If AJ could play the game, well damnit, so could I. He was delusional to think Rhoda was even interested in him. He looked like a game of connect the dots gone wrong with his overly inked body. Sure I had tats, but they added character.
I took the first opportunity I could to sneak backstage. So what if soundcheck started late? How would that be any different than any other day?
Rhoda was hovering right to the side of the stage wearing one of our tour shirts. I loved that she cut the neck and let her girls get some stage time. Unfortunately, half of my face had been hacked off in the process.
"What's going on?" she asked as I walked over to her.
"Wrong?" I asked. I realized I needed an excuse for just walking off stage like that.
Think Nick, think...
"My pants!" I said. "Uhhh..."
I made a gesture towards my crotch. "I think they're going to fall down," I said sweetly.
Her arms went around me and wiggled the back of my pants. I glanced down into the deep V of her cleavage. If she just pressed a little closer...
Instead, she knelt down. Her mouth was perfectly positioned in line with my zipper. Her hands slid between my legs. I looked up. Brian was usually the go-to guy with prayers, but at the moment I was singing to the porn angels. The fantasy of her head bobbing up and down with my johnson in her mouth--
"Do you want a belt?" she asked. Before I could stop her, she stood up. "It could be you're losing weight."
I smiled. "You think?"
Her lips parted slightly before they curved into a smile. "Well, you guys are active right?"
"I don't know about the others but I'm totally active," I assured her. She gave a little laugh that sounded like Christmas bells and walked back to wardrobe. I adjusted myself. My pants were still loose in the front, but there was no doubt she was making them tighter in front.
"What the fuck are you doing?"
I turned. AJ was standing there, hands on his hips. His stupid skull belt grinned up at me.
"I'm having a wardrobe malfunction," I said haughtily. I rubbed the side of my face. A ton of concealer came off on my fingers. I reached over and streaked it down AJ's nose. His eyes narrowed; I could tell I was pissing him off.
"She's mine. I saw her first."
My eyes widened. I snorted. "What? Nu-uh! I saw her first! You were too busy getting your nails painted. She's mine."
AJ got into my face. It was a stretch; I was taller than him. And better looking than him...
"Here's your belt!"
We both turned. I reached for it, but Rhoda began to work it through my belt loops. AJ looked like he wanted to spit acid.
"You're an absolute doll," I said.
"Would you two please get your act together?" Howie hissed. I looked at him in surprise. Now the only one left on stage was Brian. Bri looked like he was doing a mime act. The girls were eating it up.
"I needed a belt," I said. "I'm losing weight."
AJ snorted. "Is that the large fry diet? Or the 'I need cereal waiting for me in every hotel room' diet?"
I opened my mouth to retort, but the angry Puerto Rican stepped in between us.
"GET OUT THERE. NOW."
"All set!" Rhoda piped up. She stood up and gave me a squeeze on the shoulder. Ha! Eat your heart out, McLean.
With Howie breathing down our necks, the three of us walked out on stage. I took my seat between Brian and Howie and waved to the bouncing fans. I was glad that the other one was on the opposite side of Howie.
I didn't need to hear any more of his delusional crap.
Rhoda so wanted me.
Well, the soundcheck was poop.
I'd say shit but sometimes it's just funner to say poop, y'know?
Anyways.
Nick kept grinning over at me with his beady eyes like he was some kind of leopard or something. What he didn't know was that I was laughing at him secretly because his fly was open and there were gonna be peek-a-boo pictures of his dirty boxers all over the Internet within the next couple hours. Rhoda was too mature for someone whose dirty-ding-dong had been seen round the world.
Clearly I was the man for her.
The girl was MINE.
Besides, Mr. Oh-Help-My-Fat-Ass-Is-Smaller-Than-The-Tent-That-It-Takes-To-Cover-My-Big-Mac-Chowing-Thunder-Thighs-And-Therefore-I'm-Gonna-Make-Bullshit-Up-About-Wardrobe-Malfunctions-Just-So-The-Hot-Girl-Touches-My-Pee-Pee Carter also didn't know was that I had a secret weapon.
Maturity.
The fact is that although, from the outside, I seem all 100% bad ass, on the inside I am 100% romantic man. It's true. And y'know what else is true? There is nothing to make a girl horny faster than sensitivity.
I literally owe Shakespeare like half my sex life.
And so, I planned to use my secret weapon wisely.
