"I know! I can’t wait to go home and sleep in my own bed" laughed Brain Littrell.
"It’s also good to get home to real American food!" AJ McLean chimed in. Everyone laughed and agreed.
"I can’t wait to see Calista! I haven’t seen her in a year and a half!"
Calista Briarson has been Nick Carter’s best friend for as long as they can remember. They used to play together as toddlers and have always been close.
"Is she going to meet you at the airport?" Brian asked.
"No. I didn’t tell her when we were coming home. I kind of wanted it to be a surprise."
By now, the airplane found the gate and the passengers were grabbing their carry-ons and getting off the plane.
"AJ!" AJ looked ahead of him as he heard the familiar voice calling his name. Then he saw her. Michelle Reid. She took his breath away. She had never looked as beautiful as she did right then. Her shiny, medium length dirty blonde hair hung loosely around her shoulders. She was wearing Old Navy surplus pants, a sky blue ribbed tank top with a white Gap zip-up sweat jacket. He noticed how the pants and top showed her figure, even with the jacket on top.
‘Oh my God! Why am I thinking about her this way I mean she is my best friend and all but…’
She had walked up to him.
"Hey, ‘sup shorty?" He had always made fun of her 5’6 height compared to his nearly 5’10 frame. "Ugh! I hate it when you call me ‘shorty’!" She laughed as she gave him a hug.
"You look good! And I can see that all that Mickey D’s has finally caught up with you." She was referring to the fact that AJ had put on a couple of pounds. But it just made him look all that much better, even if he was still pretty thin. "Well, what did you expect me to eat?" AJ asked defensively.
"Gee, I don’t know, European food perhaps?" She gave him a quizzical look. When he didn’t have an answer for her she just laughed at him. "You are so sweet! It’s good to have you home again!" She gave him another hug.
‘It feels so nice to hold her in my arms. And she smells so good. When did she start wearing perfume?’ AJ had all these thoughts running through his head. It all didn’t make sense to him, until his heart summed it all up for him. ‘AJ, you have fallen for this girl, hard!’
When she pulled away she smiled. "It’s been lonely here without you."
His heart started beating faster. "And why’s that?"
"Because, I missed not having my best friend around."
AJ’s heart sank. ‘Right your best friend’ he thought as he sighed.
"Come on, I’ll introduce you to the guys." He took her arm and lead her to Brian, Howie and Kevin. "Guys, this is Michelle. Michelle, this is Brian, Howie D., and Kevin."
"It’s nice to finally meet you all! I’ve heard so much about you from AJ. It gave me an ear ache listening to him babble on and on and on." She started laughing.
"It’s nice to meet you too Michelle. AJ talks about you all the time also!" They were all laughing. "Hey, where did Nick go?" AJ asked trying to change the subject.
"He was so anxious to get home that he already left." stated Brian with a smile.
"Oh well, I guess you’ll get to meet Nick later." "Okay. Is he the one that all the girls fall for, the tall blonde kid?" "The one and only Nick Carter!" AJ stated. "Oh yeah! I’ve seen pictures of him. He’s really cute!" She smiled as she said this.
‘Uh-oh’ AJ thought to himself.
Nick finally got home to his family’s house in Ruskin. As soon as he stepped out of the cab he was nearly ambushed by his own family.
"Nick! It is so good to finally have you home!" His mother said. She had missed her eldest son and was glad he was home. He spent the next 5 minutes saying hello to his family and exchanging hugs and kisses.
"Sorry, I know that I just got home and all, but Calista doesn’t know I’m home yet and I wanted to go and surprise her."
"Okay son. But be home for dinner so that you can tell us all about Europe." His father told him. "I promise."
He got into his car and drove over to Calista’s house. No one answered when he knocked on the door, but he had an idea where he could find her.
He got back in his car and drove for about 10 minutes. When he reached his destination, he saw Calista’s mom’s car in the parking lot.
"I knew she would be here."
He walked into the gym to find gymnastics apparatus everywhere. He saw 5 girls tumbling on the floor mat. He instantly recognized Calista. She was wearing a dark green leotard and her hair was piled into a messy bun on top of her head. She was doing a series of flips and turns. He noticed that she was a lot taller than she used to be. Then, almost as if she could feel his eyes on her she looked up. Her piercing green eyes really stood out.
"Nick?" Calista yelled across the gym. He smiled and nodded his head. She ran up to him and wrapped her arms around him giving him a friendly hug. Then she suddenly pulled away and hit him on his arm.
"Ow! What was that for?" But he already knew why she was upset.
"Why didn’t you tell me when you were coming home?"
"I wanted to surprise you!"
"Well mission accomplished." But she couldn’t stay mad at him. She hugged him again until her coach started yelling at her.
"Calista! Come on you have to work on your tumbling passes."
"I gotta go. Go sit down with my mom and I’ll talk to you later."
"Okay." She gave him a quick peck on the cheek. "It’s good to have you back." she said as she trotted back over to the mat and started concentrating on her tumbling again.
Half and hour later the girls were excused. Calista walked over to where her mom and Nick were chatting together on the chairs. She took a new water bottle out of her bag, opened it and guzzled down half of it within seconds.
"Thirsty?" Nick teased.
"Hey, gymnastics sometimes takes all of your energy. Plus you do get really thirsty after a while." She grabbed a pair of cut offs from her bag and quickly put them on. Then, she slipped her feet into her Adidas shower sandals.
"Ready?" Calista looked at Nick.
"Yep."
"Okay. Mom, is it okay if I ride with Nick back?"
"Of course. I’ll see you at the house later." She gave her daughter a quick kiss on the cheek and then added, "You were really good today sweetie. I’m really proud of you."
"Thanks Mom." Her mom left. Nick and Calista walked into the parking lot and got in his car.
"So, what exactly were all those flips you were doing over and over again?"
"Oh, well my coach, Julie, decided to change my floor mat routine a little bit and I was working on a new tumbling pass. What you saw was a round-off, flip-flop, flip-flop, double layout, and then a front punch into another round-off, layout, layout, double back somersault."
"Can you remember at least half the stuff you just said?" He asked jokingly.
"Sure, do you want me to repeat it?"
"Uh, no thanks. I’ll just pretend that I know what your talking about." She couldn’t help but laugh at him.
He went on telling her about Europe, the fans and all the great concerts did. But halfway through she looked at him, really looked at him. She noticed how his eyes twinkled every time he mentioned how great the fans were. His blonde hair slowly blowing with the breeze that came through his open window. He looked so handsome.
‘Wait a sec! What am I doing? I can’t think about this, I mean, he’s Nick. The same Nick Carter that I’ve known all my life. But I can’t help it. He just looks so good.’ She sighed as she thought to herself. She didn’t even realize that Nick had stopped talking a while ago. "Cally {she only let Nick call her that}, what’s the matter?" Nick asked with a concerned look on his face.
"Nothing" she lied. She didn’t really want to admit it to herself but she was falling for her best friend, and fast.