Hello Beautiful

“Questions, questions, questions. Ok, first, Nick, I know that you and Laura are dating, so don’t try to deny it.” Nick and I looked at each other and he quickly removed his arm from around my shoulders. “And Joe, with Taylor Swift, and then Kevin has Danielle. How in the world are you guys finding time to date? I mean, Laura is on tour with you Nick, but what about Joe and Kevin, how do you do it?”

“Ummm… I’m not dating Laura. I’m single.”

“And I’m not dating Nick. It would be a little too close for comfort, since we’re on tour together.”

“That’s what Miley said during the Best Of Both Worlds Tour.” Ellen smiled.

“I didn’t date Miley! Ever! I swear!!!”

“Well then, what about Selena Gomez?”

“NO! I’m single!!! I... double swear!”

“What would you say if I told you that I didn’t believe you?” She smirked like she knew something we didn’t.

“Why are you looking at us like that?” I asked her. Her smile widened.

“Josh, show us the picture please,” she asked her tech producer.

“Picture? What picture?” I panicked. Oh no. What could she possibly have a picture of?

We turned to the big screen and there was a photo. It was a screen shot from the Camp Rock kissing scene. I breathed a silent sigh of relief.

“Ummm… that’s a screen shot from Camp Rock. That’s not even Nick,” I pointed out.

“I am well aware of this. I just put that picture in so that we could compare it to this one!” With a flourish, she flicked a remote at the screen and suddenly, instead of Joe, Nick was up there, kissing me, frozen forever in Disney Channel cinematic history. Time to panic.

OH SHIT!!!

“Well? Explain!” Ellen demanded.

My brain had shut down momentarily. I had to slap myself mentally to kick-start it again.

“It’s obviously been photo-shopped,” I said, thinking faster than I ever had in my life. “Check it out. It’s exactly the same as the picture of me and Joe, only it’s got Nick in it.” Actually, it wasn’t them same, I could see that, but only the details were different, tiny, miniscule things; the slight difference in the tilt of my head, the stance of Nick’s feet, the lighter colored shirt I was wearing. I had to look for Nick’s hand for half a second before I realized that it was under my shirt. I really hoped that Ellen wouldn’t notice any of these miniscule things, especially where his hand was.

I knew that this picture was in fact real, it hadn’t been photo-shopped, but I had to lie and convince Ellen and her millions of viewers otherwise, because if I didn’t the whole world would think that me and Nick were dating, and I could not, would not, let that happen.

I spent about ten minutes pin-pointing things that Ellen would notice, sometimes drawing her attention deliberately. I had worked with Photo-Shop for years and it was obvious she had never even heard of it. I explained how all of the differences in the photo had been changed within a computer so that the picture came out very differently than it had gone in.

I told her that this was the work of a very good editor, even though I knew that no one, not even me, could have fixed a picture that well. It was the real deal alright. I hoped that my little speech would be enough to convince anyone else that found this picture. I wondered how it had been taken at exactly the same angle as the one of me and Joe and I wondered where Ellen had gotten it.

She questioned me many times and left nothing out, but I had an answer for everything, whether the one I gave was true, or if I had made it up myself.

“Are you sure Laura? Are you 100 percent positive?”

“Yes. Actually, I’m 115 percent positive that that picture is fake. I swear.” I was getting really good at lying to interviewers.

“I’m glad you know that it’s fake. We didn’t show it to embarrass you. We just thought that you should know that there’s a picture like that floating around on the web.” Ellen looked baffled with my ability to prove that the picture was a complete fake, even though it wasn’t.

“Where’d you get this picture?” Nick asked her, turning his head to look at me in the process. He looked really grateful that I could prove it was a fake, even though he knew it was real. He remembered...

“Google Image Search. We typed in Laura Sullivan and Nick Jonas and it was on the first page of results.”

“Was it on a Flicker page or something?” I asked, wanting to find the picture and have it removed.

“Nope.” She grinned. “It was on Popstar! Magazine’s website.

Double shit.

“And what did it say?” I came so close to screaming that it wasn’t even funny. I grabbed Nick’s hand and he held on to mine tightly.

“The caption said ‘Are Nick And Laura In Love?’ We saw a ton of comments saying that the picture was a fake, because you guys would never make out in public. Hearing your explanation of how it would be done, I have to agree. The picture’s a fake. Let’s check out the web page and let them see it out for themselves.” She typed in something and a web browser showed up, directed to the Popstar! Magazine homepage.

And there it was in all its glory; the picture that I thought would ruin my life. I could tell that there were quite a few comments on it, most of them cussing Popstar out for posting a picture that not just celebs, but normal people wouldn’t really want to display either. I was surprised at how many fans actually supported the relationship, seeing how the girls usually want Nick all for themselves.

