|
OF ALL THE CAMPSITES, IN ALL THE WORLD Chapter 1
When I first thought of this trip, it had slipped my mind that I didn’t like camping. I was a city girl at heart. But I had vacation time coming and I wanted to finally meet Hanka and Allyson. We had met over the Internet. Hani and I first. We exchanged eight page e-mails at least once a week. Ally and I almost the same. Although we didn’t send the same e-mails as what Hani and I did, we became instant friends. I had thought of the idea to go camping one night when I was bored. I was sitting at home and wondering how I could get Hani and Ally here. What better way than to take them to the place that has made Alberta famous? The Rocky Mountains. I got on the Internet and e-mailed Hani right away. It would be the hardest and more expensive for her to come. She lived in Prague, Czech Republic. She e-mailed me back a few days later that she was able to get a month off work and would arrive in two weeks. I was so excited. The next thing I did was get in contact with Ally. She too was able to get some time off work and would be here a week after Hani. With dates settled, I got on the phone and was able to rent all the equipment that we would need to camp in the Canadian wilds for a week. I had rented an eight-man tent, a camping stove, cooler, lanterns, anything that we could possibly need. Hani arrived two weeks later to hugs and tears at the airport. We had a great week together, I was a little worried about her and Allyson getting along, but once Ally arrived, I had nothing to worry about. They got along great. We stayed up late the first night that we were all together. Watching videotapes of the reason that we were friends in the first place. The Backstreet Boys. Hani was in love with Nick, the youngest member of the group. Ally was in love with AJ, the wildest member. I was in love with Kevin, the oldest member. Which left Brian, the funniest member and Howie, the sweetest member. Two days after Ally arrived, we headed out to the National Park, early. I knew the campsite that I wanted and I wanted to make sure that we got a good site. We loaded up my Pathfinder, put the guys in the CD player, turned it as loud as we could handle, which was pretty loud. A few hours later we arrived. It took us a minute, but we found the perfect site. It was huge, there was a place to park my truck, two picnic tables and a spot in the back for our tent, tucked away between three trees. We jumped out of the truck and the first thing we did was bring out the portable stereo and put in the guys first CD. As Hani and Ally unloaded the truck, I went to register the site. There was no site to the left of us, but there was one to the right that was occupied. I saw one vehicle and three tents, but no people. When I got back to the site, I saw that we were ready to put the tent up. “This is going to be interesting. Have either of you ever put a tent up before?” I asked as we sat around the picnic table pouring over the instructions. “Once. About 15 years ago. But I can give it a shot.” Ally laughed. “We don’t do much camping in Prague.” Hani stated. An hour later we were standing before the tent. We had finished with the instructions and had laid everything out on the ground so that we could identify it easier. We thought that we were ready for this, but another hour later the tent was not together. “Come on you guys. This is just a tent. How can we not be able to put it together?” I wondered. Hani and Ally were sitting on the ground with their backs to the other site. I sat down to join them and reached for the instructions again. A second car had just pulled into the site beside ours, I was too busy getting frustrated with the tent to notice who it was. “Face it Sydney, we are not campers. It is just a good thing that we got here early. We still have lots of light and we can waste our first day getting this tent together.” Ally said. I put the instructions down and stood up, brushing the dirt off my butt. I looked up and straight at the five most gorgeous guys on earth. Standing before me smiling was Kevin, Nick, AJ, Brian and Howie, watching us with interest. Of all the campgrounds in the world, of all the sites and they had to be next to ours. How lucky could we be? “Hi.” I glanced down at Hani and Ally, “We have company.” I said. They stood up and turned around, almost losing their balance. “Oh my God.” They both whispered. “Looks like you ladies need a hand.” Kevin smiled as he walked toward us. My knees threatened to give way underneath me as he reached his hand out. I shook it and reluctantly let go. “I’m Kevin. And this is AJ, Howie, Nick and my cousin Brian.” I didn’t want to give away that we knew that. I didn’t want them to think that we were going to turn into crazy fans. But we were more than a little start struck. “I’m Sydney, these are my best friends Ally and Hani.” I replied. I couldn’t take my gaze off his amazing green eyes. “Did you want a little help with the tent?” Nick asked from Hani’s side. “That would be great.” She whispered. “Ah, guys, this is what we needed. We should have brought something to play some tunes on.” AJ said as he walked over to the stereo and pressed play. Before I could stop him, Larger Than Life started with his yell. Kevin smiled at me, “I guess I didn’t need to introduce us then, huh?” Within minutes they had the tent up. And had us laughing to the point of tears. “How long are you guys here for?” AJ asked, directing his question more to Allyson. “We are here for a week. This is mine and Hani’s first trip to the Rockie’s.” She replied. “Your first trip here? Where are you from?” Brian asked from inside the tent. “I’m from Prague and Allyson is from Massachusetts.” Hani offered. Brian came out of the tent and looked at us, “So you live in Europe, you live in the States and you live where?” He directed at me. “Right here. About three hours north of here actually. Just outside of Edmonton.” I said. “Where did you guys meet?” Kevin asked. “You’re from different countries.” Kevin and I were getting more supplies