. The Cobras had a connection to this bigger organization, got a lot of financing from someone. They were expanding territory, pressing over to this side of North Street, and some people were pushing back, trying to keep them out.”

Lance glanced back at his notes. “You were, what, 16?”

“Yeah. Crazy shit for a kid, huh?”

Lance nodded. Crazy indeed.

“Anyway, I was close with one of the guys who was kind of a leader of the people who were fighting them. He was like a big brother, almost a dad to me. I was working for him, under the table. And Nick, well. Nick was supposed to put some, I guess you could call it influence, on him. He could move around the neighborhood easier than Snake or some of those other guys. But Nick didn’t do so well with words, so he resorted to a bit of muscle.”

Lance closed his eyes for a moment, trying to picture a 16-year-old caught up in the world of organized crime, where you’d just off someone who didn’t like your business.

“What happened,” Lance asked, completely enthralled in the story.

“Nick made him disappear. Set it up so it looked like he’d died, took him off to screw with his mind. Whoever was financing the Cobras has an island somewhere that they were holding him on. They were only supposed to be for a while, but shit went down. I don’t know exactly what, but the Cobras split from those guys a few months later. But the whole thing made Nicky real popular with Snake and them, like, second in command.”

“So, wait,” Lance said, “I’m lost. Nick didn’t kill a guy, because of that he moved up in the organization?”

Frustrated, Justin got up and began to pace around the office, the carpet crunching quietly under his sneakers.

“Yeah, see, the whole area’s busy mourning this guy, so the Cobras move right in, set up shop. I’ve been trying to piece this shit together for eight years, and I’d almost gotten it. I’ve been tracing them, and fuck.”

Justin slapped his hands down on the desk, leaning right into Lance’s face. “Why would I kill Nick Carter when he’s the one I was counting on to help me find Chris?”

Part Two

“Mr. Allen.”

Chris swore at the interruption and looked up to the deck, where worn sandals stood on the rough wooden planks. He squinted into the sun, following the long brown legs up to Manny’s earnest face. The sixteen-year-old smiled down at him, that casual grin that only island life could create.

“What’s up, kid?” Chris wiped engine grease off his hands and stood, stretching his legs. He’d been kneeling for too long again, and his knees ached fiercely.

“I finished up with Sr. Vega’s boat. It’s already four, and since we don’t have any more work to do…” His voice trailed off hopefully.

“You wanna go early?” Chris played his most ferocious face, letting the kid squirm. He had a girlfriend-- the kid, not Chris-- who hung around the docks doe-eyed all day long. “Yeah, go ahead,” Chris said, laughing as Manny’s eyes lit up brightly. “But remember what I warned you about!” he yelled as the kid ran down the docks.

Turning, Manny jogged backward and saluted Chris. “Be safe, I know!”

Chris went back to the engine, tweaking a bit more until it purred properly. It was a beast of a boat, but the owner needed it to run so Chris kept fine-tuning it, squeezing another few months out of the ancient vessel.

He lost track of the time, and didn’t walked back up the dock until the sun dipped into the sea. If he was lucky, it’d be a clear night and he’d get a satellite feed of the Florida ball game. If not, he’d sample some of the homemade “junk juice” the island people made, get drunk quickly and jerk off before bed.

”Sr. Allen,” Louisa always chided him at the market, “When are you going to take out my Maria? She’s a pretty girl, perfect for you, she likes the sailing.” Louisa would load his basket with bananas and rice all the while trying to persuade him to marry her daughter.

“I’m waiting for you,” he’d tell her, kissing her hand as a gentleman would. “When are you going to leave your husband and run away with me?” She’d giggle like a schoolgirl and blush at the attention, and Chris would leave the market cleverly having diverted her attention from wedding plans.

**

David came every Tuesday with supplies from some of the bigger islands. He docked at Chris’s tiny port and loaded boxes of food and other staples into the town’s only pickup truck for delivery to the market. He always stopped by Chris’s place with beer and news from the mainland.

"Hey, amigo!” David called from the docks, wandering up to Chris’s place with his arms full of newspapers. “I brought you enough reading material to keep you busy for two weeks this time, so none of your complaining that you’ve got nothing to do, OK?”

Chris laughed despite himself and took the armload of week-old papers, from London and New York and Miami. Just because he didn’t live in the real world didn’t mean that he wanted to forget it existed.

They sat in the twilight drinking away the beers. David would stay the night, since it was too dangerous to sail these waters at night- too many lost vacationers who didn’t know enough to leave a light on in their cabin to warn other boats that they were anchored in the abyss.

“How come you don’t get married?” David asked, the same way he always did. “You need a pretty wife, help you around here, make this place more… habitable.”

Chris looked around at the laundry hanging to dry over his dining room chairs, the sparse furniture, the unmade bed. He snorted. “It doesn’t need to be habitable if I’m the only one here.”

“Touché, my friend. But really. You need a wife. Haven’t you ever been in love?”

**

June 1996

School had just gotten out, which meant Justin was hanging around again. Chris had fallen for the kid in a very fraternal manner the minute Justin and his mom had moved into the apartment next door. He’d offered a Justin a job at the garage during the summer, but Justin was only there about half of the time, being fifteen and more interested in hanging out with Trace, the kid down the street. Chris shook his head when he thought of life at 15, sneaking into movies and sitting on the curb at the 7-Eleven for hours at a time.

The sound of sneakers echoed across the garage floor, though, and Chris had to laugh. “So, you’ve finally decided to actually earn your paycheck?” Chris yelled over his shoulder. On the radio, No Doubt was singing ‘Spiderwebs’ and Chris had been fantasizing about Gwen Stefani while he worked on the car. She was one of the few women in the world for whom he’d give up dick entirely.

“Um.” A deep voice hummed from the bay, where Chris had old man Davis’ car jacked up. He turned to see a boy not much older than Justin looking very lost among the grimy tools and engine parts. Dirty blonde hair kept in careless spikes, blue T-shirt and jeans, Vans sneakers-- the kid was cute, Chris thought, taking in the wide pale eyes that stared at him curiously.

“Sorry,” Chris said, walking over to the kid. He was just taller than Chris, but had a frailty to him that made Chris think he could push this guy over with barely a touch. When he stepped in close, the kid stepped away.

“Hi,” the guy said, and his voice was too low to be coming from such a young face. “I need some help, um, my car broke down a few blocks back.”

“Yeah? What happened?” Chris began gathering his tools for the hike to the kid’s car, grabbing the keys as he left. The kid stood, watching, then scurried after when Chris stepped outside and held the door. He locked it before they began walking.

“Um. It was going along fine and just. The engine cut out.” The boy had to hurry to keep up with Chris’ quick pace, and Chris found himself slowing down a bit so the walk was more leisurely.

“Yeah? You out of gas?”

“No, I just filled it.” The kid pointed at a snazzy four-door across the road. “That’s it there.”

Chris took a look, and fiddled with the starter without success for a few minutes. “Well, I can’t get this fixed here. Slide it into neutral and get in.”

The kid just stood there. “You can’t push it yourself.”

It would have been a great feat if he could accomplish it, but the kid was sadly right. “TIMBERLAKE!” Chris bellowed, loud enough to scatter birds from the telephone wires in panic. The kid jumped and Chris laughed.

“My assistant,” Chris said, glancing at his watch. In less than a minute the sound of footsteps banging pavement came from the next block. “Right on cue.”

Justin and Trace arrived to push, with much groaning about being grunt labor. They got the car back into the garage and the boys took off again.

“Come on,” Chris said. “We’ve got paperwork.”

The kid stood at the counter in Chris’s tiny lobby and filled out all of the forms Chris handed him with neat block print. He chewed on his lower lip a bit when he glanced at the list of services at the bottom of the page.

“How much is this going to cost?” he asked. Chris took in the fancy watch on the kid’s wrist and the gold chain around his neck.

“Nothing you can’t afford,” he promised, but for some reason, he didn’t have the urge to gouge this one. There was something almost sweet about the way the kid stood looking so helpless in Chris’s lobby. “Do you need to call someone, to come pick you up?”

“Oh!” The kid turned bright red. “Yeah.”

“Cause you can stay here, but if you do, you have to work.” Chris smiled, and shoved the cordless phone across the counter.

“No, no. I mean. I can get a ride.” Chris left him to make the call, heading back to the shop. The hairs on the back of his neck started to rise as he put his wrenches back on the rack. He glanced in the shiny chrome lockers to see the kid staring at him. It sent a shiver up Chris’s spine.

“All set?” he asked, when Lance had finished talking.

“Yeah. I’m just gonna wait out front,” the kid said. He handed Chris the keys to his car. “I’ll give you a call tomorrow, find out how long it’ll take?”

“Sure. It depends on whether or not I need to order parts. Could be done in an hour, could be a week. I’ll let you know,” Chris glanced down at the papers. “Lance.”

The kid smiled, and Chris had to wonder how old he was. He handled himself well, despite his uneasiness with the garage and the turmoil of a breakdown on the wrong side of town. The registered address for the car was a long way from Eastern Avenue.

**

The kid, Lance, didn’t call back the next day. Instead, he came by, strolling in much more confidently than the day before, walking right up to Chris and saying “Hey,” that low voice echoing in Chris’s ear while he was hunched over a transmission trying to coax it back to life.

“Shit,” Chris had said, jumping a mile at the interruption. “Oh, it’s you. What’re you doing here?”

Lance raised an eyebrow carefully at the question. “My car?” he asked, a hint of a smile on his lips.

“Oh, right.” Chris felt like an idiot, but the way the kid was staring at him was completely unnerving. Gone was the shy nervy kid from the day before. Chris couldn’t seem to form a coherent thought. “It’s not ready yet.”

“Do you know how long?” Lance asked patiently, although the look on his face said that he wasn’t so concerned about the car.

“At least a week. I had to order a new starter; I figured you’d want official parts.” Chris smirked at the blush that brought up across Lance’s face, glad to once again have the upper hand in this odd banter between them. “So, come back in a week and I should have it ready. Pay when it’s done,” he said.

“OK.” Lance smiled at him, a slight curve of lip that echoed in his glistening green eyes. The sunlight streamed in from high windows near the room and cast a halo-like glow behind Lance’s golden hair. “You’ve got a little something--“ he reached out, and Chris ducked back instinctively. Lance smiled at him.

“What do you think I’m going to hit you or something?” he asked. Chris chuckled at the idea. Lance reached up and stroked one soft fingertip across Chris’s chin, pulling it away to show the streak of dirt that he’d wiped off.

“Thanks,” Chris said, as Lance wiped his hands on his pants.

Lance shrugged, and brushed by, making sure his shoulder bumped against Chris’s as he walked past. Chris turned, watching as Lance strode out the door. The kid glanced back over his shoulder just before he turned the corner, smiling at Chris.

It was in that moment that Chris knew he had it bad.

**

Lance came back the next day. And the next. Soon, the week had passed but Chris was working slowly, because the kid never seemed to be in a rush, and Chris was growing used to the company. They’d talk a bit while Chris worked, or the kid would hand him tools while he was stretched out under a car or truck. Nothing in depth, nothing serious, but Chris liked the kid and his straight-up world view that Chris himself shared.

It was no surprise that the kid came by on Sunday, a week and a half after they first met. Chris knew he would, and was waiting. He spent all morning working under the hood of an old Chevy, one eye poised on the door until the kid walked in, wearing the same sneakers and shorts with a deep red T-shirt. His hair was still wet as he slid in next to Chris, hunched over the engine, hands resting on the grill.

“Hey,” he said. “What’cha doing?”

“Working,” Chris said. “Do you have a job?” It was meant to be an insult, but the kid just brushed it off with that irresistible, easy smile.

“I work,” Lance said. “I’ve got a flexible schedule.”

“Well, some of us don’t have that luxury.” Chris went back to work, trying to ignore the body pressed against his side. Lance smelled like clean, expensive soap, so different from any of the usual scents in Chris’ world.

He twisted a rag over the radiator cap, trying to get it to budge. His full attention focused on twisting the stubborn piece, he didn’t notice Lance had leaned in very close.

“I saw you watching me,” Lance whispered, voice so low it sounded almost like a threat, and Chris shivered despite himself.

“Get over yourself, kid. What’re you, 16? I don’t think so.”

Lance’s hand closed over his gently, and Chris froze. “I’m 18. And I know exactly what I’m doing.”

Chris turned his head and slowly pulled back until he could stand upright. “Are you sure?”

“Yup.”

Slowly, Chris turned Lance until his back was to the wall. “You’re sure?” he asked again, and Lance positively whimpered as Chris’ hands closed over his shoulders. He didn’t protest, so Chris leaned down and gently pressed his lips against Lance’s, kissing him in the most graceful way.

Something about Lance inspired careful tender kisses, and Chris delivered them as slowly as possible, nipping at Lance’s lips with his own until the heat that started in his groin had spread throughout his body. He wrapped an arm around Lance’s shoulders, his hand caressing Lance’s short gelled hair before crossing to a shoulder, elbow keeping Lance’s neck from lolling back in bliss, forcing Lance’s mouth against his.

Lance lifted his hands against Chris’ back, molding his palms against Chris’ shoulder blades carefully, holding him close as his lips parted carefully. Chris slipped a tongue inside and Lance groaned a bit. He licked lightly at Lance’s teeth, tasting everything that Lance would offer him. God.

They kissed against the wall for what seemed like hours, until Chris’ dick was pressed up against the fly of his jeans so painfully he had to shift, had to move. He stepped back, and turned, until he was tucked into the corner of the garage, hands going to his belt.

“Have you done this before?” he asked, voice breathy. The metal buckle clinked as he undid it, hands spreading the front of his pants until his dick throbbed happily. Lance nodded, and Chris rested his hands on Lance’s shoulders, urging him down to his knees.

Chris took his dick out of his boxers, Lance’s eyes widening impossibly large at the first glance. Lance leaned forward and opened his lips, taking just the tip of Chris’ dick into his mouth. At the first warm, wet touch, Chris moaned blissfully. It had been a long time since he’d last hooked up with someone, even longer since someone had looked up with him with such desire in their eyes. “

Come on,” Chris said, urging Lance’s lips back to his dick. He ran his hand across the back of Lance’s head as it bobbed back and forth, ruffling the short hairs as Lance found a rhythm that kept short gasps coming from Chris’ lips. He kept one hand there, on Lance’s head, and slid the other up under his own shirt until he found a nipple and tweaked it, adding even more sensation to his already hypersensitive body.

He didn’t want to push Lance, but he couldn’t help from thrusting slowly, biting his lip as Lance took more into this mouth. He almost cried out when Lance let Chris’ dick slip from his lips, but Lance nosed around his dick, mouthing the length of the shaft with soft, pliable kisses, sucking a bit on Chris’ tight balls before returning to the tip with wet velvety lips that formed perfect suction on Chris’ rigid cock. He never lifted a hand, using only his mouth to drive Chris wild.

Chris pushed further, both of his hands now falling to Lance’s shoulders, soft gasps escaping his mouth with every thrust. When it got to be too much, Lance held onto Chris’ thighs, keeping Chris from driving too fast or too far and gagging Lance.

“Stop,” Chris breathed, though it was almost painful to do so. “Stop, Lance.” He pulled away, tucking himself back into his underwear but leaving his pants unfastened as Lance stared up at him with wide, hurt eyes. “We can’t do this here,” Chris said, knowing how close he was to throwing Lance down and fucking him here, with the door unlocked in the middle of the day. “Let me lock up,” he said, pulling the kid up so he could kiss him again, getting distracted there for long moments as Lance’s wet lips glided over his effortlessly.

Upstairs, in Chris’ tiny apartment, Lance was suddenly shy, staring in wonder as Chris pulled his T-shirt over his head before hesitatingly doing the same. Chris was naked by the time Lance had the shirt, off, and Chris flopped down on the couch while Lance turned his back and slid down his baggy shorts, pulling off his sneakers as he bent. Chris watched as Lance hemmed and hawed before finally stripping off his boxers and sitting down on the couch between Chris’ spread legs. Immediately, Chris brought one leg up over Lance’s lap, the other stretched behind Lance so that he was trapped. Lance didn’t seem to mind, lowering his mouth to Chris’ hot skin, leaving warm trails of kisses on Chris’ chest as he tasted and sucked across the hard planes of muscle and bone.

“Baby,” Chris couldn’t help but say, and it sounded so foreign coming from his lips because he wasn’t the kind of guy who tossed around terms of endearment. But it felt right, this barely legal boy with the enchanting eyes taking a hard nipple into his mouth and sucking it into an even firmer peak. Chris hummed lowly in his throat, and the sound was echoed octaves deeper from Lance’s smiling mouth as he lifted his eyes.

When Lance tried to take Chris’s dick into his mouth again, Chris caught Lance’s chin, pulling him down for a kiss instead. “Lay down on me,” Chris said, and for the first time he reached out and touched Lance’s cock, hot and hard in the palm of his hand. Lance sucked in a deep breath and only moved when Chris pushed at his shoulder, pulling him down so they were lying together.

Suddenly, Lance found his motion and began to thrust down, humping into Chris’ groin while making the most delicious sounds in Chris’ ear. Chris used his hands to slide his cock back between Lance’s legs, letting it rest behind his balls so that with each of Lance’s thrust, Chris slid up and down, almost like fucking. In position, he beckoned Lance closer with a crook of a finger, and Lance leaned down to kiss him again, pulling away to gasp when Chris’s hands settled on his hips and pulled him tight. Lance’s hand were in Chris’ hair, twisting just light enough to spend sparks of pain behind Chris’ eyes, but it was so vastly over shadowed by the pleasure that Lance created elsewhere that he didn’t say a word.

When Chris touched one of Lance’s nipples, twisting lightly, Lance sighed into Chris’ mouth, and kissed him harder, thrusting his tongue in the same rhythm his hips had set. It was hot in the apartment, without any air conditioning, and the sounds of skin sliding on sweaty skin permeated Chris’ ears. He squeezed at Lance’s ass, and the boy froze, until Chris whispered, “Relax. Just breathe,” and let go, sensing it was a line not to be crossed today.

