AN: Enter Bad Ass Boyfriend with a Mile Wide Jealous Streak. ********************** Nightmare of a Lifetime: Chapter Ten *********************** Episode three of ‘Tour of a Lifetime: *NSYNC’ featured various clips of Nicole annoying the hell out of Justin and her peek a boo, I see tattoos fun with Lance. All six of them, the five guys and her, made the front of Entertainment Weekly. Malcom was ecstatic. ******************************************************************************** Perry was laughing her head off as she attempted some of the boys’ moves backstage of what was probably her seventh or eight concert. Even though she had only been on the road with the guys for a month and had aired just a mere three episodes of the show, she was so well known it was near madness so sit out in the crowd without security. She liked being backstage because she could make fun of them better, without fan disapproval. Nicole could barely hear her cell phone ring over the din of the music so she waved to Bill and darted off to the nearest dressing room, closing the door behind her before she answered. “Boy band hell is burning hot. How may I help you?” “Perry?” Nicole nearly dropped the phone in surprise. “Frank? Frankie baby! I missed you…” “I missed you too doll. I’m sorry for being such an ass but I’m gonna make it up to you, I swear.” She rolled her eyes but smiled anyway. “And just how do you plan to do that?” “I don’t know. I think I’ll think of something. I usually do.” There was a knock on the dressing room door. She danced over and opened it, and dropped the phone for real. Frankfurt McAllen stood smiling in the doorway. “Holy shit,” she breathed. He held his arms out and open. “You look great baby.” Nicole didn’t wait for a further invitation. She launched herself at him, arms going securely around his neck, legs wrapped around his waist. “Hotel, now,” she murmured between kisses. He laughed, the sound low and warm against her lips. “Right now? I was kinda looking forward to meeting these punks that you’re spending so much time with…” Perry snorted. “Be jealous later, concentrate on me now.” She pulled back enough to lock eyes with him, her serious dark to his blue. “You damn well better have gotten a clean bill of health before you came down here or so help me…” He blushed a bit and coughed but nodded. “I’m clean Pear Bear, though I should be asking the same of you…” She growled at him. “You think I’d be this excited to see you if I’d been getting play on the side? Now take me somewhere with a bed!” Frankie chuckled ruefully but quickly agreed. ******************************************************************************** A quickly scrawled note taped to the door alerted Bill to the fact that he had to find another room for the night, which left them blissfully undisturbed until six AM the next morning when insistent pounding woke Nicole up. She kissed Frank’s bare arm as she slid out of bed and absently yanked on her rumpled clothes from the previous day’s concert. Perry opened the door with a yawn and stared at the five pop stars before her. They blushed crimson together. “Umm, we were just wondering if you were okay…” Lance muttered with obvious embarrassment. Nicole felt her brows raise to her tousled hairline. “Is today a free day?” Five heads mutely nodded. “Then we’ll be down in a few hours. Maybe dinner.” “We?” Perry stared at Justin and waved absently behind her to where they could see over her vertically challenged head and the obviously occupied bed. “My boyfriend, Frankfurt McAllen. I’ll introduce you properly after we’ve freshened up a bit. Now scram!” The hotel door slammed and Bill started cracking up from his position behind the stunned quintet. Chris glanced back at him. “Is she always so articulately cheerful in the morning?” The camera man snorted. “Are you kidding? That was the most articulate I’ve seen her in a month!” ******************************************************************************** “Kell, I love you all. Who’s idea was it to fly Frankie in for me?” Kelly Osbourne snorted over the line from an ocean away. “Mum’s… who else would think that low life could possibly make you sound that damn cheerful.” Perry rolled her eyes to her oblivious friend as she laced up knee high combat boots. “Kell, honey, I know you don’t like Frankie…” “I like Frank fine Pear Bear. Just NOT as your boyfriend. I’ve seen him on tour, hell, you’ve seen him on tour. The man sleeps with the skankiest groupies I’ve ever seen. You’re the only woman I actually know who can say she’s okay with an open relationship, and mean it.” Nicole sighed heavily. “Kell, it’d be