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"Why are you even bothering with a room of your own?" Carly asked Jennifer, watching her unpack her stuff in the first of many hotel rooms the roommates were to occupy during the second leg of the Backstreet Boys World Tour. "Between Kevin and Nick, I highly doubt you're going to be spending any nights in a room with me. I'm nowhere near as attractive."

"I need space of my own," Jennifer shrugged. She'd discussed 'officially' sharing Nick's room with him on the tour, but had decided that they would be spending enough time together already, it would be good for her to have a place of her own to go to in the event they needed time apart. "Just in case, you know?"

"I guess," Carly waved her understanding before changing the subject. "So, tonight, do you know what this party's supposed to be?"

Jennifer grinned. After the first performance of the tour tonight, they all would be heading out to a club for a private party. And they had a day off tomorrow, so they could truly kick off the tour with a bang. "It's at some club Howie found, it should be a lot of fun."

"AJ's still single, right?" Carly asked, raising her eyebrows hopefully.

"Yup, he is," She nodded. "And complaining left and right about how he didn't meet anyone during the break."

"Well, I'm right here, AJ hon, come on over!" Carly hollered, laughing when Jennifer rolled her eyes. "What?"

"I think you like the chase a lot more than what happens when you catch him," Jennifer replied, throwing her bags on the floor of the closet and closing it with a bang. "And I'm unpacked."

"You can't say that, I haven't caught him yet," Carly argued. "Ask me that after, then we'll talk."

"OK..." Jennifer said with a sigh. It just seemed, to her anyway, that if Carly REALLY had wanted AJ, she could have had him a long time ago. She just liked flirting.

"It'll be nice not having to lie to the boss every night," Carly changed the subject again with a smirk. "Kevin's not carrying any grudges over that, is he?"

Jennifer shrugged, carefully considering the question before answering. "Kevin's acting differently, yeah, but I don't think it's a grudge over us lying to him. If anything, that's the part he seemed to have an easiest time dealing with, he understands why we lied."

"What's the hard part?"

She snorted and rolled her eyes, "I'm his, and he doesn't like to share."

Carly started laughing, "well, hon, surely he understands that Nicky is providing a service to you that he himself is not capable of doing with a ring on his finger."

Jennifer laughed, and made a face, "he turns green if the topic of sex and me and Nick comes up, it's kind of cute."

"Aww, Kevin's jealous."

"Not jealous, just possessive," Jennifer corrected.

Carly shook her head slowly, "no, girl, sounds like jealousy to me. Nick's got something he wants now."

"He's got Kristen, and he's very happy with her."

"Is he?"

Jennifer's mouth dropped open, and she looked at Carly in surprise. "What are you suggesting?"

"You said you saw Kristen over break, but not Kevin. Did she mention any problems at home?"

She shook her head slowly, "they were fighting a little, but they always do, that's what happens when you spend so much time apart."

"And since you've been seeing Kevin again, has he mentioned Kristen?"

"No..."

"Does he normally?"

Jennifer frowned. "Yes."

"Ooh, this is going to be a fun tour!" Carly bounced up and down on the bed, clapping her hands happily. "Have I mentioned recently how happy I am you joined the tour? Things were so boring before you came along..."

"So glad to entertain," Jennifer groaned, throwing a pillow at Carly. "Nothing's gonna happen, you're being silly. The worst is over, Kevin knows, and he's fine with it."

"Oh, no hon, I think the worst is yet to come," Carly disagreed. "This is going to be a very interesting tour."

"You're wrong," Jennifer rolled her eyes. "Kevin wants me to be happy, and I'm happy with Nick."

"Kevin wants you to be happy HIS way, and that doesn't include Nick," Carly corrected. "Things are gonna blow up, and it's gonna be so much fun to watch."

Jennifer waved at her friend's comments, standing up and walking into the bathroom to get dressed for the night's performance. "You're wrong. That's all there is to it."

She wouldn't, couldn't, consider anything else as a possibility. She loved Nick, and she loved Kevin. And that was that. Ignoring Carly's scream arguing her point again, she stepped into the shower, willing the hot water to wash her worries away.

Things would be just fine, and the tour would be a lot of fun. After all, what girl doesn't want to spend months on the road with her best friend, AND her boyfriend. Couldn't get much better than this, right?



One month later, Jennifer found herself considering Carly's words that night as something of a warning of what was to come. Not that things had really gotten so bad, but they'd definitely taken a turn she hadn't expected. The party to kick off the tour that first night had been a blast, as she'd known it would be, but it had also been her first public appearance as Nick Carter's girlfriend, something no magazine or paper in the country was about to leave alone.

