Mr. Brightside by emily_michele
Chapter 1 by emily_michele
I am a fool-- a complete frickin’ idiot. And yes, I did just say “frickin’,” because some way or another, my mother knows everything, and if she were to know I said “fuck,” then she’d probably “box my ears” or “wash my mouth out with soap,” or something else equally embarrassing. Let me tell you, it’s not easy to admit I was wrong about something. This is the part where my oh so eloquent cousin would fake a heart attack (which wouldn’t be funny at all), and say something like “Kevin Richardson was wrong? How can this be? Mr. Perfect was wrong? I must be dreaming!” Oh, the guys would have a field day out of this I’m sure. But yeah, I’m going to be the first to admit that I was definitely wrong about this one.

I remember the first time I saw her. We were enjoying a much needed break from touring and recording when the phone rang in our apartment. Brian, Howie, and I were still living together at the time, but making plans to go our own separate ways now that a little money was coming in (not that it was a whole heck of a lot, but it was enough that we didn’t need to live together anymore). Johnny was wondering if we would be interested in coming by Jive Studios to check out a potential opening act for our upcoming tour. Believe it or not, even though we were pretty much micromanaged, they did give us the opportunity to voice our opinions on things like opening acts. We were, after all , the kings of pop music overseas and more recently in Canada. Okay, so it’s probably not fair to compare us to Michael Jackson. I mean, the man is a legend, and I worry that we’re going to end up being more like a little blip in the music history timeline, but I digress. The point is that we were pretty important in Europe, and they were going to let us choose our opening act for the tour.
Naturally, I intended to go check them out as I felt like one of the biggest decision-makers in the group. Brian blew it off since his new girlfriend was in town and Howie apologized, but explained that he’d already planned to go visit his parents for the day. Nick was in Tampa and didn’t feel like driving to Orlando for just a few hours, so that left AJ and me to do the job and hope everyone else would agree with us.
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“They were seriously singing ‘Quit Playing Games’ when you ‘discovered’ them?” I held my fingers up in quotation marks when I said “discovered.” This was actually a little weird. “So, they’re fans, and you think it would be a good idea to bring them on tour with us? Isn’t that just asking for trouble?” I was getting a little irate with Lou, but then Johnny pressed a button on the stereo beside his desk and a demo of the girls singing our first hit in the US started playing. That shut me up pretty quickly. AJ and I sat there dumbfounded with our mouths hanging open.

“Dude, they can sing!” AJ said excitedly. I had to give him that. They were pretty damn good. “Are they hot?” I groaned as my forehead hit the palm of my hand. Leave it to AJ.

Lou chuckled. “They are all pretty attractive, yes.” AJ beamed. Uh oh.

Johnny spoke up. “They’re doing some recording now. You want to step in on them for a few minutes?” AJ nodded eagerly and I couldn’t really disagree with him. We followed Johnny down the narrow hallway to the studio and slipped into the living area behind the sound booth unnoticed. Johnny pressed a button that turned on the speaker in the room and walked out. That was when I saw her.

She was standing closest to the door and held her earphones with both hands as she started singing a solo with her eyes closed. I was impressed with the tone of her voice and recognized it as the one that started “Quit Playing Games” on the recording we’d just listened to. I noticed her vibrato, her range, her lips. Man, those lips. She pursed them together nervously when she finished, rolled them between her teeth, and opened her eyes as a short brunette picked up where she left off. Shortly, the producer told them it was a wrap for the day, and I watched as she pulled the headphones off and ran her fingers through her mussed up curly hair to put it back in place. She was the first one out of the recording booth, and AJ and I were waiting at the door. She stopped dead in her tracks, and it looked like an episode of the Three Stooges for a moment, except there were five of them. The one behind her ran into her and bounced back onto the one behind her, who subsequently stepped on the toes of the one behind her, who yelped an “ouch!”, prompting the one bringing up the rear to yell, “What’s going on up there?”

I crossed my arms and tried not to laugh, but when she stared up at me wide-eyed then leaned forward and asked, “Do you know who you are?”, I had to let out a hearty chuckle. Lip girl was funny. She kind of reminded me of Kristin in the way she carried herself. The hair was different, she wasn’t as tall, she was a little curvier, and she was younger maybe? Yes. Definitely younger. Not too much younger, though, I surmised. I found out in the little meeting later that her name was Emily. “Emily.” I liked the way Lip Girl’s name rolled off my own lips.
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“Plus, they’re hot, man.” AJ was telling Howie about the girl group we’d invited to tour Europe with us as we walked into the dance studio for rehearsal the next morning.

“Hands off, AJ,” I grunted from behind him.

He whirled around and pouted. “Why?”

“We don’t need to be fraternizing with our opening act.” Yeah, I’m a hypocrite. My dreams the night before had been graced by a very nice pair of lips that were doing very nice things on ahem...certain body parts. Well, one in particular. Sorry, I’m a man.

“Fraternize? What’s that?” Nick interjected. You couldn’t really blame him for his bad vocabulary. School had been less of a priority in his life than auditions and talent shows.

“Well, you’ve heard of a fraternity, right?” Brian decided to try and explain it to him. I had a feeling they were going to have a “Frick and Frack moment.”

“Yeah...”

“Well, that’s where the term comes from. Fraternize means to get close to someone.”

Nick looked confused. This was going to be good. “So we’re not allowed to play beer pong with them?” Yep, I was right.


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