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Chapter One


The flight was much anticipated. She couldn’t believe her luck. Her hard work and devotion
finally was about to pay off. She sat in the first class section of the airplane just awaiting the
wonderful opportunity that was to come. She suddenly felt very sad, because she had no one
to share this exciting time with. Here she was, going to Brussels, opening up for some kind
of boy band named the Backstreet Boys, whom are in the second leg of their tour. She hadn’t
met any of them yet. She hadn’t even heard of them before when Donna Wright, her manager,
told her that she was to replace the existing opening act. Something about one of the guys
got the flu or something like that. Donna wasn’t out there or anything. She was alone.

She stepped off of the flight and looked for the baggage claim. She was offered help from
several of these European guys, but she politely declined and thanked them for their
offering. She got all three of her suitcases finally. Thank god her mom had thought of buying
the kind that all fit together. She snapped them all into place and proceeded to wheel her
and her luggage out of the terminal and into the pick up area.

“Lori? Lori Hissom?” A huge black man asked her once she stepped out of the exit doors.

“Yeah. That’s me,” she replied. “Are you here to take me to the hotel?”

“Yes, ma’am. My name is Marcus.” He stuck out his hand and she shook it. Nice grip. “I’m
actually one of the body guards that go on tour with the guys. Just follow me to the car.” He
took her luggage and she followed after him.

“Oh wow. So, they must be pretty famous if they need bodyguards, huh?” Lori asked. The
entire plane ride she wondered what these guys were like.

“They are pretty popular with the ladies over here,” Marcus replied with a laugh.

“With the ladies?” Lori asked. She wondered why they needed huge big tall guys to protect
them from a bunch of girls.

The hotel was pretty nice. She had never been in one so extravagant before. It wasn’t the
Hilton or anything but still nice. According to Marcus, she had the rest of the night to herself.
Then, in the morning she had to go do sound check for the concert later that night.

She took a long hot shower and changed into her pajamas. She then proceeded to call her
mom to let her know that she arrived safely and that she was settled in the hotel. She
watched the TV and then decided to just go to sleep. The jet lag was getting to her finally
anyway.


The next morning, Lori was woken up by a knock on her door. She opened the door and
Marcus stood there with a schedule in hand. “Lori, you will have to be ready in a couple of
hours. We have to be at the venue at eleven o’clock.”

“Thanks Marcus. Oh hey, Marcus, um, do you know if I will meet any of the guys today?” Lori
asked. She was really anxious to meet these people that she was going to be spending the
next five months with.

“Yeah, I’m sure you will meet them at some point today. I’m sure Kevin will be at rehearsals
early. He always is there at least an hour before everyone else,” the big man replied as he
walked down the hallway.

Lori quickly closed her door and jumped into the shower. She changed into her pink warm up
outfit and proceeded to head down to the hotel restaurant to get something to eat.


She walked onto the stage. She had never seen an amphitheater as big as this one was. She
had performed in front of a substantial amount of people before, but not this many people.

From what she could gather from Marcus, she was going to have just about 50,000 screaming
girls of all ages sitting in each and every one of these seats. She suddenly felt very nautious
looking out there. She just wanted to run and hide and maybe try it again some other time.

Then, as she was just about to turn around and run for her life, they started playing the music
for her first song of her set. Damn! It was too late by then.

It got easier as she sang the next three songs of her set. By the third song she felt like she
could do another hour’s worth of songs, but unfortunately, her time was up. She ran off of
the stage and went to her dressing room where the wardrobe personnel were waiting to get
her into her clothes for the night. As she dressed and undressed, she learned that the
Backstreet Boys weren’t doing a sound check until after the lunch break.

She was disappointed, but she figured that she had five months to meet at least one of them.
She was desperate to make friends. She had never been the type of person to not have
friends around her constantly.

She got dressed back into her warm up suit and decided to take a look around and find some
sort of food. She had heard that there were caterers around somewhere. So, she decided to
go find them. Food always motivated her.

It only took her ten minutes to follow her nose and find the food. There was a spread the size
of Florida it seemed. She was in heaven. She got in line behind some guys and waited for her
turn to tear into the buffet.

By the end of the buffet, her plate was so full she didn’t know if she could carry it to a seat
without spilling it. She probably should have gotten another plate, but of course she wouldn’t
think about that kind of stuff. She got to one of the tables, where a tall dark haired guy had
waved her over there to join him. He was pretty cute, so she decided to go for it. He helped
her set her stuff down, so she didn’t spill anything.

“Eat much?” he asked with a laugh.

“Of course not,” Lori replied. “I eat when I am nervous.” She took a bite out of the macaroni
salad that was one of the many piles on her plate. “Oh, this is fantastic!”

“I’m Kevin,” he said, reaching his arm across the table. Lori shook it and covered up her
mouth until she swallowed the food.

“Lori. Nice to meet ya.”

“I saw your rehearsal earlier. You seemed a bit nervous at first but then you really did well,”
Kevin said.

“Oh, thank you. I was very nervous. I was going to run off stage, but then they started playing
my music and I figured what the hell?” Lori said with a laugh. “What do you do around here?
There are so many people I won’t know how to keep track of everyone.”

“Oh, I’m in the Backstreet Boys,” Kevin replied. “I’m sorry. I just assumed that you knew who
we are.”

“Oh no. Actually I have never seen you guys before. Sorry,” Lori apologized.

“No, it’s cool. Don’t worry about it. You sticking around for our set?” Kevin asked as a couple
more guys sat down at the table.

“Um, yeah, I am very interested to see what you guys can do,” Lori said. “I figured you guys
must be amazing to be so popular with the ladies over here.” She smiled at Kevin.

“Kevin, quit flirting with her and introduce me,” the tall blonde haired one who sat at Kevin’s
left said.

Kevin rolled his eyes and said, “Lori, this is Nick. Nick, this is Lori. She’s the one who
replaced EYC for this leg of the tour.”

“Oh, hey. Have you done your set yet?” Nick asked.
“Yeah, just got through with it right before lunch,” she replied smiling.

“Oh, I’m sorry I missed it,” Nick said. “I’ll have to see it sometime.” He flashed the greatest
smile that Lori had ever seen before.

“You’ll see it tonight, retard,” the little man sitting next to Nick said.

Lori laughed and caught the attention of this guy. “I’m Lori. How are you?”

“Great. Brian. I have to apologize for Nick. He’s a little slow sometimes. I think it was because
he got dropped on his head when he was little and then there was the getting run over by a
bus incident…”

“Shut-up Brian. That was Jay by the way. Wait a minute, where is AJ?” Nick asked his
bandmates. “Cause, there’s Howie over there and no AJ at all in here.”

“He’s always late,” Kevin muttered. “You guys know that. You’ve known each other for four
years now, I would think you would have figured it out.”

“Kevin, you have older brother syndrome real bad,” Lori replied.

“I know. I feel like I’m forty, not twenty-six,” he replied.

After a couple of minutes, Lori felt like someone was staring at her. She quickly looked up
and saw a guy with sunglasses on standing at the door a few feet from the table. She looked
back down and continued to eat and chitchat with her new friends.

As soon as they were getting up to leave the room, the same guy came walking up to the
table. “AJ, where have you been? You were supposed to be here an hour ago,” Kevin
started in on him big time.

“Hey, chill out. I’m here now okay?” AJ said. He raised his sunglasses and looked at Lori. “I
know you.”

Lori looked at him a moment and then it clicked. “Oh my god. You’ve got to be kidding me!”