Lance walked into his hotel room alone. He could hear the voices of the other guys in the hallway behind him, talking about clubs and plans for the evening, but there was no, "You in, Bass?" He knew that that invitation wouldn’t come, just like it hadn’t come any of the ten nights since they’d left Seattle. It hurt a little, but that was the way things were now. He was used to it. He just wasn’t invited.

Deep down in his heart, he had known that when Justin found out about Britney, it would go badly. He had known that there would eventually be confrontation and drama, but that hadn’t stopped him from hoping. He’d hoped that Justin would look at him and Britney, at the two of them together, and realize that they made each other happy. He’d hoped that Justin would understand that things happened and that they hadn’t meant to hurt him, they really hadn’t.

Five shows into the tour, though, a week and a half that felt like it had spanned years, he acknowledged that hopes were all that he’d had.

It was actually worse than he’d expected, he thought as he sat down on his bed and pulled off his jacket, draping it across the pillow beside him. Five shows into the tour and none of the rest of the guys were speaking to him unless it was about the business of being ‘N SYNC. They would congratulate each other on a show well done, but there were no words of praise for him—no, ‘that was a good show, man,’ or, ‘we rocked the house tonight, didn’t we, Bass?’—and his own attempts at conversation had all been coldly rebuffed.

Lance had known that Justin would not react well, and he could have guessed at the other men’s reactions to the news, because of course they had taken Justin’s side. He’d thought he’d known what he was letting himself in for, he thought he’d prepared himself, but…

He hadn’t anticipated the loneliness. 

He’d thought that as long as he had Britney, it would all be okay, that it would all be worth it. Sometimes he’d found, though, that when he was sitting alone in his room, the silence of the hotel floor echoing around him, he wasn’t so sure. He had her, but not really. She wasn’t there with him. 

She’d only been able to stay in Seattle for twenty-four hours and there were only so many hours a day that he could spend talking to her on the phone, what with their schedules and the other guys hovering around him sending him glares of death any chance they got.

Increasingly, as the tour progressed, he thought that he deserved their disapproval. He thought that they were right to not invite him to go out with them. He deserved to be lonely, to be an outcast from his own group. He had no rights to the benefits of their friendship now, because he’d forfeited those when he’d deepened the kiss.

But other times, right after he got off of the phone with Britney, he thought that they were overreacting. Didn’t he deserve to be happy, too? Shouldn’t he have a chance to be with a girl—the only girl—he’d ever really liked?

It didn’t matter what he thought, though, because what was supposed to have been the best tour ever was quickly turning into the worst tour ever and. And he’d tried to justify his misery and loneliness by thinking, ‘she’s worth it’ so many times that he was starting to wonder whether he actually believed it or whether he was trying to convince himself of that fact.

The only thing that made him sure that he’d made the right choice—as sure as he could be, anyway—was picking up the phone and calling Britney. Everything seemed all right when he listened to the lyrical movement of words when she spoke, trying to make him laugh by telling him lame jokes. It was really the only time he was happy, so that was how he ended every night now, listening to her with one ear and listening to the sounds from the hallway as the rest of the guys left for the night with the other.

And this night wasn’t going to be any different. Lance closed his eyes for nearly a minute and leaned his head against the wall, then he reached for the phone in his jacket pocket and pulled it out. He dialed the number and then put the phone to his ear, listening to the buzzing ring as he waited for her to pick up.
--

"Isn’t the beginning of a relationship supposed to be peaches and cream and sunshine and roses?" Britney asked, leaning back against her king-sized pillows. She and Felicia were sitting on her bed, two empty pints of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream between them. The other girl was on her spring break and was spending the week in LA at Britney’s request, because she was lonelier than she wanted to admit with Lance gone, with Justin gone, and with only practice to fill her days.

Felicia scoffed. "You can’t have actually believed that dating Lance would be all sunshine and roses, Brit. I’m trying to be supportive here, girl, but you can’t ask me to help you live in a fantasy world."

