Infant Gots Da Hookup, Yo: Hot Fun in the Summertime: Not SAA; Summer of Crossover Love Entry

Basez / Darter / Crossover Slash, for the Summer of Crossover Love Project

Ian McDuff

Yes, yet another, ’nother song-fic from He Who Disdains Song-Fics (I swear, it simply isn’t a song-fic quâ song-fic. No, really. You know I loathe those. But it is, once again, a story with a soundtrack): another entry in the Basez / Darter (AKA, Basez / SweetKaos) Songbook, located at https://www.angelfire.com/zine2/bbsrps/dtocanontoc.html. The track for this one’s a Sylvester Stewart-penned classic (you know him as Sly Stone), best covered by beach music moguls the Band of Oz (though there is also an interesting version by the Manhattan Transfer with, I kid you not, Chaka Khan): Hot Fun in the Summertime. A happy, shiny counterpart to the somewhat bittersweet ‘Summer’s End: Meet Me in the Indian Summer.’ And there’s still the crossover angle, because of the ongoing Summer of Crossover Love Project. Guess who.

‘Okay,’ said Chris. ‘The working group for Operation Timberlaid is all present and accounted for. Except of course Hollywood. Now what?’

‘Um,’ JC said, eloquently.

‘Jesus, you really can’t think without The Mister around, can you, Mrs Bass-Chasez?’

‘Where is he anyway?’ That was Nick. ‘Mars probe this time? What?’

‘Shit,’ Chris mused. ‘We’ll be reduced to having to, like, rely on deep, cryptic emails from Yoda-Lance.’ He paused. ‘Heh. Sounds like a Cole Porter lyric. Yoda Lance, you da Eiffel Tower –’

‘I can hear you, Kirkpatrick,’ Lance’s voice rumbled. ‘And stop questioning my husband’s masculinity.’

They all jumped, except for JC, and Chris made a huge show of heart palpitations. ‘Fuck, Bass, tell us when the speaker is on on a cell!’

JC held his hands up, empty, with a smug grin. ‘No cells, no phones.’

‘No pool, no pets,’ Chris muttered, abstractedly. ‘So. Um. Lance? How exactly are you communicating with us?’

‘Luddite,’ Howie smiled. He knew. He was as hopeless a techno-geek as Lance was.

‘Net-phone. Laptop on my desk. Wireless hookup off the laptop to the built-in sound system at the house. From the SkyPhone on my flight.’ He paused, then spoke in his patented Voice of Thunder™, knowing the SurroundSound in the house would do it justice: ‘If you build it, they will come.’

‘Geek.’

‘I’ll see your geek and raise you two nerds. Let’s get moving, this call ain’t cheap.’

‘C’s tightness – lemme rephrase that – C’s fuckin’ cheapness rubbing off on you or what?’

‘ ’M not cheap,’ Josh pouted. ‘Just. Thrifty.’

‘Yeah, yeah, “because-yes,” we know, yadda-yadda. Why the hell are you helping with this anyway, Bass? You’ve never wanted to get involved before.’

‘Because now it wouldn’t be cheating on his part.’

‘Just promise me,’ AJ said, ‘little fucker won’t be hitting on me this time. Last summer sucked.’

Lance’s voice dropped into his most unctuous, portentous, and mock-solemn range. ‘This I promise you,’ he deadpanned.

‘Fucker!’ AJ, D, and Nick chorused.

‘Now. Stand by while I conference,’ Lance ordered, crisply. They heard, with surprising clarity, the ringing of another phone, and then an answer.

‘ ’Lo?’ The voice was vaguely familiar, mid-range, mid-American. Ohio modified for national prime-time.

‘Timmons? Bass heah....’

When James Lance Bass walked into his and his Josh’s front parlor, he groaned. Howie just shot him a sympathetic glance. The Operation Timberlaid joint planning committee were sprawled all over the place, amid a wrack and detritus of Thai and Chinese delivery leftovers and empty takeout pizza boxes. JC had intended to clean up before Lance’s flight arrived, but a nap had ambushed him, and he was draped lithely along the length of a couch, dead to the world.

Howie had a sudden flash of guilt, not over having let C sleep, but over having not cleaned things up himself. Lance read him like a book: ‘You’re a guest, D.’ Southerners never changed.

He had slept through an hour of horseplay (and, Chris being there, horseshit), but at the quietest words of his lover’s, JC was instantly awake.

When he and Lance came up for air, they just looked at each other, smiling sappily.

‘Welcome home, James. How was your flight?’

‘Too long. Without you there. How’s my Josh?’

‘Still yours, babe. Want me to kick these strange people who have camped in our house out, so I can welcome you properly?’

‘Hey!’ Chris squeaked in protest. ‘Work to do, schedules to work around.’

‘Later,’ James told Josh, with eyes chock-full of promise.

‘Where were you, anyway,’ D asked idly as he and James finished icing the freshly brewed tea. James – and here at home, he was fully in his private ‘James’ mode, ‘Lance’ having sloughed off of his soul the minute he walked through his front door – James had refused to address anything until the place had been cleaned up and the dictates of Southern hospitality adhered to.

