Careless Mistake
by Kelli
Part 13
Early July 2004...
Justin stopped at the front desk of the hotel Britney was staying at in St. Louis. He gave them the code name she was using and proceeded up to room 1101. It was very early in the morning and he figured she and Mackenzie would be asleep but he was able to get the private plane to leave earlier than scheduled because he missed them so badly.
Finally the elevator arrived at the eleventh floor and he proceeded down the hallway. He unlocked the door as quietly as he could and shut it behind him. He let his eyes adjust to the dark before dropping his bag on the floor and walking over to the crib.
Yep, his little angel looking exactly like that.....a little angel. He could swear that she grew while he was away and it had only been about ten days.
Then he turned to the bed and saw his other angel sleeping soundly. He hated to wake her up so he quickly undressed and climbed into the bed next to her as carefully as he could. She began to stir and moan a little and when he touched her she moved closer to him and cuddled against him.
That morning Britney wasn't awakened by a baby crying, but by the sunlight streaming in through the closed curtains. This startled her and she sat up straight and stared at the empty crib.
"Oh God," she said, putting her hand over her heart to try to calm it down a little.
"Morning," Justin said from the opposite side of the room.
She screamed and covered her yell with her hand.
Justin made a face. "Oh, sorry."
"God Justin.....don't ever do that to me again," she said, almost crying, almost screaming and she collapsed back against her pillow while her heart was still racing.
Justin stood up and walked over to the bed with Mackenzie in his arms. He had a bottle in her mouth.
"Come on Mackenzie, let's kiss mommy and make it better," he said sitting next to her on the bed.
Britney opened an eye, which was watery and smiled. "You scared the shit out of me. First I realized that Mackenzie hadn't woke me up, then I see she's not even there and then you startle me."
"We're sorry," Justin said leaning down.
She opened both eyes and kissed Mackenzie's cheek before Justin reached her mouth for a kiss.
She let his tongue slip into her mouth but then Mackenzie cried because the bottle slipped from her mouth.
"Oops," Justin said when he sat up straight.
Britney laughed. "God, I'm so glad you're here," she sighed, letting her hand run down his arm.
"I am too. So, do you have any promos to do today?"
She shook her head against the pillow. "Nope, nothing until sound check."
"Good."
"I saw most of your TV appearances and I thought you handled all the interviews beautifully. I had Fe tape them all for me."
"Well thank ya. It was good to do shows with interviewers we respected because they didn't ask stupid questions."
She cringed. "How did the couple of radio shows go that you did?"
"They weren't as bad as I thought they'd be."
He took the bottle from Mackenzie's mouth and held her to sit up straight while he patted her back to make her burp.
"You're so good at that. Did you change her?"
"Yes ma'am. Hey, who do you think did all this while you were off rehearsing?"
"I know, but it's been awhile since you've had to do it."
"It's not like I'm going to forget."
Mackenzie burped so he laid her back down in his arm and fed her the rest of the bottle.
"This is nice," Britney sighed.
"Yeah, it is. I just wish we could do it more often. I think she grew a couple of inches," Justin said, studying their daughter.
Britney chuckled. "I don't think so. Maybe half an inch....maybe she's not scrunching up as much. She's getting so curious now. She wants to crawl so bad."
"Oh I can't wait to see that."
He finished feeding her while Britney went into the bathroom and brushed her teeth and changed.
"How early did you get up? You showered and everything, huh?" she asked when she came out of the bathroom, towel drying her hair.
"I couldn't sleep well. Tonight I should sleep like a rock," he chuckled.
He had Mackenzie lying on the bed on her stomach and she was lifting her head up to try and see Britney.
"You hear mommy's voice?" Justin asked her.
When Britney came into Mackenzie's view she smiled and giggled, which made both Britney and Justin laugh.
Britney threw her towel back into the bathroom and pulled her hair back in a hair band and sat on the bed, next to Justin. Mackenzie kept gurgling and smiling at Britney. Her head would bob up and down like she was trying to push herself into moving.
