Joey awoke feeling disoriented and slightly hungover as the morning light crept softly into his hotel room. He turned to the sleeping figure next to him, recalling the previous night's events. Susan... no... Sarah; she had said her name was Sarah. They were all starting to blend into one generic cast these days, with indistinguishable faces. I'll have to work some variety in there, he thought with a smirk. He nudged her gently in the shoulder, waking her.

"Hmmmm?" She turned to face him with sleepy eyes. Her makeup was streaked and smudged from their night together, marring her features, but Joey could see that underneath it all she was very naturally pretty.

"Hi, beautiful," he smiled warmly at her, making her smile in return. "Um..." Joey hesitated. "I had a great time last night, really! But if you leave now you can be gone before the press and fans start up this morning. Security will make sure you get out okay."

Her face fell and she nodded slowly as the realization set in. Joey sighed and looked away. He hated this part the most. Most girls were understanding and left without any trouble, but he hated having to ask them to sneak out as though they were two-bit whores.

As Sarah (it was Sarah, right? God, he couldn't quite remember for sure) scrambled to get her things together, Joey got up, stretched, and headed for the bathroom for a shower. No matter how many times he did this, he always felt a little dirty afterwards. Besides, he didn't want to be around when Sarah left.

As the hot water beat down on his body, swirling up clouds of steam around him, he frowned. They hadn't used a condom the last time. He really had to stop doing that. She'd said she was on the Pill, but even then he'd still have to sweat out the next two weeks and get tested again. Which was something he'd had to do far too often lately.

Joey accepted his "player" status with pride, though the other guys lectured him on his behaviour almost as often as they joked with him about it. Not that the other guys were angels themselves, he scoffed silently. He didn't see why what he did was so terrible; he was living a typical guy's dream. Thousands of women wanted to be with him, and he wanted to be with them. No harm, no foul. They all knew the rules.

Running his fingers through his thick red-tipped hair, Joey stopped the water and stepped out of the shower. For what had to be the thousandth time, he contemplated abandoning his current lifestyle and following the straight and narrow. There was his more-or-less steady girlfriend from back home... she was so wonderful to him. They had an open-ended relationship; he could see whomever he wished, and he would understand if she found someone else while he was away.

Despite all the people he slept with, she was the one Joey really loved. She could make him laugh from the depths of his soul. She understood in a way no one else did just how important his career with *NSYNC was to him. She saw sides of him he didn't dare show anyone else; she even knew the Joey who had called her up at 4am from Germany in tears from homesickness -- which had been as surprising to him as it was to her because he never cried, and never thought he'd miss home so much. She was always there for him when he needed her, but he wasn't so sure it would always be that way.

He paused briefly in front of the mirror to touch up his goatee and slick some gel through his hair, idly wondering if she'd take him on as a full-time, serious boyfriend -- and if he could play the part himself...

Nah! he smiled grimly, shaking his head as he left the bathroom wearing only a towel around his waist. A quick glance around the room confirmed that Sarah was gone, and a wave of guilt swept over him again. He'd definitely clean up his act. He'd ask for an exclusive relationship next time he visited home. Maybe he'd even call her up and tell her how he felt.

But not yet, he thought, as he pulled on his jeans and called room service for breakfast, thinking of the afterparty he had yet to attend tonight. Not today.

Author's Notes: This was my first *NSYNC fanfiction. It came to me while with Kathy and Chelle on our grand roadtrip to Edmonton for our first *NSYNC concert. I have NO IDEA where it came from; it just popped into my head and it was truly a "Eureka" moment. I had to grab my little pad of paper and scribble it out on 2 by 5's in a moving vehicle so that I wouldn't forget any of it. Um... I was gonna say something else here, but I forget. Oh, yes. Here it is. Joey gets a lot of flack over his... um... ways.... but I think he's a good guy overall, and I tried to portray him as sympathetically as I could.

This is the first in what I hope to be a series of "serious" short stories, each featuring one of the guys...

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