Summary: Living with 5 popstars can be a bit much to handle, especially when they become your adopted family. What will happen when there's love, death and certain little suprises...only time will tell.
Rating: PG-13
Categories: Long Stories
Characters: Group
Genres: Drama
Warnings: violence/death, adult language
Challenges: None
Series: None
Published: 06/21/05
Updated: 03/31/06
Index
Chapter 1: Chapter 1
Chapter 2: Chapter 2
Chapter 3: Chapter 3
Chapter 4: Chapter 4
Chapter 5: Chapter 5
Chapter 6: Chapter 6
Chapter 7: Chapter 7
Chapter 8: Chapter 8
Chapter 9: Chapter 9
Chapter 10: Chapter 10
Chapter 11: Chapter 11
Chapter 12: Chapter 12
Chapter 13: Chapter 13
Chapter 14: Chapter 14
Chapter 15: Chapter 15
Chapter 16: Chapter 16
Chapter 17: Chapter 17
Chapter 18: Chapter 18
Chapter 19: Chapter 19
Chapter 20: Chapter 20
Chapter 21: Chapter 21
Chapter 22: Chapter 22
Chapter 23: Chapter 23
Chapter 24: Chapter 24
Chapter 1: Chapter 1
Author's Notes: I've noticed that more people read this chapter and then not go on. Can you please review and tell me what's lacking or missing please? It would be greatly appriciated!
I had just moved to a new home, and it was a really large home on an enormous piece of land. (It was enough exercise to walk to the front gate and back to the house.) I moved in there by myself and into an empty house. There were so many rooms; it was like a castle with only me living in it. So I placed an ad into the paper asking for some "housemates" any age, any gender, animals allowed but I also stated that it would sort of be that I looked after the house if they traveled a lot, really making it feel like I was a house sitter, but lived there personally. I thought this to be a bit strange because I mean, only guys replied to a 17 year old’s ad in the newspaper. I gave each one some thought and decided to meet them all and see what they're like. So, I rang them all up and arranged for them to meet at my place the next day. What I didn't realise, was I had said the same time to each of them. I have a habit of writing down what I'm going to say on the phone cause I hate, no REALLY hate, talking on the phone to people I don't know.
The next day, they slowly turned up one by one. They had no idea that they had all put in to live with me. I nearly died when the first guy turned up at my door. I opened the door, expecting to find a complete stranger, but instead, there was Lance Bass of *NSYNC, in a pair of green Nike sneakers, cargo pants, a blue Nike shirt and a pair of green sunglasses on.
I nearly fainted, but I came too when he said "Hey, I'm Lance or James Knight as I stated in my reply form and I'm here for the housemates ad you put in the paper."
"Come in." I said, inviting him in. I couldn't believe it, Lance Bass of *NSYNC was wanting to live with me. I was thinking of what the other four guys were going to say, or what Lance was gonna say about living with other people and then the media about Lance living with a 17 year old girl. I led Lance into the lounge room when the doorbell rang. I told Lance that I was going to be back and went and answered the door. I opened the door, ready to turn that person down cause someone famous was inside, only to realise that it was Joey Fatone.
"This so could not be happening!" I said looking at Joey standing there in a pair of black Nikes, cargos, red shirt and a red cap.
'What not happenin?" Joey asked, looking down at himself then up back at me.
Something over Joey's shoulder caught my eye. I stood on tip toe on looked over his shoulder. I saw right. There was Chris Kirkpatrick stepping out of the car. Joey saw that I was peering over his shoulder and turned to look at what I was looking at. "BUSTA! KOREA!" Joey suddenly yelled out. Two dogs jumped out of the car and ran up to Joey while Joey ran down the stairs and meet them halfway. Chris suddenly looked up to the door and saw Joey playing with his two dogs.
"Joey?!" Chris exclaimed walking towards. "Hey bud, you apply for this house too?" Chris asked Joey giving him a weird looking handshake they must have made up or something.
"Yeah, how freaky, the two of us going for the same house!" Joey said walking back up the stairs.
"Not as freaky as three." I said, finally coming into their conversation. Both of them had a puzzled expression on their face. "Number three is inside." I said pointing to the lounge room. I moved out of the door and letting them run past.
"LANCE!" I heard Chris scream as he reached the lounge room and jumped over the couch and sat next to Lance.
"What the?" Lance said, looking at Joey and Chris.
I was about to close the door when I saw a Jeep Cherokee drive up my driveway. "This better not be who I think it is." I said, but actually I was hoping for it to be. The car drove up and parked next to Lance's car at the base of the stairs and off to the side. I bent down and picked up the two dogs that Joey and Chris left on the stairs. When I stood up, there was a tall figure in front of me looking down at me. "Hey." I said.
"Hey, I'm JC, but in my form, I put down, Jason Cardoll." JC said back, "Do you know, one of my best buds have the exact same dogs?" He said, reaching out to pat Busta and then Korea.
"Well," I started, "they're probably his."
"Huh?" He said. I just turned and walked into the lounge room and JC followed me.
"Chris, you forgot your dogs." I said, placing them on the ground.
"Oh thanks you I...JC!" Chris exclaimed, looking up at JC.
"Hey, how freaky is this, all we need now is..." JC started, but was interrupted by a knock on the door. I turned and headed to the door. Opened it, and saw what I was expecting to see. I didn't say a thing. All I did was laugh.
"Girls would usually faint, with me coming up to their house and knocking on their door yet alone be this close to me, but you just stand here and laugh?" Justin asked. He was wearing a baby blue bandana that was hiding his curls, a white muscle shirt with a basketball jersey over the top, a pair of blue and white Nike sneakers and a pair of baggy jeans.
"I'm so sorry for laughing at you, but I just can't help it." I said, trying to gather myself. Then I just stood there and stared at him.
"What?" He asked.
"Hey guys." I said. I could tell Justin was getting a bit edgy cause he was unsure who the 'guys' were.
Chris jumped out from behind me. "JUSTIN!"
"Chris?!" Justin said, "Lance? Joey? JC? Okay, what is going on?" He said, noticing the others come into vision.
"Well, I put the ad into the paper." I said. "I saw the names were all of non-famous sense, but I was a bit on the puzzled side when someone's name was Loey Slimtwo." I took looked over in Joey's direction and so did everyone else.
Joey tried to explain himself "What? That's all I could think of; sure as hell I wasn't going to put down Joey Fatone." We still stared at him. "What?!"
"Anyway, I received only five, rang you all up, you all agreed to meet here, about 15 minutes ago, Lance being the only one on time and so here you are." I said.
"Before we go any further, you know our names, and we don't know yours. Care to introduce yourself to us?" Lance said, putting up his hands in order to stop the next person from speaking.
"Oh my god, you are right, that's only because I really haven't had time to introduce myself cause I've been having pop stars turning up at my place this afternoon. It's quite hectic. My name is Montana Jordan. You can call me MJ, Monty, even though I don't like that, well, just call me whatever ya want." I said. "So I'm guessing you all want to stay here then?"
I heard a chorus of "Hell yeah!" and I knew they were here for good.
"So, 'Whateva-you-want', a tour of the house?" Joey asked.
"I'll take you to your rooms so you can put down your luggage. I'm only new to this house so ya gonna have to bear with me okay?" I said turning and heading towards the stairs.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“You guys can pick your own rooms, but mine is the last on the right” I said, once we all got upstairs. This is how is worked out: Joey – first left; Chris - first right; Justin - second left; JC - second right; and Lance - last left. Once decided we all went to our rooms to settle in a bit more. Lance and I were the last to go into our rooms.
"Thanks for letting us live here, it's gonna take a while to get used to us." Lance said as we reached our doors. They were directly opposite each other and further down was another door, which I didn't know where it led to and a window at the very end with a box seat.
"I'm sure you aren't that bad." I said still facing him and reaching behind me to and placing my hand onto my doorknob.
"You'll be surprised." He said, turning and walking into his room.
I looked down the hallway and noticed how quite it was. "It shouldn't be too bad. I would just have to wait and see." I thought to myself and went into my room and was greeted by my two pugs, Bacardi and Bundy. I left them in my room so they wouldn't interfere with me meeting the guys. But now I know Chris has the exact same dogs. Luckily, Bacardi had a blue collar on and Bundy had a yellow collar. I took notice that Korea had a red collar and Busta had a black collar. But at least they respond to their own name, just in case the collars got mixed around. I picked Bacardi and Bundy up and headed to Chris' room. I ended up kicking the door with my foot cause I had no hands left to knock with.
Chris opened up the door, saw the dogs and said "Huh?" he turned and looked back into his room and found Busta and Korea playing on the floor, turned back to me and said "Yours?"
"Yep, Bundy and Bacardi." I said, looking at each one. Chris opened the door wider; I put my dogs on the ground and watched my dogs interact with Chris'. It was like the dogs clicked immediately. Chris and I watched the dogs play and we talked about anything. We ended up deciding to take the dogs for a walk in the backyard and go for a swim while we were at it. I went back to my own room, got changed and went to ask the others if they wanted to come for a swim.
Chapter 2: Chapter 2
**One week later**“Ok, we are now about to pair yourselves up in groups of two, no more, no less. The other person will be your lab partner for the rest of the semester.” My science teacher said. “People sitting on the right side of the table, look to your left, that will be your lab partner. People on the left, look to your right that’s your lab partner.” It was Friday afternoon and there were four to each table. I was sitting on the right, so I looked left and there was a girl, with hazel eyes, brown hair, fair skin and a bit shorter myself.
“Hey,” she said, “you must be new. I'm Carla, nice to meet you.”
“Hey, I'm Montana.” I said, smiling. `She's going to be a cool lab partner.' I thought to myself, and then focused back to the front of the classroom. Not too long after, the bell went.
“Now, before you go students, make sure you get acquainted with each other by next lesson in three days. Have a great weekend.” The teacher screamed out at the students leaving the classroom.
I picked up my books and headed out the classroom door, when I heard a voice from behind me. “Hey, Montana isn't it?” I turned around and there was Carla.
“Yeah.” I said.
“So, what are you doing after school?” She asked me.
“Well, I was just going to go home.” I replied, readjusting my books in my arms.
“And home would be?” She questioned.
“About 15 minutes from here, on Fernwood Drive.” I replied.
“Oh my god, I live on Fernwood Drive too! You must be my new next-door neighbour.” She said excitedly.
“How cool!” I replied. Just then, my phone started ringing. I looked at the caller ID and saw that it was Joey's mobile. “Hello.” I said, turning my back away from Carla.
“Hey wassup Montana. We're just in the neighbourhood, so do you wanna lift?” He asked.
“Yeah, if you want. Got a question, can we give a friend a lift, she lives next-door and we have to get acquainted if ya get my drift.”
“Hang on, I'll just check with the others.” He said and I could hear Joey ask the others if it was ok. It sounded like JC and Chris was in the car with him. “Yep, it's cool, as long as she doesn't faint or flip out or something.”
“Hang on, I'll just ask her.” I said and turned back around to Carla. “Hey Carla, do you want a lift or something?”
“If it's not too much trouble, beats catching the bus.” She replied with a smile on her face.
“But, you have to promise one thing.” I said.
“Umm, yeah sure.”
“Don't flip out, scream, and pass out when you see who's in the car, okay?”
“Why would I do any of those things?”
“Hang on.” I went back to the phone. “Just, can you introduce yourself and the others if possible so Carla knows what she's in for…thanks.” I passed the phone over to Carla.
“Hello,” She said, “What did you say your name was…oh ok…hey…hey...hey…yep, I'll give you back to Montana.” Carla handed the phone back to me and had a blank expression on her face. “Montana, it's JC.”
“Hey JC.” I said.
“Hey MJ, we are coming around the corner now.” JC said.
“Yep, well I better go before Carla passes out, plus I also have to get the rest of my books. Catch ya later.” I said.
“Cya.” JC said and hung up the phone.
I looked back at Carla. Her mouth was now open. I closed it for her and said, “We better go and get the rest of our books cause the guys will be here soon.” I said grabbing her arm and dragging her with me.
“That, that…” She started.
“Yes, that was them, but no one else knows, so it's has to be a secret. Aren't you glad you are my lab partner?” I asked her.
“Am I ever!” She replied as we practically ran to our lockers to get our bags and extra books.
When we got out side, I saw JC's car pull up. Carla and I quickly walked over to it before anyone else knew who was actually in the car. I opened up the car door and saw that Chris was sitting in the middle, JC was driving and Joey was in the passenger seat. “Move over pineapple.” I said.
“Ha, I shot gun the middle.” He said with a grin on his face.
“Fine.” I said and climbed into the car, over Chris and to the other side. Carla slid in next to Chris. Once Carla shut the door, we headed home. “Guys, this is Carla, Carla this is, well, I'm sure you know who they are.”
“Hey.” They all said.
“JC, quick crank it up! I love this song!” Chris said, referring to the song on the radio and started grooving away. It was My Girl by the Temptations. “What can make me feel this way, my girl!” Chris started singing.
“My girl.” Joey sang next.
“My girl.” JC followed.
“Talkin' about my girl.” Chris continued.
“My girl.” JC, Joey and I sang.
“Come on Carla, get into the spirit, sing to your hearts content!” Chris said. “Talkin' about my girl.”
“My girl.” The rest of us sang, Carla included.
“That's my girl!” Chris said, smiling at Carla. When Chris turned back to the front, I looked behind him and at Carla. She was blushing really badly. I giggled and went back to the singing. That's what we did for the rest of the drive home. “Wanna come in?” Chris asked when we got home.
“Umm, yeah, okay.” She said and followed the rest of us inside.
“Carla, we can put your stuff up in my room for the time being, and I'll show you around the house, if you'd like.” I said walking towards the direction of the stairs.
“Yep, okay.” She said following me. We reached the top of the stairs and headed down the hallway. Just then, I saw Bacardi and Busta run out of Justin's room and into Lance's room. Bacardi and Busta had one of Justin's shirts in their mouths.
“Bacardi!” Came a yell from Justin's room. At this stage, we were standing right near Justin's door when Justin came running out. He had a white towel around his waist and no shirt. "Busta!"
“Watch it Timberlake.” I said, since he nearly barged into Carla and me. He suddenly stopped and looked at both of us. “Justin, Carla, Carla, Justin.”
“Hey.” Justin said extending his hand.
“Hey.” Carla said, shaking his hand. Carla roamed her eyes over his chest, which still had water droplets running down and then his hair matted to his head.
“She's our next-door neighbour and my lab partner.” I said, breaking the silence.
“I believe this is yours?” A person said from down the hall. I looked around Justin and saw Lance walking down the hallway with Bacardi and Busta in his left arm and Justin's shirt in his right hand. Justin took the shirt off Lance and pulled it over his head.
“Catch ya later.” Justin said to us and disappeared into his room.
“Carla, Lance, Lance Carla.” I said.
“Hey.” Lance said.
“Hey.” Carla said.
“Lance, can you take Bacardi and Busta downstairs for me, while Carla and I put our stuff in my room. Do you know where Bundy or Korea are?” I asked Lance.
“Nope, see ya downstairs.” Lance replied, headed for the stairs with Bacardi and Busta still in his arms. Carla and I made our way down to my room, to find Bundy asleep on my bed.
When we came into the room, I closed the door behind me. “So?” I asked Carla.
“So what?”
“Come on, you have to be feeling something or waiting for something to happen, I mean, I live with *NSYNC for god sake.”
“Do they usually walk around in towels?” She asked, starring out the window.
I let out a laugh. “Well, if you are over here enough, you may just find out. But you can't tell anyone they are here okay?”
“Promise.” She said.
“Let me ask you this, which do you like better so far?”
“I dunno, at the moment, Justin, cause I've seen more of him than the others…joking, they are all pretty cool. It'll take time to decide who I like better.” She said.
“So far, I think you like either Justin or Chris. But I think more of Justin cause you couldn't stop sizing him up.” I said with a huge smile on my face.
“Chris?! Why Chris?” She said.
“Cause your face went bright red went he said, `that's my girl', but I think that was only cause of embarrassment. Am I right?”
“Embarrassment yes, Chris, no. Keep Justin at the top of my list any day!” She said with a giggle.
“Well, listen, do you wanna stay the night, considering it's Saturday tomorrow? You can borrow my clothes.” I asked her.
“Yeah, I guess, I just have to check with my parents.” She replied.
“Here,” I said, chucking the phone at her, “call them up. I'm just gonna get changed.” I said and headed to my ensuite.
I emerged about five minutes later. “Is it okay?” I asked her.
“Yeah, it's fine.” She said.
“Here, take a selection and get changed in the ensuite.” I said, opening up my wardrobe.
“Ok.” She said, walking over to the wardrobe. She picked out a pair of ¾ cargos and a baby blue singlet top. She headed into the ensuite and got changed. Meanwhile, I sat on my bed and played with the now awake Bundy. A few minutes later she came out of the ensuite.
“Ready?” I asked her.
“Yep.” She said, pulling her ponytail tighter.
“Let's go!” I said hoping off the bed and walking to the hallway where we meet Korea sitting at my door. Carla followed me downstairs with Bundy and Korea, bringing up the rear.
Chapter 3: Chapter 3
Two weeks later, Carla had gotten along quite well with the guys and myself, and became close friends to all of us. Every afternoon, she would come over to our place after school just to watch videos, swim in the pool, do our homework, just to talk, or because she was bored and so were we. It was now, another Friday afternoon after school, and I was waiting for Carla to come over from her place and over to ours. She usually shows up around 4pm, but it was now 4:25. I wondered what was taking her so long. About 5 minutes later the doorbell rang. It was Carla. Her eyes were red, puffy and bloodshot; I could tell she had been crying.“Oh, my god Carla, what's wrong?” I asked her.
“Are the guys home?” She asked me back.
“No, they are still at the studio recording or something like that, why?”
“Good, I don't want them to be here at the moment.”
“Come in and tell me what's on your mind, cause they'll be another hour or two.” I said, stepping out of the doorway and letting her in. I closed the door behind her and we sat on the couch.
“Where do I start?” She asked.
“The beginning is always a good place to start, so start there.”
“Ok, umm, well, my parents are going to England and the end of the month.”
“The end of the month is next week. What's so bad about them going to England?”
“You see, the thing is, they are going to England and staying there, meaning they aren't gonna come back here. Also, the other thing is that since I have no other brothers or sisters or relatives here, I have to go with them.” More tears came to her eyes. I reached over the back of the couch to the table behind it and picked up the box of tissues and handed them to Carla. She grabbed one and dried her eyes.
“You can always stay here with me if you want.” I said giving her a hug.
“Yeah I know, but heck, you are the same age as me. You can't be my guardian anyway, I'm older than you.” She let out a little laugh; that was a good sign.
“Now doesn't that suck. Hey, do you wanna ask the guys if they'll be our guardians. Not adopt us or anything, like we'll probably ask Chris, considering he's the oldest. That way, you can stay here, we will both have guardians since my parents moved away too, and we'll also be together as one big family of seven!” I said with a huge smile on my face.
We heard noises coming down the stairs and saw all four dogs running down them. “Make that a big happy family of eleven!” Carla said. Her eyes were no longer as bloodshot, red and puffy, and she had laughter back instead of sadness.