out of the truck as I explained. “We met at backstreet.net actually. Hani had sent in a review of the interview that you did for VIVA, she said that she had a copy of it on videotape and I asked her if I could get a copy of it. We started talking and the rest is history.” We walked back over to the others and I smiled at Hani, “Right Hani?” “That’s right. Now we send eight page e-mails to one another at least once a week.” “Eight pages? What about?” Nick asked once again at her side. “Nothing in particular. Mostly about you guys.” Hani admitted. “Wow.” Howie said, “What do you talk about us that it takes eight pages?” Hani and I looked at each other, smiling knowingly, “Oh, this and that.” Was all I offered. AJ sat down at the table across from Ally, “And how did you meet them?” "Same way.” She started, “Syd sent in her opinion on something and I thought it was interesting. I e-mailed her back and the rest is history.” "Oh oh, don’t know if I like the sound of that. Opinion on what?” Brian asked. “Actually it was those books that were put out by your ex-girlfriends. I think I said something to the fact that I would never buy them, or even to waste the time to flip through it in the bookstore. Anything that I wanted to know, I wanted to learn first hand.” I stated. “That’s good to know. I was not happy with Sam when I heard about her book.” Brian admitted. “You know, we should hang out together the week that we are all here.” Howie suggested. “You know the area, you could be our tour guide.” Just as I was about to say sure, Nick interrupted. “D, they may have other plans.” I looked at Hani and Ally, we couldn’t turn away from this opportunity. I knew that they were both going to take every advantage of this to make sure that they left this campsite at least a close friend of the guys. At this point that was all we could hope for. I looked over at Kevin, there was no way I was going to let this chance get by. “No, Nick, it’s okay, we would love to hang out for the week.” I told him. “Great, why don’t we finish getting you guys set up and then we can take that trail over there.” Brian said. Over the next thirty minutes the guys kept us laughing as we set up camp. Since we were going to be together all week, we moved things around a little and put our tent farther back on our site. We moved the picnic table from their site to ours and arranged all the lawn chairs around their fire pit. “Looks real cozy. Only women could make a campsite look homey.” AJ claimed. “Are we ready to hike?” Brian called out. We grabbed a few bottles of water and then headed out. Brian and Howie were in the lead with AJ and Allyson behind them. Hani and Nick were next with Kevin and myself bringing up the rear. We took the back road to the trail, following the road. We crossed the highway via the bridge and made it to the start of the trail in ten minutes. We grabbed a few trail maps and followed Brian and Howie as they led us into the wild. We all walked at different speeds and managed to space ourselves out pretty good. “So Sydney, what do you do for a living?” Kevin asked me. “I am a PR rep for a radio station in Edmonton. And I occasionally get to fill in for the late night DJ.” I replied. “Most of the time I am trying to get celebrities who are in town to come and do a little press. I tried to get something from you guys over the phone when you were in Toronto, but I didn’t have much luck.” I laughed. “Yeah, we didn’t do much press for this last tour.” Kevin admitted. “I would have to say you didn’t do much with this last tour.” I mumbled remembering how upset I was that Edmonton was left out of the tour schedule. As was most of Canada. I looked ahead to Nick and Hani and smiled when I saw that they were holding hands, Hani was going to be beside herself with happiness. We came to a steep part of the trail. I took things slowly so that I wouldn’t fall, Kevin was behind me. A few steps from the bottom, I lost my footing. Yelping out I reached for the first thing I could, which just happened to be Kevin. He had reached his hand out to me to catch me and managed to do it just before I hit ground. “Are you okay?” He asked. “Yeah, thanks.” I whispered. Kevin’s hand found mine, I held on tight and wasn’t going to let go this time. An hour later we made it to the end of the trail. I had noticed that it was darker and a little windier, but brushed it off as it being because we were in the middle of two mountains. There was a waterfall that marked the end of the trail, Brian and Howie were skipping rocks at the edge of the river and attempting not to be thrown in by the other. AJ and Ally were sitting on a couple of rocks to the extreme right of Kevin and I, oblivious to everyone else. Nick and Hani were sitting in the bridge that was over the river. They were whispering quietly to one another. Kevin led me over to a spot between AJ and Ally and a group of trees. It gave an excellent view of the waterfall. Kevin released my hand and wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me close. The scent of his cologne enveloped me, I had never been happier in my life. I looked over at Ally and smiled as I saw her and AJ leaning into one another. “She is so lucky.” I thought. I stepped away from Kevin and peaked at Hani to see how she was doing. Her and Nick were skirting around one another trying to decide what they wanted to do. Just as Kevin was lifting my chin up, they leaned into one another. “There is something about this place.” Kevin whispered as he pulled me close to him. I waited for the second our lips touched. It sent a bolt of electricity running through me. Instinctively, my hands went up to his neck and found their way to his hair. It was so soft. Everything about him made my toes curl. The way his little mustache tickled my upper lip, the way that his hands ran up and down my back as we kissed. Out of no where, a crack of thunder echoed around the valley that we were in. I jumped about a mile out of Kevin’s arms. I hated thunder. Brian and Howie were all ready on the other side of the bridge