Prologue / Kevin


“GOD DAMN IT, KEVIN, ALL SHE WANTS IS YOU!”

The words were still ringing in my head, as sharp and resounding as they'd been when Nick had first screamed them. I could still see the people turning and staring all around us, surrounded by the reflection of neon lights in the rain puddles on the street. The memory of the way his voice had collided with the night sent my stomach into knots.

I'd walked away.

I was still walking.

Running.

I realized it and let myself slow to a stop and looked around, a stitch in my chest tightening, and found my way to a stone wall a few feet away in front of a tall bank building. I sat on the damp stone and shook my head as I tried to gather together my thoughts.

“There's no telling what this person is after… No telling what she wants.”

“She doesn't want anything.”

“She must want something or she wouldn't be here!”

“God damn it, Kevin, all she wants is you!”

I half expected Nick to have followed me, but he hadn't, and the street was empty now as the words continued to echo through every fiber of my brain. There weren't even cars passing by. It was as though the world had isolated me. Like I'd been put into a corner for all the bad things I'd done.

Too much had happened too quickly, too many things had unraveled. I rubbed my forehead with my knuckles and wondered how I'd ended up here. It felt surreal, as though I had somehow fallen out of my own time-space dimension and landed some place else, some alternate universe where things as I knew them were fucked to hell. The thing was, it all made perfect sense – every bit of it. I just couldn't wrap my mind around it.

I needed solid, tangible evidence.

And I knew where I needed to go to get it.

I stood up and walked back the way I'd come. The street in front of the club was full of loitering people now, one girl puking her brains out over the side of a city trash bin while another teetered in five inch heels, holding her hair out of the way. Nick wasn't anywhere in sight. I didn't know if he'd gone back inside or left or what.

I walked down the street a little ways, where a pink taxi was idling at the curb, the driver flicking through a copy of The Tennessean. He looked up when I opened the back door and folded the pages quickly. “Where to?” he asked, a thick accent of some sort bending it's way through his words.

“Louisville, to start,” I replied.

The cabbie stared at me in the rearview mirror, an incredulous expression on his face. “You know you're in Nashville?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“It's like a...” he paused to do the math, “...four hundred dollar fare,” he said.

“That's fine,” I replied.

He thought about it a moment. “You know, you could fly for less?”

“That's fine. I need time to think.”

“You got cash?” he asked.

I reached into my pocket, withdrew my wallet and handed him several hundred dollar bills.

He looked at the money in his hand, then back at me, then shrugged, turning around, obviously baffled but not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. He started the cab and I leaned back against the seat, and closed my eyes tight.




It was raining by the time we got to Irvine. The windshield wipers on the cab squelched as they pushed the water across the glass and the tires splashed through muddy puddles as he came to a stop. He looked around uneasily. “Wait here,” I said.

I got out of the cab and closed the door. Grass smushed under my feet as I walked through the mirth, past the old tree we used to climb, around the stones that dotted the earth. Names I knew were chiseled on them – names of shop owners and friends of my parents. A morning fog was cloistering the cemetery, and I moved through it, strangely aware that mine was the only heartbeat around. My father's stone was a few feet to the left, along with the plot that I would one day be lowered into, headed by a large family stone with no dates yet carved beneath my name. Memories ached from my brain straight through my body, like that feeling when you breathe cold air and it burns in the lungs.

We'd spent hours here, among the dead, talking about philosophy and life and all the things you think of when your entire world's been overturned by loss. We'd made fun of the fact that should one of us die, we'd always know where to find each other.

Her family's stone was as tall as my family's but the dirt in front of her's wasn't fully reclaimed by the earth yet and the grass was too green, too fresh, and I stopped too far back to see the dates beneath her name, but too close to deny they would be there, and I covered my mouth with my hand.

“Fuck.”

The word hung in the air in the cloud that my breath created.

“Fuck.”

I took a couple steps closer, tentative, and knelt down to one side of the stone. I reached up and ran my finger tips over her name, feeling the dips in the stone, the beveling beneath my fingers making it even more real. Acid crawled about in my stomach.

“You can't ignore this.”

“I'm not ignoring it, I'm saying it seems… convenient.”

“Convenient?”

“Yes, damn it! I mention some girl I dated a hundred years ago and a week later… this? It seems convenient.”

“She didn't know who you were.”

“Convenient.”

“Fucking stop saying that word!”

“Nick, think about it!”

“I am thinking about it!”

“There's no telling what this person is after… No telling what she wants.”

“She doesn't want anything.”

“She must want something or she wouldn't be here!”

“God damn it, Kevin, all she wants is you!”

My full palm was pressed against the stone, right over the newly carved dates. I closed my eyes. “I'm sorry,” I said thickly. “I didn't know.”

Chapter One / Kevin


“Dad… Who's this lady?”

Mason held up a Polaroid.

I reached for it and took it from his hand, looking down at it. It was a photo from Homecoming, dated 1988. There I was, dressed in a dark blue suit, my football helmet hanging from the hand at my side, my other hand on the shoulder of my date, Samantha Chambers. She smiled up at me from the picture, her eyes crinkling around her bright blue eyeshadow and big hair. Sam looked beautiful in her salmon-pink dress sparkling and puffy, hanging just above her knee. I remembered trying to vacuum damn glitter from that dress out of my daddy's truck for weeks after the dance.

