Chapter Two
Nick
The bittersweet thing about getting the attention of the press is getting the attention of the press. It’s great when you’re trying to be paid attention to and suddenly they’re like clamouring for interviews and like askin’ you questions about the stuff you’ve worked on and doing the promotional runs and all that. That’s the sweet. The bitter is the part where they realize you’re hot-hot-hot right now and they wanna stalk the shit out of you every damn place you go and ask you questions about your personal life that in no way has anything to do with promoting your work stuff.
“Nick, how’s your momma reacting to you calling out your family troubles in the movie?” one guy called as Lauren and I sat outside a little Thai restaurant downtown. I chewed my curry chicken and tried to ignore them.
Lauren looked at me, “You’re quiet today, are you okay?”
I glanced at the guys with the big cameras like two feet away on the other side of the fence that barricaded in the patio area of the restaurant. I looked back at her. “I feel like everything I say can and will be used against me in a court of paparazzi,” I replied.
She chewed a shrimp from her plate and looked over at the photographers, too, then turned back to me, “Well fuck’em,” she answered and she flipped them off.
I laughed.
“Seriously, c’mon, this is one of the last times we get to do this at home, together, until after you do this promotional run and the tour and everything, and I want you to be here with me,” she said, “Not brooding, emo Nick.”
“Okay,” I answered. “What do you wanna talk about then?”
“Whatever you wanna talk about,” she replied. She smiled.
I took another bite of my chicken, spinning some of the veggie noodles and peppers around the fork with it. I chewed slowly, thinking up something to talk about. “I’m glad you’re coming with me,” I said.
“I’m glad I’m going with you,” she replied.
“It’s always better when you’re there,” I said. “The bus gets lonely and blah when you ain’t around baby.”
Lauren smirked, “You just like having all the foreign sex.”
I grinned, “I ain’t gonna lie, that’s a huge plus.”
“Nick, do you and the fellas hold any contact with Lou Pearlman since his arrest?” called one of the paparazzi.
I licked my lips and looked back down at my plate again.
“Ignore them,” Lauren intoned.
“I am,” I replied, but I could feel the heat rising up my neck.
She sighed.
“Did Lou Pearlman ever make any sexual advances toward you or any of the other Backstreet Boys?” yelled another photographer.
I grit my teeth.
“Nick,” Lauren’s voice was low. “Don’t engage.”
“C’mon, Nicky, you can tell us,” the guy laughed.
I threw my fork down on the table.
“Oh shit,” Lauren reached for my hand, trying to keep me sitting down, “Nick, don’t, they aren’t worth it.”
But I didn’t really hear her, I was already up and out of my seat and lunging toward the squat little hedge that lined the inside of the little fence. The guy that had asked was chortling at the edge of the group, writing something on his little notepad, camera hanging by it’s lanyard. I held my hand up, pointing right in the guy’s face, which got his attention, “You shut the fuck up and mind your own goddamn business,” I shouted at him.
Lauren had come up behind me. She grabbed my non-pointing arm. “C’mon, we’re leaving,” she said sternly to me.
“You fuckin’ show some respect, mother fucker,” I snapped, “I’m eatin’ lunch with my wife, I don’t need you yelling bullfuckingshit at me from the fuckin’ sidewalk.”
He grinned at me.
“Fuckin’ come over this side of the fence, see if your smug ass is still grinning then,” I barked.
Other photographers were filming and taking pictures.
“Nick. Enough.” Lauren’s voice was sharp and she tugged me behind her. I followed - partly because she was gonna pull me along whether I wanted to go or not - and partly because I felt like I’d said everything I wanted to say to the photographer.
Lauren’s mouth was set in a hardline as she pulled me into the restaurant, abandoning half out food on the patio table. “We’re going home,” she announced.
“But we were gonna go shopping and whatever,” I reminded her.
She shook her head, “I’m not dealing with them following us around, goading you all day,” she answered. “I’ve had enough of that song and dance for one day.”
I sighed.
Like I said, the attention is bittersweet.
Brian
Leighanne nudged me as she crawled onto the bed next to me, eyes glued to the TV set. I looked up from my cell phone, where I was making picks for my fantasy basket ball league. She lunged for the remote to turn the volume up.
”...threatening a photographer outside of a restaurant downtown today.”
The video showed Nick shoving his finger into some dude’s face. ”Fuckin’ come over this side of the fence, see if your smug ass is still grinning then,” he was shouting.
I smacked my hand onto my face. “Oh for cryin’ out loud,” I muttered.
Leighanne shook her head, her jaw slack as she stared at the TV screen.
“Kevin’s gonna kill him,” I said.
