JC loved Chex Mix. He would make Lonnie or Dre or Randy go out and buy a big family sized bag of it and sit in his room and watch a movie while the rest
of us were out clubbing or at a party or something. He'd eat the entire thing, too, we thought. He'd just watch a movie he ordered from the hotel
and eat the whole bag of Chex Mix.
"What's so great about it?" Joey asked once, seeing Lonnie deposit a grocery bag on his bed before giving JC a thumbs up and nodding at the rest of us.
"I mean, it's good, but it's not great. Doesn't it get boring after a while?"
JC just frowned. "No," he said simply. "I like it. It's good. It's fun."
"Fun?"
"Yes," JC said plainly, eyeing the bag on his bed. "It tastes good."
Joey left him alone about it after that.
He ate it all the time, whenever we had a night off and the four of us would go out to party. He'd eat it while watching anything, he told us, a comedy, an action, maybe even a drama, or romance -- on the rare occasion he actually watched romances. But he never watched anything scary, he said. He didn't like to watch them alone. We teased him about it, but he never really seemed to mind. We teased him about the romance, too, asking if he was really a girl and if that was why he liked guys. He didn't mind about that, either, he'd just smile and wait for us to leave, and then he'd inevitably sit down on the bed, order a movie, and open up the bag, chowing down on the Chex and bagel chips and bread twists and whatever else they put in that stuff.
I knew he did that, cause I didn't feel good and didn't go out with the others one night, and hung out in his room. He even let me pick the movie, so of course I brought one of my own James Bond movies, just so I could run around with a squirtgun and pretend to shoot him. He played along a couple times too, as long as I promised there was no water in the thing. And he actually believed me when I told him there wasn't. So he stopped playing after the third time he got squirted, shooting glares at me. I just grinned at him and watched him open up the bag of Chex Mix and he offered me some. So I grabbed a handful, just a few of the white bagel chips because the rye chips bothered me. He took the bag back and I didn't ask for anymore after that.
"Hey JC?" I asked, at a slow point in the movie.
"Yeah?"
"What's your favorite?"
"Favorite what?" he asked, pawing through the bag.
"Favorite thing in there," I clarified. "Like, the Chex, bagel chips, what?"
He shrugged, tossing a small handful in his mouth. After he finished chewing he shrugged again. "I don't really have one. The Chex, maybe. The corn ones."
"What about the wheat ones?"
"I like corn better," he shrugged. "But they're both good."
"Oh." I paused, trying to phrase my next question, keep him talking a little bit. "JC?"
"Hmm?"
"Why do you do this all the time? Why do you keep yourself alone with nothing but a movie and Chex Mix all the time?" I asked him.
JC frowned. "Not all the time," he said. "I go out sometimes."
"Yeah, but only when someone doesn't buy you your addiction there," I said, rolling my eyes at him.
He cracked a smile. "I like Chex Mix. And I like movies. There's nothing wrong with that."
"No, there isn't," I agreed, "But you can't just hole yourself up all the time. Don't you get lonely?"
"I'm not," he said.
I was gonna say something else, but just then 007 shot some guy and we turned our attention back to the movie.
That night was when I realized that maybe JC was a little lonely, with only his Chex Mix for comfort. He seemed okay though, so...
I also realized another thing we never knew about him. He didn't like everything in the bag like we all thought he did. He tossed out the bag and told me I could use the TV until the other guys came back as long as I kept it low. I shrugged and decided to, why not? I'd get bored in my own room. And I thought of the best pranks while watching my victims sleep anyway. I'd
heard a suspicious clinging when he'd tossed the bag of Chex Mix in the garbage, and of course I had to go check it out.
That's when I figured it out.
JC didn't like the pretzels.
I didn't know why, he ate pretzels normally, but there they were in the foil bag, a small mountain of them, the square window ones and the circle ones. There wasn't even a hint of any other thing, but there were the pretzels. That was weird. I looked at the sleeping JC and wondered if there were any other things we didn't know about him.
*****
One day I didn't feel like going out and apparently, neither did Lance.
"Hey, JC, you busy tonight?" he'd asked. "Or can I bug ya? I don't feel like looking over contracts or babysitting the other two."
