Justin was sprawled on the floor of his hotel room in Louisiana in a complete state of exhaustion. This was about the only time he had gotten to actually lay down and rest within the past month. The last time he had been able to rest his muscles was... oh, his birthday over a month ago. If he thought he had been tired before, today it just crossed the line and he felt like there was no way he would be able to sit up much less go on stage and dance for twenty thousand screaming teenagers, which was expected of him in less than two hours. He closed his eyes and tried not to think about that.

Not a second after his eyelids shut, there was a knock on his door. A frustrated groan escaped his lips and with no strength left in him to get up, he yelled as loud as his throat would let him. "WHO IS IT!?"

Another knock echoed in the room and a voice called in after it. "It's Lance. What are you doing?"

Justin groaned again. "GET A KEY FROM JASON, HE HAS A SPARE ONE. I'M TOO TIRED TO GET UP."

Lance's eyebrows lifted in surprise. Justin? Too tired? That boy is never tired, I wonder what's up... He borrowed the second room key from Jason and carefully opened the door. "Justin, are you okay?"

Justin opened his eyes slowly to see Lance staring down at him with concern. "I'm just a little tired." His voice was hoarse, and his eyes were bloodshot.

"A little?"

"OKAY! I'm completely drained out."

Lance squatted down next to Justin's withered figure and held a hand out. "Well then why are you on the floor?"

"I didn't make it to the bed."

Lance laughed and pulled Justin to a sitting position. "Me and Joey are gonna go get something to eat before we do the show tonight, do you want to come or do you want to stay here and eat in an hour at the arena with JC and Chris?"

Justin reached for the clock but scratched his head when it wasn't resting on the bed table where it normally was. "That's weird, where'd that stupid clock go?"

Lance glanced around the room and tried to contain his laughter when he saw a blinking clock all the way across the room. "I believe the victim is dead. You're in for it now, man. Alarm clock murder...hm, never would have thought..."

"Shut up, Lance. That thing is so friggin' annoying. It deserved to die. What time is it?"

"Four o'clock. We have to be at the arena by five."

Justin sighed and rubbed his eyes violently, trying to execute all the fatigue out of them. When he finally stopped and looked up at Lance, they were puffy and red but he stood up anyway, shook off the dizziness and grabbed his baseball cap. "I'll come. I need to get out... maybe I'll try to get together with Britney tonight. Is she home, do you know?"

"She's on a vacation now, so she should be at her house, yeah."

"Good Maybe she'll cheer me up somehow... I don't know how though, she's no Olivia."

Lance smiled and patted his back. "C'mon... let's go. You'll see Liv in about a month, just think of it that way."

By the time a month goes by, I'll be passed out in exhaustion. He licked his lips and followed Lance down the hallway, where they met up with Joey, Jason and a new bodyguard named Trey that had recently been assigned to Justin for this tour. All of them watched Justin closely, and Joey handed him sunglasses. "Here, man. These will be good for you... what did you do to your eyes?"

Jason observed him carefully. "Are you feeling all right, J?"

Justin coughed and nodded. "I'm fine. Let's go."

Fifteen minutes later, they were safely in their limo after stopping to sign autographs for the fans who waited for them in the lobby of the hotel and outside in the streets. Justin tried not to roll his eyes at the many excited females who ran up to him, gawking at him in awe, screaming "OH MY GOD!" in his face. He had laughed when Olivia told him of her now many experiences with his fans. True he had laughed, but inside he was really feeling bad. He had affected HER life with his fame, and that was something he hadn't wanted to happen. She was his normalcy and if suddenly she was thrown in front of the public's eye, she could get hurt, she could get involved with the wrong people who could end up ruining her life, or something even worse. God forbid she got hurt because of who he was... he would never be able to live with himself.

His cell phone began ringing loudly immediately pulling him away from his thoughts. He scrambled to turn it on, praying for it to be Olivia. He wanted more than anything to hear her voice. "Liv???"

"Liv?? .... Justin? This is Britney."

His heart dropped at the voice on the other line. Britney was a great friend, always there for him... but she had nothing on Liv. He fought to keep the disappointment out of his voice. "Oh, hey Brit. I was gonna call you later but I guess you beat me to it."

"Who's Liv?"

"You know who she is... didn't I tell you about her? Olivia..."

"Oh... Olivia. That sweet girl you're friends with."

Justin scratched his chin and swore he had told her that he was dating her. So either she DID know and she just didn't want to believe it or she was totally oblivious to the fact. It was obvious to him that Britney was crushing on him, and before he met Olivia he sometimes felt bad that he couldn't return those feelings, but there was just nothing he could do about that. "Well... yeah, that's her."

"You're expecting her to call?"

"No... just hoping, because I miss her. A lot.", he sighed and changed the subject. "So, what's up? Did you call for any particular reason?"

"Just wanted to check up on my favorite hottie. I've seen recent pictures of you and you really don't look to good. Are you feeling okay?"

"Why does everyone keep asking me that? I'm absolutely fine... just a little worn out. Look, are you at home?"

"Yeah, I'll be here for about three days and then I have to go to Europe."

"Can I come over after our show? I kind of want to talk to you."

"Sure you can, JuJu. I'll be here."

"Okay, thanks Brit. I gotta go, we're getting some grub and then heading to the arena. Hopefully I won't collapse on stage or anything.", he laughed. "Talk to you tonight."

"Bye Justin!"

"Later.", he clicked off his phone and put it in his pocket, hoping she would be able to understand his feelings and his needs. That's what friends were for, right?