Most of the more mainstream publications just mentioned in a side note that Nick had a new girlfriend, who just happened to be one of the Backstreet dancers. But leave it to the tabloids to dig up the full story on Jennifer Lynn Mitchell, childhood friend to Kevin Richardson, along with pictures from elementary school and high school of the two of them. The idea of Nick dating Kevin's best friend was just too juicy for any of them to leave alone.

Kevin and Nick both tried to shelter Jennifer from the press the situation was receiving, but it was pretty hard for her to ignore. Unlike the two of them, she was still entirely capable of going out in public with a hat and sunglasses for protection, and tabloid headlines screaming her name at checkout counters were pretty hard to miss.

"See this one?" Jennifer held up the latest issue of the National Enquirer for Nick to see on the tour bus one night. She'd run into a gas station to pick up some soda when they'd made a stop, and seen her face staring back at her. "I don't know where they got this picture," she threw it at him with a frown. The picture on the front page was of her kissing Kevin on stage in a high school theatre production. "Even I don't have pictures from this show."

Nick caught the paper and threw it in the trash without looking at it. He had already seen it, Kevin was making it a regular thing, showing him what the papers were saying about him and Jennifer. It hurt a lot, to see the world talking about how he was stealing Kevin's girl, and he couldn't help but wonder why it seemed like Kevin got some sort of perverse pleasure from all the attention the situation was receiving. "It's junk, Jenny, don't let it get to you."

"It's bullshit!" Jennifer frowned, shaking her head. "I hate how they're making it sound like you and Kevin are competing for me, that's not true."

"I know, baby, they're just causing trouble," Nick pulled her into his arms and kissed her gently, smiling when she sighed. "I love you."

"I love you too, Nicky," Jennifer replied with a smile, wrapping her arms around his back. "I just wish they'd leave us alone."

"They'll find another story soon enough," Nick told her confidently. After all, it had been a month since the story broke, how long could they possibly drag it out. Fine, Nick was dating Kevin's best friend. There was a limit to how many times they could say the same thing.

"I hope so," Jennifer snuggled into Nick's arms, smiling when she felt his hand sliding against her bare skin, under her clothes. "I'm suddenly feeling very sleepy," she confessed as a yawn crept over her face.

"So take a nap," Nick rubbed her back, watching her stretch in his arms. "We got another couple hours on the bus, and everyone else is asleep in their bunks."

Jen nodded and snuggled deeper into the couch and Nick's arms, getting comfortable. She loved it when the rest of the group went to their bunks and left the two of them the couch, it was so uncomfortable, trying to smush into those little bunks in back. "I love sleeping on you," she started laughing as soon as the words left her mouth. "That sounds very funny."

"I like the way that sounds," Nick told her with a giggle, kissing her. "Now go to sleep."

"Night Nicky," She smiled and closed her eyes, relaxing her head on his chest, the sound of his heartbeat quickly putting her to sleep.

Nick held Jennifer tight, listening as her breathing deepened and she fell asleep. He happily watched her sleeping until his eyelids drooped, and then followed suit, his head dropping into her hair as he slept.

Kevin awoke a few minutes later, crawling out of the bunk and frowning when he saw the sight before him. Nick and Jennifer were tangled up together on the couch, asleep. He let his eyes drift over their bodies, his brow furrowing when he saw one of Nick's hands tangled in her hair, his head on hers, their hips pressed tightly together. Nick's bare foot had even worked its way inside her baggy pants, his knee tight in between hers, every inch of their bodies touching in some way. This was not the way two friends slept together...it was a lover's embrace, and the pain he felt in his heart at seeing another man holding his best friend that way was almost too much to bear. Seeing Jennifer with Paul never hurt like this...

He couldn't take his eyes off of the little bit of skin showing at Jennifer's hip, where Nick's hand had slid under the waist of her pants to hold her. Such a small gesture, touching bare skin, but it meant so much....he wanted to hold her like that, run his fingers over that bit of soft, white skin. With a frown, he made his way past them to the front of the bus, rolling his eyes as he saw the National Enquirer balled up in the garbage can. While he didn't exactly appreciate what the tabloids were saying about his best friend, it was quite a bit of fun to watch the way the tone of the articles had shifted, once they'd realized Jennifer had known him longer, and better than she'd ever known Nick. They all seemed to believe he was the one who was supposed to be with Jennifer, not Nick.

And lately, he was starting to think more and more, that they were right.