Chapter 31:

Duet

Lance stared at the phone in surprise. Brian Littrell? That was not someone he was expecting to hear from, especially in light of recent events. He glanced quickly around their tour bus and caught Justin’s eye as he was on the verge of tossing a piece of popcorn into his mouth.

“Who is it?” Justin mouthed, noticing the strange look on his face.

Lance held up a finger, telling him to wait. Justin shrugged and went back to his popcorn. “Wow, hi,” he stuttered. “Sorry, you took me off guard there for a sec.”

“Sorry.”

“No, no big deal. How are all of y’all doing?”

“Much, much better.”

“Good to hear, very good to hear.”

Brian smiled into the phone. The wariness in Lance’s voice was hard to miss, but he couldn’t exactly blame him. It wasn’t that the two bands disliked each other, but they tried not to cross paths too often. “Where are y’all at right now?”

“Umm, that’s a good question. I think we’re going through Arkansas.”

“Tour going well?”

“Yeah, tour’s going great.”

Justin was curious now. “Who is it?” he asked aloud.

Lance ignored him. “We keep hearing about you. Saw the MTV interview last week.”

“Oh really?”

“Yup.”

“Well, thanks for the cards and the flowers and stuff. We all really appreciated it.”

“Least we could do,” Lance said, touched by the gratitude in his voice. “We don’t exactly see each other very much, but when something like that happens…” he shook his head. “It hits you. Hard. We were stunned to hear about it. I can’t tell you how good it was to hear all of you were going to make it.”

Justin was dying of curiosity now, so he got up with the intent to find someone else to suffer with him. Joey was fixing some food, but he was wearing his headphones. No good. Any attempt to distract him would prove futile. Chris was nowhere to be seen, so that left him with J.C., who was trying to steal a nap.

“You did not just wake me up,” he muttered as Justin shook his leg.

“Dude, you have got to listen in on Lance’s phone conversation with me. You won’t believe who I think it is.”

“Justin, I don’t care if Lance is talking to Elvis. Go away and leave me alone.”

Justin rolled his eyes, but left him along. J.C. had one hell of a temper when it came to sleep. Further investigation revealed Chris up front chatting with their driver.

“Chris, man, come here.”

“Whatsa matter Curly?” he asked. “Did Joey eat the last of your Cheerios?”

“Not to my knowledge. But if he did, I’ll beat him with a sledgehammer. I think one of the Backstreet Boys just called Lance.

“Really? Why?”

“I don’t know. Come on, we have to go listen.”

It was Chris’s turn to roll his eyes. “Freak.” Justin pouted. “Okay, okay!”

They both went over to where Lance was still sitting, looking deep in thought.

“Well thanks, that’s awfully nice of you to say. Glad it was of some help to you.” He paused, his forehead wrinkling. “Really?” he said in surprise. “That sounds interesting, actually. It would sure throw the media for a loop, wouldn’t it?” He cackled a little, and Justin almost hit him, he was so curious.

Joey wandered over to join them, minus the headphones. “Who is Lance talking to?” he asked, seeing his other band mates watching him like a hawk.

“Shhh!” Chris said, waving a hand at him.

“I kind of like that idea. I’ll run it by the guys here. They are all staring at me as if I’ve grown a second head. Well, if it means so much to you, I’m sure we can work something out. I’ll talk to them and get back to you on how they like the idea. Sound good?” Lance nodded. “Great. Good talking to you. Later.”

He hung up the phone, and found all three of them waiting anxiously for an explanation. J.C. chose that moment to rise from his bunk, complaining bitterly.

“Justin, I am gonna kick your ass. I can’t get back to sleep now, thank you!” Then he noticed the expressions on everyone’s faces. “What is going on?”

“Lance just got off the phone with one of the Backstreet Boys.”

“Oh,” J.C. said with a strange look. “What’s up?”

“I talked to Brian Littrell. He called me.”

“It was him? Not their management?”

“Nope. He said he wanted to talk to us personally about this.”

“About what?” Justin said, exasperated.”

“If you shut up for a second, I’ll tell you.” Justin mimicked him with a goofy look and then grinned. Lance shook his head.

“Anyways,” he said. “He told me that one of our songs helped him out a lot during their little ordeal.”

“Wow. I’m feeling special, I don’t know about you guys,” Joey said cheekily. “No really,” he said when he saw the exasperated looks. “That was really nice of him. Is that all he had to say?”

“Nope He had an idea.” Lance said.

“What song?” J.C. asked, becoming interested.

“Somewhere Someday. He wants to know if we would be interested in a collaboration between the ten of us for that song.”

“He does?” Justin looked doubtful.

“He said that the song really meant a lot to him, and he really wanted to be able to do something with it.”

“Interesting,” J.C. said, deep in thought.

“Do we have time?” Justin quipped.

Lance pulled out his planner and began flipping through pages. “I think we could squeeze it in. We have a week off from the tour a month. We could snag some time in the studio then. We don’t have much else going on.”

