Ok, I don't know the Backstreet Boys, or any of the personalities portrayed in this story, I don't know the sexuality of any of the BSB, nor do I know the conditions of Kevin Richardson's wedding. I don't know if this is how the BSB behave, nor do I know or own them personally.
Now, I want to apologise for the last chapter. It was crap. I know, cos I wrote it. It was a poorly written, badly planned, pile of shit, that should never have been published on the internet, or anywhere else, in fact it does not even belong on the Nifty archive, but I am going to leave it on, as a reminder of just how bad writing on the net can actually get, and as a warning to all authors of how bad writing can get if you don't really concentrate on it, and don't put your feelings into it. I hope this chapter makes up for it. I have jumped about 7 days, and they have basically finished the tour. The beginning is when they are just leaving Tokyo and heading back to the US. I'm sorry for all those people who've said they liked the fact it was all set while on tour, but it was boring me out of my mind, so there. I know this isn't my longest chapter by a long shot, but I hope the quality more than makes up for the quantity (or lack thereof).
Chapter 21
The plane took off. I still didn't like flying, but having Kevin next to me was enough to keep me from ripping my hair out. Once we levelled off I was ok. This was gonna be a long flight, and I knew I had to get through it somehow, so I had picked up some sleeping pills from the airport pharmacy before we left. But apparently Kevin wanted to talk.
"You're gonna love America Jared, it's amazing, you'll see. We'll settle you into our home." He said that with a certain pride on his face. "And then we'll start to see the sights, I want to take you everywhere, to see everything. I want to share everything with you Jared." And he leant over and kissed me in the darkened cabin of the plane. We were sitting in first class, and the seats were those really nice ones that lay back far enough and are soft enough that if you really relax yourself into them, then you can imagine that you're in a bed. I felt really content: my stomach was full from the meal we ate in the airport before we left, I had Kevin sitting next to me, and I was heading to somewhere I could finally call home. I had it made.
"I can't wait Kev. I've always wanted to go to America, and it's so much better cos I'm with you." I answered with a smile on my face as I cupped his cheek and pulled him in for another kiss. A bigger grin spread across my face.
"What's so funny?" Kevin asked.
"Nothing, just happy - I'm never gonna have to go back to England again, never." I said as my eyes shut blissfully. I felt Kevin nuzzle my neck, and kiss me on the cheek, before he settled back into his seat. It was 11pm Tokyo time on Sunday 8th December when we left. The flight to Atlanta lasted for 13 hours, weather permitting. Which meant that we would arrive at 12 noon on Monday 9th December Tokyo time, but because of the time difference, it was 9pm on Sunday in Atlanta - we were arriving a couple of hours before we left. Unfortunately, this also meant that it would probably not be a good idea to sleep on the flight, and to sleep instead when we got back to Atlanta - yeah right, like we could be bothered to do that - so the whole cabin was fast asleep.
Touch down Atlanta, local time, 9pm. We picked up our luggage, most of us just waking up from the long sleep we'd just had, or working the painful cramps out of our bodies. We walked in one big group out of the airport terminal, and into the cool winter night. For some strange reason, I always pictured the Southern states of America as being very hot, all year round, no matter night or day. They weren't. Atlanta was cold enough that I got goosebumps, and wrapped my coat tighter around myself. We had to drive back to Orlando to Kevin's home, and so we headed to the long-stay car park to pick up Kevin's car. We both had about 6 or 7 bags each with us, so we both had a trolley to carry our heavy loads. "Bay C-15." Kevin said as we stopped by a black Mercedes. He pulled a set of keys out of a bag which had been kept with management while the guys were on tour, and pressed the button causing the car lights to flash and a beep to sound from somewhere.
"Nice car."
