I'm sitting on the steps outside Justin Timberlake's superswank Beverly Hills Hotel bungalow, trying to get up the guts to ring the doorbell for my interview. It's not that I'm nervous about talking to Justin, it's that I've been warned not to ask too much about his breakup with Britney. But I have to ask, because you guys--like pretty much the rest of the world--want to know. The official reason I'm here today is because Justin's first solo album, Justified, is dropping in November and he wants to talk music. Still, I have to think of a way to bring up the situation that won't get me tossed out on my butt.

    I take a deep breath. Ding-dong.

    After a couple of minutes, the sleepy-looking singer answers the door barefoot--he's wearing baggy orange cargo pants and a gray hooded Abercrombie & Fitch sweatshirt. He's pretty sexy; when he stretches out on a mushy velvet couch for our chat, he looks even better.

    Right now, Justin is crashing in this ritzy hotel (yep, he's no longer sharing that three-million-dollar house with his ex) while he waits for his own place to be furnished. He recently bought the 12,000-square-foot Mediterranean-style ranch house on 10 acres of land in the Hollywood Hills. "It has tennis courts I'm going to turn into full basketball courts," says Justin, who's a huge Lakers fan (though he gives props to his hometown Memphis Grizzlies, too).

    Justin hates shopping, but luckily he has someone who will do it for him (no, it's not a new girlfriend). The 21-year-old star tells me his mom has spent about $300,000 in the last three days getting stuff for his house! "It's very homey. We just got some gigantic citronella candles. The house has oak hardwood floors," he says, perking up. "It will be manly but shabby-chic, too--with big plush couches." "Hey," I joke, "there's a slot open for the next Martha Stewart."

    "Honestly, I think the single life has presented many opportunities for me to get into furnishing and decorating, to have my house be my house," Justin says. "It's been interesting. When you suffer from a broken heart, you seek refuge somewhere."

    "I was gonna sneak in the breakup, but you're talking about it!" I say, stunned.

    "Oh, I knew it would come up so I thought I'd just deal with it," he says, calmly. "There are things I won't say, but to pretend like it didn't happen. . . ."

All about the breakup

    When Justin talks about Britney, he uses a lot of "ums." He's watching his words, but, unlike with most big stars, you don't get the feeling that he's rehearsed every answer or made up a fake story for the press. I start with an easy question.

Was it tough writing material for the album because of the breakup?

    "Um, you know, I can honestly say that the writing of this album was like clockwork because I had so much on my mind that I could write about from my personal experiences in the last six months. It helped me get over the breakup and brought some clarity to how I was feeling. It helped me get over my blues."

 So what happened?

    "Um, a lot of people have asked me what exactly happened, and that's between me and Britney. I will say that, um, . . . there are things that came out that weren't true--things about me having a new girlfriend. I've been single since. All I can say, specifically, is that Britney knows why this is happening. There's really nothing else I can say about it without putting my business out there in the world. I think Britney is a wonderful person and I still love her. She's great, but she knows why what happened, happened."

When did you last see her?

    "I saw her the other night, and to say that it wasn't weird would be lying. But we talk on the phone every now and then, and she knows that I love her. I mean, her family is dear to me--her little sister, and her mom, dad and brother. She will always be a part of my family, and my mom feels the same way. That alone makes it a little more personal and a little harder to deal with."

Can you imagine ever getting back together?

    "I have no idea what the future holds. I know where I am right now. Britney is a wonderful, wonderful person. But I have issues, she has issues, what person doesn't have issues? But specifically, she knows why this is happening. If she says that she's confused about what happened, I can't honestly say that would be true."

Was the breakup work-related?

    "No. Work was always something that we dealt with. I believe that if you care about someone enough, you work out your schedules. You get to a point where you are comfortable in your career and if you want to, you find time to spend with that person."

Are you more cynical about love now?

    "You know, I have faith. Initially, whew, when I went through it, I really went through it. But if I don't believe in something, then I don't have much. So I believe people can change their stars. Maybe the things that happened between Britney and me could change--it could take another 180-degree turn and be OK. I've always been a romantic. I believe in love and I always will. With that in mind, you go from day to day. The worst thing would be to make a rash decision and jump into something else or block yourself off from the world, period."

It's sad; you guys seemed so in love.

    "I don't doubt that Britney loves me or that she did love me when we were together . . . things happen. I guess I'm just an old soul because I was ready. Not that I was ready to do it [get married] at that moment, but I knew who I was going to do it with, you know. So I think it was hard for me to realize that wasn't reality."

    Great. Now I'm even more curious about what happened. I mean, I read the gossip columns and I didn't exactly get the impression that Justin was nursing a broken heart--what with reports that right after the breakup he was spotted hanging out at strip clubs and seen dirty-dancing with backup dancer Jenna Dewan. It's probably just the girl in me wanting to side with the girl--I'd assumed Justin was the villain. But he's so earnest when he talks about Britney that I get the feeling there's way more to the story.

But what about the music?

    If last year's Celebrity was dirty pop, Justified is dirty, filthy, stinking pop--if it's even pop at all. Here's the deal: Justin is an R&B/soul/hip-hop kid. And that's not just some fake, newfound phase. "You're honestly looking at a person who grew up listening to Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway," says Justin. His all-time favorite album is Michael Jackson's Off the Wall. "That was a time when Michael was completely unrehearsed. You can just hear in his voice on that album that he was finding out who he was."

