Lance ended his phone call with Laurie and pressed
his fingertips to his temples. Getting
Laurie to agree to go with him to the award show was the easy part – now he had
to deal with the hard part – telling JC.
He felt bad about telling Laurie he had a phone
conference to deal with, but he didn’t have any other excuse available to
use. The group had flown back to
Orlando that morning and they more or less had the day off.
Even though they were fairly close to home, they
had to stay in a hotel because of their concert in Tampa the next day. Lance groaned and pushed himself off the bed
to go to JC’s room. The sooner he got
this over with, the better. He just
wasn’t sure how JC was going to react to it.
He made sure his keycard was in his pocket before
closing the door to his room behind him and locking it. Chris was in the hallway wrestling with
Justin and Lance found himself trying to shrink into the wall so that they
wouldn’t involve him. Unfortunately,
Justin saw him and stopped him.
“Where are you trying to sneak off to?” Justin let
Chris slide off his back and cornered Lance in one of the doorways.
“I’m not sneaking off anywhere, I need to go talk
to JC about something.”
“Really?” Justin arched an eyebrow. “Anything we should know about?”
“I really need to tell JC first,” Lance mumbled.
“Come on,” Chris slung an arm around Lance’s
shoulders. “You can tell us. We’re your buddies.”
“You scare me when you say it like that.” Lance
said warily. “All right, you guys are
going to find out sooner or later – I asked Laurie to be my date for the Teen
Choice Awards.”
“Wow.” Chris removed his arm. “That’s gonna be awkward.”
“That’s why I’m telling JC… I also need to find out
if Alexandria is going.”
“Nah, she’s not.” Justin told them and then
mimicked her perfectly. “’I can’t be
seen at an award show like that! Don’t
you know the camera adds ten pounds?’”
Chris burst into laughter and even Lance had to
smile.
“Now that’s scary.”
Lance chuckled. “What possessed you to
learn the pitch of her voice?”
“Boredom.” Justin shrugged. “And it’s fun to make fun of her.”
“If you guys are done interrogating me, can I go
talk to JC?”
“Oh sure,” Chris grinned and stepped to the
side. “We were in your way?”
Lance just rolled his eyes and continued down the
hallway to JC’s room. He heard Justin’s
shrieks of laughter even as he knocked on JC’s door. When the door opened, JC was wearing only a pair of track pants
and his hair was more wild than usual.
Lance gulped. Telling JC was going
to be even harder than he anticipated.
“What’s up Lance?” JC yawned.
“Umm… I kind of need to talk to you… it’s about
Laurie.” He said nervously.
JC was immediately awake and panicked
slightly. “What’s wrong with
Laurie? What’s the matter?”
“Well nothing is wrong with her… at least
physically,” Lance rubbed his neck nervously.
“Look, can I just come in?”
“Yeah, sorry man.” JC apologized and stepped aside,
allowing Lance to pass by him. “Do you
want a drink or something?”
Lance shook his head. He wanted to get right to the point. “Listen, umm… is Alexandria going to the TCA’s with you?”
“Are you kidding?” JC scoffed. “According to her, the TCA’s aren’t
prestigious enough for her to attend and she’s complaining about the about the
camera adding ten pounds.”
Lance swallowed the laugh that he felt building in
his throat. They were almost the exact
same words that Justin had said moments earlier. But as much as he wanted to laugh, he couldn’t.
“Why does it matter?” JC asked suspiciously. “And what does this have to do with Laurie?”
There was no way he was getting out of having this
conversation now. He had never felt so
guilty about something before in his life.
Although he did briefly reconsider telling JC at all – maybe he should
have discussed it with him before he invited Laurie to go with him. He felt like banging his head against the
nearest wall. Laurie being his date was
going to be hard enough for JC to handle without it being a surprise too.
“Lance, what’s going on?” JC demanded.
Lance gulped.
“I need to tell you something, but I don’t want you to get mad…”
“I’m not promising anything.”
“I asked Laurie to be my date for the TCA’s and
after much convincing, she finally agreed.” Lance squeezed his eyes shut and
prayed that JC wasn’t going to punch him.
“When did this happen?”
“I called her not too long ago… she’s back at
work. But you know… at least you’ll get
to see her.”
“Yeah…” JC said thoughtfully. “Do you think I’d be able to talk to her?”
“She kind of made me promise not to leave her side
all night… but if I happen to have to go to the bathroom or something, she
obviously can’t come in with me. Then
she’d be alone.” Lance explained as innocently as he could.
JC looked hurt.
“She doesn’t want to see me?”
“I don’t know C,” Lance shrugged. “She’s still pretty upset. But if you really want to talk to her, I’m
sure Michelle and I can work something out where we both disappear at the same
time and leave Laurie with Chris, Justin or Joey.”
“I would really appreciate it Lance… I need to see
her… I need to talk to her.”
Lance bit his lower lip. “I’ll see what I can do.”
**********
“I told you so.”
“Don’t start with me Chris.”
“I told you that Laurie was fine and that she would
be at work on Monday… didn’t I?” He gloated.
“Yes you did, however Laurie is not fine.” Michelle paused. “How did you know Laurie was back?”
“Lance just called her. She’s going as his date to the Teen Choice Awards.”
“Oh.” Michelle
sat back in her chair. “I guess that’s
who called her as I was leaving her office.
At least I’ll have someone to hang out with at the after party.”
“And you
automatically assume that I’m going to invite you to be my date,” he teased.
“Oh I could easily get Joey to take me if Denise
doesn’t go… or JC.” She grinned to herself.
“You think so, huh?”
“Oh baby, I know
so.” She laughed.