A Lot
Copyright © 2000 Em

So Lance liked Pink a lot.

He hadn't been sure that he would, at first, when they signed her on as an opening act. He had seen her only briefly at a couple of awards functions -- not really enough to talk to, just enough to be cordially polite. That she'd agreed to open for them said something, but Lance also knew that people signed on with acts they didn't like all the time, that the promise of exposure -- and *NSYNC certainly promised exposure -- was enough for some, music be damned.

He didn't think that Pink would be like that, though. He grinned widely at her when she arrived at the stadium the first day, shook her hand and was pleased to find she had a power grip, meant for business, which meant he liked her a little already. She had a cute smile that was too big for her mouth and scrunched up her face and made her look younger than the serious and sensual expressions she wore for her promotional photos.

"We hope you have a lot of fun on tour," he told her, before the smile had faded. "We're just a bunch of regular guys, but we won't give you too hard a time--"

"Yes we will," Chris said.

Lance glanced at him over his shoulder. "--and we really just want you to have a blast and feel at home. So," he shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets. "Welcome to the tour."

He didn't realize until he'd turned to go that he was still smiling, rather goofily. She's cute, though, he thought. Cute brought that out in him.

Pink was nice, didn't act like being nice to them was a chore, took her job seriously, and worked hard -- which they'd all counted on. She had her crew of guys that she liked to hang out with, and they generally left her to that until Justin invited her to play basketball with them back on the lot one day.

"We need a fourth," he explained, Chris flanking him, as he passed the basketball from one hip to the other around his waist, "because JC's chilling on the bus and Joey's missing in action. Can you play?"

She nodded, eyeing him slyly. "I do all right," she said.

"Good," Justin said, and tossed Lance the ball so suddenly that he had to scramble to catch it. "You can be on my team and guard Lance."

"Why, is he good?" Pink asked, and Justin simply laughed, stealing the ball from Lance when he began to dribble it and passing it to Chris instead.

Pink turned out to be a formidable guard, Lance discovered, but he wasn't honestly sure if she was or if it was merely his tendency to avoid aggressive play and the fact that he was a lousy shot. "Foul!" he cried, when she hip-checked his groin as he was grabbing for the stray ball, and she elbowed him in the back, almost dropping him to his knees.

"No," she told him. "That's foul."

Justin gave him the free throw, though, and he sank it while Pink scowled. "What?" he challenged her, arms outstretched, one eye on Justin when he got the rebound. "You can dish out the foul but you can't take the shot? Is that it?"

"Yo' mama can't take the shot," she responded, coming up so close that her shoulder briefly pressed, damp, against his chest as he watched Chris follow Justin around the court. Justin managed to hoot at that and sink a shot at the same time. Chris cursed and apologized, darting for the ball.

"Oh, my mama now?" Lance turned, keeping his torso to her as he made his way back towards the hoop. Shut up, let it go! his mind screamed at him; he'd tried doing the dozens with Justin before, but was so laughably bad that it hadn't even been worth the effort. "Your mama's so dumb, she heard basketball had a court and hired a lawyer."

Pink's jaw dropped in both shock and amusement. "Yo' mama's so fat," she said, "she uses a basketball as a hackey sack." And then, ducking low, Pink darted around Lance and grabbed a bounce pass from Justin, and scored before Lance could reach her.

"I think she wants me," Justin announced, chucking peanuts into his mouth from his closed fist one evening before a show. Britney, on an off-night visiting and perched in his lap, didn't seem threatened.

"You think every opening act wants you," JC pointed out. "You thought Jordan Knight was into you."

"Jordan Knight was into me," Justin said, "'cause I reminded him of Joey."

"What?"

"Nothin', not you."

"Actually," Chris said thoughtfully, stroking his chin and gazing into the distance. "I think she was asking for you the other day, Lance."

That shocked him, the thought that Chris knew something about Pink that he didn't, when he'd been the one seeing her to lunch and making sure she knew where her stuff was being kept, and saying hi to her security all the time. Lance sat up, though not too abruptly. Just disinterested; curious. "She was askin' for me?"

"Oh-- no, wait," Chris corrected himself. "She was askin' 'bout yo' mama," he said, playing up the accent, as Justin snickered. "My bad."

"She wants Lance," Joey spoke up from across the room. "All that mama stuff? Oh, yeah. She wants you, Lance."

"Okay, I don't think she wants anybody," Lance declared sullenly. "You know what? Maybe she wants Britney. Do we know? I don't know."

"Maybe yo' mama knows," Justin said, and laughed so hard that he choked on the peanut he was chewing, Britney slapping his back until he coughed it back up.

