Studio in the Country

THE STUDIO IN THE COUNTRY, Part 9

FEEDBACK: If you want to contact me and make any comments, please send them to michaelwashere@netzero.com. You can see a floorplan of the studio or my pics of the guys at michaelwashere.homepage.com by clicking on the smiling Brian.

DISCLAIMER: The story that follows is a work of fiction. Most characters are completely fictional. Those some are based on real people, they should not be considered accurate or truthful representations of any actual person. This story is not intended to reflect the behavior, work habits, personal hygiene, sexual proclivities, or parenting skills of any real person, living or dead.

WARNING: This story deals with homosexual themes. If this offends you, read no further. If you are under 18 years of age, read no further. If accessing this story causes you break any laws applicable to your location, read no further. If you have problems with flatulence and don't know the purpose of this place, you should read -- not fart -- here. (Okay, I'm reaching. I know it. That Thurber thing in Part 3 strained my creativity to the breaking point.)

MY THANKS to some of you appear at the end of the installment.

THE STUDIO Part 9 - Thursday afternoon

I'd been in the office for almost three hours, but I sure as Hell hadn't got three hours work done.

I'd done some of the bookkeeping, some of the ordering, some of this, some of that, but I couldn't concentrate enough to finish anything. I kept thinking about what Nick had told me.

Nick thought Howie liked me. Robby thought Howie liked me. And Robby wanted me to like Howie. But Nick thought that maybe Brian liked me too, and Mike was pulling for me to like Brian. I liked them both, but as friends. I hadn't really thought of them as more, no matter what my brothers -- and my Mom -- said to me. But now, thanks to Nick, I couldn't seem to think about anything but Howie and Brian, Brian and Howie.

If I had a chance with them, which one did I want? Which one was I attracted to? They were both good-looking, though in very different ways. They were both friendly and charming and easy to talk to. Howie had the advantage of having known he was gay for a while. Brian was still going through the realization, so Howie may be more settled, less confused and emotional. But I understood what Brian was going through. I was worried about him, and that made me want to help him, to take care of him. Brian's situation made him really attractive to me, but neediness is a lousy basis for a relationship.

I absently played at getting work done while all this floated in and out of my thoughts. At one point, I noticed a long list in one of the file folders. Pulling it out, I saw listed there the cities and dates for their tour.

What the Hell am I thinking, I thought. I'm sitting here, trying to decide which guy I want. I can't just pick and choose, like they're two different beers on a menu. They may not want me -- did I consider that? They may want each other. And even if I do have a chance with them, they're both gonna be gone on Monday and they're gonna be busy working and travelling for a long time. I'd just be another drain on their time that they don't need.

I leaned back in my chair, considering how much getting too attached to either of them would make life too complicated for everyone. "No," I said quietly to the empty room. "They're friends, and it's better to keep it that way."

I stood up and headed to Stacey's desk. She was sitting behind it, but she wasn't getting any work done. AJ was distracting her too much.

"Hey, Ben," he said when he saw me. He was sitting on the corner of her desk. "Any chance of this girl getting some time off?"

I smiled back at them. "I should be a good, hard-working boss and say 'no.' But since I was coming in to say I was getting out of my office, that would be kind of hypocritical." To Stacey I added, "Does Dad have you working on anything in particular?"

"Not really," she said. "Just about everything's caught up. I just need to be here to answer the phone."

"It's almost 11," I told her, glancing at the clock/radio on her desk. "How 'bout a two-hour lunch and be back at 1?"

"Sounds good to me," she said. "But what if the phone rings?"

"It's just one hour. The machine can get it," I said. "I'm going to the small studio, by the way. Will you call Dad and tell him what we're doing? I'm sure he won't mind."

"He's in the other studio," Stacey said. "Could you tell him? He probably won't mind, but it'll sound better coming from his golden boy?"

I laughed at her. "I'm hardly his 'golden boy. But I'll tell him." Stacey and AJ were both standing now and heading to the door that leads out to the parking lot. "What're you guys gonna do?" I asked them.

