it was funny that you lived in L.A. but not really.  you and C had bought houses out here, well, you had bought one with britney, but you never really lived in them.  you lived in hotels and on buses and back at momma's house or wherever else with the other guys.  you escaped to the beach when you could, but you weren't californians by any stretch of the imagination, even though you could talk the talk if need be.  that was no secret -- you never lacked confidence.

it was lance who knew the town -- you called him "hollywood" to prove it -- and that was how you had ended up where you were that night, in the dazzling nothingness of a hollywood nightclub.  there were all sorts of bigshots and stars and starfuckers there, pretty girls in impossible clothing, beautiful boys who made bedroom eyes at everyone there, women and men alike.  you wondered if everyone there was up for any and all things.  then you asked yourself why you were there.

was it because of lance?

could have been, he was there somewhere, schmoozing, making deals, flashing his grin.

you knew all about that, the grin-flash that got you what you wanted: britney, a record deal, fame.  yes, you knew that well, and you weren't afraid to use it.  it took you a second to realize that with your smile, in a different lifetime you could have been one of the starfuckers.

with the sting of the truth of that thought dancing around in your head, your eyes alighted on an impossibly beautiful boy who couldn't have been older than you and, in truth, looked much younger, though he obviously had gotten into the club.  you knew that didn't mean much, but you stopped questioning it when his eyes met yours.

the boy had the bluest eyes you'd ever seen.  they were bluer than yours, and you'd been told time and again how your eyes were so incredibly blue that they made girls swoon.  you'd seen that happen.  you knew your eyes.  you caught sight of them every day in rehearsal mirrors.  and his were better, bluer, more deep, more expressive.  more alluring.

then he looked away.  with eyes like that, my god, what a starfucker, you thought.  you kept on watching him -- secretly you thought -- from across the room, but eventually you scrubbed your hand over your short curls and tore your eyes from him to prove that you could.  for awhile you studied your drink instead.

you thought about how young he looked.  you yourself were still short of 21, not by much, just a few more weeks, but no one cared about that anymore, not in the clubs.  by then your name could already open any door.  you knew it and you used it.

"justin?  justin timberlake?" you turned as you heard your name, and you found yourself lost.

it was him, the one you were eyeing.  the one you'd already dubbed starfucker.

and he was eyeing you.

so you grinned, having already decided that this was what you wanted that night.  you'd answered your own question -- you had come out to L.A. for this.  brit was half a world away and C and the others were gone, gone, gone because it was the holidays and they wanted family while you wanted space.  so you came to L.A. and found yourself there, lost, in this boy's eyes.  and that was exactly what you wanted.

"hi, justin," he said again, mirth in his voice, but it was a low-key, confident mirth and you realized that it could have been you talking like that, if you had wanted it to be.

"hi," you replied, smiling at him and then past him as you tried not to fall any harder than you already had.  you'd already promised yourself you'd never fall like this, but his blue eyes bore into your soul when yours dared to meet his again.  he smiled wider, a grin all at once toothy and bright and genuine.  you were already gone.  you were good and ready to take this one home with you.

and then you realized he was not a starfucker.

he was elijah wood.

and you'd seen him in a thousand movies and you'd been held captive by those blue, blue eyes before and only then did you realize that he knew your name and he came to talk to you.  and you blushed.  you, justin fucking timberlake, god's gift to the world, were blushing.

god you could be such a girl sometimes -- and stupid thinking you could win over elijah fucking wood with just one smile.  starfucker indeed.

part of you still wanted to try your grin-flash on him, see if you could take him home that quickly, but he wasn't some groupie, and you felt that he'd see right through you.  with those eyes?  you didn't doubt he was reading your mind right then.  maybe he wanted to take you home.

you felt once again like a silly, starstruck girl.

but you recovered quickly and the cocky version of you -- the tough kid who shaved his head over the summer to get rid of his freaky curls even though brit loved them and C loved them and you loved them -- came back.  you flashed elijah the "i'm justin timberlake" grin after all and thought about beat-boxing for him, and you talked yourself down off the "i want this blue-eyed boy more than anything ever before" precipice.

well, at least you thought you did.  as you looked in his eyes again, you were dizzy, but still you thought you had won.

but then elijah caught your elbow with his left hand and held you there and said something to the effect of "i was afraid i was the baby in this crowd," with mirth in his eyes once again and you thought damn but his eyes are blue once more and knew you'd follow him anywhere.

he sensed this and led you over to the bar, still smiling and making small talk, and you thought you responded wittily to his banter, though you weren't sure.

so at the bar you drank together, and you loosened up, warming to elijah's sense of humor.  you joked about the farce of being "underage" in your respective businesses, about being the baby in a group, about living under a mom's scrutiny, about wanting nothing more than independence every once in awhile.

