I don't know the Backstreet Boys, or N'Sync, nor is this story meant to imply anything about their sexuality, their private lives or their life choices. Please don't take any of this seriously, it is just a story, nothing more. Nothing in this story is real, it is the product of the author's imagination. That's enough disclaimers I think...
Now some suggestions, seeing as everyone else seems to be doing it. My favourite stories are: Forever (Kevin) Jamie's Romance (Justin) My New Life (Lance) JC's Hitchhiker (JC) Get Another Boyfriend (Kevin) Whiplash (Kevin) Blind Date (Lance) My Surprise Romance (Lance) Josh and Just (Duh!) Lottery Winner (Joey) Brian and Me (Brian) That's it, I know there are more I read that I haven't mentioned, but I can't remember them right now, sorry!
On The Streets - Part 34
Last Time:
"Hey Berg." I said down the phone. "It's Nick."
"Oh hey Nick, how are you, how's recording going?"
"Oh, it's boring as hell, I'm outside at the moment, waiting for Brian to finish.
"Oh right."
"Hey listen, how would you like to do something, like tomorrow night, or maybe Friday?" I waited in anticipation.
"Ummm, tomorrow night would be great, I'm booked up Friday night, but I can definitely make tomorrow." I heard him answer. I could feel the grin spread across my face.
"That's great, shall I pick you up?"
"Ok." He gave me his address. "What time?"
"Umm, how about 8, then we'll have dinner and go do something."
"Sure. I'll see you then Nick." He sounded excited, cool.
Now, on with the story:
Jared's Point of View<<<
I went back to Lance's house with the other guys of N'Sync after their session, they were all pretty tired, and they collapsed in Lance's living room.
"Geez Jared, that was a helluva workout." Joey said in his New York accent. I still couldn't quite grasp his accent, and his words seemed to slur together a lot, so I just sort of grinned, and hoped it was sufficient answer to whatever it was he said. "How the hell d'you manage to do it everyday?" He slurred again, I cringed, because I could guess by the inflection in his voice that he was asking a question, but I completely missed it. All the other people in the room were looking at me expectantly, and I started to feel a little stupid.
"Look, don't take this the wrong way or anything, but I can't understand a word you're saying." I tried to say it with a smile to make it sound a bit less rude, but I still felt pretty stupid as I ran my hand over the back of my neck. The other four guys in the room hesitated for a moment, then rolled around laughing. Joey had a scowl on his face for a moment, and I thought I'd made like a big faux pas. "I'm sorry, it's not that you speak badly or anything, but I just can't understand your accent, I'm sure lots of Americans have a problem with mine, but I just can't understand what your asking."
"It doesn't matter." Joey said in a sarcastic tone, making sure to enunciate every single syllable for my benefit, then he broke into a big grin. I just shook my head.
"Sorry Joey."
"Hey, it's ok, I was mumbling, but you gotta learn to understand our accents!" He threw a big arm around my shoulder and shook me back and forwards a bit.
"You know Jared, I can barely hear your accent anymore, it sounds like your picking up a bit of a Yank accent." Lance said. I actually hadn't thought about that in a long time, it was weird cos I knew that I'd pick up some of the different pronunciations, but I hadn't stopped to think about it pretty much since we got to the US.
"I guess I have, but it's not quite as thick as any of yours yet, so you're gonna have to just tone them down when I'm around!" I said with a smug grin on my face, before it got hit by a cushion from Justin who was sitting next to me. I started laughing and joking around with them. I don't know if this sounds nasty or whatever, but it actually felt good not to have Kevin around. As much as I love Kevin, and I really do, with all my heart, it felt really good to be around people who, although they have a connection to Kevin, aren't so close that I can't be as close to them as he is. We talked and laughed for around half an hour, before the doorbell rung. JC jumped up to answer it, and in walked the woman I'd seen Joey with at Justin's wedding. She was holding a baby in her arms, and there was apparently something I didn't know.
After about 15 minutes, Joey had explained his family to me: this was his second child, a daughter, named Lois. I thought that was great, I love kids, and this little girl was adorable. She had the biggest grin, and just the first signs of baby teeth coming through. Joey had to leave as they were taking Lois to the doctor's for a checkup before picking up their other child from Joey's mother-in law's house. Another twenty minutes passed, and JC left. That left me, Chris, Justin and Lance sitting in his living room.
