Legal Stuff: I don't know NSYNC or any other celebrity mentioned. While real people are the basis of characters, they are characters here and do not represent the real lives, thoughts, or feelings of the real people. Again, these are characters based on them, not the real people themselves. If you are too young, or live in a location where it is illegal to read stories that include love between men, read no further! Like that would have ever stopped me...
It's Never Easy -- Chapter 8
I was right; the next few weeks were hell. Being Producer, Writer, and Director for an episode that has been delayed in shooting is not a fun job. I found myself working at the soundstages or my Studio office fifteen hours a day or more. Since Nathan was hanging around the set non-stop, I managed to talk the studio into giving him an `internship'. This in turn helped me get him a tutor.
Of course since I was practically broke and had not received any royalty checks, it was James that had to pay for the tutor. It was embarrassing for me to ask him for his help, but it was worth it to get Nathan a tutor instead of making him attend summer school. James fully supported that decision and jumped at the chance to hire a tutor. We ended up using the same one that NSYNC had used for Justin and him at one point. Nathan liked her and they spent several hours a day huddled up in a side room near the set.
Two days into the beginning of shooting, I had the Studio CEO come by and visit. He expressed a concern to me about the `love' interest for Chad's character in that episode. He wanted me to change it from a guy to a girl.
I know telling him to either replace me or live with it wasn't the best way to handle things, but I was having problems getting the actors to give their lines in anything but a dull drone.
That necessitated a three-hour discussion in Tom's office about proper etiquette when dealing with the senior management of the Studio. Then he presented a list of changes upper management wanted to see in the show. These changes basically contained three main themes: More tits, less dick; more action; less witty repartee. They were concerned that the `brainiac' nature of the show would not result in continued ratings success.
I pulled out a copy of my contract, pointed at the appropriate clause and told Tom where the studio could shove their list.
If you haven't noticed, I lost a lot of tact somewhere in the last few weeks.
Naturally, someone at the Studio managed to leak the corporate memo to the internet and rumors started to percolate that Ganymede was being pressured into making changes to satisfy the T&A (that's tits and ass) crowd. Naturally the first words out of people's mouths were that I would be `selling-out'. Then someone else leaked that I had invoked the creative control clause of the contract and that the studio was considering canceling the show. Added to that, Korvan chose to announce the scheduling change. People became convinced that Ganymede was being railroaded into failure just like so many other popular sci-fi shows had been by Korvan.
Try getting actors worried about their job to ACT. It's not fun. I flew into a tirade on the fifth day of shooting that had everyone turning white. Which was good. This episode required them to be slightly afraid in most of their scenes. They were perfectly afraid after that little tirade.
The third week finally came around and things began to level out. I actually spent three evenings in on-line chat rooms reassuring fans that the show was not being railroaded and that the new season would follow my plan, not the Studio's. I even made a repeat appearance on Leno, without James this time.
It was the third Saturday after our return to LA that James got his first break. He was flying in after a Saturday evening concert, staying Sunday, then leaving Monday morning. His plane landed at 11:15 p.m. and it was Nathan who picked him up (he'd gotten his license soon after our arrival. Jason Priestly had actually taken him to the DMV for me.) I returned home from a particularly late editing session to find my man nude in bed with Nathan wrapped around him.
Get your mind out of the gutter. There was nothing sexual, just Nathan seeking emotional comfort. I was actually getting very worried about that. Nathan's friends from school had pretty much abandoned him. Two of them admitted that their parents had forbidden them to spend time with him because of the recent events. They felt trouble followed Nathan around and didn't want their kids caught up in anything that might happen.
Total bullshit.
I crawled into bed totally exhausted and snuggled up to my man. Tomorrow we were going to look at the list of houses Nathan and I had narrowed down over the last few weeks. I passed out within moments of lying down and taking a deep breath of James' scent.
