It was well into nighttime, as the last rays of sunlight dipped into the
horizon and the stars came out.  The girls' van just pulled up, and
released its passengers.  And there's that Antonio guy going towards where
he apparently worked.  My gut worked in anticipation, as we walked towards
them.  With what Ritchie had done, one would think I would be reluctant to
face these females again.  But there was a budding friendship with not only
Grace, but the rest of the girls that I couldn't just snuff out.  And maybe
I was just naïve.  I thought that there was still a chance for Grace and I.
Ritchie was naturally excited-more than usual this time for obvious
reasons.  J was also unusually ecstatic, and so was Scott.  Abs and I were
the only ones that were feeling solemn, and with good reason too.  When
your best mates betray you, how the bloody hell are you supposed to feel?
As for the girls, Jules seemed like she was bursting with-something as she
walked towards Scott.  No regrets?  But I saw her give a few candid looks
towards Abs.  I wonder what she was feeling.  'Chelle was her usual happy
self, in spite of, well, J.  And Laura-well she was Laura, ignorant to the
feelings Abs was projecting to her right at this moment.  I suppose that
was the way she was.  Jen seemed happy, but she was looking at J in that
"you asshole" sort of way…and is it just me or did she just steal a glance
my way?  And then there was Grace.  She was picking at her nails or
something, but she was definitly avoiding looking up at anyone.  Now
there's a brain I'd like to get into.  The smell of turmoil in the air couldn't have 
been thicker, but J motioned to everyone with a big smile anyways. 

"Come on,  let's get a move on.  I'd love to see where you girls live."

"Yes, and perhaps you could cook us some pizza or something?"  Everyone
noticed the conspicuous arm he immediately put around Julie.

"Uhh…pizza.  Dude, I don't think we went shopping since last month!"  Jen
gave a doubtful look.  I suppose they haven't been home in a while.  Too
bad, the lads and I haven't eaten in a while.  And Grace was still preoccupied with her nails…was what was between her and Ritchie that serious?
 
 

Ewww…I had something gross under my nail!  I think it was from the food we
ate this morning.  But I wasn't about to embarrass myself, and ask for
Jules' Antibacterial Hand Gel in the cool Cucumber Melon Scent (exclusivly
at your nearest Bath and Body Works), in front of the guys.  Ewww…actually,
it was starting to look like a booger!  The guys were leading us to their van. 
Great!  What were we going to do crammed up in a van for nearly two hours?!  Not  that I'm not thankful that we're spending it with our psuedo-obsessions, but man!   I can just see Jules and Scott getting sweet and sappy, and I don't want to deal  with that!  And what comes out of J's mouth if it's not some dame he's been 
checking out!  Man…only a few days and it's like we know them already…like we 
were hanging out forever!  We were all about to stop at their van when the FIVE guys just walked past it. 

"Hey…um…isn't that your guys' van?"  Shelbs asked, confused.

"Naw…that's some geezer's.  We're taking the other…one…" J trailed off.

"Don't worry, we'll get to your place!  Some way or another!"  Abs had one
of those smiles-you know those those little boy smiles--the look that just screams 'I've got a secret and I'm not telling".  I was wary on that look alone....well that and he was about jumping out of his pants in excitement.

"Ok, what's the surprise guys?"  I said suspiciously.  I didn't want a
"surprise" water fight in the middle of the cold, dark city.

Ritchie came up beside me, "Shhh, just wait."

We rounded a corner, and low and behold was the stupid FIVE tour bus.  We
gasped in surprise and excitement.  Hey…they weren't supposed to just take
that thing out whenever they wanted to, right?

"Wait a minute, you can just take this puppy out anytime you like?"  Jules
was incredulous.

"No you see…we're FIVE, and we can do whatever we please," Scott gave her
one of his cheeky smiles.

"Well, you did mention you live near two hours away, and why not travel in
comfort?"  Abs said, and Ritchie did his stupid thumbs up thing that he's
gotta stop doing!

"Well, whatever, I call shotgun!" Jen rushed to the front before I could
say anything.

