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Joey put his hand on Brianna's head. "You got everything? All of your homework? Your flute?"

She shook him off. "Yeah, dad, I've got everything. And if I don't have it, you'd mail it to me, right? Or it could wait. I'll be back in a couple of weeks."

Joey smiled. "Okay, Bri, okay. I get it." He opened his arms.

She stepped into them and gave him a hug. "I love you, Daddy. You just worry too much."

Joey hugged his daughter hard. "Maybe, maybe. But I'm not the one who left her very important social studies diorama and had to get it Fedexed overnight."

Brianna pulled away and frowned. "That was two years ago!" She pulled on her backpack and picked up her suitcase and flute bag.

He opened the door for her and picked up the really big bag. "Get out there; your mom is waiting." She trotted out the door and he followed more sedately behind.

Kelly was just pulling up to the front. "How's my favorite woman in the world?"

She grinned at him and said, "Well, I don't know, Joe, how is your mom?"

Joey laughed, but he leaned in closer. "No, seriously, Kel, you all right? Bri mentioned you looked a little tired lately."

"She did, did she?" Kelly stuck her head out of the window to yell at ther daughter. "Hey, kid! You been telling tales out of school?"

Brianna dropped her bag in the trunk and held up her hands, eyes opened wide and shining. "He asked me how you were, so I told him, Ma. That's it."

Kelly laughed and turned back to Joey. "No, It's cool. There's this guy I've been chatting up, webconferencing after she goes to bed."

"Oh," said Joey, "really?"

"Yes, really." Kelly grinned. "I'm divorced, not dead. You're not the only one who can get on with their life."

Joey shrugged. "I didn't—."

"I know, Joey." Kelly sighed, looked away, looked back. "I asked you to choose me or them, and I knew what the answer was before I asked." She turned around abruptly. "You ready to go, Bri? I got things to do."

"Yeah, Ma, I'm good. Bye, Daddy."

Joey stuck his head in the back window. "Bye, baby. Remember what we talked about: stop showing off in choir and start speaking up in math."

Brianna rolled her eyes, but she nodded. "I'm going to call JC and get his advice."

Joey rolled his eyes in return. Then he went back to the front window and kissed Kelly on the forehead. "Take care of yourself, Kel."

She smiled, a little bittersweet. "Always have. Let JC take care of you."

Joey smiled, backed away from the car, and watched them drive off. He went back in the house and called JC. He told the voicemail, "Come home when you're ready."

He went out to the pool. It was warm for October, and it would be the first time all weekend that he wasn't rehearsing or doing 'quality time' with Brianna, both of which were good but intense. Swimming was exactly the break he needed. He did laps for maybe half an hour, then some diving off the board, nothing too fancy, enough to make him tired. He stretched out on a deck chair, let the sun warm his bones through.

He woke up when JC sat on his legs. "How's it hanging, dog?"

"Long and low, babe, long and low." He put up his hand to shade his eyes from the setting sun. "You just get here?"

JC stretched out on top of Joey and licked his cheek. "No, I wandered around a little, picked up after the munchkin, got a bite." He rolled onto his side, squeezing close to Joey on the light blue cushions. "Y'all have fun this weekend?"

"Not too much. I'm trying to get my shit together for this audition Wednesday, and she has a massive research paper due Friday."

JC laughed. "Sounds like I should have been here. I spent the weekend trying to write stuff for my next album. Didn't do too good. Came up with one thing I'll try to get somebody who wants to be on RadioDisney to buy, but that's it."

"Damn, C, Disney? That doesn't sound like you. You're usually a lot, uh, racier than that. You feeling all right?"

JC shrugged and held the silence for a couple of beats. Then he put his mouth to Joey's throat and said, "You could help me feel sexier pretty quick, man."

Joey pulled his head back and smiled. "Anything you want, anywhere you want. I'm ready."

JC sat up. "You mean it? Cause I'm feeling real selfish." He looked down at Joey with a tiny, terrible smirk.

"I think I know what you're looking for," said Joey. "Lie down and let me take care of you." He pushed up onto his knees and reached for the fly of JC's pants. He put his hand inside. JC was going buck today. Joey put his fingers around the length of JC's cock. It was soft, velvet over loose muscle. He felt it hardening as he stroked, slow and even. He looked in JC's face, caught JC's eyes.

JC stared back, eyes still deeply amused and twinkling. He had his mouth open, breathing a little heavy. "You're so good at this."

Joey smiled. "There's an art to the jerkoff. Intermittent contact, grab and release." He played his fingers up and down, used his fingernails so, so lightly.

JC's smile got dirtier and his eyes drifted shut. "You're so good at this, but you know what I want."

