Johnny enlisted Ron's help
to go through the house to gather up his crew. Bodies were strewn everywhere, in
various stages of repose. They found Lance first, curled up next to a girl with
dark brown hair. Johnny left Ron to wake him and went to look for the others.
He found Justin in a guestroom with Wendy. They were lying opposite each
other, his feet at her head and vice versa. Photo albums and old pictures
littered the floor and Johnny had to step over them to reach the bed. He
carefully shook Justin awake so as not to disturb Wendy. Justin, always a light
sleeper, was awake and aware instantly. He saw Johnny and knew that it was time
to leave. Silently, he got up from the bed to put on his shoes. He reached over
Wendy to grab a picture that was under his pillow. He looked down at the
sleeping girl with a smile. He placed his hand on the crown of her head, and
pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek.
Walking down the hall with Johnny,
he said, "You got any paper?"
Johnny looked at him in surprise. Justin
wasn't a big talker in the mornings and usually didn't speak until at least an
hour after he'd been awake. "Yeah. It's in my Planner. On the kitchen table."
Justin nodded and turned to the left, to the staircase. Johnny turned to
the right to try to find 'SYNC'.
Five minutes later, he walked into the
kitchen, Lance, Chris and Heather trailing behind him, and saw Justin sitting at
the table, writing furiously. The four of them walked over and sat, Heather in
her customary place in Chris' lap. Justin didn't look up from where he was
hunched over his scribbling nor did he greet them. They were all too tired and
too hung-over to care. Silence abounded in the spacious room, the only sound the
rhythmic scratch-scratch-scratch of Justin's pencil as it flew over the paper.
The door opened to reveal a very sleepy Joey.
"Where's everyone
else?" Johnny asked.
"Waking JC up."
"Ugh, that's a job and a
half," Heather muttered. Chris nodded his head and grimaced as waves of pain
slithered up his skull.
A few minutes later, a dapper and annoyingly
refreshed Jen dragged JC into the room. "Morning all! I trust that everyone
slept well? Have fun last night?"
Heather opened her eyes to glare at
her friend. "Shouldn't you be hung over? You drank enough last night."
"Yeah, I should," Jen beamed at her.
Lance looked up at her and
JC through blood-shot eyes. "You got laid last night, didn't you?"
"Yup.
In the bathroom."
Chris groaned. "TMI, Jenna, TMI."
Jen just
laughed.
"Bitch," Heather mumbled as she closed her eyes once again.
Unperturbed, Jen grinned. "I love you, too."
"OK, everyone is
present and accounted for, we're moving out," Johnny said into the walkie-talkie
he was almost never without.
"Wait, wait, wait!" Justin scribbled one
last line, threw the pencil down, ran over to the stairwell and disappeared,
taking the steps two at a time.
"I think that's the fastest I've ever
seen that boy move so soon after he woke up," Johnny muttered, herding the
others into the living room. "Do not sit down," he stage-whispered to his
charges as he followed them through the maze of bodies sprawled all over the
floor, "we are outta here as soon as Shot gets back."
"Where did he go?"
JC whispered grumpily. He had a killer headache and just wanted to go back to
sleep.
"Hell if I know."
"Can we wait for him in the car?"
Heather whined.
Johnny was distracted, looking at something out the
front window. "Yeah, but now we gotta go back through the kitchen cause Wes just
pulled the car around."
"There's only one car?" Jen asked as the
retraced their steps. "Guess we're lapping it."
"There's two cars,
Jennifer, so no, you will not have to sit in JC's lap," Johnny said absently,
listening to the voice squawking over the handset.
"Well damn," Jen
snapped her fingers in mock exasperation.
Johnny opened the door and
stepped out, straddling the threshold. "Somebody go find--"
Before
Johnny could finish the sentence, Justin shot down the stairs and out the door
so fast, he was almost a blur.
"All right, then, y'all move out, I'll go
find Ron."
