Chapter 8

The next day, I invited Brian, Nick, AJ, and Howie back to my house, just to hang out and talk about the future of the Backstreet Boys. We went into my music room, where I showed them how I had relearned to play the piano by plucking out the beginning of “Incomplete.”

“Wow, that’s impressive, Kevin!” Howie praised me as the others applauded.

“I know it sounds like a little kid playing,” I admitted, “but I’ll get better with practice. It would sound less choppy if I could find a way to use the pedal.”

“I’m surprised they don’t have some adaptive device for that,” said Nick, frowning. “It seems like they have one for just about everything else.”

“Yeah, I know. Maybe they do, and I just haven’t heard about it yet.” I shrugged. “I’ll ask at PT this week and see if my therapist knows of anything that could help.”

“Remember our first big U.S. tour, when we would play ‘Quit Playing Games’ with our own instruments?” Brian asked, and the rest of us nodded. “We should do that again on the next tour! Maybe do a whole acoustic set that way. I mean, most of us can play at least one instrument-”

“Some better than others,” AJ inserted with a grimace.

“-and it would be a good way to remind the fans that we have other musical talents besides singing and dancing.”

“That’s a good idea, cuz,” I said, nodding. Although I knew we couldn’t avoid choreography completely, I was down for anything that would allow me to contribute equally to the performance.

The other guys agreed. “It’s something to think about when we start working on songs for the next album,” said Howie. “You know, we tried to make the last album sound like the stuff on the radio right now, but that didn’t work out so well for us. Maybe it’s time to go back to a more organic sound like we had on Never Gone.”

“I think we should write more of our own music, too,” Nick added eagerly. “Now that we’re not with Jive anymore, we don’t have to answer to any record execs. For the first time in our career, we have complete creative control. We can do whatever we want and really make this album our own.”

I smiled. “That sounds awesome.” It didn’t bother me at all that the Backstreet Boys were no longer signed to a major label. We didn’t need a record deal anymore; we could release the next album under our own independent label and count on our fans to buy it. These days, musicians made more money from live performances, merchandise, and licensing fees than album sales, anyway. The days of selling millions of copies in the first week were over. “So, when can we start working on it?”

The other guys looked at each other. “We’re actually flying to London next weekend to meet with Martin Terefe,” said Howie. “He’s written and produced songs for Jason Mraz, Mary J. Blige, Train…”

“You should come with us, Kev!” AJ interrupted him.

I blinked. “What, to London? Next weekend?”

“Yeah, we fly out on the fourteenth, about a week before the European leg of the NKOTBSB tour begins,” Brian said. “Come with us! You could hang out for a few days, maybe even come to the first show in Belfast, which just so happens to be on our anniversary…” He grinned.

I thought back to Thanksgiving, when he had tried to convince me to come on the cruise. But this was different. This time, he was talking about a business meeting, a meeting I didn’t want to miss now that I was back in the band.

“I would love to come,” I said honestly. “I’m just not sure about the logistics. Dawn doesn’t have her passport yet; she applied for one a few weeks ago, but unless it comes early, she can’t travel overseas.”

“So have Keith come,” Brian suggested. “That way, you have someone to fly back with you.”

“It’s not just that. I’d also need someone to stay in the hotel room with me and help with my morning and night routines.”

“Nick knows how to do that, right?”

Nick’s cheeks reddened as all eyes turned to him. He was the only one of the four of them who knew the full extent of what helping me entailed, and I wasn’t sure how willing he would be to put himself in that awkward position again.

“Yeah, but I don’t want-” I began, but Nick cut me off.

“No, it’s okay. I can help you, Kev,” he said. “It’d only be for a few days.”

I gave him a long, searching look. “Are you sure?”

Nick nodded. “Yeah. I’ll have Jenn call the hotel and add another room to our reservation – an accessible one with two beds and a roll-in shower. Lauren’s coming with me, so we’ll keep one room for us, and you and Keith can share the other. I’ll still come over to help you, though.”

I smiled at him, grateful to have such good friends. “Thanks, Nick.”

