~~~~~*~~~~~

Justin waited until Lance had left the room to get himself a soda before he addressed the other members of the group in hushed tones. "So, is everyone prepared for the party tonight?"

It was the morning of Lance's 20th birthday and a surprise party had been planned for that evening to celebrate. The preparations had taken weeks to organise, but, fortunately, Lance had been kept completely in the dark about it.

Lance literally had no idea, and had even assumed that the group had forgotten all about his birthday. Due to his hatred of making other people feel uncomfortable he hadn't yet said anything to anyone about it, amusing the group no end. There was no way that the members of *NSYNC, or the girls who worked with the group, would have forgotten.

The dress code was fancy dress, with the overall theme being 'famous heroes and villains'. Most of the guests had agreed to dress up, but those unwilling to cooperate had received their costume suggestions randomly picked from a hat.

"Party? Is it someone’s birthday?" Jenny asked innocently as she perched on the arm of the couch in Libby's office where everyone else was hanging out. Jenny had spent the morning in lectures with Libby and had been invited back to the Compound afterwards to spend some time with her friend. The fact that she might bump into Lance whilst she was there hadn't been lost on her either, and Jenny had been casually eyeing the doorway ever since he'd left the room.

"It's a party for Lance. It’s his twentieth birthday today," JC explained with a quick glance at the doorway to make sure that his band mate wasn't within earshot.

"Oh, I had no idea," Jenny replied, her cheeks flushing at the mention of Lance's name. She glanced down at her hands, which were positioned awkwardly in her lap, and began to pick randomly at one of her fingernails. Despite spending some time around the members of *NSYNC, Jenny still found herself feeling slightly awkward in their company. She found Chris' unpredictable nature made her feel intimidated and shy, and she didn't really know what to say to JC or Joey.

"You're invited to come if you want to," JC told her, choosing to ignore her embarrassment. "I'm sure Lance would like to see you there."

Jenny looked over and flashed him a genuine, bright smile. "Thanks, I’d like that,"

"You do have to come in Spandex, though," Chris added and Jenny stared at him in horror as her cheeks flushed crimson once again.

"What? That's the rule, right guys?" Chris sniggered as he looked around the room at his friends, his eyes twinkling with amusement.

"He's only joking, Jen," Libby tried to reassure her friend as she met Justin's eyes across the room and giggled. It had been a while since the group had been around someone as innocent as Jenny, and Chris couldn’t seem to stop himself from messing with her. 

Chris grinned at Jenny and slyly winked. "Yeah, I'm really not."

~~~~~*~~~~~

"Eurgh, I hate fancy dress! Whose dumbass idea was this any way?" Libby complained aloud from her bedroom as she struggled into her tight costume. All the girls had arranged to get changed at Clare and Libby's apartment and share a taxi to the party venue. It was fortunate as they were all struggling to get ready on time.

"The same dumbass who organized this whole party!" Sara replied as she sat down in front of Libby's dressing table mirror and began to style her hair. She was dressed in an early twentieth–century style gown that flattered her skin tone. Her plan was to go to the party as the character 'Rose' from her favourite movie, Titanic.

Sara was a huge fan of the actor Leonardo DiCaprio, and she'd seen the movie Titanic more times than she could count. It was because of this that she'd earned the nickname 'Rose' after the character, and because of the small tattoo of the flower that she had on her lower back.

"Rose, are you cursing me?" Clare shouted loudly from her room.

"I like my outfit," Jenny said from inside the bathroom where she was adding the finishing touches to her costume. She had made a last minute decision to go as 'Buffy' from the hit television show. Libby had suggested that they combine a few items from each of their closets to make up her costume, sparing Jenny from having to scour the local shops looking for something to wear.

"You're going as Buffy? What a cop–out!" Jamie complained as she regarded Jenny's outfit and then looked down at her own. "You get to wear normal, everyday clothes and we have to wear PVC and leather! Where is the justice?" She placed a hand over the tight fabric of her waistband and sucked in her stomach in an attempt to make it appear completely flat. "This fabric shows every lump and bump!"

