The hotel lounge was crowded but Nick didn’t care. He wanted to get away from AJ and anything that had to do with Backstreet. Kevin was getting on his case, AJ was getting on his case, hell, even management was on his case, Nick thought.

Trying his best to walk towards the bar in a normal fashion, Nick pushed through the crowd and took a seat in an empty booth. Several young girls that were seated at a table directly across from Nick smiled and waved. Forcing his ‘award winning Backstreet grin’ Nick waved back. He didn’t feel like being sociable with fans, but no matter where he was, he always had to be ‘on duty’ and he couldn’t just relax and be himself.

“Hi Nick, what’s your pleasure tonight?”

“How about a couple Jack and Cokes?” Nick smiled and then narrowed his eyes as he tried to read the server’s name plate.

“It’s Ravana,” she winked.

“It’s blurry to me so I’ll take your word for it,” Nick joked. He mentally cursed himself for taking his contacts out earlier because the bar was blurry.

“A couple?” Ravana asked curiously. “Are you waiting for someone to be joining you?”

Taking a breath to calm down before he exploded into a tantrum, Nick pasted a smile on his face and answered in a tense voice, “Just bring the drinks, okay?”

Although Ravana didn’t personally know Nick, she could tell he wasn’t in the mood to be questioned about his drinks and the amount he ordered. “Back in a sec then.”

Glancing towards the entrance, Nick saw Juan standing in the doorway.

He slouched down into his seat, turning his ball cap forward and lowering the bill over his forehead. “Awe fuck.”

His tatics didn’t work and Juan rushed over to the booth and slid in. “Hey, I thought you were gonna wait for me, man.”

Straightening back up in his seat and flipping his ball cap backwards, Nick shrugged his shoulders.

The waitress returned with two drinks on her serving tray. “Nine fifty.”

Nick gave the girl a crisp fifty. “Keep ‘em coming til this runs out.”

“I’ll have a Kilian’s,” Juan stated.

“He pays for his own,” Nick spat out quickly.

Ravana nodded slightly. “Okay, back in a sec.”

“Keep it coming til the fifty is gone? Isn’t that a little excessive?” Juan questioned.

Nick looked around the bar. Juan followed Nick’s direction and looked as well.

“Funny Juan, I don’t see my mom around here,” Nick remarked and took a generous swallow from the glass.

“No, I’m just saying, the drinks are $4.75 each and if you gave her a fifty, that means you’d be drinking close to ten drinks of that stuff.”

“Jack and cokes and you’re not my fuckin’ babysitter and I don’t really give a flying fuck about how many drinks that comes to. Aren’t you supposed to be hovering over fuckin’ Littrell?”

“Well, he’s in bed sleeping, like the rest of the guys. I just wanted a drink too, what’s the harm?”

“The fuckin’ harm is that you’re not my detail, Mike is sleeping and you should be too. If you’re gonna sit here, then be a nice bodyguard and mind your own damn business!” Nick said darkly.

Juan sat back into the booth and never said another word to his charge. He was there with Nick as a friend, but his true main reason for being there was to keep Nick safe from others as well as from himself. All of the men from detail had noticed that since Nick had turned twenty-one, the club scene was becoming more and more a priority on his list. Sometimes it got a little out of hand and they were usually able to remove Nick from situations before they became serious.

Jay had been Nick’s assigned detail from the time he started Backstreet and had done a good job of keeping him in line. Once Jay started ‘overstepping his boundries’ and tried to stop Nick from clubbing and being intoxicated in public view, Nick fired the man and hired his friend Mike as his personal detail.

All of the men knew from the beginning that this was a poor choice on Nick’s behalf because of Mike’s history of clubbing and women. Nick was falling into the snares and it was becoming a monthly story on the internet and in the tabloids.

Juan breathed a sigh of relief when the waitress set a drink down in front of Nick and told him that this was the last drink of the night as the bar was closing in ten minutes. By this time Nick’s coordination was the worst Juan had ever seen. Nick was slouched down in his seat and half of the drink wound up on his shirt instead of his mouth. Nick’s hat was now cocked to the side and his voice was loud when he spoke.

”Juan.....you little fucker!” Nick slurred loudly, a grin cocked on his face.

