The next morning Kristen woke up and got in the shower. She was in there for about a half hour when she got out and wrapped a towel around her body and brushed out her hair. She went into the kitchen to make herself a cappuccino and saw that AJ was already up. "Since when do you walk around the house in only a towel?" AJ asked her.
"Since I'm too lazy to get dressed before my annual caffeine high. What makes a difference? You walk around the house naked. At least I have something covering myself."
"I do not walk around the house naked. And you wouldn't know anyways considering you've never seen me."
"I'm not stupid. I go to sleep and you drop the pants and walk around naked. You sleep naked so why wouldn't you walk around that way too? By the way we have to talk about your sleeping naked habit," Kristen said sitting down at the table across from AJ.
"What about it?"
"I think you should start sleeping with boxers on or something because I don't want your little thing poking me in the ass if we're cuddling."
"Little?" AJ asked feeling insulted.
"Oh, I'm so sorry Mr. King of the Jungle. You grow the biggest zucchini around," Kristen said mocking the Trojan commercial.
"Now you're being a smart ass. How would you know anyways? You've had sex with one other guy besides me and you can't honestly tell me he was bigger."
"Okay, then I won't," Kristen said getting up to go get dressed. AJ followed her into his room.
"There is no way he could have been bigger than me!" AJ whined.
"Guys have so much pride in their dicks it's not even funny," Kristen said as she put on one of the outfits she bought the day before.
"Well you have the smallest boobs I've ever seen."
"Shut up, my boobs are not small."
"Oh who has too much pride now?" AJ asked with a smile.
"I was just making a statement," Kristen said going into the bathroom to do her hair and make-up and once again AJ followed her.
"Anyways back to this sleeping naked subject. What if we just got done having sex? Am I supposed to get up to put some boxers on?"
"Who said anything about us having sex?"
"Well, you were wanting it pretty bad the other night."
"No, I wasn't. I never want it bad. The difference between me and you is I can live without sex and you would die without sex."
"No one can live without sex."
"I can," Kristen said simply.
"Oh, so you're saying you could live without it because I'm the only one you can have sex with or else you would be cheating on me and I'm not that great. So, you would rather just not have sex," AJ said disappointed.
"You think way to much and I would never think that. Besides I don't really know if you're that great since we've only done it once."
"And I didn't please you?"
"Hello! Earth to AJ! My parents walked in on us in the middle of it! We never got to finish what we started!"
"You're wrong you know that right?" AJ asked walking out of the bathroom while Kristen finished getting ready. He went into the kitchen and picked up the phone and dialed Nick's phone number. On the fourth ring Nick picked up. "Hey Nick, is Toni there?"
"Yeah, hold on let me get her," Nick said putting the phone down.
"Hello?" Toni asked a couple seconds later.
"Hey Toni, it's AJ."
"Hey, what's up?"
"I have a question for you about Kristen."
"Why what's wrong with her?" Toni asked worried.
"I don't know. Ever since she got out of the hospital she's been acting a little different."
"How so?"
"I don't know. She has conversations with me that we would have never had before. I'm not even about to relay our convo we had this morning to you. Then the other night it was like she wanted sex bad or something."
"AJ I wouldn't worry about it, she sounds normal."
"How do you figure normal? It's like she's opposite of what she used to be."
"And you don't like it?" Toni asked confused.
"Oh no I'm loving it, besides what she told me this morning. But I think she was lying because she couldn't be right about it."
"Okay, I have no idea what the hell you are talking about."
"Nevermind. I'll talk to you later, bye," AJ said hanging up the phone. Kristen came into the kitchen and sat down at the table with an envelope that said 'Mainstream' written across it. "What's that?"
"My music for Mainstream. The class begins in about two hours so I figured I would try and learn some of the music," she said pulling out a sheet of music. "There is no way I'm going to be able to do this on my own," she said looking the music over.
"I'll help you," AJ said pulling up a chair and sitting down next to her.
"We don't even have a piano to play the pitches or anything."
"You don't need one. You can do it acapella."
"Um yeah that's a big laugh. I can't sight read."