The thing about Pink was that she kept reminding Lance of familiar things when he felt he shouldn't be able to understand her at all. Like the way she wasn't from the south, yet spoke with a humble, unaffected drawl sort of like JC. Or how she referred to her friends at times as her "babies," the way Britney might. He wasn't surprised then, really, to learn that she liked to go clubbing about as much as he did, and so after a few nights of seeing her head off with her posse, he thought to ask her to join him.

"Oh, you like go out, too?" she asked him, and seemed genuinely intrigued. She smelled like floral citrus, a rosy fruit punch; something sweet, anyway, that he couldn't quite describe.

"Do I," Lance grinned, and inwardly groaned. Why that couldn't have come out as oh, of course I love to go clubbin', or any variation, really, other than do I, he didn't know. And then, suddenly, he did know, and groaned inwardly again, because developing a crush on one's opening act was decidedly not cool.

The other thing Lance learned about Pink was that she wasn't shy. She didn't keep her distance from him when they hit the dance floor, looping an arm over his shoulder and swaying her hips in time with his, laughing loudly when he stumbled over the rhythm.

"And you get up and do this in front of a crowd every night?" she asked, incredulous, and brought both hands down to his hips to guide their movement along hers, and Lance wanted to tell her that his hips worked fine, it was the rhythm part that threw him; but her hands were small and light and she hooked her fingers into his belt loops, and he could feel the jut of her hipbone against his.

"I can dance fine," he replied, smiling gamely, well-used to the self-deprecation. "I just need, you know. A manual or something." The dance floor was crowded and sweaty, and he could feel Lonnie's presence carefully behind him, but he could still smell her fruity, citrussy, flowery smell. Pressed up close to him, she was damp and hot like she'd been when they'd played basketball together, but this time he was even more acutely aware of their points of contact and felt a familiar flare in his stomach that made him wary. He pulled back, putting distance between them.

"What?" she yelled into his face. "You wanna go sit down or something?"

Her face was sparkly in the light, from sweat and body glitter alike. Lance simply nodded.

"You know, I gotta be honest," she told him, when they had retired to a booth. "I wasn't sure what to make of you guys when I first got here."

Lance nodded again, clutching at his glass. It wasn't anything he hadn't heard before; people who misjudged the phenomenon before they got to know the group. The confessions of same misjudgements were rarer, though.

"But you know," Pink continued, "you guys are..." she nodded approvingly over her bottle of beer. "All right." She reached out and touched his forearm, her hair spiky from when she'd pushed her slight bangs back. "You're all right, you know, Lance?"

She was pretty, Lance thought, pretty cool. He smiled at her bashfully, blushing, he knew, and torn between fighting it and playing it up. "Thanks," he said, and when Pink grinned, kissed her fingertips and smudged them across his cheek playfully, he caught her hand in his and pushed his drink away.

Later, when he found himself pressed up against her in the back of the club, kissing her mouth as his hands roamed up and down her sides, Lance had to admit that he definitely thought Pink was more than just a cool girl.

"Wait-- what--" Pink pulled back from the kiss and stared up at him, her lips already swollen and her eyes heavy-lidded. Lance wanted to kiss her again just watching her. "So are we doin' this? Are we getting together?"

"Um," Lance kept his eyes on her mouth. "Do you want to?" he asked carefully.

Pink paused as if she needed to think about it, then nodded minutely. "Mmmm, okay," she said, locking her fingers behind his neck and bringing him back down to her.

"Um," Lance said the next day, standing and stretching in the Quiet Room. "I'm gonna go see what Pink's up to; maybe see if she wants to do the Challenge game and stuff."

"'Kay," JC nodded at him, swivelling in his chair, then lunged for the spot Lance had vacated on the couch. "Dude, you left your cell phone," he said, salvaging it from a cushiony death among the pillows. "You'd be tearin' your hair out in, like, five minutes," he scolded Lance, tossing it to him handily.

"Uh-huh," Lance said absently, making sure that the phone was off before shoving it into his front jeans pocket.

"Be careful," JC added, when he turned to go. Lance stopped and tried very hard not to look guilty or like he wanted to get laid.

"What?"

"With the phone," JC said, waving his hand at Lance's crotch, and Lance glanced down instinctively. "You're like a space cadet tonight, so don't leave it in Pink's dressing room or something accidentally. You sure you don't want your PalmPilot?" he said, already standing and facing in the general direction of Lance's backpack.

"No! No, I'm good," Lance said, and fled.

Five years of casual dating, he thought, moving his phone from his front pocket to his back as he walked, and he couldn't even go to secretly make out with his opening act without feeling like a criminal.

