Date: Sat, 04 Jan 2003 16:23:39 -0500
From: Writer Boy <writerboy69@hotmail.com>
Subject: rebound - part 17

Obligatory warnings and disclaimers:

1) If reading this is in any way illegal where you are or at your age, or
you don't want to read about male/male relationships, go away. You
shouldn't be here.

2) I don't know any of the celebrities in this story, and this story in no
way is meant to imply anything about their sexualities, personalities, or
anything else.  This is a work of pure fiction.

Questions and commentary can be sent to "writerboy69@hotmail.com". I enjoy
constructive criticism, praise, and rational discussion. I do not enjoy
flames, and will not tolerate them.

That said, we now continue.

***

The beeping of the alarm woke me, and I smacked it off before, I hoped, it
could bother Justin. One of his heavy arms was draped across my chest, and
it tightened a little when I reached over to get the clock. Behind me
Justin murmured softly into my back, pulling at me as I reached over. I
held still, and he pulled himself more tightly against me. He'd slid lower
than me in the bed during the night, so he was now pressing his face into
the middle of my back, between my shoulderblades. I jumped, a little
ticklish, as I felt his nose brushing against me, touching my spine, and
his mouth moved against me as he continued to mumble. His arm flexed, the
bicep bulging a little, and the hair on his forearm was pushed in every
direction, a little messy, as he clutched tightly, but not painfully, at
me.

I wondered what he was dreaming about, but couldn't make out any of the
words he was mumbling.

The morning can be a good time, and was one of my favorite moments of the
day. The city isn't completely quiet, because it isn't ever, but in the
morning there isn't as much noise, and what you can hear is identifiable
and comforting. Depending on how early you're up, you can hear the
newspaper trucks go by, and I always dimly registered ours dropping the
papers off at the back even if I was half asleep. You could hear the busses
rumbling by, and traffic starting to wake up. There was an idle dog bark
here and there, as my neighbors got up to take them for their walks. In the
morning, there aren't many sirens, if any. You never hear the cops or an
ambulance or the fire engine go by. You didn't hear people down on the
sidewalks yelling at each other, although you didn't get much of that in my
neighborhood, anyway. If the windows were open, you could catch some of the
smell of the water blowing in on the breeze, but I had them closed, since
we were into October and would soon be in sweater weather.

It goes without saying that the best circumstances to listen to all these
sounds, to hear the world wake up along with you, was in a nice, warm
bed. When you get into bed at night the sheets are cold sometimes, and you
have to take a minute or two to either warm them up or get used to the
chill. In the morning, though, you've been rolling around in them all
along, and you don't run the risk of sliding your feet into a cold spot. It
also helped if there was someone else in the bed with you. I hadn't
experienced that for a while, but it was becoming a feeling I could start
to get used to again. The skin on skin contact, that slide of smooth
muscles that weren't yours, the scrape of the hair on somebody's arms or
legs or chin as it shifted against your skin or wove through your own arms
and legs, wasn't the same as what you felt when you were cuddling, or
making love.  This was relaxed, placid, just there, yours to enjoy if you
were awake.

And what a body I happened to have with me. I rolled slowly onto my back,
moving carefully so I didn't disturb Justin too much. It was somewhat
difficult, more than I thought it should be, because Justin gave new
definition to the term "clingy". I thought he'd just grabbed me out of
reflex when I reached for the alarm clock, but now that I was actually
trying to move it was almost like fighting. The arm he'd flung across me
tightened, his muscles bulging, and as I began to roll his other arm,
beneath me, tightened as well, pulling me into a viselike embrace. I looked
at his face, so soft and unlined in repose, and it was starting to tense a
little, with little lines appearing around his mouth, but I was sure he was
still asleep. Even as his arms gripped me, though, his legs snaked forward,
wrapping around one of mine. Justin had me in a death grip, and instead of
just rolling over I had to squirm and almost kind of shimmy. Like being
caught in some kind of snare, each movement brought a fresh tightening of
Justin's limbs, and while it was kind of cute to now have his morning
erection, substantial but not throbbing hard, rubbing against my hip, I was
also starting to wonder how I would ever get out of bed.

