* * * Chapter 11 * * *

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~ AJ ~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

My eyes bolted open when I heard loud screaming and hysteric laughing coming from behind the closed door of the back room. I rolled out of my bunk, knowing that I wouldn’t get much more sleep than I already had, turned the handle of the door and pushed it open to find Liz tickling and playfully beating Nick. I chuckled at the sight of my girlfriend beating up one of the guys, especially Nick. He squirmed around on the floor while Liz victoriously tickled him ‘til I thought he was gonna turn blue from lack of oxygen. She only let up long enough to let him get a big breath before she continued in the torture session.

"I told you I was going to getcha didn’t I?" she asked with a sly smile as Nick laughed under her tickling fingers.

He nodded and then squirmed again. He looked like a fish out of water...I couldn’t help but laugh at how funny he looked. They didn’t seem to notice that they had an audience so I just kept quiet and watched from the doorway. She let up after a few more minutes, but kept him on the ground. He lay on his back on the floor and tried to catch his breath as Liz kneeled beside him. She bent over so she was about 4 inches from his face.

"Consider this a warning..." she said in a serious, low voice. "Don’t EVER do that again."

And with that, she stood up and turned to face me. She gave me a smile that said she’d taken care of ‘the problem’ as she led me into the hall before she shut the door behind us.

"Come with me," I told her as I took her hand and led her off the bus.

"Where’re we goin’?" she asked as I led her to where D had parked his purple ‘Vette convertible.

"Somewhere," I replied with a sly smile as I opened the passenger door for her.

I’d made a bargain with Howie to make sure that he’d have some time to spend with Meg if he let me use his ‘Vette’. Of course, he’d said yes so here we were, driving down the freeway towards the airport with the top down and music blaring from the speakers. I knew that Liz had no idea where we were going and I was determined to keep it that way. When we were almost to the right exit, I pulled off the exit ramp and stopped the car for a few minutes. She gave me a confused look as I bent over and retrieved a black blindfold from the glove box.

"I sure hope you don’t expect me to put that on," she said when she saw what I had in my hand.

"Please?" I asked as I stuck my bottom lip out and gave her a cute ‘puppy dog’ face that I knew she couldn’t resist.

"Aaawww...don’t do that!" she said as she turned to look the other way.

I leaned over and turned her head back so she was looking at me and gave her a soft kiss on the lips to let her know that I really wanted her to do this for me.

"I only do it ‘cause I know you can’t help givin’ in," I teased her as she looked at me with a weird look on her face.

"Fine..." she replied after a few more seconds.

She turned around a little bit so I could tie the scarf around her eyes before we resumed our way to the airport. She sat there silently until the car came to a stop in the short-term parking lot. I helped her out, put the top up on the car, and then took her arm in mine as I led her into the airport and towards the right gate. I wasn’t exactly sure how she’d react when she saw who was going to be walking out of the terminal, but I did know that she hadn’t seen this person in quite a while. I took the blindfold off of her eyes when we were standing in front of the door to gate B9 where the flight from Denver International Airport would be unloading in a few seconds. She didn’t know that the flight was from DIA, but she did know that we were here to pick up Lyndsay’s replacement.

"Wha..."

"Sssshhhh! No questions," I whispered into her ear as she watched the first few passengers exit the plane.

She had sunglasses on over her blue-green eyes, but I could see her scanning the crowd in front of the open terminal door. When I talked to her on the phone, she told me what to look for so I’d know it was her...and there she came, walking out the door with a BRIGHT yellow backpack on that had a self-designed Winnie the Pooh insignia on it. I noticed her right away, but it took her a few minutes to notice us in the crowd. I was wearing the usual ‘disguise’ of dark sunglasses and a fisherman’s hat pulled way over my eyes. The long sleeves of my shirt helped a little too, blocking the view of my tattoos from the eyes of any fans. Obviously Liz didn’t see her as she made her way over to us.

"LIZ?!? Oh my gosh!!!" the girl squealed with excitement as she quickly walked up and threw her arms around Liz. "I haven’t seen you in FOREVER!"

