Ten minutes
later, Joey was happily retelling the story of walking in on Justin and Maddie
for the fourth time. The story had gotten more and more lavish with each
telling. Maddie was standing near the dresser, slightly bent at the waist,
brushing her hair. She looked at Justin who was reclining on the bed, resting
his weight on his elbows.
"Oh give it up, Joey. Next time you tell it,
they'll be havin' sex," Janine groaned.
Justin grinned at Maddie. "Was
it as good for you as it was for me?"
"Oh yeah, baby!" Maddie couldn't
help but play along. Justin looked entirely too sexy, too male, too…accessible
stretched out on the bed, a place where she would be sleeping in a few hours,
like that.
"Hey, is Happy coming?" Kendra asked. She had pulled one of
the plush chairs away from the table and turned it to face the television set.
"Who's Happy?" JC asked, opening a bag of Fat-Free Lays. The guys had
come bearing gifts. Unfortunately, they had a mistaken idea of what dancers ate.
While it was true that they did watch their weight, these particular dancers
were more willing to go that extra mile on the treadmill or those extra laps
around than the track than they were to give up their beloved junk foods. All of
the fat-free and reduced calorie foods were thoughtful but unnecessary.
"We used to dance with him about two summers ago. He lives in LA now,"
Wendy explained, reaching out to snag a chip.
"I have a question." Chris
was sitting on the floor, his back against the bed. Heather sat between his
outstretched legs with her back to his chest. "Why fly dancers all the way from
the West Coast when there are about a million and one dancers right here in New
York?"
Laughing, Maddie shrugged her shoulders. "No clue. Justin?" She
waited until he looked at her. She'd changed into a pair of baggy pajama bottoms
and a tank top, her standard sleeping attire. She liked the fact that he looked
at her with the same gleam in his eyes that had been present when she was in
just a towel. "Braid my hair?"
He smiled at her and sat up. He spread
his legs and patted the bed between them.
Her eyes locked on his as she
moved the short distance to him. She turned and moved to sit on the floor in
front of him. He made a noise in the back of his throat and grabbed her
forearms, pulling her back to sit on the bed in front of him. "I can't do it
that way."
His husky voice in her ears sent trembles down her spine. She
let out a strangled-sounding "Oh" and passed the brush to him. They weren't
touching except at the calves but even that light touch in such an intimate
position was almost too much for her. All sorts of licentious thoughts were
running through her head. She heard Justin draw in a lung-full of air.
Obviously, she wasn't the only one whose mind was mired in the gutter.
"So is Happy coming or not?" Von asked, flipping through the channels
searching for MTV.
"Yeah, we invited all the dancers," Wendy said.
"Damn, Lance, what are you saying to that girl?"
All eyes turned to the
loveseat.
Kristina, snuggled into the crook of Lance's arm, was
red-faced and breathing heavily.
"Hey, I'm not paying to have any stains
removed," Maddie shook a warning finger.
"Oh, you're a fine one to
talk," Kendra retorted. "You messed the Met."
Flushing, Maddie bit back
a laugh. "I did not."
"She what?" JC turned to Jen, puzzled.
"Nothing, hon." Jen silenced him by pressing her lips to his.
Maddie turned her attention back to Kris. Lance's lips were scant
centimeters from her ear and his eyes were half-closed as he spoke to her.
Kristina's eyes were slightly dazed and a sheen of perspiration dotted her
forehead.
Janine leaned over to whisper to Jen. "Five bucks says he
makes her come in her pants."
Jen shook her head. "No bet, he's done it
before."
"What?" Janine drew back a little, shocked. She'd actually been
joking. She looked over to where Kristina was looking decidedly hot under the
collar, not to mention other places. "I believe it."
"Girl, yeah." She
got up from where she'd been resting her head on JC's thigh and moved closer to
Janine to gossip. JC and Chris shared a glance that said 'What ya gonna do?'