Lying on my back, I let out a low sigh, not moving. Justin, once I stilled
myself, snuggled closer, still mumbling in his sleep, and I looked down at
him as he rested his face on the side of my chest. The lines melted out of
it again, and I watched his eyes darting around behind his lids. I'd
noticed before that his nose was a little larger than it looked in
pictures, but it wasn't enormous. His hair was brownish, that shade that
you knew would brighten to golden in the sun, or with just the right
professional hair care and dyeing. His shoulders, only one of which I could
actually see since he was on his side, were bronzed, tanned to a nice
golden brown, the same color you wanted baked goods to come out of the
oven, and they were dusted with freckles. His back was smooth, naturally
so, not waxed, and he was just generally not very hairy. There was a little
bit on his chest, but not even enough to call it a patch. The sheet was
still pulled up, despite all our moving around, but beneath it, where it
fell against him, you could see the toned, rounded curves of his body. He
didn't have the brittle, hard striation of a bodybuilder, but he was
definitely in fantastic shape, and I knew from last night, and the other
nights, that he was completely comfortable with his body, and knew how to
use it. I'd never realized that dancers were so flexible.

The sun was just coming up, light falling across the loft in long slanting
lines of gold, washing over everything, and I watched the way Justin seemed
to glisten in it. Where it hit his hair, it was like dipping him in fire. I
was used to the same sort of thing with my own hair, although the effect
was much more orange on me, what with me being a redhead. It was still
fascinating to ponder on someone else. I didn't really have time to
consider how Justin was the perfect golden boy, how he just seemed to glow,
because I didn't want to get into trouble with Michelle again. I was
determined to be downstairs on time this morning, and that meant no lying
in bed and staring at Justin.  After a couple of minutes of determined
effort, I managed to extricate myself from Justin, wondering the entire
time how someone who was dead asleep to the world could be so grabby.  It
was like fighting with glue, but eventually I got away from him, leaving
him muttering to himself, twisting a little and clutching at a pillow I'd
jammed into his arms. Smiling, I trotted across the loft to the bathroom
and switched on the shower.

My shower was large, with sliding frosted glass doors. The bottom served as
a tub, and occasionally I lay in a bath for a while and read a book with
the stereo on, but for the most part I just used it as a shower. It was
roomy, since I wanted to be able to stretch out in it, which meant that
there was ample space for more than one person. I had been inside for maybe
a minute, lathering up the loofa, when I heard one of the doors slide open,
and I turned to see Justin stepping carefully into the tub, trying to open
the door as narrowly as possible, to keep my bathroom dry. He smiled at me,
and I smiled back as he leaned forward, planting a quick kiss on my
forehead.

"Good morning," I said, blushing a little. Even though Justin and I were
intimately familiar with each other, it still felt a little strange to be
naked in the shower with him, under all those bright lights. I was in
pretty good shape, but he was perfect.

"Hi there," he said, holding up a washcloth. "I didn't know if you wanted
to share."

I handed him the soap and caught him staring at me, a half grin on his
face.

"What are you looking at?" I asked, blushing worse.

"You," Justin answered. "You're so, just, you look so good. You're so
handsome."

"Handsome?" I asked, surprised. "Justin, look at me, and look at
you. You're perfect. I'm just, you know, I'm nobody special, not like
you. You're beautiful."

"So are you," Justin said, running his hand along the side of my face. His
touch was light, gentle, and felt good. His hands, proportionate to the
rest of him, didn't seem really large unless you looked at them separately
from him, the same as with his feet.  "You were, um, last night was really
good."

"Stop," I giggled, looking away. The last thing I wanted to do was start
talking about sex in the shower. It was bad enough that just seeing him
naked, watching the water course down his toned form, was getting me half
hard. Judging by the way his cock was plumping up, filling out but not yet
hard, he was having the same problem, and if we acted on it, we'd never get
to work on time. "We can't have this discussion."

"Why not?" Justin asked, surprised. He turned me around and began to wash
my shoulders. "I mean, you know, it's not like we can pretend we didn't
have sex, and that it wasn't really good."

"Justin," I began, cautioning him away from my ass, where his hands were
drifting. I jumped as he goosed me with a soapy finger. "Justin!"

"Just making sure you're clean," he said, giggling. Great. I'd completely
forgotten that twenty year olds were all about sex. While it could be a
good point in the bedroom, it could also be a bad point when you were
trying to studiously avoid all such thoughts.  "Seriously, though, that
was, um, everything else we did was good, but that was the first time you
did it first, and that means a lot to me. Plus, you know, you were damn
good, like I said."

"Justin, I mean it," I said, shaking my head as I turned around. I took his
shoulders and turned him, so that I could do his back. "We really shouldn't
have this discussion right now."

"But the things you do to me," he said rolling his head back a little.

