Joey never answers his phone.

The way Lance understands it, Joey doesn't answer his phone because screening his calls means no one will find him. It's not that he's a recluse -- New York society knows his face and some of them know his real name, know that the money for the inner city theater troupe comes from pop music that most of the teenage participants would kill rather than admit to liking.

Fourth ring, without fail, and Lance says, "Hi, just me."

His message doesn't need to be elaborate. Chances are that Joey will call him back within ten minutes, if not, maybe two hours and maybe two weeks, depending on how his therapy and his marriage and his opening nights are all doing. Lance doesn't have a cell phone anymore, so for an hour and a half he sits at home and waits for Joey to call.

The reason he doesn't have a cell phone is that October 16th, 2006, he threw it out of a moving car and almost hit a pedestrian.

"Hello?"

"Hi." Joey's voice is the thing that most reminds Lance time is moving forward, since he sounds the same but older, and there's no distinct, abrupt change that ever happened. Joey got old slowly and that proves the passage of time more than anything else in Lance's life.

Lance says, "Don't you have call display, voice recognition, yet? Seriously."

Joey answers, "Nah. I don't bother. It drives Kelly crazy but I tell her, if she wants it then she can get her own line. I don't want it."

"You're just scared to answer your phone."

Lance has been watching footage from the first American tour since three o'clock this afternoon. He had hot dogs for lunch, and then watched the five of them at the 2001 Kids Choice Awards, Justin clinging onto Chris as they got slime dumped on them. Sometimes the footage is depressing, today Lance just watches it dutifully, knowing full well that there won't be anything new, but notepad on his knee anyway.

Joey sounds carefully not pissed off. "Okay, what is it that you really want?"

Lance sighs. They fight sometimes, him and Joey. Except, that's a lie. They don't fight at all and snipe every conversation. "I just. JC called me and I wondered if he'd talked to you."

"Dude, you see JC ten times more than I do." And, in theory, this is true, because Lance and JC are both living in California and yes, Joey went back to New York. In theory isn't in practice though, and he hasn't seen JC, who lives a half-hour away, in over three months.

Lance's last therapist warned him about secluding himself from the things in his life that he loved -- singing, dancing, fame, the guys --just because they reminded him of bad things that happened. His old therapist also believed in meditation and dream analysis and other bullshit, so he says goodbye to Joey, puts the next tape in, notebook on his knee.

Nothing in any of the tapes, no matter how many times he re-watches them, brings him back to that place where he can actually talk about those years. A freeze-frame of a concert from 2001, Chris and Justin's smiling sweaty faces, should tell him everything he needs to know but instead Lance stares at the television, a little out of focus, and feels the presence in his goose bumps of the closed folders beside him.

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