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Chapter 4: A Stroll in the Park

Howie's heart beat quicked as he watched Kevin walk towards him. He bit down on his bottom lip as Kevin took each step closer to him, making him even more nervous. He wondered if Kevin had seen AJ and Jameelah step into the other elevator... He crossed off that possibility because if Kevin had seen them, then he would have yelled AJ's name to stop or he would have went after them. Instead, Kevin was walking casually down the hall, a polite look on his face.

"Hey D!" Kevin greeted, coming up to his much shorter friend.

"Um, hey Kev!" Howie greeted back, trying to act as normal as possible. "What's up?"

"I was just coming up here to see if you'd made sure that AJ was up."

"Who?"

"AJ."

"AJ?"

"Yes, that's what I said," Kevin answered, narrowing his eyes at his friend. Howie gulped, already feeling like Kevin knew something was up. "So, is he?"

"Oh, uh...well, uh...there's a problem," Howie stuttered, clearing his throat as he stood in Kevin's way of AJ's door. He tried to keep his eyes focusing on Kevin's, other wise it would be a dead give-away that he was hiding something. Howie had never been the best liar of the group.

"Problem?" Kevin asked.

"Yeah, I went in there to wake him up and, urgh, it was bad."

"Would you mind enlightening me about what was bad?"

"Aje is really sick."

"What do you mean by 'really sick'?" Kevin glared, staring the shorter man down.

Howie gulped again, trying to hide his nervousness. "He was in the bathroom puking his brains out. The poor guy has a really high fever and now he can't even get out of bed. I'm tellin' ya Kev, he's really sick!"

Moments of silence followed as Kevin proceeded to read Howie's eyes.

'Oh great...he doesn't believe it...' Howie thought.

"Puking, huh?" Kevin clarified.

Howie nodded.

"Can't get out of bed?"

"Nope."

"Maybe I should go in and check on him."

"No, he said that you guys didn't need to worry about doing that. He didn't want us to be late to the meeting."

"Still, maybe-"

Howie purposely stole a quick glance at his watch. "Oh look what time it is! We should get going Kev. C'mon!" He tried dragging Kevin down the hall, but Kevin didn't budge. Instead, he stood there looking at AJ's door, as if he were thinking. "Hello? Kev, we need to go."

"I really think I should check on Aje. If you say he was puking his brains out and now he can't even get out of bed, then I should see him to see if we need to get a doctor here to check him," Kevin explained his reasoning, though it were all a lie. He knew something was up, he could see it in Howie's eyes. But he'd be damned to let the latino know.

"We can do that after we get back from the meeting," Howie answered, finally succeeding in pulling Kevin down the hall to the elevator. 'You owe me big time for this Aje...'

*****

AJ pulled his baseball cap down over his eyes as he and Jameelah stepped through the hotel lobby doors and outside. He had successfully made it out of the hotel without running into Brian, Nick or any fans, and most importantly, without running into Kevin. Now, all he needed was Howie to be able to cover for him and he wouldn't have to worry about a thing.

"So, where's your car?" he asked Jameelah, keeping his voice down.

"I parked it around back. C'mon," Jameelah answered, taking hold of AJ's hand and directing him along the side walk until they found an alleyway and walked a bit further, stepping out of the alley to a small parking-lot in the back of the hotel. There were only a few cars parked there.

"Which one belongs to you?" AJ asked again, glad the parking-lot was deserted.

"This one," Jameelah answered, pulling her keys out and walking over to a galactic blue, 2002 Jetta.

AJ raised an eyebrow. "Stick or automatic?"

Jameelah gave a sheepish grin. "Automatic...I haven't learned to drive a stick-shift yet..." Once they were both in the car, Jameelah keyed the ignition and gunned out of the parking-lot and onto the crowded New York streets.

AJ stared out of the window for several minutes as they just rode in silence, his mind wandering. He was glad to be getting away for the day, and he was especially happy to be spending it with Jameelah. It was crazy, he thought, because he had only known her for less then a day, and he already felt so close to her.

"Alex?" Jameelah called out, glancing at him.

"Hmmm?" AJ looked away from the window.

"I asked if you had any ideas where you wanted to go."

"Well, you are the one who lives here. What do you recommend?"

"All depends on what you want to do. There's several good places close by that we could go to get something for breakfast, there's a big park not too far from here that's still pretty deserted this early in the morning - we could go there for a walk."

"I'd like that," AJ answered thoughtfully.

"Like what?" Jameelah asked. "Breakfast or the park?"

"The park...we can eat later, if you don't mind?"

"The park it is then."

*****

The four remaining Backstreet Boys sat around a long rectangular cedar table in one of the conference rooms that their management had rented out at the hotel for their meeting that day. They all sat there in silence waiting for their management, whom had not shown up yet.

"We're early, they're late. We're late, they're early," Nick grumbled to noone in paticular as he fiddled his thumbs. He began to twirl around in his seat, trying to see how fast the chair could turn, with Brian watching him and his face turning a shade of green.

