Number 10! I'm into double digits with this story! Now then, I got a good response to my appeal for questions, but it's not good enough! I want more, so please, if you've been reading the story, please send me questions! Anything that pertains to the storyline is helpful, but general questions are welcome too. Send them to shiningstar@oceanfree.net . I need a name too, if you don't want to give a name then I'll make on up for you!
READ THIS!!! - Furthering my ambitions to include the readers in the story, I want to hear suggests for an album title! Anything at all, but since I haven't given you any song names don't try to name it after a song! Please let me know what you'd want it to be! Once again the e-mail address is shiningstar@oceanfree.net
Thanks to everyone who's already written to me letting me know that they love / like my writing! It really means an awful lot! Especially Sher and Tim! No, you weren't the limo driver, but I've got something in mind...
This story is not true i.e. - it's fiction! I don't know BSB or any other celebs mentioned in this story, nor am I affiliated with them in any way. The opinions, ideas, and sexuality's of the affor-mentioned celebrities in this story bear no relation to what they think or are in real life. If you're too young, what are you doing here?
The doorbell rang. The girls had already been sent to their bedrooms and told to stay there until they were called for. I had just finished a shower and had gotten dressed only a minute before the guys arrived.
"Hi Nick!" I said. He threw his arms around me in a hug. It felt really good to have him there.
"Hi to you too! How have you been?"
"I only spoke to you this morning." I laughed. "I don't think much had changed since then!" I pushed him to one side and saw Brian there. He also gave me a hug, not to be out done by Nick.
"Hi Fiachra! Long time no see! Love the single by the way!"
"Yeah!" Said AJ. "We all went out to buy copies. Hope we helped you get a number one somewhere!"
"Hi Fiachra." Said Kevin, squeezing me tightly. "How have things been?"
"Great! You lot don't know what you've done for me!" I said.
"Hi Howie." I said. Of the group, he was the one that I had spoken to least so I didn't really know him as well as I knew the others. He hung at the back of the group awkwardly, but I gave him a hug as well.
"Hey Fiachra. AJ's already said it, but great single!"
"Thanks, it means a lot that you lot like it." I said. "Come on, let's get your stuff in here before someone tries to steal it!" I cast a meaningful look at Nick, who grinned innocently at me.
"Come on. You have to meet the people who're putting you up for the night." I brought them into the sitting room to introduce them to my parents.
"Mum, Dad, this is Nick, - pointing at each of them - Brian, Howie, AJ, and Kevin, who you already know."
"It's a pleasure to meet you all." Said my father, my mother echoed his sentiments and then added."
"AJ... is that what your mother calls you?"
He grinned. "No Ma'am. She calls me Alex."
"Then that's what you'll be called around here. And don't call me Ma'am, my name is Una, and my husbands Conor." My phone buzzed in my pocket. I guess that it was Helen. She had probably seen the limo pulling away past her house.
"Hello."
"Hi Fiachra! So, planning anything for tonight?"
"Oh, I dunno, I might be going out with some friends. Why?" I asked, knowing fully what she was playing at.
"I just thought that you might be at a loose end."
"Helen, just come over. You know you want to." I said, ending the charade.
"If you're sure it's not too much of an imposition..."
"Quit messing! The sooner you hang up the sooner that you can be in our sitting room!"
"Good point. I should be there soon!" She hung up.
"Helen?" Said my mother. It was more of a statement then a question.
"You know it." Then I addressed the guys, who had been introduced to my sisters. I decided to rescue them.
"Do you want to put your bags in your rooms?"
"Sure. Which way?" Asked Kevin, taking charge of the 5 of them.
"Just out the same door you came in and up the stairs." I led them to their rooms. Nick, Brian and Howie were sharing the bigger guestroom and Kevin and AJ shared the other one. I showed them where the bathrooms were. The bigger room had an en-suite but the other didn't.
