Later that night…
The family had sat down that evening and had a large meal, talking about all the things that had been happening in their lives. After dinner Salina’s father decided he wasn’t feeling well and he went to lie down in her bedroom. Her brothers went into the living room to watch football on TV and JC went back to his house to get Salina his air mattress. That left Salina, Maria and Vanessa to clean up the kitchen and talk.
“So, when did you guys meet?” Maria asked as they were washing the dishes.
“I already told you he’s my boss…kind of.”
“Yes, but when, where, mi hija, come on give me the scoop.”
Salina laughed at her mom. “Um…my first day at work, Vanessa wandered off and he found her.”
“You take Nessa to work with you?”
”I used to, but not anymore. After that he and Nessa got really attached and he would stop by the office, then he started stopping by here and I don’t know we just started to get feelings for each other.” She paused. “Nessa loves him.” She said looking at the little girl sitting in the middle of the floor chewing on a cookie.
“He seems like a sweet guy. You’re lucky.” Maria offered her blessing.
Salina smiled back at her. “I know. Do you want some tea, mom?”
“Yes, please.”
The two women sat at the table and drank their tea and by the time that JC showed up with Justin and Chris in tow they were laughing out loud.
“Babe!” JC called as he opened the door to the apartment. “She really needs to start locking this door.”
Salina walked out of the kitchen and laughed at the three men struggling to get the air mattress through the door. “Uh….guys why didn’t you just deflate it?” She asked as her brothers hurried to help.
“Cause this genius over here forgot how to deflate it quickly.” Chris answered her with a huff.
“Yeah, God forbid JC keep the directions to anything.” Justin said.
“Alright, alright. I’m sorry.” JC said as he lead the way into Vanessa’s bedroom. When the 5 men reappeared Salina introduced Justin and Chris to her family and JC told her that they were getting ready to head out to a club, her brothers actually decided to join them and Justin and Juan were engaged in an interesting basketball conversation as they headed out of the door. She followed them out and said goodbye to JC as Justin, Chris, Juan and Rob waited by the elevator.
“I’ll call you tomorrow. Maybe we can get your parents to baby-sit so we can go out before I leave.”
Salina nodded. “Okay, have fun. No hooking up with any girls.” She said sternly though her eyes were smiling.
“Damn! You ruined my plan.” He smiled before leaning in to kiss her. “Bye, baby.”
“Bye.” She said as she watched him walk down the hall before he disappeared into the elevator.
The next day Salina left her daughter at home with her parents while she headed to work. Without the interruptions of Vanessa, JC or having to leave to pick up family members she got more work done than she normally did in an entire week. She had updated every guy’s file; set up appearances for JC, Justin and Lance; and, phoned the news editor of US weekly to see if it was at all possible to get their photographers to back off Justin for a little bit. She was almost done with her workload when her new assistant, Jennifer, spoke on the intercom.
“Ms. Cortez, I have Janet Jackson’s rep on hold for you. Do you want to take the call?”
Salina immediately sat up in her chair and told Jennifer to put the call through she composed herself and picked up her phone when it rang. “Salina Cortez.” She said professionally.
“Hi, Salina, this is Jeff Blum here, Janet Jackson’s rep.”
“Yes, hi Jeff, how can I help you?”
”Well, I just wanted to tell you that Janet had such a great time working on Justin’s album in 2002.”
Salina squinted her eyes, confused. “Well, it has always been a dream of Justin’s to work with such an esteemed artist as Janet Jackson…however, I have a feeling you have something else you want to run by me.”
“Janet has a new album coming out and it hasn’t gotten the amount of publicity we were hoping for. She was recently requested to perform for the Super Bowl and she thought it would be a great idea to have Justin come on as her surprise guest.”
”Uh-huh…well, what did she have in mind?”
”Well, I don’t really know, I was hoping that the two of them could get together to discuss all of that.”
