Chapter 11

Friday, August 3 Daytona Beach, Florida

This was it…the last stop on the tour. The group of weary travelers couldn’t have been happier. It had been exhausting for everyone. But after tonight, they would all go their separate ways. Tensions were running high and by now, everyone was ready for the tour to end.

Maria stood at the window in her hotel room, looking out at a gorgeous view of the ocean. The last month for her had meant one thing: work. She had written the article and organized the pictures. She still had a couple of rolls of film to develop when she got back to the studio, but she pretty much knew which photos she was going to use for each guy. The group photos were harder to choose, so she still had work to do where that was concerned.

Alex came out of the bathroom. Maria turned and smiled at her. Alex was wearing a black bikini with black shorts. "We’re going to the beach. Are you coming?" Alex asked. Maria had talked with Alex about Alex’s family problems and Alex had filled her in on everything. Unfortunately, Alex hadn’t spoken to Erik about it, so he was now doing to Alex what Jacob was doing to Maria: acting totally professional and distanced. It had been going on since that day in June when Maria had returned to the bus after Sarah’s graduation.

Sarah had returned to Orlando a couple of days after she had arrived and was now staying with Emily in Maria’s loft. Maria had been glad to see her go, not because she hadn’t wanted Sarah there, but because of Sarah’s increasing crush on Jacob. Sarah had followed him around like a puppy and Maria had heard about it…from both of them. Jacob was all Sarah had talked about and Jacob had been fed up with Sarah following him around, so he’d demanded that Maria call her off of him. Maria had told Sarah to ‘stop’ in as gentle a way as possible so that Sarah hadn’t known that Jacob was annoyed with her. As a matter of fact, annoyance had been Jacob’s demeanor practically the whole month of July, so Maria had actually gotten used to it. She was still interested in him, but he wanted nothing to do with her…or so it seemed.

"Well?" Alex asked. Maria shrugged.

"I suppose so. What am I gonna do here?" Maria asked. She went to change into her bathing suit.

Jacob sat on his bed, strumming his guitar. He was waiting for Ashley to come out of the bathroom. ‘One year older and he still takes forever to do his damn hair,’ Jacob thought. The guys hadn’t been able to really celebrate Ashley’s birthday because they’d had a show on Wednesday night. They did go out to a club where they had had a private party that hadn’t lasted too long. The guys had all been tired and hadn’t had the energy to really party. They’d probably do something for Ashley when they returned home.

"Are you ready?" Ashley asked as he came out of the bathroom. Jacob looked up at him.

"Dude, I’ve been waiting for you," he replied. Jacob stood up and put his guitar down on his bed. He turned to see Ashley looking at him. "What?"

"Okay, there’s, like, something I’ve been wanting to know and you can tell me to shut up, but I just have to know. Are you gonna do anything about Maria?"

"What do you mean?" Jacob asked. Ashley sighed.

"Come on, dude. You know what I’m talking about. I see the way that the two of you are always looking at each other. It’s so obvious that you want her, why don’t you just, like, do something about it already? You’re running out of time," he told him.

"Ash, I’m not getting into this right now, so shut up," Jacob said as he grabbed a backpack off the bed and headed for the door. "Come on, let’s meet the other guys." Ashley shook his head.

"How can you let her just, like, go without letting her know how you feel?" he asked. Jacob had reached the door and he turned to face Ashley before responding.

"I don’t ‘feel’ anything for her. Nothing’s gonna happen, just like nothing’s happened for over a month," he said.

"Dude, that’s just because we’ve all been so busy that we’ve barely seen each other. The same thing is going on with Erik and Alex. When things calm down, there will be time for you guys to get together," Ashley told him. Jacob sighed.

"The reason nothing’s happened is because nothing’s there, Ash. Let it go," he said as he pulled open the door and walked out into the hallway. Alex and Maria had just exited their own room and Maria’s eyes locked with Jacob’s. He was wearing long, baggy blue shorts with white stripes on the sides and a white tee shirt with California written across the front in light blue. A blue and white bandanna was also tied over his head. Maria found it hard to take her eyes off of him.

Jacob was having similar problems. Maria had on a red and black bikini top with a short black wraparound skirt over the bottom half. Her hair was pulled up in a twist and she had black sandals on her feet. Her skin was a deep bronze color. She tanned easily and they had all been out in the sun quite a bit in the last month. She was simply stunning. Jacob watched as she walked toward him. Her eyes moved to Ashley.