"This place is huge Fiachra! How many bedrooms are there?" Asked Brian.
"There are nine. When we bought the house it needed a lot of work and we got it cheaply. But I think it was worth it, don't you?"
"Yeah. I can't believe that you've got this much space this far into the city. Which one's your room?"
"Just in here." I said, opening the door behind my back, revealing my private domain.
"Wow! If I'd had this when I was 17..." He trailed off. I didn't really see what was so great about my room. Sure, it was big. I had enough space for a sofa across the room from my double bed. With enough left over for a desk, with my computer and TV, and shelves lined with books.
I heard the doorbell ring. Helen must have forgotten her keys in the excitement of getting over here. I looked over the banister, and seeing that Fiona was going to the door, dawdled down the stairs. Fiona opened the door and then gasped. She opened the door further to reveal Helen in her glory. She had straightened her hair and it was silkily flowing down her shoulders. She had delicately applied make up and her face looked extraordinarily beautiful. She had on a low-cut purple dress that made no attempts to conceal her amazing figure. She was stunning.
She looked up at me expectantly. "Well, what do you think?"
I gaped at her for a moment before I regained my composure. "Helen... I don't think that words would do." I said. "You look. amazing." Fiona retreated to the sitting room, trying to control the envy. "Come on up, they're in the two guestrooms." Brian came around the corner upstairs and looked down to see who I was talking to. His mouth dropped down and he stopped walking, just staring down.
"Brian." I joked. "Don't you know that it's rude to stare?"
He glanced over to me and then blushed. "I'm so sorry. I presume that you're Helen?"
"That's right." She said, making her way up the stairs to meet him. "And you're Brian."
"How did you know?" He asked, a moment before his brain caught up with his mouth. "Oh, yeah, right."
She smiled sweetly at him. "Helen!" I called up the stairs. "Are you staying here tonight?"
She turned to me. "Only if you want me to."
I sighed exasperatedly. "Whatever. You can decide when we get back."
Meanwhile...
Nick closed the door behind him and looked up and down the hallway. To his left he saw Brian leaving a room further up the hall, past the stairs. Smiling at his best friend he started to walk towards him when he saw Brian look downstairs at someone and then he stopped walking towards him. He actually saw Brian's jaw hang open! Until then he'd thought that it only happened in movies. Brian forgot completely about Nick.
Fiachra's voice floated up the stairs towards Nick. "Brian." He said. "Don't you know that it's rude to stare?"
Brian was eyeing up Fiachra? That's not right! Brian's married! Nick dismissed the thought as quickly as it had come. Then Brian spoke. -
"I'm so sorry. I presume that you're Helen?" Helen! Thought Nick. He'd heard Fiachra mention her a couple of times and he knew that she'd been in the background for a couple of their phone conversations. He heard her sensuous voice come up the stairs, getting nearer all the time.
"That's right." She said. "And you're Brian." Nick listened as Brian went down a couple of steps to meet Helen and heard him make a fool of himself. Then Fiachra asked Helen if she was going to stay the night. And she said only if he wanted her to! Nick was livid. Fiachra had never mentioned a girlfriend! And especially one that he was sleeping with! Nick retreated back into the room that Fiachra had put him into, not wanting to speak to anyone. Fortunately, Howie had decided to take a shower.
Back to Fiachra...
Kevin, Howie, Brian, AJ, Helen and I were all seating downstairs in the den waiting for Nick.
"Will I go up and see what's keeping him waiting?" I asked.
"No." Sighed Brian. "I'd better." Brian got up and left to see to Nick.
Upstairs...
Brian knocked on the door and waited for Nick to answer it. Eventually Nick came to the door and opened it.
"Hi." Said Nick, who had gotten dressed for going out, and then had just moped around the room without really knowing why.
"Are you coming out with us?"
"I guess."
"What's wrong?" Asked Brian. Nick had seemed so excited on the way here, he was the one who'd been pushing for it, but now he just looked dour.
