Saturday, November 11, 2000: ‘N SYNC Compound, Florida

Lance flopped into the oversized chair by the picture window of the ‘N SYNC Compound. They’d been sent there after TRL to keep them out of the spotlight and out of trouble. They had spent a certain amount of time practicing, keeping in shape as they could go back out on the road at any moment. Otherwise their time was their own for the taking.

JC was attached to his keyboard, Chris was constantly asking their opinion on clothing designs, Joey had spent hours revising his screenplay for the 75th time, and Lance had actually found time to do some work for FreeLance.

It would have been an enjoyable break that they’d all needed had it not been for one thing: the energetic missing curly haired pop-star.

Lance glared at the phone on the table beside him.

"Ring dammit," he growled.

"Its not good to talk to inanimate objects Scoop," Chris said from his place on the couch. "That’s what the little men in the white coats come for. Say do you think that people would actually buy this?" He held a sketch up for Lance to see.

Lance grimaced at the picture and sighed pathetically.

"I’ll take that as a no. Seriously Lance, we’ll find him. Don’t worry."

"Don’t worry?" Lance said loudly as he sat up straight in the chair. "It’s been over a fucking week." The swear word sounded odd coming from his mouth.

"He’s right," Joey said from the other side of the room. "We should have found him by now. I mean he’s Justin Timberlake. Girls can spot him a mile away in disguise when they aren’t looking for him."

"It’s only really been two days guys," Chris said. It was odd for him to play the role of the rational one. Normally it was Lance, or JC and occasionally Joey, but never him. "The word probably hasn’t even really spread yet."

Lance sighed again and settled back into the chair, making the cushions conform to his body.

"Dammit Justin," he mumbled under his breath. "Where are you?"

Justin walked into the locker room fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. If only the guys could have seen him. JC had always been the latest, but Justin had always been a close second.

He threw his bag down on the bench and opened the small door to the locker. He stuffed his shirt in the metal hole before he put on the wife beater he normally played in. He stood up and slipped off his shorts throwing them on top of his shirt. He pulled on the pair of baby blue nylon NC shorts.

Matt and Kevin had straggled into the locker room while he’d been changing, but he hadn’t seen Stu or Josh yet.

Justin made his way to the gym, the place that was quickly becoming his second home.

Stu was already in the large room. The metallic sound of his ball hitting the floorboards reverberated around the room.

"Toss it here bro," Justin said as he ran onto the court.

Stu lobbed the ball at Justin and Justin began dribbling toward the basket. He made an easy lay-up and smiled as the satisfying swoosh of the net was heard. He caught the ball and threw it back at Stu.

Stu began dribbling slowly toward the basket and Justin immediately went on the defensive. His hands rested lightly on his knees and his eyes never left the ball as it traveled between his opponents hand and the floor. An instant before Stu began his run for the basket Justin was suddenly in his way.

"No fair!" Stu laughed. "I didn’t guard you." He dribbled by Justin and went up for the basket, but Justin grabbed the ball out of his hands as he was going up.

"You could have," Justin laughed. He took the ball out past the three point line and stood there, bouncing the ball from hand to hand. "You ready big man?"

Stu lunged at Justin and managed to get his hands on the ball, finally wrestling it out of Justin’s grasp. "Ready," Stu said.

At that moment seven of the other players entered the gym. None of them looked the best for wear. The coach was following closely behind them.

"See guys, Smith and Crosshave the right idea," the coach said. "You need to be awake when you get to practice. I’m not going to let up just because you didn’t go to bed at a reasonable hour."

The coach took the ball from Stu. "You guys know the drills. Let’s get packing. And no slackin’. Got it?"

Matt began running around the outside perimeter of the gym. The eight other guys quickly followed behind him. They were on the tenth lap when Josh came into the gym. His eyes were bloodshot and his skin was pale.

"Sorry I’m late coach," he said. His voice was hoarse and had the wavering sound of someone who was going to get sick at any moment.

"You’re twenty minutes late Perkins," Coach growled. "Get running. You’ll do twenty more laps after practice. One for every minute you were late."

Josh dropped his bag where he was and got at the end of the line, which happened to be right behind Justin.

Nothing could have been more awkward. Justin felt eyes glaring at his back the entire time they jogged.

Finally the thirty laps were over and the passing drills began. Justin would have sworn it was his imagination that Josh was throwing the ball carelessly at him, until one of the hard orange balls flew straight at his head.

