"Wait a second! Just hold on okay? I gotta call Brian and let him now where we'll be!" Amanda cried as we tried to drag her out of the bus. The guys were at a photo shoot and we five females needed to go out shopping for them for Valentine's Day, which would be in less than a week. We had no clue what to get our boys, though, so we were just going to check out the local mall. Amanda wanted to get Brian a watch, Danielle wanted to find Kevin some of his favorite cologne, Emily wanted to get AJ a silver chain, and Amy was planning on getting Nick something that had to do with the beach. I had no idea what I wanted to get Howie. I figured I might as well be goofy. Get him a random tie with hearts all over it. We had realized that we couldn't get them anything big because it wouldn't fit in the bus. This wasn't really a big deal to Manda, Dani, Em, and myself. But Amy had no clue what to get Nick.
The first place we stopped at was a joint jewelry and watch store. There, we split up and helped Emily and Amanda try to decide which to buy. Emily and I searched every rack of chains until we found two relatively cheap ones. One was silver, the other platinum.
"Okay, I don't want him putting anything retarded on it...like a bone or something, so which looks best alone?" Emily wanted to know. I pulled out my wallet and held up a picture of AJ to the jeweler's face.
"Which chain do you think would look best on this guy?" I wanted to know. The jeweler gave us crazed looks, probably assuming we were teenyboppers spending tons of money on a guy we dreamt about. She pointed to the platinum chain.
"I think the platinum would compliment his skin tone, where as the silver would look a little flashy on him," the jeweler explained. We could tell she didn't want us to buy the most expensive one on somebody she assumed we didn't know.
"Yeah but I really like the silver one. I think I'll get the silver one," Emily argued. She picked up the chain and studied it some more, then declared, "yeah I want this one!" As Em went to pay for the chain, I found Amanda, Amy, and Danielle with a clerk, contemplating over two different watches. They couldn't decide which one. One was medium sized platinum, and the other one was a large, silver and gold one.
"He's so small. I think that big one will be too big for him," Danielle pointed out. Amy agreed.
"Besides, I'm not sure how much gold he wears," she added.
"Well...he has this gold crucifix that he wears on a gold chain quite frequently. That's why I was sorta partial to the big one. It would go with his cross, you know?" Amanda told them. They thought about it and agreed. The decision was made. Amanda would get the gold and silver one.
After we left the store, we headed through the mall toward more shops. Amy was still looking for something for Nick. She couldn't figure it out. One day...one day...before we left. HEHE. Danielle found some peanut butter truffles for Kevin, and his cologne, which was pretty expensive, was in her hands before long. I bought Howie a silly looking tie with hearts all over it, as I had planned, plus some satin boxers with hearts all over them. It was weird getting stopped every once in awhile to sign autographs and take pictures with fans who knew who we were. Some were really sweet, others glared at us, jealous that we were dating the boys.
Later on, as we sat on the bus, bored out of our minds, AJ turned on the radio and snatched a ringing cell phone.
"Hmmmm who's phone could this be?!" he wanted to know as it rang in his hand. He flipped it open and said, "Backstreet Boys answering service." Before long, unbeknownst of the owner, he was engaged in a long conversation. Howie walked out of the bed from his nap and sat down by the sink. A tad groggy, he yawned and looked at the phone at AJ's ear.
"Bone who are you talking to?" he wanted to know. AJ ignored Howie, chatting up a storm. Yawning again, D reached for AJ's cell and flipped it open. Almost on impulse, AJ turned around and snatched the phone out of Howie's hand.
"What you doin, fool?" J cried. We all laughed.
"AJ you are such a hypocrite," I sighed, grabbing my puppy and pulling him into my lap. He made a face at me, as I grabbed my glass of cranberry juice. I took sip and realized something was terribly wrong. "NICKYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!" I hollered. AJ busted up.
"Do you have to wake all the resident sleepers now?" Brian hollered from his bunk. I apologized to Brock, then got up with my glass to find Nick. He was hiding in the bathroom. I opened the door and held the glass in the air.
"I love you Stephy," he said meekly. I gave Nick an evil smile and then poured every drop of the cranberry juice over his head.
"I love you too Nicky..." I smuggly answered as I walked out of the bathroom, grinning evilly. AJ looked at me, pausing in the middle of his conversation, and giggled, before going back to whomever was on the other line. I set the glass in the sink and went back to my puppy. A few minutes later, Nick came out of the bathroom, stripped of his now stained shirt. He had washed the juice out of his hair and off his face and was now clean. Nick took one look at me and then wrapped his arms around me and threw me onto the chairs. Laughing hysterically, I struggled to break free from his grasp. I managed to wriggle one arm out of Nick's clutch and reached around to one of Nick's most ticklish spots, right under his jaw. Immediately, the strong, six foot two singer was a stocky figure full of jello. He completely melted under my tickling fingers. Before long, I had the poor puppy screaming with laughter on the floor. AJ tossed a stuffed animal at me, for making all the ruckus, and i stopped for a split second. Within that time, Nick was able to retaliate and began to smother me. I giggled nonstop as he attacked me.