"Just walk around the place," Stacey said. "I thought we could walk through the woods down the creekside path." AJ was holding the door open, and Stacey stepped through it.

"Yeah," I replied, "Brian and I walked down there the day they got here."

Stacey was just outside the door, and AJ was about to step outside. Before he went out, he hesitated long enough to smile broadly and say, "I'd better be careful then. We know what that walk did to Brian."

I found Dad sitting in the corner of the studio booth. Looking through the large windows between the booth and the hallway, I could see that Ed and Dave were sitting at the main mixing console. Dave was watching Ed, who was listening intently to something in the headphones. Once I had their attention, Dad glanced at Dave, then got up and opened the door for me.

"Everything okay?" Dad whispered through the partially open door.

"Yeah," I said, confused. "Why wouldn't it be?" I asked him.

"You look worried," Dad said. "Your eyebrows are all wrinkled."

Without thinking I reached up and touched my forehead. "No, nothing's wrong. I just wanted to tell you that Stacey and AJ have gone for a walk and I'm gonna play in the other studio, so there's no one to get the phone."

Dad glanced at his watch. "Well, it's close enough to lunch," he said. "I'll go back to my office; they don't need me in here." He looked back at me and asked, "Stacey'll be back for the afternoon, won't she?"

I was explaining to him that I'd told Stacey to take a two-hour lunch when Dad nodded to indicate for me to step backward. When I did, he stepped into the hall and closed the door into the booth. "Stacey will be back at 1. Okay, fine," he said. "Now tell me what's wrong?"

I just looked at him. "Nothing's wrong," I said again.

Dad smiled at me. "Whenever Stacey and I are gone, you watch the phone like a guard dog. If you're gonna leave the phone unwatched in the middle of the day to sit alone in the studio and play the piano, then something must be bothering you. Do you want to tell me what it is?"

"You're a lawyer; not a psychologist," I said to him. Immediately, I wished I hadn't said it. My father was trying to be nice, and I was giving him sarcasm.

But he kept smiling. "Lawyers have to be psychologists sometimes. And so do fathers." He leaned forward and put his hand on my shoulder, "Benjamin, I'm not going to nag you. But I hope you know that you can talk to me if you need to."

"I know that," I told him. "But if anything's wrong, I don't know what it is."

"Well, you know where I live," he said, grinning.

The small studio was dark when I got there. I turned on one half of the lights and closed the venetian blinds on the windows to the hall.

In the far corner, Mike's drums were set up on a small platform. The baby grand and the electric keyboard stand were still sitting where'd we'd left it two days ago. I moved the electric to sit at a 90-degree angle to the piano keyboard and put the second electric on the top rack of the stand. That gave me two electrics at my right hand and a real piano at my left. But turning this way or that, I could reach all three of them pretty comfortably.

I went into the booth to get the portable CD player and the headphones. I set the player on top of the piano and plugged the headphones into it. Once I'd got our CD case from the booth, I was ready for my favourite game: taking other peoples' songs apart.

For years, I'd liked to listen to a song and try to figure out how it was played. In junior high, it had started as a game I'd play with Mom at the end of my piano lessons. But then in high school, I'd started doing it on my own, just for the fun of it. Once Robby and Ethan started playing guitar with Dad, I'd write the chords down for them and we'd play the songs.

The best part is the amazed look I get from people. They don't understand how I do it, so it seems like magic. But it's easier than people think. I can hear what kinds of chords are under a song and what note they're based on in the key. I still have to experiment to find the right key, but once I've done that I can figure out a song pretty quickly. Throw in a few scales and arpeggios here and there, and people think I'm God. I like that.

The case held 30 CDs, but some of the slots were empty. Some of them I'd played with enough that they were boring, and nothing else really interested me. That's when I got an idea.

I headed out to Stacey's desk and opened a drawer. Inside were the boy band CDs what she'd given us to listen to. Third from the top, I found Millennium. I'd heard it once all the way through, but I'd never tried to play any of the songs. Putting the others back, I made a silent mental apology to Stacey for raiding her desk and headed back to the studio.

