Oreos for Breakfast

Oreos For Breakfast: Chapter 36
By the Paperbag Princess and Pumpkin Coach

“Where are you?” AJ asked as I followed Lola down the hall to… somewhere. Changing room? Green room? Artist’s lounge? I was such a cliché, talking on my cell phone and following my manager blindly.

“I’m doing this MTV basketball thing. Rock and Jock.”

“Oh, yeah, we’ve done that before. Well, Nick has. I think Brian is doing it this year.”

“He is?” I hadn’t really asked who else was doing it. Saffron said it was a good way for us to keep our name out there before the album dropped, and I volunteered. Before I’d hurt my knee. But my physical therapist said it would probably be good for me to do it, so I was here.

I didn’t know who was on my team or anything. It’s not like we practiced. Who was our coach? We were just supposed to get out there and play, right?

I usually played one-on-one with my brothers or Darien. I hadn’t played on a team since high school.

This was a bad idea.

“Yeah, they wanted one of us and I suck. I think Brian ended up doing it.”

My first pick of a Backstreet Boy to play basketball would be Nick. It wasn’t him, was it?

“Are you sure?” I asked AJ.

AJ hesitated for a second. “Yeah… I don’t think Nick said he was going to do it. I didn’t really pay attention once I said ‘no’. Sorry.”

“You don’t have to keep tabs on Nick, Aje. That’s not your job.”

“Well, I don’t want you to run into him at something like this if you don’t want to.”

Lola stopped walking, looking down at me. “Are you worried that Nick is here?”

“Yeah,” I said, looking up at her. She was tall. She should be playing basketball, not me. This was ‘Rock and Jock,’ which implied that actual professional players were going to be present. Why had I agreed to this?

She shook her head. “I checked. It’s Brian.”

“Thanks,” I said, and she held open the door for me. It was a lounge. Lots of people that I vaguely recognized were milling around, talking to each other or snacking from the food table or talking on their cell phones, like me.

“She sounds cranky,” AJ said in my ear, and I let her walk away from me. She knew what I was supposed to be doing.

“She’s dating Jeremy. I can only imagine,” I said, making AJ laugh.

“Do you ever worry about that? That Jeremy will piss her off and she’ll leave?”

“I live in mortal fear of that possibility, yes.”

“Howie’s with Leigh, but she was just doing our website. I guess she could have screwed up the website somehow, but they’re still good. And she’s not working for us any more.”

“Good plan. But Lola’s way too important to us. Maybe I can kick Jeremy out of the band again.”

“Because that worked out for you the first time you tried that,” AJ teased, and I scowled at the phone.

“Shut up.”

Suddenly someone was hugging me, giving me a huge kiss on the cheek. “Who are you talking to?” Brian asked, and I handed him the phone.

“AJ.”

He grinned at me, taking the phone. “Bone! How the hell are ya?” He stepped away from me, talking to AJ and I looked around for Lola. Who else was here for me to talk to? Did I know anyone here?

“She’ll call you back, Bone,” Brian said, flipping my phone shut.

“Hey!” I said, taking my phone back, and Brian gave a look.

“Were you in the middle of an important conversation?”

“Well… no,” I admitted, and he raised an eyebrow at me.

“Why are you talking to AJ at all?”

“Am I not allowed?”

“Kevin said that AJ spent a couple of days with you last week.” Brian said, sounding oddly like a 13-year-old girl looking for gossip. Maybe he’d been home with the wife and baby too much?

“Yeah.” I said trying to calm my racing heart. Somehow I thought Brian would be the one who would see through me. “He needed to get out of LA after the wedding thing.”

“And Kevin says that maybe AJ is a little crushed out on you now. Something about a song, and being in bed together and…”

Damn Kevin! Now who was the 13-year-old girl? Did they all gossip about me behind my back? I don’t think I wanted to know the answer to that.