"Justin, I'm totally serious," I said, letting my hands drift down a
little.  I wasn't so much washing his back as I was just rubbing it,
feeling his lats and the curve of his spine. I dropped my hands a little
lower, feeling the firm curves of his ass, and almost unconsciously he
pushed back toward me. "We can't talk about sex right now."

"Why not?" he asked, letting out a low whimper as my hands slid back up his
back.

"Because if we talk about it, I'll want to do it," I whispered, leaning
forward to lick his ear. "And we'll be late for work."

With that I pulled back, taking my hands off of him, and began to do my
front. He turned around with this look on his face, like I'd just offered
him candy and then taken it away.  His cock, a hard spike jutting upward,
water coursing down it, bumped my hip, and I stepped back.

"That was so uncalled for," he said, shaking his head, but he was smiling.
As I watched, his smile widened, as if something was just occurring to
him. "You're right, though. If we stop to have sex, we'll be late, and
Michelle will yell at us. Since we don't have time, I guess I'll just have
to, you know, take care of myself."

I willed my heart to start beating again. Justin, in the shower with me,
wet, touching himself.

"Justin," I choked, trying to talk him out of this. "You don't have to do
that."

"I'm a guy, and I have needs," Justin said, shrugging. One hand idly rubbed
his chest, toying with his hardening nipple, as I fought to keep my eyes
from dropping back to his crotch. Justin smiled again. "Besides, you don't
have to watch."

"Fine," I said, smirking. I turned my back on him. "I won't. Do whatever
you have to do.  I'm going to wash my hair."

I jumped as I felt Justin's hands touch my back tentatively, his fingers
just barely brushing my shoulder. My hands convulsively squeezed the
shampoo bottle, splattering the wall with it, which seemed oddly symbolic
in light of what we'd just been discussing.  Justin snickered behind me.

"I was joking," he said softly. "You're right. We have to get ready so that
we can get downstairs, but, you know, now that I see how excited that gets
you."

"I'm not excited," I said quickly, lathering up my hair. I handed the
shampoo bottle to him, turning around to face him. His eyes ticked down to
my crotch, where my cock was definitely rising. There was no arguing with
it. "OK, maybe I'm excited, but how could I not be? I mean, you're, you
know, you, and the thought of you doing that to yourself is kind of a turn
on, but we really don't have time right now."

"Maybe not," Justin agreed, washing his hair now. He grinned again even as
he closed his eyes to keep the suds out. "But we'll have plenty of time
later."

"Maybe," I said, my mood suddenly darkening as I thought of Chris, the
other Chris, waiting out there somewhere. Justin was going to have to face
him at some point. I was also still thinking about what April had said. It
was really easy to ignore it last night, when Justin was there needing me
and I was needing him, but today it was coming back to prey on me.

"What's wrong?" Justin asked, catching the quick shift in my mood. He
touched my shoulder, resting a hand on it, and I thought about how physical
he was as a person. Justin liked to be touched, but he was also very
tactile with others as well. I wondered if it had something to do with his
esteem issue, with the way he needed to be almost constantly reassured. The
touching, for Justin, reaffirmed what I told him, showed him that I cared.

"Justin, what are you going to do?" I asked, sighing as I shut the water
off. I took his hand and pressed it, briefly, to the side of my face. He
kept it there for a second after I let go, caressing the spot where my jaw
connected to my skull. I slid open the door and grabbed us each a towel,
handing one to Justin.

"About Chris, you mean?" he asked, his blue eyes wide. I nodded, drying
myself and trying to ignore his body as he did the same. Both of us were
trying to keep it innocent, just two guys in the shower together, but there
was still a strong current of tension running there. I wanted to grab
Justin and take him, hard, right there against the back wall of the shower,
and he wanted it, too. At the same time, I wanted to be at work on time,
and while it might be ok to just go at it, using the excuse that we cared
about each other and we were still in our newlywed infatuation phase, one
of us had to be the responsible one, and I knew if I put my foot down
Justin would listen. "I don't know. I mean, I need to talk to him, but I
don't know what I'm going to tell him. I know I can't stay here forever,
but I don't want to just bow down. I want him to hear me, to really listen
to me, even if I do go back with him. And I don't want to go back without
you."

"Huh?" I asked. I guess, in the back of my mind, I kind of wondered if
Justin and I were going to do the long distance thing or what, but I hadn't
really thought about it too much.  I'd only thought about dating him for a
day, after all, which kind of put a damper on long term planning. Justin
and I finished in the bathroom and walked, naked with our towels around our
necks, to the bedroom. "You want me to go with you?"

