“I’m sorta afraid that he changed his mind about forgiving and forgetting over night.”
“I doubt it. Just knock on the door and ask him if he wants to join us for breakfast.”
“Ok.” Abby raised her hand to knock on the door. Her hand was about to connect with the wood of the door, when the door flung open and Nick entered the living area like a whirlwind.
Abby looked shocked and Nick kept going. “Uh, hi.” I said, hoping to get his attention.
Nick stopped short and turned to me. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you.” He looked at Abby who was still standing in shock. “Are you ok?”
“I was about to knock when the door flew open. I think I jumped out of my skin when that happened.” Abby answered.
Nick bit his lower lip in an attempt not to laugh. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Did you want something?”
“Just to know if you wanted to join us for breakfast.”
“You know. I’d love to but I have to be at a photo shoot.”
“When does the photo shoot start? Maybe you have time to get something quick.”
He looked at his watch. “Um, it was supposed to start 45 minutes ago. I uh, kinda overslept. But I really have to go. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.” With that Nick rushed out of the room.
I looked at Abby and we burst into hysterical laughter. “He was supposed to be at that shoot 45 minutes ago. I think he more than “kinda” overslept.” I said in hysterics.
We got over our hysteria and found our way to get breakfast. After breakfast, we went back to the suite to discuss our options for ways to keep ourselves occupied while Nick worked. Abby decided on shopping. So that’s what we ended up doing for several hours. Have I mentioned that Abby is a shopoholic?
Third Person POV
Nick returned to the room sometime around 2:00 or 3:00 and noticed that the girls weren’t in the room. He had just spent the last few hours getting lectured. First for being late, and then for any other little thing that annoyed someone. Not only was he lectured, but his face hurt from the fake smile he had plastered on his face all day. He sat on the couch and turned the TV on. He channel surfed before settling on some action movie. He rested his head on the back of the couch. He felt himself drifting off to sleep so picked his head up. After about 30 minutes he found his head on the back of the couch more often and still fighting off sleep. With that knowledge, and being too tired to go to his room, he lied down on the couch and was asleep within minutes.
Casey’s POV
We entered the room noisily. Our bags kept bumping into things and Abby kept giggling. I was laughing at Abby because she was giggling so much. We noticed that the TV was on. I know we shut that off before we left so Nick must have returned, but we didn’t know where he was. We put our bags into our room and walked back into the living area. Abby stopped laughing. “Abby?”
“Is he ok?”
I looked in the direction she was looking and found Nick sleeping on the couch. “Why wouldn’t he be ok?”
“Well, since we got here all he’s been doing really is sleeping.” Abby looked at me then walked to Nick. She placed the back of her hand against his forehead. A minute or so later, she took her hand off his forehead and placed it on her own forehead. Then she put her hand back on his forehead only to remove it moments later and place her hand on my forehead. “I can’t tell if he has a fever or not.”
She once again placed her hand on his forehead. We thought Nick was sleeping through this whole thing, until with his eyes still closed he said. “I’m not sick. I don’t have a fever, so you can stop feeling for one.” Abby jumped and screamed. Nick opened his eyes and looked at her. “You can stop screaming now.”
“I thought you were sleeping.”
“I was. Until I kept feeling your hand on my forehead.”
She giggled. “Oops. Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“It’s ok. It’s about time I woke up anyway.”
“Why are you spending so much time sleeping if you aren’t sick?”
“It’s the end of my tour and I’ve been on the road for about 10 months now. I’m rundown and I have no energy. It’s for that reason that I can’t wait for tomorrow, when I’ll be back at my own house.”
“I thought we were spending a week with you.” Abby was a little confused.
“You are, but most of that week will be at my house. Tonight’s the last show.”
“Oh.”
“So what’d you girls do today.”
“Shopping,” I said with a scowl on my face.
“Not one for shopping are you?” Nick said quietly.
“Oh no. I hate shopping.” I pretended to gag for emphasis. That’s when Abby came over and playfully hit me. Nick stayed quiet. He didn’t laugh. That was weird.
Nick sat up to make room for us on the couch. Abby and I jumped onto the couch without hesitation. We tried to hold idle conversation for awhile, but for some reason, Nick was being quiet again. “Ok you. Why are you being so quiet?”
“What do you mean?” He asked timidly.
“That. You sound like you are upset. If you’re still upset over yesterday, get over it. We apologized.”
“I’m not upset.”
“Then why the hell are you acting like you are?”
“I’m afraid…”
“Afraid? Afraid of what?”
“That I’ll say something wrong and that we’d have a repeat of yesterday.”
“Nick.” Abby said. Abby is so quiet, how come in front of her idol she’s becoming talkative? “Nick, you don’t need to worry about what you can say and what you can’t say.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You weren’t on the receiving end of your comments yesterday.”
“So you are still upset about yesterday?”
“No, it’s just…” He trailed off.
“It’s just what Nick?” I asked. He was beginning to frustrate me.
