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When the doorbell rang in the late afternoon, Chris was tempted to let it stay shut. He didn't want to see any of the guys, and they should damn well know that from Joey, and fuck them all anyway. Then it occurred to him that if he *opened* the front door, he could tell whoever it was to go fuck himself in person. It was AJ. "Come in," Chris said, plucking the pack of cigarettes from his hand as AJ walked past. "You too, huh?" AJ said as he looked at the paper Chris had been doodling on. "Nick?" "Yeah. Little fucker." "How long?" Chris asked as he got a cigarette lit. AJ shrugged. "5, 6 years." "He was 15!" "I was 17." "Good point." "What about you?" "2, maybe 3." "Shame about Britney." "Fuck Britney." "Don't you mean fuck Justin?" "Fuck you," Chris said bitterly. "And how come you were 2 years older than me, anyway? I'm the 30-year-old. If I'm going to turn into a teen-aged girl, can't I at least have experienced *some* puberty?!" AJ laughed. "You do realize how ridiculous that sentence is, right?" "Oh, like you turning into a 14-year-old teenie with a crush on Erik-Michael Estrada is completely outside the realm of the absurd." They lapsed into silence for a few minutes. Suddenly, unable to restrain himself any longer, AJ asked, "Carter-McLean is better, right?" "Definitely. Gets the accents right - Bum-ba-da-Bum. "Timbertrick?" "The hyphenation is too long. It's the 3-syllables in Kirkpatrick. Kills the rhythm." "Sure," AJ. "Can I have my cigarettes back?" Chris passed them over, pausing only to light a new one for himself. "Do you still have that headband?" AJ asked. "Dude. Lance gave me that." "Yeah." "Nick autographed my diary, if you want. I can rip the page out." "Really? No. I. I don't need his. I practically live with - fuck." Chris laughed bitterly. "Joe was by earlier." "Did you tell him?" "Yeah, right. I can just see that now. 'Hey, Joe, good to see you. No, I'm really not fine. See, I've been in love with Justin for almost 3 years now, and I'm gay, by the way, and did you know you're hot? No - well, yes, you, but I meant all of you guys. When we first started, I had wet dreams about JC.' That would go over real well." AJ shrugged. "JC's fucking sexy, man." "Fucking A," Chris said. "And God, he gets so sweet and bashful and - having you seen Making the Tour?" "Making the?" "It's a video we did, about the No Strings - anyway, there's this. Moment. When we're going over our playlist? And. You *have* to see this." Chris got up and rummaged through his videos. "Ah! Here we go." "I thought that was *N the Mix," AJ said. Chris raised an eyebrow. "What? I liked the little matching track suits, okay?" "Nobody liked the matching track suits. Lou didn't like the matching tracksuits. He just didn't want to pay for better stuff." "Cheap bastard." "Yeah, well. Do you wanna see JC whine or not?" "He's whining? You didn't say he was whining!" "Dude," Chris said. "You have *got* to see this video."
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