‘Hawaii. Don’t tell Josh. He thinks I was in LA all that time.’

‘Second honeymoon?’

‘Better. I’ll tell y’all later. Right now, we’d best get back in there before CK and Nick decide they want to start bopping each other with the full trash bags.’

‘They would, too.’

As D and James left the kitchen, the doorbell rang. Josh ushered in a beaming Joey.

‘Man! Whoa – Lance! Paisan! Timed it good, didn’t I?’

‘The rest of us,’ Chris said, with some hauteur, ‘were here at three.’

‘The rest of you guys don’t have a jar of honey-dos at the house and pre-K supplies to buy for a picky daughter, either. So. What’d I miss?’

‘Food,’ Alex said, pointedly.

‘More for you, then,’ Joe grinned. ‘Besides. You just nominated your ass to be th’ one to go back out to the car with me. Momma and Kel both prepared some “light snacks.”’

Josh groaned.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Chris smirked. ‘Dispose-All Carter-Dorough will pitch in.’

Nick shot him a lazy finger, then belched.

‘Why is it we want to have kids someday, Josh? Remind me.’

‘So they can grow up to be teenaged boys just like their permanently adolescent uncles.’

‘Timmons?’

‘Yes, Joe. Jeff Timmons,’ James repeated, with rapidly fraying patience.

‘He has a daughter,’ Joey said, with the look of a man who has one of those himself.

‘Trust me on this one,’ James said.

Alex and Chris exchanged a glance, then grinned. ‘Timmons hit on Joshy, Timmons hit on Joshy,’ they sang in harmony. James grimaced, and Josh blushed.

‘Well,’ Nick said. ‘Huh. Wouldn’t have expected that. But it does clear up two problems with one stone.’

‘What planet does he resign on,’ Chris snarked, earning himself a glare from D.

‘I mean, solves two birds with one felt sweep, right?’ Nick and the English language – not ‘unexpectably’ – remained on precarious terms even after all D’s efforts. ‘Keeps Timmons and Justin from trying to mack on C there.’

‘What?’ James snapped. ‘That’s supposed to be past – Josh, has that self-worshipping face-man little fucker –’

Josh was just as startled, shaking his head in furious negation.

‘Chill,’ Nick urged. ‘I’m just sayin’. He pro’ly doesn’t even know it himself, but sometimes he still, y’know, looks. At C.’

‘Smart, observant boy,’ D said indulgently, and Nicky preened at the words.

‘Like he was looking at Bone last summer. What is it with summer and him, anyway? He go into closet-queen heat on a regular cycle?’

‘I still think,’ Chris cut in, ’you should have tried to enlist Jeffre.’

‘Their Justin,’ James said, holding onto his patience with both hands, ‘is terminally straight.’

‘Never stopped Timberlake before,’ Alex muttered, pulling a long face that suddenly, vividly reminded D of the young AJ, before the wear and tear, the AJ with the rubber face of a natural comic and the spirit to match.

‘But damn it! If you got him Droopy, then, when he shouted his own name when he came, no one would know!’

‘They’re doing this to torture me,’ said the one, nuzzling the admirably broad, satiny, and orgasmically sculpted chest of the other. ‘I mean, it ain’t as if I don’t spend nights dreamin’ about somebody’s killer pecs and somebody’s chin cleft as it is. But they don’t know, so they torture me.’

‘I know,’ the other grinned, idly tracing the one’s tattooed bicep with a lazy finger. ‘They think they’re giving you the ol’ third degree.’

It had been Nick’s and Josh’s turn for a kitchen run to refill the iced tea.

‘You already set ’em up, ain’t ya.’

Josh ducked his head. ‘I may have dropped a hint to Jup that Timmons was heteroflexible.’

‘Man, Sashay. So why are we going through the motions here? I mean, if Timberlake can’t get laid all on his own, no one can.’

Josh silently motioned Nick to the doorway, and they peeped, quiet as mice – well, one ex-Mouse – into the living room.

D and James were hovering over James’s laptop, PDAs at the ready. They were on speaker with Drew Lachey: despite the probably permanent ‘hiatus’ 98 Degrees had now been on for several years, Drew still ran the other guys’s lives, to the point he acted as manager for Jeff’s occasional forays into daytime soaps acting.

‘Right,’ James was saying. ‘Timberlake’s flight, CO 1487, arrives LAX at 1557 Pacific....’

Josh dragged Nick back into the kitchen.

‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Tell me watching your man get all crisp and Mr Businessman and, you know, doesn’t turn you on.’

Nick’s eyes were lightly glazed, like a doughnut from one of James’s Krispy Kreme franchises. ‘Oooohhhh, yeah,’ he breathed. ‘You da man.’

‘Uh-huh. And – Hamhock? Stop calling me “Sashay.”’

‘So where are the rest of your guys, anyway, actually?’ Joe was half-whispering to Alex.

‘Kev couldn’t give a rat’s ass about doing Timberlake any favors, so he’s, I don’t know, off somewhere incommunicado, hugging trees. I guess Kris is along, but I missed the memo. And Bri’s off with LA doing Boring Married Stuff.’

‘Huh. Let him deal with his kid, he wants to know what that’s really like.’

