~*~August’s point of view~*~

He hadn’t called.

When he was across the country, with a hectic pre-tour schedule and a different time zone to get used to, he found time to call me.

But when he was in town with a somewhat normal schedule, did he take a moment to do so?

Even though he’d kissed me the night before?

No.

My internship at the magazine dragged by all day. My boss had to ask for coffee three times before I heard her. I accidentally bumped into one of the editorial writers. I spent the afternoon wondering why there was such a long space between the “ticks” and “tocks” of the clock hanging on the wall.

When I got home, I stared at the phone. This was actually what I was doing when Carmen came home. My head was resting on my arms at the kitchen counter, staring at the telephone on the wall. “Ring!” I said for the thousandth time.

“How’s commanding the telephone working out for ya? You’ve figured out what you’re going to say, huh?” she asked, looking a little scared that this was how I was spending my time.

I paused. “No.” But the problem of him not calling yet was much easier to handle than the other problem, so almost as aggravating.

Did he think it had been a mistake? Did he not want to see me anymore? Was he not the kind of guy capable of calling and letting me down gently?

“Hey, genius, why don’t you call him?”

I stared at her. This thought hadn’t even occurred to me.

“Yeah, some feminist you are,” she rolled her eyes and laughed.

“But…” I started.

“You know what they say,” Carmen picked up the phone and handed it to me. “Call somebody who cares.”

With that, she strode past me, across the living room, and into her bedroom. I stared at the phone. What was I going to say?

If I waited to figure that out, I’d never talk to him again. Taking a deep breath, I dialed his phone number which, pathetically enough, I had memorized.

“Hello?”

It was a male voice, but it didn’t sound like Brian. It wasn’t at all friendly, either, but rather guarded and forceful. Did I have a wrong number? “Hey, this is August.”

“Oh, August, hey! How are you?” he asked, suddenly friendly again. It was Howie.

“I’m good. What about you? I was worried I’d dialed someone else for a second.”

“Sorry about that. I didn’t recognize the name on the caller ID. I was worried our number had gotten out again and that we’d have to change it.”

My stomach hurt. He’d thought I was a fan. Surprise, I thought, I am one. Just don’t tell Brian. “No problem,” I said, understanding where he was coming from. It had been Carmen’s last name on the ID. “What are you up to today?”

“I was about to run out the door to catch a movie, actually. You’re looking for Brian, I assume?”

“Yeah, is he around?”

“One second,” Howie responded, sweetly. A second later, he was screaming, “Brian!”

“Jeez,” I could hear Brian faintly in the background. “Don’t strain yourself. How you gonna hit all those high notes?... Hello?”

“Hey, it’s me. August.”

There was a second’s pause. “Hey. What’s up?”

“Umm… nothing. Just wanted to say hi.” How lame did that sound?

“Oh.” That was all he said.

“Yeah…”

He started to say something, then I heard Howie talking to him. “What?” he said to Howie. “Oh, you’re going with Diana? Cool. Have fun. Later… Sorry, I’m back.”

“Who’s Diana?” I asked, clinging to anything that might jumpstart our conversation.

“It’s this girl Howie’s been seeing for a few months now. They’re going to see Austin Powers.”

“The sequel? I didn’t realize it had come out already. I didn’t like the first one though.”

“What? I did.”

“Well, it’s stupid funny. But I prefer *funny* funny.”

“Oh. Well I thought it was good.”

Usually, Brian would enjoy arguing with me on such a stupid topic. We bantered with the best of them. What was wrong with him today? He wasn’t at all invested in the conversation. But I knew the answer: me. He hadn’t called for a reason. Whatever that reason was, it didn’t look good for me.

There was another awkward silence, which was something that had never occurred during our phone calls. Unable to stand it any long, I found myself saying, “Well, I guess I’ll talk to you later.”

And I hung up the second he told me good-bye.

That did not go well.

I went into Carmen’s room. She was lying on her bed, reading Cosmo. The radio was on, playing TLC’s “No Scrubs.” I knew that its obnoxious, repetitive chorus would be stuck in my head the rest of the day. Needless to say, this did little to improve my mood. I sat down on her round, plush chair from Pier One Imports, and she set the magazine down.

“So. How’d it go?”

“Do I look like it went well?”

“You called Brian right? Mr. Always-Something-Funny to say Littrell? As annoying as that sometimes is,” she rolled her eyes.

“Hey, don’t talk about my…” I trailed off. My what? He wasn’t my boyfriend. After that conversation, I didn’t even feel like I could call him friend. So part of me thinking of him as “my man”? Yeah, right. Delusional.

The next song came on the radio. The familiar intro. Then Brian’s was voice singing, mocking me. “You are, my fire. The one, desire. Believe when I say…”

I did want it that way. I got up and turned her radio off.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When I heard the phone ringing the next night, I knew better than to get my hopes up. Sure enough, it wasn’t Brian.

But I was really surprised when I recognized the voice.

“Hey, August. What’s up?”

“Nick?”

“The one and only.”

Why was Nick calling me? “Oh, I’m not doing much of anything. How about you?”

“Just chillin. Is Carmen around?”

Oh. Right. “Yeah, hold on.”

