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Chapter Seventy-Two
Point of View: Narrator

"Do you wanna watch Toy Story, uncle Nick?" Baylee was sitting on the floor by the sofa, where Nick was laying, staring at the wall in front of him, feeling like a zombie. Baylee inched into Nick's line of vision, "You can play with my Buzz Lightyear if you want." He held up the interactive Buzz toy he'd gotten the week before, which he'd been carrying everywhere since.

"I'm sorry," whispered Nick, "Not right now, though, okay?"

Baylee frowned. Hed' been sure that would work. Being offered the Buzz toy was the ultimate honor in Baylee's world. "Would you rather play with Woody? I have Rex, too..."

Brian swooped into the living room, picking Baylee up off the floor in one swift motion. "Woah there cowboy," he said, dropping Baylee down a couple feet away from Nick. "Why don't you go see how cool of a dominoes track you can make and we'll test it in a few minutes?"

"Okay!" Baylee thundered out of the room and down the stairs to the playroom in the basement. Nick heard Leighanne yell out for him to slow down on the stairs, but her voice was muffled from across the house.

Brian sat down in almost the same spot Baylee had been. Nick almost laughed because it was like a time warp had taken place and the same person was still there. "I called the lawyer," Brian detailed, "And he said he's positive he can get you off for self defense, so this whole scenario won't be on your record. Yay, good news, right?"

"Uh huh," Nick murmured.

"And he's going to help Kayla press charges," Brian added, "So hopefully this guy will stay put for awhile anyway. It's being taken care of is the long and short of it, buddy." He smiled. "Are you feeling any better? How's your nose?"

"Fine," Nick answered. He paused. "Brian, what am I going to do about the Krystal thing? I mean as soon as my car's back from the shop, Officer Walter's is gonna be at my house checking out those tires and I don't doubt for a second that my treads are all over the place on that road," he said. "But I didn't do what they think I did."

Brian frowned, "They'll figure that out, Nick. I mean there's got to be evidence you didn't do it. You should, however, go and tell them what did happen, then all they have to do is confirm it. Then you aren't trying to battle murder charges or something, you know?"

Nick nodded, "Yeah."

"We should do that today," Brian said gently.

"Okay," Nick sighed. "But I wanna see Kayla first, though."



Downstairs, Zoe was making a sandwich for Brian, who had made the mistake of looking too skinny, and they were talking about the whole Kayla situation. Upstairs, Nick was knocking on Kayla's door. "Baby?" he called.

The door opened slowly, and Kayla stood there, wearing socks, long pajama pants, and a hoodie, despite the heat. "Nick," she said, wrapping her heavily clothed arms around him and squeezing tightly. He ran and hand across her back gently. "The jacket stopped smelling like you," she whispered. He noticed his suit coat, still damp, laying over the arm of a chair in the corner.

He'd never been in Kayla's room. It had been the forbidden zone of Zoe's house. He looked around it now and smirked when he saw an old Backstreet Boys poster hanging in the corner of the room over a stout bookcase. He wondered how long it had been there.

"Are you okay?" he asked her.

"I feel dirty," she complained, "I took like twelve showers yesterday, and I still feel gross."

Nick hugged her to his chest. "You're beautiful, if that helps."

"I'm a sweaty pig," she argued.

"That's because you've got heavy clothes on in 82* weather, baby," he said. "C'mon, let's get this sweatshirt off. I'm here, nothing's gonna hurt you." Kayla was reluctant, but she allowed Nick to pull off the sweatshirt. Underneath, she wore the tank top she'd worn into the shower the night before. It clung to her body. "There's my beautiful baby," he whispered.

Kayla looked up at him, her eyes full of tears. "I don't feel beautiful. Not even a little bit."

"I think you're gorgeous," he said, smiling at her sadly. "I wish I could just rip my eyes out and let you see what you look like to me." He planted the softest kiss on her nose. Her tears were still on her cheeks, clinging just a little bit to her eyelashes. He ran his thumb softly across them, catching the tears on his skin.

She stared up at him, mesmerized that he had a touch so gentle that he could take tears from her eyelashes like that. She backed up, pulling him with her. "Nick," she whispered, "Make me feel beautiful, please."

