"Olivia?!", he squinted, realizing who it was. He pulled out the dark sunglasses from his pants pocket and hid his crystal eyes to keep his identity low profile. Then he hopped off the steps of the tour bus and strode over to where she was standing, his snap Adidas pants swishing together as his legs moved gently against each other.

She bit her lip and tightened her jaw. She didn't really want to talk to him, but she was going to have to at some point. "What are you doing here?"

He looked surprised at her question. "What am I doing here? I'm opening for Janet...well, you know, me and the rest of the group are.", he answered and glanced over at the young man that had just walked up beside her, a look of contempt glazing his eyes over. "Is this your boyfriend?"

Brian stepped forward and looked Justin straight in the eyes. "I'm her friend... YOU must be Justin.", he said with scorn, almost sneering at him.

Justin held up his hands in a protest. "Whoa whoa whoa...what did I do?"

Olivia swallowed and tore her eyes away from his deliciously handsome face. She grabbed Brian's arm and started to turn around. "Come on, Bri...let's just go get our seats."

Brian looked at her. "Don't you want to talk to him? I'm sure he doesn't remember anything that you've ever talked about since he's just as I had percieved him to be."

Justin furrowed his brows and watched as the two friends quietly argued about him. He finally spoke up. "Um, did I miss something?"

Brian's look of scorn got worse as he turned and glared him down. "Mr. I'm-too-cool-to-call-people-back-when-I-asked-them-to-call-me-in-the-first-place...what do you THINK you missed?"

Justin scratched his chin as the words sank into his head and when he realized the meaning of them, he felt his heart sink into his stomach. "The message...", he thought and then looked at Liv, finishing his thoughts out loud. "Oh my...Olivia, I swear to God I got your message! Chris stole my phone off me and gave it back like a month after you called!", he bit his lip as he mumbled the next words: "I just forgot to call you back..." His lips curved down into a frown and his eyes held a look of complete melancholy. He looked at her apologetically. "I'm so sorry!"

She shrugged shyly and turned away from his stare. "I don't care...", she said quietly.

Brian noticed that she was beginning to shy off again and took it upon himself to talk for her. "She does care, don't listen to her. Do you know how much guts it took for her to just pick up the phone and dial up a 'famous Mr. Macho man' like yourself? A lot. So, I don't want to just hear a little 'I'm sorry'. She deserves a lot more than that. You could start with an explanation.", he huffed, the tone of his voice escalating into a more violent accent.

Justin was shocked by the robustful tone in his voice. His sad eyes slid over to Liv, who was scratching the pavement with the sole of her sneaker while her eyes watched the scraping of the shoe. She felt his eyes on her and glanced up at him, her eyes full of vulnerability. His heart broke right then and there... she was so utterly shy and unsure of herself it haunted him. He drew in a breath and finally opened his mouth to speak. "All right...I know I seem like a jackass, but let me explain my reasons..." He glanced around and noticed that people were beginning to gather around the buses. "Let's go in the bus, we still have an hour before showtime and you can meet the other guys too..." He looked at Brian quickly. "You can come too, I guess."

The three of them stepped back onto the bus, where Chris, Joey, Lance, and JC were scattered about, each doing different things. Justin sat down at the mini-table and started talking, while looking at his hands. He couldn't bring himself to look her in the eyes because they were filled with extreme disappointment. "Okay, the day that I told you we were leaving for Europe in a month, at the beach, remember? Well, when I was called into that meeting, my manager told me that since our popularity was rising higher than expected we had to push everything forward and leave a few weeks before we had planned. Plus, I didn't have your number so I couldn't have called you to say that we were leaving earlier."

She watched him play with his hands and said softly, "That doesn't explain why you didn't call me back, though."

"I know, I'm getting to that part.", he said and shifted in his seat. "When we were on the plane coming back to the States, Chris gave me my phone back. There were about eighty messages on my voicemail...mostly from fans and family. A few were from management and then I heard yours. To tell you the truth, I was a little surprised that you called, and I was planning on calling you back immediately after I got back to the hotel but before I had a chance to, Joey dragged me out to a party. We got back after four in the morning and it kind of just slipped my mind. I'm so extremely sorry, I would've loved to talk to you... you know that right?"

Olivia pursed her lips and furrowed her eyebrows, looking into his pleading eyes, before letting a small smile escape the corners of her mouth. "Okay. I can understand that..."

Justin's face broke out into a huge grin. He wanted to jump up and shout for joy but thought that he might scare her if he did. "Thanks Liv, now can--"

"Hey, did I hear my name?", Joey bounded out of the door to the back room and hopped over to where Justin was standing. He saw Olivia and whistled. "Hellllllo, sugar!! My name is Joey, and let me tell you...you must be drinking lots of milk because it sure as hell is doing your body good!!", he grinned and let a note whistle out again through his sparkly teeth. Justin elbowed him in the ribcage and Olivia blushed from head to toe. "OWWW! MAN, JUSTIN!"

"Man, you're never gonna get a girl with those pick up lines."

She waited until Joey stopped hopping around and holding his stomach before she said, "I'm Justin's friend, Olivia Jacobs."

(showtime)

Liv and Brian made their way to their seats in the second row of the pit, yelling excitedly to each other over the screaming of the crowd. The concert was just about ready to start and Liv was thouroughly ecstatic to see *NSYNC perform. She and Justin had talked for a good half an hour and had gotten to know each other a lot better. She was actually glad that he was there and that she had found the courage inside of her to sit down and talk to him. Now, she was ready to enjoy his soulful, soothing voice.

