Laney's P.O.V.
Slouched over my desk resting my head on my hand I scrolled through some of my newest Youtube messages. Some were flattering, some were hysterical, and some were just outright creepy.
To: JustLaney
From: UnoUwantDis
Hey bby, ur so hot. Message me bk sumtime maybe we can get 2 no each othr. Ur sexy ;)
I shuddered at that last message. Why do some guys have to be so cocky and gross? A simple, 'Hi! You're pretty!' would suffice but nooooo. They have to go and get all dirty.
I clicked on a few more messages all requesting I sing different songs.
Job For A Cowboy? Really? I thought to myself. They really expect me to try and make a fool out of myself by pig squealing and screaming? I laughed a little at that and just shook my head causing my long, dark brown hair to fall out of my loose, messy bun. I clicked one last message and fixed my hair while waiting for the new page to load.
To: JustLaney
From: Babygrl229
You should sing E.T. by Katy Perry! That'd be AWESOME! Luvya!
I pondered over that idea for a few minutes until I was shaken out of my thoughts by my door being knocked on. I slid my chair back and walked across my living room to open the door to my new apartment. Standing there smiling her biggest grin was one of my best friends, Kayla. I smiled back at her and moved to the side so she could come in.
"Hey! I seriously feel like I haven't seen you in ages!" Kayla squealed as she knocked me backwards by her hug. I laughed and hugged her back.
"I know! It's been like 2 weeks. School and moving have just kept me so busy lately. Thankfully only 2 more weeks until summer break and we can actually relax and prepare for college!" I added emphasis on the word 'college'. Kayla did a little happy dance as she thought about how we would be attending the University of Georgia together in the fall.
"So, show me around your new place! I'm totally sleeping over here all the time. There are not many 17 year olds that get an apartment right out of high school. And you're not even out yet! Man, this place looks so cool…" she drifted off as she wandered around my 2 bedroom apartment taking everything in. There were still boxes all over the place filled with random decorations and necessities. I'd been there about a week now but I just hadn't gotten around to unpacking it all yet.
"Have a look around, Kay. I'm gonna make something to eat, you want anything?" I asked as I walked into the small kitchen pulling out a pot to boil some water.
"No thanks, Laney. This place is so cool… I'm super jealous right now! But wait, doesn't the drive to school every day kind of suck?"
I thought about it for a minute then replied while pouring some pasta into the quickly boiling water. "Nah, I've gotten used to it. Plus, I only have to put up with the 30 minute drive for another 2 weeks then once school starts in the fall I'll only be a 10 minute walk away from the campus." She nodded in response mumbling a quiet 'good thinking'.
"It's settled," Kayla said as she sat down at my 2 person dining table, "I'm spending every day here during summer!" She grinned widely at me and I just laughed and shook my head. I leaned back on the counter and crossed my arms across my chest.
"You know Rach will be here a lot too, right? You'd have to deal with her." I raised my eyebrow and looked at Kayla inquisitively.
She sighed replying, "I really have no problem with Rachel. I feel like she's the one who has problems with me. I'd like to hang out with her more, I really would, she just never seems to want to see me." Kayla had a sad look on her face now. Rachel, Kayla and I, Laney Robertson, used to be best friends. Somehow, somewhere along the lines of high school the two became more and more distant. None of us really know how it happened, it just kind of did. Kayla bounced me back to reality as she sprang up next to me tying her long, curly, light brown hair into a high pony tail. I remembered my pasta was almost done and went to strain it then put it on a plate.
"I got a new request on Youtube today that sparked my interest," I mentioned to my two friends sitting on the couch across from me watching the newest episode of Jersey Shore. Kayla was still here from earlier and my guy friend Peter had come by to see my new place. Peter leaned forward on the couch and inquired about what song it was. Peter is the one with the recording studio in his basement, all the technology, and is going to school to become a record producer. He was actually the one who got me started on the whole 'Youtube singing' thing. He claimed he needed practice for school. "E.T. by Katy Perry" I continued noticing both of their inquisitive faces.
Kayla's face lit up. "I love that song. You'd be awesome at that."
Peter nodded in agreement to Kayla's comment. "That'll give me a chance to work on some of my mixing skills, which according to my professor I need a lot of… Stupid bastard..." he mumbled the last part and Kayla and I just giggled at him. Peter got up to leave and put his jacket on. "So, tomorrow at our usual time?" I nodded and gave him a hug good-bye. "See ya tomorrow Lane." He turned the doorknob and was gone in the blink of an eye. I locked the deadbolt and turned back to Kayla.
"Dude… He so likes you." She laughed and walked into the kitchen to get a new soda.