There was a knock at the door. Von got up to answer it. "Hey y'all." She
stepped back and a line-up for Chippendale's walked in. Or so it seemed. There
were four guys, each more exquisitely sculpted than the next. The *NSYNC guys
had had to leave just as Maddie's dancers were arriving so they hadn't seen them
yet. JC's eyes met Chris's again. Both gazes held traces of 'what the hell'
mixed in with 'holy shit.' Both guys turned to wrap their arms around their
respective girlfriends.
"Happy!" Kendra and Wendy got up to embrace
their friend. He was the shortest of the guys at about five eleven. He had dark
brown hair and large brown eyes. Introductions were made and those already
situated rearranged themselves to make room for the newcomers. Joey scooted
close enough to whisper to Chris: " I thought WE were the pretty boys."
"No shit," Chris whispered back. "We got nothing on them."
Justin wasn't very happy either. The second he'd finished her hair,
Maddie had jumped up to hug that Happy guy like he was the be-all, end-all of
the world. He frowned when she lingered in his arms, when his lips touched her
cheek for a second longer than was necessary. He felt the urge to pout. 'This is
ridiculous,' he ridiculed himself. 'Right?'
His feelings were slightly
mollified when she came back to him as the show began. Actually, there was
nowhere else for her to sit and he had to move over to make room for both her
and Kendra, but still, she was sitting next to him.
As the beginning
credits rolled, knowing the other man could see because he was chatting with
Kendra, Justin ran his hand across her back from shoulder to waist and back
again. It was a very proprietary move. He was staking his claim. He looked Happy
in the eyes and moved closer to Maddie.
Maddie sucked air into her
suddenly oxygen-deprived lungs. She was completely unaware of the man war that
was going on around her. All she knew was that Justin was touching her again
and, unless she prepared herself for it (and sometimes even then), that had the
power to rattle her insides.
It took a long time for her nerves to
settle. When they did, she saw herself on television, with Wendy. They were
showing the footage they'd shot in her bedroom. She and Wendy were giggling over
some of the hideous outfits they'd been forced to wear as part of their high
school dance team. In an effort to take her mind off the fact that she
desperately wanted to kick everyone out of her room and have her wicked way with
Justin, she concentrated on the show.
[][][][][][][][][]
~ Cut
to Ron in the kitchen washing dishes ~
A voice off camera requested,
"Tell us something about Maddie that we may not know."
Ron pondered for
a moment with his hands in the soapy water. "She's a college graduate. Kind of.
She has an Associates degree in Dance."
"How old is she?" the
disembodied voice asked.
"She'll be nineteen in July. She graduated from
high school when she was sixteen. She was in private school for grade school so
she started kindergarten when she was four instead of five. She took a lot of
A/P and Honors classes in high school and she took a lot of tests and ended up
placing out of a lot of freshman level courses. So she went into college with, I
think, eighteen hours already under her belt. Then she took eighteen hours her
first semester and either nineteen or seventeen her second semester. She was a
few hours shy but they give you a kind of grace of about five hours or so, so
she was able to walk. So she's a junior but she's only been in college for one
year."
"What school did she go to?"
"Kilgore College. It's up in
East Texas. She went there to dance."
~ Cut to Maddie and Nicole setting
the table for dinner ~
"Tell me about Kilgore."
Maddie laughed.
"Honey, there ain't enough time in the world for me to tell you about Kilgore.
It's not something you can tell, it's something you have to experience. My high
school director was a Rangerette. Then a friend who graduated when I was a
sophomore came back to recruit for Kilgore. It's only a two-year school so she
should have been outta there by then. But she hadn't made it the first time she
tried out and she waited around another year to try out again. I was intrigued
by that, I guess. I mean, Danielle stayed an entire year in this little podunk
town in East Texas just on the chance that she might make it. So I went to see
Revels, their spring show, and I was hooked."
"What exactly is
Rangerettes?"
