Part Two

~ New Years Eve 2000 ~

I sat in my apartment alone on New Year’s Eve. It was the first time in years I’d been alone for the holiday seeing that since I’d met AJ in middle school I’d always spent it with him, and for the past eight years spending it with him meant spending it with the other Boys. This year though I was alone because I was sick. Just my damn luck when I was about to fly home to Florida to spend New Year’s Eve with my best friends I’d get so sick that my doctor refused to let me fly, let alone leave the apartment.

My antibiotics were beginning to finally work after two days and I actually felt better, but even so, I was forbidden to leave the house. So instead of being in warm Orlando, I was in cold New York City and couldn’t even go to Times Square to watch the ball drop. I was throwing an enjoyable pity party for myself lying on the couch watching rented movies that my neighbor got for me out of sympathy. I’d decided that at midnight, if the antibiotic fog didn’t overtake my body and I managed to stay awake that long, I’d step out onto my fire escape and light a sparkler that I’d been keeping since the 4th of July for some odd reason. By eight o’clock though I was bored out of my mind and my pity party was elevated to a new level as I laid on my back and stared up at the ceiling singing off key thanks to my infected throat. I sang everything from "Rubber Ducky" to "Who Let the Dogs Out? " I even sang that annoying "She Bangs" song and had a five minute long laughter fit when I began shaking my hips like Ricky Martin as I sang. When I started belting out old Backstreet songs I only depressed myself even more and got up going into my bedroom pulling a large Rubbermaid tub out of my closet.

I dragged the heavy box into my living room panting from the physical exertion and opened the lid tossing it across the room scaring the shit out of my sleeping cat. "Sorry, Johnny’" I chuckled as he glared at me and curled back up and went to sleep.

Half an hour later I was surrounded by photographs, new and old, and the room was full of rubber cement fumes, which I couldn’t smell, as I arranged the pictures in a scrapbook. I matted each picture on a piece of black paper as I placed it in the book and wrote the title of each picture, as well as the date, in silver ink under the picture. I titled all of my pictures that were worth keeping. Call it strange, call it anal, call it me, I was a photographer and it was one of the many little things that I’d been doing since I was a child. I could always tell that a picture was going to be a good one if a title popped into my head as I took it. Some titles came after I’d developed the pictures, and it wasn’t to say that they were worse than the others, but the best ones always started with names at their conception.

Living in NYC gave me plenty of things to capture on film, the city was full of amazing sights just aching to be photographed. I loved it, and I loved my work even though there were times when I’d go weeks without any money coming in despite my efforts to sell my pictures. Luckily I had a nice little trust fund to live off of when I hit dry spells like that, but even then I’d wait until I’d eaten every last package of Ramen Noodles and practically cleaned out my cupboards of peanut butter and crackers before I’d dip into the fund. I wanted to work for my money, growing up rich could either do two things to you. It could make you appreciate money and the hard work that you needed to do in order to gain it, or it could warp your sense of the world and make you a greedy bastard who wanted to live off of mom and dad for the rest of your life. Luckily I turned out on the better half of the scenario and the last thing I wanted was to live off of my parents money.

I flipped through the pages in the scrapbook that I’d created that evening before starting another page and smiled at the images laid out before me. This was my personal scrapbook that I was working on, not something that I’d share as part of my portfolio. Pictures of vacations with AJ, of the Boys scared stiff at their very first concert, then of them flying on wires to the stage on their most recent tour, a snapshot of AJ and I dancing at Kevin’s wedding which Brian somehow managed to take without me seeing… Eight years of memories were sprawled out on the pages as well as on my coffee table, my couch, my lap, and my floor.

Chuckles consumed me as I dug through the box of pictures and found a picture of Nick and I that AJ took on New Years Eve three years prior after we’d pulled ourselves out of the pool. Nick had picked me up for the picture and was grinning as I kissed his cheek. We both looked like drowned rats with our clothes completely drenched with pool water. I lightly ran my finger over the face of the picture looking at how happy we were that night. Just as I’d predicted to AJ, Backstreet had a huge year in 1998 and things had pretty much blown up for them. It was amazing how much we’d all changed since then. How much we’d all grown up.

