“Hey, JuJu. Here’s a thought. You could have rung up a cab to haul your ass over there. Or here’s another……….um……….something a little more practical such as……….oh……….DRIVING YOURSELF up here to your in-person booty call……….Oh, but hold on. On second thought, silly me. ‘Cause whatever would you drive yourself IN? You don’t, like, own any automobiles, do ya, man?” “Don’t call me that shit, and it’s NOT a booty call,” Justin snaps at the tinny sarcasm aimed at him and stares blankly out the window to his right, hearing in his head an old tune that’s not exactly pleasant music to his soul. “Just watch the fucking road, if you don’t mind.” “Look, man. I’m over here playing Jeeves and chauffeuring your infant butt all over east Florida in MY truck. The least you can do is tone down the bitchy attitude and be civil to me. *I* didn’t make you like this, remember. Ass.” “Dork.” “Poser.” “Troll.” “Punk.” “Leprechaun.” “Can’t-hold-onto-your-man loser.” Justin flinches, but it’s small and goes unnoticed by his companion. “Yo, that was low, CK, man.” “Ah, but true. Right?” “.E.M E.T.I.B………..Read it backwards.” After a pause, Chris chuckles. “Um, clever, Ju. And what grade are you in now?” “Hell. Go there. Please. Like now,” Justin growls. “Say, I bet I know what your problem is. When’s the last time you got some? And — dear God — don’t tell me it was Chasez. How long’s it been now? Since you walked in on him and — ” “Seven weeks. Five days.” Those four definitive words are all Justin spits out quickly into the SUV’s interior, and it’s quiet for a while as they speed along the highways of Orlando. The eerie melody floating around in the recesses of his mind seems to underlay and buoy all of his thoughts like a gently rolling wave. For some strange reason he hadn’t even tried to explain to himself, he’d popped Prince’s “Purple Rain” soundtrack in his CD player after JC’s surprise visit that afternoon. After he’d hustled back into the kitchen following the ill-timed cell phone call and been deflated to find the room empty, JC gone. *Baby, baby, baby “Hey! T-Man! You still with me here, bud?” Chris jabs his arm playfully, and Justin shrugs a pop from his shoulders. “I’m good. Could ya just get me there? Please? And don’t worry ‘bout me. I’m good.” Honestly, he’s not, he’d have to admit. But he isn’t prepared yet to examine — and verbalize for Chris — how seeing JC earlier had affected him and still lingers on around him, stirring up inner emotions he’d tried so hard for so long now to quiet down and sing to sleep. How the heat radiating from those deep, cobalt-blue eyes had driven into him and begun to thaw and melt some of the frozen things inside. How he could no longer seem to find the scorching painful anger he’d come to know which had apparently burned off everything in its destructive path in there and left behind silvery-sad ashes and a desolate sense of loss. How he’d wanted more than anything to erase the past few wasted weeks — the whole of it — and start all over with a clean slate and *without* this monster that had sneaked in and viciously divided one sunny shared world into two separate shadowy ones. How every tensed muscle and every hot drop of blood in his body had longed to move his fingertips upward and touch the exposed taut biceps or the freshly-shaven jaw line. How he’s missed the delicious freedom of doing those simple, spontaneous, chaste acts. How much he’d wanted to burst out with, “You look good, C……….Nice and tanned……….kissed by the sun……….rested……….And your hair’s growing out nice and long……….shiny……….Can I touch it?” How, more than anything, he’d ached to be done with all the bad feelings and shoo them away because he was just so sick and tired of the mad hurting. And yes, even though he’d tried like hell to submerge himself in the making of the solo disk and focus all his pent-up energy on that brand new effort, there had been a hollowness — *black-ice void* — inside all this time, one that, honestly, he’d never known before because the missing piece had, seemingly, *always* been there in his life since he could remember, and he had no clue how to be without it now. How it had felt, opening his front door today and being unexpectedly hit front and center with the whole of JC, and bracing his mind and body against the cascading ripples of something like relief that had descended over him as those intense, ocean-blue eyes bore into him and that full, sensuous mouth began to arch into a shy, uncertain smile. Relief that maybe he could let it all go. Relief that maybe the bad things had gone away. Finally. What was left in their place was still a mystery. But this, whatever it turns out to be, was a step — even if small — closer toward to alive again, to not quite so empty on the emotional scale. *So why’d you check out so soon today? Weren’t you feeling it too? Relief? Is that even the right word for it? Or maybe that’s what you came there in search of. Am I close to right?