“Lili…” the giant purple gorilla said to me softly. “Lili…” he repeated, handing me his banana. “It’s time to wake up.”
I slowly opened my eyes expecting to still see the monkey. He had an incredibly soothing voice and was pretty cute for an ape.
“Hey there,” Justin said quietly. He was sitting on my bed, looking down at me. Nothing monkey-like about him.
“You’re not an ape.”
“No, I’m not. That was just a dream.”
“You’re real, right?” I asked, still half asleep.
A smile spread across his face. “I like the thought of you dreaming about me, but, unfortunately, I’m real.”
“Good,” I smiled, sitting up. I caught the smells drifting through my door. “What’s that?”
“French toast and bacon.”
“Mom’s cooking?”
“Yup.”
“Ophelia!” my mom called on cue.
“Coming!”
“So, Ophelia,” he laughed, “how’d you sleep last night?”
“Pretty good. You?”
“You would be surprised how comfortable that bus can be.”
“Ophelia Eve Stevenson!”
“Ouch. Full name,” he smiled again.
“Justin Randall Timberlake!” Chris called.
“We’re coming,” we yelled in unison.
“Ouch,” I laughed.
“Tell me about it. Come on. Let’s go.”
“Okay.” I climbed out of bed and slipped my feet into my Taz slippers.
“Cute,” he said, extending his hand to me.
“Thank you.” I slipped my hand into his. It sent a shiver up my spine that was becoming all too familiar to me.
As we walked down the stairs, the smells grew stronger. “That smells so good.” I turned into the kitchen and found Chris and Joey setting the table, JC feeding Sunny, and my mom and Lance cooking at the stove. I think that the only thing that could have made this scene any better would be if they were all in their boxers, but my luck was running short. They were already dressed. Lance even had a frilly blue checkered apron on.
“Morning, Ophelia!” Chris mocked as he put forks next to the plates.
“Morning, Christopher. My God, I didn’t expect to wake up and find this.”
“Why not?” asked Joey. “We’re simply showing our appreciation towards you and your mom.”
“If you really wanted to show your appreciation you could shovel snow.”
“Already done.”
“You should invite more pop stars home with you, Lili. We’d get a lot of work done around here.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, Mom.”
“I like your slippers,” Lance said, smiling. He was also a big Taz fan.
“Thank you. I like your apron.”
“Yeah, well, your mom picked it out,” he mumbled as his face turned pink.
“Suits you.”
“Shut up, Chris.”
“Hey, mom, is there anything I can do to help?”
“Why don’t you make some juice?”
“Fruit drink?” Fruit drink was basically a smoothie. All you have to do is throw fruit into a blender, press the button, and drink. Absolutely fabulous.
“It took you guys long enough to get down her,” JC commented.
“Yeah, you guys stayed up late enough,” Lance said as I walked past him to the fridge. “What more could you have talked about?”
“Imaginary monkeys,” Justin said with a straight face as he helped set the table. He turned and winked at me.
“Yup.” I reached into the fridge and pulled out strawberries, blueberries, bananas, and orange juice.
“Exactly what time did you guys get to bed?” my mom inquired.
“Um, JC, Joey, and Chris went to bed, or at least to the bus around…”
“1:30,” supplied JC for Justin.
“And Lance went to bed around 2:15.”
“Yup.”
“And Lili and I went to sleep…” He looked over to me again.
“Later.”
“Yeah, like five.”
“Something like that.” After the snowball fight, the guys had slowly began to drift off to the bus. Soon it was the two of us. We sat next to the fireplace on a pile of pillows and talked and talked about everything we could think of. At the end I felt like I had known him my whole life. It was really great.
“Five? You were up that late?”
“I know it's late, Mom, but it didn't seem like it.”
“Okay, okay. I’m just getting old. I don’t think I could stay up that late.” I shook my head at her before pressing the grind button.
“I’ll be right back,” JC said as he slipped into the living room.
“Okay.”
“Who wants some?” I asked as I poured my juice into a glass. They all hesitated to answer. “It’s only fruit.”
“Let me try some of yours,” said Justin, who was standing next to me.
“Okay.” I handed him the glass and watched him raise it to his lips. I would have been lying if I said I didn’t let my mind wander off a bit at that moment. After the “almost kiss” in the snow the night before I couldn’t stop wondering just what it would be like to kiss him and those lips. Unfortunately, right before it almost happened a picture of Drew popped into my mind. I could just hear her say “…and our colors will be baby blue and white, and you’ll be my Maid of Honor, and Jonathan can be the ring bearer…”
“This is really good,” Justin replied a moment later.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m glad you like it.” I looked over his shoulder to see my mom raise one eyebrow at me.
