Chapter Ten
“I’ve been thinking—“
“Uh-oh.”
“What?”
“Well… whenever you’ve been ‘thinking’, one or more of us ends up in some kind of trouble with the management.”
Justin rolled his eyes at Lance and took another bite of his cereal. “You know,” he said as he chewed the food in his mouth thoughtfully. “We should have stuck with Jason.”
Alana had been watching the scene with great interest. Due to the fact that she had been so busy getting settled in and discussing things with JC, she had yet to take the time to really get to know his friends. With Lance and Chris, she had a slight feel of their characters based on the time spent together on the bus, but Justin and Joey were like strangers to her.
If they were going to pull this off, then she needed to make herself a part of JC’s life. She took a bite of her bagel, glancing up when JC slid into the open seat beside her. He looked well rested for the first time since Alana had started working there. She wondered if it had anything to do with their conversation from the previous night.
“It’s about time you woke your lazy ass up,” Joey smirked as he dug into his scrambled eggs. As he swallowed, he turned his attention to Alana. “Did you keep him up late last night?” He asked with a playful grin.
Had anyone else asked this of Alana, she would have found it greatly offensive and most likely, the person would have gotten his ass kicked big time. But there was something different about Joey. He reminded her slightly of a teddy bear. The smile on his face was infectious, and before she could stop herself, she was smiling back at him.
“Why? Are you jealous?” She fired back. A chorus of “oohs” could be heard around the table and she had to give herself an imaginary pat on the back! It wasn’t every day she could think of something to say in response at the drop of a hat.
When she first saw the smile slide off of Joey’s face, she was terribly afraid she’d made him mad. Because she wasn’t used to being around him or Justin, she hadn’t gotten a feel for them, and so she wasn’t quite sure what was appropriate to say and what was not.
“Well,” he said, almost gravely. “Now it’s official.”
Alana looked over at JC nervously, but unfortunately for her, he was more interested in his pancakes! She turned her gaze back to Joey. “What’s official?”
“I’m going to have to kill you. Or at least tickle you until you wet your pants.”
The squeal from Alana was enough to wake the dead as Joey leapt out of his chair and began chasing her through the buffet room. The four remaining NSYNC-ers looked on, with Justin cheering Joey and the others all cheering on Alana.
“What are you running for? Kick his ass!”
“He’s going to tickle meeeeeee!” She squealed. She let out another shriek as she ducked under a table, hoping to put more space in between them. It was quite a sight to behold.
Alana slid out from the other side of the table and took off running to the door, narrowly missing being clocked in the head when it was pushed open. Unfortunately for her, she had no time to slow down before she ran directly into a big block of Tony.
“Oh thank God you’re here!” She laughed, ducking behind him. “Save me!”
Joey came to a halt and put his hands on his hips as he glanced up at Tony. “I’d hate to have to hurt ya man, but if you don’t turn her over to me, I’m afraid that’s what’s going to happen.”
“Oh really?”
Joey nodded, puffing his chest out just a little more.
“Well… I’d hate to have to explain to my wife and kids that I got beat up by a pansy boy bander so… sorry Al, you’re on your own!” He stepped to the side, chuckling as Alana squealed and took off running again in the other direction.
“I’m going to kill you, Tony!”
The bigger man had been worried about Alana at first. Though she was excellent at her job, her people skills were shot. He was afraid that she would be unable to fit in with these men, who were so against her joining them in the first place.
But as he watched her giggle as she ran from Joey, he couldn’t help but think maybe she’d be alright after all.
~*~
“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing a stage like this,” Alana declared as she took in the scene before her. She’d spent the morning with JC and his friends, tagging along to the photo shoot that they’d had scheduled, as well as a magazine interview. She had imagined that it would be the most boring thing she’d ever witnessed but she couldn’t have been more wrong.
No matter what these guys did, they did it with so much energy that a person just couldn’t help having fun with them. It was contagious.
“You get used to it,” JC said with a smile as he looked down at her. He was getting to see a new side of Alana. At first, he had thought it would be hard having to pretend to be her boyfriend, but the more she opened up around him and his friends… well, the easier it was becoming. “You want the grand tour?”
“I’d love—“
“Hey Alana!” The sound of her name being called caused the brunette to turn her head. She spotted Tony and turned back to JC.
“Let me just go see what he wants first and then I would love a tour,” she told him with a smile. “I’ll be back,” she promised as she jogged over towards where her friend and coworker was standing.
JC stood rooted in his spot as he watched Alana chatting it up with Tony. He didn’t miss the way she leaned in just slightly to show that she was listening to every word he said. He didn’t miss the way she touched his arm gently as she spoke to him, and he didn’t miss the way she spouted off instructions, before she rushed off towards the back hallway.
“So much for the tour,” he said quietly, his shoulders slumping just slightly.
~*~
Although Alana had planned on being just a few minutes, it quickly turned into a half an hour and before she knew it, she’d been gone for forty-five minutes.
Her boss had called to update her on the file she’d called about the previous night. The outlook hadn’t been great, as Mr. Jude Hailey was a model citizen. She had gotten special permission, however, to send Tony out to get a feel for this man, despite his non-existent record, but it still looked as if Alana was right back at square one. And that made for a very unhappy Alana.
