Chapter 5

He walked into the bedroom. He had only been with the blonde once…and of course it had been the night that Kathleen had caught them. Geoff didn’t know what had possessed him to take it that far. He had met the young woman in a club and one thing had led to another, he had found himself missing Maria and it had just…happened. It had been a stupid thing to do, but it was done and he couldn’t take it back. Geoff sighed. He had to find a way to make things right with Maria. He didn’t even really know how she’d react, but he knew that she’d be angry and hurt. Damn. He was feeling very guilty. Now, he’d just have to wait and see what Maria would do…assuming that Kathleen told her.

Massachusetts

The group was glad that the show was inside that night. The wind was really blowing again and it had even begun to rain. There were two other acts that were scheduled to perform before O-Town went on, so they had some time to hang out in the small dressing room before their performance.

Alex checked out their choice of performance clothes, studying them closely. "It’s so funny how you guys are, like, the opposites of, say, N’Sync. They’re all glitzy and wear funky things, and you guys are in jeans, sports jerseys and tee shirts. You know what you need? A stylist," she said with a smile.

"We like how we dress!" Trevor protested.

"I didn’t say that you dressed badly. I’m just saying that you could be…more stylish," she told them. Erik looked at her.

"Okay. If you’re so obsessed with the way that we dress, then go out, get some clothes and dress us up. We’ll let you know if we like what you pick out," he said.

"Is that a challenge?" she asked him. He smiled and held out his hand.

"Will you take it?" he asked. Alex took his hand and gave it a firm shake.

"Sure. Why not? It could only help you," she said. Erik gave a frustrated yell and went to find a bottle of water. Dan, Trevor and Ashley smiled. Ashley looked over at Jacob, who was sitting on a chair, his arms resting on his knees and his head resting on his hands.

"Jake? Are you all right?" Ashley asked. Jacob nodded, but didn’t look at him. The truth was, he wasn’t all right. His back hurt. During the last show that they had done a couple of nights ago, he had twisted it and it had stiffened up since then. It had been fine up until this morning. And now, Jacob’s dancing was being affected by it, which upset him more than having a hurt back. Maria had noticed and he prayed that she didn’t say anything to anyone. He didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for him.

The Mikes came into the room and informed the group that they would be going on in five minutes. Jacob stood up and stretched. He’d ignore the pain. He could still perform. Maria then entered the room, her camera in hand. Jacob briefly made eye contact with her, but he looked quickly away. Maria didn’t think anything of it and she turned to look at the other guys.

"Ready?" she asked. They nodded. "Oh, Dan, after our ‘winning’ dinner tonight, do you think that I could get some information for your profile?" He smiled.

"Sure. No problem. Will you go easy on me?" he asked. Maria laughed.

"I’ll try," she said.

"Oh, man. I don’t want to cook dinner," Ashley whined. Erik also made a face.

"You’re not getting out of it. You lost the game, now you have to pay up," Maria said to them. Trevor went over and put his arm around her.

"Yeah, guys. You’re losers and have to cook for us winners," he said. Mike M. motioned for everyone to follow him. Mike C. brought up the rear as they all headed for the stage.

Maria stood with the Mikes backstage as O-Town performed. She noticed that Jacob was doing his best to appear as if he were not in pain, but she could tell by just looking at him that something was not right. She heard the Mikes talking quietly beside her and wondered if they, too, had noticed Jacob’s obvious distress while he danced. She also saw Dan say something to Jacob between songs, but he ignored him as he took a drink from a water bottle.

‘All Or Nothing’ was the last song that O-Town performed and luckily, it didn’t involve a lot of movement. Maria did notice, though, that Jacob didn’t bend down as much as he had the other times that they had performed the song. The guys did a pretty good job and after saying their ‘goodbyes’ to the crowd, they headed back to the dressing room. Maria waited a while before following them. She wanted to give them a chance to change. Susan and Alex who had been watching the show from the front row, found her standing in the hallway.

"Hi, guys," Maria said as they approached her.

"How did it go?" Susan asked, referring to Maria’s getting some good pictures for her article. Maria nodded.

"Okay," she said. "But, I can only take so many performance pictures. They all look the same."

"Is something wrong? You seem distracted," Susan said. Maria shrugged. She didn’t want to admit that she was thinking about Jacob and his possibly being hurt. Ashley suddenly poked his head out of the dressing room and smiled at the women.

"It’s safe to come in," he said. The three of them entered the room and Maria went to pack up her camera in her bag that was on the couch. She looked up when Dan and Jacob came out of the bathroom area of the dressing room.

"I’m fine, Dan. Leave me alone!" Jacob was saying. He shut up when he noticed everyone in the room looking at them.

"I’m not trying to bug you, Jake, but you seem kinda stiff and I was just wondering if anything was…" Dan said, but was interrupted.

