CHAPTER 5

The bell rang an hour later. Lance and Chris were still in their room, apparently getting ready, although JC could have sworn he heard some suspicious sounds a while ago.

Putting the last dish on the table, he wiped his hands off on his jeans and moved to open the door. He said a little prayer for patience before opening the door.

"Hey, was 1934 a good year for Pol Roger? Because the guy at the shop store said it was, and I have no idea about this shit."

JC noticed that Justin Timberlake, dressed in a tight dark blue sweater and black pants was looking at the wine bottle in his hand as he entered and had not seen who had answered the door.

"Yeah, 1934 was a good year. Although so was 1939, which would have cost less than what you paid for that."

Justin's head snapped up and a frown immediately replaced the surprise.
"You? I thought Chris said you were going to disappear for tonight."

"Well, too bad for you and me, the rain had other plans for us," JC said, closing the door and ignoring how good Justin looked and smelled.

"Great. So what? You're going to hang around here and be the fifth wheel? That's kind of pathetic, isn't it?" Justin asked, putting the wine bottle on the table.

JC wished Lance was here to hear what the jerk was saying. It wasn't fair! He was playing nice! The jerk wasn't!
"Why? Worried that your date might be more interested in me than you?" JC challenged. He knew he promised Lance he would be a good boy but hey! He was only defending himself.

Justin just gave him a deadpan look.
"If he is, then you're welcome to him. Doesn't say much about his taste to me."

Ok, that pinched a bit. JC glared and opened his mouth to retort but was interuppted by Chris.
"Hey Justin, you're here."

JC strode into the kitchen angrily to get himself a cool drink. Not even 5 minutes with that jerk and he was hot under the collar.

Lance entered to help get some glasses and saw JC glaring at a glass of water.
"You ok?"

"No! I hate that guy!" JC hissed.

Lance looked heavenwards and sighed.
"Come on! Can you two just cool it? Please?"

JC ignored Lance's plea and went back into the living room.

Just then the phone rang and Chris answered.
"Yello? Hey, Alex! We are waiting...what? Oh! You ok man? Huh huh. Oh. Sure. Yeah, he's here. Hold on."

Chris looked to Justin.
"Hey it's Alex. Bad news."

Justin frowned and took the call.
"Hello? Hi! Yeah, it's Justin. What's up? Oh. Oh. Umm...yeah, sure. Hey, it's not your fault some guy hit your car. Sure. Yeah, a rain check. It's cool, man. Yeah me too. Sure. Call me. Ok, bye."

Justin hung up the phone and turned to look at Chris and Lance.
"Alex can't make it. He was in an accident."

"Is he ok?" Lance asked.

"Yeah, he's fine. He said he's sorry and will make it up to me some other day," Justin said. "I guess dinner's off then. I'll make a move."

"Come on, we can still have the meal, right? Besides I'm not throwing away all that food. Come, sit," Lance ordered, gesturing to the table.

Justin looked for a few seconds like he was going to object. Then he looked at JC and JC looked back. Both rolled their eyes like petty, tussling children and moved to the table. Lance and Chris made sure to sit between Justin and JC to act as a buffer.

Dinner started and Justin and JC reached for the wine at the same time, their hands touching. However, both refused to let go.

"You said you don't know anything about wine, so let me open it," JC said, pulling at the bottle.

"That doesn't mean I don't know how to open the damn bottle."

"Does it make a difference who opens it? It will be much faster if I do it. Let go."

"If it doesn't make a difference, then let me open it!"

"URGH!!!" Chris yelled, pulling the wine bottle free from both their grasps and stomped into the kitchen. A minute later he was back with the open bottle. He silently and quickly poured it into each of their glasses and sat the empty bottle on the table with a thump. "Now eat!"

Lance hid his smile as he saw Justin and JC began to eat quietly, but not before glaring at the other.

"I'm sorry about Alex, Justin," Lance said, taking a sip of wine. "I know you were looking forward to meeting him."

"It's no big deal. There will a next time, right?" Justin said with a shrug.

"Unfortunately for that guy," JC muttered under his breath.

Justin glared.

"So JC, how's the writing coming?" Chris asked, with a look of warning.

JC continued the conversation as if he had not seen Chris' glare.
"Not so good. But I will work on it tomorrow."

"Are you only going to focus on poetry?" Lance asked.