“Her name is Samantha,” I replied.

I put the photograph down and reached for another one. “Here's your Uncle Tim when he was your age.”

Mason picked the Polaroid back up. “Who is she, though?” he asked.

“A girl I dated in high school,” I replied, “Before I met your mother.”

Mason studied the picture. “She looks nice.”

“She was,” I said with a shrug. I picked up one of my Aunt Anne, Brian's mother, and held it up, “Aunt Anne.”

Mason put the Homecoming photo down and grabbed the picture of Aunt Anne and added it to a pile in a small shoebox at his side. He picked up the little clipboard and consulted it, checking Anne off the list. He had a school project requiring he make a family tree, complete with photos, as a term-long assignment. So, there we were, in the attic, digging through all the family pictures I had, trying to find all the ones he would need to create his tree.

“So how old were you in that picture anyways?” he asked.

“Seventeen,” I replied, rooting through the trunk full of images. Birthdays, Christmases, family vacations, and graduations… Memories slid by in three by three or four by six stills. “Just a kid.”

“You looked like a dork,” Mason said, picking it back up again.

“I'll have you know, I was cool when I was seventeen,” I said defensively, taking the picture away from him.

Mason looked up at me, his eyes sparkling with amusement. “Dad, I don't know if you were ever cool.”

“I was! I was very cool, actually,” I argued, “I was on the football team. I played defense. They called me Train.”

Mason laughed.

“And everyone wanted to date Sam,” I added, “She was the head cheerleader, and that hair --” She'd had the biggest head of curls in the entire school. They were natural, too, not like some of the other girls who had to use twenty million rollers and enough Aquanet to asphyxiate a small village. I smiled, unable to come up with a description.

Mason looked doubtful. “That hair is giant. Like… black cotton candy.”

“Everybody had hair like that in the 80s,” I said, tucking the picture into my jeans pocket.

“Like cotton candy?”

“Yeah.”

Mason snickered, “Even Mommy?”

“I didn't know her personally in the 80s, but yes, she did. I've seen pictures,” I answered.

We continued on sorting through pictures and talking until he'd collected everyone on his list of people he needed from my side for the family tree project and called it a day, replacing the lid on the dusty old trunk and heading downstairs. Mason rushed off to his room to play and I went on down to the living room, where Kris was helping Max with a batch of freshly made Play-Doh. Max was laughing and squeezing it through one of those press things that made it into long spaghetti strands. Kris looked up as I walked in and threw myself onto the couch.

“How'd it go?” she asked, “Find everybody up there?”

“Yeah,” I said. “He thinks I was a dork when I was younger, though.”

Kris laughed, “You were a dork.”

“I wasn't!”

“Okay, Aladdin,” she snickered.

I grinned. I couldn't entirely defend myself. “I was a cool dork.”

Kris looked at Max, distracted completely by the Doh and doing okay on his own, and she crawled over so she was kneeling in front of me on the couch and leaned in for a kiss, putting her hands on my chest. “Yes, a very cool dork.” She smiled into my eyes.

I kissed her softly.




It was a few days later, and I was at the store, on my way to an interview with the fellas. I reached in my pocket for my wallet and felt something fall to the floor behind me. Turning, I saw the Homecoming photo sitting on the tile. I handed the cashier my credit card and quickly picked the photo up off the floor. I'd completely forgotten it was in my pocket.

“What's that?” Nick asked, darting 'round and snatching it from me before I could put it away. He danced by to the end of the counter and studied it as I rolled my eyes and turned back to complete paying. “Who is that?” he changed his question.

I took the receipt the cashier was holding out to me and tucked it into my wallet, “Mason needed a bunch of pictures for a school project,” I replied, stepping out of the way so Howie could pay for the stuff he was picking up.

Brian leaned over Nick's elbow to see the picture, “Oh hey – Sam Chambers,” he said, pointing, “I remember her. You two were tight back in the day. Whatever happened to her?”

“I don't know, we lost touch after I moved,” I replied, shrugging. “I think somebody said once that she moved to Iowa to live with her grandparents not long after I left.”

Brian turned away, unwrapping the bag of peanuts he'd bought.

Nick absently shook his juice as he stared at the picture, “You look like a serious dork.”

What was with everyone calling me a dork in this picture? I snapped it out of Nick's hand and shoved it back into my pocket. “I wasn't a dork,” I said.

Outside in the lot, AJ looked up from where he'd been crouching, smoking, at the edge of the building, and trotted over, pulling up his loose jeans as he ran, cigarette clutched between his teeth. Brian waved away smoke until AJ stamped out the cigarette. Howie came up behind us with his little bag. “Let's rock n' roll, y'all,” he said, “We're running late.” We piled into the back of Nick's SUV and he drove down to the television studio.

We were doing a small bout of promotion, since we were in the studio and recording the new album and everything. We were taping one of the many all-women morning talk shows, and there was a line outside the studio for us to wade through to get inside. I took my time getting inside, signing autographs and taking a few selfies with the girls waiting to see us. Promising to stop again on the way out, I ducked inside where the other fellas were already lounging around the green room. Nick was eating grapes from a bowl like he was in some sort of grape eating challenge.