* “Ju, we’re just outside Winter Haven……….almost to his place. You sure you wanna go through with this?” Chris glanced over at his long-time friend, a little concerned, a little hesitant. “Yeah. I think I oughta. It ended all weird and fucked-up today.” “So you’re going for closure?” Chris asked quietly. “I don’t know what I’m going for. I just gotta go. For peace of mind or something. It feels all tangled up and whack right now. We should fix it before this weekend. Know what I’m saying?” “Well, what if he’s……….not alone?” Justin had tried to relax in the Rav 4’s passenger seat, stretching out his long legs and slumping backward. But now his head jerks to the left, whip-like. Eyelids narrow, and pupils flare. “He showed up at my crib today outta nowhere, man. Didn’t seem like he ‘wasn’t alone.’” “I’m just saying, Timbs, Chill out. Be careful. That’s all.” Chris shrugs and lifts his eyebrows quickly. “You’re sort of vulnerable still right now. I’m only watching out for ya, man.” “He said he had something to tell me, CK. Sounded like more than ‘Let’s whoop the other team’s ass this weekend.’” “And maybe it was that……….well, that he’s got somebody el— ” “Shut the fuck UP!” Justin whispers his scream and crosses his arms over his chest stiffly. “I think I woulda heard about that by now.” Chris sighs and infuses his voice with soothing sympathy. “Justin, you need to prepare yourself for all possibilities, man. What if that’s what you hear when you get there? Can you handle it?” “Yes.” “Fucking liar.” “C’mon, man!” Justin huffs and scowls. “YOU said you say him in New York a couple of weeks ago. Was he shacked up with anybody then?” The smirk Chris produces is from the classic, melodramatic collection. “Only that fuck Carlos and Miss Hot Piece O’ Ass Marcella. All three slumming and hanging together. He was wasted all to hell both times I crossed paths with him and his entourage.” “So there. Thank you,” Justin pouts, triumphantly. “Dude, you SO act like you *want* him to be……….um……….unattached.” “I *want* to know what the fuck he had to say this afternoon.” “If he had something so almighty important to spill, then why’d he take off? Riddle me that, you’re so damn wise.” Justin rolls his sore eyes and turns to the window again. It’s twilight out there, and he can almost hear the high tide over that relentless, haunting Prince song in his subconscious. *Paint a perfect picture “He said I needed to hear ‘the truth.’ Whatever *that* means.” “The truth can be a mean, mean bitch, bay-bee.” “Don’t I already know it,” Justin says softly and slouches down further in the seat. “Ju.” Chris turns his charcoal-like eyes from the road quickly, just to make sure he has Justin’s full attention. “Just don’t overload the expectation bin, man. Know what I’m saying? Be realistic.” “Chris, maybe you forgot. I was the one that got burned. I’m the gun-shy one now. I’m not expecting a damn thing.” “Look. I don’t want to havta come in there and play referee if you two throw down.” Chris chuckles. “Did you EVER have to? Did ANY of you dickfaces EVER have to, for that matter?” Justin scoffs, but it’s quiet and reflective, lost in memory. “Umm, no. Guess we didn’t……….You and C didn’t argue much at all, did yas?” “Only twice.” Justin whispers his response and feels the steamy pressure hit suddenly behind his eyeballs and sting up his nostrils, and he sniffles it and the memories back. “Did you……….tell him ‘bout the song? The one you churned out……….afterwards?” The hot moisture Justin had just been surprised by is replaced by a thick wall of blazing red fire, which throws up for him in its vivid glow the remembered image of the sheet of music laying askew where it had fallen on the floor of his kitchen. After JC’s hasty departure. The sheet he’d impatiently snatched up and tossed back on the bar where it belonged. “Holy fucking shit, CK.” “What, man? What? Is something wrong?” Chris tries to navigate the narrow streets of the neighborhood they’re in now and listen at once. “What the fuck?” “He found it. The fucker was laying out on the breakfast bar. The original version……….He saw it and read it……….and left.” “How do you know for sure, man?” “‘Cause I know him, Chris……….’cause I *know* him.” ~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~ Crickets vibrate the salty atmosphere with their buzzing music of the dusk as Justin taps his foot on the small brick porch just outside JC’s door and stabs at the lit ringer again. It’s the fourth time, but he’s patient and undaunted. He’s even told Chris to go ahead and hit the road — that he’ll be absolutely fine