“How does a flight lose that much luggage?” JC groaned, tugging on the brim on his dark blue cap, lowering it over his eyes. He was stretched out along four empty seats in the equally empty airport terminal. “Seriously?” He cupped the back of his head with his hands, closing his eyes,

“Come on, it’s not that bad, C,” Joey replied, hovering over him, a black video camera in his hands.

“Get that out of my face,” JC groaned, moving to rub at his eyes.

“Hey, watch the lens!” Joey complained with a frown. He lowered his video camera and stuck his hand into the bottom of his shirt. Stretching it out, Joey wiped the cloth over the lens. “How long have we been waiting here for, anyway?”

“Too long,” Chris replied, from somewhere below JC’s feet. Joey lifted his camera, swinging it towards him. JC sat up and saw that he was sitting with Justin and Lance. He let out a whining sound, his face contorting into a look of sadness. “I’mmm huuungryyy.”

“Is there a vending machine around here or something?” Lance asked, swiveling his head to look around each pillar and escalator around the airport.

“Moooommmyyyy,” Justin whined, getting his mother’s attention. “We’re hungrrrryyyyy.”

He stuck his bottom lip out in Lynn’s direction. Lynn put a hand on her hip, briefly closing her eyes, letting out a small chuckle before making her way towards him. She cupped his cheek in her hand and he stuck his bottom lip out even further, widening hi blue eyes. He relaxed into a smile as she moved her hand to run her fingers through his curly hair, her nails lightly scratching his scalp.

“We’ll get you all something to eat soon,” she said to him, but talking to all of the boys. “We just have to wait a little while longer to see if our bags do get here on the next flight.” Justin slumped in his seat, pouting. Lynn let out a huff. “We do have those pixy stix…but those are all just sugar.”

“Good sugar,” Chris said, his eyes widening in excitement.

“Tasty sugar,” Lance agreed.

“We haven’t eaten in hours,” Joey mused aloud, turning the camera over towards Lynn. “You wouldn’t want us to starve would you?” Lynn tilted her head back to look at the ceiling, her cheeks puffing up as she held her breath.

“That’s cute, Joseph,” she said, lifting a hand to pinch his cheek.

“Owww,” he said, pushing her hand away.

“I’ll go get them for you,” Lynn said with a sigh. Justin and Chris let out loud cheers, punching the air with their fists. Lance chuckled, shaking his head back and forth, despite the grateful smile on his face. As Lynn headed away she added under her breath, “Oh, this is going to be fun.”

“We haven’t eaten in hours and all you want to do is load up on sugar?” JC asked, raising his eyebrows as he removed the cap from his head to rake his fingers through his hair. He used the heel of his palm to rub at his eye. “That’s not a good idea, guys.”

“Listen Sleeping Ugly,” Chris said, turning in his seat to face JC. “I’m hungry. You’re hungry. We’re all hungry. If that means I have to ingest processed sugar to not be cranky, that’s what I’m going to do.” JC put his hands up defensively before lying back down.

“All I’m saying is, we’ll probably be leaving in a little while,” JC replied.

“Yeah I mean, we still have the photo shoot and Planet Hollywood we need to get to,” Lance agreed. “We’ll probably just go to those and have someone wait here for our bags.”

Justin stared at Lance for a long moment before popping his lips, saying, “Shut up.”

“Exactly,” JC said, ignoring Justin’s comment. “So we should all just calm down. At least we had doughnuts.”

“Like, forever ago,” Joey said, pointing the camera back into his face. JC groaned, pushing the camera away. “Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, this is coming from the guy who nearly had a melt down when he found out that .3% of our bags made it here.”

“Yeah, yeah,” JC said, closing his eyes, resting his hands on his stomach.

“Alright, boys,” Lynn said, walking back over to the group. “Don’t eat too—“ She stopped when Justin and Chris jumped to their feet and rushed over to her, grabbing the bag out of her hands, “much.” Lance calmly walked over and managed to snag a single pixy stick from Justin and Chris’s feeding frenzy.

“Thanks, Lynn,” he said giving her a warm smile.

“You’re welcome,” Lynn replied, smiling in reply.

“Thank you, mommy,” Justin said with an over the top babyish voice as he sidled up to his mom to give her a hug. Lynn chuckled, wrapping her arms around him in a hug.

“Yeah, thank you mommy,” Chris repeated, sorting through the flavors of candy. Justin lifted his foot and snapped his leg forward, kicking Chris’s bottom.

“You’re welcome,” Lynn said, with a loud laugh. “Just don’t eat too much; you still have a photo shoot and radio interview and everything. You’ll be able to eat there, so I don’t want you to fill up on this.”

“Yeah, sure,” Justin replied as he let her go to get some candy.

Chris dropped back down into his abandoned seat and Justin sat down next to him, grabbing a handful of stix, quickly ripping off the tops. He lifted a blue one, and tilted his head back, dumping the powder onto his tongue. His eyes closed as a look of bliss crossed his face.

“Tastes good, doesn’t it?” Joey asked.

“Uh huh,” Justin breathed before clamping his mouth shut. His lips curled up into a smile, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. “Sugar never tasted so good.”

“You’re telling me,” Chris said with a cackle ripping off top after top of Pixy Stix. “I love these things.”

“Dude, chug ‘em,” Joey said, zooming in on the—he quickly counted—six Pixy Stix in Chris’s hand. Chris gave an evil grin; his eyes sparkling.

“Hey, I’ll do it with you,” Justin said, nudging Chris’s arm with his elbow. “I’ve got…five.”

“I have one,” Lance said.

“Ok, on three,” Joey said, stepping back to get them all in the shot. “C, you want to get in on this?”

“No,” JC replied, getting to his feet.

“Loser!” Justin shouted at him. “You’ll join us, you’ll see.”

“I’ll go check to see if anyone knows about our bags,” JC said, ignoring his friend as he stretched his arms above his head.

“Ok on three,” Joey repeated, a smile coming to his face. “Oh, this is going to be fun. Everybody ready?”

“Cheers,” Chris said, moving to tap his candy against Justin’s and Lance’s. “Cheers, guys.”

“Cheers,” Justin and Lance repeated.

“One…two…three,” Joey counted down.

One by one, Justin, Chris, and Lance tilted their heads back, allowing the powdered sugar to slide out of its’ paper wrapper to land on their tongues.

And all because they were bored.