As soon as the soundcheck was over, we all scattered to do our own thing until the show started. Nick and I kind of glared at each other, as though we were each aware of what the other was about to go do, and we split quickly, going in opposite directions.
Let 'im find her first. It wouldn't matter once she saw what I was about to do.
I snuck into the backstage area where our stage props are kept - the cards and glasses and table for the Show Me The Meaning of Being Lonely set, the pieces of the boxing ring... And there, in the center, laying on an amp, was the long white box. Justin had stopped by the florist and picked up the four long stemmed roses we would need during I'll Never Break Your Heart, and now there they were, chilling backstage.
I smiled. "There, there," I said, patting my pocket, where a condom resided in the hopes that one day I would be caught off guard and get some, "Soon enough," I whispered. I scurried over to the box and extracted one of the roses. If I played my cards right, I could not only get the rose to give to Rhoda, but also get Nick into shit later for not having a rose. Hee Hee Hee.
Sweet revenge - it's a bitch, Carter.
Bearing the stolen rose, I quickly scratched out a note about how sexy she was, signed it with love and snuck out to the stylists' bus; Dee, Lyndsey and Rhoda were sharing a bus for the duration of the tour. I slipped onto the bus after making sure that nobody was around to spot me - especially that lil blonde bastard - and quickly set to work deducing which bunk was Rhoda's. After a slight amount of investigative work, I left the rose on the pillow of a bed and turned to go.
I was feeling pretty damn smug about now. I mean, Rhoda was gonna have the socks knocked off her by my unbelievable sensitivity. And you know what that means, right? It means I'M GONNA GET LAID!
It wasn't until the shower turned off that I realized it had been on in the first place.
Bus showers are shit. They're like RV showers only worse. Showers are the number one reason for hotel rooms on tour, seriously. You just can't get all those tiny crevices when you've got a zero percent water pressure for two minutes. But that was like the last thing on my mind, actually, because it was just then that I noticed the bathroom door was wide. fucking. open.
To peek or not to peek. That was the question.
But really it wasn't a question at all.
Not really.
Slowly, I inched towards the bathroom door and peeked around it. Through the mikly, smoked glass door of the shower stall, I could see the form of perfect womanhood. The big, globe-like breasts... the tight, skinny waist... the legs! Those legs. Sweet holy corn nibbles, I could eat the hell out of those legs. I was drooling.
Suddenly, a noise behind me startled me and I jumped as Nick came whipping around the corner from the door, a teddy bear clutched in his hands. He stopped at the door and stared at me. I stood where I was and stared back. "What the hell are you doing here?" we both asked at exactly the same time. Nick scowled.
"AJ, you're a dirty, rotten piece of --" he started, but before he could finish, the bus door opened again.
Rhoda came around the corner, a grin on her face, still wearing the BSB tshirt she'd maimed. I noticed she'd cut off Nick's face. I had to choke to keep from laughing, "Um. What're you boys doing on my bus?" she asked, a confused expression stealing away the smile she'd entered with.
"We were, uh-" Nick stammered.
But wait, I suddenly realized. If Rhoda was here...then who...
"Ro?" called Dee's voice form the bathroom. My eyes widened. Dee? SHIT.
Nick's face paled in panic. "Oh shit."
"Yeah, Dee, it's me, but Nick and AJ are out--"
Before Rhoda could finish the sentence, Dee came out from the bathroom, holding a towel around her body. And then... well, then it happened. Startled to see Nick and I on her bus, Dee let out a strangled cry, and accidentally dropped the towel, revealing all of her womanly glory.
"Oh fucking A," Nick cried, and before anyone - including myself - could think to protest, he'd turned and face-planted directly into Rhoda's cleavage.
Dee flushed redder than her lips usually were, and bolted back into the bathroom, screaming, "GET OFF MY FUCKING BUS! What the HELL do you think you're DOING?"
"I'm sorry!" I shouted.
Rhoda meanwhile pulled Nick's face out from the squishy environment of her breasts. "Um - ew... Did you just lick me?" she demanded.
"GET THE FUCK OFF THIS BUS!!!!!!" Dee screamed.
Nick grinned.
I was not about to eat the wrath of Dee.
I quickly grabbed Nick by the back of his shirt collar, and yanked him along behind me as I ran from the bus. "CALL ME!" Nick screamed as I dragged him out the door.
I was gonna pummel his fucking little blonde tit-licking ass into the cement and leave him there to ferment.
This was officially hardcore war.
