****
“Did you lose your key already?” Sam asked in a teasing manner as she opened the door. She was surprised when she saw Justin standing in front of her. “You ain’t Lance!” she shouted playfully.
“Uh, no I’m not, but I can do the voice,” he said, replicating Lance’s deep, southern drawl as he entered the apartment.
“Stop that, it’s just weird,” Sam said shuddering over-dramatically as she closed the door and walked back to the couch.
“So Lance has a key?” Justin asked plopping down beside her.
“Actually we exchanged keys yesterday. Yes, I know we’re disgusting, blah, blah, blah,” she said rolling her brown eyes.
Justin chuckled. “It looks like you got some sun today too,” he said poking her nose, giggling as the imprint left by his finger returned from white to it’s newly reddened shade. He couldn’t help noticing the way the bright white piping along the edges of her black bikini top perfectly highlighted her tanned skin. Or how the smooth fabric molded to her form.
“Yeah, I was enjoying it while it lasts,” Sam interrupted his thoughts momentarily. “I heard on the radio today that we’re supposed to be getting some rain the next couple of days,” she yawned, stretching her arms up into the air and falling to the back of the couch with them still above her head, her eyes closed.
Justin licked his lips unconsciously as his eyes trailed down the flat surface of her stomach and continued down to the lower half of her body. She was wearing a pair of worn, denim cut-offs over the bottom half of her bathing suit. They were short and rested low on her shapely hips, allowing a small glimpse of the black and white material underneath. Her smooth, toned legs shined under the bright sunlight filtering through the large window as they rested on the coffee table. He smiled as he discovered the whimsical, mismatched rainbow of color on her toes. Justin closed his eyes and breathed in, he had to stop this. Reopening his eyes and exhaling, he noticed for the first time the discarded tissues on the table in front of them and remembered how he had thought Sam’s eyes looked a little puffy.
“Have you been crying Sami?”
She opened her eyes and sat forward. “How did you know?” she asked surprised. He pointed to the tissues. “Oh. It’s nothing serious. Stace sent me a videotape of Carleigh, and me, being the sentimental sap that I am, got all emotional watching it,” Sam explained, tugging the elastic tie from her light brown locks, quickly running her fingers through them before pulling the hair back into a ponytail. “It’s really cute. You wanna see it?” she asked.
“Sure. Is Stacy on it too? Your sister is quite the hottie ya know.”
“Yes, I do know. I also know that she’s engaged and extremely happy with this adorable little girl’s father,” Sam reminded as the dark-haired toddler appeared on the television screen.
“Damn, I keep forgetting that,” Justin said with a grin as he turned to watch the video.
The infectious laughter of the young tyke filtered through the Sam’s apartment as she ran clumsily through the living room of her home chasing the family cat before it finally managed to slip behind the couch.
“Here kitty kitty,” Carleigh’s sweet voice called out as she stuck her head menacingly against the wall trying to see behind the large piece of furniture.
“Where’d it go?” Stacy spoke from behind the lens of the camera.
“I dunno,” the child answered turning to her mother and throwing her small arms in the air. “It gone. Stupid piece of shit,” she said comically shaking her head as she walked away.
“Carleigh!” Stacy scolded. “Mommy told you not to use that word.”
“But Daddy uses it all the time.”
“I know, and Daddy’s gonna get in trouble too when he gets home.”
“Cuz he was a bad boy?” Carleigh asked with wide eyes.
“Yes,” the young woman answered, unable to control her laughter as her daughter skipped off to her room giggling at the thought of her father being in trouble. “See the wonderful influence I have to dispose of?” Stacy joked before shutting off the camera.
The tape continued, playing clips of Sam’s niece in various settings. Playing at the park, swimming in the lake at the family’s summer cabin, riding the pint-sized bike Sam had sent to her as a gift, but the final scene was by far the most adorable.
The tape cut to a shot of Carleigh standing in front of a makeshift stage constructed of cardboard. There were curtains drawn on either side with red and yellow markers. The tiny tot was dressed in a replica of the vaudeville costumes *NSYNC wore to open their show, complete with a sparkly bandana over her loose brown curls. Her dark eyes beamed with joy as “Bye Bye Bye” played and she sang and danced along. She mumbled through most of the lyrics, occasionally catching one or two she recognized, but emphatically nailing the catchy title each time it played. Most of the time she just bopped her small frame up and down to the beat, but a couple of times she threw the waving motions in. Carleigh jumped up and down giddily as the song ended.
“Okay sweetie, do you want to say anything to Aunt Sam before I turn off the camera?” Stacy asked.
