This story is fiction, and is not meant to imply anything about anyone, particularly any of the members of NSYNC. They may be gay, they may not. You fantasize in your way, I'll fantasize in mine. :) If you're interested and allowed to read, please do. Otherwise, please don't. Carry on.
ONE
"Ooof!" Shelby McRae stepped into the aisle just as two other patrons were stepping out, bringing both parties to a jarring halt.
Shelby stabilised himself against a bookshelf, barely managing to stay on his feet. The young man he had run into, however, hadn't been so lucky. He fell against his friend, spilling them both to the floor and sending the books that he had been carrying scattering across the floor. Leaning down, Shelby offered each of them a hand, and pulled them to their feet.
Both were wearing sunglasses, and both of them had been wearing hats. Only one of them was now. The one who had actually collided with Shelby had lost his when he fell. Realizing this, he bent over quickly and retrieved it, pulling it over his artificially blond hair once more.
"Sorry," he said, looking Shelby in the eye for a moment before quickly looking away again.
"No, it was my fault entirely. Let me help you with those." Shelby knelt beside the second guy, who had been trying to gather up the books that they had dropped.
"Thanks, man."
Once all of the books were picked up, Shelby offered his hand to one of them, and then the other. "I really am sorry about running into you like that. I had my nose stuck in this book, and I wasn't looking. I'm Shel, by the way."
The blond one shook his hand with a little more relaxed expression than he had been wearing a few moments before. When he responded, it was in a quiet voice, though. As though he didn't want to be overheard. "It's okay. I was doing the same thing. I'm Lance, and this here is Chris."
"Nice to meet you, Chris," Shelby removed his hand from Lance's and putting it in Chris's.
"You too." Shelby found his hand squeezed just hard enough, and pumped three times before it was released. A very professional handshake. "Did you say Shel?"
"Yeah, I did. Short for Shelby," he replied. Both Lance and Chris could detect a slight Scottish accent in his voice. Reaching out, he took the top book off of the pile that he and Chris had gathered, and that Chris was now holding. "Pretty demanding stuff you've got here. Hope you've got the time to get everything you can out of it."
Lance tilted his head and read the title off of the spine of the book. "That's one of mine. What do you mean about getting everything I can out of it?"
"It's pretty involved. Not the kind of thing that you should read for a few minutes and put down," Shelby explained. "There's a lot of referential stuff in it as well. It alludes to several different books. When I read it, I had five or six books on the table beside me so that I could look up the stuff that I wasn't familiar with."
"Maybe that wasn't the best choice, then," Lance said, giving it an odd look. "I don't often have that much time to devote to reading. I just thought it looked interesting."
Shelby handed the book back to him. "I'd get it anyway. Even if you don't get everything in it, it's still a good read. Take what you can, and then read it again when you've got more time." They wandered through the maze of shelving as they discussed the different books that Chris and Lance had been buying, and then began to walk up the stairs to the second floor of the bookstore. The awkwardness that Shelby had sensed at the beginning of their conversation seemed to be slipping away the more they talked.
"Shel!"
They stopped talking long enough for Shelby to turn his head and take in the girl who had called his name. "Hey, Crystal. How's it going?"
"Just fine. I was beginning to think that you might not show up today. You're ten minutes late. You want your regular?"
Shelby turned to his two companions. "Would you guys care to join me?" He indicated a small table near the windows. "I always stop here and get a cup of tea. Normally, I go over whatever it is I've managed to find on the shelves, but we could just hang out."
Lance and Chris shared a look that Shelby couldn't decipher, then Lance nodded and turned his attention back to Shelby. "Sure. Sounds like fun."
"Excellent." Shel wasn't particularly used to making friends this quickly. He wasn't really used to making them at all. But both Chris and Lance had seemed interested in their discussion, and if there was one thing that Shelby loved to talk about, it was books. "Crystal, I'd like you to meet..."
"Tom," Chris interrupted, giving her a small wave and a smile.
"James," Lance said, adding his own wave.
Shelby gave them both a confused look, but decided to mind his own business.
"I'll have my regular. What do you guys want? It's on me."
"That's okay, Shel, we can pay for ourselves," Chris argued.
"Given how much you're going to be dropping for all of those books, I'm sure you can. But you're not going to. Crystal? Give them what they want, and put it on my bill, would you?"
"Sure thing, Shel." Crystal placed his mug of tea in front of him and turned her attention to Chris and Lance - Tom and James. Shelby was just starting for the table he had indicated a moment before when Lance grabbed his arm.
"You think we could sit at that table over there instead?" He pointed out a table that was across from the window, along the far wall and out of the traffic of the store.
