AN: I'm all for *NSYNC love and affection right now. (insert mutterings about dumb BSB legal issues and the latest decision to hold off on recording a new album) I love em all. I really do. But I don't always like them. That's all I'm saying. The end. Yay *NSYNC! (<- well, I'll say that too) inspiredthoughts@hotmail.com ************************* Blindsided: Chapter Eight *********************** “Come to dinner with me.” Laura looked up in mild surprise as JC sat himself down next to her on the tour bus. “What in the world are you talking about?” He slouched, looking for all the world embarrassed, though about what she couldn’t venture to guess. “Dinner,” Joshua Chasez murmured, “come to dinner with me tonight.” Her brows wrinkled in confusion. “But what about coffee? Is that off for tonight?” JC shook his head vehemently. “No, we can still do coffee, after maybe, but, could we do dinner too?” She blinked. “Why?” Laura asked, bewildered. He sighed. “Can’t I want to have dinner with one of my friends on one of my few free nights without having a reason?” “Well of course,” she responded quietly, intimidated by the almost exasperated tone he was taking. Her fingers fiddled with the pen she was editing their schedule with. “But Jayce, I mean at dinner, in public? What if someone sees? This isn’t some hole in the wall diner.” His face smoothed and softened as he stared at her, expression earnest in cornflower blue eyes. “You don’t want to be seen with me?” Laura flushed, paled, and flushed red again. “Its not that!” she stammered quickly. “Its just… Josh… You, me, I mean…” She trailed off helplessly. “Its you who should be worried about being seen with me. It’d be bad for your reputation, even with us just being friends.” He tensed beside her and his voice when he answered was corded, almost angry, though she could sense that the sudden rage wasn’t directed at her. “That’s not the kind of reputation I want to have then.” Laura sighed. “Please Laura Danon, have dinner with me, please.” She stared at him, the Joshua Chasez, at his darkening gaze and his thick brown hair, falling so long it could brush his nose when he didn’t gel it back. She stared at his high cheek bones and the full curve of his lips. Laura swallowed tightly and nodded mutely in acquiescence. JC smiled so brilliantly he could have lit the night and hugged her, hard, in an embrace that left her heady with his cologne and breathless. “Wear something nice,” he whispered in the bell of her ear as he released her, “we’re going to do this right.” *************************************************************************************** Laura Danon stared at herself in the mirror. She didn’t entirely look like herself but then, that might not be an entirely bad thing. She was in a dress for one, instead of the slacks or demure skirts she preferred for the business casual she wore to work. It was pretty, an impulse buy she had gotten when the tour stopped in LA. It was simply cut, velvet, deep wine red with a neckline that swept off her shoulders and ended in a V at her chest. A black ribbon gathered the material under her breasts and it fell, almost pleated, to knees, revealing shapely calves in rarely worn black high heels that raised her usual five foot two height to five foot five. Her brunette hair was curled softly and piled sloppily on top of her head, the only version of a formal hairstyle she knew how to do. Her gray eyes twinkled silver as she looked at her reflection and she sighed before resting her brow against the cool glass. “What on earth am I doing? People like me don’t do this, not even when they’re almost begged…” JC knocked on her hotel door and she smiled until she realized what she was doing, and that she recognized his knock. There should be an unwritten rule somewhere that you can’t recognize someone’s knock unless you’re married to them. She dashed to the door and unlocked it, took a deep breath, and opened it to reveal the man she had come to regard as one of her closest friends. The man her heart would gladly want, if she let it. Laura wasn’t quite infatuated enough to let her heart be broken because it would. If she let herself love Jayce it’d get broken. One day, one day soon, she might decide that it was worth the price. That love, even one sided, even ending in pain, was worth it if she loved Joshua Chasez. She’d had her heart broken before but this time, if it happened, she knew it’d never really heal from it. Laura was a cautious person, especially with her emotions. She didn’t care blindly for her friends, and loved blindly even less. She would go into her crush, her pain, with open eyes, if she chose to go at all. JC smiled at her, his soft, real smile and she resisted the urge to melt into a puddle on the floor. He was dressed in brown slacks and shoes with a sky blue button down shirt that perfectly matched the cerulean of his eyes. He looked tanned and warm and Laura desperately tried not to remember what it felt like to be in his arms while they slept. She blushed prettily anyway and Josh chuckled easily, open, free, as he always was with her. She’d seen him reserved before, around reporters and people he didn’t like, but among his few close friends he nearly blossomed and burst forth with life. Sometimes he nearly glowed. “You look lovely Laura,” he said, his smile stretching into an approving grin as he casually took her hand and tucked it under his arm. She blushed harder and tried to return the compliment but remained tongue tied. JC paused for a minute and looked at her, really looked at her, gaze narrowed in concern. “Hey,” he asked softly, “you all right?” Laura swallowed and nodded slightly but firmly. His gaze stayed glued to her and she wondered what it would feel like to be the woman in the center of JC’s world. “You seem shy tonight.” “I am shy Jayce…” He shook his head. “No you’re not, you’re reserved not shy. There’s a difference.” “What’s the difference then?” “Reserved is something I like, shy makes me wonder what I’m doing wrong.” Laura stared at him helplessly. “Its, its not you, its just the situation Jayce… the dressing up and going out, its not something I do a whole lot.” His smile faded. “You should. You should be shown to the whole world, you deserve it.” She stared up at him, gray eyes conflicted and churning, “Why are you so convinced of how deserving I am? That the world would want to see me?” He tweaked her nose, the move impulsive and tender at the same time. “Why are you so convinced that you don’t deserve it? That the world can’t see the beauty of your soul?” Laura smiled with an edge of old, brittle bitterness. “Maybe I’m just pessimistic.” Josh tugged a curl gently before tucking it behind her ear in a move that raised goose bumps on her arms. “Maybe I’m optimistic enough for the two of us.” She didn’t, really, have anything to say to that, so JC smiled again contentedly and lead the woman he loved to the elevators because, because he was taking her to dinner on their first real date, whether she knew it was a date or not. That was hardly the point.