“I, um. I’m afraid, that um, if I um…”
“Spit it out.” I yelled at him. He looked at me kind of shocked. “We’re waiting.” Nick began fidgeting. He looked as if he wanted to leave but he wouldn’t do that. “Well, are you going to tell us why you are being so quiet or are we to assume that you feel as if you are superior to us?”
“I don’t feel superior to you. It’s just that…” He began stuttering again. However this time we heard him mumble to himself but it was hard to make out what he was saying. He stopped and he seemed to compose himself. “I feel like I’m walking on thin ice and one wrong step would cause me to fall through the ice.”
Abby inched her way closer to him. When she couldn’t get any closer to him, she maneuvered herself until she was sitting on his lap. She hugged him wrapping her arms around his body and rested her head on his chest. After a few minutes she looked up at him. “You’re on solid ground. Yesterday was just a bunch of over reactions. You don’t have to watch yourself in normal conversation.”
Less than an Hour Later
Abby and I were sitting on the couch eating chips and watching TV. Nick was sitting with us until he went into his room to get ready for his final rehearsal of the tour. He walked out of his room and stopped behind the couch. Ever since our conversation that afternoon things between us were much lighter. He was even joking with us. The light atmosphere was definitely better than the tension that was between us.
Anyway, I went off on a tangent to explain the mood. Nick stopped behind the couch and leaned down. We were absorbed into the show so we jumped when Nick’s face appeared between the two of us. He laughed. When we settled down, he said, “I’m leaving for rehearsal/sound check now. Do you wanna come with me now or do you wanna come later?”
I rolled my eyes because I didn’t want to go at all. Abby looked pensive. “Um. I want to go later.”
“You sure? If you go later you won’t see what goes into the show.”
“That’s ok, I want to be surprised when I see the show.”
“Ok. Then I’ll see you later.”
With that he left.
A Couple Hours Later
Someone from Nick’s entourage came to pick us up to take us to the arena where Nick’s concert was. We were escorted through the arena. We found Nick with no problem. He was already dressed for his performance and really hyper. He was literally bouncing. It was actually a funny site. We were able to greet Nick and wish him luck before we were rushed to our seats for the opening act.
Finally after about 45 minutes, Nick was onstage. I was bored during the opening acts. I was hoping Nick put on a better show than that. A couple songs into his set, I was actually enjoying myself. He was putting on a damn good show.
I turned my attention back to the stage. He was currently in between songs. As his band got their materials together, he seemed to be playing mind games with the audience. He was doing many things out of shock value. He just wanted to get a rise out of the audience, and let me tell you, he was very good at getting the audience to react.
It is now about half way through Nick’s set. His band started playing the introduction to his next song. As Nick opened his mouth to start singing, the band stopped playing. He looked around the arena with a very confused look on his face. Then he shrugged his shoulders and turned to the band. “Why’d you stop?”
The band didn’t answer. The arena was in silence. He was still trying to figure out why his band stopped when a wall of screams hit him. “Why are they screaming? I’m not doing anything.”
He had his back to the audience trying to figure out how to get his band to talk when a chant started out of the audience. “Turn around. Turn around. Turn around.”
He turned around to see why the fans were chanting. He couldn’t believe it. His brothers, the Backstreet Boys, were standing onstage. The first few rows could see the tears that were spilling over onto his cheeks. The fans watched as he walked, in sort of a daze, to his four friends. Nick reached Kevin first. Kevin held his little brother at arm length for a few minutes until he pulled Nick in for a tight hug. The fans cheered loudly. It had been several months since Nick had seen any of the guys and the last time he saw them, they didn’t part on good terms. He was so overcome with emotion at seeing them, that he started crying in Kevin’s arms. He pulled back from Kevin. He smiled and tried to wipe his tears. Brian was next to pull him in to a hug. AJ didn’t even give Nick enough time to pull away from Brian before pulling Nick into a hug. After AJ’s hug, Howie approached. He had hung back when Nick spotted them so that the others could greet Nick first. He hugged Nick as tightly as the other three did. Kevin walked behind Nick and affectionately patted Nick on the back. “GROUP HUG.” Brian and AJ screamed and jumped into the group to turn the hug between Howie and Nick into a group hug with Nick in the center.
Once the hug broke up, Nick asked, “What are you guys doing here?”
“We came to surprise you. Things didn’t end well the last time we talked, so we wanted to make sure you knew that you had our support.” Kevin said.
“Thank you. That means a lot to me.”
“We can’t take all the credit. We were contacted by two very sweet girls, Abby and Casey. They said that they owed you something and that getting us to come would be the best way to make everything up to you.” Brian explained.
Nick looked at us, “Abby, Casey, why don’t you come up here.” He motioned to his security guard to help us to the stage. We were escorted to the stage and walked out to where Nick and the other boys were standing. He approached us. He hugged both of us at the same time. “Thank you. What you’ve done really means a lot to me.”
We left the stage to return to our seats. The fans started chanting for the boys to sing a song together. To appease the fans, the boys sang one song a capella and left the stage. Nick stayed on stage to finish his concert
