Laura and JC continued to dance along. They both were thinking about the bet. They both knew that it was wrong, but they didn't care because it was fun.. To a certain point, they felt bad. Laura knew that it wouldn't be the best way to start a friendship with Natalie by playing matchmaker and JC knew that Justin and Lance both would want his head on a plate.
Laura smiled down at the ground before looking back up at JC. "You know... That whole thing earlier with Justin and Natalie..."
JC shook his head and spun Laura around. "Laura, that was a complete accident. I bet Natalie was thinking it was Lance. There's no way she could have been thinking of Justin when she was kissing him."
"They were talking beforehand JC and Justin does not sound a bit like Lance."
"You're still going to lose. I'll find a way..."
Laura placed her head against his chest and shook her head. "You're still dreaming JC, I don't think you're going to win this thing..."
"You better hope that you win, I don't see you and Wade getting it on anytime soon. Although for a while it seemed pretty intense there..."
Laura rolled her eyes and looked back up at JC who was now grinning. "You're way too convinced that we're going to hook up."
JC sighed and kissed her forehead. "It's a matter of time, I believe. What's wrong with you guys lately though? Well, just yesterday and today mainly..."
Laura put her head down, trying to avoid the question, but she knew she was going to have to say something. "There's nothing wrong... He's just busy and I've been trying to befriend Natalie, you know what I mean. A girl's got to have a friend if she's gonna stay on this tour...Ok, well you wouldn't UNDERSTAND like a girl, but you know what I mean."
"Laura, I understand that it's nice to have a few friends when you're on this tour, but he hasn't been busy... Sure, he's been hanging out with Joey, but that was because you weren't around... You guys could have easily hung out during the show or before the show or even afterwards today, but you didn't. Laura, what happened?"
"Nothing happened JC. I just don't want to ruin anything between us, so I've been keeping distance. Besides, you've only noticed it today and yesterday, why are you making a big deal about it?"
"Because. Wade came to me before the show and asked if the reason you haven't been around even for almost a week could have possibly been because we were a couple. But I told him no and that I didn't notice anything different so he asked me to try to help him. I'm a friend, so sure, here I am."
"Ok there JC."
"Did he kiss you?"
Laura looked up at him quickly and confusingly, not understanding where he got that from. There was no way anyone could find out about the little kiss that they shared. "How do you come up with that?"
JC shrugged his shoulders as they walked over to a table to talk. "Because, you just said you didn't want to ruin anything between us about a minute ago."
"That's ridiculous."
"He did, didn't he?"
Laura shook her head as she took her drink she just got and sat down. "No. I would never let anything like that happen."
JC smiled and sat down right beside her, taking his drink also, lifting the glass to his mouth to take a sip. "Then maybe you should go talk to him. Dance with him or something. It's a fast song now, so you don't have to dance close. Just go talk to him, please Laura?"
Laura sighed and looked into JC's eyes. "No, I'm not in the mood to dance now."
"Why are you being so stubborn? He's your bestfriend. Even if you guys did kiss, it would be better to talk to him rather than let him wonder around without him knowing what you think."
Laura put her glass down and covered her face. "Why do you have to do this JC? I just don't want to dance. Besides, he's probably dancing with someone now anyways. And if we DID kiss, I wouldn't want him to know what I thought. That would ruin the moment."
JC grinned at Laura knowingly, who was now looking back up at him. He could read her mind most of the time. Spending a lot of time with her was always fun, because he learned something everyday. Sure he didn't know her like Wade did, but he was getting up there, and everyday he saw something knew and different about her that was fascinating in some way. He could understand why Wade kept her close to his side all the time. Even he would if they were bestfriends, but no matter what would happen between Laura and Wade, they would still be bestfriends at heart and that's something JC would die for to have. "Laura, I may not know you as well as Wade does, but you're really being readable tonight. He kissed you, didn't he, and YOU enjoyed it. It's not a bad thing to enjoy something like that. You really need to talk to him. He seems hurt that you aren't talking to him..."