I could tell that Liz was a little puzzled at who it was because she didn’t really get to see the girl’s face before she was bombarded.

"Umm...ok," Liz mumbled before the girl let go.

Once she saw the girl’s face, a smile grew on her face and then she turned and gave me a grin. I smiled back as Liz reached out and gave her sister a bear hug.

"Oh goll...it’s been like two years," Liz said as her sister hugged her back.

"I know. And you’re soooo...*paused to find a word* skinny. You’ve changed a lot."

Liz became quiet at her sister’s comment.

"You’re not anorexic are ya?" her sister joked.

"No," Liz replied before she wrapped her right arm around my waist and leaned into me.

I knew that she was uncomfortable with her sister’s question, but decided not to say anything.

"By the way, this is Alex," she said as she put her hand on my stomach.

I had told her to call me that in public so we didn’t have any people mobbing me in the middle of the airport.

"Hi," the girl replied as she stuck out her hand. "I’m Tina."

"It’s nice to finally meetcha," I said with a smile while I shook her hand. "Well, we’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow, so let’s go get your bags."

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~ Nick ~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

When AJ and Liz came back from the airport, everyone was introduced to her sister. Her name was Tina and she’d be taking over for Lyndsay as Meg and Liz’s back-up singer. She had brown hair that fell halfway down her back with reddish blond highlights. She was a little shorter than Liz was. Everyone, including AJ left them alone for a few hours so they could ‘catch up’ on what was happening on the home front.

‘I would’ve done it if AJ wasn’t there watching us’ I thought to myself as I remembered when Liz had warned me earlier. If he wasn’t standing in the doorway, I would’ve reached up and kissed her right then and there until she was totally breathless...and speechless for that matter. ‘Oh well...there’s always next time.’

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~ Liz ~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

"We’ve got to try this out before we actually use it on them," Tina told me as we sat in my bunk looking at the contraption she had brought along. "I mean, I know it works, but I still wanna make sure it’ll suit your needs."

"Ok. We can try it on AC," I replied with a sly smile. "Let’s go."

She followed me out of the bus and over to AC’s bus. Jane was in the entertainment room playing and miserably loosing to Airboy. Tina stayed outside and watched through the window for the signal. I waited for AC to go into the bathroom for a few minutes before I nodded out the window, letting Tina know that she was clear to push the button. I almost died laughing when I heard the flatulent noises coming from the receiver end of the device. I had stuck it above the bathroom door on the outside so he couldn’t see it, but he could definitely hear it. I physically fought myself from laughing out loud when I saw Jane making faces at the noises coming from the bathroom area. Little did she know, it was all coming from a machine. I stood up and walked out to the bunks and then ducked into one of them. AC walked out of the bathroom with a VERY red face before he went back into the room to resume his game with his mother. I nonchalantly retrieved the small device above the door and exited the bus to give Tina a full report of the efficiency of the machine.

"This thing is ingenious! It’s gonna be sooooo good!" I exclaimed as I pulled her by her arm towards the girl dancer’s bus. "We’ve got to show them."

After a full service demonstration to the other SheDevil members, they unanimously agreed to use it in our last and final war battle. We had already gotten ready for our next battle and we all voted that we’d do it the next morning during the final run-down practice that Fatima had scheduled for the guys and their band. Everyone else (Jane, Denise, and AC) would be helping us so it wouldn’t be a problem at all. Tina and I decided that we were going to go to bed so we left the dancer’s bus and headed for our own. When we got there, we explained the whole ‘fart machine’ device to Jane, Denise, Arti, and Meg before we all had a good laugh. We settled down when Jane and Denise went to bed, so we just decided to go to bed too.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~ Arti ~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

When I opened my eyes for about the billionth time since we had gone to bed last night, I rolled over and slid out of my bunk to see who else was up. The truth be told, I was not only VERY anxious about our last ‘bombing’ of the guy’s bus, but I was also a little excited bout the tour officially getting under way today. Meg pulled back the curtain of her bunk and Liz did the same when they heard me walkin’ around. They both rolled out of bed at the same time and we all walked to the back room in our pajamas. I was wearing a pair of pajama shorts with a pale pink tank top. Meg was wearing about the same thing, but with a white tee. Liz looked the most comfortable though. She was wearing baggy satin pajama bottoms (they actually looked pretty cool to wear in this hot weather) and an oversized white v-neck tee. Her hundreds of tiny braids were pulled back in a scrunchy and she was wearing glasses instead of her usual contacts. ‘How does she look like that every morning...I can’t even get my hair to look like that ANYtime...’ I thought to myself as I studied her features.

