Jess was wending her way through the corridors backstage, trying to locate the guys' dressing room. She and Kelly had met with Mary and couple of other girls on crew for coffee. They enjoyed quite a few laughs together before heading back to the venue.

She was getting frustrated by the labyrinth of electrical cables and props. It was when she took her eyes off the floor to check her surroundings that she tripped over a cord and nearly did a face plant into the floor.

"Whoa there! Watch your step, little lady," Justin said as he caught her arm to steady her.

"Thanks, Justin. That would have been painful," she laughed.

"No problem. Why are you wandering around aimlessly?"

"Oh, I'm not aimless. I'm aiming to find Mr Kirkpatrick. Any idea where he is? He told me to meet him back here. He's not in the game room, and he's not in craft and I can't find the dressing room."

He laughed, "Sure, come with me." Justin led her down another hallway that she hadn't seen on her recent rambles and stopped in front of a door. He rapped on the door. "You guys decent? Female entering!" Justin held the door open so Jess could enter.

"Hold on! I've still got my pants on," Chris hollered.

"And they'd better be staying on," JC responded. "None of us wants to see what's under those."

Chris and JC started wrestling and Jess and Justin jumped up on a couch to get out of their way. Justin looked at Jess and shrugged. "Well, there he is," he nodded to the two on the floor. "What do you say, now that you've seen him, don't you want to go for a younger guy?"

"Hmm, tempting," Jess laughed and scooted closer to him as the wrestlers got a little too close for comfort, "But I've kind of got my heart set on this one."

Justin stepped down. "OK, but this window of opportunity is closing fast!" He stepped between JC and Chris to separate them. "Chris, you've been whining all day about missing Jess, well here she is. Go talk to her before she gets smart and leaves." He pushed Chris towards the couch and shoved JC towards the door.

Chris beamed at Jess as he sat down beside her. "Hi honey, J's right, I have missed you all day." He leaned over and gave her a quick kiss on her cheek. "How was your girls' day?" he asked as he reached for her hand.

"Great! We had fun catching up. So, what's up? Was there something you wanted to talk about?"

Chris was confused for a second. "What? Oh, yeah. First off, I'm glad you stuck around," he smiled. "I would have missed you way too much!"

"Aw, Chris, you're too sweet."

He sighed, "Yeah, I know," and tried to hide his laugh. "Are you OK with being here? I know you wanted time to think."

Jess shrugged. "I'm OK. I didn't really want to leave, I just felt like I needed to. I don't know if I needed space to think, or just to know that I had options, or what, but right at this moment, I'm fine being here, especially being with you." She leaned her head on his shoulder.

They sat quietly for a few minutes, Chris stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. He turned and gave her a soft kiss on her forehead. "So, we're cool, right?"

"Yeah, of course we're cool. I have some stuff to work through, but we're cool."

"OK, I just wanted to be sure," he said as he stood up and reached into his pocket. "I had to tear my bunk apart to find something this morning and I found this under my pillow." He unfolded the envelope that he had given her the day before and gave it to her.

She took the envelope from him. "I, uh, I didn't read it yesterday because...well, partly because I fell asleep and partly because I'm afraid to know what is in there." She looked down at the envelope in her hands, avoiding eye contact at all costs.

"It's OK, Jess, I'm not upset. Just, do me a favour, OK? Tell the part of you that is afraid that it's all good stuff and you should read it later with Pat."

"Who's Pat?" If he had been trying to get her to look up at him, it worked.

"Jess," he said while shaking his head, "Didn't you read the adoption certificate that came with your bear? I named him Pat, you know, short for Patrick, from Kirpatrick, after me."

Jess giggled. "Pat, huh? Well, OK, I'll make sure I call him Pat from now on. Did you read your bear's certificate?"

Chris's brow furrowed. "Yeah, but I don't get the name. What is ‘Mynnie' for?"

"Chris, what's my name?" she asked while laughing.

"Duh! It's Jess." He rolled his eyes.

"What's my real name, Goofball?" she shoved him.

"Jessamyn..." he paused and looked at her. "And?"

"Yeah, that's right, my name is JessaMYN. Do you get it?"

Chris rolled his eyes yet again. "OK, I get it. And it's cute, just like you!" He leaned over and kissed the tip of her nose.

"Oh, Chris, that was just cheesy," she laughed.

He was about to retaliate when the rest of his band mates trekked into the room.

"Hey, guys," Justin smiled. "It's that time!"

"Oh, boy!" responded Chris as he giddily rubbed his hands together. "What the heck does that mean?"

"It means," said Joey, "That we get to go over what we can and can't say during today's meet and greet."

Chris sighed, "You mean I can't tell the story about the time we stripped Justin down to his boxers and made him run behind the bus?"

"Chris," Johnny shook his head as he entered the room. "It means that you two," he pointed towards Chris and Jess, "Need to decide what your official status is."

"But we've only been on one date!" Jess interjected. "That hardly qualifies as needing a status."