"No, he's on a conference call. I thanked him for all of us
and he said no problem and here's his card." Jen held out the small white
rectangle of paper.
"What did you get his card for?" Johnny asked,
puzzled.
"I don't know, I just did," she brushed past him and walked out
to the waiting sports utility vehicles.
(About an hour later)
Maddie woke to the smells of breakfast cooking: bacon, eggs, pancakes,
sausages. She groaned, rolled over onto her stomach and pulled her comforter
over her head. She felt a little sick to her stomach and had a slight headache,
more from lack of sleep than anything else. She tried to go back to sleep, but
the smells pervaded her senses. 'God,' she flopped over onto her back,
spread-eagled across the bed, 'a father's revenge. He knows good and well
everybody's hung over and he gone get up and make breakfast.'
She
contemplated her father's subtle reprisal as she stared at the glow-in-the-dark
stars glued to the ceiling. She then thought of what the next week would entail
for her; photo shoots, interviews, meetings with Romie to set up a tour, another
trip to NYC and TRL to world premiere her video. She thought about her step-mom,
Maggie, who would be returning from Philadelphia that day. She wondered what
sort of deal Romero was scheming now. She pondered on why stars twinkle. She
basically thought about any and everything except what had happened between her
and Justin last night.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
She knew he'd be looking
for her after that kiss. And she knew that those who had witnessed it would
pepper her with questions she just didn't have the answers to. So she left. She
swiped Paul's keys and snack out through the garage. She knew that she shouldn't
have been driving because she'd been drinking, but she just couldn't stay and
face him. So she took the cowards way out. She ran. Or rather, drove. Straight
to Westheimer Street, to the Waterwall.
The Waterwall was simply that: a
wall of water. A man-made waterfall, it spanned at least twenty feet. The water
fell in a thin sheet over the edge of the precipice. Halogen lamps were
strategically positioned behind and in front of the water, making it glisten.
She'd sat on a bench and stared at the cascading water. She didn't
analyze; didn't wonder; didn't think. She simply sat and watched the water. She
returned at dawn, letting herself into the now silent house. She smiled for the
first time in hours when she passed through the living room and saw Kristina
snuggled up on the floor with Lance. Kris was not a one-night-hookup kind of
girl. It amused and reassured Maddie to see that she was not the only female to
be acting out of character where a man of *NSYNC was
concerned.
~*~*~*~*~*~*
Madison sighed, almost dreading facing
the day. She shoved her hands under her pillow. She heard paper crinkle, felt it
on the back of her hand. She sat up and reached under he pillow. She pulled out
the note.
Maddie,
I don't know you as well as I want to but I know you well enough
to know that you're gonna freak about last night. Don't. That kiss only has to
be what you make of it. I felt something and I'd like to think that you did,
too. No, scratch that. I know you did, too. I'm leaving you my cell phone
number. This phone is on me or someone near me 24-7. Call anytime. Please. I
don't know where you want to go with this but I leave it all to you.
Justin (123-456-7890)
PS Tell Wendy I said
thanks.
Her mind focused on the postscript. 'What is he thanking
Wendy for?'
She sighed and sank back into bed.
This was it. She
could no longer avoid the issue. Somehow, Justin had managed to get to her. He
had squirreled his way inside her, like a virus, infecting her blood. And he had
left the ball in her court. It was up to her. Play or let it all fall to the
wayside?
She smiled to herself, mind already made up. She was going to
play.
Her smile faded as she thought. He was going to want an
explanation of her change of heart. 'Or he'll do the typical man thing and think
that he was too much for me to resist. Which is true, but…he don't have to know
that.'
"Maddie." After a quick knock on the door, Travis poked his head
into the room. "Your dad says to get downstairs right now or he's gonna beat
your ass."
"My daddy ain't said nothing 'bout beating nobody's ass, get
outta here, boy!" Laughing, Maddie threw a star-shaped pillow at him.