His vision was blurring with the heat of it all, and soon he felt Lance tensing about him, the boy’s lips curved in a quivering smile as he suddenly thrust faster and Chris felt a sticky wet spurting onto his hip, dripping down his side to the couch as Lance came. Lance’s face was buried in Chris’ chest, and he wished he could have seen Lance when he went over the edge. Doubling his efforts, Chris thrust upwards into Lance’s clenched thighs for a few more moments until he too came, letting Lance roll off and milk the last few drops from his spent cock with his hands.

“Fuck,” Chris gasped, reaching down to the floor for his pants. He used his underwear to wipe off his chest and handed the damp garment to Lance, who mopped his legs as best he could. Chris suddenly felt like he needed to apologize, because he’d just had sex with a very hot 18-year old in the middle of the afternoon, and he wasn’t even sure the kid knew his name. He didn’t know whether to feel taken advantage of or like he’d been the one taking advantage.

“Hey,” Lance said, taking away the need to make any decisions, “don’t go getting all adult on me. I was kinda hoping this would happen.”

“You did.” Chris eyed him skeptically, still sitting on the couch while Lance dressed.

“Yeah. I mean. I like you.” He blushed when he said it, but in the most endearing way.

Chris reached for a hand and pulled Lance up so that they were standing together. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”

“I think I do. If I don’t, I’ll learn,” he replied, and Chris thought this kid should be a lawyer, with all the perfect comebacks. Chris stepped close and kissed him again, the now-sweaty, sex-smelling boy who’d walked into his garage and kept coming back.

“I’m still charging you for the car,” Chris said, and Lance snorted with laughter until Chris kissed him again.

**

That was the beginning. The rest had lasted all summer, and Chris had learned more about Lance has the days went by. He had just graduated from high school and was starting college in the fall, Portsmouth University so he could live at home, but he wanted to go away for graduate school. His parents didn’t want him to leave, so he’d compromised to stay for now. Chris admired family loyalty, though the more Lance told him, the more uneasy he felt about the level of control that his parents and grandparents tried to exert over him.

They didn’t know Lance was gay, a fact that made Chris acutely uncomfortable but not enough to give up on the romance. Instead, they dated in a secret world, full of late night meetings down by the pier or mid afternoon hook-ups at the garage. Because Lance didn’t tell anyone, Chris didn’t either, though it made him feel rather awful to hide such a magnificent thing from his mother and friends. Slowly, he’d fallen love with the emerald-eyed boy, and wanted to share him with those he loved platonically.

They’d argued about it, about why Lance’s parents’ happiness was so much more important than honesty and truth. Lance stormed away in despair, only to show up in the rain the next day, crying rivers of his own down already wet cheeks.

“I told them,” he sobbed, and Chris had gathered them into his arms, feeling the cold wet seep through his clothes as he brought Lance in from the storm. “They were so unhappy, my mother, she cried.” Chris had cried with Lance, and tucked him into bed while he thought of every vile way possible to make the Bass family pay for hurting such a precious man.

When he woke, Lance had been more clearheaded, apologizing profusely for worrying Chris. He seemed overly happy, and talked of his classes that started in a few days, summer already wiled away. Chris had served him omelets for dinner and they’d made love to the sounds of Cole Porter from the stereo.

“I love you,” Lance had said, the first time the words had slipped past his lips, though Chris thought Lance might have been on the brink of saying them before. He kissed Lance’s lips, and promised that everything would be OK. Right before Lance had drifted off to sleep, Chris whispered his promises of love in Lance’s ear.

In the morning, he’d gone to a meeting with the police commissioner about some gang problems in the neighborhood. Justin had been harassed by a group of guys from the next district over, and Chris wanted to make sure that the drug lords weren’t allowed to spread into his turf, not after the years he and other residents had put into cleaning things up. He’d left Lance sleeping peacefully.

When he returned, there was smoke pouring from the shop windows and sirens blaring in the distance. Without a second thought, Chris had screamed, and bounded up the stairs calling Lance’s name. He found him in the bedroom, trapped by a flaming beam that had fallen across his path. The heat was unbearable and burned at Chris’s skin all over, but he didn’t care. He opened the refrigerator door because it was the only thing he could reach and began tossing every bottle of liquid on the blaze until there was a tiny path and Lance could leap to him.

He reached his hands out, coughing in the dense black smoke, and felt Lance’s hands in his.

Then the world had gone black.

**

Chris took a long sip of tequila and didn’t wince while it burned. “I’m not the kind of guy who falls in love,” he told David. Abruptly, he left the room, leaving David to fend for himself for the rest of the evening.

Part Three

Lance went home early, shaken to the core by Justin’s revelation. He hadn’t wanted to believe it, hadn’t wanted to face the inevitable fact that Chris wasn’t some fond memory, some guardian angel but a very real presence lost somewhere in the world.

After Chris’s death, Lance had thrown himself at the mercy of his family, so wrought with grief that he’d agreed to anything they’d asked if only to ease the pain. The timing was so awful, only days after he’d come out to them and his lover was dead. Lance was alone to deal with all of the fallout, and he buckled under the pressure.

Lance sat in his backyard as evening approached, not caring about getting dirt on his suit, thinking back to how easily he’d gone along with his parents' pleas to get help. He’d never truly believed that the fire was a sign from God, but the threat of it was pressure enough. He’d suffered a semester at a clinic in Utah that specialized in reorientation, while friends and extended family thought he was off recovering from injuries related to the fire. The timing was awful, but it was too perfect for his family, and numbly Lance had gone along with it.

“Daddy!” Shelby’s shout brought a smile to his face as she raced across the lawn into his arms. Joey followed.

“Hope you don’t mind I picked her up with Briahna after school. You looked kinda sick when you ran out of the office.”

Lance hugged his daughter tightly. “Thanks. I’m OK.”

“Kel wants to know if it’s OK for the girls to have a sleepover.” Joey's daughter was a couple of years older than Shelby, and she just idolized Briahna.

“Can we, Daddy? Please?” Shelby looked up at him with pleading eyes. He poked her nose lightly.

“Sure. Go pack your things up, OK? And remember underwear for tomorrow. And a toothbrush!” A night alone, he thought. Thank God. He didn’t think he’d be able to entertain his daughter with so much on his mind.

She let out a whoop of joy and ran into the house to gather everything she’d need.

“You sure you’re OK?” Joey asked, settling himself on the picnic table across from Lance’s Adirondack chair. “You seem a little out of it.” “Yeah. No. I don’t know.” Lance traced the pinstripes of his pants with idle fingers. “Do you remember Chris?”

“The guy from the garage?” Joey asked, surprised.

“Yeah. The one I had that thing with, the summer before college.”

“Right, yeah. You haven’t brought him up in a long time.” Joey was one of the few people who knew the whole story. He’d been the only one of Lance’s friends to meet Chris during the summer they’d dated.

“Justin knew him,” Lance said quietly. Joey’s eyes grew wide with surprise.

“Small world,” was all he said.

“There’s more,” Lance continued. “Justin says the fire was. It was some kind of cover up, set to get Chris out of the way.”

“By who?” Skepticism laced Joey’s voice as he studied his friend. “The cops could never find anything.”

Lance didn’t look up as he spoke. “Chris was pretty… outspoken against the Cobras. They were fronting for a bigger crew back then, pushing drugs up into new turf. Apparently, the big guns wanted Chris silenced, if not on their side.”

Joey let out a low whistle. “I can’t say I’m surprised, but damn. They’d kill a guy over that, I’d hate to se the consequences for something serious.”

“Justin says they didn’t kill him.” The words hung in the air between them like a leaded balloon, poised to fall.

“What?”

“He didn’t die. They took him, somewhere. He had some sort of information about some political thing, I don’t know. His father was. Someone important. Chris didn’t really have anything to do with him, but. He never told me much about that stuff, but I know he had a lot more influence than he was letting on. They set it up to look like he died, but they took him.”

Joey stood, unable to sit still with such far-fetched information bombarding his brain. “Lance, come on. You can’t possibly believe this.”

“There was no body, Joey.”

“Because it was a fire!” Joey’s voice was raised, now, trying to douse Lance’s run-away imagination.

Lance hunched his shoulders, a man defeated before he’d even begun the race. “I don’t know what to believe.”

Joey softened his tone and sat down again. “Look, even if he’s alive, good for him. You’ve moved on, he’s moved on. He hasn’t come back here, that’s got to say something, right?”

“I don’t know.” Lance looked up from his lap and stared at Joey with hopeless eyes. “I loved him Joey.”

“But you’ve moved on. Wendy, and Shelby. You said it was just a phase.”

“I don’t know, Joey. But whatever, even if it was? I still cared about him. And if he’s alive out there, somewhere. I have to find him.”

**

Lance went to Justin’s apartment the next day to apologize for his abrupt dismissal of their meeting. As soon as Justin had mentioned Chris’ name, Lance’s mind had gone back and, as Justin had put it, he’d turned “a funky shade of green.”

Everything about their days together came rushing back like a flash flood, overwhelming Lance to the point where he’d had to run, had to get out of the cramped office. Everything in his life that had been concrete fact and now seemed fallible.

Justin lived on the third floor of a triple-decker, with exterior staircases connecting balconies on the side of the house. Lance nearly ran into a skinny man with wildly curly brown hair as he began to climb.

“Hey, man. Sorry.” The guy stood back cheerfully, holding up his hands. He had a camel colored messenger bag slung across his chest and wore a pink striped button down shirt. He smiled brightly though sunglasses. “Hey, you’re the lawyer! I’m JC, Justin’s boyfriend.”

Lance smiled cordially and extended a hand, which the other man shook vigorously. “Is Justin home?”

“Yeah, he’s upstairs. JUSTIN!” Lance winced as JC bellowed- the man had some lung power. He remembered Justin saying that JC was a singer.

Justin’s voice echoed down to them before his face appeared. “I don’t care if that other stuff’s on sale, if you don’t buy the good lube, we’re not having sex. End of story.” His head appeared over the balcony with a goofy grin. “Oh, hi Lance.”

Lance looked down at his shoes with embarrassment. “Hey, Justin.”

JC just laughed and left without replying to Justin’s threat, leaving Lance to climb the stairs and hope he could blame the flush of his cheeks on the exertion. At the top, Justin was grinning sheepishly.

“Sorry. I didn’t know you were down there.” He opened the door for Lance, ushering him into the kitchen of a small, homey apartment. The kitchen table was chrome and red leather, right out of the 1950s, and there were CDs everywhere, on the window sill, spread out across the table, on the counters, even on top of the refrigerator. “Sorry about the mess,” Justin said. “Our book shelf broke the other day and well. We haven’t gotten to replace it.”

Lance raised an eyebrow as they rounded the corner into the living room, where the mess of pressboard was stacked in the corner. “How the hell did that happen?” he asked, before manners could tell him to hold his tongue.

Justin grinned. “JC was glad to see me when I got out last week.” He giggled a bit at the memory, and Lance had to smile at the grin that danced on Justin’s lips.

“He didn’t come to see you, while you were in jail.” Lance had poured over the visitor lists carefully, but JC’s name wasn’t on there.

“No. I told him not to. I didn’t want any of the inmates to know I was gay, you know. Give anyone any ideas. Especially when it looked like I was gonna be there for a long time.”

That made sense, so Lance let it drop. They seemed like an odd pair, the garage mechanic and the carefree musician, but then again, he’d fallen for a mechanic too.

“So, I didn’t expect to see you here today,” Justin said, gesturing that Lance should sit down on the couch. He did, sinking into the deep blue cushions. Justin took a nearby chair.

“Yeah, um. I wanted to come by and apologize for yesterday. For cutting things short.”

Justin nodded. “It’s no problem, man. Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah. But. There’s something you should know.”

He pulled a picture from his bag and handed it to Justin. Justin studied it for a moment before meeting Lance’s gaze.

“You knew Chris.”

**

Lance didn’t tell Justin the whole story. They sat in the living room for most of the afternoon while Lance sketched a quick outline of their summer together, leaving out all mentions of anything romantic or sexual that had happened. He told the story of two men who had, in a short time, been friends, before one of them had died.

If Justin suspected there was more to the story, he didn’t say a word. He did, however, spend quite a bit of time trying to remember Lance, but couldn’t place him at all. Lance was secretly glad. When Justin jumped up to retrieve some pictures and fill Lance in on all he’d learned about Chris’s disappearance, Lance waved him back.

“Hang on, Justin. We’ve got to deal with this one thing at a time. Even if Chris is alive out there,” and by now, Lance had come to the conclusion that he must be, “we can’t do anything before we get the charges against you dropped. I don’t want to see this thing go to trial.”

Justin paused, one foot on either side of the bedroom threshold. “Oh yeah. I forgot about that for a second.” He scrubbed a hand over his head impatiently. “So, how do we do that?”

Lance pulled a video tape out of his bag. “I got a friend of mine to edit down the surveillance tape from the gas station to just the gas can purchases. I thought maybe you could help me, you might remember if something was suspicious or even identify some of the people.”

“Sure.” Justin put the tape in the VCR and they began to watch, Lance with his computer poised on the coffee table ready to collect any information Justin could provide. His attention was focused more on Justin than on the screen. He was amazed again at how the man had transformed from the sullen inmate he’d first met. Justin’s hair was growing in, taking off the edge of his appearance. His face was more relaxed, even though his brow was furrowed in concentration. Looking at this man, Lance couldn’t believe how he’d ever thought Justin capable of cold-blooded murder.

“That guy,” Justin said suddenly, pausing the tape. “I’d never seen that guy before. We don’t get a lot of strangers around here, I remember thinking that guy must have run out of gas or something because he’s not the type we usually sell to.”

Lance focused on the blurry black and white image. There was something familiar about the face on the screen, but Lance couldn’t quite place it. He noted the time of the purchase, and the date, along with Justin’s descriptions of the man’s suspicious behavior as he made the purchase. Then they moved on.

In total, they flagged eight possible suspects, and the station owner had promised to help identify the purchases if Lance could come to him with dates and times. It didn’t help if the clients paid cash, as most had, but Lance could hope.

JC came back from the store laden with groceries, which Justin excused himself to help with while Lance packed up his computer. He found them making out against the refrigerator, a gallon of milk dangling from JC’s fingertips.

“Um. I’ve got to get going.”

They separated and smiled at him. “OK. See you tomorrow, man?” Justin turned in JC’s arms, resting comfortable against JC’s chest. Lance had to smile at the couple they made.

“Sure. And JC, I need to talk to you at some point. Justin can give you my number so we can set something up.” He left, stomach grumbling as he realized it was past noontime.

**

Lance enlisted Joey’s help for interviews again later that week. They went to Pink Ladies, one of the seediest bars and strip joints in town, and employer of Carter’s girlfriend. In jeans, Lance thought he would blend in, but the simple fact that what his clothes were clean put him one step above the rest of the clientele.

“Remind me to kiss Kelly when I get home tonight,” Joey said, watching the dancers contort their bodies in cages around the room. “She was NOT happy I was coming here.”

“I don’t think you’ll have to be worried about being tempted,” Lance said, watching as one girl slid her razor sharp red nails across her clearly-fake breasts. He shuddered, and thought of Wendy with her soft curves, so much more appealing than anything caged up here.

Paris worked behind the bar, her breasts barely held captive by a tiny bra top, long blonde hair tied in two pigtails. Lance slid into a spot by the bar and waited for her attention.

She greeted them with a quick up-nod. “What can I get you?”

“A minute of your time. I’ve got some questions about Nick Carter.”

“You a cop?” She eyed him suspiciously, eyes darting to Joey as well.

“No. I’m Justin Timberlake’s attorney.” He kept his gaze steady, intimidating. She wasn’t swayed.

“Fucker deserves to fry for what he did.” She opened a couple of bottles of beer and passed them over Lance’s shoulders to some pushy customers. “I got nothing to say to you.”

“Just a couple of questions,” Lance asked again. He hadn’t expected cooperation from her, but it was worth a shot. She would know better than anyone what had gone down with Nick in the past few days, anyone who might have had a grudge that just needed to go up in smoke. He slid a twenty dollar bill across the bar.

“I’m working,” she said, but eyed the money longingly.

Lance doubled it.

“I got a break coming in fifteen.” The money disappeared into the pocket of her tiny jean shorts.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t any help, refusing to give any useful information. And she honestly seemed to have no idea who Chris Kirkpatrick was. Lance sighed at the wasted money and got up to leave.

As he pressed through the crowd behind Joey, someone tugged on his shoulder. Turning, ready to beat off whatever barbarian was started on him, he was surprised to come face to face with a small Hispanic man.

“Meet me on the docks, at twelve,” he said, before slipping back into the crowd.

When they got outside, Joey turned to him strangely. “Was that who I thought it was?” he asked.

Lance shrugged. “Who was it?”

“Howie Dorough. One of the Cobras. Did you miss the tattoo on his arm?”

Lance blanked. One of the Cobras was talking to him. Were they going to kill him? Shit. “He said to meet him at twelve down on the docks.”

“Well, don’t think for a second you’re going alone.”

They waited together by the warehouses, pretending they weren’t jumping at every sound. A rat was snuffling around a nearby trash car, creeping Lance out beyond belief.

“Where is he?” Lance asked at 12:10. “He’s not gonna show, let’s get outta here.”

They walked back to the parking lot, the lone street light flickering overhead. Lance pulled his coat tighter across his chest to keep out the chill.

“help.”

Lance turned to Joey. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Sssshhhh.” Lance listened again, straining to hear the faint cry over the roar of the nearby highway.

“Help me.”

It was coming from the corner, and before he could think that it might be a trap, Lance was on the run, Joey hot on his heels.

Two feet stuck out from between the trash cans behind a deli. Lance pushed away the bags, gagging at the foul smell. Howie was lying on the ground, his white shirt smeared with black-red blood.

“Holy shit.” Lance glanced at Joey, who was already dialing 911. “What happened?”

Howie shook his head weakly and swallowed. “St. Steven’s,” he said, coughing through the words.

“What?” Lance touched him, hand sliding over the slick blood. He recoiled, horrified at the stains on his fingers.

But Howie didn’t answer. His eyes stared blankly up at the sky. In the distance, Lance heard sirens.