Pink wasn't really his type, Lance thought, and that made it really weird to be kind of sort of dating her. He didn't date girls like her, normally; he liked blond girls, kind of quiet girls, sweet girls. He didn't feel the need to be chivalrous with the girls he dated, but he liked them to not mind, at least, if he tried to open a door for them, or field the bill for dinner.

The first time he took her on a real date, a few days after hooking up, Pink elbowed him in the stomach when she passed him holding the door for her, kicked him constantly under the table with her pumps, and looked at him strangely across their dinner plates when he called for the check.

He gave her a strange look back. "What?"

"Um. Don't do that again," she said carefully.

She was a big fan of early Motown, soul stuff, Lance learned; of Sam Cooke and Otis Redding, and Sam and Dave, and the Supremes before they were Diana Ross and the Supremes. The first few times they hung out, Lance spent most of it mentally thanking Joey for indoctrinating him into the world of early '60's vocal groups.

"Ah, so it's not just country," Pink commented, sitting back on his bed, when she reached the alt.rock portion of his CD collection. "I didn't figure you for a Pearl Jam fan."

"I'll listen to anything," he told her, sitting down next to her, one hand on the small of her back. Her shirt hitched up in the back and his fingertips brushed her skin above the waist of her jeans.

"Yeah?" She flipped open the CD booklet to his Beach Boys compilation CD and pointed at it accusingly. "Obviously."

Lance cringed. "That's Joey's, I think," he said, then added, "why? You didn't like Kokomo?" He leaned in and touched his forehead to her shoulder, brushing her arm with his lips. "Aruba, Jamaica," he sang softly, the fine hairs on her skin tickling him when he breathed. "Oooh, I wanna take ya--"

"Don't," she said, slightly sing-songing, leaning away from his mouth, and hissed her teeth; but she pulled her arm free and wrapped it around him anyway. "You just wanna keep me from makin' fun of your bad music."

"It's Joey's bad music," Lance protested, kissing her neck, and smiled when she turned toward him and kissed him back. He looped his hands around her waist and kissed her and didn't stop until the sound of his CD case slipping from her lap startled them both apart, laughing.

"How many of Pink's soundchecks are you gonna sit through?" Joey asked him one day, shuffling down the row to meet Lance where he sat, slouched in his seat with a bottle of water, track pants swishing as he swung one leg back and forth.

Lance shrugged. "She's good," he said lamely, and she was. She had that throaty soulful passionate voice that he envied in JC, and put it to good use in every number, and how could he explain to Joey that he just liked to listen to her, because he always missed her shows? He peeked at Joey sideways. "Are you gonna stick around and watch?"

Joey made a noncommittal sound as he folded down the chair next to Lance and sat. "Just for a sec," he said, sighing as he propped his feet up on the chair back ahead of him. Onstage, Pink was tucking the bottom of her shirt up into the bottom of her bra, saving herself from the heat and exposing a long sleek line of stomach in the process. Lance slouched down lower in his seat and made a production out of taking a swig from his bottled water.

When he looked up, Joey was watching him, amused. "See something you like?" He waggled his eyebrows and nudged Lance's shoulder playfully.

Lance watched Pink make a slow travel from one end of the stage to the other, and debated telling Joey. He'd sort of wanted to keep it to himself for a while, but he wasn't sure why. But this was also Joey, and if there was anyone he wouldn't hide his dating experiences from, it was him. "Um. We're kinda dating," he said in a rush of air, and snuck a glance at Joey. "Is that cool?"

Joey made a face like he was going to have to think about it, then burst into a grin. "You and Pink?" he said. "She your type?"

It was easier than Lance had thought, keeping it a secret; people simply didn't link the two romantically in their minds. So he and Pink went to the mall together on off-hours, and necked in emptied movie theatres while security sat one row back. When Pink wanted to flirt with danger, she convinced him to go without the security, buying tickets to a matinee while he held the bangs of his horrendous wig out of his eyes. "When they can't see my hair, nobody has a clue who I am, so," she explained, shrugging, right after she told the cashier that the tickets were for her and "my lesbian partner Michelle," gesturing to Lance while he tucked in his chin and tried not to look sick.

"You're crazy," he told her, already bubbling into laughter after they turned the corner. He leaned heavily on her back when she doubled over and pounded on the wall to punctuate her glee.

"And you're laughin'," she pointed out.

There was a grainy photograph of them, security in tow, eating in a mall food court inset on the cover of a tabloid one morning, talking about their 'new-found friendship', and the next week they went to a basketball game and sat in the thick of the crowd without touching for the entire game. It was stupid, Lance thought. They didn't seem to know how to sneak around properly, and when they forgot, nobody really cared anyway.

