It was either the elevator (that never seemed to stop on B1 – that’s Basement 1, which he was currently on, by the way) or the stairs.

Stairs. No biggy.

It’s just 5 floors up.

All right, come on then.

5s.

This is a breeze. Whee! Watch me fly my way up. These are baby steps, nothing about it! Damn I wish I had a cape. I’d totally rock the superhero look.

15s.

Come on Nick, you can do it, I know you can, I’m you for fuck’s sake!

I’m not going to spend $5000 on a single lunch receipt. AJ’s not getting his lobster! Howie’s not getting whatever it is short Latino guys eat when his friend is paying for his bill. And Brian is definitely not going to sing ‘Nick you’re IT, all right!’ to the tune of Backstreet’s Back Alright! (rule #4 of the Book) every time one of them is late for a meeting or recording session.

Yeah baby, work those legs!

25s

3rd floor. He still has a lot of time. He could do this. This was nothing. This was chicken feet.

Maybe if he hadn’t have to lug his duffle bag around, it would lessen the weight but that’s okay, that was just a small setback, he could still do this, five thousand was riding on his ass right now and not to mention what he had left of his dignity. It wasn’t much to begin with, and he really wasn’t in the mood to find out what it would be like to stand as a man with zero capacity of dignity in him.

35s

Where the fuck is the fourth floor? Come on already!

45s

Okay, maybe, just maybe, he should have waited for the elevator.

God, why must it be on the 5th? What’s wrong with the first floor? First is good. Everyone wants to be number one these days.

55s.

Damn, stupid, freakishly long, good for nothing legs! Come on! Even Howie can do better than you two!

60s.

“Right on the dot! You can’t book me for being right on the dot!”

AJ frowned. “Sure we could.”

“Not according to the Book,” Brian reminded him.

“Well, the Book sucks. I think we should stop referring to the Book.”

“AJ, you wrote the damn Book, with multi-colored color pencils may I add.” Howie pointed out.

“Yeah AJ, remember? I wanted to write it with my magic color pens that has the white magic pen that can erase the color pens but you disallowed it because you were afraid I’d erase the rules when no one’s looking.” Nick reminded, while trying hard to catch his breath.

“Hey, all I ask is a free lobster for lunch,” AJ defended himself. “Sue me for trying.”

A/n: so technically the conversation at the end dragged after the 60 seconds clocked in. But I just had to write that because AJ is a joy to make fun of. Also, I wanted some brotherly bonding, those always makes me smile.