While James was dropping off Lucy at the airport…

"Jo, I know you're busy, so just call me back when you have the time. Love you." Kendall tossed his phone aside and rested against the headboard of his bed. His guitar lay next to him but he didn't feel like picking it up. What he did pick up was his notebook. Opening to the first blank page he sat up and began writing.

"'It only took a moment/When I looked into your eyes/To realize…'" He paused. "To realize what? To realize that this is a corny verse?" He grabbed his pencil ready to erase, but stopped himself. "It only took a minute, no, it only took a second? 'It only took a second/When I looked into your eyes/To realize' but, what? To realize what?" He imagined looking into Jo's brown eyes. "To realize you have brown eyes. To realize you're the girl of my dreams. To realize what?" He tapped his pencil against his chin. "'It took longer than a minute/When I looked into your eyes/To realize this was not love at first sight.' Yeah, that's romantic." He tossed the pencil aside and rubbed his face. "Jo, just call!" And just that like his phone rang.

"Hey, Baby Sis," he answered. Not the person he wanted, but he was okay talking to his sister.

"Hey, Big Brother. Mom wants me to finalize plans with you. We're flying in Wednesday morning and will be staying until Sunday evening. Sound good to you?"

"Yeah."

"She's checking out things to do in Aspen and getting all touristy."

"I heard that," Kendall heard his mom in the background.

"Tell mom I said hi."

"Mom, Kendall says hi."

"Hi, Kendall!" Mrs. Knight responded. "I'm excited about seeing you guys."

"We're excited, too," Kendall said. Katie did not have him on speaker phone but he could hear his mom pretty well and he was sure she could hear him decently, too.

Kendall was thrilled his mother and sister were coming for a visit. He'd been here for almost a month and any time apart from them seemed too long. He was really close to his family. He felt he had to be since he was the man of the house. He'd been the man since his baby sister was three and that was ten or eleven years ago? How old was Katie now anyway? Too old, he decided. She was starting to wear makeup and be interested in boys. Oh, she'd been interested in boys for a few years, but now she was really getting interested in boys if you knew what he meant. The whole ordeal with Austin Mahone really woke Kendall up to his sister becoming a teenager. Nothing happened, she assured him, but she did text that boy far more than Kendall liked. Not that he had anything against Austin! He was a nice boy. It just showed him that his sister was growing up.

"Big Brother? Kendall?" Katie practically shouted into the phone bringing Kendall back to the conversation. "I asked you if you had anything planned while we're there."

"Oh, um, no. We'll do whatever you want to do. If you want to sit around the house and watch Carlos play this snowboarding game on the Wii that's fine with me."

"No, I do not want to watch Carlos play a video game."

Kendall laughed.

"Oh, hey, Katie," he interrupted whatever she was saying when he heard his phone beep, "I'm getting another call. It's probably Jo."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll let you go. Love you, Big Brother."

"Love you, too, Baby Sis. Tell Mom I love her, too." He pressed a couple of buttons on his phone and switched to the other phone call. "Jo?"

"Hey, Kendall."

"I've missed hearing your voice." He leaned against the pillows on his bed ready to indulge in a long night of talking to his girlfriend.

.

Reclining on his bed, Logan watched Camille talk animatedly waving her arms and such through his laptop. He loved watching her talk. She was an actress in every sense of the word. There was no better vocation for her. She sat on her bed in her room in apartment 4J of the Palm Woods and he sat on his bed in his room on the second floor of Griffin's Aspen cabin.

"I have an audition on Tuesday and then," Camille paused for dramatic effect, "I have the rest of the week off."

"Oh." Logan's face dropped. He'd hoped while he was away she would keep herself busy for two reasons—she'd miss him less and he wouldn't feel like he was missing a lot of time he could be spending with her. He wasn't as heartsick as Kendall was over being away from Jo but it did still make him a little sad that she had days off he wasn't going to be able to spend with her, especially after not being able to see her for an entire three month tour.

"I thought about surprising you; seeing the look on your face would have been priceless, but I just can't keep it quiet any longer. Mrs. Knight and Katie are flying to Colorado on Wednesday."

"That's the 'surprise'?" Logan air quoted. "I already knew that."

"No, I'm the surprise!"

"You?" Logan's eyes lit up when realization dawned on him. "You're coming, too!"

