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Chapter Seventeen – Q&A

The ship took off from Key West at 2:00. We wouldn’t arrive in Cozumel until the 1:00 the following afternoon. Nick and I spent a few hours discussing a beach wedding; Nick sent out about ten e-mails to wedding planners in the Key West area. We had dinner in our room before meeting up with the guys for the Q&A.

The Q&A was held in the same room that the Boys filmed in the night before. Tonight there was no makeup or agreed upon wardrobe. I knew Leighanne wasn’t feeling well; she had gone back to the room right after dinner and it looked like Brian had picked out his own outfit for the evening. He had on a red hat that reminded me of Gilligan and was wearing a dark green t-shirt. It reminded me of the days that he lived in those nylon basketball shorts in the B.L. (Before Leighanne) time. AJ was wearing a shirt with a naked girl splayed across the front. Howie was dressed in a polo shirt and khakis, his hair perfectly gelled. Then there was Nick. Nick was wearing blue jean shorts that had “designer” rips strategically scattered everywhere and a smiley face shirt. His hair looked like he just rolled out of bed.

The cruise coordinator introduced the guys one at a time and they headed to the stage and onto bar stools. Rochelle, Leigh, and I sat in the back. Leigh had James in a high chair and was attempting to feed him. I was keeping my eye on Baylee, which was a super easy job. Brian had bought him a new Nintendo DS game and he was glued to the screen.

I turned on my camera and crouched down for a side view shot of the guys as they were each handed a microphone. When I was done, I tried to get up. I was like Humpty Dumpty, I couldn’t get up again.

“Need a hand?” Rochelle said with a laugh. I nodded. Clumsily I stood up, my hand on my belly. I took my seat as the guys asked if everyone enjoyed Key West. The applause and loud chatter was enough of an answer. The first question was for Nick.

“When is your solo album coming out?”

Nick smiled. “Good question. Restless Soul will be out February 8. And I’m sure a lot of you guys have heard my first single; All My Heart.”

He sang a few bars, half the room sang along. It was good to know so many people were watching my videos.

The next question was for Brian.

“When is your solo album coming out?”

Brian laughed. “I really want to have an album war with Nick, but mine’s not coming out until March 22. I don’t have a title yet. Is that bad? Should I call it Restless Prayer or Prayer-ful Soul?

The audience laughed. The next girl stood up.

“How’s married life, AJ?”

AJ smiled. “I love every minute of it. It’s kind of nice to know that I don’t have to go scour clubs and bars when I need some booty.”

“He’s a poet, isn’t he?” Rochelle said with a smirk. I laughed.

Another fan asked Howie if he was ever going to grow out his hair again (the answer was a ‘no’ which was met by a lot of applause. Another fan asked Brian about Baylee’s schooling. Yet another fan asked when the next Backstreet Boys album was coming out, in which all four guys responded ‘late 2011.’

The microphone was then passed to a beautiful brunette that looked like she could be a 4th Kardashian sister. Her gaze was trained on Nick like a hawk.

“Nick, what do you think of your fiancée’s lesbian tape?”

A weird hush came over the room. Nick stared at the girl; his mouth was opened slightly.

“You haven’t seen it?” she said. “It’s all over the web.”

I was pretty sure that my heart stopped. My ex-husband had done a lot of low down dirty things in his life, but if he did what I thought he did, it would take the cake.

Nick laughed nervously. “Well, I know what movie I’m going to be watching tonight,” he said.

“It doesn’t upset you?” the girl pressed on.

“Doesn’t everyone do something in their life they’re not proud of?” Nick said. I saw him look in the direction of the event coordinator. He quickly moved the microphone along. I didn’t really comprehend any of the questions that followed. I wanted to get my laptop and see for myself, but I wouldn’t dare do so with Baylee around.

“Hey, you okay?” Rochelle asked. I nodded. “Yeah.”

“When we were in Manitoba and I asked you if you had ever kissed a girl, you certainly didn’t spill the deets,” Rochelle said. I blushed.

“It was a big, stupid mistake.”

“I’ve had a lot of those,” Rochelle said. I must have looked upset because she put an arm around me. “If Nick’s anything like AJ, that little surprise is going to be a good surprise rather than a bad one.”

“The fans are out for my blood,” I said.

