Chapter 3 – Promises

March 14, 2014 – Brooklyn, NY

“Oh my God...Nelly?!”

Adeline's jaw dropped. She had just finished screaming at Justin, threatening him that he had five minutes to stop bouncing the basketball around the quick change room and get ready or she would stick him to the Velcro wall on the “Up Against The Wall” props. She had adjusted her headset in her ear, and looked up across the room...only to see Nelly.

“Unless you know some other famous rap star that looks like him, yeah, that's him,” Lance said, stuffing his street clothes into his bag.

“What the hell is Nelly doing here?” she asked.

“He's performing 'Girlfriend' with us, in Brooklyn only,” he said. “Kind of a kick-off.”

“Since when?” she said. “And why didn't I know about this?”

“Since a couple months ago, when we asked him and he said yes,” he responded. “And I don't know, Ad. Maybe you weren't paying close enough attention.”

She knit her eyebrows together towards him as he walked off. She sighed; he'd been like this all week, giving her attitude every time she turned around. She tried not to hold it against him, because it hadn't been the easiest week. Since his blow-up fight with Wade, rehearsals hadn't been good for him. Wade didn't intentionally start drama with Lance, but he had spent all week breathing down his back over his dancing, his lack of focus, and telling him he didn't think he was committed enough.

She knew better. She knew exactly how committed he was; this tour, this reunion...meant the world to him. She was a lover and not a fighter, but every time Wade jumped down Lance's throat for missing a beat or messing up a step, she wanted to punch him. Or if it was the mother side of her coming out, she wanted to walk over and grab him by his ear and make him sit in the corner, giving him a lecture about treating people how he wanted to be treated.

Lance had been moody, yes, but he was committed. The problem was that he missed his best friend. Melissa was like a sister to him. Chris hurt because he loved Melissa as his girlfriend; but Lance hurt in his own way, feeling like one of his own family had disappeared off the face of the planet.

She had learned to give Lance his space, and try to be understanding. He was aware he needed an attitude adjustment; but the pain he was feeling stopped him from caring.

“Hey, Ad,” Justin said, walking up to her. “You seen my shirt anywhere?”

She rolled her eyes, huffing a breath. “No Justin, I haven't seen your shirt. I'm an assistant, not your mom. Try keeping track of your shit and getting ready before the last minute next time.”

Justin's eyes widened. “Damn, girl, I was just asking. Sorry. Who pissed in your coffee this morning and tried to call it milk?”

“Sorry, Justin,” she said. “I'm...frustrated.”

Frustrated wasn't the word.

“Guess I need an attitude adjustment too,” she said, both of them looking on as Lance breezed past them.

“He's still grouchy, huh?”

“I wasn't thinking grouchy,” she said, turning around to start picking up a pile of clothes that the boys had randomly discarded on a chair. “I was thinking...testy, grumbly, snappy, surly, peeved, sulky, maybe a little cantankerous.”

“Bored and reading the thesaurus again?” he said with a smile. “You know, we can give you more work to do.”

“If his attitude doesn't get better, I'm going to start bunking with you,” she said. “I'm trying to be understanding, I really am, and I love him. But Justin, I think before the tour is over...I might kill him.”

Justin chuckled. As he was turning away, Nelly walked up to him, and he greeted him with a slap of the hands.

“Hey Ad, have you met Nelly?”

She turned, her arms full of clothes that needed taken back to wardrobe, a stray piece of hair getting in her eyes, staring wide-eyed at the man in front of her. She blew out a breath, trying to push the hair away from her face, but it only fell back down, distracting her even more.

“Nelly,” she said.

Justin laughed. “This is a first. Addy's starstruck.”

“Shut up, Justin,” she said. She reached out with one hand, fighting the pile of clothes in her arms to shake the man's hand.

Nelly smiled as he shook her hand, her laughing nervously as shirts and pants dropped out of her arms.

“Sorry,” she said. “This is my glamorous life, right here.”

“You must be the assistant I hear so much about,” Nelly said, and she could hear his recognizable accent. “Lance's wife?”

“Addy James, this is her,” Justin said.

“Let me help ya there,” Nelly said, smiling as he used a finger to push the hair out of her eyes and behind her ear.

“Thank you,” she said. “I better get these back to wardrobe before Penny has an absolute heart attack.”

“Need any help, darlin'?” Justin asked.

She smiled; it was rare for any of them to call her anything but Ad or Addy, but sometimes the occasional term of endearment would slip out – babe, dear, honey, or darlin', in Justin's case.

“Could you?” she asked. “Please?”

“You know it,” he responded. “But maybe you could help me find my shirt?”

