"You're my favorite," she told him with a small smile.

Kevin leaned over and placed a small kiss on her cheek as she giggled. "Well, thank you very much."

She turned around and grabbed something out of her backpack. With camera in hand, she looked up at him. "Can I have a picture?"

"Of course you can."

The girl handed the camera to another girl standing by. She stood before Kevin, and the older man placed both hands on her shoulders.

He smiled and the flash went off.

"Thank you," the girl told him and Kevin nodded.

Another girl appeared before Kevin and he chuckled slightly. This was one of the few parts of the job he really liked.

He enjoyed spending time with the fans, no matter how long his hand ached afterwards. He liked talking with them, and having his picture taken. He liked the way the girls giggled when Kevin gave them a small kiss and the love that shone in their eyes.

He loved that. And it was worth the numbness he felt through the concerts.

As he signed another photograph, he thought about the last three concerts. Things had gotten better; he had to give himself that. He wasn't feeling as awkward as usual. He was even starting to enjoy a song or two.

He liked doing the choreography of "Everybody" and the hat routine before "If you stay."

"This I promise you" was starting to be fun, and he really liked "What makes you different."

"Hey there."

The words brought Kevin out of his musings and he turned around to look at Alex. The younger man's hand was placed Kevin's shoulder, squeezing lightly.

"Enjoying yourself?"

Kevin nodded, looking around the wide area where fans and parents gathered together. "How many people are here?"

Alex thought about it for a moment. "Around forty, maybe fifty. Not much."

"Oh."

Alex chuckled. "You like this, don't you?"

Kevin ducked as he blushed, and after a moment, he nodded.

"There's nothing wrong with it. Each one of us has favorite parts."

"Mostly being on the stage, right?"

Alex nodded slowly. "Yeah, but that doesn't mean we don't like the rest. The fans... that's the most fun. They are amazing."

"Yeah, they are."

Tilting his head to the side, Alex looked at Kevin with a thoughtful expression.

He had been sensing different vibes coming from Kevin. Alex had realized Kevin wasn't comfortable being on the stage, but hadn't said a word. Apparently, Kevin still wanted to protect them, just like the other one had.

Alex had been waiting for Kevin to say something, and would probably have to wait a lot longer for it.

He smiled at the Kevin and squeezed his shoulder once again.

"How much longer do we have?"

Alex checked his watch. "A little over half an hour."

Kevin nodded, smiling at a girl, no more than eight, as she approached him.

Kevin received the picture she handed him and heard her talking about her favorite songs and tours.

"What song do you like the best?"

Thinking about it, he wondered the same thing himself. "Well... I'm not so sure... I like Answer to our life a lot. And What makes you different, makes you beautiful."

"I love that song."

Kevin smiled at her. "It's very sweet."

"Yeah." She tilted her head and grinned from ear to ear. "I was so surprised when I heard you wrote it."

Kevin lifted one eyebrow. "Really?" He hadn't known he had written it. Or that he wrote at all.

"Yeah. I liked Back to your heart a lot, but this one it's tons better."

Surprise evident in his face, he could only look down at the picture and sign.

"Do you listen to what makes you different?"

Kevin thought about it for a second. "Sometimes, yeah."

"I didn't know what."

He shrugged with a small smile. "Well..."

"What other songs do you listen to?"

That was a tough one. He didn't remember listening other music than theirs, and that mostly because he had to learn the lyrics.

"I heard you liked Elton John."

He did? "Yeah."

"What's your favorite food?"

"Well," Kevin said, turning around and seeing Alex two feet to his left, Nick about five feet from him.

The blond swirled his head to the side in that second and their eyes met for a brief heartbeat. Nick smiled at Kevin and Kevin waved.

When Kevin turned around once again, focusing on the girl in front of him, he tried to remember the question in the first place.

"Oh," he said after a moment of silence, "food. Right. Well, I like Alex's scrambled eggs a lot. Uh, and Brian's pasta. He makes a very good pasta."

The girl frowned. "I thought you liked your mother's chilli?"

Kevin tilted his head and frowned, running the words through his mind once again.

His mother chilli? He didn't remember ever tasting his mother's chilli.

"You see..."

The words made him turn around, the hand placed on his shoulder once again and he found himself staring at concerned brown eyes.

