| Chapter Sixteen |
| November "Oh I like that Crystal. It totally flatters you." Lynn Harless smiled as she studied the dress that Crystal was trying on. Crystal studied herself in the mirror. She didn’t like what she saw. You’re fat, she heard Todd grumble. How can I do anything with you if you’re so fat? Stop eating so much, you fucking cow. She felt the tears prick the corners of her eyes, but stopped herself from losing it as she saw Lynn’s approving face staring back at her in the mirror. She immediately plastered a smile across her face, not wanting to ruin Lynn’s day. "You think so Ma? I don't know. I think it makes me look fat." Crystal scrunched up her nose and shook her head. "Oh dear lord, child you are anything but fat. I just dont understand you kids these days. You can never be happy with yourselves. Just get the dress! It's cute!" Lynn said shaking her head. "Alright, alright." Crystal smiled and quickly changed out of the dress back into her other clothes. She decided to get the dress, knowing how happy it would make Lynn if she bought it. "I’ll get the dress, just dont kill me." She laughed, pecking the woman she considered to be her mother on the cheek as she walked over to the cashier. While she was waiting for Crystal to finish paying Lynn's cell phone began blaring its familiar jingle. She smiled when she read the caller ID. "Hello Justin. How are you?" "Great ma." Justin said, sounding like he was in a hurry. Lynn could hear loud noises in the background, and figured he was probably about to go onstage. "Is Crystal with you?" "Yes she's right here. Whats the matter?" Lynn asked her son, her voice full of concern. "Nothing. I just have some big news for her. Could I talk to her?" "Sure honey, hang on." Lynn took the phone away from her ear. "Crystal, Justin is on the phone for you." Crystal smiled and Lynn smiled back in return. Lynn knew she was right the day she hadn't let Justin push Crystal away from him. Now they were in love and the love they had was strong, despite the fact that Justin had been gone for a month with the group. Crystal wouldn't see him again until Thanksgiving. Well, hopefully Thanksgiving, if something else didnt come up. "Hi baby." Crystal smiled. "Hey, how are you?" "Fine, Mom and I have been out shopping all day. I just bought this new dress. Anyway enough about me. How are you? You must be exhausted." "Oh yea. We've been dancing and singing our asses off. I can't wait to come home and see you. I miss you so much babe." "Aww, I miss you too J." "The reason I called is because I have a little bit of news for you." "Oh yeah? What's going on." Crystal questioned. "Well I spoke to this guy from Jive Records the other day, and I told him about you and how good of a PA you were for us, and he said he didn't have any openings for that, but he did need an events coordinator for an upcoming tour and guess what!" Justin spoke quickly and excitedly. "What?" Crystal giggled. "He agreed to give you an interview! Isn't that great! You can have a job again!" "Oh geez J, I-I don't know..." Crystal hesitated. Ever since Johnny had fired her, she had lost a lot of confidence in her job abilities, and was afraid to take on a new task. "What do you mean you don't know? Come on! You're awesome at what you do...you can't just go shopping and flop around the house all the time. You have to do this! Come on baby do it for me!" Justin pleaded with her. "Well where is this thing? When is it?" Crystal asked him reluctantly, dissapointed that she had given into him. "He gave me his number for you to call to set up an interview with him. You got a pen on you?" "Uhhhh...yea..." Crystal grabbed a pen and an old reciept out of her purse. "Ok its 555-0163. That's they guy's direct line. His name is Mike Thompson." He paused for a moment, and Crystal could hear somebody talking to him in the background. After a moment, his voice came back on the line. "Shit baby, I’m sorry...I'm about to go onstage, I just had to call you. Promise me you'll call the guy as soon as you hang up." "But Justin..." Crystal hesistated. "Please babe..." Justin whined. "Please do it." Crystal let out an annoyed groan. "Fine Justin, you win, but if I'm not home when you get back it's not my fault." "I love you girl." Justin said. "I love you too, now get out there and sing you're cute butt off!" Crystal laughed and hung up. "Well...looks like you'll need that dress after all." Lynn laughed. "Ugggg....Ma!" Crystal rolled her eyes. What was she getting herself into now? ********************* "I need you guys to decide weather or not she will be a good asset to our team. Really think hard about this guys. This is our first time touring in the US. Everything has to be taken very seriously." Charlene Roberts, personal assistant to the Backstreet Boys said with a serious tone, focusing her eyes on the youngest members of the group. "What's her name?" Howie asked. "I'm leaving that all up to her to tell you. She needs to speak for herself, so you can make a real assumption about her." Charlene replied. "Don't worry. Everything will be thought out in a serious and adultely manner." Kevin said as he glanced at Nick and AJ. "Hey man, what the hell did I ever do?" Nick whined. "What didn't you do?" Brian snickered. "Shut up man!" Nick said as he threw a rolled up piece of paper at Brian's head. "Hey, I am probably the most mature one here." AJ said solemnly. "Yeah, ok tatoo man." Nick laughed. "That's enough!" Kevin yelled. Silence once again filled the room as they all waited for their potential new fan coordinator to arrive, more curious than ever. *************************** "Ms. McKay, they are ready for you now." the secretary at the desk announced after answering a brief phone call. "Thanks." Crystal smiled at her and headed towards the door to the office. She was so nervous. When she went for the interview with Mike Thompson she had never thought he would like her as much as he did. He had wanted to hire her for the job on the spot. But had been told by the artists management that they would have to meet with her first before making a final decision. The worst part was Mike wasnt allowed to tell her what artist she would be representing. It was a Jive policy, so there would be no preassumptions made about the artist by the employee