As Long As You Love Me
Chapter Forty-Seven
The rumor mill had gone flying again. Not good. It was a good thing Amanda and I were no longer dancing because we would've surely met our death, with the fly-by throwings. Rumors had now gotten out that I was engaged to marry Howie and Amanda and Brian had set a date for September 23rd. It was but a day after I had gone to the doctor, and we were on the road again. Amy and Emily had snatched up some magazines during a brief pit stop and brought them for us to read. In it was catch up information on the love lives of the BSB. We were used to it, no doubt, but the boys would get pissed at the magazines for being so heartless. That day, Amy, Danielle, Emily, and I were tearing pictures out of the magazines and taping them up in our bunks. We would put a few of our boys, of us with our boys, but most of the pictures were of guys we thought were hot. The four of us had wallpapered the walls of our bunks the past few days. The guys would get a little jealous everytime they'd look through our curtains, yet we couldn't help but laugh at them.
"OH MY GOSH!!! I get this picture!!!" i declared, grabbing a picture of Taylor Hanson. He was nineteen, just like me, and one of the most gorgeous guys I had laid eyes on. Had thought that since we were fourteen. The other three had no objections so I grabbed the picture and tore it out.
"You need to meet that boy, Steph. Really....you have to. He'd think you were insane, but hey it'd be an interesting get together!" Danielle pointed out.
"Dude you know how jealous Howie'd get?" I asked.
"I know...that's the whole point," Dani giggled. Amy and Emily began to laugh and Emily gave Danielle a high five.
"OH YEAH! WE ROCK!" Amy cried. I shook my head, disgracefully, giggling myself.
"Y'all are evil!" I sighed.
"Oh yeah, but that's the whole point," Em reassured me. I tossed a stuffed animal at her.
"BE NICE!" I exclaimed. Just then, Amanda walked by, cell phone and bridal magazine in hand.
"Hey Manda have you made out your guest list?" Amy asked her. Amanda's eyes grew big.
"Ummmm...I knew I had something to do..." she told us. Manda fell down on a bench seat. "This is like sooo not gunna work!!! I can't plan a wedding while working on the publicity for the boys and be on the road!!!!" Danielle put her magazine down and went to sit by her best friend.
"We'll help you Manda, just sit down and cool it okay? You are going to lose all your hair and then you won't look pretty at your wedding!" Dani joked, putting a smile on her friend's face.
"Not me! I'm gunna get all those Hanson pictures before any of you can have the other sides of them! HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!" I laughed psychotically. The others gave me crazed looks. I smiled at em, then grabbed a new magazine.
"Steph...Howie doesn't know about this obsession does he?!" Emily asked.
"Oh yeah. He's known about it since.....we were fourteen," I informed them.
"Who's we?!" Amy wondered.
"Me and Taylor," I joked, before getting whacked in the arm with a magazine. Danielle reached over and shut my curtains, then turned to Amanda.
"NOW, where were we?!" she started up again.
"HEY! You can't just shut me out of your lives here!!!!!" I cried, still being goofy. "Oh well! MORE PICTURES FOR MEEEEEEE!!!" The other four rolled their eyes, sighed, and went back to the bridal magazines.
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"We're HHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!" Amy hollered as the bus pulled to a stop. The boys were on the band's bus, chillin with them for a little bit. We were sitting around, with the big BSB bus all to ourselves. It was nice. My entire bunk was covered with pictures of the Hansons, Christian Bale, Wes Bentley, Heath Ledger, and Chris Klein. Since I had stolen all the magazines, I had pretty much all the good pictures. Amy and Emily got mad. I looked at them and shrugged, laughing. The bus pulled up to the front of the hotel and we were greeted with hundreds of screaming fans. Amanda and I smiled at each other and took a deep breath as we grabbed duffle bags and readied ourselves to charge out into the crowd. I told the other four to go first, since I would have to be carried so I wouldn't get trampled on. After getting them safely in the building's elevator, Tom came back for me. He picked me up and carried me through the fans and into the hotel's elevator, then set me down and went back to get the rest of our troupe.