She chuckled, rolling her eyes then sighing. “Fiiiine. Come on.”

“See ya man,” Justin said to Nelly, slapping hands again.

“See ya on stage later,” Nelly responded. “And hey, Addy – good to meet you.”

“Good to meet you too,” she said, smiling.

She could feel her cheeks start to warm up as the man walked away, and Justin started taking clothes from her until they each had a smaller pile.

“You know,” he said, “far be it from me to tell you how to run your marriage and all...but if I were you, Ad, I wouldn't let Lance see you blushing like that. At least not around world-famous rap stars. He might...I don't know, take it the wrong way.”

She looked up at him.

“Just a suggestion,” he said, his look serious.

“It's not...I mean, I wasn't...”

She struggled to come up with words.

“I know you weren't,” he said, smiling slightly. “Nelly, he's kind of a flirt. You know, like Joey. He does it naturally, and he means nothing by it, and it makes women melt. You're not the only one. Watch it, okay? It'd be bad if he saw something and took it the wrong way and it ended up hurting both of you.”

She nodded, pausing before she walked away with him toward the wardrobe room. Her eyes wandered to Lance as he walked past them, finally in his first clothing change for the show. She took Justin's words to heart – the last thing she needed was to add insecurity and jealousy to their problems.

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“What's up, Brooklyn?!”

Justin stared out into the crowd, taking in the sight of the thousands of people in Barclay's Center. He smiled at Joey's enthusiasm when he screamed out the greeting that he used at almost every NSYNC show, laughing when the crowd went wild.

He looked to his left, seeing Lance and JC – both smiling, taking in the crowd and the screams. He looked to his right, seeing Chris and Joey do the same thing. If he had been told a year ago that he would be on this stage – not by himself, with his band and his dancers, his crew of Tennessee Kids, singing his songs – he'd have thought whoever told him that was insane.

It was an urge that had snuck up on him unexpectedly. He didn't think any of them would ever go for it when he brought it to the table that night in August. JC hadn't sang in years and preferred the writing and producing side of it, and when confronted, never seemed to want to touch the subject of an NSYNC reunion with a ten-foot pole.

Joey liked traveling and doing unique things – whether it was hosting shows in Vegas, doing voice-overs for TV game shows, competitively dancing on reality shows, or starting his own cooking show – and hadn't been involved in music in years either.

Lance had immersed himself in various movies, charity, and humanitarian things – before finally meeting Addy, getting married, and having his son. And Chris was happy to live a simple life in New York, playing with his band, Nigels 11, and living a normal existence mostly out of the spotlight.

And now, here they were – he was back on stage, staring at his NSYNC brothers again.

The band behind them started playing as the lights dimmed, and he could feel the rush of the performance coming back to him.

“Keeps coming closer, I don't, but she thinks that I know her...”

He was never more glad that some of the pressure of being the creative genius was off of him this time around. Something about getting back together with them this time was different – he wanted to give away some of the spotlight. He wanted to show the world that he wasn't the only talented one; that each and every one of them had their own talents as well.

“Beautiful smile with those sad eyes, that was my type...amnesia, that's over...I can see your breathing, girl, is colder, I can see you need me but I don't care...my whole memory of me and love, gone so far from me girl, it's not fair...”

For example, so far, he had been amazed by Lance's songwriting skills. It was something he never knew he had, because he never showed it. When Chris had come to him with the rough copy of his song, “Not A Bad Thing”, Justin's jaw almost dropped to the floor when he told him that Lance had written about half the song. Justin never would have guessed it if Chris hadn't told him.

“I could feel it almost start to change...But then it hurts too much, that's when it starts to fade away...”

He would never forget the look on Lance's face when he had come to his house one day, threw a notebook and pen in front of him on the table, and commanded Lance to write him a song – any song. He had only laughed when Lance had stared at him and told him that drugs were bad and he shouldn't do them – but smiled and told him to evoke a memory, an emotion, a time in his life that was particularly rough for him...and write him a powerful song. And he wanted it in two days.

And “Amnesia” was born.

Not all of the lyrics were Lance's, of course – Justin had thrown in a few of the beginning lyrics to lead them in, and he had come up with the whole amnesia angle so it would have a common theme. But a lot of it was Lance; all of Lance's emotions and feelings about various things that had happened to him over the past couple of years.

It had been such a successful experiment that he had done the same thing with Joey the very next week. They got “Only When I Walk Away” out of that experiment, even though it took a bit of prodding by Justin. JC had teamed up with the two of them to add the sexy, sultry beat behind it. Getting JC back in the studio behind a keyboard was all it took to get his creative juices flowing, and to Justin's chagrin, a week later he had a rough copy of “TKO” in his hands.

