“Drew!”
“Lili? Do you know what time it is? Why the hell are you calling me now?”
“Yeah, I know. It’s past midnight, but guess who is in my living room.”
“Uh, I don’t know. Ben? I hope so. You two should just hook up already.”
“No, it’s not Ben, and will you just drop that?” She had this stupid, crazy idea that Ben liked me, and that we should get together. She brought it up constantly. It was so annoyingly ridiculous. Ben was great, and he had a certain charm to him, but I’ve known him since we were three. I would never be able to think of him as anything more than a friend. He was just Ben, plain and simple. “Actually, there are five people.”
“I have to guess five?” she whined.
“No.”
“Can’t this wait until tomorrow?”
“No!”
“I give up. I have to get up early. Just tell me.”
“Are you sitting down?”
“Laying down actually. I was sleeping.”
“Sorry, but I wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important.”
“I know.”
“Okay. ‘N…” I heard three small little clicks and then nothing. “Hello? Drew?” No answer. The phone was dead.
“Great. Just great.” I had a house full of people, and the phone didn’t work. I hung it up and plopped down on my bed.
As soon as my head hit the pillow, the lights flickered and went out. “Ahhhh!” I jumped up quickly. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I sighed as I felt the top of my desk for matches. My fingers ran across something flat and square. “Walla!” I lit a candle which provided a small amount of light, just enough to see my door open, and Justin stick his head in.
“Lili?”
“Yeah?”
“We heard you scream. Are you alright?”
“Oh, yeah. I was just startled, that’s all.”
“Okay.” He came all the way in and stood next to me. “I was going to suggest that we watch a movie, but that’s kinda out of the question now.”
“I’d say so. Come on, let’s go down stairs.” I was beginning to feel a bit uneasy being alone with Justin… in my bedroom… with candlelight. He let me walk by him and closed my door. I held the candle in one hand and the matches in the other, slowly walking down the stairs trying not to set the house on fire.
I walked into the living room to find the guys sitting in the dark. “Hey, help me light some of these candles.” I tossed the matches to Joey, and he began to light them obediently. My mom had at least fifteen candles spread out in the living room alone. She loved to have them lit. She explained it to me as being relaxing, and ‘they just made the house look so nice!’ “How about a fire?” I suggested.
“Sounds good,” they agreed.
“Okay, you work on the candles, and I’ll get some wood.”
“Need help?” Lance asked, getting up.
“Nah, I can handle it.” I slipped on my boots and headed outside to our woodpile with a flashlight.
I was fairly surprised how deep the snow was already. It must have been at least six inches. That’s only in an hour’s time.
I balanced the flashlight on the top of the logs and began to load them into my arms.
“Lili?” asked a familiar voice from around the corner.
“Ben? Is that you?” He walked over to me. “Hi.”
“Hey. When the power went out, I tried to call, but the phones are dead.”
“You came to check on me?”
“Don’t sound so surprised. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“You’re so sweet, but I have five big, strong guys inside to save me.”
“They’re inside?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.” His face fell
“You wanna come in for awhile? I’m sure it’s kinda hard to sell gas without any electricity.”
“Sure.”
I smiled at him as I dropped about five logs into his arms.
“Lili?”
“Yeah?” I picked up the flashlight with one hand, still balancing the wood.
“I thought you didn’t like Justin.”
That was a new one. If I remembered correctly, I didn’t hate anyone in ‘N Sync. “Um, no. The only thing I ever said was that I was sure he had a big head, which he doesn’t. That’s all. Why?” Ben was out of character. Usually he wasn’t as solemn as this. Granted, he was a mellow guy, but this was just over the top.
“Just curious,” he shrugged.
“Come on. It’s cold. Let’s get inside.” We walked back over to the sliding glass door which I kicked in order to knock. JC came to open the door.
“Thank you.”
“No problem.” I walked passed him and into the living room.
“Guys, this is one my friends, Ben.” I dropped the wood next to the fireplace. “Ben, this is Joey, Lance, Justin, Chris, and JC.”
“Uh, hi,” he said, dropping his wood next to mine.
“Hi,” they all smiled.
“Nice to meet you again, Ben,” Justin said, extending his hand to him.
“Likewise,” Ben said coldly, not moving forward in any attempt to be civil.
Justin looked at him strangely and put his arm down. “Yeah.” There was some major tension in the air between the two of them, and I didn’t like it. I knew Ben didn’t like ‘N Sync’s music, but not very many straight guys did. What I didn’t get was why he was acting like such a jerk to them.
