“No way in hell!” Came Darcie’s angry tone as she moved through the racks of bathing suits, trying to find the one that Ami had sent her to find.

“Oh come on Darcie!” Joey exclaimed as he followed her between the racks, “You can’t go to Cancun and not have a bathing suit.”

Darcie stopped and pulled the leg of her jeans up, “Does it look like my pasty ass gets much sunlight?”

“But it’s Cancun!” Joey whined.

“I don’t care!” Darcie mocked him, “The last thing anyone wants to see is my blinding white skin. Not to mention I have a nasty ass scar on my shoulder that not too many people want to look at.”

“You’ll be with us, and we won’t care!”

Darcie rolled her eyes as she finally found the suit she was looking for and stormed back over to the fitting rooms, thrusting it at Justin. “Give this to her, I’ll be in the food court.”

Darcie wrapped her arms around herself as she left the store. It had been several months since she and Ami had told the guys what had happened to Darcie. In that time the guys had managed to finish most of their new album and their lawsuit was settled against Lou, they were finally free.

To celebrate they had decided to fly their families out to Cancun for Christmas, and that had of course, included Ami and Darcie.

~ * ~

“I don’t care Chris, I can’t afford to go!” Darcie told him, “And I highly doubt Ami can either.”

“Lance is writing her ticket off as a business expense since she’s his personal assistant now.” Chris told her. “I can pay for yours; think of it as an early Christmas present.”

Darcie turned away from the vegetables she was chopping and pointed the knife at him, “You are not paying for me Christopher.”

“Come on D!” Chris pleaded, “You need this vacation as much as we do!” 

Darcie sighed and went back to her vegetables. “Chris, I just got this job, and my boss is already pissed that I’ve taken off three months next year for the record promotion and first two weeks of the tour. Not to mention that I’ve made myself unavailable on weekends, which believe me, retail bosses don’t like.”  

“So then why did you take that job?”   

“I couldn’t get a nine to five and I needed something!” Darcie sighed and rolled her neck.   

“Then quit and come work for me instead.” Chris said, “All of us have been thinking of getting PA’s since Lance got Ami working for him.”  

“Chris you have one.” Darcie told him, throwing the knife down in frustration, “Danielle does everything that you need when it comes to Fu-Man remember?”  

“I never said be my PA for Fu-Man.”  Darcie turned and stared at him, “And just what would I do, answer your fan mail?”  

“Not exactly.”  

“So that means you haven’t thought of anything for me yet.”  

“It’s not that.” Chris told her, “It basically means you’re in charge of making sure that I remember to set my alarm, feed my dogs, run errands for me.”  

“So I’m a mix between your babysitter and your personal slave.”  

“Exactly!” Chris laughed, “Come on D, think about it.”  

~ * ~

Now it was a month later and she had taken Chris up on his offer. It hadn’t been as bad as she thought it would be. At first he tried to get her to do stupid things, like phone her at four am asking her to make sure that she didn’t forget to come by and wash his underwear for him since he had none for rehearsal that day. Darcie walking in with a bucket of cold, soapy water and dumping it on him an hour later got him out of it really quick.

Now the worst thing she had to deal with was Danielle when she was having a bad day and couldn’t get a hold of Chris. The rest of the time she got to sit and watch them record. The rest of the time she ran minor errands for not only Chris but the other guys as well. In fact, they five of them had officially hired and Ami as their personal assistants.

Darcie jumped when her cell phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket and glanced at her caller id. When she saw it was Ami she tucked it away and kept walking. She moved to the side to let a woman with a stroller pass her and happened to look in the window of the store across from her.

Darcie felt her lips pull into a smirk, “They want me to wear a bathing suit, and they’ll see me in a damn bathing suit.”

~ * ~

Darcie and Ami were the first ones on the private plane that the guys had hired for the trip to Cancun. They sat down in their seats and Darcie immediately started flipping through her CD’s.

“So has JC asked you out yet?” Ami asked causing the CD’s to slip from Darcie’s hands.

“What?”

“You heard me.” Ami said, putting her head back, “You guys have been together a lot over the past couple of weeks.”

“I work for him.” Darcie muttered.

“So do I and I’m not sleeping at his house and going for dinner with just him.” Ami pointed out.

