Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1999 21:45:35 EST From: Papito1465@aol.com Subject: Rob-Lance 5 XII It was now 12:30, I had finished signing all of the contracts and the guys came walking in. The contract said that I was to produce at least 4 albums by the year 2005. Then we would re-negotiate. One of the best parts was that I would be going on tour with the guys in there upcoming summer tour. During that time before, I would be recording my first album mostly in NY, FLA, CA and a couple of other places on the road. I was also going to be doing publicity, appearing on talk shows, some with the guys and some without. I had photo sessions, magazine interviews. All this scheduled and I hadn't even recorded the first song yet. I would even get to co-produce some of the album. The song that we did the day before was for the guys' album. That would be the first single off of it. It was said to be the song to introduce me going on tour with them. I was happy beyond words! My life was going great! I was in love, my dream of becoming a singer and producer, were just beginning and for the first time in my life, everything was going right. When the guys came in Lance told them the news and they all came over to me and congratulated me and gave me a hug. It was now time to get to work on another track. For the first couple of hours, I just sat in the control room taking mental notes and observing everything that I possibly could at once. "What do you think we should do here?" Tom said. "Hmm, let's see.. Ok. JC, I want you and Justin to sing the line, Chris you, harmonize with them pick whatever note. Joey and Lance, you guys continue with the chorus." I said. They did as I had told them and Lance gave me a look that was soo sexy I lost my train of thought. "ROB!" Tom said, "Look, what do you think? We can either sing another chorus, or go to the bridge. Which do you want to do?" "Uuh, well, what do you guys wanna do?" I asked. "How bout we sing the bridge, go back to the first verse, sing the chorus, and then go to the bridge?" Lance suggested. "Yeah, let's try that!" I agreed. "Ok, you heard him. Let's do this, and then we'll break for some food." Tom said. They sang what we had said and we took a break. "So, where do you wanna eat?" JC asked. "I don't know. You?" I said. "Uh, uh, uh, in honor of your landing a record deal, you get to choose and it's on me!" Lance said. "Well, in that case. No, uuhh, let's go..to... Gray's Papaya!" "Hot dogs?" Justin asked. "Yeah! I'm in the mood for some good hot dogs!" I said. We went over to Gray's by 72nd St. We got our food and we ran into some fans who wanted an autograph. The guys signed some things and Chris said, "This here is Rob, he's gonna blow up in a few months, if I were you I'd get his autograph now and then you can say `I met him before he was really big!' Trust me!" I started blushing as they came over and I gave them my autograph. "Get used to it man, in a couple of months, it'll be ten times worse than this!" JC said. We took our hot dogs over to Central Park and sat on a rock and finished them. "This is the first time I've been here in a while!" Joey said. "I come here a lot to think. It's pretty peaceful as long as you know where to go." I said. "What do you mean?" Justin asked. "Well, considering a lot of people come here, it's hard to find secluded places where you can be alone. But I have found one where only I go, no one else knows about it. C'mon, I'll take you there." "You sure? If it's your own private place." Chris started to say. "I know I can trust you guys, anyway, it'll give you a place to run to if ever you are here being chased by fans." I said starting to laugh. We walked down a covered up path and across a little stream. Once we climbed up the rocks and went through the wooded area we were there. "This is it." "WOW! This is really beautiful!" Lance said. "Yeah, I know. I found it the day after my ex broke up with me. It's been my sanctuary ever since." "Oh, I'm sorry." JC said. "Don't be. Everything happens for a reason! If she would've never broken up with me I would've never met the new love of my life as well as the rest of you guys. Not to mention the record deal." "You two are in love?" Justin said happily. "When were you gonna tell us?" JC said. "We didn't really get a chance." I said. "Yup, you heard him, we're in love!" Lance said as he came over and hugged me. "Hey, guys, I'd hate to break up the moment, but we really ought to be getting back to the studio now. We don't want Tom to get pissed." Joey said. "Yeah, he's right." I said. "C'mon, I know a short cut. Be prepared to run!" They agreed and followed me. We had to run across an open field filled with people. Some old, some young, mostly teens. They recognized the guys in an instant. We were running for dear life now, the girls got up and were chasing us. We managed to get in my car and drive off avoiding any deaths. "Whoa! That was close!" I said catching my breath. "Get used to it! If you become a smash like we know you will, it'll be like that everywhere you go!" Justin said. "Also, you two gotta be extra careful now. Now, since you're both gonna be in the public eye, you gotta watch what you say and do in public." JC said. "I know that!" Lance said. "Yeah, just