Page 2 of Lance
“Keep looking,” Lester said, his tone tight and not even a little bit repentant. Hardly able to believe this, Lance swiped his finger over the smooth glass of the screen and winced when he saw himself with another girl. Another swipe, and yet another girl.
He was starting to think that he might have some idea what this was about, and he forced back a guilty wince. Surely Lester hadn’t actually beenseriousabout that whole crazy thing …
Only clearly, he was, because soon enough, Lance’s suspicions were proven correct. Lester’s finger poked at the screen with far more derision than a simple movement should even be able to muster.
“You signed the contract, Lance. You signed it.” Lester’s voice took on a whole new intensity, and Lance dropped his gaze, trying to fight off the guilt and not doing that great a job of it.
“I didn’t …” he mumbled, only for Ken, who was peering at the screen, too, to interrupt him.
“Oh my God, Lance. Learn to keep it in your pants,” Ken commented, though he, at least, seemed more amused than pissed off. The same couldn’t be said of Lester, who was glaring now. It was probably a good thing humans didn’t have the ability to kill just by looking, or Lance would have been in trouble.
“I was just …” Lance tried again, and this time, it was Lester who cut him off.
“You were just thinking with your dick, not your brain,” he said, his tone dripping disdain. “And if you don’t knock it off, I could fire you for breach of contract. Sue you, too, if I felt nasty.”
And from the look in his eyes, he would be inclined to feel nasty. Lance swallowed, his hands clenching nervously at his sides.
When he didn’t speak, Lester continued on.
“It doesn’t have to go like that. Right now, rumors are going around, and my ass is on the line. People are saying that they don’t even think Lance is bi, let alone gay. They’re questioning everyone else because of it. This could be a PR nightmare, but we can still turn it around.”
Lance wanted to roll his eyes. He wasn’t bi just because he had been on some dates with women? That was pretty much a giant pile of crap, as far as he was concerned, but he supposed he wasn’t really in a position to say much about it.
The truth was, he had always been more comfortable dating women. It wasn’t until he’d auditioned for this group that he’d actually even acknowledged that he was bisexual. And being out like that, for the first time, and having it be to the world, it was a lot to take.
So maybe there was some truth to the complaint.
“Look, I’ll just be more careful,” Lance commented and winced when he saw the dirty look that Lester shot his way. It had been a weak attempt, and clearly, it wasn’t enough.
“If you want to keep your job, you’re going to let me play matchmaker,” Lester informed him, his dark eyes glittering coldly. Lance didn’t doubt—not even for a moment—that Lester meant what he said. This wasn’t a bluff, no matter how badly Lance might want it to be.
Lance could feel Ken shifting behind him awkwardly, and he could understand how it had to feel strange to listen to this. Truthfully, Lance wasn’t sure why Ken was here at all, but Lester had very clearly stopped them both.
“That’s where you come in,” Lester’s frigid eyes turned to Ken, who froze in place. “The two of you are going to fix this. Together.”
Ken frowned, stirring uneasily beside Lance. Lance could tell that Ken was feeling strange because this was the most relatively still that he’d seen Ken stay for quite a while. Clearly, this was bothering him, too.
“Sure, okay, great,” Ken was close against Lance’s side, and Lance took some comfort from that. At least he wasn’t in this alone. “But how …”
Lester reached out, and he took Lance’s hand in one of his, and Ken’s in the other. With a strange smirk on his face, Lester put their hands together, and Ken’s felt burning hot, his palm against Lance’s.
“Oh my God,” Lance whispered, feeling shaky and uncomfortable as he held his best friend’s hand. He looked over at Ken and saw the discomfort on the other man’s face, how pale his friend had gone under his tan.
Ken could be pretty damn oblivious at times, but even he got where Lester was going with this. It would have been pretty hard not to, with that little smirk on their manager’s face.
“No way,” Ken stated baldly. “There has to be some other …”
“We need this,” Lester informed them. “Darien screwed us over, but I saw how the people loved him hooking up with Noah. We need a romance in the band, and it’s going to be you two unless one of you wants to try to convince Aaron to do it.”
Ken and Lance exchanged looks because they both knew very well that it would be more likely for a whole flock or herd of whatever you called it of pigs to fly by them on silver swan’s wings than it was for Aaron to sign up for some sort of fake relationship.
“Ken shouldn’t have to … he didn’t do anything wrong,” Lance protested, and while Ken looked faintly sick, he shook his head in denial.
“No. It’s fine. I’ll do it, if you help me out with the … the other thing,” Ken told him, and Lance winced. He knew exactly what Ken meant. He was talking about freezing the new member of the Lost Boys out, some poor man who hadn’t even been chosen yet.
“Look, I don’t want you to leave, too. Not when Darien just left a couple of months ago,” Ken admitted, his green-blue eyes emotional. “So let’s just do this. I know we’re friends, and it’s weird, but it’s just an act, right?”
Lance took a deep breath and nodded slowly. Belatedly, he realized that he was still holding Ken’s hand, and he softly laughed as he squeezed it. The idea freaked him out, more than a little, not only because it was his friend but also because it was going to be his first public gay relationship, but he was lucky that Ken was willing to go along with it at all.