Leighanne muted the TV as it went to another segment, then turned to me, “He should be used to it. Nick’s always starting trouble.” She got up off the bed and went back to packing her things into the suitcase on the other bed.
I sighed, turning back to the phone. “He’s just got this… this temper…” I Googled a couple rookie players in hunt for their college stats. “If he’d just calm down…” I muttered and let my voice fade off because I wasn’t sure what else to finish that sentence up with. “Well, I guess any publicity is good publicity,” I said.
Leighanne walked by and came back a moment later with her hair dryer from the bathroom sink. “I feel weird packing just my stuff,” she commented.
I looked up. “I know.”
She smiled sadly. “We’ll join you as soon as Baylee’s play is over.”
I nodded, “I’ll fly in for opening night.”
Leighanne sighed as she zipped up the suitcase. “You should ask one of the guys if you can stay with them so you aren’t alone up here in this hotel room all week before y’all leave.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I replied, noncommittally.
“I’m sure AJ or Kevin have some extra room.”
“Well Howie’s staying with AJ, and I love Mason and Max but I don’t think I could handle staying at Kevin’s right now, those kids are a handful.”
Leighanne sighed.
I smiled, “I’m okay, honey, really.” I sealed the deal on picking one of the rookies and I scrolled through my roster real quick, decided I was satisfied with it, and tossed my phone onto the bed next to me. I stood up and captured Leighanne into a hug. “Seriously,” I added.
“I was thinking,” she said, “You should probably tell Nick about you quitting the band with, like, other people around.”
I raised my eyebrow, “Why?”
“That temper,” she replied. “He was ready to throw down some random guy for taking pictures of him. What if he gets mad at you and…” she shook her head.
I laughed, “Nick would never actually hurt me. He might yell but he wouldn’t throw down with me. Not seriously, anyway.”
Leighanne shrugged.
“He wouldn’t,” I answered. “Our friendship might be on crutches but it ain’t completely broken,” I said.
Leighanne sighed. “Just be careful, okay?”
“Yeah,” I said.
Nick
“Do you know how much damage control I’ve had to do?” Jack looked frustrated. He was pacing my kitchen. “Look, you can’t just go hauling off, threatening to kick the ass of random photographers.”
I was holding a cup of wheat grass and kale smoothie I’d just made. Jack had taken one sniff of the stuff and politely declined taking a glass of it. I sipped through the bendy straw I’d put in the glass. “It wasn’t just some random photographer,” I answered, “This guy was trying to get me going. He was baiting me.”
“You gotta be the bigger man,” Jack said. He looked down at his cellphone a moment. “Look at this. TMZ. E Online. People. MTV. Fucking Rolling Stone, Nick. All of them point out you have an anger management problem based on the explosive scene in the movie and now this. What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking I needed him to leave me and my wife alone,” I answered, frustrated. “Seriously, we were on a date and these guys just are like sitting there like a pack of vultures trying to get me to say something they could print, asking all these personal questions… bringing up shit they ain’t got no business at asking.” I put my glass down. The smoothie tasted as nasty as it looked.
“You’re a celebrity,” Jack said, “You just released a documentary about your life, about your past, that had a lot of really intense personal stuff involved in it. You can’t seriously think that they aren’t gonna ask you questions any where they can find you.”
“I asked nicely like twenty times between the house and the restaurant for them to leave us alone,” I explained, “They didn’t, and then this one asshole’s asking me shit and I told him to stop and he just… grins at me… like… like a friggin’... friggin’... that pink cat thing in Alice in Wonderland.”
“Cheshire Cat?”
“Yeah, that thing,” I answered.
Jack sighed, “Look, all I’m saying is there’s a lot going on right now for the good for you guys. Don’t wreck it by lashing out like that at people. Even if you feel like you’re in the right they can bend it and make it look totally different than it is. You come off looking like a total asshole and they come out with thousands of dollars for the pictures they get and just come after you all the more. Don’t give them a trigger to pull. That’s all I’m saying.”
Brian
The five of us had a dinner reservation the night before we were scheduled to leave for a European press run. It was the first time we’d all five been in the same room since the premiere earlier in the week. I followed the waitress to a table in the corner of the pub-like restaurant Kevin had selected for the dinner. I felt a little queasy when I saw I was the second person there. Nick was the first and he already had a glass of beer sitting on a coaster in front of him as he stared up at the TV screen and stripped wrappers off of the straws on the table.
“Here you are,” the waitress grinned, “Can I get you anything to drink?” she asked as I slid into the booth opposite of Nick.
“Just water with lemon, thanks,” I answered and she nodded and walked away.
I looked over at Nick.
