Okay, it's here, the fifth installment of my story, Blind Faith. I hope everyone's enjoying it, and if you are, email me saying just how much you love it. :) I haven't gotten much feedback as of yet, but what I have received seems positive enough. Keep it coming, guys, my ego can never get too large. :) Send all questions, comments, and feedback in general to sdauson@hotmail.com.
Now for the disclaimers. This story is a complete work of fiction. Any similarities to real life or any person(s), living or dead, are entirely coincidental. This story is not meant to imply anything about the sexuality of Brian Littrell, or any other of the Backstreet Boys. It's fan fiction, and is not based in any sort of reality. This story appears to be written in the first person by Brian Littrell, but in fact, this story was not written by Brian himself, or even by anyone who knows him personally.
If you are under the age of 18, or your local laws prohibit you from reading sexually graphic or erotic material, please leave now. The same applies to anyone offended or made uncomfortable by stories involving consensual homosexual male relationships. Basically, if you continue reading, you are doing so on your own free will, and I cannot and will not be held responsible for any consequences.
Authors Note: Two emails on my last installment. I'm going to start getting depressed soon... I need your email, people. :) Anyway, this was a really hard part to write. I don't know why, exactly, but it was, so forgive me if anything seems out of character or forced. For once, now, I've gotten an installment out on time! I suppose it's because of spring break, so don't get too used to it. :) Well, not much else to say here, I suppose, so I'll just move on...
As always, thanks to every single person who's written to me over the course of these past few weeks. Your feedback is what keeps me writing, you know. :) Special thanks go to Seth, author of 'Common People', who sends me more email than the spammers do. :) Go read his story, along with my personal favorites, 'Studio in the Country' by Mike, and 'Brian and Me' by DLS.
That being said, on with the story...
Blind Faith Part 5
It wasn't long before I arrived at the airport. Evan still occupied my thoughts as I returned the rental Jeep, and walked into the main building carrying my luggage. It was almost 9 at that time, so I still had a good hour and a half before I had to board my flight. I figured I'd grab some breakfast at the airport's McDonalds.
Still wearing the sunglasses and hat I had come in with, I got myself some hash browns and a breakfast something or other, but didn't eat much of it. I spent most the time just looking at my food, nibbling on it occasionally. 'When would I see him again?' I asked myself. Perhaps the better question was 'When could I see him again?' I'd have enough free time in about a month or so to come back and see him, but it seemed so far away. What were we supposed to do in the mean time? We would be able to talk to each other, but would that be enough?
And what was going to happen with the rest of the guys? As far as they knew, I was still straight. Would it be right not to tell them about me and Evan? Would it even be possible to avoid telling them? After all, they were relatively smart guys. They'd know something was up if I suddenly spent all my free time on the phone and took trips to some Colorado ski town every time I had a free weekend.
I was long lost in thought when 10:30 came around. I'd only been gone three days, but so much can happen in that period of time. Those three days had changed my life, and I knew it then as well as I know it now. I came back into reality as I realized I should start heading for my flights terminal.
The rest of the guys were already all together. I'd be flying into Nebraska to meet them a couple days before we held two concerts there. I did miss them, even if it had only been three days. I didn't want to be late, either. Kevin would have had my head if I'd missed my flight.
I put what was left of my breakfast into the trash, picked up my luggage, and headed for terminal 5G, where my flight was seating passengers. After giving my ticket, I quickly boarded the plane. Despite distractive thoughts of Evan, and the anticipation of seeing my band mates again, I still felt the uneasiness that always accompanied my plane trips. I hated flying. I wasn't just afraid of heights, I was terrified of them, and planes, despite their safety record, seemed like one big death trap.
I sat myself down at one of the window seats in first class, and took a look out the window. Luggage carts and people in orange vests moved around on the ground below, none of which did I pay any particular attention to. I was more concerned with Evan. I wanted him here, with me, but it just wasn't possible.
Take off was the worst part of the flight. The landing was bad too, but at least I knew that the landing signified the end of the flight. This was just the beginning. I buckled my seat belt, and held onto the arm rest tightly. In less than 5 minutes, however, we were safely in the air, and I was 'free to walk around the cabin'.