"That's right! I was able to get tickets on the same flights as the Knights. Palm Woods isn't the same without you and the guys around, though we should be used to it with all the traveling your band does now."

"Rigorous schedule of a boy band. Y'know, I never thought I'd be in a boy band. My dream has always been to be a doctor. I think even before I started kindergarten."

"Aw, but you're so cute in BTR! I do get to see you on all the big time TV shows and magazine covers." She held up that month's edition of Pop Tiger which had a funny looking photo of Big Time Rush right smack in the middle of the cover.

"That was when James and my bus broke down in Minneapolis. James was crushed that Gustavo made him get off the bus before he had a chance to grab his Cuda products and fix his hair. That's why he's making that face."

"James, James, James."

"Yep, James. So, you're really flying here on Wednesday?"

"I'm really flying there on Wednesday."

"And you're really going to be here for four days?"

"I'm really going to be there for four days. If I had paper tickets I'd show you."

.

With the sun set low in the afternoon sky and the breeze blowing gently through their hair, well, mostly Alexa's as Carlos's was really too short to make any sort of movement, the young couple sat together in a reclining wooden lounge chair on the porch taking in the impressive mountain view before them, the girl's head casually on the boy's chest. After Carlos tried teaching Alexa how to play his new favorite video game, they decided to take a relaxing break enjoying the fresh air of the Colorado outdoors.

Carlos had never had a serious girlfriend before so he was unsure what he was supposed to do. The closest thing was Stephanie King, but he wasn't sure what happened to her after that dance. Summer came and she didn't come back to the Palm Woods. They never exchanged phone numbers or email addresses or Scuttlebutter accounts or anything. He actually tried looking her up on Scuttlebutter and he did find three Stephanie Kings, but one was a 40 something year old woman and the second was 12 years old. The third one didn't have a picture and the only identifying information she put was that she was a teenager who loved movies. But, when Carlos contacted her she said she was from England and had never left Europe. So he just figured his Stephanie King didn't have one and he would never hear from her again. She could become a famous director and then maybe he'd try to get in touch with her.

He shook his head. Why was he thinking about Stephanie when he was with Alexa? Alexa, the girl that wasn't going to disappear on him. OK, she would technically disappear, but only because she was a spy! He'd still be able to get in touch with her. Alexa, the girl that enjoyed eating corn dogs with him unlike that one girl Gustavo set him up with. He laughed softly at the thought of Gustavo setting him up with a girlfriend. That was not his intention. He wanted to break Carlos's heart by having Sasha dump him so he could properly sing a break up song. Mean. But, Sasha couldn't do it and maybe she would have been Carlos's first serious relationship if it hadn't been for her dislike of his favorite food.

"What's so funny?" Alexa asked.

"Oh, uh…" Carlos stammered. He knew he could not tell his girlfriend that he was thinking about girls he had previously dated while he should be having a romantic moment with her. "Just thinking about something Gustavo did." Maybe he shouldn't have said being with his girlfriend made him think about Gustavo. Oh, ew. Now he was thinking of Gustavo and romance in the same sentence.

"Carlos?" Alexa sat up. "Are you okay?"

Instead of answering her he crashed his lips onto hers. Perhaps kissing her would get him to stop thinking about other things. He could go back to thinking about how wonderful her lips taste. Fruit Smackers. Today they tasted like Fruit Smackers. They'd shared a package a few minutes ago on the porch.

He was enjoying the taste of the Fruit Smackers on Alexa's lips when his phone beeped. It was just a text message so Carlos didn't check it. The phone was in his cargo shorts pocket and answering it would mean Alexa would have to move and he'd have to stop kissing her. After the third reminder beep, Alexa pulled the phone from his pocket and checked it herself.

"Busy tmrrw? – John M.," she read.

John M.? John M.? Carlos took his phone from Alexa. Who was—oh, that's right.

"He's one of the guys we met Friday, the shorter one." He typed out. "Girlfriend's going home tomorrow so no" and sent it out.

Almost immediately he got a reply back.

"Skate Park tmrrw. Join us. –John M."

Carlos liked to skate whether it was board or inline. It wasn't his favorite thing to do. Actually, he preferred ice skating. But, it was fun and maybe he could convince Logan, Kendall, or James to come.

OK, I didn't purposely pick Minnesota as the state where one of the BTR tour buses breaks down. I used "eeny-meeny-minie-moe" and picked the 32nd state which just so happens to be…Minnesota.