Four hours later the group of buses had pulled into the private parking lot of the 1st Mariner Arena in Baltimore. The morning was still young and the sun had finished rising, bathing the lot in a pleasant glow. Everyone was still napping since they had to be up so early in order to get on the road. At least the band still was since they didn't have to get to sound check until around noon. The crew was up getting ready to set up the stage and make some magic happen.

"Can you turn that down?"

Jason watched as Tyler moshed around the kitchen area of their bus waiting for the coffee to finish brewing. She was headbanging and nearly knocked over her thermose as she belted out the chorus to Bad Religion's "Twenty-first Century Digital Boy".

"What!?" She yelled, continuing to thrash about and grabbing a fork to sing into.

Jason sighed. "Can you turn that thing down?!"

"My daddy's a lazy middle class intellectual! My mommy's on valium so ineffectuallll!" Tyler sang loudly, and rather poorly.

Jason groaned and got up, turning off the radio.

"Hey!" Tyler stopped in the middle of her grand dance routine, the fork poised by her mouth. "I was listening to that!"

"Yeah, you and the people two towns away. Can you go put some clothes on?"

Tyler gave him a look, putting her hands on her hips. She definitely wasn't shy which would account for the fact that she was moshing around in her underwear.

"You've seen my tits before, what's your malfunction?"

"Yea. That doesn't mean everyone else needs to. Be professional, will ya? Besides we have to head over to the stadium in less than an hour."

She scoffed at Jason's typical overprotective demeanor. "I haven't had my coffee yet, leave me be."

Tyler grabbed the brown flannel shirt she had packed, that was probably Jason's, and put it on. She gave him a pointed look before grabbing her coffee and pack of cigarettes and stepped outside.

The morning was beautiful. Still a bit colder than she'd like for May but the sun was shining and Tyler stood admiring the bright reflections the light made against the glass of the few high rises that surrounded the area. She had always had a love of urban architecture. She smiled as she heard "Hopeless Romantic" by The Bouncing Souls playing out of their bus. Jason must have turned the radio back on.

"Oh, now you want to listen to the radio, huh?!"

Jason flipped her the bird through the window of the bus. "Fuck you." She mumbled, suppressing a laugh. She lit up a clove, enjoying the taste of it mingled with the flavor of her hazelnut coffee. She tapped her bare feet on the pavement to the beat of the song and closed her eyes. Tyler had seen the Souls live once in Cambridge at the Middle East nightclub. It was a basement of a place with a bar and a stage that was really nothing more than a ledge cut-out in the back wall. The bands that night had been rad and she'd marveled at the amount of white boys attempting to put a rhythm to slam dancing. The floor had only become packed during the Souls though. She hadn't been twenty-one at the time and her girlfriend had bought her a Coors Light that she proceeded to mostly slosh over anyone within a two foot radius. Running back to the T she must have looked like a drowned rat covered in sweat and cheap beer, her clothes sticking to her like she'd just pulled herself out of the neighbor's pool.

Tyler found herself getting caught up in the memory of the music and dancing along to the track alone in the parking lot.

"I'm a hopeless romanticccc! You're just hopeless!!" She gave her favorite line a suggestive hip pop accompanied with a thrust of her free hand into the air. "whoahhh-oh-oh!"

"Oh really now?"

Tyler yelped, coming out of her reverie dance party and dropped her coffee thermose on the ground in surprise. She whirled around to the find the four members of the Backstreet Boys having left their tour bus to enjoy the warm morning, possibly having been disturbed by her rather off-key crooning.

Nick stood leaning against the side of their tour bus with his own mug in hand. "Good morning to you too." He laughed.

Tyler quickly pulled the large flannel tightly about herself, realizing that she was still wearing only her underwear. She bent down to scoop up her thermose that was drizzling the remainder of her coffee across her toes. "Uh hi...I mean, morning" She said standing up. "I didn't mean to wake you all."

"Nah, it's cool." AJ smirked, taking in her dissheveled state with amusement. "We were awake. We just thought we'd come out to be sure we hadn't missed the concert. You the opening act?"

The guys laughed as Tyler blushed a shade of red that complimented her bra. This was one way to meet to the band.

"Ha...yea...no."

"Good thing. I was about to be worried." AJ chuckled and walked over to her, offering his hand. "I'm just messing kid. I'm AJ. Nice to meet you. And those bozos are Howie, Nick and Brian."

