Chapter 14

 

 

            Lydia sat there in her seat. She didn’t move. She didn’t breath. She just sat there, trying to figure out what was going on. When it finally hit her that she was actually being kissed by Lance she pulled back, and looked at him. He returned her look but didn’t say anything.

 

            Lydia didn’t know what to say so she turned in her seat and started the car.  They drove in silence until they got to the hotel.  When she got to a parking space and were parked, Lydia started to get out. Lance reached out and stopped her by grabbing her arm lightly. She stopped and looked at him. “Lydia, I’m sorry about that,” he started.

            “Lance, can we talk about this later? I really just want to get this signed and to Sara.”

            “Ok, let’s go.”

            They walked toward the back entrance so Lance wouldn’t be recognized by anyone. Lydia walked out to the lobby to find Sara while Lance went to the room and got the rest of the guys’ signatures. He had Jake take it down to Lydia for safety reasons.  When Jake got downstairs he found Lydia talking to a very tired girl. He walked over to her and handed her the cover. “Thanks Jake,” Lydia told him.

            “Not a problem. But you might want to get upstairs soon.”

            “Why? I’m planning on going to a cheaper hotel. I can’t afford this place.”

            “Lance said not to worry about it and the other guys agreed.”

            “OK, fine I’ll stay. I’ll be up later.”

            Jake walked off and Lydia turned back to Sara who had a hopeful face. Lydia leaned down and handed the cover to her. “Thank you soooo much Lydia. That was really nice of you.”

            “Not a problem, Sara. I really hope you enjoy it.”

            “I will never forget it.”

            “Good,” Lydia said with a smile.

            Lydia looked at her watch, which read 12:01 a.m. “I better get going now. You should be home too. Do you have a ride home?”

            “No, I was supposed to call my mom, but I think it’s too late to call.”

            “Do you want me to take you home?”

            “Sure.”

            Lydia started to walk towards the back entrance where she had entered. Sara followed closely behind.  When they finally got to her CR-V, Lydia noticed that someone was walking towards them. It was Jeni and JC. Sara was not fully woken up and was trying to see whom it was. When they got close enough Jeni called, “Lydia? What are you doing?”

            “I’m taking Sara home. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Tell the guys, OK?”

            “Ok.”

            Sara was looking at the man with Jeni and started to shake. “Lydia,” JC said pointing to Sara, “Who’s this?”

            “This is Sara. She is one of your fans and I’m taking her home.”

            “OH.”

            Sara asked him for a picture and he agreed. After the picture was taken they jumped into Lydia’s car. Sara had to tell Lydia how to get to her house, and between directions she thanked Lydia for everything she had done for her that night.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

            “You kissed Lydia?” Joey repeated for the fifth time.

            “Yes, Joey, I kissed her,” Lance replied annoyed.

            “Wow. What’d she do?”

            “She didn’t do anything. She didn’t kiss me back or anything. I feel like a fool.”

            “Well, you have only known her for a day.”

            “I know, but it seems like a lot longer.”

            Joey was about to say something else when the door to their shared room opened and Justin walked in. “Hey guys what’s up?”

            “Nothing. What are you doing?” Lance replied before Joey could tell Justin about the kiss.

            “I’m waiting for Chris to get out of the bathroom. We’re going to play Mario Party. I’m going to kick his butt. You guys wanna play?”

            “Nah, we’re talking,” Lance once again replied.

            “About???” Justin probed. He was always curious about other peoples’ conversations.

            Before Lance could think of something to say Joey answered Justin. “Lance kissing Lydia.” 

            Justin stood there and looked at the two. Lance was giving Joey the look of death and Joey was staring at Justin waiting for a smart aleck comment.  Justin tried to figure out if he was kidding but from the look on Lance’s face realized he wasn’t. He walked over to the bed Lance was on and looked at him with a questioning face. “Why?”

            “Why what?” Lance asked.

            “Why’d you kiss her? You’ve only known her for a day.”

            “I know, but she makes me feel different. Besides, we’ve only know all three of them for a day and we asked them to go on tour with us.”

            “You’ve got a point, but it’s not like we’re going to date one of them. They’re cool to hang out with.”

            “Even Lydia?” Joey interjected looking at Justin.

            “Even Lydia. We’ve talked through our problems. We are ok now.”

            “Ok. Hey Lance, do you think this will have any affect on her decision to go on tour with us?” Joey asked.

            “Crap. It probably will.”

            Chris walked into the crowed room. “Hey Lan… what’d I just walk in on?” he asked when he saw all the shocked faces on the men. “Are you having a group meeting without me again?”

            “No. If we were having a group meeting we’d lock the door and JC would be here,” Justin replied.

            “OH, ok. So what’d I walk in on? It’s feeling kinda tense.”

            “Lance kissed Lydia.”              

            “Lance! You kissed her?”

            “Yeah, I did,” he replied standing up and swinging his arms in the air.

            “Why?”

            “Because I thought it was the right thing to do. I feel something for her and I had to act upon it.”

            “Well, what happened? Where’s she at?”