Darcie felt her cheeks turn red, “Yeah, well what about you and Justin?”

“Believe me, if he had asked me out, you would know it.” Ami said, but her cheeks were turning as red as Darcie’s.

“Dare I ask why you guys are all red?” Joey asked as he and the guys made their way onto the plane.

“Well you know we had to get our quickie in before you all got on the plane.” Darcie told him sarcastically.

“Thank God our mothers are on the later flight.” Chris said, sitting next to Darcie.

Darcie rolled her eyes and leaned her head back to sleep her way through the flight.

~ * ~

Darcie sighed as she lay down on the bed. “This is heaven.”

Ami turned her head from where she was laying on the bed beside Darcie’s, “Do you think we could convince the guys to buy us beds like these?”

“How do we make it a business expense?”

“We can promise that we won’t be cranky when Justin wants Starbucks at four am.”

“If it meant that I could have this bed, I’d do Chris’s laundry for a month.” Darcie sighed.

Both girls stared at the phone when it started ringing. “You answer it.”

“You’re closer.”

Ami rolled her eyes and stretched her fingers out to see if she could get the phone. Her hand closed over the receiver and brought it to her ear. Darcie closed her eyes and tuned out the conversation, but glanced at Ami when she hung up.

“The boys are going to the beach and according to Justin we have to be dressed and in the lobby in ten minutes.”

Darcie sighed and sat up, “I knew it was really his ego and not gel that held those curls up.”

~ * ~

“Darcie comes on!” Chris called from the water, “There’s no point in tanning since what isn’t covered by clothes is covered in SPF five thousand!”

Darcie flipped Chris off over the top of her book, “I’m not tanning I’m reading.”

She gasped as the book was yanked from her hands. She watched JC dog ear the page before placing it on the sand next to the lounge chair she was sitting on.

“Come on D, you’re on vacation!” JC teased her.

“I’m well aware of that, hence why I’m reading.” She said dryly.

“You’re always reading.” Justin called over from where he was trying to dunk Joey.

“It’s something you do when you’re literate.” Darcie shot back.

Darcie let out a startled shriek as JC scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder. “You’re coming swimming. You can’t come to Cancun and not at least step foot in the water.”

“I stepped foot in the water.” Darcie pouted.

“Coming and giving me a hair elastic doesn’t count!” Ami called to her.

“Traitor.” Darcie hissed through clenched teeth, “Alright I’ll go in, but at least let me take my clothes off.”

Darcie’s comment made it possible for Justin to knock Joey over, and she laughed as JC set her down and Joey resurfaced looking completely unimpressed with the younger boy.

“You’re going to skinny dip?” Joey called out to her as he tried to grab Justin.

“You wish.” She muttered as she stomped over to the chair she had been laying on.

She turned her back to the guys and pulled her shirt over her head, tossing it onto the chair. She kicked off her flip flops as she undid her capris and hooked her thumb in the waist band. She took a deep breath and pushed them off her hips.

“Damn girl!” She heard Justin call out.

Darcie blushed and turned around fiddling with the bottoms of her suit. She wasn’t used to anything resting so low on them that she kept thinking they were falling down.

“Where the hell did you get that from!” Ami called out from beside Lance, “I don’t remember seeing that one!”

“That’s ‘because I got it at another store.” Darcie laughed as she made her way to the water.

“You are such a cow!” Ami said, kicking water at her.

Darcie stopped as she reached JC and touched his chin, pushing his jaw up. “You’ll catch flies that way C.”

“Hold it!” Chris shouted as she began to wade into the water, “What is that!”

Darcie looked down to where he was pointing at her hip and muttered a curse. “It’s a tattoo Chris.”

“Does your mother know you have that?” He demanded.

“Considering she has a matching one around her ankle, I’d say so.” Darcie told him. “We got them before we moved here.”

Chris moved closer and examined the lettering that curved over her hip bone. “What does it say?”

“Seize life.” She told him, “It’s in Latin.”

Darcie and Chris gasped as water hit them both and they turned to glare at the four grinning faces. Darcie and Chris glanced at each other before launching themselves at their friends, not noticing that JC still stood on the beach, staring after Darcie.