Agreeing that they needed at least one upbeat dance number for the album, much like “Bye Bye Bye” had been, they had all teamed up one day over a few beers and wrote “Take Back The Night”. They had put together their feelings about the night they had reunited in August, thrown a slight love twist on the words to make it relatable, and before they knew it, they agreed that they had gold.

They were so happy with it that they all knew they had to name their tour after it. After all, they were taking back their place in pop music – taking back their night.

It didn't take long after that before the songs started trickling in and they had a full album. “Gimme What I Don't Know” was JC's creation. Justin was inspired himself to write “Murder” and “You Got It On”, and Chris rounded it all out with “Drink You Away” towards the end.

He had never been more proud of an album – especially an NSYNC album.

“Go on and tear me apart, and do it again tomorrow...I almost forgot who you are...”

But now he looked at his brothers and saw their distress. Now, he saw life imitating art – and it seemed a good majority of the songs that they had written about their life's most stressful situations, they were now reliving in more ways than one.

“I try to forget about it every time I see ya, see ya...thought I could do without it, now I know I need ya, need ya...this is turning into some kinda kinda amnesia, I need ya...memories fade away, love is so insane...”

He looked to his left, seeing Lance again, seeing him singing his heart out, knowing that no one could pick out his bass voice in the background but knowing it didn't matter. He didn't know the details because neither of them let them slip – but he knew that Addy and Lance weren't as happy as they had once been. They loved each other and wanted to make it work, but something came between them that they couldn't seem to get past as hard as they tried. They fought like hell for their son, because both of them wanted him to grow up in a stable, warm home with both of his parents around.

“I try to forget about it every time I see ya, see ya...thought I could do without it, now I know I need ya, need ya...this is turning into some kinda kinda amnesia, I need ya...memories fade away, love is so insane...”

Then, looking to his right again, he saw Chris. He was singing his heart out – what he had left of it. Justin hadn't known Mel as long as Chris, Lance, and Addy had, but he had spent a good amount of time the past two years in New York, always staying with one of them while he was there. He had been around long enough to kindle a friendship with Mel. Over the past week, he had tried to get into her head to dissect her thought process – the moment she had stopped baking and decided to leave, while she packed up the single suitcase with the very few clothes that Chris had found missing, and the moment she stood at the table and wrote out the worst Dear John letter he had ever seen.

He couldn't. He had joked that day while sitting around with the rest of them, trying to lighten the mood in the room, but he was as clueless and bothered as the rest of them were. And he wouldn't admit it, but he hurt.

He knew that if he hurt as much as he did – he couldn't have a clue how Chris felt.

He didn't know how Chris was still standing strong.

“So tear me apart, and do it again tomorrow...I almost forgot who we are...I'll let you drive me crazy for another day...Isn't this love insane, insane?”

The show would end tonight, and each of the fans would walk out of Barclay Center fulfilled, having finally seen their dream come true – NSYNC reuniting.

The boys would walk out of the Barclay Center heartbroken, as they had been yesterday and the day before that. And they would go back and do it again tomorrow, because they had no other choice.

Not without Mel.

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This was the part of the show that Chris had dreaded all night.

“Here you go, honey,” Addy said, handing him a towel to wipe the sweat from his face and a bottle of water to take a sip of, before handing Lance the same thing.

“Thanks, Ad,” he said.

He walked away without a word, even as she stayed in her place to talk to Lance. He thought he wouldn't have much time to think about anything tonight, keeping himself too busy performing while trying to remember all his dance steps and the lyrics to the new songs, but he had been wrong.

He had thought about it all night.

The guys didn't give him much grief about it – Wade had given him grief about missing a couple of days of rehearsals during the last week, but from what he had heard, there had been a tense confrontation between Wade and Lance that had knocked Wade down a few notches. Since then, he had made his way through rehearsals and the first concert the only way he knew how – by being a zombie.

He ran the towel over his face once more before throwing it down on the bench in front of him. He pulled on his shirt and lifted it over his shoulders, exposing his chest for only a few seconds before grabbing for the costume change that Addy had laid out for him a few minutes before. In record time, he was changed into his next “costume” and followed the others, going back out on stage.

He found his seat on the stool in the center of the stage, off to Justin's right. Lance sat down next to him on his own right, before Justin found his way to his stool, and both of them glanced over at him.

This would be the hardest part of the show to do.

The lights that hid the five of them went up, and he could hear Justin doing a brief intro to the song after the girls' screams had died down. As the band behind them started playing, he took a deep breath.

“Girl you hurt me, when you left me, tell me where did you go? The time is passing, I'm realizing, that babe I needed you so...”

