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“I’m not going with you and that’s final!”

The argument had raged for nearly a week.  The euphoria of the nominations had quickly faded for Nick when Mel refused to accompany him to the Grammy Awards.

It began when he started talking about dress designers.  Mel informed him that she wouldn’t need one, as she was only going to be backstage.  Nick was, of course, going to perform Alias Me on the show.  The group would be there to play the song, and they would hang out in the backstage area and watch the rest of the show on television monitors.

“You will be sitting right beside me,” insisted Nick.

“No, I won’t,” said Mel. 

As many times as she tried to convince him that they couldn’t pull it off in public, Nick tried to convince her that they could.

“And, if you win…you won’t want to kiss me?” she asked. 

“Of course, I will, but I’d want to kiss whoever it was…and besides, I’m not afraid to say that you are with me…and I mean WITH me.”  Nick emphasized the word. 

“You can’t,” insisted Mel, “especially not there.  You’ve worked too damn hard for this.”

“For what?  What am I working for, if I can’t have what I want at the end of the day?  And what I want is you.”

They talked about it on the flight home from Japan; they talked about it in Los Angeles; they talked about it on the bus to Denver.  The only time they didn’t talk about it was when Rafe came to town.  They stayed well away from each other during that time.

Rafe came away from his meetings in Los Angeles with the distinct feeling that he was missing something.  Everything seemed okay – they were all excited about the nominations.  Except Nick.  He didn’t want to talk about it. 

Of course, he’d been there before.  The Backstreet Boys had been nominated for Millennium.  The hype had been huge, and then they had not won.  Maybe Nick didn’t want to get his hopes up again. 

That was a good thing, Rafe figured.  REM was going to walk away with the Best Rock Album Grammy, and so they should.  It was a phenomenal album.  And the first single from it, Coming Home, was also nominated for Best Song and Best Record.  Industry buzz said it would be a sweep for Michael Stipe.  Rafe didn’t care.  Winning the Grammy would be beyond awesome, but just getting nominated was good enough for now.  The plan was right on track. 

Now if Nick would only pick a date for the event.  Rafe had suggested several, but Nick had just sloughed him off, said he’d get around to it, but right now, he had his head into getting back on tour.  Rafe could hardly argue with that.

Tom said things were going smoothly, and they were.  But Tom seemed self-satisfied, if not outright smug, about something.  Rafe had tried to delve into it, but Tom would only talk about the music.  There was nothing in Toby’s expense reports that raised an alarm, and when questioned, the P.A. gave bland answers that told Rafe nothing.  Even Jeff was not forthcoming.

“I’m not really sure what you want me to say,” said Jeff, when Rafe tried to pin down his feeling of suspicion.  “I mean, things are going great.  Japan was…well, interesting.  I’ve never been there before, have you?”

Rafe was not interested in a travelogue on the Orient.  “Did anything happen?  Did people go out at night?”  Rafe hadn’t arranged any ‘events’ for Nick.  He didn’t have many contacts in the Orient yet, and he didn’t trust his business to strangers.

“Not too much,” said Jeff.  “Not speaking the language and all…and there were so many fans.  Nick kinda stands out over there, if you know what I mean.  The fans were polite and all…but it was always a crush.  Mostly, people just hung out at the hotel.”

“Who did Nick hang out with?” asked Rafe, bluntly.

“Oh, you know, the Nintendo guys.”  Jeff had constructed a phantom gang of video game players from among the crew.  He had picked a lighting guy and a backstage guy, who he knew liked to play.  Whenever he wasn’t sure what Nick had been up to, Jeff would tell Rafe he’d been playing video games.  “You know, the Japanese fan club gave him some new equipment when he was there.”

“What about Tofu?”  Rafe asked the question as a smokescreen.

“Tofu was Tofu.  But even he didn’t party all that much.  Mostly, they all did a lot of sightseeing.  Nick likes Japan, you know.”

“And Mel?”

“Mel liked it.  She said she had finally found a spot where there were people her height.”

Rafe laughed and ended the conversation.  But he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going on that he didn’t know about.  And that was a feeling he didn’t like at all!

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

“I don’t want to have this conversation again,” said Mel.

They were on the bus to Denver.  It was pulling into a rest area.  Mel had asked Gus for the information he’d been gathering for her.  The folder was thick.  It sat on the table between Nick and Mel.

It was no longer a “secret” among the main parties that Nick and Mel were together.  Their arguments about the Grammys had made that subterfuge impossible.  Gus, Toby and Jeff listened as the two lovers went round and round again.

“Give me one good reason…I said one GOOD reason…” said Nick.

Mel’s patience snapped.  “Because I don’t like shopping!” she yelled.

Shopping?   All the men exchanged a glance.  What the hell…?  Only Gus knew what she meant.

