"So what happened to you earlier today? You so in to drawing you lost all track of time that you forgot your daughter and couldn't even respond to my messages?"

Rachel rolled her eyes at Melissa as she finished wiping down the counters in the kitchen. Dinner was eaten, the dishes were done and put away. Now the counters were clean. McKenzie was upstairs working on homework.

"Don't get me wrong," Melissa's voice broke in over the phone. "When you get in these grooves, it works out well for me. Of course it would work better for me if your groove would mesh up with my groove. Then we'd be able to crank books out by the dozens. Every time I get in a groove, I can't get you to draw me a stick figure."

"I'll draw you a finger. You know which one."

"Love you too." Melissa's chuckle rang in her ear. "So did you finish? I can stop by tomorrow and pick it up. That will work out well anyway. I can take it..."

"I wasn't working on the drawings today Mel," Rachel cut her friend off before she continue in a long run off sentence. "I'm getting ready to sit down now and work on them."

"Then what were you doing today?"

"Having lunch." Rachel told her. She walked over to her storyboard and sat down on the stool.

"Lunch?" Melissa repeated. "Funny. My phone didn't ring."

"You weren't invited," Rachel teased.

"Oh my God!" Melissa shrieked. "You were on a date!"

Rachel grimaced and pulled the phone away from her ear. "I was not on a date. Hell, it's been so long since I have been on one of those, I don't even know what it is anymore."

"Who were you having lunch with? Was it Lance and Michael?"

"No. It was just a friend."

"Oh just tell me," Melissa said exasperated.

"You'll make it in to a big deal," Rachel said, enjoying teasing her friend. She'd been in a good mood all day. The smile hadn't left her face. She hummed along to the radio while making dinner. McKenzie even commented on her mood.

"I will not. Who'd you have lunch with? Where'd you go?"

"JC-"

The shriek Melissa emitted over the phone was loud enough to cause hearing damage. "No fucking way dude! Are you serious? You had lunch with JC?"

"It's not that big of a deal, Mel."

"Not that big...Rachel, you just had lunch with JC. The man whom you wished you had your own digital getdown with. The man you wanted up against the wall. The man who you wanted to get freaky deaky with. The man you..."

"Say one more NSYNC pun Mel and I'll tar and feather you."

"Why don't you be my girlfriend, I'll treat ya right...." Melissa sang, laughing when she heard her friend groan. "Oh come on! This is great news! Big news! Why didn't you tell me he asked you out for lunch? I didn't even know you were talking to him?"

"He didn't ask me, I asked him." Rachel clarified.

"Whoa, Rach... Man, I didn't think you had the balls to do that." Melissa whistled.

Rachel laughed. "You should have seen me. I sent it in a text and basically threw my phone down in the car and ran away like it would attack me."

"It's about damn time one of you made a move. I thought Joey's 10 year plan was bad."

"What are you talking about? My 10 year plan was awesome." Joey said coming into the room to sit next to his wife. "Who made a move?"

Melissa could hear Rachel yelling at her over the phone to keep her mouth shut. "Rachel had a date with JC today." The colorful language in her ear made her blush.

"No shit?" Joey grinned. He leaned in close to the phone. "It's about God damn time!"

"It wasn't a date!" Rachel yelled into her phone. She rubbed her face and moved to pinch the bridge of her nose. She nearly fell off her stool when she heard Joey mention texting JC. "No! No! Mel, if you love me even a teeny tiny bit, you will not let him text JC. Seriously Mel. I'm begging you."

Melissa laid her hand on Joey's and shook her head. "He's just messing. He isn't going to text JC. In fact, he was just leaving and taking the kids for ice cream..."

"Ice cream!" Two year old Caleb shouted over his father's ‘I was?' He immediately abandoned the toys he'd been playing with on the floor and ran to his parents. "Ice cream!

"Yes you were," Melissa smiled sweetly at him. "Go on!" She shooed him away.

"You want ice cream?" Joey asked grabbing Caleb up and tossing him in the air. He knew when he was being dismissed.

"Yes!" Caleb laughter and shrieks echoed through the house.

"Girls!" Joey yelled up the stairs for Briahna and Kloey. "We're going to get ice cream! Let's go."

"Alright," Melissa said once the door closed behind her family and the house fell silent. "Spill."

"I don't even know what to say," Rachel started.

"Uh, how about how the hell you ended up on a date with JC! Seriously Rach, how the heck did that happen? I thought you hadn't seen him in years."

"I haven't seen him in years or hadn't. He sent me a friend request on Facebook-"

"That jerk! He hasn't friended me on Facebook."

"I just sent him a message about buying cookies. We talked until late and exchanged phone numbers. Kenzie's all JC this and JC that."

"Must be hereditary," Melissa joked.

"I had a weak moment yesterday and sent him a text asking to meet up for lunch. I drove to Culver City today to meet him."

"‘It's In The Bread'? I love that place!" Melissa was able to get out before she squealed in excitement. "This is amazing! How'd it go?"

"Like no time had passed," Rachel sighed remembering. "I was walking toward the cafe and he looked up and saw me... the smile he gave me... Mel, I almost became a puddle on the ground."

