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Chapter One Hundred-Twenty-Seven
Point of View: AJ


Leslie wasn't a bad house guest except for the fact that, like Nick, she didn't shut the hell up. If you were in the room, she felt the need to talk. Like there was never silence.

I went grocery shopping just to get the hell away from her.

I'm not a big fan of grocery shopping, typically I'm one of those in-and-out-grab-only-the-bare-necessities-and-run kinds of grocery shoppers. Today, I was studying everything just to prolong it so I didn't end up home with Leslie listening to her talk about the last manicure she had while I wondered if there was a mute button or an off switch somewhere on her body so I could make it stop.

"Learning anything interesting?"

I looked up from the box of instant potatoes I was reading and found Kayla standing in front of me.

"They really do come from Idaho," I said, holding up the box so she could see the brand name was Idahoan.

She laughed, "No way," she said jokingly. The corners of her eyes were smiling, too.

I chucked the box into my cart, which I had one foot on. I leaned on the handle bar. "So, what've you been up to?" I asked. Leaning on a thing with wheels? Bad idea. The cart rolled forward and my foot slid off the rung and I banged my chin on the cart handle. Shooting pain went up my jaw. "Fuck," I cursed.

A woman pushing cart with a plastic car attached to the front of it, two little boys "driving" it, glared at me as she passed by.

Kayla laughed. "Klutzy much?"

"Yeah, it's my middle name, haven't you heard?"

"Well, now I know."

I rubbed my jaw. It actually had hurt like a son-of-a-bitch.

Kayla followed me as I started pushing my cart down the aisle again. "Zoe's out of the hospital," she updated me, "And she's driving me fucking insane. She's been in the worst mood ever."

"What's up her ass?" I asked.

Kayla shrugged, "She's feeling all maternal about Nick, I guess. She randomly just busted out crying the other day over it. It was really weird."

"Over Nick?" I said.

"Sort of," Kayla replied. She stopped and grabbed some gravy packets.

"Well, God knows Nick could use a mom, so thats cool I guess," I shrugged, "He's a little on the wild side."

"Everyone keeps saying that," Kayla said, "But I haven't seen that side of him."

I snorted, "You ain't really met Nick yet then, honey." I caught the honey too late and it squeaked out of my mouth awkwardly before I could stop it.

Kayla, luckily, didn't seem to notice it. "That scares me." She laughed, "What could he possibly do to merit all this talk? Leighanne was saying he's like a seven year old the other day, and now you saying he needs a mother because he's wild..."

"He's just..." I searched for the term, "He's very rambunctious at times."

"Rambunctious?"

"He likes to play practical jokes," I elaborated, "And he's ADHD so never ever let him forget to take those ADHD meds unless you want to see what living in a lifesize hypersonic pinball machine would be like."

Kayla made a face, "Why can't I picture that?" she laughed.

I snorted, "I dunno. I'm not sure how he's managed to keep you from having witnessed it already," I admitted. I tried to picture Nick being perpetually calm enough to have someone fooled into thinking he was a mature adult.

Particularly a girlfriend.

"I think you're exaggerating," Kayla laughed.

"I'm not," I answered.

I grabbed some cans of soup off the shelf we were passing and stacked them into the bottom of my cart. "This one time while we were on tour, Nick decided to play a practical joke... so he took a crap in a sock and stuck it in a drum."

Kayla blinked at me in disbelief.

"Another time, he stole Howie's underwear just before we went on stage, and Howie had to go commando in these really tight fitting leather pants. You could see everything through them."

Kayla's eyes widened.

"Then there was the time Nick put a little bomb thing in the crotch of Howie's pants and..."

"Okay, enough," Kayla said, "Jesus. He's a little troublemaker, isn't he?"

I smirked, "Oh you dunno the half of it. There's tons of stuff he's done. Saran wrap on the toilet, fish-flavored crap in the toothpaste tube, Bengay in the tightie whities.."

"Bengay in the tightie whities? What does that--" she started to ask. "Oh."

I nodded.

"You've known him since he was like twelve, though," she laughed, "Of course you've got stories like this."

"Other than the shit in the sock thing these were all from the last tour..." I laughed.

Kayla's face folded in concern.

Suddenly I realized what I was doing and my stomach did a little twist inside me. I wanted to take it all back, just inhale and reswallow all those words, keep them up inside me. It had come out too easily, cutting Nick down, feeding off her obvious dislike for immaturity. I was downing one of my very best friends, turning his girlfriend off.

Trying to make her like me more.

"I mean Nick is a very serious guy sometimes too," I said quickly, defensive almost against my own stupid, too big mouth. "He knows where to dry the line, when to call it quits."

This was only sometimes true, but she didn't need to know that.

Kayla nodded, "Yeah, I'm sure he does."

"Really," I said. "He's a good guy. He really is."

"That I know," Kayla said. She looked at her cart. "I'm done," she said. "I'll see you later?"

"Yeah-huh," I muttered.

Kayla buzzed away towards the registers. I watched until she disappeared out of the aisle and I grabbed a box of Captain Crunch cereal and smacked it against my forehead. The cereal crunched inside. A little kid was watching me from their cart as the mom read the back of a box of tea bags. I put the cereal in the cart and walked away, feeling like a total douche.