November 21, 2001 Tokyo, Japan/Tampa, Florida

“So what are you going to do?” Tina asked, holding the phone between her ear and shoulder as she folded laundry on the couch.

Nick sighed heavily on the other side of the world, confused after everything that had happened during his meeting earlier that day.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted, “I don’t have anything against The Firm. They’ve always been good to me. I understand what the guys are saying, and why they want to leave but I’ve never really been a believer in ‘one strike you’re out’. So they dropped the ball on this whole AJ thing, but it’s not like we didn’t throw them a curveball.”

Kevin had made it very clear by the end of Backstreet Council that they were going to be looking for new management. The people who were representing them had not handled AJ’s leave of absence from the tour in the ideal way, and it had ended up costing the group not only money but credibility also. It had been nearly unanimous that they start looking elsewhere. Nearly, only because Nick wasn’t convinced that it was the right course of action. They were taking a break anyway, he didn’t see why this was something they needed to take care of right away. He wanted time to think about it but the other guys seemed to already have their minds made up.

“Well... can’t you stay with them?” Tina asked, not really understanding the way the music business worked even though she had been surrounded by it for a couple of years. Nick didn’t bring his work home with him and he had only recently started talking to her about what was going on with his career.

“What do you mean?” he asked, “I’m kind of bound by the group. Where they go I have to go also.”

“Yeah but...” Tina thought for a moment, trying to collect her thoughts, “You’re not just a Backstreet Boy, you’re Nick Carter too. So why can’t Nick Carter stay with The Firm even though the Boys might be moving on?”

“You mean... as a solo artist?” he asked, surprised he hadn’t already thought of the possibilities.

Tina shrugged even though Nick couldn’t see her and she continued folding tiny shirts and pants into neat piles, “That’s what you are, aren’t you? Maybe I’m wrong but I’ve always thought that you were an individual that performed in a group.”

Nick had never thought of it like that. In his mind he was always a Backstreet Boy first and foremost, and whatever Nick Carter did came after. But he realized very quickly that Tina was right. When he signed contracts he didn’t sign them ‘Nick Backstreet’, he signed them ‘Nick Carter’, because he was a solo artist performing in a group and not anything else.

“I mean,” Tina continued while her words continued to bounce around his brain, “What if you want to do something else later on? What if you want to be in a movie, or do something with your brother... won’t you still need your own management for that? So why not have someone that you want to have.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Nick said, surprised at the amount of insight she had into his career and what he could do with it, “I do need someone to represent me, and it should be the people I like most. I’m going to give them a call right now and set up a meeting so they know I’m not going anywhere.”

“See?” Tina asked and Nick could hear the smile in her voice, “Problem solved!”

He laughed, “Did you just use your Mommy skills on me?”

“I think I may have,” she chuckled. Tina put the clothing she was holding down on the couch, wishing that she was able to see Nick’s expression as they spoke. He wore his feelings on his face, it was impossible not to know how he felt when they were eye-to-eye so she struggled when they spoke on the phone. She wished she could see the happiness on his face that she heard in his voice because it seemed like a rarity.

“So, will someone be free to pick me up from the airport next week?” Nick wondered, anxious to get out of Asia and back to the states. He had a lot of things to make up to Parker especially after the birthday fiasco. He planned on buying a lot of really awesome Christmas presents to make him forget how long his Dad had been away.

Tina nodded even though he couldn’t see her, “Yeah, I’ll be there. How long do we get you for this time? Until Christmas?”

“Actually...” Nick paused and Tina prepared herself for the worst – that he wasn’t going to be coming home for Christmas, that they’d added more dates, that she would have to explain to Parker why Daddy wasn’t there again, “After Japan, we don’t really have anything.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, never having been in a situation where Nick wasn’t busy with work.

“We just have nothing,” he said with a shrug, “No concerts, no press, no recording... nothing. We had a meeting yesterday and they all made the decision to can the rest of our dates, cancel our recording time... and just do nothing I guess.”

“But why would you do that? Wouldn’t that be bad for the group’s momentum?”

Nick scoffed, “That’s what I said! I don’t get it either, but I’m only one person I can’t change all of their minds. AJ needs more time to... I don’t know... to become a new man or something. The rest of them just want a break but I’m happy when I’m working what am I going to do with myself with nothing to do?”

Tina was a little stung by his words, but quickly reminded herself that he wasn’t saying he didn’t want to be there with them he was only trying to say he liked his work. She actually thought that it might be weird if Nick were home for any significant length of time because since she’d known him he never had been. She had never spent more than a few weeks with him at a time. They’d never really had a relationship and never really lived together. It was more like he was a relative that visited every now and then and just happened to own the house and rule the roost. It would be very different getting used to a new routine. In the past he would come home, interrupt they way they did everything for a couple of weeks and then be gone before they got too used to it. But now, everything would be different. They would all have to get used to living with Nick in the house instead of on the other side of the computer, or the telephone.

“I’m sure you’ll find a way to keep yourself entertained,” she assured him, “You’ll have a chance to work on your boat, you can sleep in every day and actually get to listen to other people’s music for a change. You can change the downstairs bedroom back into your games room and finally beat the games you’ve been playing for months. There’s so much opportunity for you to just relax, and enjoy being alone, and being with us.”

Nick wasn’t satisfied with that answer, which was very similar to the one Kevin had given him. He wasn’t the type of person that enjoyed sitting around doing nothing. He wanted to be working, “And then what? Eventually that’s going to get old.”

“Worry about it when it gets old then,” Tina rolled her eyes, “Do you know what I do every day? I sit at home and take care of our kids. I do laundry and wash dishes and change diapers. Don’t you think that I would love to be travelling the world and living my dreams?”

“If you don’t want to take care of the kids, hire a nanny.”

She sighed heavily, “That’s not it at all. I love being a mother, I love this job, but there are times where I wish I woke up in the morning with absolutely nothing to do. You have an opportunity here to take a bit of a break from a very stressful job that is very demanding on your life. Most people don’t get that chance, you should be more grateful.”

“Grateful?” he asked, clearly not impressed by the word, “How can I be grateful that everything I have worked for since I was a little boy, everything I have sacrificed, is going to turn into retirement before I’m even 22?”

Tina gasped, “Retirement? No one said this was the end of the line.”

“It’s really feeling like the end of the line. Like this is the end of the Backstreet Boys, like my career is going down in a sinking ship and nothing I can say or do is going to save it.”