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“I don’t get it,” said Mel, looking up from the paper in her hand.  “Why?  What’s different?”

“American press,” said Nick, with a shrug that didn’t fool anyone.  They knew he was hurt.

They were in the hotel lobby waiting for the limos to take them to the buses.  They were hitting the road. The concert in Tampa had been a sell-out.  The fans had been enthusiastic, and Nick had put on a great show for the hometown crowd.  Melody thought it was the best one they had done so far.  But the review was lukewarm.

“He didn’t want to like it,” she said, surprised at the realization.  She looked down at the paper. 

“They never do,” said Nick.  He sighed.  “Even with the fellas.  Especially with the fellas.  And the more popular we got with the fans, the worse the critics were.”  He laughed.  “Do you know what the guy in New York said about Kevin?  He said, ‘once I got over my initial obligatory revulsion at the thought of a Backstreet Boy on Broadway’ or ‘instinctive repulsion’ or something like that… That was his first thought – a Backstreet Boy didn’t belong on Broadway.  By the end of the article, he ended up saying that Kevin was the best guy to play that part ever.  But he had to start it out by saying how it made his skin crawl to even think of it.”

Melody was glad she was holding the paper.  It was the only thing that stopped her from reaching out to stroke his face.

“It will get better,” she said. 

And it would.  She would make it get better.  Because now she knew why Rafe had hired her. 

“Has anyone seen Gus?” she asked.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The week in Tampa was hectic.  Toby and Gus were kept on the hop by the thousands of details that needed to be taken care of before the tour hit the road.  Melody had the feeling that, as hectic as she thought Europe had been, she really hadn’t seen anything yet.  She also thought that if Toby gave her one more checklist, she was going to make him eat it.

Nick spent the entire week with a microphone in his face.  He went from interview to interview, answering the same questions over and over.  The radio interviews were the easiest; it was like sitting down with an old friend, and in some cases, that’s exactly what it was.  There were no cameras, no fans – just a conversation and a cut from the CD, usually Alias Me, which was fighting its way up the charts.  And the radio DJs didn’t seem interested in blindsiding him or looking for scandal.

The television interviews were more difficult, mostly because Rafe hovered in the background like a mother hen.  Shows like Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood shot the interview in a conference room at the hotel.  Rafe had chosen some clips from the concert footage for the television interviews.  You never really knew how it was going to turn out.  They shot a half-hour interview and then turned it into three minutes of actual program, including the clip. 

Nick had been trained to answer each question independently, not referring to others he’d already answered.  Don’t say, ‘as I was saying’ or ‘in your last question’, because when the editors were finished, the last question might not even be there. 

Nick tried to vary his answers a little from interview to interview, and he tried to give good sound bytes.  If he had something witty to say, that made it a better chance that that question would get put in the segment.  The inverse was also true.  So when they asked about the Backstreet Boys, he looked bewildered and said, “What about them?” as if maybe there was some news he hadn’t heard. 

The interviewers generally got flustered and stumbled over the response.  “Well…um…like have you broken up…are you still a group?”

Nick answered that with a blank stare that went on for several seconds and that he knew would be edited.  Then he didn’t bother answering the question.  He started talking, as if it were a different question altogether.  “The tour starts in Tampa.  I always like to start in Florida, my home state, you know.”  Big, toothy grin…

Rafe gave him shit after the first one.  Don’t piss off the interviewer, he told him. 

Fuck off, Nick told him back.  The interviewer doesn’t make the final decision.  The film editor and the director do. 

When all three segments aired without one reference to the Backstreet Boys, other than the obligatory, ‘next up, former Backstreet Boy, Nick Carter, is going on the road again…’, Rafe had to admit that Nick was right.  He didn’t admit it out loud, of course, but he stopped giving Nick grief about it.

Nick and the band performed at a charity thing that was being taped by VH-1 for airing at a later date.  They sang Bridge to Nowhere because they figured that, by the time the program was shown, that would be the single.  Both Nick and Mel agreed with Rafe’s suggestion about that.  They weren’t ready to do Alias Me yet.

They had gotten over their initial discomfort with each other.  Once they realized that the other one was not going to refer to the elevator incident, they pushed it firmly to the back of their mind and got on with business. 

That didn’t mean that they didn’t have to take special pains to keep their hands to themselves in each other’s presence, but they did it, and so no one knew anything about anything.  Rashad and Blaine laughed about that and wagered another ten dollars on when the whole thing would go nuclear.

Nick was scheduled to visit a children’s hospital.  “I love it, and I hate it,” he told them all.  They were having a breakfast meeting.  This was the last day of publicity.  Tomorrow would be rehearsal…a complete runthrough…and then the next day was the concert.  “I love being able to touch their lives, but I hate seeing them suffer.”

“Want some company?” asked Rashad.  “Want one of us to go with you?”

Nick was touched.  “That’s very nice, Rashad.”

“Well, not me.  I’m a big, ol’ black man.  I’ll just scare the poor things.”

“What about Mel?” put in Blaine, innocently.

Nick and Mel did their ‘pinball’ move.  That’s what Blaine and Rashad called it when they looked at each other and realized the other one was looking and their eyes bounced away.

“Um…” 

Mel didn’t know what to say.  She couldn’t refuse.  It was a children’s hospital, for God’s sake.  And what could she say she was doing instead?  Shopping?  She hated shopping.

