Chapter 8

Still startled by all that had happened that day, I sat and listened while Justin and Mike talked to Randy and Johnny, the group’s manager about what to do next. They passed Mike’s cell phone back and forth while Sasha, seemingly ignorant to what was going on around her since she was perusing W magazine, held my hand soothingly underneath the table. Finally, after about thirty minutes of us all sitting there, the cell phone was hung up and Mike laid down the law.

"Alright, Tara, I know you’ve been listening to what we were saying so you must have some idea of what’s going on," he started, and I hated to disappoint him but…

"Actually I wasn’t listening," I told him, and I wasn’t. I’d been thinking about those girls and how they could come back at any time, like even at that very moment and how great it was to have Mike around. The I’d started to wonder when it was that Mike had stopped being my enemy and become my friend and protector and so on … you get the picture. I have a bad habit of letting my mind wander at times like those. "So feel free to start from the beginning."

Justin added to Sasha, "And would it kill you to put that down and pay attention? We’re talking about security for your best friend here." Why, God, why?

Just as I knew she’d been, Sasha had paid attention to every last detail of their conversations while my mind was off in space and she told him so, practically repeating their conversations verbatim which filled me in on some things: Mike was going to be permanently attached to us from now on, Justin could only stay four more days before he had to go back to Florida for rehearsal and if I didn’t go with him then everyone thought it best that I had someone stay in the house with me, like a friend. At that point when she finished speaking everyone stared at Sash who shook her head vehemently.

"Oh hell no," she said emphatically. "I’m not getting involved in some shit that’s caused by Timberfuck’s loser fans. If Tara’s not safe she can come to my house or Aurora’s and she knows it. Uh-uh. No way. Ask Jen to come here or something."

All three of us – Mike, Justin and I – shook our heads at that suggestion. Jen was just too nice to be any sort of buffer. Knowing her, she’d invite the fans inside or something.

"You know Jen won’t work," Mike told her seriously. "You know how to deal with fans. You know how to deal with any situations that might come up?"

Situations? I seriously didn’t want to know, I thought, leaning into Justin as his arm curved around me. I had enough situations already.

She shrugged. "Too bad, then. She’ll have to come to my house."

"But it’s almost Christmas," I pleaded with her, knowing she knew all about my love of decorating. "I bought a million things and I’m gonna get a tree and everything! Please, Sash?"

Silence.

"This is the first time I wanted to decorate since … they’ve been gone," I told her, playing the parent card. I didn’t do it to be manipulative; it was the truth. I was really excited about Christmas and the cruise we were going on afterwards. For once I didn’t want to hide away and sob for the two-week hell that was the holidays.

"T, you can’t get a tree," Justin interjected. "It’ll die while you’re in Tennessee with me."

Huh?

I snuggled closer to him. "In Tennessee? For what?"

He looked at me like I was crazy and for a second I caught Mike shaking his head like there was an oncoming storm. Mike is psychic, you know. "For Christmas, dummy," he said, like I was retarded.

Sasha laughed. "We’re going on a cruise for Christmas with my family," she informed him in a not-so-nice way but what else was new. "My dad got the tickets in November.

Oops, I’d forgotten to tell him. In November, when we were ‘on a break’ but I didn’t know that, Mr. Evans had decided that we were going on a cruise for Christmas and returning for New Year’s Eve. Somehow he decided that I was going and after the tickets were purchased I was so kindly let in on the knowledge that I was going to Barbados. At the time, it seemed like a great idea and even now it didn’t seem so bad. I loved Justin but I didn’t want him to think he could rearrange my world around him all the time. Because he totally did, as evidenced by his next sentence.

"Change your plans," he said simply. "I’ll pay your dad back for the ticket and she can come with me. Besides, we have to go to Hawaii for New Year’s Eve – we have that concert, remember? I thought you [he indicated Sasha] were coming."

She looked offended, as she should have. Justin doesn’t understand how much money Sasha’s family has, old money. They wouldn’t take a dime of money from him, especially not her dad. He’d probably cuss him out for even trying to give him some.

"We don’t need your money, you prick!" she exclaimed. "She’s coming with us and that’s final. As for Hawaii, we’ll be back in time to catch a plane there if I don’t murder your obnoxious ass first. You think the whole fucking world revolves around you, you know that? Tara has family, real family besides you that love her and want to spend time with her. You’ve been monopolizing her time for the last six months and you’re not taking this cruise away from me. Besides," she said as she stood up and grabbed her purse as if she were about to leave, "my dad wouldn’t let her not go. Ain’t that right, T?" She used the nickname to irritate him on purpose but everything she’d said had been dead on. It was time to remember who had been there for me before Justin and who would be there for me after, if that happened.

Justin looked annoyed, mad and stricken all at once. "You’re not gonna choose her over me, are you?" He clutched me close to him and I could hear his heart beating loudly. Aww, my sweetie. How was it possible to love another human being besides your child that much?

But I couldn’t back out of the cruise. First of all, I didn’t want to and second of all, I was scared of Mr. Evans, so Justin would have to suffer without me for, like, nine days. Of course I’d be suffering, too, but letting him think that he was the one who was really miserable sounded like a good idea.

"I’m not choosing anybody over anybody," I replied irritably, pushing his arm off of me. "Justin, I can’t back out of this cruise, I’m sorry, but I’ll definitely be there for your Hawaii trip. It’s not my fault I made plans at a time when we weren’t speaking. And Sasha, you could really stay with me for a couple of weeks until I decide another alternative; it won’t kill you. Thanks a lot," I said bitterly. Everyone but Mike was getting on my nerves.