Johnny smiled at her, "Jess, my dear, one date with a member of this band qualifies as a status. Sorry to tell you, but you picked the wrong guy if you want to stay incognito. For today, I recommend you avoid the question all together, but if asked, Chris can say he's been dating a bit and Jess, you can say you don't want to discuss your personal life. Sound good?"

Joey saw the grimace on Jess's face. "Welcome to the world of celebrity, baby girl!" He mussed her hair up.

Jess whined, "All I want to do is write. I don't want to be a celebrity."

"Look at it this way," Joey smiled. "If you do a few ‘celebrity' gigs, you'll be able to afford to sit at home and work on that novel you've been talking about."

"Joey," she laughed. "You make an...an interesting point." Jess took a minute to try to find the right words, but Lance beat her to the punch.

"Joey, she's an artist, man. She wants to work her way up, make it on her art alone, kinda do the starving artist thing."

"Yeah, something like that, Lance." She laughed. "I don't want my work to be read because I'm popular, I want it to be read because it's good on it's own, you know?"

JC put an arm around her shoulder. "Don't worry, Jess, everything will come together the way it's meant to be." He gave her a hug, "Besides, you are a fantastic writer, and I have always thought so."

"Aw, thanks, Josh," she gave him a squeeze.

The five boys headed down the hall to start the meet and greet while Jess stayed behind and got a few more pointers from Johnny. She followed them a few minutes later, with Bryan at her heels.

Jess stood outside the door for a minute, trying to steel up her courage to go in. She took a deep breath, opened the door and tried to sneak in unobserved. Of course, since she was followed by a burly security guard, obscurity wasn't an option. Every head in the room turned to look at her and she silently wished the floor would open and swallow her up.

Justin motioned her to come forward. "Hey, it's Jess! Come on up here, Girl, I'm sure there are some questions for you too."

Jess slowly made her way towards the front of the room and accepted a quick hug from Justin. "Relax," he whispered. "Just go with the flow."

The moderator asked the crowd, "So, who has a question for Jess?" Jess was surprised that there were quite a few.

"Is JC a good kisser?" Jess laughed at this one. She looked at JC as if trying to evaluate his skill, but finally turned away and admitted the truth. "I have no idea. I've never kissed him. In the video, we look like we're going to kiss, but if you notice, we never did."

JC interrupted. "Jess!" he whined. "You were supposed to say that I'm a fantastic kisser. You're going to ruin my rep!"

Jess laughed and rolled her eyes. "Whatever! I'm not getting close enough to find out. Besides, I'm sure there are lots of girls here who wouldn't mind proving your theory right." Quite a few screams proved Jess was right and JC had the decency to blush just a little.

"Can you say ‘out and about'?" someone asked.

"Do I have to?" Jess asked. "I don't know why you all think it's so funny. I say it exactly the way you do!"

"No, you don't, Jess!" Joey laughed. "You're so Canadian you can't say it without it sounding like ‘oot and aboot.'"

"Fine, if I have to. Out and about." Everyone cracked up laughing. "I still don't think I sound any different than you."

"Now say, eh? For us," Joey smiled.

"No," Chris shook his head. "That one only sounds right when she says it unconsciously."

"What are you talking about? I don't say eh."

All five of them laughed. "Yes, you do!"

Jess just shook her head. There was no use trying to argue with all of them at once. She wasn't going to win that battle.

There were more questions for the guys and the last question of the day was funny. "Which one of you smells the best?" All of them declared themselves as the best smelling and asked Jess to back them up. Chris asserted that his nose worked the best, so therefore he smelled the best. Nobody accepted his answer.

Jess was called upon to give her "unbiased" opinion. "You want to know who smells the best? I think it would be easier to tell you who doesn't smell the best. I mean, they all have their moments, especially after performing for a couple of hours because as we all know, there is no deodorant that is going to stand up to the workout these guys do." She pretended to think about it. "OK, I'm going to have to say it's a five way tie. They all smell pretty funky, but if there are any beans on the menu, Joey totally out stinks everyone else."

"Hey!" Joey was about to chase after Jess, but all four of the other guys backed her up.

"It's true, Joe, you might as well accept it and move on."

Joey shook his head and reluctantly accepted his new title of smelliest in the bunch. He led the way to the tables where they would be autographing pictures. Jess was placed at the end of the line with a stack of pictures from the video to sign. She sat next to JC so they could both sign the picture of them.

By the end of the meet and greet session, Jess was wiped out. "I don't know how you do that before every show," she commented. "I mean, all I did was sign my name and talk to people and I could go to sleep right now. You guys have to do a whole show still."

"That's just because you're an introvert, and we're mostly extroverts," Chris shrugged. "Introverts can be outgoing, but it takes a lot of energy to do it. We're extroverts, so we get energy from being around people and stuff."

"And of course, the pixie sticks don't hurt either," Joey commented.

"Too true," Chris laughed. He turned to Jess. "I have to go get ready, babe. I'll see you after the show." He gave her a quick kiss before he left.