"You don't have any lumps and bumps," Lisa challenged her from inside the kitchen as she stood leaning against a counter taking sips from an opened bottle of water.

Frustrated by her friend's comment, Jamie stomped out of the bathroom and into the kitchen area looking for Lisa. "Please! You look tiny and petite in your costume. Mine just draws attention to all the wrong areas."

Lisa couldn't help but smile to herself. She couldn't deny that she looked good in her outfit. She'd chosen to go as the character 'Poison Ivy' from the Batman Forever movie, and she'd put lots of effort into making her costume as accurate to the character as possible. Lisa was a fiery young woman with long red hair, which she had partly tied up onto the top of her head letting the rest flow in curls down her back. Her green Lycra outfit and hand–made mask made her a dead ringer for the comic villain. Lisa was glad that her college course had allowed her time to be in Florida for Lance's birthday party. She wouldn't have wanted to miss it for the world.

"Eurgh!" Libby continued to complain from her bedroom. "Whose God forsaken idea was it to give me Batgirl?"

"You wouldn't choose so your costume was chosen for you!" Clare said matter–of–factly as she added the finishing touches to her makeup in the large mirror that hung in her bedroom.

"Put a cork in it, Leia!" Libby sniggered.

"How do you think the guys are managing with their costumes?" Jamie asked Lisa as she tugged at the zipper on one of her black, knee high boots and jerked forward as the action set her off balance. "There's no way that they could be having as much trouble as we are. Now I know why I hate PVC!"

~~~~~*~~~~~

The men had all argued over how they were going to get Lance into his costume without him guessing about the surprise party. The only thing they'd agreed on was that they needed a fool proof strategy. In the end, they'd decided to pretend to have remembered his birthday at the last minute and made hasty arrangements to go out to Planet Hollywood to celebrate. That only left the problem of explaining the need for them to be in costume, which Joey had saved the day with, suggesting that they explain to Lance that it was a theme night. As Chris had not so helpfully pointed out, it still didn't explain why they all had perfect costumes prepared in advance, but it was hoped that Lance wouldn't notice.

Fortunately, when the time came, Lance had been so thrown by the idea of them going out for the night that he hadn't questioned the obvious flaws in their plan. He’d been more preoccupied by their choice for his costume.

"Well, Scoop," Chris said with a chuckle as he regarded Lance with a smirk on his face. "The girls will definitely be all over you tonight!"

"I look like an idiot," Lance replied as he narrowed his eyes at Chris. "I haven't forgotten that this was all your idea."

"Oh no, not mine," Chris lied, "The girls chose your outfit. And very specific about it they were too."

Lance took another look at himself in the mirror and cringed. Some birthday this would turn out to be with him looking like—

"Look at Luke Perry!" Joey spluttered with laughter as he entered the room wearing his trusty 'Superman' costume. Chris sniggered, not only at the sight of Joey once again donning his favourite fancy–dress outfit, but also at Lance's obvious embarrassment at the whole situation.

"I'm supposed to be 'Xander', Joe. From Buffy?"

"That's what I said, Luke," Joey sniggered, throwing his arm companionably around Lance's shoulder and regarding their reflections in the mirror. He puffed out his chest and placed his free hand on one of his hips.

"How comes I have to go drinking with you losers?" Lance asked as he tugged awkwardly at his tight pants. "Some birthday this is gonna turn out to be."

"Oooh! Give him a leather jacket and he turns into Little Miss Hard!" Joey scoffed.

"Hey, I'm not the one wearing tights," Lance remarked as he playfully elbowed his friend in the ribs.

Joey quickly recovered from the blow and grinned at himself smugly in the mirror. "What can I say? These legs need to be seen." Despite his frustrations, Lance couldn't help but laugh. Joey certainly had the confidence, but not the body, to be Superman.

"Holy smoke, Batman," Justin said animatedly to Chris as he entered the room in a rush, his costume a dead ringer for the character 'Robin', even down to the matching mask and cape. "We'd better go if we wanna get there on time."

"Robin, to the Bat Mobile!" Chris ordered with a whoop of joy and the pair of them charged out of the room, both humming the Batman theme tune as they went.

"I have a feeling that the bat jokes are going to wear a bit thin before too long," JC muttered sarcastically as he entered the room, having caught the last few snippets of conversation. "There's a small chance that they may be taking their characters a little too seriously."

Joey snorted at JC as the rest of the group followed Chris and Justin out of the room. "Says the guy who would only wear a costume if it came with a gun."

JC smirked at his friend and shrugged. "What’s Han Solo without his gun?"