Once I had the album playing, I listened to a few seconds of each song and used the track button to jump from song to song. I wanted to start with something simple, so I settled on the fifth track. A simple piano melody with some strings under it. I moved one of the electrics onto the piano, near my left hand and set the tone to strings. Then I started the song playing and began to pick out the chords. When I hit the acoustic guitar part, I stopped the music long enough to pull the other electric closer and find a guitar voice on it.

By the third time through, I was playing pretty well. After the fifth, I was ready to try another song.

I was jumping from song to song again when I heard the door open and Robby came in. He grinned when he heard the music I was listening to. "Having secret fantasies?" he asked as he closed the door and walked toward me.

"No," I said, "just stealing some songs." I stopped the music.

"So, can you play the whole album yet?" he said, nodding toward the player.

"No, just one song. But I'll get the others," I said. "Are you here to drag me to lunch?"

"That's the theory," he said. "But first I wanna know what's up with you and Brian."

I looked at him, confused. "Whaddya mean?"

"Well, yesterday he was depressed. Last night, he stayed up talking to you until 2am, and now he's not depressed. What did you do to him?"

I laughed. "I didn't do anything to him. He's having a personal problem, and I listened to him. That's all."

Robby grinned. "So, did you listen like Mom or like Dad?"

I made an exaggerated frown while I pretended to think. "More like Mom, I guess," I said.

Whenever we went to our mother with a problem, she'd always sit very still and look us straight in the eye while we talked. Then she'd start asking questions. At first, it would seem like she was just trying to make sure she understood what we'd said. Eventually, though, it would become pretty obvious that she was trying to get us to see something that she'd realized right off. She'd learned to do this with her students back in Chicago, and she'd done it with her sons our whole lives.

Our corporate attorney father, on the other hand, was a little sneakier. He always asked a lot of quick, simple questions that had nothing to do with each other. He'd ask so many questions that it was hard to keep track of what he'd asked and what you'd answered. And he really only cared about some of the questions; the others were thrown in just to keep us confused about what he was really trying to discover. By the time he was done, we'd inadvertently admitted to all kinds of things.

Of the four of us, I did the best job of keeping ahead of Dad when he did this. Dad had never done this to Ethan, and by the time I was in high school, Dad had stopped questioning me like that because I could keep up with him. Robby always gave up immediately. Dad would ask him one question, and Robby would throw his hands up and say, "Okay, I did it. Whatever it was, I did it."

Remembering all this, I added, "I don't think Brian deserved to be listened to like Dad."

"Well, whatever you and Brian talked about, he's feeling better. I saw him and Nick when I went up to clean the rooms, and he's got that big grin on his face again."

"I just gave him some of the Big Brother treatment you take for granted," I grinned at Robby. "How did you know we stayed up talking?"

"Brian kept yawning," Robby said. "When I asked him about it, he told me you'd stayed up talking until 2am. C'mon. Let's get some lunch."

We were the last ones to arrive at lunch. When we came in, everyone else was at the table and already eating.

The seating had been rearranged a bit. Ms. Shaw was sitting in Mike's chair, which left an empty chair at the other end of the table, presumably for Mike whom we could hear in the kitchen. This arrangement put Mike between Dad and Dave. And, I noticed as I sat down, as far from Nick as possible. Interesting, I thought.

Brian had moved into my chair, so that Robby and I would sit together at the corner and Brian would be sitting next to Kevin. I was thinking fast. I quietly got Robby's attention and nudged for him to sit next to Dad. When Robby gave me a quizical look, I mouthed I'll explain later. Then I sat on Brian's right. My plan would force Mike to sit next to me in the only empty chair. If something was going on, I could talk to Mike about it quietly.

Brian smiled up at me as I sat down. "Comfortable?" I asked him. "I've spent years getting that chair broken in."

Brian wiggled his hips back and forth in the chair. "You did a good job."

"Careful!" I pretended to yell. "You're moving the lumps around."

His face went blank. "If you left lumps in this chair, I don't want to know about it."

I leaned forward and looked toward Kevin. "Kevin, what do you say to Brian when he's being disgusting?"

