Later that week, the tour stopped again in New York City. On their first morning in the Big Apple, Brian and Noelle were awoken by someone pounding on their hotel room door. Brian rolled over with a groan and pulled Noelle closer against him, fully intending to ignore whoever was interrupting his sleep, but the pounding continued.

“Tell them to go away,” Brian muttered groggily into Noelle’s neck.

Noelle laughed huskily and buried her face into the pillow. She playfully pushed Brian away, not wanting him to let go of her but not wanting to get out of bed herself either.

“Go get it, Brian.”

Neither of them moved and the pounding finally stopped.

“Thank God,” Brian mumbled. Just as they settled back into each other’s arms and sleep began to take over, Noelle’s phone started to ring. She laughed and pulled the pillow over her head.

“See?” Brian said as he rolled onto his back and threw his arm over his eyes. “You should have gotten the door. I knew it was for you.”

Noelle took the pillow off of the top of her head and narrowed her eyes at him just as her phone finished ringing. “Right.”

Just as quickly as Noelle’s phone settled on the bedside table, Brian’s started to vibrate. Brian groaned, though suddenly he was wondering if there was some kind of emergency. He grabbed his phone and saw AJ’s name flashing at him.

He touched the green button on the phone to accept the call. “What. Do. You. Want?”

“I don’t care what the fuck I’m interrupting over there. Answering the fucking door,” AJ yelled into the phone.

Brian pulled the phone away from his ear and narrowed his eyes at the voice that was coming from the other end. Then, someone was pounding again.

Brian threw the covers off of his body glad that he and Noelle had both stayed dressed before bed the night before. He threw the door opened and let AJ in.

“The only thing that you interrupted was sleep, pervert. What the hell is your problem?”

Noelle sat up in bed, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes as AJ threw down a pile of magazines next to her without a word.

“What is this?” she muttered, still groggy from having been awoken from her peaceful sleep.

“So much for being careful, huh?” AJ stepped back and looked between both Brian and Noelle. “Are you two stupid? You went out in public and practically fucked on the ice at some skating rink? Are you serious?”

Brian narrowed his eyes at AJ again and was back at the bed in two seconds. He picked up the magazines--Star, People, and US Weekly-- they all had pictures of him and Noelle from their date the week earlier. Suddenly, he was being called an adulterer and Noelle was a slut.

Noelle’s face paled as she flipped through the pages. Somehow the reporters knew everything about her. While some of the things being said were blatant lies, other things that were written were right on. Both Star and People had written about her affair with her married professor. Tears sprang to her eyes.

“How did this happen?” she whispered.

“How did this happen?” AJ repeated Noelle’s question loudly. “Are you kidding me? The public isn’t safe, Noelle. Period. Maybe you don’t get that, but he should.” AJ pointed disgustedly at Brian, unable to use his name.

“I’m not stupid, AJ,” Brian yelled, though the tension inside of him was building as well. “The rink is out of season. We were the only ones that were supposed to be able to get in. I didn’t think that we had anything to worry about. Pictures of us don’t sell for as much as they used to.”

“You always have something to worry about, Brian!” AJ exclaimed after releasing an ironic laugh. “Especially when you’re married and dating my little sister.”

“You need to go, Alex,” Noelle said, still speaking softly out of complete and utter shock.

“What?” AJ exclaimed. “You want me to go? Since you’ve been here, I haven’t done anything other than protect you—”

Noelle held her hand up, cutting AJ off. “Alex, I appreciate that, but right now this is between me and Brian, okay? I need to talk to Brian alone and you have to go. You can yell at me later.”

AJ shook his head and turned to leave without saying another word.

Noelle jumped up out of the bed and started pacing. She was going to kick Brian’s ass if she didn’t get rid of some of her nervous energy.

Brian stood back, leaning against the wall. He wanted for Noelle to say something, but when she didn’t, he spoke, “Noelle, I’m sorry. I really didn’t think—”

“That’s the problem, Brian,” Noelle exclaimed. “You didn’t think.”

Brian clenched his jaw and shook his head. “You know what? You and AJ are going to be the death of me! I’m not the only one with a brain here. Sure, I’m the celebrity; I should think about these things, but do you know that at the height of my career we didn’t have to deal with paparazzi hiding in corners? There was a trust factor that we don’t have anymore and I’m sorry, but you weren’t really thinking about someone snapping pictures either. Just like you—I thought that we were alone.”

“I don’t deal with people snapping my picture when I’m walking around the street, Brian,” Noelle yelled back. “When I’m not in Backstreet land of course I don’t think about paparazzi, because it’s not a part of my life. You get to go out and still be a celebrity and still make music and still have quadrillions of dollars at your disposal, but me? I’m trying to rebuild a reputation here, and now I’m just the whore in the spotlight again, except this time it’s in a much bigger way.”