"Enjoy it? JC, you're going crazy. Why would I ENJOY a kiss from him?"
"Then why won't you talk to him?"
Laura shook her head with another slight roll of the eyes. "JC, please, just don't."
He stood up and grabbed her hand, pulling her up and he dragged her out to the dance floor. Laura sighed and walked slowly. "JC, please, I don't want to talk to him."
"Don't worry, we're just going to dance."
"JC, I know you better than you think. You've got something planned. Please, don't do this."
"Laura, wouldn't you be upset if you kissed HIM and he wouldn't talk to you? I think you would."
Laura sighed as they just stood there. "JC, I just can't."
"But you would feel aweful, right?"
Laura stood there silently for a second and then nodded her head. "Yea, I guess."
JC smiled and took her hand. "So you'll talk to him?"
"JC, I can't do that to our relationship."
"You're not doing much for it right now. Please, talk to him."
"Why are you doing this? I don't understand."
JC looked around and saw that Wade had just stopped dancing with some girl. JC took Laura with him and took her to Wade. JC grinned and pushed her to him, almost causing her to fall, but Wade just so happened to be there and he caught her. JC was proud of himself for how good he was at hooking people up, but for some reason it wasn't working with Natalie and Lance.
Laura looked up at Wade, but quickly turned away to avoid the look he had on his face. He was concerned, yet happy to have her in his arms and she didn't want to look at him because that would lead to conversation which would lead to confession.
JC walked away and went to the table where the guys were sitting with Natalie.
Wade cupped Laura's face, causing her to look at him. "Laura?"
Laura looked back up at him, but then turned to the ground. The look was unbearable. He looked amazing that night and she didn't want to get lost in anything. "Hi."
Wade looked down and pushed her head up gently to look at her again. "Talk to me. Please?"
"Wade... I can't."
Wade wrapped his arms around her and smiled back down at her. "Why?"
"I just can't. I can't explain."
"Laura, we have to talk."
Laura looked back up at Wade and shook her head. "I just can't, it's hard to explain. I already said that."
Wade nodded his head and breathed in deeply. "All right. Whatever you want, but Laura, please, it would make me feel better if you would talk to me..."
"Ok."
Wade took her hand and they went to the middle of the dance floor and danced to the upbeat song. It looked sexual the way they were dancing, but it was never intended like that. But on that night, Laura felt a different feeling as they danced. Sure she enjoyed the kiss, and she loved Wade, but just not like that. She knew that he was going to talk to her about it that night, and she was prepared. She looked up at him as his body moved closer to him. She giggled when he smiled down at her and tickled her sides quickly.
Wade grinned down at her as she smiled from him tickling her. Wade started dancing again and moved his hips towards Laura's body the way he always did, but Laura didn't feel right this time. They always joked around kind of by making their dancing somewhat sexual, but it was usual the way they danced, and it was fun, but it was completely different now. Laura smiled uneasily up at Wade and just stopped. He stopped and looked down at her to see that she was very confused and unsure of what to do. Slowly, they were moving away from the middle when they started to dance again. When they were away from people, Wade's smile again was down at Laura.
He didn't know what to do, so he did the only thing he could think of doing at that moment. He slowly lowered his head to Laura. Laura was staring at his lips as they descended to hers. She trembled when she felt his lips on hers. There was something about the kisses that he gave. There was a weird knot in her stomach that she was unsure of. She didn't want to feel it because she had never felt it with anyone else like that.
She was afraid for it to be an unfriendly feeling. She didn't want it to be a loving feeling. That was something she never wanted with Wade. Quickly, she broke away and looked up at him and tried to speek, but she couldn't. It was like he took her voice out of her. Wade smiled down at her and moved his hands up her arms and rubbed them when he noticed she started to shiver. "I'm sorry."
Laura nodded and they walked away to go talk.
