I've seen it all nothing shocks me anymore after tonight
I've seen the light but not the kind I would have liked
-Jake Bugg 'Seen It All'
“Where the fuck is Nick?”
The four of us were standing around the next day, back in the dance studio, waiting around for Nick.
At this point he was over an hour late. Which wasn't cause for calling the police yet, but it was enough to piss us off.
“This is unbelievable,” Kevin said, shaking his head. “He's the one who wants to go back on tour the most.”
I gave him a look. “You know that he doesn't care about actually performing, he only cares about the thousands of girls screaming his name.”
“He'll hear screaming when he gets here, alright,” Kevin muttered and I had to laugh. My cousin would never scream at Nick. Long drawn out lecture? Sure. But screaming? Never. Not for anything this tame. It was annoying, but it wasn't that bad.
Besides, it had given me time to sneak out and give my wife a good morning call, so I couldn't be too pissed off.
“Should we just start without him?” Howie suggested, sipping on his coffee as we stood around.
“No,” AJ said, shifting a little bit. He hadn't brought Sarah with him today. I wondered if she was going to join him on tour. Probably not – their relationship was still pretty new for that kind of craziness.
We all nodded. What would be the point in starting without Nick? We'd have to run through all of it with him again anyway. And he would show up eventually. He never just totally flaked out. Only a little bit. Only enough to get attention.
His whole life was about getting attention. It didn't matter what kind. And it didn't matter if he consciously knew he was doing it or not.
So we just stood around and waited.
The guys were gonna be pissed. I knew they were gonna be pissed as I jogged to the studio.
Okay, I didn't really jog. I maybe jogged a block. Then I walked the rest of the way. But whatever – they could start without me. It wasn't like I didn't know the entire two hour show by heart. I didn't even see why we needed to have a second day of rehearsals after yesterday had gone so well.
I wasn't even that late. I glanced up at a clock on a billboard on the street. I was like... an hour late. And it was so worth it.
Although Kevin was gonna be pissed because I didn't come home the night before. He'd probably walked into my room to wake me up and when he saw I wasn't there he'd probably sighed and started working on his lecture for me right that second.
I'd just get a lecture. And a small one too, because we had a rehearsal to get to. So I wasn't too worried. This wasn't the worst thing I'd ever done.
I gulped. I knew what that was. And I didn't even want to think about it. I'd learned my lesson – I hadn't driven home. I'd taken a cab to a hotel which this chick from the club. I didn't even have a car with me cause Kevin had driven me to the studio and I'd taken off right after dinner.
Still, I knew they were gonna be pissed so I bit my lip as I walked into the studio and rushed up the stairs.
I grinned at them and tried to put on my best sheepish face as I walked through the doorway. “Hey fellas,” I said, running a hand through my hair.
The tricks that work on girls don't work on them.
“Where were you?” Kevin barked. Like an old bitchy dog.
“Out,” I said, picking up a chocolate chip muffin off the catering table and taking a bite out of it. I hadn't realised how hungry I was until right that moment.
“The whole night?!”
“Yeah,” I shrugged. “Met this girl in a club.”
“It better be true love for you to be and hour and fourteen minutes late.”
The rest of them just stood there and watched as Kevin bitched me out. Way to come to my defense, guys!
I shrugged and laughed it off. “Yeah, I don't think so. Come on, let's do this,” I said, walking out onto the dance floor. “Let me tell you the story 'bout the call that changed my des-tin-ayyyy...”
Well it was good to see that everything was going right back to the way it was before we had gone back on tour. It was eerie actually. After the Nick incident we just ran through the entire show three times. Three times! And we ran through it like it was routine. No joking around, no wasting time.
I was sure Kevin just wanted to get out of there. I knew I did – I wanted to go see Leigh before we left for Houston early the next morning.
Brian probably wanted to get home and call Leighanne. Even AJ, who still looked happy just went through the motions. I think it was because he could tell that the rest of us were eager to leave.
Even Nick just danced and sang and didn't make any jokes or try to distract any of us. Which was probably the most telling. I knew he was in a mood because of Kevin. But mostly because he knew he'd done something wrong and didn't want to admit it to us and to himself.
So we just ran through the show and said our goodbyes when we were done.
This was just a minor setback. I was sure once we were back out on the road things would be different. We'd fall back into being a group again. Things were still a little weird from the break. It had been hard on all of us.
That's all it was. That's all it had to be.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Nick leaned his head against the passenger seat window as we drove back to my place. I couldn't help laying into him again, but I was so pissed off. I'd been pissed off the entire day and it had probably shown in my performance. Not that it was really a performance, so I knew I didn't have to waste energy on a stage persona.
Which was good, because it would have taken a lot of energy to act like everything was fine and goof around with Nick.
“What's wrong with me?” he shot back, getting defensive. Great. Because defensive Nick is always really easy to deal with. “What's wrong with you?”
“Nothing, Nick. Nothing is wrong with me. I'm not the one who showed up and hour and fourteen minutes late.”
“Just say an hour and fifteen minutes, Kevin. Nobody talks like that. Just round the god damn number up like a regular person who isn't so picky about every fucking thing!”
That should have pissed me off, but it didn't. Instead I laughed. Because it was true – I was picky about everything. Even though him being late (whatever number of minutes) what a perfectly legitimate thing to be picky about. “You're an idiot.”
“Fuck off,” he muttered, still obviously trying to be mad at me.
“What'd you do last night, then?”
“I already told you, I went to a club.”
“And had a one-night stand.”
“What other type of stand is there?” he smirked, looking over at me. That kid is such an idiot. He should write a book of his stupid observations. It'd be a best seller to drunken college frat boys everywhere.
I shrugged.
“Oh, Kevin,” he leaned over, poking me in the face with his finger. I shoved his hand away. “Don't act like you've never met a girl and taken her back to the hotel room.”
I had done that. And I was a shitty person for it because I'd been dating Kris since before we'd been in the group. Since before girls started throwing themselves at me.
And he knew that. “I don't have a girlfriend, so it's fine. Whatever. Free as a bird!” he laughed, stretching out his arms.
“You'll change your mind one day,” I said, shaking my head as I kept my eyes out on the road.
“I will not.”
I glanced over at him. He wasn't looking at me anymore. Instead, he was staring out the car window. I really hoped that I was right. That one day he would change his mind. About everything.
