Chapter 7

Despite asking for my phone number, Lisa never did call me. Dawn must have told her how I felt, or maybe she didn’t like me as much as I thought she had. In any case, I wasn’t disappointed. It was actually a relief not to have to let her down gently.

Over the next two months, as winter turned to spring, I kept my mind occupied with other things, mainly music and Kentucky basketball. The Wildcats were having one of their best runs ever, losing only one game in the regular season. By the end of March, they had made it into the final four of the NCAA tournament.

“If they beat Louisville and go on to the championship game, I’m gonna host a watch party,” I told Brian over the phone. We had been calling each other every few days to discuss the tournament, getting more and more excited each round as our beloved Wildcats went one step further toward the finals. Harold, Keith, and I had gone to the second round game against Iowa in Louisville, and Brian had taken Baylee to see them play Baylor at the Georgia Dome in the elite eight. The last two games would be played at the Superdome in New Orleans, which was a lot farther away. As much as I wanted to be there, I knew I was better off watching from the comfort of my own home.

“I’ll come!” Brian replied right away. “I’d love to be back in Kentucky when the Cats win it all.”

The last two times they’d won the tournament, we had been overseas. We were in Germany when they went all the way in 1996 and Sweden in 1998. It had been fourteen years since they’d even played in the championship game, so beating Louisville would be a big deal. And yet, it seemed like an almost sure bet: Louisville was only the seventeenth seed, whereas Kentucky had been ranked number one since the end of January. Unless they lost to an underdog, the Wildcats would go up against either the Ohio State Buckeyes or Kristin’s Kansas Jayhawks in the finals.

“Maybe I’ll invite all the fellas,” I said, my mind formulating a plan. If I could get all five Backstreet Boys together, it would be the perfect opportunity to tell the guys in person that I wanted to come back to the group.

“Sounds good, cuz,” said Brian. “Better call ‘em now and tell ‘em to start booking flights before things get too crazy.”

So I called the other boys and invited them and their significant others to spend a few days in Lexington the following week. To my delight, they all said yes, and Kentucky and Kansas both won their final four games, which meant they would face off against each other for the title of national champion.

Dawn and I spent the weekend cleaning and decorating the house. Mason helped us wrap blue and white streamers around the banister of the staircase, while Dawn hung a huge Wildcats banner on the wall behind the couch in the living room. I bought blue plastic cups, plates, cutlery, and a tablecloth for the spread of party food we prepared.

The day of the big game, the guys came over early to eat dinner, drink, and watch the pre-game coverage. I hadn’t seen Nick since his sister died, so it felt good to finally be able to give him a hug. “How ya doin’?” I asked, wrapping my arms around him.

“All right,” he replied, straightening up as I released him. “Some days are harder than others… you know.”

I nodded. “I definitely know. Grief never really goes away, but it does get easier to deal with. It helps to have good people around you.” I smiled at Lauren, who had come with him.

“Yeah,” Nick agreed. “I’ve been trying to stay busy since I got back from my solo tour. Been writing a lot lately for my book, which has been therapeutic for me… and Lauren and I are making another short film with my buddy Danny, who directed The Pendant and my last couple music videos.”

“That’s great, Nick. I’m glad you’re finding new ways to be creative. Keep it up, brother,” I said, reaching up to pat his back as he and Lauren walked past me into the house. Howie and Leigh had just pulled up in their rental car, and Brian, Leighanne, and Baylee were right behind them.

“C-A-T-S!” Brian chanted as he climbed out of the driver’s seat of his car, dressed from head to toe in Kentucky gear.

“Cats, Cats, Cats!” I called back from the porch.

Grinning from ear to ear, Brian practically vaulted up the steps and gave me a fist bump. “Happy game day, cuz!”

“Hey, Kevin!” Howie bent down to hug me. “Thanks for hosting!”

“Thanks for coming!” I replied, escorting them inside. “It’s good to see y’all.”

AJ and Rochelle were the last to arrive. When they walked through the door, Rochelle whipped the beanie off AJ’s head to show me the crop of thick, dark hair that had grown on his scalp in the last six months. “Doesn’t it look fantastic?” she gushed, running her fingers through it. AJ flashed a lopsided grin.

“Bend over and lemme get a better look at it.” He bowed his head so I could see its crown. The bald patch he’d had there for years was covered with hair. “Wow! That really worked well!” I said, impressed.

“Yeah, I’m pretty freaking happy with the results.” AJ ran his hand over his head. “I haven’t had this much hair since I was a teenager. And it’s not even done growing in yet – the doctor said it takes about a year to see full growth.”

“Well, it already looks great. I can’t wait to see how much more hair you’ll have in another six months.”