(back at hotel)
Justin paced back and forth in front of the vending machine staring at it. "Do you want a piece of me? I could take you. You don't scare me. You're a big wuss and no one likes you." Justin looked up at the ceiling. "All you little people out there, this kick is for all the times this machine has messed with you!"
Justin kicked it once and growled. "Give me my chips!"
Justin went to kick it one more time, but a tap on the shoulder stopped him. Justin turned around and glared at the person. "LANCE, what the hell are you doing?"
Lance backed away and put his hands up surrendering. "Sorry bud, I couldn't help but notice you kicking the machine."
Justin sighed. "Well the machine doesn't like you either, so leave."
Lance left and Justin once again went to kick it, but was stopped yet again by another tap. This time it was a softer, more friendly tap. He turned around with a frustrated look, but it changed to a smiled when he saw Natalie standing there. "Oh, hi."
"The machine doesn't like you I see."
"No, it hates me, my mom, my dad, my family and my whole world and I don't know why."
Natalie smiled and looked at the vending machine. She saw the sold out sign blinking across on the little screen. "Justin, it's sold out."
Justin looked at it and shook his head. "No it isn't!"
Natalie pointed to the words 'sold out' and smiled. "Justin, they don't have anymore chips in the D8 slot."
"Then how come it worked?"
Natalie looked down to see a bag of chips in the slot on the bottom. She bent over and picked it up and tossed it to Justin. "There. Were you trying to get two bags or something?"
Justin nodded his head slowly. "Yes, and it wouldn't give it to me..."
Natalie looked at the machine and saw that D9 had the same chips. She pressed the number and watched the machine drop the chips to the ground. She yet again bent over and grabbed the chips to give to Justin. "Anymore problems?"
Justin shook his head happily now that he had his chips. "No, thank you, by the way."
"No problem. It's always fun to help a popstar with no common sense."
"You come by those a lot?"
"No, but with all of the problems you have, it doesn't matter how many I come across that are stupid."
Justin raised an eyebrow and smiled at Natalie. "Are you calling me stupid?"
Natalie shook her head and started to walk away. "Not at all."
Justin caught up with her and went into the elevator with her. "Didn't you get what you were coming down for?"
Natalie shrugged her shoulders. "I'm not thirsty anymore, so screw it, and if I get thirsty, I'll just come down and get something to drink. Besides, there are vending machines and pop machines down from my room, but I like coming downstairs because of the fountain in the middle. It's pretty."
"Oh, me too..."
The elevator got to the floor where their rooms were and the doors opened. Natalie and Justin walked out of the elevator to see that the security guards weren't around. Justin sighed. "That's weird. There's usually one security guard."
Natalie shrugged and looked down towards Justin's room and then down towards hers. "They aren't anywhere in this hall..."
Justin smiled with a sigh. "Well, I'll see you later."
Natalie nodded her head and started to go down to her room but Justin's voice stopped her. "Wait."
Natalie walked back and looked up at Justin to see his grin. "What?"
Justin leaned down and kissed her lips briefly. "Consider that a friendly peck on the lips."
All of a sudden, Randy, one of the security guards, popped out and grinned at Natalie and Justin. "Caught you guys."
Justin stared at Randy with a slight glare. "What were you doing?"
Randy shrugged. "Everyone thought you guys were together and I saw you guys go downstairs one after another and Lance went down to see, and when he came back up, he told us that you guys were coming, so I wanted to see."
"Ugh."
"Hey, you can't blame me for being curious, there's nothing else interesting about guarding your ass and everyone elses butts."
Natalie sighed and smiled back at Justin. "Well, I'll let you guys talk about this. I'm going to go down to my room and watch t.v like the lazy hair stylist that I am."
Justin nodded his head and watched her leave. "All right, I'll see you later."
When Natalie closed her door, Randy grinned at Justin. "Heh, she could have you if she wanted you so bad it's not even funny, man."