“Just like the South American fans are out for mine,” Leigh piped up. James was covered in what looked to be spaghetti and seemed to be having the time of his life.

I sighed. Even though I knew they had all gone through fan envy, I felt exposed and angry. Once I saw the video, I had a feeling those feelings were only going to grow.

-----------------------------------------

“I’m going to kill him,” Nick said. I had lost count of how many times Nick had said he was going to kill my ex-husband. After the Q&A, Nick and I had stole back to our room where we were currently lying in bed. I had the laptop on my belly, searching through Google. It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for. I let out a little groan of distress.

“Found it?” Nick said. I nodded. He scooted close to me to look at the screen; I closed it halfway and looked at him.

“Now, I want to explain,” I said. “It’s not a lesbian tape. I had just lost quite a bit of weight but Hunter still wasn’t showing a lot of, er, interest in me. He always said how hot it would be if he could have a threesome. Well, I wasn’t into that, but one night Jess and I had one too many margaritas and I decided to make him a tape for him birthday.”

“Well, first of all, Hunter’s an idiot. Who could lose interest in you? And secondly, no matter what, this isn’t your fault. Do you know I cringe every time I see a picture of me and Paris Hilton or Kari Ann Peniche? I’m more pissed that Hunter made a quick buck off of this. Not only did he do it to take another jab at you, but it blows my mind he would do this to the mother of his child.”

“Yeah, well I think the tape must have sparked his interest in Jess,” I said a little bitterly. With a sigh I opened the laptop up and press play.

It was a short five minute tape. Both Jess and I were in lingerie that we had bought on a shopping trip earlier that day. Eleven empty margarita glasses sat on the table behind us. I watched as I leaned into the camera and blew a kiss. Even though I had lost a lot of weight at the time, I was still about twenty pounds heavier than when I had first met Nick. Jess pulled me back and we kissed for several seconds. We rambled drunkenly and Jess babbled into the tape about what a ‘hot babe’ I was. She sat on my lap and we kissed again. The last shot was of me flashing the camera.

I slammed the lid shut and closed my eyes. I felt Nick move and the bed creak as he stood up. A few seconds later the bathroom door closed. My hands slid from my eyes as I stared at the closed door.

I was mortified. Nick’s face was pretty much unreadable when I had glanced over at him. Now I was lying alone on the bed with over twenty websites advertising the stupid video. Hunter was probably counting his money as we spoke.

Ten minutes later Nick walked back in the room. His face was flushed. He looked at me apologetically.

“I’m going to go blind,” he complained as he sat back on the bed. I looked at him in confusion, then realized what he meant.

“Good thing tomorrow’s Cozumel,” he said. “You still have that lingerie?” Nick said. My mouth fell open.

“Nick I was the same weight there as I am six months pregnant,” I said.

“You looked fine to me,” Nick said. “I could have done without that Jess girl in the video, but other than that…”

I shook the laptop. “It’s all over the Internet!”

“Well, I’m going to take care of that with a phone call tomorrow. So about that lingerie…”

I shook my head. “I don’t know what to do with you,” I said. He grinned, but grew serious when he saw how stressed I still was.

“Listen, it could have been worse. A lot worse. I’m pissed at hell that Hunter keeps disrespecting you. He’s doing it to get at me; but I’m not going to give him that satisfaction. Instead, he’s going to deal with our lawyer and a defamation of character lawsuit.” He leaned over and kissed me. “I don’t want this to ruin our tour.”

“But the fans…”

Nick rolled his eyes. “The fans are just going to have to get over it. Leighanne went through years and years of hell before the fans finally realized Brian wasn’t going to ditch her and fall into bed with some random girl who showed him a picture of Leighanne in a skimpy bikini. Hell, he’s proud of that picture. And while you’re horrified at that video, I’ll tell you one thing. If you had made that for me, I wouldn’t let you out of bed for days.”

I laughed. Nick took my laptop and put it on the nightstand. Hovering over me he gave me a luscious lingering kiss. I turned off the light and curled into his arms.

“About that lingerie…” Nick asked again.

“Let it go, Nick,” I said softly. I heard him huff a little. I smiled.

I had a few tricks up my sleeve for our Cozumel night.

No need to ruin his surprise, right?