Justin's P.O.V.
The sound of Ryan's voice dragged me back down to Earth. I flipped my hair and looked back over at him, not even noticing that he had sat himself down on the end of my queen sized bed.
"You do remember your girlfriend, right?" He questioned raising his eyebrows at me. I had a puzzled look on my face for a second as I thought then realization dawned on me.
Burying my face into my hands I let out a muffled 'shit'. I dragged my hands down my face so only my eyes were visible. Ryan had an amused look on his face as my eyes shot daggers at him.
I forgot all about Selena.
Being on the international half of the My World Tour keeps us apart and not talking for so long that I sometimes forget that we are actually in a relationship. At the very moment that thought crossed my mind my iPhone started buzzing on the shelf next to me. Groaning, I leaned over to grab it and hit the 'home' button to see who it was from.
"Speak of the damn devil," I whispered quietly, not even sure Ryan was able to hear me. I glanced up at him and motioned for him to leave so I could answer my girlfriends call without distractions. "Hello?" I said quietly into the phone as Ryan closed the door quietly behind him.
"Hey baby!" Selena's perky voice rang through my ears. Normally I would be ecstatic to hear her voice. Not today. "Baby?" she asked, a little disappointment sounding in her voice.
"Oh, sorry. I was-I was sleeping. Long drive to Taipei, you know." I tried to sound sleepy which actually wasn't all that difficult.
"Oh, I'm sorry for waking you baby, I just wanted to call and say goodnight. I haven't gotten to hear your voice in what feels like weeks." Oh that's right; it's about 11pm over in LA right now. It's only 2pm here.
I flipped my hair and shook myself out of my thoughts, "Okay, well good night Selly. Sleep well." The last part was just slightly mumbled. In all honesty, I didn't want to talk to her at all right now. She could be a good girlfriend when she tried; she was just very jealous and hated seeing me have to do anything with another girl, even the One Less Lonely Girl thing during my shows. She absolutely despised it. She could be sweet, like how the public thinks she is, when we're alone or out in the public eye, but when we're separated like this? Forget about it. I've never felt so much hatred, jealousy, and anger beam off on one person before.
"Justin! You're not even listening to me!" Blinking my eyes a few times to center where I was again I could feel Selena getting angry. "Justin, what are you doing? Why aren't you answering me? Is there another girl there with you?"
"What? You've gotta be kidding me…" Not going to lie, I was getting sick of dealing with this every time we talked. "Just go to bed Selly. I need to get some more sleep too. Good night." She huffed into the phone receiver and mumbled 'fine.'
"Love you baby." she said with growing enthusiasm. All I could do is roll my eyes.
"Yeah." I tapped 'end call' on the screen and locked my phone. Letting the phone fall to the side of the bed I just groaned, grabbed my aching head and fell backwards to try and get at least a 20 minute nap before we arrived at the hotel. While I tried to sleep thoughts kept flooding my head.
Why did Selena always feel the need to say she loved me? I know for a fact I'm not in love with her. She always gets so angry when I don't say it back. Does she just expect me to say it because she says it? She can try all she wants; it's not going to happen. With that last thought my mind was able to drift off into a peaceful, undisturbed sleep.
"No," I mumbled in my sleep, "I don't wanna dive into the jell-o… Stop pushing me…Quit…Noooo."
"Dude… Justin… Get the hell up." Scooter was shaking me trying to get me up. "We're at the hotel. Come on, we gotta go before fans notice your bus out front." I rubbed my eyes groggily and watched as he walked out of the door glancing back once more.
Ugghh, I feel dead.
Grabbing my phone, hoodie, and book bag I headed out to the living area of the bus where everyone was waiting.
"Actually get some sleep this time?" Ryan laughed and stood up, clapping me on the back. I passed him and just smiled while flipping my hair.
"C'mon guys. Let's check this place out."
I pulled my hood up over my head and walked down the stairs of the bus, my feet hitting the pavement with a loud thud.