"Don't you want to?" Justin asked uncertainly. I turned, my hand on my
dresser, and saw him watching me as he went through his suitcase. His
posture was cringing a little, defensive, as if waiting for me to give the
wrong answer. He thought I was going to hurt him, and I didn't want to do
that, but I hadn't even thought about this.  "Don't you want to be with
me?"

I stepped into a pair of boxers and then crossed the room to him as he
pulled on his briefs.  He still looked a little tentative, and I took his
face in my hands. He hadn't shaved, and his face was a little stubbly, the
planes of his cheeks a little bit rough beneath my fingers.  I realized I
hadn't shaved, either, which was extremely rare for me. Then again, maybe
the grunge look was coming back. I'd have to ask Meg later, but for now,
this very moment, my priority was Justin. I smoothed my thumbs over his
cheekbones, rubbing the spots just under his eyes gently. He stared at me,
waiting, his face a little strained.

"Justin, I care about you," I said firmly. "I mean it when I say that. I
care about you, and I will not hurt you, not if I can help it. Do you
believe that?"

"Yes," he answered, nodding.

"I told you yesterday that I would be with you, and I am," I
continued. "I'm with you.  We're together, but we only have been for a
day. I haven't had time to think about any of this, Justin. I'm still
trying to get used to thinking of myself as someone with a boyfriend
again. I told you this would be hard, that this was confusing for me, and I
can't just, I can't say that I'm going to drop everything and run away with
you."

"Chris, I love you," Justin said softly, swallowing. I leaned forward and
kissed him, lightly, on the mouth.

"I know," I said, pulling back. "And I care about you. I just need some
time, ok? I need some time to think about this."

"I know," Justin said, taking my hands in his and removing them from his
face. He squeezed them for a second, smiling at me, and then let them drop,
turning to pull more clothes out of his suitcase. He couldn't go downstairs
in just his briefs, no matter how hot I thought that would be. "But I don't
have a lot of time."

"I know, Justin," I sighed, pulling out my own clothes. "And we'll get
through this, ok? I don't know how, but we'll get through it. I'll take
care of you."

"We'll take care of each other," Justin said, nodding.

We didn't talk after that, but we kept glancing at each other as we got
dressed. Last night it had seemed so perfect, being together had seemed so
right, but now, in the morning, it felt kind of impulsive. As we started to
think about the rest of this, about the way that people we knew would take
it and about the realities of our situation, it seemed like something ill
planned, something we had just jumped into. I knew that the feelings were
there, though. Now that I'd opened myself and allowed myself to admit what
I felt, I knew that Justin and I could have something. I knew because I'd
felt it before, a long time ago, but realizing that just left me with more
of those guilty feelings. It was one thing to tell April that Matt would
have wanted this, but convincing myself of it was something else entirely.

"I think I just need to explain to Chris that I need to be my own person,"
Justin said finally as we grabbed our keys. "I think he's a little scared
that I might walk away from everything, and I don't want to do that. I'd
never do that, not to the guys.  They're my friends, but I think Chris, and
maybe the others, are afraid that I'm not going to be there anymore."

"You could be right," I said, nodding. If Chris was acting out of fear, it
could explain why he was so rude, and almost abusive. It could also explain
why he'd said all those things to me. "Justin, I think Chris might be
threatened by me."

Justin skidded to a stop on the stairs and grabbed my arm, his mouth
hanging open.

"You think Chris wants to date me?" he blurted. It echoed through the
stairwell, and I hoped Michelle wasn't there yet.

"No, no, of course not," I said, shaking my head. "I didn't talk to him for
very long, but I got a pretty straight vibe off of him. What I meant was
that if what you're saying is true, about him worrying that you're going to
move on and leave everyone behind, well, I might look like part of that."

"I guess I didn't really think about that," Justin said, nodding.

"We haven't really thought about a lot of things," I said, and Justin
nodded again. We had fallen into such a downer mood that I thought that
maybe we should have had sex in the shower after all. Just before we opened
the door to the storeroom Justin grabbed my arm and kissed me, quickly, on
the mouth.

"I love you," he said, staring into my eyes. I could see myself reflected
in his. "Whatever else happens, I know that. I've never been so sure of
anything before. I love you."

"And I care about you," I answered, hugging him tightly. His arms held me
close.

