"What did you think I'd do?

It felt so good waking up beside you..."

Song & Lyrics: "Just Friends"-Jason Reeves

*Later that night at the hotel

Allie was unpacking a few of her things into the drawers of the dresser in the hotel room. True they'd only be there until Thursday morning but she hated having to dig through her suitcase every time she wanted to find something. She was doing just that when there was a knock on her door and she hastily threw the clothes she had in her hands onto the bed. "Who is it?" She called.

"J...open up. I have something of yours...umm...I think?" he answered back.

Her heart leapt up into her throat and she glanced down at her attire. She had changed into her Juicy sweat suit upon arrival at the hotel after they had dinner at some greasy spoon diner on Broadway that Joey claimed was the best. Her hair was thrown up into a ponytail as well. "Grr...I look awful." She thought to herself. "Oh well. He'll see me like this sooner or later after we're on tour."

She unlatched the chain and turned the knob to open the door. Her stomach churned when she saw him. Dressed in a pair of low slung basketball shorts and a tight black wife beater, and smelling like he just stepped out of the shower, he was definitely dangerous when he was like this.

"Hey J. Come on in." She swallowed. Hard, and stepped aside to let him by her, not meeting his gorgeous blue eyes.

"Umm yah...I think this might belong to you." He stated, pulling her pink iPOD out of the back of his shorts. "Damn, how'd you end up with that?" she questioned him, raising her green eyes to meet his.

 "Considering that it's pink? I have NO idea." He laughed lightly, coming further into the room and surveying the area. "Damn girl. You've been in here what, an hour or so? It already looks like a bomb went off." She just laughed. "Yah well...gotta make it feel like home, right?"

He just nodded back. Pushing aside the few pieces of clothing that were on the bed, he sat down and scooted himself back against the pillows and headboard. She walked over to the bed and grabbed up a tank top that he had just pushed aside. "Anything else I can help you with Timberlake?" she asked, folding it and putting it into the drawer in front of her.

"Actually yes. Call me nosey, but I started browsing through the songs on your iPOD...interesting collection you have on there."

 She gulped and felt the heat rising on her cheeks. "Really? What was interesting about it?" She didn't dare turn around.

"The fact that you claimed to have not been a huge fan of ours, yet there's some songs on there that even I didn't know were available to download."

She covered her face with a hand and turned around to peek at him through her fingers. "Guilty."

 A huge grin broke out across his face and he started to laugh quietly to himself, and then it turned into a full on cackle. "You have...you have...oh god I can't even say it...you have LANCE singing the POO FOO song...are you serious?"

She cursed the day that she downloaded that clip just for laughs. It had been downloaded a long time ago, long before MP3 players and iTUNES, but it had made its way, embarrassing in all its glory, onto her iPOD. "Justin...not FUNNY."

When he saw the serious look on her face, he straightened, somewhat. "Ok you're right. It's not. But...POO FOO??? SERIOUSLY?"

Allie walked over and punched his shoulder. "Justin...do yourself a favour and quit while you're ahead."

"Ouch." He pouted and rubbed the spot where she hit him. "You deserved it." She stated playfully and stuck her tongue out at him.

"Ok ok. You're right. But how come you didn't just tell us, or me, or any of the guys for that matter. I mean, not that it's a big deal but...you bruised my ego when you said you weren't into ‘boybanders'." Allie fought the urge not to laugh before she grabbed the last pair of pants sitting on the bed and folded them in half to put away.

"Just didn't think it was important information. You guys would have teased the hell out of me if I told you the REAL truth." She could feel her face start to redden again so she decided to walk over to the bathroom to start brushing her teeth.

"Don't you walk away. This could get juicy. Hey...your butt looks good in those pants by the way." He called out to her as she disappeared into the bathroom.

She was glad she wasn't facing him when he said that because if it were possible, her face got even redder. "I've got to get ready for bed, J." she yelled, not expecting to look over and see him leaning against the door frame.