"Yeah, but this time I'm going to explore hetrosexual erotica too. I'm thinking of adding pictures."

Justin made a rude noise and grabbed his napkin to wipe at his mouth. Swallowing hard, he looked incredulously at JC.
"Erotica? Pictures? What the hell? Are you working in the porn industry or something?"

"For your information, I write poetry! I made the bestsellers list and I also won the Pegasus Book Award!" JC replied, hotly.

"So... what? You're an award winning porn peddler?" Justin asked smirking.

"EROTICA IS NOT PORN!" JC ranted, having heard the very thing from Marshall.

"If it looks like crap and sounds like..."

"You ass...!!"

Lance stood up and hit the table...hard.
"Please! Will the both of you please fucking grow up and act like adults!"

He turned to glare at Justin.
"You! I know you're better than this, Justin! You know how frustrating it is to have your work put down even before being given a chance. So don't you do the very thing you hate that other people do to you."

JC saw Justin's head drop, as if he was ashamed.

"And you!" JC gulped as he saw Lance's green eyes bore down on him. "What's wrong with you? This is not the JC I know so whatever the hell Marshall did to you, get over it!"

JC felt his face flush and he looked down at his plate. He'd never seen Lance that angry before. After all he had promised to behave. Even if Justin had provoked him, he could have turned the other cheek. Plus he had done some of the provoking. JC knew he had to apologise.

"Sorry."

JC looked surprised when he heard another voice synchronise with his. He saw Justin look at him too. They looked away at the same time.

"Ok, then if you mean it, we should be able to finish this meal with civility."

And they did. However, only Lance and Chris held any conversation. JC and Justin just nodded or shook their heads to any question directed at them. After the meal, they all helped clear the table and JC and Lance loaded the dishwater quickly before moving to the living room.

Lance and Chris curled up together on the couch, leaving Justin to fall into one of the two armchairs. JC moved to the stereo, perusing through Chris' album collection to put on some music. He found a unlabelled jewel case with a nondescript cd in it. Curious, he put it into the cd player. Some new Motown jazz music began to flow through the apartment. It wasn't anything he had heard on the radio before.

"This is good stuff. Who is it, Chris?" JC asked as he worked at finishing his glass of wine.

JC noticed Lance and Chris were smiling at Justin.
"I'll give you a clue. The person is in this room and it's not Lance or me."

JC's eyes widened.
"Him?!"

Justin's smirked.
"Yeah me. You've got a problem with that?"

JC looked at Justin for a long minute, then looked down. Ok, he would play honest.
"No. It's...it's good."

Justin looked genuinely surprised by the compliment.

"Good? JC, do you know who he's working with right now? Alicia Keys, dude! Fucking Grammy winning Alicia Keys!" Chris crowed, leaning over to pat Justin on his back.

JC was even more surprised by Justin's blush than by the news.

"It's no big deal," Justin muttered.

"No big deal? Man, that sure is an understated reaction compared to how big a fuss you made when you were first contacted by Ms. Keys," Chris teased. He winked at JC. "You should have seen him! He was running up and down the corridor in just a towel because he had gotten the call while in the shower. It took him one hour to realise that he was half-naked and Mrs. Knight from down the corridor was having an almost heart-attack from seeing Mr. Body Beautiful here.

Justin turned completely pink.

JC, to his horror, found it...cute. Shit.

"Fine, I was excited. I'll admit it. Happy?" Justin muttered, looking at the rest from beneath his eyelashes.

JC blinked hard. Did he really think Justin cute? Damn! He was attracted to Justin Timberlake...the jerk. What was it with him and verbally abusive jerks? This wasn't good.

He felt Justin's eyes on him and looked up to meet them. JC almost shivered.

'Ok, enough of the lusting, JC,'JC told himself.

"Ok, I'm calling it a night. Goodnight," JC said abruptly and excused himself.

"So soon?" Lance asked.

"Yeah, I'm tired."

He heard a smattering of goodnights including, to his surprise, Justin's as he walked to his room.

After a while, he heard the front door close and he knew that Justin had left as well. A part of his mind wondered about his something more than neutral feelings for Justin Timberlake.

'No way. The guy is too much like Marshall. Not going through that shit again. Plus he's probably not even attracted to me judging from the way he acts.'

With that, JC dismissed Justin Timberlake from his mind and went to get his pyjamas and toothbrush.
 

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