"You don't love me, though," he whispered quietly. I tried to pull back, to
see his eyes, but he clutched me tighter. "When I say it, you don't say it
back."

"I can't just say that, Justin," I said, trying to be honest. "When I say
that, those words mean something to me. I know they mean something to you,
too, but I don't want to say that to you if I don't feel it completely. I
care about you very much, and that's why I keep saying that to you, but I
respect you too much to tell you I love you if I'm not sure."

"It's enough that you care," Justin said. "I've thought about this, all the
times we've talked, all the times you've turned away from this. I know you
care about me, and I'm ok with that. We're still together, and that's
enough for me. Now, let's go before we're late."

"OK," I said, leaning forward to kiss him again. We were still holding each
other, so this kiss was tighter than the past few, more forceful, which
made it even better. When we let go, I knew that Justin loved me, and he
knew how much I cared.

We were getting pretty efficient on the morning chores as a three man team,
Justin taking the chairs down while I brought in the papers and Michelle
started the coffee. If one of us went to do the next thing on the
checklist, opening the shades or turning on the register or unlocking the
doors, and one of the others was already taking care of it we just moved on
to the next thing. Michelle and I had our own routine down pat after years
of spending our mornings on it, and it was a little unsettling to see how
quickly Justin had managed to find a place in it. Like everything else so
far today, it reminded me of how soon Justin would be gone. Would Michelle
and I just fall back into our old routine? I was sure she could, but would
I be able to?

Justin was a little deeper into my heart than I thought.

As the morning progressed, Justin and I went about our tasks, but I think
both of us felt that drag. Every time I saw him help a customer, or ring
someone up, I thought about the fact that he might be doing it for the last
time. It was one thing for me to tell him the other night that he just had
to accept that he would leave someday, but now I felt it too, and I
realized that I didn't want him to go. In the couple of days that he'd
worked in the store, Justin truly had become part of the family. He also
had the store running even more smoothly. I had thought that everything was
ok, that we were all balanced and together, but Justin's work just
reemphasized the fact that we needed to hire someone else. When we had a
slow minute, I left Justin and Julie at the front near the register, and I
pulled Michelle into the storeroom.

"Do you have a second?" I asked.

"Yeah, sure," Michelle answered, shrugging. She was wearing some kind of
fringed, beaded black shawl, and every time she moved it sparkled, bringing
a little bit of flash to her otherwise matte black ensemble. "I think
they're ok out there for a minute."

"Unless Justin snaps and kills her," I said, watching as Julie explained
how Ticketmaster grossly inflated prices and kept music from the masses by
creating an elitist socioeconomic divide among people wanting to see
concerts live.

"Don't you understand?" Julie asked emphatically, her hands fluttering like
small birds.  "It creates a divide between the haves and the have nots, and
keeps some of your fans from getting to see you live because they can't
afford the cost of tickets."

"But we have to charge that much," Justin said, shaking his head. "We have
all the trucks, and the equipment, and it's expensive to book
stadiums. There's all those people to pay, and fees and permits and
everything else."

Between all of this the two of them were ringing up customers, breaking off
their discussion and picking it up again as if they had pause buttons. They
were still smiling at each other, and there wasn't any animosity between
them. They were just having a really spirited discussion, and the regular
customers, who by this point in the week had finally figured out who Justin
was, seemed to be enjoying it. We were lucky in that most of our daytime
regulars were older people, who wouldn't go screaming over him. The college
kids didn't really come around until the afternoon and the evening, and so
far Justin had been upstairs getting ready for dinner or crying at that
time of day.

"Never mind," I said, shaking my head, wondering when it became a normal
occurrence to have someone upstairs crying at dinnertime every day. "You're
right, they'll be fine for a couple of minutes. I wanted to ask you about,
um, getting some extra help around here."

"Justin's working out pretty well," Michelle said, shrugging. "Things run
smoother with him around."

"You noticed, too?" I asked, smiling a little.

"Yeah," Michelle said, leaning in the doorway with her arms crossed. "The
boss runs a little smoother when he's around, too, if you don't mind my
saying so."

"I don't mind," I said, smiling wider. "Justin and I, we, um, we're
together. Officially, I mean."

"Oh, thank God," Michelle said, walking over to hug me quickly. She pulled
back, looking around guiltily as if to make sure that no one saw her being
warm and friendly.  Her heels clicked on the storeroom floor as she
returned to the doorway. "Do you have any idea what it's been like watching
the two of you all week? It feels like it's been forever, Chris! You get
pissed, he gets pissed, the two of you blush and giggle and moon over each
other, and the rest of us just try to stay out of the way. Like I said
yesterday, it's like a soap opera around here. I'm just glad you guys
finally figured this out."