“Jeff, you know that you don’t need my permission on this. Janet could have called Justin herself and he would be her willing slave.” Salina said starting to put her things away.
Jeff laughed at her. “I know, but in this case you’ll need to sign a contract with MTV, the NFL and CBS. Just legal things you understand?”
“Yeah, well, I will call Justin right away and let him know and when he says yes I’ll call up the companies. Can you leave all the contact information with my secretary?”
“Sure thing, Salina. And thanks a lot for doing this, it’ll really boost our sales.”
”Not a problem.” Salina said before she hung up.
Just as she was about to shut her computer off for the day she realized what he had just said. “Sales? Oh no, JC!”
In all the excitement about Janet Jackson, Salina forgot that the person who she was trying to publicize was JC and putting Justin in the spotlight for the Super Bowl would put more attention on him than he really needed right now. But she had already promised Janet’s camp that she’d look into it so she would just do what she had to to get JC as much publicity as possible. Oh well, she couldn’t worry about that right now, she had to call Justin. She quickly dialed his number and leaned back in her chair.
“Well, if it isn’t my favorite publicist!” Justin answered.
“How did you know that it was me?” She asked smiling.
“Caller ID.”
”I rank high enough on your list of people to be in your phone?”
“Yes, my dear, now what can I do for you?”
“How much do you love me?” She asked him as Jennifer walked in and handed her a package.
”Is this one of those womanly trick questions?”
Salina rolled her eyes. “Nevermind. What are you doing on February 1st?”
“Uh…I don’t know, why?”
“Cause Janet Jackson wants to know if you’ll perform at the Superbowl Halftime Show with her.” She said opening the package and pulling out a booklet with a post-it on the front asking her to pass the booklet on to Justin. She took the post-it off and read the front cover.
”Are you shitting me?!” He asked excitedly.
“No, I don’t often ‘shit’ people, Justin. Do you want me to tell them yes?” She asked distractedly.
“Duh! Why’d you even call me, you know I was gonna say yes.”
“Yeah, I know. Hey, I got another movie script here for you, do you want me to send it to you?”
“What’s it called?”
Salina looked at the title. “Uh…Edison.”
“Yeah, why not I’ve got nothing better to do with my time. Hey, when is JC’s album coming out?”
Salina sighed as she turned her computer back on because she was now going to have to get in touch with MTV, the NFL and CBS. “In March.”
”It got pushed back?”
”Yep.”
“Why?”
”You’d have to ask him, he’s the one that pushed it back.”
“Yeah, but you guys don’t, ya know, talk about that stuff?”
”Huh?” She said as she looked through her database for her contacts at the companies which hopefully Jennifer had added to their list.
“You know…like pillow talk or something or even when you're alone?”
Salina paused in her search. “We’ve only been dating for like three days. We haven’t had all that much alone time what with my family and Vanessa.”
“Oh.” He said and then spoke to someone on his end of the conversation. “Hey, my girlfriend just got here, so I need to go, but…uh…have C give me a call, k?”
”Sure, Justin.” She replied.
“And Salina?”
”Yes, Justin?”
”I’m sorry about just assuming earlier.”
Salina smiled. “It’s okay, Justin.” They said their goodbyes and hung up. In the next hour and a half Salina made all of the necessary phone calls for Justin to be added to the set list for the Superbowl half time show and had also arranged for JC to be the halftime entertainment for the ProBowl the following week. He was supposed to make an appearance at the Grammy’s to promote his album and to show that the other members of NSync supported Justin, but Salina knew that a performance would help his cause a lot more than just an appearance so she pulled him from the Grammy’s. She would deal with the fans’ backlash regarding none of Justin’s bandmates being there when she got to it. By the end of the day she was drained and tiredly locked her office and waved goodbye to Jennifer.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Jenn.”
”Okay, get some rest!”