I woke up to the feeling of my orgasm shooting inside a hot mouth. My eyes flew open and my heart hammered as I half expected to find Nathan having crossed a line he knew better than to cross. My scowl turned into a smile as I saw James' beautiful eyes smiling at me with a white streak dribbling from the corner of his mouth. The kiss we shared at that point had me ready to go again and I gratefully noticed Nathan was nowhere to be seen.
"God, I've missed you." James murmured into my ear two hours later as we dried each other off after Round Three in the shower.
"Let's quit our jobs and join the circus together." I quipped, getting another smile from him.
"Don't tempt me." He sighed after a moment. "Touring was bad enough when I was single or with Josh. Now it's just pure hell."
"What, the girls still throwing themselves at you?" I asked with a laugh as we moved into the bedroom.
"Yep." He said, shaking his head as he handed me a pair of red bikini briefs. He liked the way they looked on me. "Now it's also the guys. Why do so many of them have a hard time believing that I have no desire to cheat on you?"
"I don't know, maybe because they can't help but dream of what it'd be like to screw the famous Lance Bass. If they only knew what I knew, they'd be running away so fast you'd never catch them."
"You are so mean." He said, actually looking hurt for a moment. I couldn't help but smile.
"I know." I said. "The threat of having me cut open their balls with nail clippers would be enough to keep any man or woman from touching you."
"Oh, say that again." James cooed, leaning in and wrapping me in his arms. I repeated myself and our dressing was delayed for Round 4 to get finished.
It's kind of hard to jack off with a kid in your bed every night, so I was extremely horny. I guess James felt the same. We finally did make it out of the room before noon and found Nathan standing in the hallway tapping his foot. This of course got us both laughing. While we made some sandwiches to eat quickly, I called the realtor and set up a rendezvous point.
An hour later, I almost felt sorry for the woman as she was subjected to Nathan's driving while she sat in the passenger seat of James' SUV. James and I insisted on sitting in the back seat so that we could be close to each other. We looked at the first three houses and didn't even get out of the car. James didn't like the outside architecture. The fourth house on the list got a thirty-minute tour, but the smallish pool overcame the other features of the house. The fifth house, however, got a smile on his face as soon as we pulled into the driveway. The smile got bigger as he immediately went into the back yard and checked out the large pool that was designed to look like a pond and the connected hot tub.
The inside of the house was magnificent. It had been my favorite, and Nathan's as well. The master bedroom here was as big as three of our bedrooms in the condo. The room Nathan had picked out as his (the closest to the master bedroom) was as big as our current bedroom. There were eight more bedrooms, a massive kitchen, a library room, a den and many other multi-purpose rooms downstairs, including a couple of what the realtor called servants quarters'. When James talked about having a piano put into the library room, and how to turn it into his office I knew he was sold. That was a good thing since I loved the den and the dark wood paneling in there set a perfect ambiance for a writer' like me.
The agent just smiled when James said "We'll take this one."
The rest of our Sunday was spent visiting various home furnishing stores as Nathan and James excitedly started to plan all the extra furniture we would have to buy. Okay, I'll admit that the huge mahogany desk and well-padded dark red leather chairs I picked out for my office were absolutely gorgeous. The matching leather couch was even better and I couldn't wait to initiate it with my James in some hot sex.
Manuel showed up with Josh later that night for dinner. I hadn't even realized Josh had accompanied James back. Over the past few weeks, they'd gone from being a couple to being `fuck buddies' to being a couple again. Frankly I was losing track of their relationship, and I'd been so busy lately that all of my conversations with Manuel had been about business.
By 9 o'clock, James and I were back in the bedroom while Nathan was playing on the computer in the office. By 2:00 a.m. we were drifting off to sleep when the door to the bedroom creaked open. Seconds later we had a teenager curling up between us and letting out a deep sigh.