Britney shrugged. "I know," she said. "I just thought. I don’t know what I thought, but this is. Not what I thought it would be." 

She moved so that she was lying down on the bed, hugging a pillow to her chest. "He’s hurting so much, Fe, and it’s not fair because I can’t do anything to help him. I can’t even be there by his side, dealing with all of them, too."

"He knew what he was getting into." Felicia shook her head. "You both did. You told me you did, anyway, but I’m still not convinced that he’s not just a rebound for you."

"He’s not a rebound!" Britney’s voice was louder, higher pitched than she’d intended. They’d had that conversation twice before, both times over the phone, and Britney was sick of it. "Why can’t you believe me on that? I like him. I like him a whole lot and I want to be with him."

"Even if he’s hurting as much as you say he is?"

Britney felt herself deflate slightly and she hugged the pillow to her chest more tightly. She wondered briefly why she’d invited Felicia out to see her in the first place, but then remembered that they had fun when they weren’t talking about Lance. 

"He says it’s worth it to him," she said.

"But is it worth it to you?" Felicia asked. "You say that you want to be with him, that you care about him, but if he’s that miserable, if he’s being shunned by the rest of his group like you told me he is, how is that good for him?"

Britney looked away from her friend, up towards the ceiling.

"You know what I think, B? I think you don’t know how to not have a boyfriend. I don’t think you can be single."

"I can be single," Britney said, struggling to sit up again.

"Can you? Can you really? There was Oscar, and then not immediately, but within a relatively short time, there was Justin, and then I blinked and there was Lance. Four years, Britney. Three relatively long term relationships. You don’t know how to just be you and you’re afraid to let Lance go because you can’t handle the world if you aren’t part of a couple."

Britney stared at Felicia, wanting to do… something. Slap her, yell, scream. "That is so not true, Fe." She swallowed. "That was really harsh."

Felicia shrugged like she really didn’t care. "Then tell me why you’re with Lance. You told me yourself just now that it’s not sunshine and roses, and this early on, it should be, because what makes you think its going to get better later? You say he’s not happy and I can tell that you aren’t happy or we wouldn’t be having this conversation."

"I’m happy." Even to her own ears, her voice sounded pathetic, pitiful.

"Bull. You aren’t happy. If you really cared about him, Brit, you’d see that this isn’t good for either one of you. If you really cared you’d be able to let him go. If you can’t see that, you’re being selfish and trying to hold onto something you never should have had in the first place." 

Felicia took a deep breath and seemed to be waiting for Britney to say something. She didn’t, so her friend continued. "You’re just showing me that you can’t survive in the world without a significant other, because really, girl, this relationship you’re in now is about as unhealthy as they can get."

"So you’re saying," Britney said slowly, "that if I like him as much as I say I do, then I should let him go, because if I don’t, I don’t really like him at all, I’m just using him to save myself from the scary world of singledom."

Felicia nodded.

Britney’s voice was shaking when she spoke again. "That has got to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. It took us four years to get to the point we’re at now, Fe. Do you think I’m going to willingly give that up just because things may not be peachy right at the moment? Maybe we’ve had a rocky start, but we knew going in that it would be, and I’m happy with him. Okay? Can’t you see that? I’m happy with him and I’m not going to give that up unless I absolutely have to. And since I’m obviously not going to be able to convince you of this fact, can we please change the subject now?"

For a few moments Felicia looked as if she wanted to say more, but she finally nodded. "Yeah, sure," she said.

Britney smiled weakly and tried to think of something else to talk about. She couldn’t.
--

Lance was not expecting the knock on his hotel room door, if only for the fact that no one but the bodyguards had knocked on his door in the previous two weeks. As he approached the door, his heart fluttering, he wasn’t sure he wanted people to start knocking now. Knocking meant that someone wanted to talk to him, and talking, more than likely, meant yelling and asking him how the hell he could do something like that to Justin.