The interview was going well, we'd performed our number and other than Brian's voice cracking ever so slightly at the beginning we'd done really great. The women weren't asking Nick about his arrest, which had become a sort of hot button issue with him with how many times people had asked, and AJ was eager to talk about Ava and the possibility of adoption that him and Rochelle were discussing still. Howie and Nick both chimed in about their experiences as expecting fathers and the woman chatted happily with Brian about Baylee's performance on Broadway… Then, they brought up our movie and we all started talking about when we were younger, in the 90s and getting nostalgic and I'm not really sure what in hell brought it up, the discussion had never really veered in a direction that called for it, but suddenly Nick was like, “Kevin, you should show'em that dorky ass picture you got in your wallet,” he laughed.

“Oh Jesus, no.”

“No for real, you should, you looked like a total nerd.” He turned back to the ladies, “He seriously did. In high school. Total dork. Even dorkier than that,” he added, pointing to the photo they'd put on the screen behind us.

“I wasn't a dork,” I said again for what felt like the millionth time.

“You so were,” Nick argued. “Show'em.”

“Yes, show us,” begged one of the hostesses.

I sighed and pulled it out, handing it to AJ, who looked at it, snorted, “Yes you were,” he said and handed it on to the hostess, who held it up for the camera to see. I flushed red as the camera adjusted to show a close up of the picture on the screen behind us.

“Aww,” cooed the hostess. “Is that your prom?”

“No, it was Homecoming,” I replied, “'88. I was seventeen.”

“Daaaamn Kev,” crowed one of the ladies looking back at the picture on the screen, then back to me, “I would've been so into you in high school.”

“I know, me too,” agreed another, laughing.

“So who's the lucky girl?” asked the first one. “Is this your wife?”

“No. High school girlfriend. Her name was Sam Chambers,” I replied, shrugging. “We lost touch after high school.”

She looked at the camera and deadpanned, “Well, wherever you are Sam, you were crazy for letting this one get away.” She laughed and handed the picture back. “I'm sure she already knows that, though.”

“I think it's interesting you carry that in your wallet,” pointed out the second woman shifting in her seat. “Does your wife know?”

I tucked the picture back into my pocket quickly. “I wasn't really carrying it on purpose. My son has a class project and we were going through some old pictures. I forgot I had this one in my pocket, honestly.”

The ladies grinned and nodded, and I sighed as they changed the topic and started talking about other stuff, hoping Kristin would believe me about the reason why I was carrying a picture of my old girlfriend around in my pocket. I looked down at Nick and made a mental note to kill him later for having brought it up on national television.

Chapter Two / Nick


“I think my main problem is I fucking hate this verse.” I put the headphones down on my neck and glowered at Kevin through the window, where he was leaning back against a desk chair with his feet up on the soundboard next to Dan, the producer. He scowled. “It's stupid… I don't want to sing this bullshit. I wanna sing like substance.” I picked up the sheet music and waved it at them.

Kevin leaned forward and hit the intercom button, “Just fucking sing the god damned song, Nick,” he begged.

I put the lyrics back on the stand and folded my arms over my chest.

“You've gotta be shittin' me, this is not happening,” Kevin grumbled, letting go of the intercom button and throwing himself backwards in the chair. I saw his mouth continue moving in a string of obscenities, but I couldn't hear them with the com off. I took a deep breath through my nose. As I watched, Dan said something to Kev and Kevin threw his hands up in the air and stormed out of the room.

Dan leaned forward and pressed the com, “I think you're taking a break,” he said, a bit of a question lifting the end of the sentence.

“Fine,” I said. I pulled the headset off and dropped it onto the stool behind me, abandoning the cheese-ass lyrics. I pushed my way out of the booth. I didn't know where Kevin went, but I knew I needed coffee - strong coffee - if I was going to deal with him being a bitch all day like this.

I jogged down the steps into the parking lot of the studio. There was a construction team working on the high rise across the street. I tilted my head back to look up-up-up at the scaffolding and cranes and shit they had lining the building's skeleton, then pulled out my cell phone and opened up the Maps app to reorient myself with this part of the city. There had to be coffee nearby somewhere within walking distance, I told myself. And sure enough, there was.

We were on the West End of Nashville, just off Music Row, a few blocks from Vanderbilt hospital. It was an old studio, historical, even, and we'd only scored a day's worth of recording time there, which was part of why I didn't want to sing some bullshit song we were never going to release. Cheese doesn't make for good A&R, but fuckin-god-forbid I argue about things like that. Kevin always acted as though I was being an unreasonable child when I had an opinion.

I rolled my eyes and shoved my hands in my pockets, setting off down the street toward the coffee shop. It was chilly – probably technically warm for the time of year, but I'm a Florida-California boy through and through and anything under eighty is “chilly” to me. Cars rushed past me in midafternoon traffic, though the sidewalks were mostly clear. Which is why it's weird I didn't realize she was following me until she stepped into the cafe behind me.

