Two hours later, that afternoon

She was propelled with force from the couch and landed on the floor with a grunt. Her gray eyes opened and she saw a familiar pair of Doc Martin's. Her neck craned back and she glared at the man standing in front of her. "Asshole."

"Get up, no sleepin' on the job, missy. Plus, I gotta job for ya."

"What is it?" She said yawning. She could smell the smoke coming from Rick as she pushed herself off the floor and flopped onto the couch. It was a nasty habit, but she had lived with it for a couple of weeks. But at times it could get annoying.

"Justin's weights came in and I need you to go find him and give him the order form and make sure he checks over it with you and make sure everything is there." Her blood started pumping at the word "Justin." He was pissed as hell at her and she was the last person that he needed to be near. She figured she'd just ruin his day even more if she spoke to him again.

"Why can't you do it?" She said, trying her best to look cool.

"We're missing part of Joey's drum set and I wanna find it before he notices."

She laughed. "You're so irresponsible."

"I swear I set it up in here, I remember this morning, putting it up. I think Chris stole it and is just trying to stress me out. Whatever. So, you gonna do this for me?"

She thought about saying no and giving him the finger and laying down and going back to sleep, but she thought this might be her chance to apologize and salvage the tiny portion of a relationship she and Justin had. "Yeah, where the guys at now?"

"Um, I'm not sure, but Justin was on the phone with his mom like 10 minutes ago in the hallway near the stage."

"Alright."

He dipped down and kissed the top of her head, while she tried to push him away. The touchy-feeliness of the *Nsync crew was starting to get a little overwhelming. "You're a doll."

"I know, just call me a fuckin' Barbie." Her voice was sarcastic as possible as he sauntered out of the room.

She sat there for a while, wondering how she was going to approach Justin without destroying anything that was left between them. She pondered why she even cared. From the moment she had been on tour he made her feel insignificant and picked on her and annoyed her to hell and back, but she kind of liked that about him. She liked his sarcastic flirting and what she hated to admit was that she liked flirting back. It was harmless and there was nothing behind his actions and words, but it made her stomach flip-flop at the thought that maybe there was something.

She groaned and stood up off the couch. A crush was stupid. A crush on Justin Timberlake was even more stupid. A crush on the one person that annoyed the crap out of you more than anyone else was the stupidest thing in the whole world. She walked out into the hallway, rubbing her eyes, trying to wake up and took her time finding someone that hated her.

She found him, cell phone in one hand, punching some numbers and his ear monitors dangling from his other hand. He was sitting on wooden part of the back stage that was painted black. His tennis shoes were beating on the wood underneath him as he swung his feet.

She thought about her approach, tried to time it and plan it so that she wouldn’t offend him, but finally realized she wasn’t trying to execute him or attack him and she should just walk up there and do it.

So she did.

He didn’t pay attention to her, just kept beating and punching and she rested her arms on whatever it was he was sitting on and leaned over it a bit. She looked up at him and his eyes moved to her for a moment. He was towering over her; the crate thing was already about four feet high. She stared at him for a while and when he didn’t saying anything to her she sighed.

"Whut?"

"Oh nothing." She sighed again and he didn’t say anything else.

A minute passed.

Another minute passed.

"What cha doin'?"

He mumbled as he talked but she managed to decipher a few words. "Enterin' a hoe's number."

"Booty call?" She said, playing along with this game.

"Yup."

"Nerd."

"Dorkchop."

She turned to him sharply and tried not to laugh. Dorkchop was a new one she had never heard and hearing it come out of his mouth was more comedy than she could ever expect. "Did you just call me a "dorkchop?""

"Go back to where you came from."

"Fine," she pushed herself away from where he was sitting and started to walk away. "…guess I won't tell you your weights came in."

"WHAT?!"

"Nope."

He reached out and pulled on her arm. "Come back here."

Kristen crossed her arms over her chest and asked, "You gonna be nice to me?"

"You tha one that fucked me up last night." His blue eyes were cutting straight into hers. She felt like a little girl who was about to get put in the corner. But then again, she felt the farthest thing from a little girl that there was. Behind the young guy that Justin was, he was all man. And she saw that in the way his eyes were looking at her. There was power behind those deep blues and charming smile.

"S-sorry about that." Her head bowed.

"Teasin' bitch."

She shot up and saw that now those powerful eyes were twinkling with laughter. "HEY!"

"So about my weights..."

Her mouth dropped and she slapped him in the arm. He faked pain. "NO! I'm not a bitch."

