7. Star Wars

 

Joey Fatone invites them over, and Aaron's home for the weekend so Howie invites him along. Nick hesitates and Aaron starts unbuttoning his jeans to get changed. Nick snaps his mouth shut and leaves the room with Howie.

He pulls on clean jeans, a faded t-shirt. It's only NSYNC, so he doesn't bother dressing up. He thinks about the mesh shirts, the white ones he's outgrown, the shorts that are almost too short, but he's tired.

He's not sleeping well.

Angel doesn't want to go and Leslie's still recuperating, so they pile into Howie's car, and Howie talks while they drive.

Star Wars, and Aaron thinks silently that NSYNC are possibly the biggest dorks in the world. He's not jealous about the cameo thing though Nick didn't shut up about it for weeks, but at least Nick doesn't have an entire room full of Star Wars crap. Kirkpatrick and Timberlake are in Jedi robes with light sabers. The robes are bedsheets, but the thought is still incredibly dorky, and Aaron lets himself sneer a little. They ignore him anyway and he wanders out halfway through the film to play with the baby.

Kelly's nice and Brianna's beautiful, and when JC turns up with some fruit juice, Aaron says "thank you" politely enough and even talks a little. JC's a spaz, Nick says, but he's nice enough when he's coherent, and he can make Brianna laugh, which is cool.

"Who did you want to be?" JC asks, and Kelly says definitely Han Solo because he got the best lines, but Leia in the bikini, and they laugh because they're old friends. Nick says they used to sleep together, JC and Joey, and that they all shared girls. Aaron wonders if they shared Kelly.

"What about you, Aaron?" JC asks, smiling.

Luke, Aaron thinks instantly. Luke gone bad, Luke with Leia, Luke in love with Han Solo and held back by tradition. Luke with blond hair and black gloves and the blade slicing cleanly through bodies.

"Obi-Wan, I guess," he says. He slows his voice down and smiles sweetly at Brianna. Her teeth are almost all through, the big gummy smile he remembers from his last visit, gone. "Not as cool as Darth Maul but he's alive at the end."

JC nods and says softly, "Good answer, man."

Later, Aaron remembers Qui-Gon, and all the stories he never bothered to read.

 

next