    And with Justified, fans will finally get a chance to find out who Justin is--Justin without 'N Sync, Justin freed from controlling record-company executives, Justin not worried about writing a hit. "I"m going to look back on the summer of 2002 as a time when I created something all on my own. On this album, I'm totally me for the first time in my life. I didn't think about needing a good pop hook--screw it, man! I didn't worry about writing a power ballad. It's a new chapter in my life. This is me ," says Justin.

    What does me sound like? Justin tells me there will be cameos from rapper Bubba Sparx [sic], ballad king Brian McKnight and a certain superstar diva (you'll have to read on to find out who). Then he lets the music speak for itself. He turns up the stereo to about 11 to play me the thumpin' single "Like I Love You," produced by rap whiz kids the Neptunes, who collaborated with Justin on seven tracks. I feel like I'm inside a video game! R&B grooves interlock with hard guitar strums, topped off with the rawest vocals I've ever heard from Justin. I would never have guessed this was a Justin Timberlake track if he weren't standing right in front of me. When that cut fades out, he queues up "Cry Me a River," a semi-ballad that was produced by Timbaland (who's known for his stuff with Missy Elliott, Aaliyah and others). The lyrics go: "You were my sun/you were my earth/you took a chance/made other plans . . . some other guy/now it's your turn to cry." Hmmm . . . I know Justin wrote the songs for Justified (and yes, he wrote and co-wrote all of them) while he was dealing with some heavy emotions. US Weekly reported that Britney and/or Justin may have cheated; the magazine also speculated that Britney may have had a thing with 'N Sync's choreographer, Wade Robson. (For the record, Britney told People that neither of them strayed.) Still, I'm definitely wondering if the song is about that.

Still 'N Sync?

    When Justin decided to do a solo record, he sat down and told each of the 'N Sync guys individually. Unlike in that other boy band, there were no bruised egos or power clashes. "Everybody was supportive. They said, 'Go for it,'" says Justin.

    "To me, making this record was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," Justin continues. "If I didn't do it now, when would I ever do it? I thought, Am I going to look back 10 years from now and say I wish I'd tried it just to see what I would've come up with?"

    Besides, it's not like the other guys are just sitting around. Joey is in Rent on Broadway, Chris and JC are working on their own stuff, and until recently, Lance was trying to blast off into space. If we're lucky, maybe we'll even see solo projects from a couple of the others, too.

So did he really kiss Janet Jackson?

    "I'm not answering those questions," he says.

    Justin has spilled way more about his personal life than I ever imagined, and I get the feeling it would be a bad idea to push him.

    "There's too much speculation on who's the replacement, and I don't like that," he says. "I don't want anybody I'm hanging with or who's a friend of mine to feel that."

    OK, while he may or may not be more than friends with the 36-year-old icon, whom he was reportedly spotted making out with at a Miami nightclub, there's something going on between them: Janet sings on "Take Me Now," a track on Justified.

It's getting hot out here

Vroom-vroom

    "I'm at Vasquez Ranch State Park, out in the dusty California desert. It's 95 degrees of dry heat out here. But who cares? I get to watch a sweaty Justin, looking totally bad boy in motorcycle boots and stiff jeans, pose for our cameras. At one point, Justin ditches his shirt in front of the crew to change before taking a seventeen staffer for a ride on his newest Harley (he owns five more). My jaw drops. Justin told me yesterday that he hasn't worked out in a month and a half, but I can't believe it. When he said he was "metabolically blessed," he wasn't kidding.

    Turns out, Justin was born to ride--he got his road-warrior genes from his mother. "I bought bikes for my parents, too. My mom rides more than my dad. My dad doesn't really ride; he's kind of scared of motorcycles. But my mom's a daredevil," says Justin.

    So is Justin. "I got a $150 speeding ticket just the other day. I was riding my Harley back from a friend's birthday celebration, going about 85 mph--if you don't drive that fast on the turnpike, you're not keeping up with traffic! The cop was a jerk. He made me get off my bike and breathe in his face to see if I was drunk. I was like, Really, I just had onion rings at Burger King! If I had been drinking, I would not be riding," says Justin.

Trailer talk

    Justin is glued to the tube in his trailer. Maybe that's because the screen is full of boobs--he's watching the X-rated version of the Neptunes' video for "Lapdance." Well, it's not like we didn't already suspect he was a breast man.

    But even though he's a guy's guy, Justin is a real softie. Heck, he can even girl-talk. I'm sitting around with him, his pal Trace, an MTV crew (they're videotaping everything Justin does for MTV's new show Launched) and a bunch of girls from our staff. They start talking astrology, and Justin is totally into it. The Aquarius says he had a reading that predicted a lot of the crazy stuff that recently went down in his life. He says he was burned by a Sag (uh, Britney's sign) and that Virgos are "sheisty" (although he makes an exception for Janet Jackson, who's a Virgo).

    Later, the conversation gets even more like a scene out of Sex and the City (with Justin playing the role of Carrie--the smart, rational one). Justin says he knows pretty much right away if someone is girlfriend material. At some point, the subject of cheating comes up, and Justin clears his throat abruptly and excuses himself to get a glass of water. When he comes back, he says he isn't sure if he wants a girlfriend right now. He wonders out loud if passion always fades in relationships and if the meaning of love changes as you get older. At this point, Trace rolls his eyes and jokes, "Justin's half gay." Aww, leave him alone. It seems all the girls in the trailer are in agreement--Justin's the perfect guy.

Justin's secret

    Bet you thought I was going to tell you why Britney and Justin broke up. But I'm not, and I'm not sure I know why or even want to know why. Still, Justin did let me in on one secret: "Seven seconds. That's how long to dip an Oreo in milk for it to be perfect. It will be just soggy enough but not so soggy that it falls apart."

    Sweet.

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