Chapter 2

“Come on, Alex. Let me come visit,” Noelle McLean insisted to her older brother over the phone. “I came all the way out to California to visit you and you're thousands of miles away.”

In his hotel room across the world, AJ reached over and turned off the alarm clock before it had a chance to ring. This morning, his sister had been his wake up call.

He laughed softly as their unexpected conversation continued, “Noelle, all you had to do was ask dad if I was in town. He would have known.”

“Yeah, well, you and dad have never really been on the best speaking terms, so who knows if you're talking or not his week?” Noelle rolled her eyes and flopped back onto AJ's sofa in the living room of the house that she had let herself into. “I'm a big girl Alex. You were ten years younger than I am now when you starting touring with the Backstreet Boys. I can pay my own way if that's the problem.”

“Of course that's not the problem,” AJ responded. “We're just really busy out here. We're not just doing concerts. We've got appearances and press and photo shoots.”

“Fine,” Noelle replied as she smirked to herself and let out an exaggerated sigh. “I'll just go back to school. I'll be alone on that big, empty campus because my brother—the brother that I have just reconnected with after years of living separate lives—doesn't want me around.”

“Fine, Noelle,” AJ replied as he laughed at her not-so-subtle antics. “You win. I'll send a ticket to the airport. We’re leaving for Germany in a few days and we’ll be there for about a week. I'm just warning you, you'll have to entertain yourself a large part of the time. Do you have a passport?”

“I do!” Noelle replied, enthusiastically. “Thanks, Alex. I'm really excited! I've never been to Europe!”

“Which only makes me that much more worried about bringing you out here alone,” AJ responded, though secretly, he was going to be glad for the company.

“I'll be good, I promise.”

“Yeah right,” AJ teased with a smirk as he finally climbed out of the warmth of his bed and sauntered over to the bathroom. “I might not know much, but I know that you being good is a long shot. Why are you even up right now? It’s 1 a.m. and it’s Wednesday.”

“It’s not 1, it’s 10,” Noelle corrected quickly. “And what did you mean about me not being good? What did dad tell you?”

AJ let out a small, confused chuckle. “I was only kidding. Dad didn’t tell me anything, though that sounds kind of suspicious. Is everything okay?”

Noelle exhaled a sigh of relief. She had the whole state of Florida judging her; the last thing that she needed was Alex judging her, too. “Yeah, everything’s good. Dad just likes to overreact about everything. You know.”

AJ shrugged from where he stood in front of the bathroom mirror. He really didn’t know. He sighed and ran a hand through his thinning hair. “I guess. Let’s get back to this ‘it’s not 1, it’s 10,’ thing. Where the hell are you?”

“I’m at your house,” Noelle replied sheepishly.

“At my house?” AJ asked. The one thing about Noelle that AJ could certainly appreciate was that she always kept him on his toes. “What are you doing at my house?”

“I told you that I came out to California to visit,” Noelle replied. “We just had this conversation. Do you not want me at your house? I can leave.”

“No, you can stay. I guess I just thought that you were back at home or something. I don’t know,” AJ paused to turn on the water in the shower. “Look Noah, I need to go. I’m running late and the other guys are going to be pissed if I make them wait for too long.”

“They’re not going to mind that I’m meeting up with you, right?” Noelle was going on vacation. The one thing that she didn’t want was awkwardness.

“No, not at all. They’ll be excited to meet you,” AJ answered as he penciled in the gaps in his beard. “Stay at my place as long as you want. Your plane ticket will be waiting for you at LAX. I’ll call you back with the details.”

“Thank you, Alex,” Noelle responded softly. “I really need to get away.”

AJ paused for a second at the tone of his sister’s voice. “Are you sure that everything is okay?”

“Everything’s great, I promise,” Noelle replied, though that wasn’t exactly true. “I love you, Alex. I’ll see you soon.”

Seconds later, Noelle and AJ were off the phone. Noelle threw her cell phone down on the coffee table and collapsed onto AJ’s black leather couch.