"Sleep can wait, you'll have plenty of time to sleep tomorrow after we get done taping TRL." Allie grabbed her toothbrush and began to brush her teeth furiously, trying to avoid the gaze that Justin's eyes was starting to bore into her.

When she finished and he was still standing there she crossed her arms over her chest and looked at him defiantly. "I really don't know why you're still hanging around. You won't get an answer out of me." He pouted and pulled on her hands. "Fine, can we just hang out though? I can't fall asleep this early." He said, tugging her out of the bathroom and over to the bed. She cursed whoever booked hotel rooms for giving her the one with only one bed.

*Meanwhile in one of the other rooms

"Dude seriously, switching out their iPODS was genius, Chris." Joey guffawed. Chris blew on his fingernails and rubbed them against his shirt. "I know. I am a master Joey. You just haven't been around me enough lately to realize the true talent that I have, matchmaking. I will get those two together. If they aren't making babies by the end of our tour then I should just be shot."

This time Lance chimed in. "Hey, I was the one who actually switched them out though." Chris rolled his eyes. "Yes Lance...you get some credit in this too."

"Guys, I thought we weren't going to interfere and that we were going to just let this take its course. It's bound to happen, so just let it be." JC interjected, coming out of the doorway that led to the adjoining room, towelling his hair dry.

"Chris thought Justin needed a push." Joey stated, looking in Chris direction. He was staring out the door down to Allie's door, where Justin had disappeared to more than 15 minutes earlier. "He's been in there a while. What ya think is going on?" Chris asked excitedly.

"I bet he's just talking with her. J doesn't move unless he KNOWS he won't get turned down." JC said, coming up behind Chris.

"JC trust me, he KNOWS. That girl has it bad for him."

At that moment, Allie's door opened up and Justin walked out. "Shit! Get back inside!" Chris said quickly, pushing JC back and slamming the door. "Think he saw us?" he asked.

 "Probably so. Dude you're busted. Justin's not as naïve as he used to be. He's going to see through any lie you feed him Kirkpatrick." JC laughed, dropping the towel onto the ground.

"You spying on me, Chris?" Justin asked loudly, coming through the adjoining door.

"ME??" Chris asked in a high pitched voice. "Why would I spy, J?"

"Hmm...I don't know. Just because I know you, and I know something is up. Don't you worry little man; I'll figure it out soon enough. When I do...just know that your ass is TOAST, Chris. Toast!" They all knew Justin was just messing around by the grin that was on his face so they all laughed it off. "Hey Jayce...can I borrow a DVD of yours?"

"Sure. They're in my duffel bag by the window. You and Allie hanging out?" JC asked. Justin nodded back, disappearing into the other room again. "You have that one movie?" Justin called out. The guys all laughed. "Umm J, think you could be a bit more vague?" JC laughed, walking into the room to find Justin rummaging through his duffel bag. "Umm...Allie asked if you had the Holiday?"

"That's a chick flick. Why would I have a chick flick?" Justin just shrugged. "Dunno. Ask her. How bout Old School? I know you always have that one on you."

"Side pocket."

"Thanks. I've got my key. I'm sure I'll be back." Justin said over his shoulder as he walked out the door again.

*Back in Allie's room

"Ok, JC wanted to know why you thought that he would've had a chick flick...which he doesn't have that but I brought over..."Justin stopped mid sentence when he got all the way into the room and saw Allie bent over her bag, wearing much less than she had on before. The light pink boy shorts hugged her ass just right and the tank top she was wearing was halfway up her midriff.

"Justin...turn around for like...5 seconds while I throw these shorts on. I wasn't exactly expecting you to come back so soon." Her face was beat red. That was an impression to make on him...her being half naked when he came back.

Justin just grunted an ok and dropped the movie on the bed. "Old School ok?" He asked, sneaking another peak at her.