“How about we sit down with a huge bowl of ice cream and watch Cruel Intentions until we can't get enough of Ryan!” I said getting up from the couch. Cruel Intentions is one of the things we found out about each other that we had in common; it was our favourite movie of all time. We headed into the kitchen, helped ourselves to the ice cream, walked into the rumpus room, and pulled up a beanbag each. I found the Cruel Intentions DVD, put it into the DVD player, turned the TV on, pressed play and joined Carla on the floor. We sat and watched Cruel Intentions over and over again, for the rest of the afternoon.
The rumpus room was quite large and colourful. There was a pool table in the middle of the room, one long three-seater couch, two armchairs, and a pile of beanbags in one corner. In another corner was a home theatre. There was the TV with a wide screen, DVD player, surround sound, a big stereo system and also a projector to enlarge the movies if we wanted. Carla and I just stuck with the wide-screen TV.
It was later than I expected when the guys got home. Carla was asleep by this stage and she didn't wake up when they came into the room.
“Shh!” I whispered to them.
“Sorry!” They whispered and put their things down lightly on the ground near the door.
“Why we shushing for?” Justin asked as he headed for the couch. I pointed to Carla and he saw that she was asleep. “Oh.” He said.
“Something's up with her, what is it Montana.” Lance asked. He always had this thing for knowing when `something was up' with people.
“Well, her parents are moving to England, and she really wants to stay, but the only way she can is if she has a guardian over here. If I was old enough, I would be her guardian, but since I'm not, I can't be.” I said. Then I smiled, and looked at Chris. Everyone was catching my drift and all look towards Chris who was looking through his bag.
“What?” Chris said, noticing we were all looking at him.
“Can you become the guardian of Carla? Please, it would mean so much to me!” I asked him.
“What? Her guardian?” Chris asked, raising his voice a little.
“Yeah, come on Chris, we'll all be the guardian of her, all that's gonna be different, is that your name is going to be on the paper, not ours.” JC said.
“Hang on, who's your guardian firstly Montana?” Chris asked.
“You see, I sorta don't have on either. I need one too, but I'm more concerned about Carla at the moment.” I said looking at Carla sleeping peacefully.
“Hey Chris, why don't we get both of them under your name, so it's over and done with. I mean, we are practically already the guardians of Montana since we live with her and everything. Her parents are in…are in…where are they again?” Joey asked.
“Australia.” I replied.
“In Australia,” Joey continued, “it's nothing really, just a few pieces of paper to read and sign, not like we haven't done that before or anything, so why does this time matter?”
“Look, fine, I'll be the guardian of both of you two, since I feel like I'm the guardian of the other four here.” Chris said. The rest of us sorta let out a little cry of joy with a hint of a scream in there too. Carla started to wake a little.
“What's going on?” Carla asked sleepily.
Justin jumped off the couch and onto Carla. “YOU'RESTAYINGWITHUSANDCHRISISGOINGTOBECOMEYOURGUARDIAN!”
“Justin! Get off me! What’d you say?” She asked, trying to push Justin's long body frame of her. She stopped trying once she realized what Justin had said. “You mean, I can stay? Chris is going to become my guardian?!”
"Yep, that's what I said!” Justin said back, still on top of Carla.
“OH MY GOD!” Carla said. She embraced Justin in a quick hug because she was so excited. Joey wanted to join, so he jumped on top of Justin. We all decided to get in on this so we ended up having a massive pile of bodies on the floor of the rumpus. Just then, the phone rang.
“Hello?” I said into the receiver.
“Montana, hey, it's mum. Just letting you know, we are gonna drop by next week to see how you are doing and just to catch up on the latest. I'm sorry that we now live in Australia and we left you in America.”
“It's okay mum, really it is. Hey, speaking of the latest, can I still live here?” I asked her.
“I don't know, cause you are only still 17 and don't have any guardians.”
“Well, you see mum, Chris has offered to become my guardian.”
“Chris? Who's Chris?”
“Chris, he lives with me and the others. Don't worry, I'll introduce you to them all when you come up. When are you coming up again?”
“Next week on Thursday at midday.”
“Ok then, well, I better go, so I guess I'll see you on Thursday at midday then. Love you.”
“Yep, love you too. Bye.”
“Bye.” I said and put the phone back down. “Hey guys!” I yelled over the top of their voices. A numerous number of `what's' came from all over the place. “My parents are coming here next week on Thursday.”
“Yay, we get to meet mummy and daddy Jordan!” Chris said in a little child voice.
‘Oh I can't wait.' I said to myself and went in and joined on the fun.
Chapter 4: Chapter 4
"Okay mum, you'll be arriving when?...Okay, that sounds great...yep, meet you at the airport at midday at gate 21...yes, we'll try and park close...okay, love you, bye!" I clicked off the phone and place it down on the bench. I was sitting on top of the kitchen bench while Lance made us some 'early' lunch since he was taking me to the airport. The others decided to go out for a while, but I said that I was going to stay home and clean up a bit. Lance said that since he was taking me to the airport, he would stay behind and help out too. The main thing we had to clean up was the room my parents would stay in. The size of the house still amazed me. Since there were six bedrooms on the second floor, I had no idea how many more bedrooms there were going to be. I decided to search the downstairs area firstly. I had found another bedroom earlier and Carla was slowly moving into. The next door along was the linen closet, and the door after that was another bedroom. We both decided that my parents would stay in there, so we moved out the unnecessary things, gave the bed new sheets, vacuumed, dusted and did whatever else needed to be done. We did that earlier in the morning and now, we decided to get something to eat. So here we are. Lance was making us sandwiches because my mum rang up."Don't you hate it when parents think they always know what the better thing is to do for yourself?" Lance asked handing me a plate with a completed sandwich on it.
"Definitely." I replied taking the plate of Lance, picking up the sandwich and then taking a bite. Lance had made us some chicken (from last night's dinner), mayo, lettuce, tomato and cheese sandwiches. "We have another hour or so before we have to leave, so what do you want to do?" I asked with some sandwich in my mouth.
"Since we did some exploring this morning, how about we continue our little adventure and search some more?"
"Sounds great." I said. We sat there, talked a bit more, and finished our sandwiches. "Let's go!"
"Okay, I'm going, I'm going!" Lance said, following me upstairs. Once we reached the top of the stairs, Lance questioned my directions. "Hey, we already know what's on this floor. It's just bedrooms."
"Yeah, but what is behind the last door?" I asked him, making my way down the hallway. He just shrugged and jogged quickly to catch up with me. Once we reached the door, I looked at him and then back to the door. I placed my hand on top of the doorknob, turned it and opened it and walked in. We entered into a small room. In one corner there was a spiral staircase that led up and another door. I headed to the other door, turned the knob and opened it up. Inside was a huge room, with mirrors along each wall and a great big black grand piano in one corner. I figured this was the room above the pool.
"How cool!" Lance said walking in further. He walked over to the opposite side to where the door was and looked closely into the mirror. "Hey, you can see outside!" He said, pointing to something outside. I walked over to where he was standing and directed my gaze to outside. I could see the whole back yard from here. I could see the tennis court, a half basketball court, a small lake further down and green grass.
"This place is huge!" I said quietly.
"What, do you mean, you have no idea how big this place is at all? How did you get to live here then?" Lance asked me, looking into the side of my head.
I felt his eyes on me, so I turned and looked into his green eyes. "I really have no idea. My parents told me to pick out of three names. The one that I picked happened to be the name of this street, so I ended up with this house. Really, I don't know why this house, or why me?"
"Cause you are special, that's why." Lance said. There was a sudden awkward silence. Lance was the first to break it, "Look at the time, we better go and pick your parents up." He headed for the door and I followed him. I wrote a note to say where we had gone and placed it on the kitchen bench.
The drive to the airport was a fairly long drive.
"So," I said, gazing over in his direction as he watched the road in front of him, "why did you answer my ad in the paper?"
"Well, I was looking for a place to stay and your ad grabbed my attention. I read it through a few times, and I was a bit weary of the fact of I didn't know who you were, but I thought it shouldn't worry too much considering that I wouldn't be around for that long during the day, so I guess it really didn't matter. I was a bit questionable at first when I saw you at the front door, but I guess I over came the fear when I saw how fast you clicked with the other guys, so I thought, what the heck and stayed." He said, occasionally glancing my way. By the time I noticed that we had actually left home, we were at the airport. We parked as close as we could. Lance reached behind to the backseat, picked up a pair of sunglasses and a hat. That was his 'disguise', to dodge the fans.
"Love the look, Bass." I said as we walked through the car park. "Sure those fans won’t know it's the real Lance Bass, cause you don't convince me one bit with the whole disguise… look…thing, going on there."
"Well, maybe the fans won't attack me cause I'm here with someone else, the other guys aren't here and we haven't told the airport that I'm coming."
"Here with someone else, you mean me? What do I have to do with anything?"
"Well, I'm not here as I said with the other guys, I'm here with you. You aren't famous so they probably won’t pay a lot of attention anyway. They would probably pass me off as being your boyfriend probably."
"My boyfriend? What makes you think that?"
"Cause, another disguise we can create is if we hold hands. That sound like a better disguise?"
"No not really, but I'm only gonna do this for your sake, so the fans don't mob you." I said taking his hand as we walked into the airport and headed for gate 21. We waited patiently for my parents to get off, and when they finally did, "MUM! DAD! OVER HERE!" I screamed out. Lance added for effect how loudly I screamed but placing his finger into his ear and giving it a little wiggle. Our hands were still connected. We didn't let go until my mum came over to give me a hug and my dad gave Lance a handshake. Then it swapped. Mum gave Lance a hug, even though she didn't know him at all and dad came and gave me a hug. "Introductions later in a not so public place." I quickly said. After we got the rest of their luggage, we headed back to the car, loaded it with the luggage, climbed in and headed home.
"You aren't Chris, are you?" Mum asked.
"No, ma`am, I'm not, I'm Lance Bass. The other person that you are referring too is Chris Kirkpatrick, I'm sure you'll meet him later when we get back home." Lance said, gazing into the rear vision mirror to look at my mum. My dad was in the front passenger seat, I was in the back behind Lance and mum was behind dad.
"Who's he then?" Mum leaned over closer to me and whispered, pointing at Lance.
"He lives with me." I whispered my reply back.
"So who else do you live with?" Dad asked.
"Well, I live with Lance, Chris, Joey, JC, Justin and Carla." I said.
"Oh ok." Dad said, mum just nodded her head.
"Oh and Busta, Korea, Bacardi and Bundy." I continued. Both mum and dad had a funny look on their face. "Don't worry, they are the dogs." Mum and dad just nodded their heads. There was mainly silence for the rest of the trip, the radio filling in the silent breaks.
"We're here." Lance said, pulling into the driveway. "And it looks like everyone's here." Lance said, noticing the number of cars near the front door. "A lot more introductions to be made."
We got the luggage out of the car and headed inside. Lance and I placed their luggage into the room that they would be staying in and joined everyone else in the lounge room.
"Ok everyone, these are my parents, Catherine and Sebastian Valmont. Mum, dad, this is Chris Kirkpatrick, Joshua Chasez, or JC, which ever you prefer, and Joey Fatone, Justin Timberlake, Carla Bergielake and you met Lance before." I said, pointing to each of them as I said their names.
"Hang on, you said before that your last name was Jordan, and your parents' last names are Valmont. Explain." Chris asked me.
"Well, I decided to use my mother's maiden name cause they gave the chance to decide on which one should be my last name. I prefer Jordan over Valmont, so I picked Jordan. But my full name is Montana Rae Jordan Valmont. Is that better?" I replied.
"Yeah, I guess so." Chris replied.
Later that night, Carla's parents came over to discuss Chris becoming our guardian. Both parents agreed after we all pleaded our hearts out, so Chris was about to become out guardian, which meant that Carla and I would become sisters, well, sort of. After a few talks over tea and coffee, it was getting late and everyone was getting tired. Carla's parents decided to go home for the night, while everyone else went to their own rooms.
Carla's parents left for England on the Friday after my parents came. My parent's were only staying a week. Before I knew it the week was over and we were back at the airport waving my parents off. Lance came with me again and he convinced me back to the handholding disguise. He stated that we should do that 'until further notice'. 'How long was that going to be?' I thought to myself, but deep down, I didn't mind at all. On the way back home, Lance and I decided to go to the video store to grab a few videos to watch, some chocolate, ice-cream and chips to eat while we watched the videos. As soon as we opened the front door to the house, the phone rang. I had my hands full with the groceries and Lance only had the videos. I had to quickly put the ice-cream into the freezer or it was going to melt. No one else was home.
"Lance, can you grab the phone?!" I yelled out to Lance.
"Yep." Lance answered it for me. "Hello?"
"Hello, my name is Melissa Church-Hill, and I was wondering if you were family or relatives of Mr and Mrs Sebastian and Catherine Valmont?"
"Yes I am. What can I do for you?"
"Well, I regret to tell you this, but their flight to Australia hit heavy storm." By this stage, Lance prepared for the worst. "I don't know how to put this, but I shall give it to you straight. Lightening struck the planes' engine and it blew up, mid-air. There were no survivors. I am so sorry for you and your family to hear such a thing." Lance let a tear run down his face.
"Th...thank you for informing me."
"Well, I'll let you go now, cause I have more phone calls to make."
"Ok, bye." Lance said and clicked off the phone.
The others had left a note on the kitchen bench. They had gone out to the mall. I grabbed the chocolate and chips and walked back into the room, and said, "The others have gone out to the mall." Lance had his back to me and he didn't turn around. "Who was that on the phone?" Lance turned and faced me and I saw that he had a tear down his face. "What is it? What's wrong?"
"You...you better sit down." Lance said grabbing my hand and leading me to the couch.
"What?" I asked him, I was getting worried now. He took the chips and chocolate out of my hands and put them down onto the coffee table.
"That was Melissa Church-Hill on the phone. She rang up to tell you that...that your parents are dead." Tears were coming to my eyes. I couldn't believe it. Lance continued, "About twenty minutes into the flight, they hit a bad storm. Lightening struck the planes' engine and the plane blew up, mid-air. There were no survivors." Lance managed to choke out.
I just sat there and didn't believe it. I looked into Lance's eyes and saw that he was telling the truth. I felt like I was crushed by a grand piano. Out of sadness and confusion, I started to hit Lance yelling, "TAKE IT BACK! TAKE IT BACK! SAY IT ISN'T SO!" I continued to hit him. Lance tried to grab my arms and tried to quiet me down. Once I had no more strength left, I cracked and cried as hard as I could. Lance pulled me into his chest and wrapped his arms around me. My hands were stuck in between our bodies, but all I did was cling onto his shirt harder and wet his shirt from my tears.
"It's okay Montana, I'm here. Shh, I'm here..." He faded out rocking me gently back and forth on the couch. Lance had managed to get me onto his lap and my head was on his shoulder. I was sitting on him side on with my left side against his body. Eventually, I calmed down a bit and quietly sobbed myself to sleep, but Lance still remained awake, rocking me gently back and forth, and now letting his tears of sadness and pain for me, run down his face.
Chapter 5: Chapter 5
** Lance's point of view**It was the next morning and I had fallen asleep on the couch with Montana. I carefully got up from the couch and laid Montana back down. I got a blanket from the closest and put it over her. She had been sobbing in my arms all night. She only saw her parents only hours earlier. I have to be strong, we all have to be strong for her, and we will all get through this. I walked into the kitchen to get myself some coffee.
"Hey Lance." Came a voice from behind me. I turned around and saw it was Carla.
"Hey Carla, how are you?"
"I'm fine, but what about you and Montana. What happened last night?" Carla asked as she poured herself a glass of orange juice.
"It's better if I explain it all when everyone is downstairs, though it would be even better if Montana was still asleep."
"Is it good or bad?"
"Really bad and serious."
"Hang on, I'll go and get the others so you can tell us now." Carla put her glass back down on the bench and quickly ran up the stairs. I sat and waited at the table, thinking how I should tell everyone else the news about her parents.
"You better have gotten me up for a good reason Carla, or you will die." Justin mumbled as he walked into the kitchen with the others behind him. Carla had gone upstairs and woke them all up. They all staggered into the kitchen and flopped down at the table. Montana was still asleep on the couch.
"Okay guys, last night Montana and I dropped her parents off at the airport, and then went to the video store to get a few videos. We came back home, came through the door and the phone started ringing. Montana had a few things in her hands so I got the phone. On the other end was a lady." Tears were now forming in my eyes. I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hands. "She informed me that the flight that Montana's parents were on, came into a really bad storm. Lightening hit the planes' engine and the plane blew up, mid-air." I looked at everyone in the room. All I saw were shocked expressions. I continued, "She also told me that there were no survivors." Tears were running freely down my face. I looked at everyone else through my blurry vision. They too, had tears down their faces.
I couldn't handle it any more; I stood up, left and headed for the stairs. I went to the second floor and walked down the hallway. I stopped in front of the door that Montana and I 'discovered' only the day before. I opened it and walked into the studio. I slowly walked over to the piano and sat down. I placed my hands onto the keys and started playing a melody from my heart. I wanted it to be something special, so I picked up some manuscript that was on the top of the piano and a pencil and wrote down what I played. Next all I needed were some lyrics to go with it.
I glanced at my watch and noticed that I had been up here for most of the day. I named the song and placed my papers on top of the piano and headed downstairs.
Chapter 6: Chapter 6
**Still Lance's point of view****It's best to download or have 'Somewhere, Someday' by *NSYNC playing to add effect**
"I'd like to thank you all for coming today to remember all those who died on flight 586 to Australia last week." The lady was starting the memorial service at the St Joseph's Chapel in town. The chapel was full of mourners. On my right was Montana, still sobbing quietly into a tissue. I was holding her hand, trying the best to comfort her while Carla had her arm around her shoulders. JC was sitting next to me, then Justin, Joey and Chris. It was rare for all of us to be at an occasion like this, but we thought it was best on Montana's behalf to turn up and try our best to comfort her.
As the service drew on, it finally came to the part were I had prepared a little something in remembrance. I kissed the back of Montana's hand and stood up. The other guys stood up and we walked to the front of the chapel and I took my place at the microphone. "One of my dearest and closest friends, Montana Jordan, is in mourning like everybody else here in this room and out in the rest of the world. Montana's parents just happened to be on flight 586, so I prepared a little something with the help from others in memory of those lives lost." I stood away from the microphone and joined the others. I sat down at the piano and started playing the new piece that I wrote, only a week ago. A screen was placed near the piano, which showed a picture of each person's life that was lost. Justin began singing as the first picture flashed up. Each picture would change after fifteen seconds.
Justin - The clouds above you start to pull
And all of your doubts,
Rage like a storm
And you don't know
Who you are anymore.
Let me help you find what you've been searching for
All - Somewhere
Justin - Somewhere there's a field in a river
All - Somewhere
Justin - You can let your soul run free
All - Someday
Justin - Someday let me be the giver, let me bring you peace
All - Somewhere
Justin - Somewhere there's a break in the weather
All - Somewhere
Justin - Where your heart and spirit go free
All - Someday
Justin - Someday it'll be for the better, let this bring you peace
JC - Girl, I know you think no one sees
The weight on your shoulders
But you can't fool me
And aren't you tired of standing so tall
Let me be the one to catch you when you fall
Chorus
(JC sings solo part in chorus that Justin sang previously)
JC - Let me bring you joy
All - Bring you joy
JC - Let me bring peace
All - Bring you peace
Justin - Take these tears that you cry and trust them to me
JC - Let me give you hope
All - Give you hope
JC - Let me give you hope
All - Give you hope
Be the one constant love that you've never known
Chorus
All - Somewhere, somewhere, somewhere
Somewhere, somewhere, somewhere
Someday, someday
JC - Let me be the one to catch you when you fall
All - Somewhere, somewhere, somewhere
Somewhere, somewhere, somewhere
JC - Let me bring you peace
The song finally finished and the guys and myself made our way back to our spot. Once I sat back down next to Montana, she reached over to me and gave me a hug. I heard her start crying some more into my neck, so I held her closer. When she did pull away, she mouthed 'thank you' to me. We both faced the front again and I placed her hand in mine, to show her, I was still here for her.