Not again, I pleaded, "Jen--Why don't I ever get shotgun!!!
Well...shotgun's not the best this time-HA HA HA!"

"Oh yah, well, I call-whatever-ha ha ha!"

"That's ok, Grace, you can sit with me," Sean said surprisingly.  I smiled,
and walked beside him, and obligingly stuck my tongue out at Jen.  I didn't
look for Ritchie's reaction.

"Who's driving?" Laura asked.

"It's our driver, His name is Bob.  You didn't think one of us would drive
did you?  Not for two hours love!"  Abs put his arm around Laura, obviously
to recover  from Scott and Jules' new-found intimacy.  Poor guy, Laura's
also taken, but I hope she doesn't tell him just yet.  He didn't need
another let-down.  I, on the other hand, was so excited.  I think the other girls 
were too.  I mean, this was the first time we all were actually going to hang out. 
No food, no party, just kickin it.  Talking and stuff!  FUN FUN FUN!  And for 
two hours, what did we do?  Just that!  I was thrilled to find out that they 
actually had a TV and a Playstation in the van!  I, of course, was the reigning 
champion at Bust A Move.

"Ok, who's next?  Who's ass needs to be kicked by the great Grace?"  I taunted.

"Aw, you've beat every single one of us, at least twice, can we do
something else?"  That was Ritchie.

"Yah you fool, let's do something else."  That was Shelbs.

"We could play Puzzle Fighter…" Scott offered to swap, the game in his hand.
But Jen snatched it out of his grasp in time, "Uh no, you don't want to
play that with her either."

"Hey hey!  What's this I found?"  Jules was motioning at something she was
poking her nose into.  What a little snoop!  She was going through things
that weren't even ours to go through!

"Oh…those are just uh…" J was looking towards the guys in uncertainty.

"Nothing important!"  Sean got up to snatch whatever was in Jules' hand,
but she was too quick for him.  It looked like a VHS videotape.

Jules put it closer to her face to read what was written on it, "Hey!  It
says it's a…D-N-C-…R-T-N-…New A-L-B-M.  Oh my god!  Dance routine for the 
new album!!!  We have to see this!" 

Jules was acting like a freakin' teenie bopper!  I mean, she was giving away the fact that we were FIVE fans.  That we bought their Home Video just to see their freakin' music videos like fifteen thousand times a day!  But then Jen and Shelbs got up and started screaming, and so did Laura!  Hey, so was I dude!  Oh shit!
They can't know…they can't!

"We want to see it!  We want to see it!" we chanted, and the guys tried to
snatch the video away.  But we played keep-away all around the tour bus
that was suddenly humongous-like the freakin' Spice Girl's van in the
stupid movie!  I guess tour buses are naturally larger on the inside than
on the outside.  All the while the boys were trying to make excuses to not let us 
see the video.  I heard "But it's…it's ghetto, you don't want to see it," and "Come 
on, we don't want to see something related to-work".

And then Jules did me proud.  She did her little whiny voice, and scrunched
up her face, "But Scooaoooooaoooott…."

Shelbs tried to imitate her, "Yah, but Jaaayyayyayyaya…."  But "J" just
can't be translated into a whine.  It worked anyways, because the guys were 
wrapped around our fingers.  Abs took the video and put it into the VCR, "Ok, ok, 
but don't say we didn't warn you."

So here we were, huddled around the TV, the girls and I.  And we were
mesmerized…so much that we forgot where we were.  Plus, it didn't help that the 
guys disappeared in a fit of embarassment.  Well, the video WAS pretty ghetto. 
It was like a home video of someone taping them doing their dance routines in some  high-school gym type thing.  Big deal!  I mean, they looked so cool dancing to…hmmm…didn't hear that song yet, "If Ya Getting Down"?  Wow!  Sounded totally unlike them!  You can imagine how ga-ga we went.  I mean, we already led these gullible guys to believe  that we haven't heard of them until the concert.  It made them feel better about  getting to know us, since we wouldn't be comparing what gossip we heard to what  they were telling us.  And we pulled it off well so far:

FLASHBACK TO EARLIER IN THE DAY:
Sean: "Yes, I won this young composers award when I was younger…"

Grace:  "Really?  Wow!  You are so talented!  I didn't realize how TALENTED
you were until now…this very moment!"

