42

 I didn’t see Emma again until we hit California three days later.  Between Nick and me we must have left her two hundred voice mails trying to get a hold of her but she ignored us both.  I knew she’d still been making it to work because… well, I checked up on her.  It wasn’t like I could just walk off stage though in the middle of a show and walk through the venue looking to see if a certain tee shirt girl had made it to work.  Skinner was, as usual, no help at all.  I asked him if Emma had been sleeping in his room and he laughed at me saying some smart remark about there being trouble in Backstreet Paradise. 

My only real consolation about it all was that Emma was still on the tour.  She was a runner, that much was obvious.  The fact that she hadn’t up and left the tour to get away from us… me… altogether made it a little easier to take her disappearing act.  I figured that with any luck she’d pop up again after having time to work through whatever it was that had spooked her so bad in Vegas.

Our stay in California not only held concert dates but also a video shoot, a little much-needed downtime, and a stop on The Tonight Show so we had our share of non-tour stuff to do which meant not being able to check on Emma.  It was when we were in San Diego and I was making my way back to the hotel after a long day of video shooting that I finally ran into her again.  The doors of the elevator opened and there she was waiting for a ride.  At first when I saw her it didn’t register that it was her then I went into spaz mode.

“Hi… hey… what’s up?  I… wow, you look… I… uh… hi…” Told ya, complete spaz.

She smiled, “Hey…”

The elevator doors tried to close and because Marcus and I were still standing in the elevator like morons I stuck my leg in the way and the doors re-opened.  We then stepped out into the hall Emma chose, thankfully, to miss her elevator and instead stayed there with me.  “So… how are you?”

“I’m alright…” she said with a nod.  She looked tired.  She always sort of had that tired look about her, but that night she looked even more tired than usual.

“I um…”  I sighed and shook my head at my complete loss of words.

“I’m sorry I freaked out on you,” she said gently surprising the hell out of me.  “I should have at least called you back once to let you know I was still around.”

“I asked around for you, made sure you hadn’t bolted…”

She nodded again and looked at her feet.  I watched her and I wanted to hug her.  I didn’t care that she’d avoided me for three days, I didn’t care that we’d fought or whatever you’d call what happened in Vegas, I just wanted to hug her.  “Hey, Em?”

 “Hmm?” she looked up and those green, green eyes stared at me.

I hugged her.  I reached out, no words needed, and hugged her.  At first I felt her resist and then the barrier broke and she didn’t fight it.  I felt her arms wrap around me and although her half of the hug wasn’t as strong as mine, I held her tight and didn’t let go.  She shivered just a bit and it was so subtle that I probably wouldn’t have noticed it if I wasn’t hugging her so tight, but I did notice.  I held her a little longer and then pulled back looking down at her with a small smile, “I missed you.”

She smiled and nodded, “I missed you too.”

We ended up in my room that night.  We didn’t exactly talk about the previous three days or what had happened in Vegas, but instead just sort of picked up where we’d left off.  Something in her eyes told me that she wasn’t ready to really talk about anything serious yet.  Maybe it was how tired she looked, or just my increasing ability to read her moods but I knew not to push her. 

The next morning when Emma was in the shower I called Nick and left him a message to let him know that I’d found her.  He’d been as worried about her disappearance as I’d been and I wanted to make sure that he knew she was okay.  He may have made a Friends with Benefits sort of agreement with Emma but I knew Nick well enough to know when he had a crush and he definitely had a crush on Emma.  I may not have known Emma as well as I knew Nick, but I was pretty sure she felt more for Nick than she let on too.

“Can I ask a question?” I asked as we walked along the shore together.  Our hotel was right on the beach and although it was a little tricky sneaking out without a gaggle of fans trailing us, we’d managed it and took a long walk down the beach together.

“Sure…”

“What’s up with you and Nick?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… do you like him?”

“Sure.”

“That’s not what I mean…” I said and looked at her as we walked.  The breeze off of the water kept blowing this one chunk of hair into her face and she’d push it back behind her ear every time it was blown loose.  She pushed the hair back again but didn’t look at me, “You two seem to get along pretty well… I know he likes you.  Likes you, likes you.  He may not admit it, but I know he does.”

She shook her head and looked at the water, “I don’t want him to like me like that.”

“Can’t always control stuff like that…”

“Yeah…”

She was quiet again for a while before I saw a fairly secluded spot that looked perfect for us to sit for a while.  “Can you draw this place?”

“What?”

I chuckled at myself, “Sorry… I was having my own little conversation in my head just now and I just wondered if you could draw this.  It’s gorgeous here.  I’d love to have a drawing of it and we both know that if I draw it it’ll look like shit.”

She laughed and shook her head, “You’re not as bad at drawing as you think you are.”

“I still couldn’t draw this though… not and make it look real at least.  Will you do it for me?”

She nodded and pulled one of her sketchbooks out of the bag she’d been carrying.  “You sure we have enough time for this?” she asked as she pulled out small black case that held most of her pencils.

“Yeah… I don’t have shit to do but sit here and watch you draw.”

She smiled and looked out at the water for a while taking it all in before finally putting the pencil to paper and beginning to sketch.  Watching her draw was something I was beginning to love doing.  There was something about watching a blank piece of paper turn into a work of art right before my eyes that struck me as fucking cool.  I may be an artist in the sense that I sing and create music, but it’s different watching a drawing come to life like it does when Emma gets into her sketches.

“Nick has these paintings in his house that remind me of this place.  He’s a real water freak you know?  The first night we got here he was geeked that our hotel was so close to the beach.”  Emma nodded and kept drawing.  “There’s a scene in the video that we shot yesterday that had us on the beach too, so of course he was thrilled about that…”

“AJ?”

“Yeah?”

“Why are you talking about Nick so much?”

“Huh? Nah I was just talking… small talk you know?  I didn’t mean to focus on Nick.”

“Cause it sounds like you’re trying to sell me on him or something.  Don’t… don’t do that.”

 “No, I… I wasn’t.  I… sorry.”

She looked back at her drawing and worked on shading part of it before stopping with a sigh.  “I can’t be in any sort of thing with Nick.  I told him that and I’ve told you that.  I just can’t.  So… I know he likes me more than he pretends to.  I’m distant but I’m not stupid, I can tell he’s into me, or something.  But please don’t try to get us to… whatever.”

I nodded, “Okay.  I really wasn’t trying to purposely talk about him just now.  I can see how it would seem like that though.  I naturally think about him when I’m around water, and it just sort of spilled out of me.  I mean, when I asked you back there about him…” I said pointing back up the beach in the direction we’d come from.  “Yeah that was on purpose… but the painting comment and all that… totally not connected.”

“Okay…” she said and nodded.

“Can I just say one more thing about him then I promise to shut the hell up about him?”

“Yeah…” she said and chuckled.

“He’d really like it if you’d call him or stop by his room.  He was worried about you after Vegas, if you couldn’t tell from the three billion voice mails,” I smiled and she did too.  “But um… if you, you know… I mean, he’s… I’m sure he’d like to hear from you.  Just to know you’re alright and still around.  That’s all.”

I watched Emma as she nodded and then looked back to her sketchbook, “Maybe I’ll call him later today when we get back to the hotel.”

“Cool…”