"I can and that's why I'm trying to help you." For the next hour and a half Kristen and AJ sat at the table as AJ tried to teach Kristen how to sight read music. He wasn't succeeding at all so he figured he would just sing the song and then Kristen could learn from listening to his voice. It wasn't working too well considering they sang in two completely different pitches.
"AJ I told you I can't do this! It's way to hard without a piano! Every single year in my high school choir I would fail our sight reading final!" Kristen complained.
"Fine, you're going to be late for class so you better go. Ask Kevin to help you or something. He can play the piano," AJ said getting aggravated.
"Fine!" Kristen yelled getting up and grabbing her stuff and walking out the door. AJ figured out then that Kristen can easily get frustrated with something if she doesn't know what she's doing. Kristen got to class about ten minutes earlier so she went up to Mr. Panopolus to talk with him. "Here are the papers that I needed to turn in. Sorry I didn't have it in earlier," she said handing them to him. He looked at them for a second then back at Kristen.
"You're Miss. Bonnell?" he asked and Kristen nodded her head. "I'm terribly sorry about everything that happened to you to make you not be here from the beginning. You feeling better?"
"Much better."
"You sure you're ready to dance and sing?"
"I'm sure. My boyfriend wouldn't have let me come if I wasn't."
"That's good. Class starts in a couple of minutes so you can get acquainted with the rest of the group."
"Alright, thanks," Kristen said then turned to walk to the other side of the room where everyone else was when some girl took notice of her and walked up to her.
"You must be Kristen," she said.
"Um...yeah, how did you know?" Kristen asked confused.
"Mr. P told us that our tenth girl would be missing class for a while do to a bunch of issues. You're the only one I haven't seen here."
"Um okay," Kristen said trying to figure out who she was.
"Oh sorry you look confused. I'm Amanda," she said holding out her hand as Kristen shook it. "You can call me Mandy though, everyone else does."
"Alright. I think I heard you singing during auditions that were right before me."
"Yeah that would be me. I stayed around to hear you sing since I love that song you sang by Jessica Simpson. You did geat."
"Thanks, so did you. Do you have any idea what exactly I'm supposed to be doing?" Kristen asked.
"Well your dancing partner is Eric. I know that since he's the only guy that's been dancing by himself. We're learning dance moves today so it's good you're here. The moves are really easy. A two year old could get it," Mandy said as class started. Mr. Panopolus introduced Kristen to the class. He told her that if she didn't know the music yet she could just follow along with the moves and learn the songs later. The class lasted for three hours and when Kristen went to leave she saw TJ standing in the door.
"Hey what are you doing here?" Kristen asked going up to him and giving him a hug with Mandy right next to her.
"AJ told me you were here and I wanted to see if you wanted to go do something. Catch up on the past two weeks," TJ said with a smile.
"I'd love to but for some reason I really feel worn out from the dancing. I think I'm just going to go home."
"Well, you shouldn't be dancing around. You probably don't have all your strength back yet."
"I went shopping all day yesterday. I think I have it back."
"Shopping and dancing are two different things. Just don't wear yourself out okay?"
"Okay as long as you don't worry so much about me. I'm fine."
"Alright, take care," TJ said giving Kristen a hug and then smiling at Mandy before walking away.
"That guy is really cute. Who is he? He looks really familiar," Mandy said.
"Oh, that's TJ. He's one of Britney Spears's dancers."
"So that's why he looks familiar. Is he your boyfriend or something?"
"Oh no, just really good friends."
"Do you have a boyfriend? Hope you don't mind me asking or anything."
"No, I don't mind. Yeah I do. I'm dating AJ McLean."
"AJ McLean as in AJ McLean from the Backstreet Boys?" Mandy asked and Kristen nodded her head. "Dang girl, you sure do get around with all the good guys. I don't even have an everyday guy for a boyfriend," she said when they got in the parking lot. "I'll see you tomorrow in class. Nice meeting you," Mandy said.
"Yeah, you too," Kristen said as she got in her car and drove to AJ's place as she was more excited than before about being part of Mainstream.