"Definitely. I love that movie. If I start to quote it though, just shut me up." She sounded muffled so he glanced at her to see her face hidden by the tshirt she was throwing on over her tank. With her eyes hidden he let his eyes wander over her stomach. Tanned and not too muscular but lean...and the skin looked soft enough that he wanted to reach out and touch it.

After she had pulled it over her head she grabbed the movie and inserted it into the DVD player and tossed the remote to Justin. "So how do I shut you up if you start quoting the movie too much?" Justin asked, eyeing her as she slinked her way over to the side of the bed that he wasn't occupying.

"You're a smart guy, I'm sure you'll think of something." She winked at him and smiled just as she turned out the light and hopped into bed with him.

 ********************

When Allie woke the next morning she felt like she had been drug behind a bus across the country. She had huge bags under her eyes and for some reason the whole right side of her body was asleep. She didn't figure out why until she tried to move and was weighted down by someone's very heavy arm slung across her waist. When she turned her head to the side, she wasn't really all that surprised to see Justin, mouth slightly open and his lashes fanning out against his cheeks sweetly. If only he looked that innocent when he was awake, she thought.

They had watched most of Old School but their talking quickly won out over the movie. They'd both seen it enough times to quote it without the sound being on anyways. So the two of them stayed up talking until the wee hours of the morning when they both had shifted so that they were laying down on the bed instead of sitting up against the headboard. Being that close to him had been nerve wracking to say the very least, not to mention that every one of her senses was well aware of how close he was.  

She didn't know at what point in their conversation that she or he had fallen asleep, but here they were, the next morning, cuddled up next to each other like two people who were more than just friends. The thought that waking up next to him every morning was something that she could get used to crossed her mind before she quickly brushed it off as being crazy talk. Although the idea had some merit, she reasoned, because he had been much more flirty lately, and pushing to be around her more. She'd have to run all of this by Tate later on in the day to see what she thought of it.

Glancing once more at Justin's sleeping form before she tried to wiggle her way out of his grasp; she figured that there would be a lot of questions asked when the two of them showed up at breakfast together. No big deal though, she could retaliate and start asking Lance questions about he and Tate.

"Allie, I suggest you stop moving against me like that, or your butt is going to feel a side of me I don't think it's ready to feel just yet." She heard Justin mumble into the back of her hair. "Well then why don't you unwind your body from me so I can get up?" She quipped back.

"You're warm, and you smell good. Feel good too." He breathed. When his grip on her waist tightened and pulled her back against him she gasped. "Justin...we need to get up. It's almost time for breakfast and Lonnie will have my head if you aren't down there on time." She wiggled again, trying to loosen his grip.

"Lonnie's a teddy bear. I'll fight him off for you. Just five more minutes...please?" With a plea like that she couldn't turn him down, so she turned around in his arms to face him and buried her nose in his neck. This was starting to feel too right to her, too good to be true.

She inhaled and smelled a scent that was purely Justin, a scent she had noticed on him from the first time they had been at the club together with everyone from the A&R department and the two were dancing together...

*one month earlier (one of the first times the boys had gone out with the group from A&R)

"...Hey sexy thang...can I join you?"

Allie felt the slide of a masculine hand run across her stomach and she turned around quickly to gaze up into the blue eyes of none other than Justin Timberlake himself. "Hey! Didn't think you guys would make it." She stated, getting lost in the ocean blue pools that were staring down at her.

"Yeah, us either but, surprise! How come you're not dancing with anyone?" He asked, putting a hand on her waist to bring her hips closer to him. "Too creepy for me. I swear that the next guy who comes up and hits on me and is old enough to be my dad is going to get kicked in the nuts. Seriously!"

Justin laughed at her expression of disgust and added "well, I'm not old enough to be your daddy, but...you can scream that later if you want." She pulled back in mock anger and punched his stomach playfully. "You...are...sick."

But the voice inside of her head was telling her that a million teenage girls couldn't be wrong about how sexy and...lethal he really was. Especially when phrases like that were falling from his perfect lips.