“So does this mean you’re coming?” AJ asked, grinning.

I shrugged. “I guess so! I’d better book a flight, huh? And talk to Keith. How long are y’all staying in London?”

“Five days,” said Brian. “We fly to Belfast on the nineteenth for the first of the UK shows. Then we’ll be back in London about a week later for two shows at the O2 Arena. One of them’s gonna be live-streamed in movie theaters across the country.”

“Wow. That’s pretty cool.”

“Dude, we should announce your comeback at that show!” AJ suggested. “I was already planning on sharing my baby news with the fans that night, but we could drop two bombshells on them at once!”

“Oh my god, can you imagine the reaction?” Nick snickered. “The fandom would lose their collective freaking minds!”

“Twitter would go crazy!” Howie agreed with a grin. “We’d be a trending topic for sure!”

I shrugged. “That’s up to y’all. If you wanna announce it that night, go for it.”

“It’d be better if you made an appearance to announce it yourself,” said Brian, raising his eyebrows.

I shook my head. “Thanks, but I don’t wanna leave Mason for that long. Five days is long enough. I’ll fly back home when y’all head to Belfast. Gotta ease back into it, you know?”

He shrugged. “Whatever floats your boat, cuz.”

“How long will you be on tour?” I asked, wondering when they would be free to work on the next album.

“We’ll be in Europe for about a month, and then we head to Australia, Indonesia, and the Philippines for a few more dates. We’ll be done at the beginning of June.”

“Does anyone have anything big happening over the summer?” I looked around at the others. “Movie shoots, solo albums, anything like that?” They had been busy in the six years since I’d left the group. All four of them had released solo albums, and Nick had starred in a reality show with his siblings and filmed two more movies. I had hoped to pursue acting during my hiatus from the Backstreet Boys, but that dream had died the same day as Kristin. Hollywood doesn’t have many parts for paralyzed actors, and Broadway has even fewer.

The guys all shook their heads. “Maybe we could aim for mid-July to start working on the album,” Howie suggested. “That would give us about a month off before we go back into the studio.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said. Nick and AJ both nodded in agreement.

“I’ll go with whatever the group decides,” Brian said with a shrug. He didn’t seem too thrilled about starting work on a new album right away, and I wasn’t sure if it was because he wanted more time at home with his family or because he was worried his voice wouldn’t be ready to record by then. I waited to see if he would say anything about his condition while we were all together, but he didn’t bring it up.

We spent the rest of the afternoon listening to music, trying to get inspired as we talked about what direction we wanted to go in with our next album. We went through the vinyl collection I had inherited from my dad, playing his classic albums on my parents’ vintage record player. He had a wide variety of music; we listened to Led Zeppelin, Stevie Wonder, Prince, The Beach Boys…

We were making our way through The Beatles’ White Album when Nick said, “Remember when we went to the Bahamas to work on Black & Blue? We should do that again, go somewhere to get inspired and write songs. We could rent a house and live together for a few weeks, like The Real World! It would be like a little retreat, a way to sort of reconnect and bond with each other now that Kevin’s back in the group.”

“I like that idea,” I said, nodding. “As long as we can find somewhere wheelchair-accessible, I’m in.”

“Where should we go?” asked Howie.

Nick looked down at the Beatles’ album cover lying on the floor in front of him. “How about London?” he suggested. “C’mon, wouldn’t that be cool? We could actually go to Abbey Road Studios and record something right where The Beatles did! We could even recreate their album cover.”

“What, a plain white background with our name on it?” AJ asked, smirking. “Didn’t we already do something like that with Black & Blue?” I could tell he was just trying to mess with Nick, but Nick didn’t catch on right away.

“No, dumbass! I don’t mean the White Album; I’m talking about Abbey Road! You know, the famous photo of the four of them in the crosswalk?”

“Oh, yeah… I think I may have seen that one before,” AJ said sarcastically, still acting clueless.

Brian laughed. “I can see it now,” he said, a faraway look in his eyes. “There’s the four of us walking across the road… and then here comes Kev wheeling along behind us.” He pumped his arms in an impression of me frantically trying to push my wheels fast enough to keep up with the rest of them.