"Whatever, he definitely doesn't. We've been friends for like 3 years." I pushed her a little and she almost spilt her soda. I just laughed at her. "Staying the night tonight then?"
"Yeah, you really think I'm gonna drive a half hour back at 12:30am? I don't think so!" We giggled and headed back to the couch to finish the Jersey Shore episode that was currently on pause. The rest of the night we gossiped about boys, school, and what we were going to do over the summer. We both decided that spending our saved money on a well deserved vacation was very necessary. Only 2 more weeks until we graduate and can jet off to who knows where! We couldn't wait.
Justin's P.O.V.
"When I see your face,
There's not a thing that I would change,
Cause you're amazing,
Just the way you are,
And when you smile,
The whole world stops and stares for awhile,"
She smiled at the camera as she continued to sing into the microphone.
I jumped as Ryan plopped down next to me. Ryan Butler and Chaz Somers visit me on tour pretty often, and this week was one of those weeks. Frantically I paused the Youtube video and ripped my Bose ear buds out of my ears.
"Dude, you're not watching her videos again are you?" Ryan asked incredulously.
"Psh…No… This is… some other chick…" I panicked as he reached to grab my laptop from me and I quickly managed to hit Atl+F4 closing the browser before he could prove me wrong. Ryan looked at me in slight disbelief.
"You've gotta be kidding me, man. You watch her videos every spare chance you get. It's getting a bit…sad?"
"Whatever," I said trying to snap out of my somewhat hypnotized state, "just turn on the Xbox and throw me a controller. If I beat your ass in this Call of Duty round I get to watch her videos for a week without a word out of you." I smirked and Ryan held the silver Xbox logo button on his controller to turn on the console.
"Whatever, man, whatever." Ryan slowly shook his head at me while setting up the new map for us to play on. The map loaded and we each ran to different parts of the board getting the best guns and ammo. As I got into a rhythm in the game my thoughts slowly faded out.
It's not like I'm obsessed with this chick or anything. I don't stalk her.
Trying to convince myself what I was doing wasn't a bad thing my thoughts kept racing.
I only managed to find her videos because I was creeping on my fans covers of my songs and she was linked to some of them. She does have a beautiful voice, though… And she is kinda cute.
Kinda?
Okay, okay, she's gorgeous. Her long, straight, brown hair is always perfect, her chocolate eyes always suck me in, and her lips…
"Shit!" Ryan yelled out as I shot him for a 5th time. Quietly I chuckled to myself throwing the controller onto the table in front of us. Yes, a whole week without grief! Giving Ryan my signature grin I stood up and stretched.
"Seems like the bus has stopped moving. Wanna go out and see where we are now? Maybe get some food?" I suggested to Ryan as I grabbed my red hoodie and threw it on over my plain black tee. Ryan nodded and got up to stretch as well. "Hey, Chaz!" I yelled out expecting him to charge in rambunctiously. We didn't get an answer. We made our way to the bunks and noticed he was still napping. "Can he sleep or what?" I asked kind of hypothetically. Ryan lightly kicked him as he was sleeping on the bottom bunk.
"Dude what the fuck?" Chaz mumbled half asleep.
Ryan answered while nudging him again with his foot, "The bus has stopped. We're going to get food."
"Food? I'm in!" Quickly Chaz jumped out of the bunk and flew over to the door nearly knocking us both over.
"If there's anything he loves more than sleep and girls, it's food." mumbled Ryan as we followed Chaz out onto the street.
The three of us quickly looked around taking in our surroundings noticing we were stopped at a gas station slash rest stop. We also noticed there was some kind of restaurant attached to the gas station. None of us understood the name, it was written in some symbolic type. I shrugged and headed over to the other bus that had been following us.
"Hey mom?" I yelled out as I bounded up the stairs to the smaller bus.
"I'm right here, Justin. It's a bus, not a mansion." My mom, Pattie, laughed as she stood up to greet the three of us.
Shrugging and apologizing I told her we were going to get some food from the gas station.
"Wait, let me get Kenny! You know you're not allowed to go without him." I rolled my eyes and groaned. "Kenny! Do you mind going with the boys to get some food." Kenny made a noise to state that he was in compliance and the 4 of us headed towards the service stations restaurant.
"Where exactly are we, Ken?" Chaz asked inquisitively while looking around the tiny self-serve 'restaurant'.
"Uhh.. I think we're somewhere in between Taichung and Taipei, Taiwan. Only about another hour and a half or so until we get to the hotel for your show in Taipei in two days." I nodded my head, thankful we only had another hour and half left on the bus. The three of us were getting a little bit of cabin fever; no pun intended.