There had been a time that she was one of those teenage girls...but those thoughts had drifted away when Nsync had announced their hiatus and when Justin went solo and latched onto Cameron Diaz. She dismissed them as nothing more than teenage fantasies.

When he brought her arms up to latch around his neck and he dipped his hips down to meet hers, she thought she was going to faint, but when he spun her around so that her ass was to his stomach she thought she might need CPR. She was dancing with him...and oh god...he was EVERY bit of the dancer she always thought he would be. His hips when they thrust on stage to the choreographed dance moves were sexy but how they were moving now...was just downright illegal.

His arms came around her waist and pulled her tighter to grind against him and she raised her arms to throw them behind her head and around his neck to pull him closer to her. He buried his nose in her neck and she shivered with the feel of his breath there. She inhaled and smelled his scent...something so masculine and so...him...that she committed it to memory so that she would never forget it or what was going on between them right then...after that night at the club she doubted that anything would come of the two of them...

...but she was oh so wrong.

"...so you two slept in the same bed last night?" Tate asked on the other end of the line. Allie flopped down onto the leather sofa in the green room of the MTV studios and leaned her head back.

"Not on purpose! It just happened. It was kind of nice." Tate laughed. "Of course it was. You've only crushed on him, like, your entire life." Allie twirled a stand of hair around her finger and switched legs to cross her right over her left. "True. We got some shit from the guys though when we came down to breakfast. Apparently Justin had told JC he'd be back, so when he didn't come back to the room last night, rumours started flying. Those boys gossip more than us!"

Joey poked a head into the room from the hallway and said "Don't give us juicy stuff to talk about and we won't gossip." Allie stuck her tongue out at him.

"Aww, was that Joe? Tell him hi!" Tate said excitedly. Allie yelled out to Joey that Tate said hello to all the guys and Joey responded with an "I'll be sure to tell Lance how much you miss him!" It must have been loud enough for Tate to hear because she shrieked. "Oh no you didn't!"

"Oh no I didn't, what?" Allie asked. "You said something?" Allie fought the urge not to crack up laughing. "No. Why would you think that?"

"You SO did! I can't believe you!"

"Tate, I had to! I had to get all the attention off of Justin and me." Allie defended. "Lance is going to KILL me when he gets back." Tate said. "You should have seen the blush on his cheeks Tate, it was hilarious."

"Yah, I'm sure it was. What'd you say to him?"

Before Allie could answer, one of the producers poked her head into the room and interrupted.  "Mr. Timberlake is requesting your services in his dressing room." The producer winked as if she knew something was up and retreated from the room just as quickly as she had come. On the line Tate was ‘oooohing' at her.

"Mr. Timberlake requesting your presence huh? Post show jitters?" Allie giggled nervously. "I have NO clue. That producer looked like she wanted to have my head on a platter though. I gotta go, Tate. Call you later?"

"Sure sure. I see how it's going to be now. Ms. Important Nsync roadie won't have enough time for me anymore."

"Tate..." Allie started. Tate laughed at her. "You know that I'm just kidding. Keep me updated girl!" With that they both clicked the phone off and Allie stood from the sofa, stuffing her phone into her pocket.

She slipped out of the room and walked across the hallway to the dressing room that she had seen Justin go into earlier. She poised her hand to knock but just as she did the door came open and Justin beamed a smile down at her that seemed just for her. "Hey! I need your help!" He said, grabbing her hand and dragging her into the small room, shutting the door behind them.

"What? I was on a very important phone call." She scoffed, coming to stand in front of him in his chair. "Black shirt or white button up with the suspenders hanging off?" She glanced over to where his clothes were hanging. "Up to you."

"Come on! You're supposed to be in charge of my image somewhat while Johnny's gone. That black one is more old Nsync days, that white one with the suspenders is more me when I was solo." Allie went over to the clothes rack and picked up a light blue button up and a black wife beater that had been tossed over the top. "I think this would look hot." She said turning to show it to him.