“Umm,” she started, thoughtfully placing a finger on the side of her face. “Yeah! Hi Aunt Sam,” she said waving furiously into the camera. “I wuv you and miss you. Tell Unca Wance I said Hi too!” she finished before walking directly into the camera, pulling it down to her level and placing a slobbery kiss on the lens.
“She is so damn adorable!” Justin exclaimed.
“She is isn’t she?” Sam agreed scrunching up her nose. “And she does a pretty good impersonation of you for being so young.”
“Yeah, but it’s still not as good as my Lance voice,” Justin grinned mischievously as he prepared to mimic his friend’s inflection once again. “Isn’t that right baby?” he drawled.
“Ah! I told you to stop that!” she shrieked. “It’s freaking scary.”
“Oh you know you like it,” he continued, moving his mouth closer to her ear. “You can’t resist that sexy Mississippi accent.”
“No! You weirdo, knock it off!” Sam said now giggling as she placed her hand over his mouth. He grabbed it, and her other hand as well as she moved it up to silence him.
“I bet it really turns you on when he talks dirty to you doesn’t it?” Justin teased, still speaking with the deep tone as he held on to her wrists.
“I’m gonna kill you when I get my hands free Timberlake,” she threatened, struggling to break from his grasp.
“Kill me or ravish me?” he smirked with a cocked eyebrow. “Remember, it’s just the Lance voice, Justin body,” he taunted.
“That’s it, you’re going down fool,” Sam informed as she violently lunged at him. He wasn’t anticipating it and the force knocked him off the sofa, pulling her with him as he fell and landed on the floor with a heavy thud. She lay directly on top of him, their noses practically touching. “Oh my gosh, are you okay?” she asked worried as she moved her now free hands up to his head, which had hit the carpeted surface rather hard.
“I’m fine,” he laughed. “But please be careful how you move your knee. It’s in a rather precarious location.”
Sam glanced down at her legs and quickly, but carefully, shifted her weight as she slid down and sat on her knees beside him. “Sorry,” she apologized with an embarrassed smile. The loud and deliberate slamming of the door startled them both. Justin cocked his chin up to see who it was as Sam immediately sprang to her feet. “Lance!” she said excitedly, playfully stepping on Justin’s chest as she started towards her boyfriend. Justin grunted a sound of pain before grabbing her other ankle, laughing as she stumbled into Lance. “Don’t make me knock you down again,” she said shooting Justin an evil look as she righted herself and turned back to Lance. “Its about time you got here honey. I was wondering where you were,” she said greeting him with a kiss.
He barely kissed back. “Are you sure? You look a little too pre-occupied to be thinking about me.”
“We were watching a tape that Stacy sent,” Justin said, now seated back on the sofa. “You should watch it, it was pretty funny.”
“Maybe some other time,” Lance said taking a seat on a stool near the bar separating the kitchen from the rest of the apartment. Sam still stood in the middle of the room, ironically right in between the two men. The tension was beginning to consume the room as Lance spoke again. “What are you doing here?” he asked Justin accusingly.
“We talked about it yesterday, and again today,” he reminded. “We’re all going out to dinner tonight and the plan was for us to ride together and meet everyone else there.”
“I thought Joey was coming with us too.”
“He was, but he decided to drive himself.”
“Oh,” Lance said flatly.
“In fact,” Justin said turning his wrist to gaze at the face of his watch. “Everybody else is probably already there by now.”
“I’m gonna go change and then we can leave,” Sam said heading towards her bedroom.
“Don’t get dressed on my account,” Lance mumbled bitterly.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” she said shutting the door behind her.
“Of course you will,” he replied coolly.
Lance and Justin sat silently until she returned a couple minutes later, a crisp white, cotton, short-sleeved shirt covering her upper torso. She had tied it up just above the waistline of her shorts, barely leaving her navel exposed. The top two buttons were unfastened and the dark shade of her bathing suit was still visible through the light fabric. A pair of comfortable sandals adorned her feet.
“I’m ready,” she announced, prompting Justin to stand.
“Are you sure? You seem a little underdressed to me,” Lance said thinly.
“We’re going to Applebee’s Lance. It’s not exactly a formal dining experience,” Sam shot back, her voice showing signs of her growing annoyance with his attitude.
“I didn’t mean what you were wearing, I meant how little.”
“I know what you meant,” she glared at him. “It’s Florida in the middle of summer, excuse me if I don’t want to wear a Goddamn wool sweater.”
“So does this outfit imply that we can expect another round of table dancing tonight then?” he questioned with an arrogantly raised eyebrow.
“I think I should go. I’ll just meet you guys there,” Justin said heading for the exit.
“Good idea,” Lance scowled.
“No,” Sam insisted. “You made a point of driving over here so we could ride together and that’s what we’re going to do. Just give us a couple minutes okay?”