making sure Rob does." "It'll be hard, but we can manage!" I said. "Oh, yeah, did I tell you guys? Rob is gonna be coming back with us to Orlando next week. He's gonna be doing some of the album there." Lance said. "For real? That's cool!" Justin said. "Yeah, that gives us more of a chance to chill." Joey said. "And now we get to show you our homes." Chris said. "Does anybody know about me yet?" I asked. "Yeah, my mom does. I told her about you this morning on the phone." Justin said. "Any objections?" Lance asked. "No, she just says to be careful. And that she hopes everything works out for the best." We got back to the studio around 5:30, Tom didn't get back until six so we were chillin in the studio waiting for him to return. "I wanna ask you guys a favor." I said. "What?" they all said. "I want you guys to be as much apart of this album as anyone else, even more so. So, maybe you can write a song for me, or help produce one. I'd really like that. I know how much you guy's love the music and I guess this is my way of thanking you for all you have done. So, will you?" "Of course! You think we were gonna let you go at this alone? You're apart of the family now, there was no way we were gonna let you go at this on your own." JC said. "Thank you, this really means a lot to me! Now, enough of this mushy shit, let's start working now! I have some ideas for a song and I want you guys to sing it." "Like what?" Joey asked. "Well, no offense to the rest of you, but I would really like to hear Joey and Lance do a whole solo or maybe even a duet together. You three are the ones whose voices get put up front the most, and it would really be a change of pace." "Oh, yeah! We were gonna do that anyway!" JC said. "What were you gonna do?" "Well, we have this 2 songs written already, one for mostly Joey, and the other for mostly Lance." Justin said. "Can I hear them?" "I think the one for Joey's we already laid down the first couple of verses, we just had to hook it up with a phat beat." Justin said. "Yeah, here it is, let me put it on." Lance said. He put it on and I heard it, the song was pretty good, and they were right, it needed a new beat. Just as I started doing a beat box and suggesting some beats, Tom walked in and asked what we were doing. "Oh, we're just going over a song, making some suggestions." Chris said. "Oh really, what song? Let me hear!" Tom said. I started doing a beat box again along with the song, Justin joined in and together we came up with the perfect beat. I went over to one of the computers and recorded it on one of the sequencing programs. "So, you wanna do this song now and get it over with?" Tom asked. "Yeah! Let's do it!" Joey said. "Alright get in there, and this will be the last track we do for today. You guys got tomorrow off, but I want you to be back here Thursday at 1:00. Now, let's get to work!" They went into the booth and we started recording Joey's song. The beat that we had created was just what the song needed, Tom kept congratulating me on a job well done, and saying I really had a talent for this. I kept thanking him and focused in on Lance as he was working. He looked so cute when he was concentrating. I tried not to let my mind slip this time and kept concentrating on the song. After a while we were done for the most part. "Alright, I think that's good enough. What about you?" Tom asked me. "Almost, I just wanna work a little more with Joey though. The rest of the guys are done." I said. "Ok, tell them that they can get out of here but Joey has to stay for a while. I'm out of here unless you need me. You seem to have everything under control, here's the key. Just lock up when you finished." "For real? You sure you wanna leave me here with all of this to do?" "Yeah, I trust you. I know you won't let me down." "Thanks! Ok, guys all of you can go except for Joey, I wanna work with you a little more to get this thing perfect!" All the guys walked out of the booth except for Joey. "Yo, I'm tired!" Justin said. "Yeah, me too!" Lance said. "Why don't y'all go back to the hotel and get some sleep?" I said. "What about you though?" Lance asked. "Don't worry about me. I'll drop by later." "What about Joey?" Chris asked. "I'll drop him off when we're done here. Really, if you're tired go get some sleep!" "Shit, you don't have to ask me twice!" JC said. "Yeah, let's go man! We'll call the limo." Justin said. "I don't wanna leave you." Lance said as he came closer to me. "Don't worry baby! Anyway," I started to say in his ear in a seductive voice, "if you get some rest now, we can play later and you won't be tired." "Oh, in that case, let me get some sleep now!" He said with the quickness. "You horny little dog!" "Damn right!" We kissed and he left with the rest of the guys. It was just me and Joey in the studio now. "You want any water or something before we start?" I asked through the intercom. "No, I'm ok. Let's do this, the faster we get done the faster we can get out of here." "My kind of guy! Ok, let's take it from..the second verse." "Fine with me!" He started singing and he sounded good. I didn't know why he didn't get more solo's. When the chorus came he added lib then I stopped him. "What?" he asked. "Nothing, that was perfect! But remember, Justin is going to