**

They had to go down the station to file a police report, and the sky was a dusky rose of morning before the officers finally let them go. It was clear Howie had been stabbed long before they’d found them, and there was no evidence that could tie Lance and Joey to the crime, despite their connection to Justin. The media had already reported the murder as another senseless act of gang warfare.

“But I’m watching you, Bass.” The officer in charge stared Lance down until he’d slunk out of the police station, scared witless.

Joey dropped him at home and Lance fell into bed. Right before his eyes closed, her remembered.

“St. Steven’s.” He fumbled on the nightstand for a piece of paper and wrote down the name, hoping it might mean something. Something about Nick Carter’s death or Chris’ supposed one.

**

Running on caffeine and pure nerves, Lance made it through the next few days with the eerie feeling that he was being watched. His grandfather had relieved him of his other cases so he could devote more time to Timberlake, but he wasn’t getting very far.

The one thing he did manage was a meeting with JC, who could provide precious information about Justin’s whereabouts on the night of the fire.

“OK,” Lance said, sitting down at JC and Justin’s kitchen table. He set up a recorder between them and poised his hands over his laptop. “Let’s start with the basics. How long have you known Justin?”

“Shit, man, we met when Justin was like, 12. Right, baby?” JC glanced over to the corner, where Justin was doing something to a transmission. He sat on the floor, newspaper spread over the linoleum to catch any drips. Justin looked up and nodded.

“Yeah, but we didn’t start going out until three years ago.”

I should hope not, Lance thought. “Alright. So you’ve known each other for along time. When did you move in together?”

“About a year and a half ago. Justin was getting sick of living with his mom, I needed help with the rent, so.” JC smiled and shrugged haplessly.

“Plus, there’s that whole love thing,” Justin chimed in from the floor. JC’s smile widened. Lance rolled his eyes. He wouldn’t be able to do the interview the right way with Justin sitting right there.

“Alright, so. Tell me a little bit about you. Where you work, that kind of thing.”

JC explained his job as a freelance pianist, talking with his hands as he highlighted some of his regular jobs.

“He’s really good,” Justin said proudly. “C, you should play him something.”

Lance grit his teeth and counted to ten, slowly. “Hey, Justin, is what you’re doing really important?”

“Nah, just some thing I’ve been putting off for a while.” Justin didn’t even look up.

“How about, then, you take my laptop and do some research for me.” Lance handed over the computer. “It’s got wireless internet running, I just need you to do a search.” He handed Justin a legal pad and pen.

“Sure, what?” Justin wiped his hands and picked up the machine and paper.

“St. Steven’s,” Lance said. “Google it. Write down everything that comes up. Places, people, organizations. Everything.”

Justin raised an eyebrow. “Everything?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“How do you spell that?” Justin asked.

“Anyway you want. Why don't you go work in the living room so we don’t distract you?” Lance all but shooed him away. JC was giggling quietly at the other side of the table.

“Smooth, man.”

Lance raised an eyebrow. “Did you have a better suggestion?” JC just shook his head.

They continued the interview. JC was an interesting man, Lance found, capable of switching from eloquent to slang-driven in the blink of an eye. He seemed to have a clear view of everything that was going on, and despite Lance’s previous assumptions that he was rather indifferent about Justin’s situation, it became clear as he questioned that JC was frightened to the core at the prospect of Justin going to jail.

“It sucked,” he said, hands drumming on the table. “I mean, it’s great cause he’s home now, and we see each other a lot more than we ever did. But at the same time, I keep thinking this is some kind of reprieve before the end, right? That we’re getting this time now because, like, we’re not going to have any later. Do you know what I mean?”

Lance did his best to assuage JC’s fears, promising to do everything in his power to free Justin. He only needed to find the real arsonist, a feat that was proving more difficult with every passing moment. And unfortunately, JC couldn’t provide an alibi for Justin, dashing Lance’s secret hopes that perhaps there was something he’d missed.

“Justin says he called someone that night. Do you have any idea who it could have been?” Lance crossed his fingers under the table.

JC’s eyes opened wide. “He called someone?” Lance didn’t get a chance to reply before JC was out of his chair, charging into the living room. “You called someone and you’re not saying? You have someone who could get you out of this and you’re just blowing it off?”

Justin looked up from his work, surprised as the ranting man before him. “Fuck you, C. It’s none of your fucking business.”

Lance stood by quietly as they argued. “None of my business? You’re going to go to jail for this, they’re going to lock you up for the rest of your life, and it’s none of my fucking business? I’m your goddamned partner, Justin. It’s damn well my business.”

Justin stood, and Lance feared his laptop would be caught in the crossfire. “Who the fuck do you think I called?” Justin asked. “That’s what this is about, right? You think I’m cheating on you?”

JC sobered, stepping back. “I didn’t, but why the fuck bring that up? Are you?”

Justin sighed and sank back to the couch. “No. Fuck. Why would you even think-?” His face twisted painfully at the thought. JC came around to sit next to him.

“Baby, tell us who you called.” JC looked at Lance, eyes pleading for backup. Lance cleared his throat.

“It really would help us out. We’re running out of straws, here.”

Justin swore under his breath. “I called Howie D.”

JC’s forehead crinkled in confusion. “Who?”

“Howie Dorough.” Lance sank into a chair, dread settling into his stomach. “Why were you talking to one of Nick’s guys, Justin?”

“He had info,” Justin said, leaning against the back of the couch. Lance blinked and waited for more. “Nick had told him something about Chris. We were working on a deal, he’d give me the info, I’d give him something in return. I didn’t like his conditions,” Justin said wryly. “And there’s no way he’d admit this in court, which is why I didn’t bother telling you.”

Lance gnawed on his lower lip and thought. Howie Dorough knew were Chris was. Howie, who’d bled out at Lance’s feet the night before. Howie D., who.

“St. Steven’s.” Lance grabbed at Justin’s notepad.

“What are you doing? I’m not done with that. There were, like, 20,000 hits when I did the search, man.”

“Howie died two days ago,” Lance said distractedly, looking at everything Justin had written down. Churches, festivals, schools. There were so many. “But before he died he told me something.”

“St. Stevens?” JC asked, rubbing Justin’s stomach. Justin sat up a little bit and kissed his cheek.

“St. Steven’s.” Lance smiled at the two men across from him. “We may know where Chris is.”

**

Lance left Justin’s apartment with a spring in his step in the late afternoon, picking his daughter up from school with a smile. “How about burgers for dinner?” he asked her, and she cheered at the suggestion.

They went to the diner on the town green, where Shelby ordered a kids’ meal of burgers and fries. Lance listened to her happy chatter as they waited for their food, glad to have this evening to spend with his daughter.

Halfway through their dinner, a shrill voice carried over the other conversations in the diner, and Lance groaned into his food.

“What’s wrong, daddy?”

“Ssssh, look down, don’t look over there.”

“Over where?” she asked, straining to see what her father was so desperately trying to avoid. Lance wished, for once, she would just do what he asked without having to ask a million questions first.

Sure enough, his daughter caught the attention of the one woman he wanted to avoid, and Lance heard his name being called through the crowded diner.

Jessica wove her way through the tables to slide into the booth beside him, stealing a French fry off his plate with a grin.

“How’re y’all doing?” she asked in an ear-splitting Texas twang. Lance slid further into his booth. Across the table, his daughter was scrunching up her nose at Jessica’s perfume, and Lance resisted the urge to cough. The flower scent was a bit. Strong.

“We’re fine,” Lance said, hoping she would go away soon. “We’re having a father-daughter dinner.”

“Oh, how sweet!” she gushed, smiling patronizingly at Shelby. His daughter just grinned back and ate more of her fries.

“Anyway,” she continued, “I just wanted to come by and invite you both to a barbecue out at my lake house this weekend. Daddy’s got the pontoon boat out on the water, and it’s such a beautiful way to spend the day.”

“A boat?” Shelby perked up, and Lance groaned. There would be no talking her out of it. Jessica smiled and nodded, her perky hair bouncing all over the place.

“Yup, it’s real big and, well. You can’t really swim right now, but in the summer, you can jump right off the sides.”

“Can we go, Daddy?” Shelby looked at him hopefully. Lance wished somewhere along the line he’d learned to say no to his daughter.

He settled for “We’ll see,” and Jessica clapped her hands in delight. Lance resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He really couldn’t afford to take the day off on Saturday, but he needed to spend more time with his daughter, that he knew.

When Jessica finally left, Lance tapped his daughter on the brim of her visor. “I told you not to look,” he said, and she just shrugged.

**

After three hours of lying in bed that night, Lance gave up on sleep. His mind was too busy to rest. His body was too hot to relax, stirred up with the kind of need that didn’t plague him often, but fiercely in its infrequency.

He let his hand travel down his body into his shorts, mind already jumping to his favorite fantasy, with that girl from Alias. He hummed as he thought about black spandex stretched across her body, and allowed his hand to begin stroking until his dick was rock hard in his hands.

But his mind wouldn’t stay focused, and right at the part of the dream where he pictured Jennifer Garner slicing her shirt open with a gleaming knife to reveal creamy white skin, another image flashed through his brain. He shook it out, but it kept coming back. Chris’ cock, red and gleaming as Lance knelt in front of his soon-to-be boyfriend for the first time in a garage, hands trembling at his sides.

Lance let go of his dick and grabbed the sheets, counting backwards from 100 the way they taught him at the Institute. Always avoid temptation, he knew, never give in to it. But his brain wouldn’t stop, and he pictured Chris on a tropical island, locked in a cell for so many years. Desperate, wanton, and Lance couldn’t take it any more. He’d always had an active imagination, and he pictured himself, now, running down twisting corridors, with light spilling in small beams through grates in the ceiling. He charged ahead, until he found the door and flung it open to find Chris, huddled in the corner. Chris would run into his arms, and kiss him senseless, mouth hungry after years of neglect. He’d use his hands to pull apart their clothing, taking Lance’s dick in his dirty fist, unable to wait even until they were safely above ground to touch, to taste.

Lance’s body bucked upwards off the mattress and his hand clenched almost painfully around his throbbing cock as he came, the most intense orgasm he’d had in years. He’d lost his breath to the point of panting, and as he fell back to the sweaty sheets, he thought of the sinfully wandering course his mind had followed.

But he didn’t care in the least bit.

**

“Jimmy?”

Lance looked up from his work with a start. His grandfather was standing in the doorway looking mighty unhappy. “Hey, what’s up?”

“There’s someone here to see you.” His grandfather took a couple of tentative steps into the room, eyes wandering uncomfortably. Lance stood, curious as to what was going on. “Son, I don’t know what’s going on here, but. This office stays out of whatever you’re into, understand?”

Lance felt his eyebrows rise. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

From the secretary’s tiny alcove, Lance heard a female voice curse, and suddenly his office doorway was full of blonde hair and tanned skin. He reeled in shock as he recognized Paris Hilton.

“I’ll talk to you later,” his grandfather warned, and left, closing the door behind them.

Paris strutted through the room and fell into one of the leather chairs in front of Lance’s desk, crossing her incredibly long longs neatly. She pulled a cigarette from her purse. “Mind if I smoke?” she asked, flicking a lighter in her hands.

“Actually,” Lance closed a fist over the lighter, “I do.” With a huff much like something Lance’s five-year-old daughter would pull, she put it away.

Lance sat back down in his desk, straightening his tie. “So,” he began, hoping she would finish.

“I know. What am I doing here, right?” She rolled here eyes and began picking at her fingernails, not making eye contact. “Well, I thought you might want a little bit more information.”

Lance nodded carefully. “Like what?”

Paris looked at him as if his IQ was hovering in the single digits. “Good stuff. But, you know. It’s gonna cost you.”

Lance pulled five hundred dollar bills from his desk drawer and laid them out on the blotter. “You tell me something useful, I give you one.”

Paris seemed to think it over for a minute before agreeing. The plunging neckline of her red long-sleeved top heaved as she took a deep breath. “Nicky was trying to get out. He’d been working for a few months on getting clean, cutting ties with the Cobras and stuff. They were being really good about it, cause he was doing it for his brother, and as bad as they might be? They respect family. The kid had gotten in way over his head, and Nick wanted to get out before it was too late. He was a security guard down at the computer place on the waterfront, real respectable.”

Lance handed her one of the bills, which she tucked into a tiny black purse pinched under her arm. It was something he’d considered as a possibility, and the confirmation gave him a whole list of suspects to check out. Trying to leave a gang was never as easy as Paris made it out to seem. Either Nick had kept a lot from her, or she was holding back more information.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, “and you’re right. It wasn’t that easy.” Score one for the blonde, Lance thought. “But really, the trouble wasn’t coming from the Cobras. Like I said, when it’s family, they’re really not a bad group of guys. But he had done some freelance stuff, and some of his customers weren’t real happy that he was leaving the business.”

The suspect list kept growing. “Can you give me names?” Lance asked, and Paris nodded, handing him a list. Lance scanned it quickly to make sure it wasn’t groceries, then set it aside. He handed her another bill.

“The kid was causing all kinds of trouble. He’d gotten into the drugs, spread E at parties. He OD’ed a couple of times, and Nick had to take him to a treatment center a few months ago. He only stayed about a week, but things were quieter after that.” She raised her eyebrows and Lance handed over the money.

He’d never even considered the possibility that the arsonist had been aiming for Aaron, but if Paris could be believed, there were a lot of people who probably held vendettas against the younger Carter brother.

“Why are you telling me this?” Lance asked, curiosity getting the better of him as Paris leaned back in her chair, tossing her long hair over her shoulder.

Her eyes misted over hazily. “I heard you were there. When Howie died.”

Lance focused on keeping a neutral face as the memories of blood washed sickly through his mind. “That was the night I came to talk to you.”

She nodded stiffly and bit her lip. Lance passed her a tissue to blot her teary eyes. “He was just the sweetest guy, a real brother to Nick. And he was real good to me, after Nicky died. There was no reason for anyone to kill him, he never hurt anyone. I don’t know how he got hooked up in all that stuff, but he was better than that. He really was.”

Lance found himself agreeing, even though he’d barely known the man.

“But if someone could just kill him like that, it was probably because of something he knew. And whatever it was, it just seems. He and Nicky were so close. What if it was the same person?”

Lance sucked in a breath, having already considered the possibility. Two members of the same gang killed by mysterious villains in the same half of a year, and connections were bound to be drawn. “Do you know who killed Howie Dorough?”

She shook her head, dashing his hopes. “But it couldn’t have been your client, because he was at that bar, the papers say. With all those witnesses. So I just got scared. And.” She reached for another tissue and blew her nose.

Lance pressed for a few more minutes but couldn’t get any more information out of Paris. But she’d give him three solid leads to follow, and a list of names that Lance would get started on first thing in the morning.

As she left, he handed her the rest of the money, folding it into her hand. “Do yourself a favor,” he said. “Take this, and get out of town for a while.” His gut told him that the dying wasn’t done yet, and despite her exhibitionist taste in clothes, she seemed a sweet girl and he’d hate for her to get caught in the crossfire.

“I have a friend, out in Arkansas. She’s been asking me to visit.” Paris tucked her purse under her arm. Lance encouraged her to go.

He’d barely begun to type up his notes from the meeting when his grandfather once again appeared in the doorway. This time, he strode right over to the desk and sat down. Lance saved his work and grit his teeth.

“Hi, Grandpa.”

“Don’t you give me that. I don’t know what kind of business you think we’re running here, boy, but you’d been think again about working here if you’re going to be keeping that kind of company.”

Lance stared down his grandfather as boldly as he could muster. “That was Paris Hilton.”

“Jimmy, I don’t care if it was Lady Godiva herself, this is not the place--“

“Paris Hilton, Nick Carter’s ex-girlfriend. She wanted to talk about the case.” Lance tapped a pen on the desk and waited for his grandfather to process the information.

“Nick Carter. Oh.” He sat back a little in his chair. “How’s that going for you?”

Lance flipped through the growing file on his desk. “It’s going pretty well. I could use some more time, but I’m making due.”

“The DA’s office comes through with a plea, you let me know, OK?”

Lance didn’t say anything. He wasn’t going to take a plea for Justin, not when he was so sure of Justin's innocence. But he wouldn’t tell his grandfather that, not until he had more than a hunch and a lot of leads to go on. He knew Michaels was still sniffing around, just waiting for him to screw up.

“Say, I had a nice dinner with Joe Simpson the other night. He mentioned you and Shelby were going down to his daughter’s picnic this weekend.”

Lance looked up with surprise. “I don’t know, yet. I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

“Go,” his grandfather said, standing and patting Lance’s hand. “Jessica’s a sweet girl. She’d make a great mom for Shelby.”

Lance bit his tongue so he wouldn’t scream.

**

After a week of begging and pleading, Lance convinced Joey to go with him to the barbecue, bringing along Kelly and Briahna. He knew Jessica through the same old connections that Lance did, and understood the pains that Lance had been going through since Jessica had set her sites on him.

The backyard of the lake house was packed with people. She’d decorate with colorful Chinese lanterns strung between the trees, and on the lake, the pontoon boat was lit with Christmas lights. Swing music played from a stereo on the deck, and the smell of grilled chicken and burgers filled the air. Shelby and Briahna ran off with the kids, while Lance went to get a beer.

He talked to a few different people on the way to the cooler. Everyone was fascinated with the Timberlake case. It was Portsmouth’s version of the O.J. Simpson trial, and Lance was Johnny Cochran. Except, not that rich, not that black, and not that, well. Charismatic.

When he got back to Joey with the beers, his friend had been waylaid by someone Lance vaguely recognized.

“Hey Lance. You remember Nick, right? He was in law school with us those first few years?”

Lance smiled. That’s why he looked familiar. Nick Lachey had struggled through three semesters before dropping out of law school. He was a nice enough guy, he just never had the same spark that successful law students needed.

“How you doing?” Lance asked, taking a sip of beer. He loathed the idea of small talk, but at least it kept him away from Jessica’s wooing.

“Good, I’m good man. Jessica and I, we’re seeing each other. I’m working at her dad’s place, you know? It’s going good.”