Brian spoke up, interrupting her little daydream. "I don't really like that Justin guy. I don't trust him."

Olivia looked at him, confused. "Why? What's not to trust about him? He's a really nice guy, Brian."

He shrugged. "I don't know, I just don't like him. Just be careful, ok Liv?"

She nodded and sat back in her seat as the lights slowly dimmed and the screaming of the crowd escalated. A huge banner draped down on the back of the stage, holding an image of the five guys of *NSYNC. She could see the dark shadows emerge from the curtains and take their places on the stage. Liv turned to look at the girl next to her, who was freaking out screaming Justin's name. She could see little tears in the corners of her eyes and was shocked. "I guess he was right when he said their popularity was increasing rapidly.", she thought to herself and put her attention back on the stage. The lights flickered and the music to "Here We Go" started to play. Olivia felt her stomach churn with butterflies as the light flashed on Justin's face. All five of the guys were wearing pretty much the same outfit, just with different colored shirts. They were silky black pants and the variety of red, yellow, green, blue, and purple silky shirts. *NSYNC only performed a total of five songs, since they were only the opening act, but after they left the stage Liv's heart was racing. The performance hadn't been big, but she could tell that the passion they put into their music wasradiating out of them like nothing she'd ever seen before. She also knew that when the guys finally got their own tour, it would be unbelievably amazing.

Brian tapped the steering wheel loudly with excitement with his hands. "Dude, Liv, did you SEE the part when she brought that guy up on stage? Man, he was so lucky!!"

Olivia ignored his comment and continued to look out the window.

"Olivia?"

She still ignored him.

He tapped her on the shoulder. "Liv?? Hellllo?"

She jumped when his hand touched her skin and she shouted at him, only because she couldn't hear her own voice. "WHAT?"

Realizing that she had pretty much lost her hearing, he shook his head and mumbled "Nevermind."

(on the tour bus, en route to Ft. Lauderdale)

Joey stuffed another chocolate brownie in his mouth and looked at Justin, who was doing sit-ups on the floor. "So foo wuz da ottie?" Justin tilted his head slightly to glance at Joey, but didn't stop his crunches. He exhaled and said quickly, "What are you talking about?" Joey swallowed his food and repeated his question. "I said, so who was the hottie?"

"Ninety-eight...ninety-nine...one hundred...", Justin exhaled and propped himself into an upright position. "Who are you talking about?"

"The chick that was on our bus before the show. She said she was your friend...God Justin, where have you been?"

"Olivia?"

"Duuuhhh!"

"Oh, yeah...well, I met her a while ago and we kind of keep bumping into each other. It's pretty weird. I saw her in a coffeehouse and then she was the one that I brought to the hospital after her friend died."

Joey snickered. "Right, when you freaked out at the newspaper article...Chris told me about that."

Justin brushed Joey's comment off and continued, "And then she squirt suntan lotion all over me at the beach and we started talking. No biggie, really. She's nice...."

"She's freaking hot, Justin. Is she single? How old is she?"

Justin rolled his eyes. "She's only seventeen, man. Don't even think about it."

"Who was that guy that was with her...what was his name...Brian?"

Justin felt a strange pang of jealousy surge into his stomach at the mention of Brian. He didn't like him at all and even though she had promised him that he was a good friend, he still had a queasy feeling about him. Justin could also tell that Brian wasn't too fond of him either. He quickly shook off the envy and glanced at Joey who was looking at him waiting for an answer. "Um, I think he was just one of her friends...that's what she told me anyway."

"Oh." He seemed satisfied so he grabbed a soda and went into the backroom of the bus to watch TV with the rest of the guys.

Justin pushed up against the couch and pulled his knees up to his chest. Olivia's face flashed through his head and the memories flashed back to when he had first seen her.

"What are you looking at?"

" ...just that girl over there..."

"What girl?", JC asked. "Was she cute?"

He remembered when he knew he recognized her from somewhere when he came across the accident last May on I-47.

"Excuse me?", he said as he crouched down to her.

She looked up with pain-stricken eyes and tear-stained cheeks. "Who are you?"

"My name is Justin...are you okay?"

She shook her head.

Just seeing her dejected face again in his mind caused him to fight back tears. Even though he barely knew her, the time he spent with her at the hospital was one of the saddest moments of his life.

He rested his chin against her shoulder, breathing in the scent of her hair wondering what he was doing...holding onto this young woman for dear life when he barely knew her. She just felt so... right in his arms, and she was so vulnerable that he felt he needed to protect her with all his strength.

"Are you okay?"

"What the hell do you think?"

"I'm sorry..."

"Who ARE you...why are you even remotely interested in my life?"

Justin sighed and tried to push away the flashbacks but his effort was futile as the memories kept flooding into his head.

Justin looked at her curiously, as he wiped the suntan lotion off his body. "Olivia? Isn't that your name? Olivia Jaycans or something?"

"No...it's Olivia Jacobs..."

* * * * * * *

"I don't have any friends, really."

His sunglasses dropped to his nose. "Not one?"

"Well...Serenity..."

He smiled. "Well you just made number two!"

* * * * * * *

"Here's my number...call me if you reconsider..."

Justin tightened his jaw as he remembered getting her message and not calling her back. He knew he should've called her right away... "Sometimes I think I understand everything...", he shook his head and stood up. "And then I meet Olivia Jacobs..." He smiled and joined the rest of the guys to watch the sports game that could be heard all throughout the bus.