After the mass, everybody went their separate ways. As everyone was leaving, we had a few people come up to us and tell us how much they liked the song and appreciated it. After a few minutes, we decided to go home.
Chapter 7: Chapter 7
Author's Notes: So sorry about the delay - I'll be adding heaps of chapters for you!
**Montana's point of view**
"Hey Montana, I was wondering if you'd like to come on tour with us next month?" Lance asked me. We had finally discovered where the spiral staircase led to, the roof. Lance and I were laying down on the rooftop, looking at the stars.
"You serious? For how long?" I asked him.
"For the whole leg of America, if you want to."
"And Carla too?"
"If she wants too she can."
"Of course I'll come!" I said, wrapping my arms around his neck. "Thank you for all you've done for me, Lance." I whispered in his ear.
"No problem." He whispered back.
"Hello? Anyone there?" Carla said clicking in front of my face. I was just daydreaming and didn't notice her standing there. She clicked once more which brought me out of my daydream.
"Huh?" I said.
"What on earth were you daydreaming about?" Carla asked sitting down next to me on the couch.
"Just memories about me and Lance."
"You have a thing for Lance don't ya?"
"What? You have a thing for Justin."
"What? Okay, we're even then. You have a thing for Lance and yes I have a thing for Justin."
"HA! I knew it." I said, jumping up and down.
"What on earth is going on?" I suddenly stopped jumping around and turned to see whom it was that just spoke.
"Oh hey Maddie, we were just talking about some stuff." Carla replied. Maddie was the guy's wardrobe assistant. She was like an older sister to Carla and I.
"Okay then, you two ready for lunch? The guys are breaking in five minutes." Maddie said. We have just started the tour and we are now at the first venue. The guys were in the middle for sound check and Carla and I decided to stay on the bus.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"You guys coming to the concert tonight?" Joey asked us.
"I dunno, we may have to get some guardian consent on that." I said, slowly drawing my gaze over to Chris. Chris became the guardian of Carla and me, a week after my parents' death. It was now December 21st and it was snowing outside and my parents' three-month death anniversary was coming up in two days. But so far, I haven't dwelled on the past too much.
"Fine, little dears, you can go to the *NSYNC concert tonight." Chris said in a motherly tone and voice.
"Thanks!" Carla said. Luckily, Chris was sitting in between Carla and I so we reached and gave Chris a hug.
"Maddie said she was going to take us shopping this afternoon, so come on Montana, we gotta go." Carla said standing up.
"Yep, ok, well, we'll see you all again tomorrow, cause tonight we are gonna be at a concert, so until tomorrow, bye!" I said, grabbing my jacket and my bag and followed Carla outside to Maddie's awaiting car.
We climbed into Maddies' car and drove to the mall. "Come on, hurry up, I got some shoppin' to do ya know!" Carla said.
"Shut up or ya getting out and walking!" Maddie replied.
"Ok." Carla said and slid back down in her seat.
Once we were inside, we agreed that it was easier to shop by ourselves and that we were gonna meet back at the Santa Village in two hours. We parted and I pulled out my list from my bag. I read my list out to myself.
Joey - Superman boxers (with cape)
JC - Book (a good one)
Korea, Busta, Bacardi and Bundy - Studded name collars
Chris - game for playstaion
Justin - Basketball jersey and shorts
Carla - Ferris Buller's Day Off on DVD
Maddie - gift voucher for the Gap
Lance - Taz slippers and Taz boxers
You would never think that finding presents were hard. But which book for JC, what game for Chris, so many decisions! Soon enough, I had already used up an hour and a half and now making my way to the wrapping shop, where I would get all my presents wrapped for me. I have no other time, and how else could I keep my presents away from prying little eyes. There are no hiding places on a bus, I can tell you that. Christmas was only four days away. After I got my presents professionally wrapped, I headed to the Santa Village and met up with the others. We had a drink before we left to go back and get ready for the concert.
Chapter 8: Chapter 8
The show started in four hours and we were already getting ready. "Why are we getting ready so early for again?" I asked Carla as I applied a dimonti pattern around her belly button.
"Well, we came back from shopping and we had nothing else to do, so we decided to get ready. Oh and we wanted to catch the last part of the sound check." She replied as she applied body glitter to her shoulders and tops of her arms.
"Oh ok then." I replied putting on my shoes. I was wearing black hipster flares, a bright green boobtube, and my favourite black knee-hi boots. Carla was wearing white leather hipster pants, a baby blue halter-top, and a pair of white boots. "You ready now?" I asked her as I checked my dimonti pattern on my chest, just above the top of my boobtube in the mirror.
"I am, but why do you keep looking at the dimontis for? That's like the sixth time you've looked at it. It ain't going no where!" Carla exclaimed.
"Just making sure that it's all in place." I said. I walked over to the bed, picked up my long black leather jacket and put in on.
Carla walked over to the chair and picked up her white leather jacket. **We've gone for the leather look** and put it carefully on, making sure she didn't stuff up her glitter. "Ok, let's go!" She said walking to the door. I followed her and closed the door behind me.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
We reached the front door and showed our passes to the security guards that were there. We walked through the door and headed to the stage. When we got there, the guys were doing last minute checks on the sound, lighting, filming and cables. We sat in the very back row and watched from afar.
"Thank god for the people who have to sit back here have the screen to see the guys up close." I pointed out.
"I feel sorry for them, but I'm thankful that we are in the front row." Carla said.
"It's funny, the guys wanted us to be in the VIP section, but I felt that you can't feel the real experience of a concert if you aren't in the crowd. So I scored the front row seats."
"Yeah, I wonder if the guys can see everyone up here at the back."
"I have no idea, probably not cause..." I was interrupted by a voice over the microphone.
"Hey guys, the girls are here!"
I looked at the stage and saw Joey pointing up at us. The other guys turned their heads and looked up at us. They had just finished 'It's Gonna Be Me' and were now up the front of the stage, waving at us.
"Hey you two, how do you like the show so far?" Joey asked us.
"A five minute show does wonders!" I yelled out at the top of my lungs.
"What?" Justin asked, "Speak up!"
"GREAT!" Carla screamed giving them the thumbs up.
"They like it, cool." Chris said.
"Hey, you guys wanna come down on the stage for a bit? The concert doesn't start for about another hour or three." JC asked us.
Carla and I looked at each other, agreed and walked down the many stairs to the floor area and then down the middle isle. It was one heck of a long walk. We walked down the side of the stage to the back area, walked up some stairs to get to the stage and then walked out onto it. The stage was huge!
"Hey, you are just in time for the next song." Justin said placing his arms around our shoulders.
"And what song would that be 'oh mighty Timberflake'?" I asked him, looking up at him.
"Just sit down on the couch and find out." Justin replied.
"What couch?" Carla asked him.
"That one." He replied as a red couch was bought out from the back. Carla and I made our way over to the couch and sat down. Carla sat down on the couch and I sat on an armchair. The guys all disappeared behind a red curtain.
The music started and suddenly I hear a "Woooooo, how y`all felling?" I look behind me and notice Chris come out from the curtain and step in front of the couch. Chris kept on talking and the guys all came out one by one. Lance was next out and walked up to the chair I was sitting in. He handed me his mic, and he put on a jacket that was on the back of the chair. JC was next and he jumped over the back of the couch and was now sitting behind Carla on her left. I kept my focus on the curtain and Justin was next out. By this stage Chris had sat down on the top of the couch on Carla's right. Justin made his way over and sat on Carla's left. Joey was the last one out and sat on the other chair. I looked to where Lance had gone and he was sitting on my left on the arm of the chair. Then they started singing. What voices they had! This was the first time that I have heard the guys sing in person. Then Chris got up from the couch and headed down to the stage and sang his little solo. He danced around and pretended to look at an imaginary girl in the audience and wave to her or something like that. He headed back and it was Justin's turn to go to the front. As he got up, he grabbed onto Carla's hand and walked down to the front of the stage with her. They both walked from side to side of the stage, stopped in the middle and they did some sort of waltz thing. It was quite funny. JC was up next, but he decided to stay where he was. The guys sang in a sort of canon order and then it was time for all of them to go to the front. Justin hadn't let go of Carla's hand, so when he stood up, Carla stood up too. JC grabbed Carla's free hand and the three of them walked down the stairs to the front. Lance grabbed my hand and took me down the front. I turned and looked at Joey and Chris. They looked at each other, shrugged and grabbed each other's hand and walked to where we were standing swinging their hands as they walked. They finally joined us and they sang some more. They turned around and headed back to the couch. But, this time, Carla took Joey's hand, and his hand only, and I took Chris' and Joey's hands. The four of us walked back to the couch swinging hands, the same as Joey and Chris did walking to the front. We sat down where we were sitting before. Justin, JC, and Lance hadn't moved from the front and were facing us. The three of them looked at each other connected hands (Justin in the middle, with Lance on his right and JC on the left), swung hands and walked towards us. They too sat back where they started. The song slowly finished and Joey reached to a lamp that was on his left and turned it off. All the lights went out and then came back on.
"Hey guys, lock down. Dressing rooms now!" Maddie said as she popped her head out the curtain.
"We'll be there in a sec. You guys wanna come?" Joey asked us.
Carla and I looked at each other, "Sure!" We replied in unison. We followed the guys behind the curtain to backstage.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Ok guys, ten minutes `till show time. You two better go out and find your seats and you guys have to go above the stage." A guy all dressed in black with a headset on said.
"He's right; Carla and I should go and get our seats, so no one takes them." I said.
"Yep, so we'll see you guys in ten minutes then. Thanks for letting us come on stage. Good luck tonight!" Carla said giving JC a hug. Carla then went Joey, Lance, Chris and then Justin, hugging and saying good luck.
I went Justin, Chris, Joey, JC and finally Lance, also giving hugs and my good luck, but Lance said something that caught my attention.
"Good luck Lance." I said, reaching up and giving him a hug.
"Thanks." He said, but before we let go he whispered into my ear, "Will you go out with me?"
"Yes." I whispered back. As we pulled apart, Lance placed a quick kiss on my cheek. "Have fun you guys!" I said to everyone and turned and headed to our seats, turning back and smiling at Lance. Lance smiled back and followed the guys to the ladder to get above the stage.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"That was a great show you guys!" Carla said when we were all back on the bus. We were on our way to the hotel.
"Thanks." The guys said.
"So," I started, "what are the plans for tonight?"
"I'm going out clubbin', anyone wanna join me?" Joey asked.
"Underage." Carla replied.
"Underage." I replied.
"Tired." Lance said.
"Is anyone gonna join me?" Joey asked.
"Yeah, I will." JC said.
"Me too." Chris said.
"Me three. Come on you three, Lance, being tired is no reason to get out of things." Justin stated.
"What? JC uses it all the time, so why can't I for once?" Lance questioned.
"And you two girls will be able to get in `cause you're with us." Justin finished.
"My feet are killing me so I don't I can't stand on them let alone dance on them for another four hours!." I replied.
"Come on Carla, can you come with us?" Justin pleaded.
"I dunno." She said.
"Pleeease!" Justin said pulling on her hand.
"Fine, just for you Woodriver."
"YAY...Where did Woodriver come from?" Justin asked.
"Well, think about it, Timberlake, Woodriver...on second thought, forget about it." Carla said.
"Yeah, I think I'll forget about it."
"So everyone's coming except for Montana and Lance. Ok, that's fine, you two can stay at the hotel and be bored out of your brains while the rest of us have a life." Joey said.
"Ok then, I don't mind. Do you Montana?" Lance asked as he looked at me.
"Nope, not at all." I said, I got up from my seat and headed to my bunk to pack my duffle bag. Lance stood up behind me and followed.
"Something's up and I know it." Carla said.
"Yeah I know, Lance has been really giddy and acting really strange since you guys left the room backstage earlier tonight." JC pointed out.
"Yeah I know what you mean. Lance has had a smile on his face all night for no apparent reason and acting all different." Justin said.
"That's the same with Montana. She didn't take her eyes off Lance and continuously had a smile on her face too."
"So what do you want to do tonight?" Lance asked me when walked behind me. He wrapped his arms around my waist.
I turned in his arms to face him and placed my arms around his neck. "I dunno, whatever you want to do. You asked me out, you decide." I said. We heard people coming out from the back so we let go of each other and I continued packing my bag. Lance reached for his and started packing.
"My aren't we in a rush?" Joey asked as he came into view.
"Yeah, well, why not. We're here now, so who says we are in a rush?" I said pointing out the window to the entrance to the hotel.
Joey looked out the window. "Oh, I didn't realize we were here." Joey said reaching for his duffle bag and began to pack his things into it.
"And also to see less of you." I said sarcastically.
"Ohh!" The others said.
"I know you love me though." Joey said.
"Yeah, in your dreams!" I said walking off the bus with Lance following me. We left the others to pack and go to their own rooms.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Ok you two, we're off to hit the clubs, we'll probably be back in the morning sometime. Don't wait up!" Chris said as he followed the others out of my room and down to the lobby to the awaiting van.
"So, have you thought of anything for us to do?" I asked Lance as he laid down on the bed beside me.
"Well, since it's such short notice, I feel like a bit of room service and movies are up on the agenda, sound good?" Lance said.
"Yep, sounds great. What movie?" I asked him.
He started to flick through a couple of channels on the TV and found that the beginning credits for Armageddon just started. "Armageddon maybe?"
"Sounds good and you can order the room service. I don't care what you get as long as you get something as well as ice-cream." I said getting more comfortable. We were lying on the bed with our feet at the bed head and our heads at the bottom where our feet should be.
"Ok, I shouldn't be on the phone for to long." Lance said. He dialled up room service, mumbled a few things and then joined me back on the bed. "What did I miss?"
"The end of the beginning credits, not much." I replied, looking at him.
He turned and looked at me. I stared into his green eyes while he stared into my blue eyes. He bought up his hand and cupped my face, leaned in closer, we both closed our eyes and he brushed his lips against mine. He bought his lips back to mine and gave me a slow passionate kiss. I bought my hand up behind his head and pressed his head closer to mine and increased the pressure on our lips. I slowly leaned back and Lance leaned on top of me, our lips not letting go once. I was now lying on my back and Lance was on top of me. My arms were now wrapped around his neck and one of his arms was around my waist and the other around my neck. We pulled away and Lance firstly spoke, "You have no idea how long I've waited to do that for."
"I do, cause I've waited a long time for that too." I replied gazing into his eyes. He leaned down closer again, brushed his lips against mine when there was a knock on the door. We both smiled and let out a little laugh.
"We'll continue this later." Lance said before he got up off me. He walked over to the door, opened it, gave a tip to the hotel worker and bought the cart into the room. I rolled on my stomach and watched Lance's actions. "And for tonight's meal, we have...tada!" He said taking off the silver cover that covered a bowl. "First we have pasta carbonara and vanilla ice-cream with mini marshmallows to top it all off!" He said handing me a bowl. I took the bowl off him and he came back to his spot beside me.
After we finished eating our ice cream, we continued what we were doing before, just as Lance said we would. I was on the bottom as Lance was on top again. We kissed and I pulled back and started to laugh. "What?" Lance asked me.
"Your lips taste like marshmallows and ice-cream." I replied rubbing his back.
He rubbed his thumb up and down my cheek, "So do yours." He replied. He leaned down and we continued our kiss. That was until...
Chapter 9: Chapter 9
"Holy shit!" Lance and I broke apart and looked towards the door where the voice came from. Maddie was standing in the doorway. Lance was still on top of me with his shirt untucked and unbuttoned, and my hair was out and my left leg was bent.
Then we heard footsteps run down the hallway. "What?" Came a second voice.
Lance and I looked at each other, "Fuck." We both whispered. Lance lowered his head to the bed beside mine. The other person at the door was Joey. Out of all the other people on tour it had to be Joey. Joey followed Maddie's gaze and saw Lance lying on top of me on the bed.
"Busted!" Joey yelled. "Wait until the others hear about this!" Joey turned and started walking.
"Not so fast Fatone!" Maddie said pulling on Joey's shirt. "You ain't gonna tell no one."
"What?! And spoil the fun?" Joey pleaded.
"Yes no one!" Maddie said pushing Joey into the room and closing the door behind her. Joey went and sat on the armchair. By this stage, Lance had rolled off me and lying on his side, while I rolled onto my stomach. Lance had his arm over my back and pulled me closer to him. "What the hell do you two think you are doing?"
"Laying here on the bed, what else does it look like?" Lance replied.
"Don't put that shit on me." Maddie replied in an angry tone.
"Must be that time of the month." Joey said quietly to himself.
"Don't get me started on you Joey." Maddie turned and faced Joey. Joey put up his arms in defence and Maddie turned back to talk some more at Lance and I. "What was that little scene that I happen to barge in on before?"
"It was just a kiss, lay off it Maddie!" I said.
"I won't lay off it. What are you gonna do if this leaks out to the public?" Maddie questioned us.
"It won't leak if no one tells." I said casting my gaze at Joey.
"Fine, I won't say a thing." Joey replied, sinking lower into his seat.
"What am I going to do?" Maddie finally said quietly.
"You can't do anything about it Maddie, she's my girlfriend, and yes I know I'm Lance-Bass-of-NSYNC-who-can't-have-a-girlfriend, but it's my life and I can date Montana if I want to." Lance said. He got up off the bed. "You wanna come with me Montana?"
"Yep." I replied as I got off the bed. I took Lance's hand and we walked out the door.
"Don't be so harsh Maddie, they are only young." Joey said when we left the room.
"I know, but they have to be able to handle the consequences if it does get out into the public. Well, maybe I just over re-acted a bit." Maddie said as she sat down on the bed.
"Just a little." Joey said, motioning with his thumb and first finger.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Sorry about before." Lance said as we sat down on the roof of the hotel.
"It ok, I don't mind." I replied leaning up against him. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and gave me a light squeeze.
"That's what you get for being famous." Lance said staring up at the stars.
"At least you have me for you and not your fame." I said looking up at him.
He looked down at me and smiled. "I hope I have you forever." He said and placed a kiss on my lips. We parted and smiled. "We better go back downstairs and get some rest. Tomorrow's gonna be a long day."
"Yep, ok, rest sounds good." I said getting up. Lance got up and he placed his arms around my shoulders and I placed my arm around his waist and we walked to the stairs and headed downstairs. We both decided it best for us to go back to our own rooms, so that's where we went and slept until morning.
Chapter 10: Chapter 10
**From Lance's point of view**
"LANCE! GET UP NOW!" I woke with a startle to find our manager Johnny standing in the doorway.
"Huh?" I questioned him, "What for?"
"Montana, get in here, NOW!" He yelled back.