"Sit still, would ya?" Kevin scolded as grabbed ahold of Nick's chair, making him stop abruptly.

"Who's idea was it to schedule this meeting anyway?" Nick pouted, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Would you like to answer that one, dear cousin of mine?" Brian glared in a sickeningly sweet voice.

Three pairs of eyes turned on Kevin.

"Hey, it was either today we have the meeting or have it tomorrow night, late, when we arrive at our next stop," Kevin defended himself, folding his arms on the conference table.

"But this was supposed to be our day off!" Nick whined.

"And you were supposed to do us a favor and grow up. But I don't see that you have, now have you?" Kevin shot back in a playful voice.

"I hate you," Nick grumbled.

"Yeah, and we hate you too Nicky, but at least we try to make you think otherwise," Kevin grinned, knowing Nick wouldn't be able to come up with a satisfying come back to that.

"Don't call me that" was the best thing he came up with. He scowled in Kevin's direction.

At that moment, the door to the conference room opened and in walked a representative from their management team. The man, who's name was Mike, walked over to the table, offering the four apologetic looks. "Sorry I'm late boys. Traffic was heavy, as usual since this is New York, and I had a hard time hailing a cab," he explained.

"It's no problem," Howie answered for the four of them.

"Dude, how long is this meeting going to take?" Nick immediately asked. Brian nudged him in the ribs, rolling his eyes.

"Only an hour or two, Nick," Mike answered. From his briefcase, he pulled a small stack of papers and handed a copy to each of the boys. But when he realized there wasn't a fifth Backstreet Boy present to recieve the fifth copy, he looked and saw the empty seat next to Howie. "Where's AJ?"

Kevin looked over at Howie just in time to see him sink in his seat a bit. He glared, but changed it to a concerned expression as he looked at Mike. "AJ was unable to attend the meeting today because he's currently sick in bed with the flu."

"Is he alright?"

"Well, Howie here told me that he was puking earlier this morning and can't get out of bed now because he's sick, so I don't know. I'm sure it's just a nasty case of the flu. I heard there's a flu bug going around the city right now," Kevin lied, keeping Howie believing that he believed the story Howie had told him earlier.

"That's too bad. Tell him I hope he feels better soon."

"Oh, I'll be sure to tell him that," Kevin muttered as Mike proceeded on with the day's meeting.

*****

It had taken Jameelah a mere 15 minutes to drive to the park, considering the New York traffic was already starting to get bad for the day, but she really knew her way around the city. AJ was glad to step out of the car and into the crisp morning air again. His sinuses, for some reason, had clogged during the short car ride, but they immediately cleared as soon as he stepped out of the car, bringing him somewhat of a bit of relief.

"Shall we take a walk?" he'd asked as Jameelah locked her car and the two of them headed towards a path that wove throughout the park. He held out his hand in a gentleman's manner and waited patiently for Jameelah to take it. When she did, he'd smiled.

Now they were walking along the path silently, both just taking in the beautiful scenery of the morning. Jameelah had been right about the park being mostly deserted still at this hour. So far, only two bicyclists and one jogger had passed them, going in the opposite direction that they were.

Best of all, there had been no run-ins with any fans. He guessed he wouldn't have minded if there would have been, but he really wanted to just take a break for a while.

As soon as he was able to do that successfully, he would be fine.

"Alex...what's wrong?" Jameelah asked with a bit os hesitancy.

AJ looked at her and gave her a questioning look.

"You look stressed."

"Why do you say that?"

Jameelah shrugged. "You just looked stressed."

AJ became stumped for a second, not knowing how to answer. For one thing, Jameelah was right about the fact that he was stressed. He just didn't think it seemed so obvious. But she was able to see through his shield, making him a bit nervous. "Maybe I am..." he answered after a moment of silence.

"Why?" Jameelah asked softly.

"I haven't been having a very good past few weeks. I think touring is getting to me again, Kev is jumping all over my back every time I make one little mistake, everything is seeming to go wrong for me," AJ rambled on for a few seconds, staring off in the distance as he spoke. His eyebrows became furled as he fell silent.

"There's something else...isn't there?"

AJ felt a stinging pain hit his heart as he thought of the other reason why his life was seeming to become so screwed up again. He was about to open his mouth and spill all of his thoughts to Jameelah, but he knew he couldn't do that to her. "Yeah, there is...but, I really don't want to talk about it right now."

"I understand," Jameelah nodded and dropped the subject as they continued walking.

"Good thing this park is pretty much deserted right now," AJ thought outloud as he held Jameelah's hand tightly. He had formed the 'habit' of holding her hand ever since they had left the hotel earlier. It didn't seem to bother her as it didn't bother him.

"Why do you say that?"

"I don't know," AJ shrugged thoughtfully. "I guess I just like the peacefulness I get from the quietness of...the trees?"

Jameelah giggled at AJ's attempt at an answer. "Were you trying to be poetic just now?"

"Don't tell the press...they'll have a field day!" AJ grinned sheepishly.

"Oh yeah..."

"Oh yeah what?"

"I keep forgetting I'm walking with a celebrity."