Just then she heard someone in the crew burst out laughing and when she looked over she saw Charles, one of the sound technicians, looking at her and laughing.

"WHAT?! I'M NOT YOU ASS!"

Justin laughed and hushed her. "Shhh."

"I WILL NOT SHH!" Her hands when flaying about. She never knew why she blew up so easily, but she did. The smallest thing could send her into a defensive temper tantrum. She usually wasn’t this bad though. It must have been Justin. Must have been the fact that her little crush was two feet from her. She was getting pissed at herself because of her immature feelings towards him and therefore she was taking it out on everyone and everything around her.

It was easier than realizing the truth.

Just then she felt a hand cover her mouth and she was being pulled with that hand towards the crate. She looked around her and saw that he had pulled her in between his dangling legs.

"Tone it down, girl." His voice was calm and soothing and her anger and frustration melted away into nothing.

"Mmmhphhfff."

"Well honey I would fuck you if I had the time but I’m such a busy-FUCKIN SHIT!"

She pulled away and wiped her mouth and pushed herself beside him up on to the crate. He stared at his palm in disbelief. "HA!"

"I'm bleeding, and I have your nasty germs. You just bit me!"

"So?"

"Naw, get off." His hand pushed her casually off the black box they were on and she had to jump off it, or fall off it.

"YOU JUST PUSHED ME! Abusive bastard."

"I know you are but what am I?"

She couldn’t believe he was pulling out a 5-year-old saying. She couldn’t believe she was there in the first place having this conversation with him. She had bit him; she couldn’t believe that either. He was turning her into a damn vampire and all he could do about it was act like a child. "Oh…my…god. I'm leaving. That's it. Later."

"Wait wait wait." She turned and walked away as she heard him say, "Hey Carl, I'll be back in 30 and we can fix these." When she looked over her should he was handing Carl his ear monitors. She rolled her eyes and turned back around and started walking.

Moments later and no surprise to her, she felt she had a shadow. She could heard his tennis shoes squeaking against the white floor that was reflecting the fluorescent lights above them. She heard him clearing his throat but kept ignoring him…

…until he started humming some peppy tune.

She stopped and he came crashing into her back. She turned and pushed him off her, hands on her hips and in a low voice said, "Whut?"

He nudged her and they walked together. "So, what's this about my weights?"

"I ain't tellin' ya."

"Pwease."

She looked at him and laughed. He had the pout and droopy eyes turned on full blast. "You think that works?"

"Yup."

She covered her mouth and contained her want to bust out laughing. "You look like Mr. Bean."

"WHO!?" He screamed and stopped.

"Ya know that British-"

An unbelievable look washed across his face and the need to laugh was now trying to be pushed away. "I know who Mr. Bean is! I do NOT look like Mr. Bean!"

She placed a hand on his shoulder sympathetically. "If it helps you to get through the day then believe it Justin."

"I'm suing you."

"For what?" She laughed some more then she turned on her heels and started walking again.

"Harassment."

"Please do not put sexual in front of that word. We had enough sex last night."

She felt a hand on her elbow and she was forced to stop as he pulled himself beside her and walked with her. "Yeah, about that. What got in you, you little vixen? I mean yeah, you were just screwin' with my mind, but damn woman, you should be sexy more often."

"I'm not sexy like this?!"

He chuckled and she was offended; a little part of her inside was hurt. "Well…"

"Ok, just stop. You're gonna piss me off and then I'm gonna piss you off. Why don’t we just go and find your weights and you can check them off and shit?"

"Can't you do it?"

"Nope. Rick told me you needed to."

"I don’t wanna," he whined.

"Tough." She pushed him into the toy room where there were several cardboard boxes; a hand truck was underneath one large box.

"Tough," he mocked her and she pointed his finger at him with a warning look.

"Watch it Buster!"

He nodded his head a little at her and picked up the stapled papers that were lying on top of the largest box. "Yes ma'am."

He pondered over the list a little and after waiting on him for about three minutes she finally plopped down on the couch, turned her body sideways and closed her eyes. He was quiet for a while. She could hear him clear his throat a bit, could hear whenever he flipped over a piece of paper. She opened her eyes and peered over the arm of the couch and saw him. He was sitting on the floor, against the wall, eyebrows furrowed and nodding his head as he read over the list and then looked over at a box and then checked off something.

He sighed and she could see the fatigue in his eyes and posture and lack of color in his cheeks. She flipped over on the couch and pressed her chin into the armrest. "Hey, are you like really pissed at me? I just meant that thing last night as a joke. I hope you didn’t take it too personal or something."

