"Where have you been, man?" Justin Timberlake asked, raising an eyebrow at his friend's soaked appearance. He had been sitting in the small hotel lobby, not wanting to stay up in his hotel room.
"Well, the rain caught me," JC answered, grinning. "What's up? Where are the rest of the guys?"
"Lance is upstairs. I think he's asleep or something. The rest of the guys met a couple of French girls and went out." Justin answered, putting on a set of headphones.
"Oh ok. You just gonna chill in here for a while?" JC asked, but shook his head as Justin's head started to move to the loud music blaring out of the headphones. He dashed up the stairs, wanting to change out of his wet clothes.
"Ok, so we exit at the next stop, right?" Marielle Carpenter asked her friend.
"Yep." Gabrielle Lopez answered, biting her lip as she studied the complicated maps of the Paris metro. The train came to a stop and they joined the flood of people getting off. They both groaned when they saw it was raining, but Marielle quickly pulled out an umbrella from her backpack. "Thank goodness you're always prepared!" Gabrielle exclaimed, grinning as they walked down the sidewalk, huddle beneath the umbrella. They came to the hotel entrance, and the doorman promptly let them in.
"Great weather for summer, huh?" Marielle joked.
"Yeah, it's way different from the California heat," Gabrielle added. "Let's go up? Maybe Jess is up there already?"
"Alright. Race you up, Gabi!" Marielle challenged, both dashing up the winding stairs as fast as they could. They burst both laughed, feeling like they were still young girls, racing each other to get to the ice cream man. They ran into their suite, finding their other best friend, Jessica Anderson, sprawled on her own bed asleep.
"Yo! Wake up, Jess! Work off that jet lag!" Gabrielle teased, nudging her friend. Jessica mumbled something, but curled up into a ball. Marielle popped open a can of soda that she had bought and took a sip from it. Glancing out of the balcony door's window's, she glanced at the sky and was surprised to find it clear and blue.
"Woah, look, it's not raining anymore!" She said, opening the balcony doors and stepping out onto the balcony.
"Help me wake Jess up first!" Gabi told her. Marielle set the can of soda on the balcony railing and went back inside to help wake up their friend.
"Wow, look at that sky!" JC said brightly, opening his balcony doors and stepping outside. The balcony windows were all faced so that when someone went out onto their balcony, they could converse with the other guests of the hotel. Lance was standing outside of his balcony on the other wing of the hotel, and the two of them were talking back and forth.
"Yeah, it doesn't even look like it'd been raining like three minutes ago," Lance added, looking up. They both heard the female voices above Lance's head, and a loud "watch out!" As a can of soda nearly hit Lance on the head.
"This is weird, you're never a sound sleeper," Gabi said, rubbing her head in confusion as Jessica sat up, yawning.
"It's jet lag," Jessica insisted. "Woah your soda's moving, Ari."
"Huh?" Marielle remembered setting her soda down on the balcony. The people in the room next to them had slammed their door, causing the sound to vibrate through the walls. She rushed to stop the can from falling, but was too late.
"You almost died!" JC said, cracking up at Lance's hesitancy to look up at the balcony above him.
"Sorry!" A girl called out, looking quite sheepish and embarrassed. "Are you hurt?"
"No." Lance said, "I'm alright."
"I'm really sorry!" She repeated. JC studied her for a moment, thinking she was really pretty. Her raven black hair was up to her shoulders, and her gray eyes shone with intelligence.
"You're American, aren't you?" He asked her. She glanced over at him, not knowing he had been there.
"Yeah." She squinted at him, recognition swelling up inside of her, "aren't you from that group N Sync?" She asked him.
He studied her, wondering why she wasn't jumping up and down and screaming now that she had realized who he was. "Yeah."
"Wow. That's neat." She said, trying earnestly to not show that she was interested in asking him more questions.
JC found himself fascinated with this mysterious girl, for some reason he couldn't explain. It was strange, especially since he'd only seen her for the first time five minutes ago. "We're having dinner in about an hour, if you and your friends want to join us?" He asked.
"Hold on, okay?" She asked, heading back into the hotel room. "What time?"
JC glanced at his watch, "Seven." He told her.
"Okay, see you then!" She said cheerfully, closing her balcony doors. JC grinned at the doors, but his grin faded when he saw Lance's face.
"I hope you know what you're doing," Lance told him, his face showing the concern that he was feeling.
"I hope so too." JC admitted, heading back into his room to change.