Five or ten minutes later, both out of breath, we sat on opposite sides of the front of the bus, breathing heavily.
"You are so mean, Nicky," I said.
"Hey I get practice on my sisters. We wrestled all the time," Nick told me.
Chachi came up to me and lazily walked into my lap, curled up, and fell asleep.
"You are just like a cat, you know?" I said to him, as if he would care.
"Hey AJ are you off my phone yet?" Howie asked, poking his head out from his bunk. AJ quickly told the person he was talking to that he had to go and hung up, then hollered back a "yes Howie!"
It was around lunchtime, so I decided to pull out the ol' peanut butter jar.
"You know, everything tastes good with peanut butter," AJ pointed out.
"Nahh I don't think you're right Bone. Some stuff tastes really nasty with pb," Nick argued.
"Here's an idea. Why don't we get out every edible thing in this bus and see if it tastes good with peanut butter," I suggested. Nick and J really liked the idea, so they dug everything out of the bus nooks and krannies and piled them onto the counters. As we took out the knives and opened the peanut butter, Dani woke up and walked out of her small cubby hole in the wall.
"Hey Dani, come join our peanut butter tasting fest!" Nick invited her.
"Mmm yum! I thought I smelled that stuff from my bed!" she joked, sitting next to me. I was already digging out the first test: graham crackers. I handed each of the testers a cracker and everyone manned him/herself with a knife, then we all dug in and got ourselves a huge hunk of peanut butter and spread it on our crackers. At the count of one-two-three, we bit into our pb and graham crackers. The four of us gave each other approving looks and finished our crackers up.
"You know what would taste good with this? Chocolate..." I began to suggest.
"That's for another day, Gills. Now is pb time," AJ reminded me. "Now, next item. Fritos." We all grabbed a Fritos Scoops chip and dipped it into the pb.
"Not bad...." Dani admitted. AJ pulled two packets of some cinnamon pop tarts out of the box they were in and we all took turns getting our share of peanut butter.
"This is actually good! I totally didn't think it would," Nick told us. We laughed, agreeing completely.
"Next up! Rice cakes!" Danielle declared. We tried.
"Not bad!" Bone said.
"Not bad?! What are you talking about?! This is one of the best mixes ever!!!!!" Dani exclaimed.
"Okay okay! How bout....cheese?" I daringly asked. Everyone gave me disgusted looks. "Aw come on guys. We agreed we'd try everything."
"Yeah when did we agree that?!" Nick wanted to know.
"Oh shut up!" I cried as I handed everyone a piece of deli sliced cheese. That was a flat out NO. AJ looked as if he was about to turn the color of his hair, which
happened to be green. What a crack-up.
"Pretzels!!!" Dani replied, holding up a bag of them. We all grabbed a pretzel and dipped.
"Sooooooo good!" I sighed, eating my pretzel. "Can I take the rest of those?"
"Too late...the Nicky-napper has taken them," AJ pointed out. Nick had the entire bag in his lap and was shoving the pretzels and peanut butter into his mouth. We all looked at him. He gave us a smile, revealing the mouthful of food. The three of us burst out with laughter.
"Bologna and broccoli. Your choice," AJ said, holding up either item. Everyone pointed to the broccoli, except me. I would gladly take that piece of whatever next to a piece of "little green trees" any day.
"This tastes sooo odd," I informed the other tasters as I finished chewing the bite of the bologna.
"Yeah so does this," Danielle agreed, putting down the broccoli stem.
"That's two for the weird list," Nick remarked.
"Oh my god, I am feeling sooooooo sick," I mumbled, placing my hand on my stomach and leaning back on the chair I was sitting in.
"Aw come on. One last thing...Guaranteed. I promise you. No more," Danielle told me. I smiled weakly and put out my hand. Dani placed a ritz cracker on it. "Just this last one, I promise." I spread some peanut butter on it and popped the cracker in my mouth.
"Yummm..." a deep voice spoke for me. We all turned around and saw sleepy-eyed Kevin looking down at us. "Aw Dani you're missing the jelly!" She blushed and looked down, though very quickly recovered and strained her neck to give Kevin a kiss as he bent over the food we had spread out. I gave them a questioning look.
"This was the fine food we dined over when we got back together," Danielle informed me. I nodded my head, understandingly.
"Okay. Let's get this crap out of my face before I throw up!" I exclaimed. AJ chuckled and began to gather the food to stick it where it belonged.
"And so ends another day of food tasting for the PB Four," Nick announced in a silly voice. I wiped the peanut butter off my knife and put it on Nick's nose with my finger. He laughed, then drew his finger across his nose to get the peanut butter off. He then proceeded to lick the pb off his finger, satisfactorily.
And so ended another day with the Fab Five, plus about ten million.