"Justin, you'll be sharing a suite with Ryan, Chaz, and Kenny. Scooter already signed you guys in and here are your room keys." My mom handed Chaz, Ryan and me our room keys one by one but before we could head off she started back up again, "You guys are one the second to top floor, one of the floors that you have to have a key to get to. Don't lose the keys or put them next to your cell phones. The last thing we need is a repeat of Chicago." Chuckling, Chaz and I shot looks at each other remembering finding a crowd of girls on our suite floor because we had lost our room keys with our floor number on them.
"Okay, mom, we'll see you later!" The three of us headed off towards the front door of the lobby as my mom yelled out at us.
"I'll be on the floor above yours and Scooter, Ryan G, and Dan will be on the floor below yours! Don't go anywhere without Kenny!" I threw my hand up in the air to acknowledge my mom's comment towards us.
The sliding doors opened slowly and the three of us were hit with a blast of freezing cold air. We walked in talking about the décor and just glancing around. I fell behind pace of Ryan and Chaz and they continued to gossip about the girls in the lobby. We headed towards the elevator and I slowly fell into my own thoughts, my head looking down towards my feet not really paying attention.
I had only been asleep for about 20 minutes but I managed to have a pretty vivid dream. I dreamt of her. She was just as beautiful in my dream as she is in person. Er, well, video…
"Hey man, you alright? You look kinda out of it." Chaz noticed my dazed expression as we boarded the elevator and he pressed the button with a big '8' on it.
"Hm? Oh, yeah. Just still kinda tired. I've got a plan of how to meet that Youtube girl, I think."
"Youtube girl?" Chaz had a puzzled look on his face.
"You mean you haven't noticed?" Ryan started for me, "He's obsessed with this chick on Youtube that does covers of songs." I looked down at my feet and just blushed a little.
"I wouldn't say I'm obsessed exactly…" My eyes rose to meet Ryan and Chaz staring at me. The elevator dinged indicating we had reached our floor. I inserted my room key into the elevator wall and the doors couldn't open fast enough. As I tried to sprint away to the back room Chaz grabbed the back of my hoodie keeping me from getting away from them. "Come onnn guys," I whined, "This..uh.. this bag is heavy! I wanna go put it down."
"Oh, lighten up you big baby. You just wanna go so you can hole up in your room and stalk her videos some more." Chaz laughed at Ryans comment and high-fived him. With that comment Ryan grabbed my bag and put it in his separate room. "You can have this back later tonight after you do some normal Bieber things. Check out a few girls, flirt a little bit, get some damn sun. You look pale as shit. Come on bro, we gotta go out and do something." I couldn't help but agree with Ryans comment and reluctantly let go of my book bag that housed my laptop.
"Come on, man. Let's explore the suite and check out the TV channels while we wait for Kenny to get up here." Chaz dragged me over to the TV and clicked it on. "Niiice, ESPN and HBO? I guess they adapted some channels for us Americans. Sports and naked chicks. I can dig it." I smacked the back of Chaz's head. "Oww, what the hell was that for?"
"You're such a perv some times." I headed over towards the balcony and swung open the glass door. The view was pretty nice, it showcased a lot of the city; I could even see the venue I was playing at in a few days. Walking back into the room I saw Kenny open the door. "Ken! Kenny! Ken-man! Let's hit up the mall or something."
"Alright, alright. Let me just put my stuff down and take a piss then we can go. Ryan, Chaz and I met around the living area and waited for Kenny to come back out so we could leave.
"So, Justin. Why are you so obsessed with this Youtube chick? You gotta explain this to me." Chaz looked at me while waiting for an answer.
"Like I said before, I'm not obsessed. And I don't really know. She's pretty, has a great voice, has a great smile, she seems really sweet-"
"Woah, and you say you're not obsessed? Hah, okay." Chaz interrupted my spew of compliments and I just punched him in the arm. Ryan and Chaz just laughed at my situation.
"Ready to go guys?" Kenny came out of his room and headed towards the door. The four of us all headed down to the car in the parking lot, Ryan, Chaz, and myself trailing behind Kenny.
