End of tour meant party in Joey's and Chris' vocabulary so they had to party. The club they went to was the best one in the area and the party would have been wonderful if not for the fact that he had to watch Justin and Chris coming as close to having sex on the dance floor as they could without actually doing it. It would be even funny to watch them trying to disguise their attraction to each other by dancing with everyone around them if it didn't make JC's heart break into a hundred tiny little pieces to see the sparks flying between them.
Noticing the kicked-puppy look on JC's face, Lance decided to be brave and ask him to dance. Of course it wasn't that easy and he didn't remember the last time he was this nervous asking somebody to dance but he would be a dead man before he allowed JC to spend the whole party feeling sorry for himself. Maybe it was because he had had this huge crush on JC for the last 4 years, give or take?
"C?"
"Huh?" JC mumbled without taking his eyes off the dance floor, more exactly off Justin.
"Hey..." Lance grinned when JC jumped after he snapped his fingers in front of his face, "Wanna dance with me?"
"Wha-? Dance with you?"
"Yeah. C'mon..."
"Lance, we can't."
"Why not?" Lance shrugged.
"People will talk that's why!"
"Newsflash, Josh, they already do. They do it whether we give them a reason to or not. We might as well give them a reason to do it," Lance smirked, "We're apparently the flaming ones in this group, Josh, let's take advantage of the fame, man!" Lance grinned when JC barked out a laugh and took JC's hand, pulling him up and leading him toward the dance floor.
The song playing was a let's-get-down-and-dirty-babe kinda one and in the beginning it was totally weird to be grinding against Lance but then JC felt himself let go and he didn't remember having that much fun in a while. Once or twice he looked over and caught Justin smirking at him and then his conversation with Justin from a few days before came to his mind. And then, Justin's smirk be damned, everything he could notice was how close Lance's body was, how warm he felt. How come Lance's eyes had never looked that green? Or his lips that red? And JC wouldn't even go as far as noticing how much Lance's body had improved since he had last checked. Not that he had checked, mind you. Not at all. Not noticing now either. And if he kept not-noticing it he'd get hard, Lance would notice it and he'd be ready to kill himself, so he tried his best to keep his mind off of how *good* Lance's arms looked.
As much as he tried though JC couldn't keep his mind off of Lance the whole night and that was just the weirdest thing because he had been so used to only thinking about Justin for so long that it felt weird to be turned on by someone else. OK, so, sure, he got turned on here and there but only Justin had been able to cloud his thoughts like Lance was doing. Lance's laugh seemed to sound raspier, his voice a note lower, his eyes a tone greener, his skin flushed and sweaty from dancing and just where the hell did these thoughts keep coming from?
***
When the two of them got tired of dancing and yelling over the music they decided to go back to the hotel. The other three guys and Kelly seemed happy to stay there but they were tired and the music was just too loud to talk. Back at the hotel, Lance asked if JC wanted to go to his room because he was tired but he was far from being sleepy, feeling too wired to actually turn himself off. JC's night had been great until then and he didn't really want it to end so he agreed.
He didn't remember talking to Lance for that long in a long time. Ever since the lawsuit actually when JC couldn't exactly understand the details of the whole thing so he'd go to Lance, who seemed to know every little thing those monkeys in suit said, for help. And those talks usually led to personal stuff and they'd stay the whole night awake on the balcony, just talking and gazing at whatever city they were at the time. Coming to think of it, it sounded really unfair that he seemed to get closer to Lance only when things got rough in his life and he needed someone to help him out. He promised himself that it wouldn't be like that anymore. Because that night, as they once again were on the balcony talking, picking out people and imagining what their lives were like, he realized that he really enjoyed Lance's company, that Lance was probably the warmest and most caring person he knew. JC even felt a little proud of himself for that, for being one of the people who helped Lance turn from that overly shy boy from Mississippi to this strong and caring man who had one of the biggest hearts out of the people JC knew, and JC realized right there, gazing into Lance's open and trusting eyes, that he would be very happy if he found out that Lance played for his team. But that was out of question, right? Because, of course, any man he put his eyes on was either straight, taken or cruel, or a combination of those. It was sad, really.
They ended up talking all through the night and JC remembered laying his head on Lance's shoulder and thanking Lance one more time right before sleep overtook him, feeling Lance's lips leave a kiss on his head and Lance's arms going around him.
TBC...
OK, even I have to admit I thought this chapter was pretty cute... could be only me but let me know if it's not! lol
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