“Okay, guys,” JC began as he came back with a cell phone in hand. “I just got off the phone with Melinda, and tomorrow’s show in Minnesota is canceled. She’s recommending us to stay in Michigan again tonight and leave for Milwaukee tomorrow.”
“The whole entire day off. Sweet,” smiled Joey.
“Yup. So if ya’ll agree to this plan, I have to call back, and they’ll get us in a hotel.” They were leaving already? “You guys can stay with us again,” I said quickly.
“I don’t know. A night is one thing, but two nights and a day? We get kinda rowdy.”
“Yeah, JC’s right. We don’t wanna overstay our welcome,” Chris added.
“It would be fine. Besides, I was planning on playing some basketball in my church gym today with my friend, Drew, and it would be great if you guys could come. She loves ya. Plus, it would be fun.”
“An opportunity to play some ball in the middle of winter? I’m staying. Ya’ll can come and pick me up later,” Justin said, resting his hand on my back.
“See.”
“Would you mind, Mrs. Stevenson?” asked Lance.
“No, not at all.”
“It’s settled. We’re staying here tonight.” -
It was around four when I called up Drew to remind her of our plans. The boys had left to go to the local mall a couple of miles away from my house. Well, four of the boys did. Justin had decided to stay back in fear that he would buy another pair of sneakers. At the moment he was down stairs discussing types of pasta with my mom or something along those lines. I wasn’t really sure. But with things calm for a moment I decided it would be the best time to call.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Paul. Put Drew on the phone.”
“Okay. DREW! OPHELIA IS ON THE PHONE!” he screamed into the receiver, permanently damaging my hearing.
“Hey, Lili.”
“Kill your little brother for me.”
“Consider it done. So who came over last night? I’ve been trying to figure out who, but I haven’t been able to come up with names that began with ‘In.’”
“Oh yeah. It was, uh...” The scene from the night before in the snow flashed into my head. I suddenly felt extremely guilty for even letting thoughts of Justin and me together pass through my mind. I was supposed to like Lance. Right? A warning sign in my head told me not to mention ‘N Sync being at my house. Not yet. “Ingrid. Yup, Ingrid.”
“Ingrid?”
“Yeah. Ingrid, the foreign exchange student from Sweden.”
“She was at your house last night at midnight?”
“Yup.”
“I thought you said there were five people.”
“Oh, she was with her family.”
“Isn’t she an only child?”
“Grandparents.”
“Why was that so important?”
“Hey, anything’s important when you’re half-asleep.”
“She’s incredibly nice, Mom,” I said into my cell phone.
“I’m glad you boys found a safe place to stay. Has anybody been bugging you?”
“No, actually. Maybe no one’s noticed the big bus parked in her driveway.”
“How did they get to the mall?”
“Huh?”
“The boys, how’d they…”
“Oh, they borrowed Lili’s car.”
“I see. And why didn’t you go with them?” she asked curiously.
“I do not need to buy another pair of sneakers.”
“You definitely inherited my weakness for shoes, honey.”
“Thanks,” I laughed sarcastically.
“Okay, I’ll let you go. I know you’re a busy boy.”
“Very.”
“Be thankful you guys found such a nice family.”
“Trust me, mom. I’m so thankful. She’s so great. We, like, stayed up all night.”
“Jay…”
“What?”
“Nothing,” she sighed. “Call me once you leave tomorrow.”
“I will.”
“Bye, sweetie. I love you.”
“I love you too.” I smiled to myself once I hung up my phone. I was definitely very lucky to have happened upon Lili. Unfortunately the fact that we were leaving tomorrow loomed overhead, so I was planning on taking advantage of every spare moment I could spend with her, the real reason I had decided to stay behind.
When I peaked into Lili’s room, she was on the phone. “Who ya talking to?” I whispered, sitting down next to her on the light blue bedspread.
“Um, my friend, Drew.” She turned her attention back to the phone. “Huh?… Oh, that’s just…um, Ben.”
I shot her a strange look. “Ben?”
“Yup… Well, Ben sounds like Justin because, uh, well the TV is on.” I looked around her room. “Lili,” I whispered, “you don’t have a TV in your room.”
“Shhhhhhhh.” She waved her hand at me. “I’m in the living room… I know.”
She was trying her best to ignore me, so naturally I decided to make that impossible. I took a bright green feather boa off of her dresser and began dancing around with it.
“Hey, Drew. Have you ever seen Ben do his Ricky Martin impression?… Too bad, it’s really funny.” I danced over to her and flung the boa around her neck. “No! He’s not drunk!”
“Ben’s a drunk?”