He
caught it and threw it back. "Whatever, everybody's waiting for you, c'mon."
Madison placed the note on her nightstand, climbed out of bed and
followed her brother down the stairs. Loud noises of conversation could be heard
emanating from the back of the house. Maddie took a deep breath, fortified her
nerves for that first sight of Justin that (she now acknowledged) always sent a
tingle of electricity down her spine.
She followed Travis into the
kitchen. Her eyes swept the room, searching. "Morning," she absently replied to
the various greetings thrown her way. 'Duh,' she thought to herself. 'If he was
still here, he wouldn't have sent me a note.' She perused the room again and
gasped when she saw a familiar face.
"Ken Doll!" She rushed around the
table as Kendra stood up. They hugged like long-lost friends, even though they'd
seen each other the week before. "When did you get here?"
Kendra pulled
back to frown at Kristina. "I got here just in time to see Kris getting cozy
with a certain blonde."
Kris grinned, unrepentant. "Sorry, man."
"It's not fair," Kendra huffed as she retook her seat. "I had dibs."
"Yeah, well," Kris speared a sausage with her fork, "you snooze, you
lose."
"Ho," Kendra muttered under her breath, but loud enough to be
heard.
Kristina smiled again. "You know you love me."
"Yeah. But
I'd rather be loving Lance." The girls smiled at each other.
"Whoa,
whoa, whoa. Let's keep it PG-13, please. Save the nasty stuff for when I'm out
of the room," Ron said from his post in front of the electric range. He was
making what seemed like the thousandth pancake of the day.
"You mean
like we normally do?" Maddie asked as she grabbed a plate.
Wendy bopped
into the room. "Freak hoes, freak hoes, bounce that ass and make your knees
touch your elbows," she sang to herself.
"I thought you hated that
song," Mike said through a mouth full of food.
"I do. It's in my head
from last night."
"You danced to it?"
"Yeah. With Justin."
All eyes turned to Maddie. "You danced with Justin last night?"
"Mmhmm." Wendy deliberately avoided looking at her friend. Maddie was
gonna hate her, but she had switched sides. Justin had just about gone ape-shit
crazy looking for Maddie the night before. Wendy helped him calm down and after
a long talk, she decided that he was a prime catch and that Maddie must be
blind, deaf and stupid to be running away from him. Knowing Maddie as well as
she did, Wendy was able to give him a few pointers; nothing too over the top,
just some helpful info.
"Can someone go get the paper, please?" Ron
called over his shoulder.
"I will," Maddie offered up in a last-ditch
attempt to avoid the questions she knew were brewing. She walked to the front of
the house, pausing now-and-then to gather the sheets, blankets and pillows she
saw lying about. She deposited them in the linen closet beneath the stairs and
made her way over to the front door. She pulled it open and had to squint at the
sudden influx of bright light. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust.
It was a beautiful day, typical for late May in Texas. White, puffy,
cotton ball clouds dotted the blue sky. Birds sang in the trees and chased each
other on the wind. She heard the shrill screams and laughter of children
playing. She smiled. Home, sweet home; there's nothing like it.
She
searched the lawn and spotted the paper, tangled in the shrubs that bordered the
porch. She moved to get it.
She had taken two full steps before the
sensation registered. Something sticky covered the ground. She looked down and
saw that she had stepped into a puddle of some congealed liquid. "Ewww." She
lifted her left foot to inspect the bottom of it. Patches of the liquid had
adhered to her skin. "What the hell?" Madison took the two steps that would get
her on dry ground. She bent over to peer at the substance. It was dark maroon in
color and smelled slightly metallic. She took another step to the right and
caught sight of something out of the corner of her eyes. She turned her head to
get a better view of it. Her throat constricted and her stomach heaved in
horror. She opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out.
Tacked to
the door, just below the brass knocker, was the skinned carcass of a dead cat.