He looked through the peephole and saw Chris. The other man was frowning—downright glowering—and that, Lance knew, could not be a good thing.

"What?" he asked when he opened the door, because he couldn’t just ignore Chris, but he didn’t have to be pleasant about it. They certainly hadn’t been pleasant to him.

"I think it’s time that you and I had a talk, Bass." Chris put a hand in the middle of Lance’s chest and pushed him backwards, into the room, and then proceeded to kick the door closed behind them. The walls shook.

"You and I have nothing to talk about." Lance cut each word off sharply. He stepped away from Chris, to the side, dodging the solid press of Chris’ hand.

"You fuck with the vibe of my group," Chris hissed, "it’s something we need to talk about. Sit." 

He pointed at Lance’s bed and Lance, although he wanted to protest and kick Chris out of his room—he’d almost gotten used to his solitary lifestyle—sat.

"I don’t want to be talking to you," Chris said, pacing across the floor, "but we both know that JC doesn’t have the balls to tell you what I need to tell you and Joey said that the last time you and he talked about this, there was physical violence involved. I, at least, can restrain from that. I think."

‘At least I still know the meaning of restraint,’ Justin had said. Lance inwardly cringed, but tried to keep his face impassive. He glowered instead.

"Well," Lance said, "if you want to save your breath, my guess is that I’ve heard it all before."

"I’m sure you have," Chris said, "but it doesn’t seem to have penetrated your thick skull so obviously you need to hear it again."

"Fine," Lance said. "Talk." He made a point of staring at Chris, trying to keep eye contact with the older man. He’d made his decisions already, the damage had been done; Chris had to know that he wasn’t going to change his mind.

Chris stared at him for several moments, looking so mad that Lance wouldn’t have been surprised if the other man had walked out of the room without looking back.

"You know, Bass," he said finally, "I’ve called you a coldhearted bastard several times over the years, I’ve joked about it, but I never actually thought that you were one." He narrowed his eyes. "This isn’t about my opinion of you, though. This is about the fact that Justin’s talking about quitting as soon as the tour’s over because he can’t stand to look at you, can’t stand to be in the same room with you."

Lance felt his blood run cold. He opened and closed his mouth several times, trying to get out the words he wanted to say, but he couldn’t. He’d known that Justin would react badly to the news about Britney, but quit the group badly? Justin loved the group. There was only one thing that Lance should have known that Justin had loved more: Britney.

"Shit," he said.

"Yeah," Chris said, "Shit."

Lance stared at Chris silently and the other man stared back. He didn’t know what to say, whether he should get angry and kick Chris out of his room or whether he should try to argue his case, try to explain what he was doing.

"Is she really worth it?" Chris asked. He crossed his arms and looked as if he wanted to beat Lance up. Lance knew that he was just trying to get him to back down—he’d lived with Chris for far too long to not know the other man’s body language—and he wasn’t going to.

"Is she worth it," Chris said again. "Because you know, man, I liked Britney, but. Fuck, Lance, she was Justin’s girlfriend."

"And I’ve wanted her for longer than he did."

"But she wasn’t yours to have. Do you think that I haven’t tried to understand your point of view here? Because man, I have. You’re my brother just like he’s my brother, and I thought to myself, Lance must have a good reason for doing something this… shitty. But, man, there are lines brothers just don’t cross. Maybe if she’d been a one night stand, maybe, but. Three years, Lance."

"You’ve tried to understand my point of view?" Lance asked. "None of you have asked for my point of view! You’ve spent the last two weeks ignoring the fact that I exist because you all seem to have jumped to the conclusion that I meant for this to happen, that I set out to seduce Britney, and now you’re telling me that you’ve tried to understand where I’m coming from. Bullshit, Chris. Bull. Shit."

