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“Ewan?”  Kevin asked, his eyebrows raised in disbelief.  “As in McGregor?” He looked down at the floor and shook his head.

 

“Why not?  I like it!”  Amelia insisted.  She held her tongue sideways between her teeth and highlighted “Ewan” in the baby name book she had propped up on her ever-growing belly.

 

“Did you know he’s going to be in the next Star Wars film?”  Nick remarked from where he was sitting in the floor, without tearing his eyes away from the television screen.  

 

“He’s HOT!”  Mel chimed in.  “In an Obi-Wan Kenobi kind of way.”  All of us ladies nodded in agreement.

 

“What’s the matter, Kevin?  Are you afraid everyone will think he’s named after Ewan McGregor?  It’s not like we can name him after you, or everyone will know he’s yours!”  Amelia retorted.

 

Silence.  Kevin had been very clear that he intended on keeping this quiet for as long as possible, for both his sake and Amelia's.

 However, when all was said and done, he was most concerned about his son, and he intended to protect his baby boy from public scrutiny for as long as possible. He was going to be an amazing father.  Amelia knew that, of course, but she’d been in hiding for months so that fans didn't know what was going on, and she was exhausted.  She was a twenty year old pop star with stretch marks, cankles, and a baby daddy who she wasn’t even dating.  Add that to the fact that she had basically been shunned by her very religious, conservative family (no risk of a leak to the press there), throw some pregnancy hormones into the mix, and my best friend was kind of  like a ticking time bomb.  

 

Kevin grunted and grabbed the baby name book off the couch.  “What about Joshua?”  Amelia scrunched her face up in disgust.  

 

Brian threw down his video game controller after Nick had killed him on the TV screen for the fifth time in a row.  Yep, the Backstreet Boys were playing video games on my living room floor. Just a typical Saturday afternoon.  “I don’t know why you two are arguing about this,” he jested.  “Everyone knows you’re going to name him Brian after Kevin’s favorite cousin.”

 

“Now that might raise some eyebrows if we’re worried about the media deciding whose baby it is based on the name!”  Howie interjected as he snaked his arms around my waist and kissed me on the cheek.  I loved their banter, but I was sad that we were having this conversation at all.

 

“Name him Justin!”  Brian guffawed with an over-the-top grin.  

 

Apparently, Nick missed the punchline, because he got a little irate.  “Why name him after that MoFo when you could name him Nick?”  he asked with a jealous snarl.   

 

Chrissy promptly bonked him over the head with a throw pillow.  “Now, that’s exactly what we need!  How are you going to explain that one when word eventually gets out that you’re married to me?  And what if we have a boy one day?”  

 

Nick gave her a sheepish grin and sank back down into the berber carpet.  “Oh yeah.  Sorry.”

 

“You might as well name him Alex,”  AJ said with a shrug.  “I have no ties.  Maybe it would just pump up the bad boy image.”

 

Silence.  Awkward silence.  Kevin shot him a look what said, “What the hell?”  while Amelia grabbed the baby name book back out of his hands and buried her face in the M’s.  The night AJ found out about the baby, he went out and got two new tattoos and a nose ring.  Then, he called Amelia and cried about how it was all his fault, considering what he’d been doing that night in Las Vegas.  I couldn’t believe he’d let her off the hook that easily.  Now, Kevin was another story.  Later on, as Howie and I got even closer, there were mumblings about more punches thrown and some shouting matches.  In the end, reality was that while I felt like I’d been cheated on, I was in a relationship at the time, and Kevin wasn’t.  AJ was doing whatever he was doing that night with a hooker (stupid), and Amelia and Kevin were getting drunk and screwing (stupid and stupider).  In this strange love pentagon, really, no one could necessarily blame the other.  Amelia assured AJ that he wasn’t at fault at all-- This was all on her and Kevin, yet was reluctant to let him back into her life, even as a friend.  I was actually surprised that he was at our little get-together at all.  Still, I could see the way he looked at her, even almost eight months pregnant with another man’s child, and there was still something there. “What about Michael?” Amy squeaked.

 

“I like it,” Kevin answered with a smile.  She smiled back and highlighted the name in her book.  

 

“Who wants popcorn?”  Cassie came in from the kitchen carrying a big red bowl.

 

“Did we even decide what we were watching?”  Brian asked, as he opened the bottom of our TV stand and started browsing our collection of DVDs and VHS tapes.  “Ooh... what’s this?”  Brian pulled out a video with a black dust cover.  “A Night Out With The Backstreet Boys?”  His eyes danced in amusement.

 

Cassie blushed furiously.  “I saw it at Target a couple months ago and couldn’t help myself,” she admitted.  

 

“We’re watching it!”  Brian declared, taking the tape out of its cover and pushing it into the VCR.  “Nick’s hair was so sexy in that concert.”  Everyone laughed.  

 

“Hey!”  Chrissy exclaimed in defense from her place in the floor beside Nick.  “I happen to think it was sexy.”

 

“Hmm.... I remember that night...You did think it was sexy”  Nick said suggestively.  He leaned in and tackled her to the floor, climbing on top of her and kissing her hungrily.  A chorus of “Get a room!”  came from the peanut gallery as a mess of  throw pillows were tossed on top of them.

