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Chapter Fourteen

“Since you missed the meeting scheduled in Ohio a couple of weeks ago...” Mr. Armani’s began, as the Boys sat down at the large oak table in the conference room that they’d been told to meet at, which was in their hotel. It was later that day, and A.J. still had a chip on his shoulder towards Nick, “We have a lot more to discuss here."

The Boys all rolled their eyes, grumbling their annoyances under their breath. They hated meetings, especially with Mr. Armani, the short, balding man who occasionally called meetings for them to attend when he knew that they would be in New England. He was fairly new to their management team, within the past two years. They all secretly thought that his goal was to torture them.

“First line of business,” Mr. Armani spoke again, taking no time to begin, “I think that it is only fair to explain why you were not present for the meeting two weeks ago.”

He crossed his legs, folding his hands neatly, placing them upon his knees. He had a smug look on his face, waiting for their excuse. Waiting for them to not have one.

“We called to inform Mr. Carr that we would not be able to make it,” Kevin told Mr. Armani, “It wasn’t possible.”

“Oh?” he challenged, letting go of his professional image and taking on more of an immature role, “Care to explain?”

Kevin just stared at the man sitting before him for a long moment. He disliked him, which was hard not to see. Kevin tried hard though not to show his on his facial expressions what he thought of the guy. He knew that if Mr. Armani caught on, things would not end well.

“Visiting a friend in the hospital,” he finally replied, “Who was in an accident that same night. I think we all know which was at the top of our priorities.”

The others nodded in agreement. Amber, to them, was much more important than some meeting that they had been called upon at a late hour. There was no way that they’d even thought about leaving her to die just so they could make something that they hadn’t wanted to go to in the first place.

“I see,” Mr Armani replied dryly, his eyes narrowing at Kevin, “You always do all of the talking. The others have mouths too.”

Kevin did his best not to roll his eyes at that comment. This man did nothing but pick at everything. It was rather annoying, in Kevin’s opinion. It a lot of the meetings, Kevin did most of the talking. It was something that just sort of always ended up happening. Especially when they met with him. The man was so critical of everything, that everyone was afraid of screwing up in something that they said, so they tried not to speak at all. So nobody said anything, waiting for the man to continue. After a long pause, waiting for them to say something, and getting the hint that they weren’t going to, Mr. Armani finally spoke again.

“Are you still planning on making a special appearance at the Holiday Concert Special in New York City on the twenty-fourth...five days, to be exact. Or are you going to find something more important then too at the last minute and be a no show?”

Kevin closed his eyes and took a few breaths. He wondered what they had done to have to put up with this man. He wondered if he was like this with everyone under the management team, or just the Boys.

“We’re going to attend,” Kevin stated through gritted teeth, “We want to be there, and we will be. Got it?”

Mr. Armani got a smug look on his face again. Out of the corner of his eye, Kevin saw Nick shift uncomfortably in his seat. Brian was fidgeting and Howie’s eyes kept randomly shifting back and forth nervously. A.J. just glared. Kevin had a feeling that as soon as they were freed from the room, A.J. would definitely be spouting off his thoughts.

“Don’t worry,” A.J seethed, speaking for the first time, “We’re going to make our appearance. It’s something that means a lot to us to perform at.”

Mr. Armani just gave a curt nod, as if he didn’t believe them. The boys were all thinking the same thing along the lines of proving the man wrong. A.J. especially wanted to prove him wrong. His attitude lately was doing the opposite of what everybody thought.

“Is that all for today?” Howie asked Mr. Armani, speaking up.

“No, actually, there is one more thing that I would like to talk with you about,”

Brian and Nick both drew in breaths, holding them. Nothing good ever came from those words. It always meant bad news. They waited for him to say what he was planning on, but it never came. Instead, something else did that shocked them.

“Ah, nevermind,” he said, “I’ll ask later on, once I know more about it.”

All five Boys got up from their seats so quickly, their heavy chairs almost tipped over. Pushing them in, they all fled from the room without another word to Mr. Armani. Springing as quickly as they could to the stairwell, to escape the man before he decided to call them back, they all jogged up all twenty-five stories to their floor, using their special key to access the door to the private level that they were staying on. Out of breath, the five Boys walked down the long, narrow hallway towards their rooms.

“Damn, how was that idiot hired,” A.J. asked, breathing heavily from his mini workout, “He’s a complete ass hole.”

The others laughed, agreeing as they wiped the small sweat that had broken out off of their foreheads.

“I have no clue, Aje,” Kevin replied with a sigh, “How he was chosen to join the management team is way beyond me and my understanding.”

“We should probably rehearse what songs we are performing sometime tonight or tomorrow,” Kevin suggested, changing the subject to something slightly different, “Just so we have it all down and are in sync with one another, not singing the songs in different ways.”

Groans came from the other members, but it wasn’t a bad idea, considering the concert special was going to have an overwhelming audience plus be on live TV.