"Thanks." He smiled back. We gradually loaded the car up, attempting to pile the more regularly shaped cases into the back of the car fairly regularly, and the less regularly shaped ones we just threw onto the back seat. Once we were done, I deposited the trolleys in the trolley park and we both climbed in, the interior of the car being just as cold, if not colder than the exterior. Kevin turned the heating up to full, and we just sat there for a minute, Kevin rubbing his hands together, and blowing on them, trying to warm them up. I took his hands between mine, and rubbed them to warm them up a bit, and he took them back gratefully, before turning the ignition and pulling us out of the bay. Soon, we were on the motorway headed towards his home in Orlando. I was unfortunately wide awake by this point, so every minute which we actually spent driving seemed to take hours, but Kevin and I talked, or listened to the radio, and soon we saw suburbs start to build up on either side of us. Finally, we came to a turning on the left, which had a gate going across the entrance to the road. Kevin pulled up to one of the gate posts, leaned out and typed in a number on the keypad there. The gates clicked suddenly, then slowly swung open. I looked over at Kevin with a look of surprise on my face. "It's to keep the psychotic fans out." He said with a straight face.
"What?" I asked back.
"Don't worry, I'm just kidding, though before I moved here, I did sometimes hear about people coming into my garden at night or whatever." He said back: he wasn't much good at relaxing me. I nodded anyway. Kevin started up again, and after we had pulled through the gates, they started to shut behind us. The road was quite long, and the houses on either side were big, probably large enough for a large family to live in comfortably.
"This is your house?" I said as we pulled up. The house we had pulled into the driveway of was probably the largest on the road. He grinned back and nodded. The phrase 'everything's bigger in America' didn't cover half the stuff I'd seen so far, but why would he need a house so huge? We each grabbed a couple of bags under each of our arms, and headed for the front door. Kevin pulled out his keys, and after some juggling with the suitcases, had it in the lock and opened the door for us. There was a flight of stairs facing us as we went in, and there was a passageway leading down the left hand side of the stairwell. Openings led to rooms on both the left and right hand sides. Kevin and I dropped our bags, and went outside to get the others. Once we had brought those in, Kevin told me to drop the bags, and he took my hand.
"Come on, I'll show you around." He said. To the left, there was a living room. The couches faced towards a wide screen television. There was a stereo system behind the couch furthest from the door, and speakers were placed strategically around the room. We went through a swing door which went towards the back of the house, and we entered the biggest kitchen I think I've ever seen. The kitchen was rectangular shaped and seemed to stretch across the back of the house. There were three door coming from the front side of the house, presumably one from the living room, one from the passage way that ran by the side of the stairs, and one from the room on the right as you walk in the front door. The kitchen had a couple of islands in it with chopping boards on them. There was a large oven fitted into the wall, and he'd gone a bit traditional when this room was designed, as copper pans hung over the stove.
He pointed out the windows which were in the back wall of the kitchen, and there was a large conservatory out there which stretched the length of the house. Further still, I could see a large garden with a curvy shaped pool. There were trees planted around the garden and on most of the sides. This place was huge. Next he dragged me to the last door in the kitchen, closest to the right hand side of the house. When he opened this door, he revealed a dining room, a huge table in the centre with 10 seats around it, and a dresser off to the side. I had a quick look round before Kevin pulled me out into the hallway again, where our bags were still piled up. We stopped for a second, contemplating the pile of luggage, before Kevin mumbled something about dealing with it later, and he took my hand again and led me upstairs. The upstairs landing stretched in both directions. To the right, there were three doors and he showed me each of them. The first, on the left as we walked down the hallway in that direction was a bedroom with a large, white-linened bed in it. The second was a bathroom, with a connecting door to that first bedroom. The third and final door was another bedroom which also had a connecting door to the central bathroom. After a quick circuit of those rooms, we headed back, past the stairs on our right, to the other rooms which Kevin entered as we walked past them: another bedroom, with an en suite bathroom, a closet, another closet, a room which only had a couple of armchairs in it, a keyboard and a stool, and the final door. Kevin opened the door and led me in.
"Our bedroom." He said with a big grin on his face. I had been pretty much quiet up to this point.
"This place is huge Kev." I answered. His face dropped, the pride which had been on his face dropped suddenly, and his shoulders slumped. Ooops. "No, I love it, I really do Kevin, it's just gonna take some getting used to, I really do love it." I wrapped my arms around him and hugged him and kissed him. He relaxed in my arms. "Shall we go get our bags?"
"Ok, come on then." He said as we walked out the room together. "You know, if there's anything you want to change, you can, if you want to get different furniture, or have a room redecorated, I'll pay for it, I don't mind, I mean if you're not comfortable because, well, you didn't really have much say in what the house looks like, well, don't be worried about asking if you can change something, I won't mind." God, he really knows how to babble sometimes.
