Chapter 17
The ten days of sun and crystal blue water in Fiji had given Lance a solid foundation of faith to build on.
They’d made JC glow.
He’d done what he’d set out to do, given Lance a measure of peace beyond what he’d hoped for, and if possible fallen in love with him all over again in the process. The happiness he felt from accomplishing that sat beautifully upon him.
He quite literally, as Lance watched him work their crowded living room, shone.
It made Lance smile, and then chuckle when Roy sidled over to him to ask, “Did you plug him in tonight or something?”
“No, sir. I think he’s –”
“Happy,” Roy supplied. “I know my boy and he only looks
like that when he’s truly happy.” Roy turned to Lance. “Thank you for that. It’s
been a while since I’ve seen him look like that.”
“I didn’t –”
“Sure you did.”
“Well, maybe a little,” Lance conceded, “but I think a lot of it has to do with Tony calling to ask him to produce his new album.”
“A bit, yep, and I’m sure that having those he loves most all in one place has something to do with it, as well, but the major part of it,” Roy swung an arm companionably over Lance’s shoulders, “is you. He’s happy because of you.”
“I …” Lance looked up to catch JC watching them, a brilliant smile gracing his handsome face and accepted, “Okay, maybe a little.”
Roy laughed, a full out belly laugh and Lance found himself joining in. He sobered abruptly when he looked up to find his father standing in front of them.
“Lance.” Jim nodded briefly at his son before turning to hold a hand out to JC’s father. “Roy.”
“Jim.” Roy took the offered hand after a brief internal struggle. He also kept his arm around Lance, offering support and comfort as he did. “It’s been some time since I’ve seen you.”
“Yes, well they’re not exactly kids anymore are they, who need their parents hovering about.”
“True,” Roy agreed. “Still, I’ve never known a child to be so grown up that they don’t need their parents now and again.” Roy’s eyes cut deep. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
Jim’s smile tightened, “Hmm.”
An uneasy silence descended over the trio until JC’s brother came over to drag Roy away, leaving Lance and his father alone.
“So,” Lance began, only to have his father turn on his heel and walk away without a word.
Lance laughed – it was either that or cry – and felt the
happy bubble he’d been carrying with him since their return from the island
burst. Badly in need of a drink, he made his way over to the bar and ordered
whiskey, straight up. He saluted the bartender with the glass, tossed it back,
ordered another and then, waiting, tuned in to the conversation of the two men
standing with their backs to him.
“He is so fucking hot.”
Lance tilted his head so that he could see who they were talking about, JC.
“Too bad he’s not gay,” the man sighed.
“Oh, but he is,” his companion responded. “It seems pretty Mr. Chasez finally figured things out not that long ago. Or so I hear through the grapevine.”
“Well, isn’t that convenient?”
“It would be, if he were single. He’s not.”
“Well, shit, who beat me to him?”
“None other than our star of the evening, Mr. Bass.”
“Interesting.”
“Why is that?”
Yeah, Lance thought, why is that?
“Well, you know how newbies are, they either jump right in or start within their comfort zone. JC’s obviously chosen from within his comfort zone. Which means, my friend, that once he hits his stride, he’ll be wondering what else is out there and he’ll start cruising.” The man grinned at his friend. “And I will just have to make sure that I’m smack dead in his path when he does.”
The two men laughed, completely unaware of the havoc they were wrecking on Lance’s already battered spirit.
JC wasn’t going to stick; they were right, and he’d known it from the beginning. Lance was stupid to believe that what they had was real; to think that anything had changed; and to hope that tonight would be different, and his father would treat him as if he were anything but something repulsive he’d found on the bottom of his shoe.
Grabbing the third drink the bartender had placed beside him, he plowed a path through to the kitchen, wanting out.
Out of the house; out of his life; out.
He nearly ran his mother down in his single-minded pursuit of his goal. She tried to stop him, but he was having none of it, and so she followed him, through the kitchen, out the back door, and into the night.
“Lance, stop. Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”
“Leave me alone, Mamma. Leave me be.”
“I will most certainly not. You’re upset.”
That was it, Lance had had it, and he rounded on her, making her gasp and take a step back.
“I’ve been upset for eleven years, Mamma. You’re just now noticing?” He paced away and then turned back. “How could you? How could you, Mamma? You knew how he treated me. I was sixteen years old and you knew, but you never stopped him. He hurt me, Mamma. He hurt me and you stood by and let it happen. I hate you for that.”
“Lance!”
They both started at Jim’s bellow, and then Lance found himself face to face with a furious male.
“Don’t you dare speak to your mother like that.”
