The words that Lou Pearlman had spoke to Nick only hours ago still echoed in his head, crashing against his skull like rough waves on a windy day. Pearlman did his best to once again beat his self esteem to a new all time low.

He wanted to tell the manager his excuse for what happened onstage that night, but no matter how hard he thought, he couldn’t explain why some of the things the manager said he did, he in fact actually did.

Not that he was calling the man a liar, but to be honest with himself, he couldn’t recall throwing himself on the stage floor, rolling over onto his back singing “Stand By Your Man” in acapella. If he did that, why didn’t anyone stop him?

And what about his so-called bout of dousing Kevin’s head with a bucket of water? Could he have honestly done that, Nick wondered, he knew that Kevin certainly would have decked him had he done something like that, but there weren’t any marks or bruises to indicate that he had “violated” Kevin Richardson in any way, shape or form.

To add more humiliation to the verbal bashing, Pearlman had told him that he licked Brian’s face and “titty twisted” Howie’s nipples - onstage in front of the entire audience. Just when he thought that Lou had told him everything he had done, he continued with the unthinkable - he was humping the stage floor at AJ’s feet and he had been told that AJ tried to stop him but that he had allegedly grabbed his brother’s feet only to be shook off like something ugly and despicable.

Dragging a hand through his hair hard, Nick didn’t care if he came up with clumps or not; his head hurt, he felt like shit and he wished he could be left alone to die. To him, the tour had been nothing but one complicated mess after another. He felt that he was always the one that had the bad luck getting sick or hurt.

After looking at the clock on the nightstand, Nick pulled himself gingerly out of bed, trudging toward the bathroom. Pearlman had made it clear to him that he would be expected to be at every meeting and every concert until they safely touch down on American soil. He felt so tired that he would have been happy to just curl up into a ball and throw the covers over his face.

Nick gasped as he caught his image in the bathroom mirror. Not only was his complextion flushed but his face looked puffier than the day before.

“What the hell is happening to me? This is going to be something more that I’m gonna get yelled at for.” He pawed through the tiny bathroom bag that held his personal items and medications. Pulling out the balled up tissue, he grabbed two of the tiny diet pills he had stashed. After he swallowed them dry, he stared at his face for a moment before turning away.

“I can’t even go on a diet like I’m suppose to,” he mumbled as he turned the faucet on the shower.

Quietly Nick slipped through the side door to the conference room where Pearlman had directed all of the members of the tour to be at 9:00 that morning. Although he had gotten up to shower and dress, it took longer than he had planned. One of the reasons was that the nagging back pain he had been experiencing lately returned, almost bringing him down to his knees. The best he could manage at this point was standing hunched over.

The other thing that slowed his progress was the task of getting dressed. When he attempted to put his jeans on, he discovered that they were fitting his legs like a second skin and there was no way he could fasten them over his stomach if his life depended on it. He ended up throwing on a pair of navy blue sweat pants and a long sleeved tee shirt.

As Nick edged his way past some of the band, quietly taking a seat at the back of the room, Pearlman stopped his talk and glared at the boy.

Glancing at his watch he glared again. “I see it seems to always take you longer than the rest of the group to arrive ontime.” Pointing his finger at the empty seat next to Kevin, the fat manager drew in a breath. “You need to be sitting up here Nick. We can wait for you.”

Slowly, Nick stood up and picked his way through the chairs, making his way up toward the front to the desired seat. He tried to block out the stares and the whispers of the people as he went past them but he couldn’t help but notice the shocked look on his band brother’s faces, especially AJ. His mouth was hanging open and his normally reserved look was an expression of shock.

“Nick, are you feelin’ okay?” Brian whispered.

“Peachy,” he whispered back.

“Carter, I want to have a word with you after this meeting is done,” Pearlman growled, directing another glare at the blonde. Fingering through the stack of papers that laid before him, he pulled out a sheet and cleared his throat.

“Today you are scheduled to be interviewed at a Milan television station and are expected to perform two songs.” As the obese manager paused, there were groans voicing their displeasure at the agenda. He wiped his face with a linen napkin and cleared his throat again. “Under no circumstances is anyone excused from this. After Nick’s display of bad judgement last night, you have to really push the envelope and kiss some ass.”

“I kept telling you last night that he should have gotten a red card because he was sick and you didn’t listen!” Kevin shouted.

“That’ll be enough from you Richardson, I’m running the show!”

“Yeah, well you may think you’re running the show but what you’re doing is running poor Nick into the ground!”

”I SAID ENOUGH!” Pearlman boomed.

This time it was AJ that spoke up for Nick. “If you’d look past your fat nose you’d see that Nick is a sick boy. You’re not seeing the whole picture, God man, he can’t even stand up straight and you’re talking about him performing like he’s some kind of circus animal.”

The manager’s face turned a deep shade of crimson. ”What I see here that maybe you’re not addressing is a boy that has let his love of food go way beyond his limits. He’s sick because he’s out of shape and he’s been eating more than his share of food and he’s obviously been drinking now too, seeing how he acted on stage last night. Let me worry about my problems and you worry about your own McLean.”

AJ looked over at his brother. “I agree, he’s put on some weight but when you stop and think about it, the schedule you keep us guys on is anything but healthy. It leaves little time for anything but grabbing a bite to eat and then going to bed.”

Pearlman laughed. “Well maybe the boy needs to make wiser choices in his food selections and not stuff himself.”

Nick squirmed in his seat as they tossed observations about him as if he weren’t in the room. He longed to be home right now, away from everyone that would ridicule him the way the manger was and even the way his brothers were going about their defense of him. He was trying to lose weight but he just didn’t understand why he was gaining instead of losing. He had been nauseated for the past week and wasn’t able to eat much but now it’s as if even his body was against him, piling on pounds that he didn’t need.