"So, what exactly is your master plan to meet this so-called amazing girl that has managed to capture the famous Bieber's heart?" Ryan laughed at himself and I just shook my head in slight embarrassment.
"I'll tell you guys in the car." With that I quickened my pace to catch up to Kenny to talk about where we were headed.
Laney's P.O.V.
Peter's voice came over the loud speaker in the sound room, "Hold on, Lane. Something's not right with the instrumental track. I need a few minutes to check it out." Nodding my head, I pulled off the big Bose headphones, hung them on the mic stand, and walked towards the door leading out to the main room. Kayla was sitting on the black leather couch that was against the wall near Peter's electric keyboard.
"So, Kay, what are we gonna do for our trip this summer?"
Kayla put on a thoughtful face and took a few moments before answering, "Oh, my gosh, let's go to Brazil!" Her smile started growing as she thought about the sun, beaches, and boys.
"That actually sounds really nice! Where in Brazil though?"
I couldn't help but think about the fact that Brazil would be amazing and we both sure did need the vacation.
"Rio de Janeiro of course! The only place to visit in Brazil!" Kayla threw her hands in the air dramatically and put on an exasperated face while I just laughed at her.
"Rio sounds fantastic. We should start putting everything together tonight. When do you think we should go?" As soon as I asked that question Peter called me back over.
"Laney, I got the track fixed. You ready?"
"Yeah, Peter. I'll be right there." I took a swig of my chilled water and set it back onto the end table then headed back into the sound room. Grabbing the headphones off of the stand and placing them over my ears I contemplated the newest song request I had received via Twitter.
I honestly really like this song.
I closed my eyes as the background music to Justin Bieber's 'Pray' started to play.
His vocals dripped with emotion; this song has such a great meaning I'm sure it'll be no problem emitting the same kind of emotion into my voice.
"Oh, Oh, Ohhhh,
Oh, Oh, Ohhh,
Oh, Oh, Ohhhhh,
And I pray,"
I put my heart and soul into the lyrics and it was clearly showing. I guess this song had such meaning to me because I lost a close friend to the war overseas and my mom and I almost lost our house a few years ago if it hadn't been for my dad helping us out.
"Ohh, I got a vision,
To make a difference,
And it's starting today,
Cause I know there's sunshine beyond that rain,
I know there's good times beyond that pain,"
After we finished recording and Peter finished mixing the final cut the three of us had some charity work planned to add into the video later. Kayla and I loved doing charity work together. It took her a few times before she finally stopped crying every time we went, but now we're able to just enjoy our time helping others.
"Hey Peter, park over there." I pointed to a free spot in the back parking lot of the soup kitchen. As we got out of his Subaru I handed him my camcorder.
"What do you want me to tape?" Peter asked me while flipping on the cam to check the battery life and memory storage.
"Hm, just anything that you think will go well with the song. You know what kind of look I'm going for so I trust you with this." I grabbed Kayla's arm and the three of us walked to the dark grey, cement building that looked like it was nearly falling apart. "Hey Josh!" I waved to the guy that was working in the back of the kitchen. We had been here so many times that we already knew everyone here. We were even pretty friendly with some of the regulars here that came for food. I always tried to slip them an extra roll or two if I could manage it. "Slow day so far?" I glanced around the cafeteria looking room. There were two families and a few stray minglers eating in silence.
"It's been alright, Laney. Glad you three could make it! Hey man, how you been." Josh shook hands with Peter then hugged Kayla. Josh was always so friendly to everyone. He was only in his early 30's but he could still pass for 25, easily. "Okay, what do you guys feel like helping out with today?"
"Well, I want to get some footage of all of us working today for one of my 'music videos' so do you think the three of us could rotate between cooking, line work, and serving?" My face was inquisitive as I looked at Josh waiting for his answer.
"No… What, are you crazy? Of course that's okay. You guys have done this enough times to be able to run this freaking place on your own. Whatever's easier for you guys then go for it." A smile lit up my face as the three of us chuckled at Josh's answer. We watched him walk away and went to put our gloves on.
