“Pleease?”

Lance arched one elegant eyebrow at him.

“Fine, Bass. See if I’ll ever do anything for you again.”

“I’m not gonna do it.” Lance kicked up his feet, resting his tennis shoes on the couch’s armrest. He pretended to be absorbed in the magazine in his hands.

Chris didn’t believe that Lance was actually reading for a second. For one thing, the magazine was an issue of Guitar World Acoustic. Plus, it was an old issue. “Laaance…”

“Whining doesn’t suit you, Kirkpatrick,” Lance said, not looking up. He paused. “On second thought, it does, but that doesn’t give you the excuse.”

Unfazed, Chris sat down on Lance’s stomach. For a moment, they stayed like that, listening to the sound of traffic outside the window and feeling the rhythm of the bus’ movement. Chris thought he could hear Joey’s snores from his bunk.

“Gonna get off of me yet?”

“Nope.”

“Chris!” Lance threw the magazine at him. It bounced off of Chris’ shoulder and landed carelessly onto the floor. “I’m not. Going. To. Do. It.”

For a moment, Chris sat there. Then he turned, adjusting his legs so he was straddling Lance’s torso. He leaned forward and his newly spiky hair didn’t touch Lance’s smooth skin. He smiled. “Just do it. You know I won’t leave you alone ‘til you do.”

With a growl, Lance pushed Chris off of him. When the dark-haired singer had landed in a heap on top of the magazine, Lance started.

For a moment, all Chris could do was sit there and stare in awe.

“I lie awake, I drive myself crazy…”

Lance had an abso-freakin-lutely wonderful voice. People thought that all he could sing were those deep bass lines. He could do that, but he could do much more than that, too. It was a crying shame that with all those tenors singing on top of him, his voice was rarely heard. He sang with a kind of deep rumble, soothing and loving, like a comforting word that you could actually hold on to and hug. It was beautiful. Everyone in the band knew it and whenever they asked him to sing he got all shy and refused.

Chris started waving his hands around when Lance stopped. “Don’t! Keep going!”

“Leave me alone. I did what you asked.”

Again, Chris climbed atop of Lance and straddled his stomach. “Why don’t you sing more often?” he asked. He was using his serious voice. The one that was octaves lower than his usual. When he spoke that way, he found people actually listened to him. That’s why he used the voice sparingly; he didn’t want it to lose its potency.

Champagne-green eyes watched him shrewdly. “I don’t sound good by myself,” said Lance. His deep voice echoed through Chris from the contact of their bodies.

“Bullshit, Bass.”

Lance had a kind of half smile, the one he put on when he couldn’t muster a full one. Chris knew that smile; he had seen it often after long hours of photo shoots. “Nice lie.”

“It isn’t a lie!” Chris whapped him on the head. “Your voice is unique. It’s you. It’s beautiful, honestly.”

“Unique?” Lance laughed this time. “Like you, unique, or the good kind of unique?”

“Ouch, I am wounded,” said Chris. He clutched his heart for a moment.

Lance ran a hand through Chris’ spiky hair and Chris shivered involuntarily at the touch. “I was kidding. But really. I don’t have a voice like yours.”

“Meaning, you aren’t eleven years old? Thank God for that.” Chris meant to make a joke, but somehow he ended up grimacing at the end of the sentence and the humor was lost.

“I love your voice, Chris. And you’re beautiful too.”

Chris was embarrassed and flattered and he covered it up by asking, “Beautiful in the supermodel way or beautiful in the tree kind of way?”

“The tree kind of way?”

“Yeah. You know. The totally platonic kind of beautiful.”

“I don’t know. But I like the wood.” Lance grinned and Chris actually blushed.

“Ah… um.. Yeah. Did anyone tell you that you have a voice made for sex?”

“Mmm… Yeah, I’ve heard that one a few times before,” said Lance. He smiled for real now, a kind of smile that reached his eyes and made them sparkle.

Chris’ heart stopped.

Lance leaned close and kissed his mouth. A quick kiss, done as soon as it was there.

For a moment, Chris just kind of sat there. Lance kissed him. Lance. Kissed. Him. Somehow that didn’t compute. System malfunction. Chris’ brain just went into meltdown mode.

“Care to show me how unique you are?” Lance asked. His voice was one bass rumble, shaking Chris to the core. He leaned in for another kiss.

“Uh…” That was all Chris could say.