Monday morning was awful. I was awakened not by James, but by the shrill ringing of the phone. Sunday night, one of our lead actors had managed to break his arm while wrestling with a friend. Since he played a pivotal role in the episode being filmed this week, we had some re-writes to work on.
I was out the door forty minutes later after a rushed farewell to James in the shower. Nathan was driving him to the airport and was going to meet me at the studio. I showed up at the office studio with a guilty looking actor wearing a cast and waiting for me. The broken arm was worked in as a joke in the storyline and I moved on to the next emergency. Our director for this episode had come down the flu and wouldn't be in to work. JMS and Luke were working on their show `Jeremiah' and weren't available.
I was really getting to hate the headaches.
It was soon decided that I'd direct my second episode. During the course of the day, I decided I'd figure a way to put Nathan in the credits of this episode. He was becoming a better director than I could ever hope to be. Like someone had said before, he was a natural and producing better work at 16 than I could at 31.
My accountant called at noon to tell me my royalty checks had finally been deposited. At the time of deposit my account went from $28,503 to $1,253,583. That was a nice change, but didn't help because the bank had already denied our application for the $3.2 million dollar home based on my low income. I put my accountant on the matter, praying things would work out. James would be upset if we didn't get the home.
Naturally someone leaked that to the press as well. Suddenly I was "broke" according to the media. Settling those rumors and getting the bank to believe that I had the income for the house was stressful. We finally did it though.
The next few weeks settled into a routine. Nathan would go with me to the Studio lot and spend most of the morning helping around the set. He'd then spend the time after lunch with his tutor. The story line now included a number of kids near his own age, so they joined Nathan in studying with the tutor (which helped me out since the studio now picked up a large part of the cost).
Social Services had stopped by during this time. It seems that in the last year, most of the paperwork I was supposed to complete as a `foster' parent hadn't been done and the government was mighty upset over that fact. A week of foster parenting classes after Nathan had lived with me for over a year was just icing on the cake for a busy schedule like mine.
James and I still managed our twice-daily phone calls, and actually managed quite a few trips to see each other. His tour was going very well, but was taking its toll on him and the guys as it usually did. We managed to finish the paperwork on the new house and settle the bank's concerns without too much fuss.
David Furnishe's television movie project was fitted into our schedule. What was originally going to be a simple behind-the-scenes type shooting program became even more elaborate, and ended up closer to being an "Osbournes" type program, complete with video cameras installed in our new home. During the day, I had at least one cameraman following me around, usually two. While one crew was with me, David had another crew on tour with James following him around. Naturally, this all got leaked to the press and the buzz surrounding the `behind-the-scenes' of the Young-Bass household was making Korvan and Jive dance with glee.
Damn profit-sharing. I couldn't gripe too much because we'd be making a pretty penny for this.
While we'd been in England recuperating from Nathan's ordeal, the award season had passed. I'd taped an acceptance speech for the shows, not thinking we'd win anything but the special effects categories. When we moved in to the new home, a trophy cabinet was installed in the main living room. James had all of his awards from NSYNC there, and I had my three Emmy awards (Best Drama -- Yes, I was surprised at the category as well, Best Writing, Best Special Effects -- Manuel had his own copy of the award at his new house as well). The move was accomplished very easily, thanks to a ton of movers we hired, and the timely delivery of all the new furniture we had bought for the house.
Of course, Nathan did most of the unpacking. I was a little busy with keeping up with all the details Ganymede was demanding now that I was doing most of the production work without JMS and Luke. Those two were so busy in their own projects that they spent very little time beyond answering my frantic questions over the phone.
As summer drew to a close, and filming was wrapping for a few months, I realized I desperately needed a break. We'd already filmed 12 episodes and was working on the last one before the fall break. I knew my eyes were constantly bloodshot now, and only the triple venti caramel mochas with an extra shot of espresso were keeping me going during the day. That's what twenty-hour days over a period of several weeks will do to a person. I swear, combat operations in the Persian Gulf had been easier than this was. Whoever said Hollywood types don't earn every penny they make has obviously never worked in the business.