"Ready for a little fun?" she asked him with a smile. Ashley smiled back.

"You bet. It’s hard to believe that it’s the last show of the tour tonight," he said.

"Come on, let’s get the others," Jacob said, as he quickly turned and headed for Erik, Dan and Trevor’s room.

Mike C. led them all to a private section of beach that he had ‘reserved’ just for the band and the women. Maria had gone to Dianna’s room to fetch her and she had joined them. Dan had taken a liking to Dianna, but she was very private and kept everyone an arm’s length away. She never talked about herself, other than when she had told Maria and Alex about where she was from and her physical therapy job in Boston. As hard as Dan tried, he couldn’t break through the barrier that Dianna had built around herself.

Trevor, Erik and Ashley ran for the water the minute they had dropped their things and stripped down to just their swim trunks. Alex and Maria spread out towels to lie on. Dianna opted for a chair, not liking the sand. Jacob and Dan sat on towels near, but not too near, the women, while Mike sat on a chair, his cell phone glued to his ear.

Jacob pulled his shirt over his head and sat down. Dan laughed. Jacob frowned.

"What’s so funny?" he asked.

"Dude, you don’t tan. Your arms have gotten some sun, but you’re, like, white as a sheet," Dan told him. Jacob just shrugged as he lay down and closed his eyes. Dan got up and ran to the ocean to swim with the others.

"You’re staring," Alex said softly to Maria. Maria looked at her. "At Jacob," Alex added.

"I am not," Maria told her. She had been, though. Seeing him shirtless had brought back the memory of when he had kissed her in her father’s pool.

"It’s the last night we’ll all be together. Why don’t you take advantage?" Alex asked quietly.

"Of what?" Maria asked her. Alex shook her head.

"That!" she said, motioning to Jacob. Maria put on her sunglasses and closed her eyes as she let the warm sun soak into her skin. It wouldn’t be hard to get Jacob to kiss her again. She knew that he was still interested in her. ‘He’s just so damn stubborn that he refuses to make another move,’ she thought. She suddenly sat up.

"Alex, I brought my O-Town CD, right? I’d like to listen to it," she said, a little louder than she needed to. Alex gave her a funny look, but passed Maria her backpack. Maria dug until she found her portable CD player. She took out Sarah’s autographed O-Town CD and put it in the player. Putting the headphones on, she lay back and listened.

Jacob had heard what Maria had said. He couldn’t believe that after all of this time, she still hadn’t listened to their album. After a while, Alex and Dianna went to go swimming. Erik and Ashley were now building a sandcastle down by the water’s edge while Dan and Trevor did their best to mess it up. Mike had gone off to find a concession stand. Jacob glanced at Maria. She still had her headphones on and was smiling. He couldn’t take it anymore. He stood up and went over to her towel, sitting down beside her.

"Why are you smiling?" he asked loudly. Maria pulled off her sunglasses and looked at him. She shook her head.

"’Wifey?’ Who the hell wrote some of this stuff? I can’t believe he said ‘wifey,’" she told him. Jacob smiled at her honesty. He wanted to know what she thought of their album, so he’d accept any criticism that she had to give. She pressed the ‘back’ button on her player. Jacob could hear Every Six Seconds start to play. He watched her as she listened to it. "God, you guys are like horny on this album," she remarked. Jacob laughed at that.

"What’s your favorite song on there so far?" he asked. Maria thought for a minute.

"I’ve listened to most of them, but it’s definitely Love Should Be A Crime," she replied. "I like Take Me Under, but that, ‘Can I get an O-T-O-W-N,’ thing is kinda out of place." Jacob smiled.

"It was re-done. We had recorded a different version in Germany and it was ‘fixed’ up a bit," he told her.

"Too bad," Maria said. "I like the lyrical content, though. You wrote that about Janie?" Jacob looked at the sand between his toes.

"Yeah. At a time when we weren’t together," he replied.

"You were really serious about her," Maria said as she took off her headphones. Jacob nodded slowly.

"At one time, yes, I was. Before O-Town happened. We grew up together. Her family owned this theater company that I was involved in and we performed together. She’ll always be an important part of my life, but I’ve moved on and I assume that she has too. We live too far away from each other and now that we know that we can survive without one another, it’s a lot easier…for both of us," he said, not knowing why he was really telling Maria all of this. Maria watched him closely as he talked. He was so matter-of-fact that she knew he was no longer ‘pining’ for Janie.

