“Eight.”
“OK... that means we have two hours to go out, eat and get back before it starts.” He said looking at his watch. Everyone else in the elevator looked at him. “What?”
“Nothing. You think we can do it?” Brian asked.
“Is Britney Spears fake?” AJ asked.
“OK, I guess that settles that. Where are we going to eat and not be mobbed?” Charity asked as the elevator doors opened and they all stepped out of it.
“And AJ, if you say anything about Mc Donalds I’m going to smack you.” Tasha said with a bright smile on her face. The last time they had gone to Mc Donalds they had been mobbed and called in extra security to get them out safely. It had been on the national news.
“I wasn’t gonna say anything.”
“Good.”
“Well, I think that we should go to a restaurant. Something like...”
“Olive Garden!” Tasha exclaimed. “I saw one when we came into town.”
Kevin looked at everyone. They all agreed. “OK, Olive Garden it is.” They called security and after telling them the plan, went to meet them down in the lobby.
As the elevator doors slid open and the group stepped out into the lobby to meet security, who was waiting for them, the crowd outside the revolving glass door caught sight of them and went nuts. “My God. It’s 50 degrees out and they are out there screaming and holding up posters like it’s the middle of summer.” Tasha said.
“Yeah... You gotta love the fans.” AJ said, smiling and waving at the group of girls outside.
“OK, are you ready to do this?” Mark, one of the larger bodyguards asked.
“Ready as we’ll ever be.” Charity remarked, still watching the commotion on the other side of the glass wall. They began to walk towards the door, security walking in front of them to clear the way through the crowd, behind them to make sure that no one got left behind and on either side to make sure that everyone made it to the waiting van with their clothes still in tact. Kevin was the first to go through the revolving door, closely followed by Howie and AJ. Brian and Tasha went through together as did Nick and Charity. The screaming got louder with every member of the group that went through the door.
Although they walked purposefully towards the van that was waiting for them only a few yards away they all smiled and waved at the girls who had waited outside for hours for the moment that they would walk through that door. They were the reasons that the guys were able to continue doing what they loved, and the heart of what the Backstreet Boys were all about. They were the best friends that the group had. They were the fans.
When they all finally reached the van and piled in Tasha told Mark where she had seen the restaurant and sat back in her seat. Charity sighed. “I don’t think I’ll ever get over seeing that many people wait, scream, and faint over seeing the five of you.” All five of the guys looked at her as the van began to move. “What? Just because I’m a teenage girl doesn’t mean that I think that Nick is... hmm.... How should I put this...f*ckable? Yeah I think that’s the word I heard someone use.”
Kevin, AJ, Howie and Brian burst into laughter. “You... HAVE... to be ...KIDDING...me!” Brian choked out.
“Nope. Dead serious. I was talking to a girl outside of one of your shows and I swear to God I thought she was gonna have an orgasm when she started talking about what a blond, blue-eyed babe Nicky over there was. I almost peed my pants laughing after that.”
“God knows I would have.” Brian said, still laughing.
Charity looked at Nick, who was sitting across from her. He was bright red and glaring at her. “I’m sorry Nicks, I didn’t embarrass you, did I?”
“CJ, you are so going to die for that.”
“Yeah, whatever Carter. I’ll believe it when they bury me six feet under.”
“We’re here. Now, please guys, try to keep a low profile. Charity, I want you to pay the bill.”
“What?!” Everyone in the car, except Nick, asked.
“You’ll get reimbursed, don’t worry. We just got news the other day that the last time one of the guys paid for it the waitress turned around and sold the receipt to a fan who was waiting outside.... For 15 dollars.”
“Someone got ripped off.” Tasha said under her breath.
“Hey! I paid last time!” Brian said, eyeing the girl he called his best friend.
“Anyway, the point is that we don’t want that to happen, so I want Charity to pay for dinner tonight and I’ll give you the money for it when we get back to the hotel.”
“OK.” Charity had no choice but to agree.
They climbed out of the van and into the evening air. “Gotta love the Northwest in October.” Tasha said as she pulled her jacket tightly around her small frame.
“Quit complaining and go inside. It’ll be a lot warmer in there.” Brian said, walking up to the door and opening it.
“What a concept.” Kevin said quietly as he walked through the door.
“This could be a long two hours.” Charity said when everyone was inside. Just then the host came up to them.
“How many tonight?”
“Seven. And we’ll need another table, for six. We have some other gentlemen that will be coming in but won’t be eating with us.” Charity said. The young man looked at her strangely and slowly nodded.
“OK... right this way.” He led them to a table and handed them all menus after everyone was seated. They had managed to get a table in the back, away from everyone else, but this also meant that they had to go through the entire restaurant and of course this meant that they were recognized by numerous people.
Charity ran onto the elevator, with everyone else close behind her. They were all soaking wet. Hal, the bus driver looked at the strangely, as he held the door open so that they could all get on. Sure he was used to having them run onto the bus after being chased by fifty screaming girls, but as he looked out the door just before it closed, there wasn’t anyone in site.
“OK, what did you all do?”
“We didn’t do anything!” Tasha said, slightly out of breath from running nearly a mile at top speed.
“Yeah... no, I don’t think so. You don’t run onto the bus for no reason, and I don’t see anyone that stands three feet tall in here, excluding AJ’s ego. So what happened?”
“Well, we ate dinner, had about thirty people ask for autographs, had water spilled on CJ cause she was siting next to Nick, finally got through dinner and decided to go to the park without security cause they didn’t want to go.” AJ started.
“So we went to the park about a mile down the road. Well there is a pond down there. Brian and I were feeding the baby ducks until-” Charity cut Tasha off.
“Until Nick and I pushed them in the pond!” The two friends gave each other high fives.
“SO of course we had to bring them in with us.” Brian continued.
“Then they asked us to help them out.” Howie was next to add something to the story.
“And let me guess, they pulled you in with them?”
“No actually we didn’t.” Nick said. “We let them help us out.”
“And then they PUSHED us in.” Kevin said with a glare.
“Then Nick asked what time it was and we realized that it was 7:30 and none of us had a phone with us and we had to be back here by 8.”
“So we all hauled ass for a mile until we got back here.” Just then the doors opened and they all got off of the elevator.
Hal just laughed and smiled as they all went on their way to get cleaned up.
Twenty minutes later all seven of them were sitting Nick and Brian’s room in front of the TV. Hal was doing one final check on them before he went to his room. He knocked and walked in when everyone told him to.
He caught a quick glimpse of the TV. “This is what was so important that you had to be back here by 8?” He asked as James Van Der Beek walked across the screen.
Nick looked didn’t even look away from the TV as he answered the question. “Hey, we can’t miss Dawson!”