"Um... sure. No problem," Shelby responded, then turned and headed for the table. He took his seat and set the two books that he had been carrying on the table, waiting for his companions to join him. There was something about them that was fuelling his curiosity, and it was an odd sensation for him. Normally, he was very much one to keep to himself, happy to let others do what they wanted without it even occurring to him to care much about it.
"Thanks," Chris said, sitting down with him. He set the tray he was carrying on the table, then took the books off of it, setting them down on top of Shel's. He removed the two mugs and a plate of cookies from it as well, then placed it on the floor, leaning it up against the wall to give them more room on the table.
"Don't mention it. It's the least I could do for running the two of you down downstairs."
"I told you that wasn't all your fault," Lance said, sitting down across from Shel. He handed Chris a couple of sugar packets and creme containers, along with a spoon. "We weren't watching where we were going any more than you were."
"Yeah, you know what Scoo... Lance was reading, but what had you so enthralled?" Chris lifted their books up and picked up one of the ones that Shel had set down. Opening it up, he cocked his head and looked up. "What's this?"
"It's a book," Lance laughed, his tone suggesting that Chris might well be a retard. Chris didn't look amused in the least, and turned the book around so that Lance could see the print. "Hey," Lance said, leaning over for a closer look. "What is that?"
"It's in Arabic," Shel grinned.
"You read Arabic?"
He nodded and took a sip of his tea. "Not as well as I want to, which is why I got those two. I had to order them specially."
"You sound Scottish, though."
"I am, sort of. My parents were both born there, but I grew up here. The bit of accent I have is from them. I picked up Arabic last year. It looked hard, so I decided to give it a shot."
"That's pretty cool," Chris said, looking through the book.
"It's a distraction," Shel smiled. "So do I get to find out exactly who you two are? Are you Lance and Chris, or Tom and James, and who's Scoo?"
"You really don't have a clue who we are, do you?" Lance asked, looking at him with a small smile.
"Should I?"
"No, I guess not. I'm really Lance. He's really Chris. We just wanted to keep a low profile."
"You two on the run?" Shel asked, smiling. Neither one of them seemed like they would be capable of pissing anyone off, let alone doing any real damage.
"Sort of," Chris said reluctantly. Shelby could see the hesitation to talk about their situation, and he put his hands up to stop any further explanations.
"It's okay, guys. Forget I asked."
Lance shook his head. "No, it's just that..."
"Forget it," Shel insisted. "If I don't know now, I don't need to know, right? So you're Lance and Chris, two guys I ran into - quite literally - at the bookstore. That's enough."
They both looked relieved to be let off the hook, and the three of them sat for a few minutes without talking, letting the bit of uncomfort pass.
Finishing off a cookie, Chris finally broke the silence. "So, Shel, I take it you're here often? The girl at the counter, Crystal, seemed to be a pretty good friend."
Shel smiled and nodded his head. "She's a friend, I guess. I don't see her except when I'm in here, though. I'm here once a week. Every Thursday morning, actually. Eleven AM sharp."
"That's quite the schedule." Lance smiled and reached for one of the cookies, offering the plate to Shel, who shook his head. "Why the exact time?"
"My days tend to be pretty full. If I don't schedule stuff in that way, they don't wind up getting done. There's only so much time during the day that I can get out."
"What is it that you do that's so time-consuming?"
"I'm a caretaker, of sorts. My job isn't so much time-consuming as it is all-consuming. During the day, anyway. Most nights my schedule is a little more flexible, but even then there's certain conditions. But, it's a living. A rather good living, actually."
"What exactly do you take care of?" Chris asked.
"That's sort of a complicated question," Shel started, and Lance immediately jumped to his rescue.
"Don't worry about it, Shel. You didn't ask about us, we don't have any right to ask about you. After all, we've only known you for half an hour or so."
"Thanks, Lance. It's not that I don't want to tell you, just that it's kinda complicated to explain in a nutshell. Caretaking is my main job, but it's really just what pays the bills." Shel got a strange smile on his face as he said that, but didn't explain it any further. "It doesn't really require a lot of work, but I have to be there just in case. So, I have a lot of time on my hands. That's why the Arabic, and other distractions that I pick up along the way."
Lance nodded. "I understand. You said it's complicated to put into a nutshell. That's the same thing with us. The way things are, we just have to be careful about what we say, who we say it to, and where we say it."
"Trust me, I understand that better than you might think," Shel assured him.
"So are you from New York?" Chris asked, once more veering the conversation before they got into territory that they had already established was off-limits.
"Yes and no. My parents moved us here when I was ten or so. But I live here now, yeah."
