"YOU WHAT???? WHO, WHERE, WHEN...... HOW????"
Joey couldn't help but laugh. "Lance, if you don't know how I got her pregnant, you really need some help." Lance closed his eyes and shook his head. "This is NOT happening!!!!!"
Joey frowned. "God, I'm sorry. I used protection but.... It was a one night stand. It happened in Newport News, VA about 7 weeks ago. I'm so sorry."
"Was that what was in that letter?"
"Yeah."
"What does she want?"
"I don't know. She is coming to Orlando next week while we are off. She didn't tell me much. Just to pick her up at the airport. She said it was REALLY important. But I guess...."
"How does she know it is yours? If you picked her up at a club I could be anyone's." Lance was trying to reman rational.
"I picked her up at a meet and greet. She said it had to be. She hadn't had sex in 4 months before and didn't after. She said if I wanted we could get a paternity test."
"Hell Yeah!!!"
"Look I really don't want anyone to know so don't tell the guys until we know...."
"How do you know she wont.."
"She said it. Look I have to go. Get some rest."
"Yeah.. Like THAT'S going to happen. After you leave the room the rest of the hotel is going to ask my advice."
Joey started to walk out the door before lance called out to him.
"Hey."
"Yeah, Lance?"
"Look Joey, anytime you need me, I'm here." Lance watched as Joey left his room. He threw his head back on the pillow. "What could possibly go worse now??" Lance regretted the words the second they left his lips.
===================
ring
"No, you need to get here at one."
ring
"Yeah okay, I gotta go, Sean, Lance's phone is ringing. Bye"
ring
JC hung up his phone and took Lance's out of his pocket.
ring
"Hello, Lance's Phone." JC said with a chipper voice.
-silence-
"Hello??"
"Umm..." Came the formerly silent voice, "Is Lance there?"
JC's jaw about dropped 'This isn't who I think it is, it can't be.' "No, He is in his room asleep. Who is this and I'll have him call you back."
"No. That's okay. I'll call back later."
JC kept the phone to his ear until he heard the line go dead.
"Theres no way." He said as he hung it up. "No possible way.... Why?"
"Why what?" JC turned to see Joey walk up the hall way.
"Nothing... I just..... Um... Is Lance up?"
"Yeah I think. His light was on, but he looked like shit."
JC looked Joey pointedly up and down. "You look like shit yourself. When is the last time you slept?"
"I tried last night, but it was a pathetic attempt."
"Well, we are off today, get some rest," JC patted Joe's shoulder as he walked past him to go to his room.
JC opened his room, not surprised to see Justin sitting there. "Hey." He said weakly.
"Hi." Justin said not taking his eyes off the floor.
"What's up?"
"I talked to Lance."
"About what?" JC tried not to let the crack in his voice be heard, he he failed miserably.
"We need to talk."
JC's mind began running. 'Did he tell him how he feels?' JC walked over to the place next to where Justin was sitting and sat down himself.
"You love him. I love him." Justin said, avoiding the silence, knowing if they lapsed into it, it would remain.
"I love you and you love me." JC said almost as if he didn't believe it.
-silence-
"Why?"
"I wish I knew. If you got him, I would hate you." JC grimaced at his own words but they were true. "And you would hate me if I got him."
Justin nodded, knowing it was true. The words had been there in the air for years, but what cause them to be said now, seemed to be out of their control. "It's different now."
"Yeah." Justin sighed. This was what they had been avoiding for all this time. Once the words were said, there was no hope for a relationship. "I love you. I have loved you forever now. I don't want to give it up." Justin forced his eyes to JC's face, surprised to see his eyes on his.
Suddenly JC smiled. "We don't have to give me and you up."
The younger man's face showed confusion.
"We can just make 'me and you' into 'me, you, and him'."
===================== Monday, November 29th, 2000- Day one of a Month Off ===================== "Hey Lance!!"
Lance was on his way to the limo so he could go home when he heard Justin yell out his name.