~~~~~*~~~~~

As JC parked his Jeep besides Clare's in the car lot behind the party venue, a puzzled expression crossed Lance's face. It was dark outside, but he knew the area well enough to know that they were in the wrong part of Orlando to where they should have been.

"Aren't we going to Planet Hollywood?" Lance asked with concern as he peered out of the window at what looked like a large warehouse style building. "'Cause this ain't it."

"Chill out, little man," Joey said as he unclipped his seatbelt and threw an arm across Lance's shoulder. He pointed to the building and in a voice that he knew Lance would find creepy said, "All will soon become clear…"

~~~~~*~~~~~

Libby and Clare were keeping watch for the arrival of the guest of honour. They had arrived at the venue early to put together the final preparations for the party, and to greet guests who may have arrived early.

Although it wasn't much to look at from the outside, the warehouse—which was usually hired out as a rehearsal space for local bands—was massive inside, and relatively inexpensive to hire. Both of these reasons had convinced Clare that it was the right place to host the event.

Overall, organising the party had been a bit of a nightmare for both Clare and Libby. Clare had insisted that all the guys' families and close friends should be in attendance, if possible. Although Clare hadn't anticipated at the time what a headache that would be to coordinate. It had taken them both weeks to finalise the guest list, send out the invitations and wait for the RSVP's to arrive. Despite the odd polite refusal, the final head count had been encouraging and as Clare gave the room a final once over before Lance arrived, she was reassured to see so many people mingling and having a good time. Her and Libby's hard work had definitely paid off, and Clare was proud of what they had managed to achieve together for their friend.

~~~~~*~~~~~

"SURPRISE!" Everyone roared as the main doors opened and Lance walked in, completely oblivious to what was happening. The rest of the group trailed in behind him, their faces lit up with huge grins.

Lance's eyes widened and his jaw dropped in shock as he peered at all the faces beaming back at him. His expression was priceless, and Clare felt a shiver of satisfaction that she'd managed to pull off her first surprise party.

Diane Bass, Lance's mom, walked through the noisy crowd towards her son and put her arms around him, giving him a big squeeze. "Happy Birthday, my darling!" She said as she placed an affectionate kiss on his cheek.

"Happy Birthday, little brother," Lance's sister, Stacey, added as she joined her mother by his side. She also held out her arms to offer him a big birthday hug.

Lance was overcome with emotion and tried to discreetly blink away his tears as he glanced away from his family and searched the crowd for one person. Clare. Finding her, he pointed an accusing finger in her direction and laughed. "You! This had to be your doing!"

Clare shrugged modestly before breaking out into a crooked grin. She rushed towards him to offer her own birthday hug. "I was pressured," she chuckled into his ear, "but we all helped. Happy birthday, little Lance. We love you."

~~~~~*~~~~~

Lance was a good host, despite the fact that he'd had little chance to prepare. He spent a good part of the evening mingling and chatting with his guests so that by the time that he finally joined his friends, the evening was well under way.

"You would not believe how many times I've been told a Luke Perry joke," He chuckled good–naturedly as he sunk into an empty seat at the table where his friends were gathered and let out a weary sigh.

"Well, that's what happens when you come to a fancy dress party dressed as Luke Perry," Libby quipped with a giggle.

Lance narrowed his eyes at her and pretended to be offended. "I'll have to get you back for this, Clare," he said as he turned his head to glance at Clare.

"Hey!" Clare spluttered as she choked on a sip of her drink. "Your costume had nothing to do with me, Mister. You have Chris and Joey to thank for that one."

"What? They told me that you'd planned the costumes!" He broke eye contact with Clare to begin scanning the dance floor for signs of his friends. "Ooh... they will pay for this!"