"The dance team at Kilgore. Rangerettes is an organization
that was started in 1940-"
She was interrupted by Nicole. The younger
girl stopped what she was doing, planted her hands on her hips and cut her eyes
to the ceiling as spoke. She picked up the end of Maddie's sentence: "By a lady
named Miss Gussie Nell Davis because people were getting too rowdy in the stands
at football games and the school wanted something that would keep people in
their seats and away from the beer at the concession stands. It was the first
precision drill and dance team ever."
Maddie grinned sheepishly. "I may
have mentioned all that to her a time or two."
Nicole 'hmmphed' under
her breath, shot Maddie a smile and walked out of the room.
"So tell me
about it."
"Seriously, I can't even begin…It's an organization that's
very steeped in tradition. There's only been three directors, Miss Gussie Nell
Davis, Mrs. Deana Bolton Covin and Mrs. Dana Blair. It's a highly disciplined
organization, highly. There are lots of rules…and I mean lots. We had a quote,
our class quote that's sort of become the unofficial Rangerette quote: From the
outside looking in, it can't be understood; From the inside looking out, it
can't be explained."
"Unofficial? Does that mean there's an official
quote?"
Maddie grinned. "Beauty knows no pain, Miss Gussie Nell Davis,
1942."
~ Fade to black ~
[][][][][][][][][][][]
As the
first commercial came on, Justin nudged Maddie with his shoulder. "College
graduate, huh?" She blushed in reply.
One of the dancers, Dante, turned
to Maddie. "My sister's best friend's mom was a Rangerette."
Immediately
interested, Maddie leaned closer to him. "Oh really? What's her name?"
Justin tuned them out as they discussed something called sister lines
and contented himself with watching Maddie as she talked. The adverse emotions
he'd felt when he saw her with Happy were absent. 'Probably cause this guy is as
fruity as they come.' His thoughts, as usual these days, turned to Maddie. She
was attentive, looking straight into Dante's eyes as they talked. Her face
glowed with a happiness he'd like to think he had a part in.
"Hey, has
anyone talked to Crystal?" Von asked. She'd ascertained that the male dancers,
except for Happy who was talking to Wendy about people she didn't know, were
more into each other than they were into females, something she felt quite
bitter about.
"Yeah, is she still pissed at us?" Wendy asked,
They all turned to Kristina since she was closer to Crystal than any of
the others.
Having recovered from Lance's verbal seduction, Kris said,
"I don't know, she still won't talk to me. Her mom said she tried to talk to her
and explain that it's, you know, the law, but she's not having it."
"Damn," Maddie said under her breath, a frown marring her face.
"What?" Joey asked around a mouthful of rice cake.
"Crystal,
that girl from the party," Wendy reminded him, "she's only seventeen."
"Oh."
"I'm having a blonde moment here, no offense, but I don't
get it," Janine said.
"She's still a minor and therefore protected by
child labor laws," Maddie explained.
"You should become a lawyer, you're
always explaining legal shit to us," Kendra said.
"I still don't get
it," Janine pouted.
"Well, don't feel bad cause I don't either," Jen
said, shifting to find a more comfortable position. JC's body was too hard to
make a very comfortable pillow.
"She dances with us, too," Kendra
offered.
"Oh."
"Shh!" Justin hushed them. "It's coming back on."
[][][][][][][][][]
~ Cut to Travis in his blue, green and white
bedroom ~
The young boy was lying on his bed, baseball glove on his left
hand, tossing a ball in the air and catching it.
"What's the best thing
about your sister's celebrity status?"
"Whenever we ask to do something
with her or go somewhere, she always says 'As long as it's okay with Dad.' Like,
she's taken us to New York a couple of times, LA, San Francisco, Florida. Some
people wouldn't want their little brothers and sister hanging around." He turned
his head and grinned at the camera. "And we're, like, the most popular kids in
school now."
~ Cut to Nicole sitting on the porch swing ~
"Nicole, is it hard having your sister away for so much of the time?"
"Not really. She's home a lot, actually, even if it's only for a day or
two. We see more of her now than we did when she was at Kilgore. And she always
tells us that she's just a phone call away."
