*10 Days Later; July 30th; Tampa, Florida*
The past ten days went by way too fast. I didn't have time to sit down and think about anything. I talked to my family only once. Once in ten days. I felt really bad for that. But we were so busy making arrangements for the big awards show. It was today, July 30th. It was a new awards show called The 1st Annual Tampa Pop Music Awards. We were so excited that we got to go to the first one. Every year from now on Tampa was hosting a purely pop music awards show. This year, our tour Generation P.O.P: 2001 was up for the "best summer tour" award. And, get this, if it wins, we, Cruel Sensation, get to accept it. For the past weeks we've been shopping everywhere trying to find the perfect dresses to wear.
The Backstreet Boys are up for two other awards, for "best video" (for The Call) and "best album" for Black and Blue. Aaron was up for one other award for "best newcomer" even though he's been singing for a long time. He's just recently hit it really big in the States. Christina is up for one also, for "best female artist". We weren't up for any other awards, neither was Rowdy or soulDecision. But we were all going to the awards show. Backstreet Boys, Christina Aguilera, NSYNC, Destiny's Child, O-Town and Britney Spears are performing, too. We can't believe we get to meet NSYNC, Destiny's Child and Britney. And so many more famous people, too. We actually met O-Town when we were in New York, earlier in the tour. They were pretty nice. So we were excited about seeing them again.
Oh, and today is also Cher's 18th birthday. What a birthday present, huh? She's so lucky. This past week has been insane, but most definetely the funnest week of the tour. By now, we were just excited. But we weren't freaking out anymore. We got over that a few days ago. Not a day goes by that we don't thank Jimmy and Trevor for just being there for us. And we thank our dancers too. And we thank God.
"Where's Fay?"
I smiled suddenly when I heard Jimmy calling for me. I was alone in my bunk. I was all dressed and ready to get off the bus. We were at the hotel we'd be staying at that night. My make-up was done. My hair was done. I was ready. We knew we'd be meeting NSYNC and Britney Spears, in just a few minutes. They were staying at the same hotel as us.
"If I open your curtain and you're not ready I'm going flip out!" Jimmy continued, and swung open my bunk curtain. He gave me a smile.
"Hey Jimmy, where's the girls?" I asked him.
"At the front, getting ready to get off. C'mon." he replied, pulling me out of my bunk.
I giggled and pushed past him. I ran to the front where Joey, Marce, Dare, Cher, Tony, Luke and Fox were waiting for me. They all grinned when they saw me. Especially Fox. He grabbed my hand. Jeffery opened the door to the bus.
"You might want to be careful. The guards will be meeting us by the front doors to let us in, but the fans are NUTS!" Trevor laughed.
"We'll be careful." Joey replied.
Jamal got off the bus first, and lead us all to the crowd. Fox leaned in and whispered something in my ear, but I didn't even hear him. I just shrugged and let out a laugh. He kissed my cheek quickly.
"Cher! Happy Birthday!"
We all burst out laughing when a group of fans near the doors started yelling "happy birthday" to Cher. She thanked them as we walked by. We met Mike, Aaron's bodyguard, and Gerard, Christina's, by the door. They were trying to talk to us, but we couldn't hear a word they said. We were still laughing when we burst into the hotel lobby.
"Oh my gawd! How crazy is that?" Marce shrieked cutely, when we could finally hear ourselves talking.
"I know, it's insane." Joey agreed. But she loved the attention. I guess we all did.
I still held Fox's hand tightly, as we walked towards the desk. Jamal got our room keys quickly and with no trouble. When we turned back around, Joey grinned and whispered,
"Look! It's Justin and Britney."
We all looked in that direction and saw Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears sitting on the lobby's couch, holding hands.
"They are cute." Marce smiled.
"Let's go say hi." Dare suggested. We all agreed and walked over to them.
Both of them were really nice, actually nicer than we thought they would be. Justin told us that his four other groupmates were up in their rooms. Britney told us that she'd heard our song alot lately and really liked it. We, of course, thanked her for that. Justin congradulated us on everything so far, and said "good luck" about the tour award. We knew that NSYNC's summer tour was also up for the same award as ours. So we said "good luck" to him too. We spent about ten minutes talking to the two of them, before Jimmy made us go up to our room.
I was sharing a room with Dare this time, which I was happy about. Because she always went to the other girls' room and let Fox come in our room with me.
"So... do you girls want to just relax for awhile?" Trevor asked us. I checked the clock, and it was just 7:45am. We all nodded.