I went to her room and handed her the phone. “Hello?” she said into the phone. Her eyes widened when, I assumed, Nick told her who it was. I wanted to listen to the conversation, but she shooed me out of her room.

I sulked back into my own. I’d rearranged it today, trying to keep my mind off of Brian. The bed was in the center of the opposite wall, positioned between the two windows. My bookcase was now next to the door. That had been the most difficult to move, as I’d had to take all of the books of first. And I had plenty of books. Next to that was a small desk with a computer on it. It was several years old, but it had a floppy disc drive and several games loaded. I’d just installed AOL 4.0 though, and it was causing everything to run slowly.

Bored, I opened Microsoft Word. I wondered if the internship would get me anywhere. It would be fun to be a staff writer. Well, depending on what kind of articles they let me write.

Would I have anything interesting to say though? Anything that people would be interesting in saying, that is?

I laughed, thinking of the reason I’d just moved the computer to this side of the room. I typed My Date with a Backstreet Boy. For the fun of it, I started typing. That had been a great night. I was finishing up, not that it was that long or anything, when Carmen came in.

“What are you doing?”

I saved the document and then Xed out of it. “Just goofing off.” Pretending to be a writer by writing, I thought, amused.

“Well get ready to go.”

“Where are we going?”

“Out with Nick.”

“Why am I coming?”

“It’s not a date. I’ve barely had a chance to speak to the guy. We’re just hanging out. And I’m not letting you mope around here like you did last night. I’d hate to see how bad off you’d be if Brian were actually your boyfriend and you two had a fight.”

“We’re not fighting,” I said. Then added, “I don’t know what we’re doing.”

“Well isn’t Nick like his best friend? Look, you can either come and pry information out of him or else sit by the phone and wait for Brian to call, which I’m sure he will eventually, but you do want to answer on the first ring and clue him into how pathetic you are?”

“Wow. Thanks.”

“I give you reality checks because I love you,” Carmen gave me a hug. “Now hurry up. Nick’s going to be here soon.”

Nick did arrive shortly, and we headed to the mall.

“You sure you aren’t going to get mobbed by people?” Carmen asked when we pulled into the parking lot.

Nick put on sunglasses and a baseball cap. Yeah, because that made him unrecognizable. Like the sunglasses wouldn’t stand out once were inside. Or even before then, as the sun was currently setting. But who was I to argue?

“So how’s Brian?” Carmen asked. I stared at her. She must’ve realized that I wasn’t going to dare ask.

“Oh…” Nick hesitated. “He’s good.” I guess he noticed the expression on my face, as much as I tried to hide it. “He’s just having a hard week. It has nothing to do with you.”

“Good. See?” Carmen swung an arm around my shoulder. As I should be worry free about it.

“What happened? Is he okay? When did you talk to him?”

“Well, I haven’t talked to him since hanging out at AJ’s. But I’ve talked to AJ, who talked to Howie, who talked to Kevin.”

“Wow. What a reliable source for your information,” Carmen rolled her eyes.

“What did he tell Kevin?” I pressed.

“Nothing.”

I sighed. “Did I ever tell you how helpful you are?”

“Kevin just knows.”

“Kevin knows what?” I asked.

“What’s bugging Brian this week.”

“Again with the helpfulness!” I wanted to grab his shoulders and shake him. But with my luck, it’d cause his glasses to fall off and I’d hear “It’s Nick Carter!” all-around me, and he would be carried off by teenyboppers.

Leaving me in the dark.

“Why don’t you just ask him?” Nick asked.

“That’s what I said,” Carmen told him, approvingly.

“No,” I corrected her. “You told me to call him. We both know how crappy that idea turned out to be.”

We went inside Barnes and Noble.

“August, take a deep breath. The place smells of books. That’s like your favorite thing in the world. Peruse. I swear, I’ll scream if I hear the name…”

“Brian Littrell! Look mom!”

The three of us turned. A little girl was standing near the magazine section. The Backstreet Boys were front page on every issue, so that was no surprise. I let out my breath again, realizing my first reaction was that he’d been standing behind us.

Carmen grabbed Nick’s arm. “I need some coffee,” she started walking him over to the coffee bar. A few minutes later, she was handing me a strawberry smoothie. Both of them were holding lattes. We wandered around the mall for an hour or so, ducking Nick behind whatever was nearby whenever we saw a group of girls who looked to be fan-age. He still signed several autographs, going “shh” and holding a finger to his mouth whenever someone was about to start into hysterics upon recognizing him.

“Wow, who knew your disguise wouldn’t be enough?” Carmen said sarcastically, smiling at him.

We wandered back through the bookstore to get back to the parking lot. I was in a much better mood. I hadn’t thought about whats-his-name but a half dozen (well, a dozen) times. I was probably overreacting. Who didn’t have bad days? And with the stress he was under these days, it was understandable. Nick had said it had nothing to do with me.

I was putting my hand on the door rail when I saw it. The little girl hadn’t actually been looking at the magazines, she’d been right next to them. The new releases.

That had to be the reason for Brian acting strange this week.

My stopping suddenly caused Nick to bump into me. His sunglasses fell off, making a soft thud and hitting the carpet.

It was like the calm before the storm. I heard, “Guys, look! It’s Nick Carter!”