Chris hesitated, he was drunk, who knew what he was thinking. "You want to talk now?"
"Please?" His eyes pleaded with her, his blond hair sticking straight up in the air, he was too cute to say no to.
"Alright." Against her better judgment, she nodded.
Nick stood up, swaying a little bit. "In my room, ok?"
Chris stood up, looked at Lisa. "You ok here?"
"If it's cool with Howie?" Lisa asked.
"Fine with me." He nodded.
Chris followed a very drunken Nick into his room, sitting down on the bed next to him. "Nick," she was scared to look at him.
"Chris," he interrupted her. "Please, just let me talk?" With one finger under her chin, he turned her face, looking into her eyes, using every bit of his charm.
Chris nodded, feeling an all too familiar feeling start in her stomach it knotted from his stare. "Talk."
"What happened between us, happened. We can't turn back time, and we can't pretend it didn't happen. But I miss you, as my friend, I notice when you're not there." He paused to catch his breath, his words slurring slightly. "It's Valentine's Day, friends are supposed to be together, right?" Nick reached out for her, giving a hurt cry when she moved away. "Chrissy, why won't you let me touch you?" All day, all he'd been able to think of was her, how much he wanted to talk to her, hold her, tell her what he was feeling.
"I've missed you too," she confessed, trying to stop her hands from shaking. What was he doing?
"Come here, baby," Nick reached out to her drunkenly, trying to pull her to him. He bent his head to her hair, inhaling deeply. He missed her so much....
"Nick, I can't," Chris pulled her arms from his grasp, jumping up when she felt his wet lips on her neck. "Not like this, you're drunk."
"I know what I want, Chris, that's not going to change." He stood up, looked down at her swaying slightly, well aware of how small he could make her feel, how masculine that in turn made him feel. "Sit down."
"I gotta go, Nick." Chris tried to move past him to leave, but he grabbed her arm and spun her up against the wall, his hips pushing into hers. "What are you doing?"
"I want you Chrissy, please." He kissed her hard, his tongue licking around the edge of her mouth. If he could just show her, prove to her that he cared...
"Nick, no." Chris squirmed up against him, pushing him away with her fists, hitting his chest. "Get off of me."
Nick fell back on the bed, looking at her in shock. "Chrissy, come on..."
Chris ran for the door, slamming it behind her. She found Lisa and Howie sitting where she'd left them, and grabbed her purse. "We're leaving. Now."
Lisa jumped up and said goodbye to Howie, she knew when not to argue. "Bye." She ran to catch up with Chris, who was already waiting impatiently for the elevator. "What happened?"
Chris waited until the elevator door safely closed behind them, then turned to Lisa. "Nick's drunk, I should never have gone into his room."
"What'd he do?"
"Tried to stick his tongue down my throat." She sighed. "I'd thought we were going to talk."
"Well, don't take it personally, you said it yourself, he was drunk." Lisa shrugged and followed her out of the elevator. "He IS young...drunk, horny...just a typical frat boy, without the school. Drunk frat boys don't ever just want to talk."
"I never knew any frat boys like Nick, did you?" Chris shook her head. "Why couldn't he have just gone and hit on someone else?"
"Do you really mean that?"
"I hope so."
****************************************************
A Day in the Life Of... (Day 151) New York - Detroit
Chris slid into her seat next to Julia on the plane, shoving her bag into the compartment above. "Hey."
"Hey!" Julia took her headphones off and turned to look at her friend. "Have a happy Valentine's Day?"
"Not particularly, but I bet you know that." Chris was pretty sure Julia would have already seen what had happened between her and Nick last night. "And where were you last night?"
"Nowhere, actually." Julia shrugged. "Just stayed at home, took a long bath, bitched about how much I hate Valentine's Day."
"Yeah, I hate it too."
"So, Nicky?"
"What about him?"
Julia pointed towards the front of the plane. "2 rows up, looking like hell warmed over."
"Hung over, huh."
"Part of it, maybe. I think he feels pretty awful about what happened last night too."
Chris pulled her discman out of her bag and popped in a cd. "He has nothing to feel awful about, I should have known better. Or I just should have slept with him altogether and been over and done with it. I don't know."
Julia laughed. "Chris, you make life entertaining. Most people wouldn't agonize over such a simple question. To fuck, or not to fuck. Basic human instinct tells you what the answer should be."
"It's not that simple." She muttered, plugging in her headphones. "Forgive me if I'd rather not listen to you for a while."
"Sure. But before you tune out, let me just tell you one thing."
"Yup?"
"We got amazing stuff from the other guys last night. AJ, Kevin and Brian all pulled out all the stops, it's so sweet. Girls around the world are going to melt."