"Ok. Looks good." He stood up and grabbed them both from her, throwing them onto the chair he was just sitting in. He stripped off the white t-shirt he had been wearing without even remembering that he had an audience. She gasped and turned around.

"Sorry, I'm used to changing in front of people. Should have warned you." He grinned, knowing exactly what he was doing to her.

"Umm yah, no problem." She cursed herself for wanting to scream like a teeny bopper at the site of his toned chest and stomach. He pulled on the black beater and instructed her that it was ok to turn back around. "You're not fair." She grinned at him, picking up the button up. "Why's that?" he asked, shrugging into a sleeve.

She bit her lip, looking at him. "Forget it." She stated, beginning to button the shirt up for him as he fixed a few spots in his hair. "You sure?" he questioned, making her raise her eyes to meet his. Being this close in proximity to him was starting to become a drug.

"60 seconds until Nsync." Said a voice over the loud speaker. "Dammit, I didn't realize we were this close to show time. You going to be out in the audience?" he asked as they both walked to the door. "Yah, I will probably sneak in on one of the commercials."

"Good, make sure you sit where I can see you."

He took her hand in his and kissed it lightly before jogging to join the other guys who were waiting patiently at the entrance to the TRL studio.

"Ow ow!" Chris called out to her. "Come on girl!" Joey said waving her over. "I'll be in on a commercial break." She called back. They all nodded and picked up the mics from the assistants just as Damien was introducing them into the audience. She meandered over to where the hallway became a mesh wall and peeked through it.

"It's been a long time coming, but they're back. And we are oh so glad. Ladies and gentleman please give a warm welcome, to Joey, Lance, Justin, Jc, and Chris of NSYNC."

The crowd in the studios screams were deafening as the guys descended the stairs to join Damien. Allie's heart swelled.

"Why don't you go over to the window and say hey to everyone down on the street?" The boys walked over and waved and the enormous crowd down in Times Square went into a frenzy--screaming and jumping up and down with signs of love and adoration for the long gone group. "We'll have more with Nsync after our number 8 song, here's MIMS with his latest."

 ************

The show on TRL went extremely well. They ended up having to close the blinds because the crowd in Times Square had been going nuts since they caught a glimpse of the five guys all together again. It seemed that a lot of the diehard NSync fans had made it out to see their first appearance together in years.

Herself included, she just had to play the ‘in the closet diehard NSync fan'.

As for the rest of the trip, things went pretty uneventful. They were too busy flying everywhere to have much time to do anything other than sleep and eat. As much as Allie had been yearning for the closeness that she and Justin had shared that first night in New York, she knew that times like those were going to be few and far between.

If any at all, she thought to herself.

She didn't want to get her hopes up about things and read more into the situation so she just left it alone and dove into her work.

When they arrived back in Los Angeles on Saturday for the MTV Movie Awards she was instructed that she didn't need to tag along to the event if she didn't want to, and so, being as tired as she was, she decided to call it a day when the van dropped her off at her place that afternoon. She said goodbye to all of the guys and grabbed her luggage from Lonnie and went into her house and crashed. She'd leave all of the unpacking for the next day.

She was glad to be back in her own bed.  Her sheets were the perfect temperature and she wrapped herself up in them, only pausing to wish Justin were with her for a few seconds before she dismissed the thought and dozed off.

The shrill noise of her phone going off awakened her. She wasn't sure what time it was but she knew it wasn't Sunday morning yet, it was still dark out. She swatted a hand out from under the blue sheets to grab at the phone and picked it up without looking at the caller ID. "Whoever this is better be dead." She groaned out.

"Well hello to you too." It was Brad.

"I'm sleeping. Leave me alone and call me back like, never."

"Al, how'd we get to this point?" he asked. "Easy, you became the asshole that didn't believe in me and made fun of my dreams." He strained to hear her quiet voice over the line. "I'm sorry. I was a jerk for saying all of those things."

