"Yeah?" she asked, her voice taking on a slight tone of being tired.
"Tell me what's wrong," he demanded gently, scooting closer to her side of the seat. "I know I haven't known you that long, but I must admit; there's something about you. Als, please, open up to me," he pleaded, looking into her eyes.
"Justin, I don't even know myself," Ali replied.
"Kevin," he said, taking her hand.
"How'd you guess?" she asked sarcastically.
He held up her hand. "That pretty engagement ring I saw on this finger is no longer there. Ali, what happened?"
Ali continued to stare at her hand, memorizing what it looked like without an engagement ring on it. The hand that was holding it belonged to the one person that she never thought would ever be holding her hand. The one person who managed to get to her, the one person who managed to get her to crack a smile when she was pissed off at the world, the one person who managed to get her out of her shell and get out there and dance and have a good time. And he just HAD to be in 'N Sync. "I don't know," she whispered, looking into his eyes.
Justin's heart went out to Ali, like it had so many times in the week that he had been with her. Seven days may seem like a short amount of time, but it can draw itself out to seem like seven months. Every minute he spent with Ali felt like and hour. She was everything he had ever wanted, everything he had ever needed... But she was engaged, and that was the fact that JC kept reminding him of every time Justin would talk about Ali. But now there was no engagement ring on her finger... Could it be? Could she have realized something? The same thing Justin had realized the second he spoke to her on the phone?
"You know, this is so weird, I'm talking to you for five minutes, and I feel like I've known you all my life."
"You took the words out of my mouth."
~*~*~
"She's confused, I don't know what got into her tonight," Hallie said to JC as he sipped a cafe mocha. She glanced at her Creme Soda, and finding it unappealing (for the first time in like, EVER!), she continued her talk with JC. "What is the deal with Justin? He seems so smitten with her."
"Hmph. You have no idea of the extent of his smitten-ness. He wants to be with her, and he wants to be with her more than he's wanted to be with anyone in his entire life. Or, at least, since I've known him."
"How long have you known him?" Hallie asked, not really knowing much about JC and Justin's past.
"Since we were on MMC, remember I told you about that? He was about twelve, so I must have been around sixteen or seventeen, give or take on the month. He hasn't had that many girlfriends in the past, only Britney and that ended about a week or so after the night we met."
"Ha," Hallie said. "I knew it. I KNEW they were dating, it was so obvious."
JC grinned. "Yeah, but the breakup was pretty damn bad. I think it had something to do with Ali being at the party with Kevin, but I don't know for sure. But Justin just recently got over her. He's finally willing to let someone in."
"And she just HAD to be a Backstreet Girlfriend," Hallie muttered, sucking the last of her Creme Soda through her straw.
~*~*~
"Why in the hell is his phone busy?" Ali asked herself the next day, trying repeatedly to get Kevin's cell phone. She had tried calling everyone else's phones, only to find that they wouldn't pick up the phone or that it was busy. She had decided that she needed to talk to him, after doing a little thinking the night before. She knew what she had to do, and she realized it after the night prior. But for some reason, Kevin's cell phone was constantly busy.
~*~*~
"What are we watching?" Kevin asked, sitting down in the hotel room on a bed next to Nick, who was "borrowing" his cell phone, since Nick's had been shut off for some reason unknown to Kevin.
"MTV," Jamie said blankly, staring at the screen blindly.
"Aah, okay," Kevin said, settling back on the bed, leaning on his elbows to support himself while an MTV News Flash came on the screen.
"MTV News was at 'N Sync's After-Party last night at a club in Hollywood, California. Normally we wouldn't be reporting something like this, but this time it actually is news."
Kevin raised his eyebrows in confusion as he sat up, watching the screen intently. He saw Jamie glance over at him from the corner of his eye, but he ignored it, watching the screen as it showed video footage of JC, Hallie, Justin and Ali getting out of a limo and trying to get into the club without getting mobbed. "Justin Timberlake, who was rumored to be dating Britney Spears, is seen here with Ali McLean, who is Backstreet Boy AJ McLean's cousin and Kevin Richardson's fiancee, which makes us wonder just why Ali is on the 'N Sync tour and not the Backstreet Boys'."
Kevin was furious. Jamie ran to the VCR and hit the Record button while Kevin got up and started yelling unintelligible phrases complete with curses.
Kevin was oblivous to the next scene, which was of Justin and Ali walking out of the club, apparently hours later. Justin had his hands over Ali's face to try and give her some privacy, apparently. Ali also had her hands over her face. Jamie squinted at the screen, thinking she saw something that should not have been there. She stopped the tape, rewound it, and re-examined the screen. She paused it when Ali's hand was directly in front of the TV camera. She looked down at Ali's hands, trying to figure out which hand Ali had in front of her face. Upon closer inspection, she found that Justin was holding Ali's right hand with his left hand, and putting his right hand over her face. Which meant that the hand Ali had over her face was...
"Kevin," Jamie said, getting his attention.
"What?" he yelled, looking toward Jamie.
"Where's Ali's engagement ring?"
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