Lance smiled at him. Nick had, if Lance remembered correctly, always had a crush on Jessica. He’d followed her around, always thinking that he might do something to fall into her favor. Lance wished he could pawn off Jessica’s attention to Nick, who would at least appreciate her sentiments.

Lance watched his daughter for a while, listening with half an ear to Joey and Nick’s conversations. They were talking about real estate- Joey and Kelly had another baby on the way and were looking for a larger home.

Something caught his eye, and Lance wasn’t quite sure, but it was the movement that triggered his memory. Nick was readjusting his baseball cap, the way almost every man did, but there was something there. Something odd. Lance stared, attempting for inconspicuous as he studied Nick’s movements.

There is was again, and he knew where he’d seen it before.

“I’ve gotta go,” he told Joey abruptly and called for his daughter. “If you see Jessica, tell her I’m sorry. It’s an emergency.”

He practically ran down the long drive, daughter on his hip. He heard Joey calling to him from behind, but there was no time now to stop and explain. He was on the phone the moment the car doors shut.

“Justin? It’s me. I know who the guy in the video is.”

**

“But why would some guy from your side of town be over here buying a can of gas?” Justin asked again, scratching his head. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“We’re missing something,” Lance said. “Nick’s working for Jessica’s dad, selling houses. He had three appointments that day, according to his secretary’s planner—“

“Wait, what? How did you find that out?”

Lance grinned shyly. “Don’t ask. Just trust me.” The matronly woman had completely fallen for his sob story of the widower father in desperate need of a home that wasn’t filled with memories of his dead wife. When she’d left to get the listings for him to browse, Lance had helped himself to her calendar, tracking Nick’s every move the day of the fire.

“He showed a house on Gardner Road, then had a two hour window from eleven to one. He’s been picked up on the gas station camera at eleven forty-eight in the morning. That’s two days before the fire, right?”

Justin nodded, looking over Lance’s notes. “But there’s no motive here,” he said. “You might be the lawyer, but even I know there has to be a motive for this.”

“Without a history of pyromania? Yeah, pretty much.” Lance sighed and eased back into his chair. “We need to connect these two. And we’ve only got two weeks until the trial begins.”

Justin’s eyes widened with fear.

“Don’t worry,” Lance said overconfidently. “We’re gonna find out who did this and get the charges dropped. You won’t ever even have to step foot in the courtroom.”

But time was running out. And with one mystery closer to being solved, the other was still wide open.

**

Lance had lunch in the park the next day, a break from his stuffy office and his grandfather’s overbearing presence. Joey was in court this week with a corporate harassment case, which meant Lance had no defenses against his grandfather’s watchful eye. He’s spent the past week conducting interviews with people who had seen Nick Carter the night of his death. After his meeting with Paris, he was sure that the clue to the Carter brother’s death lie sometime between the bar fight at ten and the fire at one. Bar tenders, customers, and everyone who lived and worked on the streets between the bar and the Carter house had been on his list. Unfortunately, by the time he’d reached the end of it, he was at a dead end.

There had to be something connecting Nick Lachey to Nick Carter. Something he was missing.

To clear his mind, Lance had taken a walk around noon. He’d gotten a hotdog from a vendor at Riverfront Park and settled down on a bench to eat.

He dropped a pickle onto his lap and cursed as the juice soaked through his pants to his skin. As he was frantically mopping his lap with a paper napkin, a shadow fell across his lap.

“Hey,” said the man in front of him, and Lance looked up to see JC standing in front of a backdrop of cloudy sky. “You mind some company?”

“No, sure.” Lance shoved his briefcase aside so JC could sit down too. JC pulled a bottle of water from the bag slung around his shoulder and took a long sip.

“What’re you doing out here?” JC asked, and Lance wondered for a moment if it was some kind of inquisition, if JC was out checking up on him to make sure he was working as hard as possible to free Justin. The thought was fleeting, though, because JC’s eyes were curious, not accusatory, and Lance found himself smiling at the man beside him.

“Just taking a lunch break. Being in the office all day gets a little boring.”

“A little?” JC asked, wrinkling his nose in distaste.

Lance laughed. “A lot.”

JC shuddered. “I couldn’t do it, man. I’m a free spirit. I’ve got to, like, wander. Keeps me sane.”

Lance wondered what that would be like. Liberating, but also probably scary. He would worry a lot about what could go wrong. “Where’s Justin?”

JC flashed a guilty smile. “He’s home. He was getting a little crazy, so I left for a while to give him some space.”

Again, Lance laughed. “You two seem to have a really good relationship.”

JC nodded, his whole body moving back and forth with the force of the motion. “It’s great, man. It’s just, like. He’s my everything. There’s my music, and there’s Justin. That’s all I need, besides air and food and water.”

They fell silent as the gulls cried out along the docks. Lance wondered what that must be like, to be so completely wrapped up in another person that the rest of the world could fall away and yet life would go on. He couldn’t imagine having had that with Wendy, and it made him acutely sad.

“You and Justin,” he said. “I’ve never, well. Y’all are the first, like, gay couple who are, like. Normal.” JC shot him a strange look, and Lance rushed to explain. “No, no. I mean, you’re not all flaming and feminine. You guys are just regular, and I’ve never. I haven’t seen that before. It’s different. In a good way.” “Is that why you pretend? You think being gay makes you weak or effeminate? That it somehow taints who you are?”

Lance blinked, his mind suddenly void of comprehensible thought. “What? I’m not--“

“You are,” JC cut him off. “I can tell these things. But I won’t say anything. You don’t seem ready for that.”

“I’m really not,” Lance said, feeling the need to justify, to defend. “I mean. I had a thing, once, but. It was just a phase, and it’s over.”

JC laughed suddenly, an uproarious burst of sound that had Lance leaning back, part in shock and part in offense that JC found his state of mind so humorous.

“I’m sorry,” JC said, trying to get his laughter under control with sobering faces. “No, hey, look. I can tell it makes you uncomfortable, so just forget I mentioned it, OK?”

Lance nodded hesitantly. “What made you think? I mean, why, do I look, like. That?”

JC shook his head and threw an arm around Lance’s back in comfort. Even though he barely knew the man, Lance found himself tipping his head down to JC’s shoulder. “Oh, Lance. No, you don’t flame if that’s what you’re worried about. But gaydar is a potent thing, and mine just seems a little keener than most. I promise you’re not, like, flashing signal lights or anything.”

Lance sat back, crumpling up the paper wrapper from his hot dog. “Tell Justin to give me a call later, will you?”

JC nodded as Lance stood up. “Sure. And hey, I’m sorry, really.”

Lance just shrugged and walked away, already knowing that he wouldn’t get any more work done that day.

**

“OK. We’re done.”

Justin grimaced from the chair in his kitchen. Lance had pulled one of the kitchen chairs into the middle of the floor and plopped Justin down in it. He was grilling him, just in case this thing went to trial. He had to be prepared, at all costs.

“How many this time?” Justin asked.

“Six.” Lance set down his list of questions and sat in the other chair, backwards.

“Fuck.”

“Seven.” Justin rolled his eyes. “Seriously, though,” Lance said. “You’re doing a whole lot better than you were a few weeks ago.”

“I don’t see what the heck my cussing has to do with me burning down houses,” Justin said, scratching his chin. He hadn’t shaved in a few days and was all scruffy. Lance made a mental note to make sure that was changed before the trial as well.

“It’s about image,” he said. “You get up there swearing at everything, you sound tough and angry. We’re going for hardworking and innocent. Those two don’t really mesh well together.” He gestured with his hands, trying to get his fingers to lock together but ending up with a tangled mess. Justin laughed.

“OK. Ready to try it again?”

Lance picked up his list of questions and Justin sat up straighter, folding his hands in his lap.

**

The key they needed literally fell into Lance’s lap while he was reading the newspaper and drinking his morning coffee. A tiny little column in the business section about how Simpson Realty had gone forward with its bid for the revised waterfront development, shifted two blocks south of its original location due to difficulties purchasing the necessary lots for the condominium and movie theater complex.

“Perhaps benefiting most from the merger are TetraMetric, a failing technology company burdened by its massive waterfront property. The pride of the city’s industrial district in the late 1990s, TetraMetric has fallen victim to the crashing economy and nearly outreached itself trying to sway new markets over the past five years. The 2.5 million dollar price tag that Simpson Realty plunked down for the reluctant-to-sell corporation made any deal hard to refuse.”

Lance glanced at the article again, just to make sure he was reading it correctly. TetraMetric. It was one of the companies that Nick Carter had been working for, the reluctant-to-sell organization.

Suddenly, it all clicked into place.

**

“So what are you saying?” Justin asked. Lance had called him right away, and after battling through five minutes of disoriented JC on the phone, he’d finally gotten Justin and told him to come. Immediately.

“Nick quit working for the Simpsons and went to work for Tetrametric. Joe Simpson was counting on Nick to muscle the waterfront people into selling..”

"Like my mom," Justin breathed, realization dawning.

"Right. But he quit before the job was done, and if that wasn't enough, he went to work for their competition."

“So they decided to get rid of Nick.” Justin’s eyes went wide in wonder. “Holy shit, it all makes sense.”

Lance was feeling inordinately pleased with himself, but they weren’t there yet. “No more Nick, no more problems for Simpson Reality. Now we just have to prove it.”

**

Justin convinced Lance to come out and celebrate with him, even though they hadn’t really done anything yet, just a lot of thinking and talking. Lance knew the tough part still lay ahead of him- finding out the exact events of the night of the fire and getting the charges dropped. But at the very least, they had reasonable doubt. And that counted for something.

They went to the Lizard Lounge, an upscale piano bar in the northern section of town. Lance sat back in a booth and watched, while Justin was on the edge of his seat as JC’s fingers tickled the keys. Lance found himself studying Justin more than JC. Not in an attracted sort of way, but more like an anthropologist would observe. Here was a man, in a deeply romantic relationship with another man, completely enamored and in love. He had a job, had friends, and seemed to be as morally sound as Lance himself.

It was everything that Lance had been told was impossible in his reorientation therapy. And at that revelation, he realized that if they were wrong about that, than they were probably wrong about everything else as well.

The melody switched to something more melancholy, Lance felt tears slip into the corner of his eyes. What if Chris hadn’t disappeared? Would this have been there life? Would they have come to clubs together? Would Chris have supported him through the trials of law school, the same was JC supported Justin when things were tough?

“Hey,” Justin said, glancing over in his direction. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Lance wiped at his eyes. “I think I’m gonna take off. Listen, do me a favor, OK? Tell JC he was right.”

“What?” Justin slid back into the booth, taking his eyes off JC for the first time all night.

“It’s nothing. He’ll understand.”

“Yeah, sure man.” Justin's eyes were already creeping back toward the piano. Oh, to feel that kind of adoration for someone, to be so adored.

Lance dashed out of the booth. He sat in his car for nearly half an hour, silent tears falling down his cheeks.

Chris, he thought. Oh, God. Chris.

Part Four

Chris’s stomach grumbled painfully when he woke in the morning, like streams of bubbles were running around in his intestines. He cursed Jose Cuervo for his potency and just made it to the back door before hurling. It was no wonder that all the plants on the side of the house were dead.

No one on the island understood Chris. They thought he was a renegade American who’d come to the Caribbean to escape an overbearing wife, or perhaps running from the law. He let them think it. It was easier than explaining his twisted, mixed-up life to the locals, who never saw more drama than the day Sr. Teja’s cat killed Sra. Ortiz’s chickens.

Sometimes Chris laughed silently at the naiveté the island people had in their world view. More often, he envied their untainted outlook on life and its monotonous passing.

With a hand shielding his eyes from the potent morning sun that baked his skin, Chris stumbled to the front of the house. The marina was empty, meaning his company was gone, and Chris could crawl back under the thin cotton sheets in his bedroom and sink into oblivion for a few more hours.

A shower helped with the itchy dried sweat on his skin, and he drank straight from the sputtering showerhead to clear the fuzz from his tongue. He tried not to think as he brushed his teeth and shaved. Thoughts only made his brain throb that much more painfully.

The ceiling fan wobbly dangerously overhead, and Chris dared it to fall and kill him as he slept. It didn’t. Then, with the sounds of the village beginning to carry down to the shore, Chris fell back to sleep.

**

The first thing that Chris realized when he woke up was that everything was still very dark. It took a good five minutes of groping around the room before he realized that he probably wasn’t dead because, heaven or hell, he doubted either had a cement floor and locked door. Or maybe organized religion just had it all wrong, and the afterlife really was eternal blindness and a door you could never get out of.

He sat in the middle of the room and tried to talk himself down from the crazy plateau his mind kept scaling. He was wearing clothes, not his. He couldn’t remember what had happened, but the jeans and T-shirt he had on were crisp and new. Chris hadn’t had new clothes in a very long time.

So he was in the dark wearing someone else’s things. His hair smelled smoky, not cigarettes but a campfire. Chris tried to force his mind to work, but it was like running into a wall. The last thing he remembered was Lance, in bed, sleeping in a beam of sunshine that cut across the room like a halo seeking out its angel.

But then it was just black, and his head ached fiercely from a bump in the back. Chris pulled his feet up underneath him in the middle of the room, because he was afraid if he couldn’t touch them, they might disappear into the nothingness all around him.

After a while, a tiny read light appears in the corner. At first, Chris though he might be imagining it. He’d spent some time pressing his fingers against his eyelids until bright rainbow lights appeared. He wanted to make sure that colors hadn’t really disappeared into this black hole.

But the little red light stayed on, blinking about once every minute, and Chris suddenly realized what was going on. He was being watched.

Knowing that somehow made him feel safer, that he really hadn’t been sucked into some warped dimension. He stood on shaky legs and walked toward the light. Standing on tip-toe, his fingers could just brush the wires that connected the camera to the wall.

He jumped up and tugged. Hard.

The light went out. Chris went back to sitting on the floor in the middle of the room. He started to sing “Spiderwebs,” but he got tripped up on the words around the bridge. He thought of Lance, who always forgot song lyrics, and wondered if Lance was still at home sleeping or if he’d woken up yet and realized Chris was gone.

How long had he been gone?

There were noises outside of one wall, but Chris couldn’t remember which wall it was. The one with the door? Or the camera?

The crack of light was so bright Chris had to shield his eyes. He couldn’t see the man who came into the room, but he felt the arms that pulled him up from the floor and dragged him out into the blinding brightness.

Isn’t it ironic, he sang, switching songs mid-chorus as his feet scuffed up the bright white linoleum as he was dragged away.

**

Chris woke up in a sweat, the heat and humidity squeezing in on him as he gasped for breath. He hadn’t had that dream in a long time. The oppressive dark that had been his cell in the first days on the island- the other island, the one that was all walls and guns, not bananas and boats like this one.

St. Stephen’s was as different from his island prison as New York City was from Farmersville, Indiana. It was why Chris had chosen this island when he was finally set free. It was warm, and obscure, and no one asked too many questions when he’d arrived.

It was also far enough from his loved ones that no one could track him down.

The dreams came less often now, and Chris pulled on a pair of swim shorts and ambled down to the beach. He felt the sun kiss his deeply tanned skin, but he didn’t stop to admire the beautiful day until he had dived deep down into the cerulean waters, surfacing away from shore in the middle of the glimmering ocean.

Head clear, he looked back at the sand and the trees, and wondered why paradise had to be tainted with memories.

**

The corridor had ended with another room, this one surprisingly furnished like a designer showroom, the kind in the magazines that Chris’ mother kept on the coffee table when she had some extra money to blow in the supermarket checkout line. Chris was thrown onto the expensive-looking oriental carpet, face down in the red and brown pile. His whole body ached, and he didn’t dare to move.

There were more noises, footsteps and then the door closed, and Chris wondered if this really was all a dream after all. He gulped nervously as two black wing-tips appeared in his line of sight.

“Get up,” a voice commanded, and Chris did as he was told. It was only then that he noticed the bruises decorating his forearms.

The man looked at him with a combination of pity and disgust, and if Chris had been at his full capacity, he would have taken a swing, even if it got him shot. He’d always been reckless like that. The man wore an impeccable black suit, with a red silk handkerchief tucked fashionably into the pocket. Chris stood his ground and pretended not to see the guards with automatic weapons at the door.

"So, you finally wake up,” the man said.

“Yeah, I had to take a killer wizz. Where’s the head?” he asked, looking around. He nearly winced, because he’d never done well in high pressure situations. The sarcastic side of him managed to slip out when he guard was down. He saw the frowns on the men’s faces and pretended not to be scared shitless.

There was a look exchanged between the guy in the suit and the titan at the door, and Chris was once again being dragged, this time into an opulent bathroom. The guard didn’t leave.

“A little privacy?” he asked, but received only a cold stare in reply.

Without time to fully examine the extent of his bruised and battered body, Chris managed to take care of business and scarf down a few handfuls of water from the tap before being dragged back into the other room. He wondered if he’d ever have to walk on his own again.

Suit was sitting, and gestured that Chris should do the same. At least they were nice captors (imaginary people) and maybe they were going to release Chris from this prison (fantasy land- island. There was water outside of the window. Fantasy island, and definitely not in Portsmouth.).

“I imagine you have some questions,” the man asked. Chris snorted. Yeah, ya think? “I hope you’re not going to tell me you have some dreadful amnesia or the sort. I really don’t have time for that.”

“So my first question shouldn’t be ‘who am I’?” The man smirked back at Chris. Still convinced this was some sort of delusional episode, Chris decided to play along. “Alright. What day is it?”

“September 1, 1996.”

“Where are we?”

“On an island in the Caribbean. That’s all you need to know for now.”

“Riiiight.” Chris looked around the fancy room. “So who are you?”

The man raised an eyebrow. “You don’t recognize me.”

Chris blinked for a few seconds, then shrugged. “Should I?”

The man chuckled softly. “We haven’t met since you were very small. I’m your father, Chris.”

Chris waited for the other half of the punch line, but nothing fell between them but moments of heavy silence.