“I’m gonna try believe me.” She said as she walked out of the office and across the parking lot to her car. She braved the light traffic and made it home to her apartment in 30 minutes where she was surprised to see JC’s car parked in what was becoming his spot. If she had the energy she would have been worried about what was going on inside but she didn’t so she simply slowly trudged up the stairs to her apartment and let herself in. When she was inside her eyes widened at the sight. In the kitchen to her left her father, mother and daughter were all in the kitchen cooking happily and to her right her boyfriend and brothers were sitting on her couch watching a football game, beers in hand. No one seemed to notice her as she entered and put down her stuff until Vanessa looked up.
“Mama!” She screamed causing her mother, father and boyfriend to look towards her. Vanessa quickly ran over to her mother to be picked up.
“Hey, mi hija. How are you? Oh, I missed you today.” She said giving Vanessa a kiss. When she looked up JC was standing in front of her patiently awaiting his turn. Salina just looked at him confused as if to ask why he was all of a sudden fitting in with her family.
JC frowned. “I don’t get a kiss too?”
”Not until you tell me why it looks like I’ve entered the twilight zone.” She said shifting Vanessa to her other hip.
“Huh?”
“What is going on here? My parents cooking a meal politely…you with my brothers watching football and drinking beer? Not the picture I was expecting to come home to.”
”Well, I don’t really know. Your family has been super nice to me since I got here.” He leaned in and
whispered. “Even your dad.”
Salina raised her eyebrows at him then looked around at her family who were enjoying themselves, but she decided not to ruin a good thing. She shifted her daughter on her hip before giving JC a quick peck on the lips. He smiled contently and went to sit back down on the couch. Salina set Vanessa down and made her way into the kitchen.
“What are you cooking, dad?” She said picking up a slice of red bell pepper and popping it into her mouth. Vanessa had followed her into the kitchen and was whining, wanting to be picked up. Salina tried not to pay attention, however, because she had decided to start showing Vanessa that whining wouldn’t get her everything she wanted.
“Just you wait and see. It’s going to be fantastic, hmm?!”
Salina nodded and began chatting with her mother until Vanessa let out a loud shriek and began to cry. Everyone looked down at Vanessa and Salina finally relented and picked her up. She didn’t stop crying, however, so Salina took Vanessa into her room and tried to calm her down. She softly swayed back and forth with Vanessa in her arms as she quietly hummed to her. JC had been standing in the doorway watching, but quietly stepped up to Salina and wrapped his arms around both of them and swayed with them. Salina rested her head on his chest and sighed.
“How was work today?” JC asked.
“Interesting.” She answered.
JC’s eyebrows furrowed. “Why? Did Justin do something again?” He rolled his eyes.
“No. Janet Jackson’s rep actually called me about having Justin appear on the halftime Superbowl show with her.”
“Really?”
“Mm-hmm. And of course he said yes, so I had to call around and set that up. While I was calling I mentioned your album debut and actually managed to make you the halftime entertainment for the Pro Bowl the following weekend.”
“I thought I was gonna go to the Grammy’s with Justin.” He pouted.
“It’ll be better for you to do this. More publicity.”
”If you say so.”
”I do.” She looked up at him.
“Ok.” He said leaning down to kiss her. “Do you wanna go to dinner with me tomorrow night?”
Salina smiled at him shyly. “Like a date-date?”
He chuckled. “Yeah…a date-date. Just you and me. Your mom said she’d watch Vanessa. I even asked your daddy for permission.”
”I’m not 16, you don’t need permission to go out with me.”
”Well, regardless it’s done. So will you go?” He asked quietly as he rested his head on hers.
“Of course. Where we goin?”
“I cant tell ya. Just be ready by 7, kay?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Alright. I’m going back out here with your brothers.”
”Alright.” She said as he stepped through the door to leave her to have time with her daughter.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks so much for the reviews!! Keep em coming! Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Story Tags: boyfriendjc jc justin hospital tabloids joey chris lance solojc