"Great." Chris smiled. At least something was working out right.
********************************************
A Day in the Life Of... (Day 156) Kansas City
"Thank you all, so much." Brian stood on stage, tears streaming down his face. The arena had just serenaded him in a wonderful happy birthday wish, and he was overwhelmed. He hugged Kevin tight, all problems put aside for now. Now was the time to be thankful he was here for another year. "I love you all!" He yelled, as they got into position to finish the show.
"He means it too," Chris said to Julia as she made her way off stage.
"What?"
"He loves them all." Chris shook her head. "I've never met anybody who truly loved their fans as much as these guys, it's amazing."
"What about you, you have fans now. Don't you see how they feel?"
"Honestly?" Chris looked at Julia. "No. I mean, yeah, fans are cool, and I really do like them and appreciate everything they say, but the whole thing creeps me out. If they want to read or look at me, fine, but I'd like it a lot better if they didn't tell me about it."
"Weird."
"Yup."
"Chris?" Denise McLean, the tour's publicist and AJ's mother, walked up to them. "Can I talk to you for a moment?"
"Sure." Chris smiled at Denise. They hadn't run into each other much over the course of the tour so far, but she liked the older woman, any woman who could raise a son like AJ had to be cool. "What's up?"
"You know I don't like interfering with your show, but this time I really do need to ask, what's this week's episode about?" Denise waved Chris to a seat in a small office.
"Mostly Valentine's Day," Chris replied. "And the thing with me and Nicky..."
"It's Nick I need to talk to you about." Denise shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "I'm sorry for doing this, but I am the band's publicist..."
"What's wrong?" Chris asked, alarmed.
"Robin, the girl who was here for the MTV contest, do you remember her?"
"Sure."
"She has a website about the guys, a very popular one, apparently. She posted an article about her trip, saying some really terrible things about you. She also put up interpretations of the episodes so far, and her guess about what happened between you and Nick in the Caribbean. All false, of course, but the jist of it is that you hurt Nick, badly."
"Ok..." Chris' eyes widened. "It's just rumor on the Internet, nobody believes this stuff, right?"
"It's Robin, she won a contest on MTV, everybody knows she was actually traveling with the guys. And with last week's episode...it looks highly credible."
"Oh jesus. Robin seemed like such a sweet girl too." Chris sighed. "So what do we do?"
"I'm not sure." Denise pursed her lips. "How are you and Nick getting along now? Better?"
"We're not really getting along at all," Chris frowned. They hadn't really talked since Valentine's Day, just settled into an uncomfortable silence around each other.
"What thing are you airing tomorrow night?"
Chris looked at Denise. This was awkward. Chris may have been an adult, and Denise was extremely nice, but she was still AJ's mother, and that made her uncomfortable. "Um, on Valentine's Day, he got drunk."
"What happened?"
"He made a pass at me, I said no."
Denise sighed, sat back in her chair.
"That doesn't look good for me, huh."
"Not really, Chris. Not really."
Chris bit her lip. "Does it really matter, in the long run, if Backstreet Boys fans hate me? As long as they still watch the show and buy the records, right?"
Denise laughed lightly. "How can you be such a cynic, Chris? Of course it matters. I won't stand by and let the public hate anyone the guys are as closely associated with as they are you. It doesn't look good for you, but it also doesn't look good for them. No, I can't let this one slide by, it doesn't look good for rumors to be flying that the executive producer of the show is beating one if its stars, right?"
"Beating him?" Chris stared at Denise.
Denise shrugged. "Rumor had it Mandy beat him too, I guess Robin couldn't think of anything more original than that."
"Do these girls realize Nick is a thousand times stronger than I am?" This was just ridiculous.
"They don't care, Chris." Denise stared at the ceiling thoughtfully. "Maybe we could hold a press conference, you could joke around with Nick a little?"
"I guess." Chris shrugged. "But what, a press conference for the sake of throwing a press conference?"
"Why not, we've done it before." Denise picked up a pencil off the desk, spun it between her fingers. "But if you and Nick aren't getting along, a press conference would be the wrong move."
"How about we get reporters to stop asking me about Nick at every turn?" Chris said angrily. "It can't look good, the fact that we're both continually dodging questions."
"You're a reporter, Chris, you know I can't do that. You could, however, get a little better at dodging."
"How so?"
Denise proceeded to give Chris a lesson in Public Relations 101. Public face vs. private face. How to project the proper image. A very important lesson she was learning far, far too late.
*****************************************************
"Chris, you in there?" Julia knocked on the door to her room, opening it before getting an answer.