"Nothing really. Are we going?" Said Nick, pushing Brian out the door and then closing it behind him. Nick didn't know what to do about the feelings that he had inside. He was confused and scared by them. He knew better then to try to cover them up to Brian, but did anyway.
Brian saw straight through Nick but decided that maybe a night on the town might cheer him up so he left him be. "They're all waiting downstairs, come on!" When they got to the den Brian pushed Nick in before him. Everyone inside burst out in applause.
Nick looked over to Fiachra with a look that almost amounted to one of betrayal. Both Helen and Brian saw it and they both saw the way that Nick looked at Helen as well.
He could see why Fiachra would want to go out with Helen; she was beautiful in every sense of the word. She captured the audience with one look and seemed to occupy all of Fiachra's attention. Nick hated her for it. How dare she! What did she really think that she had to offer besides looks? Nick realised what he was thinking and was scared by it again. He covered by leaning down to kiss Helen's hand, but his best friend could see through that too.
Was Nick gay? Brian asked himself. Nick had never said anything to him, but from the looks that he was giving Fiachra and Helen... did he think that they were going out?
Kevin took charge again and pushed everyone out the door to the waiting limo. First they were going out for a meal, followed by as much partying as they could possibly fit into one night.
And back to Fiachra again...
The journey to the restaurant was spent laughing and joking about things that had happened to the Backstreet Boys over the years, and especially in the last year.
"And last year, you should have seen it! We were here for the MTV Europe Music Awards and afterwards." Kevin was cracking up over this, which left us waiting for an ending. "Afterwards, this fan, oh god! She'd gone to all this trouble to meet us and had sneaked into the press conference, only, - for some reason Helen was going red - when she got in there she leaned over the cameras at the back and tipped one over, which fell onto the next, and by the time security had gotten to her, all the fucking cameras in the whole place had fallen, taking a load of reporters with her!" The others were bent double laughing as they remembered it.
"It wasn't my fault!" Burst Helen out. "With all those cables it was an accident waiting to happen!" The guys slowly stopped laughing as they realised what she was saying.
"It was you?" Gasped Brian, still out of breath from laughing.
"Just shut up, ok?" She sulked. Helen hadn't even told me that story so she must have been fairly embarrassed by it.
We pulled over to the side of the rood and stopped. The driver came around to the door and opened it before Kevin could open it from the inside.
"Thank you." Said Kevin uncomfortably. I could tell that he didn't really like people waiting on him. "I don't know how we'll be, but it's going to be more then an hour so if you want to go off..."
"Thank you Sir, but I'll be perfectly comfortable right here."
"Ok then. Come on people! Let's get inside, shall we?" Commanded Kevin. He went in first followed by the rest of us. Nick trailed behind.
Dinner went smoothly enough, I suppose. The restaurant was lovely, as was the food, and they put us at a very secluded table towards the back. But during the entire meal Nick refused to make eye contact with me. It wasn't that he wouldn't talk to me, but he would always be looking at his plate or something else, like a picture on the wall. I knew that the others noticed it too, those that had spent eight years in his company, and I could clearly see the worry in Brian's eyes.
After dinner, at a nightclub, he avoided me as much as possible, always finding an excuse to be elsewhere to where I was.
Brian and Helen were sitting in a booth to the side, talking.
"Can I trust you Helen?"
The question surprised her. "I don't know. I know I can be trusted, but I don't know if you could trust me."
He grinned at her answer, but the smile was fleeting. "I'm going to."
"Ok then. What about?"
Brian ignored her question and asked her one instead. "Have you noticed what's been going on between Fiachra and Nick tonight?"
"Yeah, they've been avoiding each other." Helen said diplomatically.
"Bullshit. Nick's been avoiding Fiachra." Replied Brian.
"Ok then." Helen was surprised by the vehemence behind Brian cursing.
"And I want to figure out why." He said.