"Then tell me your side," Chris said. "Joey told me that you’ve had some puppy love crush on her since before we all went on tour together. That you think you’re in love with her. That true?"

Lance nodded.

"And Justin told me that you were just being her friend because she didn’t have any friends out here. That true?"

Again, Lance nodded.

"Those two statements don’t mesh for me, Bass. Either you’ve wanted her for years or you wanted to be her friend, and given the current circumstances, I’m going to have to discard what you told Justin."

"But I did just want to be her friend," Lance said. "I had Laura, okay? I was happy with Laura. And then Britney kissed me and it was like, all the time that I spent telling myself that I wouldn’t crush on my friend’s girl, all of that time went out the window and I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted her before."

"See, that’s things that I don’t want to hear," Chris said. "I want to hear that you’ve gotten this crush out of your system and that you will be calling Britney as soon as I leave this room to say that you’re little fling is over, la la la."

"You’re telling me to break up with her?" Lance asked. "I’m not going to break up with her. You can’t ask me to."

"I can ask you to because this is my group," Chris said. "We’ve put far too much energy into this gig to let a girl ruin it for us. I thought you had brains enough to realize that."

"She’s not just a girl."

"You’re right." Chris narrowed his eyes, furrowed his brow. "She’s Justin’s ex-girlfriend."

Lance’s blood felt hot as it flowed through his system and his fists were clenching spasmodically.

"You know what, Bass? I think you and Britney would make a cute couple, I really do, but, man. She broke up with Justin just a little over six weeks ago. If you’d waited six months, a year, five years. But six weeks, man. Two weeks after they broke up. That’s just. Disgusting."

Lance’s stomach twisted. He opened his mouth to speak, but Chris wasn’t done talking.

"Six weeks, a month ago, I wouldn’t have said that you had it in you to be this cruel, but now. I know that we’ve lived on top of each other for god-knows how many years, but I don’t feel like I know you at all.

"Chris," Lance said, because he felt like he should interrupt, not because he had anything to say.

"Ask yourself something," Chris continued, ignoring him. "Are you willing to give up everything that we’ve worked so hard for for a relationship that’s barely a month old? Because that’s what you’re doing. And that’s what I came to tell you, that Justin was going to quit if you don’t break up with Britney damn fast, and it may already be too late."

"Think hard, Bass," he hissed. "This isn’t just your life any more, you know. It’s my life, JC’s life, Joey’s life. Justin’s life. Are you prepared to sacrifice this for us, too?"

Chris turned on his heel and Lance watched him walk to the door. He didn’t move from where he sat on the bed for over an hour.
--

Three days. That was how long it had been since Britney had talked to Lance. The first night she hadn’t heard from him, she’d thought that maybe he’d gone out with his guys, that maybe there had been a breakthrough and they were all talking again. Even though it had felt wrong going to bed without talking to him, she’d fallen asleep with a smile on her face.

The second night, though, when she hadn’t heard from him by midnight, she called his phone and a recorded voice told her that either he’d turned his phone off or was out of service range. She knew that his cell phone plan was good enough so that he would never be out of range, probably not even in Siberia, so she’d left a message saying that she’d talk to him the next day and that she hoped everything was okay and that she missed him.

The third day, though, and she felt like her world was falling apart. She was nervous, her heart beating rapidly, and she couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything except to wonder where he was.

"I would have heard if something had happened to him, right?" she asked Felicia as the hands on the clock approached midnight again. "That would be, like, a top news story, right?"

"I’m sure he’s fine," Felicia said. "He’s probably just busy. You know how their schedule is. I mean, you didn’t talk to Justin every night, did you?"

"Something’s wrong," Britney said. She twisted her hands in her lap, trying to bend her fingers in ways that they wouldn’t bend. "I know it is."

"So call him," Felicia said. "Or call one of the other guys and be like, ‘yo, get me my man. He’s not answering his phone.’"

