Forty-five minutes later, Noelle slipped into a booth at the restaurant where Alex was waiting for her. It had been harder than expected to let Brian go this morning. After being together on the vanity, they quickly moved to the shower. The only reason they hadn’t continued beyond that was because Noelle knew that Alex was waiting for her, and Brian had to leave for rehearsal in an hour.
AJ shook his head as Noelle sheepishly picked up her menu. “Harder to let go of lover boy this morning than you thought, huh?”
A blush ran up to Noelle’s cheeks. “Shut-up, Alex.”
“We’re going to be here for a few more days,” AJ continued. “Are you going to see him again?”
“Most definitely not,” Noelle replied, pretending to be distracted by the menu. “So, what’s good here?”
Ignoring her question, AJ pressed on. “Why not? It couldn’t have been that bad. You stayed up there with him for another hour.”
Noelle put down her menu and stared at AJ across the table. “Can we please stop talking about this? You’re acting like I should go marry the guy now or something.”
AJ chuckled softly. “No, there’s just something about you. You seem like you really liked him or something. You don’t seem like the hook up type.”
“It’s just sex, Alex,” Noelle replied softly. “Don’t try to make it more than it is.”
AJ held his hands up, surrendering. “Okay, you win. No, German boyfriend. I got it.”
“He wasn’t German, anyway. He was American,” Noelle mumbled as she looked back down at the menu.
“Hmm,” AJ replied, nodding his head slowly. “I wonder if it was anyone that I know.”
Noelle’s head shot back up as she glared at Alex wondering if he knew more than he was letting on. “What? Why would you say that? You don’t know every American that’s in Germany right now.”
“Whoa,” AJ replied, laughing softly. “We have a lot of people on this tour. That’s all I’m saying. It’s obvious that you didn’t get any sleep last night.”
Noelle sighed and closed her eyes. “Sorry. You’re right. I’m pretty tired.”
“Well, we have rehearsal this afternoon. You can stick around here and come for the show tonight if you want.” AJ shrugged. “Hell, you seem to do a pretty good job entertaining yourself. You don’t even have to go to the show if you don’t want either.”
Noelle chewed on her bottom lip thoughtfully wondering if she wanted to put herself in that awkward position already. She knew that at some point she was going to have to ride on a tour bus with Brian, so it was probably better to get the ‘introductions’ over with ahead of time. “No, I’ll go to your rehearsal. I don’t know the language well enough to find a way to meet you out at the venue later, anyway.”
AJ nodded. “Okay. We need to leave soon, so why don’t I order you something to go while you go get yourself together? We’ll meet back here in 15 minutes, barring any hunky distractions.”
Noelle rolled her eyes and laughed softly. “There will be no hunky distractions. Speaking of hunky,” Noelle stopped to clear her throat. She hoped that this came out casually. “Are you riding to the venue with the other guys?”
AJ smiled and shook his head slowly. “No, Brian and Howie are probably already gone. Nick will be late. It’ll just be you and me, sorry.”
Noelle rolled her eyes. “I was just curious, Alex. Don’t jump to conclusions.”
AJ laughed. “Go ahead and get ready. If we don’t hurry, Nick won’t be the only one late.”
Noelle nodded and hurriedly left the table. On her way up to her room, she imagined all of the ways she could possibly pull it passed Alex that Brian was actually ‘hunky’.
When Noelle re-entered her room, it suddenly felt empty. And lonely. Very, very lonely. She sighed as she opened her makeup bag to finish her makeup. It was going to be an interesting few weeks, to say the least.
-----
By mid-afternoon, Noelle was sure that Brian was avoiding her. Contrary to AJ’s speculation that Brian and Howie would be the first ones to rehearsal, Brian was actually half an hour late. By the time that he arrived, he was pulled right onto the stage and had to jump into a dance routine.
Noelle couldn’t say that she blamed him for being late. He had a long day ahead of him and had gotten very little sleep the night before. There was no doubt that he had intended to close his eyes for a minute and ended up drifting off. Besides, Noelle wasn’t necessarily ready to distinguish between the Brian on the stage that was a Backstreet Boy and Alex’s friend, and the Brian that was her one-time lover, anyway. She was too content to bask in the morning-after glow of Brian’s incredible bedroom skills to be introduced to him as a boy-bander.
By the time that sound check started late in the afternoon, Noelle could hardly keep her eyes opened. As the Boys sang and answered questions for their waiting fans, Noelle found a comfortable, leather couch and fell into a deep nap.
While singing one of the songs requested by their fans, Brian scanned the crowd. He was looking for Noelle. All morning, his eyes had been glued to this beautiful new addition to his life that was quickly becoming a welcome distraction.
When Brian had gotten back to his hotel room earlier that morning, he had five missed calls and three text messages from Leighanne. Assuming the worst, Brian swore that he was being punished for the night before and that something terrible had happened to his estranged wife.
When Leighanne had picked up, however, she was fine. “So now you decide to call me back?”
“The volume on my phone was off. I didn’t hear it ring. Are you okay?” Brian knew that technically he didn’t have to lie, but he didn’t want to hurt Leighanne either.
“Physically, I’m fine. My heart is broken, but you wouldn’t care about that,” Leighanne replied bitterly.
Brian rolled his eyes. He could feel his annoyance level rising as his nerves calmed. “You seriously didn’t call me five times to tell me that, did you?”
“No,” Leighanne replied spitefully. “I called to tell you about my date. You still want to be friends, right?”
“I don’t want to hear about your date,” Brian growled. “What exactly is your point in doing this? Do you think that I’ll run back home? Do you think that jealousy is going to fix all of the problems in our marriage? If anything, it’s only going to cause more problems. Your attitude lately hasn’t done anything to make me think that we’ve made the wrong decision.”
“No,” Leighanne spat angrily. “You’re not going to blame what we’re going through on me. You gave up, Brian. You stopped trying. This wasn’t a decision that WE made. You did this.”
Brian sighed deeply. He couldn’t argue with her. He had stopped trying. He had made the decision, but the failure of their marriage couldn’t possibly be put completely on his shoulders. He wouldn’t carry that entire burden.
“We need to stop this. Neither of us can go on talking to each other this way or arguing about nothing. I still love you, Leigh. I just… I can’t do this anymore. So, no. I don’t want to hear about the date that you had last night or any date that you have for the rest of your life.”
Leighanne took in a shaky breath and bit her bottom lip. She swallowed hard to choke back her rising tears. “For the rest of my life? So, without following up on the promises you made to try to fix this when you get home, you’ve already decided. It’s forever. You’re done?”
Brian sighed. He knew that he had made up his mind, especially after feeling more in one night with a stranger than he had with Leighanne in years, but he wasn’t going to tell her that now over the phone while he was thousands of miles away.
“I didn’t say that, Leigh. I’m just saying that things may not end up working out in the end and if they don’t then you’ll meet someone else, someone better than me. He’ll be someone that will give you everything that you’ve ever deserved; he’ll be someone that you’ll be able to get along with, someone that won’t give up.”
“Brian,” Leighanne replied quietly. “You are that person. You are everything that I’ve ever wanted and I love you. You may not realize it now, but you will. You’ll realize that you’re in love with me, too.”
“I need to go,” Brian whispered back. He couldn’t do this now, not when he was coming down off of such a high. “Date if you want to date. Be happy. We’ll talk soon.”
Brian didn’t wait for her protest; he simply pressed the end button and threw the phone down on the bed next to him. He then slowly rested his head in his hands and he sobbed. He cried for Leighanne. He cried for himself. He cried for the end of his forever. The only thing he didn’t cry for was guilt over his night with Noelle and that thought had scared him to death.