Back at the hotel Lance said just that. "Nobody thinks a girl like you'd be dating a guy like me," he said, watching her move about the room, smoking a cigarette and taking clips out of hair that was too short to need them, leaving them in random places. "It's like we're denying something that nobody'd ever believe in the first place."

"A girl like me wouldn't date a guy like you," Pink informed him, and shrugged, pooling her jeans around her ankles and stepping out of them, barefooted. "Not unless she got to know him, anyway."

"But--" Lance shook his head. "So I'm like, your exception?" He raised his arms when Pink grasped at his shirt and let her pull it up over his head.

Pink shrugged again and put out her cigarette behind him, hopping up into his arms, her shirt tickling his hands when he held her waist steady against him. "I didn't say it was a rule," she said, and opened her mouth when he licked at her lips, tasting sweet despite the smoke. Her arms crossed so far behind his head that her fingers dusted his shoulders on the opposite sides. "You're just not my type."

Type or not, Lance thought later, as he thrust against her and she hooked her ankle just above his calf, supporting herself against the wall, Pink had a stud in her tongue, and that was really sexy. They had sex with her shirt on, Pink squirming soft and hot and pliant beneath him, and Lance decided that his type of girl was Pink now, easy. He gasped into the hollow of her neck in stuttered little breaths when he came, and she smoothed down his hair gently, petting him until he fell asleep.

"Hey, Lance, you seen my-- oh, hey," JC said to Pink when he walked in on her, sitting across from Lance with her feet next to his lap in the Toy Room. "How are you? You seen my bag, Lance?"

"Um, no," Lance barely looked up from his laptop. "But I think Justin and Chris were screwin' around on the couch before, so you might wanna check there."

"Okay." JC started to turn away and Lance watched him to see if he'd do anything. "Um, is she--"

"I'm taking a letter," Pink said, pantomiming filing her nails, and cracked her gum loudly, and Lance snickered, because the cat's eye glasses she was wearing made her look like she might be the worst secretary in the world. "For my boyfriend here."

"Oh." JC furrowed his brow and waved a finger back and forth between them. "So you two are--"

"Togethah," Pink said, faux-Brooklynite. Lance nodded vigorously.

"Okay," JC said. "Okay, that's. Good." He didn't seem to know whether he wanted to leave them be or stay and get his things.

Pink pointed. "Bag's in that chair; is that one yours?"

JC went to look, and that seemed to melt him. "Oh, yeah -- thanks! Aw, man, thanks a lot." He bent to kiss her on the cheek and tapped Lance's knee when he stepped over her to brush past. "That is cool -- you two," he said, and left, taking his bag with him.

"You know, I could take a letter," Pink volunteered after Lance had been perusing emails for another moment. "Theoretically. I read a bit about stenography, you know."

He hadn't known. "Really?" he asked, rubbing at his chin absently, and she nodded. "You any good at it?" he continued, even though he could type forty words per minute and didn't need to compose a message at the time anyway.

"I don't know," Pink admitted. "I've never had to take a letter before." She dropped her legs from beside Lance and leaned forward. "You want me to take a letter?"

"Now?"

"Yeah!" she crossed the divide and sat down next to him. "Just something little, like to your mom or something. No big words or nothing."

Lance felt a smile tug at his lips. "Okay," he said, while she sprang off the couch to scrounge for a pad and pen. "Um. Okay. 'Dear Mom'," he started, when she'd come back to sit again. "Um. 'I met this girl on the tour. I think--'"

"Wait," Pink stopped him. "I don't know 'girl'."

"Oh..." he thought about it. "Do you know 'woman'?"

She hesitated. "I'll just write out 'girl'. Go 'head."

"Uh... I met a girl, um..." Lance tried to remember his train of thought. "'I think she's very talented. She sings real well and--'"

"Okay, you know what?" Pink sighed. "Stenography isn't really good for personal letters."

"It's okay," Lance told her, slipping an arm around her shoulders when she slouched back in frustration. "Can I finish my letter anyway?"

Pink smiled and hummed contentedly. "Go 'head."

Lance rested his head back on the couch. "'She sings real well and she even knows how to do stenography. Isn't that cool? I think she's the greatest. Love, your son.'" He looked over at her, her head tipped in to his shoulder and her eyes closed, barely smiling. "Did you get all that down?"

"I got it," she replied softly, as Justin meandered in and plopped down across from them.

"Hey, what're you guys doing?" he asked in greeting. "Anything important?"