Once I got onto our floor, I managed to hop my way toward my room, realizing I had forgotten my crutches.
"Hey you need help?" a masculine voice asked. I turned my head and blushed when my eyes met a very familiar set of brown ones.
"Oh, please," I laughed out. He took my duffle bag, then put his arm around me and I leaned on him for support as he walked with me to my room. I told him to stop once we got to my door, then took the duffle bag and thanked him for the help. He smiled and let me know which suite he and his crew was in. I took note of it, then thanked him again before watching him walk off and hopping my way into my suite.
The second I fell on the bed, I dug out my brand new cell phone and dialed Danielle's number.
"Hello?" she answered it.
"Okay I know I'm already dating somebody but....SCORE!!!!!" I cried.
"HUH?!" Danielle asked, confused.
"I was just helped to my room by none other than Clarke Isaac Hanson HIMSELF!" I told my friend excitedly.
"Oh my god! You are kidding me! Don't tease me like this Steph! You're sooo not lying?!" she begged to know.
"NOPE! They're stayin on the same floor as us. He gave me his room number so I can go visit them or call them whenever I want. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!" I laughed.
"Oh my god that's crazy!!! Well are you gunna?! Maybe you could hang out with them while the boys do some publicity stints in town and practice for the concert and stuff!" Dani suggested.
"Good idea!!! I wonder if their little sisters would care to meet the boys..." I pondered.
"How old are they?"
"Uhhhhhhhhh lemme think here...fifteen, thirteen, and six or seven," I tried to remember, doing some quick math.
"Betcha they would," she said. I sensed that she was gaining a huge smile on her face, which made me smile and get just as excited.
"Okay I'm gunna call him now!" I declared, before telling Dani goodbye and ending the cell call.
"Call who?" Howie wondered, as he caught my last sentence to Danielle while he was walking into the room.
"Huh? Oh, I ran into Isaac Hanson just a few minutes ago. I was just about to call his hotel room and see what's up and if they wanted to do anything," I confessed to Howie. He smiled at me, trying to hide the small twinge of jealousy I could tell he had brewing inside of him.
"Sounds like fun. Well hey, I gotta go because we got a radio interview, then a photo shoot scheduled, then after that we're heading straight for the arena to get ready for the concert tomorrow, so, if you don't come to the arena, I love you and I'll see you tonight, babe," Howie told me, then kissed my forehead, grabbed his duffle bag, then walked back out of the room. I sighed and grabbed the hotel phone. Then, I nervously dialed Hanson's hotel phone number. A voice I identified as Zac's answered it after the third ring.
"Howdy hey," he answered unenthusiastically.
"Hey is Isaac there?" I asked as calmly as I could.
"Yeah, may I ask who's calling?" he wanted to know.
"He doesn't know my name. Just tell him the girl he ran into a few minutes ago in the hall," I told Zac before added a "please?" He asked me to hold on, then put his hand over the phone and called Isaac over. Ike instantly knew who his little brother was talking about and picked up the phone.
"Hey! Did you make it into your room okay?" Isaac wanted to know.
"Yeah I did. Hey, I didn't tell you my name or anything before you left. I'm Stephanie. I'm here with the Backstreet Boys," I introduced myself.
"Nice to meet you Stephanie! I'm Isaac Hanson...here with my brothers," he introduced himself, knowing how completely unnecessary that was, but still maintaining the manners he was raised with.
"Nice to meet you too, Isaac," I politely added. "Hey I was wondering if you guys had any plans for today, because I certainly don't and I'm really bored." Just then, there was a knock at the door. I asked Ike to hold on, then went to answer it. Tom stood on the other side with my crutches. I gave him a hug and thanked the kind bodyguard before getting back to my conversation. I apologized to Isaac for making him wait, then repeated my question.
"Actually, I just checked with Taylor and we are completely free," Isaac told me.