“Alright,” he agreed reluctantly. “I’ll wait outside.”
As the door closed behind him Sam turned to Lance. “What the hell is your problem?” she screamed at him.
“Who said I had one?” he said calmly.
“You’ve been acting like an asshole since the minute you walked in the door.”
“Hmm,” Lance said snidely. “Maybe it has something to do with me finding you sitting around watching television after what seems like was a leisurely day by the pool for you. Unless you’re just wearing that thing for attention,” he said, referring to her bathing suit. “I’m sure there was plenty of work you could have, and should have done today.”
Sam resisted the tears that were about to form in her eyes as she angrily spat out her words. “I did work today. After you left this morning I went to your place, sorted through your mail, took care of everything Free Lance related, gathered up your dry cleaning and dropped it off, picked up the stuff you left there last time, dropped some paperwork for MTV off at FedEx, stopped in the office and made sure everything was taken care of there, went to the grocery store and picked up some essentials, cleaned the molded shit out of your refrigerator and then came back here. And yes, while I washed our laundry, I sat by the pool for a couple hours, returning calls and emails. So is there anything else you’d like to bitch at me for NOT doing today?”
He sat silent with his arms folded across his chest, staring down at the floor.
Sam sighed. “I don’t want to fight with you Lance. Let’s just forget it and go have some dinner, k? Justin is waiting for us.”
“Heaven forbid if we keep your precious Justin waiting.”
“And there it is, right on schedule,” she said rolling her eyes. “I can’t believe you’re still so insecure about the fact that I kissed him. Why is it so hard for you to let it go? I kissed him Lance. One fricken time. I wish I would’ve thought more before acting on whatever it is that made me do it, but I can’t undo it. It’s in the past, let it go,” Sam urged.
“Wait a minute, are you saying that YOU initiated it?” Lance asked, his jaw clenched.
“What does it matter? It’s over.”
“Obviously it matters a lot if you kept it from me,” he hissed. “And it’s not just about a kiss. Don’t pretend like you don’t know that.”
“What are you talking about?” Sam asked confused.
“For starters, did you ever stop to think how it makes me feel knowing that while you were supposedly already in love with me, you were kissing him?”
“Oh what, and you would’ve had me pining away for you? Miserable, after you repeatedly told me how you didn’t want to be with me? What was I suppose to do?” she quizzed him rapidly. “I was lonely. And I can’t believe you would even bring it up considering you certainly weren’t spending all your nights alone sulking in your room before we were together,” she shot back.
“You knew about that?” he asked, genuine surprise showing on his face.
“Yes. But did I ever once ask you about it? No, because it was before us and it didn’t matter to me. Nothing before us matters to me Lance.”
“See that’s the difference between you and me. That was over before we even started, and as much as you keep saying it, we both know this thing with you and Justin isn’t.”
“You can’t be serious. How could you ever think that I would do that do you?” Sam asked, throwing her hands up in frustration as she stood across from him.
“What do you expect me to think Sam?” his tone softened and the hurt in his green eyes was almost too much for her to bear as he continued. “You were, are, I don’t know, obviously attracted to him if you initiated what happened that night…you two seem to have this bond that I can’t compete with…you let him call you Sami…you haven’t taken those earrings off since he gave them to you…you were hanging all over him right in front of me…last week you crept off to his room while I was sleeping…and then today I come in here and find you rolling around on the floor with him half naked. So you tell me, what am I supposed to do with all that?”
“Trust me,” she said quietly, her voice wavering. “I’ve never given you a reason not to.”
Almost instantly the cold demeanor returned to his face and his eyes were emotionless as he spoke. “Oh right, because you’ve always been so honest and up-front about your past. Jesus Sam, I’m still learning new details about the whole Justin thing! Anything else you liked to share with me that you’ve conveniently omitted? Hell maybe there’s even more to this Scott thing than you told me.”
His words were venomous to her; he meant them to be. So Sam did the only thing she could think of to do, she hurt back.
“You want details?” she spit the words out with force. “Justin and I were sitting on the floor laughing, much like we were tonight, I leaned in and kissed him, I was shocked I actually did it, I moved up and sat on the bed, he sat next to me, he kissed me this time, the kisses became more passionate, he took my shirt off, I helped him with his, his hands were on my body,” Sam took a deliberate pause, knowing the last bit of information would cause more damage than anything else she’d told him so far. “And then he stopped it.”
Lance let out a callous laugh, the only reaction he could manage. “I don’t think I’m in the mood to go out tonight. Maybe you and Justin should go ahead without me. I’m sure you can find someway to entertain yourselves.”
“We always do,” Sam replied viciously before storming out, slamming the door behind her. “Let’s go,” she said to Justin as she hurried down the stairs.