She huffed and puffed from the doorway. "You know damn well I’m gonna come and stay with your ass when he leaves," she pointed at Justin who gave her the finger, which I slapped down. "You just better not bail on this trip or I will suggest that Daddy make a stop over here."

She had me. We both knew I’d rather date Dave again than have Mr. Evans come over for a talk – which basically meant to yell at me. Still, it bothered me that she thought so little of me that she thought I’d just leave her high and dry on Christmas. On the other hand, it did mean that I was leaving my boyfriend high and dry so … things sort of sucked. I couldn’t get too excited about the cruise around Justin and I’d miss him anyway but at least we had Hawaii to look forward to.

But before that I had to get through the night with him. He was already giving me that patented hurt, abandoned _expression. I needed to get rid of Sasha and Mike and do some damage control. "Bye, girl," I waved from the table as she left the kitchen.

"And you have to get a fake tree or it’ll die!" she shouted as she left.

"Well, that takes care of things after we leave," Mike wiped his hands together like business was all done and taken care of. I wondered if he did this sort of thing for all the girlfriends or just me. Whether he did or not, it still made me feel special that he cared about my safety so much. "So how are you right now?"

I shook my head, still bewildered and a bit frustrated from the Justin/Sasha drama. "Confused. I just never, in a million years, ever thought anything like this would happen to me, you know? I guess I’m a little scared, too," I told him.

Beside me, his body still tensed after dealing with Sash, Justin slapped his hands on the big wooden table. "I need a break," he said to no one in particular in a gnarly voice that told us he was upset, got up from the table and disappeared somewhere into the house.

"Great," I groaned. "Just what I needed." Now besides worrying about myself and my own conflicting feelings, I had to make nice to him. It was so hard dealing with someone as moody as he was.

Mike sighed too. "I feel for you, baby girl. He’s not easy to deal with but in this case it’s just because he wants to be with you. You know, it’s selfish and everything but it’s sweet. That boy really loves you and wanted to spend Christmas with you and his family. He’s just disappointed but you’ll talk him out of it."

Mike was being so nice; I wanted to go and hug him. "You think so?"

He wiggled his eyebrows at me. "Yeah, just put on one of those Victoria’s Secrets outfits we got and—"

"You jerk!" I hit his arm and we both laughed, then he left to go retrieve some of his stuff from where he’d stayed sometimes. No more alone time for me and J – our duo was now a trio, with Mike going every single place we went.

Alone downstairs now, I sighed and went upstairs to find Justin and smooth things over. What I found was surprising to say the least – instead of moping somewhere, he was standing in the mirror practicing beat boxing over and over.

Yes, that’s right. Beat boxing.

See, when I was thirteen or fourteen and intent on marrying Donnie Wahlberg, he did this thing in their concerts where he would stop everything he was doing and beat box. It was the first time I remember having that special feeling for a guy, the awakening of my libido, so to speak. I mean it was wack even when Donnie did it so it was about a hundred years out of style when Justin did, but something in it brought back that feeling and right then, to me, I wanted to run over and jump his bones

But I didn’t. Instead I stood and watched him until I couldn’t stand it anymore and sidled over into the room behind him, slipping my arms around his waist and resting my head on his shoulder. "Whatcha doing?" I asked sweetly, ignoring the way his body stiffened.

"Nothing. Practicing," he said and turned away from me, walking over to the bed and sitting down. Boy, if you could trademark a pout that guy had it on lockdown. I followed him and sat next to him, taking one of his hands in mine.

"J … I know you’re pissed, so just say it so we can deal with it, okay? You have your say and then let me have mine and we’ll try to hash this out. Remember we said we were gonna try to talk instead of just screaming?" I held his hand tightly and laced my fingers through his. He didn’t pull away which was a good sign.

“I don’t really have anything to say right now,” he said, still pouting. I let go of his hand and rand my fingers through his hair to try to loosen him up a bit. “You’d rather be with Sasha than me for Christmas; what else is there to say?”

Sighing, I put my hands on both sides of his face and forced him to look at me. “Justin.”

Silence.

“Justin.”

“Sweetie, will you not ignore me? You can do a lot of things that are annoying that I can overlook, but ignoring me isn’t one of them.” I could see him being upset but what did he think was going to happen if we sat there not talking to each other all night?

Sighing, he let his eyes finally meet mine and I was heartbroken when I saw he really did look hurt and sad, He was still so young and so used to getting his way. “I just don’t know what to say”, he shrugged. “That’s what it boils down to factually,” he said, using his hands excitedly. “So what else am I supposed to think? Yeah, it fucking hurts my feelings, Yeah, I’m upset about it, especially since you’re going with that bitch,” he spat the word out like it tasted badly or something.

I shook my head vehemently. “I don’t want to be with someone else instead of you; I just already made plans,” I stated again, trying to force it through his head. For some reason my eyes kept going to his lips since we were at face level and all I could think about was beat boxing.

What that meant those lips could do.

What those lips had to me before.

“You could cancel,” he stuck to his guns, not giving an inch until I changed the subject.

“Justin?

“Yeah?”

“Can you … do what you were doing … for me? Just for a couple of seconds?” I asked, my cheeks flushing and my eyes still glued to his lips.

He had no clue what I was talking about … until he saw where my lips were. His voice turned husky.

“You want me to beat box for you?” he asked, a bit incredulously and I nodded my head, grateful that he picked up on it and I didn’t have to explain myself. He knew exactly what I wanted because then he said “Well tell me exactly where you want me to do all these things with my tongue, baby, and I’ll see if I can do something here.”

We hadn’t had sex in over a month and even now we were still just fooling around, kissing and cuddling. But today I was ready to take things up a notch and I filled him in on that by knocking him down on the bed and straddling him.

This time, for once, I was taking control.