"I’m fine, Dan," Jacob said again as he picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder. He left the room, not looking at anyone else. Dan just shook his head. Maria wondered if she should say anything to Dan, but again, she didn’t want to make Jacob mad at her. He was starting to treat her with a little more respect and she didn’t want to do anything to get on his bad side again.

"Let’s go!" Mike C. yelled. Everyone got their things together quickly and they headed out to the limos that would take them back to the cottage.

Thirty minutes later, Erik, Ashley and Alex stood in the kitchen of the cottage, looking at each other. Alex decided to take charge, since the guys obviously had no idea as to what to do.

"Okay. Listen. This is going to be easy. Just do what I say and we’ll have a dinner that will satisfy them," she said. Ashley and Erik nodded, perfectly fine with the idea of letting Alex take charge of this dinner.

Jacob had disappeared to his room after everyone had entered the cottage. He lay down on his bed face-first. His back was killing him. He slowly turned over and wincing, he sat up and took a deep breath. Carefully, he stood up and walked to the bathroom, where he got a couple of Tylenol caplets and took them. He leaned against the sink as a spasm of pain shot through his lower back. Shit. What would he do if he couldn’t perform? No. That wasn’t possible. He’d just forget the pain and do what he had to do. He was okay. Really, he was.

Walking slowly back into the bedroom, he looked up and was startled when he saw Maria standing there, her arms crossed over her chest.

"What the hell are you doing?" she asked. He frowned.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked back.

"You can’t even walk. Do you want to do permanent damage to your back?" Maria asked him.

"It’s none of your damn business. Leave me the hell alone," he growled as he sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed.

"Fine. I will," she said and abruptly left the room. Jacob sighed and closed his eyes tightly, trying to will away the pain.

Maria found Trevor, Dan, Susan and the Mikes in the living room. Trevor and Dan were playing with the Playstation 2 system that they had hooked up to the TV. The Mikes were going over something business-related. Susan was looking over the group’s schedule. She looked up when Maria entered the room.

"You look tired," she said, as Maria sat down on the couch next to her. Maria closed her eyes.

"Tired and frustrated," she said, but she didn’t go into detail about why she was frustrated.

"We’re still on for later, right?" Dan asked her. Maria nodded.

"I wonder how things are going in the kitchen," she said.

"Erik! You’re gonna slice your fingers off!" Alex said. They had decided to make tacos, since they were easy and not much ‘cooking’ was required. Erik was in charge of shredding a block of cheddar cheese---and he was having some difficulty.

"I’m doing it right," he said. Alex shook her head and placing her hand over Erik’s, she showed him how to shred the cheese without causing any physical damage to his hand. Erik watched as Alex’s hand guided his up and down against the grater.

"You can’t put your fingers so close to the sharp part of the shredder. See? It’s easy," she said, looking at Erik, who was staring at her with a funny look on his face. Alex let go of his hand and turned to Ashley. She was suddenly feeling very warm and she wasn’t sure why. The oven. That was it. It was heating up the taco shells. "How’s the lettuce and tomato chopping going?" she asked Ashley.

"Great. And I haven’t even chopped a finger off yet," Ashley said with a smile. Alex laughed.

"That’s definitely a good thing," she said as she went to the stove to check the sauce and the meat that was browning in a frying pan. She was actually having a good time. Maybe there were two ‘winners’ that had come out of that volleyball game.

"Isn’t Jacob eating?" Ashley asked, as everyone settled in around the large dining room table.

"I think he’s sleeping," Dan said. He had been worried about his band mate, but Jacob had told him to get lost, so Dan had gotten lost. Whatever Jacob’s problem was, Dan was hopeful that he’d get over it in time.

"Tacos? That’s so easy," Trevor remarked when Erik and Alex came in carrying bowls of chopped up tomatoes, lettuce and shredded cheese. Ashley had run back into the kitchen and he now came out carrying a tray of warm taco shells.

"We were told to make dinner, so we made dinner. If you want to complain, go someplace else," Erik said as he set the bowl down. Alex went back to the kitchen to retrieve bowls of sauce and the meat while Erik brought out some salsa. After Ashley had gotten everyone drinks, they began to eat.

After dinner, Maria and Dan sat out on the back porch and talked. With Dan, it was more of a friendly chat than an interview. He was funny and had lots of stories about his childhood, each one funnier than the next. Maria laughed a lot while she spoke to him. It was nearly one in the morning by the time they had finished.

"Thanks, Dan," she said. He smiled.

"Thank you. Hey, I was wondering, is your article gonna be positive or negative about us?" he asked. Maria frowned slightly.

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, we were kinda worried that maybe the fact that you don’t know us or our music, well, that it might influence what you write," he said.

