Part III: Future

*

Their first appearance on the promotion circuit ended up being on Leno, which AJ approved of as a relatively tame way to climb back on the horse; still, nearly seven years after Rosie had stopped doing her show, AJ couldn't help wishing she was around every time they had to do this again. With her he knew he was going to get a hug going in, at the very least.

AJ shut the door to the dressing room when all the hair and makeup people had left, noted Brian's slightly green color and didn't even bother to let himself feel guilty for being reassured at somebody else's nerves. "I'm not the only one who thinks he's gonna puke in about three seconds, right?"

All four of the other guys shook their heads emphatically. AJ sighed in relief and slumped over Howie. "The new album is fantastic," he said experimentally. The statement was lacking some necessary enthusiasm., it having been replaced with nervousness.

Across from him, Nick started warming up. Kevin and Brian and Howie joined in before AJ remembered how to use his vocal chords. By the time they had gone through one verse of the first single a cappella, someone was knocking on their door, giving them five.

AJ forced himself not to grab for Howie's hand while they walked down the hall toward the recording stage. He reminded himself not to wince at the lights of the cameras as they walked to where Leno was, settling themselves into the chairs, rearranging their limbs until they were confident they looked at ease and pleased to be there. Leno was reseating himself as well. AJ thought he might have exchanged a handshake with each of them.

Leno welcomed them with, "Wow, it’s been a while," which could have been snide, but it wasn't. He had a smile on his face that was about as genuine as anything AJ had ever been able to expect out of someone in the business.

Brian laughed and shrugged in that goofy, charming way he had that AJ kept expecting him to start looking too old to do but he never did. "You know what they say, good things come…"

Leno pulled one of the advance copies that the studio had sent of their album out of his desk and set it out front where the cameras would catch it. "Yeah, I've listened to 'Almost Shattered,' due out in stores on May 28th. Your vocal sound is amazing here, really like nothing we've ever heard from you guys. The music is still very signature Backstreet, I felt, but your sound has changed so much it felt…darker? Is that a word you guys would be comfortable assigning this album?"

Nick gave a little huff of laughter. "Yeah, um, I definitely think this album is darker than our past ones. There's been a lot of whispering about this album, because of it taking so long to make, y'know, almost two years, but there was a lot that went on in our lives during those two years, and the title, 'Almost Shattered' -- we waited until the end to pick that, had a lot of arguments over it -- I think it really tells people how we felt while we were writing and recording and kind of just living through making this album."

Leno nodded, "I have to admit, preparing for this interview was hard for me. I mean, people come to the show expecting me to be funny and make the people in those seats seem funny and I generally like to think that I can with a little preparation, but when I listened to the album, thinking of everything I've heard in the news over the past couple of years about you guys and what I've heard through the grapevine, that kind of thing, I was really stuck for a way to be funny because I almost felt that it would detract from what this album means for you guys."

There was a moment of silence in which each of the guys attempted to formulate a response to that before AJ surprised everyone by being the first one to speak. "I have to say that I appreciate that. It's been a long, long year and a half for me and the guys and I am grateful to you for not belittling that. I want to point out though, that the album's title is 'Almost Shattered.' It's not named that because we didn't ever think of naming it 'Shattered.' We did. We settled on 'Almost' because we felt that 'Shattered' indicated a kind of damage that couldn't be repaired and even though there was a lot of that, the five of us really pulled together and fixed what could be fixed and in the end we all came out of the things that could have destroyed us."

Kevin waited patiently for AJ to finish. He fixed AJ with a look that AJ could only interpret as sheer pride. Kevin turned back to Leno, "I'd also like to point out, as you and the audience probably already know, there have been some great things to happen to us while this album was being put together, some stuff that kind of gave relief to the other things, like the new babies."

Leno grinned, "Yeah, I did hear about that, of course. Do either of you guys have pictures?"

Brian and Kevin both dug up the pictures that they had brought in case anyone asked, pictures they had on them nearly twenty-four seven of late. Leno motioned for the cameras to zoom in and cooed over the pictures for a bit. He joked around about being a father for awhile and successfully made the guys look funny. AJ thought they were funny anyway, but having someone to spar with didn’t hurt.

