(The next morning at a hotel)
Johnny walked into the suite rented for
*NSYNC. It had a spacious sitting area with four doors leading off of it. He saw
Lance sleeping on the couch and all sorts of clothing items and shoes scattered
and spilling out of his Armani suitcase.
"Lance," he nudged him on the
shoulder.
Nothing.
"Lance." Johnny nudged harder.
"Huh?
What?" Lance poked his head out from under the covers, one side of his hair
sticking up in his customary spikes, the other side matted down to his head.
"Get up, man, we got a flight to catch."
"Yeah, all right,"
Lance mumbled as he sat up.
Johnny went to the nearest door and knocked.
He opened it and gave his eyes a moment to adjust before advancing into the
room. The mess immediately identified it as Joey's. "Damn boy wasn't here but
for two days and look at this mess," Johnny muttered under his breath as he
picked his way through the clutter.
"Joey, wake up," Johnny said to the
lump in the bed. He was a little apprehensive about pulling the covers back.
He'd done that before only to discover that Joey wasn't alone. Then he
remembered about Janine. She'd kick Joey's ass if he cheated on her. He relaxed
and the ripped the covers off the bed. "Wake yo ass up!"
Startled, Joey
sat straight up, ready to start swinging. He saw Johnny and visibly relaxed.
"Johnny, man…don't be doing shit like that."
"Get up, take a shower, get
dressed, pack," Johnny said over his shoulder on his way out the door.
He got to the next room and found that the door was locked. He
considered pounding on it for a moment and then remembered that Heather had
driven up to see Chris. 'Fuck it,' he thought, 'he's still gotta get up.'
"Chris!" He began to beat on the door with his fist.
"Christopheeeer…wake uuup," he sang.
A moment later, the door was flung
open by a wild-haired, wide-eyed Heather, wearing nothing but a t-shirt and a
scowl. "Johnny, this hotel better be on fire," she warned. "Or I promise to kick
your ass up one side and down the other."
"Chris," Johnny called over
her shoulder, "come get your girl."
"Oh hell no, you started it," Chris
called back as he rolled over in the bed, twisting the sheet around his waist.
His bare skin glowed in the sunlight peeking in from the cracks in the curtain.
"Excuse me, Miss Heather, but we have a flight to catch in about an hour
and a half and I need that pitiful excuse of a man to be on that flight. Is that
OK with you?" Johnny said sweetly as he looked down at her.
"Sarcasm
this early in the morning will get you castrated," Heather said as she turned
and made her way back to the bed. She flopped down on top of Chris.
"Hey, now, none of that! Didn't I just say we had a flight to catch?"
"Damn, Johnny, shut the fuck up," Justin grumbled from his doorway.
"People were trying to sleep, you know."
"Oh, good morning, sunshine! So
glad that you're up already. Go take a shower and pack it up, it's time to ship
out!"
"Yeah, go eat some cereal like all the little bopper magazines say
you just HAVE to have before you can start your day," Joey grinned at Justin
through his toothpaste as he brushed his teeth.
Justin just glared at
him, turned around and walked back into his room.
"Hey, Joey, I'll pay
you five dollars to go wake JC up," Johnny offered.
Joey looked at
Johnny, laughed through his toothpaste and fled through his open bathroom door.
Johnny looked to Lance. "Hell no, you're on your own, pal." Lance's
voice was unnaturally deep and he still had remnants of sleep in his eyes, but
he was aware enough to know the peril that Johnny had silently asked him to
undertake.
"That's all right, I got it covered." Johnny walked over and
sat down at the couch Lance had just vacated. "Give it about another minute or
so."
True to his word, a minute later, the door to Chris' room opened
and he stalked out, a sheet bunched around his waist, one hand holding the ends
together, the other hand holding his cell phone. He walked into JC's room and
roughly shook him to wake him up. "You need to give your girlfriend your new
cell number, I ain't the messenger," Chris all but shouted at the still
lethargic JC.
"Jen's on the phone?"
"You got any other
girlfriends?" Chris turned on his heel, walked back to his room and slammed the
door.
"I can't believe he's pissed, he got some last night," Lance
marveled.
"Yeah, well," Johnny pushed himself up off the couch. "My work
here is done. Meet me in the lobby in thirty minutes, forty tops."
An
hour later, the men of *NSYNC (plus Heather), freshly showered, packed and ready
to go stepped off the elevator into the lobby.
"Correct me if I'm wrong,
but didn't I say to be down here in 30 minutes?" Johnny growled at the laughing
group.
"Dude, chill, we still got time, the airport is like a second
away," Chris said, arm slung around his girlfriend's shoulder.
"Did you
forget that we're in LA? That freeway is gonna be gridlocked for at least
another two hours. We ain't going nowhere. See, if y'all would have been on
time, we could have beaten all the traffic, but nooooo. Y'all done fucked the
day all up. I had to reschedule our flight."
"Well, we would have been
down here but Heather and Chris just had to take a shower together," Justin
grumbled as he slumped down onto one of the couches spaced around the lobby.
"Don't start in on me, boy," Heather warned.
"Aww, he's just
upset cause he found out that he's not the only one fighting to win Maddie's
heart," Joey teased, slapping his friend on the knee as he sat down beside him.
"You have a crush on Maddie? Madison Morse?" Heather said loudly.
"Damn, shout it from the rooftops, why don't you?"
"You know she
was dating that one guy, don't you?" Heather waited for Chris to sit down then
she sat on his lap. A second later, Mike, one of the bodyguards, came over and
without a word, picked her up and sat her on the seat beside her boyfriend. The
fans knew about the relationship, but there was knowing about it and then there
was believing it. They didn't need a picture of Heather on Chris' lap being
spread all over the Internet and airwaves. Mike had learned from experience that
to argue with Heather is a lesson in futility. The girl could talk a rock to
death. Action was the only thing she respected, talk got you nowhere with her.
Because of this, she didn't say a word about what Mike had just done. She just
nestled her head into the nook of her boyfriend's shoulder and closed her eyes.
"So what's the deal, Jutty Boy?"
"Nothing other than the fact
that she fucking hates me."
"She hates you?" Heather picked her head up
and opened her eyes to look at him.
"No, she doesn't hate him," Joey
said. "But there's definitely something there. Like she was nice to us but she
would hardly look at Justin."
"Maybe that had something to do with the
fact that he stared at her all night. She probably was scared to. She thought
you were gonna jump her or something," Chris said.
"Thank you for being
your usual helpful, understanding self, Chris," Justin rolled his eyes.
"No prob, Bob!" Chris flashed the thumbs up sign at his disgruntled
friend. "But getting back to our mission-"
"Break out the whipped cream
and the cherries, then I go through all the fly positions," Justin and JC rapped
in unison.
"What the hell?" Johnny said through his laughter.
"Digital Underground, yo!" JC said as he and Justin slapped hands.
"Old school, baby," Justin replied with his first smile of the morning.
That smile froze on his face as the object of his affection walked into the
room.