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Chapter Seventy-Nine
Point of View: Brian

I closed Baylee's bedroom door and dropped the Captain Underpants book on the floor just outside the room, thankful he'd finally gone to sleep. My head was throbbing, drowning in its own murky thoughts, and the last thing on earth I'd wanted to do was spend three hours doing that stupid Captain Underpants voice.

But 'tis the life of a father.

Leighanne was wearing a silk nightgown and washing her face in our private bathroom when I went in the bedroom. She had the door open and was leaning over the sink, squinting into the mirror. Her hair was damp and in a messy bun. I went to the closet and took off my shirt, tossing it into the hamper.

She looked over and lowered the face cloth she was using to rub at her cheek. "Are you okay Bear?" she asked, dropping it onto the counter.

I sighed and grabbed my pajamas, which she'd folded and left on the dresser. I put them on the bed and unfolded the top. "Yeah," I said, "I guess so. I'm really worried about Nick."

"I know, so am I," Leighanne said. She grabbed the mouthwash and quickly swished Listerine around in her cheeks.

I was buttoning up the top, having already pulled on the pajama pants, by the time she turned off the light in the bathroom and came out. She crawled under the covers of the bed and leaned against the headboard, watching me fanangle with the buttons. I looked up at her, hoping she'd either a) say not to bother with them since she was going to be taking it off me anyway in five seconds (the optimistic option) or b) would crawl over and do it for me, but she was deep in thought, rubbing her chin.

"Stupid buttons," I muttered under my breath, re-engaging in the struggle against them.

"That's so weird that he wasn't in Krystal's tour book," Leighanne mused. "Are you sure Kayla read it really closely?"

"Uh huh," I muttered, "Well, as sure as I can be, I didn't look at the tour book. The pictures were like worse than porn..." She had an eyebrow raised. "Or what I imagine porn to look like." I flashed her a million dollar smile.

Leighanne laughed.

I finally got the buttons done and I got into the bed next to her, but I opted to lay down, the pillows looked so soft and my head was slamming. That's the funny thing about guys, though. We'll have sex regardless to whether our head hurts or not.

I looked at Leighanne and traced my hand along her arm.

She ignored my advances.

"Desi's an unusual name, was there anything that it could've been short for?" she asked.

"Wallace?" I asked, laughing. "That's a goofy name, too, maybe it's short for that."

Leighanne looked at me, her eyebrow raised again.

"What?" I asked.

She cleared her throat. "Have I been Leighanne Littrell that long now that you forgot my maiden name?"

I rolled over and kissed her elbow, "Aw, no.. Wallace is a nice maiden name. It's just a really stupid first name."

"Didn't you name a cat Wallace once?"

"We called it Wally," I reminded her.

Leighanne laughed as I kissed her elbow more. She lifted her arm and I ended up kissing the side of her chest. She pretended to grab me by the hair - the curls at my forehead that she supposedly loved so much, no less! - and pull my head away from her side and looked into my eyes, "Now you're just being fresh," she said, kissing my nose.

I smiled.

Leighanne sat back up instead of snuggling down with me, though and I sighed and sat up, too. She looked at me and laughed, "Getting nookie is not going to help Nicky," she said in a sing-song voice, playing the words off each other.

"You're right," I grumbled. "But it would take my mind off things..."

She laughed, "You're a dirty old man," she whispered, kissing me.

We sank into each other and I was just starting to think I would maybe get my way when she pulled back, her eyes wide, excited. "Wait, wait, wait. He's her back-up dancer?" she asked.

"Yeah-huh," I muttered, trying to draw her closer again, leaning towards her, my lips puckered.

Leighanne drew back again, this time getting up out of the bed. I fell face-first into her side of the mattress and laid there, tangled up in the blankets, my cheek smooshed. I imagined I looked like Brian Littrell: The Road Kill Edition.

"I think my friend Jessie was on her tour this year, wasn't she?" Leighanne asked, excitement climbing her voice, "Maybe she knows who Desi is?"

I rolled my eyes up to look at her from my smooshed up road kill position. "We didn't look at the girl dancer names," I admitted, picking myself up and rubbing my cheek.

"I could call her," Leighanne said, excitedly. She grabbed a silk robe that matched her night gown. I frowned as she pulled it on and tied the waist sash.

"What're you doing?" I asked.

"Going to find her number," Leighanne answered.

"Leigh, baby," I said, looking at the alarm clock, "It's the middle of the night almost."

Leighanne smiled, "It's okay, she's a night owl anyway." She scurried out the door. I threw myself backwards on the bed and slithered off on my back to the floor, where I sat for a moment before sighing and standing up, following after Leighanne.

By the time I got downstairs - after stubbing my toe on the way, by the way - Leighanne was pouring over her little black book at the dining room table.

"Oh it's in the boy friend book," I said, only half joking.

The address book she was looking at held probably a thousand phone numbers of guys from all over the industry. Leighanne had once joked that they were all her boyfriends to make me jealous when we first started going out. I'm like an elephant, I never forget.

"I told you a hundred times they aren't boyfriends, they're stylists and dancers I've worked with, they're almost all homosexual and you've used this book to network a thousand times, so hush up."

I rubbed my eyes and sat down next to her as she scanned the pages. Finally she found the entry she was looking for and smiled, "Got it. Hand me the phone." I reached behind me to the table where our old fashioned telephone sat and dragged it over, pulling on the modem cord so it would stretch far enough. I ended up having to move my chair. Leighanne dialed, turning the spin dial.

I stood up, feeling nervous now, hoping against hope she was right and Jessie did tour with Krystal and did indeed know who Desi was.