“Um…” 

Nick didn’t know what to say.  He couldn’t refuse.  That would look awful.  And besides, he did want someone else there.  “Would you?” he asked, because he suddenly knew that he wanted her there.

“Sure,” she answered with a shrug.  “What do I have to do?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It nearly broke her heart.  She told Nick later she didn’t know how he did it without crying.

“I don’t,” he told her.

Rafe was pissed, of course.  He had come down to the limo to find Mel there with Nick and Jeff.  He watched the two of them for the whole morning while Jeff watched him watching them.  Mel was good with the kids, Rafe had to admit that.  She was a natural, talking to them about things that interested them, touching their hand.  He and Jeff stood in the doorway with the ward supervisor and watched the two musicians work their magic with the sick youngsters.

Mel was nervous at first, but then she realized they were just kids like Chrissy and Ben-two.  So with every child, she said a little prayer of thanks that this was not her beloved niece or nephew going through the pain, and then she smiled and started talking.

They moved through the ward, separately but together.  They were supposed to be there for half an hour.  After forty-five minutes, Rafe coughed and motioned to his watch.  Nick just shook his head and turned to the next child.

“Will you sing for me, Nick?” asked a child.  She was probably the oldest one in the room – fourteen, maybe fifteen.  She wasn’t even in a wheelchair, but in a bed, too sick to even be propped up.  She had dark circles around her eyes, and her skin was so pale, it was translucent.

“Um…”  Nick’s voice broke a little.  He felt a hand slip into his.  It was Mel.  She squeezed his hand tightly, sending courage coursing through his veins. 

“I have a guitar,” said the supervisor, reaching behind a curtain.  She smiled sheepishly.  “I thought, you know, just in case…”

Mel took the guitar from the nurse and strummed it.  Then she turned the keys, tuning it. 

Nick looked at her.  “What should I do?”

“Let’s do Alias Me,” she answered.  “The way you wrote it.”

Nick sat down on the edge of the youngster’s bed and picked up her hand.  Mel stood beside him and propped one foot up on the metal rail of the bed, balancing the guitar.  Nick started to sing, his voice clear and smooth.  He sang the song as a ballad, slow and sweet.  Mel joined in softly on the ‘alias me’s.

When they finished, there was silence. 

“Thank you,” whispered the girl in the bed. 

Nick nodded.  He couldn’t speak.

Melody looked around.  All the nurses were wiping tears from their eyes.  She smiled, and then the children started to clap.  Nick and Mel headed for the door.  Mel handed the guitar to a nurse, and there was a flurry of good-byes and thank you’s.

“You coming, Rafe?” asked Jeff.  The tall Spaniard hadn’t moved.

“What?  Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.” 

Rafe followed them out, deep in thought.  He wished he had the whole thing on videotape.  It was a moment that money couldn’t buy.  He hoped that one of those nurses had a video camera hidden on her, or at least a tape recorder.  Then it would get out there.  Rafe knew that.  He knew something else too.  He knew that there was no way in the world that Nick Carter believed that Melody Jones was gay. Now Rafe had to decide what to do about that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nick and Mel were different when they came back from the hospital.  Blaine and Rashad talked it over after the rehearsal, which had gone amazingly well.  You wouldn’t even have known we took a break, said Tom.  Everything just clicked.

And everything had.  There had been no awkwardness at all between Nick and Mel.  And they didn’t seem so hot for each other, except that in another way, they seemed even hotter…Rashad had a theory.  Well, Keshia had a theory which she shared with Rashad and then he told Blaine that night at dinner.

“You know how you go along, and you’re attracted to each other, and it’s all hot and sexy and stuff?”

Blaine nodded.  Yes, he remembered how it was with Cathy when they started going out. 

“And then,” said Rashad, “your heart jumps into it.” 

Blaine nodded. 

“Keshia thinks maybe their heart jumped into it,” continued Rashad. 

Blaine thought about it for a moment.  “You got yourself one smart woman there, Rashad.”  And then he added, “do you think they know?”

Rashad laughed.  “Hell, no!!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The concert was amazing.  Talk about home-field advantage.  This was a crowd that came to party with Nick.  And he gave them his all.  At the after-party, he was so high, he didn’t even have a beer, just drank water and floated from group to group.  The atmosphere was electric.  Crowds of his friends and what Mel figured was every tall blonde in Tampa swarmed around him, as he waded through the party.  Tofu could barely focus his eyes at the smorgasbord of loveliness and legs that paraded before him.

Nick made his way to every musician to have a personal word.  He thanked every technician, every gofer - anyone who was involved got a big ‘thank you, man’ and a hug if they crossed his path. 

And when he crossed Mel’s path, after an intricate dance of avoidance by the two of them that had Blaine and Rashad giggling like schoolgirls, Nick lifted her off her feet and hugged her.  Then he set her down, and cupped her jaw in his hand.  “You’re the best,” he whispered and kissed her on the cheek. 

Then he moved on quickly, and so did she.  Mel was sure that there was too much noise for him to have heard her tiny gasp when his lips touched her face.  Nick was sure that he must have imagined it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And then the reviews. 

“Gus,” called Melody.

“Yes, My Sweet,” grinned the dark-haired PA.  “What can I do for you?”

“I need you to massage some information out of that computer of yours.”

“Oooooh, sounds sexy,” he crooned, raising his eyebrows.  “What do you want me to do?”

Melody told him.