Six years later, in the middle of his career, a little older and a little wiser, Howie came back. He stepped foot on the rolling campus, walked across the smooth paved parking lot, passed under the shade of the lush green trees. It was like seeing a ghost, or an old friend you'd thought had died. It was Saturday so the campus seemed relatively empty, but everyone he passed had a flicker of recognition in their eyes.

He hadn't thought about Chris in almost as long as it had been since he'd visited Rollins. When they got to Germany, there was no time to cry. There was only dancing and singing and waving at screaming girls, although at first there were only about a dozen of them at each show. Eventually there were more girls, and more smiling to do, until there were so many girls that the group couldn't go outside. There were even a few guys, slipping into the background with immaculate hairstyles and trendy clothing. The next time Howie thought about Chris was when they sat at the table at Brian's temporary house, talking about how Lou Pearlman had formed another group behind their backs. At first Howie thought Chris would phone him and explain, then he realized that there was no real reason why Chris would. He felt responsible at first. He'd given away information about his contacts and record label execs without a second thought, and it never occurred to him that Chris might use that information. Then it turned out that Chris hadn't been as malicious as Howie first thought, and that it wasn't Howie's fault at all. It was just the management. The industry. The world.

The next time he saw Chris was at a charity basketball game. His heart lurched a little, probably out of habit, but he found himself smiling and being polite and swallowing the fact that the guy with hair even stranger than before had once fucked around on him and made him want to jump off a building. He met Joey, and JC, and the Mickey Mouse Club kid who could sing like "all get out." He hugged them. He posed for pictures with them. Then he swallowed the nostalgia and went home to his new boyfriend.

Neither of Howie's two romances made it past the stage of them being new boyfriends. They lasted roughly as long as Chris did, but ended a lot less dramatically. And Howie realized that he could take his sweet time finding someone. He would wait until he was damn good and ready and wouldn't end up crying on a stairwell at some university dorm.

He entered the library lounge five minutes early and the girl from the school paper still beat him there. She was new at this. He could tell. She was dressed up a little, in pressed black pants and a shiny red shirt, while most seasoned journalists looked like they'd just rolled out of bed. Her smile was a little too large and she gave him a firm handshake, like this was a job interview.

"Leanne," she said.

"Hi. I'm Howie."

"I know." She tucked a lock of her red hair behind her ear and Howie could see that her hand was shaking ever so slightly. "Thank you so much for doing this," she said. "I know you're really busy."

Howie smiled. "No problem." He waited for her to sit down at one of the tables before he sat on a chair across from her.

"The photographer is going to meet us on the roof of Ward Hall in about an hour. That's where you used to live, right?"

"Yep."

Leanne nodded quickly, folding open her notebook with absolute precision. "I just want to tell you that I'm a huge fan and I'm a little nervous." She giggled awkwardly. Howie could tell she wasn't usually the type to giggle.

"It's cool. There's nothing to be nervous about. I don't bite." He tried to give her a disarming smile but it seemed to fluster her even more.

She pulled her tape recorder toward her. "Do you mind if I tape this?"

"Nope."

She balanced her pen in her hand, leaning forward in her best journalism pose. "So you used to go here, right?"

"Yep. Right up until I left with the Backstreet Boys to tour Europe."

"And you took business, right?"

"Right."

Things seemed to be going well so far. Howie wanted them to. He wanted her to put this in her portfolio and maybe use it to get a job with Rolling Stone or wherever it was she wanted to work. He wanted her to be able to show it off to her friends. He'd already made up his mind that he was going to shoot for sparkling answers.

"Didn't you room with Chris Kirkpatrick from *NSync?"

Howie's heart always hitched a little when someone asked him that, but he was used to it by now. "For awhile."

She laughed nervously. "I heard you guys were lovers."

Howie blinked. Tried not to let his jaw drop. He didn't laugh. He didn't dismiss it. He just sat there, debating how to react. For a brief second he couldn't figure out if she'd really said it or if he'd just imagined it.