This particular Thursday morning, the third week in August was a painstaking one. This was the first episode to feature non-humans and so there were actors in make-up at 3:30 a.m. I was there at 4:30 (having gone to bed at 1:00) to make sure the make-up was matching my `vision' of how the aliens would look. Nathan was driving himself to the set in his new Jeep (we'd bought him a new, fire red Jeep with all the extras shortly after moving into the house) later in the morning.
Robert Picardo (the guy who played the Doctor on the ST:Voyager series) was directing this episode. I must say that I greatly enjoyed his wit, and his style. I made a mental note to talk to the studio about making him one of our `regular' directors. From what I heard, the guy needed the work and he was damn good. His style fit what I wanted from this specific episode type (little action, mostly dialogue with subtle hints of things to come).
Nathan showed up on time (8:00 a.m.) and was put to work immediately in helping our costumed actors getting their marks down. The costumes made it hard for them to see the marks so they had to `memorize' their placements for each scene. Nathan was doing a great job with them, I noticed, while I was talking with Robert about his schedule when shooting was scheduled to resumed later in the year. I had six episodes I wanted him to consider, and he was sounding very amenable to doing all of them.
Of course as such a high-rated show our directors got paid on the higher end of scale.
That was when the two strangers came on the set. They were both men, dressed in decent three-piece suits and had `lawyer' all but tattooed on their faces. They were escorted by a Studio security guard and made a beeline right towards me. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that we had two of David Furnishe's cameras with us today, and both of them were pointed at the approaching men.
"Mr. Young?" the first lawyer, a middle-aged brown-haired man asked as he approached me.
"That's me." I said, trying not to frown.
"Mr. Young, I'm Darren Koates, an attorney for Ms. Autumn Rose, and this is Larry Hagland with the California Department of Children & Family. Is there a room where we can speak privately?"
"Yes, but just so you know, we're filming a behind-the-scenes documentary. Unless you have something that will fall under attorney-client privilege, they'll get to film." I said, hoping that would scare them both off. I didn't know what this was about, but if it was about Nathan, I wanted everything on film.
"That will be fine." Larry Hagland said. I noticed he was a little taller than his compatriot, skinny, blond, and looked to be in his late twenties. I led them into a small room near the back of the stage, with both cameras following us. While the two men sat down in some chairs in the room, and I sat across from them, the cameramen stood so that each could cover one side of the conversation with their soundmen holding the boom microphones out of the way. I was a little surprised, but both these guys seemed at ease with the cameras. The younger one was smiling a little now, and that made me suddenly nervous. That was when I noticed that David Furnish had changed camera crews again. He'd done this twice now and it was frustrating to find new cameramen every few days.
"Mr. Young," Darren said after we were all situated. "I've been hired to represent the interests of an Autumn Rose. Do you remember her?"
"Yes," I said slowly. I had a bad feeling about this, but didn't want to involve my own lawyers until I had a better idea of where this was going.
"Good, then this should a little easier." Darren said, smiling. "Ms. Rose has hired me to represent her in some legal matters that affect you, sir."
"What kind of legal matters?" I asked cautiously. I was moments away from calling my lawyers now.
"Well, before we get into that, I'd like to ask you a question." Darren said, hedging a bit. I shifted nervously in my seat and nodded my head.
"It's well known that you are a gay man, but Ms. Rose has stated that you were, uh, intimate with her on one occasion."
"That's true." I said, remembering the event. "I was 17 at the time and trying to `be straight'. We dated a few times and, uh, were intimate before I shipped off to boot camp."
"That matches with what Ms. Rose as stated." Darren said, smiling. That smile made me even more nervous. "Did you keep in touch with her after you joined the Navy?"
"No." I stated firmly. "When I returned home after a year, I learned that she'd moved out of town."