When the interview was over a fairly painless fifteen minutes later, they were taken backstage to wait until they performed. They sat and drank the water provided to them, silent except for the occasional comment. It didn’t feel like very long before they were being ushered out again. They took their places on the stools provided. AJ waited for the music to start up. When it did there were a few disparate shouts, but overwhelmingly all he could hear was the music and the other guys, the crowd's importance lying in its role as a receptacle, out there only to hear what the guys had to say. A rush of the kind of adrenaline AJ had almost forgotten existed flowed through him.

AJ sang about endings, the fact that they inevitably flowed into beginnings and vice versa. It was trite, but he knew they made it sound otherwise, made the crowd understand that some things were universally true for a reason. AJ let the flow of the music take him through his very last note, when the audience didn’t wait for him to quiet down, drowning his voice with the rhythm of their hands. AJ quieted down and let himself go under.

*

AJ was just beginning to relax, let himself believe he could handle what any publicity stunt threw at him when they did an interview for Entertainment Weekly. The piece wasn't a cover piece, but it was large enough to require a photo shoot, so the Boys had scheduled a full day for the process.

The magazine had insisted they do the shoot first. Brian and Kevin took charge of the shoot, working with the photographer just enough to make her think she was getting exactly what she wanted, but not enough to let any of the guys be made uncomfortable. The photographer was actually pretty easy going compared to a lot of the ones the guys had worked with, and AJ was tricked into thinking it was going to be a fairly breezy day. He wondered later if the people at the magazine who controlled interview scheduling had wanted to make it seem that way.

The journalist who was writing the article came in toward the end of the shoot. He made no move to introduce himself or instigate pre-interview off-the-record-let's-get-to-know-each-other conversation. When they finally sat down to do the interview, he did introduce himself, but when Kevin pointedly held out his hand, the journalist -- Jared -- shook it only reluctantly.

The first questions were easy, cold but inoffensive. Nick and Kevin answered them for the most part, equally cold and inoffensive. After a few minutes of this, Jared switched tactics and looked directly at AJ. "There's a song on this album called 'Underneath.' The credits make it out to be your wife's with some tinkering by you and Howie. You don’t find this at all exploitative of her untimely death?"

AJ's brain stalled for a half a second in the face of Jared's smirk. The words were already filed onto the tape that was rolling, waiting for AJ to feed it an answer, but the expression was just between the two of them. AJ reached over and pressed the 'stop' button on the recorder. "How old are you, you sanctimonious fuck?"

"Excuse me?" Jared's smirk turned to a look of superior disbelief.

"You heard me."

"Twenty-six," Jared's voice was smug. Twenty-six was young for someone to be handed nearly front-page news in a major magazine.

"Two years ago you would have been twenty-four. Just getting out of grad school, maybe?"

Jared nodded, starting to look unsure of where this was going.

"I'm willing to bet you didn't meet Sarah while you were locked in your ivory tower, and you haven't been on the scene long enough to have known her this way. I, having been married to my wife for more than three years and having dated her for over a year before that, knew her pretty well. I loved her even more than I knew her. If you want to insult me without knowing that I will have you demoted to filing mail in people's slots for the rest of your given life, choose another subject than her memory on which to do it. You know nothing about her or me or any of the four other people sitting in this room, and no matter what you think you know about life and this business, I suggest you keep that in your delusional, stuck-up head." AJ leaned over and switched the tape on again, his voice going from coldly furious to congenial in less than three seconds, "Actually, Sarah finished 'Underneath' shortly before her death and so nobody ever got to hear it. For quite awhile, I thought that was just the way it was meant to be, and I pretty much tried not to think about it, because it was too hard, I would hear her every time I looked at the notes and that was tearing me apart. When we scrapped our second efforts on the album, the ones we had recorded almost immediately after Sarah's death, we also went back and took out some songs that we didn't feel really fit who we were anymore, there had been a lot of change in the five of us, our outlook, in a relatively short time. There were holes that had to be filled at that point, and Nick was already writing some stuff, but I was finally at a point where I was ready to have the part of me that was her, still is her, on the album, I felt that to leave it out would be to lie to myself and to my fans. So I talked with the guys about it, and Howie agreed to help tinker with 'Underneath' a little bit, work the harmonies in with me. It's beautiful. I would rather have heard her sing it, definitely, but I know she's totally up there dancing to my version."

Jared kept the questions a little less personal after that and AJ let the rest of the guys do the talking.