"I guess I should get going, umm, can I phone a cab or something?" I stood up, deciding that it was really time I left as the number of people here thinned out.
"Sit down Jared." Lance started. "It's obvious you're a bit uncomfortable here, but don't be." He paused. "You're gonna be around us a lot, you might as well just get used to us now." He said with a sincere expression on his face. Thinking a bit, and realising that Kevin wouldn't even be home yet, and I don't have my keys, I just sat down again. "That's better." Lance said with a big grin on his face. I shook my head, then told them how I didn't have my keys. They all thought that it was hilarious that I should've stood up when I had no way to even get in my house once I got there. I stayed sitting for another three-quarters of an hour, then I felt my cell phone vibrate in my back pocket. Jumping up, not quite realising what it was, I relaxed and pulled it out my pocket. All of the other guys started sniggering.
"Hello?" I answered the phone. Justin, Lance and Chris all cracked up laughing, and I couldn't help but chuckle at their reaction.
"Jared?" I heard Kevin's voice.
"Yeah Kev? What's the matter?" He sounded worried.
"Where are you?" He asked.
"Ummm...Lance's house." I answered. "What's the matter?"
"Oh um, nothing, nothing really, I just wondered where you were. I couldn't get hold of you, I don't know why, and well the receptionist at Jive said you walked out a couple of hours ago, so I was kinda worried." I sat back down next to Justin.
"Well I'm fine Kev, I just came over here to hang out for a while, you sure everything's ok?" I was a bit confused, I didn't think he'd have even finished by now, and even if he was, it can't have been for very long. I suddenly heard a noise next to my ear, and turned and saw Justin with his fist up in the air, and he brought it down suddenly to his knee. At the same time, he made a noise like a whipcrack, the intended message was clear. I gave him the finger.
"So...do you know when you're coming home? I can come by and pick you up if you want?" Kevin said, I knew he was trying to be nice, but it really sounded like I was a little child. I told him to wait a moment, then pulled the phone away from my mouth and covered the receiver. I took a deep breath to try to think: should I just tell Kevin to come and pick me up, or should I tell him that I'd be home later, and I could get a cab?
Apparently, I wasn't going to get to make that decision as the phone was grabbed from my hand by Chris. I looked up, but he was already talking into it.
"Hey!" I shouted.
"Hey Kev." Chris started. "You don't mind if Jared hangs out with us for a bit do you? We kinda wanted to get to know our new fitness instructor." He paused, and it was obvious Kevin was saying something. Chris was chewing his bottom lip.
"Uh huh, yeah, we were kinda surprised that he was ours as well as yours. What's that?" He paused for a moment. "Really? Wow. Ok." He paused again.
"Ok Kevin, I'll speak to you in an hour or two, ok, see you then, bye!" Chris hung up the phone and threw it on my lap. "See? That's how you deal with overbearing boyfriends." I paused and looked at my lap.
"So I take it you've had to deal with a few?" I looked up at him.
"Loads of them. They're a pain in the ass." I raised an eyebrow at him, then looked around the room. They were both staring at Chris, wondering about his stupidity, then he realised what he'd said. "I mean, I've personally only had to deal with girlfriends, I mean only boyfriends when one of you people has had to deal with them." He seemed rather proud.
"One of us people Chris? What people would that be?" I asked him, trying to keep a straight face.
"You know!"
"No, I'm sorry, I don't, you'll have to inform me." I was losing my poker face.
"Oh fuck off the lot of you!" He shouted before falling back into a chair, and we all started laughing at him. "Oh Jared, Kev wanted me to tell you that there's some fitness magazine wants to interview you, apparently being the trainer for two of the biggest bands in the world gets you some coverage of your own."
"Two of the biggest bands in the world? Wow, when do I get to meet them?" I said with a straight face.
"Oh Ha Ha." Chris said sarcastically. We laughed at him again.
"So what shall we do?" Justin asked. I found out later that he was staying with Lance while Britney was on tour, so he felt well and truly at home here, which explained why he was now hanging off the edge of the couch with just his lower legs actually up on the chair, and his head under the coffee table. They all scratched their heads.
"Let's go play some B-Ball!" Chris jumped up. Justin got up and Lance soon followed. Despite being tired out from their workout, they were apparently willing to still play some basketball. Only thing was I couldn't play. I didn't have a clue about how to play, beyond shoot for the hoop, and I had actually played once prior to this occasion. It's not exactly a common game in England, so I never really played it at all.