Kevin looked at me blankly. "I tell him to shut up."

"Thanks," I sat up straight and looked at Brian again. "Shut up, Brian."

Then Mike came in with the tray of drinks. He set the tray on the sideboard and passed a few around. Once that was done, he looked at the new seating arrangement. With a shrug, he sat down next to me in what was normally Robby's chair.

I was about to speak to him when Brian touched my left arm. "You don't really mind, do you? About the chair, I mean."

"No, not at all," I told him. "But what's going on? Everybody's in a different chair."

"Not everybody -- just me and Phyllis. She wanted to talk to your mom, and I wanted to sit next to Kevin," Brian explained. "It's not a problem, is it?"

"Nah," I said. Leaning in to whisper, I asked him, "How is Kevin?" I remembered what Nick had said to me that morning, and I'd noticed when I spoke to him just now that he looked distracted, maybe even a little unhappy. Kevin's face is very emotive. When he smiles, he lights up. But when he looks serious, it can be scary.

Brian paused a second then said, "He's worried about me, but I think he'll be okay." Softening his voice even more, he said, "He's taking this hard. When I was unsure, he just waited for me. Now that I've decided, he's kinda upset."

"What are you two talking about?" Kevin's voice asked. He'd leaned over a little to make our conversation as private as could be at a table with fourteen people at it.

I decided to be honest with him, big brother to big brother. "You," I said. "I was worried about you. You look unhappy."

Kevin just looked at me for a couple of seconds. Finally, he said, "I'll be okay." Habit made me want to offer to listen if he ever wanted to talk. But something about the look on his face stopped me. Kevin didn't look much like the confiding type.

Stacey said down the table to my mom, "Oh, I almost forgot: a package came to the studio for 'Dr.' Corbyn. I'll get it for you after lunch."

"Thank you," Mom smiled at her.

"You're a doctor," Howie asked her.

"Not a medical doctor," Mom said to him. "I have a Ph.D. in Art. I used to teach art history at the University of Chicago."

"That's why you paint all the time?" Nick said.

"Not really," Mom began explaining. "I paint now because I can. When art was my job, I never seemed to have time to just play. Now I play all I can."

"So, what made you two late to lunch?" Mike asked Robby and me. "You're not afraid of my cooking are you?"

"We were just talking," I said, taking the lasagna dish from him. I pretended to examine it closely as I put some on my plate. "But now that you mention it..."

"I found Ben in the studio," Robby said. "He was playing your album on the keyboards."

"All of it?" Howie was looking at me.

"No, just one song," I said. "I'll work on the others later."

"Which song?" Brian asked.

"'I Need You Tonight.' It had the simplest instrumental part, so I started with that."

"I'd like to hear you play it," Nick said. "I'll sing it for you if you want." He was being serious, but AJ and Howie laughed a little.

"Nick, your modesty is underwhelming," Howie said.

"No, I like the idea," I said. "I play lots of people's songs, but I never get to play for them."

"In that case, play some of the others too," AJ said, "and we'll all sing for you."

"Yeah," Brian added.

"Write out the chords," Robby said, "and Mike and I will play too."

"What do you play?" AJ asked him.

"I play guitar and bass," Robby replied. "Mike plays drums."

"Hey, I play drums," Nick interrupted down the table, looking at Mike.

"If Ethan were here," Robby went on, "he'd play the bass."

"So we'd have guitar, piano and drums," Howie said. "Backstreet Unplugged!"

A few people chuckled. "Not really," I said. "The synthesizers are electric."

"I thought you were just playing them on the piano," Kevin said softly.

Before I could say anything, Mike responded. "No, Ben plays most of the it on the piano with one hand and the strings and whatever else he needs on the synthesizers with the other. You should watch him. It's pretty cool."

"I'd like to hear this," Dave said.

I barely heard him because I started talking at the same time. "Ladies and gentlemen," I said pointing at Mike, "my press agent." It was a pretty weak joke, but Mike got a small laugh and a couple of claps when he stood and made a small bow. Howie clapped and said "Yea!" Nick yelled, "Speech! Speech!" Robby yelled, "While you're up, get me another Coke!"