**

When Chris had first gotten to St. Stephen’s, he’d been a broken man, determined to either die quickly or live out the rest of his miserable life as far away from his loved ones as possible. The original plan was to only stay for a while. Just long enough that he could earn fare to Africa, where he’d vanish into the jungles and live with the pygmies. Lance had been reading a book about the mountain people for some summer class he was taken, and Chris thought he’d fit in very well with the strange little tribe in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Obviously, the island had won him over, and he’d stayed. A major factor in the decision was Sr. Ruez, the original owner of the tiny boat repair yard and docking pier. There had been so much for Chris not to trust about the world then, but Sr. Ruez simply paid him for his work and welcomed Chris into his home. He brought Chris back to the human race by caring and trusting.

It had been just over a year since Sr. Ruez had died, leaving Chris to run the marina on his own. Manny, Chris’ young assistant, was Sr. Ruez’s grandson. He was too young to run the business on his own, and too unwilling to put in the time when his girlfriend was standing nearby with her pretty shy smile.

In a way, he reminded Chris of Justin, who would be all grown up now. Sometimes Chris wondered about the life he’d left behind. As he began work that afternoon, he thought about his last summer in Portsmouth, and how Justin had worked for him whenever his social schedule would allow.

He couldn’t think about it without thinking about Lance, and even after so much time, after spending years in a numbness that penetrated straight to his soul, Chris couldn’t think about Lance.

**

They left him alone for a week, because he refused to talk to anyone, which in itself was scary enough if they had known Chris. They didn’t, so they didn’t realize that for him to be literally stunned to silence was just plain not normal.

They put him in a room in a tower, and he snorted at how damn Hans Christian Andersen the whole thing was. There was a man with an AK47 at his door, and a 50 ft drop straight down to the ocean outside his windows. When Chris looked down, trying to judge the distance, his phobia of heights rushed up so quickly he was overcome by vertigo and fell to the floor below the window sobbing, breathing in panicky gasps until he was nothing more than a fetal ball of fear and anxiety.

He didn’t know why he was there, why his absentee father had suddenly made an appearance. He didn’t know what was going on back home, and that thought killed him more than anything. Did Lance think that he had run away and left him? He prayed that his mother and sisters weren’t comparing Chris to HIM, the man in the expensive suit downstairs who had scary-ass compounds in the Caribbean and yet had let his children grow up on food stamps.

When they finally came, he nearly wept with relief, just to have someone else to talk to. They took him back downstairs, where he clung to the metal railing, trying not to trip because the shoes he’d found in his room were too big.

The words come spilling out of his mouth before he could even think of the carefully crafty façade he was going to present. He’d had a long week to plan out this moment perfectly, and it was all shot to hell by him not being able to keep his mouth shut.

“And what the fuck do you think you’re doing to me? Do you have any idea how illegal this is? I know a guy, he’s a lawyer,” and OK, Chris didn’t really know Lance’s grandfather, but that was a minor technicality. He was sure Lance would be indignant on his behalf, “-- and he’s gonna fry your ass for this. This is kidnapping, and then I bet you didn’t file customs papers when you were exporting my unconscious body from the States, and what the fuck is up with those guns? Don’t tell me you got them at some fucking munitions shop.”

He was cut off with a sharp look from the man, one that would shatter glass from sheer intensity, and Chris was frozen, mouth open, thoughts still tumbling out of his head in an uncontrollable rage.

“Now listen,” his father said, setting down the sparkling crystal tumbler full of amber liquid. Chris wondered what kind of insane people drank before lunch. He wished he was one of them. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions, but you remember who’s in control here. If you want answers, you’re going to have to… cooperate.”

Chris laughed, a sharp bark that echoed off the high ceilings. “You’ve got to be kidding me, right?”

The man just shrugged and curled up one corner of his lip in a sinister little smile. Chris knew he was being played.

“Fuck this,” he said, and turned to leave. He did his best not to let his knees shake when he faced down the guard, because fuck, if they were gonna play mind games with him he was going to take his chances with the big guy and the gun.

“I wouldn’t try it,” his father cautioned coldly, and Chris nearly screamed in frustration. He ran his hand through his hair roughly, turning around, once, then again, trying to look for any way out of this prison.

“Then what the fuck?” he asked. “What the fuck?”

“I would have thought your mother would have raised you to use better language.”

Chris laughed again, the thought of his mother a painful stab that bubbled out in a harsh chuckle. “You obviously didn’t know her very well.”

Something flickered in his fathers eyes, and Chris thought for a moment that it might have been regret. “Look, I just want to know what the hell you’re doing here,” Chris said, the rage of the previous moment gone, leaving him desperate. Begging.

His father sat down, and Chris tentatively did the same, perching on the edge of a white leather sofa as if it might bite him were he to sink too deeply into the cushions.

“Perhaps we should start with a bit of history,” his father said, and Chris rolled his eyes.

“Maybe you could just tell me what I’m doing here,” Chris said. “And we can skip the whole family bonding moment for now.”

There was a long pause, and Chris thought for the thousandth time in the last hour that he really needed to start thinking before he ordered around then men with the guns and the scary island houses.

Finally, his father spoke. “You’re here because you’re old enough now. I thought it was time for you to get your inheritance.”

Chris’ eyebrows rose on their own, before he could tell them to stop looking surprised. “Inheri-what?”

“Your legacy. This,” his father said, gesturing around the room, “will all be yours some day. Along with many more places just like this.”

Chris reached for the water on the table and poured himself a glass, and his throat wasn’t swallowing very well. Some of it dripped down his chin to leave little dark spots on his shirt. “You’re tell me that now, after I’ve been living on Ramen noodles for the past twenty years, you’re giving me money?”

His father smiled a bit at that. “Not giving. I believe that we all must work, for the good things in life. What I’m giving you isn’t money. It’s opportunity.”

**

There was a big party on the beach that night, to celebrate the wedding anniversary of one of the island’s older couples. Chris went and ate his fill of crab and fire-roasted snapper, but his heart wasn’t in the celebration. He couldn’t put a finger on it, exactly, but something was wrong. The cosmos just weren’t lined up properly, like the world was slanted a little off its axis.

The wind whipped his hair along his face as Chris stood ankle-deep in the surf, the foam draining away between his toes.

Something was amiss.

**

Chris refused. Of course he refused. What kind of clueless moron was his father to think that he could show up after twenty-four years and offer Chris a job in the family business? No, he corrected, not offer him a job but kidnap him, bring him to some remote island in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere, and try to force the job upon him.

And not just a job, oh no. Chris’ father wanted him to run the entire Eastern US branch of the ‘organization.’ A fucking mob boss, that’s what Chris’ father was, and Chris wasn’t having any of it.

“Think about it,” his father said. “Those minions, the Cobras, they think they’re so powerful. They’re bottom-feeders in the organization. The lowest of the low. How do you think I found out about you? I know you were making trouble for them. I figured that meant the time was right to bring you in. Imagine my surprise when the man standing in the way of my Mid-Atlantic plan was my own son.”

Chris would have laughed at the predicament if he weren't so disgusted. He wished that his father had really been the deadbeat his mother had sworn him to be.

So he refused. But of course, the refusal was not acceptable.

“That’s a shame,” his father had said casually. “Because I thought after what had happened, you would have wanted a chance to be in a position of power over the Cobras.” He reached to a magazine rack tucked conveniently beside the sofa and pulled out a newspaper, plopping it down in front of Chris on the ebony coffee table.

Chris saw the headline, saw the pictures, and he remembered.

**

He didn’t go back to the party once the bonfire had been lit. They’d always made him nervous, a little tick that he couldn’t quite get over. Instead, he walked along the shore and stared up at the stars, the sparkling bits of gas and dust millions of miles away. Somehow, they always made him feel like home. Once, he and Lance had driven out of the city and laid on a blanket in some unmarked field along the highway, watching a meteor shower under the very same stars.

Chris liked to think that Lance was up there now, looking down on him. He hoped that it was the case, that Lance’s parents didn’t have a box of ashes sitting on their mantel or a big marble monument in some ritzy cemetery, a cold stone to represent such a warm vibrant person.

The night was cool for the tropics, and the waters much calmer than normal this time of year. Just past hurricane season, the seas were usually still full of restless tension. Tonight, they were as smooth as glass, barely lapping at his feet while he waded through the current.

He thought about opening another bottle of tequila when he got home, but the call for sleep pulled him too strongly to resist. He wrapped the thin cotton sheets around his legs and watched the trees sway outside of the window until his eyelids drooped shut and he was once again in the dark.

**

Chris headed home with a bag full of chips and sandwiches from Subway, knowing that Lance was probably craving some real food after a couple of days surviving on Chris’ limited culinary skills. He hadn’t complained about it at all, and Chris loved him more for it. But that didn’t mean the kid had to suffer.

“Hey, Chris!”

Chris turned to see Justin riding up on his bike, squealing to a stop inches from Chris’ toes. Chris batted at Justin’s baseball cap affectionately.

“Me ‘n Trace were gonna go see a movie, is that cool? I’ll swing by later for cleanup and shit.” He balanced his on bike while trying to stay still, and Chris smiled.

“Sure, kid.” Justin started to ride away, but Chris called him back and handed him five bucks. “An advance. You’d better show tonight,” he warned, and Justin grinned big and toothy.

Chris was whistling as he walked the rest of the way home. It wasn’t until he came around the corner of his block that the smell of smoke hit him, and the black cloud in the sky suddenly swelled behind DiMaria’s Bakery.

He dropped the bag of food on the sidewalk and sprinted to the garage. It was already filled with orange flames, the smells of burning rubber so strong that he began to cough.

But his mind was only on one thing- Lance. He took the stairs in the back and found Lance.

As Chris sat in the den of his father’s house, he remembered trying to pull Lance out from the engulfed bedroom, the feel of Lance’s hands in his before the world had gone black.

There were tears in his eyes when he finally looked up from the newspaper, seeing the words that completed the story. “He’s dead?”

Chris’ father nodded gravely. “Unfortunately, a few of the boys got a bit carried away in bringing you here. I simply asked that they make it look like you disappeared. They went for dead. And your friend, well. I’m afraid he was caught in the crossfire.”

He kept talking, but Chris didn’t hear any more of the words. His eyes focused blearily on the picture of Lance next to the one of the burning garage, taking up the whole front page of the newspaper. There was a picture of him, too, underneath. It said he was dead too, but he didn’t process that fallacy until much later.

Lance was dead. And the man sitting in front of Chris, the man who dared to call himself a father, was responsible.

**

Chris woke up calling for Lance, again. The name echoed across his brain, and he cursed David for bringing up all that talk about love, for stirring the grave of a man who simply would not rest in peace. Everything about the past few days had been haunted with memories, and Chris just wanted the pain to end. He grasped at his hair, pulling it tightly until he could focus on the physical pain instead of the ache that ran through his heart.

He was, in all senses, a man alone in the world. When his father had finally accepted that Chris would be of no use to him, he’d released Chris to a world that looked the same as before, but was forever different. Chris had been held captive on the island for an entire year, twelve months of staring out the big island window at nothing but ocean and a perilous drop to the rocks below. It had taken a full year for his father to finally realize that Chris did not respond to reason, could not be bribed, and could not be threatened.

It was the last bit that had scared Chris the most: the threats on his family. He thought of his mother and four sisters, one who probably had already started losing her memories of Chris. He thought of his nephew, who hadn’t even been walking when Chris was taken away.

He would die before he let anything happen to them. As far as they knew, he was dead. And he planned to keep it that way. If they knew that he was alive, then they were a liability. His father could come back and use them, the same way he’d tried to use Chris.

To make sure it never happened, Chris didn’t return home. He had memorized the newspaper that his father had left for him on day the world ended, and come to the conclusion somewhere about halfway through his tenure at the compound that if he ever got off the island alive, he would never return home. He wouldn’t make them grieve again.

And then there was Lance. He knew it was cowardly, but the idea of going back there, of inevitably facing the parents of the boy he’d loved so much, was completely overwhelming. It made his stomach tighten with nervous knots just to think it.

So he’d come here, to another island because this was where the boatman went last before heading to the mainland. And he’d stayed. He’d made a home here among the natives, found a house, found a job. But he never got very close, because he knew that the minute his father came calling again, he’d be on the run.

He couldn’t fall back asleep, not with the whole ordeal playing out in his mind as if it were yesterday instead of nearly a decade ago. He stood in the gradually lightening sky of morning and watched the waves where they came up on the shore. He thought about the beauty of it, and how he’d come to appreciate the beautiful in life. The green palm fronds that grazed daintily on porch roof, the same light green as Lance’s eyes had been. The smell of salt and sand instead of motor oil and transmission fluid. This life was different, and lonely. But it was good.

Part Five

The trial began. And what on television may seem like the moment of utmost suspense and culmination of weeks of work, in reality, it was just plain boring for Lance. They spent nearly two weeks in jury selection alone, weeding through candidates who didn’t seem to have any real opinion on gang warfare, most of them coming from the surrounding communities in Portsmouth County, rather than the city itself. Lance spent more hours than he could count sitting in a makeshift office at the back of the county courthouse, pouring over jury surveys to find just the right people to get Justin acquitted.

Meanwhile, Justin had turned into a pile of nerves, taking it out on everything in site. JC dropped him off at Lance’s office one morning, with no more greeting than a roll of his eyes that seemed to say “Here, you deal with my neurotic boyfriend for a while, because I need a break.”

“So,” Lance asked, clearing space on the chair across from his desk. His secretary had almost had a heart attack when she saw that his normally pristine office suddenly turned into ground zero. “I think we should be set to begin things on Monday.”

Justin took a deep breath and braced his hands on his knees. “OK. Yeah. I can do this.”

Lance smiled at him as reassuringly as possible. “You need to be calm,” he reminded Justin. “No freak-outs on the stand.”

“No freak-outs,” Justin repeated, but his face was white as a ghost, hands white-knuckled on the arms of the chair. Lance had never seen anyone look so afraid.

He told Justin to go home, get his mind off of things. Justin snorted that it wasn’t possible. So Lance did the only thing he could think of.

He swung by the school to pick up Shelby from her after-school program, and apologized to Justin as they drove to the ice cream parlor.

“I’ve just been a dad for too long,” he said, smoothly palming the steering wheel around the corner. “I’m in that ice-cream-fixes-everything mindset.”

“Dude, you’re so right though.” Justin smiled happily, and Lance was relieved to see some of the color back in his face. Justin’s hands had finally unfurled from the tight fists.

Shelby chattered on happily to them from the backseat, about the kids at school and some art project they were making for Thanksgiving. Justin surprised Lance by turning around in his seat and talking with Lance’s daughter for most of the ride. Lance wouldn’t have pegged Justin as the good-with-kids type.

Lance paid for three cones, and they sat at one of the tables on the patio, enjoying an unseasonably warm autumn day. Shelby had an apple picking field trip the next week, and she and Justin carried on a serious debate over the best way to find apples.

“OK, really, stop telling her these things,” Lance protested, because his daughter didn’t need any encouragement to climb trees. “She’ll break her neck.”

Shelby dropped her head to the side and stuck out her tongue, causing both men to laugh. Her giggles were infectious, until her ice cream nearly died for the cause, saved at the last minute by Justin’s quick reflexes. He carefully righted the cone, his hand coming away dripping with melted cream.

“I need a napkin,” he said, excusing himself to duck back inside. Shelby giggled and licked up more of her strawberry cone.

Lance finished off the last bite of his mint chocolate chip, and used the tiny end of the cone to sneak scoops of his daughter’s desert.

From the street, someone called his name. The back of his neck crawled.

“I thought that was you! Hi, Shelly.” Jessica sat down on the bench next to Lance, in the seat Justin had vacated.

“Shelby,” his daughter corrected, and Jessica just smiled and ruffled Shelby’s hair.

“It’s so nice to see you two out having fun. You’re just the best father in the world.” Lance smiled at that and smoothed his daughter’s ponytail back into place.

“Anyway, I wanted to see you because I’m so sorry you had to run out of the barbecue so quickly. And your secretary says you’ve hardly been in the office all week! Did you get my messages?”

Lance had gotten them, and chosen to ignore them. “I’ve been down at the courthouse a lot.”

“Oh, my gosh! Is that trial here already? I can’t believe you’re really going through with it. I expected the boy to take a plea bargain. Anyone with brains could see that he’s guilty as sin.”

Justin chose that moment to reappear, the bells on the door jingling gaily as he stepped back onto the patio. Jessica looked up at him, standing over her, with mountains of fear in her eyes.

“Lance,” she hissed, spinning around in her seat. “And in front of your daughter!”

Lance felt his eyebrows arch high across his forehead. “What?”

“You have to know that this is a bad idea,” she whispered, though there was no real effort to keep Justin from hearing. Justin just stood, confused, on the stoop.

“Justin’s telling me how to pick the best apples,” Shelby said, crunching into the sugar cone.

Jessica’s eyes softened. “Don’t you listen to anything that man says, OK baby?”

Wrong word. Lance felt his daughter’s back stiffen. “I’m not a baby!”

“Of course not. I’m sorry. You’re a very pretty little girl.” Jessica fussed with one of the tiny aquamarine bows on the sleeve of his daughter’s shirt. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. There are a lot of bad people in the world, sweetie.”

She stood, glaring at Justin. “Lance, call me later, please? I’m really concerned about you.”

Justin took her seat as Jessica sauntered down the sidewalk. “Do I want to ask?”

Lance rolled his eyes. “Jessica Simpson. You know.”

Justin’s eyes went wide. “Shit.”

Shelby giggled, and Justin was quick to apologize. Lance just waved it away.

“Daddy, that lady’s weird,” Shelby said.

More than weird, Lance thought. Dangerous. And they were all getting a little to close to the breaking point.

**

Lance’s former in-laws were more than happy to take their granddaughter a few weeks early, and keep her through the Thanksgiving holiday. Shelby was a little upset about missing out on finishing her art project, but her Grandma promised they’d make a special centerpiece, and Lance was happy to have his daughter 800 miles away in Indiana, where the fallout of the trial would be less likely to affect her.

Joey was around a lot more, dropping by in the evenings, just generally being there. Lance wanted to hug him just for knowing that he needed someone. The stress was insurmountable as the clocked ticked closer and closer to opening arguments.

“Do you want me to co-counsel?” Joey asked, as they sat at Lance’s kitchen table eating toaster waffles. Lance thought about it. It would be so good to have someone there beside him, someone he trusted to catch anything that slipped through the cracks. But Joey had a family too.

