Chapter Ten The next morning Kevin, Brian, Howie, and Kristen were all sitting around Jive waiting for their two missing band mates to show their faces. “Were the heck are they!”  Said Kevin looking down at his watch. “Maybe AJ wasn’t feeling good this morning.”  Suggested Howie. Kevin sighed.  “Ok, that excuses AJ, but what about Nick?” Everybody just shrugged and went back to talking among themselves. *****@***** “Fuck this is not my day!”  Yelled AJ as he was yet again stopped at a traffic light. “Why does it seem that whenever you are late to something, you always seem to hit every single fucking light possible.”  He yelled again even though he was the only one in the car. **Ring**  **Ring** “Who the fuck is it!”  He screamed into his cell phone. //“Whoa, man get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?”  Laughed Nick on the other end of the phone.// AJ sighed.  “No, it just hasn’t been my day.  I’m sure Kevin is probably shitting his pants cuz I’m not there right now huh?” //”I wouldn’t know, I’m not there either.”// AJ turned into the Jive parking lot and turned off his car.  “What do you mean you’re not there.  Where are you?” //”I’m at home.”// “What the fuck are you doing at home!  Asked AJ getting out of the car and walking towards the building. “Are you sick?” //”No, but I’m going to have to be late, and I need for you to stall for me.”// “You want me to do what?”  Yelled AJ, getting a few strange stares from people standing around the lobby.  “You want me to do what?”  He said quieter. //”I need you to stall for me.  I have to go with Justin over to Nsync’s sound check this morning.”// “No, you have to be here for this recording session, Nick.  We’ve been wanting to do this for months now.  We are all finally in the same town, and now you want to bail on us.” //”I never said I was bailing on anybody.  I’m just going to be a little late.” Said Nick in exasperation.   “Justin is going to tell them.”// AJ sighed.  He should have known that was the reason for this.  “Hey, I’m sorry man.  Yeah, I will cover for you some how.” //”Thanks Bone, and you can tell them where I am, just don’t say why.  Me and Justin should be there within the next few hours.”// “Justin’s coming too?” //”Yeah, we will be telling the guys today too. But hey I need to get going now, and you are probably already outside the recording studio as we speak and I don’t want to give Kevin the chance to talk to me.”// AJ laughed.  “All right Nick, I’ll talk to you later then.”  With that both boys hung up the phone and AJ walked into the studio where he knew the rest of the guys were. Kevin turned his head when he saw AJ walk into the room.  “Hey Jay, where were ya?” “This hasn’t been my morning Kev.”  He said walking over to one of the over stuffed couches and sat down. “No feeling so hot  Aje?  Morning sickness getting to you?”  Asked Howie walking over and sitting down next to his friend. “Yeah, and plus I think I’m getting a cold, and I cant take anything for it.”  He sniffed. “Ok, we are all here besides Nick, that boy hasn’t been this late for years.” “He’ll be here in an hour or so Kev, he just called me in the car.” Kevin turned to AJ.  “Why is he going to be that late?  What could be more important then us finally having studio time?” “He’s over at the arena talking with N’sync.” Now everybody was looking at AJ. “Oh great, you go out and become a father and don’t see your friends for a few weeks, and then come back and find out your best friend has left the group to go with your rivals.  This is great.”  Said Brian in exasperation. AJ looked at his friends in shock.  “Fuck guys, would you just wait for Nick to come so he can explain what is going on!” Brian looked down at his feet and then back up to AJ.  “Sorry Bone, I was out of line with that last comment.” Kevin cleared he throat.  “Why don’t we get started with the things we can do without Nick.”  He suggested. Everybody nodded and began talking about what they wanted the new album to sound like. *****@***** “That went a lot better then I had expected.”  Said Justin happily.  Nick smiled. It had been a long time since he had seen his boyfriend this giddy.  “Just one more group of guys and we are home free.” Justin held onto Nick’s hand a little tighter as they walked into the Jive building.  They were almost to the elevator when a voice made them stop in their tracks. “Justin what are you doing here?  I thought you guys were over doing sound checks.”  Exclaimed Johnny. Nick felt Justin tense up against him.  Now was as good of a time as any to just keep doing what he loved.  They would be telling everybody before it was the end of the week so why not start now.  “He’s coming upstairs with me for a few minutes.”  Nick stated, pulling Justin closer to him. Johnny looked at the slight gesture Nick was using and laughed.  “What’s going on guys?” Justin looked too Nick for help.  When Nick gave him that, ‘You need to stick up for yourself look’ he pulled away from Nick slightly and looked at Johnny.  “Nick and I are a couple.” *****@***** Justin was even giddier then he was earlier after they were finally finished talking with Johnny.  To both men’s surprise the older man had taken things with extreme understanding.  With promises to tell him when they were ready to go pubic all three had hugged and Nick and Justin headed towards the elevators, which is where they are now. “You know I’m about ready to stop this elevator and make love to you right now.”  Said Nick kissing Justin on the lips slightly. Justin smiled.  “You know I would love that, but we’ve gota talk to the rest of the guys quickly because I really do need to be back for my part of sound check.” Nick sighed and looked down.  “Do you think this can go away on its own?” Justin followed Nick’s eyes and swallowed hard, his own jeans starting to feel a little to snug for his liking.  This was great, two very horny boy band members, who couldn’t do anything about it.  “its gunna have to.”  He said pointing to the open elevator doors. *****@***** Brian was in the sound booth trying to get his vocals down when Nick and Justin walked into the room hand in hand.  He was the first one to see this and couldn’t believe his eyes. “Hey, Kevin look what just walked in.”  Talking into the head set that was in his ears. Kevin turned to look at what Brian had told him to and shook his head at the sight.  He always knew his little ‘brother’ had some sort of feelings for the youngest member of the other group.  Walking out of the control room he walked over towards the two men.  “Nice to finally see you, Nick.” Nick looked up at Kevin scared.  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t of been late I…” “Nick! I’m not yelling at you for crying out loud.  AJ told us you were talking with Nysnc, and now I can see why.”  Said Kevin pointing at Nick and Justin’s hands. “You’re not mad?” Kevin shook his head.  “Come over here lets get all the guys together and talk about this.” *****@***** Almost an hour later the Nick and Justin were laughing with the rest of the guys.  If anybody would have walked into the room you wouldn’t have been able to notice that they were about to have to make one of the hardest decisions of their lives. “So you guys want to tell the media and fans about this, I’m assuming.”  Said Howie. Nick, Justin, and AJ nodded. “Marshall and I have talked about it a number of times.  I guess we’ve both came to the conclusion that if our careers get screwed over then at least we will still have each other.  We’ve all had a great time being a part of the BSB, but as Brian has already done, we are all ready to move on a start a family.”  Said AJ, whishing his boyfriend was there right now. “Nick and I feel the same way.” “Well then I guess the next thing to do is to get all three sets of management together and talk about all of this.”  Said Kevin.  He was very proud of the youngest members of the group.  They were no longer the scared kids the once were.  Yes, life was just about to probably take a turn for the worse, but AJ was right, their lives are much more then The Backstreet Boys.