“Ben, would you get me some more newspaper?” I asked, looking down at the small supply of ‘kindling’ we had left.
“Sure.”
“Thanks.” I knelt down in front of the fireplace and began to place logs inside. “You know what? I’ll be right back.” I got up and walked into our back porch. “Hey, Ben.”
“Huh?”
“What’s wrong?” I asked, closing the door behind me.
“Nothing.”
“Really? You’re acting almost as if…” I paused, not wanting to say what I was thinking.
“As if what?”
“Well, as if you’re jealous of them or something.”
“Jealous! What makes you say that?”
“I don’t know. It’s just this feeling I’m getting. It’s completely unlike you.”
“I have no reason to be jealous of him.”
“Of him?”
“Of them,” he said quickly.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“You can tell me if something’s wrong, you know.”
“Lili, I’m fine. It’s just been one of those days. Drop it, okay?”
“Sorry.”
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered under his breath as he walked out the door.
When I came back into the living room a few minutes later I found a huge fire blazing, and they had somehow managed to make hot chocolate.
“Wow. How did you guys do all this in, like, five minutes?”
“Teamwork,” smiled Lance. I couldn’t help but smile back. I never thought in a million years that he would be sitting on my couch. It was unbelievable. And I had been right, they were all really nice guys, especially Justin...
The problem was that Drew really like Justin, and she had really good taste, but she didn’t know that they were here. If she did she’d be right here with me…flirting away with him, brushing her long blond hair over her shoulder, and turning on her charm. Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if he fell madly in love with her, most guys did.
Me, on the other hand, I was lousy in the guy department. It wasn’t that I was ugly or had no confidence or something like that, it just wasn’t one of my top priorities. I was a busy girl, so I usually ended up being friends with the guys and nothing more. I liked it like that.
“Yeah, it wasn’t too hard,” JC said, breaking into my thoughts. “You must have had a fire earlier because there was already some embers.”
“Um, by any chance, do you have any whipped cream?” asked Ben with his trademark smile on his lips. He was returning to normal.
“I don’t know, but I hope you want it for your drink,” I laughed. The whipped cream thing was this big inside joke between us. Whipped cream, chocolate pudding, and strawberries...
“I’ll go check.” I quickly looked around the room. Lance and JC had somewhat disturbed looks on their faces, Joey was smirking into his cocoa, Chris had his eyebrows raised, and Justin looked extremely lost in thought.
I walked over to JC to get a cup. “I’m sorry this isn’t very exciting, but under the current circumstances there’s not much to do.”
“Nah, it’s cool,” said Joey.
“Very cool,” said Chris as he got up to move closer to the fire.
“It’s not often we get to just chill, ya know,” shrugged Lance as he slid over to make room for me on the couch.
“Very true. Besides, this is relaxing. The perfect ending to a long day.” JC plopped onto a pile of pillows. “If we really wanted to watch TV or something we could just go to the bus. But this is nice. We have a fire, hot chocolate, we’re in an actual house...”
Ben reappeared from the kitchen with his coat on. “You don’t,” he frowned. “And I’d hate to drink and run, but I got to get back to work. I left Jordan there alone, and that’s not a good idea for too long. I’ll see ya later, Lil.”
“I’ll walk you out.” I slipped my coat and boots on and followed Ben to the end of the driveway. “Thanks for stopping by.”
“No problem. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I’ll be fine. I’m probably going to hit the sac soon.”
“Are they sleeping inside?”
“Nah, they have their bunks on the bus.”
“Good point.”
“Are you sure you’re fine?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Well, I wanna get inside. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Sounds good.”
“Night, Ben.” I reached up to hug him.
“Night, Lili.” He began to trudge through the snow and soon was no longer in sight.
“Hey, guys,” Chris said, snapping me out of the daze that I had fallen into. “When was the last time we had a snowball fight?”
“Too long,” Lance sighed as he finished off his hot cocoa.
“Why don’t we then?” Joey asked.
“There’s enough snow on the ground,” JC commented, looking out the window. “Very rare back in Florida. Let’s go.” He got up and walked over to the door where we had piled all of our gloves and hats.
“Justin, you coming?” Lance asked, pulling his hat over his hair.
“Um, yeah.” I got up and joined them. We quickly snuck out the door and prepared a stockpile of snowballs.