~ Cut to Jake and Paul
sitting at the kitchen table, notebooks and textbooks spread out in front of
them ~
"Jake, do you think Madison's changed at all?"
"Yeah."
Silence.
"How?" the voice prompted.
"She's a lot more
patient."
More silence.
"Why do you think that is?"
"I
have no idea why."
Paul was attempting to hide his smile behind his hand
and failing miserably.
[][][][][][][][][]
Wendy, Maddie and
their crew were cracking up.
"Oh my God, that is SO Jake!" Von howled.
[][][][][][][][][]
"Paul, where do you see Maddie in the long
run?"
Paul cleared his throat of the last vestiges of his humor. "Um, I
think Maddie will be tired of the music business before it's tired of her. She
likes to sing, yeah, but she loves to dance. Loves it. She's gonna end up going
back to that, she always does. Plus, she's restless, likes to try new things.
Yeah. She'll definitely leave the music business before it's ready to see her
go."
~ Cut back to Nicole ~
"What do you think of Maddie's
relationship with Justin Timberlake?"
[][][][][][][][][]
Maddie
groaned at this. "I can't believe they asked her that!"
Justin quieted
her by grabbing her hand and lacing his fingers through hers.
[][][][][][][][][]
"They have a relationship?" Nicole glared at
someone off the camera as she spoke. "I think what goes on between Maddie and
Justin is Maddie and Justin's business." She turned to face the camera. "But I
will say that he better do right by her. 'Hell has no fury like a woman scorned'
but that ain't got nothin' on the little sister."
[][][][][][][][][]
"Oh shit, Justin!" Joey crowed as Chris and JC exchanged high fives and
Lance laughed into his fist. "You betta watch out, Nicole's gonna get ya!"
Ignoring them, Justin fitted his fingers more snugly within Maddie's.
"Where is your family, by the way?"
"They can't make it. Travis and
Mike's baseball team made the finals. Championship game tomorrow afternoon."
"Oh. I'm sorry."
"No, it's okay. I know they'd be here if they
could."
[][][][][][][][][]
~ Cut to Travis still in his bedroom
~
"What about Maddie and guys?"
"Maddie is the marrying kind,"
Travis spoke immediately. "Like, she's an awesome girlfriend, she always does,
like, really sweet stuff for her boyfriends. And plus, she's the kinda girl you
can bring home to your parents and just know that they're gonna love her."
~ Cut to Ron, putting the dishes away ~
"What do you think about
Maddie and guys?"
Ron grimaced as if in pain. "I'd rather not, thanks."
~ Cut to Wendy, lying next to Maddie ~
"Maddie and guys? Guys
love her. She's a heartbreaker without meaning to be. Sometimes I wish I could
be with guys the way she is." She turned to look at her friend as she spoke.
Maddie was picking at the threads on her comforter, cheeks slightly flushed.
"She's just very, very straight-forward, lays it all out on the line so the guy
knows exactly where he stands with her. And they love her for it."
~ Cut
to the picture of Justin and Maddie sitting at the bar at the party for the
Pediatric AIDS Foundation Benefit ~
Fade to black.
[][][][][][][][][]
"Oh, that was low," Vontrésa said through her
laughter, referring to the last picture.
"You okayed that?" Chris asked.
"Hey, this is my first time seeing this!" Maddie defended herself.
Janine patted Justin on the knee. "You know they're never gonna let this
go, right?"
Justin looked down at his and Maddie's intertwined hands. "I
don't mind."
An awkward moment followed.
JC and Jen shared a
glance. JC had known Justin the longest of all of them and, having dated Justin,
Jen knew him in a way that his group mates never could. Neither had seen this
side of him before. He was a very private, not prone to publicly displaying his
feelings. Yet every facet of his relationship with Maddie had been played out in
front of them. And the things they didn't witness, he told them about. The
initial infatuation with the image she presented amused them. The starstruck way
he'd been when they first met made them laugh and nudge each other: Justin
Timberlake, teen idol extraordinaire, had a crush on a pop superstar. They'd
felt bad for him when it seemed as if Maddie would never give him the time of
day. They'd felt the same hope he did when she finally started to come around.