Underneath the picture, someone had posted a new caption that read, “We have deemed this picture to be a fraud, seeing that it is almost an exact copy of a screen shot from Camp Rock, it just has Nick in it instead of Joe. It was edited using Photo-Shop. Sorry for the false alarm!”

Thank God. I felt Nick’s grip on my hand relax slightly; he had been cutting off my circulation for the past two minutes. I flexed my fingers to make sure that I could still move them, and I felt relief flood through my body: the magazine thought the picture was a fake. Thank you God, so much!

“Look, even Popstar thinks it’s not real. Ok, Laura, you have proved your point, no picture. But that does not mean you and Nick aren’t dating! I’m watching you...” Ellen pointed at us.

I was scared, no joke, like, freaked out. I was glad the interview was only a few more minutes long.

“Talk to me about your album, guys, what’s up with that?” she asked, moving on to a new topic finally.

“Well, we can’t really say that much, but it was inspired by a lot of things in a small amount of time.” Nick smiled towards the camera, causing the thousands of girls watching the monitors outside to scream.

“And Laura, what about your album that you released several weeks ago?”

“My album was inspired by many things as well, but I didn’t write those songs all at one time. I’ve been working on most of those songs since I was about ten years old.” I grinned, thinking about all of the things that had inspired those songs.

“Have you already started working on songs for your next CD?”

“No, I haven’t because I don’t really need to write any more songs. I have stacks and stacks of composition notebooks in my room on the bus, full of music that I’ve written. Now all I need to do is record them,” I explained to her.

“Let’s talk about some of your other talents. Nick, Kevin, Joe, I know you guys love to play sports.”

“Yea, we play all types of sports, all the time,” Kevin said.

“What’s your favorite sport?”

“Baseball,” said Nick.

“Golf,” said Kevin.

“Basketball,” said Joe.

“And Laura, what about you?”

“Ummm... I play too many sports to choose my favorite one.”

“And she can beat us soundly at all of them,” Joe laughed.

“Really? Laura, is that true?”

“I can’t beat them at every sport.”

“Oh yeah? Name one sport that you haven’t beat us at yet.”

“Cricket,” I said, after thinking for a minute.

“We don’t play cricket.”

“So?”

“That doesn’t count. Think of another one.”

“Ummm... Ummm... Uhh...”

“See? I was right!” Joe exclaimed.

“Are you seriously proud of being beaten by a girl at every sport known to mankind?” I asked him.

“Including football?” Nick added.

“Two-hand touch or tackle football?” asked Ellen curiously.

“Both,” said Nick and Kevin together, looking really annoyed.

“Do you remember the baseball she hit out of the park in Yankee Stadium?” said Nick.

“Or the 400 yard hole-in-one at Bandon Dunes Golf Course?” said Kevin.

“What about the mid-court basket at that Duke basketball game?”

“Or her national first place ribbon in equitation for her school equestrian team?”

“What about that 75 yard touch-down?”

“Or her gymnastics medal.”

“What about her soccer trophy?”

“Yea, and remember her lacrosse friends?”

“The ones who came to the Camp Rock premiere?”

“Yea.”

“What about all of the football players? I think she had more friends that were guys there than girls!”

“Guys!” I finally snapped at them. “Sheesh, just tell the whole country, why don’t you?” I pointed at the cameras.

“Whoops, sorry,” Joe apologized.

“It’s cool, just stop running your mouths for about 20 seconds.”

“Laura, do you want to say something?” Ellen prompted me.

“Well, it’s just that, most of those things I did way before I even became famous. I’ve always been pretty athletic, but I worked hard for everything, and it all paid off. I mean, I guess I do hang out with guys a lot and there’s nothing wrong with them, but they were always like, ‘Oh, she’s a girl, she doesn’t want to play football’ or lacrosse or whatever they were doing that day at recess and that was when I was seriously ready to beat their butts, so I practiced. And practiced. And practiced. I worked so hard, that that’s just who I turned into when I play sports. I am so competitive that I can’t lose. It’s just not possible for me.”

“When we play team sports, I’ve got dibs on Laura.” Nick called me.

“Hey, no fair! I want her!” Joe whined.

“Guys, whenever we play any sport, it’s always me and Nick versus you guys and the band and you lose anyway, even thought there’s six of you and two of us. It wouldn’t help you even if you had Nick on your team. I’d still whoop your butts.” I laughed.

“Laura, do you seriously think you could beat all three of the Jonas Brothers, plus their band, at any sport?” Ellen inquired.

“Pretty much, yea.”

“Would you care to make a bet on that?” she said.

“I might. What are the stakes?” I asked, wary.

“You versus the Jonas Brothers and their band.”

“What sport?”

“Guys?” Ellen asked them.

They conversed hurriedly in whispers for a moment before giving their answer...