*

"You okay?" Howie asked when they were safely back at the apartment. Howie was figuring out which take-out menu he wanted to order from and AJ was changing into lounging clothes, as was their post-interview/appearance routine. "How about pierogies from that Euro-fusion-we-don't-know-what-the-hell-we-are place?"

"Sounds good to me, and yeah, I'm fine." AJ seated himself on the couch next to Howie. "He was being a fuckhead, right? I didn't overreact and make us all look like asses?"

"No, you were great. Very calm. I think Kevin was a bit worried about you suddenly going feral, which would have looked bad no matter who was at fault to begin with." Howie curled his fingers around the back of AJ's neck and pressed them in firmly, trying to release some of the tension that had built up.

AJ leaned his head back, extending his neck over Howie's fingers. He listened to Howie dial the phone with his still-free hand and order enough food for six people even though he knew that neither of them were going to eat that much right then. There would be leftovers for later that way, sitting in the refrigerator waiting for three in the morning to roll around and AJ to climb out of bed starving.

Howie hung up the phone with a resounding beep. AJ said, nonchalantly, "I wanted to kill him."

Howie tossed the phone aside and curled up on the couch, tucking himself against AJ's side. "I was thinking up ways. I had come up with twelve by the time he asked the question that Nick insisted I help answer."

AJ put his arms around Howie, pulling him in closer. "I don’t think he had even listened to the album."

"Oh, hon, that was blazingly apparent, we just didn't make you tune in for all the little red flags he dropped right in front of our feet." Howie sighed and burrowed his head in the slope of AJ's neck.

"I feel about three levels below what you could label a complete dumb-ass." AJ released one of his arms and ran a hand through his hair. "Things were going so well with Jay and Seventeen and even Newsweek, and I say that knowing they were obviously going for an angle that's gonna have us fuming when it hits print. The reporter was nice, though. Respectful and intelligent and you could tell she had actually taken the time to listen and consider what could have possibly been put into an album that took two fucking years to produce. I let myself be lulled, let go of my shell."

"You lowered the shell a bit," Howie corrected. "If you'd let go of it there's no way it would have been so easily accessible today when you needed it. Don't worry babe, you're still a badass."

AJ snorted. "Great." He brought the arm still holding Howie up so as to stroke Howie's hair. "I appreciate you guys trusting me to handle that."

Howie was quiet for a bit before admitting, "Silent agreement."

"Oh?" AJ's hand kept right on stroking, if the guys could trust him to rip reporters apart with his teeth, he could trust them to make decisions about him behind his back.

"You get to deal with all questions regarding Sarah, no matter how you choose to do so, and we will back you up. This means you can go as so far to cause physical damage and we'll probably hold you back after we recover from the shock, but we'll also make it clear that it was provoked. It also means that if you want one of us to deal with it all you have to do is look over at the person of your choice and he'll handle it."

"That's sweet," AJ replied, even though it was really so much more than that. He knew that he would never take them up on the latter part of the offer; so long as people were asking questions about her, he would be the one giving the answers, she deserved that much from him. The guys deserved that much from him. He wouldn't allow his anger to get away from him and jeopardize the group either, he'd done that too many times in the past. Grief and the accompanying rage had stripped AJ of a good portion of his energy for fury. He could still get mad, there was just a calm that accompanied it, a weird sort of slowing of his blood that allowed him to think things through, respond the way he wished he could have when he was younger and stupider.

"I think you had best avoid picking Nicky at all times though. I know you weren't really paying attention to anything but the slowly deflating look on dickhead's face, but I was pretty sure Nick was going to go Neanderthal on us and decorate the room with the guy's entrails." Howie shuddered slightly.

"No Nick. Duly noted." AJ didn't say anything else because Howie knew him well enough to know that the point was moot, AJ wouldn't ask it of any of them. And because AJ had enough respect for Howie to understand that saying those words aloud would strip Howie of a protective mantle he automatically wore as AJ's lover. "I love you," he said instead. His breath caught. "That sounded so different than I remember it sounding."

Howie struggled to sit up and look into AJ's eyes. "You've told me that before. You told Kevin it last week."

"With Kevin, dipshit, it was obviously different." AJ rolled his eyes. "And I hadn’t said that to you yet, not like that, just the words. No accompanying action or explanation, just three tiny syllables."

Howie gripped the closest sofa cushion. "Did it sound okay?"