He chuckled. “Thanks. Maybe I’ll grow it out like yours and Nick’s.”

“Why stop there? I think you should go full-on Howie Jesus hair,” Nick joked, grinning at Howie.

AJ snickered. “Dude, I’d worry about damaging it with the amount of flat-ironing it took D to get that look.”

“Yeah, you’d fry it right off,” Rochelle agreed, giggling.

She and AJ were the only ones who didn’t grab a beer before we got settled for the game, which didn’t seem weird to me at all – I was glad to see that AJ was still sober and Rochelle was still supporting his efforts to stay that way. But once we were gathered together in front of the TV, AJ cleared his throat during one of the commercial breaks. “Hey, can I have everybody’s attention for a minute? Ro and I have something we wanna tell you.”

Immediately, I turned my head to look at Rochelle, who was grinning, her whole face aglow with what I quickly realized was not just newlywed bliss.

“We’re gonna have a baby!” AJ announced, beaming. “You’re looking at the next Backstreet Dad.”

“Wow, that was fast,” Nick said, snickering as everyone else began expressing their excitement and well-wishes. “Honeymoon baby?”

Rochelle laughed as Lauren reached out and smacked him. “Close, but not quite. We’re still in our first trimester, but Alex just couldn’t wait any longer to tell you. I’m not due until the end of November.”

“Congratulations to both of you,” I said, smiling at them as I remembered how good it felt to finally share that closely-guarded secret with friends and family. “You’re gonna be great parents.”

“Are y’all gonna keep the Backstreet baby tradition alive and have another boy?” Brian asked. “We’re three for three on boys now with Baylee, Mason, and James.”

“Alex thinks it’s gonna be a girl, just for that reason,” Rochelle replied, giggling. “You know he always has to do things differently.”

“Damn right,” said AJ with a grin. “Besides, you know I’d be the best girl dad.”

I had to agree there. AJ already wore makeup and nail polish and cared more about fashion than sports. I hoped he would have a daughter, just to be different.

I waited until the next commercial break to make my own announcement. Clearing my throat, I called out, “Hey, fellas! Not tryin’ to steal AJ and Rochelle’s thunder here, but I also have something I wanna tell y’all.”

Across the room, Dawn caught my eye and grinned, giving me a nod of encouragement.

“Aww, Kevin, are you pregnant, too? Congratulations!” Nick cooed, earning another smack from Lauren.

“Only with a food baby,” I replied, patting my belly.

Everyone laughed as they looked over at me, their faces full of curiosity. “So, what’s up, bro?” AJ was the first to ask.

“Well, you weren’t part of this conversation, AJ, but back at your wedding in December, the rest of us were discussing the possibility of me returning to the group.”

AJ raised his eyebrows. “For real? Fuck yeah, dude, that’d be awesome! So, are you gonna do it?”

“I hadn’t made a decision yet then, but I’ve been thinking about it for a few months now, and…” I took a deep breath before continuing, “I think I’d like to try being a Backstreet Boy again. If you’ll have me back, that is.”

“HELL YEAH!” Nick actually leaped out of his seat like he was already watching the game. “Of course we will, bro!” he exclaimed, clapping his hands together. “We’ve only been waiting for you to come back for, like, the last… six years or so.”

I laughed when he paused to do the math, realizing it had been almost that long since I’d left the group. “A lot’s changed in six years,” I reminded him. “Things are gonna look different now.”

“No, really?” Nick said sarcastically. “I dunno what you’re talking about. Once a Backstreet Boy, always a Backstreet Boy – right, AJ?”

“Damn right!” AJ replied with a grin. “Welcome back, Kevy Kev!”

“Backstreet’s back, alright!” Brian sang, his voice cracking. Thinking back to our conversation at Thanksgiving, I caught his eye, and he flashed me a grateful smile.

“Glad to have you back, bro,” Howie said, bending down to give me another hug.

I appreciated their support, but I couldn’t help but think, The cat’s out of the bag now. I can’t take it back. Before I’d told them, I had been nervous about how they would react. Now, seeing how excited they were to welcome me back, my biggest worry was that I would let them down.

But this wasn’t the time to dwell on that. Before long, my mind was back on the basketball game – and, of course, my wife. I imagined Kristin watching from somewhere up in Heaven, cheering on her Jayhawks while I rooted for my Wildcats. I only wished we could have watched the game together here on Earth. A wave of grief washed over me as I looked around the room at the other guys snuggled up with their women. I would have given anything to have Kristin by my side, even if it meant listening to her trash talk my team the whole night. Instead, Mason sat on my lap and watched the game with me, cheering wildly every time Kentucky scored.