Everyone laughed that time, myself included.

“Let’s do it!” Howie said eagerly.

“I’m in. You know I love London,” added AJ.

“Beat me up… beat me up… beat me up… right now!” Brian sang in a high-pitched voice. When I stared at him in confusion, he shrugged and said, “That’s what it sounds like she’s singing in AJ’s song. You know… ‘London?’”

AJ just laughed and shook his head as I shrugged, realizing it had been a long time since I’d last listened to his solo album.

“We should be able to find plenty of accessible places to stay there,” Nick said, glancing at me. “We can scope it out when we’re there in a couple weeks.”

I nodded. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

“I’m good with that,” Brian agreed. “Can our families come, too?”

“No offense, bro, but I think it should just be the five of us,” Nick said. “The Beatles were better before Yoko Ono came along.”

I looked back at Brian in time to see his nostrils flare, deep furrows appearing in his forehead as he frowned at Nick. I knew he would take offense to the Yoko Ono comment, whether he realized Nick had been calling his wife “Yoko” behind his back for years or not.

“I think what Nick’s trying to say,” I added quickly before it turned into a fight, “is that it might be easier for us to bond and be productive if our families aren’t with us.”

Nick nodded. I understood where he was coming from, but I also felt for Brian. Nick didn’t know what it was like to be a father or how hard it would be to leave our little boys behind. I had never been away from Mason for more than a few days, aside from the three months I’d spent in the hospital after my accident – and, thankfully, Mason had no memory of that.

“Well, what about caregivers?” Brian asked, glancing at me. “Can Dawn come with Kevin?”

“That’s different,” Nick replied. “Of course, Dawn can come if Kevin wants her to.”

“But not Mason?”

“Mason can stay with my mom,” I said. “I don’t want special treatment just because I’m a single parent. No families means no families. As for Dawn, it’s not a matter of whether or not I want her to come. It’s just that I kinda need her – or a caregiver of some sort. Like I said, there are still some things that I just can’t do without help.”

“We could help you, Kevin,” Howie offered kindly. “Just like when AJ and Nicky were living with you before.”

Nick nodded. “Yeah, whatever works best for you, Kev,” he said with a shrug. “You know we’re here for you. But I don’t care if Dawn comes along. Like I said, that’s different than bringing along the wives and kids.”

“And girlfriends,” Brian added, glaring at him.

“Obviously,” Nick said, glaring back. “Lauren doesn’t give two shits about coming with me. She likes having the house to herself.” I’m pretty sure he only said the last part as another subtle dig toward Leighanne, who was notoriously clingy.

“I’ll talk to Dawn about it,” I said. “I’m sure she’d love to go.”

“We should probably bring some bodyguards, too, don’t you think?” said AJ.

Nick nodded. “Yeah… but again, that’s different. They aren’t family; they work for us.”

“We get it, Nick,” Brian snapped. “No family members.”

As they continued to bicker back and forth, I focused on the music still playing in the background. “Blackbird singing in the dead of night,” Paul McCartney’s voice crooned softly. “Take these broken wings and learn to fly…” It brought back a memory of one of the long, lonely nights I’d spent lying in the ICU, unable to move. I had sung a bit of that song to myself the first time I’d tried to sing since the accident. It made me smile to think of how far I had come since then. Back then, I couldn’t have believed I would ever be a Backstreet Boy again. And now, here I was, talking about flying off to London to work on a new album with my four brothers. Despite the daily struggles I still faced, I felt grateful to be alive, grateful to be surrounded by so much love and support.

“Thanks, you guys,” I said suddenly, interrupting whatever Nick and Brian were arguing about now.

They both stopped and looked at me, their faces blank. “For what?” Nick was the first to ask.

I struggled to put my thoughts into words. “Just for being here… and for making me feel like a part of the group again.”

“You are a part of the group again,” Brian reminded me with a grin.

“I know, but… well, not everyone would have welcomed a guy like me back into their band with open arms. But you did, and I appreciate it.”