We'd spent the rest of the meal talking in small groups about various things. For once, everyone had lingered over dessert and hadn't jumped up as soon as they finished, anxious to get somewhere. We just kind of sat there, lingering.

"So, what's the verdict?" AJ asked Dave. "Are we through for the week, or do we have work to do tomorrow?"

"Well, we're through for today and tomorrow at least," Dave started. "Everything sounds good. This afternoon I'll start mixing and balancing all the channels. I put your vocals with the solo this morning; it sounds good, but I want to tinker with the levels before I cut the tape. Your song is looking good, but I think I'd like to re-do the intro on just a piano."

"We tried the piano intro," Brian said, "and we decided to use the strings."

"We now that we've simplified the orchestration," Ed answered him, "that intro sounds kinda heavy. Doing it solo piano would be more appropriate."

"I'll mock it up for you," Dave said. "We'll hear it in the morning and let you decide."

"And once that's done," Ms. Shaw interrupted, "we're through, right? There's no reason we can't let the Boys go home for the weekend." Now I was really listening. Were the Boys going to leave tomorrow? Inwardly, I forced myself to calm down. They were just friends, remember? I told myself.

"Not that I can see," Dave said. "The only problem is, when we decided against using the piano version, Tom didn't record it last week. If we go back to the piano intro, we'd need someone to play the piano for the introduction. Kevin, could you do it?"

"Sure," Kevin nodded. "I'm not Tom, but I'll do the best I can." Brian smiled and slapped his cousin lightly on the shoulder and smiled.

Next to me, Mike started to say something. I suspected he might suggest I play the thing, so I pressed my hand against his stomach to stop him and started talking to change the subject.

"So, if you don't have to work today or tomorrow morning, what do you want to do tonight? I asked.

"Well," AJ said, looking at Nick, "Nick and I were talking last night, and we want to go into Dallas for the night. Get dinner, hit a club, and crash in a hotel for the night."

The reaction was impressive. Everyone seemed to start talking at once. Brian and Howie liked the idea. Robby and Stacey started recommending places for them to go. Ms. Shaw started talking about security and bodyguards, and Dad was talking about the logistics of getting the guys into the city and back. Above the cacophony, I heard Nick's voice say, "Mike, we want you guys to come with us!"

"Yeah," AJ added as the noise subsided somewhat, "and Stacey to!."

"If," Stacey began, "I can get off work in the morning"

Dad started laughing. "Go! Go! This is too good to pass up."

Ms. Shaw was still worried about the boy's safety, but Brian and Howie convinced her that they'd be all right. "We have lives after all," Howie said. "When we're at home, we go to the grocery store like normal people."

"And in Dallas, people won't be expecting to see us," Brian added.

"All right, all right," Phyllis Shaw said. "Just promise me that the nine of you stay together -- no splitting up and going to various places. And call me when you get back to the hotel, no matter what time it is."

"Cool," Nick said, his smile verging on huge. "You guys drive us there and show us around. We'll put you up in hotel, and you drive us back."

Dad put his elbows on the table and leaned forward, looking at Nick and nodding. "A good plan," he said. "I was wondering how to get you there and back. Will the van be okay, or should we order a limo from Dallas?"

That started a general discussion of the pros and cons, the anonymity versus the security. In the end, we hit a compromise. We would take the van to Dallas and get a hotel suite. From the hotel, a limo -- courtesy of the Boys -- would drive us around the city and then return us to the hotel. We'd come back in the van tomorrow. I was a bit relieved: I was glad to give the job of driving and parking in Dallas to someone else, not to mention having someone waiting with a car if anything happened. If someone had seen the Backstreet Boys climb out of a van, we might come back to find it had been broken into.

Stacey had evidently been doing math in her head. "Woo hoo!" she said. "A night on the town with eight gorgeous guys. I'll feel like a pimp!"

Howie laughed. "A really expensive pimp, I hope."