and then the talk stopped.  and you stared at each other, each trying to guess at the other's thoughts, maybe even hopes and certainly desires, and then you heard yourself inviting him out to your house that you never lived in.  yes, the one you shared with britney.  yes, the britney that you loved dearly but were no longer in love with, the one who was sort of dating wade, the one who was in new york looking hot for the cameras while you were here, alone.  yes, alone.

as you rambled, elijah smiled.  some form of "i'd love to" escaped his lips and you fell the rest of the way.

as he followed you to your car, all you could think was who's the starfucker now.

in the last set of photos you'd seen of elijah wood, in a magazine article covering his most recent venture, he'd been a mop-topped kid with rosy cheeks and a glint of fear clouding his sparkling blue eyes.  his curly brown locks -- a lot like C's most recent lack-of haircut -- had looked soft and marvelous, and you remembered thinking how beautiful he was in that picture.  too beautiful to be here with me, you thought, certainly selling yourself short, which was funny because you were usually so confident.  when he looked over at you in your bedroom, though his hair was short and dirty blond, the fear-flecked blue was still there in his eyes.

you drew him near you, holding his elbow much as he had first done to you near the bar in the club, and asked him, "why?"

he whispered only one word: "because," and closed the distance between you, covering your lips with his own.

you tasted the pinkness of his mouth, sweet and tart like whatever he'd been drinking, but he was more intoxicating than liquor, and you soon found yourself tangled with him on your bed, painfully aroused.

elijah was in a similar state as he panted against your throat whispering "justin, justin."  as your name graced his lips, you slid a hand across the front of his pants, and when you touched him you found out that he seemed as excited as you felt.  then you eased down his zipper and reached inside.

he rewarded you with a groanish growl and a nip on the neck as you cupped his erection, rubbing it gently as you eased off his pants.  his nips moved down your shoulders to your chest, and he bit gently down on one of your nipples through your shirt.  you let go of him long enough to pull off the outer shirt you were wearing, leaving you in your traditional white wifebeater.

as elijah pulled your hips towards him, and he ground his erection into yours, you felt like you were fourteen years old again fooling around with your best friend after school when no one was looking.  it felt naughty and forbidden and delicious.  as he eased down your pants you felt your face flush, and as his lips closed over your cock, you knew why you'd come home to L.A.  as he sucked your cock, running his tongue over all the right places and using his fingers to explore you everywhere else, you saw stars.  and then you came.  and he swallowed you.  and you plummeted into the bottomless pit of bliss.  and you never wanted it to end.

when he had you hard again, quicker than you could ever remember that happening before, and he was begging you to take him, to enter him, to make him yours, to fuck him, and you wanted it more than anything anyone had ever offered you before, you didn't know what to think.  when you came again, hard, deep inside him, moments after he had come himself, all over the two of you as you lay sprawled across the bed you supposedly shared with britney, you thought this was heaven.  when you slid out of him and he cuddled up to you, breathing impossibly hard but smiling and kissing at your ears, your nose, your forehead, you remembered that you'd felt like a starfucker when you'd left the club.

not anymore.

you lay there with him, shielded by disbelief and pleasure and awe, but he broke through the wall you were trying so desperately to build and said softly, "you've got a birthday in a few weeks."  you nodded though the question was obviously rhetorical  "i do, too," he added, and your mind catapulted you into a twisted fantasy in which the two of you were naked and sweaty and sticky and hot and satisfied and drunk off your asses ... and it was finally legal.  you swallowed your smile and leaned up on and elbow and looked at him, his chest glistening with the sweat of sex and desire, as he continued, "twenty-one, i know.  me too.  we should celebrate."

you didn't know how to respond to that.  you had thought that this couldn't be more, that it must just be this one thing, one night, between you and you were still dazed and awed at what you had done, and any thread of hope regarding a continuation for you --

he cut into your thoughts and said, "you're coming back to L.A. soon, right?" and in his voice there was the fear of loneliness and of having screwed up and of being so young in the impossibly harsh social world that was hollywood.  though an incredibly gifted actor, elijah could not act like he didn't want you there.  he didn't try to hide it from you -- he gave his vulnerability to you freely.

you took it and you smiled.

L.A. all of a sudden seemed a lot more friendly than it had even a few hours before.  all of a sudden you didn't mind that the guys wanted to throw your 21st birthday party in las vegas -- when that happened, you could make a pit-stop in L.A.

at home.

the house that always felt so empty wasn't that way any more.  elijah's blue eyes and bright smile chased away its shadows, and you told him that.  you kissed away the worry that creased his forehead, and, as you kissed him, your own fears and questions, things that you and he all of a sudden shared, melted away.

somehow you knew that together, you and he could make hollywood into home.