"What's on your mind, beautiful?" I ask as I walk up to her, cautious as I've been with her in a long time.
"I guess I'm shocked you came when I screamed for you," Jazzy tells me.
"Your shriek reminded me what those words mean in English." I give her a quirky half smile.
She quietly giggles, leaning back on the ATV she's tanning on that she's practically dubbed as hers. The ATV she chose is slime green (Nickelodeon), with blue decals and white highlights. She makes me smile when I think about the times we shared together. "What's on your mind, my Icky?"
Yes, I'll always be her Icky and she's always going to be my Jazzabee. "Just the memories we share and how I miss them."
"We are starting to heal and beginning to rebuild what was destroyed by some ridiculous decisions."
She had to remind me, but it's part of what helps her to help keep all of us grounded and I mean us Boys, Aaron, *NSYNC and those LFO guys. No doubt that her best friend of almost a decade has caught wind of what happened last night. JC took her out for lunch, they talked and he understands her fears about Brandon and guys. "Feel like going swimming? There's a pool with a built in waterfall here."
"Where? I've never seen it."
"We should let everyone know that we're heading out." Did I really just say that?
"I got it," she tells me, getting up and strolling back in the house.
She comes out with Aaron, JC, Devin, and Brad. She throws me a towel I've been looking for for close to a year. "This the towel you've been missing for almost as long as we haven't been near each other like this?" She has that evil smile that forewarns of an upcoming prank.
"I have been, now I know where it disappeared to," I joke.
"Funny, Ickers."
That's a new nickname, Ickers. "When did that nickname come about?"
"Couple days ago, sounds good huh?" she smirks.
"I'd prefer being called 'Ickis'," I reply.
This elicits a chortle from her, I have done what I set out to accomplish today. "You ripped that from 'Aaahhh! real Monsters!'. You'd rather be associated with a red rabbit looking monster?"
"Sure, we just have to figure out who the rest of main characters are out of us."
"Not enough characters." Another smile that indicates her having a smart remark. "But there are more than enough Care Bears to nickname ourselves after!"
Devin squats down in front of her and she turns it down, wanting to walk there. "Not in my life... Which one would I be?"
"Uh, Playful Heart Monkey," she replies thoughtfully.
I laugh hard enough to cause my body to shake. "Why that one?" I need to understand how she came to that conclusion.
"Well, you're a complete goofball and like to play more than you like to work, but do it anyway," she informs me, pulling the Buccaneers cap out of her back pocket and putting it over her hair after twisting it up. Doing this keeps her hair off her neck, making it easier for her to put up with heat and humidity.
I shrug, thinking about it. "What about JC here?" I ask, dropping my hand onto his shoulder, she looks at him and smiles because she knows I'm going to keep this game going because it keeps her happy, laughing.
"Hmm, let me think on that one." We walk a few feet and she shouts out, "Bedtime Bear or Grumpy Bear!"
Everyone but him laughs hysterically at it. "Haha, Jazz," he says flatly.
"Ok, what about my baby brother?" I ask as he grabs her hand.
"Ohh, shit, that's a really good one. Funshine Bear."
He smiles at her and runs ahead to do some handsprings, cartwheels and flips. "What about Devin?"
"Wish Bear."
"Brad?"
"Hunh, uh, Friendship Bear."
"What about you?"
"I don't know. Secret Bear, maybe."
"Rich?" I ask as we get to the pool.
"I'll figure everyone out later, I see the pool. I thought you had rehearsals today?" she asks, remembering I had said something to that effect yesterday.
"I told 'Tima that I needed a day off to spend with you after that incident last night. I had to explain Brandon's your dad and he mistreated you and your mom. She gave the five of us until nine tonight off. She said she'd rather have us start building that trust up again before you decide about the proposition," I say slowly, wording it carefully.
"Oh, that's sweet of her. At least we're trying to make amends to this situation," she points out, a soft and sweet smile gracing her face. It's one of those entire face smiles that reaches even your eyes.
"Yeah, it has gotten old and fast," I agree with her.
"Race you guys!" she yells, taking off toward the pool.
I jog behind her, JC and Devin right behind me. "No fair! You're all bigger than me!" Aaron screams out.
Next thing I see is JC running ahead of me with Aaron on his back. "That's cheating!" I yell.
"Not when he's alot smaller than us!" JC retorts.
~~~~~
We threw her in and she has been laying behind the waterfall since then. I think it's been close to fifteen minutes and I've been talking with JC and Devin about her while splashing and dunking Aaron. He's my brother and I can terrorize him as much as I want. "So, she's been pretty laid back and out of trouble for the past year?"
"Yes, and at our sides almost the whole time except for the past couple weeks, she came here," JC tells me.
"Can I be honest with you, man?" Devin asks.
"Of course you can," I tell him.
"Alone." He looks nervous, but I believe it's something I've already figured out.
