Things were slowly coming together. The wedding was all set and ready for tomorrow, and the excitement in the air was electric. Jamie and Justin had been getting along better than ever, and it was a relief to everyone else to see Justin so happy.
The wedding party had been staying at Johnny’s so that everyone was together and knew what was going on. Right now, most everyone was relaxing around the compound, enjoying Florida’s wonderful weather.
Johnny stood in his living room with a brunette that looked to be about thirty, and the members of NSYNC sitting, spread around the room.
“Guys, I want all of you to meet Grace Freeman.” They all said their hellos and Johnny continued his speech. “As you all know, I’m getting married tomorrow.” He waited for their cheers to die down before he went on. “Anyway, I’m going to be taking the year off.”
“What? Johnny you can’t do that, we have a tour in a month and a half!” Justin yelled out, and was met with nods of agreement from his band mates.
“Calm down…that’s why Grace is here. She’s going to be taking over for me. She is extremely qualified, and she comes highly recommended. I’m not leaving until a week into the tour so I can prep her and welcome her into the madness that we call the NSYNC family.”
The guys all sat back, stunned. They had no idea of Johnny’s leaving, and here he is springing it on them not two months before a huge tour. They all eyed Grace, she seemed nice enough, but she wasn’t Johnny and that didn’t settle well with them. They didn’t have much time to ponder though, because Grace started to speak.
“Now I know y’all aren’t very happy, and that’s understood. I mean, I’m a new comer and I’m going to be running the show and you don’t even know me. But I guarantee you that I will do the best I can to fill Johnny’s shoes. It’s going to be hard though, because I have small feet.” She stood there and waited for a reaction, but was met with silence. “That was supposed to be a joke guys.” They all shook out of their daze and Chris was the first to jump up.
“Well Gracie, Welcome to the family! Sorry you have to be thrown into the madness so soon, but you’ll get used to us. And we’re not that bad, once you get past the first few dirty joke and pranks, you learn to ignore us!” Everyone laughed and that seemed to be the end of the tension.
“Hey J…did you know that Grace is from Tennessee?” Chris nudged Justin with his elbow and waited for a response. He and Justin were sitting outside, and he was trying to get a conversation going with Grace, who was joining them for dinner.
“Really? That’s cool…where in Tennessee?” He seemed preoccupied, but he showed interest in the conversation, so Chris stopped hitting him.
“Well…My biological mother was from Memphis. My foster mom lived in Somerville, which is just outside of Memphis.” Justin nodded his head in understanding.
“Yeah, I think I’ve been there before, although it’s hard to keep track sometimes.” Grace chuckled with him and agreed.
“I know what you mean.”
“Grace, I didn’t know you were adopted.” Chris’ interest had been sparked, and he was now on a mission to find out everything about Grace Freeman that he could.
“You never asked.” She laughed at the shocked expression that crossed his face. “I’m kidding. My mother was really young when she had me…about sixteen I think. She gave me up for adoption because her family wouldn’t stand for abortion, but they didn’t think it was a good idea for her to keep me. They were very religious.”
“How do you know all this? I mean, did you get in contact with her, or did your Foster mother tell you.” Lance had now entered the conversation, also intrigued by this woman’s life story.
“I was a pain in the ass about knowing who my real mother was, so my foster mom finally gave in and told me when I was about sixteen. She gave me enough information, that I actually tracked her down myself, and proposed a meeting. She said that she would love to…so when I was eighteen we met and I learned that she had married and had a daughter. I also learned that she had cancer and that’s mostly the reason that she agreed to meeting me. She said that she didn’t want a child of hers going through life not knowing who her mother was.”
All of the guys sat there, stunned. They had no idea that Grace’s background was so deep, or saddening. They all decided that it would be fun getting to know this woman, and who she was as a person. She seemed dedicated and very passionate about her job and they knew that she would fit in really well with the NSYNC crew.
“Well Gracie, you’ve got yourself another family weather you like it or not…and five new brothers!” She looked horrified for a second before everyone burst out in laughter and she gave Chris a big hug.
“Thanks guys, you have no idea how much this means to me.”
A few moments later Jamie walked out onto the deck carefully balancing three boxes of pizza and a plastic bag in her arms.
“Um…Boys? A little help please.” They all watched as the stacked boxes teetered and Justin and Joey sprang up to grab them before they fall. “Thanks.” She set the bag that contained the drinks and chips onto the table and ran back inside to grab plates.
Jamie reached up to get the paper plates from the top of the cabinet but it was too high. She reached up onto her tip toes and almost screamed when she felt someone run their hands along her exposed waist.
“My God Justin…you scared the crap out of me.” She turned to face him and the evil grin he had plastered on. She was about to ask what was going on but he placed his lips over her and silenced her words with a kiss.
“I’ve been waiting all afternoon to do that.” He smiled against her mouth and kissed her softly again. Jamie broke the contact and smiled at Justin.
“It’s good to see you too. Now, will you help me get these stupid plates?” Justin laughed and reached up to easily grab the plates. Someone cleared their throat behind them and Justin turned around quickly.
“Hey Grace,” His face turned a slight shade of red at being caught by someone he didn’t really know. “This is Jamie, my girlfriend. Jamie, I want you to meet Grace, she’s going to be filling in for Johnny when he goes on his honeymoon.” They two women shook hands and smiled courteously at one another. Grace felt some something strange about Jamie, but couldn’t put her finger on it. The moment was broken when Justin’s stomach growled loudly and he laughed. “I think it’s time to eat.”