"Everyone up and at ‘em?" Jane called from the kitchenette in the front.

"Yep," Meg called back.

We all walked to the front of the bus to see Denise, Jane, and AC sitting at the table waiting for us. They were all in their pajamas too, so we weren’t feeling a direct obligation to change into some real clothes. When I heard Liz’s cell phone ringing, I walked back to her bunk and picked it up.

"Yep...we’re ready and waiting," I told Dee. "We’ll meetcha inside their bus."

I told everyone up front that it was time to strike, so we all headed out and quietly went towards the guy’s bus. When we got there, Gilli and Red were carrying pumpkins in the doors to put in Kev’s bunk (‘cause his nickname is Pumpkin). Cher was headed towards the Security’s bus with Tyke in hand...they’d be ‘dog-sitting’ him for a few days...or until Brian found him there, whichever came first. Jane and Denise carried the three large bowls of spaghetti that we had preordered from an Italian take-out restaurant last night and began splattering it all over the outside. AC rushed inside and took all the controllers and games for Nick’s video games systems and went to stash them in his bus. Meg grabbed the two gallons of severely diluted red Kool-Aid (minus the sugar) in milk jugs and began pouring it into the water tank of the guy’s bus. They wouldn’t be stained pink or anything, but they’d know someone had done something to their water supply. Chaun retrieved the blankets from the guy’s bunks and stashed them in the luggage compartments underneath the bus. I took the liberty to take the feathers out of Bri’s pillow and then filled it back up with dried macaroni noodles. Then I took ALL of the light bulbs out of the sockets and put them in the bottom of the garbage can in the bathroom, not wanting to be TOO mean...LOL. Red came in and took AJ’s suitcase full of his sunglasses and gave it to AC so he could stash it in one of the empty bunks on his bus. Dee took the silverware from the guy’s kitchenette and put it in the band’s bus. That’s one thing with these busses, all the busses have their own things...silverware, dishes, and stuff like that. No bus had the same ones as any of the other busses so you could tell whose was whose. Liz worked on getting the baby monitor into the heating vent in the ceiling while I put the receiver for the ‘fart machine’ sort of underneath the mattress in Howie’s bunk so he wouldn’t be able to see it even if he was looking for it. When I was finished with that, I went into the bathroom and exchanged all of their colognes to different bottles...so when Nick went to put on his cologne, he’d actually be wearing AJ’s and so forth. By the time everyone was done, it had only taken us about fifteen minutes total. We all met inside and Liz wrote the message in red lipstick on the large bathroom mirror.

Everyone except AC put lipstick on and then kissed the mirror to leave our prints. Each person signed their SD names next to their mark. ‘ASD’ I signed next to mine with a heart. We all quickly cleaned up any evidence that would lead this back to us and headed back to our own busses before the guys came back out. Liz went to the back of the bus and put a CD in the stereo before she turned it WAY up so we all could hear it. You could probably hear it from the building it was so loud. Everyone began jumping and dancing around. Liz was burst out in the words because the rest of us only knew the words to a few of the Dixie Chicks songs.

"Ready, ready, ready to run. All I’m ready to do is have some fun! What’s all this talk about love?!?" we all sang.

If someone were to walk in and see us, they’d probably tell us that we’d had too much sugar and that we’d need to go visit the funny farm.

"I feel the wind blow through my hair...I’m gonna be ready this time. I’ll buy a ticket to anywhere...I’m gonna be ready this time. Ya see it feels like I’m stuck in a cage...I’m gonna be ready this time."

