Shameless

By: Alicia Michelle

Lance walked back in his living room and saw Joey moping around on the couch, where he'd been for the last 2 weeks.

"Joey, get up. The guys will be over in a little bit."

"Lance, not now. I'm not ready."

"Joey, I know you just got out of a long time relationship, but you can't keep moping around my house."

"I look like hell. How can I be the always happy-go-lucky one looking like shit?"

"Well," and he pauses to think about it. "You can start by putting real shoes on instead of the pink fuzzy tailed bunnies slippers you've been wearing for a week."

"Lance, don't go there. She got 'em for me. They are all I have left... besides the memories. And the house... I can't decide if I wanna go back there."

"You have to start somewhere, sometime, and this is the time. After the guys leave, you can go to bed and we'll hit the gym tomorrow morning."

"Lance......."

"No. Joey, you are gonna get you ass up there, take a shower, and clean up. The guys will be here in 30 minutes."

Joey walks upstairs to take his shower and get dressed. When he made it back down the stairs, he enters the living room. He sees Chris and Justin...

"What the hell are you doing?" Justin turned and ginned.

"The Chicken Dance." Joey raised his eyebrows.

"Why?"

"We are trying to make JC and Lance laugh. And you now too!"

Joey tried to keep from laughing, but the two of them keep it up until their three bandmates were laughing and joining in. The rest of the evening was pretty much the same, they all had fun, even Joey who had been moping around for the past two weeks.

As promised, Lance let Joey go to bed right after the guys left, knowing he would need the sleep tomorrow morning.

Sure enough, at 7 a.m., Lance was in there waking him up.

"Joey, wake up."

"Lance. Go. Away. I'm trying to sleep here." Joey groaned and rolled over.

"Joey, it time to get a move on. We're starting with workin' off the beer and other things you drank that first week.now let's go."

"Ok, ok, give me five minutes. I'll be ready and downstairs by then." Joey got up and went to the bathroom and got dressed in his work out clothes. He went down stairs and saw Lance was dressed and ready to go.

"You ready?' Lance asked.

"As I'll ever be."

On the way to the gym, it was pretty much silent, because Lance knew Joey wasn't happy, but he couldn't find another way to get Joey going again. Joey needed to get
out of the house. When they get there, Lance makes Joey do every thing he is doing: bench pressing, weights, bicycle riding.When they get to the treadmill, Lance decides that it's time to get Joey talking to him again.

"Joey, what do you want to do to night?" Looking over, Lance realizes what the teenies see in Joey. He could see Joey's strong arms nicer which were nicer than  Justin's. The way Joeys wife beater sticking to him with sweat was a turn on, Joey didn't have the most toned abs, but they could be a lot worse...

'Whoa, Bass. Stop that thought. You have never thought a homosexual thought in your life. Why now? Why here? Why Joey? Maybe it's 'cause you've seen him at his most vulnerable, his weakest moments that last two weeks? Yeah, that's gotta be it.'

"I don't know, and why are you looking at me like that?"

"No reason. Wanna like grab a movie and some pizza later?"

"Yeah, that sounds good after this, a shower, and a nap."

"Yeah, sounds like a plan to me. Do ya want the guys to come over?"

"No. Last night was fun, but I'm still working my way in to it. Just us tonight, ok?"

"Ok, sounds good." Lance's mind started up again.

'Yeah, then I get you to myself. Let me be the one to help you Joey. I wanna show you it's ok to love again, to live again, to love me. No, damn it Bass! Get a grip! Joey's straight. Damn it! your straight and have been for 21, almost 22 years. Why are you doing this now?'

"Lance, can we go now? I'm tired and sore."

"Sure, let's go."

The drive home was pretty quiet too, but since Joey had fallen asleep, Lance was left to avoided his new found feelings for Joey by himself. Once home, Joey went into his room and got ready to take his nap. Lance did the same.

He was having the best dream about love, family, relationship, and all that good stuff. In the dream, when his love came and put their arms around Lance and kissed the back of his neck, There was something distinctly different. And when the voice said "I love you", it wasn't a feminine voice. It wasn't even a deep, manly voice. It was a manly voice, a tenorish one. It was Joey's.

Lance woke with a start. He was breathing heavily and his heart was racing. He heard a clap of thunder and realized that there was a thunderstorm going on outside. He got up to go down stairs when he heard Joey singing Shameless by Billy Joel.

"Hey, I was flipping through your cd's and found one I liked. I hope you don't mind?"

"Oh, no. I  was just coming down to see what's up with the weather." Lance flipped the tv on and put it on the weather channel. "Damn, it's gonna do this until midnight. We can scratch renting the movie. Wanna watch whatever's on HBO tonight?"

"Sure." The phone rang. Joey answered.

"That was Chris. We have to go to Johnny's office for a meeting right now. Chris doesn't know what it is, but it's gotta be important for him to be calling us out in this." Fifteen minutes later, they were all sitting in a conference room, waiting for Johnny to get there. The door opened.

"Ok guys, I'm sure you are wondering what I asked you here for. Truth is, it could have waited, but I didn't want to take any chances. Joey, I know you and your girlfriend just broke up, and while it is hard, are there any really hard feelings against each other?"

"No, it was mutual."

"Ok, I thought so. That means we have a problem. You see, someone is leaking rumors saying that Joey left his girlfriend for Lance and they are now living together. And she's gonna sue you two."

"HOLY SHIT " Justin looked pissed. "It wasn't me."

"Or me." Chris chimed in.

"Me either." JC said.

"You can be sure it wasn't me." Lance said.

"How did this start?" Joey asked.

"It was in the Enquirer and I don't think it will matter. I just wanted you to be ready for it what they start calling and camping outside of homes."

"Johnny, I'm at Lance's till my ex finds a house to live in."

"It's ok. You all can go now."

Once back at Lance's place, they flipped on the tv and watched Titanic. During the scene when Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet were in the car, Lance turned to Joey to tell him something, but was silenced by Joey' lips.

His lips were surprisingly soft, and very skilled. It started off a very chaste closed mouth kiss, but it soon deepened it to something more. In the midst of tongues, teeth, and moans, Lance had time for one coherent thought.

'Where the hell?' He reluctantly pulled away from Joey sat up.

"Joey, what are we you?"

"Something I have wanted to do since the gym. That's why I was worried at Johnny's office today. I thought that you might have thought that that was true and that you would make me leave. I had managed to forget about it until Johnny brought it up, and the i realized I wanted you even more."

"Joey, I don't know how to tell you this. I have wanted the same thing since the gym as well. I thought you would freak if I told you."

"You just did. Lance, will you be the one to help me love, live, and trust again? Can I be the one to share what I have learned with you?"

"Yes, you can and yes I will. I would love to do nothing more than that unless it was for you."

The End

Tell Alicia Michelle what you thought of this story!