“Nah,” he said. “I think I have to do this one on my own.” He thought about his grandfather’s talk about retirement, and leaving the firm to Lance after this was all over. And he thought about Justin, and Lynn, and JC, and everyone else who was counting on him. “But you’ll be there, right?”

“Of course,” Joey asked, and Lance shot him a maple-syrup smile.

**

The courthouse steps were packed with cameras, and Lance was sweating the minute he came around the corner. He parked in the back lot and snuck in a side door. Justin and his mom were supposed to meet him there.

They walked into the courtroom as a unit: Justin, his mother, and JC; Lance, Joey, and Lance’s grandfather. Lance smiled as his grandfather gingerly shook Justin’s hand in the hall outside of the courtroom, and tried to keep the amused look on his face as he walked through the massive wooden doors into the courtroom. He hoped it concealed some of the terror brewing inside of him.

The prosecutor looked as nervous as Lance felt, and it gave him a boost of confidence. The wood-paneled courtroom was full to the brim with people from all walks of life- friends and acquaintances of Justin, and those of the Carters. The media were crammed into at standing room only. And, strangely enough, Jessica Simpson and her father were there. Lance supposed they had a vested interest, seeing that they had probably orchestrated the whole thing.

It was a three ring circus, and Lance only hoped that he came out as the ringmaster instead of the clown. And that Justin wasn’t going to be shot out of a canon.

The first day was for opening arguments, and Lance had brushed up his very best, gold star vocabulary words, layered on his accent a little thick to invoke sincerity, and put every effort into painting Justin as the convenient scapegoat for any number of enemies of the Carter family. He focused on the flimsy evidence, the efforts that Justin made to stay out of gangs while growing up in dangerous territory. He wanted Justin to be the victim of unfortunate circumstances in the jury’s eye right from the beginning, so that every bit of evidence the prosecution presented would come with a shadow of suspicion.

From the look on his grandfather’s face as he finished, he knew he’d done well. The day ended on a high note.

It was the last one for a long time.

The first week of trial went to the prosecution, where firemen took the stand to describe the extensive arson damage. The investigator trotted around the gas can with Justin’s fingerprints on it, and Lance could tell that Justin was itching to jump up and yell “I work in a fucking gas station!”

He marveled that he’d come to know Justin so well over the past few months. He’d never been one for making friends so easily, but something with the man sitting next to him had just clicked. He rested a hand on Justin’s arm.

“Just wait” he mouthed, and Justin nodded, falling back into his chair.

Lance watched that afternoon as the courtroom emptied, one of the last to leave as always. He let the prosecution deal with the media outside. He knew that if he timed things right, he’d step outside at 5:47 exactly, just in time for the wrap-up live broadcast on the local news.

He watched as JC wrapped Justin in a giant hug, arms wrapping all the way around Justin’s shoulders, pulling him as close as possible. Justin leaned into JC as if he could rest the world on JC’s shoulders and still know that JC was strong enough to hold him steady. Justin had loosened the tie on his suit so that it hung limply around his neck and rolled up his sleeves. JC’s grayish blue blazer clashed horribly with the blue T-shirt he had on underneath. Individually, neither man looked particularly spectacular. Together, they were beautiful.

Lance felt a hand brush against the small of his back, and turned of find Joey next to him.

“Ready to go?” he asked, and Lance nodded, picking up his coat.

“You know,” Lance said as they walked down the long hallway, “I think I’m going to go on vacation when this is all over. Take a trip or something.”

Joey laughed lightly. “Anywhere in particular?”

“I was thinking maybe the Caribbean. Some exotic island. Or maybe the British Isles.” Lance looked up at Joey, and he knew that Joey understood everything.

“You’re really serious about this?” he asked, and Lance nodded. He and Justin had narrowed the search down to three likely locations. A hamlet in Ireland. An island in the Caribbean. A monastery in Scotland. One of them had to have Chris, and Lance was betting on the island.

“Really serious.”

Joey sighed, and pushed open the door to the flood of flashbulbs that awaited them on the stairs. Lance looked at the dark sky and realized how the days were growing so much shorter. It seemed like there was less time to do everything lately.

**

For the most part, Lance had put Chris out of his mind, but little things triggered the thoughts of “soon, soon.”

When it came time for them to present their case, Lance was confident. He watched the faces of the jurors as he showed them the video of the gas station from the days leading up to the fire, of the fifty-odd people to whom Justin was shown on screen selling the identical red gas cans. He could see the doubt that flickered in their eyes with each passing piece of counterevidence he entered.

He also put four of Nick Carter’s former business associates on the stand to describe just a few of the many enemies the man had made during his tenure as muscle for hire.

It was going better than he’d hoped, and by the middle of the third week, Lance would almost call himself confident that Justin would be acquitted.

He thought of all the wasted time they’d spent on Nick Lachey. Better safe than sorry, Lance had always been taught, but he couldn’t believe that the whole thing might end without ever proving who really killed Nick Carter.

**

Lance talked to his daughter every night, and he missed her so fiercely it was as if an elephant was sitting on his chest each time he hung up the phone. He thought of what it would be like to always be this busy- to manage the entire firm, keep tabs on all of the other partners and associates as well as his own case load.

It didn’t hold the same appeal that it had three months ago, when his grandfather had first presented the proposal.

His parents would be scandalized. They’d been in Europe for the past year, his father working for the state department, his mother teaching at an American school in Paris. Lance had barely spoken to him. He knew they were concerned about him, worried that he wasn’t coping well with Shelby’s death. Worried that old inclinations might come back.

They had reason, he thought wryly. Only this time he wasn’t a grief-struck 17 year old. He was going to stand up for what he believed in rather than let his soul be preached out of his body.

The thought alone nearly made him laugh out loud, alone in the big empty house that his family’s money had built. He looked around at the curtains that Wendy had picked out two months before her death, and the sofa that his mother had bought because “it would look just perfect in that corner,” and decided that if this were all to disappear tomorrow, he’d still be OK.

Liberated, ducked out the door. JC was playing at the Lizard Lounge that night, and Lance was suddenly in the mood for music.

**

The jury stepped out for deliberation on a Wednesday morning, with a cold autumn rain pounding against the roof. It echoed loudly in Lance’s skull, despite the three Tylenol he’d taken with a handful of iron-tasting water from the bathroom tap.

“So, now we just wait?” Justin asked in the hall, where his entire entourage had gathered. JC rubbed gentle circles on Justin’s back, while Lynne twisted the straps of her purse nervously together. She’d closed the diner for the duration of the trial. Lance had decided weeks ago to do the case pro bono, so money wasn’t a major issue. Seeing Justin walk free would be payment enough he’d told Lynn, as she wrapped him in the biggest hug he’d ever gotten. There had been baked goods on his doorstop every morning since.

“Yup. I have no idea how long. I have no idea whether or not to hope for a long or short deliberation.” Lance ran his hand through his hair roughly, catching his ring finger on a twist of gel. “I guess we should go home.”

They only made it a few paces down the hall before Jessica and her father came out of the courtroom, accompanied by Nick Lachey. They’d been there every day, supposedly in support of Lance in the trial. He wasn’t fooled by the phony cheering section.

“Lance, I really need to talk to you,” she said, pulling at his elbow so he fell out of step with the others.

Lance shook her arm off roughly. “This really isn’t a good time.” He didn’t want to have anything to do with her anymore, not even under the pretense of old family friends.

“Please? It’s really important.” She latched on again like a leech with fresh blood, tugging Lance back around a corner. Justin paused, watching as Lance was led away, and let go of JC’s hand to follow.

“Hey, he said he didn’t want to talk to you, so why don’t you lay off?” Justin spat. Lance put a hand on Justin’s chest, shoving him backward a good three feet.

“Relax, Justin. Let’s go.”

“You can’t just walk away from me!” Jessica screeched, and Lance turned, fixing a cold glare on her perfectly coiffed blonde hair.

“Oh, yes I can,” he said, with a note of amusement. “And I’m going to. Because right now, I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

By this point there was an audience; Jessica’s raised voice having alerted everyone in the long winding maze of hallways to the altercation. JC and Joey stood like twin pillars of support behind Justin and Lance. Joe Simpson and Nick came rushing up to Jessica. Nick went right for Justin.

“What’s your problem, man? Burning up two people wasn’t enough, you have to go around harassing women too?” He stepped dangerously close to Justin, and Lance wedged his hip between the two men, hopefully preventing any punches from being thrown. Though he’d love to see Nick hauled into county lockup for assault and battery, he didn’t want Justin thrown into the fray.

“Fuck you,” Justin said lowly, and Lance turned, surprised at the calmness in Justin’s voice. “Fuck you six ways to Sunday, you bottom-feeding son of a bitch. You know damn well who torched that house, and it sure as hell wasn’t me. So if you’re looking for blood, check your own damn hands. Mine are clean.”

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. He’s crazy!” Nick stepped away, looking around at the crowd. Joe Simpson was two steps behind him, face carefully blank. Jessica wasn’t as good an actress- her face had paled to an ashy white at Justin’s accusations.

Joey, who’d studied drama for years, knew how to recognize cues and stepped forward. It was as if the whole thing were happening in slow motion, Lance thought, someone hadn’t replaced the clock batteries and the world was ticking by at half-speed. “I think Justin knows a lot more than you realize,” he said. “We all know, Nick.”

“It’s only a matter of time before the truth comes out,” Lance added, stepping forward. Nick had no choice but to fall back.

The movement broke the eerie stillness in the hallway, and all eyes fell to Jessica, who launched herself forward into the mix, staring up at Lance with daggers in her eyes. “Listen up, James Lance. Nick Carter was nothing but a white trash, good-for-nothing, waste of a human body. The world’s better off without him. And if your little maggot friend is gonna fry for this? Well,” she said, stepping away with the smuggest expression Lance had ever seen. “Two birds with one stone.” She cocked her head and gave him a sweet smile, and turned back to her father. “Let’s go, daddy.” She took Nick’s arm as she sauntered out. “It’s so nice to finally have the appreciation of a man who’s not afraid to take action. I wasted so much time on you,” she seethed at Lance.

“And you think you can just get away with this?” Lynn asked, from her place at the corner. Her heavily mascara-ed eyes were wide as saucers. Justin moved instinctively to his mother’s side.

“Who do you think is going to stop me?” Jessica smiled back at them, tossing her long blonde hair over one shoulder.

“I am.”

Lance turned and saw the prosecutor in the hallway behind him. The last time he’d seen her, she was slumped over the table in the courtroom, defeated after her closing rebuttal. Now, she strode across the tile floor with an angry click of her heels, two officers stoically placed behind her.

Jessica looked from her father to Nick as the shiny silver bracelets came into site. Neither one moved to help her.

Justin bounced on his feet and hugged his mom.

Case closed.

**

It wasn’t that simple, of course, but when he looked back on it, Lance would forget all of the hearings and paperwork that came later, how the charges were dropped and how Jessica and Nick were indicted. He was sure that she would find a way to blame the whole thing on Nick, and Lance felt bad for the guy because of it.

But he wasn’t sticking around to find out what happened. Not where there were more important things to deal with.

He took a quick trip up to his former in-laws for Thanksgiving, happy to hold his daughter in his arms once again. He’d missed her more than he’d ever thought possible, despite all of the chaos in his life during the past few weeks. Wendy’s parents agreed to keep Shelby until Christmas, even volunteering to help her with her schoolwork so she wouldn’t be so far behind when they got back.

He told them about the trip. Everything about it. And he was more than surprised when Wendy’s mom wrapped her arms around Lance’s shoulders and hugged him.

“You do whatever makes you happy,” she said, and smiled knowingly at him. Lance had only been able to blink in shock. He’d prepared himself for the battles he’d face with his own parents after coming out of the closet. These people, who had let their daughter marry him, were so much more supportive than his own blood relatives.

There were many tears shed that night, in grief for the past and in hope for the future.

**

There was, however, one thing left to do. When he returned to Portsmouth, Lance went directly to Justin’s house, climbing the stairs in the crisp night air, until he reached the door. The kitchen light glowed in welcome.

“Hey, come in,” Justin said, stepping back so Lance could enter. Justin had on an old long-sleeve T-shirt and dark plain pajama bottoms. From the bedroom doorway, Lance could see movement of someone else dressing.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you guys up. I’ll come back,” he said, feeling instantly mortified that he may have interrupted something.

“It’s fine,” Justin said, holding tightly to Lance’s arm, guiding him into the living room. The bookshelf had been fixed, Lance noted, and all of the CDs were once again stored in their proper place.

Lance took the chair, and JC emerged from the bedroom wrapped in a blue blanket to sit with Justin on the couch.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” Lance said. “I probably should have said it a while ago, but.” He licked his lips, mouth suddenly dry. He’d done this days before at his in-laws’, but he hadn’t needed to use so many words that time. “Chris and I were more than just friends. We were lovers.”

“No shit,” Justin said in wonder, voice timbred with awe. JC’s eyes flickered with understanding, and he gave Lance a small smile of support.

“I never told anyone about it. Well, Joe knows, but no one else. My parents- I told them, the day before the fire. Then Chris died.” He paused, thinking about how long he’d been thinking that. It was time for a change. “Or disappeared.”

“But, wait. You’re gay?” Justin asked, and JC jostled him lightly in reprimand for being so blunt.

Lance looked away, studying the curving iron rails on the sides of the TV cabinet. “I thought I was. But. My parents sent me to this therapy that’s supposed to fix you, and. I thought it had worked.”

“Wait, what do you mean, fix? You can’t change how you feel, Lance.” JC’s voice was a bullet wrapped in cotton balls. Lance knew JC meant to be gentle, but the hard facts were that he’d been gullible and naïve.

“Look, it’s. When I was younger, I mean. I wanted to be normal. And I was really all set on everything when, BAM! Out of the blue, there’s Chris and this thing that was so hard to explain. And it was just pulling me in a lot of different directions. But it was too much to ignore, you know? So, I did a lot of soul searching, and came out to my parents about it. And that didn’t go so well, but then there was the fire. I wasn’t really myself for a long time after that, and my parents saw that, and thought that something needed to be done. I don’t blame them, I mean, they did what they thought was best, you know? But yeah, for a long time I’d convinced myself that I’d been ‘reoriented.’”

Justin frowned at him as he spoke, but JC had his head cocked with interest. Lance looked to him for some support, some understanding. But all JC said was “What do you think now?”

“I think,” Lance said, and his voice shook slightly, “that I really want to find Chris.”

Justin’s arms wrapped around him tightly as Lance’s shoulders shook in silent sobs.

**

They left on a Tuesday morning, the week after Thanksgiving, because it was cheaper to fly then. Lance’s grandfather had told him to take a few weeks off after all the hard work he’d put in over the past few months. He thought a trip to the Caribbean was a grand idea.

Monday night before they left, Lance met with Joey, JC, and Justin at the diner to go over final plans. They were going to start with the island, and head to Europe if it was necessary. Justin couldn’t stop turning the pages of his crisp new passport. They’d had to drive up to the capital to fill out the last-minute papers for JC and Justin. If anyone asked, an old friend had died in the Dominican Republic over the weekend.

They sorted through the mountain of airline tickets, tracking their way to St. Stephen’s island. It seemed that there wasn’t a direct route to the middle of nowhere.

“Did you confirm the hotel reservations?” Joey asked, pulling up a computer print out with the lodging information. Lance leaned over his shoulder and pointed out the confirmation number.

“Yeah, that’s all set.”

“This is so cool, man. I mean. We’re going on this huge adventure!” JC was nearly bouncing in his seat with excitement. Justin grinned widely, leaning over to kiss JC’s cheek. JC’s grin spliced so widely that his eyes squished to tiny dark crevices.

Lance laughed, their excitement contagious.

Lynn brought them slices of pumpkin pie, and they were nearly through for the night when the door to the diner opened and two men walked in. All conversation in the diner stopped, the clinking sounds of silverware on dishes silenced.

Lance’s eyes rose to the two men standing inside the door. Both had dark hair, though one was nearly a head taller than the other. The shorter man was covered in tattoos, his ears pierced in multiple places, and his eyes lined with dark liner. The taller man wore all black, and had only one tattoo: a curling snake poised to strike along his forearm.

Lance knew them instantly to be members of the Cobras, and fear settled into his belly, rumbling amongst the pumpkin.

Justin opened his mouth to speak, but the taller of the two men raised his hand to intercede.

“I know we’re not welcome here, so we’ll go. But there’s something me and AJ need to tell you.”

Lance looked up at them from his seat in the booth and nodded. Gangsters, coming to talk to him, he thought. My how the world has changed.

“I’m sorry you had to go through all that shit with Nicky,” the older one said, looking directly at Justin. “He had a bug up his ass about you from day one, and I never could find a reason for it.”

“Whatever,” Justin said. “It’s done.”

“Not quite,” the younger guy said. Lance remembered that Nick Carter had once lived with this guy. “There’s something else you need to know. Years back, Nick got a little carried away, trying to impress some big shots in the organization.”

“Carried away how?” JC asked.

The older of the two men set a hand on AJ’s shoulder. “Chris Kirkpatrick isn’t dead. He was taken on orders of the boss. I don’t know why, but it was supposed to look like a disappearance.”

“Holy shit,” Joey breathed, and Lance realized that Joey was finally believing the whole twisted tale.

“They kept Chris for a year at the boss’s compound, then released him. Last we heard, he was holed up on St. Stephen’s Island. We’ve had orders to never go near him. I think they scared him good, but there’s been an change of power in the organization. Whatever he was afraid is probably gone.”

“Thanks,” Justin said, looking right at AJ.

The two men nodded and left, without a word.

“Oh, my God. That was Kevin Richardson!” JC hissed, leaning across the table so they could all hear. “I can’t believe I just had a conversation with Kevin Richardson!”

“Who’s that?” Lance asked, turning to Justin for explanation.

“Snake. The head of the Cobras. Fuck, man.”

Joey stared down at the mess of travel information on the table. “So I guess we can cancel all these European flights,” he said, sorting the information into two piles.