"What?" I replied, "What does Montana have to do anything about whatever he's yelling at me for?"
I got out of bed and pulled a shirt over my head and straightened up my track pants, only too look up and see Montana being pulled into the room by her arm.
"Ok, ok, I'm in." She said as she pulled back her arm from Johnny's grip. I made my way over to her and looked at her arm. Just a bit red, no more.
"Morning." I said to Montana.
"Morning." She said back.
"SIT!" Johnny said pointing to the couch. Montana and I did as we were both told to do and sat down on the couch. I held onto Montana's hand while we were seated; only waiting for why Johnny was so mad at us. "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT LITTLE SCENE LAST NIGHT YOU TWO BOTH HAD?" Johnny was really pissed off and pacing the floor in front of us.
"What scene?" I said. 'Joey said he wouldn't tell. He'll get it once we are finished here.' I thought to myself.
"THIS!" Johnny said and threw a magazine down onto the table in front of us. Montana picked is up and stared up at Johnny. "Turn to page 12; I'm sure that should re-jog your memories."
Montana turned to page 12 and there was an article and pictures of Montana and me kissing on the roof. "Well, what do you want to know?" Montana asked him.
"What you two were doing for starts." He questioned us both.
"We're kissing, what else does it look like?" I replied.
"I can see that and so can the rest of the world. Lance, why her? You could have had anyone like Britney, Christina, Jessica, or even Sarah Michelle fucking Gellar if you wanted to, but why her, she's a nobody?" Johnny questioned my choice of girl and pointing at Montana.
"Maybe cause I love her. Ever thought of that? And don't you dare say she's a nobody. She is my girlfriend and I don't give the slightest fuck of what you think. I love her and she loves me. No one can change that." I said standing up so I was face to face with Johnny, only centimetres from his face.
"You don't get it do you. You can't be seen as taken, free for all the girls to dream about and keep the fan base up and -"
"Fuck the fan base. True fans would realize that I am only human and date just like they all do. Fake fans are not worth keeping."
Johnny didn't reply. He just stood in deep thought before replying, "Well, for starts you could have kept it a secret." Johnny said.
"I never keep secrets from my friends and fans." I replied. I turned to Montana and said, "Let's go and have breakfast." She stood up and I took her hand and led her out of the room, picking up my duffle bag and we headed to her room so we could both get changed. After we got changed, we decided to go down the street for breakfast at a local cafe. 'I don't care about the media, I have no secrets from them cause I can't keep any secrets away from them in the first place,' I thought to myself.
"I'm so sorry about that this morning," I said as we sat down at the table eating our breakfast, "Johnny can be such a dickhead at times, he usually over re-acts over everything."
"That's fine, I must admit that yes I was a bit pissed off about getting pulled out of my bed in my pj's at 6 in the morning." Montana said, I gave a little chuckle. "What?" She asked.
"Oh, I'm sure you'll get used to it." I replied, looking around. "I have to ask you a question."
"Ok, ask away." She said, putting down her fork and giving me her full attention.
"Do you really want to be my girlfriend, I mean, you would have to put up with the media, be cautious of who your friends are, have false rumours be published, and..." I stopped when she put her finger on my lips.
"Look, I love you and I couldn't care less what tries to break us up, just as long as I am with you, that's all the matters. Don't let anyone take what we have away from us, ok?" She said. Montana is probably one of the most understanding people I have ever met. "I trust you Lance."
We sat and ate our breakfast, talking about usual stuff and sometimes, we would just sit there in complete silence, just enjoying each other's company.
Once we finished up, Montana was first to speak, "We better get back to the hotel, but in no rush of course, I particularly don't want to see Johnny, considering he made the comment that I'm a nobody."
"Don't worry about him. If he does anything to harm you, just tell me and I'll do something about, ok?" I said, getting up from the table.
"Ok." She said following me out of the cafe.
"Since the topic was our kiss last night, I could only think of the way your lips tasted when I kissed you from the ice-cream." I replied, licking my lips for emphasis.
"You're too much Mr Bass, too much!" She said and leaned her head on my right shoulder. I bought up my right arm and wrapped it around her shoulders and gave her a light squeeze.
Chapter 11: Chapter 11
**Montana's point of view****December 25**
"Merry Christmas everybody." We all said. We were all back at home, sitting in the lounge room with a huge Christmas tree in the corner with heaps of presents under it. We had instrumental Christmas music playing in the background with heaps of food in the kitchen and on the table already. There was only just the eight of us, but enough food for 50 people. We had the fire going in the fireplace and we were all sitting around, enjoying each others company, and sharing jokes, embarrassing stories, anything that came to mind.
"Can we open up some presents now?" Joey whined for the fourteenth time.
"Fine, if it'll stop your whining." I said.
"YAY!" Joey said, diving to the presents. "Umm, Justin heads up!" Joey tossed a present in Justin's direction. Justin caught it and started opening it. "Chris, JC, Carla, Lance, Montana, Maddie, oh me!" He said, chucking presents in different directions. "Bacardi'n'Bundy," He said sliding the present across the floor to were the four dogs were playing, "Busta'n'Korea," He slid another presents to were the dogs were. The dogs just jumped onto the presents and started playing with the bows and ribbon. More presents were given out. After all the presents were handed out, the floor was covered in wrapping paper, ribbons, bows, sticky tape, and packaging. We all had gotten so many presents, I lost track of who got what. I had gotten a bottle of Tommy Girl from Justin, a new pair of boots from Carla, JC gave me a silver pendant bracelet and Maddie gave me some pendants to go with it. Joey gave me a superman necklace, which in fact I loved because I too also liked superman but only Joey knew that, so the others thought it was quite funny when I opened the box and pulled it out. Chris gave me a laptop so that I could write up my assignments for school if I have them while I'm on tour. He also gave one to Carla for the same reasons. I didn't get a gift from Lance, just a letter in an envelope that read:
Rae,
Care for a nighttime stroll tonight? I do, why don't you join me. Don't forget to rug up, it happens to be snowing outside, if you haven't noticed. My gift for you awaits at the end of this journey.
Love,
LB
I had no idea what he had planned, so I guess I had to wait until tonight before I found out.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
**Lance's point of view**
"Let's go." I said to Montana.
"Where are you going?" Chris asked in his 'fatherly' tone.
"For a walk." I replied. Everyone sat there looking at Montana and myself. Joey had a huge grin on his face.
"Keep dreaming Joey." Montana said noticing his grin.
"I will, don't you worry." He replied.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Do you realize that this is my first white Christmas ever?" Montana said as we sat on the table in the park.
"Well have you ever seen snow before?" I asked her.
"I have on tv and from a plane's window and that's about it."
"So technically, you haven't been skiing before in you life?"
"Yep, that's what I'm saying, so this white Christmas is very special to me, if you know what I mean."
"It's special to me too."
"How?"
"Well, for one thing, I'm home and not stuck on a bus or some hotel somewhere. Second, I'm sharing it with the people I care, cherish and love. Thirdly, I'm here with you." I said gazing into her eyes. "Ah, that brings me to my next thing. Your gift." I reached into an inside pocket of my full-length black leather jacket and bought out a small royal blue box with MJ written on the top in white. "It's nothing big, but it has meaning behind it." I handed the box to Montana and her eyes grew bigger as she opened the box. Inside was a silver ring studded with two blue diamonds. "It's a promise ring. It's a way of my showing you how much I love you and cherish you. If you chose to wear it, that's your way of showing me that you promise to stay true to me and cherish and love me back."
Montana looked on the inside of the band and read what I had engraved on it. "James & Rae forever." She said quietly to herself. I took the ring out of the box and slipped it onto her right ring finger. She smiled and leaned up and gave me a kiss.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"By the looks of things everyone is asleep." Montana said as we reached the house. All the lights were off. We took our coats of and walked into the lounge room, Montana turned on the light and I suddenly stopped. Montana slammed into my body.
"Why'd we...oh." She said. We both stood there starring at the couch.
I saw who it was; the curly hair was a dead giveaway. The other person with Justin was Carla. "Ahem." I said. Justin and Carla quickly broke their kiss and pulled apart. They slowly looked at us. We just stood there shaking our heads. "There must be something in common with these scenarios." Montana knew what I was talking about, but Carla and Justin just sat there looking completely lost.
"What?" Justin asked.
"Joey and Maddie walked in on us," I said, pointing to Montana and myself, "and now we walk in on you two. Except, our little scene was a bit more intense and looked like we were just about to go further than we intended to."
"Well, don't tell anyone about this yet." Carla said.
"We wont. But if Johnny finds out, you're in for a big lecture." Montana said.
"Trust us, we know." I said.
"So just keep it to indoor affection, no outside or near window type stuff and also mainly in the dark." Montana said.
"And also be aware when someone else turns on the light." I added.
"Ok." They both replied.
"We better let you two get back to what you were doing." I said, "Coming?" I asked Montana, holding out my hand.
"Yep." Montana said, taking my hand.
"Umm, light guys?" Justin said, pointing to the light switch.
"Oh, sorry." Montana said. She turned and flicked the switch. We headed upstairs and left the new couple downstairs to count teeth.
Chapter 12: Chapter 12
**Montana's point of view**
“You two look very happy today.” Maddie said as Carla and Justin walked into the kitchen the next morning.
“Yeah, why not, it's a Saturday, weekend, day off.” Justin said filling a bowl with of cereal.
“And Montana is taking me shopping for our New Year's outfit.” Carla said eating a piece of toast.
“Courtesy of the fully paying Lance.” I added.
“You two better get a move on if you want to go shopping.” Lance said putting on his brown leather jacket.
“Coming!” I said, getting up and placing my plate and glass into the sink. Carla gulped down her juice and placed her unfinished piece of toast back onto her plate. She walked into the lounge room and got her black jacket, came back into the kitchen, grabbed the unfinished toast and headed out to Lance's car. “I'll guess we'll see the rest of you guys later. Give us a call if you need anything.” I said to Maddie, Joey and Justin. Chris and JC were still asleep upstairs. “Catch ya guys later.” I said walking out of the kitchen and heading towards the garage. I grabbed my three-quarter tan jacket from the back of the chair on my way past it. I reached the car and got in the front passenger seat. Lance then drove us to the mall.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“We'll give you a call when we want to get picked up.” I said to Lance as he parked the car in the 'drop off' zone of the car park.
“Yep. Try me first on my cell.” He reached into his wallet and pulled out his credit card. “Take this and go wild!” He said handing it to me.
“Thanks babe.” I said leaning in and giving him a kiss. I quickly broke it and said, “I gotta go cause me and Carla have some serious shopping to do!” I climbed out the car and shut the door behind me. Carla and I waved at the car as Lance drove off. “Let's go!” I said to Carla, grabbed her hand and quickly walked into the mall.
As soon as we were inside, I was the first to speak. “So what's the deal with you and Justin?”
“Nothing.” She replied back.
“Don't give me that. Come on, how did you two become all alone on the couch that night?”
“Well, I guess it was because we were the last two awake that night other than you and Lance.”
“How did you get to the kissing stage?”
“What is this? Twenty questions or something?”
“I can make it twenty if you really want me to.”
“No, not particularly.”
“Just answer my question.”
“Isn't that dress nice?” She said, walking over to a window with an elegant dress in it.
“It's lovely and don't change the subject.” I said grabbing her arm and turning her around.
“Fine. Well, I guess it started out we were just sitting down watching TV, talking about things we liked and stuff like that. We found out that we had so much in common. I couldn't help but stare into his blue eyes. They are eyes that you can get lost in. I was only supposed to flirt just a tiny bit and I guess I took it a bit too far…”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
**Lance's point of view**
“…I could tell she was flirting with me, but I guess it evened out a bit because I was flirting back. I put my hand through my hair and then I looked at her starring at me quite funny. I asked her what the problem was and she told me that I had a curl sticking up,” Justin said. Lance had gone back home and picked up Justin and they both headed out for a drive. Lance asked the question - `You and Carla kissing the other night, details.' So they ended up driving around the city streets having Justin give details. “I put my hand back through my hair to see if I could fix it myself. All she did was laugh. She moved closer to me in the couch and reached up and slowly put the curl back into place. Our faces were only inches apart. I just looked into her eyes as her eyes focused on my hair. Then our eyes met and I could feel the sparks go wild. I could now feel her breath on my face. With out hesitation I leant in and kissed her…”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
**Back with Montana and Carla in Montana's point of view”
“…I hesitated at first but then I felt like he had the same feelings for me and I do for him. So I leaned in and continued the kiss. Don't ask me how long we kissed for but at some point you walked in.” Carla said as we wandered past shops.
“And when are you planning on telling everyone else your affections for each other?” I asked her as we wandered into a shop.
“We aren't sure. Hopefully, everyone will know through our voices and not the media.” She said eyeing an outfit.
“Thanks.” I said, remembering how Johnny found out about Lance and me in the magazine.
“Sorry, I didn't mean it that way.” She said.
“It's cool. Well, Maddie was the first to find out about us anyway. Then Joey five seconds after she walked in on us. So no biggy.” I said, picking out a skirt. I roamed around looking for a matching top and then looked around for a shop assistant. “Excuse me,” I said to the shop assistant, “can I just go and try these on?”
“Yep, no problems.” The lady said. She directed me to an empty cell in the fitting room.
“Thanks. Be right out.” I said to Carla who went into the cell next to mine to try the clothes she picked out on.
A few minutes later we were looking at each other's selection of clothes. I had a black skirt on which looked long from the back but at the front it came to above my knees. Along the edge of the front and back of the skirt were studs. My top was a royal blue, long sleeved on the right side and it flared out near my right hand and sleeveless on the left. Carla had tried on a red boobtube and a short black leather mini skirt.
“You do know we are going to freeze New Year's night?” Carla said as she looked at the back of her outfit.
“Well, what do you think Justin is for? And what Lance is for me?” I said. “They are there to cuddle and keep warm!” I said, giving out a chuckle. “Wanna get the outfits and wear them New Year?”
“Definitely!” Carla said.
“We can grab a few other things while we are here. I'm sure Lance won't mind.” I said looking at Carla with an evil grin.
“Oh yeah!” Carla said as we headed to the cashier.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Many hours later, we decided to give Lance a call to come and pick us up because we were running out of hands to carry all of our bags.
As Lance turned up, he hopped out of the car and opened the boot. “I don't think you bought the whole mall, or did you?” He said as he noticed the amount of bags.
“We nearly did, but we decided to give it to some other person.” Carla said as she placed her bags into the boot.
“If we'd bought the mall, we would have to find another place to shop out, since we had bought everything in here.” I said as I placed my bags in the back.
“Right.” Lance said. “Well, I'd like to go now just in case you are gonna turn and say that you forgot to buy something.” He said closing the boot and walking around to the drivers' side.
“On second though, I did want that…” I started.
“Don't start Rae.” Lance said out the window to me.
“I won’t.” I replied and opened the passenger door. “We should do this more often.” I said to Carla as she got into the car.
“Definitely.” Carla replied getting into the car.
“Justin's shout next time.” I said, shutting my door and doing up my seatbelt.
“I dunno about that. But, I'll see what I can do.” Carla said as Lance pulled out of the car park.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
**Joey's point of view**
“NSYNC! NYSNC! NYSNC!” The reporters cried out. NSYNC were having a press conference.
“NSYNC, You have been invited to one of the biggest and most popular New Year's party in the world tomorrow night. Who are your partners that you are going with?” One reporter asked them all.
`God I hate question like these. Why can't they be less private like, when's the next tour or album coming out? I hate these questions.' I thought to myself, trying to keep myself awake. Lack of sleep and then have cameras and bright lights go off in your face the next morning, don't go well together.
“JC and I are taking two lucky contest winners to this event.” Chris said into the microphone. We had a contest run about two months ago. Two people could go with two of us to the New Years party. We didn't say who the two of us were going to be, but it ended up being JC and Chris. Lance's is going out with Montana, Justin said that he'd already asked someone (mental note to self - must find out who mysterious person is) and I'd already asked Maddie. The only reason why I asked Maddie was because I felt like she should be bought out from behind the curtain and up the front of the pack for a while. JC and Chris were left, so they became the lucky two.
“I'm taking Maddie. Now before you ask any questions, she's our wardrobe assistant and she's my best friend. We are only going as best friends. No more.” I said.
“Mystery guest.” Justin said.
“Someone special.” Lance said.
“Lance! Lance! In a magazine not too long ago, there were pictures of you and a girl on the rooftop of a hotel. Who is she and how long have you known her?” Another reporter asked.
`Lance, I feel sorry for ya.' I said to myself. We all hated being asked questions about our personal life. The media just take things the wrong way.
“All shall be revealed in good time.” Lance said. `Nice save!' I said to myself.
“NSYNC will no longer take anymore questions as they have a busy schedule for the rest of the day.” Johnny stepped out and said.
`What a lie!' I thought, `but a good one! Let me go home and sleep!' All five of us got up from our seats and headed out the back of the venue to an awaiting van. We all needed sleep. Tomorrow night was going to be the biggest party of the year. But not before I can play a few jokes on a few people.
Chapter 13: Chapter 13
**Joey's point of view**
“JOEY!” I heard Justin scream from his room.
“JOEY!” A scream from Lance's room.
“JOEY!” I picked up on Chris' voice screaming from his room. One more to go.
Finally, “JOEY!” Came a screaming voice form JC's room.
I heard footsteps reach to the top of the stairs. “JOEY!” They all screamed in unison. They ran down the stairs and crowed around the table where I was quietly sitting and having breakfast.
“Yes?” I quietly said to them.
“What have you done to our hair?” They sang out in unison.
“Let's see, we shaved Justin's, cut Chris' dreads off, died Lance's and streaked JC's. Why? Don't you like?” I said grinning at them all.
“Why did you do this for?” Lance asked pointing to his blue hair.
“I thought that something different to welcome the New Year.” I replied sinking lower into my seat.
“You cut my dreads off!” Chris screamed at me.
“You mongulated my curls!” Justin complained.
“You put blonde streaks through mine!” JC pointed out.
“My hair is blue!” Lance was last to speak.
“Well what do you want me to do about it?” I screamed back at them. The four guys looked at each other and then back at me. Four pairs of hands reached out and grabbed for me. I tried to struggle out of their grip but they dragged me into the bathroom and locked the door behind them.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“What are you guys doing in there?” I heard Montana shout from the other side of the bathroom door.
“Just a few fixer-uppers!” JC yelled out.
“You've been in there for over half an hour. What could be taking so long?” Carla asked them.
“We'll be out soon!” Chris said.
“What are all five of you doing in the bathroom anyway?” Maddie asked.
“You'll see.” Justin said.
Montana, Carla and Maddie had just woken up; probably by the sound of my squeals and running water.
We decided to emerge from the bathroom five minutes later, I was leading the way. I opened the door and noticed that the three girls we starring straight back at me. Then the girls screamed at the top of their lungs.
“Calm down girls!” Lance said. Moving out into the hallway.
“Wha…wha…wha…what?” Montana managed to spit out.
“We decided to go for a change.” JC started.
“Justin shaved off his curls, Chris cut of his dreads, Lance felt like going blue, JC decided to add a bit of streakiness into my life and I decided to go the full blonde approach.” While we were in the bathroom, they managed to die my hair completely blonde.
“A bit of late notice don't you think?” Maddie asked them.
