(Two weeks later – July 8, 2001 – Dallas, TX)
At JC’s request, Laurie had stayed on tour with him
after Minneapolis. JC had argued that
it would save flying time and Michelle had promised to vouch for her if Craig
questioned Laurie’s absence. As it
happened, Craig had called only once since she had originally left LA and that
was only to tell her that he wouldn’t be home.
So Laurie shrugged off her guilty feelings best she could and opted to
stay behind while Chris and Michelle went to the Dallas Galleria signing at
Nordstrom the day before.
They were now lying on chairs beside the outdoor
pool, while Stacy dunked Justin under the water. She had two weeks of vacation between school and work and Justin
persuaded her to join him on tour, using the ‘you need a break’ argument. There was a sudden shriek of laughter from
her as Justin stuck his head between her legs and lifted her out of the water
with his shoulders.
“Justin, no!” She screeched. “Put me down!”
“You really want me to put you down?” He laughed
evilly.
“Yes! But
nicely!”
Justin just laughed and dunked Stacy back into the
water. Joey looked at Denise and raised
an eyebrow and she held up a single hand.
“Don’t you even presume to think about it Joey. I
don’t want to change the dressing on my foot.”
“Fine.” He pouted and looked in Laurie’s
direction.
She was deeply engrossed in a conversation with JC
and a malevolent look shadowed his face.
He sneaked up behind her and swung her over his shoulder before she
realized what was happening.
“No… Joey, no!” Her fists pounded his bare back and
he did nothing but laugh. “Come on
Joey, I just got dried off!”
“Oh, so you only get wet for JC?” He responded
quietly enough that only her ears heard what he said.
Before she could say anything in her defense, her
body hit the water, sunglasses and all.
She came up sputtering.
“Joey, I swear I’m going to hurt you.” She growled
and hoisted herself out of the pool.
Joey let out a girlish scream and took off, with
Laurie hot in pursuit.
“Hey, no running on the deck!” JC called out
between bursts of laughter. Even Justin
and Stacy had stopped what they were doing to watch the action.
“Laurie, please, I’m sorry!” Joey yelled and ran
into the men’s change room.
“Payback is hell, Fatone!” She hollered before she
walked back to her chair and grabbed her towel. “It’s probably a good thing Chris and Michelle are upstairs or
else everyone would have ganged up on me.”
“Probably.” JC snickered. Laurie snapped her towel at him.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Josh.”
“You know I love you,” he grinned and made kissing
noises.
“Hey,” Lance called out from his position under the
tree. “No PDA’s.”
“Oops,” JC said sheepishly. “It just seems so natural sometimes.” He lowered his voice so only Laurie could
here. “We could go upstairs.”
“We could,” She said slowly. “But you have soundcheck in half an hour.”
JC frowned.
“I forgot. Hey Lance?”
“What?”
“Can I skip out of going to soundcheck?”
Lance let his sunglasses slide down his nose a
little and he looked over the top of them at JC. “Why?”
JC looked at Laurie. “Umm… because I don’t feel well?”
“I’m sure you feel fine C,” Lance grinned at
Laurie.
“Fine.” He huffed and settled back in his
chair. Then he sat up again. “I might as well go shower and change.”
“Me too.” Laurie said a little too quickly, causing
those within hearing distance to smirk.
“Just go, already.” Justin called out. “I’m sure you have time for a quickie.”
Laurie’s mouth fell open and her face turned scarlet. JC squeezed her shoulder reassuringly.
“He might just be right, you know.” JC breathed
into her ear.
Laurie playfully punched his arm, but raced him to
the elevator.
**********
The guys ran through soundcheck without any
problems, so they had almost four hours of free time in the venue before they
had to start getting ready. Lance was
on the phone with Hannah in the Quiet Room, while everyone else was taking
turns playing the touch screen game in the Toy Room. Michelle had gone back to the hotel to take a nap.
Justin got bored after an hour and challenged Chris
to a game of football in the hallway.
“Be careful,” Laurie admonished as Chris and Justin
fought their way through the door, elbowing each other everywhere they could.
Laurie rested her head on the back of the sofa and
closed her eyes. The last two weeks had
been absolutely wonderful. Everyone had
accepted her like she belonged there.
She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so content.
The next thing she knew, JC was shaking her awake.
“Laur… wake up.
We’ve gotta take Chris to the hospital.”
She was instantly alert. “Why? What’s going on?”
“He umm…” JC stifled a laugh, though the situation
wasn’t remotely funny. “He was running
to catch a pass from Justin and he claims that the wall jumped out in front of
him. We think he broke his wrist.”
“Oh no.” She jumped up, grabbed her purse and
followed him out to the van. “Has
anyone called Michelle?”
“She’s not answering her phone.” JC replied and
helped Laurie into the vehicle. He
slammed the door shut behind them.
“We’re going to try calling her again from the hospital.”
“I hope he’s going to be ok,” she murmured. “What about the show tonight?”
“We’ll have to play it by ear.”
**********
“It’s definitely broken,” Dr. Warner said as he
showed the x-ray to Johnny and Chris.
He indicated the fracture with the tip of his pen. “But it’s a clean fracture and it should
heal nicely as long as he doesn’t use it too much. He’ll need to be in a cast for four to six weeks at the minimum.”
Chris groaned.
“He really shouldn’t perform tonight, but I’ll
leave that decision up to you.” Dr. Warner added.
Johnny looked at Chris. “What do you think? Will
you be up for it?”
“I don’t dance on my hands,” Chris snapped.
“No, but you will have trouble with some of the
choreography. You can’t ride the bull
one handed.”
Chris was quiet.
“I’ll be fine… I’ll just do some improvisation.”
Johnny shrugged.
“If that’s how you feel.”
“It is.” He stated flatly. “Am I free to go?”
“Just as soon as I write out this prescription for
pain killers,” the doctor told him.
“Take two now and then take one every four hours. It’s Tylenol 3, so it might knock you out.”
“I’ll be fine.” Chris mumbled.
“Such a tough guy,” Johnny smirked. “Come on, let’s get you back to the venue…
see if we can’t change some of the choreography for you.”
**********
Joey was the one who finally ended up getting a
hold of Michelle and she was waiting for Chris, JC and Laurie to return from
the hospital. Chris walked into the Toy
Room and stopped as soon as he saw her.
“Umm… hi honey.” He said. Michelle approached him without saying a word. She stared him down until he blinked.
“Chris.
What did you do?”
“Promise you won’t call me a dumbass?”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“I promise I won’t call you a dumbass.”
“It wasn’t my fault, I swear! Justin and I were playing football and it
was like the wall jumped out in front of me… there was nothing I could do,
and…” He lowered his head. “I broke my
wrist.”
“But other than that, you’re ok?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.
You’re such a…”
Chris covered her mouth with his good hand and
pouted. “You promised.”
“Rats.” She grinned and hugged him tightly. “I’m glad you’re all right.”
“So does this mean you’re going to be my
slave? Like, sponge baths and stuff?” A
sly smile spread across his face.
“We’ll talk.” She said and made him sit down. “So what’s going to happen with the show tonight?”
“I don’t know, I’m going to perform, but Johnny is
talking to the other guys right now about changing around some of the
choreography, so I’m guessing we’re going to have a quick rundown before the
show.”
“Good.” She
looked up as Laurie entered the room.
“Hey Laur… do you see what this dumbass did?”
“Shelle!” Chris wailed. “You promised!”