"If you're hungry, feel free to go down and get some food from the resturant in the lobby, but don't leave the hotel, alright?" Jimmy told us. We all agreed. Then he, Jamal and Trevor left the eight of us alone.
"What should we do for Cher's birthday?" Luke spoke up.
"Nothing. Don't do anything. All I want for my birthday is to be with my girls, and our awesome dancers. I don't want nothing else." Cher replied quickly.
"What if we win the "best tour award" ?" Joey asked cutely.
"Yeah, that would be an awesome birthday present." I agreed.
"Well... that would be cool. But it still doen't matter." Cher finished.
*A Few Hours Later*
"Fay! Fox! It's 10am, and we're heading down to the lobby to get some food." Dare yelled to us, through the closed door.
"Yeah, Aaron and the BSB and everyone is down there!" Joey piped in. I smiled and yelled back,
"We'll be right down!"
"Do we really have to go down?" Fox whispered. I nodded.
"Yes. I want to go see everyone." I replied.
Fox didn't say anything else. We just got up and left the hotel room. We took an elevator down. Our rooms were on the fourth floor, so we had to stop a few times before we reached the lobby. On the second floor, the doors opened and in walked two guys. They smiled at us, and looked at me really carefully. They both wore hats and dark sunglasses. I was a bit confused. One of them kept staring at me.
"Can I... help you?" I blurted out, a bit rudely. He quickly looked away. The other guy started to laugh. Wait, I knew that laugh. "Oh... my gawd... you're Chris and Lance, from NSYNC!" I told them. They both nodded. Lance removed his sunglasses.
"Oh... yeah, you're Fay!" Lance told me. I was a bit shocked he knew my name. "Sorry I was staring at you, but I knew I reconized you, I just didn't know from where." he finished. I nodded.
"That's ok. This is my boyfriend, and dancer, Fox." I introduced them.
"Nice to meet you, man." Chris shook Fox's hand, after Lance did. "And it's really nice to meet you, Fay. We've been waiting for awhile to meet you girls." Chris continued.
"We're heading down to the lobby to eat. The rest of my girls are down there." I told them. They both nodded.
"So are we. Justin, Joey and JC are down there, too." Lance finished.
We were down in the lobby just a minute later. We met up with my girls, who were with Aaron. Aaron hugged Chris and Lance. He knew them pretty well. Then I introduced them to my girls. And Justin, JC and Joey came over to meet us too. It was funny, we had two Joeys, a girl and a guy. Only us, Aaron, BSB, NSYNC and Britney were staying at this hotel. Christina, Rowdy, soulDecision, Pink and O-Town were staying at a different one, not too far away. We were the ten major groups that would be there. There was tons more though, who were just presenting awards. Like 98 Degrees, Jessica Simpson, The Moffatts, Innosence, and tons more. And guess who was hosting the awards? Carson Daly and Rosie O'Donnell. We knew it was going to be a blast.
At noon, everyone was at the huge stadium where the awards were being held. The stadium had been getting set up and ready for this for the past two or three weeks. We had all our costumes and outfits in "our" huge dressing room.
"Wow!" was all that Joey could say when we stepped into the dressing room. It was nothing like the dressing rooms backstage at concerts. This was a real backstage. There was even a huge star on the door with our group name on it.
"Yeah, wow." Dare agreed, looking around. It was like four or five seperate rooms. Two bathrooms, a large "living room" area, a kitchen area. Shit, it was like a real house. It was so crazy.
"Ok, girls. We'll leave you alone for awhile. You can go wandering around if you want, but be back here by 2pm." Trevor told us. We all nodded quickly. Then he, Jamal and Jimmy left us alone in this huge room, that was ours for the day.
"This is unreal. Look! It's our clothes that we're wearing tonight!" Joey yelled, running over to a huge rack of clothes. We'd pick them all out a few days ago.
"We're changing three times, right?" I asked, amazed. I always wanted to be at a real awards show. And now we were.
"Yeah. We're introducing O-Town first, then we're changing and then presenting the "best male pop group" award later, with Vitamin C, then, at the end, we might get to accept the award for the tour." Cher said hopefully.
"Who's the competition for that?" Tony asked. He didn't know anything. And we'd told him a million times already.
"NSYNC's summer tour, the Destiny's Child tour... and 98 Degrees and Jessica Simpson's tour." Marce replied happily. We all knew that we might not win. But we did have a good chance.
"Oh, that's easy competition. I know for a fact that we'll win." Luke laughed cutely. We all stared at him, amused.
"Don't be so sure about that..." I replied, letting my voice trail off.
