They kick you out of the park at five, but you were more than ready to leave.

"Because, shower... bed," you say, blushing. You can feel sand everywhere and it's decidedly unsexy when there isn't a water source to rinse it off with.

"Shower... bed," Chris agrees as you climb into the car again.

You look over at him and smile. You're still smiling. You haven't stopped smiling since he braced himself above you, blocking out the sun and all objections and said, "I love you." You want to touch him, some part of him, but you're not twelve or even eighteen and you think you should be long past the holding hands in the front seat stage, so you settle for staring at him with a big, goofy grin on your face.

He looks over at you as he pulls back on the highway. Reaches over and grabs your hand and you smile and sigh because you know that he knows you. That he knows what you're like, what you want and don't want, like and dislike, because you've been living in each other's pockets for so long that it's hard to distinguish a time before from a time after.

"Thank you," you say, though you don't know what for. You're holding his hand in your lap with both of your hands and your hair is sticking up and sandy and you're grinning like a fool and you can't remember when you were happier.

"You're welcome," he says and smiles. And it's perfect.

You are worried. Worried about whether or not he was really ready for this, for you. Even though he'd kissed you, already touched you in places that hadn't been touched by anyone but yourself in months.

He'd kissed you again when you walked in the hotel room. Pressed you up against the wall next to the door, bags at your feet and the grainy wallpaper at your back. White sand had gathered in piles beneath your feet, displaced from your clothes and body by his roaming hands.

But he's in the bathroom now and you're still not sure how it happened, how you'd gone from heated kisses and touches to separate rooms and you sit on the bed and wait for him to come out.

So when he finally comes out he finds you waiting expectantly, staring at the bathroom door. He stops by the TV, staring back at you.

"Are you sure?" you ask.

"Sure of what?"

"That you love me. That you're really ready for this because I've wanted it for so long and I don't think..."

"How long?"

"What?"

"How long?"

You draw your knees up on the bed; wrap your arms around them. "Years. I don't even remember now." But you do, you can remember exactly when it was. Someday you might tell him, but not now.

"You should have said something."

"I know."

"Because you act like I've never thought of this before."

And that draws your head up and you stare at him with blank wonder on your face. And the years of loneliness and longing crash down around you and you wonder if you've really found him at all.

Then he says "I love you," and its right next to your ear and he's pushing you back on the bed and covering you with himself, with his love.

"Stop thinking so I can, you know, really love you," he says. You pull him down over you, on you, and his skin touches yours and it's everything you ever thought it could be.

You wake up early and you’re wrapped around him again and it seems like you’ve always woken up this way, with his arm around you and his breath tickling your neck. But you know it hasn’t and it’s new and you turn over and he’s staring at you, watching you sleep again. He pulls you in and kisses you and despite morning breath you kiss him back, your tongue stroking his and your hands sliding along his chest.

You pull away and your stomach rumbles and you laugh because you can’t remember the last time you ate. Dinner was forgotten in the mad rush for a hotel room.

“Breakfast,” you say, stretching.

“Breakfast,” he says, stretching himself on top of you. He covers you and for a moment you feel small, smaller than him, though you’re definitely taller. You like it.

“Up!” he says. “There’s a Waffle House across the parking lot.”

It’s still the gray light of predawn and you can’t think why you keep waking up this early other than you’re restless and want to move. Because it’s still slightly dark, you show him your game of slinking through the cars, like you used to do with Joey. He laughs and says he did the same thing with Justin, only you think that he might have had more of a reason than you and Joey did.

You can’t stop smiling at each other over breakfast, even though the waitress recognizes you because you didn’t bother to cover your hair or your face at all. You smile and sign her order book and get a picture and all the time his feet are running up and down your leg, though he’s smiling the smile of the innocent.

He still wants to get to the Grand Canyon before the story ends. Before the fairy tale of this interlude ends and you don’t get to be ChrisandJC anymore, but have to go back to being Chris and JC of N Sync again. So you get in the car and spend all day driving to get there.

You’re not sure what you were expecting, other than a huge hole in the ground. That’s pretty much what it is, only on a massive scale. You’ve seen it from the air, on a plane, but never close up. You get there at night and check into one of the hotels that are within walking distance of the tourist center.

You wake up early again, before the sun rises this time and you roll over onto Chris, pushing and pulling him out of bed so you can watch the sun rise over the canyon.

He yawns and whines but eventually gets up, allowing you to drag him out the door and to the car so you can drive to one of the more isolated areas, away from the crowds gathered to watch the sun.

You sit on a rock and pull him into your arms, letting him rest back against you, your chin resting in the soft hair of his head. He hooks his arms under your knees and you snuggle into his back, sighing.

You catch your breath as the sun rises because it’s so beautiful, so different from any sunrise you’ve witnessed before, because he’s in your arms and you’re together and you think, whatever happens, you’ve already got all you’ve ever needed.

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