"Hey, Hey Justin!" I looked up from my take-out box of fried rice and met eyes with Chaz. He was currently waving his arms around like an idiot. "Why did the plane crash?" Slowly Ryan, Kenny, and I all looked at each other knowing this was going to be one Chaz's stupid jokes. I swallowed my mouthful of rice, hard, and just looked at Chaz while he sat there with a huge goofy grin plastered on his face waiting for my reply.
"Why, Chaz… Why did the plane crash?" The three of us waited as Chaz looked at all three of us pausing for dramatic effect.
"BECAUSE! The pilot was a loaf of bread!" He busted out laughing immediately nearly spilling his Kung Pow chicken all over the floor and himself. We just looked at each other and slowly started to laugh. It was just so stupid you couldn't inot/I laugh. Chaz managed to pull himself together enough to finish off his chicken and thankfully let the rest of us finish off our meals with just pointless talk of back home, the past shows, and the hot chick that was working at the restaurant. "Okay, okay, on a serious note Bieber," Chaz placed his empty box on the table and put on the most serious face I think I've ever seen him make. Out of suspicion I raised an eyebrow and placed my empty box down as well. "I've come up with a line for your next love song. You just have to promise to give me credit!" He paused again and leaned forward in his chair, thrusting his hands out in front of him in a 'stop' motion. "Yo momma so fat, she fell in love and broke it!" He fell into a fit of giggles again and almost slid out of his seat.
"Chaz.. you are SO stupid." I shook my head and walked back to my room on the bus. "I think I'm gonna take a nap until we get to the hotel, guys." Ryan and Chaz headed to the Xbox and Kenny plugged in his headphones while reading a pretty lengthy book. Quietly, I shut the door to my room behind me and pulled out my laptop.
Okay, I'll only watch her Just The Way You Are cover one more time, then I'm done for two days.
Two days? You're gonna kill me!
Ryan's kind of right, though. I'm Justin Bieber. I don't obsess, I get obsessed over.
I signed my password into the log in screen of my computer and waited for my desktop to load. Quickly I double clicked on the browser icon and pulled up Youtube.
Thank God for the wifi on the bus!
Signing in to my new, private Youtube account I clicked on my subscriptions and quickly found her. JustLaney. With the private Youtube account it allows me to creep on my fans inconspicuously. I rested my head back on the headboard and closed my eyes in thought as I waited for the video to load once more.
Why am I so set on watching this girls videos over and over? Plenty of fans have made covers of my songs, and others, before, I never got hung up on them. Maybe it was the way her eyes played with the viewer, pulling them in? Maybe it was the way she was able to portray such emotion with every word she sang? Maybe it was-
My thoughts were cut off by the video starting after it fully loaded.
"His lips, his lips,
I could kiss them all day if he'd let me,
His laugh, His laugh,
He hates but I think it's so sexy"
How many times had I watched this video and just now noticed she had changed the lyrics to sing about a guy?
You're slippin', Bieber.
"When I see your face,
There's not a thing that I would change,
Cause you're amazing,
Just the way you are,
And when you smile,
The whole world stops and stares for awhile,
Cause boy you're amazing,
Just the way you are."
Her voice trailed off and she smiled into the camera and shyly looked down before the video faded to black. I just sighed in content. I reloaded my home page noticing a newly uploaded video by one of my subscriptions.
No way… I thought to myself. She just uploaded a new video… Like… 2 minutes ago… I'm not a creeper, I'm not a creeper, I'm not a creeper. I kept trying to reassure myself as I clicked on her newest video. E.T. by Katy Perry? Oh, this is gonna be good. Knowing Katy personally I knew this JustLaney girl had some pretty big shoes to fill. Ceasing my thoughts the 'play' button was pressed and I watched in silence as she filled the video screen. There she was, standing in the empty sound room; nothing was visible except for her and her microphone. After a few seconds of listening I found my mouth slightly agape at the fact that she sounded absolutely amazing. My head fell back, hitting my pillow and for once I was completely speechless. This girl, whoever she was, amazed me. I looked over to the amount of views; only 15 so far. I quickly 'liked' the video and my eyes fell over to the side of her homepage.
How did I not notice this before? I asked myself in slight shock. She had another channel. With multiple videos. Unseen videos. Hell. Yes. Clicking the link to her other channel, her newest video titled 'The Ones Behind The Music' started loading immediately. Hmm.. This video is from two days ago. I wonder what this channel is about. As I was waiting for the video to load I scrolled through this homepage reading her info. Ahh, just random videos, bloopers, that kind of stuff. Scrolling back up to the top of her page I clicked 'follow' then 'play'.
