~~~~~*~~~~~

As Jamie sat in her office the next morning slowly working through the masses of paperwork that was heaped into a pile in front of her, her cell–phone began to ring. It took her a few minutes of shovelling things around on her desk before she found the phone, which had worked its way under a pile of schedules that she still needed to confirm.

Jamie was always losing her cell–phone. She was already on her eighth replacement—paid for by the company, fortunately—as she had a habit of dropping it, leaving it somewhere, or once, accidentally letting it fall into the swimming pool.

Jamie glanced at the phone's tiny screen and instantly recognised her boss, Johnny Wright's cell–phone number. He was out of town currently and Jamie felt a flutter of anxiety in the pit of her stomach at the thought of him calling her so early from a different time zone. Jamie bit down on her bottom lip as she held the phone to her ear and pressed the button to accept the call.

~~~~~*~~~~~

Jamie stormed into Clare's office half an hour later in a complete rage, startling Clare, who was staring out of the window, completely lost in a world of her own.

"What's wrong?" Clare asked her in a panicked voice as she noticed the furious expression on her friend's face.

"The damned tour!" Jamie shouted back.

"Why? What's happened?"

Before Jamie could answer her question, Libby and the five members of *NSYNC appeared in the corridor outside the office, all laughing and joking, teasing Lance about the fact that his love life was taking an unexpected turn for the better. They filed into the room completely oblivious of Jamie's fury.

Jamie turned to Clare and scowled, "God! Don't they ever knock?"

Clare shrugged and rolled her eyes towards the ceiling. "It's a problem," she agreed.

Feeling her irritation rising, Jamie decided to face the problem head on and addressed the room, putting an immediate halt to the teasing of Lance. "Look!" she said angrily, and glared at each member of the group in turn. "The tour's all screwed up! One of the UK arenas has double booked us so the whole tour has to be pushed back four weeks."

Chris let out a disappointed cry, followed shortly by the others. They'd all been looking forward to touring and had made all of their personal plans around the dates that Jamie had organised. The tour being pushed back wouldn't just affect their work lives, but their personal lives as well.

"How did this happen?" Chris asked her, his frustration evident in his voice.

"I don't know. All I know is that we booked the dates later than the previous booking so we don't get the priority. They have decided to go ahead so we have to be the ones to re–arrange. And as we only have a select window of time for the other venues, the whole tour has to be re–scheduled."

"I can't believe this," JC complained as he turned to glance at his band mates. They all shared his gloomy expression.

"Believe me, they are going to be very sorry when I ring back later to re–schedule," Jamie assured them. "This is so unprofessional, and I'm really very angry." She didn't want to say it out loud, but she was upset that all the hard work that she'd already put into the tour had been for nothing.

"So, when are we flying out?" Joey asked as he pulled his cell–phone out from one of the back pockets of his jeans and opened up the calendar tool. Now that the dates were changing he'd have to cancel some of his plans.

"Nothing is official just yet, but the plan will be to fly out on August first. That way we can still fit in three days in Birmingham, four in London and three in Liverpool. I'll have to do some negotiating around Manchester and Sheffield. The important thing is to make sure that we leave room for the VMA's in September. You'll be performing so there's no way we can miss it. If everything else goes to plan, then hopefully we should fly back on the tenth of October."

"Great," Chris replied dryly, "Guess I won't be spending two weeks in Mexico before my birthday, then."

"I know. It sucks," Jamie agreed as Joey looked up at her from his phone, his displeasure evident on his face, "but there's nothing I can do about it, I'm afraid. Johnny's furious, obviously. This really screws up everything for everyone."

"Yeah," Clare added glumly as she glanced over at Libby. Each of them had arranged their plans around the original tour dates, so it wasn't just Jamie's work that would have to be re–done.

"Great. I guess we'd better get started," Libby said to Clare.

~~~~~*~~~~~

Later on as the guys gathered in the affectionately named 'games room' on the ground floor of the building, Chris made his way over to JC, who was slobbed out across the couch, his head resting against one of the armrests. From a distance it appeared as though he was asleep, but Chris could see that his eyes were wide open and staring up at the ceiling.

As he stood over him, JC seemed to become aware of his friend's presence and his eyes flicked to Chris' face. Around them, Joey and Justin were engaged in a friendly game of pool and only Lance was missing, having gone off to check his emails in one of the empty offices down the hall. The banter between Justin and Joey was so loud that Chris had to strain to be heard over the noise.

"What's up with you?"

JC hesitated to answer and ran a hand down the side of his face and over his chin. He looked tired, but more importantly, troubled.

"Nothin'," JC mumbled as he raised himself into a seated position, giving Chris' the chance to sit down if he so wished. He tried to ignore Chris' curious expression and turned his attention to the game of pool.

"Come on," Chris said, "I know when something's buggin' ya. Out with it."

JC shook his head and let out a weary sigh. "It's not really something I can talk about here."

"Let's take a walk then," Chris suggested.