They'd been there through everything and that was weird considering that Justin
had had girlfriends that they never even knew about until it was over. And now
he was holding Maddie's hand, rubbing her back, playing with her hair, kissing
her. And it wasn't just actions; it was words, too. Words that he meant for
Maddie, but could care less if anyone else heard. This was not a side to Justin
they knew.
The phone rang and the moment passed.
Lance was the
closest to the phone so, after receiving a permissive nod from Maddie, he
answered it. "Hello?"
"May I speak with Madison, please?"
"May I
ask who's calling?"
In the background, Chris snorted. "Damn, Lance,
screening the girl's calls?"
"Sorry. Habit," Lance mouthed as the caller
identified himself. He covered the mouthpiece and held the phone out to Maddie.
"It's Jake."
Maddie reached over and grabbed the phone. She had to lean
over Justin to get it. It would have been easier if he'd moved back a little to
give her more room but he was enjoying the feeling of her squirming against him.
So was she.
Because the phone cord wasn't very long, Maddie was forced
to lean over Justin in order to talk. She rested her elbows on the bed beside
his thigh. Her chest lay across his legs. He brought his hands to rest on her
back. Maddie couldn't conceal the shudder that went through her. The air around
them was so charged, you almost expected to see a charge of electricity shoot
from either of them.
Maddie brought the phone to her ear. "What's up,
Jakey?"
An odd clicking sound.
"Hello? Jake?"
The sound
became muted, then stopped. She could hear someone breathing into the receiver.
"Hello?"
Another click and then the dial tone.
"That
fucker just hung up one me!"
"Um, Maddie, maybe you shouldn't say fucker
when you're laying across Justin's lap," Lance joked.
Justin glared at
him as Maddie pushed herself up and handed him the phone.
"Jake hung up
on you?" Wendy asked.
"Yeah."
"Call him back, it was probably a
bad connection or something."
"Yeah," Maddie agreed and got up to
retrieve her purse.
"What are you doing?" Justin was confused.
She pulled out her cell phone. "Calling my brother."
"Just
charge it to the room," JC said, not taking his eyes off the TV screen. Maddie
and family were cheering at a baseball game.
"Why should I do that when
this way it's free?" She opened the door and stepped out into the hall so she
wouldn't disturb them as she talked.
She returned a few minutes later, a
frown marring her face.
"What?" Justin asked.
"He says he didn't
call. He didn't even know which hotel I was at."
"That wasn't him just
now?" Wendy asked, concerned but trying not to show it. She cast a tense look at
Justin. Those letters…
"Maybe it was Jacob, not Jake. As in bodyguard
Jacob," Vontrésa offered.
"No, he's standing at the end of the hall."
Maddie chewed on her bottom lip as she thought.
"He is?" Chris asked in
surprise.
"He's the bodyguard, where else is he supposed to be?"
"No, I just meant that since the top ten floors are for MTV, then he
wouldn't-never mind," he broke off as Heather pinched him in the side.
"What exactly did he say?" Kendra asked Lance.
"He asked to
speak to Maddie."
"He said 'Can I speak to Maddie?'" Happy asked.
"No, he said, 'May I speak with Madison, please?'"
"Jake never
calls me Madison," Maddie muttered to herself as she retook her seat. She was so
caught up in the mystery of it that it never occurred to her that this was a
potentially dangerous situation.
It occured to Wendy and she hastily
changed the subject. "Well, Madison's a weird name but not that unusual.
Anyways, we're missing the show." She turned the volume up in a deliberate
attempt to stall any further conversation. Unbeknownst to Maddie, she, Jacob and
Romero had had a meeting and decided that it was best that overly obsessive
Maddie not be told about the stranger things going on. The main objective was to
keep her as happy and worry-free as possible. Maddie had done a lot for Wendy
over the years; Wendy felt that what she was doing was but a drop in the well
but at least it was something.