Brian shook his head in short, quick motions, as he took the few steps closer to her. “To be completely honest with you, I don’t see how an article in Star about your personal life is going to have any bearing on your ability to be a doctor or why it should have anything to do with your ability to get into medical school. Maybe you’re just—I don’t know—not meant to be a doctor.”

Without hesitation, Noelle reached up and punched Brian in his shoulder. Tears started to pour down her face. She pushed past him toward the closet. “That was low Brian.”

Brian closed his eyes as Noelle started to pull clothing out of the closet. He felt like a total jerk. He was trying to make a point about fate, but it came out completely wrong. Admittedly, it was wrong. He sighed and walked back over to where Noelle was throwing all of her things into a suitcase. He grabbed the back of Noelle’s arms gently and tried to pull her away from the closet, but she pulled away from him.

“Noelle, come on. I didn’t mean it like that.”

She turned on him with a glare in her eyes. “Then what did you mean?”

“I don’t know what I meant,” Brian replied honestly, shaking his head. “I wasn’t saying that you wouldn’t make a good doctor, because I know that you would. I just meant that everything happens for a reason, I guess.”

“Well,” she asked as she wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. “What’s the reason? Why are things so hard for us? Does that mean that we aren’t meant to be together? That’s using your own reasoning.”

Brian pulled her close to him. His heart was breaking in his chest. He wasn’t going to go out like this. He wasn’t going to lose her.

“No. My reasoning is shit,” he said softly as he kissed the side of her head.

“What about Leighanne, Brian? And your mother,” Noelle sniffed sadly. “What are they going to think? I don’t know how I can handle it again. The scrutiny is going to be so much higher now.”

“Listen to me, Noelle.” Brian wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs and then wrapped his arms back around her waist. “As far as my mom goes, she loves you to death. You’ve spoken to her in the last couple of weeks more than I have and this isn’t going to change that.

And Leighanne and I are getting divorced. I’ve told that to Leighanne. I’ve made it clear, whether she wants to accept it or not. I don’t care what media outlet wants to ask the question first, but I’ll tell them all that my marriage is over. I don’t care who knows. If those reporters did half of the research that they should have, they would have seen that I’m already legally separated and the divorce papers are making their way through the court system as we speak. We’ll release a statement, okay?”

“Really?” Noelle asked as she pulled back to look into his eyes. “You’re really ready to go public with all of this?”

Brian shrugged like it was no big deal and nodded. “Yes. My thing was Leighanne. I wanted to wait until she knew and I hoped that we could have a quick, quiet divorce and then you and I could come out slowly. I wanted to protect you from the media scrutiny, but since it’s out, I have no problem coming clean about it. My biggest sin is falling out of love with my wife. That’s it.”

“I don’t know, maybe we should just not say anything. Maybe it’ll just go away,” Noelle said, though her voice was laced with hesitance.

“It’s not going to go away and it’s only going to get worse unless we say something, okay?” He kissed her softly and leaned his forehead into hers. “Don’t freak out on me, Noelle. I’m going to take care of you.”

Noelle tightened her grip around Brian’s waist and rested her head against the crook of his neck. “I trust you.”

***

As Leighanne sat at her kitchen table, all of the magazines from that week were spread out in front of her. It wasn’t the main headline, but Brian and his little girl-toy were on the cover of every magazine amongst frivolous headlines linking Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart and bitter feuds between Angelina and Jen.

The pictures were real. Leighanne couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that these rags could possibly put the end of her life as she knew it alongside the celebrity gossip fodder. Tears fell from her red-rimmed eyes. Brian had left her there just a few short weeks earlier. She had seen that he wasn’t sure about their divorce. She had seen that he still wanted to be with her, but there he was putting another women on display. He was in New Jersey and the girl that he had been with in the airport when he had arrived back to Atlanta weeks earlier was there with him. Leighanne had been able to convince herself that whoever the girl had been was just a passing moment—a girl that he’d met on the road and nothing else, but now she knew.

Brian was dating Noelle McLean. She was AJ McLean’s sister.

Leighanne knew that her and Brian’s marriage wasn’t perfect. They were separated and it was easy for Brian to move on when there was a 20-something-year-old slut being thrust at him from all directions. Noelle was beautiful, but Leighanne had something that she didn’t. She had Brian’s past. She had Brian’s future. Leighanne knew that this wasn’t right. She knew that Brian was making a mistake and she knew that someday, Brian would realize that he was making a mistake, too.

She wasn’t going to let this go this easily. It was easy for Brian to choose someone else when Leighanne wasn’t there. It was easy to forget what you have when someone else is showing you all of the things that you think that you’re missing.

Right then, Leighanne made a decision. She wasn’t going down without a fight. With a few phone calls, she found out exactly where the Boys were going to be the next day and what hotel they were going to be staying at. Finding Brian was easy, getting to Brian was easy, and Leighanne knew that once she was there, getting rid of Brian’s girlfriend was going to be easy too.