~~~~~*~~~~~

"So, what's on your mind?" Chris asked as he and JC stepped outside the building and began to follow the footpath that circled the Compound and ran alongside the lake. As soon as they were out of the air–conditioned building, the Florida sun beat down on them from directly overhead, but both men were well used to it.

"Where do I even start?" JC asked with a heavy heart.

"The beginning is usually good," Chris chuckled, but stopped short when he noticed the dejected expression on his friend's face.

"This is serious, man."

"Okay, sorry. How serious are we talkin' here?"

"Alyson serious."

"Your ex, Alyson? Alyson that you saw last night at the club?" Chris asked for clarification.

"Yeah, you know I left with her to make sure that she got home safe?"

"Yeah."

JC raised his eyebrows and looked at his friend, hoping that his imagination would fill in the gaps. Chris looked back at him blankly for a moment before the realisation hit him and he let out a knowing chuckle. "You didn't!"

"I didn't plan to. The evening just kinda progressed."

"Ooh... that's good," Chris grinned, "I'll have to remember that one myself, the evening just kinda progressed," he chuckled.

"I know it was stupid, you don't have to tell me. It's just when I saw her all of those old feelings came back and I just couldn't remember why we'd split up, you know?"

Chris nodded but chose not to say what he was thinking. He remembered why JC had split up with Alyson, even if his friend couldn't, but it didn't seem appropriate to mention at that time. "So what are you going to do?"

"I don't know. Everything has suddenly become so much more complicated. I mean, I was dancing with Clare, and everything was great and then Aly turned up—"

"And now your head is all messed up. I get it. Women have a habit of doing that to a man; whoever said that they were the weaker sex was an idiot."

Chris' attempt at a joke was lost on JC, and they fell into silence as they made their way across the car lot and back towards the main entrance of the building. Realising that he didn't have much time left to try to draw his friend out, Chris decided to ask the next question that was pressing on his mind. "So are you going to see Alyson again?"

JC shrugged. "She said to call, but to be honest I don't even know if I want to."

"Dude—"

"It's not that. I just have these ridiculous feelings of guilt over it. It's crazy, I know, but I really feel as though I've cheated on Clare." Chris nodded and gave his friend a sympathetic smile. He could completely understand why his friend would feel that way.

"I thought you might say that. Dude, you have to remember that you aren't together," he said gently, wanting to reassure his friend but not hurt his feelings. Things between JC and Clare were complicated, to say the least. "You can't beat yourself up over that."

"I know, but we both know that she's gonna be furious if she finds out. It's happened at the worst possible time, too. We've been getting along so well lately." He ran a hand through his hair and looked over at Chris. "What am I gonna do?"

Chris sucked in a breath and released it in a huff, raising his eyebrows as he prepared to answer his friend. JC's eyes searched his face, hoping that he was about to come out with an insight that might somehow make his problems easier to handle.

"I dunno, but I have to say, I'm glad I'm not in your shoes."

JC narrowed his eyes. "Thanks, Chris. That's really helpful."