“Nope, better late than never.” I said. I didn't actually mind having blonde hair. I like it!
“How about never?” Montana asked us.
“You wish.” I replied.
“We can't stay here all day and fight about drastic changes. We have a party to get ready for and got to.” Carla said heading to the kitchen for breakfast.
Chapter 14: Chapter 14
**Joey's point of view**“Oh my god, how long does it take to do your hair?” Justin yelled up the stairs.
“Well it takes me longer because I have hair and you don't!” Carla yelled back.
“She's got a point you know.” I interrupted them. We were all just about to go and pick up the contest winners at their own homes, and then head to the New Year's Eve party. The contest winners didn't know that we were going to their place, it was gonna be a huge surprise. All they knew was that a big limo was going to pick them up. All the guys were already dressed in our tuxedos, waiting for the girls to come down from upstairs. I was sitting down on the couch reading a magazine, JC and Chris were playing a game on Play Station, Lance was fixing up his tie in the mirror in the bottom hallway and Justin was at the base of the stairs.
“Oh ha ha Joey.” Justin said back to me.
“Just stating the obvious.” I replied and got back to my reading. After about five seconds, the magazine got boring, so I threw it onto the coffee table, stood up and stretched my arms above me head. I stopped my stretch halfway because I looked at the top of the stairs and the three girls were standing at the top with their arms linked. “Wow.” I said quietly, as I lowered my arms beside me. The three girls started to descend the stairs. I could see Justin out the corner of my eyes, staring at the girls. JC and Chris were still playing the game and Lance was walking out of the hallway.
Lance saw Justin and I staring at the stairs. Lance turned and looked at the stairs, saw the girls and said, “Oh my god, wow!” JC and Chris turned around to see what Lance was wowing about. Then they saw the girls. By this stage, Carla was in Justin arms; Montana was making her way over to Lance and Maddie made her way over to me.
“Oh my god, you can look good when you dress up Mr Fatone.” Maddie said.
“I don't know about me, but you look fantastic!” I said admiring what she was wearing. Maddie was wearing a full-length dark blue sequined dress with spaghetti straps, matching shoes, a diamond necklace and little jewels through her hair. Her hair was up in a French twist with strands of curls near her face.
“Why thank you.” She said. I put out my arm for her to take, she placed her arm in mine and we walked towards the door. “Let's go peoples!” She said to the others as we made our way to the awaiting black limo in the driveway.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
**From Justin's point of view**
“Carla, you look amazing! Beyond words to describe such a beautiful figure standing in front of me.” I said as Carla reached my arms. Carla was wearing a diagonal cut dress, (cut from her right knee to her left ankle) with one strap over her right shoulder. At the bottom was a deep blue and then slowly faded to a light blue and then finally to a white at the top. A pair of white strappy shoes and a white choker studded with blue dimontis around her neck. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail and curled.
“Okay, whose words are they coming out of your mouth?” Carla asked me, looking into my eyes.
“Mine,” I replied, “they are mine.”
“Justin, I know when you are lying.” Carla mocked.
“Oh yeah, how?”
“I can feel your heart beat get faster.” She replied. I forgot that she was pressed up against my chest.
“Fine, I took some advice from Joey.” I replied. Trust Joey to give me a corny line.
“Let's go peoples!” I heard Maddie yell from the front door.
“Thank you Joey for the compliment!” Carla yelled over my shoulder to Joey.
Joey turned around and said, “Hey, anytime!” They soon disappeared out the door. With JC and Chris followed close behind.
“Come on, let's go.” I said, placing my hand on her lower back and headed for the door.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
**From Lance's point of view**
“MJ, you are an angel sent from heaven.” I commented as she approached me in a full-length bright yellow hipster skirt with dimontis across the top, it also had a very small train out the back with flowers at the very bottom of it. She was wearing a black sleeveless top, which unzipped from the bottom to the top, but not all the way. She had it unzipped as far as it would go (just under chest line), a silver cross on a silver necklace and a pair of silver strappy shoes. Her hair was out and held back with a few bobby pins here and there.
“Why thank-you Lance.” Montana said. She stepped back and looked me up and down. “Come here,” she said reaching for my neck, “you're tie is crooked.” She starting straitening up my tie.
“Let's go peoples.” We both heard Maddie yell from the front door.
“Care to join me?” I asked her and held out my hand for her to take.
“Why yes, if you don't mind.” She said taking my hand.
“Why not at all.” I said as we headed out the front door behind Justin and Carla. Montana pulled the door closed behind her, locked it and we then headed for the limo. We climbed in and headed down the driveway and off to the first contestant's house. “Where to?” I asked JC.
“Umm, 43rd Street. Her name is Rachael Lee. Then off to Park Avenue to Lisa Salvador.” JC replied looking at the piece of paper from his pocket. About fifteen minutes, we rolled up Rachael's driveway.
“Okay, who's going to go and get her?” Maddie asked.
“I will.” Montana said, jumping at the opportunity. She opened up the door and I followed her to the front door. She rang the doorbell and took a few steps back, into me.
“Whoa,” I said, grabbing hold of her arms so that she could regain balance, “not so fast.”
“Sorry, I didn't realize that you were behind me.” She said looking deeply into my eyes.
Just then, the front door opened. “Hello.” The lady at the door said.
“Hi, my name is Lance Bass and this is Montana Jordan. We are here to pick up Rachael and take her to the biggest party of the year.” I said greeting the woman with a firm handshake.
“Hi, I'm Sarah, Rachael's mother. She's actually still upstairs getting ready.” Sarah said giving Montana a handshake. “I'll just go and get her for you, if you would like.”
“May I go and get her, if you don't mind. We have to talk about a few things in private.” Montana said.
`Like when does she have to talk to them in private?' I thought to myself.
“Yep, no problem. Her room is up the stairs and third door on the right.” Sarah said. “Come and sit down Lance.” She ushered me into the lounge room to sit down on the couch as Montana climbed the stairs to Rachael's room.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
**From Montana's point of view**
Knock, knock
“Come in.” Came a voice from inside the room. I opened the door and put my head in.
“Rachael?” I asked her.
“Yeah…and you are?” She asked me.
“I'm Montana.” I replied.
“Hey, come in.” I opened the door wider and came into her room. “You can sit down on the bed if you would like, I just have to finish doing my hair.” She said as she was curling her shoulder length blonde hair with a curling iron.
I looked around her room and saw only a few pictures here and there of the guys. A not so fanatic fan, that's a first. “As I said, I'm Montana and I'm Lance's partner, guest, date, whatever you want to call me, for the night. I'm here to pick you up and take you to the party.” I watched her move around the room looking for something. Her figure wasn't perfect, wasn't slim and wasn't too large. She wore blue-framed glasses, a simple long full-length black dress, with spaghetti straps that criss-crossed over her back. She wore a pair of strappy stiletto shoes and a simple silver watch on her left wrist.
“Who's my partner?” She asked me.
“Well, who would you like to go with?” I asked her, hoping deep inside that she would pick JC.
“I would so love to go with JC, but if not, I don't care.” She replied as she picked up her handbag from the bed beside me.
“Well, let me just say, you are in luck! JC is your assigned partner!” I said getting off the bed.
“Oh my god! Thank you!” She said giving me a hug.
“Hey, that's what I'm here for!” I said. “Now,” I continued, “a few pointers of my own. Don't get carried away by all of this stuff, it's just a party and…” I began.
“JC is just like a regular guy, who has to put up with all of the press and paparazzi, rumours, yadda yadda yadda, don't let it get to my head that I'm going to a New Year's Party with *NSYNC, it's just the first time I've met him in person and nothing will happen from it. Yeah, I've heard it all before.” She finished my sentences, which she turned into one long sentence.
“Umm, yeah.” I was so amazed.
“I'm not an over-obsessed fan. I am going to respect JC, the other guys and their dates. If they don't mind, I would like to treat them as normal people, because believe me, I know what it's like to be famous.” She said as we walked out of her bedroom into the hallway.
“You do?” I asked her astounded.
“Na, but it sounded good.” We both gave a little chuckle. “But I know what it's like, to be not treated as a normal person.”
“How? If you don't mind me asking.” I said.
“Well,” she started, “as you've probably already noticed I'm not skinny, not good looking, that's sort of thing. I don't get treated like everyone else. I know what it's like to be screaming and no one can hear me, being single and left alone. I know that's nothing compared to fame, but still.” She said as we reached the top of the stairs.
“Don't worry; I know exactly how you feel. It is roughly like fame, but different. This time, fame has people following you around all the time and can't keep tings a secret from them. They always somehow find out the truth.” I said, remembering Lance and I in the picture in the magazine on top of the hotel roof.
“Don't worry; I'll keep everything that I see or do tonight under wraps. I won't brag about who has a girlfriend and who doesn't, who snogged who.” She said as we reached the bottom of the stairs.
“Lance, this is Rachael. Rachael this is Lance.” I said as we walked into the lounge room. Lance quickly stood up and turned to face us.
“Hey.” He said as he walked closer to Rachael. He reached out and gave her a hug and Rachael returned the favour. “Well, let's go!” Lance said and walked towards the door.
“He's just trying to make you feel more comfortable, that's all.” I quietly said to Rachael as Lance walked away. Rachael smiled back at me.
“Bye mum! Be home later!” Rachael yelled out to her mum.
“Bye Rachael! Don't get up to anything!” Sarah yelled back.
“Don't worry, she won't!” I yelled back at Sarah.
We started out the door and headed towards the car. Lance was already standing with the door wide open to the car. Rachael leaned over and said to me, “Don't worry, I won't tell anyone that you and Lance are an item!” I just looked at her with a shocked expression on my face. `How could she have picked up on that?' I asked myself. She smiled back and I just placed my arm around her shoulders and we walked to the car, both with a little bounce in our step. Rachael climbed in first and slid across the seat to be sitting next to JC. I slid in next to her and Lance followed behind me and closed the door and we then drove off to Lisa's house.
“Okay everybody, this is Rachael, Rachael this is Chris, Joey, Maddie, Carla, Justin and JC.” I said, following the line around the car. Across the back seat were Lance, myself, Rachael and then JC. Along the side were Maddie and Joey and across the front, facing backwards to the direction of the car, were Carla, Justin and Chris. Carla was sitting in the middle of Justin and JC.
“Hey Rachael, I'm JC and I'll be your date for this evening.” Chris said.
“Hey JC, I'm your date and I'll be sure to ask any questions if necessary.” Rachael replied.
Everyone cracked up because Rachael had just ruined one of JC’s attempts at being funny.
They all said their welcomes and we started up a few conversations. Soon, we were at Lisa's house.
“Okay, who's going to do the honours?” I asked them all.
“I will.” Came Chris’s reply. Before anyone could say anything, he was already out the door.
“Wow, he's a fast mover.” I said under my breath.
About ten minutes later, a girl with dark brown shoulder length hair climbed into the car, followed by Chris. “Everyone this is Lisa. Lisa this is Carla, Justin, Maddie, Joey, JC, Rachael, Montana and Lance.” He said, going around the car once more.
“Hey.” We all said.
“Hi.” She nervously said. I felt really sorry for her. She seemed really shy and out of place. Nothing that a small little talk after the car ride won't help.
For the rest of the car ride, Lisa sat there, hardly saying a word and Rachael seemed like she was one of the guys. Rachael blended well with the group. The car came to a halt and then a sudden wave of flashes was seen out the car window.
“Let's go!” Joey said as he climbed out of the limo first. The cameras went crazy. He put out his hand for Maddie to take so that Joey could help her out of the car. As soon as she was out, Joey placed his hand on her lower back and took her towards the first reporter.
“We're next.” Justin said to Carla as he got out and helped Carla out. Justin did the same as Joey, and led Carla to a reporter.
“Ready?” JC asked Rachael.
“Ready as I’ll ever be!” Rachael replied.
Chris was the next to climb out, leaving Lisa, Lance and myself still in the car. I quickly lent over to Lisa to give her a few words. “Just act yourself, don't forget, the guys are just normal human beings. The same as you and me.” She turned and gave me a hug and placed a huge smile on her face. She saw JC's hand at the door, she took it and climbed out and stood beside him.
“Last but definitely not least.” I said to Lance as we headed out the car. As soon as I stood out, Lance closed the door and the limo drove off. Oh my, the cameras, so many of them! We walked over to where the guys had all gathered at the MTV reporter. I leaned over to Lance's ear and said, “I'm gonna take the girls inside and have a proper little chat. If you know what I mean.” Lance looked at me, smiled and nodded. He squeezed my hand twice to tell me that he loved me. I squeezed his hand back three times, to tell him that I loved him too. Hand squeezing became a thing, so instead of showing our affection by hugging or kissing, we decided that squeezing each other's hand was more discrete. I walked over to the girls and we walked inside, posing for a few pictures along the way.
When we were inside, the room was huge. It had all of these balloons held up to the ceiling with a huge net, a huge dance floor in the middle of the room with tables along the sides of the room for the guests to sit at. We were ushered to our table. A table of ten! The table was round, with a white tablecloth with 2001 written all over the tablecloth and a big 2002 in the middle of the tablecloth. There were silver balloons, decoratively placed on the walls. In the centre of the table were a few streamers and party poppers for us to pop when the count down reached one, or whenever we wanted to.
“Okay, Lisa and Rachael. Let me just introduce ourselves formally. This is Maddie. She's the guy's wardrobe assistant and Joey's partner for the night. Carla and myself, Montana, are along for the ride. Just to let you know, whatever happens tonight can't leave this room. The more in-depth stuff can't leave. But other stuff like who you got to dance with, things that wont upset *NSYNC's image is alright. The guys are just normal people, like everyone else at the table at the moment. Now, don't be shocked by Joey's corny pick up lines coming out of the other guys mouths, Chris' weird behaviour, hey, just to put it simple, they are guys, so expect the unexpected.” We all had a laugh and then Lance came up behind me and put his hands over me eyes.
“Guess who.” He whispered into my ear.
“Oh please let it be Orlando Bloom. I would die if it was!” I said sarcastically.
“Oh ha, ha.” Lance said as he took his hands away from my eyes and sat down next to me.
“Oh I know I am.” I said to Lance.
About five minutes later, all of the introductions were made, thank-yous, stuff like that and then the party began.
“Care for a dance Rae?” Lance asked me.
“Sure why not.” I said. I grabbed his hand and he led me to the dance floor. I looked over Lance shoulder and saw Chris and Lisa grooving away, I could see JC and Rachael back at the table in an in-depth conversation, Joey and Maddie were dancing at the other end of the dance floor and I couldn't see Carla and Justin on the dance floor. `They must be getting a drink.' I thought to myself.
About five fast songs later, a slow one finally came on, `Back at one' by Brian McKnight. I wrapped my arms around Lance's neck and rest my head in the crook of his neck and inhaled his aftershave deeply. He rested his cheek on my forehead as he softly sang `Back at one' to me. But he then stopped sing and asked me a question, “Do you mind if our relationship goes public?”
“No, not at all. Only if you want to.” I replied, closing my eyes and memorizing his scent.
“That's why I'm asking you.”
“Well, it would make our relationship easier to handle in public, I guess.” I said, looking up into his green eyes.
“Do you think it would make it easier to do this?” He said, leaning down and kissing me on the lips.
We broke apart and I said, “Yes.”
“So let's do what we wouldn't normally do in public tonight, and if it doesn't get out that we are a couple, I will go to the press personally.”
“Okay.” I replied. I returned my lips back to his for all to see.
Chapter 15: Chapter 15
“Where did you and Justin get to last night?” I asked Carla. It was the morning after the party and we were up in our hotel room. I was sharing the room with Carla.
“Huh? What do you mean?” Carla replied. Her face went bright red and she tried to hide it behind a magazine that she quickly picked up from the table.
“Well let me refresh your memory.” I started. “We walked inside, girls first; the guys came in after us. I started dancing with Lance, Maddie and Joey was dancing, Chris and Rachael were dancing, JC and Lisa were sitting down talking, and I couldn't find you two at all.” I said raising an eyebrow.
“Me and Justin were just talking to some people.” Carla replied looking over the top of the magazine.
"Right.” I said. I heard a knock on the door and I went and opened it up and Lance had one arm leaning against the doorframe.
“Hey gorgeous.” Lance said picking me up and twirling me around.
“PUT ME DOWN!” I screamed.
“Only after I get a kiss.” He replied and gave me one of his sad expressions.
“Okay.” I said and kissed him on the lips.
“GET ME A BUCKET!” I heard from my left. Lance and I both smiled because we both knew it was Maddie.
“Morning Maddie.” Lance and I both said as Lance put me back down.
“Me and Lance…” I started.
“Lance and I.” Carla corrected me.
“Me and Lance are going out for the day. Catch you guys later.” I said as Lance grabbed my hand and we walked down the hallway. “Where to today?”
Lance broke from holding hands and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “Hmm, I was thinking of a little adventure. How does the theme park sound like?” He said.
“What?! And what in those long lines.” I said with a shocked expression on my face. Lance's expression fell. “Na, it's cool. I would love to go to the theme park with you.” I said placing my head on his shoulder.
“On one condition.” Lance said. He knocked on the door and out came his security guard Paul. “Paul has to come with us, so we can jump the queues and stuff like that.” He said with a smirk.
“If you say so!” I said as we made our way to the elevator.
**Meanwhile, back with Carla and Maddie**
“Yeah, so what happened with you and Justin last night?” Maddie asked Carla.
“Why does everyone have to know my business?” Carla said.
“Cause we just do. Tell me!” Maddie said glaring at her.
“Okay, okay, stop looking at me like that.” She said putting the magazine back on the table and resting her elbows on her knees. “As I said to Montana, we went around talking to a few celebrities and you wouldn't believe who we talked to!”
“Oh enlighten me.” Maddie said sarcastically.
“The one and only Ryan Phillippe.” A huge grin appeared on Carla's face as she said his name. “To think I would be talking to the star of my favourite movie too!” Carla's favourite movie was of course Cruel Intentions.
“What did you guys talk about?” Maddie asked.
“Well…” Carla started and rambled on about her whole evening.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Oh no, not AGAIN!” I screamed out as we were upside-down on another loop.
“ARGH!” Lance joined in. We practically screamed all the time on the rollercoaster we were currently on. Once it was finished, we stumbled off the ride and headed to the next one. “How about, we let some of the people in this que, come on the ride with us and yeah, how does that sound?”
“Sounds great.” I said, turning to Lance and looking him in the eyes. Actually, I looked into his goofy looking sunnies he had on. He was wearing his 'disguise'. A black bandana and dark sunnies. Surprisingly enough, no one had noticed him yet.
“I just have to tell Paul to go up to the guys who run this ride, who I am, and see if he can spare on turn on the ride for our little group of people.” Lance said. He turned and talked to Paul for a few minutes and then Paul walked off to the front entrance of the ride and talked with the people that were there. About five minutes later, Paul came back and gave us the all clear. “I'll go ahead on the ride, and get the stupid disguise off so they know why they skipped the line for and you can pick them out okay?”
“See ya up there gorgeous!” I said as he turned and ran up to the front. I wondered down the line and picked out bunch of girls at random, asking a simple question, “What's your favourite music band?” I was lucky cause only a few had said *NSYNC, the others said bands like Limp Bizkit, Craig David, Metallica, and Eminem. There was a total of four girls so far that have said *NSYNC. I walked up to another girl and tapped her on the shoulder. “Hi,” I said, “I was wondering…” I faded out. “Rachael, is that you?” I asked her.