"I understand why you’d think that, but that’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m traveling with you guys. And to answer your question, no, it’s going to be a positive article. You guys work very hard and I’m beginning to understand what it’s like to do what you do. I would never want to do it myself, but…" she said and laughed. Dan smiled and hugged her. Maria was surprised, but hugged him back.

"Thanks, Maria. I’m sure that you’ll do a great job and if there’s anything else that you need to know, don’t hesitate to ask. Now, I bid you goodnight," Dan said as he headed up to his room. Maria smiled as she walked slowly upstairs and went into her room. Susan and Alex were sleeping. Maria wasn’t very tired and she was actually curious about something. She crossed the hallway and gently pushed the door to Jacob’s room. It opened slowly. He was awake, lying in bed and he looked up when she entered his room. Their eyes met.

"I didn’t mean to bother you," she said.

"I can’t sleep anyway," Jacob said as he tried to sit up and winced at the sudden movement. Maria closed the door and walked over to the bed.

"Why don’t you tell anyone about your back?" she asked.

"Because it’s nothing. I can still perform. I don’t need to be babied," he replied.

"How can you dance with a bad back?" Jacob frowned.

"Easily. I did it tonight," he said.

"Jacob, Dan noticed that something was wrong and so did the Mikes, I think. Hell, I knew that something was wrong with you this morning. You can hardly move," Maria told him.

"I know how I feel. I don’t need for you to tell me," he said, angrily. "And don’t tell anyone."

"If I was going to tell someone, I would’ve by now," she said. "You know, I know how to massage. I mean, I’m not an expert, but it might help a little." Jacob looked at her, not sure if it was such a good idea to have her massaging him or even touching him, but his back felt like it was on fire and he was willing to try anything at this point.

Slowly, he turned over, gritting his teeth as he did so. Maria wondered what the hell she was thinking giving him a massage, but what harm could it do? He was in pain and if she could possibly help him, then she would definitely try. Maria saw him struggling to pull his shirt over his head, so she moved forward and helped him pull it off. She noticed that he was refusing to look at her and smiled.

Maria was surprised to see a rather large tattoo on Jacob’s lower back. "Is that in Hebrew?" she asked. He nodded. He was surprised that she knew Hebrew.

"Yeah. It says ‘Jesus Christ, Son Of God, Savior,’" he told her. Maria nodded. He was religious. She hadn’t known that, but she hadn’t done his interview yet, so there was a lot that she didn’t know about him.

"Where does it hurt?" she asked. Jacob reached around and touched his lower back around the tattoo area. Maria leaned over and placed her hands lightly on his back. She still had a bandage on her hand, but the burn no longer hurt. It was healing well. Jacob’s back was very tight. Kathleen had actually taught her how to give a massage and although it had been a while since Maria had given one, everything that Kathleen had told her was starting to come back to her.

Maria gently began applying pressure and she heard Jacob sigh, taking that as a sign that he liked what she was doing. He tensed up when she touched a certain spot. "Sorry," she said. "Have you always had a bad back or did you do something to it?"

"I think I twisted it the other night. I’ve always had a weak back, though. I’ve also torn ligaments and broken some ribs, too. I was into wrestling when I was younger and messed myself up a lot," he said.

"Wrestling? I don’t see you as a WWF type," Maria said with a smile.

"Not that kind of wrestling," Jacob said, irritated. Maria laughed.

"No shit. You’re too small to do that kind of wrestling. You’d get killed. You need to eat more or something. You missed our ‘winner’s dinner,’ by the way. Alex, Ashley and Erik made freakin’ tacos," she told him. He made a kind of laughing/grunting noise.

"Tacos? Those wimps," he said. Maria kept kneading Jacob’s back gently. Jacob was starting to feel really relaxed and he liked the way that Maria’s hands felt on his skin. "Is there anything that you can’t do?" he asked, sleepily.

"Um…not really," she said, smiling. Jacob laughed softly.

"I actually believe you," he said.

"Does your back feel any better?" Maria asked, uncomfortable with the way that he was acting. It was nice that he was being friendly, but she didn’t like how she was feeling…confused and a little unsure of what was going on.

"Yeah. A little," he said. "I still don’t want anyone to know that it hurts, though, so please don’t tell."

"I won’t," she told him. After about ten minutes, Maria realized that Jacob had fallen asleep. She turned off the lights and went back to her own room. He continued to confuse the hell out of her. He seemed to isolate himself from the rest of the guys, but they were still a very close-knit group. Jacob intrigued her.

Maria changed and got into her own bed. They now had two days off to do whatever. She smiled as she closed her eyes and fell asleep.

The next day

It was hot. Erik smiled as he made his way out of the cottage and stood on the porch. Some kids were already swimming a few cottages over and it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day. Mike M. appeared behind him. Erik turned to him.