            “ I don’t know where she is. She doesn’t want to talk about it.”

            “Did she respond to the kiss?”

            “No.”

            “Dang. Usually that Mississippi charm works on women. You’ve got a problem here.”

            “I know I do. The question is, how am I going to fix it?”

            “I don’t know, but you better think fast because we leave at 8 am tomorrow morning and it’s already 12: 45.”

            “I’ll talk to her, I promise.” I just hope she listens and actually talks about it.

                              Chapter 15

 

            Lydia was lying on her bed writing in the journal her grandmother had bought her for her last birthday, when she heard a slight knock on the door. She looked over at her clock and it read 2:15 am. “Who’s up at this hour of the night? Well, other than me,” she said to herself as she walked over to answer the door.

 

            “Lydia, can I talk to you?” she heard Justin’s soft voice ask.

            “Sure Justin, but don’t you have to get up early?”        

            “Yeah, but don’t worry about it.”

            “Ok, what do you need?”

            “I was wondering if you were going to go on tour with us. Jeni and Klare have already given us their answers. We’re waiting for yours.”

            “Justin, I… I can’t go on tour with you guys. Too much is going on in my life.”

            “This doesn’t have anything to do with Lance kissing you does it?”

            Lydia turned away from him and slowly started to walk to her bed. “No, Justin, it doesn’t.”

            “Well, then why aren’t you going on tour with us? I don’t understand.”

            “I just can’t.”

            “Are you afraid we’ll start to hate each other again or that you will be treated differently than Jeni and Klare? Because I honestly think this would be a good thing for our friendship.”

            “Justin, I can’t go because of something going on in my family.”

            “What’s going on?” a concerned Justin asked her while finally closing the door and sitting on Lydia’s bed.

            “You wouldn’t understand. Besides, why should I spill all my family problems out to you. We are barely friends.”

            “Ouch, that hurt. I thought that we would work up to a good friendship. How are we ever going to get there if we don’t trust each other?”

            “Fine. I’ll tell you why I won’t go on tour with you.”

            Just as she was about to explain about her adoptive parents’ divorce there was another knock on the door. She gave Justin a questioning look. He just shrugged his shoulders. She got up once again and cracked open the door. Slowly peering out she saw a tired looking Lance. “Lance, it’s 2:35 in the morning. Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” Lydia asked in a surprised voice.

            “No, I need to talk to you about earlier,” Lance replied while opening the door so he could walk in. His eyes landed on Justin. “What’s he doing here?”    

            “We were just talking about some stuff,” Lydia replied.

            “Well, I’m going to go back to my room so y’all can talk. Lydia just call when he leaves and we can talk about the tour if you want ok? Here’s my cell number. You can call whenever you want.”

            “Ok, thanks.”

            Justin walked past Lance and gave him a half smile before leaving the room. As the door closed behind him, Lance asked Lydia to sit down. She walked over to her bed and sat, waiting for Lance to say something. She waited for two minutes and he hadn’t said anything.  “Lance, I thought we were going to talk about something. What’s up?”

            “I’m sorry I kissed you Lydia.”

            “Yeah, ummm… about that Lance.”

            “Shhhh, let me say this.”

            “Ok, go ahead.”

            “Lydia, you are the first person in a long time to have this affect on me. When I see you, my palms get sweaty and I get nervous. I know I’ve only known you for a day or two but that’s what makes it so special. It was love at first site. The minute you walked in our toy room I got this feeling. It wasn’t anything I’d ever felt before.”

            Lydia sat looking at him. The emotion he was showing and the expressions on his face told her he wasn’t making it up. He truly had feelings for her. “Lance,” she started to say.

            “Hold on, I have one other thing to say. I probably shouldn’t say it but I’m going to.  If I knew before I kissed you that you would be upset with me or that we would be in this predicament again I still would have kissed you. I couldn’t help myself. I just wanted to feel your lips on mine and your body next to me.”

            Lydia couldn’t stand to hear his sweet talk any more. She had felt something toward Lance but now all that she felt was fear. She did have feelings for him, but all that she could think about was how Bryce had hurt her. She was afraid that Lance would hurt her, that she’d fall in love with him and he’d leave her. She had been through this once, and she wouldn’t let it happen again. She walked over to the door and opened it. “Get out Lance.”

            “What?” he asked in a shocked voice with a hurt expression.

            “I said, get out.”

            “But Lydia…”

            “Lance, get out now.”

            He was defeated. What had happened to her? Why was she so cold all of a sudden. I knew I shouldn’t have said that last part, He thought to himself. He looked at her one last time and slowly walked out of the room. She shut the door as soon as he was out of it and leaned her back on it. Slowly sliding down to the floor she hugged her knees to her chest. Anger suddenly rushed over her and she grabbed her cell phone out of her bag on the floor. She dialed the familiar number and waited for someone to answer. “Hello?” a groggy voice said.

            “You jerk! How can you have so much power over me? You’ve ruined me!”

            “Lydia? What the—“

            “Why’d you play me? WHY?” Lydia didn’t notice that she was yelling, but the people in the room next to her did. “Bryce, I loved you so much. I cared for you like I had never done with anyone before. Now I’m afraid to love anyone. I’m afraid to care.”