"My girlfriend's taking a letter," Lance said, jerking his thumb at Pink. He thought he might be in love.

They had Pink flip a coin to decide what team she'd play on for the Challenge For The Children basketball game. Lance would never have rigged it, but when she got Knights and squealed and jumped and hugged him, her arms tight around his neck, he couldn't believe he'd left the possibility of that happening up to chance. Chris watched them, a half-smile spread over his face in stunned amusement, and kept saying, "seriously? You guys are together? You two. Seriously?"

"They can't honestly ever let you play, can they?" Pink asked Lance, when he pulled her onto the bus before soundcheck. "I mean, have they seen you play?"

"You know, it's people like you that picked me last in gym class," he told her over his shoulder as he lead her to the back lounge.

"Yeah, but -- have they seen you play?" she asked, grinning.

"Everybody gets to go in at least once," he explained, and let her pull him down on the divan with her. "I've made shots before, you know."

"Oh my God, you're so cute when you lie!" Pink said.

"Hey," Justin said, coming to sit beside him while he signed checks. He settled himself gingerly onto the pillows of the couch so as not to disturb Lance, and groaned loudly when he stretched.

"Hey," Lance said, looking up and smiling before he bent low over a slip again.

"So," Justin said. "You and Pink, things are going really well?"

"Um," Lance looked up again and nodded. "We have a lot of fun together. She's like. A really cool friend, and," he shrugged. "There's just. More, with her, you know?"

"Yeah," Justin smiled, bobbing his head enthusiastically. "I know," he said, and Lance realized that yeah, Justin would probably know more than any of them. "This leg of the tour ends in a few weeks," Justin continued, as though it had just occurred to him.

Lance froze. "Uh-huh?"

"So, um. Are you guys just gonna chill after that, or do you think you're gonna try for something more?"

Lance studied the check in front of him, the elaborate FreeLance logo in the corner of the paper and his signature half-complete. He'd have to remember to add the decorative slashes, or they'd think it was a forgery. "Um. I don't know."

Justin rubbed his back encouragingly. "I'm gonna tell you the same thing you told me when I said I didn't know about Brit," he said. "Don't just let this go. I mean, talk to her about it -- you never know."

"Um," Lance said, feeling a little sick suddenly. His blood was pounding in his ears, the beginning of a monster headache. "I'm gonna. I have to. sign these. before the show. So."

"Right, okay." Justin leaned heavily on his shoulder when he stood up to go. "Nothing more important than that right now."

"Okay. Okay, um. Okay-- oh, I got one! Angelina Jolie."

"Ange--" Lance started to repeat, then wrinkled his nose as he turned to look up at Pink. "Angelina Jolie?"

Pink unclasped her hands from around his chest to gesture crudely. "It's the tits, man. I want 'em."

Lance laughed and lay back down. "You could always get implants or somethin'," he said.

"I don't want implants," she told him. "Why, you don't like my tits the way they are?"

"That's not what I--"

"'Cause I didn't hear you complainin' last night, mister 'can I fu--'"

"They're fine the way they are," Lance said, turning over and forcing her down on her back. He traced them with his hands and kissed her before easing back up. "Fine. Angelina Jolie." He thought for a minute. "Brad Pitt," he said.

Pink chuckled.

Lance raised an eyebrow. "Oh, you can go gay for Angelina Jolie, but I can't profess my lust for Brad Pitt."

"No," Pink said. "I'm just laughin' because my boyfriend lusts after the weirdest looking leading man out there."

"He's not weird looking," Lance argued, then frowned. "You know, I'm weird looking," he said.

"You're pretty, danceboy," she said, and reached up and passed her fingers through his hair. "A... weird... kind of pretty."

Lance scowled. "Brad Pitt," he said stubbornly, and Pink nodded.

"Okay, Brad Pitt. We're fucked up, you realize this?"

"Yes," Lance nodded.

Someone knocked on the door. "What?" Lance shouted.

"You guys decent in there?" Chris yelled through the door.

"Yeah," Pink yelled back, at the same time Lance yelled, "We're fucking like bunnies!" He got up off of the bed and moved to open the door anyway.

"Okay, word to the wise," Chris told him when he'd been let in. "If you're fucking like bunnies and your girlfriend doesn't seem to realize it, you're doing something wrong."

Lance ignored him. "Anything we can do for you?" he asked instead, crawling back over Pink and flopping down on her lap again.

Chris glowered at him. "You stole," he said pointedly, "my Steelers jersey. From the photo shoot."

Lance sat up, his mouth open in shock. "That wasn't yours! Wardrobe gave me that!" he protested.