~~~~~*~~~~~

After enjoying a few dances with her girlfriends, Clare went about discreetly gathering Libby, Jamie, Sara and Lisa for the special birthday surprise that they'd planned for Lance's party. They'd kept it a secret from the rest of their friends, with the sole exception of Jenny, who they'd included to help with the planning and preparations.

"Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please?" Jenny said loudly into a wireless microphone as she stood on the makeshift 'stage' where the DJ booth had been set up. As she spoke, the DJ reduced the volume of the dance track that he was playing so that Jenny's voice could be heard over the music.

Everyone in the building turned their attention towards her and the noise of conversation, which had previously filled the room, was lulled to a hush. Jenny felt her cheeks burn with embarrassment at the amount of people looking straight at her, but she took a deep breath and kept her eyes locked on Lance. She knew that if she kept her eyes fixed on him then she would be able to get through what she needed to do.

"It's my pleasure to announce that for one night only, we have a special birthday performance by the multi–talented group—No Sync!" Jenny threw an arm out behind her as the other girls slowly appeared through a cloud of dry ice dressed in identical spacesuits to the ones that the guys wore when performing.

As Jenny took a few steps towards the DJ booth and handed the microphone back to the DJ, she risked a glance back over at Lance. Despite the fact that the other girls were now seductively unzipping their space suits to reveal the same china doll outfits that the guys also wore on stage, Lance's eyes were still firmly fixed in her direction. Meeting his eyes, Jenny felt her heart jump up into her throat.

All the other members of *NSYNC were staring dumbfounded at the stage, their faces locked in similar expressions of awe and surprise.

Sara had placed a blonde wig over her own hair so that she resembled Lance. Lisa was also wearing a wig and had drawn a goatee over her chin and upper lip with brown eyeliner pencil to match Joey's beard. Jamie had painstakingly platted her long, dark hair to give it the appearance of dreadlocks, just like Chris wore. And Libby had had no trouble curling her short, blonde hair to match Justin's trademark curls. Only Clare had struggled with her impersonation, somehow having to find a way to make her long, dark hair appear as short as JC's. She'd applied handfuls to hair gel to it, but had ended up turning it into an impromptu quiff at the last minute. It wasn't as good a likeness as the other girls had managed to pull off, but Clare knew, as the opening notes of 'Tearin' Up My Heart' burst out over the speakers and the girls began to dance along to the music, that all of their hard work had been worthwhile.

They performed another two songs before they took a quick bow and disappeared 'backstage' to get changed back into their fancy dress costumes. They were exhausted but thrilled by the applause and the reaction of the crowd.

~~~~~*~~~~~

As the girls re–entered the party, they were greeted by loud applause and catcalls from the members of *NSYNC. The women headed straight over to their table feeling flattered by the attention but slightly overwhelmed at the same time.

"Honey, that was great!" Joey said as he sought out Lisa and gave her a kiss on the mouth.

"Thank you, baby," Lisa replied and flashed him a big grin.

"Those voices definitely need some coaching though!" Chris added playfully as he exchanged glances with Justin, who sniggered.

"We're not planning on doing it as a profession, Lucky," Jamie said sarcastically as she narrowed her eyes at Chris.

"Thank God for that!" Justin chuckled under his breath, just loud enough for the girls to hear.

"Yeah, we wouldn't want to put you out of business, would we?" Clare retorted with a grin.

"I really don't think there'd be any danger of that happening. Not unless people start to enjoy listening to the sound of cats being strangled," Chris replied with a smirk.

"Well, I thought you were pretty good," Jenny said as grinned over at Clare receiving a smile for her efforts.

"Thank you, Jenny. At least some people have taste!"

~~~~~*~~~~~

At the end of the night once the majority of the guests had left, everyone began the unenviable task of cleaning up after the party. The only way that Clare would get her deposit money back was if the building was left in a similar state to the way that it had been found. It meant that as many pairs of hands were needed as possible or the clean–up would take all night. What was left of it, at least.

"Nope, not you," Clare said as she walked over to Lance and removed the half–filled bag of rubbish from his hands. She pointed in the direction of the exit. "You get to go home."