Chris was sitting on the bed, laptop resting on her legs. "Yeah, I've been reading what Robin said about me."
"Bad?" Julia sat down next to her.
"Awful." Chris turned the screen around to show her. "I put Nick in the hospital because I beat him so hard, even. They must think I'm a prize fighter, or something."
"When did this come out?"
"Denise thinks it just went online this morning, but I'm finding some older stuff on other sites. Robin had been posting on boards all over the place, how come we didn't realize this before we brought her on tour?"
"Nobody thought to check, I guess." Julia caught sight of her own name on the site and grimaced. "They don't like me either, I bet."
"Nope." Chris shut off her computer, closing it with a bang. "So Denise wants to hold a press conference, let the reporters see Nick and I joking around with each other."
"Really?"
"Yup." Chris shook her head. "Denise said that things would go much easier from here on out if I looked like I had a crush on Nick whenever we're in public. Make everyone think I like him a lot...right now, she says the main problem is that people think I don't."
"If they only knew" Julia grinned. "So you flirt with Nicky. How bad could that be?"
"Strange, that's all."
"How so?"
"Well," Chris lit a cigarette, lying back on the bed. "The whole idea of us doing this was to show the world the real Backstreet Boys, right? Show everyone who they really are."
"Right."
"But now, the world doesn't like me, or I should say, me and Nicky. So because of that, we're about to try to spin what they're seeing."
"Denise is, Chris, but we're not changing our show...we're still running as planned tomorrow night. Denise's job is to spin, it's not like that was going to go away."
"But...do you get what I'm saying? We were supposed to be here telling the truth. Instead, we're about to prove to them that what they see on tv is a lie. They'll see the real story on our show, and the spin at the press conference. Trust me, Jules, the last thing in the world I want to do right now is flirt with Nick." And she meant it. Any attraction she'd felt for him previously was gone. Or so she could convince herself so long as she didn't look at him.
"It's different, Chris. Robin told a whopper of a lie, and now you gotta fix it."
"I guess."
"Nick said it to you in the beginning, do you remember? How the truth's ok, but it's the lies that hurt?"
"Yeah, I know what he means now. Me beating Nicky. What a lie that is."
"You're a star now, enjoy the life."
"Gee, thanks." Chris smoked in silence for a few minutes, collecting her thoughts. "Jules?"
"Yeah Chris?"
"When did this stop being fun?"
Julia shook her head slowly. "Not sure."
"And why isn't it fun anymore?"
"We know the guys too well, we're too personally involved, we're sick to death of wakeup calls and room service, I don't know Chris, there are a thousand reasons." Julia sighed and stood up. "Nobody ever told us touring would be fun, remember? I think we just assumed it would be." She laughs lightly. "Despite everything we knew going into this, we still thought it would be fun. I gotta get some sleep, I need to do final edits in the morning. Have a good night."
"Nite Julia."
*******************************************************
A Day in the Life Of... (Day 161) Raleigh
"Good luck Chrissy." Nick whispered softly, his hand slipping around her waist for the start of the song.
Chris just nodded, a lump in her throat. All of the rumors about her and Nick had gotten out of control, she'd heard boos tonight when she'd walked out to take her spot for the routine. As she danced away, every time one of the guys would raise their arm to her the fans would cheer, holding up signs suggesting Nick 'punch her back.' When Nick pushed her down at the end of the song, the cheers were deafening, to be quickly followed by boo's when Howie caught her. Chris quickly shrugged off Howie's grasp and ran offstage, stunned by what had just occurred, and horrified by the signs the fans had made.
"Chris?" Denise McLean ran after her. "Wait."
"That was awful." Chris couldn't stop the tears that were running down her face. The humiliation, the pain she felt at having an entire arena full of people turn on her...it physically hurt. "They hate me like this because they think I hurt Nick?"
Denise nodded, hugging the younger woman tight. The episode that had aired on Monday had been taken by the fans as poorly as she had feared, Chris' rejection of Nick's advances was something the fans couldn't understand, and they hated her for it. "They just think they're protecting him."
Chris took a deep breath. "I don't understand. I didn't like it when the fans liked me. Why does it hurt so much now that they hate me?"
"At least they're fickle, Chris, they're not going to hate you for long." Denise said consolingly. "And we WILL change their minds. I'm thinking now a press conference may not be the right tactic, and I have another idea, but you really should sit down and have a long talk with Nick before I schedule anything."
"That such a good idea? Any talk Nick and I have will be taped, and aired, you can be pretty sure of that."
"How do you think the talk would go?" Denise asked her seriously. "Think about it, if you sat Nick down to work everything out, once and for all."