"You acted, too?" Maria asked.

"Yeah. Two of my favorite charities, I guess you’d call them, are the Christian Youth Theater and the Christian Community Theater, which I grew up in."

"Christian theater? Oh yeah, you told me that you’re religious," Maria said. Jacob looked at her.

"How about you?" he asked. Maria sighed.

"I’m Catholic. I haven’t been the best Catholic, though. I mean I’m not a ‘practicing’ Catholic. When I was little, my mom would bring us, that is, my brother, sister and me, to church every Sunday. I think I started to get really interested in religion when I became fascinated with the Easter story and Jesus dying on the cross and the Stations of the Cross. I must’ve been in either second or third grade. I’d drag my mom to church just to go through the Stations during Lent. It was like every Sunday before Easter. I loved Palm Sunday when the gospel was the Passion and there would be people reading the different ‘parts’ on the altar. I started reading the Bible, wanting to know more about Jesus, Mary and Joseph. It fascinated me until…" Maria looked down. Jacob waited. "…until the divorce."

"What happened?" Jacob asked softly.

"I became disillusioned. And my mom stopped going to church. She chose to sleep in and just never went back, except on holidays. I went with my Grandmother and then I went for a while after I got my driver’s license, but it wasn’t the same. Marriage is a sacrament, yet my parents ended theirs. It didn’t make sense. Why would two people who supposedly love each other and vow before God to remain together until death, leave each other? Why would they have three children and decide that they don’t love each other anymore? Does that mean that they don’t love us? I didn’t understand. I even went to our parish’s pastor and talked to him about it. He told me to go home and pray. He couldn’t give me an honest answer. Oh, and he told me to stay abstinent." Maria laughed. "That’s what he saw when he saw me: a teenage slut looking to have some sex." Maria then imitated the priest in a deep voice, "‘Your parents don’t matter, dear. What matters is that you don’t have sexual relations until you’re married.’" She looked at Jacob and smirked. "I lost my virginity that same weekend."

Jacob didn’t know how to respond, so he remained quiet. "What about you?" Maria asked him. "I assume you and Janie ‘did it.’"

"We were able to control ourselves," he said. Maria frowned.

"What the hell does that mean?" she asked.

"I mean that, yes, we were intimate, but I never let it get out of control. Each time we were together, it meant something," Jacob replied.

"I didn’t say that I was a slut or easy, Jacob," Maria told him. "I’ve only been with three guys. I had a couple of serious boyfriends, one in high school and then one in college, and of course, there was Geoff." Jacob looked at her.

"I didn’t mean to imply that you were ‘easy,’" Jacob told her. When Maria didn’t say anything, he spoke again, "I understand your disillusionment over the divorce, but God is always there for you. He didn’t cause your parents to split up. It’s just a test that God gave you to deal with and I’m sure that He was watching out for you the whole time. You shouldn’t have turned your back on Him."

"I was confused. I needed my parents and they weren’t there for me," Maria argued. "I was a teenager and there were things that I needed to know that only a mother and a father could teach me, but I didn’t have that. I was on my own and I hated that feeling. I prayed. I never said that I didn’t pray, but nothing changed. If anything, things got worse. I needed someone to blame, so it was my mom, my dad and God." Jacob could see that she was getting worked up.

"When my parents split, I made sure that I didn’t lose my faith. I believed in God and He helped me through the pain," he said softly.

"Yeah, Him and a lot of angry, loud, angst-filled rock music, right?" Maria asked. Jacob smiled. She knew him better than he thought she did.

"I also had my music," Jacob admitted. "It heals."

"Why are you here? You are too good for this," Maria suddenly said. Jacob frowned.

"For?"

"O-Town…a boy band. You are too talented to be in a boy band, Jacob. Why are you doing this?" she asked.

"I want a career in music," he replied. Maria laughed humorlessly.

"So you sell out? You’re using this to further your own career? Okay, you’re ‘in’ now, you don’t need them anymore." Jacob glared at her.