He looked over at me.
“Well hey,” I said finally after an awkward amount of time had passed with us just looking at each other.
“Hey,” he nodded, then turned back to the straws.
“So that Superbowl, huh?”
“I knew the Patriots would take it,” he said, “I said so on Twitter.”
“I saw that,” I nodded.
“Yeah,” he nodded, too.
“I was going for them, too,” I said. “Seattle was getting too haughty about it. Especially by the end. That whole kerfluffle was insane.”
“Kerfluffle?” Nick looked up at me.
“Yeah, you know - the fight or whatever?”
“I know what you’re talking about,” Nick said, “Just, the word kerfluffle is weird is all.”
I shrugged.
Nick started weaving the straw wrappers all together.
“So are you ready for Europe?” I asked.
“Sure,” Nick answered.
“Is Lauren coming?” I asked.
“Yep.”
I waited for him to ask if Leighanne was coming, but he didn’t. He picked up his beer and took a long gulp of it. I sighed. “Leighanne’s not coming,” I said.
“Good,” he said. Then he realized what he’d said and he backtracked, “I mean, because isn’t it because of like Baylee’s in a play or something? That’s the good. Not her not being there. Unless you didn’t want her to be. Then it’s good for you, too, I guess.” He cleared his throat then took another sip of beer.
I balled my hands under the table, trying not to let it piss me off what he’d said.
It was moments like this that I would not miss about being in the band. Moments when I had to choke back stuff I wanted to say because I didn’t want to start things. Moments when I was stuck having to pretend Nick wasn’t infuriating me because of his lack of respect for my wife.
If I’d ever said good to him - even if I’d backtracked it like he’d done - about Lauren not coming someplace… he’d have blown his freaking lid right off. But me… if I reacted, he’d say I was being a dick.
It was a lose-lose for me.
So I kept my mouth shut about it.
“You hear from the other guys at all about how long they’re gonna be?”
“Howie texted a little bit ago, him and AJ are stuck in traffic up in Malibu,” he replied.
“Oh.”
The waitress appeared suddenly with my glass of water and she put a little plate with some lemon wedges on the table beside the glass. “Would the two of you like an appetizer while you wait?”
“Dawg, do you got like any, like, nachos or somethin’?” Nick asked, looking up, “I really want like somethin’ with like a shit ton of cheese and sour cream and those little green thingies sprinkled on top, you know what I mean? Or like maybe chili cheese fries or somethin’?”
“Those are onions,” I said, “The green things.”
Nick was staring up at the waitress.
“We have chili cheese fries.”
“Yes. Yes a plate of chili cheese fries. Extra sour cream. And green thingies.”
“Okay,” she scribbled on her pad and turned and hurried away.
“They’re onions,” I said again.
“Whatever they are,” Nick shrugged. He looked around the room. “It’s nice to actually get to be out without those fucking paparazzi following me around. They on your tail too?”
“I haven’t noticed,” I answered with a shrug. “They don’t bug me. Let’em take pictures if they want to. What’s the big deal?”
Nick laughed, “Obviously they ain’t following you like they follow me ‘cos they bug the shit out of me.” He picked up the napkin-silverware roll and pulled the little paper thing holding it shut off and unrolled it, letting the silverware clatter a bit on the table.
“It just doesn’t bug me is all,” I answered.
“Well aren’t you a fuckin’ saint,” he snapped. He was spinning the three pieces of silverware into a triangle on the table.
I shrugged, “I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s saintly to be able to control my temper, but --”
Several things happened at once.
One. Nick stood up. He was sitting on the side of the table that had chairs and his chair slid backwards with a loud errrrt sound as he leaped to his feet.
Two. Kevin walked up from the right, having spotted us from the doorway as he’d walked in.
Three. The waitress came back, carrying Nick’s plate of chili cheese fries with extra sour cream and green thingies.
Do you see where I’m going with this yet?
“It’s not my fuckin’ fault that they’re harassing me, asking me about Lou Pearlman fuckin’ sexually assaulting one of us or some shit, while I’m trying to eat lunch with my wife,” Nick hissed, his hand flying out in his fit of passion.
The waitress tripped on his chair as it was shoved back so suddenly into her path, and had almost caught her balance, just barely saving the tray, when Nick’s arm flew out and caught the edge of the plate that had almost fallen off it, sending it into the air, coming down for a direct hit, chili-cheese-sour-cream-with-extra-green-things firework against Kevin’s chest.
My jaw dropped.
Nick looked around, shocked, as the plate fell from Kevin’s chest onto the floor, shattering at his feet. “Aw shit,” he muttered.
There's Us by Pengi