“Sure, tomorrow afternoon sounds like a good time,” Brian grinned, “On the bus. So, um...what are our songs that we’re doing again?” he asked with a slight blush. It was, after all, normally Nick who asked the things that they should already have known.

Kevin rolled his eyes at Brian’s first comment, but didn’t argue. The bus was probably just about as good a place as they could find on such short notice.

“O’ Holy Night and We Three Kings,” Kevin told him in response to his question.

Brian nodded in response, hoping he could remember them this time, before everybody went their separate ways, going in to their rooms to rest for the remainder of their day. They had yet another long one on the road ahead of them.

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Amber sighed as lay down on her stomach on the bed, propping herself up a little with the support of her elbows. She flipped on the TV, trying to find something good to watch as she thought of what had happened earlier that morning. The Boys had come by, trying to get her to open up her door all morning, calling her phone to get a hold of her and after giving up on everything else, yelling through the door, trying to get a response out of her, asking her if she was even there. Amber still did not reply, staying as far as she could from the door, pressing her body against the wall in fear. After having nothing else work, they’d finally slid a note through the door. After Amber was sure that they’d left, she had cautiously walked over to retrieve the note. Unfolding it, she read it carefully, word for word, wondering what they had wanted.

Amber
Goodmorning. Hope you slept well and are doing okay. Haven’t seen you since breakfast yesterday morning. We have a meeting this morning downstairs. We are unsure of how long it will last...no more than half an hour, tops. If you need anything, we’ll be in the Presidential Room. If you don’t, we hope you come out later on. If we don’t see you, we’re leaving tomorrow morning at 9.
The Boys (Kev, Bri, Aje, Nick and Howie)

Amber picked the note up from next to her, reading it again. She raised an eyebrow, scrunching her face up in concentration, not knowing what to think She knew that they seemed sincere enough, but in her mind, all men were still evil and no good, including them. No matter how good their intentions were, she was still a little weary of them. The only one she was even close to trusting was Nick, and she was still even a little afraid of him. She’d not even spoken to the others yet, and wondered if she ever would. Amber wasn’t even sure if she would want to. The one...she thought it was A.J. always seemed to be in a bad mood, and rough. His appearance as a little on the wild side, and she had caught him staring at her a couple of times in ways she did not like so well. It had really freaked her out. She was afraid he might hurt her if given the chance. Brian seemed to be mad a lot of the time...at Nick. As for the others...she didn’t know what to think of them. Howie rarely spoke and Kevin always seemed to be taking care of business type stuff.

After staring at the writing for a big longer, Amber folded the note, dropping it to the floor. Tuning her attention back to what was on the TV, Amber noticed that it was a romance movie. Not in the mood to watch love scenes from a movie, she turned the channel. It was a music station playing a rap video with acted out violence in it. When an image of a girl being violently assaulted came on, Amber quickly turned the channel again. She’d experienced too much of that lately...violence. She could relate to the fear that was etched on the girls face in the video. It didn’t matter if she were experiencing real life fear and the girl was just acting. She could relate, either way.

Clicking the remote to move on to the next channel, it was a movie where a boy was in the hospital. Amber frowned. Was everything that was on going to remind her of her experience in one way or another? She decided that it would, choosing not to try anything more. With a sigh, Amber turned off the television, tossing the remote aside. She felt as if her life were deteriorating. With every day that passed, she became more and more aware of her surroundings, and more on guard. With every day that passed, she became more tense and more afraid of the outside world. All she wanted to do was sleep, to escape the thoughts and reality of what had happened to her. Then again, she didn’t want to sleep. She wanted to be awake to be aware of what was happening around her. She wanted to be able to at least try to have control of bad things happening to her. Either way, there was a negative side to it. So depending on her mood, she either slept or forced herself to stay awake. Another thing that bothered her was that she still always felt dirty. She showered three times a day, morning, afternoon and night. Every day she got to, at least. Nothing seemed to wash away the filth that she felt though. No matter how much soap she used, how rough she scrubbed, she still couldn’t seem to feel clean. She felt violated, and was beginning to think of all of the things she could have done to prevent this unforseen thing from happening to her. She was always afraid that her assaulter would return for her. He hadn’t yet, but that did not mean that it was impossible. Unlikely maybe, but not impossible.

Amber closed her eyes, trying to shake out the thoughts from her head. She was becoming more and more depressed with every day that passed, wanting to be alone. Nick was the only one she wanted to talk to, and she was beginning to even want to tell him to leave her be. She wanted to shut herself away, hide from the world. She wanted to feel safe. Amber was beginning to wonder why she had lived. She’d been shot...she wanted to know why she hadn’t died, kind of beginning to wish that she had. Then she wouldn’t have to deal with this emotional roller coaster. A few tears began to trickle out of her eyes at the thought of thinking she would have been better off not living. Turning around, Amber burried her face in her pillow as she started to cry harder. She was so confused with everything, and each day brought on worse thoughts and feelings. She had so many questions to ask, but unfortunately, nobody knew the answers to them.