AJ considered the death-hold Howie had on the blue chenille cushion. "I'm glad it sounded different. It is different. I wouldn’t have wanted it to be the same. Would you have?"

Howie tilted his head from one side to the other. "I don’t know. I mean, I see how much you loved her, day in and day out. It's all I've seen for a year and a half. I can't say as having that would be so horrible."

AJ pried Howie's fingers from the cushion and wove them through his own. "You do have that. Maybe even more, I don't know yet. I want to believe this is forever and that given time it will naturally become something bigger without the two of us even noticing. What you have of me now, though, isn't less than what she had, it's just completely and entirely apart from that. It has to be, if you were tied up in her…nothing about this would be right. That's why it had to take so long in the first place."

Howie stared intently at their fingers, locked tightly against each other. "Thank you for making me wait, I guess."

"I'm sorry it was as long as it was. I didn't know that, I swear."

"No," Howie smiled. There was a touch of sadness in his eyes, but it was remembered sadness. "I know you didn't."

"I wish you had said something."

"I'm glad I didn't." Howie explained, "I love you differently, and more, than anything in this entire universe. I don’t think you could have understood what that meant until now, without all that has lead up to this. And I don't regret her any more than you do. I don't regret her friendship or her talent or all the little and big things she changed inside of you. You grew with her. I don't regret anything when it comes to you."

"I love you," AJ repeated, wanting to grow used to the sound.

"I love you," Howie agreed pointedly.

*

The first single cracked the top ten and stayed on the TRL countdown at varying positions for over a month. AJ was pleasantly surprised by both these occurrences and had a feeling that the rest of the guys were as well. The two albums that had followed 'Black & Blue' and preceded 'Almost Shattered' had done decently enough to maintain their celebrity status but hadn't garnered anywhere near the numbers of their earlier career. The new single was no 'I Want it That Way' in terms of sheer popularity, but it was getting regular airplay on several stations in any given place and people were responding to it well.

AJ stopped worrying as much about album sales and sent their publicist a cake from Howie's favorite bakery for all her hard work. When Kevin suggested that they start making actual tour plans, AJ closed his eyes at the excitement that rushed through him, almost too heavy in his veins. It was nearly the way Howie made him feel, after Howie decided AJ had waited long enough, was paying enough attention. Not quite, but nearly. AJ remembered how he had told reporters that he hadn't been able to wait to return to performing when he was in rehab, and it hadn't exactly been a lie, the logical part of his brain that insisted he knew himself had told him that was what he wanted. The part of his brain that had gotten him both into and out of the predicament in the first place wanted to stay behind the sturdy walls of the clinic, made to withstand monsoons and the emotional vulnerabilities that tried to intrude from the outside all at once.

The guys had known, seen through his posturing and AJ had never been exactly sure who had suggested the extra weeks, the time in the special post-alcoholic limbo that he had thought of as his own half-way house, but it had worked, and AJ had made it into the car that took him away, safe for a little while longer behind tinted windows.

Performing had become a double-edged sword, forged of the exhilaration that came from AJ's actual love of performance and from his fear of what people could see in those moments when he opened himself up, let go. Performing was the only way he could remember to do that by that point, though he was slowly relearning the skill off the stage as well.

The rush that came with the idea of going out on the road again was clean this time. It felt familiar, and AJ thought maybe he was remembering it from back when he was ten and just starting and unaware of how very many hurtful things the world could fling at one rather tiny boy.

This tour was to be small. The ratings on the single indicated that they could go larger than they had originally planned on, not much, but a little. None of the guys really wanted to, though. AJ and Nick had both taken a hands on part in researching larger clubs and smaller arenas and being very picky about where they approached to do shows.

As a group they had decided to completely cut out the dancing on this tour. The last one they had retained a few of their dancers on and even done some dancing themselves, but Nick wanted to sit behind a drum set for most of the tour and Brian wanted to sling a guitar over his shoulder and Kevin was adamant about fitting himself behind a set of ivories. Howie and AJ didn't really feel the need for more motion than casual, unchoreographed movements, didn't necessarily think anything more would fit with the sound and emotive quality of the album.

They reworked jam sessions into certain songs so that Kevin, Brian and Nick could play around on their instruments and made other songs a cappella because they couldn’t resist the chance to show off a bit and weren't too old or too proud to admit it.