"Kevin is very nice to say that," Alex continued, looking down at the girl, whose whole attention was on Alex at the moment. "I know he likes my cooking. But Brian's isn't that good."

The girl giggled, hiding her smile behind her hand and thanked both of them.

Alex let out a soft sigh of relief and Kevin looked concerned all of a sudden.

"Did I say something wrong?"

Alex hurried himself to shake his head. "Nothing wrong man, don't worry."

"You sure?"

Alex nodded, patting Kevin's back. "Of course."

Kevin nodded as well, but in the back of his mind he wondered if Alex wasn't lying to protect him.

With a small inward wave, Kevin shook off that feeling. Of course he wouldn't lie. The boys wouldn't lie to him.

*****

They were having dinner that same night, gathered all together in Kevin's room. Conversation was going around, the sound of the TV as background, and Kevin stared down at his plate for a moment.

He had been waiting for the right time to ask the boys, but it seemed like he couldn't find such a time.

Looking up, tilting his head, he figured there was no time like the present.

"Has my mom called?"

All conversation stopped in mid sentence, everyone looking at Kevin, and the older man felt like he said something wrong.

"What?" Brian's voice quivered, obviously nervous.

But Kevin didn't see that, he just saw his cousin, a man who had showed him pictures of the five of them and Kevin smiled at him.

"My mom," Kevin said once again. "I was wondering if she had called."

Brian turned to look at Alex, who only shrugged.

They didn't know what to say.

"She called a couple of days ago." Nick's voice was perfectly neutral, even though the back of his throat hurt and his chest complained at the pressure it felt. "She called but you were busy."

"Really?" Excitement was heard in Kevin's voice and one eyebrow was raised.

Nick nodded with an almost pained expression. "Yeah, she called. She wanted to talk to you but we were in an interview."

Kevin tilted his head. "How do you know?"

Nick swallowed thickly. "She left a message in my answering machine. I was going to show it to you, but the messages delete themselves the next day automatically." He shrugged with sorrow in his face. "Sorry."

Thinking about it, Kevin understood why he hadn't been able to talk to his mother and he nodded. "It's okay. I just wanted to know if she called."

"Of course she called," Brian said with a small smile, the muscles complaining at the movement, seeming to recognize the words for what they were. "She loves you, why wouldn't she?"

Kevin nodded with a happy smile on his face. "That's right." He paused. "What about my brothers?"

"Oh," Alex added, figuring if they were going down, at least it'd be the four of them. "Jerald called last night I think. It was very late but he just wanted to know if you were doing all right. I told him you were great. That's pretty much it."

"Can I call them then?"

Howie answered this, his mind going a mile per minute trying to come up with a plausible explanation. "Well, Jerald and Tim are working. And I think your mother takes a nap around this hour."

"Really?"

Howie nodded. "Yeah. It'd be better if you call them another time."

"Oh, okay." Kevin agreed, understanding the guys' suggestions. "Thanks."

Hands shaking and teeth almost clattering against each other, Nick nodded, smiling at Kevin. "Sure. No prob."

"Then, can I call them later in the week?"

Nick nodded, and he figured they'd have to come up with new reasons why Kevin couldn't get through to his family. "Sure. I'll tell you when, k?"

"Okay." Satisfied with the answer, Kevin lowered his eyes to his plate and finished his meal.

The rest of the boys just looked at each other and they all knew what was left unsaid.

*****

"We shouldn't have said that."

Alex scratched his eyebrow, cigarette in hand. "What could we say?" He asked Howie.

Howie shrugged. "I don't know, but that was..."

"I know."

Howie turned to look at Brian, a surprise look on his face. "You do? Because we just lied to Kevin and I'm not sure if you all get the meaning of that."

"Of course we get it Howie," Nick said bitterly, and neither of them had ever heard him like that. "We all know what we've said. But we can't back away now."

"Why not?" Howie pulled himself further down the edge of the couch, looking at everyone gathered in Alex's room after dinner. "Why not? It's better if we do it now than later, and--"

"What are you going to tell him?" Nick asked, untangling himself from his position against the wall, letting his arms loose and fall down on either side of him, approaching Howie. "Huh? What will you tell him? I'm sorry Kevin but we lied to you. Your mother hates you and your brothers haven't spoken with you in two years, is that it?"