JJ's Market was a messy little coffee hovel a couple blocks from the Vanderbilt college campus, and you could tell. It was a teeny grocery and coffee place with a whole rack of single-serve Poptarts to select from. I shook myself off from the cold as the heater enveloped me and heard the ding-ding of the door behind me as she came in. I turned around. The girl who had followed me was tall, for a girl, and had short black hair in a bob that framed her face. She blushed when I looked back at her, and ducked down the aisle closest to us.

Maybe it was just a coincidence she'd been behind me the whole way here, I thought.

I walked past the little grocery, not really interested in any of that (although they were the only retailer in Nashville that had roasted corn flavored Toblerone and that was always a temptation), and went out to the cafe area to order myself the biggest cup of coffee they had. The cafe half of JJ's looks like something straight out of Friends, and it struck me as I waited my turn at the counter that I should've brought AJ along. I'd have to bring him down here before he left Nashville, I told myself.

When I had my coffee, I decided to sit for a few minutes before going back, so I could collect my thoughts and decide what I was going to say to Kevin when I returned. I sat down in an old orange chair and leaned back, sipping my coffee and looking around the brick-walled room. There was a huddle of college kids playing Taboo at one table, and most everyone else in the room had headphones on, staring at complex looking med student notes. The guy at the table nearest me had a page up displaying a colorful, weird-shaped cell thing that was labeled “RABIES” in big letters. He was eating one of the strawberry Pop-Tarts from that rack.

Suddenly the girl that had followed me came over and sat down in the old orange chair that matched mine, just on the other side of a small end table. She sat at the edge of the seat, looking all jittery, and stared at me until I lowered my coffee from my mouth. I stared back at her for a moment. “Can I… help you?” I asked.

“Hi,” she said. She looked really nervous.

I realized I could go easy on her – she obviously must've been a fan and probably wanted a picture and an autograph or something (although this sort of behavior isn't really usual in Nashville, people tend to be more cool when they see a famous person around the city which was part of why I liked Nashville so much) – but where was the fun in that? “Hi,” I answered back in a tone like I was unaware of what she could possibly want.

“You're Nick Carter, right?” she asked.

I nodded slowly and sipped my coffee.

She thrust her hand to me. “I'm Lemon,” she said.

I lowered my coffee and shook her hand, “Lemon?” I asked. “Like… the fruit?”

She nodded. “Well, and the pie. I think mostly the pie. Like lemon meringue pie? My mom craved it when she was pregnant so she named me Lemon. I blame the painkillers.” She said all that really fast, the words kind of blurring together from nervousness. “I mean, whoever heard of naming somebody Lemon, that's not even a name. Like you said, it's a fruit! Or a pie, like in my case.”

I blinked at her.

“Sorry, I'm rambling. I always ramble when I get nervous. It's like I just start saying things and I can't stop, all these words just keep coming out of my mouth, like – what was it they called that in that one movie Lindsay Lohan was in? Word vomit?”

“Yeah,” I answered, nodding, appreciating the Mean Girls reference enough to sort of half smirk at her.

“So, yeah, word vomit. Sorry for the word vomit,” she streamed on. “It's just, like, I think my brain starts overworking when I'm nervous so I just say stuff to fill the empty void, especially when the person I'm nervous about talking to is kind of quiet and you seem kind of quiet, and it's quiet in here, too, because of everyone listening to their iPods instead of talking, which is weird, right, for a cafe? Like the silence and --” I raised my eyebrow and she flushed, “And I'm doing it again. I'm sorry. So… yes. Nick, I'm Lemon.”

“Hi, Lemon,” I said. It occurred to me that nobody on the face of the earth could look less like someone who should be named Lemon. She had a very dark complexion.

“Hi,” she said.

She fidgeted in her seat while I took another sip of my coffee. This was one of the more awkward fan encounters I'd had, so I decided to just cut it short. “Look, I gotta get back to the studio we're taping at today… Do you want like a selfie or something before I go?”

Lemon flushed again. “No, that's okay. I just wanted to – to say hi.”

“Okay,” I said, “Well. Hi.” I stood up.

“Hi,” she said again. She also stood up.

I didn't know what else to do so I shrugged, “Bye,” I said, and I headed for the door of the little grocery, carrying my coffee.

Outside, I realized she was following me.

“Look, seriously, if you want a selfie, we can, like, do that,” I suggested, walking backwards on the sidewalk to look back at her as I went. I almost bumped into a valet guy standing outside of the restaurant next door to the market. “I don't mind taking it.”

Lemon ducked around the valet guy and shook her head, “No it's not that, it's just --” she bit her lip, “I was hoping to maybe… to maybe see Kevin?”

Of course. She wanted to see the other guys. I sighed. “He's in a shitty mood today, you might do better to come another time to see him.” Although usually Kevin was good at aiming his shit moods only at me and keeping others out of the crosshairs.

“Oh,” Lemon said. We came to a stop at a corner as cars rushed past and I hit the pedestrian button. “Yeah… I don't want to bother him in a bad mood.”