Eventually the logistics of when to leave, where to stay, what to pack and everything was worked out. Mike still had to clean up after lunch and start dinner cooking for the others, but Mom agreed to take care of the rest of dinner. Mike would do her dinner on Saturday.

Brian started to ask me about places to go in Dallas. But before I could reveal my relative ignorance, Mike saved me. "I'm going to start the cleaning up," he said standing. "And Ben has offered to help me." Nonchalantly, he grabbed my arm and pulled me into the kitchen.

Once in the kitchen, he headed to the sink, still dragging me with him. "What was that all about?" I asked him. "You know I didn't offer to help you clean up! I helped you fix breakfast!"

"Why did you poke me in the stomach to stop me from talking?" he asked me.

"I was afraid you were gonna say they should let me play the piano intro for that song."

"I was gonna say that," he said. "They should let you. You're good enough to play on some Christmas album with them, and it would be chance for you to show off in front of Ed and Dave."

"Mikey, this is their job," I told him. "They do this for a living. They came here to pay us huge sums of money to use our studio."

"Really?" he interrupted. "Huge? How huge is huge?"

I ignored him and finished. "You don't go butting into the client's work. Let them settle the professional things themselves."

"Clients!" Now Mike was talking as loudly as he could without really yelling. "These guys aren't clients! They're our friends!"

"They're friends who are also clients. On their off-time, they're friends. When we eat or goof off or watch TV, they're friends. But when it comes to their work, they're clients and we stay out of their business."

"All right! All right!" He was waving his hands in the air as he turned back to the sink. "I'll keep my mouth shut..." He turned back to look me in the eye. "...on one condition."

"What?"

"That you go back in there, tell Nick I don't need your help, and play that song for him." He was grinning now. "If you're not going to try to play on the album, at least let the guys hear you play."

I sighed and just looked at him, wondering what was going on behind his blue eyes. "Why is this so important to you?" I asked, shaking my head slightly.

"Because my big brother is an amazing guy," he said, "but if I leave him alone, no one will ever know it but me."

"That's not true!" I said, grinning. "Mom knows!"

Mike grinned back. "You know what I mean! You've got too much talent to stay here in the middle of nowhere."

"I happen to like the middle of nowhere, thank you very much," I said.

"That would be fine if you made use of your talents in the middle of nowhere," he countered. "But you don't. You just do a little paperwork and put your other talents down. You can do a lot, but you don't do anything."

I sighed again. I've seen Mike get like this before. Resignedly, I said, "You're not gonna let this go, are you?"

He grinned, sensing victory. "No."

Another sigh. "All right."

"Then you'll play for Nick?"

"I'll play for Nick," I said, heading toward the door. "At least, it'll get me out of here."

As it happened, Nick, Brian and Howie were still in the dining room, and they all wanted to hear me play. Robby said he'd catch up with us in few minutes, and we headed to the studio. Kevin and AJ, Brian told me, had gone off to talk.

In the corridor, we met Stacey headed toward the house with the package for Mom. "My, my," she said, with an exaggerated Southern belle accent. "Such a handsome little entourage to meet in a hallway." She waved her hand in front of her face like it was a fan and batted her eyelashes at us.

Once she was out of earshot, Nick chuckled. "I wonder what she'd say," he said, "if she knew how much of this entourage would rather sleep with each other than with her."

Brian chuckled a bit, but Howie was serious. "That's the sort of thing that as few people as possible should know about," he said.

For a second, I thought about what it might mean to their group if the world knew things that I had learned that weekend. It would certainly hurt record sales and get them a lot of bad press -- worse even that what they already got from some corners. Ironically, it might get them a little more respect for having guts from the very people who ridicule them the most, but that chance was hardly worth the risk. The revelation might not finish them completely, but I could see where the resulting stress could break up the group.

I said quietly, "Yeah, right now, Stacey only knows about me, and it ought to stay that way."

Howie looked over at me. "You're gay?" he asked.

I stopped walking and rolled my eyes. "Don't you guys ever tell each other anything?"

Now Brian got to be serious. "Not stuff like that."

Nick added, "Yeah. That's yours to talk about, not ours."

"He's gay," Howie asked again, "and you both knew?"