Lili was talking to Ben at the end of her driveway. They were standing kinda close to each other. Then she hugged him. If the talk about the whipped cream didn’t get to me, that did.
Before she could turn around to come inside, Joey threw one of his snowballs at her, slamming into her shoulder.
“OW!”
“Gotcha!” She turned around and looked at the five of us, standing, ready for a battle.
“Wait a minute, five against one is so unfair.”
“Okay…” Chris began slowly, “…every man for himself!”
I threw one at JC, hitting him in the stomach. “Hey!” He threw one back at me and hit my arm. I bent down to make another snowball when I saw Lili sneaking behind her neighbor’s car.
“When opportunity knocks,” I said under my breath. “JC, look behind you!” He turned, and Lance hit him in the face with a pile of snow.
When no one had their attention on me, I walked behind the car to see Lili lying down, making a snow angel. Her eyes were closed, and she was slowly gliding her arms side to side. White flakes had fallen onto her lashes making them look darker, magnifying her beauty.
“CAPTURED!” I yelled, plopping down next to her and pinning her arms down above her head.
“Ahhhh!” She opened her eyes to see me leaning over her. “Oh my God, Justin.”
“Do you surrender?” I asked, smiling.
“Never!” she cried.
“Never?”
“Never.”
“I don’t know, that’s a really long time.”
“I’m perfectly aware of this,” she said, her eyes twinkling with amusement.
“Does that mean that I’m gonna have to hold you down in this snow forever?”
“I guess so.”
The vision of her hugging Ben came back into my mind. “Don’t you think your boyfriend would mind?”
“I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“What about that Ben guy?”
“Friends.”
“Just friends, huh?”
“Yup. I’m as single as you can get.” She was single! Ben wasn’t her boyfriend. I couldn’t believe my luck.
“You know,” I said, looking toward the sky unable to hide my smile. “I once read that a snowflake is actually a kiss from an angel.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” I said, leaning a bit closer. I let go of her arms and softly brushed her cheek. I had the most incredible urge to kiss her. Our eyes locked, and her gaze seemed to look inside me almost as if she was feeling the exact same thing.
What the hell are you doing? I asked myself. You can’t kiss her. You’re leaving tomorrow.
I sat up at the same time she did.
“W-what about you? Wouldn’t your girlfriend mind if you were stuck here with me forever?
“If I had one, probably, but I don’t have that problem.”
“I see. You’re single also. No girls stuffed in a closet, so the press doesn’t find out?”
I felt all the muscles in my body go stiff. “None. And you know what, if I did have a girlfriend, I’d show her off to the press.” I paused, thinking about what I had just said. “But only if I was really serious about her. They don’t need to know about every little date I go on. It’s none of their damn business.”
“Perfectly understandable.” She paused. “So if you don’t mind me asking, how many little dates do you go on?”
“Let me put it this way, in the past two months I’ve gone on one date.”
“You beat me!”
“You’re kidding me?”
“Uh, no,” she muttered, falling back into the snow, obviously embarrassed.
“You haven’t been on a date in two months?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m shocked.”
“I’ve been busy. Really busy.”
“So have I, and I managed to score a date.”
“Hello? Justin? You are in, like, the most popular group in the world. Everybody loves you. The girls who don’t would still go out with you.”
“What about you?” I asked defensively. This was one of my biggest fears, meeting a girl who I really liked, but she’s only using me for money or fame or whatever. I’ve had it happen to me before, and the hurt was too much to go through again.
“How do you mean?”
“Are you one of those girls who would go out with me only because I’m in ‘N Sync?”
“No, I personally think that’s stupid. You go out with someone because you like their personality, not because of what they’re a part of or who their friends are. In the long run that relationship would never work out. It’s retarded to base it on something so superficial.”
“You are an incredibly smart person,” I said, smiling as I stood up.
“Thank you. I’m sure you are too.”
“I like to believe so,” I said as I reached out and took one of her bare hands, helping her out of the snow. She looked like she was freezing. I took my gloves off and slipped them over her fingers.
“Thanks,” she said as I rubbed her hands together.
“No problem.”
“It takes a real gentleman to give a lady his gloves.”
“It takes a real lady to make me want to.”
“Well, I, uh...” She fumbled for words. “I guess I surrender now.”
“Good,” I laughed, slipping my arm around her shoulder and leading her towards the house. “Although the idea of staying down there with you forever didn’t really seem that bad. Now let’s get inside before we freeze to death.”