"What about your parents?"
"They passed away when I was fifteen."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Lance said, reaching across the table to touch Shelby's arm. When he noticed what he was doing, he quickly removed his hand again. "That's horrible."
"It was," Shel conceded. "But, I'm okay. I still think about it a lot, but I've gotten along pretty well." His mind was reeling with the way Lance had been so quick to offer his condolences, and feeling Lance's hand on his arm had set his heart going a little faster. It had been ages since that had happened. "What about you guys? I'm assuming that you're not from New York."
They both shook their heads, but Chris was the only one that spoke. "I'm from Florida. Lance here is from Mississippi. We're only in town for a few days. We were just stocking up on reading material while we had the day free."
Hearing that they were only going to be there for a few days brought Shelby's heart back to a more sedate pace, confusing him even more. It really wasn't like him to react like this to others. He was usually very reserved when it came to people he met. Polite, even friendly, but he didn't let them get to him. He had learned long ago that forming attachments opened up whole new worlds of hurt.
But somehow, Lance and Chris - but especially Lance - had managed to form some sort of bond without him even realizing that it was happening. The moment he had seen Lance, he had gotten the feeling that he was gay and the hand on his arm, along with the expression when it was removed, all but confirmed it for him. But this was New York. Every other person you met on the street was gay. Especially in this neighborhood.
He hadn't meant their refreshment break to be anything more than an attempt to pay them back for bowling them over in the aisle. He hadn't expected to ever see them again after they left the bookstore, even if they were from New York. In a city that size, the odds of bumping into them randomly were pretty small. But hearing that there wasn't even the possiblity of it happening saddened him a little. That sadness was what was causing the confusion.
"Shel? You still with us?" Lance leaned over and waved his hand in front of Shelby's face with a laugh. "Earth to Shelby."
Shel smiled. "I'm still here. Just thinking, I guess." He lifted his mug and drained the last bit of tea out of it, and watched as Chris and Lance did the same with their drinks. The cookies were already gone. Chris leaned over and got the tray again, then set the mugs and plate on it.
"I guess we should probably get going, and let you get back to your schedule," Lance said, standing up from the table.
Shel and Chris did the same, and Chris offered Shelby his hand again. "It was really nice meeting you, Shel. And thanks again for the grub."
"Don't mention it, Chris," Shel responded, shaking his hand. He noticed this time that the handshake was less professional than the first one had been. When he released Chris's hand, he offered his to Lance, who immediately shook.
Looking at Lance, Shel found himself thinking about just how much he didn't want to let go of the hand he was holding. His confusion was rising by the second at his reaction to this guy, and he didn't have a clue what was going on with him.
"Nice to meet you," Lance said, smiling.
Shel was speaking before his brain could kick in. "Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?" he asked, still not letting go even though their hands had stopped moving up and down.
Chris inhaled sharply and gave Lance a look, obviously uncomfortable with the sudden turn of events. Shelby could see Lance's eyes open wider behind the sunglasses that they had both insisted on wearing even though they were inside. They were light tints, so at least they could see clearly indoors.
"Excuse me?" Lance asked, finally releasing Shel's hand.
Thinking he had made a mistake after all, Shel withdrew his hand, dropping it to his side. "I asked if you wanted to have dinner with me. Sorry if I stepped out of line, but you are gay, right? I've just been getting this vibe from you..." With each word, he saw the surprised expression on Lance's face grow, and he finally stopped talking. "You know what? Nevermind. Sorry if I said something wrong. It was nice meeting you both."
He picked up both of his books and moved from the table, heading for the stairs.
Lance and Chris watched as he moved through the small cafe setting, waving at Crystal on his way to the stairs, and then headed down them. "How did he know?" Chris whispered.
Lance shrugged, then looked Chris in the eye for a moment. "I don't know. I didn't have a clue about him. What do I do?"
"What do you mean? You forget it. He didn't know who we were, and didn't seem to be the type that would care much, anyway. And you didn't admit anything, so it's not like he can go to the press with it. I say we just pay for our stuff and leave."
Lance knew that Chris was probably right. But at the same time, his words fell flat. For much of the time they had been sitting at the table, Lance had been watching Shelby. Secure in the knowledge that his sunglasses hid all but a faint outline of his eyes, he had been able to look without seeming to look. There was something about him...
Coming to a decision, Lance handed his few books to Chris once more and started to move for the stairs. "I don't think I can do that, Chris," he said behind him as he picked up speed, hoping to catch Shelby before he left the store. He heard Chris calling him - calling James - but he paid no attention, intent on getting down the stairs in time.