It had been a little over an hour since that close moment back in the hotel room. Emily was thankful Nick hadn't brought it up again. She'd taken a long hot shower to ease her mind before spending the last thirty minutes furiously packing and getting ready to leave. Now she was doing her best to avoid him by loading her own bags on the tour bus while the Backstreet Boys met with their fans in the hotel lobby.

"Need any help with that?" She heard a voice holler out from behind her as she struggled to lift her last and largest suitcase up the steps of the bus. She turned to see Marcus, one of the boys longtime security guards, standing at the bottom of the steps looking up at her. He reached out his hand in offer to take her bag.

"Actually, yeah," she responded smiling as she handed him the bag and followed him up the steps. "Thanks!" She took a seat on the couch in the front lounge and tried her best to get comfortable while Marcus shuffled to the back of the bus to stow her luggage.

She smiled when he walked back in a few moments later. Marcus had always been so nice to her, and unlike with the rest of the guys, she didn't always get the impression that he was walking on eggshells around her. Like he was one of the few people she got to hang out with on a regular basis anymore who wasn't constantly expecting her to fall apart. It was comforting.

He took the seat across the aisle from her, flipping open the newspaper he'd bought earlier in the lobby and scanning the pages. "Want a section?" He asked as he pulled the sports page out for himself and slid the rest of it over towards Emily.

"Hmm," she answered... "how about just the 'funnies.'

He passed her the comic section and laughed, "You are so much like your brother."

She smiled and nodded, "well I guess there could be worse things in the world!"

A few silent moments passed during which the two of them were fully engrossed in their individual sections of the paper before Marcus tossed his onto the seat beside him, "never anything but crappy news these days," he said, leaning back and stretching his arms way up over his head.

"I agree," Emily responded, closing her own paper and thrusting it towards him with a wink, "that's why I only read THESE!"

Marcus laughed as he took the paper from her hand before laying it on the table and turning to stare out the window as an awkward silence passed. "You ready for New York?" He asked.

"Yeah," she replied, nodding her head and fiddling with her fingers, "I mean, until I moved in with Nick I never really got to do much traveling. At least not anywhere too far outside of Florida. We went to Georgia a few times... maybe Alabama once, but that's about all I remember.

The shocked expression on his face made her laugh. To think, Nick Carter, one of the most well traveled youngsters in all of America, had a little sister hadn't traveled outside of three states before she was a teenager... that was a hard pill to swallow.

"Well then girlie," he said as he flipped his cellphone out and started dialing numbers, "today is your lucky day!"

She couldn't help but smile at his enthusiasm. "Why's that?"

"Well..." he said, telling the person who'd just answered the other line to hold on a second, "we're leaving in a few minutes for New York City and I'm going to see to it myself that you get the total experience. I'ma go hook it up right now!"

He stood and walked towards the door of the bus, giving her a thumbs up as he chatted away to whoever was on the other end of the phone with him. He stood there at the door for a second and she could hear him talking. "Yeah, hey man. What shows are open on Broadway this week?" He looked over at Emily and smiled, "You ever been to a broadway show?" He whispered, holding the phone away from his mouth as he waited for the person on the other end to come back. She shook her head and he shook his back, placing the phone back to his ear as he climbed down the steps of the bus, "Man have we got a lot of work to do!"

Emily laughed again as she headed out the door. It sounded like so much fun... except... she'd made a promise to Nick. She'd made him a promise and she knew she would have to keep it. So she wasn't sure how much extra time she'd have in New York... if any. She leaned back into the seat and closed her eyes. The voices echoed in her mind again, "this would be so much easier for everyone if you just weren't here."

She shook them away once more. She was not going to break her promise to Nick this time. She had agreed to this... and she knew, deep down, that it was for the best.