Leanne was on her metaphorical bicycle, peddling backward. "Sorry," she said quickly. "I didn't mean...I mean, you don't have to say anything. Nevermind. It's just a stupid rumor."

Howie leaned forward. "Where did you hear that?"

"My brother," she said nervously. "He swears it's true. He thinks he knows everything, though. He always tells this stupid story. He went here when you did. He took psychology. Jeff Middleton?"

Howie shook his head slowly. "Don't know him."

"He's got, like, shoulder-length brown hair," Leanne said, motioning to her shoulders. "Although it might have been blond then."

"I don't know him," Howie repeated, motioning with his hand for her to get on with it.

"Anyway, he swears - but he's an idiot - that Chris had him call your room and leave this really sexy message to make you jealous. He says Chris just asked him, out of the blue, and he was like 'Yeah, whatever.' He thought it was weird but...He's probably lying anyway. Nevermind."

Howie stared. He wasn't even sure he was breathing. The silence seemed to make Leanne shift in her seat, and she kept talking.

"He's not even gay. My brother, I mean. Chris probably isn't either. Not that you are. I'm just saying...." Leanne seemed to run out of steam. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Why did I say that?" She put her head in her hands. "Oh God. I'm such an idiot. I'm just really nervous because I have everything you've ever put out and I can't believe I just said that."

Howie's brow furrowed. Normally, when a journalist thought she'd hit on a touchy subject, she would have pelted him with follow-up questions. But Leanne seemed genuinely mortified. Howie reached across the table and put his hand on her arm. "It's okay. Ask me another question." He smiled, hoping the smile made it to his eyes. "Just not about that."

Leanne took a deep breath and her composure returned. "Okay." She looked back down at her questions but Howie could tell that she'd lost her place. "What's your favorite song on the new album?"

Talk about switching gears. But it was a question he could handle. He'd answered it hundreds of times. So he went into interview auto-pilot mode.

An hour and a half later he gave his last smile for the photographer. They were on the roof of Ward Hall, positioning Howie against the railing. There was a neat irony to it, really. From "other" to front page. He gave Leanne a giant hug before he left.

"I'm sorry about that...before," she said.

"No problem. See ya' later."

"Bye. And thanks again."

When he was alone again, he strode to his mother's car and slammed the door shut when he got inside. He scrambled through his soft-cover briefcase for his address book and grabbed his cell phone from the side pocket.

"Get ahold of Chris Kirkpatrick from *NSync and tell him to phone me as soon as possible," he told his management. "I'm at my mom's."

And that was it. All he could do for now. He wasn't even sure what he wanted to do. If Chris were in front of him right now, Howie wasn't sure if he'd hug him or punch him in the face. Why had he done that, anyway? What was the deal? Had Chris cheated on him at all? Questions that hadn't mattered for five years bounced through his head like rubber balls.

Back at his mom's, Howie went into the guest room and dragged one of his college boxes out of the closet. He hadn't really looked in them since he'd left for Germany. Everything he needed, he'd taken with him, and the boxes became storage. He couldn't help but smile a little at the Oktoberfest doll, and he set it off to the side. When he looked back in he found a cassette tape.

Howie leaned back against the bed and examined it. Written on the cover, in purple marker, was a single word: "Listen." He knew then where it came from, and who had made it. He couldn't believe that he hadn't seen it until now. Six years ago he would have died for that tape and dissected all of the lyrics, looking for hidden messages about how Chris felt about him.

Howie dug a little deeper and pulled out his Walkman, popping it open and slipping the tape inside of it. He put on the headphones and pressed the "play" button. Nothing happened.

Howie frowned, turning the Walkman over in his hands before he slipped off the back panel and saw that there were no batteries in it. He took it off and wandered into the living room, looking for something that might take two double A batteries.

He spotted the remote control for the TV on the stool in front of his father's chair and grabbed it, opening up the back and popping out the batteries. He didn't even notice his dad coming around the corner.

"What are you doing?"

"I just need these for a minute. I'll put them back."

"Okay. Just put 'em back before eight. That's when your mom watches her shows."

