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Author's Chapter Notes:
Hey there! I hope you enjoy and again, thanks for being patient with me :O)

46



Paging Doctor Kevin!




Well things have certainly been interesting over the last month or so. Leave it to my four band mates to always keep things interesting. I have to admit I was scared for a little bit there, that we wouldn’t recover from all the stupid Paris talk. To say she made things for Nick as hard as possible was a complete understatement.



Because she is so sly and sneaky she managed to basically have him convicted of hitting her without ever actually coming out and saying he did anything. She had her friends do all the dirty work. They went to every single tabloid imaginable and said the meanest things about him.



Magazines portrayed him as this bad tempered, jerk and not much was said in his defense. Kevin told him to maintain his cool and not say anything but even I was tempted after reading some of this garbage, to want to comment on it. And I’m well mannered Howie D! Can you imagine how hard this was for Nick who is nothing even close to well mannered?



He did a good job though; really I was proud of him. He stayed away from anywhere that even sold trashy magazines. He always said no comment when randomly stopped on the street by people asking if he hit her. He never once said anything derogatory about her to the press or anyone in the public, just that he used to love her and made a mistake.



His favorite answer for the bruises, “The people, who know me and love me, know I would never do that.” And still people didn’t take that as a definite yes or no answer. That went on so routine the first few weeks after all of this happened that it was wearing us all down.



I would come home from the studio, when we finally got ourselves back there, and would collapse on my bed with a huge whooping migraine. All I could think was how horrible this was going to be when we were doing press for the new album. All people would ask about is this now, instead of the music we tried so hard to write.



I am so proud of this album, well how it’s turning out anyway. We’re almost done with recording the songs we like and now it’s just a matter of picking the best ones. I think we created something special here, something we are all proud of. We want this to work so badly for us and now all people will care about are Nick and Paris.



I felt bad for being annoyed at him, but I was and still am. If he thought with his upstairs brain a little more than his downstairs brain, he wouldn’t get himself into these situations in the first place.



Speaking of the devil, in he came with his Starbucks coffee mug and a donut…scratch that, make it two donuts. When he saw me he came right up to me and kissed my cheek. He left behind sticky donut residue!



“Eww!”



“You know you love it Howie.”



“I really do not Nickolas.”



“Right…how goes it?” He asked me as I wiped his gook off my cheek. Okay that sounded horribly bad but you know what I mean? I’m not gay at all so don’t even let your mind go there. When I said gook I meant donut powdery stuff!



“D?”



“Oh sorry…good…you’re the second person here believe it or not.”



“Wow, why are we here again?”



“It was Kevin’s idea; he thought we could all stand to get into shape. Well a shape besides round. So, today my young friend…we dance.” We were meeting at a dance studio that a good friend of mine owned. I haven’t been in one of these in a long time and I admit when I walked in, flashbacks of a time long ago came running back. Fatima yelling at us, frustrated because no matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t get the moves down the way she wanted us to.



“I think it’s funny he wanted us here but his ass isn’t here yet.”



I stood up and stretched my back out. I was getting stiff in my old age and if we were going to try this dancing, getting into shape thing again I needed to get a head start. Of course when he heard my back crack he laughed at me.



“You know what I think is funny? The fact that you came to a dance rehearsal with donuts and a coffee.”



“I’ll finish it before he gets here.” Nick shoved the rest of the donut into his mouth and then guzzled some coffee to help him swallow it, smiling wide at me as he did it. He’s such a dink, really.



“You went out with Brian again last night huh?”



He came over and plopped himself down on the hard floor, stretching his legs out in a ‘v’ but that’s as much as he did. Silly of me to think he was actually going to try to do something productive, like stretch.



“Yeah, we went to dinner and then played some basketball.”



“Seems like you guys are hanging out a lot these days.”



“We are… it’s cool! I missed my Brian.”



I smiled at that because I knew how true it was. When I had heard, well actually witnessed those two hanging out again, even though it was because they decided to order a stripper gram for me, I still was happy to know that Frick and Frack were back. And of course I got a lap dance out of the deal. Poor Kevin wasn’t quite as lucky. He got a guy dressed as a tree.



It’s funny what people will dress as to make some money huh?



“Did you wreak havoc on anyone? Every time you guys get together something happens.”



“Nope, actually we were very well behaved. Leighanne was home so we couldn’t have any fun. I think she’s a bigger party pooper than Kevin.”



“Excuse me? Did you just call me a party pooper?”