"That's fine. Do all of you guys wanna come down to my room and we can figure out something to do? We can all get to know each other," I suggested.
"Great. We'll be there in a few minutes okay Steph?" We said goodbye and hung up. Not but a few minutes later, there was a knock at my door. Using my crutches, I got to the door, and opened it to find five blonde-haired kids standing on the other side of the door. I led them all into my room and we sat down to chill out for a little while. They let me know what was up with them and I got to meet Avery and Jessica. Zoe was too young to come, so their parents made her stay home with Mac. The Hanson kids were all extremely sweet and well mannered kids. I really had a great time with them.
"So you are here with the Backstreet Boys?!" Avery asked. I smiled.
"Yup. They just left to do some radio interview and some other publicity stuff. They won't be back till tonight. You know how it is," I told her. "Hey but do you want to meet them backstage tomorrow or something?" The girls' faces lit up as I saw I was quickly becoming their favorite person.
"Really? That would be so great!! Before or after?" Jessica wanted to know.
"Well Jess...ummm...not sure about that one. But probably before because I don't think you'd be allowed to go where we go after the concerts," I confided in her.
"Aw, I see. You guys gunna have a big after-party?" she was curious. Oh how I loved kids who understood tour life.
"Yup. Our after-parties are 21 and over...well...except for me. I'm the one exception," I joked.
"How old are you, Steph?" Tay asked.
"Nineteen. My birthday's in a month though," I smiled, waiting for his reaction.
"When?" he wondered.
"March seventeenth. Saint Patrick's Day," I informed him.
"No way! Tay's birthday is three days before yours!" Avery told me. I laughed.
"Crazy world isn't it?" I sighed.
"Yeah. But I bet you knew you were three days older than Tay-Tay anyways," she thought, remembering that a million girls had probably already told them that their birthdays were near the guys'.
"Yup. For about six years," I smiled at her. "I would tell everyone that I was three days and supposedly five minutes younger than Taylor Hanson and they'd give me strange looks. I enjoy rubbing in useless information." Taylor laughed.
"Well now that we know you and I are closer than we think, on to the next subject. What are you doing with Backstreet?" Taylor changed the topic.
"I'm their dancer. Well...was their dancer. Till I hurt myself again," I began to whine, pissed off at myself.
"I'm sorry," Jessica sympathized with me. I smiled at her.
"Thanks. Hey how come you guys are so embarrassed about dancing? I saw that audition for the Dr. Pepper commercial and you guys were great! I mean it! So why are you guys such bad dancers now?" I begged to know.
"They're scared of being really really bad," Avery confided in me. I laughed.
"That's what I thought. So why don't you test me? I'll tell you what I think. Truthfully, and not from a fan's point of view," I replied.
"Aw come on, this is so ackward," Zac whined.
"Soooooooooooooo...we love to torture you Zacky!" Jess teased her brother. I reached over for the radio and changed it off the spanish station, then kept on flipping until I found a decent station. Jessica, Avery, and I simultaneously smiled, waiting for the guys to do something.
"This is so ridiculous, you know that right?" Taylor pointed out.
"Hey I'm havin' fun! Dunno bout you!" Isaac cried. Tay looked at his older brother, then his younger brother, and realized that he was the only one not dancing. So he finally gave in and started getting his groove on. The only problem was...
"Will you guys be serious about this or not?!" Avery hollered.
"Man how could we be serious about such a ludicrous request, Ave?" Zac pointed out. She shrugged, then threw a pillow at him. I was having fun already.
"I'm so glad I ran into you Ike!" I cried. "I would have been all alone today if you guys weren't here!!!"
"Glad we could be of some use," Taylor interjected. I smiled at him. "Now why don't we all go out to eat or something?" Everyone loved the idea so we grabbed our stuff and headed out. I hated the crutches, but I'd survive. The guys called their bodyguard and I made sure that someone from my clan knew where I was going, and we were on our way.