Lance’s heart was racing as his friends started to talk again, because it was all coming down to this very moment: they had confirmation, and they had a location. They were going to find Chris.

**

The plane from Miami was small and old, with ugly orange seats and trays that didn’t sit quite horizontal when they were lowered, so you had to hold your drink or else it would slide into your lap.

Joey and Lance sat on one side, with JC and Justin across the aisle. JC had taken enough Dramamine to knock out a horse, and snored lightly with his head resting against the window. Joey crashed too, claiming that flying always made him sleepy.

Across the aisle, Justin smiled at Lance and offered him one of his peanuts. Lance shook his head.

“First time on an airplane?” Lance asked as Justin snacked happily. He nodded with a grin.

“This morning was. This is so cool!”

“Have you thought about what you’re gonna say to him?” Lance asked, fiddling with the piece of plastic that kept his tray table in its locked upright position. He’d been thinking about it, and hadn’t really come up with anything.

“Nah,” Justin said. “Mostly I was thinking of hitting him a lot, for letting us think he’s dead.” Justin balled up the empty wrapper and tossed it at JC. JC didn’t stir, and Justin shrugged with a smile.

“I have no idea what to say,” Lance commented. His palms were sweaty, so he rubbed them on his khakis.

“Dude,” Justin said, elbowing him across the narrow aisle. “You’ll think of something.”

“I guess,” Lance exhaled.

“So, you and he were really dating?” Justin asked. “I can’t believe I didn’t know about it!”

“I made him keep it a secret. He didn’t know it, but I was only 17. I didn’t want him to get in trouble.”

Justin nodded. “But still. I mean, I was working at the garage that summer! I can’t believe I didn’t ever see you!”

“I was only around the garage in the beginning. He was fixing my car. After that, we met upstairs, or other places.”

“Weird,” Justin commented. He stole a glance at JC’s sleeping body, then grabbed the packet of peanuts off JC’s tray. He opened them with his teeth and spat out the torn corner. Lance instantly thought of sex, because damn. The boy had obviously had experience with little foil packets.

Suddenly, he cocked his head and looked at Lance curiously. “What kind of car did you drive?” he asked.

“Back then? A Corolla. I sold it when I went to Utah after the fire.” His parents had sold it, actually, trying to cut of all ties with Chris at the recommendation of his counselors.

“Oh, my God! It was blue, wasn’t it?” Justin asked. Lance nodded. “You were the guy we had to push! Oh, man!”

He was bouncing with excitement, stirring JC enough to rouse him from sleep. JC picked up the crumbled peanut wrapper with interest, probably wondering how it had come to rest against his cheek while he slept.

“C! I totally did meet Lance! I pushed his car!”

“That’s great, Justin,” Joey called from the other side of the plane. “But could you please shut the hell up?”

Justin slumped back in the seat with a ‘hrmpf’, but shared a secret smile with Lance. Lance felt himself smiling back.

The captain announced their descent, and suddenly, they were on the way down, and onto the last let of their journey.

**

Lance found him on the dock, cinching the bowline tightly into a knot so that the hunk of slimy wood that some might consider a boat wouldn’t float away with the tide. He looked different, yet there was no doubt in Lance’s mind that this man was Chris.

His footsteps echoed hollowly on the planks as he walked down the long gangway. Each step pushed his heart up a little bit further into his throat.

“Manny, I told you to go home,” Chris said, still fiddling with the rope. His eyes were down.

Lance tried to speak, but no words would come. His vocal chords simple refused to work, so he stood there and looked at the non-ghost. Even right up until five minutes ago, there was a little bit of him that didn’t quite believe it. But even the most logical pieces of his brain couldn’t argue with what was right in front of his eyes.

Chris looked up, and oh, there went Lance’s balance, because Chris was smiling, a soft curve of his lips, and his eyes were bright and happy. And even though Lance knew the look wasn’t for him, it took his breath away.

There was a flicker of recognition, there, just at the moment the sun touched the sea beyond, casting the world in reddish glow. Lance stood, hands at his sides, still trying to speak, but he’d never quite figured out what to say.

“No,” Chris whispered, standing up slowly and backing up a step. Lance didn’t move, but he finally got those words to come.

“Chris.”

“You’re dead,” Chris murmured. “You’re dead.”

“Me?” Lance said. “No. You. You’re supposed to be.” He didn’t understand.

Chris fell to the dock. “I’m going crazy. I’m seeing ghosts.”

Lance fell to his knees in front of Chris. It seemed that some other being was controlling his body, because a hand reached out and touched Chris’ bare knee. Chris looked up with a start.

“You’re real.”

**

They went back to Chris’ house, a short but strange walk. Between them was an electrically charged zone that somehow seemed to be made of more than just plain air.

Chris hesitated when he saw the other three on the porch, and Lance couldn’t blame him. He didn’t know what Chris was thinking, but to be bombarded by four men, out of the blue. Shocking was the most mild thought that Lance could conjure.

“My friend Joey,” Lance said, quietly for the occasion seemed to call for hushed voices. “And Justin.”

“Timberlake?” Chris squeaked, his voice cracking on the word. “Holy shit.”

“He never gave up on you,” Lance told him, earning a curious look from Chris. “He was the one who kept pressing. The one who convinced me.”

“How the hell did he find you?” Chris turned to look at Lance, and it seemed he was finally believing that Lance was real. The sky was rapidly darkening around them, the three men on the porch nothing but shadows.

“That’s a really long story.” Lance stepped forward until they were standing side by side. It surprised him that Chris was shorter- they’d been about the same height before. Lance hit his final growth spurt his freshman year of college. He wondered why that, of all things, would be what he focused on.

“Who’s the other guy?” Chris was still studying the dim porch area.

“JC. Justin’s boyfriend.” Lance watched as Chris’ face fell into disbelief.

“Holy shit.”

His face was just so comically stunned that Lance couldn’t help but laugh.

**

“So, I’m still not quite convinced that I’m not dreaming here,” Chris said when they were all sitting around on his wooden patio furniture. The air was heavy with impending rain, and Lance’s skin itched at the mercy of the tropical insects.

They’d filled him in on the basics, starting with what had happened back then. About how everyone thought he had died in the fire. Lance could tell it was painful for Chris to hear about the memorial service, so he tried to skirt the details until later, when Chris had more time to process it.

“Holy shit,” Chris said again when Justin started to talk about the second fire and the trial. “When the fuck did you grow up?”

“Shut up.” Justin glared at him and continued his story. Joey met Lance’s wandering eyes and smiled. Justin was dealing with this better than anyone. Even JC looked a bit bewildered to be meeting the man Justin had held in such reverence for the duration of their relationship.

“Wow,” Chris kept saying, and Lance had to echo the sentiment. After the story was told, what other words were there, really? Just wow.

But there was a piece missing. Something that the Cobras had said at the diner that clicked everything into place.

“What happened?” he asked. The question, the one that had been on all of their minds, hushed the small group. “I mean, to you. What happened?”

Chris looked away. “I really don’t want to talk about that.”

“Chris, it’s OK, they told us that whoever set the fire was gone, that it was safe.” Justin leaned forward earnestly, despite the cautioning hand on JC’s shoulder. It was clear that Chris had clammed up the minute his own story was mentioned.

“Fuck, you. In fact, it’s been a nice visit, but I think you guys really need to go. Like. Now.” Chris stood up, but no one followed. All eyes were on him.

“What? Chris, we’re not here to visit you,” Justin started, but he never got to finish. Chris stood up, and conversation just kind of froze. Lance thought it was like watching clay-mation, everything moving in weird disjointed motions.

“I just.” Chris fisted a hand tightly in his hair, looking back and forth between the four men on his doorstep. “I can’t deal with this.”

Chris ran. Out the door and down to the beach, where his sunken footprints trace a route to the sea. Justin and JC shared a look of uncertainty before Justin stepped forward.

“Let me,” Lance said. The sand was surprisingly cool under his feet as he stepped off the porch onto the beach. He followed Chris’ footprints around the cove to a secluded stretch littered with fallen palm fronds. Chris stood with his feet in the water, watching the tide wash past his ankles again and again.

Lance took a moment to study him, really study. He looked the same, but so different. He’d gained weight, filled out the fragile frame Lance remembered. His hair was shorter, spiky. But those were little things. The biggest difference was the hunch of his shoulders as he stood in the sea. The way he rolled his neck like stress kept him tense.

The way his eyes didn’t sparkle at all when he turned to face Lance. Lance kept a short distance away.

“You shouldn’t have come,” Chris said bluntly. “Really, just go back to Portsmouth and leave me alone.”

If only it were that easy, Lance thought. But he’d come too far in his own heart to throw it all away now. “No.”

Chris blinked at him and raised an eyebrow in surprise. “No?”

“No. I’m not leaving. Not without you.”

“Jesus Christ, kid. You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” Chris started to walk away, but Lance closed the distance between them and grabbed tightly to his wrist.

“Oh, I do,” he said, surprised at the harshness in his own voice. He’d never felt this raw power, not even in court. He was fighting for himself now, for the first time in his life. “I’m not a kid anymore, and I know. I know you’ve had a sucky life, and that this whole thing had to be rough as hell. But I’m here now, and I came a long way to find you. So I’m not leaving.”

Chris tried to shake out of his grasp, but Lance wasn’t having it. He tugged harder, and suddenly there was a soft, warm chest pressed against his. Lance threw his arms down around Chris’ back, holding him as tightly as possible. “I’m not letting you go,” he said, and he was snuffling into Chris’ shoulder more than actually saying the words, because he just couldn’t get close enough. It felt like coming home.

Chris had his hands on Lance’s shoulder blades, clinging just as tightly, and he wasn’t really breathing at all, which became apparent when he suddenly gasped in Lance’s ear and tried to pull away.

“He was my father,” Chris said, his voice no louder than the gentle lapping of waves on shore. “He wanted to bring me into the organization.”

Lance felt the grief wash over him from head to tow, a shiver in his blood that anyone could be so sinister as to kidnap their own son, to stage a fire so severe that death was a very real, and long believed, outcome. “He can’t hurt you anymore,” Lance promised, loosening his tight grip on Chris’s middle to rub soothing circles on his back. “He’s gone, I promise. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

“I thought you were dead,” Chris said morosely.

There were several long moments in which no one spoke. They just held each other in the moonlight, cool sand under their feet, the ocean at their side. Chris’ hair ticked Lance’s cheek, and he raised one hand to brush it away lightly. Chris watched him with dark eyes.

“Anyone who knew me was a liability,” Chris said. “That’s why I didn’t go back. I thought they’d killed you, and I couldn’t deal with anyone else getting hurt because of me.”

“Because of him,” Lance promised. “It was never you, Chris. You never did anything wrong.”

“I should have come back,” he said.

“Come now,” Lance offered. Chris stepped into his arms again, and it was answer enough.

**

Of course they had missed the final ferry back to the island, but there was no drama about it. It was a long time before Chris and Lance finally walked back to the house. Lance was worried that Justin would be resentful, that having Lance around might have spoiled the reunion that Justin had been working for. Thankfully, there were no signs of that.

They went inside when it grew too dark to see each other, despite the twinkling stars. There was fruit in a bowl on the table between them, and bottles of beer for everyone.

“I can’t fucking believe this,” Chris kept saying. “You’re not old enough to drink!” he scolded Justin, who laughed.

Things were kept lighthearted for awhile, but eventually the conversation grew more intense.

“Does my family know?” Chris asked, and everyone looked at Justin. Lance had thought of including them in this reunion, but they didn’t even know that Chris was alive.

“No,” Justin said. “I didn’t want to tell them if it wasn’t true. Your mom, she’s good,” he promised. “She’s done real well by the girls. Two of them are in college.”

Chris’s face was shining with sweat, although Lance wouldn’t swear that there weren’t a few tears mixed in. “God, I’ve wondered about them. I mean. I’ve wondered about everything, you know?”

“Do you want me to tell them?” Justin asked. “Or would you rather show up yourself?”

“Oh, God,” Chris said. “Tell her, yes. Trust me, having someone return from the dead and walk right up to you is enough to give anyone a heart attack.” He glared at Lance as he spoke, and Lance held up his hands in defense.

Joey laughed. “Why did you think Lance was dead? I mean. You were gone, how did you find out?”

Chris cracked his neck and pulled his feet up under him on the rickety wicker chair. “There was a newspaper. It was a fake, obviously, but. It said you were killed in the fire,” Chris gestured to Lance, who nodded. Of all Chris had been through, that little bit he could identify with, the pain.

“I’m still no really clear on what happened,” Chris said. “I know that the fire was set to get me out of there.” He didn’t say why, and Lance understood that admitting about his father in front of the others was going to take time.

“I’m not either,” Lance said. “I remember you, throwing all the stuff from the fridge on the fire, and you pulled me out of the bedroom.” The force of the yank and sent him past Chris onto the balcony, and he’d run down the stairs assuming that Chris was right behind him. The firemen had ushered him away from the front, and he’d turned just in time to see the entire building explode. “I can’t believe you got out alive.”

“They hit me over the head,” Chris said. “I pulled you, and they must have been waiting on porch or something, because it just went black.” He shuddered with the memory, and JC glanced at Lance as if to say “change the subject, please.” JC, Lance was learning, was incredibly astute in picking up emotions.

Lance fought back a yawn, but lost, and stretched with his mouth wide open, batting away flies.

“Are you tired?” Chris asked.

“A little.” A lot, actually, since they’d been at the airport at five that morning and it was now creeping past midnight.

“There’s no hotel here or anything,” Chris said. “But you can all crash here.” Joey was already half asleep in the chair, his legs propped up on the coffee table. “You guys take the bed,” Chris told Justin and JC. “Is the couch ok?” he asked Lance.

Lance nodded. “Where’ll you sleep?

“I’ve got a hammock out back.”

JC and Justin slumped into the bedroom. Joey snored lightly in the chair. Lance looked at Chris and wondered what the hell he was supposed to say now.

“Goodnight,” was all that came out.

Chris seemed to think about that for a moment before nodding and turning. As his back receded, he yelled “You’d better fucking be here in the morning,” and muttered about crazy dreams and too much junk juice.

Lance wasn’t sure what that was, but he couldn’t help thinking the same thing as he curled up on the decidedly too-small sofa and closed his eyes.

Part Six

Chris came awake slowly, mind before body, his limbs unmovable while he thought about why he seemed to be swaying in the wind. The memories of last night seemed more dream than reality as they replayed though his mind in hazy, muted colors and lyrical sounds.

Chris’ hand was numb from hanging over the side of the hammock, heavy with blood from dangling low throughout the night. He shook it vigorously until it felt normal again. It was a neat trick, like tying a string around your finger to make it purple. Eventually, it would turn back to normal.

Chris wondered if life were like that, if this whole experience was really just an experiment in turning purple, and soon, things would be in their correct homeostasis.

There were questions that needed to be answered, but without an audience. He went to the couch and sat down on the edge, the worn cushions dipping. Lance forced one eye open to see what was going on. The dawning light was rosy around the room, and Chris leaned over him, a hand on his shoulder. The warm touch was electric.

“Hey,” Chris said. “Are you awake?”

“Yeah.” Lance licked his dry lips, and Chris’ stomach quivered at the little bit of tongue. After so long, how could he still be so attracted? Lance barely looked like the boy he’d loved before, but there was still some sort of polar pull that was set off whenever Chris focused too hard on the man in front of him.

“Wanna go someplace?” Chris said vaguely. Lance nodded and forced himself to sit and gather his clothes.

Somewhere turned out to be the boat, and the two of them rose out into the glowing water as the sun peeked past the eastern horizon. From Chris’s location on the southern side of the island, they could trace its entire glowing route across the sky as time drifted by.

“This is so weird,” Chris said, tugging on the lines to make the sail boat skip across the waves into deeper waters. He sat down in the stern, one hand on the rudder

“It really is,” Lance agreed. Chris knew he was confused, but there wasn’t really an explanation for what he was doing. He was acting on pure instinct. There just wasn’t a ‘what if’ plan that outlined facing the lover who’d died nearly a decade previously.

“I can’t believe that you’re sitting here,” Chris said. “You’re supposed to be gone.”

“Would it have made a difference if I wasn’t? Would you have come back if you knew I was alive?”

Splashes of water had caught in Lance’s hair and glistened like liquid diamonds. It was an unfair question, because Lance would never know the fear and pain that had dominated Chris’ entire existence. He hated to cop out, but had to answer honestly and hope Lance understood. “I don’t know. It would have changed everything. I thought he’d killed you, thought he would do the same to everyone else if he knew they were important to me.”

“But would you have come back?” Lance asked again.

There wasn’t an easy answer, because everything that Chris could think of had conditions and corollaries, but in the end, his mouth stopped listening to his brain and simply spoke his heart. “Yes.”

The sigh of relief that Lance exhaled probably would have powered their boat all the way to the mainland.

“But that doesn’t really matter now, does it? I mean. That was a long time ago.” Chris steered them around the island point and up the western coast. The one big question looming in his heart was, why? After all this time, why had Lance come back to him?

“Yeah.” Chris could tell that Lance was bursting with questions, daring to rein them in. He was grateful. Moving at his own pace was something that Chris had grown accustomed to, and he radically resisted being pushed along at a different rate.

Gazing out to sea, Lance was quiet for a long time before speaking again. “Has there been. I mean. Are you with anyone?”

Chris looked up, startled by the question, though he should have known it was coming. “What? No. I mean. No one in particularly you know? Yeah, no. Why, you?”

“Not now. There was someone, but.” Chris watched as Lance did the mental battle about what to say. There was pain there, he could see, raw emotion that meant something had gone terribly wrong. “She wasn’t you.”

The wind swirled around them in the long minutes of silence that followed, bringing chilling mists to Chris’ skin. He shivered slightly and used the hem his T-shirt to wipe the salty moisture from his face. She? he thought. Lance had dated a woman?

“Lance,” Chris finally said, and he hated that his voiced sounded old, and tired. “I’m not the same man I was eight years ago.” He tried to press into the simple statement how much changed he was, how the boy who sang along to the radio while tuning up cars had grown into a bitter man with bad knees, few friends, and a tendency to overindulge in any available liquor. He wasn’t fit company for anyone, much less society folk like Lance’s family. Hell, wasn’t suitable back then, and that was before the mob connection was even known.