She looked sad or something, though, and I felt myself – against my better judgement – actually feeling kind of bad for her. I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. “Look, this is the only day we're recording at this same studio, but we're still gonna be in Nashville a while longer taping, just further down the street here… We always get coffee, but usually we all go to the Frothy Monkey on 8th on the way in to the studio...” I shrugged, “AJ's addicted to their sweet potato latte, y'know? So I'm just saying… if someone was there... around, say, ten in the morning… they'd probably get to meet all five of us.” I shrugged.

Lemon looked up. “Really?”

“Yeah,” I replied.

Her eyes lit up, sparkling, and… I dunno, something about the way she looked I suddenly felt like I'd seen her before some place, but I didn't quite know where. There was just something disturbingly familiar about her and I wondered if she'd gone to concerts in the area before.

Suddenly the little tweety-crosswalk sound started and I realized we could go across the street, so I turned and we both jogged over to the other side. “I gotta get back,” I said, thumbing behind me, “So… yeah.”

“Thank you,” Lemon said.

I nodded and raised my cup of coffee at her in a cheers, then turned and walked up the street, trying to ignore the fact that I could feel her watching me wall the way. “Fuckin' weirdo,” I muttered.

Chapter Three / Lemon


I sat on the bench on the front porch of the Frothy Monkey cafe on 8th Avenue South, my right knee bobbing with nerves. I looked at the time on my phone's lockscreen for about the millionth time. It was after ten and there was no sign of any of the Backstreet Boys – not to mention all five of them, like Nick had promised the day before. I sighed and pushed my phone into my pocket, pulling my hands up into the sleeves of my sweater and standing up, frustrated, deciding to leave and go back to the hotel room I'd gotten myself downtown… then thinking better of it, and quickly sitting back down on the bench. Just a few more minutes, just wait a few more minutes, I told myself.

People streamed by, going in and out of the little shop, barely noticing me at all as I continued to bob my leg and look around, waiting.

Obviously he'd just said that stuff about coming here to get rid of me. I thought back over our meeting at JJ's the day before and it occurred to me that I'd probably come off as annoying. I'm ridiculously good at that. Most people can't stand me, really. Anxiety and social awkwardness has this funny way of making someone a pariah which only makes the anxiety and the social awkwardness even more… well, awkward.

People just don't get it. I don't even get it and it's happening to me.

I hated myself for having taken the chance following Nick to the cafe and just blurting out my reason for being there. I should've hung back at the studio, should've just waited. I was always so fucking impatient. I smacked my palm against my forehead in a little beat. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” I muttered under my breath, “Stupid, Lemon.”

There was footsteps on the porch and I looked up and a girl with bright pink hair and a nose ring was staring at me with wide eyes as she walked by, clutching her cup. Her eyes were so judgey, I realized what an idiot I must look like, and I promptly dropped my hand to my lap.

I should just go, I realized. They aren't coming.

It was then that Nick seemed to appear out of nowhere.

I was biting the edge of my thumbnail when he walked up the path from the sidewalk toward the cafe. It was just him and – I think it was AJ – the one with all the tattoos. He spotted me and smiled apologetically, then nudged AJ and nodded toward me. “Hey,” he said as he climbed up the steps and onto the porch of the little cafe.

I looked down the path behind them.

Nick glanced over his shoulder. “It's just us. The other guys didn't want coffee.” He shrugged. “AJ, this is Lemon. She's a fan. I think.”

“Lemon?” AJ said, eyes widening behind the thick black framed glasses he was wearing. “Your actual name is Lemon?”

“Like the pie,” I supplied.

“Well shit.” AJ looked at Nick, eyebrows raised, then turned back to me.

“And I'm not a fan,” I added, awkwardly delayed.

Another thing about me that annoys the hell out of people? I'm ridiculously blunt. My mother always used to bark at me for being so blunt. “Lemon!” she'd snap, “Think before you speak, baby girl!” But that was a lost art. Things just came out of my mouth.

Nick looked mildly surprised, “No?”

I shook my head. “Not really, no. Sorry. I mean, I respect you guys and all that, you're great singers, like especially, you know, for your time or whatever, but -” I shrugged.

“For our time?” AJ's voice was incredulous. “Jesus. Like we're motherfucking old or something...” He moved out of the way as a group of three college kids pushed by, all dressed in hipster clothes with big gauges in their ears. He glanced back at Nick, then me, and said, “Gettin' coffee,” and ducked through the door of the cafe.

Nick looked utterly confused. “Wait. If you aren't a fan… why'd you wanna meet the fellas for then?” He tilted his head and I was reminded of a dog we had when I was a kid – Pepe. She used to tilt her head side to side whenever you said keywords that she could understand.

I shrugged, “I wanted to meet Kevin,” I said.

Nick's confusion deepened, “Kevin? You a Broadway fan or something? You seen that movie he did? The vampire thingy?” he paused, “You like, got an eyebrow fetish or somethin'?”

I shook my head, “No… not really.”

Nick rubbed his chin.

Before he could ask more questions, though, someone else coming into the building recognized him and he turned to say hi to her and took a fast selfie while I stood there awkwardly, waiting for the girl to keep going. She looked over at me as Nick said goodbye to her, and went into the cafe just as AJ was coming out. They went through the same hi-snap-a-photo ritual while Nick held AJ's cup for him. Once the girl had finally actually gone inside, AJ took his cup back and Nick turned back to me.