"I don't know," Chris shook her head. "The way I react around him sometimes...there's no logic to it. I don't know why I was so mad that he tried to kiss me on Valentine's Day, I just was. I want my friend back, but....I don't know if we can ever really be that comfortable around each other again."
"Just think about talking to him, ok?" Denise hugged her again. "I have some things I need to do, will you be alright?"
She wiped her eyes and nodded. "See you later."
Chris quickly made her way back to the hotel, arriving home before the concert had even ended. Letting herself into her hotel room, she stepped into the bathroom, a long, hot steamy shower helping to clear her head and forget the screams of hate she'd heard tonight.
She emerged to the sound of knocking from the door, and opened it to find Brian on the other side. "Hi."
"Chrissy, tonight's show." Brian's eyes were wide as he pulled her into a hug. "I am SO sorry."
Chris hugged him back, grateful for the support. "It's not your fault." She waved him inside and closed the door behind him. "I knew better."
"Knew better?"
"Then to get involved." Chris looked pointedly at the camera tailing Brian. "And I did it anyway."
"You couldn't have known that was going to happen."
"I knew no good could come of it." Chris saw the truth very plainly now. She'd allowed Nick to convince her to do something she'd known was wrong. It was a stupid, childish mistake, and one she could only hope she could fix somehow.
"You don't know that," Brian said meekly, knowing that the bad things Chris spoke of were already happening.
"Don't insult me, Brian, you were on that stage tonight, were you not? Why else did you say you were sorry?" Chris couldn't keep the anger from her voice. "I made a stupid, stupid mistake. And every word I say to you on the subject is probably another mistake, seeing as it will all end up on MTV, sure to be overanalyzed like every other goddamn word I've said for the last five months." She paused to take a breath, tears welling up in her eyes.
Brian pulled her in for a hug, "you can't beat yourself up over this."
"How can I not?" Chris stood up, unable to sit still. She walked around the room, arms waving as she spoke. "I'm from a world where the only thing that mattered was ratings. If people watched the show, who gives a shit what they think, right? I'm now in a world where it's not hard numbers that matter, like record sales or concert tickets, no, it's making the FANS happy."
"Chris, what on earth are you saying?"
"I don't know." Walking past the camera, she glared into the lens. "I keep hearing the screams of those girls...god they hated me. How do you deal with it? Having to simultaneously not care if people hate you, yet do everything in your power to make sure they like you? How do you keep your sanity?"
Brian sighed. "One of the promo posters for the show asks what the price of fame is, do you remember?"
"Sure." Chris remembered the poster well. It was a great job by the graphic artist, all black, with little white letters 'Do you know the price of fame?', surrounded by glaring white lights. Then at the bottom the show information, with the guys' pictures in the background.
"This is it."
"What?"
"You build a wall, Chris. You get a little colder. You have to stop caring about certain things. One of them being what people think of you."
"But I didn't care before!"
"You didn't think you cared," he chided her gently. "But you did. You didn't want people to notice you before, but that's not the same as not caring. Now you know you care, you have to make a conscious decision to stop. You're a caring person, so am I. But you need to get yourself to the point where you can go onstage, hear those screams, and just not care."
"I'm not a Backstreet Boy, Brian, that's your life, not mine." Chris said quickly, and was immediately apologetic. "That sounded mean...I'm sorry. I just don't get it. I mean, yeah, maybe you had to turn cold to deal with your fame. But that's you, Brian, not me."
"No Chris, I'm the one who's sorry." Brian shook his head. "You're going to learn very quickly how wrong you are. And I'm so very sorry for that."
*******************************************************
A Day in the Life Of... (Day 163) Raleigh - Winston-Salem
Confession Footage, AJ McLean, Day 163
"Bless me father, for I have sinned..." AJ sits down, winks at the camera. This has become his customary greeting.
"Have a seat, my child," Chris can be heard laughing off camera. "So Mr. McLean, what's new in your world?"
"Just got some interesting news." AJ rubs his chin thoughtfully. "News the person who sits behind the camera here would probably be very interested in."
"Oh really?"
"Yup." He grins. "But I think she should come sit on the couch here so I can tell her."
"AJ..."
"I want your reaction to this news on camera, come on."
Her voice clearly confused, "Ok."
Chris sits next to AJ on the couch, giving the camera an awkward grin. "Ok, what's the news."
"You know my mom was going to schedule a press conference for this week."
"Last I heard she'd changed her mind, but she didn't tell me what she'd decided to do."
"Two things are happening. One, you're going on Rosie O'Donnell."
