Chapter 12
The
following night, Nick, Claire, AJ, and Mary sat at the airport in Kahului,
waiting for their flights to be called.
AJ and Mary’s plane was scheduled to depart at 9:00, Nick and Claire’s
fifteen minutes later.
“United
Airlines Flight 38, Kahului to Los Angeles, now boarding,” an announcement
echoed through the crowded gate.
AJ and Mary
rose from their seats. “That’s us,” said
AJ. Nick and Claire stood up too. AJ immediately reached for Claire, pulling
her into a big bear hug. “Have a safe
flight,” he rasped into her ear. “And
take care of Nicky for me when ya get back.”
She
smiled. “You know I will. You have a safe flight too.”
“Thanks,”
he said. “Well, I better say bye to Nick
quick so we can board and you guys can get down to your gate in time. It was good to see you again, Claire.”
“You too,
AJ,” she replied and pulled away to talk to Mary while Nick and AJ said
goodbye.
“It was
nice to meet you,” Mary said, giving her a friendly hug. “Maybe you and Nick can come visit us in LA
sometime.”
“That would
be fun,” Claire nodded, smiling. “Well,
take care.”
The two
women parted as their boyfriends hugged, slapping each other on the back. Claire couldn’t help but smile as she watched
the two men. They tried to act so casual
and macho about the whole thing, but it was obvious how much they cared about
each other. She knew that even though
the guys could drive each other crazy when they were together for long periods
of time, Nick missed them when they were not around. And watching AJ now, she could tell the
feeling was mutual.
“Well, see
ya around, Kaos,” AJ was saying, letting Nick go.
“Later, J,”
Nick smiled and stepped back, taking Claire’s hand. AJ reached for Mary, and the two of them
turned to head toward their plane, while Nick and Claire walked in the opposite
direction, looking for the gate from which their own flight would depart.
“We better
hurry,” Claire said, checking her watch.
“Don’t wanna miss the boarding call.”
She felt bad for making him rush, but they were cutting it close as it
was, and the last thing she wanted to do was miss their flight and have to wait
for a later one.
Luckily,
they made it to their gate in time, and before long, they were seated on the
plane. Nick had let Claire have the
window seat, and she gazed out the small circular window as the plane rolled up
the runway, gaining speed.
“Well, this
is it,” she murmured, as the plane got ready to take off. “Bye-bye, Hawaii.”
Nick said
nothing, and when she turned her head to look at him, she was surprised to see
him sitting stock-still, his back flattened against his seat, his hands
gripping the arm rests so tightly his knuckles were turning white.
“Are you
okay??” she asked, alarmed by his appearance.
“I… hate…
flying,” he hissed through clenched teeth.
She cocked her head at him in disbelief and then burst out
laughing. He gave her a cold look, but
above his hardened eyes and furrowed brows, a bead of sweat trickled down his
forehead. The boy was actually perspiring!
“Wow, I
knew you didn’t like flying much, but I’ve never seen you like this,”
she commented, staring at him. “You were
fine when we took off in Tampa!”
“It’s the
water,” he said weakly. “I hate flying
over water… especially oceans…”
She
snickered, while he continued to look thoroughly unamused and annoyed with her
for laughing. “You’d think you’d be used
to it by now,” she said. “Don’t you guys
fly all the time, when you tour and stuff?”
“Yeah,
which only increases my odds of dying in a plane crash!” he exclaimed in a
heated whisper.
She shook
her head. “Good lord, Nick… if God
wanted to kill you, He’d have done it six months ago. You’re not going to die in a freaking plane
crash,” she said, her logic mixed with exasperation. “Just sit back, relax, and enjoy it, okay?”
“Easier
said than done,” he said, offering her a grim smile.
She
returned the smile with confidence and placed her hand over his, which was
still clutching the arm rest. She gave
it a single pat and then wove her fingers through his, joining their
hands. The plane began to shake as it
left the ground, and she squeezed his hand, still slightly amused that a
seasoned flyer would be this freaked out during a takeoff, but wanting to comfort
him nevertheless. With her free hand,
she reached into her purse and rummaged through it until she felt what she was
looking for – a pack of gum. She pulled
it out and offered it to him. “Gum?” she
asked. “To help your ears pop?”
“Thanks,”
he mumbled, taking a stick.
She
clumsily got another stick for herself with her one hand, not taking the other
off of his, and dropped the rest of the pack into her purse. She chewed the gum rapidly and looked out the
window again, watching the buildings below grow smaller and smaller as they
gained elevation. Contrary to Nick, her
favorite parts of a flight were the takeoff and the landing, seeing the ground
fade and reappear right before her eyes as the plane rose above and dipped
below the clouds. Now she alternated
between gazing out the window and checking on Nick. Now that they were off the ground, he had
seemed to relax a bit… maybe it was just the actual taking off that freaked him
out so much. She figured he’d be all
right once they stopped ascending, especially once they were over the mainland
again… not that you could really tell once you were above the clouds.
She was
right.
After
another ten minutes, he seemed perfectly fine, and she was relieved. For a minute there, she was worried he was
going to toss his cookies into one of the little barf bags peeking out of the
pouch on the back of the seat in front of him.
That would sure make for an interesting story – Nick Carter
puking in the first class section of an airplane.
A thought
hit her, and she giggled out loud before she could stop herself.
Out of the
corner of her eye, she saw him look over at her. “What are you laughing at?” he asked, his
voice tinged with amusement.