By halftime, the Cats were up 41 to 27, and Mason had gotten bored with the game. I didn’t have the heart to send him to bed before it ended, so I let him stay up late and play with Baylee in his bedroom while the adults watched the rest of the game.

The second half was closer, with Kansas outscoring Kentucky to cut their lead to five points in the last two minutes of the game. I leaned forward in my chair, clasping my fists together tightly. I couldn’t take my eyes off the TV. C’mon, Cats, I thought desperately as the clock ran down. All you have to do is hold them off for one more minute. You can do it…

With fifty-four seconds left in the game, Kentucky regained possession of the ball after blocking a shot, leading to a turnover by Kansas. After a foul and a pair of free throws, the Wildcats were ahead 65 to 57. Then the Jayhawks made another two-pointer, followed by a rebound after a failed free throw by Kentucky. I held my breath as they dribbled the ball down the court.

“C’mon, defense!” Brian called as he paced across the floor, too tightly wound to sit down.

The Kansas player passed the ball to his teammate, who faked a shot from the side of the court and stumbled forward before taking a real shot. The ball sailed in a high arc through the air and swished straight through the net, but it was too late.

“TRAVELING!” Brian screamed, pointing at the TV screen.

The referees had seen it, too, and called a penalty, so the last shot didn’t count. Ahead by six, Kentucky got the ball back with twenty-three seconds to go. Kansas promptly committed another foul, leading to two more Kentucky free throws. The score was 67 to 59 now with seventeen seconds left in the game.

“We’ve got this,” I whispered, afraid to say it too loud and jinx it somehow. But there was no need to worry. When the buzzer sounded, signaling the end of the game, the score remained unchanged. The Kentucky Wildcats were the Division I champions. “YES!” I shouted, popping a wheelie in my chair as Brian jumped up and down. On TV, the Kentucky players were doing the same thing as streamers and confetti rained down from the rafters. Brian turned to fist bump me, then pulled me into a tight hug. The other guys and their wives just laughed as they watched the Kentucky boys celebrate.

Everyone stuck around to watch some of the post-game coverage and the fireworks people were shooting off outside. Then they headed back to their hotels while Dawn and I cleaned up the kitchen and went upstairs to get ready for bed.

We found Mason fast asleep on his bedroom floor. “Do you think you can put him in bed without waking him up?” I asked Dawn in a whisper.

Never one to turn down a challenge, she whispered back, “Watch me,” before she bent down and carefully scooped him up. Mason let out a low moan as she moved him to his bed, but he didn’t even open his eyes.

“You have the magic touch,” I told Dawn as we went down the hall to my room.

She chuckled. “It’s easy when they’re under forty pounds. Much harder once they hit a hundred forty.”

“Aw, c’mon, I bet you can bench more than that.”

I wasn’t really joking; Dawn was a big woman. “Aye, it’s my Scottish blood,” she would say in a terrible Braveheart accent and flex her biceps whenever someone commented on her tall, athletic build. “My mom’s side of the family used to toss tree trunks like they were wee twigs.”

Much like her ancestors, Dawn had no problem hauling my dead weight around whenever I was too tired or intoxicated to help her with transfers, which was definitely the case that night. She bent down and hoisted me over her broad shoulder like I was a sack of potatoes, lifting me out of my chair and over to my bed. Once I was lying flat on my back, I felt more like one of her family’s logs as she rolled me from side to side to undress me.

“The guys seemed happy to have you back,” she commented, pulling the covers up over my bare chest.

“Yeah… I knew they would be,” I said, smiling. “I just hope they don’t have regrets once we start rehearsing and they realize how much my limitations are gonna affect our choreography.”

She shrugged. “Who really cares about choreography? I mean, I know you’re a boy band, but hasn’t it always been more about the singing than the dancing with y’all?”

“Yeah, the music has always come first for us,” I agreed, feeling better when I remembered the magic we could create with just our five voices. I could still contribute to our harmonies. Then I thought about Brian and the vocal struggles he was still dealing with. I wondered if he had the same worries about how his performance would affect the group.

“Then you’ll be fine,” said Dawn, hiding a yawn with her hand. “Dang… I’m pooped. Do you need anything before I go?”

“Nah, I’m good. Go get some sleep,” I said. “Thanks again for everything you did to help me get ready for the party.”

“No problem. It was fun!” She flashed me a tired smile before she turned to walk toward the door. “Goodnight, Kevin,” she called over her shoulder. “C-A-T-S…”

Grinning, I chanted back, “Cats, Cats, Cats!” before she closed the door. I’m pretty sure I fell asleep with that same big smile on my face.

***