"Dammit Josh!" Justin yelled. He could feel his blood beginning to boil, but again his years of discipline kicked in. "Try to use your eyes when you throw."

Josh appeared to be ready to go fight Justin, but the coach’s voice broke through his anger-induced trance.

"Josh, he’s right. Try to aim when you throw. That’s the sort of pass I’d expect from a sixth grader, not one of my starters."

Josh growled and got back in the passing line. His passes to Justin still flew harder than was desirable, but they flew straight to his chest. Justin’s palms were tingling by the time the drills were over.

"Okay," the coach said. "Scrimmage time."

Justin pulled his shirt off. He’d been put on the shirtless team. As had Josh. If the passing had been bad during the drills, it was worse now. The ball flew erratically from Josh to Justin. It was inexcusable. It seemed that Josh were passing to phantom players, yet blaming Justin when he couldn’t get there in time.

"You got to be on your toes, Mr. Point-guard," he’d sneered at one point.

"That’s enough Perkins," the coach finally said. "Get your ass out of here and don’t come back until you can respect your teammates."

The game had stopped at that point. "You can’t do that," Josh said. "I’ve been on this team for three years."

"Oh believe me I can," coach said.

"What sort of respect is him," Josh pointed at Justin, "coming in here and taking over the team. He hasn’t even played on a team before yet you make him point guard. That should have gone to one of us. I know it, the school knows it, the whole town fucking knows it."

"He’s the best damn point guard I’ve seen in years," Coach growled. "I suppose you wanted the spot Josh? Well this is a perfect example of why you don’t have it. You need to be a team player and you obviously don’t know the meaning of the words. The point guard is the one who holds the team together. The glue if you will."

Justin felt his blood run cold. Why did phrases the guys had said at one point or another keep coming back to haunt him? That’s what Lance had said: that he was the glue that held them together.

He’d missed the rest of the coach’s tirade and Josh’s response. All he saw now was Josh storming out of the gym.

"Is there anyone else who has a problem with how I’m running this team?" Coach yelled.

Justin and the eight remaining guys remained silent.

"Good. Let’s play. Brent, you’re looking weak on your screen. You aren’t planting yourself fast enough. Randy, you need to keep your eye on the ball at all times. You’re anticipating too much. ‘K, let’s go."

Lance opened his laptop and clicked on the Netscape icon. He knew this was pointless. That’s why he’d gone to his own room to do this and hadn’t done it in the common room. The guys would tell him it was pointless. Lance had to try though. Maybe, just maybe, he’d get through to Justin.

He had seven new messages in his mailbox. He didn’t recognize any of the addresses so obviously his email had leaked out again. He opened a new message and began typing.
 

Hey Curly
We’ve made them give us some time off so if you come back you can find yourself then. We only got two more weeks left in the tour and then we get our break. Please Justin. Come Back. We can’t do this without you. JLB.

He pushed the send button. There was nothing he could do now but hope.

It was two when Justin walked into the Hunter kitchen. He was tired, but his body was starting to get back into shape for this different type of physical activity. His muscles weren’t screaming at him anymore. That was a definite good thing.

Maggie was sitting at the kitchen table sipping a coke and reading the newspaper.

"Hey," Justin said as he grabbed a glass and filled it with ice and water.

"Hey," Maggie said barely looking up from the paper.

"Whachu reading?" Justin asked, attempting to peer over her shoulder, but she shrugged blocking his view.

"’Bout the ‘N SYNC contest," Maggie said. The blush that now graced her face was conveyed in her voice.

"Really," Justin said trying to keep his voice steady. "What’s it say? Have they found him yet?"

Maggie shook her head. "I can’t believe he was loose in Kansas."

"He was?" Justin asked. His hot body suddenly felt cold. His voice caught in his throat.

"Yep," Maggie said. "It says, um, oh yeah, here. ‘It appears that the ‘N SYNC tour bus stopped out in the countryside of Kansas dropping Timberlake off. It has since been confirmed that Timberlake hopped a bus, leaving the state.’ I would have had a heartattack if he’d come here."

"I’m sure you would have," Justin said. He tried to laugh believably. And he succeeded. Maybe. "As well as the rest of the population."

Maggie laughed.

"Thanks for letting Stu and I crash your party last night," Justin said effectively changing the subject. He had to continue being nice. Well, not had to, but he wanted to continue to be super nice. There was no way he was going to let this blossoming friendship escape his grasp.