Melissa squealed in excitement again. "Oh that's so romantic! What else happened?"

"I hugged him," she laughed at the sounds Melissa was making. "He smelled so good!"

Melissa erupted in laughter. "They sure smell a lot better than they used to right? I swear I didn't think they'd ever lose that sweaty ball funk they had going on. I bet that was ingrained in the fabric of the bus. You could probably look their old tour buses up and I bet they still smell the same."

Rachel laughed. "I was constantly spraying air freshener. I had to practically bathe in my perfume. I was so afraid that sweaty ball funk was on my clothes and everyone could smell it."

"What happened next? Come on, don't leave me hangin'! You hugged him, he smelled good, and..."

"And nothing," Rachel laughed. "We sat down and had lunch. I don't think we stopped talking the whole time. It was just like it used to be with us, you know? We could talk for hours. It felt so nice. It was like no time had passed at all."

"Awwww," Melissa couldn't stop herself for squealing in excitement. "That's so great Rachel."

"We just lost track of time. I didn't want to leave. He walked me to my car. It was like that whole awkward junior high stage where you didn't want to say goodbye or hang up the phone. Eventually we said goodbye. I hugged him again, kissed his cheek and left."

"Shut the front door!" Melissa exclaimed. "Let me get this straight. Not only did you ask him out on the date, but you initiated both hugs and kissed his cheek? Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?"

"I told you, I had a lapse of sanity. My brain completely checked out."

"Your brain should check out more often," Melissa said dryly. "If it had checked out 15 years ago, you'd be signing Rachel Chasez for real, instead of writing it all over your drawing pad in secret."

"You swore you'd keep that a secret!"

Melissa laughed. "Relax, no one knew you practiced how you'd sign your name if you would have married JC. It's not like they didn't know you had the hots for him anyway. I lost big money betting that you two would be knocking boots before the start of the NSA tour."

"You bet on my sex life with JC?" Rachel shrieked. "Melissa!"

"If I had known you didn't have a sex life, I wouldn't have bet on it. You could have bet on mine. I wouldn't have minded."

"Oh yeah? For what? How many times you and Joey knocked boots before he went on stage? How about how many songs I had to listen to on my disc man before it was safe to take off the headphones. The damn fire department didn't have enough water to hose you two down."

Melissa snorted. "What can I say? I couldn't get enough of his big ole booty."

"It wasn't his booty you couldn't get enough of," Rachel deadpanned.

"So when's your next date?" Melissa asked when the laughter died down.

"It wasn't a date."

"Who paid?" Melissa grinned, waiting for Rachel's answer.

"Well he did but..."

"It was a date." Melissa said smartly.

Kenzi backed away from the room and slowly made her way up the stairs to her room trying not to make a sound. She hadn't meant to listen to her mother's conversation. She'd come down the stairs armed with a homework question. When she heard her talking about JC, she found herself stopping to listen in. Ever since Sunday she'd been thinking about her honorary uncle, watching old videos on YouTube, browsing through photos online, and flipping through her mom's old photo albums she had in a box in the attic. She couldn't shake the feeling there was something more to him. There was something she couldn't figure out. The way her mother had talked about him stuck with her. Her mother had never talked about anyone like that before.

Kenzi pulled a photo album from under her bed where she had stuck it. The album was full of photos of her with the group - group ones, individual ones. Most just looked like randomness. She concentrated on the ones that had JC in them. There were a lot. JC had told her, she liked him. Her mom had corroborated the statement. The many photographs backed them up. She was with JC a lot, especially when she was a toddler.

It was those pictures she looked at the hardest. The ones where she was a baby weren't helpful to her. Babies really didn't have distinguished features. As a toddler though, Kenzi could see the features. Her green eyes and blonde hair she got from her mother. People told her every day she was spitting image of her mother. She would have to agree with them. There had to be something that she didn't get from her mother though. There had to be something she had of her father.

Her father. This unknown man. She didn't even know his name. She didn't even know what he looked like. They were learning about genetics in science class. She knew her DNA had half of her mom's and half of her father's. She knew her mother's half. It was her father's she was trying to figure out.

She shuddered thinking about her mother having sex, but it's where she came from. What she overheard on the phone, Melissa was betting on her mother having sex with JC. From the stories her mom had told her, and from Lance, she knew Rachel had toured with the group a lot and even lived in Orlando with Lance. The whole group had lived in Orlando. It was possible one of the members from the group could be her father. Lance was out for obvious reason. Joey too. She knew he and Melissa had been dating since high school. That left JC, Chris, and Justin.

To her the evidence was clear. When she was little, she preferred JC. There were more photos of her and JC in the album than anyone else, including Lance. Her mother went starry eyed when talking about JC. There was a drawing pad in a box in the attic where Kenzi had found the photo albums, filled with sketches of JC. Some of the drawings Rachel had signed ‘Rachel Chasez'. Other sketches had hearts drawn around him. Kenzi thought it was vomit inducing when she had first seen them. She couldn't believe her mother acted like a lovesick school girl. Now, it held a different meaning. Putting at that information with what she just learned - her mother had been in a relationship with JC - there was only one safe bet.

JC was her father.