and that he’ll ring him on the cell when he’s done here. Of course, he’s not *feeling* absolutely fine. But jittery anxiousness is not so tough. He’s seen worse. He can manage this. If he could just get JC to open the damn door. He knows he’s here. He just knows………. Waiting, he fills his lungs with big gulps of the humid night air and glances to his right at the patch of lawn on the “hidden from street view” side of the house. And a scene from the past flashes into his consciousness without warning, like a bright and hot explosion. In it, he’s standing there in that patch of grass on a colorful fall day, pressing the front of his body into the back of JC’s, patiently teaching JC the fine art of a proper stance for driving a golf ball clear into the next state. His hands rest gently on JC’s slim hips, and his thighs are snug against the back of JC’s firm legs. Dark, honey-streaked curls tease his nose as he purrs his thorough instructions at the side of JC’s head. “That’s it, baby. You got it. Just relax and hang loose. Let most of your weight fall over here to your right so you get a smooth follow-through on the swing,” he says and pats the side of JC’s right thigh with his palm. “Okay. I’m feeling it. Like this?” JC answers, cashmere-like and snickering. Justin’s not sure he’s making any fucking sense whatsoever because the citrusy-clean scent of JC’s hair and the tangy-sweet taste of JC’s neck and the arousing way JC is backing up his ass closer and closer to Justin’s hardened crotch and slowly rubbing the lean, fleshy cheeks over and over the protrusion there are doing some “driving” of their own. Driving Justin’s concentration clear into the next state and driving both of them inside the cover of the house for a more private lesson in scoring a hole-in-one. Yeah, corny, Justin admits to himself. But he hadn’t cared at the time. And the reliving of it in recall brings a delicate smile to his face now. “Hey. Um, have you been out here long?” Justin whisks his head back into the present and sees that the door has swung open to reveal a squinting, disheveled, whispery JC, wearing the same tight, sleeveless, maroon T-shirt he’d donned earlier, standing in the shadows of the house’s interior. And Justin’s throat clamps down on breath that needs to either hurry out or rush in. “Did I……….wake you up?” he stutters and wonders how many hundreds of times over the years he must have asked that exact thing. “Yeah. Just a nap……….I, uh, don’t sleep much at night. So I try and catch it when it comes.” “So you’re………..you don’t have company?” It flies out of Justin’s mouth before he can even try to stop it, but he’s not sure he wanted to try and stop it at all. JC looks at him and sighs as if more exhausted than he can ever remember being. “There’s nobody here but me.” Then he steps aside and backward, a non-verbal welcome, and scratches his head. “You wanna come in? It’s dark out there.” His mind only slightly eased, Justin saunters in to the very familiar, dimly lit living room slowly, bristling with an energy and unsettledness he’s *not* familiar with at all. He hears JC close the door behind him and then stops until he’s joined in the quiet room. “It’s, like, dark in here too, man. Like your cave or something, C.” “Sit down, how ‘bout it? I’ll flip on a lamp if you’re scared. You want a Molson Ice or something? Some Chablis?” Justin chuckles with his nervousness and, once JC has soundlessly swept past him, flops down on the arm of the nearest chair and interlocks his fidgety fingers. “Um, no wine, thanks. But a Molson would rock……….And a shot of bourbon, if ya got it.” “I’ve got it. I picked up some today, as a matter of fact.” “Hey, I didn’t mean to bust up your snooze time, Jace. Sorry.” “No sweat, man. It’s cool.” Both hands full, JC strolls back into the wide living room, and Justin admires the smooth fluidity of the swaying movement. JC extends the beer and shot glass in his grasp and meets Justin’s eyes tentatively as he accepts the offerings. Warmth caresses warmth as their fingers glide over each other, electrically charged, and then both break the visual contact simultaneously. JC seems to shiver as he grabs another beer from the kitchen and sits down on the end of the sofa adjacent to Justin’s perch on the chair arm. So is born the poetically eerie atmosphere. “Thanks.” “You can sit in *all* of the chair, if you want.” Justin slides over and falls onto the cushion, giggling and holding his occupied hands steady. “You were always on my ass ‘bout abusing the damn furniture, C,” he rasps out in past-tense tension before he realizes it. Calmly, JC holds his clear, bouncy eyes and smiles. Just a little. “That’s ‘cause you were always such a spoiled, pain-in-the-ass, little rough-houser brat……….not appreciating