“So what's the deal?” he asked, “Why Kevin?” It was clear by the way he asked that he wasn't used to people wanting to see Kevin more than him.

I shrugged and, before I could stop myself, because, like I said before, being blunt was my specialty, I blurted out, “I just wanted to meet my father.”

AJ choked on the mouthful of coffee he'd just gulped into his mouth and a spray of sweet potato latte showered both me and Nick and dripped down AJ's chin. He swept his palm over his lower jaw. “Jesus Christ, AJ!” Nick said, shaking the saliva-laced coffee drippings off him.

“What the fuck did you just say?” demanded AJ, staring at me, completely ignoring Nick's flapping arms and even my own appall at the spray that had just drenched me.

“I said I wanted to meet my father,” I repeated the words again and I tugged at my shirt front, beating at it with my palm, trying to get rid of all the coffee spray.

AJ looked at Nick, clearly weirded out, his eyes wide, mouth gaping open.

Nick was too agitated to notice - muttering, staring down at the shirt on his chest, obviously annoyed by AJ's inability to cover his mouth. Then, as though the words had a delayed time release quality to them, he looked up slowly from his shirt detailing and stared at me. “Hold up,” he said, staring at me with wide eyes. “Wait just a damn second. Are you saying --” he paused, and he looked at AJ, his face floundering, as though he was wishing that he, too, had a drink he could spit all over the place in shock.

Chapter Four / Nick


AJ and I ushered Lemon back to the SUV for privacy. This hardly seemed like the kinda thing to be talking about on the porch in front of a cafe with people going in and out of the little shop all around us every five seconds or so. Lemon sat in the back while we sat in the front, turned in our seats. AJ clutched his mostly empty cup, my shirt still speckled with coffee-spit-stains. “Okay, back right the fuck up,” he said as he slammed his passenger side door, “Who the fuck are you, Lime?”

“Lemon,” she corrected.

“Whatever – it was some kind of citrus fruit...” he muttered.

“It's Lemon Chambers,” she said.

“Chambers -” I muttered, “Chambers...” Where had I heard that name?

AJ seemed to be thinking the same thing, then his eyebrows raised. “Wait. Samantha Chambers. That chick in that photo,” he looked at me, “The one he had last week. The dorky one.”

“He showed a picture of my mother on The Talk last week,” Lemon nodded, “From Homecoming.” The picture flashed through my mind – the one I'd made him share on that talk show. He'd been so pissed at me for that, despite the fact that Kris couldn't have cared less that he had it in his pocket when he called her all apologies about it after the show. He really had looked like a dork in it, all dressed up and carrying around a football helmet like a doofus, though. I looked at Lemon uncertainly. “I was watching The Talk… See I've gotten myself into the habit of watching the most mind-numbing bullshit available on TV because it makes my brain stop repeatedly fixing on the fact that my mother's dead.”

AJ's eyebrows shot up at the abrupt way Lemon had just said it.

“The apartment's quiet in an unnerving way, now because she's not there, you know? Like even times when she might've been quiet anyway, it's still like there's an essence gone.” Lemon's eyes clouded, “There's no sound of the treadmill scraping at five o'clock every morning, no smells of country-fried steak or homemade applesauce on the stove, no shouting during Grey's Anatomy. She's gone and all those little things that had annoyed me about her are, too, and it's awful when the apartment's quiet, so I turn on whatever is on TV and just let it kind of play while I zone out. I hate TV usually, I never really actually watch it much...” She looked between us and realized she was ridiculously off topic and her face flushed a little bit in the apples of her cheeks. “Then you guys were on there and at first, I thought I was dreaming when I saw her face on the screen. I mean, why the hell would my mother's picture ever be on The Talk? But she was.”

AJ said, “Are you sure it's your mother?”

Lemon nodded, “Oh yes, absolutely. I've seen that same picture a hundred thousand times. Here, look.” She reached down into a purse at her side and withdrew a page torn from an old highschool year book, ragged at the edge and a bit yellowed from time. On the page was a picture, but with one very notable exception… It was only Samantha Chambers, no Kevin, only his phantom hand on Samantha's shoulder and the slight shadow of where he was to the side. “See?” she asked.

I looked at AJ and we shared a doubtful expression. I turned back to Lemon. “This came from a year book.” I pointed at the bottom where there was a page number and a part of the name of the school. Lemon nodded. “So how do we know you didn't just tear this out of a random year book?” I asked.

“My mother did,” Lemon said. “She tore it out of hers for me once when I was a kid and I was scared to go to school without her and I wanted her to go with me. She gave me this picture to bring.”

“How does this make Kevin your father?” AJ asked, confused. “Just 'cos your mum was Samantha Chambers – if she was Samantha Chambers - doesn't mean --”

“Because she said that's my father,” she said, reaching over to jab at the hand on her mother's shoulder in the photo. “She said that was him but that he'd left and wasn't a part of our lives and wouldn't ever tell me who it was. Then I saw the whole picture on The Talk and now I know my father is Kevin.”