On the screen, a sweaty Madison was
dancing in a mirrored studio, the track to 'Uninvited' playing in the
background.
Joey may not have been the smartest of the bunch or the best
public speaker but he was very astute. Because he was as friendly and
approachable as he was, he knew a lot about reading into the nuances of body
language and words left unspoken and he caught on to Wendy's thoughts. "Damn,
girl! Raise your shirt up! I know you ain't cut like that! Abs of steel be
damned!"
"Shut up, Joey," Maddie laughed.
Chris watched as
Maddie performed a leap he knew was a lot harder to do than she made it look and
decided to join in the game. "Are all y'all as flexible as that?"
Eyes
rolled all around the room.
"Heath, baby, how would you feel about a
three-way?"
"Don't make me slap you, boy."
"I just wanna know if
all of y'all are built like that," Joey said and then had to dodge the punch
Janine playfully threw his way.
"Kristina is," Lance offered.
"Mmhmm, and how would he know that, Miss 'we didn't do anything'?" Von
teased.
"Hey, I said we didn't have sex, I didn't say anything else!"
"Um, I think this is more than we need to know," Dante laughed.
"I thought there were more of y'all," JC joined the conversation.
Happy explained, "There are but the others have never been to New York
before so they went out."
"Why do they call you Happy?"
"Blame
Maddie for that. My real name is Daniel but my last name is Gilmore, so…"
"That's not why I started calling you that," Madison interjected.
"It's not?"
She shared a look with Wendy and the two burst into
laughter.
"What?" Happy pouted, trying not to laugh. "Y'all know I hate
it when y'all laugh at me."
"Vontrésa knows why," Wendy said, smiling
slyly.
Von looked confused. "I do?"
"You were there when it
happened."
Von's face mirrored her puzzlement as the thought.
"Think about it for half a second," Maddie prompted, stressing the last
words.
"I don't-Oooooh." Her laughter got the other two going again.
"Well, dammit, I wanna know," Kendra moped.
Maddie leaned over
and whispered in her ear.
"Hey, it's not polite to whisper," Joey said
loudly. He didn't really care anymore. He was trying to think of a good excuse
for him and Janine to cut out early. He hated to be reinforcing his ill-gained
reputation as the Lothario of the group, but he hadn't seen his girl in almost a
month. There was a lot of lost time to make up for.
They watched as
Kendra's expression changed that one of amusement to shock to disgust. She shook
her head and wagged her finger at Wendy and Von. "Y'all some nasty hoes."
"Ooh, now why they gotta be hoes?" Chris instigated. "I wouldn't take
that if I were y'all."
"Oh hush," Wendy pushed his leg with her foot.
"Can y'all keep it down a bit? I can't hear the TV," Justin said, not
really concerned about the TV but wondering what the whole deal with Happy's
nickname was.
"Oh, come on, you already missed about half of it," Jen
pointed out.
"Besides," Lance chimed in, "why worry about a face on the
screen when you got the real deal sitting next to you?"
Justin turned
his head to look at Maddie and forgot all about his irritation. Her blue gray
eyes shone with life and laughter. Her lips were curved into a sweet half-smile.
Unable to resist (and not really wanting to), he leaned over and pressed
a short kiss on her.
Maddie smiled, twined her fingers with his, then
looked back at him. She raised her free hand to run her palm over his braided
hair.
They were still smiling at each other when the door opened. Romero
stood in the doorway, one hand on the doorknob, the other resting on his hip, a
keycard in his pudgy fingers. Always dapper, he wore a green pinstriped
three-piece suit. Not a style that any man could pull off, but on Romie, it
looked good. Even at the end of a long day, he was wrinkle free.
"Madre
de Dios, what is this, party in Maddie's room?" He was given a chorus of
greetings but shook his head as he walked further into the room. "Mmmnnhh, I'm
gonna have to poop the party now."
"What?" Wendy protested. "It's only
ten forty-five."