Nick, of course, being the youngest had gone through the most visible changes since that night. He’d gone from being a stunning teenager to a stunning adult. Despite the physical changes though, things had also changed dramatically with our friendship since 1998. I thought back to that year, and all the things that had happened between us, starting with that kiss by the pool, and an uncomfortable feeling washed over me. Staring at the picture I felt my heart ache and knew that if I didn’t force myself to put the picture aside that the familiar tears weren’t far away. I ran my hand over the picture one more time sentimentally and placed it back in the box, burying it deep underneath the other pictures.

I took a deep breath and looked at the mess I’d made in my living room with a smile. Checking the clock I saw that it was 11:30 and I chuckled thinking to myself that I might actually make it to midnight without too much trouble. I changed the channel to ABC and watched Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve. 98 Degrees was singing a song and I chuckled thinking that even though they could sing, and were fine, they sure as hell could use some help from the Boys’ choreographer Fatima. I listened to them singing as I continued working on my book until the phone rang.

"Sick Girl…" I answered with a raspy voice and a chuckle.

"Hey girlie…"

"Age!" I squealed as well as I could with half a voice.

He laughed and whined, "Oh honey you sound horrible…"

"Thank you," I laughed.

"How are you feeling?"

"Not too bad really. The shit they gave me is gooood. I’m enjoying it. Just spending another New Years Eve with dick," I chuckled and he didn’t make a sound. "Dick Clark honey…"

"Oh!" he laughed.

"Yeah, and I also think I’m high on rubber cement fumes, but I can’t tell because I can’t smell anything. Johnny is either sleeping or has passed out."

"Kel!" he chuckled. "You better not kill my fur kid."

"YOUR fur kid? Um honey I do believe that I got custody of one Johnny Suede McLean-Johnson when you gave him to me for my birthday."

"Yeah but I’m still his daddy, and his namesake, don’t kill him with fumes, baby."

"Okay, maybe I’ll open a window…" I chuckled and got up to crack the kitchen window slightly to let fresh air in.

"Why don’t you crack the door instead?"

"Huh?" I said as I struggled to open the window and not drop the phone into the sink in the process.

"I said why don’t you crack the door instead?"

"Uh probably because it’s New Years Eve, I live in New York City, and there are crazy people living in my building who I’d rather not let into my apartment…" I chuckled and finally got the window open. "Whew! I got it open’ you can relax, Junior isn’t going to die of asphyxiation anymore’"

"Kel?" AJ laughed.

"What? Don’t make fun of me Age I’m ill…"

"I’m not making fun of you, but I will be soon."

"Why?" I pouted and looked into the fridge wondering what I could eat as I all of a sudden had an appetite for the first time in days.

"Kel…"

"What! Geesh Age… What?"

"Open your door."

"AJ I opened the window, what’s your obsession with my door?"

"Kellie open your door."

I sighed and walked across my apartment and unlocked the door and opened it then shut it quickly. "Did you hear that? I opened it. Now would you… oh my god…" I opened the door again slowly and looked at AJ standing there on his cell phone laughing at me.

"Hi, baby…" he smiled and waved still talking into the phone.

"You’re laughing at me," I pouted.

"No I’m not," he chuckled.

"AJ!" I whined in a pitiful voice.

He reached for my phone and placed it to his ear and smiled, "She’ll call you tomorrow…" and then hung up on himself before turning off his own phone and sliding it into his pocket. "So, I just flew all of the way from Florida to cold ass New York in the damn snow on a holiday to see my best friend because she’s sick and I couldn’t imagine spending New Years without her.  You gunna hug me and let me in or what?"

I giggled and nodded, "Come on smartass…"

"Oh I’M the smartass?" he laughed as he lugged his things into the apartment and set my phone down on the coffee table. "I think you’re the one that opened and slammed the door on me…"

"Yeah but YOU are the one that was trying to be sneaky with the ill, that’s not fair."

"Ill my ass, you look just fine’"

"I know I’m fine," I laughed and shook my hips at him seductively. "But I’m ill and you were laughing at me and that’s not fair."

"Yeah but I’m here aren’t I?" he grinned taking his coat off and hanging it on a hook near the door.