“Jesus fuckin' Christ,” AJ muttered and he turned around to face forward. He reached in his pocket and pulled out the pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

“Dude you can't smoke in here,” I protested, “Lauren will fuckin' slice my balls off if she smells that shit. She'll think it's me that's been smoking.” AJ glared at me as he got out and slammed the car door, taking a few paces away and lighting his cigarette. I turned back to look at Lemon. “Your mother had to have had it wrong,” I said. But even as I said it, my eyes were kind of going over her features and my stomach was kinda turning a little bit as I realized that I'd thought fleetingly that she had looked familiar and… and there was a little bit of Kevin's nose in her nose and his cheekbones… Luckily for Lemon, not his eyebrows, though.

Lemon shook her head, “I don't think she was because after I saw the picture on The Talk, I went online and I found out that Kevin's from Irvine, Kentucky, which is where my mother grew up, and that's where my grandparents lived before they died and everything. He moved away the same year my mother had me. About seven months before she had me.”

I didn't want to admit it, but the story didn't sound completely impossible. My mouth felt dry and my brain was overloaded and stuff. I turned away for a second, putting my hands on the wheel, trying to let my head catch up with all the new information that was being put into it.

Kevin was going to shit bricks.

I watched as AJ was pacing, alternating between smoking and drinking his coffee, glancing at the SUV as though it contained some sort of devil, his mouth moving as he muttered to himself.

“That's why I want to meet Kevin,” Lemon said, “I've always wondered about my father, my whole life, and I never knew and I really, really want to know. I need to know. I'm all alone and I'm going crazy.”

I couldn't imagine that she had very far to go.

She leaned forward so her face was resting against the side of the passenger seat. “I have like no family and no friends and if there was ever a time to find my father it's now because I can't be alone, I'll die if I'm alone.” Her voice was pleading.

I didn't know what to say.

AJ came back, his cigarette spent, and he patted himself off to diffuse the scent of smoke before opening the passenger side door and getting back in. He put the coffee down in the cup holder and took a deep breath, as though preparing for battle, and swiveled in his seat. “Alright,” he said, sounding zen, “Now. Let's try this again. How the fuck old are you?”

“Twenty-six.”

“So you were born in 1989?”

“1990.”

AJ took a deep breath. “Okay, so Kev's been back to Kentucky since then, why didn't he find out about you then?”

“My mother moved to Iowa when she was pregnant,” said Lemon with a shrug.

I was still holding the cut out from the year book, staring down at it with a sick feeling growing in my stomach. I could see it. I could see it in the picture, the features of Samantha Chambers and Kevin blending together to create this weirdo in the backseat. I didn't know how or when or why or what the hell went down but it didn't seem like that far of a stretch of the imagination for me that Kevin, at some point in time, had banged his homecoming date and produced a Lemon.

Chapter Five / Nick


We agreed to drop Lemon off at the hotel she was staying at. Whatever we were going to tell Kevin about her, I thought it would be best not sprung on him in the form of her awkward presence at the studio while we were supposed to be recording the new Backstreet Boys CD. Especially not when he was already bound to be pissed off that we were so late getting there in the first place. I pulled up in front of the hotel and AJ and I both watched as she walked up to the front door, paused between the two big plants in the doorway, and waved. AJ wagged an unlit cigarette in acknowledgement in her direction, while I flashed my palm. As soon as she’d turned her back, I turned to him.

“What do we do?”

“What do you mean what do we do?” AJ asked.

“About this?” I said, gesturing the way Lemon had just gone, “What do we do? Do we tell Kevin? And if we do - what do we tell Kevin, exactly?”

AJ put the unlit cigarette back between his teeth and shook his head, “Fuck if I know.”

“But we do tell him, right?” I asked.

AJ took the cigarette back out and licked his lips. “I guess so.”

Our eyes met.

“We have to,” I said.

“He’s going to flip his shit,” AJ said thickly.

“But we have to tell him,” I said.

AJ sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Do we even believe her? I mean… This chick could be anybody. Could be a con artist, you know, like that fuckin’ movie - what’s that movie? The one with the con artists.”

“Drifters?”

“Yeah, man! She could be one of them, you know? She could be fuckin’... fuckin’ after money or something. Like she says she’s his kid, he believes her, and she’s got a shit ton of money, you know? Set for god damn life just like that. It’s brilliant.”

“Well, I mean, a DNA test would prove if she’s tellin’ the truth or not, so… it would be a short lived gig.” I shrugged.

AJ shrugged back, “Doesn’t matter, if she gets all the money she’s after before the test results then bada-big, bada-boom.” He slapped his palms together, like he was dusting off the topic.

I stared up at the door she’d disappeared through. “Honestly, I’m kind of inclined to believe her.”

AJ raised an eyebrow.

“She looks like him,” I explained.

“You know how many people in Kentucky probably look like fuckin’ Kevin? Like half of them. They inbreed there.”

I shook my head, “No I mean she looked like him,” I repeated.

AJ nodded, “Yeah, and they marry their cousins.”

“So… so what are you saying? You think we should just not tell him?” I asked, raised eyebrows.

“I think we do some investigating before we freak him the fuck out,” AJ suggested. “We try and verify some facts, you know? Why make Kevin think he’s got a fuckin’ illegitimate kid with a dumbass name to deal with if he doesn’t?”

