It wasn’t like a movie. More like a dream. It was surreal that way. One minute, Nick and I were sitting there under the stars, in the back of my dad’s truck, just talking, and the next, he had wrapped his arm around me and was full-on kissing me.
That part happened so quickly, but once his lips were touching mine, time seemed to slow down. My senses were on overload. I was aware of everything. His arm, hard and heavy around my shoulders. His hand, soft and light against the side of my face. His lips, smooth and sweet on top of mine. I had closed my eyes instinctively, but I couldn’t help but open them a tiny slit to sneak a peek at his face so close to mine. He had closed his eyes, too. Our noses brushed against each other as I kissed back. I could smell him, the familiar musk of his sweat mixed with the soap he used. I had gotten used to that scent on tour; it was unmistakably Nick. But he had never kissed me on tour, and I thought, Is this really happening??
All of this must have occurred in a matter of two, maybe three seconds.
And then I woke up.
Just kidding! It wasn’t a dream, even though it felt like it. I guess you could say it was a dream come true, for me, anyway. I’d had a crush on him all summer, a silly fangirl crush I would never admit to him, and all of a sudden, he was kissing me. I couldn’t believe it.
When he broke the kiss, I pulled back and stared at him, stunned. “Sorry,” he said, looking sheepish, like he’d been too forward or something. Like I minded! I didn’t mind at all; I’d just been caught completely off-guard. But that didn’t mean I hadn’t enjoyed it.
“No!” I replied quickly, flustered. “No, don’t apologize. I…” But I felt awkward telling him how I really felt about him, so I decided to show him instead. Actions speak louder than words, right? Impulsively, before I could second-guess myself, I tightened my arms around his neck, leaned over, and planted my lips right on top of his again.
It was a deeper kiss that time, less hesitant, more intense. He pulled me closer, his arms embracing me, his hands running up and down my back. I raked my fingers up into his hair, knocking off his baseball cap. He kissed me back until I was breathless, and we finally broke apart, practically panting for air.
“Wow,” said Nick, with an impish little snicker. I glanced over at him and could tell he was smirking, his eyes glinting in the darkness.
I smiled shyly back. “Wow…” I echoed. My heart was hammering hard, and there were butterflies dancing in my stomach. I tried to remember the last time a simple kiss had caused such a reaction in me. I’d dated my last boyfriend for two years, and there definitely hadn’t been sparks like that towards the end. There hadn’t been any since, either. I didn’t think I’d gotten a real kiss in over a year, and in my wildest dreams, I never would have guessed the one to break the dry spell would be Nick Carter…
There were so many things going through my head, so much I wanted to say to him, but I was having a hard time forming words. He didn’t say anything, either, so for a few seconds, we just sat there, listening to the sound of our own breathing. Then I heard the sound of footsteps on the pavement and looked up to see a figure walking up to our campsite. I could only make out his silhouette in the shadows, but I recognized his loping gait as none other than my dad’s. I quickly straightened up, pulling away from Nick, and scrambled out of the truck bed. I guess even at twenty-nine, no one really wants to be caught making out in the back of Daddy’s car.
“Sorry, did we lose track of time?” I apologized. My voice sounded shrill, and I hoped he wouldn’t suspect what we had been doing back there in the dark. Luckily, my dad is pretty clueless most of the time – not that he would really care, anyway. He’s not that old-fashioned. I’m the traditional one and not usually into public displays of affection. But if Nick Carter wanted my PDA… A… A… well, then, of course I’d be the fingers to his instrument.
“You’re fine, sweetheart,” my dad said, and I was glad it was too dark for him to see my red face. “You ready to go walk?”
“Sure! You coming?” I asked, turning to Nick. He was already climbing out of the truck behind me.
“Absolutely.” He came up alongside me. “Let’s go.”
“We’ll be back,” I told my dad, flashing him a quick smile as we walked past.