"Hey. Whatcha need?"
"Well, me and Josh were going clubbing Saturday and we wanted to know if you wanted to go.
"Maybe, I have some Free Lance stuff to work on but I think I'll be free."
"Cool, Call one of us later!"
Lance nodded and got into his limo. "This has been a messed up week, and today wasn't any different." he told the driver when he was asked how his day was.
He wasn't sure what was going on, but Justin and JC were being nice. And not a forced nice but a truly nice nice. Maybe it was because they knew he knew about Wendy.
He leaned back into the seat, letting it engulf him.
And Chris. Chris liked Joey. Joey was going to be a father.
Yeah, Lance's life couldn't get more confusing.
At least that's what he thought. If he thought his life was messed up from what he thought he knew, only time could tell what he would think once he learned the real truth.
=====================
RING
Lance jumped. He was half asleep so the ring of the phone scared him half to death. The phone began to ring again but Lance interrupted it.
"Yeah?"
"Hey, Lance. It's Joey."
"Hey! Sup?"
"Well I have to go pick up Darla, that girl, in a hour. I was wandering it you could go with."
"Sure Joe! Want me to come over now?"
"Umm. Yeah If you can."
"Okay I'll be Right over!" Lance hung up the phone after the two said goodbye.
He wasn't sure if he wanted the baby to really be Joey's. He was sure Joey didn't know himself. Whatever the out come, Joey would most likely take care of the baby and the mother. Joey was just that way.
============
"Hi Joey, Lance."
Joey and Lance looked at the girl. She looked so pale. Lance, after hearing that Joey had met her at a meet and greet, wasn't expecting what he saw.
Some how he was expecting to see an energetic girl with pigtails and a Teenieboper like shirt on. But she was the exact opposite. He could tell that, at one time, she was very beautiful, but now, she looked like she had fallen off a horse.
She wore sunglasses, for what he guessed was, to hide her blood shot eyes. The black shirt caused her skin to look completely white and her once brown hair, looked almost like it hadn't been brushed in days.
"We need.... to talk. Badly." She said softly. She kept her eyes downcast as if she was ashamed of what she had done.
"Yeah, of course." Joey said softly as if he was talking to a scared child. And she was.
==========
The ride to Joey's house had been uneventful, even tho Lance could tell that she so much wanted to do nothing but crawl in a ball and die.
When Joey lead her to the living room, she couldn't hold back any longer.
She cried. Lance had never seen anyone cry so hard before in his life. Joey found himself comforting her and himself. He wasn't sure what to say or do, after all this child was a complete stranger, even if she held his baby.
"I came to you... Because, the odds of me surviving this is less than 20%, and I'm not about to abort this child because I wanna continue living my screwed up life. This baby has a chance to make a difference, I had a chance and I lost it." Joey and Lance could do nothing but stare in shock. "My Mom and Dad disowned me because I came to you and not to them. But if I am not going to survive this, I don't want this child to grow up in that family. They raised me, they are not going to raise my baby." Darla wrapped her arms around her stomach. "Please." She raised her head up look Joey in the eyes. "Please, don't make me go back there!" Her eyes were beginning to tear up again. "Never." Joey said simply.
She smiled, for what looked like, the first time in her life. "Thanks so much."
Lance looked at Joey. He could see something that resembled love, and a lot of guilt. Looking back at the girl he said, "Is there anything you want?"
"A bath. A long, hot, bath." She said in almost a daydream like way.
Joey smiled as he lead her to the bathroom.
"Is there anything else we need to get you?"
Darla opened her mouth only to close it. Lance spoke up. "Anything, Darla. We wanna take care of you. Just name it."
She found herself smiling again. "I need clothes, I left kinda fast so all i have is what I have on. My backpack just holds a bunch of papers."
"I'll call Wendy, You look like her size." Lance walked off in search of a phone.
Joey sighed and smiled at the girl. "I'm going to take good care of you, and our baby." He said as wrapped his arms around her.