"I don't think that's such a good idea." I said cringing at what they were going to think.
"Why not?" Justin asked.
"It's just I don't think you really want to play that game with me."
"Why not? You pretty good?" Lance asked.
"Errrmm...no." Blunt answer. "In fact, I've never really played." The guys stood there for a minute, their faces not moving from their curious expressions they had worn from a moment before.
"You're kidding?" Justin asked suddenly, and the other two guys sort of snapped out of it at the same time. I shook my head slowly. "Oh...well, I guess we don't have to play if you don't want to." I felt kinda bad about stopping them from playing, it was obvious from the speed they got up that they wanted to play.
"Listen, I can go, I'll see you guys some other time, you guys go out and play, I'll go home." Then I noticed Lance, with a thoughtful expression on his face.
"Wait a second Jared, let me ask you a couple of things. How tall are you?" I was confused a bit, but...
"6'1", why?" I answered.
"And, you're pretty fast, aren't you, how fast do you run say, 100 yards?" I had to think about that.
"Err...I'm not exactly sure, when I was 19, it was 13 seconds dead, and when I was 21, I think it was 12.6. I was a county runner back in England."
"Uh huh, and you're pretty good at other sports?" I shrugged, then nodded hesitantly. "Guys, maybe we shouldn't let Jared play with us." We all got confused expressions on our faces at that. I thought Lance was the nicest one, obviously he wasn't?
"Huh?" Came from the two other guys in unison.
"Well think about it. If he learns how to, dribble say, and then starts running, he's a heck of a lot faster than us, do you think we could keep up?" It was like a light flicked on in their heads all of a sudden.
"And, in all probability, given his height, and the added strength in his legs, he could probably jump higher than us." Justin added.
"And he's a fuckload stronger than any of us anyway." Chris finished. "Ok, let's not play sports, let's just sit inside." Chris chuckled and sat back down on his chair where he'd been before.
"Maybe I want to play now!" I shouted. They all laughed, and settled in to their seats. I was going to have to try some basketball, all the guys played it, it must be pretty fun.
After a couple of hours of just sitting around talking, I decided I really should get home, it was getting pretty late. Chris said he was going home too, so he'd give me a ride home. I said goodbye to the guys (I still couldn't get used to all this hugging), and we left. Chris and I carried on talking on the way home, and finally we arrived.
"Ok, see ya soon Chris." I said as I jumped out the car.
"Yeah, it'll be Thursday, our next training session." I nodded, and said goodbye again, and he drove away. Kevin had forgotten to turn on the porch light, so it was pitch black outside the house. I walked up and knocked on the door, and finally Kevin answered.
"Hi." Kevin left the door open for me, and I walked in. He didn't seem too happy, and I could already tell what it was about - it was because I'd gone and spent time away from him. What was his problem? Can't I have friends too? Kevin went and sat in front of the TV again. I noticed some take-away food cartons on the table in front of him, and realised then it was later than I thought - it was already quarter to nine. I went over and sat down next to him. Finally, the programme he was watching, I think it was one of those hospital dramas, came to an end, and the adverts started. He stood up and picked up all his rubbish.
"Kevin, sit down." He turned to look at me, with a confused expression on his face.
"Why?" He asked.
"Please. Just sit." He did. "You're upset at me aren't you?" He looked down at the table, showing his guilt. "For God's sake Kevin! I'm not even allowed to have friends now? I go out for a few hours, to a person's house who you actually know personally, and you get upset? Kevin, I have to have a life too, can't you see that? Otherwise I'm just gonna be your shadow." I was standing by now, I was really pissed. We'd had this argument before, at least once, and he was still going at it.
"Jared, you don't understand."
"So tell me, explain to me why I can't understand."
"Jared, I'm not jealous, this isn't the same as the other times ok?" So what was it? I presumed it was going to be his jealousy again. "You must know by now how much you mean to me?" He looked over at me, and I nodded slowly. "Well, today when you didn't even tell me where you were going, you didn't call, you just left the studio, well, it showed just how much I mean to you." I gasped, realising what I'd done.
"But Kevin, I was just going to Lance's house, I didn't think it would bother you that much."
