At 18, Nickolas Gene Carter is the groups youngest member.
 He's also the tallest (6'1"), the blondest and the most popular.
 Which is why he's having a hard time convincing a record
 company rep to let him wearhis hair in a multitude of funky braids
for the band's new video [I'll Never Break Your Heart].
	"It'll look phat," Nick insists, intent on modeling his
 look on Cloud, a character in PlayStation's Final Fantasy
 VII game. Finally, a compromise is reached: no braids, but
 definetely an edgier-than-usual 'do that compliments Nick's
 futuristic get-up and plastic bubblu gun.
	With his cherubic face and his obsession with toys, 
and comic books (he plans on drawing an official Backstreet 
Boys series), Nick is every inch the baby boy.
 But he's not as innocent as he seems.
 A five-year music industry veteran, he's more
 business-minded~and more wordly than his
 band mates were when they were 18.
	"I can't imagine having to deal with what we have
 to deal with now at his age," says Nick's best pal Brian
 Littrell 23. "When I was eighteen, we weren't a hot commodity.
 I got to ease into it."
	Nick, on the other hand, has a hard time 
remembering what it was like not to be in high demand.
 Only 13 when he joined up with the Boys, Nick worked
 with a full-time tutor from junior high on; this past spring,
 he recieved his high school diploma in a hotel room while
 the group was on the road.
	Missing out on high school doesn't bother Nick,
 but missing out on every-day things~like shooting hoops~does. 
"I love basketball. Just to play, period," says Nick, who 
once dreamed of playing college ball. "I could be so much
 better, but I don't have the time."
	He laments not having time for a girlfriend either.
 "Takes devotion," he says of a relationship, adding, "A few
 of the other guys have had girlfriends in the past, and it just
 didn't work." 
	Nevertheless, the Carter home near Tampa, FL.,
 remains a magnet for girls who sit~sometimes all day long~with
 their faces pressed against the eight foot-high fence. Nick
 takes advantage of near by Tampa Bay for his escape from 
all the attention, spending time aboard his boat. Sometimes he
 brings his family-sisters Bobbi Jean, 16; Lesley, 12; and
 Angel, 10 (whose twin brother, Aaron, is the clan's newest
 singing sensation); dad Bob, his career advisor; and mom Jane,
 who manages Aaron. But often, he seta sail alone.
 "The ocean does something to me that is just unexplainable,
" Nick says. "Just being out there and realizing I'm alive."

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