the value of things at times.” Justin meets his steeled blue gaze for a few seconds and quickly downs first the jigger of whiskey and then the full 12 ounces of beer in several fast chugs and one fell swoop. During a low, masculine groan, he stands up and looks at nothing in particular. “Ahhh. And there were *other* things……….I appreciated the value of……….more than life……….Can I have another round? Please?” JC casts his eyes away and winces and swallows back some of his own beer. “Sure. Help yourself……….You know where it is.” Justin retreats to the kitchen where he downs three more strong shots of the dark liquor before grabbing the bottle and two more beers from the fridge and heads back into the other room. Slightly more loose this time. “Whoa. Better now,” he admits with a sigh and sets his loot on the coffee table between them before flopping back down in the chair. “You’re not driving, I hope.” JC props his bare feet on the edge of the table. “Nope. CK dropped me off. We’re supposed to be getting some dinner and then doing some bar-hopping tonight. He’ll come back and fetch me when I give him the signal.” “Hmm. Lucky you. Where is he now?” Justin smirks casually. “Down at some tavern he digs close by. Wolfing those Jaegers……….You know Chris.” “And so HE’s driving? Fucking fabulous.” “Jace……….just don’t.” “What? I can’t be concerned about your safety and welfare now? Is that it?” Justin turns and meets his eyes again. “If you’re so fucking concerned, why’d you walk out today? Huh? Before saying what you came to say, damnit?” “Because you already made up your mind……….DAMNIT.” JC raises his voice with a bitterness that matches Justin’s and glares at him and then turns his bottle up to his mouth again. “Oh, and you can read my fucking mind now? What have I made it the hell up on already this time? Tell me, Jace.” “It was your lyrics, Justin. Those bottom-of-the-heart wrenching ones you said you just recorded……….The ones I, sadly, read.” “And then left on my floor……….I know you saw the words.” “Ju — ” “JC.” The flashing streak of anger that had flared up in Justin’s psyche so wildly and suddenly has cometed off into outer darkness again, and he’s sedate once more. He glances away hurriedly. “I only wrote what I was feeling……….after what happened.” “That’s the way it comes across. Emotionally powerful. Soulful. Just like you……….I can only imagine what it sounds like with the keyboard.” Justin’s stare is riveted back to the shimmering-azure, sincere eyes. “How’d you know……….it was piano?” JC smiles, but not cheerfully. “How many times have I seen you sitting at the ivories with black clouds all around your face and your soul?” “Not many.” “But I’ve seen it……….It’s how you purge whatever’s bothering you……….and drive the dark clouds away.” Justin leans forward to pour another shot from the bottle of bourbon and hastily tosses it back down his throat. In a whisper laced with mere threads of his louder voice, he says, “I couldn’t run ‘em all off this time……….the dark clouds. I tried, but I wasn’t strong enough.” “I’m sorry, Justin……….You didn’t hear me say it that day……….but I’m sorry……….more sorry than I’ve ever been about any fucking thing ever.” His head beginning to do slow revolutions from the booze, Justin allows it to fall a little closer to his chest, and he sighs aloud. “Why, C? Why’d you go and croak us like that? We were good together, you and me……….We fucking *had* something, man. Something other folks just dream about having.” JC listens and watches from the sofa, astounded that his heart hasn’t yet exploded in his chest, amazed still that Justin is here in his house, talking about “it” in mostly somber tones, without snarling or screaming or running away. He knows he must say something now, and he knows it *must* be THE RIGHT THING. Everything in his tiny universe hinges on it. As the atmosphere throbs with a chilly anticipation, he finishes his beer and sits up. “I got scared, Ju……….so scared I did something utterly stupid.” “Yeah. Duh. Tell me ‘bout it,” Justin mumbles, still staring at the floor. JC pulls in a heavy breath as he eyes the sleek, angled curve of Justin’s jaw-line profile and the short Louis Vuitton platinum necklace that sways out in front of Justin’s slowly-heaving chest — the one he’d given him for his 21st birthday this year. And JC can’t seem to find in his memory any of the RIGHT things he’d assured Lance he’d say when he finally got this precious chance to say them. “No. More stupid than you even think……….More stupid than what you thought you saw.” “What I *know* I saw was you in bed with some other dude, giving him the ‘fuck-me-again-please-harder-this-time’ look……….That’s what I saw, JC.” And then, as if a dam in JC’s subconscious had burst and given way, all of it