JC and Joey sometimes shared a room in Justin's house when rehearsals ran so long that going home, all the way across town, only to wake up at the crack of dawn to practice again seemed pointless.

Often they'd be so tired they'd fall asleep right away but then, the week before they all left for Germany, they'd both been too excited to sleep.

The lights had been turned out in a pretense of attempted rest, but JC couldn't keep his eyes closed. Instead he'd become intimately familiar with the contours of Justin's ceiling. Rustling from Joey’s bed made him think that he might be awake too.

"Joey?"

"Yeah?"

"Have you been to Germany?"

He heard Joey turn over in his bed. "I've never been out of the States."

"I went to Canada once."

"Was it cold?"

"What?"

"I always think of Canada and snow."

"Nah, it was summer. I was eight."

"It'll be cold in Germany."

"I know." JC turned over toward Joey, who he could barely make out in the light filtering through the open window. Lynn's air conditioning was out again.

"Really cold."

"We're going to record an album, not for the weather."

"An album." JC saw a flash of white teeth in the dark.

"Yeah."

"Just sounds so weird. An album. Our album."

JC pressed his hands over his mouth to keep from squealing aloud. "I know," he whispered, when the urge had passed.

Germany was different, JC knew. Harder than he’d imagined. Colder too. The heater in the corner of his hotel room sputtered and died when he tried to turn it on. He decided not to tell Lynn, who’d only make a scene and piss off Lou and do nothing to actually fix the problem of the broken heat source.

“It broken?” Joey asked from the doorway. He had his suitcase in one hand and his backpack over his shoulder.

JC nodded.

“Fuck. Its gonna be COLD at night. Hope you brought your flannel jammies.”

JC just nodded again.

Chris seemed more psychotic in Germany. Like the week he decided they all had to use the word “bitch” in every sentence.

Lance refused to participate because even if his momma couldn’t hear him, God could. JC participated when he remembered, but Chris was increasingly demanding more inventive usages, and JC couldn’t keep up. Justin participated when his mother wasn’t around. It gave him an illicit thrill to use words he knew he shouldn’t, like he truly was a daring rebel instead of the snot-nosed baby of the group. Joey went along, because that’s what Joey did.

“Come on, you bitches. It’ll be bitcherific,” Chris said, trying to get them to go to some bar he’d heard of. Or thought he’d heard of. German could be a tricky language.

JC had been willing to go several hours before, but Chris had wasted his window of opportunity doing God knows what somewhere, and he was too tired now.

“I just want to sleep.”

“What? Did someone say something?” Chris looked around the room. "Bitch!" he added hastily, so as not to break his own rules.

JC shook his head. “I mean, bitch, I just want to sleep.”

“Fine, get your bitch ass into bed. Me and Joe’ll go out, right Joe?”

Joey nodded. “Um… bitch yeah.”

Chris looked pained. “Fuck the bitch yeah, if you please.”

“Sorry.”

“What?”

Joey sighed. “Sorry, bitch. Jesus.”

“Jesus Bitch.”

“God can HEAR you, you know!” Lance yelled through the dividing door. He and Chris had to share a room since Justin was in with his mom. Their room connected to Joey and JC’s.

“Did another little bitch say something?” Chris yelled back.

“Leave him alone, Chris,” Joey said.

Chris shrugged and went to the door. “Bitching, come?”

Joey laughed. “Just a bitch, second.”

Chris walked out to wait in the hall. Joey pulled JC into Lance’s room. He and Justin were huddled up in blankets watching Bill and Ted in German.

“It’s got to be the mountain air,” JC said, trying to explain Chris’s neuroses to himself.

Lance, who didn’t understand satire, solemnly explained. “It’s because we’re always around each other and have no one else to talk to. All our quirky traits are emphasized.”

Justin smacked him on the side of the head. “No shit.”

Joey smacked Justin in the head and threatened to tell Lynn he was cussing and Lance calmed down enough to chuckle nervously. Joey wondered why Lance still wasn’t comfortable with them.

Chris started pounding on the door and Joey followed JC back into their room. “I’ll try to be quiet when I come in, k?”

JC nodded and watched him leave. He wasn’t sure he liked Germany right now. It was cold and it kept taking Joey away.

Chris though, Chris loved Germany because he could get as drunk as he wanted as often as he wanted, as long as he could still wake up to practice the next morning.

JC had trouble sleeping in Germany. The cold kept him up. He thought he could probably see his breath if the lights were on.

He already had the blankets up around his head. He knew the statistic about body heat lost through his head. He couldn’t remember exactly how much it was, but it was a significant amount and he didn’t want to lose it.