"Tyler." She took his hand tightening her grip on the flannel with the other one. "As if I didn't know who you all are."

"I see London, I see France." Nick coughed loudly to cover up his comment as Brian laughed.

"Excuse me" Tyler growled defensively. "This ain't a free peep show."

Brian laughed at her comment, giving Nick a shove for being a smartass. "You'll have to excuse him, he isn't really used to seeing the moon out at this time of day."

Tyler ignored them as the pair high fived and covered up their snickering. She turned back to AJ. "You know you guys look just as great as you did when I was in middle school..." She marveled without thinking.

"Ouch. Middle school?" AJ put his hands over his chest in faux hurt. "Way to make me feel old."

Howie put on an air of offense. "Gawd, middle school, are you even old enough to smoke?"

"What's it to ya?" Tyler smirked, taking a drag on her clove and offering AJ her pack seeing him eyeing the cigarette.

He pulled one out of the pack. "I'm trying to quit."

Offering up her lighter, she rolled her eyes. "Yeah, me too. As of four years ago when I started."

"Boy, do I got you beat."

Tyler took in AJ with interest in her amber eyes. She had honestly expected every single one of the four remaining Backstreet Boys to be like pretty boy puppets. She had grown out of her Disney-kid phase a long time ago. In fact, it would be difficult to say that she had ever had one. The only thing she had wanted to be when her parents took her to Disney World when she was seven was a cow girl. Despite her mother's wishes that she get a nice princess costume, Tyler had ended up with clunky cow boy boots and a red squined skirt in which she would gallop about, sporting her stick horse for hours on end. Tyler was pleasantly surprised to find that these boys had more to them that met the eye.

AJ for instance, was covered in ink. She hadn't remembered that from middle school. She marveled at his rocker-esque get up and was completely overjoyed when she spotted the silver hoop in his left nostril.

"Dude, I totally don't remember you having your nose pierced!" The girl shifted uncomfortably. "Not that I would remember because I've never met you but..you know what I'm saying. So rad. I dig the ink too."

AJ chuckled. "Thanks. You're not too shabby yourself."

He gestured to Tyler in reference to the two silver rings that looped out of the right nostril on her own nose. They had been her first piercings when she first moved to college. Her mother had been pissed, especially since she wasn't fond of her daughter's penchant for alternative body modifications in the first place and then she'd come home with two. Tyler had shrugged it off, figuring go big or go home, right?

"Thanks."

"No prob." AJ winked before letting out a loud laugh and clapping her on the shoulder. "Man, you gotta quit being so nice to me. My fiance will get jealous."

Tyler smirked shyly and took a drag on her cigarette so her hands would have something to do.

Brian reached his hand in his jeans pocket feeling his cell phone ring. "That's probably the crew calling to say they need us for staging checks. We'd better get going."

"Boo. And just when things were getting interesting." Tyler mused.

"Well, just think, you're stuck with us for the next couple of months" AJ said "Things just get better from here."

With that AJ and the boys headed off in the direction of the stadium.

"Joy." Tyler took a drag before staunching out the remainder of her clove. At least one of them seemed to be remotely intriguing. In all actually they weren't that bad. And, hey, she was getting paid.

"So how much then?"

Tyler jumped at the sound of Nick's voice not noticing that he had disappeared back into his bus to put away his coffee mug before heading over to rehearsal. She pulled her flannel shirt tightly about herself again. "Excuse me?"

"You said this ain't a free peep show, so how much?" Nick smiled slyly, taking joy in the mortified look on her face.

Narrowing her gaze, Tyler scoffed. "Two hundred up front. Three hundred per lap dance and an extra one fifty per hour. And I don't do anything weird or from the behind."

Nick raised his eyebrows at her.

"What? You're the only one allowed to be clever around here?" She asked innocently. "I'm allowed to walk around here dressed however I so choose."

"I didn't say you weren't. No need to go all Rosie the Riveter on me. But if you're going to dress to attract attention, don't expect people not to look." Nick gave her a once over as she scowled at him to cover up her embarassment. "I would've pegged you as a thong kind of girl though, nice call on the boy shorts."

"So you're a connoisseur of women's underwear are you?" She chided.

"Well sure, I mean when you spend as much time around women as we do...and I usually get a glimpse at what women's lingere looks like before it ends up on my floor."

Nick laughed at his own joke before jogging away to catch up with the guys.

Perhaps Tyler had found someone, that given her attitude, would give her a run for her money.