The truth was that Noelle had known that AJ was in Europe. She was a good sister. She followed the Backstreet Boys on Twitter. Sure, she wouldn’t have been able to pick any of them—other than AJ, of course—out of a line up, but she at least knew where he was in the world.

Growing up, Noelle hadn’t been a Backstreet Boys fan strictly out of principle. AJ had made a sport out of bashing her father back in the day and Noelle had been the one to get crap for it from his overzealous fans, who happened to be her classmates. However, when AJ got out of rehab, he tried to reconnect with their father. Though the attempt hasn’t gone that well for father and son, Noelle and AJ had managed to bond as she’d gotten older—mostly by long phone conversations and online chats via Skype.

It was hard for AJ to visit Florida for obvious reasons; between recording sessions and touring the world he came down as often as he could. It was hard for Noelle to visit AJ in California because she was in medical school at the University of Florida. Rather, she had been in medical school at the University of Florida until she made the biggest mistake of her short lived career and started sleeping with her married professor, Dr. Robert Matheson.

Rob had sworn that he was leaving his wife and that she knew that the marriage was over. Noelle had been as professional as she could have been in such a situation; she’d waited until she was no longer in Rob’s classes. However, one thing led to another. She fell in love with him, she believed all of this lies; she thought that they would be together forever.

The relationship lasted for close to two years. Rob kept swearing that he was going to leave his wife and Noelle continued to believe him. At some point, Rob’s wife got suspicious of his cheating. She hired a private investigator and got her proof. One evening, she purposely came home from a conference and found Noelle and Rob together—in bed. As it turned out, Noelle wasn’t the first of Rob’s romances with college-aged women and she probably wasn’t going to be the last.

Noelle had been charmed by a snake. Rob was older, wiser. He had a distinguished career in fertility and obstetrics research, the exact field that Noelle wanted to specialize in. She trusted him.

The affair was only worsened by the fact that Rob’s wife is the Dean of Medicine at the University of Florida—Dean Meredith Stevens.

Rob and Dean Stevens tried their best to keep their work and home lives separate. At first, Noelle didn’t have any idea that Dean Stevens was Rob’s wife. It wasn’t until the first of the few weekends that the dean was out of town and Rob brought Noelle back to his home that Noelle realized to whom Rob was married. Noelle tried to end it then and there, but she found that she was already in too deep. She listened to Rob as he told her to sweat it out, graduate and then--when there would be no repercussions--they would be together for the world to see.

Needless to say, when Dean Stevens found out about Rob’s affair with Noelle, she had no hang-ups about kicking Noelle out of the program. At this point, Noelle had ended her affair with Rob and she wasn’t going down without a fight. She went above Dean Stevens’ head to both the Vice President and President of the school to no avail. Noelle was still dismissed from Gatortown with nothing but a tarnished name and reputation and a Bachelor’s Degree in Biology, which was more or less useless without a doctorate to back it up.

Rob got a slap on the wrist and a one-semester paid suspension.

It didn’t seem right, but Noelle was learning quickly that it was true that life’s not fair.

Though Noelle knew that she could confide in AJ, she probably wouldn’t. What she was glad for now was that he had unknowingly given her a chance to escape the judgmental eyes of an industry that she still loved and the embarrassment she felt by becoming ‘that girl’; that stupid girl who people assumed tried to sleep her way to the top.

She didn’t take all of the blame off of herself, but the way that Rob had completely let her take the blame for both of their decisions had devastated her.

Noelle’s phone began to vibrate in her hands. The picture of the man that she had once sworn to have loved—the man that swore to have loved her—flashed on the small screen. He called often. Every time she saw the smiling face that she used to think was beautiful, she had the same reaction; she could feel the burning rush of bile rising in her throat as she hit ‘ignore.’

There was one thing that Noelle knew for sure. She was never going to put herself into that position again, even if that meant being alone forever.