LOVE AND MUSIC

LOVE AND MUSIC

Subject: Boy bands

Rating: PG-13 to NC-17

This is a story about friendship, love, romance and family. While it will in time also include making love, this is certainly not a sex story. You really should be legal to read this story and of course if you are not, then at least do not get caught! Seriously, by reading this story you are agreeing that you are in fact of legal age, where you live, to be reading it. You may contact me at: wildheart407@runbox.com if you have comments, suggestions or whatever.

Disclaimer or CYA Statement: This story is fiction and none of the characters, be they created in my mind or be they celebrities are to my knowledge gay. I do not know any of the celebrities in this story and do not claim to know if they are gay, bi or straight. Also I am not into digging up a lot of junk about bands or people, so you should know that not everything is accurate. You will not find real life couples in this story, since I am sadly convinced that most are nothing but shams designed by record companies anyway.

This is my first attempt at a Nifty story and I hope you all will like it. I hope to post about once every two weeks and I WILL not stop this story until it is done. You will not get a chapter a year or a bunch of cliffhangers. I hope to make this a good series and to do that I need your input.

This story will be written with different points of view (POV), first person and third person (narrator). The changes in POV should be easy to follow as I will try to clearly mark them.

COLE POV

"So Cole, would you like to come back to our suite with us and maybe order some food and talk? Ya know it is kinda hard to chat here with so many ears about!" Lance asked me. I was kind of shocked by the question; I mean come on who would not like to hang out with these guys? "S...sure guys if you really want me to, but I don't wanna impose on you either." I said. "Dude we wouldn't have asked if we were not serious and you are not imposing on us!" Chris said laughing.

"How do I get back to my car from here guys?" I asked as we walked out of the building. I noticed that there were no fans around this area and I had no idea how to find my car from where we were. "Why don't you just ride with us and you can kick it with us tonight and we can get you back to your car tomorrow?" Justin asked. "Sure guys, but if they tow my car in, I am in trouble. They charge so much for that kind of thing." I told them.

Lance called Bruce over, "Hey Bruce can you see that security knows that cole is leaving his car here and will be back to get it tomorrow? We do not want to have them tow it or anything." He asked me for the type and color of my car and I gave him the information.

As we were getting into the limo, I noticed the PR lady coming out and looking at me with a nasty look on her face. "Wonder what I did to her, she is shook her head and looked at me with disgust on her face." I asked. "Don't worry about it C, she doesn't like us either." Joey said. "Yeah she hates us having a life at all, says it makes her work harder. Of course in your case she did have to work harder sucking up to the media after your question." Lance said as he started to giggle. "Sorry about that" I mumbled. "Don't be!" Justin said.

We soon pulled up to the Hilton on Monument Circle and I wondered where all the fans were. I had always thought that there would be a bunch of girls around. "I am surprised you don't have hundreds of fans out here." I said. "Well I am sure they are all outside of the hotel they think we are staying in," chuckled Josh. "Yeah we reserved rooms there and when we got into town we went in there and then snuck out and came here." Lance told me. We stopped at the desk and Lance told them I would be there that night and asked them to issue me a room key. "In fact go ahead and issue it for out entire stay so he can come and go as he wants" I heard him tell her.

I kind of zoned out into my own thoughts as Lance got my key and picked up their messages. I felt like these guys were already friends and that scared me. I mean first, how could these guys already be friends? Second, they did not really know me and when they found out I was gay, I knew they would hate me like most of my other so-called friends had. I wondered if I should just go ahead and tell them now, so that it would not hurt so badly when they rejected me.

NARRATOR POV

The other guys noticed that Cole had gotten quiet and wondered what had gone wrong. Josh wondered if he had said something wrong and so did Lance. They decided to just wait til they got to the suite to find out what was wrong. Justin was trying to figure out what was wrong with everyone, cause they all got really quiet and that was just not like his friends. As he looked around, he noticed that everyone was deep in thought. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all, he thought to himself.

The ding of the elevator brought everyone back to the here and now. The conversation started again and if you had not known that it was quiet before, you never would have. Justin just shook his head and joined in.