"Any time, man."

~~~~~*~~~~~

Clare kindly volunteered to go round to Jamie's apartment after work to help her with the re–scheduling of the tour, leaving Libby home alone in the apartment for the evening. Although she'd initially intended to continue preparing for her upcoming exams, she chose instead to slob out on the couch, hoping that she'd be able to find something worth watching on the television to keep her occupied.

Just as she reached the end of the long list of cable channels and pressed the button on the remote that would take her back to the beginning again, Libby heard a gentle, repetitive tapping at the front door. She got up from the couch to answer the door, dragging her feet all the way, hoping that it wouldn't turn out to be a door–to–door salesperson. They always managed to find a way to talk her around despite her best efforts to say that she wasn't interested.

"Oh. What are you doing here?" Libby asked shyly as she opened the door to find Justin standing on the other side.

Justin shrugged casually and grinned at her. "Movie night," he explained, before brushing past her into the apartment without waiting for an invitation. Libby watched as he disappeared into the living room and slowly turned around to close the door behind him. Libby followed him into the living room and stood awkwardly in the doorway, watching as he flopped down exactly where she had been sitting on the couch and began fiddling with the remote to set the television to receive VCR signal.

Libby wasn't sure what he thought that he was doing. The last time they'd spoken she'd been rushing off to the ladies' bathroom to escape, and now here he was, in her home, acting as though it was perfectly normal for him to turn up out of the blue.

She hadn't been avoiding him at work—as such. It was more that she'd ensured that she wasn't left alone with him since that infamous night at the club. She'd been doing a pretty good job of it so far, but now she felt even more uncomfortable around him than ever.

"I bought a video over," Justin explained with a quick glance over at her face. It seemed to be the first time that he'd questioned whether or not his actions would be overstepping the line. "Is that okay?"

Libby hesitated. What was she supposed to say? She wasn't exactly sure if it was okay, but could she really tell him that without hurting his feelings?

"What's the movie?" Libby asked, trying to dodge the question as she took a few tentative steps towards him and tried to peep inside the carrier bag that he'd bought over with him. He quickly scrunched the opening closed with his hand and grinned up at her.

"Guess."

"Speed," Libby said confidently without needing to guess. If there was ever a choice of which movie to watch, Justin always chose Speed, and Libby could tell straight away by the smirk that appeared on his face that she was right. Libby couldn't help but smile back at him— Justin’s enthusiasm was infectious.

Libby weighed up the options in her head and debated whether or not she could handle an evening alone with him. Providing they continued to keep the mood light, she saw no reason why they couldn't enjoy watching a movie together without it becoming awkward.

Libby’s silence was enough to assure Justin that she wasn't about to kick him out, and he got up to put the VCR into the opening of the player and returned to flop back onto the couch, nestling into the cushions until he was comfortable.

Libby walked over and awkwardly perched herself onto the arm of the couch at the opposite end to where he was sitting. "So you've decided to bring over a movie to watch that you've already seen a million times before?" She said playfully.

"Hey, it's a good action movie," Justin said defensively as he glanced over at her before an expression of confusion crossed his face. He wanted to ask her why she wasn't joining him on the couch, but thought better of it at the last minute. So far his plan had worked, but he didn't want to ruin the whole thing by being too forward and scaring her off.

"Of course it is," Libby chuckled. "And there was me foolishly thinking that it had something to do with a certain leading lady!"

Justin beamed, his eyes twinkling at her. He secretly loved that she knew him so well, and he took her teasing as a positive sign that her barriers were already beginning to break down.

"Comfy?" Justin asked her with a pointed look as the opening credits began to roll on the television screen.

"Mm–hmm," Libby mumbled in reply, but Justin could tell that she was lying. He'd never seen her looking so tense and uneasy around him. There was no way that he could concentrate on the movie with her sitting in such an awkward position. It made him feel edgy to see her second guessing herself around him as they were usually so natural and relaxed around each other.

"No, you're not," Justin challenged as he reached an arm out and pulled Libby down onto the spare seat beside him. Libby gasped at him—taken aback by his sneaky manoeuvre—and hoped that her cheeks weren't too flushed by his unexpected touch. "Hey!" She protested, but Justin pretended not to hear her.

Libby didn't know what to do with herself. For once in her life her limbs felt far too long and gangly, her body seeming to take up too much space on the couch. She tucked her legs underneath her and rested her back against the cushions, but she still couldn't get completely comfortable. She glanced at Justin, who had his legs sprawled out in front of him, one of his socked feet sneakily resting on her and Clare's coffee table.

If Clare saw him do that she'd kick him out, Libby thought to herself with a wry smile.

Taking a deep breath but restricting how she released it so as not to draw unnecessary attention to herself, Libby decided to just allow herself to relax and be distracted by the movie. No doubt Clare would be home by the time that it finished anyway, and so Libby assured herself that she wouldn't have to worry about any awkward goodbyes at the front door.

Like Justin, Libby had seen the movie many times before, but even so she quickly found herself getting involved in the storyline and soon stopping thinking about him, or worrying about how uncomfortable she'd felt when he'd arrived. The time seemed to fly, and it wasn't until about three–quarters of the way through the movie that Libby realised that her legs had gone numb beneath her.

She shuffled around in her seat trying her best to get comfortable, but what she really wanted to do was to stretch out. Her neck hurt from the tension that she'd been carrying in her shoulders from sitting stiffly for so long, and she realised that it was ridiculous for her not to allow herself to get comfortable in her own apartment.