He cowered away, much as he had as a child, but it was only for a second and then it was Jim who was on the receiving end of eleven years of fury.
“Don’t you dare touch me.” Lance shoved his father hard enough to have him stumbling several steps back. “Don’t you dare to touch me again. Ever.” Each word was punctuated with a shove until Lance had his father backed against an arbor that he and JC had built together.
“Lance. Lance.” Diane clawed desperately at the hand Lance had clamped on his father’s chest. “Stop. Stop this right now.”
As quickly as his anger had overtaken him, it faded, and Lance let go. He watched, quietly as his mother went about soothing Jim, and he knew, as he always had, whom she’d choose.
Still, the child in him couldn’t help but hold out a hand, “Mamma?”
“We did the best we could by you, Lance. If your father was hard on you, it was only because he wanted the best for you.”
Lance let his hand drop into his lap.
“I expect you to apologize to your father, Lance.”
“No,” he whispered, his head bent. When he looked up at her gasp, his expression was blank. “I won’t apologize, not to him, and not to you.” He rose, and stepped away from them. “What I will do is ask you to leave.”
His mother blanched. “We’re your family, Lance.”
“No,” he shook his head. “No, you’re not. Not anymore. I’m done with both of you. I want you to leave, and I don’t want you to come back, not ever.”
His mother began to cry, but she went without a word of protest when his father took her arm and led her back inside.
Lance sank to the bench, wrapped his arms around his waist and began to rock.
He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. All he knew was that he needed to get away from here, to get in his car and drive to anywhere, to nowhere.
There was nothing left for him here. There was nothing but emptiness, around him, inside him, for him.
His parents were gone, and if JC wasn’t yet, he would be soon.
Those guys in there were right, his father was right, he wasn’t good enough, he was never going to be good enough and there was no reason for him to stay, no reason for him to try – until he turned and saw Roy standing at the kitchen window and caught his eye.
There was an understanding there that almost brought Lance to his knees. It was the same look that Lance had seen him give his son on numerous occasions.
It said, ‘I’m here for you if you need me, no matter what.’
It was one of the things that Lance had been jealous of the most; JC’s parents unconditional acceptance, and now Roy was offering it to him, what his parents should, but wouldn’t. What he didn’t know was whether that signaled a lack in him or in them?
Lance could almost hear Roy answer; ‘Them.’
Them.
They couldn’t accept or deal with who Lance was and that was their issue, not his. There was nothing wrong with him.
Nothing. Wrong. With. Him.
Something must have shown on his face because Roy nodded and then tilted his head almost as if to say; ‘Well?’
It was then that Roy’s words from earlier, ‘He’s happy because of you,’ echoed in Lance’s head.
Could that honestly be true? Was he really responsible for the way JC had looked tonight, and if he were, what would it do to JC if Lance were to walk away from him without a word?
Would he feel the same way as Lance had tonight as he’d watched his parents turn from him? Because whether he had sent them away or not, they had been the ones to turn from him and it had hurt. It still did.
Was that what he wanted, to cause JC that kind of pain? No, Lance violently shook his head, God, no.
He needed to think and so he turned from the house, and Roy. The cliffs called to him, but he didn’t want to risk trying to find his way through the woods in the dark, so he settled for a slow amble through the garden.
It humbled him a bit that his first inclination had been to run. Lately, he’d been doing so much better, and it scared him how quickly tonight that he’d reverted back to the old, unsure Lance.
Except – except, that this time he thought that he could beat the feelings back before they had the chance to overcome him.
He’d stood up to his father – though the loss of his mom left him feeling hollow – and that made him feel better about himself than he had in a long while.
There was freedom in knowing that he had taken a stand and that he had done it alone.
It hit him then as he stared up into the star-studded sky, that this was what JC had been talking about when he’d tried to explain to Justin that some things he’d simply had to do on his own.
What Lance had done tonight had been for him – finally, for him. He’d said what he’d needed to, made a decision that he’d been putting off for far too long, pulled on strength he hadn’t known he possessed, and he was still here, still whole, and thinking clearer than he had in a very long time.
At least he was now.
He hadn’t run. He’d wanted to, but he hadn’t.
That said something about him, he thought. Something that he hadn’t let himself think in a very long time.
He wasn’t worthless, or a quitter, or wrong for being whom and what he was. That was his father’s issue, not his.
Lance stopped and looked toward the house again. Roy was still there. That said something, too, about the man and his son. The son who was so much like him.
They both stuck, no matter what. He’d known that, but for the first time as he walked towards the window where they now both waited, he truly believed it.