Nick and Brian looked at each other and nodded slowly, and I said, "Actually, I'm glad you didn't tell each other. I figured I could trust you, but it's nice to be proven right. And I hope you know you can trust me. No one will hear this from me."

"You said that this morning," Howie said, "and I believed you then too." Brian and Nick agreed.

The studio was just as I had left it. "Give me once through," I said, "to remember the song. I didn't write anything down before." I set the player on "repeat," and we listened to the song once through. Occasionally I would play along softly on the piano.

When the song started the second time, I was ready. The first verse was the easy one. I played with the recorded piano note for note, and Nick came in on cue, singing along with his recorded self. When the strings came in for the second verse, I played their part with my left hand on the electronic keyboard on top of the piano. Fortunately, the melody was simple enough that my right hand could still handle it alone on the piano.

Of course, there were lots of things missing from my version. I had no bass or drums or the various synthesized effects. The best moment came when I started playing the piano parts in my left hand so I could play the guitar solo on the other keyboard. It didn't sound much like a real guitar, but it was the technique I was showing off.

When the song ended, the guys were full of compliments. Brian started by throwing his arm around my shoulders. "That was great!"

"How long did it take you to figure it out?" Howie asked.

"I had to listen to it about four or five times through," I told them. "Once I got the key, the chord progression was pretty easy. Then it was just a matter of playing the parts with just two hands."

"Think what you could play if you had four hands," Brian joked.

"Not to mention all the other interesting things you could do," Nick said slyly.

I laughed. "Nick, I think maybe I like you better in the closet. Your sense of humour is pretty perverted."

Robby and AJ came into the room and found us laughing. Howie and Brian insisted I play the song again. This time, I turned down the CD player a lot and started the song. During the introduction, I overheard Brian whisper to AJ, "So, is he going to come?" AJ nodded.

Robby sat at the trap set and added at least the bass drum beats to what I was playing. During the guitar solo, I glanced over at him, and I could tell that he'd want me to write that out for him. AJ, Brian and Howie sang behind Nick this time, which made it even more fun. When we finished, Robby said, "On Saturday, when Ethan's here, let's jam out here. We'll play, and you'll sing."

"Sure," AJ said, to which Howie added, "If we're still here."

"Yeah, that's right," Nick said like it was just sinking in. "We might be leaving tomorrow."

"Or," Brian said, winking at me, "we might not."

APOLOGY: Okay, that's as close as I've come yet to even the mildest kind of cliffhanger. I'm sorry if you hate them as much as I do. At least it's not the really depressing, have-to-wait-a-month-to-see-who's-dead kind of cliffhanger. That I'll never do to you.

I also apologize for all the music in this installment. As you may have guessed, I'm laying groundwork for future plot twists, though they probably won't be what you're expecting. I can't let this story end on Monday: I'd miss Ben and his brothers too much.

A PLEA FOR INFORMATION: At the end of the last installment, I asked for information regarding the Boys 1999 tour dates and behind-the-scenes stories about the making of Millennium. I've seen the posted tour dates for 99, but Dallas isn't on it. Yet I remember them being here in September or October. Does anyone know that date?

"THANK YOU" to the people who emailed me with information, including three Matts, two Ericas, and one guy who claimed to be the real Nick Carter. (If you are Nick Carter, look me up when you guys get to Dallas in March. If you're not, work on your spelling, dude. You need help. Actually, you could work on your spelling even if you are Nick Carter. You won't be cute forever, you know, and you won't want people thinking you're another dumb whatever-your-natural-hair-colour-is.)

Special thanks go to Jen E for putting me onto www.backstreet.net where I've found really good information. If you haven't been there and read Lori Thompson's article "Being a Backstreet Boy," you should. Find it at http://www.backstreet.net/bulletin/bulletin1310.html.

This email thing is great. I've even had two messages from people who just like the disclaimer. At first I got nothing. Now I've been hit on at least twice (maybe more -- I'm kinda dense about such things) and propositioned once just because people liked what I'd written or what I'd put on my Web site. I could definitely get used to this.