AJ looked forward to getting up in the mornings, waking Howie up, eating breakfast on the way to rehearsal. He enjoyed the exhaustion that hummed through his body at the end of the day, when he was too tired to do anything other than pass out after Howie gave him the blowjob of a lifetime, AJ mumbling a promise that he would return the favor in the morning. AJ made good on his promises. Every morning.

One morning, after he had showered and brushed his teeth and didn’t have to feel ashamed about calling his mom, he did. He greeted her, "Hi mommy," and when she asked what was up with him, like a good mom, he told her, "I'm alive, and I know it."

*

AJ and Nick didn't read reviews about themselves or the group. Brian, Kevin and Howie did. This division among the guys was known and accepted. Which meant that AJ was a little taken aback by Howie's casual, "You want me to read this to you?" as his eyes skimmed the words of the LA Times critic.

AJ took a moment to look at Howie as though the older man had grown a second head, this one with tentacles. "Um, hmm, lemme think. That would be a no."

"I think you should let me," Howie insisted.

AJ was about to emphatically restate his position when he stopped to actually listen to what Howie was saying. Howie hadn't hurt AJ yet, hadn't even shown the desire to and AJ thought that perhaps this was as good a time as any to make it clear that he trusted Howie. "Okay, if you really want to."

"I'll skip to the highlights, okay?"

"Seems a little like popping rose-colored lenses in my sunglasses, but all right," AJ shrugged.

"She likes the album. She isn’t raving or anything, but she openly states that she thinks it's our best effort to date and that if things continue in this vein she thinks she could be convinced to be a fan. But that's not why I want to read it to you."

"Okay, okay, read away. Impress me with your literacy," AJ gestured grandly for Howie to go ahead.

Howie put his finger to the page and skimmed down to where he wanted to start. "Okay. 'While the album does not break through any barriers to redefine pop, it validly charts new territory for Backstreet as a group. Their harmonies, until now, sugar-light and infectious, have evolved into something richer, oftentimes with an edge of melancholy. While the album definitely rests on a theme of survival and healing, the sound of the album overall is anything but thematic. Every song on the album was written by one of its members, a first for the band. The songs penned by Carter are often more heavily drum and electric guitar based, whereas Littrell seems determined to bring a bit of bluegrass into Backstreet's corner of the market. Collaborative songs, such as 'Sitting Back' by Dorough and Carter, can end up being plain odd, a mix of traditional Latino balladeering and hair-band style-crooning. Amazingly, the Boys make all of these styles work for themselves, fitting together an album that tells a tale of pain and recovery without condescending to make it seem like these things can be contained in a singular type of sound or one particular chord of harmony.'"

Howie held up a finger, signaling that AJ needed to wait while he scrolled his eyes further down the page. "And this: 'One of the more gutsy decisions made by the Boys is the actual line-up of songs on the album. The first single is one of the very last songs on the play list. The song that they open up with is called 'Underneath.' There is one line of melody, played on the piano. Richardson himself is the one playing for this track. The song was originally written to be performed by a solo artist and a woman, as it was written by McLean's wife, who committed suicide in October of 2006. McLean and Dorough reworked the song together to make room for five-part harmony. While this could have been an exploitive move on the band's part, they manage to make it anything but. The sound is still exquisitely simple and the harmonies are constructed to create an echo that is haunting. If a person can sit through this song and not feel McLean's grief at the loss of his wife, the force of her presence imprinted on this album, that person has seen and been hardened by much more than I.'"

AJ came over and kissed Howie's forehead. "You were right to read it to me."

"One more," Howie insisted. "'I, like most of the known world, had my doubts about this album -- doubts that it would ever be finished, doubts that it would be worth the wait, doubts that it would be anything more than the somewhat tepid pop Backstreet has been guilty of churning out in the past. Maybe all of my doubting allowed me to be more impressed by the album than I otherwise would have been. Even so, I can say nothing more about this album than that it deserves the twenty some dollars necessary for its purchase. This is the Backstreet Boys, indeed pop as a genre, at its most heartfelt, lovely and genuinely musical.'"

"Think they liked the album?" AJ asked, trying to cover for the fact that he felt tears of relief climbing their way out his chest and into his eyes.

"She," Howie corrected him. "Uniko Shigura."

"For real?" AJ didn't read reviews, but Sarah had. Uniko Shigura had trashed Sarah's second album along with Backstreet's fifth one.

