* Chapter 3 *

"Thank you so much for picking us up at the airport," I said as all of us walked into the lobby of the hotel.

"Wait a sec," Nick said. "We didn’t get our other group picture. Let’s take it over there by that low front desk. Some of us can sit on the desk so we will all fit in the picture."

We walked over to the front desk and set our bags down. Nick asked the desk clerk if he would take the picture. The clerk said yes so Nick handed him the camera. Nick, AJ, and Bri hopped onto the counter and the rest of us got into position. In the front row were Kev, Court, Howie, and I. Nick was sitting behind Kev and me, AJ was sitting behind Court and me, and Bri was sitting behind Court and Howie.

"Smile everyone," said the desk clerk. We all smiled while he took the picture.

"Let’s take another one," I said. "Let’s make this one silly."

The clerk was going to start counting down to take the picture, so I reached behind me and grabbed AJ’s glasses. I could hear him chuckle as I slid them on. Right before the clerk got to five (instead of three), AJ leaned down and kissed me on the cheek so that it would be in the picture. Howie did the same with Court. I was so shocked! Mel was going to totally freak when she saw these pictures! Court looked at me with that ‘what-in-the-heck-just-happened’ look. I knew exactly what she was thinking. We both started giggling.

We said thank you to the desk clerk and told him that we needed to check into our rooms. He took our names and then gave us the key cards to our suites. I was so happy that we got separate rooms. After all, we have spent most of our lives sharing a room.

"It’s getting kind of late, so we’ll let you girls go upstairs and get your sleep," Kev said as he walked over and gave us both hugs and kisses on the cheek. The other ‘boys’ did the same as we said our good-byes.

"What time do we need to be ready tomorrow?" I asked curiously.

"Well, I’m not really sure, but we’ll call the hotel and have them give you a wake up call. Ok?" asked AJ.

"That sounds great. Just don’t have them call at like 5 in the morning," I said sarcastically.

"Sounds like a plan," Court said as we headed up the grand staircase to where the elevators were.

"Bye guys," I turned back and said before I followed her up the stairs.

"I still feel like I’m dreaming," I said after the elevator door closed.

"Me too," Court replied.

When we got to our floor, we walked down the hall to find our rooms. My room number was 269 and Court’s was 270. We opened the door to my room and walked in. Wow! The room was split into two levels, separated by a few steps. As we walked in and turned on the lights, I could see on the lower level that there was a huge bed off in one corner and a Jacuzzi in another. On the upper level there was a couch and table along one wall and a little breakfast nook with a sink, stove, and a few cabinets on the other. I slowly walked over to where the bathroom was and found a huge counter with two sinks. I went through a small sliding door to find the shower and the toilet.

"Wow! This place is huge! This is great. I wish Mel could be here," I said as I wandered over to the couch and sat down. "I noticed that they even brought our stuff up for us. I bet your room looks sort of like this one."

I motioned for Court to sit down on the comfy couch, so she walked over and sat down. We sat for a few minutes thinking about what had just happened.

Court got up and said, "I’m tired, so I’m going to go to my room and go to bed. I am so exhausted. Call me in the morning when you get up. Oh, and don’t forget to call Mel."

"I was just thinking about calling her, so I won’t forget. I guess I’ll see ya in the morning then," I said to Court before she went out the door.

I reached over to the little table stand that sat next to the couch and grabbed the phone. I slowly dialed Mel’s number and waited patiently while it rang. It rang four times and then the answering machine came on.

"Hi. You have reached Mel’s place. You just missed me. Leave your name, number and time you called and I’ll get back to you as soon a possible," the machine said.

"Hi Mel. This is Liz. We are here at the hotel and I’m sitting on the couch that’s in my room. This place is so huge! I wish you could be here. I have some exciting news to tell you so give me a call at the Marriott Hotel in Orlando. You can use my calling card that I gave you before I left. Ask for my room and they should connect you. Love ya and toodles!" I said before I hung up the phone.

Just as I set the phone down, it rang again. ‘That was weird,’ I thought as I picked up the phone.

"Hello," I said in a questioning voice.

"Hey there. Did you get settled in?" said the boyish voice on the other end of the line.

"Is this Nick?" I asked with curiosity.

"Yeah. How is the room? We stayed in that hotel once. It was when we first started out, so we didn’t have billions of fans following us around," he explained.

"The room is great. I bet that you wouldn’t mind being like that again, not having fans follow you around and pulling out your hair," I said as we both laughed at my comment.

"So, does Liz really like us that much?" he asked in an egotistical way.

"Huh? What do you mean?" I asked.

"This is Courtney, right?" he asked persistently.

"Duh! Anyway, I do know that she listens to your music a lot. She totally adores AJ and she really respects you guys," I said. I sure hoped he couldn’t tell that it was me posing as Court.

"Well, I just wanted to make sure you were comfortable in your room. Maybe we can go dancing or to a club tomorrow night or something," Nick said in a hopeful voice.

"Sure, I’ll talk to Liz. I’m pretty sure that she’ll want to go too, if that’s ok with you," I said.

"That’s fine with me," he said.

"So it’s a plan then?" I asked.

"Yeah. We can talk more about it tomorrow," he said.

"Do you have a phone number that I can contact you with?" I asked.

"Yeah. Hang on. I’ll give you the number to my cell phone," he said as he fumbled with something in the background.

He gave me the number, we said our good-byes and hung up. ‘How am I supposed to tell Court that Nick has a thing for her? What have I gotten myself into?’ I thought to myself. I have to think of a way to tell Court that she will be going out with a Backstreet Boy tomorrow night. I thought about what to do until my head hurt. I took some Tylenol and headed to bed.