or about the employee by the artist. She put her hand on the doorknob, but couldnt make herself turn it. By accepting this job, she would be away from Justin, away from all her friends that she was so used to touring with. She had no idea who these people were, they knew nothing about her. Who would she be able to confide in about her problems? Sure, she could always call somebody but it wasn't the same. She stared at the door, and considered turning around and walking away, before the secretary’s voice broke through her thoughts. "Ma'am? Is everything ok?" Crystal looked back over her shoulder. "Huh? Oh...yeah." She forced a smile. "Everything is just fine." She swallowed the lump of fear that had formed in her throat and finally pushed the door open. She nearly fainted when she saw the five men who were sitting in the small office. "Hi...I'm Charlene Roberts." The young woman said as she walked up to her. But Crystal didn't hear her. She couldn't stop staring at Nick Carter as he stared back at her with the same shocked and confused look on his face that she had. She couldn't believe this. What was going on? Why was he everywhere she went? "What's the matter?" Kevin looked in the direction Crystal was staring in. "AJ are you making sexual gestures already?" he rolled his eyes. "I thought we talked about that." "Man...why do you always think I’m doing something wrong?" AJ whined. "Oh...nothings the matter. He didn’t do anything wrong." She said, letting out a nervous laugh. "Hi I'm Crystal McKay." Crystal said quickly as she snapped herself back into reality, finally shaking Charlene's hand. "Nice to meet you Crystal, I’m Kevin Richardson." He smiled. "These are the rest of the guys. Howie Dorough, Brian Littrell, AJ McLean, and Nick Carter." Kevin pointed out from left to right. "Hi." the rest of the guys said in unison. "Don't I know you?" AJ question, searching her face for a memory. He never forgot a face. "Umm...do you?" Crystal answered nervously. She was so pathetic...of course he knew who she was. He had been there when she had been talking to Nick in Germany. "Yeah, yea I do know you." He smirked. "You were that girl that Nick was trying to pick up awhile back." He glanced over at a red faced Nick Carter and let out a good hearty laugh. "Good decision not to go with him, he smells really bad." "Like a big ol’ fart." Brian snickered, wanting to get back at Nick for spraying him down with whipped cream the night before. Howie rolled his eyes. "Yeah guys dont give her a good impression of us or anything." Nick stared at Brian in disbelief. Oh, was he going to get hell later. "I don’t smell!" Nick whined and looked at Crystal with pleading eyes. "I don't smell." Crystal couldn't help herself. She burst into a fit of hystericall laughter. "You want the job Crystal? Because I dont think anyone else will want to put up with them." Kevin smiled pointing to the rest of the guys. "But you don't know anything about me!" Crystal giggled. "Yeah way to think things of over Mr. Professional." Brian mocked. Charlene rolled her eyes. "Don't mind them, they're in a playfull mood." She narrowed her eyes on Brian, AJ, and Nick. "A bit too playfull." Crystal giggled. "It's ok." she quickly glanced in Nick's direction. He wouldn't stop looking at her. It gave her chills. "Well I guess we better get this interview started." Charlene smiled and picked up her notepad. Crystal took a deep breath in. This was crazy. ******************** "Go lower." Crystal said, lying face down on the beach. Justin was on top of her, massaging her back. "Like this?" Justin said as he kissed the small of her back lightly. "Yeah." Crystal laughed softly. "That's good." "So did those people call you yet?" Justin asked as he continued to work his skilled hands up and down her back. "No. I probably didn't get the job." she replied. "You don't know that yet. Give it another week. It's the Backstreet Boys. Their management probably has alot of other things to plan before they call you." "Maybe it's better if they don't call me." Crystal replied quickly. "What? Why? I thought you wanted this babe." he asked her with a surprised tone, getting off her and laying down next to her. "I do...it's just that...something really weird is going on." Crystal turned over on her side so she could face Justin. "Weird?" Justin laughed flashing his beautiful smile. "Back when I was touring with you in Germany I kept running into Nick Carter. It was the strangest thing, like just out of nowhere he would be there, and I dont know...I guess we sort of had...well..." Crystal hesistated. "What?" Justins smile faded into a worried frown. "Oh no babe, nothing happened." Crystal kissed her boyfriend reassuringly. "It's just that we had this connection. I can't describe it. I felt like I knew him really well even though I had never even laid eyes on him before. I'm just scared of what could happen or what might happen..." Crystal stroked his face with her hand. Justin sat up and pushed her hand away. "Are you saying something...or someone is going to come between us, after all the hard work we did to rebuild our relationship?" Crystal shook her head. "I-I don't know what I'm saying." "I can't believe you're thinking this way. I love you Crys' and I thought you loved me." Justin shook his head. "Oh J...I do...I love you so much. Can't I just talk to you? I'm not saying something will happen specifically with us. I'm just saying I have a weird feeling inside when I'm around Nick, and I don't know if I should take the job if I get it." Crystal said seriously. Justin sighed. "But you should take the job. You need to do this for yourself and not worry about anybody else. I have faith in our relationship. It's strong and nothings going to come between us now. Not after everything else we've had to deal with. I'm probably not going to be around much after this break. We'll probably see more of each other if you take the job than if you don't, with all the business functions that go on." "So you're saying you’re ok with me being around all of these mixed emotions." Crystal asked. "Of course I am. I trust you babe. And I love you." he smiled, kissing her passionately. "I love you too." she sighed. Hoping that he was right. Hoping that Nick Carter was nothing more than just a nice guy. |