with Nick and Hani not far behind. AJ and Ally were just running past us as we made our way to the bridge. Kevin held my hand firmly as he led the way back to the site. The rain started to fall on us soaking us quickly. Every time that the thunder would crash around us, I would stop dead in my trucks, afraid to move. Kevin would look back and tug gently on my arm, causing me to move again. By the time we made it back to the site, we were all soaked, but the rain had stopped. The guys quickly changed and did their man thing by starting a fire. Us girls changed quickly and hurried around the fire to warm up. “Well guys, this is Alberta weather for you. Sun shining one minute, pouring rain the next and then sun again. Gotta love this province.” I told them all. Kevin reached out his hand for me and pulled me to his lap. Everyone gathered around the fire and warmed up. The guys filled us in on life on the road. The ups and downs. They were very honest with us. With everything that they told us, however, they seemed to be very grounded. You could also tell that they were very close. Around five o’clock, Nick brought up dinner. “So what are we going to do for dinner?” He asked. Him and Hani were sitting beside one another holding hands. “Well, if you guys don’t mind us snooping around in your cooler, we would be happy to make you dinner.” Ally announced from beside AJ. She had her chair turned so that it was facing him and had her legs spread across his. “Snoop away.” Brian said. “What do you guys have?” I wondered as I got up. I had moved to a chair beside Kevin awhile ago, but still held onto his hand. “We have some steak, chicken, pork, hamburgers, hotdogs, potatoes, salad.” Howie told me as he ticked them off on his fingers. Kevin followed me over to our site where the stoves had been set up. We worked silently for a few minutes until he spoke. “Sydney, I just wanted to apologize for earlier.” I knew what he was talking about, but I didn’t want to admit to myself, let alone to him, what it had done to me. “Apologize, what for?” “For kissing you. That is not me.” He whispered. I walked around the table to get close to him. I took his hands into mine. “Kevin, if I didn’t want you to kiss me, I wouldn’t have let you.” I smiled up at him, “I have to confess you are my favorite Backstreet Boy.” Kevin pulled me closer to him wrapping his arms around me, “Well then I have to confess to you, that you are becoming my favorite campsite mate.” He confided. He lowered his head so that our lips touched again. I wrapped my arms around his muscular body, amazed that he could make me feel so good. We stood there for several minutes, learning everything that we could about one another before we were interrupted. “Hey, Kev!” We heard. We broke apart and saw that everyone was watching us. “We are hungry over here. You wanna stop making out with Sydney and let her get our dinner ready?” Nick asked. “No.” He replied and pulled me into his arms for another kiss. We parted a minute later. Hani and Ally brought over what they found in the guys’ cooler, while Kevin went over to their campsite. The three of us huddled around the picnic table and talked quietly. “You and Kevin sure seem to be cozy.” Ally said. “I know.” I whispered, “Can you guys believe this? Of all the places in the world that they could go camping and they choose my backyard and we got the site right beside theirs.” “How are we gonna handle the end of the week though? I mean, I have to go back to Prague, you have to go back to Brockton and you have to come back to Leduc.” Hani pointed out. “Maybe over the next week, AJ, Nick and Kevin will fall madly in love with us and want us to go on tour with them next time.” Ally wished. I looked over at the guys, they were standing around their fire pit whispering as well. Kevin seemed to feel my gaze on him and raised his head to meet my eyes. My heart skipped a beat and I couldn’t help but smile. I turned back to Hani and Ally, “I think I have all ready fallen in love with Kevin.” “You can see it. During that little hike, I learned more about Nick than you can imagine. Is it possible to love after only a few hours?” Hani asked. “I think so. I was taking a peek at you and Nick on the bridge, there was so much chemistry going on between you two.” Ally said. We all grew quiet then, thinking about what had been said. A few minutes later, AJ came over and wrapped his arms around Ally’s waist. “What were you three whispering about over here?” “I’ll tell you if you tell me what you were whispering about over there.” Ally countered as she tilted her head over to where the others were standing. “Can’t. I have been sworn to secrecy.” He smiled. “Well then, I guess you will never know.” She replied. “This stuff is almost ready to be cooked, you want to help me take it over to the stove?” “Gladly.” Us girls stood around the other picnic table and got everything cooked. The guys sat around the fire pit, keeping up a steady stream of conversation. They told us about the next album and what the next tour would entail. An hour later we were ready to eat. Hani had set the table and we all sat around it. The guys kept us laughing through the whole meal. I was amazed that we were even able to eat. They had made us a deal that since we cooked, they would clean up. After we were done, while they did the dishes, us girls sat around the fire. I had brought out my camera and was taking pictures of the guys. It was an opportunity that I couldn’t miss. I went inside the tent and grabbed my camera, making sure that I had lots of film. I crawled out of the tent and pointed the camera to the guys and snapped a picture. They all turned around and smiled as I snapped another. “You aren’t going to sell these to the Enquirer are you?” Nick asked as he reached for another plate. “Only if they pay me enough.” I joked. I went and sat with Hani and Ally at the guys fire pit. The three of us teased the guys and I took lots of pictures. I didn’t know how this week was going to end and I wanted to be able to remember Kevin with ease.
|