Not too long after Justin had hung up with Britney did the limosuine pull into the parking lot of a restaurant. Hoping that not a lot of young fans would be there, they discreetly made their way into the building and were seated towards the back near the kitchen. Justin rested his elbow against the wall and prayed that this would go quickly and smoothly.

If he only knew what was about to happen, he would have definitely stayed at the hotel.

"Our waitress is a FOX!", Joey whistled through his teeth after the young woman had taken down their orders.

Lance laughed. "She looks about sixteen Joey."

Joey shrugged, the white of his teeth showing in a grin. Eventually, he put his attention on Justin, who was leaning against the wall, his eyes closed. "Juuuustin.... wake upppp!"

Justin reluctantly opened his eyes and looked at Joey and Lance who were sitting across from him. "What? Is the food here?"

"Nope, but you just missed a really hot chick! She'll be back though, don't worry... so keep your eyes open."

Justin rolled his eyes. "Of course! Don't let me miss a hot chick." He shook his head. "Joe, I'm really not in that good of a mood for your stupid 'chick' jokes."

"Whatever, man. But that was kind of rude of you to order with your eyes closed. You should have seen the look on her face when she was assigned to this table. She had the words 'I LOVE JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE' written all over her face."

"... and I have the words 'I LOVE OLIVIA JACOBS' written all over MY face, but who cares about that, right? It's all about the thousands of girls that want me, that love me, that want to be with me, right? But what about my NEEDS and my FEELINGS? Hm? Does anyone care that I might be going through a hard time right now? Does anyone care that maybe I don't want to deal with the throngs of girls that surround me every day? Does anyone care that --", he trailed off when he noticed that both Joey and Lance were staring at him in shock. "What?"

Lance looked at him wide-eyed. "You just said that you LOVE Olivia."

Justin remained quiet, biting his lip, realizing that he did indeed just say that he loved her. After a brief moment of silence, he blinked, looked up at his friends and spoke calmly. "....so I did."

"Did...did you mean that?"

Justin studied his hands as if they were the most amazing thing he had ever seen in his life and thought about Lance's question.

It took him about half a second to think it through.

"Hell yeah I meant it. I love Olivia Jacobs. I love her. Damnit guys, I am so in love with her it makes my stomach hurt."

Joey and Lance turned to look at each other in shock, their jaws nearly hitting the table. He sure as hell wasn't lying, because the emphasis and the passion he had put into those words he had just said spoke the honest truth. Not to mention the way his eyes were practically glowing with love just at the mention of her name.

"Wow... well, uh... congratulations, man.", Joey finally said and suddenly changed the subject when he saw the cute waitress coming back with their food. "Hey, here comes our food. God, Justin, why do you always get those leafy salads?"

"Because I'm healthy and you're not.", he said taking his salad from the young girl, whose eyes were seeing stars. He smiled and eyed her curiously. She looked a tad familiar, from a picture he had seen before but he couldn't figure out who she was. He glanced at where her name-tag should've been, but there was none. Hmm, weird. "Thank you, um... what's your name?"

She grinned giddily. "Bridget."

He nodded, smiling slightly. "Thank you Bridget."

She smirked and put down the other plates in front of Joey and Lance who were watching her like a hawk. She winked at both of them and asked quietly, "Hey, I was wondering if you two could help me with something over there...? Please?"

Joey jumped out of his seat quickly, followed by Lance and they both fought to speak first. "Sure I can help you!"

"No, I can help you! He's worthless!"

"Don't listen to him, he can't do anything!"

Bridget smiled shyly. "You both can help...come with me."

Joey and Lance followed her towards the back end of the restaraunt and Jason accompanied them, since they weren't allowed to go anywhere without supervision. Justin sighed and shook his head as he picked up his fork. "What a bunch of retards..."

The new bodyguard sat down across from him and smiled at his comment. "What'd you get there?", he asked, pointing to the salad.

Justin chewed a forkful of his food and answered, "It's a baby-leaf salad. Like, all different kinds of lettuce! I love them, I always get them when I go out."

Trey nodded in approval and rested his arm on the table, only to quickly pick it up again when a puddle of water got on his jacket. "Oh... man!" He reached across the table for a napkin, but his big hand knocked over Justin's big glass of water spilling it all over the eighteen year old.

Justin jumped as the water leaked all over his shirt and pants. "Oh, damnit!!" He stood up and lowered the brim of his hat before excusing himself to the bathroom to clean up the mess.

Trey smirked to himself. The plan was going absolutely perfect. He reached into his jacket's pocket and pulled out a small ziplock bag containing some type of leafy plant, that had been shredded up to look like lettuce. He glanced around quickly to make sure no one was watching him and carefully threw some of the plant into Justin's salad, mixing it around with the fork so it didn't look so obvious.

Suddenly, he saw Lance and Joey returning to the table so he quickly jammed the bag back into his pocket and stood up to guard the empty table. This was so unbelievably evil, and he didn't know what made him agree to going along with it... well, okay it was the two grand he was paid that made him do it, but still, this was just plain torture and he wondered if it would be worth the two thousand dollars to see Justin get hurt this way...

But it was too late now. Justin was jogging back to the table, obviously unsuccessful in getting the water off his pants since there was a big wet spot on the front. He slipped into the booth, ignoring Joey and Lance's laughter.

Trey watched him carefully, regret filling his heart. Maybe he should just steal the plate away from him so he wouldn't have to suffer.... He bit his lip and closed his eyes.

All Justin had to do was eat it.