“Yeah, oh my god, Montana it's you!” She said.
I opened my arms and embraced her in a hug. “How ya been?” I asked her.
“Good, yeah good. What brings you here?”
“Oh, I'm just here, picking out a few girls to come on the ride with us.”
“How many is us?”
“Just two, me and him. And then there are these four girls behind me. Hey, do you want to come on with us?”
“Sure.” Rachael said. We walked up to the front of the line and the guys let us through, much to the disgust of some of the people already at the front of the line. The ride was a water one. You sat in chairs that were in a circle facing a circular handle. The thing was set upon a huge rubber inflated tube. The seats were already previously wet so when we sat down our bums all got wet.
“Hey girls,” I said, “I'm Montana. How about we go around and tell each other our names.”
“Hey I'm Cathy.” The girl on my right said.
“I'm Georgia.” The one after Cathy said.
“Hey all, I'm Christine.” The one after Georgia said.
“I'm Sarah.” The one on Rachael's left.
“I'm Rachael.” Rachael said smiling warmly at the other four girls.
Lance still hadn't arrived. `Where could Lance be?' I thought to myself. Lance then soon turned up and jumped into the empty seat that was between Rachael and me. As soon as Lance looked around at the other girls, he noticed a stunned expression on each of their faces, except for my own and Rachael's.
“Hey girls.” Lance said, smiling warmly at them.
“Lance, this is Cathy, Georgia, Christine, Sarah and you remember Rachael don't you?” I said, pointing to each one of them as I went around the circle. He held out his hand and shook the other person's hand as he said his hellos to each one of them.
“Okay girls, let's have some fun!” Lance said throwing his hands up into the air. “WOOHOO!” He screamed out.
I put my arms up and screamed out too. The others joined in with a bit of hesitation as the ride pulled out of the loading area and made it's way down the twisty waterway.
We would hit the edge of where the water was being held in and a big splash would come up and soak us all. A mini wave machine would create waves that would push us and soak us at the same time. We were nearing the end of the ride and I could see a big waterfall ahead of us. The water was gushing down into the man-made river we were floating in. At first, I was going to be the last person to be soaked, but knowing my luck, the ride turned and I became the first person to be hit by the waterfall along with Lance. The ride finished and we hopped out and ringed the water out of our clothes. Lance reached into the bag that had another set of clothes for me and him, in such emergency of getting wet, and pulled out some rare singles the guys made, all signed by the guys and gave them to the girls.
“We have to get going now, see you girls around.” I said to them and they all squealed and ran off to tell their friends. Rachael stayed behind as Lance put on his disguise. “Hey Rachael,” I said to her, “did you have fun last night?”
“I had so much fun. I would like to thank all of you guys in some way for sharing a wonderful night with me.” Rachael said.
“Well what do you have in mind?” I asked her.
“Well, my family owns a cabin right next to a lake, and I was wondering if you guys wanted to come up and stay with me for a few days or something, when you next have off or something.” Rachael said. Lance turned and faced us. “I mean, that's only if you want to.”
“Hey that would be great!” Lance said, “We are off somewhere around the last weekend of January. That would work out perfectly cause it's my turn this year to plan Justin's birthday…”
“And it's my turn to plan Joey's.” I said, “Hey Rachael, do you mind if we have their birthday parties at the cabin?”
“Yeah sure, no problem!” She replied happily.
“Here, take my card and we can keep in contact if you like okay?” I said to her, giving her my card with my phone details on them.
“Sure. So, I guess I'll see you guys around then. Bye!” She said as she waved and headed out of the ride.
“I think we should head back now Lance, it's late and I don't want to get in trouble for you having a cold.” I said.
“Yep that sounds like a great idea.” Lance said. Soon we were on our way back to the hotel.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Firstly we went back to my room so we could put the bag down. Then we decided to go and tell the others that we were back. Firstly we went to Joey's room that he shared with Chris. Joey had left a note saying that he, Chris, Maddie and JC had gone clubbing.
“Looks like all who's left is Carla and Justin.” I said, showing Lance the note.
“Do you want to go for a swim or something?” Lance asked me.
“Yeah why not. Meet you up at the pool in ten minutes?” I asked him.
“Yep.” Lance replied. We headed back to our own rooms to get changed.
`I wonder were Carla could be?' I thought, considering the fact that they were the only ones left other than us.
Lance swiped his card in the door lock and opened the door. The room was dark so he turned on the light switch. “Oh my god, I'm sorry.”
Carla and Justin were sitting down on the end of Justin's bed kissing. They quickly broke apart.
“I sorta have a habit of walking in on you two don't I?” Lance asked as he walked over to his suitcase and pulled out is boardshorts and a wifebeater.
“Yep.” Justin replied quickly.
“Well, I'll leave you two alone. Me and Montana are at the pool if you need us.” Lance said grabbing a towel from the bathroom.
“Okay.” Justin said. Lance left the room and headed to my room. “Now where were we?” Justin asked Carla. They continued kissing.
There was a knock at me door, I opened it and Lance was standing there with his arm resting on the doorframe. “Hey, I sorta need a place to get changed, Carla and Justin are in my room so I decided to leave them in peace. Do you mind?”
“Come on in.” I said. “I'll get changed in the bathroom and you can get changed in here.” I said, as I opened my suitcase and pulled out my bikini and my boardshorts. I walked into the bathroom and got changed.
We had already been swimming for over forty-five minutes by now. We had had races, diving competitions and anything else you could think of. We decided to call it quits, because we were both eventually tired and we had had a long day. We slowly made our way back my door.
“I've had so much fun with you today Montana.” Lance said looking in my eyes.
“So did I.” I said. I leaned up closer to him and he got my idea and bent down and our lips met. The intensity of our kiss increased and Lance pushed me against my door. My back was now flat against the door.
I tried to swipe my card in the door to unlock it so we wouldn't be kissing in the hallway, but it was no use, I was having trouble. The next thing I know, the door gave way and Lance is lying on top of me on the floor. I looked up to see Carla standing above me. “I hear a noise from outside, like someone was trying to break into the room, I open the door and you two come crashing down to the floor!” Carla exclaimed.
“Sorry, I was trying to unlock the door.” I said, still with my arms around Lance's neck and lying on the ground.
“With of course some difficulty.” Carla mumbled under her breath.
“Huh? What did you say?” Lance asked, looking up at Carla.
“I said, I thought Justin and I were bad enough, but this…this is a classic!” Carla said letting out a loud laugh. Lance and I thought it was really funny too, so we joined in and started laughing. We were laughing really hard that Lance rolled off me and we were both on our backs and Carla was lying down on her bed, cracking up laughing.
Chapter 16: Chapter 16
`Hi, sorry I can't come to the phone at the moment, but you know the drill!' Beep!
“Hey Montana, it's me, Rachael. I was just ringing to find out about what you and Lance were planning and if you need anything for it or anything in particular, etc etc. Okay, ring me back on my mobile, ask JC he has it in his phone, but if not, it's…” Rachael said into the phone. “So, I guess I'll be hearing from you soon! Ciao!”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“What on earth am I going to do for Justin's birthday?” Lance asked as he flopped down on my bed.
I reached over to my bedside table and turned on my mobile phone. “I dunno what you are going to do, but what am I going to do about Joey's?!” I said. Beep beep, beep beep! “Oh,” I said, “I have a message.” I read the screen, `Call 101, 1 message received'. I dialled up my message bank to check my message.
Carla, Justin, Joey and Chris were in the eatery eating lunch. JC and Maddie were still asleep because they didn't get back from the club until about 3 o'clock this morning. Lance had come in to get me and then we would both go to the eatery. I was busy getting myself ready. I was walking in and out of the bathroom while Lance just laid there and looked at me.
“Who was that?” Lance asked, propping himself up on his elbows.
“That was Rachael. She wants to know what we are doing about the birthday parties.” I said, putting the phone into my back pocket of my jeans.
“Shall we do lunch and discuss this?” Lance asked.
“Yes, let's do lunch.” I said. We left my room and headed towards the elevator. When we got there, Lance pushed the button to go down. The doors opened and out stepped Carla, Justin, Joey and Chris, and we stepped in a quickly shut the door. “Well good thing Justin and Joey aren't down there trying to eavesdrop on our party plans.”
“Definitely.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Hello.”
“Rachael?”
“Yeah.”
“Hey Rachael, it's Montana. How are you?”
“Oh hey, I'm fine, yourself?”
“I'm doing great. I got your message.”
“Did ya?”
“Yeah, and here's what we got planned...” I said and told Rachael, the plans that Lance and I discussed during our `doing lunch' session.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
**January 29th, 2002**
“Are we there yet?” Justin asked from the back of the car.
“No.” I replied for like the millionth time.
“Can we take these off yet?” Joey asked for the millionth and first time. Lance and I decided on a joint surprise party at the cabin, so before we left the hotel, we put blind folds over Justin's and Joey's eyes. Actually, they were two of Justin's bandanas. “This bandana smells like Justin's sweat!” Joey complained again.
“Please Joey, quit the complaining, we are nearly there.” I protested back.
“Arewethereyetarewethereyetarewethereyetarewethereyet?” Joey said in one breath.
“NO!” Lance and I cried out in unison.
“Are we there yet?” Justin asked after about five seconds of silence.
“Look, we are gonna kick you out of the car and leave you on the side of the road if you aren't careful.” I said, turning around in my seat to look at the two blindfolded guys, sitting in the back of Lance's car.
“Yeah, like to see you try.” Joey said, motioning his words to the back of Lance's head, thinking I was over that direction.
“Fine then. Lance pull over.” I said. Lance pulled over and stopped the car. I jumped out and opened Joey's door and helped him out of the car.
“Ha ha Joey!” Justin said, to the open door.
“And you to Mr Timberlake.” I said, closing Joey's door and walking around to Justin's door, pulling Joey with me.
“Trust me to open my big mouth.” Justin said quietly. I opened the door and pulled Justin out. “Okay, nice joke, can we get in the car now.”
“No, I told you,” I said, getting back into the front passenger seat, “we are going to leave you on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.” I closed the door and Lance spun the wheels a little bit while we drove off. We left Justin and Joey standing on the side of the road with blind folds on.
“What could go wrong now?” Justin asked Joey's back.
“Oh my god, is that Justin Timberlake and Joey Fatone? OH MY GOD! ARGH!” Joey and Justin heard a girl scream from the left of them.
“Oh no.” Justin said.
“Trust you to open your mouth too soon.” Joey said back.
“IT IS TOO!” They heard another girl scream from the right of them.
“I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S REALLY THEM!” A third girl was heard.
“I LOVE YOU GUYS! I REALLY DO!” A forth. Fans, in the middle of no where surrounded them. They were standing there, no security guards, blindfolded and surrounded. Slowly, Joey and Justin started taking small steps backwards, very carefully, making sure they wouldn't fall over or run into anything.
The girls started to scream some more. The screams came closer and closer. It suddenly clicked in Justin's head to take of his blind fold. He should have of taken it of earlier, his hands weren't tied or anything, so why didn't he think of it before. He took of his blindfold and saw Joey with his still on, right in front of him, to his right. “Joey take of your blindfold.” Justin said. Once Joey took of his blindfold, Joey looked at Justin and then in front of them both and saw who was there.
Chapter 17: Chapter 17
Carla, Maddie, Rachael and Chris were standing right in front of them.
“Ah it's Justin and Joey from *NSYNC!” Chris said in a girly voice.
“My god I'm going to kill you all!” Justin said running for Chris. Chris turned and ran with Justin hot on his heels.
“Now this is funny.” I said, watching Justin chase Chris around. Justin stopped dead in his tracks, turned slowly around and looked at me. He slowly started to walk towards me. “No…no, don't you even think about it!” Justin's pace became faster and faster. I slowly walked backwards and saw Justin's pace become faster, I turned and ran…ran right into Joey's awaiting arms. I looked up at his face and saw a huge grin. “Lemme go please!” I begged.
“Hmm, what do you think Justin?” Joey asked him sarcastically.
“I don't know, what do you think?” Justin said.
Now he was closer to me. Close enough I could feel his breath on the back of me neck. I turned around and kept my face down. Slowly, I lifted my head to look at Justin's face. His face was serious, but then, he flashed his million-dollar smile at me and Joey gave me a big bear hug, pinning my arms to my side. He lifted me up and walked to the jetty. I tried to squirm and wriggle my way out of his arms, but it was no use, he was too strong for me. We got to the end and Justin grabbed my ankles and Joey moved his arms and placed them under my arms. I was no longer touching the ground.
They slowly started swinging my back and forth. I started screaming, they started saying, “1..........2……….3!” On the three, they chucked me into the lake. I surfaced and saw Joey and Justin, rolling on the jetty ground with laughter. I made my way to the ladder at the end of the jetty and climbed up. The guys had now stood up and the laughter was subsiding.
“Ha, ha, you look like a drowned rat!” Justin said pointing at me. Their laughter began again and they were laughing hysterically.
“Do I really.” I said. I noticed that they were only a foot away from the end of the jetty and I was on the safer side. I slowly walked closer to them, making sure I didn't do anything that looked suspicious. “But I guess, you both are more of a drowned rat.” There laughter quickly faded and they looked at me and then at each other. This was my chance. I quickly pushed them both into the lake. They surfaced and I was the one on the jetty, laughing hysterically.
“BASS!” Justin yelled, “YOUR GIRLFRIEND IS GONNA DIE!” I looked down at Joey and Justin and they were both giving me the same cruel look.
“YOUR LIFE WON'T BE WORTH LIVING IF YOU DO!” Lance yelled back from where he was standing beside the cars.
“Truce guys?” I asked, extending my hand both my hands to the guys in the water.
“Fine.” They both said, shaking my hands. Big mistake. The guys pulled me into the water. I surface and a water fight broke out.
"Fight!" Chris yelled. Everybody came running down the jetty and jumped off the end and into the water.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Justin, Joey, Carla, Maddie, JC, Chris, Rachael, Lance and myself, were all at Rachael's cabin in the woods which had a huge lake. We were all there celebrating Justin and Joey's birthday as one big two-day party, instead of two separate ones. It was late and we were sitting down, in front of the television in the large rumpus room, eating chips, lollies and other food, and drinking drinks, but some of the guys had a beer.
“So what movie next?” Maddie asked as she took out Mickey Blue Eyes out of the DVD player.
“Face Off.” Carla said.
“No, Armageddon.” I said.
“Hey, it's my birthday party and I say we are going to watch Dude, Where's My Car.” Justin said.
“Hey, it's my birthday party too and you choose to watch Mickey Blue Eyes before and it's my turn now, so I say we watch Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” Joey said triumphantly.
“All those agree, say I.” Justin said disappointed.
A total of seven I's where heard in the room. “Eight against one, OVER RULED!” Joey said with excitement. Maddie put Willie Wonka in to the DVD player and sat down on the floor.
I was sitting on one of the armchairs and Lance was sitting on the floor in between my legs. Carla lounged herself across Justin and JC on the three-seater couch. Carla's head was on a pillow on Justin's lap and Carla's legs from her knees down were across JC's lap. Chris was snuggled up on the other armchair and Rachael was sitting against the three-seater couch in the middle on the floor. Joey and Maddie had grabbed some pillows and were lying on their stomachs in front of Rachael.
The next morning, I woke up and started to get myself some breakfast. I made myself some toast and poured a glass of orange juice, and made my way out onto the veranda. It was still dark, but the sun was just about to rise. “What are you doing up so early?” I heard a voice from behind me say. I turned around and saw Carla standing there.
“Morning.” I said. “You should know by now that I'm usually up by this time on the holidays; I just can't seem to sleep in during the holiday period. It's virtually impossible.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. I can't believe it's still dark at this time.” Carla said sitting down on the other swing chair.
“Good. I'm not the only early waker.” I knew that voice. It was Lance. He came out and sat down next to me on the swing chair I was sitting on. I leaned against him and bought my feet up on the chair, Lance wrapped his arm around my shoulders and I rested my head on his chest.
“Doesn't it suck when someone steps on you early in the morning, and you can't get back to sleep cause you are in too much pain?” Justin said emerging from the house.
“Was that you?” Lance asked. “I'm so sorry.” Lance said sarcastically.
“Out of everyone, I thought that you would be one of that last people to wake up, and not one of the first.” Carla said as Justin sat next to her and placed his arm around Carla's shoulders. Carla leaned into him and rested her head on his shoulders.
The sun was starting to rise, and the sky was turning a pale pink, and into an orange colour as the sun rose higher. “We should do this more often.” Lance whispered into my ear.
“Yeah we should.” I replied taking a sip of my orange juice. Lance had started eating my toast. He offered it back to me and I took a bite. “Have you two thought about going public about your relationship?” I asked Carla and Justin.
“We have, but we do and we don't, if you know what I mean.” Justin said.
“We do want to so we wouldn't have to worry about not being able to show our affections in public, but we don't cause we don't want the public knowing our private life.” Carla said.
“We want to have a relationship that is normal as possible.” Justin said.
“Just don't get caught the hard way.” I said.
“Or you'll be hearing from Johnny.” Lance added.
“Don't worry, we'll be careful.” Carla said.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Okay, who's up for a bit of jet-skiing?” Rachael asked.
“Yeah, let's go!” Joey said excitedly.
“I shot gun the red one!” Chris yelled out as we all ran down to the shed on the jetty. We climbed onto our own jet ski's, started them and sprinted further into the lake. The guys were the first ones out, leaving all the girls behind.
“So, how do we work these things?” I asked.
“Well, you turn that, press this and move this to go fast or slower.” Rachael said, showing us what was what.,
“Okay,” Carla started, “let me see if I got this right. We turn this, push that, move this… OH MY GOD!” Carla screamed as she quickly left the jetty on the speeding jet ski.
“How cool!” Maddie exclaimed. Rachael then went out, followed by Maddie and myself. Within no time, we had all gotten used to jet skiing and were chasing everyone around the lake.
Two hours whizzed by and we slowly headed up to the house for some lunch. “Okay, a barbeque is on today's menu.” Rachael said as she pulled out sausages, steak, onions and eggs from the fridge.
“Rachael, I'll fix up the lunch. You go outside and get to know everyone a bit more.” I said.
“And I'll help Montana.” JC said.
“No, it's fine, seriously, I'll do it.” Rachael protested.
“Rachael, we'll be fine. We are your guest and you can go outside and mingle, mingle, mingle!” JC said. Once Rachael left the room and she was outside, JC spoke up. “Montana, I need your advice.”
“My advice?" I quirked a smile at him, but was faced with seriousness. "With what?” I asked him.
“With a girl.” He replied, cutting an onion.
“Well, what do you wanna know?” I asked him.
“Well, how do I get a girl to notice me. I mean, what can I do? He said.
“I dunno, depends on who the girl is and what you want to do, to make her notice you.” I said, reaching into the cupboard and pulling out a salad bowl. I began to pull the lettuce apart, “So are you gonna tell me who this girl is? Or am I gonna have to try and tell you what to do without knowing who this person is?”
“I dunno, I guess I should tell you, but if I do, you will be the only one who knows about this. None of the guys even know.”
“So, it's sorta of a new thing, that has come about and hasn't been around for so long has it?”
“No, not really.”