"Wardrobe," Chris muttered, "made a grave mistake." He strode across the room and pointed to Lance's luggage. "You packed it already?"

Lance shook his head. "It's hanging behind the bathroom door," he said. "I didn't wash it," he informed Chris.

"All the better to sell on E-Bay, my dear," Chris responded, lifting the hanger off of the door and stripping the jersey from it. He made a big show of lifting the sleeve to his nose and inhaled deeply, coughing when he did. "Smells like teen spirit," he said, and Lance gave him the finger while Pink laughed at them. Chris just waved them off. "I'll just let y'all get back to... not knowing if you're fucking like bunnies or not," he said. "And luggage call in fifteen," he reminded them as he closed the door behind him.

Lance was trying to think of means of revenge when Pink jolted him out of his thoughts. "Janet Jackson," she said, and he looked back and up at her.

"Hey-- no," he said. "I want Janet. Everybody wants Janet, man. You can't just. You can't pick Janet!"

"Yeah, well-- newsflash," Pink replied. "You can't go gay for Janet. That would make you, um, straight." she smacked his shoulder. "Janet's on my list. Your turn."

"Well, I'd go straight for Janet Jackson, then," Lance said.

"'Kay, that's-- you--" Pink sat up a little bit. "Look; do I have to explain the rules to you again?"

"I went straight for you," Lance said, "and I'd go straight for Janet Jackson."

They didn't have their first fight until they tried breaking up, two weeks before the game and the end of the leg.

"So I'm thinkin' maybe we should call it quits," Pink said solemnly, out of the blue, as Lance packed his suitcase, and he paused, mid-fold of a t-shirt.

"What?"

Pink shrugged, averting her gaze. "You and me," she said. "I mean, I'm not gonna be on the tour forever," she continued, "and then what? I go home, and you go back on tour, and." She waved a hand. "Then it's, like, over. So why wait 'til then? Why not just end it on a good note now?"

Lance tossed the shirt on top, and took a breath that wasn't a gulp, but close. "You want," he began slowly, "to break up before the tour's over so we don't have to break up after the tour's over?" Pink nodded. "That's." he tucked in his chin. "Does that make sense to you?"

"Look," she said, reaching over and patting his hand. She looked as though she might cry. "You know how long distance things don't work out. I mean, what we have here? Would it work if we weren't on the same tour, seein' each other every day?"

"Of course it wouldn't!" he responded, throwing his hands up. "Isn't that the point? We wouldn't even have hung out, probably, if you weren't on the tour."

"Right," Pink said, mimicking his gesture. "Exactly. So what the hell are we doing here? Do you even think hookin' up was a good idea?"

"I mean," he sighed. "If you don't wanna," he shrugged. "I dunno, stay together after the tour--" he shook his head-- "we don't have to. But can't-- you know. It can wait."

"I don't think we should wait," she said simply, her face red.

Fucking A, Lance thought. He was not going to beg for this. He was not going to beg for this. "You wanna break up, fine," he muttered, and snatched the tee from his suitcase again, rolling it rather than folding it, and shoving it down the side of the bag. "Maybe it's not too late to switch teams for the game."

She pursed her lips, her brow furrowing, distressed. "Why would I wanna do that?"

Now it was his turn to shrug. "So you don't have to spend any more time with me than you need to," he said.

"Well, I mean, now--"

"I mean, whatever," he said, and rubbed at his forehead, pressing at wrinkles he knew were appearing there left, right, and center. "This was just some casual thing, wasn't it? I mean, it wasn't gonna last anyway, right?"

"I just. I didn't want it to go like this," Pink said sullenly, and flung an arm across herself, wiping at her eyes with her other hand.

Lance sighed heavily, wanting to cry himself. "How did you want it to go?" he asked. "What did you want me to say? No?"

"No," Pink said, her voice thick. "You called it casual."

"You're the one who broke up with me!" Lance said. "How easy is it to just. Break up with somebody like that? That's pretty fucking casual, Alecia." They both flinched alike at that, but he didn't feel right using a friendly nickname when he wasn't feeling particularly friendly.

"I did it so it'd be easier instead of later," she protested.

"I'm agreeing with you," he replied, folding his arms. "Way easier right now, huh?"

"It's not like I want to break up--"

"I don't either," Lance told her.

"I like you a lot, okay, you asshole?" Pink sniffled and wiped at her eyes again, frustrated. "I probably love you. It'd be my fucking luck."

Lance blinked.

"I don't want this to be, you know, over, when the tour is," she went on. "I just think it would suck, and I don't wanna have to deal, and I just." She sniffled again, her face not so much blotchy and red as it was agitated and desperate. "We could call it a day and maybe it'd suck a little less."