"It's not a problem for you?" I asked, leaning back on a shelf. "Me being
with him?"

"It's your life, Chris," April said, shrugging. "I know we're friends, but
I wouldn't ever tell you what to do. If you want to be with Justin, be with
Justin. He's a nice guy, and he's cute as hell, but don't you dare tell him
I said that."

"I won't," I said, shaking my head. Michelle tried so hard to keep her
shield up all the time, but she couldn't help letting it slip every once in
a while. It was good to see, every once in a while, that there was still a
real girl beneath that crusty black wrapped gothic mascara shell. "But, I
guess, what I'm asking is, you were Matt's friend, too. Is it a problem for
you, to see me with someone else?"

Michelle frowned, her lips pursing together into a thin line.

"Oh, I see what you're asking now," she said, crossing her arms. "I don't
have a problem with it at all. You're my friend, and I want my friends to
be happy. This week you've been a completely different person. Not like
you're a horrible person the rest of the time, or anything, but this week
you haven't been so moody. It's not just that, though. You smile more, and
you're more like you used to be. You probably figured this out already, but
the four of us had kind of an unofficial staff meeting the other night, to
talk about this."

"When was this?" I asked, wondering how I could have missed it.

"We went out for pizza, and we talked it over," Michelle said. "I don't
want you to think we were going behind your back or anything, but we're
your friends, and Justin is kind of our friend, too. We talked about it,
and we decided that if you two wanted to make a go of it, then we would
support it. He's got problems, you've got problems, and if you guys want to
work on them together, we support that. We want you to be happy, and, if
you think that Justin will make you happy, we're ok with it."

Frankly, I was a little surprised. I had thought that I was the only one
struggling with loyalty to Matt, that I was the only one who was
questioning this. I knew that the other four had talked about it, since
they all kept dropping those little comments to let me know that Justin was
completely acceptable to them. I didn't realize, though, that they would
all be feeling variations on what I did.

"And we decided that if he hurts you, we'll beat the shit out of him,"
Michelle continued neutrally. "Just, you know, as a side point."

Now there were the kids I knew and loved.

"I'm glad you guys approve," I sighed, thinking about April again. Michelle
looked at me curiously. "April came back last night, finally, and she, um,
she said a lot of things about how I was being disloyal to Matt, and how
she couldn't believe I would do this to him. I know she was surprised, but
some of the stuff she said."

Michelle sighed.

"Chris, look at it from her point of view," she said. "She thought she was
leaving Justin with you, and she thought you were safe. She probably
thought Justin was safe, too. I'm not sure what you guys told her, or which
one of you took credit for making the first move, but she's probably not
sure which one of you to even be mad at. April probably hasn't ever thought
of you as separate from Matthew. It might be kind of hard for her."

"It's kind of hard for me, too," I said, running my hands through my hair.
The storeroom wasn't really the place to talk about this, though. It wasn't
the right spot for me to work through my issues, and as much as I
considered Michelle part of my family, it wasn't really her that I needed
to talk to. It wasn't April, either, that I needed to make my peace with. I
stood, straightening up, and looked at Michelle carefully.  "Michelle,
start doing some interviews, ok? Justin's going to leave, and we need
someone else here, because we're going to be short staffed."

"You're going with him, aren't you?" she asked, swallowing.

"Not forever," I said quickly. "But yeah, I think I am. He needs me, so
that's where I'll go. There's just some stuff that I have to do first."

I walked quickly out of the storeroom, and Justin and Julie paused their
discussion again, both watching me as Michelle drifted back to her place
behind the counter. I grabbed Justin's arm and tugged him into the back
room, not wanting to hug him and kiss him in front of the customers now
that they knew who he was. When I had him out of sight, I wrapped my arms
around him. He was surprised, but hugged me back.

"Chris?" he asked.

"Will you be ok here for a couple hours?" I asked. Justin looked uncertain,
but nodded slowly. I kissed him, quickly but not perfunctory, and
smiled. "It's not a bad thing, Justin.  I just need to go take care of some
stuff, ok?"

"OK," he answered, hugging me again for a second and then letting go. "I'll
miss you."

"I'll hurry," I said, heading out the front of the store to where I kept my
car, across the street.

***

To be continued.