Justin looked over to see Randy leaning against the wall with a grin on his face. "What are you talking about?"
"You guys want each other, don't lie. I can see it."
"Sure Randy."
"What's up with the little kisses? First the box, then the club, and now the hotel? Man, you're on a roll."
Justin shook his head and walked over to his room. "I don't know what you're talking about, we're just friends now. I don't want to worry. Besides, were you spying on me at the club?"
Randy shrugged his shoulder and yawned. "Well, I have to watch your ass, so I mine as well watch your every move. Man I'm getting tired, I think I'll get Lonnie to take over."
"All right."
Randy walked away and got Lonnie to come out and soon Justin saw Lonnie walking down the hall. "Well, if it isn't Mr. Romance over there."
Justin sighed. "I'm just going to leave..."
"Aw, afraid of the security guard?"
"Not at all."
(Wade and Laura's room)
Laura was sitting on the bed looking through the drawers to see the various things that the hotel put in there for amusement for their guests. She looked at some of the books and rolled her eyes when she found one at the bottom entitled, "Sex Positions: New positions of comfort and more pleasure". She threw it back in there and shut the drawer before she'd find anything else. She wasn't in the mood to find a pile of condoms in there.
She took the remote control and clicked the on button to see if there was anything on TV. When she saw Jerry Springer, she stopped and watched it for a minute. The title of the show for that day was, "Trouble with sibling sexual activity". Laura laughed and watched it for a minute until it went to a commercial. She turned to MTV and started watching The Osbournes. "This show rocks..."
Laura knew the door of the bathroom opened when she smelled Wade, freshly shaven and cleaned. She inhaled it and sighed before putting her attention back to the show. He walked to his bag to grab clothes because he obviously forgot them and he had a towel wrapped around his waste. "Sorry, I forgot clothes."
Laura stared at him and smiled slightly. "Uh, that's quite all right."
"Didn't want to offend you."
"Um, ok."
Wade went back into the bathroom to change. How would that offend her? He's done that several times. It was nothing to bother her. It wasn't like he was walking out there naked. Laura sighed and leaned against the backboard of the bed and continued watching the life of Ozzy Osbourne and his kids on TV. The show truly fascinated her. She found it amusing to see how real these people were.
Soon enough, Wade came back out of the bathroom, toying with his hair, since it was still wet. He continued to soak the water out of it and sat at the foot of the bed, making sure he was away from Laura. He wanted to talk about the kiss, but she was being stubborn at the club, so he didn't want to bother her. Laura tried to look around Wade, who was blocking the TV, but he was still sitting there. "Um, Wade?"
He turned around to see Laura sitting there, smiling. "Yes?"
"Um, could you move to the right a little?"
"Why?"
"Um, I'm trying to watch TV..."
He sighed and moved to the side. "Oh, sorry."
Laura noticed the tone of his voice. He didn't sound angry, but he didn't sound happy, so she crawled to the foot of the bed where he was sitting and sat down beside him. "What's wrong?"
He looked down at her and smiled sincerely. "Nothing."
"Are you sure?"
"Yea, I'm fine."
Laura's shoulders slumped. "All right."
Wade looked back over and sighed. "Laura, the other night..."
Laura put her head down and shook her head. "I'm sorry."
"For what?"
She looked back up and stared into his brown eyes. It was either now or never and she knew that they should talk about it, so it mine as well happen now. JC was right about it though. She should talk to him and just get it over with. "I've been pretty much ignoring you about the whole thing, and I feel bad."
Wade nodded his head and turned over so he was facing her. "I know, but I understand. It just bothered me that you wouldn't even talk to me."
Laura sighed before turning towards him also. "It's just, I don't know what to say. That's not something that would normally happen."
"You're right, but I couldn't help it."
"You couldn't help it?"
Wade looked at her with a concerned look on his face. "Yea?"
