"Think it's still good?" Brian peered into the open Chinese cartons curiously. He picked up a chopstick and poked an egg foo yung. He looked up at Emma.
She shrugged from the bed, where she'd perched. They were both in undergarments only now, having felt weird getting fully dressed or staying naked, and having no pajamas really made a middle ground impossible. But it was okay - Emma was enjoying the view of Brian hovering over soggy Chinese food in boxers with cartoon characters all over them. Where exactly, she wondered, did one find boxers with Spongebob Squarepants' pants printed on them in grown up sizes?
"I dunno Bonnie," Brian drawled in his best impression of Clyde's voice, "It looks kind of suspect to me." He was quoting a Bonnie and Clyde play they'd performed in together. Well, sort of. They'd been the understudies for Bonnie and Clyde, mostly they'd practiced on each other and that was about it until the girl playing Bonnie - a leggy blonde cheerleader - had broken her ankle during a pep rally and Emma had to step up.
Emma laughed, "It's been sitting there awhile," she said sadly. "I'm sorry," she added, "You probably spent a fortune on all this food."
"And there's starving children in Africa!" Brian wailed in yet another impression - this one of his mother. He realized suddenly in some subconscious part of him, that he hadn't done impressions in a really long time - his heart had been too weighed down. He smiled and jumped up onto the bed and crawled across the mattress to her. Emma fell back onto the pillow as he leaned over her like he was doing a push-up around her and lowered himself to kiss her nose. "It was completely worth it," he whispered.
"Drop and give me twenty, soldier," Emma giggled. Brian did a couple quick push-ups, kissing her nose on each descent, making her giggle harder. She smiled up at him when he stopped, and he rolled away and sat up.
"I'm hungry, though," he confessed.
"Vending machine?" Emma asked.
"There's gotta be something open still," Brian mused. He jumped up and went to the desk and took his phone up. Emma sat up and watched him in the blueish glare from the phone. "No clubs though, some place quiet..."
Emma hugged her knees. "Is there an IHOP around?"
"IHOP!" Brian cried out, his eyes brightening, "Yeah there is! Donnie and fellas and I went there when we were here on the tour." His fingers flew over the screen of the phone until he'd found it and tapped in a request for directions from the hotel. He looked up, grinning. "Let's go."
"Whoa, hold up there," Emma laughed, "Unless you want to go in your knickers we gotta get dressed."
Brian looked down, then scanned her. "Oh yeah," he laughed. "Although you eating pancakes like that wouldn't be so bad..." he winked.
Emma smirked, "You're a dirty old man, Littrell," she accused. But while she got dressed, Emma couldn't help but wonder what the hell had gotten into him, though. Twenty-four hours before, he'd been sullen and moody and had been negotiated into this arrangement. Now, the way he was acting, Emma could almost imagine that this was twenty years ago, that this was how it was supposed to turn out.
Fifteen minutes later, the two of them were walking down the sidewalk, past the traffic and the lights. Music spilled out of random windows, a mixture of every genre. Emma could completely understand the term music city being used for this place - it seemed to throb with a heart beat of song. Brian clasped her hand as they crossed a main intersection and forgot to let go. Girls in spikey heels past them, glancing twice at Brian, then looking Emma over in an appraising sort of way, as though wondering how someone like her was holding the hand of someone like him. Emma clung to his hand tighter.
When they finally arrived at IHOP, the neon flourescence poured into the parking lot they were crossing through tall, wide windows and Emma could smell the pancakes and maple syrup even from where they stood. They trotted across the lot and Brian started naming all the things he was going to order, "Croissants, coffee, orange juice, sausages, bacon, hash brown, curly fries, scrambled eggs, fried eggs, western omlet..."
Emma laughed, "You're ambitous."
"I'm starving," he corrected.
They opened the doors and went inside the little restaurant and the strength of the pancake smell quadrupled. Brian was practically frothing at the mouth and Emma laughed at the look of longing he gave a seven year old with a plate of strawberry pancakes. He bent low in her ear as a hostess approached and whispered suggestively, "Maybe I'll get some of those strawberries to go..."
Emma felt a tingle of adrenaline shoot through her body.
"How are we tonight?" asked the hostess as she reached them. She picked up two menus and two sets of silverware from the station by the door. She smiled, "Two?"
Brian looked around himself, "Well by jimminey, yes."
The hostess nodded, and mumbled, "Okay, right this way."
Brian shrugged at Emma and they followed along behind her to a booth by a window and she put the silverware packs onto the table and dropped the menus. She motioned for them to get into the booth, so they did - the leather squelching under their bottoms as they went. Brian started to giggle, but the hostess didn't look amused, so he stopped abruptly. "Your waitress will be Katie and she'll be along shortly." The hostess disappeared.
"Well she was a treat," Brian commented.
Emma laughed, "She probably didn't know how to handle your enthusiasm."