"Oh, that would go down well." Britney couldn’t help but laugh, despite the seriousness of the negative reaction she would get if she were to call anyone aside from Lance. "I’m not exactly their favorite person now, as you very well know."

"So call him again," Felicia said, "and if he doesn’t answer, I’ll call one of the other guys and get them to go get Lance."

Britney smiled weakly and reached for her phone. She had just gripped it when it started ringing. She pushed the on button and immediately put it to her ear.

"Hello?"

"Hey." Lance sounded tired, like he hadn’t slept for several days.

Felicia tipped her head, looking at Britney curiously. Britney mouthed, ‘Lance’ and Felicia smiled, nodded, and stood up to leave the room. She turned back towards Britney briefly and mouthed, ‘downstairs.’

Britney smiled and then turned her attention back to Lance. She realized he hadn’t said anything while she’d been paying attention to Felicia. That wasn’t like him; normally he’d call and he’d be off and running on the day’s events, the show, some industry story she might not have heard yet.

"Lance? Are you okay?"

"No, I’m not," he said simply, and that worried Britney more than the fact that he hadn’t called her for two days. She felt her heartbeat speed up, like it did whenever she knew something bad was coming.

"What’s the matter?" Deep inside of her, though, she already knew. She could feel the lump rising in her throat, the tears burning in her eyes.

She’d known the day was going to come, she’d just hoped that it wouldn’t be this soon. She’d hoped that maybe it never would.

"Justin wants to quit the group," Lance said, and that was not what Britney had been expecting him to say.

"He what? He lives for the group. That’s his whole life!" Belatedly she thought that maybe that hadn’t been the reaction she should have given, that maybe she should have said only a sympathetic, ‘oh.’

"Well, apparently his hate for me is too great to keep going." Lance laughed harshly.

"For us." Britney meant to sound reassuring, to try to make Lance feel like he wasn’t in this alone, but there was a questioning lilt to her voice. She tried again. "His hate for us."

"No, Britney, for me," Lance said. His voice was watery. "This is about me. It’s about me being with you, but he loves you, and you aren’t the one he has to look at every single day."

She didn’t know what to say to that. She thought that she should offer to fly out and see him, but she was in practice—couldn’t miss the amount of time it would take for her to have a descent visit. She thought she should ask him what she could do to help, but she was afraid of the answer to that question. She didn’t want to lead him into any territory where he questioned her role in his life, even if she already knew that he was heading their conversation in that direction; it would be a miracle, she thought, if he didn’t.

"I don’t know what to say," she said, finally, after too long of a silence. She and Lance didn’t do awkward silences. They had always managed to fill them.

"Chris came to tell me that Justin wanted to quit," Lance said. Even as she listened, she could hear any and all emotion fading out of his voice, and the lump rose in her throat again, larger than before. "He asked me if I was willing to give up everything that we’ve worked for over… you."

"Lance," she said quickly. She wasn’t worth it, she knew she wasn’t, but she didn’t want to have to be the one to say the words.

"He asked if I was willing to give up everything for a month old relationship," he continued. He paused again, and she could almost hear him opening and closing his mouth, trying to get the next words out, the words she knew he was going to say eventually.

"I want to be with you," he said, and Britney blinked her eyes open wide. "I spent the last two days wondering whether I should just quit, get the inevitable over with, and—"

"I can’t let you do—" she started, but he interrupted her.

"No, let me finish." She heard him take a deep breath. Then, "I’m sorry. I don’t know how to say this without hurting you."

Silence.

"We both knew that this day was going to come." She tried to laugh, but it turned into a sob, a deep gulp of air. "We said so right in the beginning. It’s okay." She felt as if her heart was being torn out of her chest.

"It’s not okay, Britney. I know it’s not, so don’t try to make me sound like I’m doing the right thing here, okay? Because I’m not."

"But you are," she said. "I’d be doing the wrong thing if I made you give up… if I asked you to…" She took a deep breath, and then said softly, "We’re musicians. The music is supposed to come first."