“Is it Rachael?” I asked him. There was a silence, so I looked over to him and saw his face go a bright shade of pink.
“Is it that noticeable?” He asked, trying to cover up his blushing.
“No, it's not, but I'm usually pretty good at picking up on thing like this. I guess it's sort of a gift I have. You have a gift of singing and dancing, and I have a gift of knowing who likes who, I guess.”
“I really don't want to make it a big thing between us, in case something goes wrong. I really don't want to hurt her if it does. Also, I guess because I'm famous and I've read too many stories about the other person taking advantage of the other person's fame for things.” JC paused for a bit. “I don't want to bring such a burden onto the group like that.”
“I clearly understand, but it's a choice that you have to make yourself. No one can make that choice for you. You can only take opinions, not choices. We give you opinions, and it's your choice, based on your own feelings and thoughts.”
“Well, can you give me you opinion on this case then?” JC stopped cutting and turned and looked at Me., He walked closer to me and I stopped what I was doing and turned to face him.
“Personally, my opinion is no you shouldn't get involved.” I saw his expression drop. “Hang on, hear me out before you make assumptions on me.” I waited for a response from him.
“I'm listening.”
“I agree with you. You shouldn't get involved with her. This is like the second time that you have seen her, she's way younger than you, no offence, and I'm not sure that she is going to be around for a while. I mean, you guys are going to be travelling, touring, promoting, stuff like that. Do you want her to go through all that. Trust me, it's not easy being the girlfriend of a pop star.” I paused for a breather. “Do you want more of an explanation?”
“No, no, it's alright. I guess it's just something that I have to work out for myself.” He went back and cut the onions.
“Look,” I said, “I'm only giving you my opinion. I'm glad you've found someone you like a lot more that a friend, I really do. But as I said, it's your choice.”
Chapter 18: Chapter 18
“Thanks, I really needed to talk to someone about that.” JC said, putting all of the chopped onion into a bowl.“No problem.” I said, putting the salad into the salad bowl. “Anytime.”
“You're such an angel.”
“Okay, now you are getting just a bit weird on me now.” I said, starting to pick everything up and to take it outside. JC followed with a few other things.
“Okay, who's up for some basketball?” Justin asked everyone.
“What type of basketball?” Rachael asked, stealing the basketball out of Justin's hands.
“How `bout two on two?” Justin replied.
“Fine by me.” Carla said, getting up and putting her drink down. “JC!” She yelled out, “You up for some ball?”
“Who's playing?” JC asked walking towards them.
“Umm, well, in that case, you're playing. Justin and Rachael versus, you and I. How does that sound?” Carla asked JC and the others.
“Fine by me.” Rachael said.
“You're on!” Justin said, taking the ball back off Rachael and dribbled it to the top of the half court.
“You're ass is grass Timberflake!” JC said. They started playing while I cooked the meat on the barbeque.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
After JC and Carla beat Justin and Rachael, ten to nine, the meat and onions were cooked and we were all sitting down having a big barbeque lunch.
“This is a great birthday party guys, thanks a bunch!” Justin said with his mouth full.
“Yep, same.” Joey said before taking a sip of his drink.
We all agreed saying that it was a great party and everyone was having a great time.
Though, someone was sad, and not happy. `Thanks for remembering MY birthday.'
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
**One week later**
“Okay, I need everyone to help us out here.” JC said, staring out into the crowd. “So, we have to be really, really quiet.” The whole crowd went silent. It was their second concert at Madison Square Garden.
“Now,” Chris began, “we have a very special and important person who works for us and is also best friends with us as well.”
“Yeah,” Joey added, “and it was her birthday last week, same day as mine, but she believes we forgot her birthday. In truth we did not, but we wanted a special and huge present that she wouldn't forget." Chris and Joey began putting up a banner across the back of the stage, with some help from the stage crew, saying Happy Belated Birthday Maddie!
“So we are going to have everyone in da house tonight, to help us celebrate her birthday with us!” Justin said and the whole crowd went into screams.
“Shh, shh, shh!” Lance said, as the guys made their way down the ramp and onto the catwalk. “We are gonna have the lights go out, she's gonna come out onto the stage with our other friends Carla and Montana, and then the lights are gonna come on and we would so love it if you would all yell out `Happy Birthday Maddie'. Okay, got it?” The whole crowd screamed again.
“Okay, let's give it a try, on the count of three, I want everyone to yell out `Happy Birthday Maddie'.” Justin said. “One…two…three!”
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY MADDIE!”
“Hey, not to bad.” JC said. “I think they are coming! Everyone quiet!” JC said as they ducked behind a few objects that are already on the stage. The lights were off, but there was still a glow that JC could see. He looked over the box he was hiding behind and saw a sea of glow sticks. “Quick!” He said, “Hide the glow sticks!” All of the glow sticks magically moved and disappeared.
“Where the hell are you taking me?!” Maddie said. Carla and I were walking the blindfolded Maddie onto the stage. The whole crowd could hear every word we were saying, because Carla and I were equipped with headset mics. Carla was guiding Maddie and I was holding a hand held mic in front of her.
“We just want to show you something.” Carla said as we reached the centre of the stage.
“Well, can you at least take this blindfold of me, the smell of Justin's shampoo does get intoxicating after a while.” We stopped moving and I took the blind fold off her. “You wanted to show me darkness did ya?”
“Well,” I said, “not exactly.”
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY MADDIE!” The lights had come back on, the crowd was screaming and the guys were standing beside us. Balloons, streamers and confetti came falling down from the ceiling.
“OH MY GOD!” Maddie screamed out.
“Well, actually,” I started, “Happy belated birthday and no, we did not forget your birthday at all. It was all apart of Joey and Justin's plan.
“Argh! I could kill you guys!” Maddie exclaimed.
Chapter 19: Chapter 19
“Looks like you didn’t get much sleep last night, I take it?” Justin asked Carla, looking at the bags under her eyes.
“Well, let me tell you what happened last night.” Carla said as she and Justin made their way down the hall into the main concert area of the arena. “Maddie tried on each piece of clothing she got, listened to every song from her new CD’s. Then the new mobile that she got from JC, she just had to listen to each ringtone at least three times each before deciding which one to have.” Carla said in one breath, describing the events of last night in the room she shared with Maddie, because after the concert, they all went back to the hotel and had another little party there and gave her presents.
“Here, have some of this.” Justin said, handing Carla the can of coke that was in his hands. “It’s not exactly coffee, but it still does the trick.” Carla grabbed the coke out of his hands and started sculling it down. “Woah, woah, woah! Not too much or you’ll be on a high all day.” He said, grabbing the coke out of Carla’s clutches. “And also cause it’s mine.”
Carla wiped her mouth. “Sorry.” She said.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“And one, two, three and four, and five and six, wait seven and eight, left two, three, four down, cross, over, hold. Floor, floor, in, up, five, six, down seven eight…” Wade was going through the timing with the boys for one of the new routines. They had already gone through it a thousand times.
“And one and two and three and four…” I said, as I imitated Wade from the floor. Carla and I were watching them from the fourth row centre seats. After a while, we got really bored cause we had seen the same thing over a million times already, so we started joking around – imitating their moves. A few times, the guys would look at us and stuff up the routine, making the rest of the group start over again. Carla and I were wondering how long Wade could put up with our antics and the guys stuffing up all the time.
Carla and I started doing out own thing. Justin took his concentration off the dancing and looked at us, and in the process of doing so, turned the wrong way and collided with JC and they cam crashing to the ground. Carla and I stopped what we were doing and saw Justin and JC on the ground. We started laughing. Wade turned around and looked at us, “Girls, girls, girls.”
We quickly stopped and looked at Wade. “Yes.” We quietly said.
“What on earth are you girls on?” Wade said.
“Ask Justin.” Carla said. “Ask him what he gave me this morning.”
All the guys immediately looked at Justin with wide eyes. “No, I didn’t, so get your minds out of the gutter.” The other guys’ eyes went back down to the normal size. Justin didn’t say anything after that.
“He gave me a caffeine BOOST!” Carla said quite chirpily.
“Is that it?” Joey asked us.
“And then…” Carla started.
“And then we had some red cordial soon after that.” I said.
“And then…” Carla said again.
“AND THEN AND THEN AND THEN AND THEN!” Carla and I quickly said.
“Oh my god.” Lance said as he and the others watched us fall into the seats in a fit of laughter.
“Okay, for future reference guys, no more caffeine or red cordial for both Carla AND Montana.” Wade said as he turned back to face the guys. “You are gonna have to either calm down or leave.” He said as he turned back around to face us.
“Okay.” I said, trying to hold in my laughter. Carla and I were having an extreme amount of trouble holding our laughter in. Wade turned back to the guys and told them to take their places again. We couldn’t hold it any longer. We burst into a fit of laughter.
“Look, guys, you are gonna have to leave and come back when you can stay calm okay? We have a show in less that four hours and we have a lot of work to do. So please calm down or leave.” Wade said sounding really serious.
Carla and I looked at each other and nodded. We sprinted to the huge exit and ran down the halls. “What can we do, what can we do?” Carla said as we wandered through the long hallway.
“Let’s go and get the guys’ scooters out the back of the bus and go around the parking lot for a bit.” I suggested.
“Cool!” Carla giggled. We ran out the main entrance and raced each other to the guys’ bus. “I’m so glad they have motors on them!” Carla said as she pulled Justin’s scooter out.
I pulled out Lance’s scooter. “I hope they don’t mind us using them.”
“Let’s just hope they have…” Carla started.
“PETROL!” We both said at the same time. We had another laugh.
“I do swear we are psychic at times.” I said.
“I know, it’s really freaky!” Carla said as she started up her scooter.
I shut the door on the back of the bus, started up the scooter and went off and followed Carla around the parking lot.
Two hours later, the guys were on their lunch break. “I wonder where the girls went?” JC asked as he piled his plate with sandwiches and fruit.
“I have no idea.” Chris said as he took a bite of his sandwich while reading a magazine that he found on the table.
“Can you guys hear something?” Joey asked them.
“Like what?” Chris asked.
“Like a buzzing noise?” Joey said.
“There was a complete silence in the room. There was no buzzing noise. “Joe, you are hearing things.” Justin said drinking his coke.
“I’m not, I was being serious.” He said.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Justin said.
About ten seconds later, Joey heard it again. “Can you hear it? Can you hear it now?” Silence soon came over the room again.
“Joe…” Lance started.
“Shh!” Joey said, cutting him off.
Lance didn’t say another word. The buzz was finally heard. All of the guys rushed over to the window and looked down at the car park. They saw Montana and Carla chasing each other.
From the ground, Carla looked up at the window that the boys were looking out of. “Hey Montana, look up!”
I looked up at the window and saw the guys. Carla and I waved at them. We put the scooters along side the bus and ran up to the building, so that we were only a few metres away from it. We were thirty metres away from the Meet’n’Greet tent, and ten metres away from the main door to the arena. We saw the guys, but the guys saw something that we didn’t see. The guys saw the crowd of girls being let through the gate behind us.
Chapter 20: Chapter 20
“OH MY GOD! LOOK IT'S *NSYNC!” The crowd of screaming girls came running towards Carla and I. We turned around to see them running and coming at us from all directions. We could see no escape.“Oh no.” JC said as he saw the girls crowd around Carla and myself, and soon, none of the guys could see us. We were lost in a crowd of girls.
“CARLA! CARLA!” I screamed out, looking for her.
“MONTANA! OVER HERE!” I saw here and reached through the crowd and grabbed her hand. The swarm of people, trying to get closer to the building, was squishing our bodies.
“We need to get them out.” Justin said, turning to the other guys.
“Yeah, but how?” Joey asked.
“We need to get…” Chris started, “we need to get them to the front, so we can get them through the door.”
“I hope one of them has their mobile with them.” Lance said as he dialled my number.
There was no way that I could hear my mobile ring over the scream of the girls, but luckily I had it on vibrate. It took my awhile to realize, that it was my mobile ringing in my back jean pocket. I pulled it out and saw that the caller ID said Lance. “LANCE! LANCE! ARE YOU THERE? GET US OUT OF HERE!” I screamed into the phone.
“Head towards the door and we'll open it and we'll pull you through okay!” He said loudly into the phone.
“Okay, are you sure about that? Do you think it's going to work Lance?” I screamed. Woops, big mistake. I shouldn't have said Lance. A few girls picked up on the word and started grabbing for my phone.
"SHE'S TALKING TO LANCE! OH MY GOD! SHE KNOW LANCE! SHE'S THE GIRL FROM THE MAGAZINE! SHE'S THE GIRL IN THE PICTURES WITH LANCE!” All of these screams were heard and I feared for my life.
Meanwhile, Lance heard the screams from his end of the phone. “Oh no.” He said to no one in particular.
“What?” Justin asked.
Lance turned up the volume on his phone so that everyone could hear what the girls were yelling out. “They know who she is.” Lance said.
JC grabbed the phone and hung up. All the guys ran back to the window and saw a sea of hands grabbing for one mobile phone.
I wouldn't let go of the phone. I knew that if one of these girls got it, the guys would probably be harassed and then everyone in my list would have to change their number. Girls were grabbing my arm, trying to pry my fingers away from the phone. I still wouldn't let go. Then, the worst thing happened. My body and my lower arm were pushed in one way, the top of my arm, pulled in the opposite direction. I let out a scream of pain and my arm bent backwards and I heard a loud crack. The girls had just broken my right arm. Carla grabbed my left hand and held tight, so that I didn't let go. I looked at Carla and saw an elbow go into her eye. She had scratches down her arm and across her left cheek. We were nearly at the door. Only a few more feet. Within a few minutes, we were both pressed against the door unable to move any more. I heard the guys on the other side of the door. My mobile was still being grabbed for. Carla took the mobile out of my hand and dialled Lance's number as I bought my limp arm back in front of my body.
“WE'RE AT THE DOOR! OPEN IT NOW!” Carla screamed into the phone. We felt the door open a crack. With the force of everyone pushing against us, Carla and I feel through the small crack and onto the floor. The guys and the security guards used all their strength to close the door again. I rolled onto my back, crying.
JC saw me crying and came to my side. “What's wrong? What is it?” He said, sounding really worried.
“M…m…my arm! It's b…b…broken!” I cried out between sobs. Lance heard me and knelt down on the other side of me and lifted me up in his arms.
“We need to get her to the hospital!” Lance said as he carried me down the hallway out to the back area.
Justin helped Carla of the ground. Carla looked at Justin's eyes. Justin studied her eyes and then watch them roll back into her head as she fainted into his arms. Justin picked up her legs and yelled out to Lance, “Lance! Wait up!” Justin ran to Lance's car. Lance put me into the front passenger seat, while Justin opened the back and laid Carla across the back seat. Justin climbed into the backseat and rested Carla's head on top of his legs.
“Carla…Carla…Carla.” Justin said quietly to Carla on the way to the hospital, trying to wake her up. We pulled into the entrance of the hospital when she finally began to stir.
“Wha…what happened?” She softly said.
“You passed out and we’re at the hospital.” Justin said as he helped her out of the car.
Lance got out of the driver's seat and helped me out of the car. We walked to the front desk of emergency. Lance was first to speak. “We have two injured people. Montana here has a broken arm and Carla passed out and has swelling around her left eye.” He said to the nurse behind the desk. The nurse pressed a button and got a wheelchair for Carla, while another nurse took Montana to the X-Ray room. Carla went off to a room down the hall and to the left. The doctor was soon with her, checking her head and doing some tests.
“Can you tell me what happened?” The nurse at the front desk asked them.
“Well, they were caught in a crowd of girls they got pushed and shoved and pushed against a door.” Justin said, all in one breath, roughly stating what happened.
“A crowd of girls? What do you mean?” The nurse looked at them questioningly.
“If you haven't already figured it out, I'm Lance and this here is Justin, were from *NSYNC, so if you could, keep this hush hush, if you know what I mean. We have a concert in…” He said, looking at his watch, “in an hour and there was a crowd of girls the came through the fence and Montana and Carla got caught up in the middle.
“Oh I see.” The nurse said, writing a few things down. “Now if you gentlemen could please go and wait in the waiting room, I'm sure a doctor should be out to talk to you.” She said.
“Thanks.” Lance said as they turned and waited in the room.
Chapter 21: Chapter 21
“Yay, I get to have this thing on my arm!” I sarcastically said as I walked out of the room and towards the room that the doctor told me that Carla was in. “We could be the two mishaps on tour!” I said as I walked into her room. We both had a little chuckle. “How ya feeling?” I said as I sat down on the bed next to her.“Well the doctor said that I collapsed because of the pressure on my body and dehydration. The sugar fix that we had earlier, didn't last that long. I gotta be in hospital overnight so they can check on me and stuff.” Carla said.
“Have Justin and Lance come to see you before they left?” I asked her.
“Yeah, they didn't want to leave but they got some of the bodyguards in here to take them back to the concert.” Carla said with a smile on her face, thinking about how much struggling both of the guys did to get out of the stronghold that the guards had them in. They finally gave in and left. She focused her gaze on the door and noticed a dozen red roses with feet.
A head popped out from the side and said, “Flowers for a Ms Carla?” He said, looking at his clipboard.
“Right here.” Carla said.
The guy walked in, placed the flowers down on the table and handed Carla the electronic singing board for her to sign. Carla signed it and handed it back to him. The guy turned and left the room. “I wonder who they are from.” I said, getting up and walking over to them. I smelt them and noticed a blue envelope with Carla written in silver pen on the front. “Open it up and see who it's from.” I handed her the envelope and she quickly opened it.
As Carla read the card, a huge smiled appeared across her face. “Justin is so kind!” She said, handing me the card so that I could read it.
The card read:
Carla,
I'm so sorry that I wasn't there sooner to help you, but from now on, I'll be by your side forever. You're forever in my heart and always apart of me.
Yours forever,
Justin.
We sat there and talked and watched a bit of television for the next two hours before a person was standing in the doorway.
“Can we come in?” A voice asked from the doorway. I turned to see JC and Joey standing there, waiting for a response from us.
“Come on in.” Carla said. They made their way over to us and gave each one of us a hug.
“Special delivery!” A funny voice said. I turned to the doorway and noticed Chris standing there with an armful of things.
“Oh my god.” I said as Chris walked in. JC and Joey took some of the stuff from his arms and handed it to us. JC handed each of us five flowers. I looked at the cards and saw that each one was from one of the guys. Chris, JC, Joey and Chris had given me a blue tulip while Lance had given me a white rose. I looked at what Carla had got given and she had the same, only her tulips were white and had a red rose, which I presume was from Justin. Joey then handed Carla and myself, our own three foot tall bear, wearing the *NSYNC shirt and hat.
“And this,” Chris said, handing us what remained in his hands, two brand new Nokia’s, “so in the future, you can wrap your whole hand around it and keep it safe, out of harms reach, and roughly cause your phone Montana, sorta smashed when you fell through the door too.” He said, handing them to us.
“Oh my god, thank you guys.” I said, getting up and walking to each of them given them a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
“Hey, well unfair cause I sorta can't get up, so yous are gonna sorta have to come here.” Carla said with out-stretched arms.
“Speaking of guys, where is Lance and Justin?” I asked.
“Well, they sorta had to stay and talk to Johnny about the whole situation and what happened. Something like that I guess, and I think they also have to blow some steam at the people at the gates, that sort of thing.” JC said.