There was a different girl in the screen, with a different view of her studio room. I saw a guy behind a glass wall smiling brightly at the different girl while she danced around the room to Look At Me Now by Chris Brown. Far off in the distance I heard a faint yell.
"Guys, don't start without me!" then a quick, cute giggle. The face of the girl I was so familiar with ran into the sound room clutching two bottles of water. She tossed one to the other girl who caught it without a hitch. The video skipped to a view of the familiar girl clutching her mic, wearing huge headphones, and nodding her head up and down to the beat of the Chris Brown song. The other girl was in the background mouthing something to the guy behind the glass. He nodded his head in understanding and she started to dance again, mouthing bits and pieces to the catchy rap song. Suddenly, I could tell Busta Rhymes part was coming up. Laney smirked into the camera and flashed a grin at her friends while relaxing her shoulders and clutching onto the mic again.
No way… She's not gonna do what I think-
I was cut off with the sound of her melodic voice rapping over Busta Rhymes.
"Cause I'm feelin' like I'm runnin'
And I'm feelin like I gotta get away, get away, get away
Better know that I don't and I won't ever stop cause you know I gotta win every day, day
See they don't really wanna pop me,
Just know that you will never flop me,
And I know that I can be a little cocky,
You ain't never gonna stop me,
Every time I come a bitch gotta set it, then I got it going, then I gotta get it, then I gotta blow, then I gotta shudder any little thing the bitch think that she be doin-"
My jaw literally dropped in amazement. The speed of the words didn't even seem to faze her at all. The video made a transition to a handheld cam being carried around a different room, seemingly a living room.
"Peter, say hi!" a female voice commanded nicely.
"Uh, hi camera that's obnoxiously being shoved in my face. Lane, what are you doing?" The guy, apparently called Peter, asked while backing away from the camera. I could tell he was tall, tan, and kind of muscular. He was an attractive guy, I'm not going to lie. No homo, of course. What was this I was feeling towards this guy calling the camera woman 'Lane'?
Did I just feel a spark of…jealousy? No way… Once again, I'm Justin Bieber. I don't get 'jealous'.
She started to speak again, "I'm making a video for all of my Youtube subscribers showing off my wonderful friends!" She laughed and tried to get serious again, "No really, I want to show all of my followers who help me make my wonderful videos! Without you guys-" the camera panned to the left showing the other unknown female from before, "I wouldn't be able to make these vids. So, Peter-" the camera panned back to the male in front of her, "tell Youtube land what you do!" I could sense the smile in her voice.
Peter just kind of looked at the camera for a second while thinking, then answered, "I produce your songs…" Laney turned the camera to her face and she had the most dumbfounded look ever.
She gave a bored look to the camera and just mumbled something about him being hopeless. "Kayla, tell all my viewers what you do!" Laney flipped the camera to her female friend we now knew as Kayla.
Kayla smiled brightly and started, "Well, I'm not really good with computers… I help rewrite songs and offer moral support!" Her smile got brighter, if that was possible.
"Awesome!" Laney flipped the camera back to herself and continued, "And as you all know already, I'm Laney. Or Lane. Or JL. Or JustLaney. Whatever!" She smiled sweetly. "These are two of my best friends and the ones who help me out with my Youtube channel. Be sure to give them some love! Go follow Peter on Twitter and Youtube at PeterJMusic! Be sure to check out his music. Follow Kay on twitter at KaySweets! They love to hear from you guys. I guess now we're just going to go have some fun and let you guys tag along for the ride." Laney flashed one last smile at the camera before it flipped to some scenes of them going out doing stuff. They went bowling, to a movie, drove around, goofed off, and their last stop was a mall.
"Seriously?" I yelled a little louder than I had hoped to. Ryan started knocking on my bedroom door. "Uh, yeah?" He opened the door and peeked his head through with a questioning look on his face.
"What's goin on?"
"Oh… Nothing. Was just surprised about something, that's all." I tried to play it off like it was nothing big when in fact, it was huge. I paused for a minute, scratching my head and furrowing my brows. Looking back up at Ryan I opened my mouth to speak. "She lives in Atlanta, dude… She made a video in Lenox Mall. I'd know that mall anywhere considering that's where I spend all my free time when I'm home." Ryan just stared at me in disbelief for a few seconds.
"You've been creeping on her all this time? I thought you were gonna nap?"
"I thought so too, I just kind of… found her second channel." Ryan shook his head at me and turned to leave but the sound of my voice stopped him.
"I gotta find her, Ry." He turned to look at me and just stood in the doorway. His facial expression said it all. How the hell am I gonna do that?