AN: Cause yesterday was Joey's birthday too and birthdays deserve updates! Happy Birthday Joey! LOL ***************************** Blindsided: Chapter Three ************************** “So how much sleep have you gotten this week?” JC asked after they slid into a booth in the nearly empty diner with fluorescent lighting and waitresses pushing fifty who wouldn’t care if Elvis walked through the doors, breathing and sexy, let alone some upstart boy band member. Laura smiled sheepishly. “Bout five, six hours,” she responded quietly. He chuckled. “A night? That’s not so bad lightweight…” Laura blushed and stared at her clasped hands. He stared at her in avid disbelief. “Period? You’ve slept five hours this week?” She blushed harder. “Give or take a bit.” She risked glancing up at him from under down turned lashes. “Jesus Laura, you shouldn’t be putting those hours in. Its not like Johnny’s paying you overtime, is he?” he asked with a hint of a smile. Laura shook her head firmly. “No but all the stuff I’m doing, it needs to be done. Someone’s going to be losing sleep and I’d much rather it be me. You guys have enough to worry about. Besides, its my job.” “Its your job to be running our personal errands? You’ve been picking up our dry cleaning and watering our plants. You should have mentioned something Laura. You’re our assistant, not our slave.” She shrugged easily and bit back another yawn. “Its s’okay Jayce, it really is. If I truly minded I would have mentioned it.” “And who do you think will be taking care of things when you run yourself so far into the ground you make yourself sick, huh?” Laura started at his almost angry question and, seeing her surprise, the anger softened to the gentle lines of JC’s face that seemed so familiar to her. “I didn’t mean to snap. I’m just upset we let you get so exhausted without noticing. I think maybe I should start looking out for you too. Chris isn’t doing a good enough job.” She giggled tiredly at the waggle of his brows at the ludicrous suggestion. “I thought we decided earlier that you needed looking after as well Mr. Chasez.” Jayce smiled that beautiful, heart rending smile of his that had left millions of women all over the world swooning at his talented feet. “Why don’t we just agree to watch over each other. That way we can cover all our bases.” Laura’s gray eyes widened at the slightly suggestive note in C’s comment and welcomed the arrival of their coffee with desperate eagerness. God, she must be exhausted if she was imagining Jayce, JC, Joshua Chasez, flirting with her! She expected that kind of attention from Chris, who alternated between flirting harmlessly and mothering, and Joey, who lavished all females with a sort of absent affection regardless of age and appearance. JC didn’t casually flirt with anyone unless he was onstage in “performer persona”. He was hardly onstage now and Laura really, really needed sleep. “So?” he asked after they both drained half their cups. “So?” Laura asked with raised brows. “So I’m waiting for an answer to my proposal. I watch out for you, you watch out for me.” She regarded him with a slightly confused expression, gray eyes clouded with an emotion he couldn’t quite identify. “Come on Laura, do you really have so many friend in this world you can’t use one more?” “Of… of course not,” she replied quickly. JC smiled his beautiful smile again and held out one fine boned hand across the distance of the scarred diner table. “Friends? Real friends? Not just employee and employer or casual acquaintances, but friends?” Laura carefully set her coffee down and stared at his outstretched hand. “Jayce, why do you want to be friends with me so badly?” His smile turned wistful and sad. She started as he reached further across the table and let the tips of his fingers brush her cheek with a touch that was soft and firm all at the same time. “You really have no idea how wonderful you are, do you?” He shook himself and sat back down in his side of the booth, face fierce, blue eyes blazing even in the bad lighting of the diner. “I want to be friends with you because you are simply amazing Laura Danon. You care so damn much for everyone, everything. You give and give and never once think about yourself. That’s rare enough these days, let alone in this business. All five of us and Johnny feel blessed to have you in our lives, even if you’re only here because its your job. “I mean, even with me sitting here and telling you all this stuff, I can see you don’t believe it. It’d simply never occur to you that you might be special or unique.” Laura was surprised to find that he was wistful again, a sense of melancholy so strong on his beautiful features she had to resist the urge she had to hug him until he smiled again. “I wish… I wish I still had your faith in people.” It was her turn to smile sadly. “I… Its not that I have faith in people Jayce. I… I just have faith in you, in all of you, in the men I’ve worked these last months for.” And before she knew it he was out of his side of the booth and sitting next to her, long arms wrapped around her compact body in a fierce hug. Despite herself, she smiled until her gray eyes glowed silver. “Thank you,” he murmured into her brunette hair as he hugged her and tried not to notice how she smelled of peaches and apricots. “For what?” Laura asked, bewildered but not unpleased by the turn of events. JC simply laughed. “Friends?” he finally demanded as he released her. He laughed again as she yawned and blushed. “Friends,” Laura agreed shyly and blushed harder as he hugged her happily again. *********************************************************************************** JC insisted on driving her home and, after a small argument, she agreed, too weary and already coming down from her caffeine fix to fight too much. She tried to convince him to drop her off at the front of the gates of her small apartment complex but he refused and drove her to her door where he was equally insistent on walking her up and making sure she made it okay. He was carrying her papers and laptop again so Laura invited him in to drop them off. Before she quite knew what was happening he was propelling her instinctively towards her bedroom. She couldn’t manage to get her words of protest out as he set her on the bed and took her shoes off before he was covering her with a thick blanket she kept on the edge of her bed. Her last memory of that night before she fell into an exhausted slumber was JC fiddling with her alarm and telling her he’d lock up on his way out. It was kinda nice to have friends. *********************************************************************************** “So, how’d it go Romeo?” Chris asked cheerfully the next morning, bright and early at practice as he punched JC’s shoulder and peered around, looking for Laura. “Where is she by the way?” JC glared at the busybody. “Bite me Chris.” He backed warily away as Chris just as cheerfully bared his white teeth and snapped the air with them. “And she’s home sleeping.” Chris raised dark brows. “And you know this how?” the question delicately and pointedly asked. Jayce rolled his eyes expressively. “Oh grow up Chris and put your righteous wrath away. We went out for coffee after I woke her up from the meeting and I drove her home. I was afraid she was going to drive herself off the road or something. Then I helped her carry her stuff up to her apartment and tucked her in. I was the perfect gentleman. I’m not you, or Joey.” “How come she’s not here yet then? Laura is fanatical about being on time for stuff.” JC grinned. “Probably because I reset her alarm. She needed sleep more than she needed to be here.” Chris grinned back approvingly. “Smooth move Chasez. So did you ask her out or anything over coffee?” Jayce growled. “Back off man. We’re friends, just friends.” Chris snorted in disbelief. “And I’m the cute one.” Justin’s head shot up from across the stage. “I heard that!”