"Girl, you're not even four months old and you want to get around this world on your own already, don't ya?" Britney asked before picking her up and set her on her lap.
Mackenzie immediately reached for Britney's necklace and started playing with it.
Justin scooted so that he was facing Britney's side.
"My mom interviewed that nanny," he said.
"Oh yeah....what did she think?"
"She really liked her. I'll talk to her when I get back to LA and then we'll have to decide if we should fly her out to see you or if you just want to trust my judgment.....and my mom's."
"I don't want to think about this," she kidded, covering her face with one hand.
"Just think about how much easier it will be on everyone while you're on the road," he said, rubbing her back.
She shut her eyes briefly. "I know....I just...."
"What?" he asked tenderly.
"I don't want her getting attached to this woman," she said, leaning down and kissing the top of Mackenzie's head.
"Sweetie, you're her mother, there's no one in this world who can take your place."
"I know, but it will still be hard...."
He sighed.
So, what did you want to talk about?" he asked, trying to hide his nervousness.
"What?"
"You said on the phone we had something to talk about."
"Oh, well, I just thought we should talk about what we talked about before.....you know, before I started touring...."
There was a knock at the door.
"Oh, it's probably room service, I ordered breakfast," Justin said jumping up off of the bed.
He pushed the cart of food into the room and made Britney a plate. Mackenzie started to get a little fussy so Britney held her on her shoulder and tried to bounce her up and down and sang to her.
"She loves this song," she said before she continued to sing.
Justin smiled as he walked over to the bed with two plates. "Really? I'll have to learn it," he chuckled.
"I'll lend you the CD," she said, winking at him.
He set the plate down on the bed in front of her and took Mackenzie from her and set her in her crib. He turned on the moving carousel that was above her bed to distract her and rejoined Britney on the bed.
"Mmmmm pancakes with strawberries.....I haven't had these in awhile," she said, before taking a bite.
"They always reminded me of you," Justin chuckled before taking a bite of his pancake.
Britney smiled as she chewed.
"So," he swallowed. "You were saying before we were interrupted with room service?"
"Oh yeah. Well, I think we need to reevaluate where we stand with each other," she said, licking her fingers.
"Um, okay. How so?"
The phone next to the bed rang, which made Britney jump and then roll her eyes.
"I'm so jumpy lately."
She leaned over and picked it up.
"Hello? Uh huh.......oh no, that's all right. I think we're good with what we got. But thanks anyway."
She hung up the phone and looked back at Justin. "They left something off the tray so they wanted to know if we needed it," she chuckled.
Justin smiled. "So, anyway...." he said, waving his hand to urge her on.
"What was I saying?" she asked, picking up another bite of pancake with her fork.
"That we need to reevaluate...."
"Oh right....well, there's a guy on the tour...."
"A guy?" he asked, suddenly getting jealous.
"Yeah, he's really nice. Really good to Mackenzie...."
"Mmmhmmm."
"And I don't know, I hadn't noticed him before....."
She kept talking in between eating her pancake.
"Until?"
"Well, one of the dancers pointed him out to me...."
Mackenzie made a funny noise which caught Britney's attention so she peered over the bed to her to make sure she was okay.
"Am I going to like this story?" Justin asked, rubbing the back of his neck.
Britney stopped in mid chew and gave him a doe like look. "I don't know."
Suddenly she was scared. What if he didn't want the same thing she did. Maybe he had changed his mind.
"Maybe we should talk about it later," she said softly.
"Maybe....does this hotel have a gym?" he asked suddenly, standing up and grabbing his plate.
"I....I guess."
She was biting back the tears.
"I'll go see," he said, leaving the room abruptly.
She sat there stunned. Not quite sure what had just happened.
As soon as the door slammed shut Mackenzie started to cry which made Britney's shoulders droop.
"It's okay baby," she said.
She took her plate to the cart and then went over to pick Mackenzie up.
"Your daddy comes to visit us and all mommy does is scare him away," she said rocking her back and forth.
