Chapter 10
Five years
later
It
was now June of 1999, just two weeks after eighteen year old Taylor’s high
school graduation. Now, to celebrate
their new independence, Taylor and Jaime, her best friend, were road-tripping
to Florida for nothing but sunshine, parties, and guys.
Taylor
had an older cousin, twenty seven year old Kevin Richardson, the youngest son
of her father’s sister, Ann, who lived in Orlando, and she and Jaime had made
plans to stay with him in the condo he shared with three friends of his. Taylor’s parents hadn’t liked the idea of
her and Jaime going to Florida by themselves, but they were relieved that at
least they would have someone to stay with once they were there.
Taylor
didn’t know Kevin very well. He was
nine years older than her, for one thing, and also, although he used to live
near Lexington, he had moved to Orlando when she was about ten, around the time
that his father, her uncle Jerald, had died from cancer. He had been living there ever since, and she
only saw him on holidays. Harry had
always been close to him, but she had never gotten to know him well. Still, she was grateful to him for allowing
her and her friend to stay with him for a few weeks to appease her protective
parents.
Driving
in Jaime’s old, but trusty car, they made it from Lexington to Orlando with
relatively no problems. Kevin had given
them directions to where his condo was, on the outskirts of Orlando, and they
found the place fairly easily.
The
condo was located in a nice housing development, wedged in the middle of a row
of almost identical condos. It was a
modest sized place and looked to be in good condition, not like some of the run
down apartment houses they had passed along the way.
Kevin
opened the front door before they even had a chance to knock and smiled
widely. “Hi, Taylor,” he greeted.
“Hi,
Kevin,” she replied back, smiling.
“This is my friend, Jaime Hubert.”
“Nice
to meet you,” Kevin said politely, shaking her hand. “Need any help with your bags?”
“Nope,
we’ve got them, thanks,” Jaime replied, hauling hers inside. Taylor carried hers in behind her friend, and
Kevin stepped in after them both, closing the door. The girls found themselves in a small, but
tidy living room, with white walls and gray carpeting. Three young guys that looked to be in their
late teens or early twenties were sprawled across a big denim blue couch.
“Just
drop your stuff for here right now. I’ll
show you where you’ll be staying in a little bit. Right now, I want to introduce you to my
roommates,” Kevin said, motioning to the three on the couch.
“Guys,
this is my little cousin, Taylor Littrell, and her friend, Jaime Hubert,” Kevin
said to them. “And girls, this here is
Howie Dorough,” he introduced, motioning to a short Latin man sitting nearest
to them on the couch. He looked to be
in his mid twenties.
“And this is AJ McLean,” Kevin continued,
nodding to the next one, who was a wiry, but good looking man in his early
twenties. He had dark spiky hair with
bleached tips, and his eyes were hidden by a dark pair of sunglasses.
“And
finally, Nick Carter.” The third man
was the tallest of them all, but was also the youngest looking, barely twenty,
if that. He was also very good looking,
with blonde hair and blue eyes.
“Hi,”
Taylor said, smiling at them all.
“Nice
to meet y’all,” Jaime added.
“You
too,” the one in the middle, AJ, replied, smiling at them both.
“How
old are you two?” Nick asked.
“Eighteen,”
they replied in unison.
“Cool. So am I,” he said, smiling at them.
Jaime
and Taylor exchanged glances and returned his warm smile. This isn’t a bad arrangement at all, Taylor
thought happily, thinking of how much fun it would be to be living in this
condo with such good looking guys for the next few weeks. She couldn’t wait for the fun to begin.
***
“So,
how did you guys all meet?” Jaime asked, later that evening. Tired from their long drive, Jaime and
Taylor had decided not to go out that evening, opting to stay at the condo with
the guys instead. They sat around in
the living room together, talking about themselves.
“Well,
the three of us have known each other since we were kids,” Howie started,
referring to AJ, Nick, and himself. “We
were all singers and actors as kids, and we would meet up with each other at
all kinds of auditions and stuff like that.
So, even with the age difference, we got to be good friends.”
“How’d
you meet Kevin?” Taylor asked.
“A
few years ago, we wanted to start a singing group with the three of us. But the guy that was helping us pull it
together said we needed more voices. We
auditioned a couple of other guys, but they didn’t work out, and we were
looking for some more. Kevin was
working at Disney at the time, and we met him, and he joined the group,” AJ
explained.
Taylor
nodded, remembering how Kevin had worked as Aladdin at Disney World years
ago. “So what happened with your
group?” she asked with interest.
AJ
shrugged. “We never really made
it. We couldn’t find a fifth member, so
we recorded some stuff with just the four of us. We got a song played on a radio station
around here once, but it never became a hit or anything. So, we just eventually gave up on it.”
“Oh,”
she replied. “That’s too bad.”
Kevin
shrugged. “Going into it, we knew it was
unlikely we’d ever get anywhere. We just
did it for a couple years for fun.”
The
two girls nodded.
“Do
you sing, Taylor?” Kevin asked suddenly.
Taylor
shrugged. “I dunno. I mean, I like singing, I guess, but I don’t
do it seriously or anything.”
“She’s
got a beautiful voice though,” Jaime put in.
Kevin
nodded. “I figured,” he said. “It’s a family thing. Your parents are great singers, and your
brothers… errr, brother, used to sing too.” Kevin’s face grew red, and he looked down.
Taylor
stared at him with interest. He
knows too, she realized. Then she
thought, Well, of course he knows.
He’s Harry’s age. He was around
when it happened. And I guess he was
told to keep it a secret too. She
decided she would think about asking him about Brian some time.
In
the meantime, Taylor pretended like she did notice Kevin’s slip-up and began to
talk again. “Yeah, Mom sings in church
a lot. She tried to get me to a few
times, but I never wanted to. I get too
nervous, ya know?”
Kevin
nodded, recovering quickly. “Yeah, I
know,” he agreed. “I used to get nervous
too.”
The
rest of the night went well, as Taylor and Jaime got to know their new
roommates better. All of them were nice
guys, and the girls knew they would have a great time on their vacation.
***