When they walked into the suite, Cole just stopped and looked out over the room. To the right was a small kitchen; straight ahead was a large common area with lots of over stuffed chairs and sofas and a huge TV. There was a large dining table and a huge balcony. Along both walls were 7 doors, 6 leading to bedrooms and the seventh leading to a common restroom. The place was huge, and he really did not even notice the bar or smaller TV set up with video games.

The guys watched him take it all in, with smiles on their faces. "Cole would you like a drink?" Lance asked him quietly. "Sure I'll have a Coke if you have one." He said still looking around, "this place is great guys." "Well it is nice, but living out of a hotel room, no matter how nice, gets really old after awhile." Justin told him. Lance brought his drink back and they all sat down.

COLE POV

i noticed that Chris and Justin sat together and so did Lance and Joey and Josh sat by himself, of course no one was very far from the others. "So Cole what made you decide to ask that or should I say those questions?" Josh asked. "Yeah, I think we are all curious about that. I mean you really blasted everyone, but it seems you had a really hard edge about the media." Lance said quietly.

I sat there for a minute not saying anything. I was thinking about my thoughts earlier and what they would say when they found out the whole story. "Hey Cole if you don't wanna talk about it, you certainly don't have to." Justin said kindly. That decided me, I was going to tell them and if they hated me, then so be it.

"No I will tell you, but it is kind of a long story and I need to tell it from start to finish without you guys saying anything, cause otherwise I will not be able to tell it." I said. "That's not a problem. We do on occasion keep our mouths shut." Chris said with a giggle.

"Back in high school, I worked on the school newspaper. I worked in the features and editorial sections so I could write in-depth articles. My senior year while on Christmas break I happened to catch a program on TV about gays, and as I watched it I was saddened by how society treated not only gays but just the whole topic of sex. I wrote a long article about it. I included many comments about what it was like to be gay and in the closet in high school. Telling about the abuse and the many other things that gays experienced and that I had seen in the halls at school.

Well the local newspaper picked up on the story and decided to assign a homophobic person to the story. She decided to use the story as a way to condemn gays because she felt my article had made people actually think about hate and that was bad for her. Somehow, she discovered a rumor about one of the guys at the school. His name was Alan and he was a really shy and quiet guy. When she published her article, it contained not only the rumor stated as though it were fact, but had made up a lot of other stuff about him as well. She made him out to be a pervert and into some really kinky stuff. Alan was tormented at school, at church and at home. The bitch had outted him long before he was ready. Three weeks after the story, he shot himself.

I was devastated that my article had led to the death of someone. I was furious about the lies, about the way he had been treated and a lot of other confusing things. The thing that helped me through that, was that Alan had left a letter for his parents and one for me. His parents read theirs and then talked to me in detail. I was able to tell them that the only thing in that article the bitch put out that was true was that he was gay. His parents really did not care that he was gay, they had been upset about all the other stuff that had been said. Of course they did not ask Alan if it was true, but to be somewhat fair to them, they did not know if he would tell them the truth since he had not told them about being gay, even after the article. After long talks with me and a couple of others, they decided to sue the paper and the hack who had written the story. That lawsuit is still going on and it is pretty nasty.

I sat down and wrote one last article and in it, I came out and then blasted the students, the faculty and the administration for allowing the abuse they had allowed to happen to Alan. After handing in the article and making sure it was published, I quit the paper and decided that I wanted nothing to do with journalism.

My coming out was bad, I lost almost all of my so-called friends, and my family was not pleased either. I caught hell at church and at school. The last straw at church was the pastor starting to go into the evils of being gay and saying that HIV was just punishment sent from God. I started laughing, and walked out. I have not been back since.

Once I finally got out of school, my parents basically told me to have a good life and not to let the door hit me on the ass on the way out. I rented a truck, got all my stuff and left. I stayed with Alan's folks for quite a while. They have helped me pay for school a little, but the truth is they are almost broke, from the legal bills. Many of the folks in town hate them. I think most support them, but most that do don't say it.

We have tried to have a few fund-raisers, but the paper will not let us advertise the events so we have made very little from them. We can't afford to put ads in the Courier-Journal in Louisville, so we are just stuck. We have tried to get TV news to cover things, but they won't either.

