Another Chance Book I of III

Book III-Chapter 38, The Interviews Part I

The Interviews

Prince's POV

At 1:00 AM on August 20, Prince woke up from a dreamless sleep. As he was many mornings, he was spooning with Bella when he awakened. It always made him smile to wake up to her being so close to him. He kissed the top of her head and got up and did his morning business and went into the kitchen to make coffee. After putting it on he returned to the bedroom and Bella was already up and in the bathroom so he went back into the kitchen to wait for the coffee to finish brewing and to prepare two cups for them. He was doing just that when Bella came into the kitchen. "Good morning Prince",Bella said. " Morning Mama". "Your coffee madame", he said handing her a mug of the fragrant dressed coffee. "Thank you baby. This is going to be an exciting day", Bella said. "Yes it is. Let's get ready for it", he said! Bella, I am so glad that you will be by my side for it. It makes it much more fun and it makes me feel more confident", he said smiling at her. Bella kissed him on the lips and headed into the bedroom to dress. Having showered before bed, she washed her face and put on her red performance outfit and checked the hanging bags with their interview outfits in them and went sat down at the vanity to comb her hair and do her makeup. She would wear her hair in a messy French Braid style today for the performance.

Once she was dressed, she went into the kitchen and packed a cooler with Yogurt and granola and a huge number of fresh pieces of a variety of fruits for everyone including the body guards and band. They would have healthy breakfast snacks to eat at a more reasonable hour. She placed them in their mid size cooler. Prince came out of the bedroom and she said she had not heard anyone else moving around so he might want to check. It was going on 2:00 AM. Prince knocked on Carlos's door and asked if he was up. "Yup" he said, they would be out in a few minutes. Frank and Larry had come out dressed and ready for coffee and Ross and Melvin were right behind them. Elaine came out in her red performance clothes and Carlos followed her with their hanging bags of interview outfits. Prince returned to the bedroom and made up the bed and grabbed their hanging bags. Prince and Carlos took their hanging bags out to the SUV while Larry secured the house. Once in the garage, Frank set the alarm and once all were in the AirCar, put in the code to open the garage and backed the vehicle out. He then put in the code to close and secure the garage door. He took to the air immediately and headed for the Good Morning America location. The travel to the location went without a hitch. As they drove into the garage, they saw the Travel Bus pulling in also. The Band had just arrived. Frank and Larry got out and walked the perimeter of the garage and then checked the folks on the Bus also. Once all was clear, Ross and Melvin got out of the SUV as did their 4 charges. While the band began to unload, Ross and Melvin accompanied Prince, Carlos, Bella and Elaine inside of the building. The guys had their hanging bags in tow and Bella had grabbed the cooler. They went to the reception station and the security guard called Helen Pickering who said she would be right down to greet them. As they were waiting for her, Andy Grady walked in greeted them, hugged Elaine and Bella and said that Christian would be in the audience this morning also. Helen came into the lobby and Andy introduced himself and Royal, Carlos and the girls as well as Ross and Melvin. She said that she had some rolling carts on the way down to assist with the instruments getting into the studio.

Helen was pretty, petite, and in her mid-thirties. She appeared to be of mixed race, with naturally tawny colored, curly hair and dark gray eyes and a beautiful smile. She was very gracious and seemed self-assured without arrogance. Melvin could not take his eyes off of her when she greeted them. He was instantly smitten. Of all of the security team, he was the only one that was unmarried, although he would like to be. He was the youngest of the Andrews brothers was in his late 30's and while smart, handsome, educated and affluent, he simply had never met a woman that he honestly felt that he could commit to for life. He was not willing to settle for less. He would have to find out from Andy what he knew about this lovely woman. She was really something...hopefully she was also single. Melvin texted Frank about the rolling carts being provided and then joined the group as they went up to the 18th floor to the set that would be used for them to perform. Helen showed them the set which was fully lit to make it easy to set up the instruments and then took them to another area on the same floor where the green room was located. Two doors down the hall were two dressing rooms where Royal, Carlos and the girls would be able to change for the interview after their performance. There would be 17 minutes between the end of the first song and their being brought back out on stage for the interviews. Once brought out they would remain on the talk sofa until time for the second song that would close out the show. The girls hung up the interview outfits after removing them from the hanging bags in the appropriate dressing rooms for both themselves and their men to make the changing go quickly and then waited in the green room with Ross while Melvin went back down to assist with getting the instruments up to the set. The band had become very good at getting this done quickly and they were fully set up by 3:10 AM. Royal then played some chords to make sure all of the instruments were tuned and they quickly ran through the two songs while the girls blocked out their movement on the first. After the quick run through, the entire group went down to the green room and dug into the yogurt, granola and fruit that Bella brought with her. There was also chopped fruit and cheese, some sweet rolls, coffee and tea and Orange juice provided by the show. At 3:50 AM they were escorted back up to the set where they would perform which was now darkened as they were on the air now on the talk set and they took their places. They would perform at 4:15 AM which was 7:15 AM Eastern time. A replay would be shown at 7:15 AM California time.