Howie practically raced back down the hallway, sitting on the floor again and putting the batteries in place. This time, when he pressed "play," he heard the soft fuzzy sound of the tape starting.

It started with a midtempo song. A woman singer. Howie looked inside the tape case but there were no liner notes. No song list. But it was a nice song, and the lyrics were clear. Howie leaned back on the bed and closed his eyes.

"Indian summer, Abiline / You were new in town, I was nineteen / And sparks flew..."

Okay, there was definitely some heavy message in this song.

"They called us crazy behind our backs / "Romantic fools," we just let them laugh / Because we knew...."

Howie listened to the whole first side of the tape without moving. Most of the songs he recognized, if only because Chris had played them ad nauseum. "How Soon is Now" by The Smiths. "Sing Your Life" by Morrissey. All stuff Howie wouldn't normally listen to, except Santana's "Oya Como Va," but the fact that they were on a long-forgotten and undiscovered tape made them more interesting somehow.

He was so deep into his own world that he jumped about a foot when his sister opened the door.

"Hey," she said. "The phone's for you. It's Chris."

Howie leapt to his feet. "I'll get it in the other room."

He went into his parents' room and shut the door behind him, crossing the floor to the bed-side telephone in two strides. He picked up the phone and suddenly wasn't sure what to say. So he started in the usual way. "Hello?"

"Howie." It was definitely Chris. Even if 80 years passed, Howie would know that voice anywhere. "You rang?"

"Yeah. I wanted to ask you something."

"Ask away." Howie heard the distant whirr of traffic and realized Chris was on his cell phone, driving down some highway in another part of the country.

"Did you...." Suddenly Howie felt stupid for asking. Stupid for even wanting to know the answer. So instead of coming right out and asking if Chris had cheated on him, he took a different route. "Do you know Jeff Middleton?"

Chris was quiet for a minute. Howie thought Chris might be flipping through his memory banks. "Yeah," Chris said. "He was in the same year at Rollins."

"Yeah. Well, I just went to Rollins and was interviewed by Jeff Middleton's sister. She says you had him...."

Howie sighed and rested his head in his hand. He couldn't keep going. Couldn't bring it up again. Couldn't act like it mattered, although even after all this time, it did. It really, really did.

Chris's voice rang loud and clear through the slight static. "I did."

Howie bit his lip. "You mean you had him..."

"Phone and leave that message. Yeah."

"But did you..." Howie twisted the phone chord around his fingers, winding it tight. "Did you have sex with anyone? I mean, back then?"

Long pause on the other end. More distant traffic sounds. "Of course I didn't."

Howie stood up suddenly, pacing as far as the phone chord would let him. "Then why did you do that to me?"

"Because you wouldn't have gone if I didn't."

"But that almost killed me, you know. I didn't think I'd ever get over that."

"But you did."

Another long pause. Howie didn't know whether to cry or scream.

"Howie," Chris said quietly.

"What?"

"I loved you. But I wanted you to get the hell out of there."

Howie flopped down on the bed again, all of his energy leaving in a rush. "I loved you too."

"I know you did."

Yet another long pause, and Howie realized he didn't know what else to say. Chris didn't seem to, either. "Okay," Howie said. "I just wanted to know."

"Yeah. I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing."

"Sorry," Chris replied. "Hey, I'll see you at the Billboard awards."

Howie smiled into the phone. "You're damn right you will. Oh, and I got that tape."

"Wow. Just now? Well, better late than never, I guess. You like it?"

"It's great. Thank you." Howie exhaled deeply. "Okay. Talk to you later."

"Later."

Howie hit the hang-up button but kept the receiver in his hand. He dialed AJ's place from memory and surprisingly, AJ answered. "What's up, Howie D?" AJ greeted.

"I just got off the phone with Chris. He told me...He told me that he set that whole thing up. With the answering machine. He had someone do that so I'd go to Germany."

"Oh." He heard AJ take a deep breath. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine."

"Cool." Howie could hear the smile in AJ's voice, probably because he knew him better than anyone.

"I'm just a few blocks away," Howie said. "Come dance with me."

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