Part Four

The phone rang in the middle of one of my yoga stretches and I ignored it continuing with my pose. Breathing deeply I held the pose and felt my muscles getting loose again after having skipped working out the whole time I’d been sick. In the "Down Dog" position my ass was high in the air while my head was near the floor and the blood was rushing to my head as my arms and legs stretched. My answering machine kicked in and after my short outgoing message "You know who you called... leave a message..."

His voice came through loud and clear.  "Hello! You TELL me to call you... no wait, you DEMAND that I call you when I get home and I do and where are you? Uh huh... you think that just because you aren’t sickly anymore that you can just ignore me? Well geepers creepers I think that’s just WRONG!" I chuckled listening to him ramble and lost my balance falling to the floor. I rolled over and grabbed the phone from the couch and clicked it on listening to his rambles. "You think you can just USE me like this? I come and take care of your sick ass and get you all better and what thanks do I get? Hmph! I call and get to talk to your answering machine. I swear, Kel, I just don’t know what I’m going to do with you... I just feel so... so used..."

I smiled, "You done?"

"No..."

"Okay..." I giggled and closed my eyes as I did a stretch on my back listening to him.

"And then on top of it all you don’t even take me up and come home with me! I mean come ON! You know you love me, and you love Florida... so come HOME! Stay with me in my big ol’ fancy house and spend my money. Let me be your Sugar Daddy for a few weeks before I go off on tour... I need some lovin’ girl and YOU are the one to give it to me... I need the Kel, I want the Kel, I’ve gotta have... the KEL!" He stopped talking and I waited quietly and kept stretching. "Okay I’m done now..." he laughed.

"Oh okay! My bad... Hi, Age..."

"Hi..." he giggled.

"I take it you’re home?"

"Mmm hmm... safe, sound, and lonely..."

"AJ..."

"Kj..."

I smiled, "Honey I told you, I can’t come to Florida..."

"Yeah yeah..." he mumbled.

"I want to, but I can’t."

"Riddle me this..."

"Yes?"

"If you didn’t have any assignments to do, would you come?"

"Of course I would. But I DO have assignments. So I can’t. I’m sorry honey. I’ll try and make it down for a long weekend before you leave on tour, but that’s probably all I can do."

He sighed dramatically and I frowned listening to him, "Okay... So what are you doing?"

"Yoga..."

"You still do that shit?"

"It’s not shit and yes I still do it."

"I don’t get it..." he laughed. "But okay... if it floats your boat baby..."

I chuckled, "It floats boats alright... Just think of how good I am in bed being so flexible..."

"Yeah well I wouldn’t know now would I?" he teased.

"Roaming hands..." I sang to him.

"Whatever..."

"What are YOU doing, my dear boy?"

"Missing you..." I sighed feeling extremely guilty that I wasn’t going to be able to spend more time with him before he went gallivanting around the world without me. "... I’m also watching television."

"Anything good on?" I asked as I sat up against the couch and turned the television on with the remote.

"Not yet..." he mumbled and we both channel surfed silently over the phone.

I began to laugh, "VH1..."

He changed his channel and began to laugh too, "Oh good lord that’s horrible..."

"You were such a dork..." I snorted.

"Oh thank you..."

"Look at your HAIR!" I cracked up and he laughed with me as we watched the Backstreet segment of "Before They Were Rock Stars."

"Check out Howie..." AJ giggled.

"Oh man..." I wiped tears from my eyes as I laughed at the old footage of the Boys doing one of their first performances. "Okay and Kevin..."

"I know... the shirt! I always hated that shirt..."

"Me too..." I giggled. "I can’t believe how much you’ve all changed since then..."

"Yeah, look at Nick..."

I already was looking at Nick. He must have been twelve or thirteen in the clip and looked like a baby. So innocent, and unharmed, "Yeah..."

"Oh my god look there you are!" AJ laughed.

I closed my eyes and groaned, "Oh GOD!" I peeked through my fingers and listened to AJ laughing on the phone. The camera was on AJ as he sang to a "random girl" in the audience who just so happened to be me. Of course that was before anyone knew me as "AJ’s friend" so it didn’t seem fixed at all at that point.

"You’re too cute..."

"Uh no... I think that’s too horrible! Look at my hair!"

"I love your hair..." he laughed.

"AJ..."

"I DO love your hair..."

"Well thank you, but THAT hair is horrible! We were both having bad hair days... god and this is on national television..."

"The price of being my best friend... you show up on television as a teenager with bad hair."

I smiled, "Yeah well it’s worth it..." The show began talking about N’Sync and I began flipping channels again and I could hear that AJ was doing the same. "How was your flight?"

"Four words..."

"Uh oh..."

"Class trip to Disney..."

I chuckled, "Oh no..."

"Yeah. About 30 middle school kids, their teachers and chaperones... I got through about oh 2 minutes of the flight before someone recognized me."

"I’m sorry honey..."

"It’s okay. They were good kids actually. I had fun with them."

"You didn’t warp their minds did you, Age?"

He laughed, "No I didn’t, Kage..."

"Good boy..."

"Yeah I... shit, I’ve got another call, hang on a sec?"

"Yup..." I mumbled as I watched Univision and didn’t have a clue what they were talking about because I didn’t speak Spanish.

A few seconds later he clicked back over, "Kel?"

"Hmm?"

He laughed, "What are you watching?"

"Spanish channel..." I giggled.

"Listen, it’s my mom on the other line... she’s rambling something about the tour. I’ll call you later okay?"

"Okay, honey, I’ll be here... I’m going to get back to my yoga and then take a nap I think."

"Cool... I’ll call you in a few hours then. Don’t watch too much Univision, it’ll just confuse you," he laughed.

"Bite me..."

"Remind me next time we’re together..." he laughed.

"Tell mom I said hello..."

"I will, and she says hi too. Now go do your yoga shit..."

"Namaste’ AJ..."

"Yeah yeah... abracadabra to you too baby..."