Howie looked down, running his fingers through his curly hair. "I don't know, but this--"

"This is what we chose to say," Brian added, tilting his head and pinching the bridge of his nose. "We decided we'd tell him what should have happened. We chose this. We wanted to pretend Ann accepted him, and we did. Now we stick with it."

"We're lying to him!"

Alex snorted, taking a long drag of his cigarette. The smoke left his lungs through barely parted lips as he spoke. "You think we don't know? You think we don't hate having to look at Kevin and lie to him, huh?"

Howie let out a long sigh, closing his eyes. He opened them a second later, only to find himself with more guilt than two seconds ago. "I don't know what to do."

"We do nothing."

Howie turned to look at Nick. "What?"

Nick shrugged, his lips pressed tightly together. "That's all we can do. We do nothing. We tell him his mother called and he missed it. We tell him she sends her best and hugs and kisses. That's all we can do."

"We keep on lying?"

Nick nodded, pained expression darkening in his face. "Or do you want to tell him we've been lying to him for the past five weeks, huh?"

Howie stayed silent, his eyes falling to the floor and Nick assented his point.

"We do nothing," Nick repeated.

"There'll come a point when he wants to talk to his mother," Brian said after a moment, this not the first time he thought about it. He had been turning that option around, trying to come up with an answer. "What do we do then?"

Head turning to the side, eyes losing focus for a second, Nick answered. "We figure it when the time comes."

Brian nodded with heart felt sorrow, fingers intertwining, needing to do something with his hands.

"I'm off now," Nick said, looking at the boys. "See you tomorrow." He turned around towards the door, Alex and Howie following him.

They all said their goodbyes, each one of them entering their rooms and Nick waited until the doors closed before turning around and going to the room two doors down from his, to Kevin's room.

He opened the door, entering slowly, silently, trying not to wake the figure inside.

Walking into the bedroom, he saw a silhouette lying down on the bed, covers around his chest, one arm over them.

"I thought you wouldn't come."

Nick smiled at Kevin, the corners of his lips twitching upwards in a ghost of a smile. He could still feel the sorrow in his heart, heavy in his chest and making his steps seem too slow, too hard to accomplish.

He had lied straight to Kevin's face, he had stared into innocent green eyes and had lied, like it didn't matter, like he didn't care. It had been so easy -- so practical, Nick told himself -- that he scared himself for a second. When had he been able to lie to Kevin? When had he been able to actually pull it off?

Never, not really. Because Kevin used to have this sixth sense, and he would only need to take one look at Nick and Kevin would make a ticking sound with his mouth, and the corner of his lip would curl upward, and Nick would duck his head, feeling awful for such a lie, and with a low tone, Nick would tell the truth.

There was no other way around it -- Nick couldn't lie to Kevin

Except, today, only minutes ago, he had. He had pulled it off, and it had been so very easy, Nick knew he could do it again. Moreover, the chances were, he would.

But that didn't mean the lie had been said with no remorse.

Nick felt his chest tight, his hands sweating, his heartbeat racing, so fast and loud inside him, it was the only sound he could hear, and he was sure his voice would quiver if he had to say one more word.

It had been so easy to lie, Nick was glad he was feeling guilt. He would hate himself if he wasn't feeling this guilty for lying to Kevin.

Taking off his clothes slowly, his back to Kevin, Nick tried not to think about every lie that had been spoken from his lips.

Nick had left the room after dinner, knowing the guys would want to speak about the current situation, telling Kevin he was going to his bedroom to leave his cell charging. Another lie, of course. Another lie in the now string of thousand pearls that shone brightly in the darkness of the night, reminding him of the deceit and obfuscation that was proceeding with his actions, that was taking place every time he opened his mouth.

He hated that feeling.

Lying down on the bed, Kevin resting on his left side as to glance over at Nick, the blond felt the weight gain power, growing exponentially in seconds.

"Good night," Kevin said, almost sleepily, and Nick only nodded, words too hard to form.

Kevin placed one arm on Nick's chest, head on the pillow and closed his eyes.

Minutes later, Nick felt Kevin's breathing even in the silent night, and he could hear his own heart beating fast.

This time, it didn't herald tenderness or excitement. This time, it showed anguish and pain, fear and hatred. This time, it hurt.