Nick waited until we were a safe distance away to take my hand. I giggled, suddenly feeling like a silly teenage girl again, but that was what made it fun. A little thrill rushed through me as we started walking around the track, hand in hand. We didn’t really talk much, but that was okay. We didn’t have to. It wasn’t like we could read each other’s thoughts or anything; I didn’t have a clue what he was thinking and was dying to know what had been going through his head when he’d decided to kiss me. But even so, just knowing that it had happened, that there was some spark there for him, too, made me so giddy that words weren’t needed right then. Just holding his hand was enough.
We walked until my dad showed up on the edge of the track to take over, and then we headed back to the campsite. It was even darker now – the tiki torches were still lit, but he must have shut off the lanterns – and quiet, too. People were bedding down for the night; they’d shut off their music and turned down their voices. I heard only soft murmurs and the occasional chuckle from other tents. Even though we were surrounded by campsites, there were enough shadows to give us some privacy. We climbed up into the back of the truck again and sat the way we’d been before, side by side, our backs pressed up against the cab windows. Nick stretched his legs out in front of him; I crossed mine. We held hands, our fingers loosely entwined.
It was peaceful, sitting there under the stars, listening to the sounds of night, but I wished we would talk. I didn’t know what to say, though, so I waited for him to speak first. It took him a long time, but finally, he did.
“Sorry if this is, like, awkward.”
I smiled, because I had just been thinking that even though the silence hadn’t been awkward at first, it was starting to feel that way. “It’s okay. I guess usually a first kiss comes at the end the evening, when you’re about to say goodbye. You don’t really have to talk much right afterward.”
Nick snickered. “I was just gonna say, usually it’s the beginning of a one-night stand, when you’re about to take her home. First you’re kissin’ in the club… then you’re making out in the back of a cab… and then you’re in bed, doin’ the nasty. But like you said… either way, there ain’t much talking going on.”
Even as I laughed, I realized how different he and I were. I had never had a one-night stand. I’d always been a good girl. I’m no virgin, but I’d still only slept with three guys in my lifetime, and all of them were serious boyfriends whom I’d been in love with at the time. I couldn’t imagine going home with a strange man I’d only just met in a club. Yet I wasn’t naïve enough to think Nick hadn’t picked up his fair share of groupies before he got sick, not including all the models, singers, socialites, Playmates, and aspiring actresses he’d been linked to in the past.
It made me wonder how I could possibly live up to the likes of them, or if he even thought of me that way. I started to feel insecure and uncertain, like maybe I was reading his signals all wrong. Maybe the kiss hadn’t meant anything to him at all. Just a sudden impulse, acted on in the moment because he’d been bored or horny or just caught up in the emotion of the evening.
So I did something I never thought I would have the guts to do: I asked him.
“So… why did you kiss me?”
“Why did I kiss you?” Nick repeated, sounding amused by the question. “Well… uh… ‘cause you’re beautiful, for one. And… I dunno… I was just thinking about how much you’ve done for me the last couple months. You got me through that tour. I never would have been able to do it without you.”
I blushed at the compliment; coming from him, it was especially flattering, but it also left me feeling a little hollow. I didn’t want it to be just about my looks… or about gratitude, which felt like the real reason. I didn’t want to be a charity case, but all of a sudden, his kiss reminded me of his check, still sitting uncashed in my drawer, and I felt almost sick to my stomach.
“We’ve already talked about this,” I said quietly. “You don’t owe me anything.”
“What? No… no, I didn’t mean it like that,” he replied. “Is that what you think? That I’m, what, like, trying to make it up to you in sexual favors or something?”
He made it sound so ridiculous that I relaxed a little. Maybe I was reading too much into his original answer. “No… I’m sorry. I was just wondering.”
“I kissed you ‘cause I felt like kissing you,” he said flatly. “No ulterior motive, I swear. In all honesty, I probably woulda tried to make a move on you a long time ago, on the tour, if I’d thought it wouldn’t have been weird.”
