It was an ordinary morning, or as ordinary as possible with five young men who practically lived in each other’s pockets. Chris and Justin were sitting on the floor playing video games and didn’t dare let their eyes stray from the TV in fear that their opponent would win. Lance sat on one end of the couch typing away on his laptop, while JC sat on the opposite end writing in his notebook.
Just then Joey stumbled into the room looking disheveled and exhausted. Lance was the only one who looked up from his work. The other three were too engrossed in what they were doing.
“Good morning, Joe,” Lance said.
Joey grunted as he sunk into the chair next to the couch. He closed his eyes. He hadn’t gotten that much sleep, so he wanted to try to catch a few more minutes. This proved difficult when Justin and Chris started shouting at the TV.
“I’m going to win! Just a little more…”
“C’mon, move faster you piece of crap!” Chris shouted at his player.
“Guys, can you keep it down please?” Joey asked while leaning his head back and rubbing his temples in an attempt to ease the pain. However, his request was ignored. Justin and Chris were way too involved in the game to hear Joey and continued to shout encouragement and obscenities to their player. Finally Joey couldn’t take their screaming anymore, so he walked over to the TV and pulled the plug.
Justin and Chris looked at the blank screen, each other, and the black screen again before they shouted ‘no’ simultaneously.
Chris turned his eyes onto Joey. “What did you do that for, man?”
“Yeah I was just about to win,” Justin piped in from his spot on the floor. Joey looked at him and Chris.
“I asked you guys to turn it down,” Joey said annoyed that they were giving him a hard time over nothing.
“Oh look who it is! It’s Mr. Crankypants,” Chris replied.
“Oh come off it, Chris. You’re only upset because you know I was going to beat you,” Justin told him with a smug expression on his face.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” Chris pounced on Justin and they began to wrestle with each other. Joey just rolled his eyes and went back over to his chair. They were being a little quieter, which could give him the peace he needed to catch a few Z’s.
Lance watched Joey as he folded himself into the chair while closing his eyes and clutching his throbbing head. Lance turned his attention away from Joey for a minute and saw that JC had been watching him too. Lance raised his eyebrow in silent question; he knew they needed to talk about Joey. JC nodded in response.
However, before they could get the conversation started a knock at the door startled them. They looked at each other and sighed. It would have to wait.
JC got up and answered the door. It was the room service they ordered for breakfast. There was a wide spread of food, so the guys helped themselves. Chris and Justin had stopped wrestling and were attacking the food instead.
Lance plugged the TV back in and the five of them sat quietly as they ate their breakfast while watching a Happy Days rerun. Once they finished eating they stacked their plates on the room service cart and got ready to begin another day.
“Yo, Lance! What’s the plan for today? Justin asked.
Lance checked his watch. “We have a radio interview in 15 minutes. Then we have to meet with Wade because he wants to make sure we have the two-step part down pat.”
Chris groaned. “No, not the slave driver. We’ll be there all day.”
“Well you know if you didn’t screw around as much, he wouldn’t have to get on your case,” Lance replied.
Chris mumbled something that sounded a lot like “suck up” before he walked out the door with the other four following behind.
------------------------------------------------
“Step 1, 2, 3, hop, hop, jump, kick, turn, and…done.”
Wade watched the five of them look at each other and smile. They knew they had gotten it perfect that time. Everyone was in their correct position and nobody got stepped on.
“Okay guys, I think we’re done for today. Whatever our problem from yesterday was seems to be fixed. Go home and get some sleep. You’ll need it,” Wade said and waved his hand, dismissing them.
They all grabbed their towels and guzzled water as they began to leave the dance studio.
“Hey, what’s the deal for dinner?” Joey asked.
“Ah, good ole Joey, always wanting to know about food,” Justin said and laughed as they went up in the elevator. They were fortunate enough to have a dance studio in the hotel, so they wouldn’t be mobbed by fans outside.
“We’re going to order pizza in Lance’s room and just hang out being it’s our last night off before the tour starts again,” JC answered as they got off on the fourteenth floor.