different if I was in love with him or married. I won’t put up with a cheating husband, you know that, but even though I love Frankie I’m not IN love with him, pardon the damn cliché, and I never will be. He’s good to me and we’re good together but we’re not soul mates or something ridiculous like that. “We’ll stay together for awhile longer, meet someone who suites us better, and go our separate ways. Its not a big freaking deal. And its not like I haven’t taken some one night stands home myself. We’re safe and sensible about it, or Frankfurt is now that I keep him in line. “We get tested, we practice safe sex, even with each other, and that’s a hell of a lot more than most of the general population can say, yourself included.” “Perry!” “Oh please Ms. Pregnancy Scare six months ago.” “What about that bodyguard that I hear so much about? Dan is it?” Nicole laughed as she struggled to get her other boot on. “He’s happily engaged to a girlfriend of six years. Why do you think I was so grateful for ya’ll surprising me with Frank? I haven’t seen ANY damn action since before I left on this tour.” It was Kell’s turn to laugh. “Oh so certain pop stars haven’t made a move on you yet?” Perry snorted. “Please Kell, first off I scare the shit out of them half the time, second, eww, third, on national television, are you nuts? I’d NEVER live that down. They’re handsome enough if you like pretty boys and they have pelvic thrusts down to a damn science but that’s hardly my idea of a match made in heaven. I’ll pass on the boy band dishes, thank you.” “Jack made a hundred dollar bet with me that you’d nail one of them before the tour’s over.” “Your brother’s an asshole. That hundred dollars, and the bragging rights that go with it, are yours. I gotta run. Tell your Mum I’ll call her later tonight. Bye sweetie, love ya!” Nicole flipped her phone shut with a weary sigh and slight smile. Kelly and Jack could be utterly spoiled brats but she loved them. They were who they were and they expected no less of the people around them. And they had both grown up so much in the years she had known them. She paused on her way out and took a quick inventory in the mirror, mostly to make sure she had all her make up and clothing on, before heading out to face the music, or, musicians in her particular case… Perry winced with the thought. Nicole closed the hotel door quietly behind her and jumped when she saw Bill sitting sleepily in a pulled up chair. “What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded. The camera man sighed and tapped his ever present camera. “Malcom got a tip that a certain Frankfurt McAllen was in for the night, courtesy of some friends in high places. You’re lucky he didn’t tell me to barge in the room last night like some of the upper level MTV people wanted. He sent me to wait for your eventual emergence though. Did you sleep damn long enough?” She glared at him. “Cranky much sweetie? Ya’ll are damn lucky you didn’t barge in as you so quaintly put it. You would have gotten a second Pamela/Tommy tape and I would have had legal rights.” Bill laughed. “Why do you think Malcom refused? He told the idiots you’d sue their asses to the next millennium.” Perry grinned toothily in mute response. “How long is Frank in for?” “Till tonight. I’m letting him sleep. Tour wears him out. I wear him out. The poor man is just plain worn. Come on, I’m hungry and want lunch.” Bill snorted. “Its three Perry.” “Your point?” she asked as she sauntered to the elevator. He merely sighed again but followed. “The guys are gonna pounce on you.” “Why, because I slept with my boyfriend? That’s crap. How many groupie encounters have I NOT aired because I’m a wonderfully nice woman like that?” Bill’s brows raised to his hairline. “None that I remember taping.” She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and laughed softly as they waited for the elevator. “You’re so naive sometimes Bill. What about that group of screaming girls from the Austin concert?” “Oh please. They were…” “There as a present for their eighteenth birthdays. Nicely legal, looking like jailbait.” “You’re bullshitting me.” Nicole laughed again as they entered the elevator. “Bill, I learned the ropes at Ozz Fest. I know every trick in the book. I don’t know who took who home but those boys as you call them have no room to stand there and preach to me about bloody morals. I’m the only single person here not getting action.” Bill coughed. “You’re not single Perry.” “Technicality,” she tisked archly with another laugh. The elevator opened and they continued on the search for her very late lunch and five gossip eager pop stars.