‘I think that may be the Boring Married Stuff they’re doing. As in, trying again to produce another one.’

‘Aidge. I dunno what life is like with you and Sarah. But trust me, that is one part of Married Stuff that ain’t never boring.’

Alex grinned, wolfishly. ‘Not for us, maybe. I’ve just always figured Rok might be rather ... unadventurous ... in the sack.’

‘Dayumn,’ said the other. ‘It always gets me, how ripped you are. Lean-boy.’

The one snorted. ‘Says the stud-dawg with the buffest bod in town and the most lickable chest.’

‘Fulsome, sweet-talking bitch.’

‘Can I help it if this works for me? You’re buff and broad-shouldered and hotter’n fuck, I’m me, our heights – everything – dude, I like the contrasts, okay? It’s a turn-on.’

‘Mmmm? Tell me about this turn-on.’

‘Needy bitch. It’s. It’s like a sexy track, one of those with a drivin’ beat, slammin’ piano chords progression backed by lazy, bluesy horns, and the vocals are all growly and gospel-tinged, yo. One of those charts that just says “summer in the Dirty South.”’

‘You guys were always more about the music’n us.’

‘Y’all –’

‘Sshyeah.’

‘And tell your kid to wear orange and blue. Jeff still has a color fetish.’

‘Got it,’ said D, entering a reminder into his PDA.

‘Thanks, Drew. I think that’s all? Right. We’ll stay in touch.’ And James cut the connection.

‘Why didn’t you set Drew up with the Infant?’

James rolled his eyes. ‘Fine, Kirkpatrick. Ass. C’mon, just give us the punchline.’

‘No punchline. I just wanted to be able to start calling him “Timberlachey.”’

‘So this is just a summertime love for my apple-cheeked boy, hmm?’

‘It. Ooooh.’ He bucked into the sure hand that clasped him. ‘Don’t haveta be…. And – mmmmm yeah – I ain’t no apple-cheeked boy, yo. Dat’s Lance.’

‘I wasn’t talking about those cheeks, babe.’

‘Oh G-g-g-goddddd….’

‘Lynn? Lance here. I’m trying to track down that boy of yours.’

‘So. Is this is just a summertime love, yo?’

‘It wouldn’t have to be, choirboy. If you could come out even to yourself about being bi. Hell, I managed, and I’m a father.’

‘How would I know? I’m just his part-time agent,’ Drew said, irritably.

‘God. Kel, thank you so much. I’ll have him back to you by morning. Tomorrow night at the latest.’ James leaned in, transferring his goddaughter into her mother’s arms. ‘I’d have kidnapped the Tater Tot, too, but none of us want her warped by too much contact with these oddwads.’

‘Hey! Just because we’re Backstreet Boys –’

‘Alex, I was talking about Kirkpatrick. Now come on. There are ample guest showers upstairs. We have us a charter to catch.’

‘What about clothes?’

‘What, y’all’ve already stunk up what y’all are wearin’? There’ll be an overnight bag for all y’all on the plane, with appropriate attire.’

‘Baby?’

‘Hmmm?’

‘It’s morning in Madison County. Time to wake up and clean up. Our adoring publics await our shiny-happy asses.’

‘Fuckers better not want me to dance none, yo. You’re a fuckin’ machine.’

The other grinned, promisingly.

‘Well, can I at least start calling him “Timmonslake”?’

‘Shut UP, Chris,’ the others chorused.

‘You knew about this,’ James said flatly.

‘Not knew knew,’ Josh said. They were all back at the hotel, getting ready to check back out. The others rolled their eyes. ‘I suspected.’

‘You did.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘And you didn’t tell me?’

‘You were in ...’

‘LA?’

‘Hawaii, you sneaky old Poofu, you.’

James’s jaw dropped. He turned to the others. ‘Y’all go on. Check out, take the charter home, the whole nine yards. And tell them downstairs to put another night’s stay-over in my card and hold all my calls.’ He carried Josh into their room and slammed the door.

‘Um.’ Alex sounded concerned. ‘Should we, um, intervene or anything?’

D put his ear to the door, then stepped back, blushing a little, his warm brown eyes dancing as he looked over at Nick.

‘I think –’

From within the suite, they heard a long, low, anything-but-angry moan.

‘Oh,’ said Alex.

‘It always turns those two on to steal a march on each other or do something smart,’ Joe shrugged. ‘Thank God Kel doesn’t need me to be brainy to get revved up.’

An hour later, in the room directly below James’s and Josh’s, down on the Garden Plaza’s third floor, Justin looked at the ceiling with a flash of irritation.

‘You’ve seen plenty of that ceiling already,’ Jeff grinned.

Justin snorted. ‘Who da fuck they got above us, anyway? I mean, man, I thought we went at it like a couple of minks, but fuck, fuckers’re fixin’ to break the bed up there, yo.’

Jeff rolled over on top of Justin, pinning him. He began a slow, luxuriant hump against the suddenly refocused Timberlake. ‘If we drown ’em out, you won’t have to hear them,’ he said.

‘Word,’ Justin gasped, as his summer lover eased Justin’s legs into the air.

– Ian