"Come on, Clare. You need my help here," Lance argued as he gestured around the room at all the chaos that was left after the celebration. There were streamers hanging from the ceiling that still needed taking down, not to mention the masses of balloons that needed collecting, popping and clearing away. The tables were crowded with empty glasses and bottles, and the floor was littered with small pieces of glitter paper and silly string that the guests had thrown at Lance as he'd blown out the candles on his birthday cake.

"You're the birthday boy, you’re not meant to be cleaning up after your own party. Now, please, go home."

Lance looked at Clare helplessly. "Let me help. Please. I don't want to leave all by myself knowing that you're all here clearing up after my party."

"Sorry to interrupt," Jenny said in a small voice as she overheard their conversation and figured that now was as good a time as any to butt in. "But if you're leaving, could I possibly share a cab with you? I missed the last bus awhile ago and don't fancy getting a cab by myself at this hour."

Lance turned to her with a relieved smile. "It would certainly be fine with me," he assured her.

Jenny turned to Clare, who was watching the exchange between them with a raised eyebrow. "Are you sure that you don’t mind, Clare? Us leaving you with the clearing up, I mean."

"I'm sure we'll get on just fine without you two," Clare said with a smile as she glanced around the building at her other friends. She spotted Justin at the other end of the building standing close behind Libby's back, one of the many balloons that the girls had blown up and used for decoration held between his hands. Before Libby had a chance to notice his presence, Justin held the balloon close to her ear and popped it, causing Libby to scream in surprise and turn around to chase after him as he took off across the building. Clare shook her head and turned back to Lance and Jenny.

"Besides, I have my other slaves to help me," she quipped. "Now, you two, go and get out of here!"

~~~~~*~~~~~

It took around ten minutes for Lance and Jenny's cab to arrive, yet the pair of them decided to wait outside the building rather than inside. They lingered on the curb, their eyes sweeping the street for signs of their lift as they both awkwardly considered what to say next. It was Lance who was first to break the silence.

"So what subjects are you studying at college?" He asked shyly.

Jenny blushed but pushed through her embarrassment, relieved that he had been the first one to speak. "Computer studies," she told him. "I want to go into web design."

"Web design. That's interesting. Did Libby tell you that she runs the website for the group?"

"Yeah, she did," Jenny said with a smile and then realised that she'd run out of things to say. Lance, once again, took the lead.

"So what do you do with your free time when you're not studying?"

Jenny blushed once more, catching Lance's attention. He found her blushes completely charming. "Oh, I have a job at the college cafeteria. To help pay for my studies, you know. But other than that I like to read, go see movies..."

"Awesome, me too. Actually, funny you should mention that... we're planning to go sometime this week as a group. Would you be interesting in coming along?"

Jenny glanced at him, wide eyed. Is he really asking me to the movies? Lance from *NSYNC? "I... err..."

"I understand if you're busy. To be honest, the plans aren't completely finalised yet."

"What are you going to see?" Jenny asked him whilst telling herself that no matter what he said, she had to say yes.

"Dunno really. I guess it'll depend who comes along. Shall I get Libby to give you the details nearer the time?"

Jenny took a deep breath and forced herself to look him in the eye. "Or maybe we could swap numbers, and you could call me yourself?" Wow, that was brave, Jenny, she told herself as she nervously held her breath. If he didn't brush her off now then he was definitely interested in her.

"Yeah, sure. That sounds even better," Lance replied with a grin as he reached into his jacket pocket for his cell–phone. It turned out that his birthday wasn't such a wash out after all.

"Here's our cab," Jenny told him as she noticed the car drive past them a little way before stopping at the curb. Lance looked up from his phone where he was scrolling through his list of numbers to find his own. He'd never had much luck memorising his own cell–number.

Lance gestured for her to go ahead and they made their way over to the car side by side. I like this girl, he thought to himself as he held the door open for Jenny to slip in and slide across the leather seats to make room for him. He ducked into the cab and smiled at her as he pulled the door closed behind him. Yes, this is turning out to be a pretty awesome birthday.

~~~~~*~~~~~