“Lance. The omnipotent force in our lives,” Justin said in a deep voice.

“Omniscient, dumbass,” J.C. corrected with a grin.

“Whatever.”

“So you think we could swing it?” Joey asked.

“His management has okayed it, Jive has okayed it. They just need a go ahead from our end, it seems,” Lance replied.

“I don’t know, that is an awful lot of country boys for me to have to deal with,” Chris said with a straight face.

Lance pulled a hacky sack ball out of the pocket of his jacket and chucked it at him. “None of that, please,” he ordered. “Us Mississippian’s might take offense.”

“All those from Mississippi say ‘Aye’” Chris called out.

“AYE!” Lance yelled into his ear.

“Okay, now prove you’re a bumpkin and try and spell it.” This time, Lance smacked him on the forehead with his planner. “Ouch! Damn it, Lance! That’s a big book!”

“Your whole life is in it,” Lance informed him. “And after that page, ours fill up the other three hundred.”

“I kind of like this idea,” J.C. said slowly, bringing them all back to the topic at hand.

“Me too,” Lance agreed.

Joey shrugged. “I don’t mind. Whatever you all want to do. It would be different, and it would give the media a new bone to chew on.” Justin and Chris agreed.

“Great,” Lance said. “I’ll call him back and tell him.”

* * *

Almost a month later, the five Backstreet Boys sat around the studio, taking a break from their latest recording session. Work on their album had resumed three weeks ago, and although a lot had been done, they still had a lot more to do. No release date had been set, and work on a tour hadn’t even begun. Physically, they were almost ready to begin rehearsals, but neither Kevin nor Nick was sure if they were ready to be back on the road.

They had roughly put together about half the album, and had picked out material for the other half. All five had a hand in writing a large majority of the songs. It was important to all of them to be as involved as possible for this album, because it marked an achievement that many thought they would never be able to make. The media had all but written them off, and the five of them were determined to prove that assumption dead wrong. They would accept nothing less than the absolute best they could possibly put forth, so every decision was weighed carefully and every aspect of it was painstakingly done. Nothing less than perfection was permissible.

In their eyes, this album would be their crowning achievement. Even if it failed by any or all other standards, and even if the public had moved on from the “Backstreet” phenomenon, for them it would be their greatest accomplishment. They would prove to themselves they could fight back from the greatest odds they had ever faced, and come away from it better than they had ever been. There was still a lot of work to be done, but things were starting to come together. Brian wasn’t satisfied.

“We’re missing something,” he said suddenly.

“What do you mean?” A.J. asked.

“The songs here are great, and a lot of them reflect us, but there’s not one that really speaks from the heart. Don’t you think we need that? That the fans need that? I mean, we’ve already done “Larger Than Life” and “The Perfect Fan.” People are used to us expressing ourselves in our music, and these songs don’t quite do it. Not for… not for that. Does anyone know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” Kevin said slowly. “You want something that acknowledges what we’ve been through and shows how far we’ve come.”

“Something that tells everyone where we stand now,” Howie added.

“And thanks everyone who helped us get there,” Nick finished.

“Yes. That’s it.”

“Well,” A.J. said. “Let’s write one then. Straight from the heart.”

“Just the five of us,” Brian said. “No one else. This is just us. Everything about it has to be just us.”

“Okay,” Kevin said. “Let’s brainstorm.”

They cancelled what was left of their recording session that day, and devoted the rest of their time to Brian’s suggestion.

The five of them began to bounce ideas around. Kevin tinkered with the piano and plinked down a few notes, trying to find a suitable melody to work with. They all began to throw out the thoughts that were on their mind.

After awhile, they concluded that what they were coming up with didn’t address the whole picture of what they were trying to say.

“We’re either too personal, or too specific, or we’re missing completely,” Brian said. “We need to come up with something that can mean something to anyone, but can have special meaning to us and anyone who went through it with us.”

“Kinda like “Show Me The Meaning,” Nick supplied.

“Yes. Like that. It means an awful lot to us, and people recognize that the song is about what happened to us, but at the same time anyone can use it as a song that is personal to them.”

Howie frowned. “I think I have an idea.”

“Let’s have it,” A.J. said.

He told them what it was, and a light bulb seemed to click on over all of their heads.

“That’s it!” Brian said excitedly. “Okay. Let’s see what we can come up with.”

“Kevin, get your ass back to that piano and play us something,” A.J. ordered. “Let’s play around with lyrics.”

The five of them were soon hard at work, and stayed that way until late in the evening. Something had inspired them, and they were determined not to leave until they had achieved what they had set out to do.

By the time they had put it together and made a demo, they were grinning from ear to ear.

“I cannot wait to record this,” Nick said excitedly.

“You know how we were thinking about releasing “Will You Be There” first?” Howie asked.

“Screw it,” A.J. said. “It’s gonna be this one. And it’s gonna turn some heads.”

***

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