Joey chuckled, long and low. "Wait a minute. Don't be greedy. I'm going to take care of you, but I'm not giving you everything at once."

JC bared his teeth and growled softly in his throat.

Joey reached in JC's pants with his free hand, stroked his thumb through the scruff on JC's balls. "Lift up for me. I want to get your pants off."

JC laughed. "Dude, how solid are those privacy fences? Should we maybe take this upstairs?"

"No, we're good." He pulled his hands out of JC's pants and shoved them under JC's ass. "Seriously, get your ass up, get more naked. I can't take care of you with your pants on."

JC lifted up, bending his knees and arching his back. "You do it. This is all for me, right?"

Joey nodded and pulled JC's pants down the leg to the knee. JC's cock lay thick and red along JC's left leg. It was rising, slowly filling out. Joey rubbed his knuckles along it, back and forth, hypnotizing himself with the view.

JC whimpered quietly and Joey's trance broke. He looked at JC's face again. JC's head was rolling back and forth and the panting had picked up speed. His eyes were still closed, squeezed shut now. Joey said, "I'm the best, right, JC?"

"Uh huh."

"Tell me, C. Tell me I'm the best."

"You're the best."

"Tell me you love me."

"I love you, man, always." JC gasped each word out heavily.

"Tell me you don't want anyone but me. Tell me I'm the only one."

JC opened his eyes and leaned forward. The head of his cock brushed wetly against his shirt and his voice was husky, breathless. "There's nobody but you, Joey. There hasn't been for a long, long time."

Joey bent over. He whispered, "I love you," just before he sucked JC's cock in his mouth. He pulled in a deep breath, once, twice, three times in a row.

JC laughed above him. "You always dive right in there and feel the funk, man. So. Fucking. Good."

Joey just grinned and started humming.

JC groaned. "Joey, you're killing me."

Joey backed off with his mouth and petted JC soothingly. "Too staccato?"

"Yeah, what was that? Digital Get Down?"

Joey nodded and bent back over. He started humming Do Your Thing on JC's balls. JC whimpered and started wriggling his legs, so Joey kept going. He tugged on JC's hips and JC tilted back upward. Joey ran his hand over JC's ass, dragged his fingers in JC's crack.

The pitch of JC's moans rose from groans to whimpers and his whole body was twitching. Joey dropped his weight on JC's legs to keep from being thrown off the deck chair.

JC said, "Joey, Joey, please. Please."

Joey sucked harder on JC's cock, and dug his fingers into JC's body, at the ass and inner thigh.

JC cried out high and long as he came. When JC was done, Joey climbed up his body and kissed his mouth.

JC swallowed and lay his head back on the chair. He grabbed Joey around the waist and sighed happily. "You won't, right?"

Joey ground his hardon into JC and laughed. "No. Kinky fucker."

JC smiled and squeezed, holding Joey too tight to move. "Maybe. Or maybe you just started listening to boyband music too early in life. 'Tell me I'm the only one.' Isn't that a Backstreet song?" He sounded puzzled, but too pleased to care.

Joey lay his head on JC's shoulder and shrugged. "Missed you. Don't understand why I can't have my two favorite people in the world together at the same time."

"Wait a second, Joey, get up."

"What?"

"Seriously, dude, if we're going to talk about Brianna, I'm going to wear pants."

Joey rolled to JC's side and JC got himself sorted out. Then Joey rolled back and put his arm around JC's waist. "I'm not asking you to leave. Brianna would like to see you more often than at band reunion things. Kelly talks about you, even. I love having Brianna every two weeks—"

"And all summer vacation."

"And all summer vacation. But I hate turning single when she shows up."

"Joey, you're such a girl. Look, you have a family thing every two weeks, and I make myself scare for forty-eight hours. It's no big deal."

"And you're not family since when? Since I started sucking you off?" Joey punched JC's shoulder, lightly, because the angle was all wrong. "You have a Christmas stocking at my mom's house. Shut up."

"Oh. Oh huh. That's different. Or not, not different, cause I've had it four years, but—. Dude. I did not think of that. Brianna really wants to see me? Cause we totally hang in the summer, you know that."

Joey rolled his eyes. "She's got this choir teacher that sounds like the second coming of Dallas Austin, except they don't get along. I told her to ask for tips on how to handle him when you came by, but…."

"Oh."

"Yeah. Also, she digs that foul pizza you insist on."

"Pepperoni and mushrooms isn't even strange, Joey, let alone foul."

"Not the point."

JC sighed, and turned to face Joey, to kiss him. "I make no promises. But we'll see. Bri's a pretty cool cat."

"I like to think so."