Glancing cautiously at Justin, who was completely absorbed by the movie, she slouched down in her seat so that her shoulders were resting against the arm rest and wiggled around until the rest of her body settled into a somewhat horizontal position. The only thing that stopped her from being truly comfortable was Justin's leg, which was in the way of hers. Unlike Libby, he was in relatively the same position that he'd been in when the movie had started. Libby pondered her options for a moment and then rolled her eyes at her own trepidation. After all, they were in her apartment, and were sitting on her couch.

"Move it, Curly," she said as she nudged Justin's leg with her big toe.

"Nah, I'm comfortable," Justin mumbled back distractedly, his eyes never leaving the television screen. As Libby watched him she noticed that he was so involved in the movie that he was silently mouthing the lines of dialogue along with the actors. His blue eyes were wide, and he had a cute, boyish expression on his face that Libby couldn't help but find adorable.

"Move it!" Libby persisted, and she turned her nudging into a gentle kick. She was going to get him to move even if she had to use brute force to do it.

Without moving his eyes away from the TV screen, Justin captured both of her feet in his hands and placed them directly into his lap. His fingers lingered over the arch on her right foot and before Libby could say anything, he began to gently massage her skin, his hands moving higher and higher up towards her ankle until he was practically stroking her leg.

Libby stared at him, her body frozen stiff in shock. Justin was still looking at the television screen with such a focused gaze that Libby knew that he had acted completely unconsciously. To him it had clearly felt like the most natural thing in the world to do, and Libby couldn't help but feel a thrill at the way that he'd slipped so easily into being considerate and affectionate towards her.

For the first time that evening, Libby began to wonder how she might feel if Justin suddenly broke his gaze away from the movie and leaned across to kiss her as spontaneously as he'd scooped her feet up into his lap.

As if coming to his senses, Justin's hands suddenly froze on Libby’s leg and he turned to her with such a look of panic that Libby wanted to laugh aloud. The atmosphere in the room crackled with electricity and she realised that it would take very little for them to go straight past awkwardness and into something very different. Then, all of a sudden, Justin’s smile broke and his fingers went from stroking one second to tickling the next.

"No!" Libby shrieked and began to squirm around on the couch in an attempt to free herself from his grasp. Justin let out an evil laugh as he continued to tickle her, a mischievous grin appearing on his face. He liked it when she was helpless against him and he knew that tickling was currently the quickest—if not the only—way to achieve that.

Eventually, Libby managed to get a foot free, and she kicked out at Justin without giving a second thought to her aim, or how much force she’d used. It was only when Justin let out a gasp of pain and covered his face with his hands that Libby realised that she'd somehow managed to kick him square in the face.

"You broke my nose!" Justin said in a pained voice, his words muffled by his hands.

"I'm so sorry!" Libby said as she slid across the couch to peer closely at his face, trying to gauge how badly he was hurt. She tried her best not to picture what Clare's reaction might be if she returned home to find blood all over their couch, and Justin sitting there with a broken nose. It wouldn't be the easiest thing for Libby to try to explain.

Reaching out towards him, Libby tried to carefully pry his fingers away from Justin’s face, but he quickly dodged out of the way and continued to moan aloud, his eyes squeezed shut as he struggled with the pain.

"Let me see!" Libby told him irritably as he continued to bob and weave away from her grasping hands. She had little chance of seeing how badly he was injured unless he kept still long enough for her to take a proper look.

Anticipating his next move, Libby deftly snatched at one of his thumbs and pulled it, along with the rest of his hand, firmly away from his face, her expression distorting into a cringe as she awaited the inevitable flow of blood that would doubtless be pouring down Justin’s face. To her surprise, Justin immediately burst into hysterical, whooping laughter and Libby quickly came to realise that he'd been faking the whole thing.

"You're a jerk!" Libby told Justin playfully as she smacked him across the chest with her balled up fist. Although she was annoyed that she'd fallen for yet another of his pranks, Libby couldn't help but laugh at how gullible she'd been. She really should've known better. "You had me thinking that I'd hurt you!" She told him as she narrowed her eyes.

"Nah, you kick like a girl," Justin replied with a snigger as he casually glanced at his wrist watch. He looked up and gave her a crooked smile before gesturing behind her at the clock on the wall. Libby twisted around in her seat to follow his gaze. "I'd better be off, we've got a photo shoot with Teen Beat early tomorrow and I need my beauty sleep."

It was only then that Libby turned her attention to the television screen and realised that the movie had ended. She hadn't even noticed. "Then I guess it's a good thing that you don't have a broken nose," she chuckled and offered him an apologetic smile.

To her surprise, Libby found that she was disappointed that their evening had come to an end. She'd been having a good time and had enjoyed his company. "How early is early?" Libby asked Justin as he rose to his feet and collected the video from the machine before slipping on his sneakers.

"Six–thirty," Justin replied.

Libby grimaced. Sometimes she wondered how the members of the group managed to maintain their crazy schedules. She, for one, couldn't survive without at least seven hours of sleep a night, and was a terrible grouch in the mornings regardless. Justin, however, was a bundle of energy no matter what the time of day.

"I guess I'll see you sometime tomorrow then," Libby said as she followed Justin to the front door.

"Yup, sure will," Justin said cheerfully as he swung his jacket up and over his shoulder before turning around to face her. "See ya, Libs."

"Bye," Libby said as she held the door open for him and smiled up at him shyly. "Thanks for bringin' the movie over. I had a good time."

~~~~~*~~~~~