"No, I know, but Jared, I thought we loved each other the same way, I've never had a boyfriend like you before, who means so much to me. I guess...I guess you might one day love me the same way I love you and I can wait for you, so don't worry. I'm sorry, I've got to go to bed. Good night Jared." He leant over and kissed me on the cheek. He paused as he pulled away, and I think he was smelling me, but then he moved away, and looked in my eyes for a second, before standing up. There were so many things I could have said then, about what Kevin really meant to me, how he was everything I ever wanted, everything I ever needed, but I didn't, I didn't say any of those things, I couldn't. How could I claim that Kevin meant everything to me, when I couldn't even be bothered to call? I followed Kevin a few minutes later up the stairs. I knew how to show him how much I cared. I stripped down once I was in our bedroom, and climbed in on my side of the bed. I saw Kevin lying on his back with his eyes closed, but he wasn't asleep, I could tell his breathing was too fast. I reached over, and ran a hand down his side, then I shifted myself over a bit, and started to kiss his neck. I saw his eyes open, and then I heard him release a sigh. "Jared, please, no." He put his hands on my chest, and pushed away. I sat back, surprised at his actions. Then I started kissing his chest, and licked his nipples. I knew he was getting excited, but then he said it again. "Jared! No!" He pushed me away. "I mean it. God, I don't need this." He scowled at me. "I'm gonna sleep in one of the other rooms." He grabbed a pillow, and slowly turned himself out of bed. Once he was at the door, he turned and saw me as I climbed out of the bed.
"Please, Kevin, I'm sorry."
"Jared, you can't just solve it with sex. If you think that is going to show me how much you love me or something, then you're wrong. I mean, come on, look at what you did before." Ouch. He cringed, realising that what he'd said was a lot more painful than he'd intended. But the damage was done. I walked back over to the bed, and grabbed my pillow.
"Don't worry about moving Kev, I'll go sleep in the other bed." I walked past him, and walked into, I think, Nick's room. I shut the door. I heard Kevin's door shut, and I went to bed. I didn't sleep much that night, I cried myself to sleep, thinking how little I deserved Kevin. Every insecurity I had was playing on me again. I was sobbing when sleep finally overtook me.
The Next Day >>>Kevin's Point of View<<<
I got up out of bed, and walked to the bathroom. As I passed Jared's door, or rather Nick's door, because that's the room he slept in last night, I put my hand on it, and tried to hear if there were any sounds from within. I heard the bed creak slightly, and I presumed Jared was still sleeping. I went and had a shower, and got dressed. I knew Jared had appointments to make today, but I was reluctant to wake him. I wasn't sure if I could face him after what I'd done last night. Finally, I got up the nerve to walk to Jared's room, and I knocked on the door. "Jared?" I called out as I pushed the door open. When I saw him, my heart broke all over again. He was curled up with the blankets wrapped tightly around him. He was still shivering slightly, but his grip on the blankets was tight. I sat on the side of the bed closest to him, and said it again. "Jared?" I reached out a hand and touched his shoulder which was exposed. Suddenly, his whole body seemed to recoil. He jumped back against the headboard, his eyes wide open and staring at me, his breathing was very fast. And he just stared at me for a few moments, then he realised where he was, and he calmed down slightly, but not much.
"I'm sorry, I was dreaming, I thought I was on the streets again, I'm sorry." He trailed off, and he slowly got up from the bed. He'd never dreamt about being on the streets again before, it must have been what I said. How could I have been so stupid. I stood up too, and followed him out of the bedroom. He hadn't said anything about last night. He walked into the bathroom, and shut the door behind him. I was just about to reach for the door handle, Jared and I always went into the bathroom together, when I heard the lock click into place. I guessed he didn't want any company this morning. I went and sit in our bedroom, as I knew he'd have to come in there to get some clothes. After about quarter of an hour, he walked out, and made his way to our bedroom. He still looked upset about the dream, or was he upset about what I said? He kept his eyes downcast as he walked past me, and went straight to the dresser, where he pulled out a wifebeater and a pair of gym shorts. "I've got an appointment at 9, I think you're due in at the same time. Ummm, I've got a few appointments today, so maybe you could give me a lift home if it's not too much trouble. I won't go anywhere else, you were right, I'm sorry about yesterday, I should have told you where I was going." He paused, but only to look at his watch, and he didn't give me a chance to apologise as well. "We need to get going, otherwise we're gonna be late, and I need to get everything set up before my first clients get there." He walked out again, and I followed him down the stairs. He pulled on his trainers and a gym bag, and waited for me to get ready. Finally, we got out to the car, and started to the studio. Only then did I realise, I had him, he couldn't get away if I started talking now, so, pulling onto the freeway, I drove until we reached a motel, and pulled into the parking lot. Reaching over, I flicked the door locks, and put the catch on to prevent him opening his door. "Kevin, what are you doing?"