"Yeah you are," I said quietly with a smile. "I miss you."

"I miss you more," he smiled and wrapped me in a tight hug. "That’s why I’m here."

"You sure you wanna be here? You could get sick, and if you get what I have before your tour someone is bound to kill me," I laughed.

"I’m sure," he smiled and held my face in his hands looking into my eyes as I held onto his waist. "You are sick, your eyes are glassy and you’ve got a fever."

"Told you," I grinned.

"Uh huh," he smiled and pulled me to the couch. "You must rest.  We need to get you well so you can come home and visit before this crazy year long tour." He looked down at the couch and noticed my mess. "Uh…Having fun here, Kel?"

"Mmm hmm.  Just dump those back in the box and I’ll show you what I made." He did as ordered and I flopped down onto the couch wrapping up in the blanket feeling suddenly tired again from all of the moving around.

"Share," he mumbled as he sat down next to me and got under the blanket with me shivering.

"Gotta dress for the weather Age, how many times do I have to explain to you how the further North you travel the colder it is? It’s called winter, you see, and it’s when this pretty stuff called snow falls from the sky and…"

I looked at him and he was giving me a look that made me laugh, "I can leave… go back to sunny warm Orlando where I can walk around nude if I feel like it’"

"Be nice," I whined and reached for the scrapbook putting it in his lap. He kissed my cheek and began looking at the scrapbook. "Although the thought of you naked is enticing…" I grinned and put my head on his shoulder looking at the pictures with him.

"You know you want me baby… don’t fight it," he laughed and I smiled. "Wow…"

"What?"

"Kel this is great… I didn’t know you had all of these pictures. I mean I remember you always having a camera with you no matter where we were, but these are great."

"Yeah well…"

"No really…"

"Thanks…" We sat quietly looking through the book together and reminisced over all of the memories on the pages. "I want to eventually write stuff around the pictures about what was happening that day, but I didn’t have the energy to go that far tonight. The next two pages are my favorites though.  I was actually thinking of framing one for you and sending it to you, and I’d keep the other."

AJ turned the page and found a two-page collage of pictures that I’d made of pictures of him and me together over the past eleven years since we’d met. A lot of them were self portraits which started out really bad when we were young, but were perfected as we grew older and figured out how to take a good one without cutting someone’s head off. Some of the pictures were shots that I’d taken of him on tours, in rehearsals, on stage, and then just silly stuff from we’d get together and hang out. It was essentially the history of our friendship squeezed into two pages of pictures. "This…" he said quietly and then looked up at me.  "This is amazing."

"Our friendship is amazing," I smiled. He hugged me and when we pulled away we heard Dick Clark on the television and noticed that the ball was dropping. Three seconds later the ball lit up, the numbers 2001 flashed over Times Square and we could hear people throughout my apartment building shouting "Happy New Year!" I grinned and looked at AJ as Auld Lang Syne began playing on the television. "Happy New Year, Age, thank you so much for being here with me."

"I wouldn’t dream of being anywhere else, Happy 2001, Kel…" he smiled.

"Guess you’re gunna have to kiss me on the cheek this year…" I giggled.

"I’ll take my chances…" he told me quietly with a grin and tipped his head towards mine pressing his lips to mine in a gentle kiss. My hands found their way to his hair and I ran my nails through his curls as we shared our once a year 'more-than-friendly-but-without-tongue-kiss.’

I pulled away from the kiss feeling more feverish than I had beforehand and smiled, "Jesus AJ you get better at that every year," I chuckled and put my head back down on his shoulder cuddling up under the blanket with him again looking down at the pictures of us that were still in his lap.

His fingers absentmindedly traced over the pictures and he smiled, "You know you want me… don’t fight it."

"Mmm hmm..." I giggled and then sat up reaching for my camera on the end table. "Picture time..."

"Oooh okay," he smiled and put his cheek to mine and we held the camera up together like veterans and took the first self-portrait of the year.

Click.

"Did that one have a title?" he asked as I set the camera back down on the end table and cuddled back up to him with a yawn as he started digging through the other pictures in the box laughing at most of them.

"Yeah..." I smiled. "A New Beginning."