"You’re calling me a sellout? What about you? You’re a damn hypocrite then," he said angrily. "You didn’t want this assignment, right? Why did you take it, then? I’ll tell you why: because you had to start somewhere. I’m sure that if you had a choice between, say, O-Town and U2, you would’ve chosen U2. So, you see, it’s the same reason as me. I would’ve done anything to get into the music industry and O-Town was my chance. I didn’t just walk in and say, ‘Hi, I want a record contract.’ I had to work my ass off to make this band and if people think we suck, tough shit! Critics don’t matter to me. They never did. What matters is the music and even if the music-making process and the actual music business discourage me once in a while, so be it. I’m not gonna quit because I’m unhappy. I’m gonna stick with it because I know that I’m learning every day that I’m involved in it!"

The group down by the water could hear Jacob and Maria talking. As their voices became louder, they became more interested.

"Should we go see if they’re okay?" Erik asked. Alex shook her head.

"It’s the most that they’ve said to each other in a freakin’ month. Leave them alone," she said. The other guys shrugged and went back to their sandcastle. Trevor kept an eye on the couple on the beach, though. He could tell that they were arguing and part of him was kinda glad that they weren’t getting along. Then again, they had argued before and had ended up kissing each other, so he knew that there were feelings between them. Trevor sighed as he watched them.

Maria and Jacob sat glaring at each other. They had somehow ended up in a very heated, very serious discussion that neither one had wanted to have. Maria stood up.

"Okay, you got me. I sold out. I’m a horrible person for wanting a chance for people to see my talent and my hard work," she said, suddenly realizing that what Jacob had said was true. She had, in a way, sold out. Jacob stood up, too, and faced her.

"It’s not a bad thing. I think of these guys as my brothers now. I love them and we are a group. It took a while to become a group, but we worked at it and things eventually fell into place. Yeah, it’s a boy band, but I’m willing to start anywhere. It’s working and I’m making music, so I really have nothing to complain about," he said. "I’m doing what I love. Who I’m doing it with is irrelevant as long as they love it as much as I do."

"Yet, you complain all the time," Maria said with a small smile. Jacob laughed. Maria looked up at the clear, blue sky. "I guess I just don’t know what people are gonna think of my work. I can’t say that what other people think doesn’t matter to me, because it does."

"You’re talented, Maria. You don’t have to worry about what other people think. As long as you believe in yourself and your talent, then others will to. It may take some time, but it’ll happen," he said. Maria looked into his eyes.

"I do believe in my talent. I know that I’m talented…I’ll admit that, but it’s wanting the right people to see my talent and believe in me too," she said.

"I believe in you," Jacob said before he could stop himself. Maria stared at him. His blue eyes refused to let her look away. Maria had a feeling that she’d never experienced before. She felt a shortness of breath, like someone had hit her in the chest with a sledgehammer. Jacob’s eyes held hers. Maria felt warm and it wasn’t from the sun beating down on her.

"You’re not the right person to be believing in me," Maria said softly.

"I could be," Jacob said. Maria shook her head.

"Whoa," she said with a smile. "This is getting way too…"

"What?" Jacob asked.

"…way too serious, Jacob. You told me that I distract you from your work. You want nothing to do with me. So, what’s this?" Jacob just held her gaze.

"It’s me being spontaneous…and realizing that I can’t stop thinking about you or…or wanting you," he said. Maria looked down at her feet. Jacob put his finger under her chin and tilted her head up so that she was looking at him.

"Your feelings will change after the tour. It’s over. The tour is done. I go back to work tomorrow. You go back to doing whatever you were doing before the tour. There’s no way…" Maria stopped as a smile appeared on Jacob’s face and he gave a short laugh. She frowned. "What’s so funny?"

"You. You started this. Are you gonna finish it?" he asked. Maria could tell that he was challenging her…daring her to do something. Very slowly, she inched towards him until she was standing as close as she could to him without actually touching him.

"After the show tonight, come to my room," she said softly. Jacob’s breath caught in his throat as she moved away from him, a smile slowly appearing on her face. She turned and walked away. Jacob just stood there, watching her as she walked away. She was unlike any woman he had ever met. He didn’t know what she had in mind, but he did know one thing: he couldn’t wait until tonight.

Orlando

"I can’t believe I like a boy band," Sarah said to Emily. They were sharing the guest room, which, luckily for them, had two twin beds in it. Emily sat on her bed, strumming her guitar as Sarah painted her toenails on her bed.

"How’s their music?" Emily asked.