comes gushing/tumbling/careening out with reckless, chaotic abandon, penetrating and filling the atmosphere as well as Justin’s soul with the naked, bottom-line truth. For whatever it’s worth now. Because this, JC understands, is the end of the line, his final opportunity. “That’s what I *wanted* you to see, Justin. I fixed it that way. I arranged for it to look like I was fucking around on you……….so that you’d do exactly what you did — despise me so much you’d leave and not want me anymore……….because I was so afraid that when you make it big and become that ‘someone’ you’ve always wanted to be, you’d lose interest in me and not have room for me in your life anymore and dump me like you dumped Brit because you wouldn’t have time for matters of the heart weighing you down and getting in your way and all when you’ve got so much other shit to worry about with the price of fame……….And I didn’t want to wait around for that kind of misery, for losing you like that, especially after I had a nightmare in Connecticut during which you just never came home one day and never remembered to think about me ever again, and I woke up so cold, and you weren’t there……….I didn’t want it to come true, Justin. I couldn’t bear to think that horrible scenario might happen to us……….So I thought I was doing us both a fucking favor by ending like I did, by making you not love me anymore, by freeing you from the burden of a strong emotional attachment when you don’t need some morbid clinging……….But I saw later that I fucked up with my fouled-up logic. It was wrong to wound us both like I did. Wrong and selfish, and there was too much at stake for it to turn out like I’d planned……….And all I can say now is that I’m sorry. It *wasn’t* the right thing to do. I see that now. And I’m sorry. Your song is beautiful, but it ripped my heart out. I do care how I hurt you. I still care about you more than ever……….And maybe you won’t believe me now, but I set up that scene you saw. It wasn’t real. It never happened. But I made you believe it did, so I don’t deserve your forgiveness. But I wanted you to know the truth……….Because I love you. Still. Always.” JC sits frozen still and moves nothing except his lungs as they draw in and release several deep breaths, anxiously awaiting reaction. Justin slowly turns his wide, blue-flamed eyes in that direction, and his shoulders flinch reflexively. His voice comes out like a cold hiss. “You think I’m that shallow? That I can’t maintain an emotional bond if my celebrity status changes? Is that what you think, JC? That’s how much you trust what I’ve always felt for you? Huh?” “No, Justin. I just — ” “So you took it upon yourself to decide how I’d act in response in, like, months from now, to MORE fame……….and then you manipulated our hearts and lives FOR us a-fucking-ccordingly? Wrecking everything because you were afraid *I* would later? That’s just fucked-up, C.” Justin shakes his head, pathetically. Desperately, JC stands his ground. “I know it is. I’m fessing up to it being dumb as dirt. I don’t know why it made such sense to me back then. I’m a loser, Justin. A moron and a loser. And no. I don’t think you’re that shallow. I was so fucking wrong. I miscalculated your feelings for me. I see that all too painfully now……….I suck.” “I would have never, JC. You were my……….I loved you so……….” Justin doesn’t finish. He’s too stunned. “I know, baby. I’m sorry. I live with it every day, what I did.” “So.” Justin makes an feeble attempt at bucking up. “Who was the dude? The one you were, um, ‘acting’ with?” JC hears the latent mistrust in Justin’s voice and has lost track of trying to determine what his former lover is thinking, how he’s taking this news. He stands up quickly and pulls a business card from the back pocket of his jeans — where he’d dropped it before driving over to Justin’s house that afternoon. “Here. I don’t know the guy’s name. But he works for this joint in LA. Some kind of escort service. They’ll do anything you can pay for. I got it from Fatone……….a long time ago.” Justin takes the card and glances at it quickly, noncommittally, before letting it fall to the table. Then he raises his eyes to JC’s again. “And what did you call him? While rehearsing and all that shit?” “I called him……….