Part 3

Josh looked up from the stretch of road that he was driving on and into the rearview mirror and locked eyes with Justin. They stayed that way for a while, the air thick with tension, until Justin wrenched his gaze from Josh’s and Josh was forced to pay attention to the road.

Josh took a deep breath. He should’ve been better prepared for this. He’d had four years to prepare. Then again, therein lay the problem. He had been prepared for Justin at fifteen, not the demigod in the back seat. Not only had Justin gotten taller, clearing the six feet mark, but he’d also thickened out, his chest and shoulders having gotten broader. He’d finally grown into those abnormally large hands and feet that Josh used to tease him about, and had acquired an animal like sensuality. Not that he wasn’t sexy before. But fifteen year old Justin had been sexy and innocent, while this one had a dangerous quality about him. Josh had always been small boned, even on the delicate side, but never had he been as aware of that as when he was standing near Justin in the boy’s driveway before they left Tennessee. Just then the image of Justin fucking him, his larger body blanketing Josh’s as he pressed him into the mattress flickered through his mind and Josh shivered. He looked back into the rearview mirror and back into Justin’s eyes, the gaze so intense that soon Justin shivered too. He pried his eyes away from Justin’s and back to the road. Yeah, hopefully they could explore that fantasy more in depth later.

Josh sighed. Okay, so maybe that was a long shot. He knew he had fucked up with Justin. After his graduation, he’d barely stepped foot into his house before he was greeted by Henry and Cecilia Thomas, and their daughter, Roberta.

Henry Thomas was a big time tycoon like his father. His official business was airlines, but he also owned a huge import/export company and several media outlets, and he was also Josh’s godfather. His daughter, Roberta, or Bobbie as she was known, had just graduated from some boarding school in the Swiss Alps, and was now also heading to Harvard. She was beautiful, accomplished, and completely not Josh’s type.

It was no secret, though that his parents and hers had been planning their wedding since they had been born, and that Bobbie had some sort of feelings for him. She wasn’t in love, no he wasn’t dumb enough to think that, but all those years of planning gave her a sort of proprietary view when it came to Josh, like she had already staked her claim to him. But his father had insisted on Josh showing Bobbie a good time, and well, things just escalated from there. The problem was, once you slept with a girl like Bobbie, you were kind of stuck with her.

Josh, in his eighteen year old stupidity, thought he could have both. Tyler had argued with him, told him that it was going to blow up in his face, but Josh had justified the whole thing to himself. It wasn’t like he was in love with Bobbie or anything; in fact, most times he couldn’t stand her. But dating her would keep his father off his back. And he adored Justin. Justin was everything to him. He simply did not believe that one had to do with the other.

Or, that’s what he tried to convince himself.

The truth was, Josh felt guilty. It was even worse when he got to Harvard and Justin would call him, and Bobbie would be sitting next to him, or worse, lying in bed next to him. Justin asked to come see him a couple of times, and he always had some excuse because he refused to make love to Justin in the bed that he’d just had Bobbie on. The guilt was killing him, and he knew he was pushing Justin away but he didn’t know how else to deal with it.

When he got caught, part of him was relieved. He thought that he and Justin would fight and then Justin would force him to choose. Him or her. And Josh was completely prepared to pick Justin.

What he didn’t count on was for Justin to take himself out of the equation.

He had been miserable for months afterwards, but refused to show it. Outwardly, he was still Josh Chasez, suave, popular, talented, and the boyfriend of Roberta Thomas, while secretly he made hundreds of phone calls to Justin that were unanswered, and wrote dozens of letters that were returned unopened. Then finally Tyler told him that Justin had found a girlfriend too, a cute blonde freshman named Britney who attended St. Anne’s, their sister school. So, Josh gave up and concentrated on Bobbie.

It wasn’t that bad of a relationship. Neither was terribly attached to the other and frequently took other people to their beds. They weren’t that big on fidelity. Plus, Bobbie knew about his bisexuality, and she herself had a thing for other girls, which led to many interesting sexual escapades. They would go to a club and pick up a girl or a guy, or both, and take them to a hotel to have their way with them. Crazily enough, those were the times that Josh felt the closest to Bobbie, which didn’t say much for their relationship. Justin was never far from his mind, but he had decided to leave him alone. That was, until that fateful summer break.

Tyler had been in between the 11th and 12th grades, and Tyler and Bobbie were lounging in Josh’s room, sitting on the plush couch that was situated in a corner, looking through some of Tyler’s photos while Josh sat on his bed, listening to music. Suddenly, Bobbie hummed appreciatively and held up a picture to Tyler.

“Hey, Tyler, who’s this? He’s gorgeous.” She asked, her interest piqued.

Tyler glanced at it and then turned back to the pictures he was looking at. “Oh, that’s Justin.”

“The roommate?” Bobbie questioned.

Tyler nodded. “And best friend. He’s from Tennessee.”

Bobbie brought the picture over to Josh, who was trying to pretend that he hadn’t been listening. “Hey, Josh, did you ever bang the kid?” She knew also, about Josh’s Olmwood activities.

“Who?” He asked, playing dumb.

She rolled her eyes. “Haven’t you been listening? Ty’s roommate! If you have, I want to hear all the details. And maybe one day we can get him to come to your apartment and maybe…,” she trailed off, her eyebrows wiggling suggestively as she pushed the picture into his hands. It had been taken during a trip to Cancun that past Spring Break, and Josh felt a pang of longing when he looked at the picture. A seventeen year old Justin was staring right into the camera, laughing, the sun glinting off his riotous curls. He wore nothing but a pair of swim trunks, his bronzed skin on display. Josh felt his breath catching.

He handed the picture back and then looked and Bobbie and lied, “Nah, I never met him.”

As Bobbie walked away mumbling about all the things she could do to a kid who looked like that, Tyler looked at Josh curiously, wondering about the blatant lie. Josh told him later that he could tell Bobbie anything about his other indiscretions and escapades, but that the memories he had of Justin were precious, and certainly weren’t meant to be picked apart and cheapened by his whore of a girlfriend. After his impassioned speech Tyler looked at him and simply said, “You still love him.”

Josh broke down and cried for an hour.

Afterwards he was really embarrassed. He had no idea where it came from. It had been two years almost since he had last talked to Justin, and he hadn’t cried then, so why was he doing it now? As he tried to stammer explanations and apologies to an amused Tyler, Tyler just nodded and pressed the picture of Justin into his hand.

“You need it way more than I do,” he told him. Then he went on to tell him that he had had the same type of thing happen with Justin when he visited the Chasez house during winter break when Josh was in Aspen. Tyler told Josh that he had given Justin a picture of Josh taken at his graduation. To that, Josh laughed. He framed the picture that night.

Looking at the picture that night he remembered that promise that he had made to Justin. It wasn’t the end. Even if Justin didn’t want him to, he was going to keep his promise. He still loved him too much not to.

Part 4 >>>
Index