"Jared, we need to talk." His head flicked over towards me, from where it had been looking at the door catch as it flicked down.
"Oh. Oh, I didn't realise this was going to happen this soon."
"Yeah, we do really need to talk." I looked over at Jared, and saw his watery eyes. He was crying. His lips were creased up, and his shoulders started shaking as he sobbed. "Jared, why are you crying?"
"Why do you think Kevin? I know what's coming! I just wish you knew how much I need you, I'm sorry this shouldn't be unexpected, I mean after last night, but it still hurts and I don't want to lose you yet!" Jared was wailing by the end of it. Lose me? What was? Oh.
"Jared, I don't want to lose you either. I was just going to apologise about last night. I didn't mean to say what I did. And yesterday when I pretty much said you didn't love me just because you didn't phone. I was going to apologise for that too, I over-reacted." Jared looked at me in disbelief. His eyebrows lost their creases, and his mouth was no longer stretched into a tight crease. His tears slowly stopped.
"You...you mean, you don't want me to leave? You still want me?" He said, almost unbelievingly. I nodded, still not quite believing that he thought I wanted to break up with him. "Oh thank you Kevin, thank you, thank you." He practically jumped across the partition, and started kissing me, over and over again, all over my face, and finally he landed on my lips. He kissed me passionately, and finally pulled back. We both reached up and pushed each other's hair behind the other's ear. We laughed when we realised we'd both done the same thing at the same time.
"I think it's time we got this hair cut off, of both of us." I said quietly. He nodded, and sat back in his chair, still smiling at me. I lost my smile when I realised what had happened, because of me, he'd thought I was gonna break up with him, and get him to leave, all because of one little comment I made the night before. "But Jared, I really do need to apologise. About what I said last night, I know it came out sounding wrong. And I know that sex means the same for you as it does for everyone."
"No Kev, you're wrong." He interrupted. "When I had sex before with my tricks on the street, it meant basically nothing, a bit of pleasure occasionally, but not much. Now, with you, sex means so much more. I can finally give to someone who I love. I don't think you can realise how much sex means to me, especially as I get to do it with someone I love." He sat there silently, and I saw a tear stream down his cheek.
"Jared, I think I do understand, remember, I had all those prostitutes before I met you, sex meant so little before I met you, it was superficial, and well, I felt sick at myself afterwards, I wanted someone who I could love, and who I knew would be there when I woke up." I smiled at him. "I found that with you, and I felt like I was losing you yesterday and this morning, I never want to feel like that again Jared, it felt like I was losing part of me." He turned to me, leant over, and we kissed again. Jared reached up and wiped the tears from my eyes, and then wiped his own eyes clean of tears.
"Shall we go now?" Jared said quietly. I nodded, and started the ignition again.
"Thank you Jared."
"What for?"
"For giving me a chance to apologise, for staying with me."
"First of all Kev, I will never leave you, you mean everything to me. Secondly, you didn't give me much of a choice in giving you a chance to apologise, you locked the doors!" We both chuckled at the strong-armed tactics I'd taken up. We drove in silence most of the way to the studios, and got out, I was a bit late now, and so was Jared, but not by much, the motel hadn't been far.