"Ok. I thought it was Nick's idea to come over?"
"It was! That's what's got me so confused! He even gave Fiachra a bear hug as soon as he saw him!" Answered Brian.
"So if it was something that happened between them then it had to happen between then and when Nick came into the sitting room. Were they alone together at all?" Helen suspected Fiachra's crush on Nick, but didn't think that he'd do anything to jeopardise their friendship.
"I don't think so. There wasn't the time." Brian didn't know that Nick was gay, but Brian had been watching him closely recently, and whenever someone had mentioned Fiachra's name he seemed to perk up. And some of the looks that Nick had been giving Fiachra... But he didn't think that Nick would do anything to risk ruining his friendship with Fiachra either. Suddenly it came to Brian! The time in the hall when he'd seen Helen and Nick was there, but what could have been gleaned from that conversation? Holy Shit! It suddenly stuck Brian.
"You said that you were sleeping at Fiachra's house tonight?"
"Yeah."
"Where do you sleep?"
"Oh, I've got my own room!"
"You've got your own room?! In someone else's house?" Exclaimed Brian.
"Yeah, I know it's a bit strange, but when I was younger my parents had to go away a lot for work, and it suited to be able to stay with Fiachra's family whenever, and you've seen how big the house is. It's been mine since then." Relieved, Brian went onto explain what he thought was going on in Nick's head. He even said that he thought that Nick was gay.
Helen was shocked by his bluntness and said so. She also said that she thought Fiachra had something for Nick too.
"All that remains is to get them together." Said Brian.
"Are you sure that you want to mess with them like that? What if we're wrong?"
"Then Nick's going to ruin what ever they've got now! Look at him!" Helen glanced around the dance floor and saw Nick moving away when Fiachra was coming towards where he was. She knew Fiachra well enough to see that he was getting very annoyed.
So they formulated a simple plan, both were going to confront their best friends and get them to admit to what was going on. After that... they'd see.
"Howie, could leave us alone please?" Howie knew that Brian meant business and left to go visit the other two. Brian held the door open for him and the closed it firmly behind him.
"What's going on Nick?" He asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Cut out the fucking crap! You know what I'm talking about!" Said Brian angrily.
"I dunno Frick. I'm just so confused..."
Brian softened his tone. "Do you think that Helen is Fiachra's girlfriend?" Nick nodded his head.
"She's not. They're only friends." And before Nick could ask he continued. "She's got her own room in the house." Brian let it sink in and then asked. "Are you gay Nick?"
Nick choked back a sob. "I don't know." Brian pulled him into a hug.
"You like Fiachra, don't you?"
Nick nodded shakily. "Do you hate me?" He asked.
"What?! No! Nothing could make me hate you Frack. Nothing. You remember that."
"But I'm gay."
"So? Listen Nick. Just because you're gay doesn't mean that you're a bad person! It's only a part of what you are. You are one of the most incredible people in the world, and don't you let anyone tell you anything else."
"Thanks Frick."
"Shh." Brian kept Nick in his arms until he fell asleep. That was the way that Howie found them, both asleep, when he came in an hour later.
"Fiachra?" Came Helen's voice from outside the door.
"Yeah? Come in." I was topless, but she'd seen me naked more then once so I didn't really think about it.
"What the hell was going on tonight between you and Nick?"
"I wish I knew. He was fine when he came over this afternoon, and then."
"Do you want him?" She asked bluntly.
"What? Helen!" I choked.
"Well? I'm waiting for an answer here!" She demanded.
"Well... Yeah, I guess."
"Ok." She left the room as quickly as she'd come in. I blinked, wondering if I'd imagined the whole thing. I dismissed it, crawling into bed, knowing that I was going to have a headache the next morning.
That's that! I hope you enjoyed it. If you didn't read my 'lil intro at the start please do, I need you to. Let me know what you think - shiningstar@oceanfree.net
Tim.