"Kayla," he whispered her name, the word barely more than his exhaled breath. She'd pulled him to the bed and fallen back onto it herself, her hands reaching for him. He stood there, looking down at her, her hair messy, her tank top clinging to her.

"Nick, please," she said.

Carefully, he leaned over her, stretching his body to cover the length of hers. He used his hands to prop himself up over her, careful to keep his hips taught enough that he wouldn't press against her. He stared down into her eyes. "You already are beautiful," he said."

"Make me feel it," she begged. "Make me feel what you feel about me."

He felt like she was the universe. He felt like she was the sun. He felt like she was the center of everything. He leaned down and pressed his mouth on her mouth, passionately kissing her and feeling her body move, trying to kiss back, to increase the passion, but he kept her paced, pulling back too far or turning his face, making it last, keeping it calm and wonderful, knowing there would be plenty of time for fast, hot, and desperate in the future. Right now, it was about something other than the actual act itself.

Kayla's hands took hold of Nick's shirt and pulled it over his head, breaking their kiss for just a moment. She reached hungrily to reconnected their mouths, but Nick had turned his head to the side, and she ended up kissing his neck instead, over and over, sucking on the skin. "What if Zoe walks in here right now?" Nick murmured. "She's just downstairs with Brian."

"Let her," Kayla said, her voice husky.

"Kayla," Nick whispered, "Are you sure you want to do this right now?"

She stopped kissing his neck. She looked up at him. "You don't want to do it," she said.

Nick looked at her, "I wanna do it more than anything," he assured her.

"Just not with me," Kayla stammered. She pushed him off her so he was on the bed next to her.

He wasn't sure how she'd made that leap. "Kayla," he said, "No." He rolled so he could look at her and slid his arm across her abdomen. "I just want to do it when we can do it right. I want to bring you out to dinner first and buy you roses and have candles and champagne and strawberries dipped in chocolate and..." he smiled, "I sound like a Valentine's Day advertisement."

Kayla looked at him. "I'm scared Nick."

"Why?"

"I've never... before," she whispered, "And... yesterday, I was so scared that... he... was going to be my first time. Like that." Kayla bit her lips. "Nick, I was so scared because I want my first time to be with you."

Nick hadn't been expecting that. He felt his toes curl at the idea of what she was saying to him, and he rubbed her stomach gently. "That's all the more reason to wait and do it right."

"But what if someone else attacks me before we do?" she asked, fear crawling into her voice.

Nick shook his head. "I won't let that happen."

Kayla imagined the lion that Nick had become in the alley, the taught muscles in his arms and neck when he'd tensed up, ready to defend her. "Okay," she relented, and went to bury her face in his chest, to smell him.

He caught her chin with his hand, though, and kept her looking into his eyes for a long moment. "I want this to be special, you and me," he said. "I'm not gonna lie to you, Kayla. I've been with a lot of women. But a lot of them were one night stands and drunken mistakes and... just meaningless," his eyes searched hers, waiting for her to change her mind, to not want to be with him at all. "I really, really want to do it right with you, every step of the way through this relationship." He took a deep breath, "I want it to be different because I'm sober, and because I love you too much to take advantage of you in any way. Okay?"

"I love you, too," Kayla answered.

Nick kissed the side of her head softly. "God I'm crazy."

"What?" she asked, turning her head to look at him again.

"I just turned down sex with the hottest woman I know," he said, "I'm like the biggest guy failure ever."

Kayla laughed, "You're the sweetest one ever."

Nick smiled.



Zoe was staring at the table, Brian was watching a fly buzzing against the window. "That's it," Zoe said, getting up. Brian turned to look at her. "I'm going to go see what they're doing up there."

"Talking?" Brian guessed feebly.

Zoe rolled her eyes, "Oh I'm sure." She made her way up the stairs and knocked on the door to Kayla's room. When no answer came, she turned the knob and pushed it opened. On the bed was Nick and Kayla, her back pressed into his chest, curled around each other, his face buried in her hair and his arms around her shoulders, her hands clasping his hands to her, asleep.

Brian looked over Zoe's shoulder at the two of them and smirked.

Zoe sighed. "Okay, so they're sleeping." Part of her wanted to tear Nick apart for being that close to her - and uh, where the hell his shirt, by the way? - but the other part couldn't help but notice that Kayla's mouth was curled into a contented smile as she slept.