"I didn’t like that movie...Runaway Bride..." Liz burst out as the song ended and shuffled to the next one. "Too predictable."

This time, the song was a more upbeat, fiddle type song that made ya wanna get up and dance. Liz started singing the words with a sly smile on her face as she pulled her hair out of the scrunchy that was holding the braids back.

"Can’t push me ‘round now, I’m drawing the line. He left his life now I’m gonna go live mine. I’m sick of wastin’ my time. Well now I’ve been good now way too long. Found my red dress now I’m gonna put it on. ‘Bout to get too far gone. Praise the Lord," she sang while she threw her hands in the air like the evangelists do on TV. "And pass the ammunition. Need a little bit more of my twelve-ounce nutrition. One more helpin’ and what I’ve been havin. I’m takin’ my turn on the ‘Sin Wagon’." (Sin Wagon ~ Dixie Chicks)

We danced and goofed off for the rest of the song while Jane and Denise made some breakfast. We ate with the music still blaring, but it didn’t bother us. When ‘Earl Had To Die’ started playing, Liz jumped up, threw her dishes in the sink, and opened all the windows so everyone outside could hear the music too. She pulled her hair into a ponytail at the top of her head, slid on some of her slipper socks, and took off outside when she saw the guys heading past our bus.

"Come on girls...we’ve got to go double check the building for things that got left behind," Jane said after Liz shut the door.

Meg, Denise, and I followed Jane to the building. Liz was running around the parking lot singing to the music that was still playing from our bus.

"Wait up ladies!" she yelled to us before she ran in the bus and turned the music off.

She joined us and then we went to scour the building for things that people left.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~ AJ ~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

"I’ll be right back," I told Howie when all the busses stopped at a small gas station along the freeway for a few minutes.

We left about six hours ago, of course after we cleaned up the spaghetti mess all over our bus. It was sort of funny when we came inside after we were done with that...Kev’s bunk was piled with pumpkins. Bri’s pillow was filled with macaroni noodles. Nick just about had a heart attack when he found out that they had taken his games and controllers. My case of sunglasses wasn’t anywhere in sight, but that didn’t really bother me. All the light bulbs had been taken out of the sockets and we didn’t find them in their hiding place until after Nick had broken half of them. They were sitting in the bottom of the bathroom garbage can and Nick was mad so he threw a shoe and it broke all but a few of them. They’d also taken our silverware so we were reduced to buying a box of plastic utensils at the gas station. Howie seemed to have gotten off in this ‘attack’, but we all knew that we’d find out what they’d done to him by the time we got to New York.

I had remembered where I’d seen ‘SheDevils’ before right in the middle of practice this morning and I was bound and determined to find out if my theory was right. I had seen Liz, Arti, Meg, Jane, and mom go into the building for something so I took this opportunity to go in their bus to find out some information. I climbed the steps with a ‘Hi’ to Harry (their bus driver), walked through the kitchenette, and went straight to Liz’s bunk. I pulled the curtain back and climbed in. I lay on my stomach so I was propped up on my elbows and opened the same suede covered book that I had seen before. When I read from this before, I didn’t bother reading the last entries. This time I flipped to the last page that she had written on and began to read her handwriting to myself.

"Today we, the SheDevils of course, attacked the Backstreet bus once again. It was simply ingenious, from the sneakers right down to the cute fleece lamb beanie baby. I heard AJ talking to Bri about who he thinks it is (the band), but man is he wrong! If only he knew that it was us...they’d have gotten us back already. Meg says that Curly’s getting suspicious though...that’s not good! We’ve now got Jane and Denise on our side and I’m going to go convince AC to join us...bribery always works when it comes to men...LOL! I can only imagine AJ’s face when he finds out that I’m in on this too...I just hope he finds it kind of funny rather than getting mad ‘cause that wouldn’t be good. Afterall, we only meant it to be a joke! A rather funny joke at that! :o) Well, the guys are supposed to be back in a little while so I guess I’ll go talk to Meg until they get back. Toodles for now!"

