Chapter Two

“Nick! Are you ready? The meeting starts in 30 minutes!” AJ called to Nick from their hotel bathroom. They were staying in New York where they had a confrence to discuss the tour, which was scheduled to start in around 4 months.

“Yeah, AJ, I’m ready!” Nick shouted back at AJ from the living room area.

AJ walked out of the bathroom half dressed, toothbrush in mouth. He came to the living room of the hotel room and found Nick, sitting in front of the television, totally enthralled in a game of Mario Cart. He still had his pajamas on and his hair looked like he had just been in a tornado.

“Shi shenw yu swern’d shressed!” AJ said angrily to Nick.

Nick pressed pause on the game and looked at AJ.

“Dude, what the hell did you just say? It might help if you took the toothbrush out of your mouth.”

“Smartass,” AJ mumbled as he took the toothbrush out of his mouth. “I said, I knew you weren’t dressed!”

“Oh man, don’t have a freakin cow. You are acting like Kevin more and more every day, ya know that? I can get dressed in five minutes!” Nick replied to AJ as he unpaused the game and continued to play.

“Ok, Nick. I’m gonna go back in the bathroom and finish betting ready, and when I come out, your white ass better be dressed!” AJ demanded as he went back into the bathroom and finished brushing his teeth.

“And you’re lucky I don’t break that game for that Kevin comment!”

Nick ignored AJ and continued playing the game of Mario Cart until he heard a knock at the door. He paused his game once again and went to see who was there. He opened the door to find Brian, fully dressed, ready to go.

“Hey Nick! What’s up?” He asked. “Kevin sent me in here to see if you and AJ were ready yet—“ Brian paused and looked nick up and down. “And by the looks of it the answer is no.”

“Well you see,” Nick started “AJ is in the bathroom so I can’t get ready.”

“Hey Rok, good morning.” AJ said, coming out of the bathroom. He was now fully dressed and just needed to get his shoes on. “Don’t believe him by the way. If you look at the TV, I am quite sure you will find a paused game of Mario Cart, which I told him to turn off. As you can see, I have no control over him.”

“Yeah I figured he’d be holding us up again.” Brian said to AJ, giving Nick a look that said get ready or else.

“Alright! Alright! I’ll stop my game and get ready,” Nick told Brian and AJ. He went over to the Nintendo and saved his game, then turned the power off.

“Now,” AJ said to Nick, “Get ready for the millionth time!”

Nick grabbed his clothes out of his bag and went into the bathroom.

“So is everyone else ready to go?” AJ asked Brian.

“Yeah, I know Kevin is and I think Howie is ready too,” He told him, taking notice of the shape that their room was in.

“Good lord AJ! What happened? It looks like an earthquake hit, followed by a hurricane then a tornado.”

“Yes…that is what happens when you put the two messiest Backstreet Boys together!” AJ joked.

“Oh yes, I should have known.”

About 5 minutes later, the door of the bathroom opened and out came a fully dressed Nick Carter. “Ok, I’m ready! See you guys were all worried that we’d be late for the meeting. I told ya I’d be ready in like 5 minutes.”

“Oh whatever Nick,” AJ said. “Hey Brian, why don’t you take Kaos down to the lobby before he starts to play his stupid Nintendo again. I’ve got to get some things together. I’ll be down in a few.”

“Ok, good deal.” Brian told AJ. “Come on Nick, let’s go. Kevin and Howie are already down in the lobby, probably wondering where the heck we are.

“Psh, now who’s holding us up?” Nick said smartly to AJ as he and Brian walked out of the room.”

“Nick would you really like to be beat up at 9:30 in the morning?” AJ called to his best friend as he walked down the hall. “I think it’s a little early.”

AJ walked over to his bed and sat down. He put his head in his hands and began to think. Thinking about the tour, thinking about being on the road again, thinking about the fans, thinking about everything. He walked over to the window and took notice of the small crowd that had gathered in the cold. He had mixed feelings about the tour. He was excited to be getting back out on the road, but was nurvace about if the band still had the spark they had a year ago. Backstreet Boys had taken a well deserved break over the past year. They used the time to relax and write another album. In that past year, *Nsync had stepped into their limelight and were still standing strong. This bothered all the guys, but seemed to affect AJ more for some reason.

AJ had been down for about a month, after the recent break up with his girlfriend, Ashley. They had been going out for a year and everything just went to hell. They started fighting about little stuff that didn’t matter, and were at each other’s throats about everything. She wanted to spend so much time together, time which he did not have. The tour was starting in 4 months and that meant a hard 4 months of work for him and the rest of the guys. He told himself that he could not take the pressure she was putting on him. It was too much and it had to end. Once they had broken up he had little time to get himself together. The meetings to discuss the tour would start in about a month and the work wouldn’t seem to end until 4 months later, when they were actually performing. He had that short month to think about things, to pull himself together mentally, and to put things in the past where they belonged. The guys had been a big help with everything. They were always there for him and kept his spirits high. When he was feeling depressed he always knew that he could talk to any of his ‘brothers’, and they would make him feel better.

AJ found himself talking to Howie the most. He had been through a similar situation a few years ago with his ex-girlfriend, and was a big help to AJ. Howie always had answers to whatever was bothering AJ and made sure he was ok with the breakup and would continue to be ok.

AJ stood up and took one last glance out the window. He felt good mentally and psychically about getting back into touring, back into the fans, back into what he loved to do. He walked out of the room and down the hall. He got on the elevator and went down to the lobby. The doors opened and he saw the rest of his four brothers sitting down surrounded by body guards.

“Hey guys! I’m ready to go,” he told the small group of people who were now taking notice of him. He had on typical AJ clothes, leather pants, a white shirt covered by a tan jacket, and his famous cowboy hat.

“Morning Bone,” A casually dressed Howie called.

“Morning Howie” AJ said back, giving him a nod.

“Are we ready to go?” Kevin said to everyone standing up from his seat.

“Yeah,” Marcus, AJ’s body guard said. “The crowd outside doesn’t look too threatening so we should be fine.”

Everyone stood up and headed out the door. AJ took the energy of the fans in, getting all the more excited about starting back up. He missed it so badly. Finally! He said to himself, This is gonna be a tour no one will forget.

Chapter Three