"Oh, guys," I turned to look at Peter and Kayla before I put my gloves on. "I made about a hundred of these little cards to give out today. Only like one per family, or one per single person. They just have nice little sayings and hopeful stuff on them. Nothing special, I just thought it would brighten their day you know?" I pulled out a stack of white cardstock paper all cut into business sized cards and sat them on the table next to me. While I threw my purse into the locker Kayla picked up a few of the cards and read through them while Peter videotaped some of the sayings.
"'You're amazing.' 'Believe you can and you're halfway there.' Lane, these are good. Did you come up with these?" Kayla set the pile back down and finished putting on her gloves.
"I came up with some of them, the others I cheated and used Google." We laughed and then set to work.
"Thanks again for all of your help Peter!" I hugged him as Kayla and I were about to walk back in to my apartment.
"Oh, it was no problem at all. Any time." He smiled back at me and hesitated for a moment before turning to leave. I unlocked my door and Kayla and I walked in, locking the door behind us. As soon as we were inside Kayla started back up again.
"I'm telling you, the kid has it bad for you."
"But he really doesn't."
"Oh, but he really does. Are you blind, woman? He just hesitated, like he wanted to kiss you or something." I kind of shuddered at the thought. Not that Peter was unattractive or anything, it's just that we had been friends for so long now that I just saw him as a brother.
"Please, Kay, don't say that. I'll give you $10 to never say that again." I headed to my desk and picked up my laptop carrying it over to the couch and settling in to edit footage and try to plan our summer vacation. "So where are we going again? Oh yeah, that's right. Rio de Janeiro. When do you wanna go?" I pulled up my internet browser and typed Travelocity's web adress into the URL bar.
"Hmm.. Ohhh, we should spend the 4th of July there!" I just gave her an odd look. "What?"
"You do know that Brazil doesn't celebrate the U.S.A. Independence Day, right?" A look of realization slowly crossed over her face.
"Ohh… Well, that's a bummer… Well then we can spend the 4th here and then leave the 6th? How long is the flight there?" She leaned over my shoulder as I typed in the to and from cities on the travel planner site.
"It looks like it's about a 15 hour flight with a 2 hour layover. We could leave the 6th, get there on the 7th, then stay until the 12th? The tickets are kind of pricey but we've both been saving like crazy. Why not go all out right?" Kayla's smile couldn't have gotten any bigger if Taylor Lautner walked through the door at that very minute. "Okay, now that the flight is chosen lets pick out our hotel." We browsed through the hotels on the page in front of us when we noticed one in particular.
"Oh, click that one." Kay pointed at the image of a tall, white, Oceanside building. We stared in awe at the images in front of us. Jetted hot tubs, rooms overlooking the ocean, gorgeous shimmering pools, a fantastic looking restaurant? That's it, we were sold. "The Windsor Atlantica, I like the sound of that." We booked a single room with two separate beds that overlooks the beach. "Laney, you have no idea how excited I am for this trip. I really hope June flys by. I just wanna be laying on the beach soaking in all the sun I can, sipping on a fruity drink, staring at cute Brazilian guys. Let's just go tomorrow." She rested her head on my shoulder as I typed in my credit card information and lightly laughed at her.
"I wish. June will go by fast, you'll see." I smiled at her, optimistic-minded. "You'll transfer me the cost of half the hotel and your plane ticket tomorrow, right?" She nodded her head while sitting up to stretch.
"I'm gonna go to bed. I've gotta drive back home tomorrow morning to get ready for school on Monday."
"Alright," I glanced up at Kayla, "I'm gonna put together this video. Night."
Kayla headed back to the spare bedroom where her air mattress was blown up while I pulled open my video editor.
After a few hours of editing I was finally done. My eyes were feeling the strain, there was no doubt about it. Already 3 A.M.? How the heck did that happen? I opened up Youtube, clicked 'upload', and set my laptop down on the coffee table to let my newest cover upload. Before I knew it I was passed out on the couch sound asleep dreaming of sunny beaches and fruity drinks.