"So you aren't aware that she had a child about nine months after you joined the Navy?" Darren asked me.
"No." I whispered, floored. Nine months. Exactly the right amount of time. I suddenly wished the cameras weren't there.
"Well, she did give birth to a son. Her parents kicked her out of her home and she went to live with her grandparents in Minnesota." Darren said, reaching into his briefcase and pulling out some papers. "He's fourteen now, and his name is Sean David Rose."
"Oh," I said simply, taking the papers he handed to me. There was a picture of the kid and several other documents including a birth certificate. I looked back at the picture of the blond young boy then back to the birth certificate. Where it said "Father" my name was printed.
"Ms. Rose is claiming that Sean is your son." Darren said after I looked up at him. I knew my expression was one of dumbfounded confusion. "She's requesting 14 years of back child-support. We're offering you this opportunity to arrange payments before any legal action is taken due to your high profile."
"I...I had no idea." I whispered, shock running through me at the thought I had a son. "Why didn't she tell me?"
"Because you were in the Navy and she didn't know how to get a hold of you. She was also worried you'd try to take custody." Darren said gently.
"How much is she looking for?" I asked, moving onto money and putting aside the other issues for a moment.
"$3.2 million." Darren replied, and I gasped.
"She's crazy." I said, remembering just how much of a bitch she could be. "Besides, she didn't even tell me I had a son, or even tried to make contact with me to arrange for child support. How can she ask for anything, much less that much money!"
"There are thousands of court precedents in these types of situations." Darren said. "Feel free to check with your lawyers. But the courts have upheld that the father has a legal responsibility to provide child support, and to pay back child support even when they had no knowledge of the child's birth. The amount is reasonable based on your current income and figured for fourteen years."
"I haven't made this much over the last fourteen years!" I exclaimed. I knew what he said about the obligation was true. A co-worker back in Phoenix had found himself in a similar situation and the state had garnished his wages to collect the past due amount.
"The sum is based on current wages, not pro-rated over the years." Darren said. "Of course we'll take a down payment of $1 million and pro-rate payments over the next few years."
"I'll have to look at your numbers and discuss that with my attorneys." I said, and then stared him in the eyes. "But I hope she's ready to discuss custody arrangements. Regardless of whatever money I'm going to pay, I've got a son I haven't known about for 14 years and I want to play a part in his life."
"That's why I'm here." Larry said, speaking up for the first time. I turned to stare at him now, and he flinched a little under my gaze. "Ms. Rose has released the minor, Sean David Rose, from her custody for religious reasons. He's been in a foster home for the last month. We were wondering if you would take him as his natural father. He has a history of behavioral problems, frankly, and was arrested last week for juvenile delinquency and shoplifting. His foster family has requested we remove him from their home as well."
"Are you telling me that not only is Autumn asking me for back child-support but to take the kid as well?" I asked, totally flabbergasted.
"Yes." Larry said. "Honestly, if you don't take him, he's likely to end up in a correctional facility before too long. His attitude is not the best."
"I want to meet him." I said, my voice firm. I would let the attorneys handle the money problem later.
"That won't be a problem." Larry said, pulling out his cell phone and talking into it for a few moments. "Okay, we brought him with us and he's outside at your buffet table right now."
"Let's go." I said, standing and handing the papers back to Darren. The two men followed me out and I walked towards where the caterers had set up the food for lunch. There was a tall blond boy standing there talking to Nathan. We were too far away to hear what they were saying, but I flinched as I saw Nathan's face go red. I quickened my pace but was too late as the blond boy reacted to whatever Nathan had said.
Sean's right fist connected very well with Nathan's mid-section, doubling him over. Loud gasps could be heard from the crew and I shouted `No!' at the top of my lungs. I covered the last few feet in a run and rushed to Nathan, wrapping my arms around him.
"Son, are you okay?" I asked Nathan, who just groaned.
"Hey!" Sean said roughly, pulling at my arm. "I'm your son, not this riff-raff you picked up off the streets."
