SIX
For a moment, when Ken arrived at the address that Justin had texted him, he was sure that he must have gone to the wrong place. When he double, and then triple, checked, he shook his head and seriously considered just walking away.
It wasn’t like Justin would mind if he did, anyway. Justin hadn’t even wanted to see him, and Ken couldn’t remember the last time that he’d worked out in a place like this.
The gym that Justin had directed him to wasn’t even a gym. It was just a community center, and yes, there was probably a fitness center in there somewhere, but Ken was used to having a dedicated space. Plus this particular community center looked pretty run down, not up to his usual standards at all.
But this was the time that Justin had so gracious allotted him, and Ken sighed as he perched on a picnic table nearby and looked around for Justin. It was odd, how the guy didn’t seem to be all that worried about his job. Ken would have expected Justin to be all over writing this new song.
What a mystery Justin was to him. When Ken had looked at him as Lester spoke to them both, Ken would have been willing to bet that Justin was terrified to lose this job. And now, he was acting like it didn’t matter. If Justin didn’t care, should Ken?
On the other hand, the songs that Justin had done for Darien and then for Jamie and Lance had been not only utterly gorgeous and perfect for the couples involved but also had helped make the individual singers as well as the band into a bigger deal. In short, people loved Lance and Jamie, and Ken didn’t exactly find it heartbreaking to think about himself getting the same adoration.
Besides, wasn’t it possible that it would end up being Ken and Aaron who sang this song together? That had happened with Lance and Jamie, after all, when they’d fallen in love. No reason that lightning couldn’t strike twice, especially since he intended to take matters into his own hands, too.
Ken smiled and let himself imagine it. He just needed to talk to Aaron one on one, which he wasn’t sure that he had even ever done. Ask him out. See what developed. Justin didn’t know what he was talking about, in this case.
Just as he was thinking about the older man, he appeared, walking slowly and with his head bowed. It must be the heat, which shimmered in golden waves through the air. Soon, it would be time for Ken to spend most of his free time at the beach.
Funny, though, how thoughts of Aaron left Ken’s mind when he saw Justin. He slipped off of his perch, waving over at Justin, who nodded to him as he came closer. Justin had these dark circles under his eyes, but even as Ken wondered what had caused that he had to admit that it was none of his business.
“Okay, let’s do this,” Ken said when Justin was close enough to hear. He smiled, trying to tease an answering smile out of Justin, because one thing that he had noticed about the guy was that he was way too serious. It wouldn’t kill him to smile once in a while, but Justin always seemed to be half lost in his own world.
As Ken looked at Justin, a colorful blur shot past him as though send at top speed from a cannon. But this particular cannonball didn’t shoot in a straight line. Instead, it tried to dart between the two of them and knocked into Ken’s legs full force, sending him reeling.
“Hey, what the …” Ken’s voice trailed off as he looked down into the grubby little face and huge dark eyes of the little girl who had bumped into him. She clutched in one small hand the remains of a chocolate ice cream cone, soggy with the heat, while Ken wore a lot of the rest of it on himself, smeared all over his shirt.
The poor kid sniffed and then rubbed her eyes as she looked up at him, clearly expecting him to be angry for the mess. Tears started to flow, and Ken knelt down and looked into her sad little face.
Poor thing. She couldn’t be more than about four and was obviously terrified that he was going to yell at her. Not to mention that she’d lost her treat, too.
“Hey, are you okay?” Ken made sure that his voice was gentle. He knew how to talk to kids, his youngest brother was only five, not that much older than this poor baby. He’d gotten ice cream on his shirt, but that was easily dealt with. She’d lost her ice cream entirely, just because of a moment of inattention.
“Yeah,” she sniffled, but the tears didn’t stop. If anything, they rolled faster down her cheeks, and Ken shook his head. This wouldn’t do.
“What happened? Did you hurt yourself?” He checked her over. He knew that he was not exactly a small guy, and she’d slammed into him full force, but she didn’t seem to be injured.
“No, but my ice cream …”
She had been holding off until then, but when she looked down at her ruined ice cream cone which was smooshed in her hand, that’s when the waterworks really started.
“Kyoko!” A pretty woman with a strong family resemblance to the little girl rushed up—her face a mask of horror. “What did you do? You got ice cream all over that man’s shirt!”
Ken shook his head and rose to his feet, smiling as he looked past Justin, who, for some reason, looked nervous, to the woman who seemed to be Kyoko’s mother. In one smooth motion, he tugged his dirty, sticky tank top over his head, balling it up and shoving it in his gym bag.
“There, no worries. It’s fine. Come on, sweetheart, I’ll get you another ice cream,” Ken offered. With Kyoko and her anxious mother in tow, Ken went over to the stand, and soon enough the little girl had another ice cream.
“Thanks!” she said happily and then disappeared into the community center with her mother. Ken watched her go with a smile.
“They’re so cute at that age,” he said and then gave a self-conscious little laugh as he looked over at Justin, who was looking at him, for some reason, like he’d turned into some sort of alien. “What is it?”
“I just didn’t expect you to be good with kids,” Justin admitted, and there was this look in his eyes, those strange, steely eyes, that Ken found just a little bit too touching. No matter how much Ken tried to shrug it off, he couldn’t help but enjoy that look, at least a little.
No one took Ken very seriously, and he was very aware of that. At that moment, though, it seemed like Justin was looking at him, really, truly looking at him, seeing him as a person, and he shot Justin a tentative smile and something, some sort of recognition, seemed to pass from his gaze to Justin’s and back again.
It was almost palpable, this thing. And not, Ken realized, the sort of thing that he really had any idea what to do with. What was it? The beginnings of friendship? But Ken had had friends before, so why was this so intense? It felt like the wind was pushing at him, knocking him forward and toward Justin, and he didn’t know if it would sweep him right off of the ground so that he could fly, or shove him down onto his face in the dirt.
“Uh, we should go in.” Justin was shifting nervously from foot to foot, and even if his face was as hard to read as ever, Ken could almost swear that Justin felt the same thing that he had just felt. Or was it just Ken’s imagination?