"Today’s a day off, right?" he asked. Mike nodded. "Cool," Erik said and went inside to find someone to do something with. Mike shook his head. He preferred the group to stay busy, but they deserved a day off once in a while, too.

Erik ran into Trevor. "Dude, what do you want to do? Everyone is still sleeping."

"Can I have some breakfast?" Trevor asked with a smile. Erik shrugged and they went down to the kitchen.

Alex had woken up and saw that Susan and Maria were still sleeping. She put on shorts and a cropped top and left the room. Dan was coming out of the bathroom and she smiled at him.

"Good morning, Dan," she said.

"Hey. What do you have planned for today?" he asked her.

"Maria wants to set up photo shoots for you, Erik and Trevor. She’s doing Trevor’s interview later. I don’t know what the hurry is. We have plenty of time, but she seems to be rushing," Alex replied.

"She knows what she wants to do. I noticed that when it comes to her job, Maria’s very focused and very…"

"Obsessive?" Alex finished for him and they laughed.

"I was gonna say ‘serious,’ but ‘obsessive’ is good too, I suppose," he said.

"Are you going down to eat?"

"In a minute. I’m gonna see if Jacob is up," Dan told her. They went in opposite directions. Dan lightly knocked on Jacob’s door. He pushed it open and saw Jacob sleeping on his stomach, wearing the jeans that he’d had on last night. Dan decided to let him sleep and he closed the door quietly. He had a feeling that something was physically wrong with Jacob and Jacob wasn’t telling anyone what it was. Dan could tell from the way that Jacob had danced. He was normally smooth and moved effortlessly, but more than once, Dan had noticed Jacob wincing and holding back at times. ‘We know each other too well to hide anything,’ Dan thought, as he made his way downstairs.

An hour later, Maria woke up to the sound of her cell phone ringing. She reached over to her nightstand and picked it up.

"Hello?" she said, her voice scratchy.

"Maria, it’s Kathleen. I need to talk to you." Maria stretched and yawned.

"I’m just getting up, Kathleen. What time is it?" she asked.

"It’s noon, Maria. I’m sorry for waking you up, but there’s something I need to tell you that I should’ve told you yesterday, but Sarah interrupted and, well, I didn’t get a chance," Kathleen said, her voice sounding like she was either crying or trying not to cry.

"What’s wrong?" Maria sat up. She was wide-awake now and worried that what Kathleen had to tell her wasn’t good. "Is it Sarah? Did something happen?"

"No, Sarah’s fine. God, Maria. I hate doing this, but I have no choice," Kathleen said. Maria frowned. Susan came in from just having taken a shower. She noticed that Maria was on the phone, so she left quickly to give her some privacy.

"Just tell me," Maria said. There was a pause. Maria’s hands started to get sweaty and it wasn’t because of the warm weather.

"A few weeks ago, I went by the loft to check on Heathcliff and there was a woman there…with Geoff," Kathleen said.

"Oh," Maria didn’t quite understand.

"Maria, she came out of the bedroom wearing just a towel." Maria’s eyes closed.

"What did he say?" she asked softly.

"He told me not to tell you and that you wouldn’t believe me. Then he threatened to tell you that it was me that he was sleeping with. I don’t know, it got confusing, but he’s a jerk, Maria. I wanted to kill him and that tramp that was with him," she said. Maria didn’t say anything. She felt numb. Although she had said that she didn’t love Geoff, they had been together for a long time and to think that he would do something like that to her…it hurt…a lot. "Maria?"

"I’m here," she said.

"What are you gonna do? I mean, I’m not lying. I would never lie to you…especially about something like this. You know that, right?" Kathleen told her.

"Yes, I know that you would never lie to me. I also think that Geoff is capable of doing what you said that he did, as much as I wish that I didn’t. It hurts, though," she admitted.

"I’m so sorry. What do you want me to do?" Kathleen asked sympathetically.

"I don’t know. Should I tell him that I know or will that only make him madder at you? He’s got a temper, Kathleen, and I don’t want him to hurt you," Maria said.

"He wouldn’t do anything. I’d kill him and believe me, it would feel really good, too," Kathleen said. Maria gave a small laugh. Kathleen was worried about her. She sounded distant and emotionless. Of course, after hearing what she just had, Maria was probably shocked…and angry. Maria wasn’t one to hold in her emotions, though. She rarely cried, but Kathleen knew that when she got angry, she wasn’t quiet like she was being now.

"Thanks for calling, Kathleen."

"Maria? Are you okay?" Kathleen asked, worriedly.

"Oh, I’m fine. I’ll think about it and figure out what to do. I can’t really do anything about it now, so I’ll see," Maria said. "I have to go. Bye." Maria hung up. Geoff had cheated on her. Maria put her phone down and stood up, her fists clenched at her sides, her fingernails digging into the palms of her hands. Geoff had cheated on her and she was not fine.

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