"Yes, well, Miss Ma'am here has an interview and photo
shoot with TV Guide in the morning. Eight AM. And y'all know it takes a good
hour for her to wake up enough to start speaking. And then it's another hour for
her to quit being a bitch. So I gotta get her up by six. And poofy eyes are not
allowed so she has to sleep now. Everybody out." Romero moved back to the door
and held it open, ignoring the moaning and complaining.
"Damn, Mads, I
thought your daddy was in Houston," Von joked as the two girls exchanged hugs
and pecks on the cheek.
"Yeah, me too."
Justin stayed seated on
the bed and watched Maddie say goodbye to everyone. He didn't mind that she was
all passing out hugs and kisses until she got to Happy. That was one kid he'd be
glad to see go. He glowered when Happy whispered something in Maddie's ear to
make her laugh.
"OK, I'm gonna get up…eventually," JC said from his spot
on the floor. He didn't move.
"Hey," Romero called down the hall, "I'm
doing a room check later and everyone better be alone. My man's not here, if I
go celibate, everybody does. And Lance, no visiting Kristina in the middle of
the night, her mama would kill me if I brought her home from New York knocked
up." Laughter and hoots erupted at the older man's candor. He turned back into
the room. "He's the quiet, shy one, okay, but I bet he tries to get some
tonight. It's always the quiet ones that are the biggest freaks." He frowned as
he looked around the room. "What are y'all waiting for?"
"Well, I know
Justin's not gonna leave here until he gets a kiss goodnight from Maddie and I
didn't bring my room key so we have to get to our room through his," Chris said.
"I can't move," Jen pointed at where JC was resting with half of his
body covering hers.
"Imma get up…in a minute," JC gave his girlfriend a
goofy smile.
Romero turned to Justin and raised his eyebrows
expectantly.
"What? I'm not gonna kiss her with all y'all watching!"
"Why not, you've done it before," Jen pointed out, squeezing from under
JC.
"Oh geez." Maddie rolled her eyes, walked over to Justin, grabbed
his hand, pulled him into the bathroom and shut the door behind them.
"I'm timing you!" Chris hollered, checking his watch.
"Shut up!"
Justin yelled back.
Four long minutes later, the door opened and the
pair, looking somewhat disheveled, walked out. Both were fighting to control
their breathing through swollen and red lips. Maddie's braid wasn't as neat as
it had been and Justin's shirt was a lot more wrinkled.
"Oh my. Honey,
you gonna be able to sleep after that?" Romero wasn't being sarcastic, he was
genuinely concerned. He was surprised when those around him started laughing.
"OK," Justin ran a shaky hand over his head, "we can leave now."
Still laughing, the others trooped into the hall. Justin kissed the side
of Maddie's neck and followed.
"Imma go get the itinerary for tomorrow,
be right back," Romero said. Maddie trailed into the hallway after him.
'Nice ass,' she thought as she watched Justin walk down the corridor,
teasing and being teased by his friends. He looked over his shoulder and saw her
standing there. He smiled and winked. Laughing, Maddie went back into her room.
Soon after, the hall was clear.
The man in the black jacket stepped
forward, out of the shadows and into the light. His patience had paid off.
Everything had fallen into place. He had everything he needed. A heartbeat
later, he'd vanished as completely and as quietly as he'd appeared.
Ten
minutes later, Maddie heard a knock at the door. Thinking it was Romero, she
opened it without asking who it was. "Happy. What's up?"
"I think I left
my cell phone in here. Can I check?"
"Yeah, sure." Maddie moved to the
side to let him enter.
He walked over to where he'd been sitting near
the bed. Not seeing it, he knelt down on one knee and lifted the bed skirt. "Got
it."
"You better get out of here. Romie will have a fit if you're in
here when he gets back."
"Yeah."
She followed him to the door.
"I'm glad we're dancing together again," Happy turned to face her.
Maddie leaned against the doorjamb. "Me too."
"Well…good night."
"Night, Happy."
He leaned down and kissed her cheek, hesitated a
moment, then kissed her on the lips.
That was the last thing Justin saw.
He turned on his heel and walked back into his room.