“Neither am I,” Lance said firmly. Chris could see it was true. Lance was no longer a boy, and he had grown into a damned fine man. It only affirmed Chris’ belief that he should stay away. They were nothing more than a pair of strangers who had shared a summer long ago.

The wind died down, stranding them in the bobbing current. Chris’ stomach churned, but he wasn’t sure if it was the ups and downs of the currents or of his emotions. Who was he kidding?

“So where do we go from here?” Chris said. “We can’t just pick things up where we left off.”

“No.” Life wasn’t like the movies. “But maybe you could come back with us, for a while?”

Back. It was as frightening a thought as Chris had entertained in a long time. Chris didn’t answer, just tugged on the lines until the sail turned and the boat began a course back towards his home. Lance had to duck as the boom came around. Chris still didn’t speak.

“Tell me about your life,” Chris finally said, changing the subject. “I mean, who are you now? I don’t even know you.”

Lance paused with his mouth half-open, like he might argue with Chris about it, but in the end, he stopped and answered the question.

“I got me degree,” he said. “A little late. After the fire, I was a little lost for a while. But yeah, I’m working for my grandfather now.”

“Yeah? How’s that going?” Chris smiled at him sarcastically, figuring that Lance’s family hadn’t changed much. Old money never really did.

Lance shrugged. “He’s talking about retiring. Made a big deal about it when Justin’s case came up, about how it was my time to take over.” Lance shrugged off the weight of responsibility that crept onto his shoulders. “I don’t really want to think about it.”

“Fair enough,” Chris said. “It’s the islands, man. Don’t worry, be happy.” He started to hum the song, and Lance laughed a bright wave of song to accompany their sail.

Mood lightened, Chris decided to throw caution to the wind and ask. Worst case scenario, Lance would throw him overboard and he’d have to swim to shore. It wasn’t that far, and the sharks rarely bothered with humans during marlin season. “So, you went back to women, huh? No man could compare to the fine Kirkpatrick ass?”

His voice was filled with humor, but the dark shadow that crossed Lance’s eyes, the downward curve of his lips made Chris immediately regret the words. “I’m sorry,” he began, but Lance shook his head.

“No, it’s OK. It’s just. Embarrassing.” His cheeks were tinged with pink as he looked to Chris again. “After the fire, well. You know my parents weren’t real happy about everything, and I was pretty much a wreck, so. They arranged for some therapy, and neglected to tell me that along with grief counseling, it was a reorientation center.”

Holy shit, Chris thought. “Like, they made you un-gay?”

Lance winced. “I thought they had. I got married to Wendy, who I’d known, like, forever. We had a daughter and it was nice, but. When I started working for Justin, I saw him and JC together, and they just looked so much happier than I ever had, you know? And I realized it was because that was what I wanted.”

“What about your wife?” Chris asked. He could imagine the scandal of having one of Portsmouth’s most promising young businessmen come out of the closet in a gay affair.

“She died a few years ago. Plane crash.” Chris’ heart fell, but Lance seemed at ease with it. “I thought, I mean. You love someone and they die, and then it happens again, and it’s worse. But I had Shelby- that’s my daughter, and things well. They got better but nothing was really great.”

“I’m sorry,” Chris said, because what else did people say when they found out someone had died that they’d never even met?

“It’s OK,” Lance said. “I mean. I think that meeting Justin was really good for me, because it made me realize that I’d just been going with the flow of things for two long, not really standing up for what I wanted. And when he told me about you, it was like everything had changed. There was something that I wanted, and I was going to get it. So, you know.”

“I know?” Chris asked, curiously.

“You know. Here I am.”

The wind picked up, hurrying them across the waves, and Chris fought to control the boom. “I don’t know that I can just come back with you,” Chris said. “My family. I mean. I can’t just show up.” He could only imagine how his mother would react to seeing her only son walk in from the grave.

“You don’t have to make any decisions now,” Lance said. “We’ve got a return flight in three days, and an extra ticket. You can make a decision later. No pressure. And if you want us to go, we can catch a ferry back to St. Martin and stay in a hotel there.”

Despite his churning emotions, Chris didn’t want to see Lance leave. He was still afraid that this might all be a dream. “Stay,” he said, though he knew it was asking for trouble.

Lance smiled at him so widely that Chris nearly groaned.

**

Despite the visit, Chris had to work, so he sent the others down to the beach with blankets and flippers to spend the day in the Caribbean sun.

“But, I could help you! I’m assistant manager of Joey Quinn’s Citgo!” Justin stood expectantly by the door. Chris glanced helpfully at JC for assistance.

“Come to the beach, J.” JC tugged his boyfriend’s arm only a little bit forcefully, pulling him down in the direction of the sand. “Give him some time to process things, dumbass.”

Chris smiled gratefully and said goodbye. No one locked their homes on the island, so the others could come and go as they needed throughout the day. He had to get an engine finished, if for no other reason that the work would take his mind off of life for a little while.

He tried to focus on the repairs, but unfortunately it wasn’t a big enough distraction. He’d worked on engines for so many years that only the most unusual tasks took any sort of intense focus. Instead, his mind wandered as he loosened screws and carefully lubricated joints. Mostly, he thought about Portsmouth. He wondered if the town would look the same, or if it had changed. Maybe it would be unrecognizable and less painful if he went back. More likely, he figured, it would look almost the same but subtly changed, like himself. Outer appearances were much more difficult to change than the social undercurrents of a community. The same was true of the human body. But in both cases, it was the deeper changes that made the most significant impact.

Chris shook off his own philosophizing as nonsense and told himself, in no uncertain terms, that he needed to make a decision: did he want to send Lance and Justin away and pretend the last day had never happened? Or did he want to step back into his old life?

He tried to make mental checklists, but they kept getting confused with “buts” and “only ifs”, so that instead of nice neat columns in his mental spreadsheet, he had a complex web of people and places, all demanding various degrees of loyalty.

There just wasn’t any easy way to figure things out.

Around noon, Chris heard someone on the dock, and hoisted himself out of the boat to investigate. Justin smiled down at him, carrying two roast pork sandwiches and bowl of chopped fruit. Someone must have wandered into town for staples.

He plopped down on the wooden boards, and smiled. No matter what else may have changed about him, Chris realized that he still had the smile of a delighted little boy. It was good to see that some things didn’t change.

“Do you mind some company?” Justin asked. Chris jerked a shoulder in a half-hearted shrug and took a big bite of sandwich, the spicy sauce burning the corners of his mouth. Justin watched him eat for a few seconds, until Chris raised an eyebrow and Justin blushed, caught staring. “Sorry. It’s just weird to see you again.”

“Ditto,” Chris echoed, and Justin laughed.

“Man, nobody says that anymore.” He had red barbecue stains around his mouth. If they weren’t sitting in bright sunshine, Chris would have thought him a vampire.

“So sue me, I’ve been a little out of touch with American slang.” Actually, he’d watched more TV on the island than ever before in his life, but he wasn’t about to admit that to his former protégé. “Fill me in, what’s up with you?”

“Nothing special,” Justin said. “Well, OK, the trial thing sucked. But everything else is normal.”

“You’ve got a pretty kick-ass boyfriend to follow you to the Caribbean,” Chris commented. He was surprised at the bitter lick of jealousy that hit him at the thought. “He seems like a nice guy.”

Justin’s eyes went dreamy, and Chris chucked inwardly at the idea. The fifteen year old he’d known hadn’t dated anyone, and maybe he was just waiting for the right man. He imagined a lot of the girls back home had been disappointed. He wished he’d been there to support Justin when he came out, but at the same time, maybe it was better he wasn’t. No one could ever accuse him of forcing the boy into something illicit.

No, because he didn’t at all have a thing for young blondes, Chris grimaced painfully.

“What?” Justin asked, catching Chris’s face. “Is something wrong?”

“No. Just daydreaming. Tell me more about JC.”

Justin launched into their collective life histories, obviously proud of JC and their relationship. Chris didn’t realize how much he’d missed having Justin around. Manny, his assistant, reminded him a bit of Justin, but there was something special about the man in front of him.

“Why did you come here?” Chris interrupted. Justin paused mid-sentence, and Chris wished he’d developed a habit of thinking before speaking at some point in his life. “I mean, continue, please, but when you’re done.”

Justin shrugged. “It’s not important stuff. But seriously, you have to ask why?”

“How did you find out I wasn’t dead?” Chris asked. He hoped fervently that Justin hadn’t been caught up in the gangs. He didn’t think he could handle it.

“Nothing stays a secret in Portsmouth, you know? Nick Carter was out drinking one night, started blabbering on about how almighty he was and shit. Let some stuff slip, and I put two and two together. But it took, like, two years to get it all figured out, and most of the stuff didn’t happen until the last few months. And then Lance, that was just a freaky coincidence you know?”

Chris’ mother used to tell him that there were no such things as coincidences, that everything happened for a reason. He’d never believed her. Perhaps he should have.

“So anyway,” Justin said, getting up and wiping the crumbs from his shorts. “I guess I just wanted to come here to say thanks. You know. I’ve seen so much shit going on in the neighborhood, and I just never got sucked into any of that. Because of you. So when I found out you were out there somewhere, I just wanted to find you and say thanks. I figured if you needed help or anything, I owed you.”

Chris cocked his head to the side and stared up at Justin. He was so tall! But more than that, he had such a good heart. “You don’t owe me anything, man.” It was true- he’d done what anyone would do, and seeing Justin all grown up and happy, well. It was more than worth it.

**

Chris kept working after lunch, mulling over what Justin had said. He’d convinced himself that he’d been better off leaving Portsmouth years ago, and as long as his father was a threat, he’d known that was true. But he’d also convinced himself that life had gone on without him, and that by the time a few years had passed, he’d been forgotten. No one could live in mourning, after all, unless they were dead-set on being miserable.

It tickled him inside to think that people might remember him fondly, that he might have touched someone’s life in a meaningful way. Though he loved his mother, he’d often grown up feeling like just one more mouth to feed. He’d been one mechanic in a city of hundreds.

For years he’d kept himself cut off from the world. There were tendrils of regret curling in his belly when he thought that it might have all been in vain. That the loneliness and solitude may have been nothing but the results of figments of his imagination.

He gave up work when his brain started to hurt, and wandered down to the cove where the other four men were playing. He watched them battle through chicken fights in the water, Lance on Joey’s shoulders, JC on Justin’s. The four were such a unit, the laughter infections. When Lance turned to him and waved, JC shoved hard at his shoulder, sending Lance and Joey backward into the sea with a giant foamy splash.

They race to the shore, running slowly over the sand to grab towels. Lance winced as he rubbed the sandy terrycloth over his shoulders.

“Ouch,” Joey said, poking at Lance’s skin. It turned white under his fingertips, then slowly faded back to deep pink. “You’re a lobster.”

Lance twisted around to check out his shoulder, reminding Chris of a dog chasing his tail. “Shit! I thought I had it all covered.”

“I’ve got something you can put on that,” Chris said. He turned and walked back to the house. Lance’s sculpted body was doing strange things to his insides. It had been a long time since he’d felt any desire, and it seemed that the sight of an old lover was exponentially more potent.

By the time he got back, Lance was alone on the beach. Joey had a cell phone and was walking just out of earshot towards the dock, and Justin and JC were giggling madly toward the outdoor shower attached to the back of Chris’ house.

“Here,” Chris said, holding up a blue pot. “Why don’t you lie down on your stomach?” He stared at the sun while Lance dropped to the ground, trying to make himself go blind so he wouldn’t be tempted to do anything inappropriate.

With Lance stretched out, Chris settled beside him and opened the jar of cream. The sharp clean smell of Noxzema broke into the air, and his nose tingled with the scent. He scooped out a dollop, eyeing Lance’s bright red back. From his shoulders to the base of the spine, his skin radiated heat.

“This might be cold,” he said, and Lance nodded into the blanket.

“Just do it,” he said, bracing himself against the touch. Chris was a gentle as possible as he swiped the thick white cream across Lance’s back. He felt Lance tense, watched his shoulders pull together at the first cool sensation, but gradually, Lance relaxed and let Chris rub in small tight circles until all of the white had disappeared.

Chris concentrated on covering each bit of skin, watching as the color of the soothing cream faded into nothing. The burn was fresh, but it might fade to a deep tan by tomorrow if they kept on it with the cream. Good old Noxzema, nothing could beat it, and Chris had spent a full year sunburned with his fair Irish skin before developing a permanent tan. He pitied Lance.

As he finished he noticed that Lance was shuddering slightly beneath him, his hips quivering a bit as Chris rubbed the last few knobs of his spine. Chris slid a hand into the small of Lance’s back, smooth-smooth skin, to hold him in place, and Lance thrust down, a high-pitched whimper escaping from his mouth.

Oh. He slid his hand down the side a bit, experimentally. Lance squirmed again, uncomfortably. Chris couldn’t figure out why he was so damned determined to keep his self-control.

Then Lance moaned lowly, and it all fell away.

It seemed that everything happened at once. Chris lowered his body down until he was nearly lying beside Lance. With a groan, he buried his face in Lance’s neck, smelling the coconut sunscreen and tangy burn cream. Lance’s skin was hot against his, but he welcomed the heat. It reminded him of other times their bodies had pressed closely together, memories of sex and love that had haunted his dreams even when he’d pushed them out of consciousness.

Chris slid his arm around Lance’s waist, and under. He moved slowly, achingly slow, but then he was so close that he could feel the pressure at the front of Lance’s bathing suit and knew that it was now or never again.

In that moment, the decision seemed so simple.

Lance froze beneath him, shoulders shaking with strain as Chris tucked his fingers under the waistband and brushed skin against burning skin. He let the back of his nails run through crinkled hair and down to the base of Lance’s erection. When he curled around and stroked carefully, Lance thrust down, denting the sand beneath the towel, forcing Chris to lean more onto his body.

Chris’ own cock was throbbing with want he hadn’t noticed until Lance’s thigh brushed back against him. He hadn’t been this hard, this ravenous in forever and the simple joy of being so turned on had him nearly leaping in a dance of victory. But more, he wanted to pull closer to Lance, sunburn be damned, and see him, taste him, touch him all over so that Chris wouldn’t feel so damned alone. He kissed at Lance’s shoulder, at his ear, and when Lance turned his head, their lips met in a fumbling, awkward, perfect kiss.

Pressing mouths together, Chris kept his eyes close as his hand jerked back and forth, his own hips pumping against Lance’s soft ass.

“Chris,” Lance cried, only he didn’t take his lips apart and Chris felt he swallowed the word more than heard it. “We can’t here.”

“We are,” Chris said, breaking them apart, staring into Lance’s wide green eyes, reading the conflict between modesty and desperation that dueled there. “God, fuck, we are.”

“Are you sure?” Lance asked, thrusting into Chris’ hands again. Chris’ fingers were sticky with precum that filled the front of Lance’s swimsuit.

Chris could have laughed, were he not milliseconds away from exploding years of pent-up sexual frustration all over his shorts. “You’re asking me?”

“I didn’t want to rush,” Lance said, though clearly his body had betrayed his mind. “It’s too soon.”

“No.” That wasn’t true at all. “It’s been way to long,” Chris said, and kissed Lance again as he came, sticky bursts filling his shorts at the same time Lance shuddered beneath him and came, coating Chris’ hand, falling to the towel and pining his arm, locking them together.

**

“So what are you going to do?” JC asked him, the two of them fishing for breakfast the next morning. He’s claimed jet lag and been up before the sun, reading with a flashlight on the back steps leading down to the sand when Chris had rolled out of his hammock to be shocked awake by the ground.

“I guess come back with you,” Chris said. “It’s kind of scary, you know?”

JC nodded. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. It makes me feel bad about complaining that my rent is too high.” He squelched up his nose as he baited the hook, but dropped it over the side of the boat with an amazing efficiency.

“It’s all relative,” Chris said, and JC nodded sagely for a moment. “But if you feel the need to shower me with presents to amend for my difficult life I won’t object.”

JC laughed, head thrown back with glee. “Justin said you were funny. I was beginning to think he was wrong.”

“I’m not really the guy Justin remembers. He was young, and I’ve changed.” Though now he was more loathe to admit it. The idea of returning to his old life didn’t seem quite so impossible. Not with friends by his side to walk him through.

“I think you’ll find things are going to be better than you expect,” JC said. “Ooh!” he cried suddenly, before Chris could respond. “I’ve got something!”

They reeled in a fish big enough to go with breakfast, although JC warned that Justin would still eat the cereal he’d stowed away in his duffle bag. Chris would have bet him on it, had he not become thoroughly convinced that JC knew Justin better than he knew himself. They were a good fit.

He saw Lance come out of the house and wave to them from the patio. He waved back, and JC hauled the fish in the air in triumph.

“You guys are gonna be so happy,” JC said. “I can tell these things.”

“It’ll take some work,” Chris agreed. He picked up an oar and began to row toward the shore. He had a lot of things to do before leaving. There was the marina to think of, and people to say goodbye to. He’d be back, he was sure. But on vacation, not in hiding. The townspeople had been so baffled to meet his friends, and he could tell in their faces that they knew, even before he did, that his days on the island were numbered.

“It’ll be worth it,” JC said. The boat butted against the dock, and Lance was there to take the line and tied it tightly.

“What will be?” he asked curiously. He held a hand for each of them to help them step out of the boat.

“You,” Chris said, wrapping his arms around Lance’s waist. Lance winced when his chest brushed against Chris’s chest. “I have to meet your daughter,” he said.

“And I have to meet your mom.” Lance turned to see Chris’ face. “I’ll go with you, if you want.”

Chris nodded, kissing Lance’s nose with a gently peck.

“No one’s gonna go anywhere if we miss the plane!” Joey yelled from the house. “The ferry leaves in two hours, get your butts in here.”

With a laugh, they walked back down the dock, JC running ahead to scare Justin awake with the fish, Lance and Chris close together, hands connected, smiles wide.

An end, but a beginning, and a hope that Chris had thought was gone forever. The sun rose behind them and just like that, it was a new day.