Title: Caribbean Nights
Part: 8/15
Author: Wendy
Category: 98º
Rating: PG-13
Copyright: 1999
The next few days were long days for everybody, but they passed by and everyone was scheduled to be seen in court. The man who had attacked Jeff was Pete and he was being charged with assault and murder in the first degree.
The judge told everyone to appear in court once again in three days.
During the next three days, 98 Degrees and the girls tried to lighten up the mood around and tried to have some fun. They all went to the movies for a couple of times. They all rented movies and had a blast in their hotel rooms. All of them started to get to know one another more and more.
Meanwhile, Pete was kept in the prison, at least until the trial. However, during that time, he admitted to assaulting Jeff. The statements that Pete made to his lawyer was going to be used in court.
Jeff entered the courtroom three days later and it was only the second time that he had seen the exact appearance of Pete, his attacker.
Pete was sentenced to prison for three years for assaulting Jeff, but there was no concrete evidence on Courtney’s murder, so he was acquitted of that crime. Inside the courtroom, there were cold and hard faces from Jeff’s side towards Pete. After the verdict was reached, Jeff couldn’t help feeling sorry for Pete, but he never told anyone else about his feelings.
"Okay, I think that it’s safe for us to go back to the US," Jeff announced once they reached the hotel from the courtroom.
"Yeah, I really can’t wait," Drew agreed.
The four girls gave the guys sad faces.
"Hey, what’s wrong?" Nick asked.
"Well, since you guys are going home, is there still a way for us to contact you?" Jen asked shyly.
Nick glanced at the guys. "Well, there is something that you guys need to know."
The girls gave him a worried look.
Nick started to laugh. "We’re going to fly to New York. We have a summerhouse in the Catskill and it’s not far from where you guys live."
Immediately, Wendy ran to give Drew a hug. "Thank you, you guys. This is the best thing we can ask for."
"You’re welcome," Drew said and kissed Wendy on the forehead.
"We’re here," Justin announced three days later as they entered the summerhouse.
The girls had already called home and asked to stay in the Catskills with the guys. All of the parents had agreed. Before they arrived at the summerhouse, they went by the girls’ apartment and got some more clothes.
"Whoa, this place is huge," Pamela replied and walked into the house.
There were two floors and a huge living room. Upstairs, there were seven rooms, which only meant that a couple of people had to share a room together. They decided that Wendy and Jen would stay in the same room since it wasn’t fair for the guys to change rooms.
Sarah walked out the back of the house and saw a huge pool. Suddenly, Jeff picked her up in his strong arms and threw her into the pool.
Once she got up from under the water, she yelled, "I’m going to get you, Jeff!"
Wendy walked up beside Jeff, who was laugh at the sight of Sarah. "Jeff, you’re going to be in trouble. This girl knows how to swim and how to kick people’s butts in the pool."
"Yeah, right!"
"You don’t believe me? You have to go see her room, there are like a lot of awards from like national swimming meets and stuff," Wendy explained, as Sarah crept up behind Jeff and pushed him into the water.
"What’s going on out here?" Drew asked out loud as he walked outside after hearing all of the screaming and yelling. Pamela, Jen, Nick and Justin followed him outside.
Within a couple of minutes, all eight of them were in the pool, having a splashing war. It was the girls against the guys. The girls won easily and the guys agreed to take them out to dinner for the night because they didn’t have a lot of food in the house anyway.
After the dinner and a mini-tour around town, everyone headed back to the summerhouse.
"What movies do you guys want to see?" Justin asked, looking through the huge collection of videos at the house.
"I’m up for something really funny," Wendy replied.
"Okay, then. How about ‘There’s Something About Mary’?" Justin said, taking out the video.
"Yeah," everyone agreed at the same time.
Justin turned on the television and popped the video in. Just before he pressed play, there was breaking news up on the television screen. Everyone was still laughing and talking with one another, and only Justin looked up at the TV.
"Guys, be quiet."
"What’s going…" Jeff trailed off.
"…We have gotten reports that Pete Vasquez has escaped from prison," the newscaster was saying. "He was sentenced to three years for assaulting Jeff Timmons, one of the members of the group 98 Degrees, and he was tried for first degree murder. No further information was reported by the Puerto Rico police department, but they are searching for him as of now. Once again, Pete Vasquez has escaped from prison. We now return you to regular programming."
Justin shut off the television set for a moment there and everyone sat there in silence.
"I can’t believe this," Jeff said quietly.
"How could he have escaped? And why aren’t we being notified of this?" Jen asked.
Just then, the phone started to ring and Jeff went to answer it. While he was at the phone, everyone was talking among themselves about this latest situation.
About five minutes later, Jeff came back with a somber face.
"What happened?" Sarah asked concernedly.
"They’ve been looking for him for the past five hours. They said that they will stop searching for now, because it’s getting dark down there in Puerto Rico. And it’s really hard to tell where he can be now because the Puerto Rico airports didn’t shut down until a couple of hours ago," Jeff answered.
"This isn’t good," Pamela said.
"That’s the understatement of the year," Wendy retorted.
"Look, we can’t be sure yet that he’s looking for us. And it’s definitely best if we all just stay together meanwhile. We just have to remember that we shouldn’t be alone by ourselves at any given moment," Jeff suggested.
"He’s right. I mean, we don’t know anything concrete either way, so it’s better to play this thing safe," Drew added.
"I hope that you guys are right," Jen said.
Still holding the video is his hands, Justin said, "It’s not going to do us much good if we all just sit around talking about it. Let’s just watch the movie like we had originally planned. Okay?"
Everyone agreed with him, although no one was really able to concentrate on the movie. All of the girls almost only looked at one another, giving eye contact as messages. None of them wanted to admit to the guys, but they were very afraid of what could be happening. Meanwhile, the guys had to think of ways to protect their girlfriends.
Slowly, everyone drifted to sleep at the end of the movie.
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