"Nick, you okay?" Now that Leighanne was safely by his side, Brian was able to focus on other things.

"Man, I don't know. Did you hear how shaky my voice was during the performance? We'll hear all about that from the reviewers this weekend."

"Bud, don’t worry about it. We were all nervous standing up there. It's our peers tonight, not just the fans," he whispered.

"I just feel like such a shit."

"Quit your whining," Brian smirked. "The next act is about to perform and I wanna be able to actually hear and not just see."

Nick rolled his eyes as Brian turned his attention back to the stage. He didn't understand what was wrong with him. Actually, he knew where a little bit of the darkness was coming from. He knew that the moodiness stemmed much deeper than his nerves. He knew it was something that not too many other people knew about, but they would soon enough. Mandy, his girlfriend for the past year and a half, was no longer. There was no way he could balance the group, his family and her. It all had taken its toll on him. He couldn't cloud his mind right now, though. He was in public and he didn't want any emotion but happiness shown. He was broken out of thought by someone's voice introducing the next performance.

"Ladies and gentleman, I'd like to introduce to you a new crop of pop. Toria, Toni Ann, Chelly, Celia and Laney. For short though, you can call them Crimson Kiss!"

The five girls stepped out on stage, total confidence showing in each one. Toria, the brunette Brian had spoken of earlier, seemed to stand out the most. She was also the first to speak. "Tonight we'd like to do somewhat of a tribute. It's come to our attention that we need to show some sort of appreciation to certain folks that have inspired us. So, we're here to do just that. Each of us will take the part of our favorite person who originally sang it. Hope you enjoy!"

All the boys watched as they took their places behind the microphones, hearing the opening bars of Tearing Up My Heart begin. "Oh fuck me," Nick sighed.

"I'd rather not. I’ve got my woman with me now."

He gave Brian an annoyed look and turned his attention back to the stage. "They actually like N'Steal? This is absolute shit." Nick was feeling ill, not even pay attention to what was actually happening.

"Guys, is it just me or are they missing their lines?" Howie whispered.

Nick's eyes returned to the stage, watching as Toria pointed to each girl, seeing if she was going to take a part. After the four girls shook their heads, Toria point to herself and dismissed the thought quickly. That's when she decided to speak into the microphone once more. "Well, if you couldn't tell we just love those guys so much that we couldn't choose a favorite." More than a few chuckles filled the audience at her more than sarcastic sounding comment.

"Sound crew, I though we had this worked out backstage!" Laney interrupted.

A little bit of an extra long opening to I Want It That Way began to drift its way through the huge speakers. "Much better," Toria smiled.

Laney began with the opening lines, letting Brian know who thought he was flavor of the year. "Hey, she's a cutie," Brian grinned.

Leighanne lightly elbowed him. "Keep it up, Rok," she smirked.

"What? Hey, at least you know I won't be the bad Backstreet Boy and get Britney Spears pregnant," he giggled.

"Shut up," Nick whispered a bit angry. Once he had heard Toria begin to sing his part, he had to memorize every moment of it.

"Damn, Nick, she could put you to shame if she wanted to," AJ whispered.

"She already has," he said only to himself, not able to take his eyes off of her now.