Chapter 1

It was a couple weeks before Christmas and Meredith was in her room wrapping gifts. She was immersed in a mixture of silver, gold, reds, greens, and whites. It was always her job, every Christmas, to wrap all the presents, even her own. She was very content by herself, listening to Nat King Cole on the radio when her mother came up and handed her a small box, taped on all sides.

"This one is from us to you. Don’t open it."

She took the small box and looked at it carefully before beginning to shake it. "Yes ma'am. Hmm..."

"Don’t shake it!"

She tossed it on the floor and continued with the other gift she was wrapping at the time. "Gift Certificate or Money. Thanks mom."

Her mother shook her head. "You're horrible."

"Thanks!"

Her mom left her there and she spent the next few hours finishing her wrapping. She was content with herself. Christmas was her favorite time and she tried not to let it get to her that it would all be over with soon and she'd have to wait a whole year for it to come again.

Christmas came and her gift turned out not to be what she had expected. Instead it was a piece of paper folded neatly in an envelope that looked very prestigious and professional. Her dad encouraged her to read it when she gave them all a confusing look.

She read the letter aloud and when she was done she looked at her parents and sister confused to pieces. "What does this mean?"

Her father rested his ankle on his knee and cocked his head to the side. "Well Johnny Wright is a college buddy of mine and has made a fortune managing music acts. I asked him for a favor. So, if you'll accept you'll be working for him this summer, as soon as school is out."

She scoffed and rolled her eyes at her father already making plans for her. "Thanks for running it by me."

"It's in Florida. You'll be away from home. Johnny is like a brother to me-"

"I've never heard you mention him before."

He sat up a bit and stared at his daughter. "Do you think I'd let you go down there if I didn’t think it was safe?"

"True." She was uncomfortable with all this. She didn’t really feel good in new situations with new people and knew that if she said no her parents would some how force her to go. They were always trying to get to out of the house. She liked being a hermit. She liked being alone.

But maybe it was time for a change.

Her older sister’s bubbly voice spoke from the floor, where she was sitting Indian style. "Think of it Mere! You'll get to meet Britney Spears and Nsync and all those cool people."

"Joy!" She said sarcastically.

"Alright Alright, so do you want to do it or not? If you don’t accept it you know you'll be finding yourself a job here."

Here came the forcing. "Ewww."

"Exactly."

She shrugged and nonchalantly threw the letter and box it came in on the floor. "What do I have to loose eh?"

"That's the spirit." Her mom said.

She had a weird feeling about this. It would be 4 months away when she would go and meet Johnny and the rest of the people she would be working for and with. But she knew, somehow, this would change her.

And she didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

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A few weeks later

She couldn’t sleep. A nightmare she had long tried to forget had come back to haunt her. And now she as lying in bed, sweating, afraid to close her eyes and have it continue.

She had to stop it.

She swung herself out of bed, went to the bathroom and fixed herself a bottle of water. She took a sip and looked at herself in the mirror. She looked horrible. Her eyes were sunken in, her face was pale and her face looked too thin, too stretched, too old for her 17 year old self. She blindly opened one of the drawers below her sink and pulled out 2 orange bottles. Her hands shook as she pried the caps open and she only felt better once she had swallowed a dosage and gulped down the rest of her water.

She tried going back to sleep, but sleep failed.

She resorted to flipping on the TV and channel surfing. She landed on MTV and was met with her future bosses. She wondered how they were in person. If they acted as silly on camera as in real life? Did they look the same? Were they stuck up? She really didn’t listen too much of their music but occasionally found a song of theirs peppy.

She couldn’t believe little old her would soon be in their midst. She had never met anyone famous before and these guys were more than famous. They were international celebrities.

She was nervous now, but she forgot her dream.

Instead of going to sleep she stayed up another hour, watching late night rerun of this boy band playing at a ski resort.

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Early May

It had been almost 3 months and about 10 personally one on one phone calls to Orlando later, that here she was, little Meredith on a plane ride to Orlando. She was unusually calm, and once she had left her parents at the gate and boarded, she felt empowered and her own individual. Maybe this would be really good for her. She hadn’t left the small 10 mile radius of her home town in years and now she was leaving for good, well, at least for the summer.

She had graduated high school a couple days before and was now going to start her life as a woman. In a month she would be 18, free and her own being. She was invigorated.

And she couldn’t wait to land in Orlando and finally start on this brand new adventure, the first of her early adult life.

But a couple hours later, lost in the madness of the airport, she didn’t feel so secure about her brand new adventure. Someone was supposed to be there with a sign. She had talked to Johnny on the phone the day before and told her he was unable to pick her up personally, but would have someone there for her with her name on a sign as soon as she left the airplane.

But that was 30 minutes ago. Her crappy cell phone had died somewhere over Georgia and all the payphones were either out of order or in use. She started to panic.

“Excuse me.”

She turned to see a huge African American man peering down to her like she was David and he was Goliath. Too bad she didn’t have a sling shot. “S- sorry.” She said quietly, thinking she was in his way.

“Are you Meredith?”

“Huh? How do you know my name? What?” She was slightly confused.

A slight smile softened his tough expressions. “I’m Dre. Sorry about the delay. Melinda was supposed to pick you up but she got a flat somewhere and so I sped over here but traffic was bad. Have you picked up your luggage and everything?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not a kidnapper, but I am one of the guys’ bodyguards. You’re safe with me, honey.”

“Uh, if you say so.” Her eyes were wide.

His phone rang and he looked at her sincerely as he pulled it out of his pocket. “Excuse me.”