Scott:  "…Yeah, and I'm really picky about what I eat too."

Jules:  "Oh my GOD!  You are!?  So am I!  We have so much in common!"

You get the picture…So where was I????

Ok, so how did we act when we were watching this video?  Oh yah, totally
without this previous slickness--just as if we were at home watching this
thing.  And you should've seen us when J took off his shirt!  Girlfriend,
the boy had abs, and I'm not talking about Mr. Breen!  We were hooting and
hollering, but worse of all…we were commenting.

"Oh my God!  Did J just get skinnier or is it me?"

"I know what you're doing, Julie, you're memorizing the dance steps
again!  I can see it in your eyes!"

"You know I have to learn this dance…it looks so interesting."

"Wow!  Why is J suddenly looking hot to me?"

"Uh-oh, you better watch out Jen!"

And then Ritchie did something stupid to the camera….  Use your
imagination!  He often does stupid gay stuff man!

"Oh, uh-uh.  You did not just do that boy!"

"Somebody put too much make-up on him again!"

"Hey, at least his hair looks…cool!"

And on and on.  You realize what a ditch we dug for ourselves.  Great.
Suddenly we looked at each other and realized too late that…J, Abs, Scott,
Sean, and Ritchie were right behind us-looking rather confused.  Our only
hope was that they didn't deduce how "into them" we actually were from our
comments.

"…You girls have…seen our stuff before, haven't you?" Abs asked us.
Shit…so much for our only hope.  We looked to each other rather stupidly.  Even 
the usually quick thinking Jen was at a loss for words.  Except Julie.  Either 
she was oblivious again, or else she was a quick thinker but she got up and started 
doing the dance steps she just memorized while humming the tune.  We all watched 
her in confusion as she ignored us and continued dancing, (and very accuratly, I 
might add)  I knew she went through fits like this, but now?  It worked though, 
because Scott rushed to her side, and started coaching her, "No, no, like 
this…1-2-3-4-5 and turn…"

"I want to learn too!"  No one other than Shelbs whined.  And all of a
sudden we all got up and started learning the "If Ya Getting Down" dance.
And yes, the bus was large enough (and still enough) to hold ten dancing
people simutaneously.  (Remember the Spice Girls Van, people).  It was fun,
and the dance was simple.  Until I requested the "Slam Dunk Dance".  And
that took awhile, but FINALLY we got the thing down, cuz it's a koo ass
dance man!  And Jen (Grace shakes her head) requested the "Got the Feelin'"
dance, and we all heard an exasperated sigh from J and Abs.  They told us
how sick of that dance they were, but the twinkle in Jen's eye got all of
us waving our arms in the air.  Did I tell you we'd have fun?  Exhausted, we all collapsed on the couch, and listened to some music.  Not FIVE songs of course!  And no PARTYGURLS songs either!  Sean busted out with his
Marvin Gaye, and J with his Tupac.  And of course, Scott came out with his
cheesy 80's love ballads…

~Nothing's gonna change my love for you~

What tha?  I hid a snicker as I turned to give Jules a look.

"Hey, did you know I sang this song when I auditioned?"  Scott beamed at
Jules.

"I love this song!  …Nothing's gonna change my love for you…," Jules sang,
not submitting to the look I gave her.

"Oh no!  It's an omen!  Are you gonna get dreamy eyed now, Jules?" Shelbs
teased.

Scott narrowed his eyes, "What's with this?  What are you talking about?"
We all supressed laughs.  I volunteered, "Yeah, Jules, tell him about your
dream!"  The look Jules gave me was pure evil.
 
 

Routines on a tour bus?  What in the hell!  CLICK HERE for Chapter 17
What do you think so far?  It sucks doesn't it?  TELL US!

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