I waved him off again, looking around for Lola. She was the one who was supposed to save me. Who knew that I’d need saving from Brian of all people? “We’re friends. He’s going through a tough time now, and I am way easier to deal with than Sarah.”

“True,” Brian conceded. “You’re not trading in one Boy for another?”

“No,” I said with enough annoyance that Brian laughed, putting his arm around my shoulders and leading me over to a couch.

“Because I am a single man tonight, and I was hoping for some company.”

“You left the baby?” I teased, and he sighed, only half-joking.

“He’s sick. Well, just a little cough, but Leigh didn’t want him to fly.”

“New mom,” I dismissed. “My sister-in-law was horrible with the first and then when the second came along she’d have pneumonia before Vanessa would even consider taking her to the doctor! You mellow. Hey! Are you staying long enough to see Kevin in ‘Chicago’?”

“Like I would miss that? Kevin would never let me hear the end of it – or my Aunt, for that matter. I leave after the matinee tomorrow. Hey, I have an extra ticket now that Leighanne’s not here. Wanna come?”

“Sure.” I’d seen Kevin in ‘Chicago’ about a dozen times now, but what was another performance?

“Good. We’ll catch up. I haven’t talked to you in ages.”

I smiled. “You’ve had other things on your mind lately. Do you have pictures?”

He gave me a proud new dad smile and pulled out his cell phone. He had a million pictures chronicling every moment of Bailee’s three months on the planet. Even one of Nick holding him with a smile.

Nick and I would have… my mind went there before I could close that memory back into its quiet corner of my mind. I couldn’t think about that. Not with Brian right here. It would be too easy to ask about Nick and hear what was happening and that was off limits. I forced the smile back on my face, telling myself that I was just happy to see Brian and pictures of the baby.

“That was the last time I talked to Nick, actually,” Brian said, skipping to another picture quickly for me. “Any idea what he’s up to?”

“I don’t talk to him, Bri.” If they gossiped like girls, then he had to know everything.

“Really?” He looked so disappointed. Maybe AJ was keeping that information to himself.

“We broke up, remember? That usually means you stop talking.”

“But…” He shook his head, obviously dismissing whatever thought was running through is head. “I had hopes.”

“Like he’s not really dating Paris Hilton?” I teased, attempting to keep the tone light. AJ had told me that none of them liked her, but I tried not to push the subject and he’d had dropped it, probably sensing that it upset me. AJ was good like that. Attuned to what other people were feeling.

“I thought that was you in a blond wig!”

There was the goofy Brian I remembered, always able to make me laugh. And getting me to laugh about Paris Hilton dating my Nick was something not many people could manage to do. “Sorry, no. I don’t look good as a blonde. And I don’t talk to him. Just know what I see in the papers, you know. Ask AJ. AJ talks to him once in a while. They’re both in LA now. Oh, I do know he’s touring sometime next month.”

“Yeah, I’d heard that. The album is good too bad Jive… shoot. I shouldn’t talk about the record company here.” He looked around and I noticed the men in suits at the food table. Did that mean that Amber was going to be here? God, I hoped not.

“They’re going to want me to go back there,” Brian said, wrinkling his nose and distracting me from worrying about having to talk to my label rep.

“Who? Where?” I asked, not successfully hiding the fact that I wasn’t completely listening to him.

“The Boys. LA. I hate LA I don’t want to raise Bailee there, either.” He wrinkled his nose again and I laughed with him.

“Me too! But, I think you’ll have a couple more months with the baby, don’t worry. Kevin doesn’t finish ‘Chicago’ until March, and Nick’s touring, and AJ’s got some stuff to work on.”

“Thank goodness you still know my schedule better than I do!” He smiled again and my heart fell a bit. Whenever I was with one of them, I remembered how much fun it had been to be around them. Sure they were guys, but not like my band were guys. It was like being the little sister in a family. I was used to that role and I liked it. “That’s good though. Well, not good that AJ’s got problems. But good that I get to be a dad for a little longer.”

“I think you’ve got at least eighteen years of being a dad, Brian.”

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