"Hold it right there." I said, staring at this fourteen-year-old kid. He really did look like he could be my son. "Nathan is my son, as it appears you are too. If you really want to live with me, you two are going to have to get along."
"What, asshole, you going to choose your little boy toy over your real son?" Sean said in a sneer. This was not going well at all.
"Watch your language." I scolded. "First of all, Nathan's not a boy toy. He's my son. I'm not going to take your attitude, and I'm not going to pick one of you over the other. You'll both be treated the same in my house, and you will be polite and you will obey the rules I set out."
"Or what?" Sean sneered. "You going to spank me, daddy?"
"No, I'll just hire a marine drill instructor to be your babysitter." I replied with an edge to my tone. The look on Sean's face was priceless.
"I don't think so." He said after a moment.
"Dad, I don't want him living with us." Nathan said as he regained his breath. "Please don't let him move in with us."
I was at a loss for words. Okay, my first impression of my fourteen-year-old son was not a good one. I loved Nathan and wanted to do my best for him, but could I turn down custody of my real son, and what would the consequences be?
"I don't want him living with us." Sean sneered pointing at Nathan. "I'm your natural son, so he has to leave."
Nathan lunged for Sean at that point, and I barely held him back. I was stunned at this. How the fuck was I going to make this work? Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed someone walking up to the buffet table and grabbing a donut. I looked full on at the figure and recognized him immediately.
"Man, you get the most interesting problems." Ashton said to me. My mouth worked for a moment as I realized what was going on.
Yes, you know Ashton don't you? He's on That 70's Show' and he has an MTV reality series called Punk'D'. You know the show. They play practical jokes on celebrities. Yes, I said practical jokes.
Nathan let out a yelp as I threw him at his `brother' and turned to Ashton. Before he could react, my hands were around his throat and I was shaking his head, growling. I think he almost wet his pants.
"I WARNED you to never, ever do this to me!" I growled.
"You're...choking...me." He gasped out.
"You BASTARD!" I growled again. "Give me one reason not to break your neck."
"Because you'd never see me again." A voice said from behind me, and I dropped Ashton and took James into my arms, kissing him.
"I take it that was a good enough reason?" Ashton asked from behind me, rubbing his neck. Everyone was laughing now. It turned out that Justin (who'd been a victim before) had talked James into doing this. The entire group took a day off of the tour to be here for the event. They'd even gotten Nathan in on the act, and hired the young man to play `Sean'.
No, I wasn't a father. Yes Autumn and I had sex that one time, and James was the one who'd come up with the idea for the joke because I'd told him about her. It turned out the kid, whose real name was really Sean, was a young actor they'd hired based on his similarity in looks to me. He was actually a very nice kid, with loving parents. He and Nathan got along real well, and I hoped that maybe my son was going to get a new friend.
I worried about Nathan having few friends his own age.
James and I spent the afternoon with our arms wrapped around each other. Josh, Justin, Joey and Chris all made pests of themselves for the rest of the day, and I finally had to get them to leave the set. Their jokes were cracking people up too much. We all went back to the house as a group and I spent the afternoon with them. James would be back home in two days, and then they were all flying overseas for the last 6-week leg of the tour.
Their flight out was in the early evening. Looking around the house and seeing the mess they all left, I realized we really were going to need to hire some staff for the house. Free Lance and Korvan had hired me a PA who was dedicated full-time now to my schedule. Jane was very good at the job and kept my schedule in line. Maybe I should have her contact some agency to hire some staff; maybe just one or two people to do cleaning and maybe some cooking. I hadn't cooked in two weeks; I was just too busy these days.
We wrapped up filming on the last episode we were shooting in this cycle the next day. The day after that, James returned for his two-day break. We did nothing except stay at home, mostly in our bedroom. Nathan had spent the time over at Keith's house (one of the younger actors from the show). The last day James was there, though, we all got together and went to Magic Mountain for the afternoon and ended up staying until it closed around midnight. It was going to be a long six-weeks since there was going to be no way James and I could get together during that time.