Juan didn’t reply, he sat and listened to Nick’s drunken rambling.

”What the fuck am I gonna do with you? You fuckin son of a bitch!” Nick stated as he reached across the table and slapped the man on the side of his face with an open hand. As Nick brought his arms back, he knocked his drink over and the contents poured onto the table and then to his shirt, his pants and finally the floor.

”Awe shit! Ravana....RAAAVAANNNNNAAAA!”

“Nick, the bar is closing, how about we just get you back to your room, okay?” Juan asked as he scooted out of his seat and stood up next to Nick, grabbing his arm.

Sitting in the booth, Nick’s head was bobbing and his eyes were slowing opening and closing.

“Yo, dude, let’s get you back up to your room before you pass out,” Juan coaxed.

Nick slid out of the booth to follow Juan and without warning, fell forward hitting a table with his left side. Several bar patrons rushed over to see Nick stand up and laugh it off. He hurt his left arm when he fell, but he played it off. “It’s okay, nothing to see here,” he slurred and laughed at his own expense.

“Did you hurt yourself?” Juan asked as he led Nick out of the club.

“Nah,” Nick lied. He could tell something wasn’t right with his arm but he was too numb to tell at the moment.

“I bet you broke your hand, look at how it’s starting to swell!”

Nick glanced down at his left hand. It was noticeably swollen. “Nah, it’s just fat...fat...fat!” He started to laugh again and nearly took Juan down when he started to lean on the man for support in walking to the elevators.

Juan was having a hard time holding Nick up as he was starting to become dead weight. “Please guys, no pictures,” Juan begged as camera flashes were going off around them as they waited for the elevator. “Please?”

Juan was a little happier when the elevator finally arrived and he had to beg Nick to help him walk onto the elevator. The doors almost closed on them once and one time almost catching them in between.

“Got your room card Nick?”

“Yah in the back pocket,” Nick slurred.

Juan propped Nick against the wall and ackwardly reached into the his back pocket.

“Queer much?” Nick growled.

“Just getting your card ready for you,” Juan defended. “Come on, this is our floor.”

Leaning along the wall for support, Nick slowly made his way to the door, holding his left hand up gingerly.

Juan slipped the card into the slot and then held the door open for Nick and handed him the card back. “There you go, do you need anymore help?”

Nick waved his good hand in the air as he continued to stagger into the hotel room.

“Okay. You better have that hand checked out in the morning,” Juan advised. No answer came back from Nick as he threw himself ontop of the bed. Juan pulled the door shut and shrugged his shoulders.

“I don’t get paid enough for this bullshit,” he mumbled to himself.

Nick laid on the bed for a few moments, trying to get his stomach to stop flipping and the room to stop spinning. His left hand was hurting him and he was getting a headache. Juan had left him roughly ten minutes ago and Nick was glad to be freed from Juan’s scrutanizing eyes.

Standing up, Nick took two steps backwards and fell back onto the bed. Putting his hand to his head he was hoping the dizziness would go away.

“What the fuck did I have to drink? Oh yeah, ha ha funny Carter,” Nick mused. “I gotta get rid of this headache.”

Stumbling to the bathroom, Nick grabbed the leather pouch that contained all of his medications. He opened it up and dumped the contents onto the counter. Due to the state he was in coupled with his left hand hurting, it was hard for him to manage the tops to the bottles. He grabbed what he thought was tylenol and popped the lid off and dumped the container out onto the counter. Grabbing three of the large white oval shaped pills, he put them in his mouth and quickly filled a glass of water and took several large gulps.

Nick then decided that he was getting a migraine headache and he grabbed the bottle he assumed was his migraine meds and poured them out onto the counter ontop of the other pills that were laying out.

“Well shit!” he muttered and then squinted as he tried to figure out which pills were which. He grabbed three of what he thought were the migraine meds and swallowed them with the rest of the water that was in the glass. Trying to set the glass back on the counter, Nick missed it’s intended target and the glass fell to the floor shattering into several jagged shards.

“Oops,” Nick laughed as he stumbled back to his bed. Pulling at the covers, he thew himself into the bed, fully clothed, hat still on and passed out.