Kevin walked in with his workout clothes on, complete with huge gym bag which he threw down as he made his way inside. “Uh…no, that was Howie. I was just about to tell him that you are the funnest guy on the planet.”



“Uh huh…Howie I never knew you could disguise your voice so well. You sounded exactly like Nick.”



“I guess I’m just talented like that.”



“Yeah, I guess so…where’s Brian and AJ? They’re late!”



“So are you.” I pointed to my watch and laughed at him.



“I was here; I was just on the phone in my car.”



“No clue where they are.”



“Nickolas, tell me you didn’t stop at Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks on the way here!”



“I did not stop at either place Kevin.”



“Then why the bags?”



“I refuse to answer any further questions unless my lawyer is present.”



“Uh huh…well you better not vomit after putting that stuff in your system and trying to exercise it out.”



“It’s not a demon.”



I loved the ridiculous conversations that the two of them had. Both always felt like they had to get the last word in and would try their hardest to make that happen. In the end, Nick always won, even if he finished with a burp or a fart. To him, they counted as the last word.



“No it’s not…you are.”



“Pardon me?”



“You heard me.”



“Nope I did not.”



“Yes you did.”



“Nope, I didn’t otherwise I wouldn’t have said pardon me…”



See what I mean?



“I said you’re an idiot.”



“No you didn’t”



“Okay how would you know that if you really didn’t hear me?”



“I just know.”



“Oh you do, huh?”



“Yup.”



Kevin let out a sigh and of course Nick let out a louder one. I looked at the door hoping I’d be saved by someone and sure enough shortly after AJ came waltzing in. He’s not sane or anything but I’ll take it.



“Why didn’t the two of you come here together, I mean you do live with each other.” Kevin said tapping at his watch.



“Good morning to you too Kevin and just because we live together doesn’t mean we’re married. I had stuff to do.”



“Do you know where Brian is?”



“Outside talking on the phone.”



“Oh?”



“Yup, he told me to tell you guys he’d be in shortly.”



“So looks like the gang is all here finally.” I yawned as I said that, feeling like I was ready for a nap. I’m sure that is probably not a good way to feel especially since we’ll be exercising or dancing soon. Think they would notice if I curled into a ball and slept under a table somewhere?





~*~*~*~*~*~*~*




I looked at the boys one by one just as my cousin managed to run in and sit down. “Sorry I’m late!” He said, running right past me and plopping down in between Nick and AJ, giving them both a high five as he did so.



“I thought it would be a good idea if we started getting ourselves into shape again.”



“Yup, we got that, but are you going to be doing this? Did you hire a yoga instructor?”



I rolled my eyes at Nick. Seemed like he was in rare form today. “Actually no, I thought we could just maybe do some of our old routines as practice, you know Backstreet’s Back and All I have to Give.”



“I don’t remember that far back.”



“Howie, come on it’s like second nature. I’m sure once we start it’ll all come back to you.”



“I don’t know about that Kev…I saw Howie walking into a closet thinking it was a bathroom the other day.”



“Well at least I manage to stay in my house while answering phones without falling out of windows.”



“Why do you always have to bring that up?”



“Dude, you fell out of a damn window answering a phone. Who wouldn’t bring that up every chance they got?”



AJ had a point and I guess Nick agreed because he just shrugged and finally shut up! Hallelujah!



“Anyway…I just thought we should try to really get back in shape, you know like what we discussed when we all first got here. Remember back at the hotel?”



“Oh God, don’t remind me.”



“Having crappy van memories AJ?”



“Shut up Rok.”



“Guys stop interrupting me! God…will you all ever outgrow that?”



Ever since I have known them, they have been like that. Always interrupting me and never allowing me to get to my point. They like to blame it on the fact that I talk slow, although I have no idea what that’s even supposed to mean. It’s actually just because between the lot of them, minus Howie, they have about a fifteen minute attention span.



“What the heck is that thing?” Nick asked pointing at some random stain on the wall, “It kind of looks like Godzilla. Dude you should tell your friend that she should charge people to come and see the Godzilla on her wall. Like how people do that with Mother Teresa.”



“Dude there’s a big difference between a holy image and Godzilla.”



Did I say fifteen minutes? I actually meant fifteen seconds!



“That looks more like The Lochness monster than Godzilla.”



“And how do you now what the Lochness monster looks like Brian?”



“I have my connections Nickolas Gene.”



“Gah! I hate when you call me that!”



“He knows!” The other three boneheads said in unison as I just stood there staring at my watch, patiently waiting to make my point.