“What?”  Nick shook his head.  Where was she going now?

Melody sighed.  She picked up the folder.  “Every single article about Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher mentions shopping.  She takes him shopping!  Every fucking time!!!”  The men had never heard her use the word.  “Is that what you want?  Is that what you want to be?  The boy toy that I take shopping? Because I HATE SHOPPING!!!”

Mel slapped the folder against Toby’s chest.  “Educate him!” she snarled, and she stalked off the bus.  She marched over to the second bus, where the guys were descending.  She walked past the musicians without a word and climbed on the bus.  She went straight to the back and climbed into the unused bunk.  She curled up in a ball and tried to stop the shaking.

Blaine, Rashad and Tofu looked at each other.  Then they looked at the door of the first bus.  No one else got off.  Jeff stepped into the doorway and looked around.  Mel? he mouthed.  Blaine pointed at the second bus.  Jeff nodded his head.  He stepped down off the bus and leaned against the side of it with his arms folded.  No one approached him.

When it was time to go, Jeff got on the first bus.  A minute later, he got off and walked to the second.  He came back out with Mel, and they got on the first bus.  Blaine, Rashad and Tofu got back on the second bus.  They weren’t asking.  That was for damn sure!

“Mel?”  Jeff had found her in the back bunk.  “Come on now, you can come back.”

She made a sound that Jeff couldn’t interpret.

“He needs you,” he said.

Mel turned over.  “Does he get it?” she asked in a small voice.

“Yeah,” said Jeff.  “He gets it.  Gus does good research.”

Mel walked with Jeff back to the bus.  She climbed on board and looked around.  There were magazine clippings and internet printouts everywhere.  It looked like the folder had exploded.  Gus and Toby were picking them up from the floor and the furniture.  Nick was nowhere to be seen.  The two P.A.s stopped what they were doing and looked at Mel.

“Does he get it?” she asked again, in a whisper.

They nodded.  Oh yeah.  He got it.

”Toby explained it really well,” said Gus.  “This is the one that convinced him.” 

He handed Mel an article from People magazine, What’s in Ashton Kutcher’s future? It was touted as a serious article…it was framed in the style of questions and answers, but it was sarcastic and demeaning.  It put down his work and referred constantly to his relationship with Demi, implied that if the TV show didn’t work out, he could always…well, go shopping.

Mel nodded.  She was sorry that the two men had had to do it.  “I’m sorry,” she said.

Toby waved her off.  His respect for her had grown enormously in the last few minutes.  “Someone had to,” he said.  “He wouldn’t believe you.”  Toby nodded toward the back of the bus.  “He’s back there.”  He bent down and picked up another paper from the floor.

Mel made her way to the back of the bus.  Nick’s door was open.  He lay on the bed with his back to her.  He was curled up, much as she had been on the other bus.  She slid the door closed and crawled onto the bed behind him.  She slipped one arm over him and pressed her face into his back, kissing him.  They lay together for a minute, absorbing each other, healing each other.

Then Nick turned over.  He leaned on one arm and ran his other hand down the side of her face.

“I don’t care,” he whispered.

“You do care,” answered Mel.  “You have to.”   She reached up and brushed his hair from his forehead.  “You’ve worked too hard.”

“I hate hiding you,” said Nick. 

Mel could feel the pain in his voice.  Nick lowered his lips to hers to stop her from answering.  He wanted the last word. 

And he got it.  Because she curled her body into his and held him tightly and wished with all her might that she was younger or he was older or the world was different or any number of things that would stop her from getting her heart broken.  Because for all her well-thought-out arguments, for all her logic and her words about ‘game plans’ and ‘marketing’, Mel knew one thing above all.  She loved this man with all her heart, and she knew that doing the right thing for him was going to hurt her more than she’d ever been hurt in her life.  And she prayed that she had the strength to do it.

Nick held her.  It was all he could do at the moment.  He could feel her pain.  He knew how much it took out of her to forbid him to acknowledge her.  He spent a moment wishing…that she was younger, or he was older or the world was different. 

But he only spent a moment doing that.  It was a waste of time.  It was action that counted.  Nick understood that Mel wouldn’t jeopardize his career.  He also understood that she was right, that going public with his relationship with her at this moment would indeed jeopardize his career.  Toby and Gus had convinced him of that.  Man, he couldn’t believe what the press was doing to Justin and Ashton…  But…and it was a big ‘but’…BUT, if he got a chance to speak at the Grammys…and Nick knew that the only way he could do that was if he won… BUT, if he won a Grammy, that would put him in a place where he could say what he wanted…it would legitimize him and everything about his new ‘grown-up-don’t-call-me-Nicky’ self.

And so, Nick decided. 

If he won a Grammy, in his acceptance speech, he would tell the world that he loved Melody Jones.