He had been lost in his own private thoughts that he didn’t realize that the room had emptied and it was him and Lou Pearlman in the room. He swallowed nervously as he awaited the verbal assault that he knew was coming.

“Nick, your weight has gotten to the point where it’s very noticable. I’m guessing you couldn’t squeeze into your pants this morning?”

Nick pullled his shirt away from his stomach as he tried his best to sit up straighter in the chair. “N-no sir. I-I w-was in a hurry.”

“You’re studdering Nick, you and I both know it’s true. How much weight have you gained since I told you to diet?”

“I dunno, a couple maybe?” Nick’s answer was more of a question rather than a statement.

“Have you forgotten about our agreement with your weight?”

Nick shook his head negatively.

“It looks to me that you’ve forgotten. Tell me again what our agreement was.....refresh my memory.”

“Um.....you said that if I don’t lose the weight that I’m out of the group.”

“Correct. Do you also remember the other part of this agreement?”

Nick fingered the edge of his shirt as he wracked his brain to come up with the answer Lou wanted. “Um, I don’t remember.”

Lou threw his hands in the air. “You have the attention span of a house fly. What I told you was not to mention dieting or that I’ve told you to go on a diet or the stuff I gave you to lose weight.”

“Oh.....yeah.”

“Good. You have plenty of work ahead of you now I can see. Two weeks isn’t much time to get that body of yours back into shape. I expect to see some results when we return from break. Is that understood?”

“Yessir.”

Pearlman waved his hand to as if to “shoo” Nick from his sight. “You can leave now, I’m finished.”

Slowly, Nick stood up and walked toward the door. As he placed a hand on the door knob, Pearlman called out.

“Nick, can you still get into your stage clothes?”

Nick could feel the color rush to his cheeks. The question was an embarrassing one, but the truth was even more embarrassing. “Yeah, I can,” he lied and then quickly opened the door and escaped from the manager’s prying eyes.

As he walked down the hall toward the elevator, Nick unconscientiously placed a hand on his slightly distended stomach. He kept thinking it was so strange that every morning for the past week he would wake up feeling bloated and uncomfortable but by evening, his stomach was back to it’s near normal size. He had been thinking that maybe it was tied into how shitty he had been feeling lately and maybe he had caught some weird foreign bug that was giving him a hard time.

Punching the button to the elevator, Nick sighed. “Just a few more days of this shit and I’m home.”

“Ease up on the water, kiddo,” Kevin whispered into the blonde’s ear.

Nick jerked when Kevin spoke, spilling water down the front of himself. Rubbing the shirt, Nick looked sheepishly at Kevin and then glanced quickly around at the others that were seated in the green room waiting to be called out onstage.

“You’ve been drinking so much water lately I’m beginning to wonder if you’re part camel or something,” Howie suggested.

“That’s not normal,” AJ observed quietly.

“I’m just thirsty, no big deal,” Nick replied in his defense after he downed the last of the bottled water.

“There’s lots of causes for that you realize,” AJ continued.

Nick shot his brother a hard glare. “God.....since when is it a crime to drink water?”

AJ folded his arms across his chest. “No.....but I’m just saying you’ve been drinking a lot of water lately. I mean, c’mon Nick, think about it, how many bottles have you drank since you got up this morning?”

Nick scratched his head as he thought. “I dunno.....”

“You don’t know?”

Nick sighed as he got up to get another bottle. “Jesus AJ, like I’m gonna keep count on how many I drink!”

“Ah-ha!”

Twisting the cap off, Nick stuck his tongue out.

Kevin tried to think of something to distract the attention from the blonde. “Hey did you hear they sold out tonight’s show?” Instead of the conversation he had been hoping for, Kevin was met with the blank stares of his band mates.

AJ snapped his fingers. “How many times have you taken a piss today?”

Nick slowly slid down onto the couch, tossing an angry glare at his brother. “How about you mind your own business!”

“I’m tellin’ you something’s wrong!”

“Leave me alone, okay...... if you haven’t noticed, I’m grown up now, I’m not thirteen anymore,” Nick snapped.

As AJ opened his mouth to reply to Nick’s comment, a stagehand knocked on the door and hollered, “They’re ready for you.”

An assortment of groans and mumbled responses were uttered as the group stood up and trudged toward the door, Nick grabbing another bottle of water on his way past the table. He threw a dirty look at AJ when their eyes connected and for the first time since he had been riding Nick’s back about the water, he kept his mouth closed.

“Remember guys, be happy and do a lot of ass kissing,” Kevin reminded them in a hushed voice as they stood offstage waiting for the host to announce them.

Nick fidgeted as he stood in the back of the group. Once again, his body felt like it was betraying him. The nagging side ache and all of his joints felt like they would send him screaming off the stage. He wished that he had snuck some more of the pain medication that Dr. Angelo had given him, but Kevin had taken those away from him saying that it made him act psycho.

It wasn’t fair that everyone seemed to be out to get him, Nick thought to himself as he stared at the floor. All the accusations about him abusing drugs and alcohol and now AJ was picking on him about his drinking water. He hadn’t been drinking more than usual, had he? The weather was warm and the air was dry. Why would drinking more water be unusual? Just cause he didn’t drink beer or whiskey like some people.

His preoccupied thoughts were broken into when Howie tugged on his arm, almost causing the bottles of water to fall onto the floor.

“C’mon Nicky, we’re on!”

Once again it was showtime for the fans. Once again it was time for Nick to act carefree and happy. Once again he wished he could be safe at home in his own bedroom.