Worry is What Love is All About: Lance

February 10th, 1999

“What’s taking them so long?” I asked even though I knew that Joey wouldn’t be able to give me an answer. It wasn’t like he knew either, after all we were the ones that decided to stay behind at the compound while we waited for the guys to get back with the lunch that Chris and Justin wanted so badly.

“Don’t know, Lance,” Joey replied. “But I’m sure they’re fine. Chris and Justin wanted food so bad that I bet they started eating it as soon as they got it so they couldn’t do too much damage.” He added with a smile.

Leave it to Joey to be able to read my mind without even looking at me. He was busy reading a music magazine article about Madonna. It still amazed me how well Joey knew me, after all we’ve only met about…three years ago, maybe four. I can easily call him my best friend. Not that the others aren’t my close friends, it’s just…with me and Joey it’s a little different. Like how Justin and JC have their MMC thing and Justin and Chris have their inner-child thing. Joey was the first one to make me feel better about my dancing skills (or lack thereof). Since then we’ve been close.

“You’re probably right,” I agreed smiling a little bit. “Do you want to watch TV or something while we wait?”

“Actually I want to call up Kelly,” he replied, closing his magazine. “She’s probably worried since I haven’t called her in a couple of days.”

“I’m sure she’ll understand that you don’t have much time with the touring and stuff.”

“I know. I just don’t want to have to deal with the nagging. She always gets slightly naggy when she calls, especially when…it’s her ‘time of month’.”

I chuckled as Joey made a face and walked out of the room, holding his phone up to his ear. Not wanting to be in the studio by myself I went into the living room and turned on the TV. I liked having some background noise while I was looking over some things for ‘N Sync, it put my mind at rest while I was doing a mentally exhausting task, such as balancing checkbooks or something.

“Lance! Lance!”

“Joeeeeeeey!”

I looked up from the scattered papers that were in front of me and glanced towards the doorway. I could hear pounding footsteps, probably Justin and Chris running around the house to tell us about some chick they saw or something.

“Lance…” JC appeared in the doorway. What tipped me off that something was wrong was that he was shaking slightly and he clung to the doorway as if he was going to fall over.

“Oh gosh, Jace, what happened?” I asked as I rushed to his side. I wrapped my arm around his waist and helped him walk over to the couch. He practically collapsed onto the cushions as I took at look at his face. His skin was paler than normal and his eyes were staring off into space, as if he was looking right through me. “Jace? JC? JC, tell me man,” I said as I shook his shoulder. “What happened?”

“What’s going on?” Joey yelled as Chris and Justin pulled him into the living room. The phone was still in his hands and I could hear faint yelling through the other line.

“He’s going to have to call you back!” Justin barked into the phone before disconnecting the call by jabbing the button with his thumb.

“What the hell!? You better have a good explanation for this!” Joey growled. Justin and Chris silently pointed at JC who was still laying down on the couch, not moving, not registering that we were around him. Immediately the hostile look left Joey’s face. “What’s wrong with him?”

“We were coming back from McDonalds and getting gas in Jace’s jeep when this black SUV started following us,” Justin started, his eyes wide as if he were a woodland animal stuck in the beams of a Hummer. “He was too close at first. It made us nervous. We thought he was driving close so he could turn into the next lane but he didn’t move.”

“So I made us go on the interstate,” Chris interrupted, ignoring Justin’s whine of “I wanted to tell the story”. “I thought we were fine but the SUV bumped us, causing JC to hit his head on the steering wheel. The guy slammed into us again, causing us to swerve a bit because of the wet ground. We almost ran into the wall.”

“And then I screamed–” Justin interrupted him.

“–and then JC sped up–“

“–and then we raced towards the exit ramp–“

“–the SUV was following us really closely at this point–“

“–we quickly turned off at the exit–“

“–the SUV was too slow–“

“–it missed the exit–“

“–JC pulled onto the shoulder and checked if we were ok–“

“–I wanted to call the police–“ 

“–but I didn’t think it was a good idea–“

“–so JC drove us here–“

“–and now he’s like that,” Chris finished, pointing at JC who hadn’t moved through the whole story. “We think he’s in shock.”

I knelt by JC and looked at him. He was still staring off into space. I looked him over to make sure there were no bruises or anything when I noticed that his right fist was clenched. Chris and Justin turned their attention to Joey who was saying something about hanging up on Kelly. I used their distraction to gently stick my fingers in JC’s fist and pry it open enough to see what was in it, if there was anything in it. My eyebrows knitted together when I felt my fingers brush against some paper. “Jace,” I said softly. “It’s me, Lance. I need you to unclench your fist, ok? Can you do that for me?”

I didn’t think he had heard me but I slowly felt his grip relax. I pulled out the piece of paper and looked at his face again before reading the note:

Joshua Scott Chasez

            The “father” of the group. The sweet one. The quiet one. The intellectual. For someone who’s supposedly so smart you’ve just made a stupid decision.

I know where you are. I know who you’re with. I know everything about you. I know wherever you are 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days of the year. I hope I didn’t scare you too much out driving today. Actually, I do. That way you know I mean business.

You are making a huge mistake leaving BMG for Jive. It’s a mistake that I’m going to make sure you suffer through every single day until you convince your stupid ass little friends to stay with BMG.

How, you ask? You’ll find out soon enough.

You have a week to cancel your decision on suing Lou.

After that…well, you’ll just have to suffer the consequences.

I’ll be awaiting your decision.

“Lance? Lance, what’s wrong?”

I looked up from the piece of paper, my eyes locking with Justin’s concerned blue orbs. “Call Johnny,” I whispered, clutching the piece of paper in my fist. “Call Johnny and the police.”