*Justin*.” “I’m outta here,” Justin whispers and is up from his seat and marching for the front door again. He almost makes it there safely, too, before JC flies after him and leaps in front of him, barely in time to block the door with his body. “Don’t go. Not like this. This isn’t how the story’s supposed to end,” he begs in contrite tones of velvet, with eyes that dart over Justin’s features and make frantic pleas of their own. “Jace, you keep seeming to forget……….you don’t get to fucking decide how the story ends.” Justin’s voice quivers and breaks near the softened end of his line. “Does it……….have to end at all? Does ‘never’ really have to mean ‘never’?” JC moves away from the door, taking one step toward the other body, and smoothes the pads of his fingertips down over Justin’s cheeks, trailing them across the plushness of the parted lips he hadn’t been this close to in months. The scent of Justin’s breath, sweet from the bourbon, entices him further, and he edges nearer, brushing his abdomen over Justin’s and tenderly touching Justin’s mouth with his own. The kiss is returned with a sensual pressure, gentle and wet, both mouths feeling the searing fires below that lick upward and want to consume them from the inside out. Justin pulls away first, gasping but leaving his hands on JC’s waist where they’d come to rest almost instinctively. JC reaches up to finger the short, nappy curls of Justin’s hair. “It’s growing out……….Looks nice.” “Yours too.” “Thanks. It’s a pain in the ass.” “And you’ve been wearing the turquoise again, I noticed in the pics I saw.” JC raises an eyebrow. “You’ve been looking at pics of me?” “You’ve been quite fucking visible lately.” With a smile, JC moves his hand back down over the handsome face lovingly and savors the moment of caressing this flesh. “I didn’t mean to be……….Just a sloppy drunk out partying……….trying to forget huge-ass mistakes he’s made.” “Did it do the trick?” “You know it didn’t……….I still miss you……….And I’m still sorry as fuck for losing you.” “I have to go, Jace,” Justin whispers, and still massages his palms over the familiar sides of JC’s body. “I have to go.” “Why do you have to go? You can stay. Kirkpatrick will get a clue.” “I need to……….breathe……….to, you know, digest all that’s happening.” And it’s true. Justin has the feeling he’s suffocating from such a Chasez sensory overload, all around him. He needs to get some fresh air. He’s just a little, well, overwhelmed at this point. But, fuck. Now JC’s mouth is on his throat, sliding moist and warm and soft, tongue sneaking out to dab at the flesh there. And JC’s chest is pressing and pounding against his own, fingers snaking up and down his spine. And JC’s hips are rocking slowly under his hands, beginning to grind into his crotch with alarming, arousing effectiveness……….He has to get out of here……….clear his head……….has to……….has to. “JC, stop.” “Okay. If that’s what you want.” “I’m not sure……….what I want.” “Will you at least think about it?” JC’s right palm rests just over the thrumming rhythm of Justin’s heart. “Will you give me time to do that?” “I’ll give you the fucking universe if you ask me for it, Justin. I swear. I’m done with the stupid shit. No more dumbass games. No more trying to analyze stuff and rearrange the future.………And even if you don’t ever want things to be like they used to be with you and me, I want you to know that I’ll always love you……….and be here for you.” JC softly touches his cheek and jaw again with the back of his hand. “Please don’t forget that.” ~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~ Justin sits at the patio bar of the tavern Chris is so crazy about here in Winter Haven and hears none of the wild bar happenings going on around him. In his reality, he’s still staring into the deep, warm, aqua-blue of JC’s eyes and listening to the satiny-spoken words he’d been longing to hear for what felt like eons. The ones he’d given up on ever materializing for his waiting ears. The ones he still can fathom are real. His entire psychological makeup, everything he knows to be true, needs a small amount of adjustment time, sure. This is all a big pill to swallow, and things have to be rethunk and reconditioned and rehabilitated. Rewritten. Like Prince’s oh-so-obsolete song………. *If I told you, baby And, perhaps, at least one other song too. Yes, definitely. Chris isn’t surprised at all when Justin tells him his plans — that the time it takes to put away a cheeseburger platter and three more beers is sufficient help with that “adjustment” period he needed. And that he’s going back there. To JC’s pad. Tonight. Right now. No, Chris isn’t surprised in the least bit. In fact, he’s glad. For Justin. For the smile of sunshine Justin gives when he announces his decision standing at the pool table. Chris isn’t even bothered about being “half-assed stood up,” as he calls it and laughs heartily. He simply hugs Justin warmly and then calls the bartender on his cell phone to order up a cab for his obviously-relieved and happy-again buddy.
Oh, baby, baby, baby
Is it him, or it is me?*
Bring to life a vision in one’s mind
The beautiful ones always smash the picture
Always. Every time*
That I’m still in love with you
Oh, baby, baby, baby
We could make it work again
Would that be cool?*