"Bug me all you want," JC said, a grin spreading across his face.
I was beginning to figure out something else no one knew about JC. "Me too?" I asked, not wanting to be left out.
My theory was proved a little more when JC's shoulders fell, but just slightly. "Sure man," he said cheerfully. I hid a grin.
That night Lance came and got me, and then we walked down to JC's room. There he was, hunched over a notebook, an unopened bag of Chex Mix next to him. He looked up when we opened the door. "Hey," he said, shutting the notebook.
"Hey," Lance said, grinning. "Lonnie told me to give you this." He tossed another bag of Chex Mix at JC, who smiled so wide I thought it would split his face.
"Thanks," he said. "Two bags! Awesome, man."
Lance laughed. "You're crazy, Jace," he said.
JC grinned. "I know."
"Not fair," I broke in. "You got two beds. I only got one. I want two!"
"You aren't special," JC said.
"Well bite me," I said indignantly, flopping onto the other bed. "I'm stealing this then."
JC rolled his eyes. "We're watching Star Wars, by the way, is that all right with you?"
Lance nodded. "Sure, I haven't seen that movie in like, forever. You'll have to explain some of it to me."
"No problem," he said.
I snorted. "Liar, Lance, we saw this in theaters when they redid it."
Lance flipped me off. "I wasn't there, remember?" he asked.
"Oh yeah," I shrugged. "Whatever, we gonna watch this?"
Lance snickered. "Oh, Chris, don't wanna admit you were wrong?"
"Shut up, Beavis," I said, standing up and pressing play, then sprawling on the bed again.
JC shrugged and pulled Lance down next to him. "Hang out here," he said. "More comfortable then the floor."
I watched Lance smile shyly and I grinned when he sat down. "Sure," he said to JC. Then the movie started, with JC explaining every little bit to Lance. I don't think he understood all of it, hell, I didn't understand half of what JC was saying, but at least he was finally giving JC a chance to babble to someone who wanted to listen.
Some time later I heard the telltale signs of a bag being opened.
"Want any?" JC asked.
"Nah," I said.
"How bout you?" he asked Lance.
Lance nodded and reached his hand in when JC handed it to him. I watched them carefully, JC glancing at what Lance was doing.
"Whatcha doin', man?" I asked for him.
"Separating 'em," Lance said distractedly.
"How come?" He was separating them into piles, pretzels and non-pretzels. "You don't like the pretzels?"
Lance shook his head. "Nah," he told me. "I don't like the other stuff. It's okay, but I love the pretzels. They're the best."
I looked over at JC, and his smile was a mile wide.
*****
From then on, JC and Lance always stayed back to share a bag of Chex Mix and watch a movie. I raided JC's garbage cans a few times, and I never found a discarded mountain of pretzels again, because Lance always ate them all.
Then I started noticing a difference in them. Like I stayed in again because it was more fun watching them then watching Joey and Justin hit on chicks. They decided on Star Wars again, just because, I suppose. But this time, when JC teased Lance about how he'd thought that Luke and Leia were going to be in love, he tossed an arm around Lance and pulled him a little closer, and Lance just seemed to grin and look up at him with those big green eyes of his. JC would look back down and I probably could've set off a bomb without them noticing. I finally threw some popcorn at them.
"Um, I'm still here," I said.
They blushed, predictably. "Um, Chris? We--"
"I can tell," I said. "You're cute. Now stop making eyes at each other so I can watch Luke be jealous of Han."
"See, I'm not the only one," Lance told JC confidently, and that was all on the relationship conversation for the night.
*****
Then Lance and Joey were put on a different bus. They didn't mind too much, Lance and JC, they could just visit each other's hotel rooms.
But then one night Lance went out clubbing with us and left JC alone.
When I looked at the garbage can the next morning, there was a Chex Mix bag with a small mountain of window and circle shaped pretzels in it.
*****
Lance would leave JC's room, slamming the door, his face pinched with trying not to cry. He always cried in his room though. I could hear him, through the paper-thin walls of the hotel room, soft, deep sobs he didn't want anyone to hear, because Lance Bass wasn't a crybaby.