“You’re all ganging up on me again.”



“Quit acting like a baby Nick.”



“Shut up!”



“Anyway….what were you saying Kevin?”



“Thanks Howie…I was saying, that we need to get ourselves in shape.”



“I think we are fine like we are.”



“Says the chubby, lazy, donut eating one!”



“Hey!”



“Nick, when was the last time you worked out?”



“Uh…”



“That’s my point. If we are going to do this touring thing again, hell if we are even going to start promo, we are going to need to be able to handle the stress of no free time and hectic schedules again.”



“And working out will help because?”



“Because we won’t be so tired. Seriously I bet none of us can get through three dances in a row without wanting to collapse and die at this point!”



“If we do, what will we win?” I knew my cousin was going to take that as a dare. He’s so damn competitive.



“A life time of you telling me that I was wrong and you were right.”



“I do that anyway.”



“Yeah, but this time it’ll be for real and not some kind of delusion.”



“Listen to Kevin with his crap talk. Are you going to take that from him Brian?”



“Whoa are we about to have a dance off like we’re in the middle of a really bad musical or worse yet, stuck there with Britney and Justin?”



AJ and Nick high fived at their own stupid jokes while my cousin bit at his bottom lip. For a second I really thought he was going to challenge me to a dance off. As ridiculous as that sounds, but luckily he just shrugged. “Yeah, you’re probably right. I doubt any of us can do it.”



“So let’s just try to slowly get ourselves back to where we were when we stopped after Black and Blue.”



I looked at them all and nodded, hoping I wouldn’t be met with too much resistance. I know besides me and sometimes Brian, no one else really much enjoyed the thought of working out.



“And I also think that should include our food intake.” I looked at Nick directly for that last comment.



“Why are you looking at me?”



I pointed over to the Dunkin Donuts bag, which I figured was enough of a statement. “Fine.” He rolled his eyes at me and I smiled.



“I still don’t know if we should do any dancing on this tour, I mean seriously you guys might break a hip or two!”



“Look who’s talking. AJ you are younger than us but you’re trapped in like an 80 year old’s body.”



“Who bets AJ is going to hurt himself the second we start touring?” All hands went up at Brian’s question, including my own.



“Shut up, I’m not that bad guys!”



“Yeah you are Bone, admit it. You’re like one big walking disaster.”



“Like you should talk Carter at least I have never fallen out a window!”



“Ugh, the window thing again? Try some originality for a change!”



“Why are we fighting?”



“Because Kevin wants us to get in shape Howie…God keep up!”



I just stood there and tried my hardest not to laugh as they all continued to bicker at one another. Finally when there was a lull in the fighting I went and put on the CD player. “Are we ready to try this then?”



I asked just as Larger Than Life came on. “Oh God…not that one! That one is going to kill me!” Nick whined.



“Stop whining Nickolas Gene.”



“Stop calling me that!”



“Nope, never!”



“And I’m not whining.”



“Of course you are….now when you guys are ready.” I was just about to pause the CD player and have us start over when I heard the all too familiar…



“AHH!”



I turned and there was AJ, down on the ground holding his ankle. “What happened?”



“I think I twisted my ankle.”



“How? All you were doing was standing still!”



“Dude…I don’t know but it friggin hurts like a bitch!”



“How in the hell?”



“I kicked the wall by mistake.”



“Jesus Christ!”



“Good thing no one bet huh?” Howie asked as he examined Bone’s bones.



“He did that on purpose so he wouldn’t have to dance.”



“And you’re upset because you didn’t think of it first huh?” Brian asked Nick as he placed a hand on his shoulder.



“Yeah.”



“He’s okay…I think you’ll live AJ.” Howie pat AJ’s leg as he gently moved his rolled up pant leg back down.



“Guess we’re done working out for the day then, huh?”



“We didn’t even move Carter.”



“I know and that saddens me greatly.”



“You know, you guys can still dance without me.” AJ said that with a huge smile on his face, just to piss off Nick, but I got a kick out of it.



“How about we take a break first…all this almost dancing has worn me out!”



I shook my head at my cousin who made sure to wink at me. Good lord how are we going to do this all over again? Why are we going to do this all over again?





“Let’s just do this dance first and then we can have our break.”



“We don’t need a break, well unless you do old man. Some of us are still young and flexible.” Nick passed me suddenly and took a place directly in front of the mirror.



“You are so weird.” I said shaking my head at him as we danced to Larger than Life.