I looked around the first class area. It was nearly empty except for myself and two or three other passengers. It wouldn't be a long flight, only about an hour and a half, and we were expected to land at about 12:40. I wasn't used to getting up at 6am as I'd done that morning. It's just not natural when you're on vacation, at least, not for me, anyway. It didn't take much time before I was asleep.
I slept through most of the flight, which is always a good thing. If I'm asleep, I've got no time to worry about crashing, or fear what else might happen 10,000 feet up in the air. I woke up about 20 minutes before touch down, and yawned slightly. Landing scared the shit out of me too, but it wasn't as bad as take off. I took hold of the armrests again.
The landing went without any problems, and a moment later, I was standing on solid ground. Planes used to be absolute hell for me, but because my job required that I fly so much, I suppose I'd been de-sensitized to it for the most part. I found the experience only slightly more than 'unsettling' now. I still felt, however, the less I flew, the better.
I looked at my watch, and found it was 12:55. The plane had been 15 minutes late, nothing major in it's own respect, except for the fact that I was supposed to meet everyone else at the terminals at 12:50. I quickly made my way through the airport.
As I rounded a corner, I was able to pick out Nick almost immediately. Someone not knowing him personally wouldn't have, with his standard baseball cap and glasses, but I could tell it was him even from a distance. As I got closer, I was able to pick out AJ, Howie, and Kevin too.
"You're late." Kevin said with a smile.
"Correction," I started. "The plane was late." I pulled him into a hug. I turned to the rest of the group with a smile. I really was happy to be back. "So, where to now?" I asked.
"We've got a concert in about two days here," Howie answered. "Management has us in some hotel until then."
"Should we leave then?" I asked the group.
"I suppose so." Kevin answered. We all stood, and made our way toward the exit. We didn't usually use limos coming to and from the airports, as they generally attracted too much attention. Sure enough, after about 2 minutes of walking, Kevin led us to a large new Chevy Suburban, golden in color. We quickly got inside to find the driver waiting for us.
There were enough seats for 7 people, not including the driver. Kevin and Howie were seated in the middle row of seats, while myself, Nick, and A.J. sat in the very back, with me and A.J. at the windows, Nick in the middle. I turned to Nick.
"Hey, bud. What'd you do these past three days?"
"Absolutely nothing." he responded with a smile. "I went to Chicago, actually, but once I was there, I got to spend my entire day sleeping, eating, watching TV, all that good stuff. Didn't have to go anywhere or do anything."
I smiled back at him. He seemed a lot younger than his 18 years at times. The youthful exuberance, the carefree attitude of a child. You couldn't help but love him, though. "Sounds like fun."
"It was." he said. "So what'd you do?"
All the group knew at that point was that I'd taken a trip to a small Colorado town. It was the truth, but there was a lot more to it than that. None of them knew about me being gay, either. I decided to avoid the issue for the time being. If I was going to tell them about me and Evan, it certainly wasn't going to be now.
"Not much, really." I said as casually as I could. "It was nice getting away from everything, though, wasn't it?"
"Hehe... that's for sure." A.J. said from his seat next to Nick.
There wasn't much discussion for the majority of the trip from the airport to the hotel. Maybe we were all a little depressed to see our free time disappear so quickly, or maybe we were all just a little tired. Even though I'd gotten a good nap on the plane, I still felt drained. We arrived at the hotel at about 1:30, and quickly checked in.
We didn't have an entire floor to ourselves this time. In fact, we only got 3 rooms. Don't ask me why, because frankly I didn't care. Management sometimes worked in mysterious ways. Either way, I'd end up rooming with Nick, so it didn't matter much to me. Kevin, of course, was the one to get his own room, Nick and myself in the second, and A.J. and Howie were in the third. It was different from the norm, but it had happened before, so there wasn't any major commotion over anything. We headed for an elevator.
As soon as we arrived on our floor, I headed straight for my room. The guys were probably going to meet in Kevin's room in a few minutes, but I hoped to catch some time to myself before then. I got to my room, and opened the door. Nick was still down at the other end of the hall, talking with the others.
I didn't even bother to turn on any lights, but instead went toward the first bed I saw. It was a very comfortable bed, I noted as I tried to relax myself. I suppose I was still a little shaken by the mornings flight. 'Why couldn't Evan have come with me?', I asked myself. I knew the answer, but I asked myself none the less. I missed him so much already.