"It's sucking a lot right now," Lance declared, and added, "I don't want to think of this as casual at all, you know? 'Cause, I mean. I'm probably." He felt a little sick, the weird, twisted, anxious way he got when things were on the line. The way he'd felt when Justin had brought this up with him before. "Would you freak out if I said I thought I loved you, too?"

"Probably?" Pink murmured, and turned her head to rest her cheek on Lance's chest when he reached out and pulled her to him. "God, we broke up too late, didn't we?" Her breath tickled his sleeve and left its imprint, damp and warm, against his skin when she let out a shuddery breath.

"Probably," Lance agreed.

"So what are we doing after the tour?" she asked him.

"I don't know," Lance said carefully, making a concerted effort not to think about it. "But I don't think breaking up'll work very well in two weeks, either."

Lance had never had make-up sex before, but everything they said about it being the best was true.

It was weird, Lance thought, having Pink's manager father on the road with them, when Pink's manager father had the same name as Lance's own dad.

It was weirder when Pink's manager father approached him while he was on the phone and made the universal gesture for 'can I have a minute?' Okay, weird and a little scary, he thought, cutting the call short with platitudes and a promise to call back later. He'd seen what his dad could do to Stacy's prospective dates, back when she was in high school, and Lance didn't even want to think of what his dad would have done if he'd thought Stacy was having sex with any of them. Jim Moore probably knew that Lance and Pink were having sex, and oh my God, Lance thought, Jim Moore probably knew that Lance and Pink were having sex.

"I'm not gonna give you a fatherly lecture, Lance," Jim told Lance first thing when Lance joined him one of the stadium aisles. "I've seen Alecia make all kinds of decisions and I've seen her make all kinds of mistakes, and I know better than to get involved with whatever she wants to do."

Lance nodded, smiling in the best non-threatening way he could. "Okay," he said.

"I just thought, since you two seem to be spending a lot of time together," Jim went on, "that I should let you know that while I'm not going to tell Alecia what to do -- and I do think you're a positive thing for her -- I will break your back if you hurt her." He squeezed the back of Lance's neck affectionately. "Just between you and me."

Jim Bass couldn't have said it better.

The day of the Challenge game, Pink answered her door wearing a red bandana.

Lance pointed at her, confused. "What. um."

Pink shrugged and let him in. "I have roots," she explained. "I didn't wanna mess with it."

He frowned. "But I thought you get that taken care--"

"Yeah, well, I didn't go to get it done yesterday, all right?" She was picking up things and moving them absently around the room, not actually putting anything away. "I wasn't feeling well."

"Oh, are you--" he reached out for her shoulder.

"I'm on the rag, don't touch me," she snarled, and Lance avoided shrinking back in fear by determination alone.

Once she felt better on the court, Pink stayed close at hand, and Lance tried not to be too conspicuous about talking to her on the sidelines, tried to be charitably flirty with everyone on his team, tried to delegate his time wisely. This was a chance to network, the business side of his brain screamed at him -- not to soak up public time with his girlfriend. He spent a lot of time trying to look nonchalant when all he did was miss her, and she wasn't even gone yet.

When he was rotated out, Lance took up a spot on the floor, sprawling out so that nobody would sit next to him. Eventually Pink flopped down beside him and stretched out, her head on his thigh. The back of her neck was hot and sweaty from play, and when she squirmed up to get more comfortable, her back was more of the same.

"Hi," Lance said, amused, while she wriggled. "Comfortable?"

"Oh, I'm doin' great," Pink replied, and flashed him a grin, wrinkling her nose. "I just found the best pillow, oh my God--"

"And I get the floor," Lance pointed out.

"You can sit on me if you want," she offered blandly.

It wasn't a good time to tell her that between the white and the red on her uniform and bandana, it really brought out the blue in her eyes. Lance sighed haughtily. "No, I couldn't," he murmured, and glanced up, aware of the press' presence, and wished that he could kiss her forehead.

Pink left for home after the next show, the last of that leg, and gave Lance a watery smile at the airport, after complaining about everything on the way down. "I mean, Jesus," she'd said, squeezing his arm anxiously in the car. "Do you have to go fuckin' seventy? Are you in a hurry? 'Cause I'm thinking I'd like to get to the airport alive," and "did you see that motherfucker? Did you see how he just about got us killed?" and "are you tired? I'm not sure I want you driving me anywhere anymore. Can I drive? Just pull over here and let me drive."

"I swear to God, Alecia," he'd said, "if I pull over it's gonna be to strap you to the roof."