She watched him talk on the phone and listened to his side of the conversation. “Yes sir. I got her, I could tell by your description. American Eagle spokesperson with brown hair and big eyes. She looked a little lost.”

She looked at him. How dare him make assumptions about her based on her dress attire! “Hey! I do not ONLY wear American Eagle!”

“We’ll be there as soon as possible. Uh huh, peace.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Who was that?”

“Johnny Wright.”

It made her feel a little better when he said those words. At least now she was positive he wasn’t a kidnapper. “Oh ok.”

“Come on. Follow me.”

She followed him through the airport to a black SUV that was parked and waiting there. They got inside, Dre in the front with another man driving and her in the back.

Dre turned around after making a phone call. “Meredith this is Roy. He drives for us.”

“You can’t drive yourself?

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Thirty minutes of silence went by, well besides the sound of the road, the light rap station playing on the radio and Dre on the cell. She thought she had dozed off, but in reality was just taking in the Florida scenery. The last time she was here, she was 8 and at Disney World. They were pulling up to a gate, which opened for them and she then watched a rather huge nicely manicured yard that could probably fit a golf course go by. The driveway wove around a little and soon she was at a big, kind of cabiney/ranch style house. Before she was able to open the door, Dre had it opened for her.

“We’re here.”

“Whose house is this?” She asked taking it all in.

“This is the WEG compound.”

She nodded slowly. “Ohhhh.”

“Yeah, oh. Let’s go find the guys.”

She heard the sounds of a basketball being bounced and sneakers squeaking a little and boys yelling and shouting and talking to one another. They walked around the back of the house and she found 4 sweaty boys passing a basketball between them and fighting over it. The tallest one, with curls being tamed by a black bandana, made an easy lay-up and started high fiving one of his counterparts. But when he looked up, he stopped moving.

When his eyes met hers she stopped breathing. They were the most pure and beautiful blue eyes she had ever seen.

“Hey guys, come here and meet your new little tour helper.”

One of them with blonde hair ran up to where they were, followed by another darker haired one. “This must be MEREDITH!”

“Uh, yeah.” She said quietly, a little shy to be attacked like they were doing.

“Hey, I’m Joey. Johnny has said a lot about you.”

She shook his outstretched hand. “Thanks.”

“Hi, I’m Lance.”

“Nice to meet you.”

Lance looked behind him to another dark haired guy was bent over, messing with his shoe. “JC hurry up.”

“Sorry I had to tie my shoe.” He said, running up a little sheepishly.

“That’s JC. And Chris went to the bathroom.”

Joey quipped. “He probably fell in.”

The one with the bandana had sauntered up slowly. He was sweaty in his basketball shorts and gray tank top, but looked enticingly good. He was standing a little farther behind the others. She smiled at him. “Hi, I’m Meredith.”

“Yeah, I know.” His voice was flat.

“That’s Justin. He’s pmsing.”

He hit the one named Lance. “Shut up.”

“It’s nice to meet you Justin.”

He rolled his eyes and moved his attention to the rest of the guys. “Yeah, whatever. Come on, guys, lets finish this.”

“Way to be rude Justin.” JC said.

He had already started to turn back to the basketball court when he stopped and said exasperatedly, “You aren’t gonna finish?”

“No, we have company,” one of them said.

“She won’t be company for long fellows. She works for you. I expect you all to get to know each other. You’ll be spending a lot of time together, ok?”

They all looked to the right, where a man in a polo shirt and jeans was walking out toward them. Meredith smiled; it was a welcome and familiar voice. “Johnny?”

He got to her and gave her a small hug. “Hello Meredith. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you in person. I’m gonna show Meredith around, if any of you want to come along, please do.”

“I’ll go,” said Lance.

“Me too.”

“Me free!” Joey said in a baby voice.

She was a little astonished and laughed a little. “Good lord, are you all always this animated.”

“Their actually rather tame right now. Don’t worry, they’ll try to show off for you soon enough.” Johnny said, then looked over at the one in the bandana, now dribbling a basketball on the court. “Justin, you comin’?”

“No.”

“Suit yourself.”

They toured the whole complex and that night they had a fancy catered dinner there on the grounds. It was nice, except for the fact that Justin kept rolling his eyes whenever she would talk and never seemed to care what she had to say. She didn’t even say that much, being the shy type that she was in new crowds, but it made her more insecure to have him blatantly dislike her.

He didn’t even know her.

A week passed and she got to know the guys a lot better. She went out to eat with them occasionally and let them show her their “at home” lifestyle. They tried to brace her for what the tour life would be like. She got to spend time with each of them and learned things about them she loved. JC was great to talk to, and she loved hanging out and being silly with him. Chris was spontaneous and kept her laughing so much she almost would pee her pants. She always felt protected with Joey and Lance brought her the down home southern charm she was use to from her home state. But Justin, well, he never hung out with her. Even if all the other guys were there, he wouldn’t talk to her and wouldn’t pay attention to her.

She had to admit he was attractive beyond her thoughts. He was so good looking, in fact, she found herself staring at I’m at times, and she couldn’t help herself. She found him staring at her too sometimes. But his eyes were cold and confusing.

She was excited for her new job, she liked everyone she had met, the bodyguards, the staff, the guys, everyone and she had only met about 10% of the people she’d be in contact with. But Justin, Justin made her worry, and she only hoped that soon she’d get to the bottom of his unnecessary hatred of her. Or at least get him to stop throwing daggers at her, every time he looked at her.