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Chapter Thirty-Two


I couldn't believe Johnny had actually apologized. I felt disoriented, like I imagine guys in sci-fi novels feel when they discover everything they thought they knew was false. Like the guy in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy feels when he finds out an alien race is planning to demolish earth to build an intergalactic highway.

Why hello, intergalactic highway, meet my current shock, an apology from Johnny Wright.

On the way to the venue, Johnny seemed lost in thought, and when his cell phone rang, he barely glanced at it before shutting it off instead of answering it. He kept glancing over at Lou, and then looking out the window, lines of concern across his forehead. I wondered if I'd gotten through to him, if he was going to talk to Lou and maybe all our problems would be solved. Maybe all this time the only person I really needed to tell about everything that was bothering me was Johnny. Maybe he'd literally just been so distracted by Nsync that he'd been rendered incapable of seeing the problems here and he just needed some light shed on them to see them.

I was feeling pretty good about my choice to confront Johnny, so that when we got to the venue I felt like I could talk my way out of anything and I turned to Nick. "Hey remember last night when you asked if I wanted to shoot some hoops tomorrow?" I asked.

"Yeah! I got a ball this morning from a fan!" he said, voice excited, "She like gave it to me and I told her it was a perfect gift and gave her a kiss." He grinned, proud of himself. "She was a little hottie, too."

I nodded slowly, "Well, see... about that..."

The grin melted off his face. "What?" he asked.

"I kind of - I forgot that I'd already promised Leighanne that I'd spend the day with her," I said slowly.

Nick stared at me for a long moment, processing what I was saying. I could see his mind working through the idea that I couldn't shoot hoops with him because of Leighanne, but he liked Leighanne now, so maybe that would be less offensive than it was a month ago. "So I'll go with you," he suggested, trying to hold onto his enthusiasm, though it had certainly waned a bit.

"We're going to a museum," I said, knowing the word museum would make him change his mind. And I wasn't lying, really, I was just omitting that it was a museum about vikings is all.

A cloud passed over his face, "Oh," he said quietly.

"I'm sorry, buddy," I said, "But I'll spend the next day off with you, okay? I promise."

Nick turned. "We don't have another day off, Brian," he said over his shoulder as he ducked into the dressing room.

I stood in the hallway feeling like a tool for a couple minutes. Then his words struck me and I mentally ran through the remaining tour dates, and realized that Nick was right. The only remaining gap in the dates was reserved for travel from France to Spain the following week. We had literally two weeks without a day off. Then we'd be flying home and five days later I'd be on a gurney at the Mayo Clinic, under the knife of Dr. Danielson.

I took a deep breath, and followed Nick into the dressing room. I sat in my chair next to his. "I'm sorry," I said, "Maybe we can squeeze in some hoops before the show one of the days? Or after we travel on the 8th? Say in the evening?"

"I gotta book an appointment to hang out with you now?" he asked as the stylist squirted mousse all over his head.

"Not an appointment, we're just making plans is all," I answered.

Nick frowned.

"I'm really sorry, I just completely forgot that I'd promised her, and I was so excited you wanted to hang out with me again that I just agreed without thinking about it. I miss ya Frack."

"And yet you wanna spend your only free time in the whole month hanging out with Boob Job Barbie," he said, looking at me in the mirror as he said the nickname. I could tell by the expression in his eyes that he was saying it sheerly because he knew it bothered me.

"Hey now," I said, frowning, "I thought you liked Leighanne?"

He shrugged, "I tried. I tried 'cos you asked me to, but I don't like Leighanne. She's... she's... she's bossy."

"Bossy?"

"Yes."

I couldn't help but laugh, "When has she ever been bossy?" I demanded.

"I dunno," Nick said, "Maybe every time she's around you? She's totally got you casperated."

"What?"

"Casperated," Nick said, frustrated.

I ran through a list of words that he could possibly mean in my head. "Castrated?" I asked.

He scowled, "That's what I said."

"Actually, you said casperated, like the friendly ghost," I replied. "And she doesn't have me castrated, either. Do you even know what that means?" I joked.

Nick's eyes met mine in the mirror, "It means Boob Job Barbie's got'cha balls and she ain't givin'em back, that's what it means."

"Stop calling her that," I said, my tone switching from playful to irritated. Nick was practically a professional at pressing my buttons.