“This isn’t just a band. It’s a brotherhood,” said Howie. “No matter what happens or where you go, we’ll always be here to welcome you home.”

“Thanks,” I said, smiling at him. “I’ve missed this. Not necessarily Nick and Brian going at each other, but just hanging out with y’all, talking about music, thinking about the future. Feels good to be back.”

Nick and Brian exchanged guilty grins as AJ got up to give me a hug. “Back and better than ever!” he announced, slinging his arm around my shoulders.

I snorted and shook my head. “Okay, now you’re just making shit up.”

The others laughed.

“Hey, fellas, I got another idea,” Nick said suddenly. “You know how I said it would be like The Real World with the five of us living in a house together? Well, what if we really make it like a reality show and bring a camera crew with us to London? We’ve always said we should film the making of an album, but we never think about it until after the fact. This would be the perfect time to do it! We could make a documentary!”

“Don’t you mean a ‘document-ary?’” AJ asked, making fun of the way Nick used to mispronounce the word.

Nick flipped him off. “Seriously, though, what do you think?”

“I think it’s a great idea,” said Howie. “It would be fun to show the fans what goes on behind the scenes.”

“I love it. Seriously,” said AJ. “Nick’s right – with our twentieth anniversary coming up in another year and now Kevin coming back, it really is the perfect time to do something like this for our fans.”

Brian and I listened in silence as the other three gushed about Nick’s “great idea.” They all had good points, but I wasn’t too keen on being followed around by a camera crew. One of the best parts of relocating from L.A. back to Lexington was that I no longer had to worry about paparazzi. I liked living out of the public eye. Now, Nick wanted to put our lives under a microscope.

Noticing the slight frown on Brian’s face, I could tell he wasn’t completely comfortable with it either. I waited to see if he would speak up first, not wanting to be the sole voice of dissent, but he didn’t say anything.

“We haven’t heard from Kevin and Brian yet,” Howie finally said, looking over at us. “What are your thoughts?”

I cleared my throat. “Honestly, I’m not crazy about being on camera… but as long as we set some clear boundaries and conditions, I’d be okay with it. I would just wanna make sure we keep the focus on our music, not our personal lives. I don’t want it to become all about me and my disability. I’m more than that – no pun intended.”

Brian cracked a smile. “I agree with Kev,” he added. “Y’all know I’m not big on reality shows, but if this is what the rest of the group wants to do, I’ll go along with it.”

“It would be a documentary, not a reality show,” Nick replied defensively, rolling his eyes. “Don’t worry, Brian; I’d never ask you to do another one of those.”

I bit my bottom lip to keep myself from laughing, remembering how Brian had refused to show his face on Nick’s show House of Carters. When he appeared on camera in the background of a scene shot at a band meeting, his face was blurred, as if the fans watching wouldn’t be able to tell who he was. I never really knew the reasoning behind that, since I wasn’t with the group at the time, but I remembered watching it on TV with Kristin and cracking up over the absurdity of it. “Gee, who could that be with Nick, AJ, and Howie?” Kristin had said, giggling. “If he wanted to hide his identity, he could have done a better job of it. Maybe he should have worn a costume!”

“No, they should have shown him as a shadowy silhouette with his voice altered, like the informants on Dateline,” I added, causing her to giggle even louder. God, I missed making her laugh.

“You two fight like an old married couple,” Howie said to Nick and Brian, shaking his head. “What will the fans think if we show Frick and Frack sniping at each other in the documentary?”

AJ raised his eyebrows. “I guess they’ll find out what happens when people stop being polite… and start getting real.”

The rest of us burst out laughing when we recognized the famous tagline from The Real World. “Way to bring it back around, AJ,” I said, grinning at him.

“Just trying to lighten the mood,” he replied, smiling back.

But in spite of whatever was going on with Nick and Brian, my mood had already been lifted just by having them there. Between the Wildcats’ big win and my four Backstreet brothers welcoming me back into the group, I felt happier than I had in years.

I just hoped the good feelings would last.

***