It felt like my eyes popped out of my head when I read the last few sentences. ‘Mom was right’ I thought to myself as I closed the book and put it back in the position I took it from. I had to let the other fellas know that we had been totally humiliated by a bunch of women...A BUNCH OF WOMEN! I mean, it would’ve been funny if the band had done it, but we didn’t even consider that the girls would do something like that to us. I quickly left their bus before they came back out of the building to continue down the freeway towards New York.

"Dang!" I mumbled to myself as I shook my head at how they’d totally outsmarted us all.

"Hey Babe," Liz playfully called out as she walked out the door of the gas station with a ‘grab’ size bag of pretzels in her hand.

"Uh...hi," I replied as I looked up while I was walking and saw her coming over to where I was headed.

"What’s up?"

"Nothin’," I said as casually as possible.

"Everything ok with you and the guys? You seem sorta out of it," she said as she stopped in front of me.

"Naw...naw...everything’s fine," I replied with a half-smile.

"Good. Hey...you should come ride with us for a while," she exclaimed with a happy smile. "You look like you need some cheering up."

"What’re you talking about?" I joked with a silly smile.

"Aaaahhh...there’s the McLean that I know and love," she replied with a grin. "Just needed to see that smile."

She sure had a way of being cute sometimes...and now is one of them. She put her free hand around my back and walked me back to our bus.

"You should ride with US for a while," I said before she let me go.

"Serious?" she asked with a questioning look on her face.

"Yeah."

"You really want me to ride with you guys? I won’t like be invading on your ‘male bonding’ experience or anything?" she asked.

"Psh! I think we bonded a looooooooong time ago...we’ve been together for the last 7 years...And yes! I do want you to come with us," I replied.

"Ok...just let me go get a few things real quick."

I nodded with a smile and watched as she walked away in the opposite direction. Now was my chance to relay the word to the fellas about the SheDevils...it was now or never.

"Howie?" I called out as I walked up the steps of our bus.

"Yeah..."

"Anyone else in here?"

"Just the guys..." he called from the back room.

"Good...I need to talk to all of you," I said as I walked past the bunks and through the open door to the back room.

The listened as I began to explain the whole situation. I told them to just play it cool...as if we didn’t know so that we could think of a good way to get them back. Just as I finished explaining, we heard a knock on the front door. Jeff opened it and we could hear him welcoming the person that had knocked. The door was closed, but we could still hear him.

"Come in...he’s back there," we heard Jeff say as the person climbed the steps and walked through the kitchenette.

It was silent for a few seconds, so I decided to go and see what happened with our visitor. I walked out into the bunk area and shut the door behind me. It was quiet so I decided to go find out who it was from Jeff.

"Hey Jeff. Who was at the door?" I asked casually.

"One of the girls...she went back there. Didn’tcha see her?" he asked as if nothing was wrong.

"Nope...but thanks," I replied before I turned back and shut the door between the kitchenette and the bunks.

I decided to lay down in my bunk and wait for Liz to come so I pulled the curtain back and sat down to pull my shoes off. I spread out on the bed and pulled the curtain halfway shut so it was kinda dark. My heart skipped a beat when I felt a hand being set on my stomach.

"Don’t worry...I’m not gonna kill ya or anything," Liz whispered in my ear.

I didn’t even see her when I sat down to take my shoes off...how’d that happen? Oh well...it didn’t bother me ‘cause at least she’s here with me to put up with Nick’s whining, Kev’s psychology (he’s been really into deep thoughts ever since he and Arti hooked up), Bri’s nervousness over Tyk, and Howie’s constant gushing over the phone with Meg. I rolled over onto my side and leaned my forehead up against hers as she stroked my cheek a little. Her braids were draped over her shoulder so I brushed them away so they hung down her back onto the bed as I put my arm around her side.

"You having fun on the tour so far?" I asked in a low voice.

"Mmmmhmmm."

"Good," I whispered.

She leaned her head into my shoulder and closed her eyes. We both soon fell asleep in each other’s arms as the bus gently rocked us back and forth.