“So, what’s your story?” Joey asked as they walked back to Justin’s car after grabbing a couple of buttery croissants and coffee at the nearest cafe.

 

“You drive. Drinking,” Justin mumbled ignoring the question. He thew the keys at Joey, who fumbled before catching them and got into the passenger seat. He took a nice, long sip of his coffee. After the first taste, he sighed dreamily. That was the stuff.

 

It wasn’t until they were on the road back to school and Justin was half way through his coffee that he deemed to answer Joey’s question.

 

“Cliff Notes version… Parents divorced. Mom re-married. Moved in with step dad and co. He got promotion in different state. Moved here. Didn’t want to go anywhere that didn’t have a good basketball team. So, got transferred here.”

 

“Concise,” Joey said in amusement.

 

The corners of Justin’s mouth lifted into a semi smile. “Yeah well. It’s not what you’d call interesting material, man. Wouldn’t want to bore you to death.”

 

Joey snorted in reply. “So you’re a junior, right?”

 

Justin made an affirmative sound in his throat. “Yeah. I’m not cool enough to be a senior like you.”

 

“True,” Joey nodded. As he turned onto the street that led to the school, he glanced at the clock on the dashboard. They had five minutes to get to class and, shit, they were supposed to meet up with Carter like, five minutes ago.

 

“Ok, I’m gonna foist you off on Carter soon, but before we meet him—" Joey was about to warn Justin about Carter’s loathing, when Justin cut him off.

 

“Foist off? That’s real flattering. Thanks. Anyway, y’all don’t need to baby-sit me. I’m a big kid now,” he gave Joey a mocking glance and Joey made a face.

 

“This is so gonna get off topic but–you do realize that you’re the new star of the basketball team, right? According to the coach you’re fucking God,” he said as he turned into the school parking lot.

 

“God? Yeah, sounds about right,” Justin smirked.

 

“You’re not even going to comment on it? I’m disappointed in you, Timberlake,” Joey eased the car into an empty parking spot.

 

“What am I supposed to say?”

 

“That they’re over exaggerating and building you up to have a gigantic fall.”

 

“All that faith you have in me is going to get to my head, Joe. Look, man, if you listen to all the hype you’ll go fucking crazy. You don’t think the same shit happened to me every time my team played against a competing school? The only way to prove anything, to make comment on anything is to put the words into actions—on the court.”

 

Joey nodded. “Well, you won’t have to prove anything to me. The whole sports scene isn’t my thing.”

 

Justin quirked a brow. “Theatre right?”

 

Joey snickered. “How’d you guess? My stunning good looks?”

 

“More like logic. I’ll break it down for you,” Justin said, spreading his hands out like he was a professor going into some complicated theory. “Ok, guys in high school fall into two categories. Guys who can play sports and guys who can’t. The guys who can’t break into two different groups. The artists and the learners. The learners are obvious. We’ll call them nerds. The artists though, they separate into five parts: the actors, the painters, the singers, the band geeks and the performers. Performers are the theatre kids, the peeps who think they can do anything and everything well. You struck me as that type Mr. Fatone,” Justin grinned cheekily.

 

Joey laughed aloud. “You sit around and think about things like this? Man, you need to get out more.”

”You’re just mad that you didn’t think of it first.”

 

“Right,” Joey looked at his watch. “Sorry to break up your little self love moment here but class is about to start and we need to get out of here,” he slid out of the drivers seat and got out of the car and Justin followed suit.

 

“This is one sweet ride though. You must have mucho dollars,” Joey said, running an admiring hand over the black sports car.

 

“Nah. The Step Dad does though. He used it to bribe me here.”

 

Joey threw him the keys and sighed. “To hate or not to hate, that is the question.”

 

Justin just laughed in response. He shifted his backpack more comfortably on his back as they both walked up the pathway and into the school.

 

As they walked into the lobby, Joey noted that Carter was waiting by the school front doors and Joey could already see that he was not in a friendly mood. Then he remembered that he’d been supposed to warn Justin about Carter. Ah well.

 

“Holy fuck, Fatone! Can’t you even make the friggin’ effort to get here on time,” the shaggy haired blonde yelled as Joey and Justin walked into the school lobby.

 

Joey raised a brow. “Have respect for your elders, young man. And can’t you see we have company.” He jerked his head to point out Justin.