"For real." Howie chuckled. "Kevin told me he spent an hour working up to reading it when he heard she had been the one to do the review."

"Poor Kev, that had to be completely anti-climatic."

"Yeah, and I think Kris laughed at him for it too," Howie added, trying to sound sympathetic. He ended up leaning into the table and laughing instead. AJ stayed upright laughing with both amusement and sheer release of emotions for a few seconds before sliding down to his knees, pressing his face into Howie's side, breathing just enough to inhale the scent of Howie's happiness. It smelled suspiciously familiar and completely unknown all at once, caught up in AJ's own as much as it was.

*

It was no accident that there was nearly a week long break from the tour in no other place than Lexington, Kentucky around the day of Orlando's first birthday. Brian had Leighanne's parents flown in, Kristin caught up to them with the twins and they threw a grand party with a Sesame Street theme. AJ even did a little bit of puppeteering, feeling that it was easier to do so than to argue the fact that really, none of the kids had enough of a grasp on coherency to understand what was going on. Sarah seemed thrilled by the fluffy feel of Oscar when she tried to rip his head off of AJ's hand, so AJ didn't feel too put out.

Each of the kids had developed their own way of communicating. Sarah mostly screamed out sounds that sounded somewhat similar to what she was asking for or trying to tell the person to whom she was 'speaking.' Orlando did a lot of pointing that was generally surprisingly on target. Carolina had about six one-syllable words down that she rearranged in different patterns for any given situation.

AJ sent Denise plane tickets and asked her to come. It didn't take a lot of convincing because Backstreet babies were communal property as far as claiming grandparent status went and Denise wasn't one to pass up her right to the title. Paula and Hoke came out as well, not wanting to be left out.

BJ and Leslie drove down from New York where they were rooming together in an apartment Nick had picked up for himself during one of his solo stints. He had told Howie it was for all the times he had to be up there and do MTV face time, but the rest of the guys all privately agreed that it was just Nick's way of getting BJ to actually do what she had been talking about in moving up there, away from Jane. Nick had also planted the suggestion that Leslie should follow her.

Aaron couldn't get away, but Angel came on her own. She had been making herself disengage from Aaron's side more and more, working toward a time when she felt she could go off on her own and handle college. Nick was working on convincing her to move in with Leslie and BJ and go to one of the city colleges.

Ann and Jackie had baked three cakes, because it wasn't feasible for everyone to get together again in a month for the twins's birthday, so they all agreed that the girls should get to share in Orlando's limelight. AJ and Kevin helped feed Sarah while Howie assisted Kristin with Carolina, and Nick pretty much just made fun of the mess Orlando was successfully making of Brian.

It took awhile to get the babies and their surroundings clean after that, but with the help of everyone the aim was achieved. Howie flipped through his CDs and put on some soft flamenco. He stole Carolina from Kristin, and danced with her, making small sounds of agreement to her delighted screeches of "ma!" and "toy!" which Howie took to mean she was enjoying herself.

AJ bounced Sarah around and kept up a running monologue that was mostly made up of him poking fun at the other guys. She grabbed onto his nose and didn't let go. AJ just kept on talking.

At some point, Kevin came up behind AJ, wrapping his arms around the younger man so that Kevin was holding both his friend and his daughter. AJ stopped talking.

Brian was dancing with his wife, leading her slowly around the room, whispering in her ear. She smiled minutely at whatever he was saying, leaning her head down on his shoulder as they kept twirling.

Nick stood in the corner, safeguarding Orlando, holding him so that he could watch his parents glide around together. BJ was standing next to him and he leaned over, knocking his hip into hers gently. She knocked back every bit as gently, looking over at him with a look that crossed exasperation and sheer idol worship. Nick was still watching Brian, a similar expression on his face.

Carolina was winding down in Howie's arms, her words less insistent. AJ twisted in Kevin's arms. "Take my girl, wouldja?"

Kevin raised his eyebrows, "Your girl?" He took Sarah, shaking his head.

AJ made his way to where Howie had slowed down himself, swaying back and forth. AJ put his hand on the shoulder that Carolina was resting on, nearly asleep, he took Howie's free hand in his other one. Howie started a slow salsa. AJ stepped on Howie's foot the second time, smiling apologetically. Howie just started over again, his steps careful, soft so as not to wake Carolina up, and slow so as to keep in time with AJ.