Laura shook her head. "You could have easily helped it Wade. I'm your bestfriend, and you decided to kiss me? Right. that's just peachy, don't you think? I'm sorry, but I wasn't expecting it and I didn't want it. I don't understand how you couldn't help kissing me, the girl you've known all your life and all of a sudden you decide, hmm, I could kiss her I guess. Why would you feel something like that?"
Wade backed away and put his hands up. "Well, sorry you have a problem with me seeing how pretty you are and wanting to kiss you. I didn't think you would react like this, jeez, it's not THAT big of a deal."
"Not a big dea? Right, ok Wade, it's not a big deal, yet it could have ruined our friendship. What if I would have kept it going and decided, this is nice, maybe I should hook up with Wadey boy over there. Hmm, sounds like a plan to me. Go ahead, ruin our friendship by making it a 'love' relationship and possibly risk losing you and ruining the relationship between our families? Yea, I'm willing to take that risk."
"And why aren't you?"
"Are you seriously asking me that?"
"Yes, I'm seriously asking you that. You even said yourself that you 'liked the kiss. Laura, if you feel something, YOU FEEL something. You can't help it, I can't help it, IT'S THERE."
"And you're sure of this?"
Wade shrugged. "Maybe it's there, maybe it's not, but what's wrong with seeing?"
Laura shook her head. "I'm sorry Wade." Her voice softened and she got closer to him to look into his eyes. "I just don't want to ruin our friendship. What if it didn't work out and we all of a sudden started to hate each other? That would ruin everything."
Wade nodded his head slowly, understanding exactly what she was saying. "I understand."
Laura hugged him quickly and then looked back up. "Thanks. I just don't want to risk losing you."
"I know."
Laura yawned and lifted her arms over her head. "I'm so tired!"
She stretched her back but she froze still when she felt Wade's arms wrap around her. She put her arms down and looked back up at him. "Wade?"
He smiled down at her. "Yes?"
She shook her head and just gave into what she knew he was going to do. He pulled her onto his lap and she grinned while putting her arms around his neck. He moved his head down slightly to make his lips touch hers softly. His hands roamed around her back and settled at the line between her pajama shorts and her shirt. Laura grinned against his lips and played with his still damp hair.
He moved his lips against hers and opened them over hers. Just as Laura was going to get in it, he pulled away slowly. "Sorry. Couldn't help it that time. You mad this time?"
Laura giggled softly and smiled. "You're too much."
Wade nodded his head. "Yes, I am."
Laura sighed and jumped off his lap to go to the other end of the bed to go to sleep. "I'm tired... I think I'm just going to go to bed."
"All right." Wade moved down to where Laura was now laying and he brought the covers back to climb under them beside Laura.
(outside Natalie's room)
Justin paced outside in the hall, tempting to knock on the door. It was late, but he still wanted to see her. She said she liked water fountains, and on the top floor, the hotel had a very nice set up with the room full of sky lights. He wanted to take her there because he knew he wouldn't have time before they would leave the next morning.
Without further thinking, he just went and knocked on the door. He stood there, rocking back and forth on his heels with his hands in his pockets. He heard some hustling around and finally the door opened. "Yes?" Natalie paused for a second to see that it was Justin. "Oh, hi Justin, what would you be wanting at this hour that I should be sleeping at?"
Justin smiled at her language usage. "Um, I wanted to take you somewhere."
"Oh." Natalie sighed. "I look like crap, I shouldn't be going anywhere."
Out of all the days she has been on the tour with them, they rarely saw her hair in a ponytail, undone. She usually had it down, unless she had a rushed day. "You look fine. I like you with your hair up."
She looked at her clothes and shook her head. "I'm in my pj's."
Justin smiled. "Yes, and you look nice, and I am in mine too, so it doesn't matter, besides, you're with Justin Timberlake. Hello! They won't care. Besides, it's late, no one is out."
"The guards are."
"And you want to impress them?"
Natalie smiled and walked out of the room and closed the door. "Fine. Where are we going?"