 

Carter glanced at Justin and his eyes narrowed. “You must be the new star,” he said derisively.

 

Justin didn’t even blink at the searing resentment. There was one in every school. “Must be.”

 

Carter snorted.

 

“De-claw, dude,” Joey said to Carter before turning to Justin. “Justin Timberlake, Nick Carter. Your new teammate and tour guide. We call him Carter cause it pisses him off.” He turned back to Nick. “Carter, Justin Timberlake…Your worst nightmare.” Nick glared at him and Joey laughed good-naturedly.

 

Joey watched the two, waiting for some kind of fireworks display but it never happened. Nick didn’t say anything, just continued to stare at Justin menacingly and Justin looked back with amusement. Joey could see that nothing interesting was going to happen so he made his farewells.

 

“You guys can continue to stand here passing loving looks to each other but I, my friends, am out of here. The lovely Ms. Costa awaits. Chem. teacher,” he informed Justin slyly before turning away.

 

Justin watched him go with an amused expression before turning back to Carter who was still glaring at him.

 

He sighed; he just wasn’t in the mood for this. ”Look, Carter was it? I don’t have time for this. So, you can either tell me what you’re beef is or you can step out of the way.”

 

Carter snorted again.

 

Justin shook his head before taking his folded up class schedule out of his back pocket and opening it. He searched the paper quickly and saw that he had Finite on the fourth floor. He gave Carter one last amused look before walking around him and making his way to the staircase.

 

He climbed the stairs to the fourth floor and looked at the room numbers above the doors before finding his class and walking in only to find it completely empty.

 

He looked around in confusion and looked back down at his schedule. He found Tuesday with his finger then found 8:30 AM on the paper and groaned. He’d been looking at his afternoon schedule. He actually had World History now and he was already five minutes late. It was on the second floor at the south end so he jogged down the stairs and finally found the room.

 

He opened the door and all eyes shot to him as he made his way into the room. He tried to make his way over to the nearest empty seat as quietly as he could but the teacher had other ideas.

 

“And you are?” The small, bald headed man asked him, his voice stern.

 

“Justin Timberlake, sir.”

 

“And you are late because?”

 

“I’m new. I don’t really know my way around yet.”

 

“Well, Mr. Timberlake,” he said Justin’s name with clear disapproval in his voice. “I don’t care if you’re new or not. My class begins when the little hand’s at eight and the big hand's at thirty. Understand?”

 

Justin raised his eyes to the ceiling in exasperation but gave one affirmative nod.

 

“Good. Speak to me after class about your assignments; you have a lot of catching up to do. Now find a seat.”

 

All eyes were on him as he made his way to the closest seat and as he looked around his eyes fell and rested upon Nick Carter’s laughing form.

…

 

That hadn’t been so bad, Justin thought as he walked out of his last period class. Ok, his intro to World History hadn’t been the most pleasant but by the end of the class, he’d charmed Mr. Nodder with his knowledge of the subject. That’s what he’d been doing all day actually, charming everyone he met.

 

He hadn’t even had to deal with the biggest new kid issue known to man, who to sit with at lunch, because he’d had to meet up with the basketball coach to talk about practice after school that day.

 

Someone bumped into him from behind and he turned and looked down to see the cute blond in his Latin class smiling up at him.

 

“Sorry Justin,” she said in a soft voice, her big brown eyes capturing his blue ones.

 

What was her name again? Did it really matter? “Not a problem,” he smiled down at her.

She smiled back prettily showing her even, white teeth.

 

“You’re going to have to drop by one day and watch us cheer,” she invited.

 

Ah, a cheerleader.

 

“If you’re there…” What was her na—Britney. “…Britney, I’ll make it a point to come see you,” he said this smoothly, an endearing smile on his face.

 

She smiled coquettishly and tapped her manicured finger on his chest. “I’m holding you to that.” She gave him one last glance before turning away and giving him a great view of her ass. And it was a very fine one indeed.

 

Yes, there were definite possibilities there.

 

He glanced at his watch. He had another twenty minutes until practice. Until the meeting. He knew that there would be anger amongst the team at his sudden arrival into their midst’s. He knew they weren’t going to be happy to have him just waltz in and nab a spot on the starting line up. Especially when tryouts had just been last week and he hadn’t had to tryout at all. He was almost positive that there weren’t going to be many friendly faces in the gym that day and that made him a just a little nervous.

 

 

 

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