            “Lydia, calm down. Will you explain this to me? I want to help, what did I do?”

            “You made me fall in love with you, then you broke my heart. I can’t love anyone any more. I’m afraid to love anyone. Why’d you do that to me?”

            “Lydia, I’m sorry I did that. I was wrong. How can I make it up to you? How can I get your friendship back?”

She took a deep breath and sat back down in front of her door. “Bryce,” she said in a pleading voice, “I need help.”

            He hated to hear the pain in her voice. Once again, the feelings he had experienced at the concert came back to him. He wanted to say something like “Talk out your feelings” or “It’s going to be ok” but what came out shocked both her and him. “Lydia, I love you.”

            She pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at it with disbelief. Did he just say he loved me?

            She looked at the phone for five minutes, the whole time hearing Bryce’s voice saying her name trying to get a response from her. She finally put the phone back up to her ear, “Bryce, I’m going to bed now.”

            “Lydia, wait,” Bryce tired to say but she hung up the phone before he had a chance. She thought of a list of people she could call. She couldn’t sleep and she really needed to talk to someone. She couldn’t call Lance, and she certainly couldn’t call Bryce back. She really didn’t want to talk to Klare or Jeni because they always made big deals over little things, but this certainly wasn’t a little thing and Lydia didn’t know how they’d react to this. That meant that only JC and Justin were left on her ‘talking list’. She really wanted to tell Justin about this because that would prove that she trusted him, but she also knew that he’d bug her about the tour. She slowly got up and opened the door. She was about to knock on JC’s door when she noticed that the light to the living area of the suite was on. She walked a little further down the hall until she heard a familiar voice. “Mom, I know. Yeah. No mom. I can’t do that. She’s already keeping stuff from me. She says I wouldn’t understand. I know. Yeah. Why am I up this late? Because what she said bothers me, and I also heard her yelling in her room so that kept me up. I don’t know why she was yelling. Because it’s quiet now. Fine I’ll go check and see if she’s ok. I know it’s what a good friend would do. Alright mom. Love you too. Bye.”

            Lydia couldn’t believe what she heard. Justin was talking to his mom about her. It seemed to bother him that she wouldn’t tell him about her family. She slowly turned around and headed back towards JC’s room. She knock on the door but heard nothing. Justin tapped her on the shoulder and whispered in her ear, “Lydia, can I talk to you?”

            She turned and looked at him, slowly nodded, and headed toward her room with him following her. She closed the door and sat on her bed. Justin followed but sat on a chair. “What’s up Justin?” Lydia asked nonchalantly.

            He looked at her and gave her a half smile. “Why aren’t you going on tour with us?”

            “We’ve been over this. I have family issues and I have to be there for them.”

            “What kind of family issues?”

            She looked down at her hands that were folded in her lap. She heard Justin get up and felt him sit down beside her. He took her chin in his hands and moved her head so they could make eye contact. “Lydia, you can trust me,” he reassured her.

            She held back tears as she started to tell him about her entire life story, from being in foster families that would abuse her to being in an orphanage until she was 12. He didn’t say anything, he just listened and gave hugs where she needed one. She told him that her adoptive father had recently announced he wanted to get a divorce from her adoptive mom. When she mentioned that, he could tell that was the reason she didn’t want to go on tour with them. The tears she had been trying to hold back were now sliding down her face and he’d wipe them away with his delicate touch.

            Lydia was in shock that he had understood what she was feeling. His parents had divorced also so she now knew he could relate. He asked her if she’d mind talking to him about Bryce. She looked at the clock. “Justin, it’s 4:30. You should get a little sleep.”

            “Nah. I’ll sleep on the bus. I want to know what he did to hurt you so badly.”

            She knew that this was just going to cause more tears to fall but started to tell him the story. She told him about prom, about how she had confessed her love to him, and his confession that he never really loved her. She thought she saw a hint of anger in his eyes but decided to ignore it.

            “Is that who you were yelling at in here a little while ago?”

            “Yeah. Lance told me that he cared about me and wanted to be with me. I care about him too, but not as strongly as he does about me. I’m afraid he’ll turn out to be like Bryce. I don’t want to get hurt again Justin, I don’t think I’d be able to handle it.”

            “Lance wouldn’t do that to you. He’d never intentionally hurt a woman.”

            “My head knows that, it’s my heart that needs convincing. Besides I’m so confused. I asked Bryce to help me. I don’t know why I asked him of all people, but I did.”

            “What’d he say?”

            “I love you.”

            “Whoa! Lydia, we’re just friends here.”

            “No Justin, that’s what he told me. He said ‘Lydia, I love you.’”

            “Whoa.”

            “Yeah. I finally heard those words from him.”

            “Lydia, I want you to come on tour with us. Please. I can help you through your parent’s divorce. I’ve been there. I know I can help.”

            Lydia turned away from him, unable to look into his face. “Justin, I can’t.”

            “Why not?”

            “Because I’m going to get back together with Bryce.”