Nick Carter. . . the baby Backstreet Boy! At least that's what they used to call him when he was a little guy of 14 and joined the group. But that was four years ago.

Now - as of January 28^th - Nick is that magical age of 18 and, boy, have things changed. First of all, things have taken a turn in his relationship with A.J., Howie, Kevin, and Brian.

"When I was a lot younger in the band," Nick recalls, "they used to tease me a lot. But now that I've gotten a little bigger, they don't do that anymore."

They don't dare - 'cause Nick is definitely growing up and becoming his own man now.

First of all, his tastes in all areas have changed. Take his hairstyle for instance. Recently Nick explained his new look: "I kinda did my hair more sophisticated. I was kind of sick of that old blond, parted-down-the-middle kinda rubbish." Of course, Nick reverts back to his parted-down-the-middle look every once-in-a-while.

A couple of years ago, he was a Pac-Man fan, but now it's Nintendo all the way-the more the challenging the game, the better. Next there's his TV channel surfing tastes-no longer does Nick flick on reruns of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. The supernatural spookings of the X-Files are more to his liking now. Finally, there's Nick's standard order when it came to pizza: "top it with everything!" has changed to "hold the anchovies!" (Fishy breath is a no-no when it comes to kissing girls!)

And that brings us to the topic of girls, girls, girls! When Nick was asked to describe his dream girl a few years ago, he innocently said he liked only brunettes! That caused a stir with his blond and redhead fans! Today, a more mature Nick says that limitation is silly. "It doesn't really matter to me what she looks like as long as she has a good personality and she's really nice," he says now. "I don't care if she's blond, dark, or even has green hair. But she's gotta be independent and like herself, not care about what other people think. To me, that's attractive!"

And finally, there's Nick's choice of a romantic place. He admits that he used to take girls to McDonald's or Burger King for dinner. Now he says it would be very different. "If I was going to treat a girl right, I would take her out to the beach at night time," he confesses. "There would be a full moon with a bunch of stars out. The sand would be pure white, beautiful and soft, and the ocean would be very clam with the moonlight shining off the water."

Now that's grown up!