I nodded slowly. “Fair. But how do we do that? I mean, what if she runs into Kevin like on the damn street or something and just blurts out that he’s her father?” I asked, “I can picture her like running through the aisles of Kroger screaming at him.”

AJ snorted. “I can, too, actually.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully a moment. “Okay, so we let her in on it.”

“Let her in on it?” I asked, confused

“Yeah. We tell her what’s up. She’s got to understand why we don’t want to freak Kevin the fuck out and we could get a DNA test done, then tell Kevin. That way we’ll have fuckin’ science on our side when he finally finds out. God knows the first thing he’s going to want is proof.”

That seemed fair. “Alright. So what do we tell him right now?”

“Nothing,” AJ replied. “Nothing at all.”

“Nothing?” I repeated. That seemed wrong somehow. “Nothing at all?”

“Nothing. At. All.”

I drove back to the studio, chewing on my lower lip, nervously. Of all the people knew, AJ and I were the worst two candidates for being secret keepers. Especially about shit like this. I glanced over at him and took a deep breath. It was going to be a contest of which of us would take longest to break and tell Kevin about Lemon.

We got to the studio and AJ grabbed me by the arm before I got out of the car and stared into my eyes. “Nothing at all,” he reminded me.

I nodded. “Nothing at all.”

We got out of the car and went inside. Kevin must’ve been pacing in front of the windows, watching for us, because he descended on us at the door as we came in. “Where in fuck were you two?” he demanded, face hot with annoyance. “Five grand an hour! Five grand an hour to rent this studio and you shmucks are off getting coffee for two hours - that’s ten grand for coffee that --” he looked at our hands pointedly, “-- you don’t even have.”

AJ and I looked at each other.

And both of us started talking at once.




It was getting dark by the time I came out of the studio. The sun was setting, sending gold rays over the tops of the buildings of the city skyline. I shrugged my bag up my shoulder and shimmied my pants up higher on my hips, pulling my phone out of my pocket. I was about to call Lauren when I spotted Lemon, standing by my SUV, leaning against the back, half sitting on the bumper. Lemon was biting her thumbnail and staring at a bird pecking at the ground a few feet away. She looked up as I walked over, her eyes wide.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hello…” I said, glancing over my shoulder. At any moment, the other guys would come spilling out of the studio and Kevin would see Lemon and everything AJ and I had come up with to explain away our two-hour coffee break would be undone. Because, despite all the convoluted bullshit that we’d both spurted off the cuff, we had managed to piecemeal a halfway decent excuse for our absence somewhere in our rambling. I hit the button on my keys. “What’re you doing here?” I grabbed onto her elbow and pulled her ‘round the side of the SUV opposite of the studio, where she might not be seen.

“Is he here?” she asked, peering over her shoulder.

The door banged opened and I moved like lightening, tugging open the passenger door and unceremoniously pushing her into the car.

“I wanted to see Ke--” she started, but Brian’s voice carried across the lot, talking to Kevin, so I slammed the car door in her face and rushed around the SUV, flinging myself into the driver’s seat and starting the engine with a burst. Lemon turned in her seat to look at me, “Where are we going?”

I shifted out of park and backed up, only just barely taking the time to make sure none of the guys were behind the car. I peeled out of the lot, seeing Brian shaking his head disapprovingly in the rearview mirror as I left.

Lemon was twisted in her seat. “I wanted to see --”

“I know you wanted to see him, but I gotta talk to you,” I said. I took a deep breath. “Look. I don’t wanna be an asshole but there’s a fairly good chance that you’re full of shit and I can’t be having you freak Kevin out before we’ve made sure you’re not like a con artist or something.”

Lemon blinked at me in confusion, “But. I’m not.”

“Of course you’d say you aren’t,” I said, “That’s what every con-man… or woman… con-person… that’s what they’d all say.”

Lemon frowned. “So… so I can’t see Kevin?”

“We just need proof first. Of who you are.”

“How?”

“Well. See. AJ and I weren’t really all the way there yet but we were thinking a DNA test.” I glanced over at her.

Lemon gave me a funny look. “A DNA test?”

“Yeah. You know. To make sure it’s Kev’s… er… balls… you come from.”

“Ew.” Lemon was making a face. “That’s disgusting.”

“I know,” I replied.

“Well doesn’t Kevin need to be involved for that?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I dunno, I haven’t had time to think it out yet. They always get DNA from people in the movies without them knowing it. I’ll like pluck some of Kevin’s hairs or steal a used tissue or something. The main thing right now is that I need you to not be seen by him.”

Lemon frowned down at her knees as I navigated downtown rush hour traffic. We were almost to her hotel when she said simply, “He’s not going to be happy.”

“What?” I looked over at her.

“About me. He’s not going to be happy about me.” Lemon’s voice was flat but dismal at the same time. You could hear the lump rising in her throat as she spoke the words with a sort of fatal detachment.

I didn’t know how to respond.

Lemon looked out the window at the passing buildings and tourists. I put the blinker on to go down the street to her hotel, but a glance at her made me feel guilty. She just looked so sad, like someone who really shouldn’t be alone.

I drove past the hotel.

She watched it go by.

“Now where are we going?” she asked.

“Home,” I answered.