“Have you seen Brian or Michelle? Or AJ for that matter?” Howie asked Irene, who had been chatting him up all night.

“Oh, uh… no. So, Howie… are you and your girlfriend… serious?”

“Well, yeah… I’d like to think of us as serious. I don’t know how she feels, though.”

“Oh.” Irene frowned.

Meanwhile…

“I’m sorry miss, I can’t let you in,” the guard said.

“But…but… I’m Kevin Richardson’s girlfriend!” Lynnsey cried.

The guard laughed. “Yeah, babe. That’s what they all say. If you leave now, I won’t call the cops, okay?”

Lynnsey’s eyes pleaded with him. “Please, just go get Kevin and he’ll verify to you that I’m his girlfriend. Please! I traveled several hours to be here! The plane ticket was not cheap!”

The guard picked up the phone next to him in the security booth. “Yeah, can you get Kevin Richardson to come to the phone? I need him to verify something for me.”

Lynnsey smiled, glad that things were about to be fixed.

The guard was put on hold for a few minutes. A few minutes turned into many.

The guard hung up the phone. “Look miss, it looks like they can’t find him, or they did and he won’t come to the phone. You know why? Because he has no girlfriend. Those Backyard Boys aren’t allowed to have girls. So why don’t you just scoot and go back to staring at the posters on your walls, ok?”

Lynnsey face crumpled, and a tear streamed down her left cheek. She turned and walked back to her rental car, humiliated. Maybe she was naïve, or maybe it was because she had lived in a sheltered neighborhood her whole life, but she had never known people to be so mean. She didn’t like the kind of people that dealt with celebrities, and she was getting tired of Kevin never being there for her. Emotionally, or physically.

“I don’t think I can handle this relationship anymore,” Lynnsey said to herself, sadly.

Kevin laughed, his eyes bloodshot. “I … uh … promised my g-girlfriend… Lynn… Lacey…that I wouldn’t get drunk, and so I’m drinking this coke… but… it s-sure does make me feel drunk!” He laughed a loud laugh, and Kayla smiled, amused.

Kayla stroked his mustache. “What your girlfriend doesn’t know can’t hurt her,” she said.

Kevin laughed again. “You’re funny…” His eyes closed.

Kayla’s eyes narrowed. “Kevin?”

His head feel back against the pillow behind him. He was asleep.

“Kevin!” Kayla said, angrily. “Wake up!” How could she hit on him if he was asleep?

A guy she didn’t know approached her. “Is there a Kevin Richardson around here anywhere? Some girl named Lynnsey who claims to be his girlfriend is outside, wanting to talk to him. Kayla glanced at Kevin.

“Oh, uh…no. No Kevin here. I didn’t even know that he had a girlfriend. Probably just some crazy fan.”

The man rolled his eyes, and nodded. He turned on the walkie-talkie he was holding and said into it, “No Kevin here. Tell that crazy girl to go on home. Over.”

Kayla smiled. There was no way she was letting Kevin’s stupid girlfriend butt in on her move for him.

By the time the night was over, Irene was tired of Howie. All he talked about was his girlfriend and his mom. The “Two Women of His Heart” he called them. She was not interested anymore.

“If you want Gretchen and Nick apart, you’re going to have to do it yourself,” Irene told Mandy as they left. Nick had departed the party shortly after Mandy had arrived. He had apparently not wanted to be in her company.

“I’m tired of scheming anyway,” Mandy said. “Looks like nothing will come between Gretchen and Nick.”

Meanwhile…

“Why can’t I stop thinking about David?” Gretchen asked herself.

Howie dialed Kara’s room number in the hospital. She was first scheduled to have gone in for surgery that morning, but it had been pushed back twice, and she had just gone in 3 hours before. She was supposed to be out by now.

Her mom answered the phone. “Oh, Howie! Kara’s been waiting for you to call! Here she is.”

“Hello?”

“Hey babe, how ya feeling?” Howie asked.

“OK, I guess. Well, terrible, actually, but I should feel better in the morning, the doctor said.”

“That’s good. When will the results come in from the surgery?” Howie asked.

“Um… soon. I don’t know when. A week, two weeks. A month. I don’t know,” Kara said. “So anyway… how was the party?” she asked.

“Oh, it’s not over yet, but I’m pretty much partied out. I’m in a guest bedroom. I had to come back here to get away from the noise. A lot of people have left though. Including Brian, Nick and AJ. I have no idea where they went."

“That’s crazy,” Kara said.

Just then, Howie heard a moaning sound… It sounded like someone else was in the room with him.

“Uh, Kara… hold on a sec.”

Howie walked around the bed, and found what he was looking for.

“AJ! What in the…!!” AJ was lying on the floor, starting to sober up.

Howie told Kara he’d have to call her back in the morning.

“What happened? Where’s Jen?” Howie asked, trying to help AJ up.