“No!… Sorry, Drew. Um, can I put you on hold for a second… Kay, I’ll be right back.” She pressed the mute button on her phone. “Justin, you gotta stop!”
“Why can’t you just tell her that I’m here?”
“Cause I’ll tell her when we play ball.” She took the feather boa off from around her neck and put it back onto her dresser. “Which is the whole reason I called.”
“Well, get to the point of your phone call already.”
“I would if you weren’t shakin’ your hips over there like Ricky Martin. It’s very distracting.”
“Oh, is it?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you just say, ‘Oh, Drew. Justin is over with the rest of ‘N Sync, but they’re all at the mall. Well, except for Justin cause he’s so cool, and he’s dancing around my room, and he is so gosh darn cute, and he’s not a drunk like Ben, and…”
“Justin! First of all I would never say gosh darn.”
“Does that mean you would still say I was cute?”
“Second, Ben is not a drunk.”
“Cause I think you’re pretty gosh darn cute.”
“And third,” she said, trying to stay on track, though she was beginning to blush. “I’ll surprise her later. She doesn’t need to know now.”
“Okay. Fine. I’m sorry.”
She picked the phone back up. “Drew? Can I put you on speaker phone?” She slid her hand over the mouthpiece. “This will make you shut up,” she whispered to me. “Okay, hi.”
“Is Ben still there?”
“No!” I yelled, causing her to elbow me in the stomach. “OW!”
“Who was that?”
“Um, Ben’s cousin, Randy.”
“Ben has a cousin named Randy?”
“It’s his second cousin.”
“Hey there,” I said in a slow southern drawl.
“Hi. Where ya from?”
“Kentucky.”
“Really?”
“Yes ‘em.”
“Well, Randy is coming with us to play basketball today,” Lili said.
“The more the merrier.”
“Yup,” I agreed. “And let’s not forget my friends, Scott and James. Oh yeah, there’s also Big Al and Tony.
“Are they from Kentucky, too?”
“Nah, they just be some hitchhikers we picked up long the way.”
“Um, okay. Lili, take me off speaker.”
“Okay.” I couldn’t contain it anymore. I burst out laughing. We were a bunch of hitchhikers? We may travel across country in a bus, but hitchhikers! That was a good one. “Oh, they’re not all here right now. They’re at the mall…”
“Except for Justin cause he’s so cool and was dancing around my room and is so gosh darn cute.”
“Unfortunately, Randy didn’t join them.”
“Ouch, that hurt. Fine, I’m not going to stay where I’m not wanted. I’m leaving. Bye, Lili.” I reached down for her hand and kissed it gently before slipping out of the room. -
“Basketball in the middle of winter!” I sang happily as I got my backpack out of Lili’s jeep.
“Geez, we know how to keep Justin happy.”
“Hell yeah. Basketball and a pretty girl. I’ll see you guys inside,” I said before walking into the church, the very large church. “Where’s the gym?” I asked myself. “Lili! Where are you?” I called, leaning over to tie my shoe.
“Hey there, stranger. In here.”
“There you are,” I smiled.
“Yup, I am,” she sighed. “Come meet Drew.”
“Okay.” We walked into the gym where a tall blond that I recognized from some pictures in Lili’s house was practicing free throws.
“Drew, this is Randy, or as most people call him…”
She turned around, and her jaw dropped. “Justin Timberlake!”
“That’s me.”
“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you guys be gone, or at your hotel, or anywhere but here? How much is Lili paying you?”
“Um, we’re sleeping in her driveway,” I smiled, pulling Lili closer to me as I slung my arm around her.
“Surprise,” she said sheepishly. The other guys walked in and joined us, and Drew gasped. I have to say that Lili took meeting us much better than her friend.
“You guys are sleeping in her driveway?”
“Yeah,” they all agreed.
“Why?”
“Why not?”
“Hello? You’re ‘N Sync. You can do a little bit better than her driveway. No offense, Lili.”
“None taken.”
“Well, we like our bus, and her mom makes really good French toast,” smiled Lance.
“It was so good, and she has hot cocoa with little marshmallows,” Joey agreed.
“The cutest dog,” pointed out JC.
“Very hospitable,” said Chris.
“She takes us to play b-ball, and she’s pretty fun to hold down in the snow among other reasons.” I squeezed her shoulder.
“Huh?”
“Nothing,” I laughed.
“My God. This must be Heaven. I have ‘N Sync singing my praises,” Lili said, forcing a laugh.
“Lili, can I talk to you?” asked Drew.
“Sure,” she said, stepping away and glancing at me quickly, a worried expression covering her face. “Guys, there’s balls in that room. I’ll be right back