That made my heart start to flutter again. “Really?” I asked, my voice lifting right along with my eyebrows.
“Yeah. But it would have been weird, wouldn’t it?”
I considered that. He was probably right. It would have been weird, mixing any sort of romance into the already unconventional nurse/patient relationship we’d had. In my line of work, getting involved with a patient was a big no-no. A crush was innocent enough, but taking it any further than that would have felt wrong. “Yeah,” I agreed, “I guess so.”
He got quiet again, and in the pause, I thought about it from his perspective. He wouldn’t have faced the same ethical dilemma I had. And he’d certainly flirted with me, teasing me about the whole naughty nurse fantasy, even if he’d never acted on it. I wondered what had changed for him. “So it’s not weird now?” I asked, breaking the silence.
“Not so much. I mean, you’re not shoving needles into me now.”
I smiled at the way he said it, but I also sensed the insecurity that he felt, too. It must have been hard for him to open up to me, to let me into the part of his life that he’d shared with no one else and trust me to take care of him and keep his secret, when he barely knew me. He had allowed himself to be vulnerable – not an easy thing for any guy, but especially one who was famous and who’d been taken advantage of for it before. We had shared an intimate experience, but not in a sexual way, and that had been for the best. But now that it was behind us, I wondered if there might still be a place for me in his life. Not as a caretaker, but as a friend… and maybe more than a friend?
“True,” I said. “That does take some of the weirdness away.”
“So… it’s not weird for you either, is it? Now, I mean.”
I smiled again. “No. Not in that way.”
“So it’s okay that I kissed you?”
“Totally okay. In fact,” I added, feeling another surge of braveness, “it’d be okay if you kissed me again.”
“Yeah?” He scooted closer. “I’ll take you up on that offer.”
Then he pulled me into his arms again.
***
By two a.m., we had walked three more shifts around the parking lot. My legs were cramping, and my feet were killing me. Nick looked about ready to drop, but he’d been a trooper, keeping me company until the very end. When one of my teammates, a friend of my dad’s, appeared on the edge of the track to relieve us, we limped back to the campsite, totally exhausted.
The tent was zipped up, and I could hear my dad already snoring inside it. I unzipped it partway and slipped in just long enough to grab a spare sleeping bag and a couple of camp pillows. I took those and a waterproof blanket from inside the pick-up’s cab and tossed them onto the air mattress in the back. “You don’t mind sleeping out here, do you?” I asked Nick. “It’s either that, or listen to my dad snore all night.”
He laughed. “Nah, this is good,” he replied, climbing up into the truck again.
I threw on the sweatshirt I’d brought along and climbed up with him, much preferring the thought of sleeping next to Nick Carter under the stars to sharing the musty tent with my father. “You gonna be warm enough?” I asked Nick, noticing his short sleeves. We were both still warm from walking, but the temperature had dropped considerably since sundown, and I knew it would get chilly soon.
“If you keep me warm,” he replied without missing a beat, smirking at me through the darkness. He lifted one edge of the blanket, and I crawled under. We unzipped the sleeping bag and threw that over both of us, too. The air mattress was comfortable, and it was cozy under the cover of the two thick blankets, with the heat from our bodies acting like a furnace.
We had shared a hotel bed for much of the tour, but this time, I turned toward Nick instead of away. We whispered in the darkness for awhile, until Nick’s voice got slow and sleepy, and eventually, he stopped replying. I finally closed my eyes, letting my exhaustion take over.
When I woke up, just before sunrise, I found myself snuggled up closer to him, my arm thrown loosely over his torso. Had I done that in my sleep? I wondered, removing it carefully so I wouldn’t wake him. What on earth had I been dreaming?
I couldn’t remember, but I knew one thing… Whatever dreams I’d had while I was sleeping, they couldn’t have been much better than the reality I’d woken up to.
***