He looked up at her briefly and smiled and her worries faded. "Nah, its cool girl. I just had a rough night and morning that’s all. I didn't mean to take it all out on you, or everyone else for that matter."

"Everything ok?"

He scratched the back of his neck. "Not really."

It was extremely quiet for a while. She stared at him as he read over the checklist. She thought he was taking a very long time to look it over. He sighed again.

"Wanna talk about it?"

He slouched against the wall and looked up at the ceiling, his hands beside him; one was holding the list. "Well I didn’t sleep well last night because, well, sometimes I just don’t sleep well and then this morning my ex's lil sister called me wondering when we were gonna get to hang out. Depressed the hell outta me and so yeah, I just got a lot on my mind."

"I'm sorry." She said quietly, regretting that she had brought it up.

He rolled his neck to the side and yawned. "It's k."

But now that she had brought it up she had a burning question on her mind. It was one of those questions that had no importance at all but she were dying to find out if she was right or not. She couldn’t contain herself anymore. "Isn't that that girl that was on Crossroads that played her when she was younger?"

"Yeah…" He looked up and smiled and she watched as his smiled drop and he gave her a shocked look. "WAIT! You saw Crossroads?!"

"'Um...no." She realized that she had just tattled on herself and tried to cover up her colossal mistake with lying. She would never hear the end of this one.

He pushed himself off the floor, grabbed a pair of scissors that were magically lying on top of the boxes, and started cutting along the packaging tape. "Oh my god, you are a teeny in disguise aren't you? I bet you like Nick Carter."

"Eeeeewwww, gross. No. I like Justin Timberlake. He's hot." She deadpanned.

He looked over his shoulder and pried a box open, his muscles flexing under the tight sleeve of his T-shirt. "Damn, straight."

"Sarcasm, kid."

"Sure, sure."

She rolled off the couch and decided she would help him. She sat down on her knees, mocking his position and grabbed the scissors from him as he looked over the list again. "Everything there?"

"I think so. You saw Crossroads."

She groaned and threateningly pointed the scissors at him. "I had nothing to do and wanted to see if it sucked as much as I thought it would!"

"Ya know, if you wanna meet Brit I can hook ya up."

"I'll pass. So did you two have sex?" She giggled at the gasp she got in return. Just the reaction she wanted, and now he was under the spotlight, so her little Crossroads trip had been forgotten for the time being.

"Ok, first that’s none of your business lil Krissy and second, you just said the word sex."

"Yeah, so?" She shrugged.

"Just, wow. I didn’t even know you knew what that meant."

With her hands on her hips she turned and looked at him. She knew she didn’t talk about sex much, and she knew most guys didn’t find her type "sexy," but she wasn’t completely naïve or innocent. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You're just kinda innocent in this I don’t give a shit way."

"Right. You know very little about me then." She rolled her eyes and struggled to take the Styrofoam packaging off the weights. It was taped down so she couldn’t get it off, and the weights were too heavy anyway. Justin pushed her out of the way and with a grunt, lifted them out of the box.

"So you're a porn star?" he said.

She looked at him and smirked. He was smiling at her and it made her have this warm feeling inside of herself she had never experienced before. "Yes, I am."

"I knew it."

After struggling with the weights and getting about half of them out on the floor, they realized they were going to need the help of someone bigger. They found James who was on the security team. He mainly just checked out things but wasn’t one that was a shadow to the guys. But he was big enough, and with his help they got all the weights out. Kristen wondered how they were going to load and unload the weights from place to place but she figured she would end up building some upper body strength or end up pulling a muscle, filing law suit and getting money. Either way worked for her.

They cleaned up the room that was filled with cardboard boxes, packaging tape, and Styrofoam to use for later use, and now they were sprawled out, relaxing. Chris had stopped by once but after seeing the mess they had made he left with a surprisingly high squeal. Kristen laughed her ass off and Justin mocked him until she they were both lying on the couches what were adjacent to one another, exhausted. Justin's cell phone was on the small table closest to Kristen when it started vibrating against the tabletop and jumping around like a fly caught against a window.

"Answer it." Justin said, not moving, not opening his eyes, not doing anything but moving his mouth to form words.

"What?"

He lifted his head and looked at her with a wink. "Just answer it."

She looked at him weird at first and then gave in and answered it. The device was super small and it intrigued her. She had never owned a cell phone, let alone one that was about the size of her thumb. "Hello?"