“I don’t know, man, I don’t know. I can’t think. Just let me go to sleep,” AJ mumbled. Howie sighed as he propped AJ up on the bed. “I guess I’ll take you back to the hotel now. Kevin can be the one to close up the party, and then we’ll all come back tomorrow to clean up.”

Brian had changed into boxers and a T-shirt, and had wrapped the bed blankets around himself. His phone had rung several times, and he knew it was Michelle, so he hadn’t answered it.

He had cried some, and then had gotten angry. His emotions had switched from sadness to anger and back to sadness in the past 2 hours.

He was so tired of putting his heart on the line, and then getting it stomped on. He was tired of being the one that was always faithful, always serious, always caring… AJ and Nick never had these problems. They were never serious about their girls, so they never got hurt. Maybe Nick thought he was doing something good by getting serious about Gretchen, but Brian figured he’d just get hurt in the end.

That’s what love gets you. Hurt and pain. Brian’s thoughts were bitter. But he had learned a lesson.

“No more. The old Brian is gone,” Brian said to himself.

The next morning, AJ woke up and remembered it all. It hit him hard, making his forming headache even worse. A thousand thoughts ran through his mind. #1. “Brian must HATE me.” #2. “Does Jen know? She cheated on me too!”

A knock on his door got him out of bed. It was Howie.

“We’re all gonna head to your uncle’s house to clean up in about a half-hour. Be ready.”

AJ cringed at the thought of what Brian would do when they met up. He dressed hurriedly and left his room. He wanted to talk to Brian alone before the rest of the guys met up with them.

He knocked on Brian’s hotel room door and waited. Brian opened it. When he saw that it was AJ, his face became expressionless.

“We need to talk, now that I’m sober,” AJ said. ‘And with a horrible hangover,’ he thought as his headache became worse.

“About what?” Brian asked. “Do you want to talk about our friendship, or lack there-of? Or do you want to talk about how you made out with my girlfriend… ex-girlfriend last night, totally blowing the trust I had in both of you? Or do you just want to give me lame excuses about how you were drunk, and beg me not to tell your girlfriend what an idiot you are?”

“Look, man, I screwed up. My situation with Jen right now is totally different, so I’m not going to address. I would appreciate if you wouldn’t say anything to her, though. I want to talk to her before anyone else does.”

“I don’t owe you anything,” Brian replied, putting a pair of socks into his suitcase.

“I know. Look, Brian… I am truly sorry. Brian, if I had been in a sober state of mind, that would NEVER have happened! I would never ever betray you like that on purpose! There’s nothing I can do to make up for what happened, but I want you to know that I am sincerely sorry. You know that I hit on every girl that breathes, right? Well, that’s excluding my best friends’ girlfriends. That’s not me. You don’t have to forgive me right this instant. I’m just asking that you’ll think about it, and that gradually, you’ll forgive me. Dude, we’ve been through so much together – the 5 of us – we can’t let something like this ruin our friendships. Please?”

Brian paused. “Sure, AJ. Just… go. You’re not the one that broke my heart anyway. I just want to do something to hurt her like she hurt me…” The last sentence was mumbled.

“Brian… revenge isn’t the way to go.”

“Look, AJ, I’ll think about forgiving you, but not if she try to tell me what to do. It’s my life.”

“Sure, sure,” AJ left the room, and sighed, thankful that Brian would eventually forgive him. Now, to deal with Jen… She had kissed Curtis… So she wouldn’t have any right to be mad about what happened with him and Michelle.

Lynnsey wrote furiously the words that would end the frustration her relationship with Kevin was putting her through-

Loving you hasn’t been the hard part of our relationship- it’s been dealing with everything that comes along with loving you. Kevin, it’s just not the right time. I’m starting college again, and the way things are going, I’m going to fail this last semester because of all the stress dating you has put me under. It sounds really selfish, and I guess it is, but I have sacrificed SO MUCH for this relationship- I want it all back. I don’t need to be dating anyone right now. Jumping from a 4 year relationship with Ross to dating you, a big star with a wonderful life and future… well, that was just stupid. I left something I was comfortable and familiar with, but tired of, to something I was so unfamiliar with and scared of… You mean so much to me, Kevin, and I am crying as I write this… It has to be over between us. I came to the party, Kevin, but they wouldn’t let me in. And you weren’t there to get me, and it just seems like you haven't been there for me lately. Ironic as it may sound, them not letting me into your party seems to be symbolic of our differences not letting me into your life. If that’s the way it has to be… we have to deal with that. This is the best for both of us- I know this relationship was hard for you too. The long-distance and the not being able to get in touch every day, I know it wasn’t easy for you. So I’m ending this for the both of us. I’m so, so sorry. I love you. Good-bye – because I love you.*

She waited by the hotel the Backstreet Boys were staying at until she saw the five of them leave in a rental car. They were going back to the party site, no doubt. She walked into the hotel lobby, and left the message in an envelope for Kevin to pick up when he got back.

She got into her own rental car, and drove to the airport. She didn’t look back out the window as the airplane left New York.