SEVEN
Through all of the years that he’d known Ken, for all the time that they had been acquaintances, even casual friends, Justin had had a crush on Ken. He had the feeling that pretty much everyone knew it, too. Everyone except Ken, who seemed to be one of the most oblivious people on the planet.
But a crush was just a crush, right? It didn’t mean anything, and it happened all of the time. Spending time with the object of said crush would usually clear it up nicely, in Justin’s experience, and in a way, he’d been relieved that he and Ken had been thrown together to write this song. He and Ken would have nothing in common, and he’d be able to move on, hopefully.
Only here he was, more obsessed than ever. Damn it, but Ken was a lot of fun to be around. All of that energy, misguided as it often was, was deeply compelling, and there were depths to him that Justin could never have suspected.
A pretty, brainless athlete with a strong, firm body, that was all Justin had really thought that Ken was. But seeing Ken with that kid, Justin had had to re-evaluate. He had been so sure that Ken would yell at the little girl, and then to see him treat her so sweetly, well, it just wasn’t fair.
The more time that Justin spent around Ken, the more he was having a hard time getting him out of his mind. The more he was getting to know him, the more he was liking him, on a level that had very little to do with his toned, tanned, muscular body and the unique shade of his eyes.
The combination was deadly, and by the time they were done at the gym, Justin thought that he would be quite able to write a song about unrequited love. Oh, yeah, he could think about Ken and pull that off quite convincingly, he was pretty sure, and this song was going to be maybe the best one he’d written for the band at all. Maybe ever.
For a while, it was easy to keep himself from thinking too much about Ken. In the rush of picking up Jade from dance, making sure that she had a good supper and that her homework was done, Ken faded into the background. But once she was safely tucked into bed, he found himself reaching for a notebook and a pen.
So, where to start? Justin closed his eyes for a moment and brought to mind his own unrequited crush. Ken smiling, Ken looking hurt, Ken’s face contorted with anger, Ken lost in concentration … his pen started to fly across the page. And it was one of those rare songs, the ones that seemed to flow so easily from him, like there was a direct link between his mind and the page and all he had to do was be the conduit for a power that was really beyond his understanding.
Sometimes, songs took a long time to write, simply because Justin wasn’t feeling it. But in this case, well, maybe Justin would be able to have the song done in time for Ken’s family wedding, not that Justin really even understood why he wanted to.
For an hour, at least, Justin worked, changing words, arranging rhymes, until his attention started to wander. Over and over again, he found his gaze slipping over to where his phone lay on his side table, innocently charging. He wasn’t going to call Ken, he told himself firmly. It was too late, nearing eleven at night, far too late at night to be calling anyone.
Once he made that decision, it was easy to keep it. Or so Justin would have thought until he found the phone in his hand as though it had teleported there with no action on his own part. His fingers, as though they had been trained to do it, effortlessly found the entry for Ken’s number, then pressed on the green phone symbol beside his name that would send the call.
“Damn it,” Justin whispered, his eyes closing. Why was he doing this to himself? Hadn’t he thought, a million times over, that having a crush might be fine but that actually trying to engage with it would be a mistake? And yet, here he was, and for the first time in a long time he was acting in a way that might just get his heart broken.
He was usually so careful. What was going on with him these days? His heart was a fortress, high and tall, and he’d built it up brick by brick until he had been so sure no one would ever be able to knock it down. Who would even want to try, for a single father?
Only Ken was slamming into that wall, apparently without even knowing that he was. Ken was knocking it down, and Justin couldn’t let him do it. So then why was he sitting here, cross-legged on his bed, listening to the pulsing tone of Ken’s ringing phone?
Oh well. Ken was probably busy, or asleep. He probably had his phone turned off, like a sensible person would this late at night. Just when Justin was moving to press his thumb over the button which would disconnect the call, though, someone answered.
“Justin? What’s up, man?” Ken’s voice didn’t sound thick with sleep, Justin couldn’t help but notice. It was also relatively quiet behind him, no loud sounds of partying or anything else. It seemed that he’d caught Ken when he wasn’t in the middle of any crazy rockstar shenanigans, but then again, whatever his assumptions had been, he had to remember that he actually didn’t know Ken all that well.
“I know it’s late …” Justin’s voice trailed off, and he had the distinct urge to kick himself. Hard. Why was he always so damn awkward? “I was just thinking about our song.” Only surely, that sounded far too intimate. “Your song, I mean.”
“Oh, cool.” Ken sounded, for all the world, like it was completely normal for Justin to be calling him this late, and that helped the tight bands of tension which stretched across Justin’s back and shoulders and neck relax a little bit.
Maybe he had been just a tiny bit out of touch since he honestly had no idea what was normal and what wasn’t. For eight years, Jade had been the most important thing to him, really the only thing that mattered. Everything that he did was for her.
This phone call, though. That was for Justin. But now that he was in touch with Ken, his tongue seemed to dry out and cling to the top of his mouth. Swallowing, he tried to move it, to say something, anything, but he couldn’t seem to make himself do it.
“Hey, Justin?” Ken won a special place in Justin’s heart forever when he broke the silence between them before it could stretch on and on. He broke it even before most people, Justin figured, would have even felt awkward about it. Ken was, Justin was learning, pretty much the polar opposite from Justin when it came to making friends, to social interactions in general.
Well, one of them had to be, Justin supposed, and it certainly wasn’t going to be him.
“Yeah?” Justin managed, and that one word, at least, came out sounding, at least to his straining ears, almost normal.
“Have you ever felt that way about someone? You know, like how we were talking about in the song?”
The question felt like a two-by-four slamming into his gut at top speed, but Justin struggled to accept the blow and to simply answer the question, which was a perfectly innocent one.
“Yeah,” Justin admitted, his voice so low and quiet that even he could barely hear himself. Had he ever been firmly in the grips of an infatuation, one that couldn’t possibly ever be requited? Of course he had. From almost the first time that he’d laid eyes on Ken all of those years ago.
“Yeah,” Ken echoed and then gave a little laugh. “Sort of sucks, right?”
Justin took a deep, deep breath, trying to fight down the treacherous, rebellious surge of hope that rose up in him. It sounded like maybe, just maybe, Ken was realizing that this thing with Aaron was just never going to happen, but even so, what difference did that make?
There were so many things standing between them, and Justin had to remember that. Even if Ken gave up on Aaron right now, well, Ken’s habit was that he would just find someone else to chase after. He’d gone through all the members of the band, but there were lots of people in the world.
