Page 22 of Ken
ELEVEN
It had been a hell of a few days.
Jade had brought home some sort of bug from school, or maybe from dance, and she spent three whole days lying in bed, burning with a low-grade fever, coughing until she choked. Only the fact that she was still eating a little and drinking enough kept Justin from bringing her to the hospital.
Just when he was thinking that he should do just that, just when the sense of overwhelming helplessness that threatened to overtake him almost had him scooping her up and bringing her to someone who could help, she started to get better.
Finally, she was resting comfortably, sleeping deeply and less fitfully, and Justin finally left her side. He should check his messages, he realized, and dug his phone out of his pocket only to find it completely unresponsive, the screen dark and dead. The battery had been completely drained, and no wonder. He hadn’t even considered plugging it in for days.
Well, aside from Lester, who might want to yell at him again, Justin couldn’t think of anyone who would be overly worried about him dropping off the grid for a couple of days. When he plugged his phone in, though, and it had charged for a few minutes, he was surprised to see that he had quite a few text messages when the screen lit up, and the icon that said that he had voicemail was lit up, too.
“Fuck, really, Lester? I’m writing your goddamned songs,” Justin snarled, and it was then that he realized just how much stress he’d actually been under. He had been writing, though, around taking care of Jade, and Lester needed to back the hell off and let him work.
He always had before, but then, Lester hadn’t been trying to find an excuse to fire Justin before, either. Apparently, it made a difference.
Sighing, rubbing at his face, Justin picked up his phone, though he left it plugged in and charging. Bowing to the inevitable, he started to go through his notifications, but to his surprise, the vast majority of them weren’t from Lester at all.
He had one each from Jamie and from Lance, asking where he was and if he was okay. That was a bit of a surprise to him because he would never have thought that they would care enough to reach out like that. They knew him, but were they friends?
That was a nice thought. Justin didn’t have a whole lot in the way of friends.
Mostly, though, the texts were from Ken, and Justin found a smile stretching his lips as he read them. Ken asking about the song, Ken just checking up on him, Ken not so subtly hinting that he’d like to meet up again. Most of the texts were at least a little bit flirtatious, too.
So what did that mean? What about Aaron? Justin shook his head, putting the phone down to let it charge up a little bit more. He could wait until tomorrow to call back, he decided. It was only eight o’clock, but he was pretty worn out from taking care of his sick daughter. Now that she was sleeping, he needed to get some rest, too.
Still, what did it mean, if anything, that Ken had tried to reach him so many times? Even thinking about it had Justin’s cheeks feeling sore, and he realized, with a sense of wonder, that it was because he was smiling so much. Not a problem that he usually had.
His phone, which he had abandoned for now, suddenly started to ring, and Justin looked over at it with some surprise. These days, it seemed, phone calls were pretty rare, and when he saw that it was Ken’s name showing up on the call display, that grin on his face got wider than ever.
What was this strange, unaccustomed feeling that he had? This galloping, racing emotion surging through his body, making him feel like maybe everything could be okay? That he hadn’t actually given up his whole life, that he still had some of it left to live?
Well, that would be hope, wouldn’t it? Not something he was really used to feeling, but it was real, and maybe very dangerous, but it seemed like it might just be harder to kill than he would have thought.
“Hey,” Justin greeted, picking up the phone, carefully avoiding tugging the cord free from the almost dead device. His voice sounded good, he thought. It sounded casual, not as euphoric, nor as exhausted, as he would have thought it might.
“Justin! Oh my God, where have you been?”
There was actual real worry in Ken’s voice, Justin realized. How long had it been since someone had been worried about him? His job, as a father, was to worry about Jade, to take care of her, and it was strange to listen to that concern and to realize that Ken actually cared. He was the caretaker, that was his role and had been since before Jade had been born when he’d been taking care of her mother.
“It’s just …” Justin considered for a moment, trying to think of how he could explain this. But maybe it was time. He couldn’t think of a single reason anymore not to tell Ken about Jade, not when he had seen how good Ken was with kids, not to mention Justin’s growing, evolving feelings for the young man.
“Is it about your kid?”
Okay, now that was weird. Had Ken developed some sort of weird telepathy in the last couple of days? Justin shook his head, just trying to clear it. That was the weirdest timing.
“How did you know about her?” Justin asked, and the question directed at a lot of people would have been actively hostile. To Ken, though, it was just curious.
“At the store, when my mom came by with all the kids?” Ken started, and Justin immediately picked up on what he was saying. But he would have been willing to swear on a whole stack of Bibles that Ken had been far too occupied to notice. Ken always seemed so oblivious.
But apparently not as much as it seemed. Justin had been having a quiet conversation with Maria, and yet, it seemed that Ken had been paying at least enough attention to notice that.
“I was going to tell you,” Justin admitted. “I don’t talk to most people about her. She’s sort of a secret.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line, and Justin listened anxiously. Was Ken mad about it? Justin took a deep breath and prepared to defend himself. He’d done what he thought was best for Jade, he hadn’t known Ken very well at the time, and he really didn’t talk about Jade to anyone …
All that defensiveness faded away as soon as Ken spoke again.
“I can see why you wouldn’t. This is a weird business,” Ken spoke so casually, and just like that, it seemed, Justin was forgiven. “What’s her name? How old is she?”