"I'm not sure I do," Brian replied.
Emma was about to respond when a squeak at their side made them both look up, just as their waitress dropped the stein of coffee she was carrying. Brian made a quick lunge for it, and caught it before it hit the floor, but a good quantity of it had spilled onto the floor. He put the stein down on the table. "Oh my God," stammered the waitress, whose name tag did indeed read Katie, "You're - you're - Brian Littrell."
Brian nodded, "All my life that's what they've told me." He smiled.
"Oh my God," the girl stammered. She looked down at the floor, at the coffee everywhere, "Oh God," she added, less enthusiastic this time. "I'm such a klutz."
Brian looked down at the floor, "Got a straw?" he joked. Both Emma and Katie cracked up at the quip. He smiled, pleased with the boisterous reaction he'd gotten. He'd forgotten the rush he used to get when people laughed at things he said, when they smiled about things he did. He forgot about the excitement of meeting a fan, of getting to make their dreams come true simply by existing.
"I need to get a mop, I'll be right back. I'm so sorry." Katie rushed away, flushed and starry-eyed.
Brian looked at Emma, "I think she may be a fan," he said.
Emma smiled, "She may be."
"She seemed sane enough, though," he added, "I don't think you've got anything too much to worry about."
"What?" Emma asked, "What do you mean I don't have anything too much to worry about? What would I worry about?"
"I don't know - rumors or something," Brian answered, "Pictures on the web."
"Why would they put pictures of me on the web?" Emma asked. She instinctively reached for her fishing hat and pulled it closer to her head, curling the back flap around the nape of her neck. "I'm not interesting."
"Because you're with me," Brian replied, "We're here together, the fans go nuts over that type stuff. G'Lord there's probably a million pictures of me and ---" he stopped mid-sentence, then reconstructed it, "Fans take pictures of us with our friends and family everywhere," he said. "Airports, malls, restraurants..."
Emma felt herself slink lower in her seat, as though she could make herself invisible. Luckily, Katie returned at that moment with the mop and Brian didn't get a chance to go any further into detail about the fans and their photography habits.
Brian had ended up signing about thirty autographs before they left IHOP and every time someone approached him to ask for one, Emma had prayed they hadn't been taking pictures of them at the table before they'd come over. She picked at her blueberry pancakes, but was feeling far too nervous to actually eat. She sipped her cranberry juice and scanned the dining area for evidence that her photograph was being taken and posted on fan sites instead.
"Good Lord that felt good," Brian said into the cool, dark air as they walked back to the hotel. They were strolling now, the need to arrive less urgent than it had been several hours before. "I didn't realize how much I missed that."
How anyone could miss being interrupted every five seconds at dinner was beyond Emma's comprehension, but to each their own, she supposed.
Brian laughed, "This one time in Rio," he said, "We were driving on this bus and like half the city mobbed it. The bus couldn't even drive smoothly, there were so many people around it, like running after it and pressing against it, and we were really scared the bus was going to end up tipped over because they were all climbing on it and banging on it and stuff... Then we get to the hotel and it turns out the door of the hotel's on the left of the bus and the door of the bus is on the right of it, and we had to cut through the crowd to get into the hotel... I was so fricking terrified," he shook his head, "There was a final head count over 10,000 in the street that night."
Emma's eyes widened, "Ten thousand people?"
"Mmhm," Brian nodded. "All crammed into this little street in Rio, around our hotel. We did a performance from the hotel roof. It was killer."
Emma was at a loss for words. "I know stuff like that happens for like Bono and Michael Jackson," she stammered, "I didn't know --"
Brian smiled. "There was a time it did here, too, but it was rather brief. I mean we still can't go to South America without it happening. South America is intense. So is Japan."
Emma hadn't really thought about the whole Backstreet Boy thing, not really. She knew the phenomenon more as the time when she couldn't get away from Brian Littrell's face than as the Millennium craze that it had been. She'd tried to block as much of it out as she could because it hurt too much to see him and not be with him. It hurt too much to be reminded what she'd lost and why. She'd never thought about the fact that the man she was pining for wasn't just a man anymore, but was literally a pop culture icon.
"I need to talk to Nick about rejuvinating the recording thoughts again," Brian mused, "Lord I miss singing." He looked at Emma and smiled. "I miss it with the whole of my heart."
Emma smiled. "I remember when you used to just randomly belt out New Kids on the Block songs," she laughed. "And everyone thought they were my favorite band, even though they were your favorite."
Brian laughed, "Do you know the kind of crap people would've given me over that if they knew?"
"The kind I gave you, you mean?"
"Yeah!" Brian crowed. His face crumpled in a laugh, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulling her close to him. He took a deep breath. "Thank you."
Emma looked up, "For what?" she asked.
Brian smiled, "For making me feel like this."
"I didn't do anything."
Brian shrugged, "You're helping me to let go."