Jared's Point of View<<<
I got out of the car with an extra bounce in my step. I felt so happy I wanted to explode, but I kept it inside for now. I felt like laughing, really hard, but I didn't, so, we walked into the studios, and separated in the lobby with a kiss. The rest of the day went by in a bit of a blur for me, I had loads of minor bands to deal with, a couple of the Jive executives also came down to see if they wanted to use me as a fitness instructor, and I was grateful for the occasional one-on-one sessions. They made a change from having to keep an eye on four or five people at once. Each of the bands had been told to tell me whether they wanted to use me if I had the time available, so I had to start filling in a schedule. I knew I had the Backstreet Boys to deal with on alternate days, missing Sundays. I had N'Sync on the other days in between, also missing Sundays. I picked up a two girl-two guy group called 'Areia', and somebody I'd never heard of called 'Don't Walk'. Don't Walk needed the most help as they drunk way too much, and two of them had weight problems which were affecting their performance. Right at the end of the day, another group came in who were from Universal Records. 98 degrees walked in, and I was pleasantly surprised. I didn't think I was going to mind dealing with this group at all. They were all wearing vests and shorts, and they were obviously all very well built, well, one was less than the others, but they were all pretty nice. I wasn't sure whether the dance studio would be enough for them, and I was thinking about going to the gym, but decided against it until I had seen what they could do. I learnt their names pretty quick, and I must admit now that I though both Nick and Jeff were hot, though Jeff was a bit too short for my taste. I started with basic warmups and everything, moved into a full out fitness programme, and found that despite the fact I'd been with the Backstreet Boys for a few months now, these guys could keep up with their programme quite easily, except for Justin who could lose a few pounds. At the end of the workout, they all thanked me, and told me they'd keep me on. I penned them into the schedule I'd drawn up, and they were on the same day as the Backstreet Boys and Areia. At the end of the day, I met up with Kevin again, and we drove home together. I told him all about the new clients, and he said he knew the other bands except for 'Don't Walk'. I also found out that one of the female executives I'd worked with was Head of Human Resources, and was theoretically the one who signed my pay check, and could fire me completely, and that made me a little nervous, but Kevin said not to worry, she was really sweet. He also told me about Nick's date tonight with Berg, and that was good.
Nick's point of view<<<
I was really nervous about picking Berg up, it was 8 o'clock and I was standing outside his apartment door. I thought journalists made a lot of money, but I was obviously wrong, judging by the area he lived in. The hallway to his apartment was really dingy, and it smelt like piss. I knocked tentatively, and Berg answered the door. He asked me to come in for just a second while he got his coat. I stood in the hallway, and as I listened, I heard him talking quietly, so I moved further in to the apartment. "Shhhh, oh come on, please be quiet come on, sh sh sh sh sh." Ok, what was he doing? I walked further down the hallway, and looked into the first door on the right, and then I heard a faint crying sound. There was no-one in the first room which was the kitchen, so I looked further down. "I'll be right there Nick."
"Ok." I said back quietly, to make him think I was still at the door.
"Sh, come on go to sleep." I heard him say more insistently. I walked up to the second door, and there was Berg with a baby in his arms, and sitting in one of the other seats was a teenaged girl with black hair down to her waist.
"Berg?" I asked, confused as to what was going on.
"Nick! Oh, um."
"Is something wrong?"
"No, err, Nick this is Anna, she lives next door." Anna turned and her eyes grew wide, fortunately her reaction wasn't too violent and she didn't scream, but she did start talking breathlessly.
"Oh my God! You're Nick Carter aren't you? From the Backstreet Boys?" I nodded my head and smiled at her. Then I turned back to Berg.
"Do...do you want to reschedule Berg? We can do this another time?"
"No! No please, just hold on a sec, I promise I'll be out soon." I nodded, and waited in the doorway. "Anna, can you get her to sleep?"
"I should think so Mr. Thompson, she's been fed right?" Berg nodded.
"Thanks Anna." He put the crying baby into the girl's arms, and kissed it on the forehead. It was quieting down now. "Let's go Nick." He grabbed his coat from the back of the couch, and pulled it on as we made our way out of his apartment. As we walked down the stairs (the lift wasn't working), I was casting glances at Berg, trying to work out what was going on. When we got out to the sidewalk, I had a limo waiting for us. He turned to me with a wide-eyed expression. "Is this for us?" He said excitedly. I nodded. The driver held open the door for us, and we both said thanks as we climbed in. I'd already spoken to him, and he knew we wanted some privacy, and he knew where we were going. "Wow, this is cool, I've never been in one of these." He started touching the sun roof buttons, and the buttons that turned the TV on and off, that sort of thing.
"Berg?" He turned to look at me, his eyebrows raised. I wasn't sure how to phrase what I was going on to say next. "Whose baby was that?" He turned towards the front of the limo, and then looked down at his hands. He took a deep breath, then released it.
"Mine."
End of Chapter 34 To Be Continued...