"Y'all make a good set," he said meanly, "Boob Job Barbie and Castrated Ken."

"Shut up!" I shouted. I stood up and I felt Howie, Kevin, and AJ turn to look at me with interest.

"What? Would you rather be Boob Job Barbie and Ball-less Brian the Boy Wonder?" Nick said, and I heard AJ laugh from his seat behind me.

I turned and pointed at AJ. "You stay out of this." I snapped.

I stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind me, and sat on the floor in the hallway, breathing, until my stylist came looking for me a few minutes later. I was kind of surprised Kevin didn't follow me. This sort of controversial moment was right up his alley. I'd half expected, as I sank to the floor, to see him come out with his big dead catepillar eyebrows, and give me some long pep-talk-style-speech about putting up with Nick and having patience with him. But he didn't come.

Back in my seat in the dressing room, I was careful not to look at Nick, either real Nick or mirror Nick, and stared down at the Batman comic book while my hair got worked on. I was pretty sure Nick was doing the same thing, except every couple moments he'd kind of chuckle to himself and mutter under his breath, and, from what little bits of the sounds he was muttering that I caught, I knew he was saying the doll names again and again under his breath.

On the way up the steps to the stage, AJ nudged me, "You gotta admit Castrated Ken is a pretty funny visual," he said.

"Shut the hell up," I snapped.

"Don't let them get to you," Howie intoned from behind me. "The more it bothers you, the more they'll do it. Just like playground bullies."

"I'm not making fun of him," AJ argued, "I'm just picturing a Ken doll that comes with a detachable penis."

"You don't even know what you're talking about," I snapped.

AJ laughed, "You're right, he wasn't saying she cut off your penis, he was saying she cut off your balls, huh?"

"Enough," Kevin growled behind me before I could open my mouth to tell AJ to shut up again myself. "Both of you. All of you," he added, glancing back at Nick, who was snickering at AJ's comment. Nick shut up. "Just enough."

I was distracted through the whole show, so it didn't go very well. I kept tripping and missing cues. I was one step behind the entire time we were doing the chair dance, and I almost clocked myself in the head with the chair one of the times we flipped them over us. It was a mess. The other guys did okay as far as I saw, but I know I was throwing them off their game. Because we're so heavily choreographed, all it takes is one of us to be off and all of us are a little off and the show ends up looking really choppy.

When we got back to the hotel, Lou caught us in the hallway and told Nick he was moving in with me, that Kevin now had a single room, and informed me that Leighanne had been given a new room for the night and a flight to the United States that would leave the next day shortly after our flight to Holland left. He handed me a key to Leighanne's new room.

"Great," Nick groaned as he glared at me, "I have to share with Ken." Then went to get his bags from Kevin's room.

"Trust me, I'm thinking the same thing, Dillweed!" I called after him as he went in the room. He thrust his hand back out, giving me the one-finger salute.

Kevin groaned. "Why do you gotta egg him on when he gets like this?" he demanded of me.

"Egg him on? He's making fun of me," I snapped. "He is being a Dillweed." AJ and Howie casually snuck off to their room, sensing an argument coming on.

Kevin rolled his eyes, "You're the older of the two of you. You at least should be able to act mature. Grow up." He stormed off to the room himself.

Lou chuckled, "Aren't you just making friends left and right?" he asked.

"Don't screw with me Lou," I snapped. "I'm really tempted to just go home with Leighanne right now."

A smile spread across his face, "Go for it. But don't expect to come back." And with that, he waddled off to his own room.

Nick came out of the room a moment after Lou's door closed, dragging his dufflebag, suitcase, and Nintendo game system. He shoved by me, grunting with all the shit he was carrying, and struggled to open the hotel room door. Out of spite, I watched instead of helping. He finally got inside and threw all the crap on the bed. "Oh great, you're still here," I heard him say.

"Nick?" I ran around the corner into the room to see Leighanne sitting on the far bed, the covers pulled up, a look of confusion and shock on her face. She looked at the pile of crap he had all over the bed, then up at me. "What is going on?" she asked.

I opened my mouth to answer, but Nick answered before I could, "Castrated Ken missed the appearance this morning, so Lou's rearranging our rooms. Congratulations, Barbie, you just won a single."

Leighanne looked at me, "What?"