Chris gasps. First Letterman, now Rosie... "Just me?"
"Just you."
"Oh wow." Chris narrows her eyes suspiciously. "If that's only one...what's two?"
"Cover of Time Magazine."
"What about it?"
"We're going to be on it." AJ's grinning ear to ear now.
"Did you say TIME Magazine?" Chris stares at AJ in shock. "They're putting the BACKSTREET BOYS on the cover of Time Magazine? Sure you don't mean, say, People? Or maybe even Rolling Stone again?"
"Nope. Time Magazine."
"AJ, you know that makes no sense." She clearly doesn't believe him.
"We're doing a photoshoot for the cover on Thursday." He's still grinning. "It's about the show, Chris, and about how groundbreaking it is."
"Wow." A smile creeps across her face. "My show's gonna be on the cover of Time Magazine."
"No Chris, you are."
"Pardon?"
"I told you, we're doing a photoshoot for the cover. We. All of us."
"Me?"
"Yup."
Chris turns to face AJ so quickly she nearly falls off the couch. "You're telling me that my face is going to be on the cover of Time Magazine?"
"Yes, dear."
"Holy shit."
"Yup."
"This is supposed to be your confessional, you know." She's staring at the ground, amazed by the news.
"So it is." AJ turns to the camera. "A Day in the Life is taking a short commercial break, while its Executive Producer hyperventilates. Please stand by."
"Very funny," Chris smacks AJ on the shoulder, laughing. "I'm fine. Just a little shocked by the news."
"Yeah, it's a big deal."
"Aaah, that's more like it." Chris jumps up and disappears behind the camera. "So tell me AJ, what do you think about being on the cover of Time?"
"Damn you, woman." He throws a pillow from the couch at the camera. "Don't you know I kept this news from you until now so I could get out of my confession?"
"An admirable try, AJ. Now, what do you think?"
"Alright. I think that it's pretty fucking cool." His eyes light up as he speaks. "I mean, Time Magazine, you can't get much more mainstream than that, right?"
"Nope."
"All these new people are going to be exposed to us with this article, all because of the show, it's so awesome. We're gonna be interviewed over 3 days for the article, it's going to be kinda annoying, but god, will it ever be worth it. Time fucking Magazine, baby." He hoots.
"You've been doing really well lately, haven't you."
"Yup." He nods. "Amanda's been awesome, things have just been flowing really well, ever since the Caribbean, really. I kinda get the feeling I'm the only one sailing pretty, though."
"How so?"
"Well, Kevin's been acting all weird. Better since Valentine's Day, but weird. Kev's my rock, ya know? He's been acting very un-Train-like lately, and damn near mean to Brian."
"Brian seems to be doing ok, though?"
"Sorta. Whatever's bothering Kevin is bothering Brian. Nick being all upset is bothering Brian too. His cousin and his best friend aren't right, he isn't right. Also, Leighanne's last night with us is tonight. You know her leaving's going to upset him more. But she really hates the cameras, more than Amanda, even."
"Leighanne is leaving because of the cameras?"
"Sure, Brian knew going into this that she wasn't going to stick around long while the cameras were on. He hates it, but like the rest of us, we know what we gotta do."
"How's Howie doing?"
AJ shakes his head. "I wish I knew, man. I'm his best friend, you'd think he'd talk to me. But he won't...the only person he seems to talk to lately is Nick. I dunno, maybe they're both being miserable together? They seemed to have bonded over that being single thing when we came back from the Caribbean, and it can't be easy, 2 single guys surrounded by 3 happy couples."
"I guess not."
"At least we're entering the home stretch now...things always get a little tight towards the end of the tour. It's been a tough couple of weeks too, we seemed to be flying all over a lot more than usual."
"We did, with the trip to New York in the middle of everything."
"And we're back to New York this week, for this photoshoot."
"It's in New York?" Chris' voice sounds excited. The idea of a night at home, oh yeah...
"Thursday, didn't I mention where it was?"
"I think I would have remembered that."
"Yeah, it's in New York. So there. Happy now?" AJ grins at the camera. "Chrissy gets to go home."
"You haven't been home since the tour started, have you?"
"Nope. We don't hit Florida until May."
"Do you miss home?"
"Sure, I miss my bed and stuff. But my mom's here, and Amanda comes when she can. I love performing, so being on tour's pretty much the only way I can see myself living my life. I deal."
"You like touring?"
"Love it. This is what I've wanted to do since I was a kid. All of us, we wouldn't do this if we didn't love it." He laughs. "Why else would we put up with all this shit." He waves to the camera.
A laugh from off-camera. "Ok, enough for today."
- End confession footage
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