Hop in the car, go with me
You don't have to pack everything
Don't you wanna feel the breeze?
And forget everything, baby
You can't even remember when it started. Sometime between Jan and the German bigwigs deciding that Lance wasn't *NSYNC and y'all telling them that he was, take it or leave it, and them deciding that maybe he was *NSYNC after all. You're not quite sure who suggested it. You think it was JC. You have a vague memory of him scratching the back of his neck and asking Chris if he'd put gas in the Jeep. And then Joey was herding you into the car, rolling his eyes when you refused to ride bitch. JC took the wheel that first time, with Chris riding shotgun and you and Lance in the window seats and Joey in the middle, even though he was bigger than both of you.
And that's how it was. Sometimes Chris drove instead of JC, but you three amigos in the backseat never changed. It was always Joey sandwiched between you and Lance. Sometimes he brought his video camera along and y'all played the sorts of games that were funny as hell to you but would leave anyone else confused and wondering about your sanity. Sometimes you did things that made you fear what would happen if anyone ever got ahold of those video tapes. Mostly, though, you all just sat in silence, the radio turned down low, staring at your feet or out the window, never really seeing.
You remember that somtimes y'all talked, in quiet voices, and had Deep Conversations. About whatever was bothering you most at the time. About the hot chick you saw at the show the other night. About how hard it was to be *NSYNC. About how easy it was to be *NSYNC.
Y'all kept it up even after the group started to get big. Whenever it felt like it was too much or not enough, one of you, usually Chris who had the best barometer for bullshit of all of you, would say, "Let's take a ride." And off you'd go. You'd ignore the looks you got from roadies, take the keys to whatever car management had rented and be off. It didn't matter if you'd just gotten off a ten-hour bus ride or that you had a soundcheck and meet-n-greet in a little while or that you had to be on a airplane to god-knows-where in less than an hour. You needed it. You all did. That down time when it was just the five of you and the hum of the tires on the road. It was like a safety net, a security blanket that enfolded all of you all at once and let you rest easy.
You can't even count the number of trips y'all took. Sometimes it seemed like it was just to the corner and back. Sometimes it seemed like you were on the road forever. Those were the times you liked best. When you could pretend that you could go where you wanted, do what you wanted, and no one would care.
Weeks could pass without one of you needing to take a ride. Or you could take one every other day, first Lance requesting it, then you, then JC. Or whoever. There never was a schedule or any sort of time frame.
There was the one time that y'all were out everyday. Right before the lawsuit. You couldn't seem to get enough of each other. Those trips lasted a long time. One time, you became aware of your surroundings and realized that you were in Sunrise, a good three hours away from Orlando. No one spoke on those trips, other than "I'm hungry" or "I have to go to the bathroom." But you all heard everything that needed to be said.
You don't remember the last ride you've all taken together. When had it all stopped? All you know is the piercing pain you felt when you turned to Lance and said, "Hey. Wanna ride?" and he brushed you off, something about having to work out to stay in shape. And then you turned to Joey, thinking that he more than anyone could convince Lance to change his mind. But Joey muttered something about learning lines for the sitcom and maybe later and walked away. You couldn't even find Chris, though he had been there just minutes before, going over his part of the medley with the pianist. You won't go to JC, not after...Well, you won't go to him. So you go back to your room and wonder what happened. When did you all stopped seeking solace from each other? When did you stop caring?
You think of the things you've done to stay sane, the frequent trips home, the drugs, the women. You wonder what the others do. What they've done. You wonder if things will ever be the same, if, after the solos and Broadway runs and spaceflights, Chris will ever turn to y'all again and say, "Let's take a ride."
