JC looked up from his note book "You look nice, you got a date?"
Lance gave a lazy lopsided grin. "Yeah" He came into the room and sat on the bed. "But I wanna talk to you first. Do you think you can? talk to me that is."
"I guess."
Lance placed the A4 envelope on the bed between them "I want you to look at some people for me."
"Lance I never saw their faces, I only heard them, You know I don’t think I am feeling up to talking to you after all. Enjoy your date."
Lance took the note book and pencil off his friend. "Josh"
JC stared down at the quilt picking bits of loose cotton with his good hand. Lance picked the stiff ungiving right hand that was laying in the brunettes lap and began to massage the joints. Gently bending each finger before rubbing with his finger and thumb. JC sighed relaxing into the touch "Mmmm, Feels good, it still hurts so much a lot of the time."
"I thought it did, why didn’t you say anything? Does Justin know?"
JC shook his head. "He’s been there for me. Took all the shit I threw at him, I didn’t want to worry him."
Lance reached over and picked up the note book, opening it randomly, the pages were filled with shaky letters "Oh Jace why didn’t you tell me? if you didn’t want to worry Justin you could have told me."
"Tell you what scoop, that I can’t even write my own name. I don’t seem to be able to grip the pencil steady enough it just keeps slipping out of my hand." JC chewed at the inside of his mouth as he fought determinedly not to cry. " I can’t write my own name Lance." The blond continued his ministrations of the injured limb."
"Does Justin help you with your exercises?"
Lance only had to look at JC’s face to know the answer to that question. "Doesn’t he know how important these exercises are? you need to be doing them three, four times a day."
"I never asked him, he has a life to lead, he spends too much time looking out for me as it is."
"Jace he’s your boyfriend, he’s supposed to look after you if the boot was on the other foot you would never leave his side."
"He’s young."
"And you are making excuses for him. He should be here doing this not me."
Josh pulled his hand out of Lance’s grasp "No one asked you to." He clutched it tight to his body and covered it with his left hand. "Justin does his best for me, He’s been good to me."
"Shit. I’m sorry Jaycee, I know he has, damn he was a total train wreak till we got you back. Then when the police made him identify a body."
"He ... he had to identify a dead person?"
Lance made a deep intake of breath as he realised his mistake. "He never told you?"
"No"
"Well it shook him up pretty bad, all of us really. Look Jace, I know you don’t think you know anything that can help, but please just look." He pulled out the glossy prints and spread them over the bed.
Josh chewed on his left thumb nail as he let his eyes drift over the photos.
"That’s Ryan." He pointed at the ponytailed blond. That’s Oggie, English dude that looks after the garden sometimes, blind as a bat but a heart of gold. I don’t know who that is." He pointed to the picture of Garrett Buckfield.
"Wait you don’t know him?"
" Well I know his face but ... I could have seen the dude in a bar or something."
"He never worked for you?"
"No"
"Jace this is important are you sure? He didn’t repair a lock for you when you had the break in?"
"I didn’t have a break in Lance."
"Jaycee think carefully, do you know this guy at all. His name is Garrett Buckfield."
Recognition swept over Josh’s face. "What’s he doing around my home?"
"You remember him?"
JC nodded his eyes glazing over as he began to rock gently back and forth "We were in 7th grade together, If it’s the same guy. He had this real thing about me cus I used to dance in this little group, we won a couple of contests in Bowie. He used to call me fag, faggot, pussy boy, you know the usual. He used to wait for me after school, sometimes I got away sometimes I didn’t. Lance why was he hanging round my home, and why did you think I would hire HIM to fix a door that wasn’t broke?"
"Did you know Ryan is his brother?"
The brunette shook his head. "Ryan .... Shit Lance it was Ryan ... I knew I knew that voice. His voice is really quiet a gentle Irish accent, The other one the one that .... He was harsher sounding but defiantly Irish ... it was him" JC drew his knees up to his chest tears rolling slowly down his face as he stared at the man who had raped him.