I guess that is really the basic reason I hate the media. I have watched how the media treats people, even people like you guys, and hate it. I have seen the way fans treat you guys and others like you, and hate that too. I guess the rest about management and record companies just seemed to me to be accurate. I guessed they were like that, given the way everything else seems to work." I finally finished.

As I fell silent, I looked around when no one said anything. I waited and still no one said anything, so I assumed that was my cue to leave. Just as I suspected, telling them I was gay was a bad idea. "Ok guys, I understand, good luck." I mumbled as I got up and headed for the door.

"Cole where are you going?" Lance asked.

"I am going home, you guys obviously don't want to hang out with a fag, so I will save you the trouble of kicking me out." I said as I closed the door behind me. I ran to the stairs and ran down two flights and stopped to cry. People hate me before they even know me and it just tears me up inside.

Finally I calmed down and left.  I took a cab to the dome to pick up my car and headed home. I cried myself to sleep that night, wondering why God hated me.

Over the next week, I stayed depressed. I worked hard and I studied hard. I aced my last 2 finals and was able to sit back and relax, graduating college had been a major goal and now all I had to do was pick up my degree. I had no desire to go to the whole ceremony. My very complicated college life was finally finished!!!

N'SYNC POV

As Cole closed the door, the guys all looked at one another for another couple of minutes, still trying to digest Cole's story and process what he had said as he left. All at once Justin jumped up and ran to the door ripped it open, but Cole was gone. He sadly closed the door and looked at the rest of the guys. "How could we let him leave like that?" he asked quietly, eyes watery with unshed tears. Chris got up and hugged him tightly. "We'll try and find him baby, we have to, so we will." Chris said with certainty.

"Ok I have a few ideas, both about how to help the family sue, and to find Cole. I think that we need to talk about all this and decide what to do guys. I'm sure you probably have ideas too, so let's compare notes and get busy." Lance said.

Lance opened his notebook and picked up a pen. "First let's call the radio station and see if we can find his address." Josh said and did just that. The others sat quietly while he talked. They could all see the disappointment in his face as he hung up the phone. "No luck guys, they said they do not get that kind of information for a prize, they only get a phone number and they will not give that out." He told everyone. "Damn how can we fix this, if we can't talk to him?" Justin asked. "I don't know Jus but we will somehow." Joey said.

"Well I think the first thing is to find out who the family is and how we can help. I think he said something about Louisville and the paper there not being helpful. Maybe we can hire a PI or something to help us find the family, Cole and dig up whatever information we can on the reporter bitch. I guess then we can go from there. What do you think of that?" asked Chris.

"Actually that sounds like a great idea Chris; I bet we can get Bruce to help us. Let me call him and ask." Lance said as he picked up the phone. He explained what had happened and why, then explained what they wanted to do and asked for help. Bruce was more than willing to help. He asked for all the details we could remember and said he would take care of things and get back with them in a few days.

Two weeks later...

"Hey guys tonight after the show, try to hurry and get ready. We need to get back to the hotel as soon as we can tonight, the PI will be meeting with us on the lowdown tonight. I thought that it would be best just to keep all this to ourselves for the time being." Bruce said as everyone got ready for the show. "Great!" Lance said.

That night after the show, everyone rushed and got back to the hotel in record time. Bruce brought the PI in and introduced him as John Stone, as everyone shook hands. "Ok I hope you have some good news and good information for us to use." Josh said for everyone.

"I am pretty sure what I have will be a help, at least I hope so. Ok the family you are looking for lives in Corydon, IN about 30 miles west of Louisville. Their names are Will and Rose Owen. I have their address and phone number for you. I had little luck locating Cole, but I did find out that he will be staying at the Owens for a couple of weeks starting next week.

Now the reporter involved in this lawsuit you asked me to investigate, well she is a piece of work. She was fired from the LA Times for false stories slanted to fit with her religious and political views. She used a different name then, so it was a little hard to track down. Here is the folder with everything we have found and I hope you can use it. If you need anything else from me on this case let me know. I will work for the Owens for free if they need it, so please tell them that and give them my number." John finished.

© by Wildheart407

Contact me and let me know what you think. I will tell you now that this story will more at a pretty slow pace to allow you to get to know all the players as well as set up the story. Ideas and suggestions are welcome. wildheart407@runbox.com