With a sigh, she made her way back out to the stage, a million thoughts running through her mind. How in the hell was she supposed to solve this case? She knew nothing about these men. They had about a trillion and two fans. Any one of them could be the culprit behind these emails. What was she going to do?
Well, for starters, she really should have been paying attention to where she was going, because before she knew it, she’d run into Justin. Literally.
She stumbled backwards upon bumping into her and probably would have landed flat on her butt had he not had cat-like reflexes. He grabbed her arms and kept her from falling, before his blue eyes met hers. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said, her tone coming across as clipped and cold. She could see the worrisome look in Justin’s eyes and she took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap on you. It’s… work stuff,” she said quietly, unwilling to elaborate, especially in open quarters like this.
“Anything I can do to help?”
She shook her head. “I appreciate the offer but…” she trailed off as she glanced around. “Where is JC?” She asked, her heart pounding slightly in her chest. She had told Tony very expressly to not let the man out of his sight, and she glanced around, she saw Tony, but no JC!
“He went to get refitted,” Justin said with a shrug. He noticed Alana visibly relax with that piece of information and he offered her a smile. “So… You’ve been here all of what… a week now? I bet no one’s ever showed you around, huh?”
“No,” she said with a light laugh. “JC was going to, but I got side tracked,” she said, shaking her head.
“Well how about it then?” He asked.
She hesitated slightly. She had already promised JC that he could be the one to give her the ‘grand tour’ of the stage, but surely he had better things to do anyway. He had just been acting the part of a gentleman… right? There was no point in turning Justin down when JC had just been doing the ‘polite’ thing. Ah what the hell.
“I’d love to.”
~*~
He stepped out of the fitting room in a considerably bad mood. He’d not gained nor lost an ounce since this tour began, and he didn’t quite understand why HE had to be refitted. It taken up twenty minutes of unnecessary time. Time that could have been spent showing Alana around.
He felt kind of like a spaz, but this was his thing. He got to watch her work, and wanted to share the same with her. He wanted to show her what he did so that she could truly become a part of his life, as she was supposed to do.
On his way to the back stage area, one could imagine his surprise when he met with Alana, accompanied by Justin. They had not yet spotted him, so he stepped to side, hidden by a rather large pole. He could barely make out Justin’s voice from where he was standing.
“This is like, the best part of the show,” he said with a laugh, pointing to something like looked like a large moon bounce. “We have these tacky ass outfits with like… Velcro strips on them. We get to jump up against this baby and hang around while we sing,” he said with a laugh.
JC could hear the melodious sound of Alana’s laugh mixing with Justin’s and he could only imagine the look on her face. He lowered his head, shaking it slightly.
“So much for the tour,” he said quietly as he walked dejectedly from the backstage area, making sure to stay hidden so that neither Justin nor Alana were any wiser that he’d been present.
~*~
He was watching the scene unfold before him, and he was not a happy camper. After catching Justin giving Alana the tour of the back stage area, JC had retreated to the dressing room where he took some time to cool off.
It wasn’t that he was mad at Justin. Hell, he wasn’t even mad at Alana. He was just… well, he was kind of bummed. He had really wanted to show Alana around, and for her to take off and then accept Justin’s invitation? It kind of hurt. But he was determined to be the bigger man and not show it.
Until he returned to the front of the stage area. There were Justin and Alana, though they’d been accompanied by Joey, Chris and Lance. She was, of course, right in the center of the four of them, laughing wildly at the way that they were behaving. Even from where he was standing, he could see the way her nose crinkled. Why couldn’t she ever laugh like that for him?
He watched as she reached up and snatched the hat from Justin’s head before sliding it onto her own. Justin was always such a freak about people taking his hats. But he didn’t appear to have a problem as he reached down and cocked it sideways on her head.
She was here for him. She was supposed to pretend to be HIS girlfriend. So what the hell was she doing flirting with any other guy that passed her way? As the anger inside of him built, he found himself wanting to storm the stage, shake her little ass and ask her just that.
But his common sense and the need for an uncrushed larynx stopped him from doing just that.
“It’s all just pretend anyway,” he mumbled with a shake of his head. But if it was just pretend… then why did it feel so real?
~*~
That night was the first night that Alana watched the show from the audience. Normally, she hung out back stage, making mental notes on all the entrances and exits to and from the stage in the event that something happened and she had to get JC out. But tonight, she let loose just a little bit and had decided to take the show in from the perspective of a fan.
And she could see why people readily shelled out the money to attend the concerts. It was like magic. She left the audience fifteen minutes before the show was over so that she could meet the guys when they came off stage, and gush like a teenager about how wonderful the show had been.
She was standing on the side of the stage when they ran off, every one of them drenched in sweat. When JC stepped off the stage, she offered him a smile, though frowned when it wasn’t returned. She didn’t let it phase her, however, as she spoke to him. “The show was amazing!” She said, rather loudly to be heard over the roar of the crowd out front.
“Oh yeah? Why don’t you go tell Justin that?”
And with that, he brushed past her rather abruptly, leaving her there, insanely confused. What the hell had she missed?
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