JC takes Aaron to the middle of the pool and Brad goes to check on Jazz, I look at Devin and smile mischievously. "You're not seeing her?"
"How?" he asks, his jaw dropping and shock washing over his face.
"Man, I know her body language. It's not something anybody can easily forget when it comes to her," I start counting off, a finger popping up for each thing. "I can read her eyes. I talked to JC and we both think the same thing. She still switches her hips around me more than she does you, it's a subconscious thing. Plus, after we got back last night she clung to me more than anything for comfort and safety, JC was a close second for it. You're a close friend and have alot of meaning to her. No hard feelings."
"So you aren't mad?"
"No reason to be, she has her reasons why. I respect them and have decided that she means more than any petty shit like this."
"Man, you've either grown up or just really love her."
"A little bit of both, considering what happened," I state calmly, forming a scale with my body and then looking back at where she was to find her gone.
I blink a couple times before I lose footing because someone pulls my foot up, toppling over backwards into the water. She brushes my fingertips with hers and surfaces with me right behind her 5' 7", 107 lb frame. She's dyed her hair recently, a raspberryish tint, and her eyes are the brightest shade of turquoise when I look into them for the ten seconds our eyes meet before she looks away. Her eyes always remind me of the ocean by the Keys. "Scared ya?" she inquires, giving me the innocent look-batting her eyes and smiling sweetly like she could never do that to someone, but I know better than to believe it.
I take a step to her and wrap her in my arms, putting my forehead against hers and giving her the crooked Carter family smile, making her smile back shyly. "Not at all, just caught me off guard," I tell her.
She spins away from me and dives under the water, swimming away from me. One thing I found out the first time I took her swimming was that she's a great swimmer, strong at that, and she loves the ocean, she swims best in it. "You scared I can swim faster than you?"
She just issued the challenge for me to chase her around the pool, playing tag. "You're on, girl!" I say, diving under to chase her afterward. We spend the next two hours chasing after the other, tagging each other and laughing crazily.
"We should play chicken," JC suggests.
"Ok, you take Aaron. Brad and Devin should be a team."
"I suppose I could team up with Ickers," she says, pretending to be a primadonna diva. We laugh and the smaller ones get one the heavier person's shoulders; putting Aaron, Jazz and Brad on top to fight the 'battle'. She quickly takes out Brad and turning to Aaron, who is great at this and a fair challenger. "I will win, kid."
"I haven't lost a game of chicken yet," Aaron informs her, being honest.
~~~~~
As soon as we get out of the pool around six thirty, my cell rings and it's my girlfriend. "Hey, baby," I answer, feeling guilty. I feel like I should be calling Jazzabee baby, not Baby D.
"Hey, Nicky." She sounds pretty content.
"What's up?"
"I can't find JC anywhere and all I can get for answers is that he went to see a friend in Orlando."
I turn to face him and smile, he's motioning as if to say to tell her I don't know where he is and that I haven't seen him. "I don't know what to tell you, baby."
"Are you hanging with your friend again?" she asks.
"Not Brent, no. I am hanging with some friends," I answer honestly, my nerves force an old habit to rise up again-sliding my hand through my hair from my forehead to the back of my head and scratch a little, biting the corner of my bottom lip. Jazz places her hand under my chin and her thumb under the corner of my lip that I'm chewing on to maneuver it out of my mouth, knowing it's a bad habit to have. I swat at her hand, the whole time we remain quiet and smiling.
"Have you spoken to your ex lately?"
"Should I have?"
"No, just wondering."
I look at Jazz and she nods. "Actually, I've been talking to her all day today and Aaron's been tagging along," I tell her nonchalantly.
"Oh, is that good?" she asks, sounding uneasy.
"She's going to be dancing for Aaron's set and Johnny asked her to cover that newly opened slot in our back up dancer lineup, we have to tour together."
"Are you doing anything you shouldn't be?"
"No, just hanging out like I would with the other Boys and Aaron."
Sometimes my girlfriend can be so distrusting and overbearing, but it's just my luck. Jazz trusted me and let me do my thing when she wasn't with me, I had to fuck it up. Baby D refuses to trust me and has to know every detail about what I'm doing. "If I so much as hear-"
"Baby D, you will never hear anything about it." I've been completely unfaithful from the beginning and she's remained oblivious to it because nobody has caught us yet. I bet Jazz has left so much untold, but that in and of itself is a whole other story which I'd rather be kept unspoken. AJ knows all about it, I'm hoping he keeps mum about it all. All I'm going to say is she had snuck off a number of times and never said where she was. It never felt wrong to do what happened, so we just continued. She toured with us and *NSYNC at the same time after she healed, doing it without anyone but us knowing. James and those guys were clueless.
All the fights we had were after. This tour is going to be the hardest, considering that we really are trying to reconnect and going to be on a bus for seven months, forced to deal with each other. We will most likely fight about stupid shit.
Story Tags: Be the first to add a tag to this story