"It was fun," Maggie said. "You know Stu’s not so bad."

"I think he’s a really cool guy," Justin said. "He’s so, I don’t know, real, compared to all my friends back home."

"Did you go to a really snobby school?" Maggie asked.

"Yeah," Justin said slowly. This topic of conversation was almost as bad as ‘N SYNC. "It wasn’t snobby so much as, well, fake. We all had to keep up appearances."

"You have to do that at every school," Maggie argued.

"Not as much," Justin said. He needed to get away from this topic. "I’m going to go take my shower." That seemed to be his line for getting out of every awkward situation now.

"Good," Maggie said with a smile. "I’ll just immerse myself in dreams of Justin ending up here."

"Are you a fan?" Justin asked as he got up from the table. He had to know.

"Yeah," Maggie said. "I’m not obsessive, but it never hurts to dream, you know. So now you have ammunition to tease me forever."

"Would I ever tease you Mags?" Justin asked. He had to get out of the room now.

"Yes" they answered in unison.

It was around four when Justin finally checked his email. There was one new message. He knew what it was without opening his mailbox. He’d known the message was going to come eventually. While he’d forever prayed that he would get mail as long as he’d had an account, he’d been praying that the box stayed empty for the last week.

He opened the message and felt a lump grow in his throat. Lance. He should have known. He read the message and felt the lump in his throat expand. He wasn’t going to respond. He couldn’t.

He fished his journal out of his desk and uncapped his favorite pen. He’d been neglecting the book recently. It brought back memories of the days before. For a year it had been his escape, but now it was one of the only things tying him to his past.

 It’s been awhile hasn’t it… so much has happened… I don’t even know where to begin. So I won’t. It’s enough to say I’m happy. Or I would be happy if the guys weren’t trying to KILL me. This STUPID game. I thought that they’d understood why I had to do this. When they didn’t do anything immediately I thought they’d understood. And now this.

And now Lance emailed me. It’s amazing how he can make me feel so guilty. They’re the one’s who should feel guilty. They can’t realize why I need to do this. I’m not going to respond to the email. It’ll make them think that they still have some hold over me.

They don’t.

I’m RANDY SMITH. I AM Randy Smith.

But they’re my friends. Maybe if I explained it again. One more time. Maybe they’d see that I will come back, eventually. Maybe they’d stop the game.

Maybe.

Is it worth a try?

Maybe… I guess everything’s worth a try. That’s why I’ve been Randy for almost a week and a half.

Wish me luck.

Justin closed the journal and looked at the computer screen. He clicked reply.
 

Don’t you see that’s why I can’t come back now? You think they’d let me go again? Please let me do this Lance. On my own. Without the ‘game’. J

Sunday November 12, 2000

Stu looked over at his sister. She was shoveling cereal into her mouth. Some milk dribbled onto the paper in front of her.

"What’s so fascinating you can’t eat properly?" he asked.

"Justin Timberlake was in Kansas," the twelve-year old said in awe. "It says that he got off in some small town. It could have been this town."

"I think we’d know if a celebrity came to our town Shell," Stu said with a smile. His mind had begun clicking though. Justin. "Do they have a picture of this guy?"

Shell nodded and shoved the paper at her brother. There was a picture on the middle of the page. Of all the guys.

The first people Stu recognized were the two men who’d come looking for Randy. That was how Stu thought of him, even if he did know his name was Justin.

And then he saw Randy. Or Justin. Or whatever his name was.

"I would absolutely die if Justin Timberlake came to our town," Shell said. "Wouldn’t you just die?"

Stu blinked once, and then again. Then he looked at his sister. "Yeah. I’d just die."

He looked at the picture again. The guy who was rapidly becoming his best friend was a star. That just didn’t happen in Mill Creek.

Lance held his breath as he opened his mailbox on his computer. There were six new messages. He let out his breath convincing himself that more fans had gotten hold of his email address.

There was one address he recognized though.

The breath stopped in his lungs as he clicked on it.

The words were simple, short and to the point.

With shaky legs Lance got off his bed and walked out into the common room in the compound.

"Guys?" he said drawing the other three men’s attention to him. "I’ve got some good news and some bad news."

"They found him?" JC asked eagerly.

"He’s hurt?" Joey said at the same time.

"The good news is he replied to my email. The bad news is he’s not planning on coming back anytime soon."