One Year Later

Balancing a cooler, and a shoebox delicately in his hands Brian made his way down the beach, seeing that his friends had just gotten the fire started.

Leighanne was following not too far behind him with Baylee and he turned to smile back at her just for a little reassurance.

He thought it would be hard to make this trip, that he would think about how things had gone the year previous and not be able to do it. After all, last year he got to see Nick by the end of the night and he knew that wasn’t in the cards for that night.

“You made it!” AJ called out to them with a wave, jogging up quickly to help Brian with everything that was in his hands.

Brian smiled and slapped his friend lightly on the shoulder, “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world. I hardly ever get to see you guys anymore!”

“Aww, we miss you too,” Howie joked before leaning over to kiss his wife’s temple.

A lot had changed for all of them in the two years since Nick died... was killed. Brian always thought it would be impossible for him to go on with his life, that he would have lost a part of himself when he buried his friend. It wasn’t the case though. Nick’s case was still active as it made its way through the court system and Brian kept an eye on it in the papers but he didn’t go to the courthouse, he didn’t check up with Agent Taylor to see how things were going.

Over time he went from thinking about Nick every hour, to every day, to every week, and now he only thought about him if something in particular jogged his memory. Like a certain song, or something silly Baylee would do that was so like his old friend.

“Hot dogs?” he heard Kevin asked and he nodded before helping his family get settled on the large piece of driftwood acting as their seating for the evening.

“So who’s going first this year?” Brian asked and everyone looked around at each other before looking back to him.

“Why don’t you show us what’s in the shoe box first?” Howie asked, having been eyeing the box ever since Brian sat down.

“Oh that,” the blonde smiled and brought the box into his lap, “This is all that’s left of Nick’s stuff.”

“You got rid of all of it?” Kevin asked, surprised that Brian was able to part with most of what was in his storage shed.

“Yup, no more paying for storage,” he laughed, “I saved the things that I didn’t think anyone would really want but that would mean a lot to all of us. I want you guys to take whatever you want. Whatever it is that’s important to you... to remind you of Nick.”

Brian opened the top, looking at the myriad of smaller items in the box. There was some Backstreet stuff - pictures from their early days on tour, cassette tapes of some of their high school shows, ticket stubs from around the world. But there was also some Nick stuff – a sketchpad, silly pictures of all of them goofing off together, of his siblings, and dozens of little knickknacks that their friend would have picked up along the way.

“Did Aaron get what he wanted?” AJ asked as he took the box and started skimming through it.

Brian smiled and nodded, “Yeah he took a lot of what was there. A lot of it was Nick’s clothes, CDs, photo albums, that kind of thing. This was just the stuff that they left for us.”

As the others looked through the shoebox Brian cleared his throat, “So I think I’ll go first... while you’re all looking through that stuff.”

“What kind of story is this, first?” Kevin chuckled, “If it’s a dirty story we better cover the kid’s ears.”

“It’s not a dirty story, though there’s a lot of those when it comes to Nick,” Brian laughed, “It’s a funny story. He and I went shopping this one time. Somehow we ended up in Victoria’s Secret...”

Howie interrupted, “Are you sure this isn’t a dirty story?”

“Yes,” Brian snickered and shook his head, “Anyway, Nick was wearing the most ridiculous outfit I’d ever seen. He must have seen a French movie or something because he was wearing a beret and a turtleneck. The boy must have thought he was invisible because I really don’t think there’s any way he would knowingly go out in public like that...”

The others all laughed, wondering why they’d never heard this story before, and Brian smiled to himself knowing that he now had a whole bunch of stories that no one but he and Nick would ever know, from the extra time they’d spent together.

~*~

“He looks happy,” Nick commented, looking back over at Valerie who had been patiently waiting for him while he spied on his friends.

“He really does, I’m glad,” Val gave him a smile then yanked on his arm, “A beret? Really? You could have worn anything in the world and you wore a beret?”

“I was sleuthing,” he explained, letting her pull him in the other direction, “That’s what you wear when you’re being a sleuth.”

She laughed loudly and shook her head, “I thought you wore ex-girlfriends when you sleuth?”

“Well...” Nick laughed, wrapping his arm around her as they walked, “That too.”

Stopping Valerie looked up at him and raised an eyebrow, “Remind me again why I decided to spend the rest of my afterlife with you.”

“What are you talking about? I’m awesome! I’m funny, and good looking, smart and lovable. I’m going to look like this forever, I mean, come on how could you pass that up?”

“So when do we get to do this again?” Valerie asked, looking up at the sky.

Nick turned to look back in the distance. He could now barely make out the bonfire burning where his friends had gathered, “A year?”

“A year it is,” she nodded and the two of them made their way back down the beach.

FINIS