He didn't have a choice. Trent looked up as he let room service in -- and smiled.

"Hey Joey. Care to join me?"

"Nah, I just had breakfast." Joey patted his stomach.

"Well, you could just come in and talk to me," Trent said. "You don't have to eat anything."

"Just keep you company?"

"Yeah."

Joey thought for a second, then deemed himself crazy for hesitating. "Sure." He grinned and walked toward Trent, who had stepped out of the doorway to let Joey pass.

When Joey walked in, the room service guy looked at him funny, then looked at Trent, then looked back at him. Joey sat down on the couch, feeling uncomfortable and unsure of what to do with himself.

Trent tipped the room service guy and laughed. I guess it was odd that he and Joey would be acquaintances.

"You know, it's a tragedy that that guy is the only one who's going to see the irony of this situation," Trent said. He sat down at the table and poured himself some coffee.

"This situation?"

"You and me. We're... like from different worlds."

"I'm not so sure," Joey said. He pulled at the seam of his shorts.

"Come over here, sit at the table," Trent said and pulled out a chair.

"Okay." Joey stood up still not sure of what he was doing.

"So maybe we're not from different worlds?" Trent buttered his toast and spread it with honey.

"Yeah," Joey said, and began to relax. "We're both in the music business, we both deal with crazy fans -- it's just the style of music that's different."

Trent smiled.

"It's more like we're just in different zip codes."

"So, like, you're from the east side, and I'm from the west side?"

"Yeah, kind of like that." Joey looked around the room, trying not to stare at Trent. There was a Dali painting over the fireplace -- the one with Jesus on the cross. He couldn't remember the name of it.

Trent chewed his toast and looked in the direction Joey was. "Yeah, that's a great painting. I was thrilled when I first walked in the room."

Joey looked back at Trent, caught his gaze, and quickly looked away again.

"And those candelabras over there," he pointed to the other side of the room, "those are pretty cool too. This room didn't suck as bad as I thought it would."

Joey smiled. "I don't have any candelabras in my room. And I have a silly painting of a barn hanging on the wall."

Trent chuckled, nearly coughing on bits of toast. "That's too bad."

Joey exhaled, and forced himself to calm down. He was glad that Trent wanted to talk to him, but he still felt like they were on uneven ground.

Trent tried to liven the conversation. "You know, I'm still not sure what to think of the whole 'boyband' invasion."

Joey's attention was suddenly perked. "Yeah, well I know what you're supposed to think."

"And what would that be?"

"That we all suck."

Trent laughed, and Joey never thought he'd ever hear him laugh so much. "Oh yeah, that." Trent stopped eating, as if deep in thought.

Joey rolled his eyes. "You don't think that though, do you."

After a pause just long enough to make Joey squirm, Trent said "Naw. Not really." He took a sip of his coffee. "I mean, I haven't really heard much of your stuff, but I don't HATE your music."

"I thought so," Joey smiled widely. "But you did recognized me, so you must know something about my music."

"I do," Trent said. "I saw you perform at the Video music awards -- with Britney Spears." He scrunched his face up as he said the last part of the sentence.

Joey laughed, "I guess you don't like Britney then."

"Not really."

"I'll tell you something though, I don't know any of the others' names," Trent said. "Except Justin, but I don't know which one he is."

Joey's eyes widened in surprise. "So how did you know my name?"

Trent smiled, and almost blushed, if that is at all possible. "It was your hair. You kind of stood out. I end up asking someone later about the cute guy with the red hair. They told me your name."

Joey felt delirious, like the time when he was three and fell off the stairs with his tricycle.

To make it worse, Trent reached over and ran his fingers through Joey's hair. "You should have kept the red, I liked it."

End.

Originally written as an *Mprov on 11/22/00, with the words Dali, tricycle, tragedy, invasion, candelabra.