David Furnish also wrapped up filming his documentary. He had until November sweeps to have it ready for airing. He definitely seemed happy with the footage he had gotten and went back to merry old England while we were at Magic Mountain. It was also during this weekend that Jive broke the news that this would be NSYNC's last tour together.
The guys had all decided they weren't interested in touring again after this one was done. While they didn't close the door on ever doing another album together, they all pretty much agreed they were ready to move on with their lives. Chris was going to be working on some fashion design label (I think it was something to do with some company he started). Joey was determined to become the Weird Al of the 21st Century. Justin was going to go solo, and Josh was going to take up song writing and producing full-time. Meanwhile James was going to resume the day-to-day management of Free Lance (he'd hired an interim manager while he was on tour).
That was the good news.
The bad news was that they were all moving to L.A. I'd have to put up with them being around all the time. Them and their various significant others. Luckily for me, I knew all of them already. While I definitely looked forward to James being home, I wasn't so sure about the rest of his `family'.
Ok, whom am I kidding; I was excited they were all moving out to L.A.
Nathan and I had no sooner waved goodbye to the guys as they boarded their plane than my cell phone started ringing. The problems of producing a television show quickly consumed my attention and diverted me from the tearful goodbye to my man. Nathan was soon on his own phone, calling the people I needed to handle this newest emergency (our third episode of the season was running 2 minutes short and we had to shoot an extra scene to fill up the two minutes).
The next six weeks passed in a wonderfully hectic paced blur. I talked to James on the phone as much as possible, worked fifteen to twenty hours a day, then as we got close to the September air date of the second season, began making my talk show rounds. Leno was here in LA, Letterman required a visit to New York (and a day of sight-seeing with Nathan), Oprah was in Chicago, and Larry King was in Atlanta.
Yes Nathan went with me, and even appeared on Letterman, Oprah, and King. He really liked Oprah and she tried to get me to commit to doing a show on gay parents. I gave in and told her to schedule something for when James got back. I wasn't going to do the show without him there.
The Punk'd episode premiered the same week my show's new season premiered. Family Values groups decried it, and me, as examples of how the country was falling into a cesspit of depravity. None of them mentioned Nathan, which was good for them. It was a painful reminder that elections were coming up, and my family was still part of their platform.
That's probably why I gave in and did an interview with Time Magazine. It ran the week before James got back and was actually very flattering. Of course the talking heads on television had a field day with it, and it re-ignited the religious debate.
I was really getting to hate being a household name. Remind me again why I ever stepped into the limelight? Oh yeah, James.
Speaking of my man, that's why I found myself waiting in the VIP terminal at LAX. Nathan was as nervous as I was. Their plane had landed and soon they'd be coming out the doors. We were both anxious. When we saw them, my mouth dropped for a moment before I rushed to James and gave him a hug.
They all had dark circles under their eyes and looked very haggard.
The reunion was muted, as they were all obviously tired. I'd hired a limo for the ride back home, and it was a very tired group of guys that made their way inside the house. Within ten minutes, they were all asleep in the various bedrooms, and Nathan and I were separating their luggage out so that each person's was placed just outside their room (except James' which I placed very quietly in the large master bedroom).
Then Nathan and I retired to my home office where I worked on a script while he worked on a paper that was due the next day. Four hours later, it was our own bedtime, and he trudged off to his room while I snuck into my room. I quietly undressed and slipped into the king size bed, heading towards the middle automatically. As I got close enough to James, his arms snaked out and pulled me into him. His eyes were still closed, but his head leaned into my shoulder and I could hear him sniff.
"Davey, I'm home." He said in a soft sigh before falling back into a deep slumber. For the first time in ages, I fell asleep absolutely content.