Grace walked into her apartment and set her things down with a sigh. She was tired from her long day, and from meeting so many people. This job was going to be tough, and it was going to take dedication but she wasn’t going to let anything stand in her way.
As she made her way into her bedroom to change, her thoughts shifted to Jamie and the strange feeling she had when they met. There was something very familiar about Jamie, and it was driving her crazy that she couldn’t put her finger on it.
She pushed the thoughts from her head and made her way into her kitchen to get a drink. The light was flashing on her answering machine so she clicked the button and listened as she poured herself a glass of wine.
“Hey Grace, its Dave. I just wanted to see how things were going in boy band land. I’ll be down in Orlando in about two weeks, so I’ll have some time to get together with you. Call me. Bye.” Grace sipped as she listened to her assistant sat his good byes and the next message started.
At first it was a bunch of noise and she was about to skip it until she heard a voice come on the line. “Gracie! It’s me. You know…Chris? Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that you better be at the wedding tomorrow, we’ve saved you a front row seat! Well, it’s not exactly front row because that’s immediate family and then there’s Johnny and Erika’s close friends. But you’ll be right up there. Well…kind of, there will be a lot of our family too, because we all love Johnny…” She heard a voice yell in the background and Chris’ voice was distant. “Will you shut up?! I’m trying to leave Grace a message…Jesus, Mary and Joseph. No, I wasn’t talking about you Joey, I was just mumbling…” The message was cut off because it ran too long and she laughed, knowing the next message would be Chris.
“Me again…Chris. I mean, its Chris again. Whatever, anyway I got cut off last time, but I just wanted to say that it was really nice meeting you and I hope that we didn’t manage to scare you away. I hope the message doesn’t scare you too much…I’m not usually this hyper I’m just really ex...”His voice stopped at someone grabbed the phone and she heard JC’s voice come on.
“Sorry about that Grace, Chris is drunk as you can tell. I won’t take up any more of your evening with his mindless babble. I advise you to change your number.” There was a tone of amusement in his voice and Grace smiled. “Well, have a good night and we hope to see you at the wedding tomorrow. Good bye.” He hung up the phone and Grace was very touched at the guys’ attempts to make her feel comfortable. The fact of the matter was she felt comfortable already. She had her job, and she knew that she was capable of doing a good job at it. As terrible as it may sound, she didn’t really care if she had a relationship with the guys, because she wasn’t in this to make friends, but she was relieved just the same.
Being in the good graces of the people she worked with always made for a more pleasurable time. She didn’t want there to be any tension because that made it harder to get things done and she didn’t want to fail on her first big assignment. Finishing off her glass of wine, she poured another and went into her living room to light the fire and catch up on a little reading.
Jamie sat back as her eyes searched the room and a smile came to her face. The wedding had been beautiful and it had been what dreams were made of. Erika looked radiant even now, hours later as she danced with just about everyone.
Someone sat down next to her and she turned to see Justin.
“Hey beautiful, what are you doing?” He kissed her cheek and took her hand. He had been clingy lately, but he seemed to be trying to respect the fact that Jamie wanted to take things slowly.
“Just watching everyone. I think Chris has had a few too many, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Joey’s got a headache from getting slapped by the whole wedding party.” She giggled and Justin smiled at her. It was so good to see her happy.
“Yea, Joey’s used to it. Let’s dance.” He stood up and tugged on her arm. She took his hand and followed him out onto the dance floor. They passed Grace and Lance dancing and Jamie was happy to know that she was fitting in so well. She knew all too well how overwhelming this group of guys could be.
“Grace looks like she’s having a good time.” She whispered into Justin’s ear as he pulled her close to him and wrapped his arms tightly around her waist.
“Yea, she seems really cool. Hey, does she look familiar to you? I mean, she reminds me of someone, but I can’t figure out who it is.” Jamie turned and glanced at Grace shaking her head.
“No, but that doesn’t mean anything. I mean, you know a lot more people than I do.” He shrugged, resting his cheek on the side of her head, loving the feeling of her in his arms.
“I’m glad you’re here with me James, it would be very lonely with out you.” She smiled against his shoulder.
“I can’t think of any place I’d rather be.”
Grace thanked the taxi driver and walked up the stairs to her apartment. The night had been busy and chaotic, but she had had a lot of fun. She knew that being apart of this group was going to be a blast and an adventure. She yawned and walked inside, tossing her purse on the table by the door. Taking off her shoes she let out a heavy sigh. Her feet were killing her.
Every one of the guys had insisted that she dance with them, a few more than once. Justin had asked once, but she had said no, knowing that he would rather be with Jamie. They seemed to be great for each other, ever thought she didn’t really know them. Grace had had that nagging feeling about Jamie all night long, like she knew her from some place, but she didn’t know where. It had bothered her for a while and she really wanted to know what it was.
She went into her room and spotted the old photograph of her birth mother sitting on her bedside table. She dropped the jacket in her hands and her eyes were about to pop out of her head. There was no way it could be real...she wasn’t seeing what she thought she was. Rubbing her eyes she focused on the picture again and was upset to see that she was in fact right. She went to the picture and picked it up, taking it out of the frame. It was dated a while back and that placed her mother around twenty years old.
“There’s no way…”