sing the next verse. All we have to do now is record the bridge and we can get out of here. You ready?" "Let's do it!" The singing of the bridge didn't go too well the first couple of times. We wound up doing it at least five times before I was satisfied with the product. I figured we could add something later if we needed to but for now that was good. I told him that he could come in the control room now, I just had to go over some of the recorded track and then we could leave. "You ready to go?" I asked. "Yeah, let's go!" he said as we walked out the door. I locked up and we walked to the elevator. "You up for some coffee or something?" I asked, "My treat!" "Yeah, sure. I could use some tea right about now. I know this place right around the corner where we can go and not be disturbed." "Lead the way." We got in the elevator and I started a conversation about Superman. I told him that I had been collecting comics for years and offered to show him my collection. It turned out that he had some issues that I was missing so we decided that one of these days to look at each other's collection to compare and contrast. Once we got out the building we walked to the coffee shop and he ordered tea and I ordered hot chocolate. "You don't like coffee?" He asked. "I do, but not American coffee. All they had in there was crap." I said. We sat down at a table and started talking again. "This is gonna be cool, you going on tour with us and all. Sort of like the sixth member. It's weird how in such a short time, you've become part of our family! But then again, that's how it was when we first met Lance we all just clicked." "It was fate." "Yeah, I guess. So, how long have you lived in NY?" "Well, I've lived here my whole life, but just recently moved to the city when I graduated High School and my uncle moved to N. Carolina. He left me his apartment, I shared it for a while with one of my friends but he transferred to a college in Boston. I can't afford to go to college just yet so I'm working at a place down the block from where I live. Oh shit! I just remembered I gotta tell them that I quit! I'll call them tomorrow. Remind me that I gotta stop by my house tomorrow." "Ok, anyway let's get back to the hotel, I'm tired!" "Ok, my car is this way." We got in my car, we were listening to the radio. We heard the DJ say, they had just spoken to Justin of N SYNC and he said that they were going on tour with an upcoming new artist, Rob, that was just signed to their record label and was already recording as well as producing some songs for his as well as their album. "Oh shit! No he didn't!" I said as we started laughing. "Yeah he did!" "I'm gonna kill the little bastard!" "Why?" "I haven't even told anybody yet and he just blabbed it to half of the Tri-state area!" "They might not know it was you." "True, I hope my mom didn't hear that! She'll kick my ass if she finds out that I didn't tell her first." He laughed as we pulled up to the hotel. We went inside and there were fans waiting in the lobby to try and get an autograph. Joey signed them happily, luckily there weren't that many of them or else we would've been mobbed. We got into the elevator and went upstairs. We passed by JC's room and he and Justin were there listening to the radio. "Yo! Why the hell did you do that man?" I asked Justin. "Publicity man!" He said. "You shouldn't have done that without my permission, I wanted to tell some people first before the word got out." "Oh, I'm sorry, really!" "It's ok, just warn me next time you're gonna do something like that." "No, problem. Once again I'm sorry." "It's ok! Where's Lance and Chris?" "Chris is in his room on the phone with some chick he met last night, and Lance was sleeping last I saw him." JC said. "What happened with you and Jessica?" "Oh, I called her a little while ago, we're gonna go out tomorrow for lunch. Thanks again for hooking me up with her man!" "Anytime bro!" "What about you? What you up to tomorrow?" I asked Justin. "I don't know, I'll probably go play some ball. Hey, if you and Lance are done by then, how bout you come and play that game of 21 you promised?" he said. "Well, depends on tomorrow. I'll try, show you how some real ball is played! Matter of fact, let me get my boy and we can play a 2 on 2." "Aight! Let's do this, tomorrow around 1?" "How bout 2?" "Ok. Fine with me!" "Ok guys, I'm gonna go check on sleeping beauty over there. I'll see y'all tomorrow!" I gave them all a five and went across the hall into Lance's room. The door was unlocked and sure enough. There he was sleeping like a little angel. I decided I wouldn't wake him up just yet. I grabbed the phone, took it in the bathroom and made a few calls. The first person I called was my mom. I told her the good news, about Lance, about the record deal everything. She was ecstatic! I told her to calm down and that I would call her tomorrow. I then called my boy John and told him about the record deal and the game tomorrow. I told him who it was with and he didn't believe me. He was a fan but I told him not to get all freaked cause we still had to kick their ass tomorrow. He said that he would try and be calm and said that he had to go. I then decided to go and wake up my baby. I put the phone back on the charger and got on the bed.