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Chapter Twenty: A Wonderful, Awful


I dunno what was going on.

It seemed that in just six days all the sluts of Los Angeles had formed a group and migrated away. I dunno where they all went, but they sure as hell weren't out in LA. I'd been to all my sure-fire pick-up zones and not a single one had yielded any interested fruit; not even the gym had pulled through for me.

I was sitting in my car outside the grocery store - where I'd invested a good twenty minutes or so milling around the produce section, waiting for some overworked and under-attended-to housewife walk by. The only attention I'd attracted, though was that of the produce guy, who kept eyeballing me, evidently thinking I was planting bombs in his veggies because every time I touched something and he started going over and checking it out immediately after I moved on.

I sighed and smacked my forehead against the steering wheel in a steady beat. "Fucking A," I moaned. "Who in the hell am I gonna sleep with tonight?"

My phone vibed.

I looked down.

It was Becky.

Like the Grinch looking down at Whoville - I had an idea. A wonderful, awful idea. Which, at the time, seemed like a stroke of brilliance.

I'd thought it once before, in passing, and I'd blown it off and hadn't revisited it yet. But at that moment, sitting in the parking lot in the midst of my misery, desperation, and patheticly bruised ego, I was willing to revisit the idea that if I could get Becky to sleep with me, it would count as a one up because technically Becky didn't know who I was either.

By bet standard rules, that is.

I mean in reality she knew me better than probably anyone else in the world did.

My name and my status as a Backstreet Boy were magnificently small factoids about me compared to the things she knew that I'd told her in the dark nights and in rambling, wild conversations we'd carried over the last two weeks. She knew my heart.

But she did not know my name.

And for the bet, that was what mattered.

But I was going to be telling her the truth that night, I reminded myself, before it got too late. I couldn't tell her and then have sex with her because if she knew then it wouldn't count and Chris would probably end up winning the bet. I couldn't let Chris win the bet. I also couldn't have sex with her, roll over, and say hey thanks for the fuck but I'm not really who I said I am by the way, either.

I was at an impasse. A catch-22.

I was royally fucked.

Ironically, I was royally fucked over hoping to be fucked by a Princess.

I glanced at the clock. It was almost three and I needed to get my ass to Fresh Oasis to pick Becky up. My palms were sweating. I wondered how much harm it could possibly be to just push back telling Becky the truth one more night. Just one night couldn't possibly make a difference, right? And that would give me a night to try to get her to wanna sleep with me so I could be tied with Chris. And if we did it twice before she knew, I thought, I could count that as two up because Chris had never said that it had to be different women that we slept with, only that they couldn't know who I was.

I thought about this all the way over to Fresh Oasis, my throat aching.

I thought about how I would go about seducing Becky. I thought about flowers, about candy, about serenading her. I thought about just grabbing her and pulling her close and gettin' down in some wild, kinky place. I thought about formally asking her. About making out on my couch and just smoothly moving into something more than kisses. I tried to come up with a list of things to say, things to do, ways to draw her in and open her up and take advantage.

Take advantage.

The words echoed inside me, made me feel hollow. I felt guilty for even thinking the words about Becky.

It wasn't really taking advantage, I told myself. I really liked her. It wasn't like the girls at the gym that were just about the notch in the bedpost. It was different. Very different.

Very different.

When Becky came out of the Oasis at 3:35, she was smiling, her hair pulled up on her head in a messy bun, her eyes glowing with excitement. She was carrying two Oasis cups and as she swung into the car, she handed one to me. "Banana milk shake," she said, smiling. "You'll never guess what happened today."

"What's that?" I asked.

She grinned. "Ricky surprised me with a gift." She held up an envelope. It was pink. It had her name scrawled across the front of it in messy boy handwriting.

"What'd he get'cha?" I asked.

"Tickets to the New Kids on the Block!" she squealed.

"Say what?"

"Well not really to a show, I mean they aren't coming here 'til July, but he got tickets to go see them when they do a guest appearance on Ellen in two weeks!" She was practically exploding with excitement.

I felt my stomach churn. "No way."

"Way."

"That's pretty awesome. How'd he pull that?"

"Ricky's boyfriend does make-up for Ellen."

"That's crazy."

"I know!"

"You're gonna have a blast."

"Don't be silly, Nate. We are gonna have a blast. I wouldn't dream of going to it without you..."

Suddenly I knew there was no way in hell I could put off telling her until the next day. Not with something like this hanging over me. I was gonna have to just buck it up and find someone else that could help me tie with (and take over the lead from) Chris. "Becky, I gotta tell you something that I kinda lied about before --" I started.

"Oh it's okay Nate," she interrupted me, "I know you lied about your sisters."

"What?" I was so stunned by the statement that I forgot what I'd been about to say.

"I know you're really a closet NKOTB fan," she laughed. "It's okay. I won't think you're gay or anything like that."

"Oh," I said. I laughed nervously. "Damn," I said, because every other response had suddenly been swallowed up in a sea of insanity inside of me. "You got me."

It wasn't like the show was the next day. She'd know before the show at least, I promised myself. And maybe, just maybe, this show would work to my advantage because once I told her who I was I could tell her that I'd get her backstage at Ellen to meet Donnie. Yeah. Yeah! See, now I could still sleep with her, tie up with Chris, and then tell her, and have an instant one-way ticket right back out of the doghouse that my lie would have me cornered into.

Maybe, I told myself, I wouldn't be Bobbited after all.

Now I just had to figure out how to seduce Becky.