She scoffed at him. "Like I said, I'm over it, Brad."

"I can tell. Those are some interesting pictures that were printed in US Weekly."

"What pictures?" she questioned, sitting up against the headboard. "You and Justin. I must say though, you two do make a pretty couple."

"Brad! What pictures?" she was getting angry. "There are a few pictures of you and him, the rest of the guys too, coming out of MTV studios and a couple more of you cheering them on from the sidelines of Good Morning America. Have we become the new band groupie?" he asked, sneering at her. Even though there were 3000+ miles between them she could see the look of contempt on his face.

"Wouldn't you like to know? Actually, I'm going on tour with them as their road manager."

"Sounds like another word for tour slut to me."

"Brad, you're treading on thin ice here. Either sweeten your tone or I'm hanging up." She warned. "Fine. Allie look, the purpose of my call was to actually inform you that I was planning on coming out there soon to see you. I was thinking about maybe moving out there."

Her heart froze. "I thought that with your job you couldn't move here. That you'd have to take all these other classes for building with the climate out here or something."

"Oh, yah. I would. But that's not a big deal. I'm just lonely without you here, I miss you. You're still a huge part of my heart."

"Could've fooled me." She said quietly, more to herself than to him. "Well, you don't seem in a very good mood. I'll call you sometime this week to tell you all the details of when I'll be flying in. Good night my love."

She ended the call without responding and tossed the phone onto the pillow next to her. ‘I'm thinking about moving out there.'  She wanted to scream. If he moved out there things would get all screwed up. It was going to be a long night.

When her phone rang again it was morning, and this time it was Tate. "Rise and shine sweets." Allie could tell she was smiling on the other end of the line. "What time is it?" she asked. "About 10. I wanted to see if you wanted to grab breakfast with all of us."

"All of who?"

"Me and the guys. Lance called me a little bit ago to see if we wanted to join. He said things were going to get hectic with all of them now that they were back because they were starting choreography this week. So, what do you say?" Allie rubbed at her eyes and rolled over to peer at the numbers on her clock. "I have a ton of stuff I need to do today before work tomorrow. I'm going to pass."

"I should have made myself clearer then, I meant to say that you ARE coming with us."

"Tate, I can't. I'd love to really, but not today." She sat up and found her slippers on the ground and slid her feet into them before padding down the stairs to go check on her puppies.

"Oh hell no!" Allie heard in the background, and then a male voice came over the line, a voice that she was slowly getting used to hearing. "You're coming girl. You bailed on me last night, so you're coming today. Don't make me bust out the lip on you. We'll be there in 10 minutes so be ready."

The line went dead so she knew that she didn't really have a say in the matter. Quickly feeding Tonka and Bella and letting them outside she ran back upstairs to jump in the shower quickly. She was just sliding on some lip gloss when her doorbell rang. She heard her puppies barking at it so she grabbed her black tank and threw it on before running down the stairs. The doorbell rang again.

"Ok! I'm coming!" she yelled, opening it quickly. The site of Justin at her door stunned her. "Hey gorgeous." He smiled, half of his mouth turning upwards. It was a smile that she had only seen him use with her. She blushed. "Hi there. Thanks for giving me fair warning." She slid her sunglasses down over her eyes before closing the door and locking it behind her. "No problem. I will say though, you look great for getting ready under pressure." He joked.

"Yah well, I've got to figure out a way to do it sometime. What with me going on tour with you guys. I'll be doing it like every morning...Hey guys!" she waved to everyone in Chris' SUV. Various ‘good mornings' were said as she and Justin got into the car, squeezing themselves in the back by Joey.

Chris began to back out and Allie felt a warm hand glide into her own and she looked over to see Justin grinning at her. She sighed inwardly. If this was how things were going to start between them she thought she could handle it, and screw Brad if he came and tried to mess things up.