He officially hated this song.

“Was it something I said, to make you turn away? To make you walk out and leave me cold?”

He was on autopilot – thankful for once that Justin had all the attention.

“If I could just find a way to make it so that you were right here, right now...”

He had spent the past week searching for her. He had gone out on his bike several times during the day, and almost every night, covering every inch of New York City and Brooklyn that he thought she might go. He had searched every night club within a 25-mile radius of his apartment, every one they had stepped into over the last year. He had spent hours in her favorite coffee shop, waiting and hoping that she would show up for her usual order. He had even sat in his car at the ICE campus, in case there was a chance she showed up – even though she had graduated months before.

He hadn't been home in a week. He slept in his car, or fell asleep at Lance and Addy's house...when he was able to sleep. That was only when his body completely shut down on him.

He couldn't accept it. He couldn't figure out what had happened, what had possessed her, what had caused her to leave. What did he do? What didn't he do? What did he say? Was it something he didn't say? Was he not good enough for her?

“I've been sittin' here, can't get you off my mind, I've tried my best to be a man and be strong...I've drove myself insane, wishin' I could touch your face...”

He couldn't accept the fact that she was truly...

“But the truth remains, you're...”

Gone.

He heard the screams and the chaos as Nelly took the stage, and he followed the others' lead as they moved into their places on the stage, but he himself was a zombie.

“Uh, uh, uh, check it...”

He couldn't see the audience from his place on the stage, hidden by the classic car setup that they had resurrected from their Grammy performance, but he could hear the audience go crazy as Nelly took the stage.

“He don't want you like I want you, believe me boo I been told, he don't appreciate you ma, I can tell by the way he hold you, he don't love you like I love you or squeeze you like I squeeze, I'll make your neck pop back and in fact I'll buckle your knees...hey! Okay, baby, what's it gon' take for you to be my lady...”

He heard Justin break in with his single line of the song, even though the crowd still couldn't see them from behind their setup, where they were waiting for the lifts to raise them up to the roofs of the cars.

“I'm diggin' everything about you, your hips an' the way they sway, I hate to see you leave but love to see ya walk away, I'll be your personal shrink boo, I care what you think, I bought the Bentley in pink 'cause my dough in sync...”

He was waiting for his cue. It was all he could do now – wait for his cues, sing his lines, hit his steps perfectly, and get through this reunion and this tour as well as he knew how.

“So tell ya man bye bye and tell 'im you're long gone...ain't no need waitin' up, you done found you another home...”

“I don't know why you care...”

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“We rocked the shit outta that place!”

Addy smiled, watching the five boys run back stage to her, handing out a towel to each of them as they came close to her. She could tell they were tired – each of them were breathing heavily, the huffs audible, but the smiles they had on their faces said it all.

Their first concert had been a success.

“Language, Justin,” she scolded softly. “We have little ears on this tour, we need to get used to keeping it clean.”

“Aww he ain't here, Ad,” Justin said, pulling the headset off his ears. He ran the towel over his face. “He's with the nanny girl – what's her name again?”

“Jessica.”

“Yeah, Jessica,” he said. “He's with Jessica. He's probably fast asleep in the hotel room, drunk off Teddy Grahams and chocolate milk watching Blue's Clues or some shit like that.”

“I know I'm almost forty, but that sounds like Heaven right about now,” Joey said.

“Yeah, except with you it's pepperoni pizza, vodka, and pay-per-view porn,” JC responded, wiping his own face down.

“Po-tay-to, po-taw-to,” Joey said. “Blue's Clues, Girls Gone Wild...I'll settle for either.”

Justin handed his towel over to Addy, who took it with a turned up nose.

“Gross,” she said, looking at the sweat-covered fabric.

“I don't care if fucking Barney is playing in my hotel room when I get there,” Lance said. “I'll be asleep before Steve finds his first clue.”

“Ditto,” Addy said, throwing the sweaty towel in the hamper for wardrobe. “Hurry up and get changed, guys. We all need a good night's sleep at the hotel. Tomorrow it's Manhattan and Madison Square Garden.”

They nodded and groaned as they all handed over their towels to her, some of them pulling their shirts over their head as they walked past her in an effort to change back into their street clothes faster, wanting to get to the hotel as quickly as possible after a long night. Chris was the last to walk up to her, slowly wiping his face with his towel.

“You okay?” she asked.

He nodded slightly, handing over his towel.

“It was a good show,” he said. “She would have loved it.”

“We'll find her soon, Chris,” she said. “She'll come back. I know she will. I promise.”

“Don't make promises you know you can't keep, Addy,” he said, sighing as he walked away.