"Yo, who dis?" She looked at Justin funny. He was laying on his side now, smiling at her and curious at to what was going on with the phone conversation.

"Don’t matter. Who dis?" She said, mocking the voice coming through the phone.

"Rell."

"Who the fuck is Rell?" She said with a little bit of attitude. Justin started chuckling to himself.

"It's Pharrell."

She said in question, "Pharrell?"

"Yeah part of the Neptunes. Ya know we did the song "Girlfriend" with them."

Her gray eyes rolled and her body sat up on the couch, putting her feet on the table in front of her. "Um...yeah. Don’t have a clue."

"Give it here," Justin said, reaching out his long arm.

"Nope."

"Gurl, lemme talk to Dirty," the voice through the phone said.

"Dirty!? I don’t even wanna know."

"Give it!" Justin pouted and thrusted his arm out again at her.

"Nope." She turned back to the phone conversation and stood off the couch. She heard Justin groan and smiled to her self. "Why you call him Dirty? "

There was a pause on the other end and a slight laugh. "Who IS dis?!"

She was just about to say something else when she felt warm arms encircle her waist and the phone was pried from her fingers. "HEY!"

"Sorry 'bout dat man. I call ya back, aiight? Later." The phone was cut off and thrown somewhere and the next thing she knew she was being picked up, kicking and screaming and his soothing voice was purring in her ear. "You're dead."

"What Dirty?!" She giggled as he threw her on the couch he had been laying on. It was warm from his body and she wanted to turn over on her stomach and smile and get all cozy and what the hell was she thinking. She liked being in his arms. And she liked it when he was close to her. And she liked it when he laid down across from her and put his socked feet right beside her head on the arm of the couch. And she liked when he took her Vans clad feet and put them on his chest, leaving his hands on her ankles. She liked it a lot. She liked him a lot.

"Hey, at least he don’t call me "juju." Ugh." He smiled at her with a beautiful smile. She hated the fact that he had to have a beautiful smile.

"That's horrible. What other nicknames you got?"

"Uh, Jay, Just, um, I don’t know, sex god." He winked. She was noticing he did that often. In fact, she had noticed that from the first day she saw him around other women, he flirted with them. The major tool he used was his eyes, and his smile, and his body, and his charm and personality and every other part of him.

"Right," she said with sarcasm, trying not to blush.

"What about you," he asked with a yawn.

"My dad use to call me Katie."

"Why!?"

She smiled and decided not to be a smart-ass and say something or roll her eyes. "K, as in Kristen; T, as in Topsell."

He looked up at the ceiling for a while, moving his hands around her ankles, pushing down on the heavy material that was hiding them. His hands were so large they completely went around them. She liked his hands. She wanted to feel his hands other places. This was getting way out of hand. "KT and JT. I like it."

"JT?"

"Justin Timberlake, biotch," he said in a joking manner.

"Are you on crack?"

"Occasionally."

"Thought so."

It was quiet for a while and when she took her eyes off the carpeted floor and looked at him he was staring at her. She gave him a weird glance, which he returned with a smile, but he didn’t stop looking at her and it made her nervous. She had already discovered her stupid, petty little crush she had on him, and she had tried her best to suppress it, but now, all she wanted to do was flip over and hold on to him and take a nap. She hated being touchy-feely and somehow she wanted to do nothing more than to cuddle with him. She had laughed at "cuddling" before; laughed at preppy girls that were obsessed with boys and gushed over them. But now she was no better than them. "Aiight, girl. I gotta go back and get my monitors fixed. They be fuzzin' up on me."

"Must you talk like that?" she said, seeing how he had pulled out the ebonics, much like his friend "rell."

"Like whut?"

She laughed and took her feet off his chest and propped them up on the back of the couch. "Nothing. Go."

"Aiight. Later KT." He swung his legs over the couch and patted her thigh gently, making her shiver. She watched as he got up and walked to the door, stretching, causing the back of his T-shirt to ride up, giving her a glimpse of his lower back. He swiped up his phone from where it was on the floor and slid it into his back pocket, smiling at her.

"Bye JT." She said with a smile, flirting almost. When he had left her all alone she turned over in the couch, sticking her face deep into the cushion hoping maybe she would suffocate and then maybe the teenybopper that had taken over her body would leave.

The old Kristen had been deserted and the new Justin-obsessed, horrible, giddy, girlie one had taken over named "KT".

And the worst part about the whole identity crisis was that she kind of liked the new "KT."