I sighed, "Lou got you another room," I said quietly, defeated. I was hoping that he had told her this, had already moved her to the new room, that I would only have to commiserate with her, not explain it to her.

"Why?"

"Because he um, he thinks - he..." I stammered.

Nick again took over the explanation, "Lou thinks you're a distraction and so do I." He puffed his chest all up.

Leighanne frowned, "Distraction?"

"You don't let him do shit with me!" Nick yelled.

"What?" Leighanne looked really confused now. "What are you talking about?"

"You're a Brian whore!" Nick shouted.

Leighanne stared at him for a long moment of silence. See, I knew what Nick meant. What Nick meant was that she was hogging me, that she was essentially an attention whore. But Leighanne, Leighanne was about to take it as --

"You are calling me a whore?" she shouted. She jumped up. Her nightgown was silky, almost sheer but not quite. It clung to her in all the right places. Probably not the best outfit to be arguing whether she was a whore or not in, though. "How many groupies have you slept with in the last month that you've been on tour?" she snapped.

"Not your business," Nick responded hotly.

"He didn't mean --" I tried to inject, but Leighanne waved her hand to me.

"Apologize," she hissed at Nick.

"Make me," Nick replied.

Leighanne looked at me for back up.

So did Nick.

And there I stood in a hotel room in Sweden, stuck between a rock and a hard place, my frack and my fiance both staring at me, waiting for me to take sides. My mouth went dry. The moment seemed to last forever. Finally I squeaked, "Y'know, I'ma let you guys work this out..." and I quickly hastened to escape to the hallway.

I don't know what they said. All I know is that fifteen minutes later, Leighanne came into the hall. "Get up," she said.

I got up, but I kept looking down at the carpet.

She leaned so she was looking up at me. "Hey," she said until I looked at her. "When one of your friends is rude to me, I need you to stick up for me, okay? Not run out to the hallway."

"I'm sorry," I said quietly, "I just can't handle fighting with him anymore."

Leighanne nodded, "I understand," she said, "Which is why he's coming with us tomorrow."

I blinked in surprise, "What?"

"I hope you don't mind, our date's kind of a threesome now." She paused. "Not like that, that'd be freaky. But you know what I mean."

"But --"

She smiled, "We talked okay?" Leighanne kissed my cheek softly. "Now go get some sleep."

"Where are you going?"

"To my single," she laughed. She held out her hand for the room key Lou had given me. "Good night," she whispered, and she walked down the hallway to the room.

I stood there stunned a moment after her door closed, then turned to my own room. I reached for the handle and had actually shook it before I realized that I'd left my own room key inside. I jiggled the handle a couple more times, like that was gonna help me. "Nick!" I called, knocking. "Niiiick."

The door opened a crack and a blue eye peered out at me. "Yes?"

"I left my room key inside," I said. I went to push the door open, but Nick prevented it from opening. "Nick," I said as he blocked it.

"Not so fast, Littrell," he said.

"Let me in."

"Admit you're pussywhipped."

"Just open the door," I said, pushing it. Sometime since he was thirteen, Nick had gotten stronger than me.

Nick laughed. "Whatsa matter ol' man? Can't shove the door open?" He grinned.

"You lil bastard."

Nick's laugh echoed in the hallway.

Well, at least he was goofing off, I thought. And hey, what is it they say? If you can't beat them...

"Okay, that's it." I backed up to the far wall. Nick watched with one eye through the crack in the door.

"Whatcha doin Frick?" he asked.

I scraped my foot on the floor like a bull. "One..."

"Bri?" I saw a flash of his teeth as he grinned out at me.

"Two..."

"Are you gonna try to run the door in?" he laughed.

"Three!" I ran forward, and, as expected, I heard Nick rush away from the door, flinging it open as he went, and I went straight forward into the room. I let myself hit the far bed, somersaulted over it, and landed on the floor on the far side - which is where I'd planned to end up, but Nick didn't need to know that. He crowed with laughter across the room as he closed the door.

"I gotcha Frick, I gotcha."

I laid on the floor on the far side of the room, swallowing all the anger I'd bottled against him. If Nick could get over it this fast with whatever it was Leighanne had said to him, then I guess so could I.

And I guess Castrated Ken was kinda funny.

Not that Leighanne had my balls or anything.

Really.