“Have you
ever gotten airsick?” she asked, turning to him. “I mean, in recent years?”
She could
practically see him thinking. “No…” he
said slowly. “Not that I remember. Why?”
“I was just
thinking…” She lowered her voice, not
wanting to be overheard by other passengers, and continued, “If you puked on a
plane, do you think the flight attendant who took your barf bag to throw away
would keep it… to try to sell on Ebay or something?” She could barely get through the end of the
sentence before she cracked up again, imagining the heading on the Ebay auction
page. Airplane Vomit Bag Used By Backstreet Boy By Nick Carter…
Not-So-Mint Condition
Nick
wrinkled his nose, looking thoroughly disgusted at the mere idea. “Oh sick, Claire! You are so gross!”
“I’m
serious!” she giggled. “Some of your
fans are obsessive freaks, aren’t they?
It could happen!”
He snorted
and shook his head. “That the way to win
‘em over, Claire, call them ‘obsessive freaks.’
If they find that out, they’re never going to accept you as my
girlfriend.”
“And why do
I care?” she replied. “I didn’t know I
had to ‘win them over.’ They can hate me
all they want; I’ve won you over, and that’s all that matters to me.”
He smiled,
noticeably pleased by that last part.
“I’m just kidding,” he said. “You
were pretty much doomed from the get go, so it’s not like it really makes a
difference what you say about them.”
“Doomed
from the get go?” she repeated, laughing.
“What does that mean?”
“It means
any girlfriend of mine is usually hated by most of them, at least the
teenyboppers. Doesn’t matter who you
are, what you look like, or how nice you are, to me or to them.”
She
snickered a little. “Well, gee, that’s a
nice thought. So they’re going to hate
me as much as they probably hated that Leah hooker you were with – the
stripper? Or Willa Ford?”
“Ooh, they really
hated Mandy,” he said, his eyes lighting up maliciously. “But yeah, they probably already do
hate you, sweetheart. No offense.”
“None
taken,” she replied and went on quickly, slightly perplexed, “But what do you
mean, ‘they probably already do hate me’?
Do people… do they know who I am?
I mean, we haven’t-“
He shook
his head at her in a way that suddenly made her feel like a child. “Claire… I don’t know this for a fact, but
I’d be willing to bet there’s pictures of us online… probably lots of them,
from the last few months. Small, blurry,
taken at a distance… but they’re out there.
They’ve gotta be. In this
business, you can’t really hide… people spot you places, and they recognize
you, and they take pictures. You don’t
always notice them, but they’re there.
And when one of us is seen with a woman, especially a woman they don’t
recognize, it spreads pretty quickly, and they all start to speculate. I don’t go look at internet sites about us
anymore, but I used to once in awhile when I was younger, just to see what was
out there… and it really annoyed me. I
love our fans, but… man, some of them can be vicious. I remember Mandy used to cry over the hate
sites about her that sprung up… that was when I decided it was best to just
avoid all that shit.”
Okay, so
maybe she was naïve. The way he was
talking about his fans, it made them sound like the freaking CIA or something,
always spying on him, secretly tracking him and the other four guys. She had always thought of Backstreet Boys
fans as teenyboppers – obsessive, maybe slightly crazy, but mostly harmless
little girls (and the occasional middle-aged housewife). But after hearing that, she wasn’t so
sure. The thought of these little girls
lurking around corners and behind bushes, waiting to snap pictures of her with
Nick so that they could post them online, along with hateful messages, was
unnerving.
There must
have been a look on her face, and Nick must have noticed it, for he went on
quickly, “I’m not trying to scare you or anything. That’s just kind of how it is. I don’t think they really mean anything bad
by it… they’re just trying to look out for me.”
He shrugged. “In their eyes, every
other woman I date is evil and will only hurt me, and of course they are
the ones who will treat me right.”
Claire
tapped her chin with her finger, making a big show out of pondering this for a
moment. Then she replied, “Well, I gotta
say, they do have a point… you are not known for dating nice girls with no evil
intentions and ulterior motives. Except
me, of course.” She smirked. “No offense.”
His eyes
narrowed, but he smirked back. “‘No
offense,’” he mocked in a high-pitched voice. “You’re a smartass.”
She
smiled. “I’d call ya a dumbass, but if
one of your little devotees heard, they’d probably say I was verbally abusing
you or something,” she scoffed, and then quickly looked around, as if she were
expecting to see some twelve-year-old in a Backstreet Boys t-shirt holding out
a tape recorder to catch whatever she could of their conversation for proof of
the “abuse.” How sad, she
thought. Am I going to be paranoid
for the rest of my life because of this conversation?
She
certainly hoped not, but all of a sudden, she could understand why most
celebrity relationships didn’t seem to work out. Was it being in the public eye, constantly
under the spotlight, that was the problem?
It doesn’t matter, she told herself. If being with Nick meant putting up with crap
from the fans, then she’d do it. She
would do anything for him. Because when
it was all said and done, she loved him, and that was what mattered.
***
AN: Now let’s not hate Claire for “her” comments about us Bsb
fans, okay? Hehe, I’m just kidding… But you gotta admit, some of the Bsb fans are
pretty crazy, maybe even a little creepy at times (anyone read Mare’s “Beautiful Girl”?). None of YOU, of course… I think I pretty much
scared off any boppers with the first story LOL. But you know what I mean. ;)