“That’s cool. I’m just going to get changed and I’ll be over,” Joey said and the others agreed. The five of them went into their separate rooms to get changed. Before Joey could reach his room he was pulled back by Lance.
“Yeah, Lance?”
“Are you OK?”
Joey looked at Lance for a minute and blinked. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Lance was going to argue, but knew that it wouldn’t get him anywhere. Instead he let Joey go into his room.
“I guess I’ll see you in a few minutes then,” Lance said as he headed for his room. When the five of them met in Lance’s room ten minutes later, the pizza was ordered and on its way.
All of them were sprawled out in various spots in the room just lounging. While they waited for the pizza to show up they talked about the radio interview they did that day.
“Could you believe some of the questions they asked? ‘What color crayon would you be and why?’” Justin asked.
“Oh, come on, it wasn’t that bad,” Lance defended.
“You’re just saying that because you enjoyed answering the question, dork,” Chris replied.
“I am not! It was a nice change from answering the same questions over and over again.”
“Yeah it was different. Instead of asking us which animal we’d be, they asked which crayon,” Justin said.
The others were saved from a verbal argument that they knew was coming when there was a knock on the door.
“Food’s here!” Joey exclaimed as he jumped up to answer the door all the while pulling a fifty dollar bill out of his wallet. Joey paid the delivery guy and carried the pizza over to the coffee table.
Joey deeply inhaled the smell as he lifted the lid and sighed. “Ah, cheesy.” He slid a couple of pieces onto his plate and began to eat. The others began to dig in as well.
“Joey?” Joey looked up at JC, barely pausing as he was eating. “What color crayon did you pick to be?”
“Why?” Joey asked curiously.
“Well, Justin bringing up the question made me wonder, and I don’t think you answered,” JC explained.
“Ha!” Lance exclaimed. “You see, Chris, it really was an interesting question.”
“Yeah, yeah. I still think you’re a dork,” Chris mumbled.
“Anyway, Joey, what crayon would you be?” JC asked again to get back on track.
Joey thought for a minute before saying, “Strawberry.”
“Strawberry’s a fruit, you nut,” Justin said.
“Nut? I thought we were talking about strawberries?” Lance asked with fake innocence. The others looked at each other and then chuckled appreciatively at Lance’s joke.
“Seriously, Joe, strawberry is a fruit, not a crayon.”
“Would you like me to find a box of crayons and show you?” Joey looked at Justin before continuing, “It’s a color.”
“No, it’s all right. We’ll take your word for it.”
“Why strawberry?” JC leaned in because he wanted to know the reason behind it.
“Because if I got hungry I could just eat a piece of myself,” Joey replied. The others burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Joey asked, setting aside his pizza momentarily.
“Joey you can’t eat a piece of yourself,” Lance said.
“Why not?”
“Because you’d taste like wax, not strawberry, dumbass. Just because it’s called strawberry doesn’t mean it would taste like it,” Chris told him.
“Not to mention you’d be a cannibal if you did,” JC pointed out and all the guys laughed again at the idea.
Joey crossed his arms over his chest and mumbled, “You wanted to know.”
Lance realized that Joey was acting more hurt than he normally would let on. “Hey, man, we did want to know. We’re sorry for laughing, but it was just an answer we weren’t expecting.”
Joey sighed and uncrossed his arms. “I know. I’m sorry I let it get to me. I’m just really tired.”
“That’s understandable. We’ve all been busy lately,” Justin agreed.
“Not to mention Joey’s busy in another way. If you know what I mean,” Chris said as he wiggled his eyebrows up and down.
The guys all burst out laughing again with Joey joining them this time. Conversation continued as usual and after a few hours the pizza was nearly polished off.
It was late, but they didn’t want to go to back to their rooms. Instead they just hung out in Lance’s room doing their own thing. Lance was doing business on his computer and Joey fell asleep while the others were watching some new scary movie on HBO.
The movie was really creepy and the guys were eating it up. It wasn’t often they found a scary movie as good as this one, especially since they didn’t usually have a lot of time to watch movies at all.
They were so into it that they all jumped when the door suddenly slammed.