Justin took her hand and dragged her to the elevator. "Up to the top floor we go."
Natalie loved the way he was doing this. He was being in control and trying to surprise her, and she like that. He told her to close her eyes when they got in the elevator. "Why do I have to close my eyes for the elevator? It's just an elevator."
"But we're almost at the top and I don't want to ruin it for you."
"Ok there Justin."
Soon the elevator got to the top floor and the door opened. Natalie heard water and smiled. "I hear water."
Justin grinned and took her hand to lead her out of the elevator. "That you do, It would sure be water."
Natalie smiled and walked out happily. "Are we outside?"
Justin shook his head and took her to the middle of the room. "No, we're on the top FLOOR. Not the roof. I would tell you if that was where we were."
Natalie grinned. "Can I look yet?"
"No."
"You know what is cool about this?"
"What?"
Natalie smiled and spun around. "It's like Beauty and the Beast! Like when the beast takes Belle into the library room and tells her to be silent and he opens the curtains and tells her to open and she sees all of those books and she was so happy and yea! That was a great scene."
Justin shook his head and kissed her hand. "It's not quite like that, considering it's dark out."
"Oh. Oh well!"
Justin smiled. Her and her disney movies. She loved them. "Well, you can open your eyes."
Natalie opened her eyes to see the huge waterfountain they had setup. "Oh my gosh, that's so pretty!"
Justin shrugged. "Yea, I saw it before when we were here, so I decided to bring you up here since you said that you liked waterfountains."
Natalie hugged Justin. "Thanks for showing me! That makes my night. You actually did something nice for me. Way to go Justin!"
"HEY! I'm not that bad of a guy!"
"Uh huh."
Justin shrugged. "I'm a nice guy."
Natalie shook her head and looked up at the ceiling to see all of the skylights. "Oh my gosh, look at that." She pointed to the ceiling.
"Oh yea, I forgot to show you that."
Natalie continued to look up at it. "I know that everyone is like this, but I really do love stars. I know everyone does that, but I can't help it. They are so romantic." She looked back down at Justin. "It really is nice in here. I wish I could sleep in here. Actually, I wish this was my room..."
"That could be arranged.."
"I was kidding!"
Justin smiled and stood next to Natalie. "I love this room. The few times we've been in this hotel, I would come up here to think and write things."
"Really? That's so sweet."
Justin looked back down at Natalie and grinned. He slowly lowered his head to hers and touched his lips to hers. Natalie moved her arms to his shoulders, allowing one hand to drift back to the little bit of curls he had left. Justin's hands settled on her back and he continued to kiss her.
Natalie sighed against the touch as Justin continued to open and close his lips over Natalie's. He didn't think they should go to far with this, but he figured that if they could survive the first kiss, then this one would be fine. In result, he opened her mouth by pressing down on her chin with his thumb that was now raised to her face.
Slowly he slid his tongue in her mouth to deepen the kiss. He still didn't know her as well as he should, but he really liked her, and he was confident that she like him too and that was comforting to him. He was glad that he brought her up here, especially if it resulted in this amazing kiss.
Natalie leaned up on her tip toes to let the kiss deepen in intimacy. She smiled against his lips and kissed his lips slowly before pulling away slowly. She leaned back down and grinned up at him. "You're so funny."
Justin started chuckling with her giggle. "Why do you say that?"
"I don't know. You bring me up here to show me this, and look where we ended up again."
"Is there a problem with it?"
"Not at all."
Justin smiled and leaned back down. "Well then." He kissed her lips one more time before sighing. "I'm really tired."
Natalie yawned and walked over to the elevator with Justin. "Me too."
In the elevator they were silent, but when they got to their floor, Justin smiled at Nataile. "I'll see you in the morning."
Natalie nodded her head after giving him a small kiss. "All right."
"See you later."
Natalie walked down to her room and sighed as Lonnie shook his head. "You kids are just trouble..."
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