I reached into my pocket. Maybe I'd have enough time to give him a quick call. It was 12:30 in Colorado, so he'd probably be in the middle of classes at the moment, or maybe he was at lunch. I was debating with myself as to whether or not I should call, when someone knocked softly at the door.
"Rok, you in there?" Nick asked. "Everything all right?"
"Yeah, man, I'm here. Just taking a moment to lie down, ya know? Flying really takes it out of me." I responded.
"Ach..." he made a sound of mock disgust. "You're a wuss, you know that?" he said, giving me a grin, as if I needed it to know he was playing around. We'd always jab at each other, but almost never would we purposefully try to hurt one another's feelings.
"Ya, I know... but I can still kick your ass." I said, smiling as I stood. "What's up? We heading to Kevin's room?"
"Yup... he says we need to talk about a few things for tonight. Come on." He turned in the direction of the doorway, and started walking, me following closely behind him.
Nick was like a brother to me. We connected on the same level on just about everything, it seemed. I loved him like I'd love a brother, and I felt I could tell him anything. Almost anything, that is. Maybe someday, I'd tell him, just not now. I knew, though, that if I ever did decide to come out to the public, or even just to the band, he'd be the first to know. I just hoped he'd take it okay.
We walked out into the hall, and into the next door on the right. Howie, A.J, and Kevin were already seated on the bed, in an arm chair, and at a small table, respectively. Nick and I took seats on the bed, next to Howie.
"So, what's the agenda for tonight?" Nick spoke first.
"Nothing much, as of yet," Kevin answered. "We don't have our concert until Thursday, that's three days from now. You have these next few nights to yourself. As for tonight, are we planning on doing something together, or are we all going out separate ways?" he looked at each of us in turn as he spoke.
"I think we're all pretty tired tonight, Kev..." Howie spoke. There were nods of agreement around the room. "I think we should just go out to eat somewhere, then come back and settle down for the night."
It sounded like a good plan to me. I didn't really feel up to any dancing or clubbing, and if we got back here before too late, I'd have plenty of time to call Evan. "I'm with Howie..." I said.
"Okay, then." Kevin said. "How about for now, we grab some lunch?" he took out his cell phone, presumably to call some place and order some food.
"You bet!" Nick said. "I'm starved." We all gave a chuckle as we stood, A.J. coming over to mess up Nick's hair.
We ate from Subway, as it turns out. We all gave Kevin our orders, who in turn phoned the driver in our car, still downstairs, and asked him to get us our lunch.
The food arrived about 10 minutes later, and we all started eating. Subway was always good, in my opinion. It didn't take long for me to finish my six inch turkey sub. Kevin had gotten us some chips too, and a grabbed myself a bag of those.
We whittled away the rest of the afternoon doing almost nothing. Mostly, we watched TV, including a movie on pay per view. We talked about how we were all doing, what we planned to do with the day or two we had before the concert here, and about what we did over our vacation.
Everybody else seemed to have a pretty boring vacation. Kevin and Howie took trips to visit their families in Lexington and Orlando. A.J. had wanted to go somewhere with a night life, and opted for Los Angeles, and Nick had gone to Chicago, claiming he'd liked the city a lot the last time we'd been there. I carefully avoided any specific details of my vacation, of course. I told them I'd had some fun skiing, but that was about it.
By that time, it was almost six. Instead of going out somewhere like we'd planned, we ordered from room service, and simply ate in our separate rooms. I guess we were all a little more fatigued than we thought. I didn't order too much food for myself. I suppose I just wasn't all that hungry. Nick, on the other hand, ordered himself a full meal, and I finished eating long before he did. As soon as I was done eating, I went over to my bed, and took out my cell phone.
I'd written the number of Evan's new phone on a slip of paper, and pulled that out as well. I dialed the number with a smile, happy I'd get to hear his voice again. I missed him so bad, it almost physically hurt. It rang for a moment before he answered.
"Hey, Brian!" he said.
"How'd you know it was me?" I asked with a grin.
"Even I don't know this phone's number. How is anyone else supposed to?" he laughed a little. "How you doing?"
"Fine, I guess. How about you?"
"Same."
"I missed you, ya know?" I said.