About half an hour later, JC, Chris and Joey took me home while Carla stayed in hospital over night.
“Nice flowers you sent Carla.” I said as I walked into Lance's room, talking to Justin who was on the couch reading a magazine. Lance wasn't in the room, but I heard running water in the shower. `He must be in there.' I thought to myself.
“You mean she got the roses?” He said, closing the magazine and placing it on the bedside table.
“Yeah, she really loves them.”
“Good.”
I glanced at my watch. “Justin could you tell Lance when he gets out of the shower that I'm back in my room.”
“Yeah sure.” He said, standing up.
“Thanks.” I walked out the door and felt something under my feet. It was a white envelope with simply To You on the front. It was unsealed and in a business size envelope. “Hmm, that's strange.” I said out loud to no one as I picked it up and walked into my room. I turned the envelope around, opened it (with much difficulty mind you cause my right arm was broken) with my teeth, and pulled out an A4 sized piece of white paper, folded in thirds. I unfolded it and started reading.
How could you? I thought right from the start it was just going
To be you and me? Why her? We were perfect for each other.
Just remembering the days we spent together. You by my side,
Walking hand in hand down the beach. But no, you had to become
Friends with her. You lived with her in the big house. And then she came along. She
Tore us apart. I'd thought you would have seen it? How much I cared, how much
I loved you. They came first and you didn't take any notice of me.
How could you? Something will happen that will make you mine again.
You're forever mine, and you know it.
There was a picture. A big thick red cross drawn over Carla's face. “Oh my god, the letter is meant for Justin.” I said and fell to the chair. “Who could it be?”
“Who could what be?” I turned and saw Lance walking over to me. I silently handed him the piece of paper. He read the note and saw his expression drop. “We gotta show Justin.”
Chapter 22: Chapter 22
“I'd thought she'd leave me alone for good and not come back.” Justin said, tears coming to his eyes.
“She? Who's she?” Lance asked him. Justin didn't listen.
“It was good while it lasted.” Justin went on. “ I mean, I did think we were made for each other, but I later found out that she was only using me for my fame and money. And now this.” Justin said, referring to the letter in his hands.
“Who's the girl Justin? Who is she?” I said, grabbing his shoulders and looking into his teary eyes.
“Laura Baker.”
Flashback
“Justin baby, I have something to tell you.”
Justin pulled Laura, girlfriend of two years, down onto his lap. “Yeah babe, what's up?” He said, kissing her forehead. 'God, I love this woman,' he thought to himself.
“Well, I don't know where to begin.”
“Just tell me what come to mind first. You know you can tell me anything babe,” Justin said wrapping his arms around her waist.
“Okay, here goes.” She said, taking a deep breath. “Well, these past two years have been just a game.” The expression on Justin's face dropped.
“What do you mean, a game?” Justin asked her.
“I've only been going out with you for your fame and money.”
Justin's hands dropped from around her waist. His heart felt like it had just hit the floor. Justin grabbed her waist and put her down on the couch beside him and stood to his feet.
“Justin-“ She started again.
“Don't Justin me.” He said.
“Just listen-“
“Don't talk to me!”
“Justin-“ She said once more.
“Just leave me alone and never come back into my life again!” Justin screamed at her and stormed out the door, grabbing his duffle bag on his way. He climbed into his car and sped off down the street.
Laura watched him leave from the window. “I'll get you back one day.” She softly said, watching his car turn off the street.
End Flashback
“We had a fight, so I needed a place to stay so that's why I applied for your house.” Justin said, wiping the tears from his eyes after a short flashback to the past event.
“Well what would she be doing with you now, months after?” I asked him.
“I have no idea.”
Chapter 23: Chapter 23
**One month later**
"Montana?"
I turned around and saw Maddie staring at me. "Yeah?"
"Can you go and get Chris and Justin for me?" Maddie had all of these costumes and patterns all over the lounge room floor.
"No problem." I got up off the couch and headed upstairs. The guys finally had some time off because a bad storm hit one of the arenas. Johnny had all the other shows pushed back until the arena is in working condition. We were all on alert for the news of starting again. Maddie took the chance to fix up a couple of the outfits. I rounded the corner and knocked on Justin's door. "Yo, Justin. Ya decent?" I heard a faint mumble and thought that he was still asleep. I slowly opened the door and looked into the room.
"Becareful, it could be dangerous in there. Enter at your own risk."
I looked back into the hallway and saw Chris walking down towards me. "That reminds me. Maddie wants to see you downstairs about costumes or something."
"Is she in the lounge?" He asked.
"Yeah."
"Thanks."
I watched him walk down the rest of the hallway. I turned and walked into Justin's room and shut the door behind me. Justin was simply sitting on the end of his bed, a pile of paper laying at his feet. "Justin?" I walked closer to him but he made no move to acknowledge me. I glanced at his hands and saw them shaking. I reached out and touched his shoulder with my fingertips. He jumped and looked at me. "Justin, you okay buddy?" He looked like shit. His hair was a mess, eyes were puffy and bloodshot, tear stains down his face and he was wearing the same clothes as last night.
"Huh?" Was all that came out of his mouth.
"Justin you look like shit. Go take a shower and we'll talk afterwards, okay?"
"Uh huh." He made no attempt to get up. I grabbed his elbow and helped him off the bed. I led him to his bathroom and let him slowly walk inside himself. Clothes. He needed fresh clothes. I walked around his room, grabbing a pair of sweats, wifebeater and underwear then placing it on the counter in the bathroom. He still hadn't moved.
'This boy is whacked.' I thought to myself. "Shower, Justin. Go for a shower. You look LIKE SHIT!" I said a bit louder. I think that got his attention.
"Okay." He said, slowly taking off his jacket.
I walked out of the bathroom, closing the door behind me. I walked over to his window and opened the blinds and the window, letting in some fresh air and sunshine. I went back around to the front of his bed and picked up the paper on the floor. My eyes caught on a piece of paper. Each word was spelt with letters out of a magazine or something.
You and me were meant to be
That other bitch has got to go
You don't quite see, but I understand
Life as a popstar is always tough
But soon enough
The bitch will be gone
We'll be back to the way we were
More letters. Each one of them was from her. I always thought that Bear kept all of this stuff out of the usual fan collection. I grabbed the phone of Justin's side table and rang Bear's mobile.
"Martin here."
"Hey Bear, it's Montana."
"Hey girl, what up?"
"How did Justin get these letters?"
"Which ones?"
"The ones from Laura."
"Ah those." He paused for a moment.
"Bear, tell me, cause it's scaring the shit out of me seeing Justin this way. I had to physically make him take a shower just now. It's tearing him up!" I quickly caught a breath, "I thought I said for you guys to not let Justin see any more letters. The first three got him shaken up a bit, but all of these have just made him parinoid."
"He asked for them so I gave it to him after a heated fight between us. He has a right to know."
"I know."
"Look, just talk to him and get it through to him that she's safe and don't forget she knows about it now, so she's keeping an eye out for herself as well. We have a watchful eye on her. She's been going everywhere with Bubba and you know that. I can come over if ya want."
"Na, I should be fine. Look, I just wanted to know where these came from cause I wasn't sure if he got a new stack from her or if they were the old ones. That's all."
"I know ya care, Montana."
"They are both my best friends ya know, and I love them very much. I just wanna see them get hurt."
"I know ya do, but you have to stay strong until this thing passes."
"Thanks Bear, you're a darl."
"Don't flatter me, it's bad for my image."
I laughed. "Whatever. Thanks for telling me. I'll talk to ya later."
"Bye girl."
"Bye Bear." I hung up the phone and placed it back on the cradle. I placed the letters on his bedside table before moving over to the side of his bed. I started pulling at the sheets and made his bed. Once I finished I climbed onto the bed at sat with my back up against the bed head.
Not long after, Justin emerged from the bathroom. "Hey." He quietly said.
"Hey. Do you feel better now?" I asked him.
"Yeah thanks." He maneuvered his way around the room to the other side of the bed and sat down on it. I sat there and waited until he was ready to talk. "I don't know what to do. I'm so scared about her safety. What's gonna happen when I'm not here? What if something happens to her and I can't help her? I just... I..." He trailed off. He was reaching his breaking point. Tears were threatening to fall.
All I did was place my hand around the back of his neck and he cracked. The tears began to fall uncontrollably. I pulled him down and his body came along. He was now laying on his right side with his head in my lap. I gently ran my fingers over his head, trying to soothe him and let him know, that I was still here. I could already feel the wetness on my legs from his tears through my pants. That's all I could do for him now. I would let him get this all out. He knew that I can't answer the questions that he wants to know the answers too, but he knew, I was his shoulder to cry on, well, lap in this case. 'Let it all out, that's all you can do.' That line ran through my head over and over again.
Slowly, but surely, his tears became less and his breathing became slower and steadier. He had finally cried himself to sleep. There was a soft knock on the door and Chris poked his head in. "Tell Maddie he'll do whatever she wants done later." I whispered to him.
"Kay," he said, closing the door again.
Justin had finally woken up after about three hours of sleep. He turned around and looked at me. "Thanks for that, I really needed to get that out."
"No problem. I don't see what you are worried about. Carla knows how to handle herself and she's got Bubba with her at all times. She's not going to go anywhere without him knowing, okay?"
"Yeah, but still."
"But still nothing. Stop worrying about it. Now, the main reason why I came up here 3 hours ago was to tell you that Maddie wants you downstairs to fix up your costumes or something. Now move that skinny ass down there!" I said, practically pushing him off the bed.
"But I know you like it! Skinny and everything!" He stood up and shoved his ass in front of my face. I grabbed the pen off his side table and stuck the capped end into his right cheek and he quickly moved it away. "Ow!"
"Move it."
He pouted a little bit and strutted off out of the room.
Chapter 24: Chapter 24
Author's Notes: Okay, that's enough chapter chatch up for a while. It should keep you going! Please review so I can improve my work for you all!
Things were going extremely well for all of us. For two months, we had no mysterious notes and no more broken bones, or fainting; everything was back to normal…or so we thought. It was the week before Lance’s birthday and Carla and myself were meeting the guys at a club after a television show they had to do. We were there for a good 30 minutes before the guys were due to arrive, getting a decent dance in before we were distracted into ‘dirty dancing’ with our guys!
“I need to pee!” Carla screamed into my ear.
“Okay,” I screamed back, just hearing her voice over the loud music, “I’ll meet you at the bar. Want anything?”
“Tequilla Sunrise!”
“Okay!” We parted and I walked up to the bar, propped my elbows on the edge of the bar, squeezing my arms together to get the attention of the cute bartender who’d been giving us free drinks – aka Grand Canyon style cleavage! He turned his head and noticed, and walked straight over.
“Hey J, what can I get ya?”
“Hey Matt, I’ll have a tequila sunrise and whatever you suggest!” I flirted with him and gave him a coy smile.
“Rightio.” He gazed lingeringly at my cleavage and then went to work.
Guys can be easily manipulated. Especially when it comes to anything remotely related to sex!
Within five minutes, I had a tequila sunrise and a JägerBomb sitting in front of me. I looked around for Carla but didn’t find her. I shrugged off the thought and just figured the line up was long. I turned back around to Matt and followed his orders on how to drink the drink – drop the Jägermeister shot into the glass of RedBull and drink really fast. After the third, I started getting worried about Carla.
After I looked in the toilets, I went and looked back on the dance floor. I still couldn’t see her. ‘Where is Carla?’ I thought to myself. I decided to go and ring her on my mobile. I headed out the back and into the ally behind the club. I dialled up her number and waited for the ringing tone. As I waited, I could hear what sounded like a mobile phone ring in the distance. I ended the call because Carla still hadn’t picked up. The ringing stopped. ‘That’s odd.’ I thought to myself. I re-dialled Carla’s number and the ringing started again. I was going to end the call, but I kept it going and walked closer to the sound. I could see in a distance what seemed to be a shoe of some sort, poking out from behind the dumpster. I walked closer and noticed it was attached to something. I saw the bottom of some black leather pants which had red and yellow flames.
“OH NO!” I screamed out. I ran down beside the body and I was right. It was Carla. “CARLA! CARLA!” I screamed. Carla laid there with her back up against the wall and her head resting against the dumpster. She had a cut under her right eye; scratches down her arm, a few bruises here and there, and her clothes were torn and ripped. Blood was dripping from her nose. I grabbed my mobile and dialled up Justin’s mobile. His answering machine kicked in. “SHIT!” I dialled up Lance’s. Thank god that he always leaves it on.
Lance looked at the ID and saw MJ across his screen. “Hey babe.” He said as he answered it.
“Lance! Lance!” I said, tears forming in my eyes.
“Yeah babe, what’s wrong?” He said sounding really worried.
“Carla…it’s Carla…where are you guys?” I said, crying in between the words.
“We are actually about five minutes away from the club. Why what’s wrong with Carla?” Lance said. It was just Lance and Justin in the car. JC was taking the other two back to the hotel. Lance was driving and Justin was staring out through the window. His head snapped around at the word ‘Carla’.
“Carla? What do you mean something’s wrong with Carla?” Justin asked, getting really worried.
“Hang on.” Lance said to him. “MJ, babe, where are you?”
“Umm…we are in the back ally behind the club. Hurry, please, she needs to go to the hospital.” I said, holding onto Carla’s hand, shaking it, not knowing what use it had.
“Be there in five seconds.” Lance said, and started to speed up, hanging up the phone.
“Carla...Carla?” I said softly, tears fully running down my face. Carla wouldn’t wake up. A few minutes later, I heard tyres screech, doors open and shut and feet thudding down the ally way, stepping in puddles every so often.
“MONTANA?!” I heard Justin scream out. Justin was in front of Lance - Justin jumped out of the car before it had even stopped.
“Justin?” I said softly, not sure if he heard. He came to a skidding halt and bent down to Carla. I stood up and wiped the tears away from my eyes. Lance came beside Justin.
“Carla…hunny?” Justin said, placing his hand under her chin.
“Okay, Justin, we gotta get her to the car and take her to the hospital, NOW!” Lance said. Lance helped Justin pick Carla up. Justin held Carla in his arms and walked quickly to Lance’s car. Lance grabbed my hand and we followed behind Justin.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
As we sat and waited in the waiting room of the hospital, all I did was cry and apologize to Justin. “Justin, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean too, I swear, it’s all my fault.” Justin sat there, stunned and quiet. Tears running down his face as he held his head up with his hands.
Tears were also forming in Lance’s eyes as he tried to comfort me and tell me that it wasn’t my fault. I was sitting on Lances’ lap, crying into the crook of his neck with my arms wrapped around his neck. Lance had his arms around my waist and was slowly rocking me back and forth. The doctor hadn’t come out, so I cried myself to sleep waiting for the doctor. When I woke up, Joey, Chris and JC had come and were now trying to comfort Justin and talk to Lance.
“Has the doctor come out yet?” I asked.
Joey was sitting next to Lance and he looked into my puffy, red, bloodshot eyes. “No, not yet.”
I put my head back into the crook of Lance’s neck and reached for Joey’s hand. He took mine in his to show me that he was here for me and I was here for him. Lance kissed my forehead and held me tight. I still couldn’t get it out of my head. It was all my fault. I was supposed to take care of her.
Flashback“Now you girls remember that you both have boys waiting for your return.” Justin said. I was previously talking to Lance on my phone, but Justin insisted that he talked. I put my phone on speaker so that Carla could hear and talk as well.
“We will.” Carla and I said, sounding like we were three years old.“Now Montana, you take care of my girl and make sure she doesn’t get into any trouble and doesn’t go off and finds another guy, on me now you hear?” Justin said, trying to sound like some sort of father figure.
“I will.” I said, sounding like a school girl.“And I’m sure Lance would say that same about you Montana to Carla. You take care of her now Carla. You are older, of course.” Justin said.
“Sure, no problem.” Carla said.End Flashback
The double doors swung open and a doctor walked out. “Are you all relatives of Carla Bergielake?” The doctor asked.
The double doors swung open and a doctor walked out. “Are you all relatives of Carla Bergielake?” The doctor asked.
The double doors swung open and a doctor walked out. “Are you all relatives of Carla Bergielake?” The doctor asked.“Yes.” I quietly replied. “Do you know what happened?”
“Well…” The doctor started. “Carla has suffered from the obvious cuts, scratches and bruises over her arms, back and a few on her face.” He paused for a minutes while we prepared ourselves for the news to come. “Carla was knocked unconscious, by a blow to the head with a blunt object.” Justin dropped his head lower and rubbed his hand over his shaven head.
“Oh no.” I said, and more tears ran down my faces as I buried my head into Lance’s chest.
“Can we see her?” Justin said slowly. The room fell silent. “Can we see her?” Justin said more loudly, looking up at the doctor.
“Yes, but only two people at a time.” The doctor said looking at one of his files.
Everyone looked at me as if to say ‘You should pick who to go with’. Justin looked at me with sadness in his eyes. Tear marks were down his cheeks and his eyes were red, puffy and bloodshot. “You can go with me.” I said getting up and walking over to him. I held out my left hand for him to take. He put his right hand into my left hand and we walked down the corridor, following the doctor to Carla’s room. The doctor opened the door and let us walk in. The doctor closed the door behind us to let us have some privacy and he went on his way.
We looked at Carla connected to tubes, wires and machines, with flashing lights and constant beeps to keep track of her heart rate. Justin slowly walked over to the bed and sat down on the edge, picking up Carla’s hand in his own, clasping it with both of his hands. I just stood there stunned, not knowing what to do. I couldn’t stand looking at Carla connected to all of that high tech stuff. Tears flowed freely down my face. I turned away and faced the wall, not handling the sight of her lying there.
After a while, I turned back and all I could see was the love radiating out of Justin and into Carla, reassuring her, that he was there for her. He was going to be there through it all. About half an hour later, the others were allowed in to visit Carla. I still stood against the wall, not moving at all since I got to the room. Justin hadn’t moved either. He sat there, holding her hand and constantly brush her hair behind her eyes and then tracing his fingers down her face. He kissed her forehead every so often.
Lance walked over to me and wrapped his arms around me, kissing me on my head. I again buried my head in his head, putting my hands up to his shoulders to bring him closer to me. JC walked to the other side of Carla and grabbed her free hand, kissing the back of her hand. Joey walked up behind me and rubbed my back up and down before walking over to Justin, patting him on the shoulder. Chris stayed at the foot of her bed, rubbing his hand up and down her leg. I could see the tears in his eyes. Then doctor soon came in later and told us that we had to leave.
We started leaving and Justin didn’t move. I walked over to the doctor with Lance still attached to me and said, “Could Justin stay here, because he won’t leave without a fight, and we don’t want to cause a scene.”
The doctor looked at Justin and saw that Justin hadn’t moved an inch. “Fine.” The doctor said. “He can stay, but tomorrow morning, at least one of you has to come back and pick him up.”
“Sure. Thanks a lot.” I said, smiling at Justin, still there, doing the same thing over and over again, and not paying any attention to the world around him. Lance and I left with the others, letting Justin stay the night.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Carla woke to find a sleeping head next to her on her bed and hands clasping her left hand. Her eyes fluttered open, her eyes slowly adjusted to the light penetrating off the light above her bed.
“Justin...Justin?” Carla softly said, finally figuring out who it was sleeping next to her. She put all the strength she had and shook his hand lightly.