"Shit," she said now, from behind large sunglasses, idly swaying her carry-on back and forth against her thigh, "weren't we supposed to talk about this or something?"

They were, and they hadn't, and Lance prided himself very much on his avoidance to date. "We can talk about it when you call me," he said practically. "When you get back home."

"'Course," Pink nodded. "'Cause it's not like we won't talk or anything, right?"

"We're gonna talk a lot," Lance said.

"Right."

"I'm gonna miss you a lot," he said. "On the second leg. And um, at home."

"Yeah, well." Her mouth twisted oddly and she turned her head away, still nodding. "It's all good. I'll call you. I'll call."

She pecked his cheek softly when they hugged briefly, after the air-kiss for show, and after she'd left Lance's collar smelled of her perfume, of flowery citrus fruit. He played Solitaire on his laptop and called his mom and generally felt sorry for himself, making her talk to him until he had to board his own flight.

"Baby, you know it's love when you hurt to be away from her," his mother told him, calm and reasoned and sure in her declaration.

It didn't make him feel any better.

They didn't talk a lot, though, not the way Lance had thought they would; for all his business calls, he was averse to long conversations on the phone and so, it turned out, was Pink. They spent a lot of time watching television together, Lance spoiling every series they watched for her due to the time difference. Not that they enjoyed watching the same things anyway.

"It's really funny," he told her, when he was trying to sell her on Friends, "the way Chandler and Monica are dating, but didn't want anybody to know about it, 'cause, like, Chandler's really commitment-phobic--"

"Wait," she interrupted. "Which one is Chandler? I've seen, like, one episode. Was he the really dumb one?"

Lance frowned. "No. No, I think you're thinkin' Joey. But see, the thing about Chandler and Monica--"

"Did you just diss Joey?" Pink asked. "Or is there a Joey on the show you're talking about?"

"There's a Joey on the show," Lance said. "But the thing is, they're like these total opposites--"

"Your Joey and the Joey on the show?"

"Who?"

"Are total opposites. Your Joey and Joey on the show are total opposites?"

"You're fucking with me, aren't you," Lance said.

"And loving it." She was grinning, he could just tell. She was totally grinning at his expense.

"We're just like Chandler and Monica," Lance said, "and you'll never understand."

"No, I understand," Pink said. "I'm Chandler to your Monica. I'm readin' between the lines, baby."

"Exactly," Lance said.

Pink came up and met him in New York to judge for his FreeLance talent search on MTV, and Lance couldn't believe it hadn't even been a month since he'd seen her. "I'm totally gonna send you something cool for your birthday," he told her, lips closing around her earlobe and carefully licking around the stud she was wearing. It just wasn't the same as licking the one in her tongue at all. "For doing all this for me."

"This wasn't a business trip, Bass," she responded, sliding her hands into his back pockets and pulling him closer.

She smoked and sang to herself and watched television and flipped through her own book of lyrics while he studied the biosheets of his finalists. "If I asked you your honest opinion on any of these before the show," he asked, prompting her to look up, pen in one hand and cigarette in the other, "that would be tainting the pool, wouldn't it."

"And how." Pink nodded, and took a drag, exhaling through the side of her mouth, away from him.

"I wouldn't ask you, though," Lance said. "Even though I really trust your judgement and it would be a totally professional opinion. Because it would taint the pool."

Pink put down her pen. "Do you want my professional opinion on one of your people, Lance?"

"No, it'd taint the pool," he said.

"Well, then, in my professional opinion you should shut up," Pink said, but she ran her fingertips down the side of his face when she said it.

Lance sat perfectly still, watching her smoke and write, notebook propped up against her knees, gorgeous and slumming in his jeans and a bra. "Your mama should shut up," he said.

Pink closed her book with a snap, pen sliding to the middle. "Oh, it's about my mama, now?" she said, and crawled over him, half-grinning. "Yo' mama's so ugly, when she goes to the zoo, the monkeys clear a space for her."

He swiped the bios aside and grasped her hips lightly as she settled into his lap, his thumbs sweeping over her stomach. She was all flowers and fruit and pale and smooth, and her hands were pretty and pressed against his chest. He wanted to kiss her eyes closed and drop butterfly kisses on her cheeks and take her out dancing and teach her the two-step. "Your mama's so fat, when she sits around the house, she really sits around the house," he said.

She laughed, hunching her shoulders, and stretched out over him. "That's Vaudevillian," she told him, snorting. "That's an eighty-fucking-year old joke."

"Sorry, I got distracted," Lance said. He loved Pink a lot.

[back]