"I missed you too." He sounded so sad. "I missed you too." he repeated. "How was your day?" he asked, trying to change the subject.
"It was pretty good, actually. We got in around one, and have been at our hotel ever since. None of us really felt like going outside, so we ate our lunch and dinner here. What about yours?"
"I'm as boring as you, actually. Nothing remarkable, just another average day." he paused. "You're going to have to let me talk to them sometime, you know."
I laughed a little to myself. "You mean the other Backstreet Boys?" I asked, punctuating the word 'other', making it sound like I thought them to be trivial additions to my talent. "Why would you want to talk to them?" Again, a mock snobbish tone on the word 'them'.
"They might not be as awesome as you, B, but they're pretty cool themselves." he said, trying to suppress a laugh. "You have to at least admit that."
"Yeah, yeah..." I said smiling. "I'll see what I can do. They're very busy, you know..."
"As busy as you were today, I'm sure."
"I suppose you've got me there." I smiled.
"You should have called earlier, you know. I missed you a lot." he said.
"I'm sorry... I called as early as I could. I missed you too."
"It's okay, B. Don't worry about it." he said. It was obvious he was smiling.
I sighed. "I don't know how I'm going to stand to be without you for any more than a few days at a time. These next few weeks are going to be hell, babe."
"I know, I know. I miss you so much already." he paused for a moment. "You know what, though..." he started, a mischievous tone in his voice.
"Yes?" I urged him on.
"Well, the weekend after this coming weekend is a five day break for me. We've got early dismissal, and then two inservice days on Monday and Tuesday."
My face must have lit up like a lamp. "So, you mean..." I started. I could fly him out here for at least a few days, couldn't I?
"I could probably come see you, but only for a day or two." he said.
"Any amount of time would be great, you know that. Your mom would allow it?" I asked.
"She might... I'll have to think of a good story to tell her, though. Maybe I'm going with some friends to visit a college campus that I might be interested in?"
I wasn't sure if his parents would go for that, but I supposed it was worth a try. "Alright... you really think that'll work?"
"Let's hope so." he replied.
I crossed my fingers for just a moment for no real reason. I missed him so bad, already. I wouldn't be able to hold him in my arms tonight, and it almost tore me up inside.
"I'll be in Minneapolis next week. I'd be able to fly you out there, your family wouldn't have to worry about a thing. Talk to your mom about it, okay? I'll call you back tonight if I can. If not, tomorrow."
"Okay... I guess I'll talk to you later, Brian."
"Yup. I guess this is bye, then, huh?"
He hesitated for a long moment. If I hadn't been expecting a response, I probably would have hung up by now. "I..." Another pause. "I... I love you, Bri."
I knew I'd loved him, the only thing that had kept me from saying anything was the fear that he didn't feel the same way. I loved him, I did, with all my heart. To hear him say those words, for me to know that he loved me back, it meant more to me than anything else in the world. I replied without any hesitation, "I love you too, Evan."
He sighed on the other end, a sigh of relief, I was sure. His voice was noticeably happier. "Bye, Bri. I'll talk to you later."
"Bye." I hung up the phone, and slowly put it back in my pocket, reflecting momentarily on what had just transpired.
"Ahem..." came a voice from the doorway, interrupting my thoughts. It was dark outside, and there were no lights on in the room. The figure approached, and as it got closer, I could see it was Nick. "Who's Evan?" he asked.
Well, that's the fifth part. I know I ended it in the worst possible point from a readers point of view, but I was already at 20kb, so I had to stop, right? :) I guess you guys (If anyone's still reading this story...) will have to wait until next time. :)
Yay, yay! I got it out on time. Like I said earlier, though, don't expect punctuality from me for much longer. I accredit this installments arrival to Spring Break. :) I hope everything came out okay, because I did have to force a little of it. Anyway, I know I say this every time, and even though this part was on time, I'll try hard to keep the next one on time as well. :)
As always, I want your comments, I need your comments, and feedback. Send anything you have, even if it's hate mail cause you think the story sucks to sdauson@hotmail.com. Even if you don't have any comments or feedback, just write me with a story about your cat, or what you think the winning lottery numbers will be. Anything, just as long as you let my know you're reading. :)
Well, that's it for now. Until next time guys,
Sam