 

Just as Brian had inserted the video into the tape player, the doorbell rang.  Mel jumped up to answer it, being sure to check the peephole before opening, just as our bodyguards had trained to us to always do.  The pop star life in Orlando, Florida was a lot different from small-town life in eastern Kentucky where everyone knew your name and front doors were often left unlocked.  She let out a little yelp and turned with her back straight against the door.  “Cassie, you have company,” she gasped with wide eyes.

 

“What?”  Cassie crossed the room with popcorn bowl still in hand and looked in the peephole beside Melissa’s head.  The bowl clattered to the floor, popcorn kernels scattering everywhere.  

 

“Hide!”  she hissed.  

 

“Who is it? Jack The Ripper?”  AJ joked.  He took a gulp out of his soda can as Cassie opened the door just a crack and slinked outside, quickly shutting it behind her.

 

“Worse.”  Mel said seriously.  “It’s Carson.”   

 

AJ’s mouthful of cola spewed across the coffee table.  “What?!”  he sputtered.  “Here?”

 

The media storm following Carson’s little acknowledgement on TRL had been huge. Celebrity gossip magazines and television shows had latched onto it immediately, leaving everyone asking the question, “Which Forever girl is Carson dating?”  The fan sites and message boards were ablaze with speculation.   Carson arranged a very public date with Cassie at Disney World a few days later to set the record straight that it was her he was seeing. Truth be told, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like the media attention we were getting.  Carson was a huge celebrity in his own right at the time, and his dating a member of our group increased our exposure at a time that we needed it. Still,  even after Cassie’s admission that she actually liked him, I couldn’t get her words from that afternoon after our appearance on TRL out of  my head.  “He knows something.  I don’t know what, but he knows something.”  

 

Kevin promptly jumped into action and helped Amelia ease up from her seat on the couch, then placed his hand on the small of her back and led her down the hallway towards the bedrooms.  The last thing we needed was Carson barging in to find a very pregnant Amelia sitting on the couch surrounded by Backstreet Boys.  He may have been romantically involved with our friend and bandmate, but he was still the face of MTV and music news at the time, and we didn’t trust him not to break the big story just ahead of the BSB’s new album release if he were to find out.

 

“Rings!”  Chrissy lunged for Nick’s left hand just as he lunged for hers.  They exchanged a look of both longing and fear as they tugged each other’s wedding bands off.  Nick reached into his back pocket and slipped Christina’s tiny ring into his wallet, and she threaded his onto a long, thin, white gold chain around her neck, hands shaking as she struggled with the clasp, then tucked it underneath her shirt.  Nick jumped to his feet and held his hand out to his wife. She took it and he pulled her up from the floor effortlessly, then followed Kevin and Amelia down the hall with Brian close behind them.  

 

He stopped about halfway down the hall and turned to look at Mel and me.  “She could do so much better than him,” he said, shaking his head sadly.  I nodded in agreement.  If only he knew that after she bought “A Night Out With The Backstreet Boys,” I’d caught her on more than one occasion watching “Where Can We Go From Here” and “That’s What She Said” on repeat by herself on the couch late at night.  Come to think about it, it’d been a while, though.  Now there was Carson.  I shuddered at the thought of the two of them actually getting serious, then went into the kitchen to get AJ another paper towel.  He quickly sopped up the rest of the mess on the coffee table while Howie and I went to work sweeping the spilled popcorn off the floor, and sprinted down the hall after Amelia and his bandmates.  

 

Mel went outside to check in on Cassie and Carson, and Howie looked at me and squeezed my hand.  “What if I said I want to stay?”  he asked cautiously.  “I mean, I’m not really trying to hide anything.  Kevin and Amelia, and Nick and Christina-- I know why they’re keeping secrets, but just I don’t really feel like I have anything to hide.  Maybe if Carson walks in and finds me here with you, he won’t go snooping around to find out anything else.”  I bit my lip nervously.  I understood where he was coming from, but I’d already been in a very public relationship with a boyband member, and I wasn’t so sure I really wanted to go there again.  


I gulped and shrugged.  “It’s up to you, Howie,” I answered, trying to sound as indifferent as possible.  He smiled, leaned in to kiss me ever so gently on the cheek, and started walking towards Amelia’s room.  My Howie-- it seemed he always knew exactly what I needed.  I watched him open Amelia’s bedroom door and slip inside, then I just stood there as the men in my best friend’s bedroom sang “Like a Child” on the television screen behind me.

 

The door knob jiggled and the door opened very slowly.  Mel poked her head inside with wide eyes and a nervous smile, surveying the great room area of the condo to see if the coast was clear.  “Guess who’s here!”  she exclaimed loudly.  “It’s Carson!”

I scrambled for the remote and clicked the TV off.  It’s not that I was embarrassed.  I loved my Backstreet Boys, but no use in starting a conversation with Carson about them.  They were already all piled into one room just a few steps away.  I kind of wished I was in there with them. Instead, I had apparently been chosen to join in hosting an MTV veejay.  Mel walked inside, followed by Carson, who was grasping the hand of a shaken, but genuinely happy looking Cassie.  “Here we go,” I thought to myself.