He was burrowed as far into the icy sheets as he could get, but the shivering wouldn’t stop.

“C?” Joey’s voice sounded deep and rumbly, like he’d already been to sleep.

“How’d you know I was awake?”

“I can hear your teeth chattering.”

“Sorry.”

“Nah, it’s okay. Cold?”

“Little.”

“You wanna?” JC looked over and Joey was holding up the edge of the blanket, inviting him inside.

JC stared at him miserably. Sleeping in the same bed was pretty gay, but sleeping alone was really, really cold. JC was gay, but no one knew and them finding out wasn’t something he wanted just yet.

But damn, he was cold.

So he heaved a sigh and slid into bed next to Joey, though for a little while he was still too afraid to relax, afraid he’d brush up against Joey and Joey would find out, as if secrets could be revealed by contact.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Joey said when he shivered again. Joey pulled JC against his chest and threw and arm and a leg over him. JC’s back was to his front and JC could feel Joey’s warm breath on his neck.

Joey was warm, so much warmer than he was. JC wriggled back against him and fell asleep.

And so it was in Germany more than anywhere else that their notions of personal space, of the wrongness of boys touching boys, either faded completely or redefined themselves.

JC was fine with the arrangement, as it gave him a straight boy reason to wrap himself around Joey at any opportunity.

Lance continued to have a problem with it, claiming that it wasn’t normal. Like when they were watching a movie together in JC and Joey’s room one night. Lance claimed one bed to himself and kept looking sideways at the tangle of limbs vaguely resembling a human pretzel on the other bed.

Half an hour into the movie, Lance’s shivering has gotten so bad that the headboard rattled against the wall.

Chris disentangled himself with explosive sighs and jumped onto Lance’s bed. “They’re going to think we’re having an orgy or something in here, Bass.”

He sat on Lance so he couldn’t move. Justin, who tried to do everything Chris did because Chris was 24 and cool, followed him and wrapped his body around Lance, who stopped squirming because they were both very, very warm.

JC sighed happily and wriggled closer to Joey, trying not to make it too obvious that he was really pleased to have Joey to himself.

Chris snuck them all past Lou, Lynn, and security the night their album debuted in Europe. He said it was cause for celebration and Justin agreed, though he was the most worried that somehow his mom would find out. Angry Lynn was not someone to be trifled with.

Chris bought them all imported beer, which in Germany meant Bud Light, and Justin did his best to choke down as many as Chris did. Lance occasionally sipped at his. Joey and JC got pleasantly buzzed.

It was around this pleasantly buzzed stage that Joey leaned back and said, “I’m pretty sure that I like guys more than girls.”

Justin, who was trying hard at pretending to be sober so they didn’t get thrown out, giggled quietly and kicked him under the table. Lance looked like someone had sucker punched him. Chris laughed and congratulated him.

JC stared at him for several moments, judging his sincerity, his commitment to what he’d just said. Then, “welcome to the club.”

Everyone turned to stare at JC.

Lance stared between them, as if it were catching. As if he expected something to suddenly spring up between them, because they were both into boys.

JC didn’t even pretend to sleep in his own bed anymore. He climbed in with Joey as they went down for the night, or simply fell asleep mid movie when the others piled onto the other bed.

They talked like they did in the States. JC didn’t think that would ever change. He’d known Joey the longest, liked Joey the longest. He remembered Joey in the States, before Chris and Lou and Justin and Lance.

“I think Lance expects us to grow another head, between the two of us.”

“What?”

“He keeps staring.”

JC shrugged against Joey’s chest. “He’s not going to see anything.”

“No?”

JC froze against Joey, turning his face up to try to read something in Joey’s face. “What?” he croaked.

Joey’s hand cupped his face, suddenly, and he felt Joey’s breath on his cheek moments before their lips brushed together softly, slowly. “Can he see something? Please?” he whispered in JC’s ear.

“Joey…”

“What?” he asked, running his mouth along JC’s cheekbone.

JC straightened his arms between them, holding Joey away. “Are you… is this just because of what I said?”

“When?”

“When I said I liked boys.”

“No.”

“So you liked me before?”

“Yes.”

“How long?”

“What?”

“How long have you liked me?”

“A long time.”

JC was silent for a moment. Staring, wishing the truth could be conveyed through touch so he’d know. “Why didn’t you… before?”

“Because you were straight.”

“Joey!”

“Well? You were. I didn’t want to freak you out and I liked being your friend. So I didn’t say anything.”

“I always liked you,” JC whispered.

Joey kissed him again, and JC decided he liked Germany. Sometimes it was just that easy.