AJ stopped suddenly when Jameelah said that.

"What's wrong?" Jameelah asked.

"Are you saying that's a bad thing?" AJ questioned, becoming a bit defensive.

Jameelah became confused. "What do you mean?"

"That you're walking with a "celebrity"?"

"Oh gosh, no! Of course not!"

"It sure came out that way."

"Don't get so uptight, Alex. I didn't mean it like that."

"Sorry..." AJ apologized quietly as Jameelah took hold of his hand again.

"Are you sure everything's alright?"

"Yeah," AJ nodded. "Like you said, I guess I'm just stressed."

"I really didn't mean anything bad by what I said. I don't think of you as anything but a normal human being when I'm around you and I have enough respect to treat you like one."

"Thanks. That means alot to me."

Jameelah smiled.

Again, the two of them walked in silence, each of them off in their own worlds with their own sets of thoughts. Soon, the path they were walking on, led them to a tiny pond at the back of the park and they took a seat, gazing at the ducks that were slowly sailing across the surface of the dark water.

"Thanks for bringing me here," AJ spoke up as he kicked at a leaf that had landed next to his foot from the small breeze in the air.

"You like this park that much?" Jameelah teased, her eyes twinkling from the sun that was already shining high in the sky.

AJ caught glance of the shimmer in her crystal clear blue eyes and smiled. "Yeah," he nodded. "It's great."

"You don't get out much, do you?" Jameelah laughed. "I mean, alone?"

"No, not really," AJ answered, shaking his head. "I'm usually with the guys, surrounded by my bodyguard, or surrounded by fans. The times I'm not with any of the mentioned above, I'm cooped up in a hotel room or on a tour bus. Then, when I do get out, it's either off to a rehearsal, show, interview, or photoshoot."

"Wow, I can't even imagine..." Jameelah replied in awe.

"I've gotten used to it by all means, and I wouldn't change my lifestyle for anything. But sometimes, you just need to get away from things. With me, that's not always possible, and that's when touring really gets to me."

"At least you get the day off today."

"And I'm glad I'm getting to spend it with you."

"Are you trying to flatter me?"

"No, I actually meant that."

"Oh, so you mean you don't mean anything else you say?"

Jameelah was teasing him again.

"There you go taking the things I say the wrong way," AJ scuffed, crossing his arms over his chest and pouting playfully.

"Ya know," Jameelah said after a moment, "You should go without sunglasses more often."

AJ gave her an odd look. "Why's that?"

"Because I've seen pictures of you before and in most of them you were wearing sunglasses, but in a select few, you didn't have anything covering your eyes. I think your eyes are your best feature."

AJ was about to reply when they heard a sudden clicking noise from some nearby bushes. He looked over just in time to see the shiny lense of a camera pop back into the bush and out of sight. He groaned inwardly and pulled Jameelah up from the bench. "C'mon!" He began to run away, dragging Jameelah along side of him.

"What's going on?" Jameelah squeaked as AJ pulled her along.

"Just pray that you don't see yourself in tomorrow's news," he told her.

*****

They spent the rest of the day together, making one stop for food - "Lunch time!!!" AJ had sang childishly as they pulled up in front of the place they would be eating at. In order to avoid any confrontations, Jameelah agreed to run in and grab the food, then bring it back out to the car so they could go somewhere else to eat it.

After they had fulfilled their stomachs with enough satisfying food, they spent the rest of the day driving around. Jameelah took AJ for a long drive out on one of the backroads away from the city. It wasn't until it started getting dark, did Jameelah finally turn the car back around and head back towards AJ's hotel.

"How much longer are you guys staying here?" Jameelah asked as her and AJ entered the hotel through one of the back entrances. They were once again holding hands and AJ seemed quite content just having her by his side.

AJ's expression turned to a frown as he kept his focus ahead of him. "We're leaving tomorrow morning..."

"Tomorrow?"

"Yeah..."

Jameelah fell quiet for a moment.

"I don't want to leave to tell you the truth."

"Why?"

They stepped into the elevator and AJ pushed the button for the fourth floor.

"Because I'll miss you."

Jameelah let loose of a small laugh as she looked at AJ, but she realized he was being serious as he said that. "Why would you miss me?" she questioned, trying to get a clear view of his eyes, but he wouldn't look at her.

"I just will," came AJ's short answer as the elevator 'ding'ed and the two of them stepped out into the hall.

The hall was once again secretively quiet and they headed down the rough-carpeted floor towards AJ's room. Nearing the door, AJ reached into his pocket for his key-card and got ready to unlock the door. "Do you want to come in?" he asked, his hand rest on the knob.

"That's why I came up here with you, isn't it?" Jameelah teased.

AJ gave her a small grin as he slipped the card into the slot and heard the lock click open. He turned the knob and pushed the door open to walk into the dark room. Blindly, he felt along the wall for the light switch, and upon finding it, he switched it on.

Light flooded the room and AJ froze with Jameelah behind him.

Kevin sat at the end of AJ's bed, his arms crossed over his chest, eyes darker then the deepest depths of Hell.