Joey and Justin and I tried to figure out what was wrong with them but we never did. Then...
"At least she's not a crying, clingy bitch like you are." JC.
"Fine! If you like her so much you can just spend all of your time with her then!" Lance.
"Maybe I will!"
A door opened and closed, quietly. Then..."Josh?"
"Just go away, Lance." The door opened and closed and didn't open again.
*****
Now Joey, Justin and I understood what was going on. JC's beard Bobbie didn't want to give up her celebrity boyfriend, and JC was too nice of a guy to tell her to take a hike. Even at the cost of the one he loved. Joey promised he'd try to fix things up on their bus.
I never found out what Joey tried to do to cheer up Lance, but I did know that every time we stayed at the hotel, JC would be lonely in his room, eating his Chex Mix and throwing away the pretzels, and Lance would work on FreeLance or cry. Not all out crying, just quiet sobs. I wondered how the three of us could fix this.
*****
Then one day Justin tried to help. I tried playing video games, working on songs, and that didn't work, so when we had to spend the night on the bus, Justin smuggled on three bags of Chex Mix and Armageddon. I'd told him not to bring Star Wars.
"But you thought this movie was too sappy," JC said dumbly, looking at the cover.
Justin shoved the bags of snack food at him. "But you liked it," he said as he pushed the tape in. "I figure I can give up my manliness for a night and watch this with you. Besides, rethinking it, how can a guy go wrong with Bruce Willis blowing up asteroids?"
"See, I told you it was a good movie," JC said, smiling for the first time since he and Lance broke up.
"Sure, C," Justin said. "Now toss over some of that junk you always eat."
"Not junk," JC complained, but he threw over a bag of it anyway. "You like the pretzels?" he asked, almost a little hopefully, and I looked up from my laptop. I wasn't sure of what he was hoping for.
Justin pawed through it. "Nah," he said. "They taste funny in this stuff.
The Chex, though, those are awesome."
JC frowned and his shoulders slumped a little, and that's when I remembered that JC didn't like the pretzels but he'd defined the Chex as his favorite. Amazing what a snack food can do to a mood. JC didn't smile for the rest of the night.
*****
I thought that Justin's plan of "cheering up" JC had worked against progress for a while. But then I noticed JC looking at the pretzels more and more, and frowning. He knew he couldn't properly finish a bag without Lance, and if that was the way they were going to get back together, so be it, I supposed. I'd gotten back with girlfriends in stranger ways.
*****
One day I was bugging Lance while he was looking over some contract for FreeLance.
"Come on, man," I said. "Get out and get some sun. Come rollerblading with me, come onnn, I don't wanna go alone."
"Chris, I have to go over this," he said patiently. "I'll go out later."
Oh how I loved testing this boy's patience. "Lannnnnnnnnce!"
My whine was interrupted by a knock on the door. "Make yourself useful and get that for me?" Lance said.
"Fine," I huffed. My eyes widened in surprise when I saw Lance's 'guest.' "JC?"
Lance looked up, eyes wide. "JC?" he echoed.
I could see JC flinch at the use of the nickname. "Lance...can I talk to you for a second?"
"How bout half a second?"
"Um, yeah, uh..." JC picked something up from the ground. "I don't like the pretzels."
"I know that," Lance said, but I could see his resolve crumbling when he saw JC looking that nervous. I was glad I was so observant, let me tell you...
"And, uhm, you do."
"Right."
"And that's all you like out of this, right?"
"Right."
"And...I tried sharing with Justin--" JC faltered as he dug through the bag and tossed a square pretzel at Lance, who caught it and looked at it. I shut the door when he moved in a little bit. They ignored me, which would have bothered me under any other circumstance, but...
"And?" Lance said quietly, studying it.
"And...and...it wasn't...it wasn't right, sharing it with someone that's not you. And--"
"What?" Lance said, stepping closer. I took this as my cue to leave, and started to open the door.
"And Justin ate all my Chex," and I could hear the pout in JC's voice as I left the room.
"You're hopeless, Josh," Lance said, and his voice was closer to the door now.