"Kev, I love the house, and everything in it, really I do. I don't want to change anything, and if I do, well, we'll see. It is gonna take me some time to get used to having a permanent place to live, I mean getting used to wearing clean clothes everyday again was pretty weird, and just suddenly being plunged into this, it's a bit of a shock, do you get me?" I was just realising myself what a shock this was: I would always be getting up in the same bed, I would always use the same bathroom, I would always go to the same cupboard or drawers to get my clothes from. Wow, this is gonna take some getting used to. Kevin and I started carrying our bags upstairs. Kevin had about 5 or 6 bags, and I had 6 of them. We unpacked Kev's stuff first, hanging up certain things, stuffing others into drawers, and folding others and putting them on shelves into cupboards. Then we started on mine. Kevin was struggling to put my two suits in the closet with his suits from the tour, and his clothes which were already in there. It seemed so strange that all his stuff was the stuff being pushed around because I was moving in with him, I was already changing stuff. "You know, we could just leave some of my stuff in the bags, I mean it's not like I need it all is it?" I asked him. He turned around and looked at me.
"But why Jared? You'll need some of it eventually, and we might as well get these bags put away, I mean you're gonna be around for a long time, aren't you?" A Long Time. That was something I hadn't really considered for a long time. I'd never planned ahead: even in college, I had faked my way through most of the courses. Now I had to think. I guess I waited too long to answer Kevin. "Oh." He sat down on the end of the bed. I suddenly realised my mistake.
"No Kevin, I'm sorry I didn't mean it to sound like that, I will be with you for as long as you'll have me, but this still feels really weird to me, I'm so not used to having a house to live in, it's a big change for me Kevin. I'm sorry." I was kneeling in front of him, and I had his hands in mine. I kissed them gently. I could feel the scorch of the tears running down my cheeks. I looked up at Kevin, I tried blinking the tears out of my eyes, failing miserably. "I'm sorry." I shook my head, and leant down again and held Kevin's hands to my cheeks.
"Why couldn't you answer me, are you really already thinking about leaving me." He asked, his voice cracking.
"No, no Kevin, I need you. Please, believe me. It's just I only know that I want to spend my life with you here." I pointed to my chest. "But up here, well, I'm just not used to thinking about the future Kev, I'm sure I'll get it soon, but please give me a chance. You said I could change things in the house to help me settle in Kev, well, it's gonna take me some time before I settle in up here." And I pointed to my temple again. He hesitated, then nodded. I hugged him hard to me.
"Don't leave me Jared, please." He whispered into my ear.
"Why would I leave you Kev? I told you, I just need some time to get used to this, come on, I mean I've lived on the streets for years now, I mean, give me a chance!" I responded.
"No, that's not what I'm worried about Jared, or that's not what I'm talking about. You know you said this house was huge." I nodded, and was about to start saying something, but Kev held up his hand. "And you remember how I told you and I think a couple of others might have told you that I was lonely a lot?" I nodded again, curious now, as to where he was going. "Well, the reason I bought this house, which is well, way too big, is because I thought that if I had loads of room, then people would come. They would stay the night, that sort of thing, and I could have friends over more often, even if it was just the guys, and they wanted to hang out, I thought they might choose here over anywhere else. But...it didn't work. When Bri got married, he spent almost all his time with Leigh, and I don't resent that, but I just wish we were still as close as we were when we were younger. Nick's always off with some friends his own age, I mean there's like 8 years difference between us, we haven't got that much in common. Then AJ, he's always off somewhere as well, living it up so to speak. And Howie, well, Howie spends a lot of his time in Miami, or elsewhere in Florida. He has his own real estate company, and he tends to move around a lot because of it. Jared, when you pointed out this huge house, it got me thinking about how much, how much I need you now Jared, it really hit me, and, then, when you suggested not even unpacking, it hit me again, that you might not be around forever." He trailed off, and looked up at me, his blue-green eyes, flicking back and forwards, between mine.
"I don't know how to prove it to you Kev, I love you so much, I thought you knew that." I shrugged. "But, I can't do any better, there's no way I can prove to you that I'll stay here forever, short of getting married." I smiled trying to lighten the mood. His eyes shot up, full of excitement. He was grinning slightly.
*** End of Chapter 21 To Be Continued.