When Lance spoke again, it sounded as if he were trying not to cry. "But it shouldn’t."

"It does," she said quickly. She wanted this phone conversation to be over with. She wanted to be able to cry and to not have to make it sound like she fully supported Lance’s decision.

 "I am so sorry, Britney," he said softly and he sounded as if he genuinely meant it. "I am so sorry. If things were different…"

"If things were different," she echoed. "This is the right decision, okay?" 

She wouldn’t fight for him, she just couldn’t. Felicia had told her that if she really liked him as much as she said she did, she couldn’t hold him back, she couldn’t let him be as miserable as he would be if he gave up the group for her. It would be the worst thing that could possibly happen, probably to either of them.

"I’m sorry," he said again.

She said, "I understand," and listened as he hung up the phone without a goodbye. She wouldn’t have been able to say goodbye either.

The phone fell from her hand as she pressed the off button. It landed with a clunk on the carpet. She bent forward, putting her elbows on her knees, and pressing her already-damp face into the palms of her hands. Her throat muscles started convulsing and then she was trying to draw in deep breaths, sobbing.

It couldn’t have been more than five minutes later when Felicia came back upstairs, asking if Britney was off the phone yet, and then Britney heard feet moving quickly across the carpet.

"I knew it was coming," she said, managing to look up at Felicia before the other girl could wrap her in a hug. "We both did, I just." Her face burned where the tears dripped down her cheeks. "I didn’t want it to be over so soon."

"Oh, honey," Felicia said. She wrapped her arms around Britney and squeezed tightly. Britney’s head came to rest on her shoulder. "It always hurts."

And right at that moment, as a fresh batch of tears dripped from her eyes, she was hurting more than any breakup had made her hurt before. 
--

He waited until he had stopped shaking before he looked in the mirror. His skin was pale, his eyes rimmed red, and his hair was sticking out in odd-looking spikes due to the uncountable times he’d run his fingers through it in the past three days. He opened his mouth and his adams apple bobbed frantically, trying to keep the tears at bay.

She’d said it was the right decision, that she’d understood, but Lance knew it wasn’t. It wasn’t the right decision, but it was what he’d had to do.

"I’m sorry," he said to the mirror, and then, as tears flooded his eyes again, he turned away and moved across the floor, towards his door. He opened it, one of the hinges creaking softly, and looked out into the hallway. It was empty except for the bodyguards.

Taking a deep breath, Lance stepped out of his room, not bothering to shut the door behind him. He wasn’t planning on leaving the hallway. It took fifteen steps to get to the room he wanted, but it took nearly two minutes before he could actually raise his fist and knock.

Stupid idiot, he thought. Wrong decision. Call her back, say it was the wrong choice, that he’d be on the first bus to LA the next morning.

Justin answered the door too quickly in Lance’s opinion. He answered it before Lance could lose his nerve and go back to his room and call Britney.

"What," Justin growled. He was frowning, his eyes narrowed in hated.

"I never meant to hurt you," Lance said. Then, more quietly, "I made the wrong choice."

He heard the door open behind him, and then heard Chris say, "What’s going on here?"

Lance turned to face him. It was suddenly easier to talk to Justin through Chris, while Justin was standing right there. "Britney’s gone. I’m going to do what I need to do to keep the group together, okay?"

Chris nodded and Lance couldn’t look at Justin.

"You made the right choice," Chris said. He was smiling and Lance wanted to hit him; no one should be smiling, not when his heart felt like an open wound. Not when he’d given up something so precious that he wasn’t sure he’d ever find anything else that compared.

Lance jerked his head in a single nod—not able to look at either of them, all of a sudden—then started walking back down the hallway to his still open door.

It wasn’t the right choice, he thought again as he shut the door behind him, but he was an entertainer. He was his job and he was in it for four other people as well as himself. He’d done what he needed to do.