Day one…

When the phone rang later that morning Kel rolled over with a groan and answered it in a whisper, "What?"

A giggle in her ear told her exactly who was on the other end of the phone before he’d even begun to speak, "Good morning to you too baby…"

"Sorry…" she said with a yawn and rolled onto her back squinting at the clock to see what time it was. "AJ?"

"Yeah?"

"Why are you calling so early in the morning? What’s wrong?"

"Nothing’s wrong…" he said less than convincingly.

"Honey," she sighed and pulled the covers over her shoulders up to her neck so that the only things exposed to the cool air-conditioned air of the room was part of her face and the phone. "It’s 9:00 here, which means that it’s like 6:00 there. Don’t lie to me, what’s wrong?"

AJ sighed and fiddled with the hotel blanket that he was laying underneath, "I just miss you…"

"Is that all?"

"Isn’t that enough?"

"I didn’t mean it that way…" Kel said softly. "I just meant, is there anything else going on?"

"No… I just miss you…"

"And?"

"And… I realized that the last time I’d been away from you for more than a night was… well… July… It just kind of weirded me out."

July… that was code word for rehab. Anyone living in America two July’s before knew that AJ, Kel’s longtime boyfriend who also happened to be a world-known pop star, had finally broken down and gone into rehab for alcohol abuse. Over the months since then somewhere along the way the word rehab had been replaced with "July." Everyone knew what it meant, especially Kel. July 2001 was a month she’d never forget, let alone the months that led up to it and those that followed.

"Talk to me about it…" Kel said with her eyes closed as she listened to AJ’s voice over the phone. She was no stranger to listening to him spill his thoughts to her. Ever since "July" he’d been working on learning how to manage his feelings rather than stuffing them, and one of the things he’d learned to do in the year and some odd months since then was to just talk. Many, many nights they’d lie in bed together with him telling her things that he’d never had the courage to tell her before. She was always there for him, always.

"I don’t know…" he told her with a soft voice. "I just… well I guess I was thinking about what I put you through… I don’t deserve you, Kellie…"

"AJ…" she sighed. "We’ve been through this… don’t…" They had been through it. Too many times to count. Sure, he’d been pretty horrible to her before July, just before he finally hit rock bottom. He’d been down right frightening at times. But she stayed because she loved him, and because he got the help he needed. "I love you… and you’re not the same person that you were a year ago. Who you were then isn’t who I fell in love with, and its not who I continue to love today. Baby please don’t beat yourself up again."

"I love you so much…" he told her, his voice cracking and the sound of it breaking her heart.

"I love you too, baby."

They stayed quiet for a few moments and then his voice kept her from drifting back to sleep, "So what are you up to?"

Kel laughed and shook her head, "I was sleeping…"

"I thought you said you were going to get up early and paint the spare bedroom?" he chuckled.

"I was…" she smiled and yawned. "But I was up really late, so I put a delay on the painting."

She could hear the smile back in his voice when he spoke, "And what were you doing that kept you up so late young lady?"

"I uh…" she said and stuttered over the choice to tell him the truth or not. "I ran into a friend at the store that I haven’t seen in a while and we went to have a late dinner and talk." It wasn’t a lie, she just didn’t say Nick’s name, that’s all.

"Oh yeah? That’s cool… I bet she was one of your college friends and you two spent the night giggling like fools all night huh?" he laughed.

"Yeah… something like that…" she said softly. That was the lie.

"Well that’s cool… I bet you had fun."

"I did…"

"And I can tell that you’re still half asleep so I think I’m going to let you go. I’ve got a few hours before I have to go be a pop star again, so I’m going to order room service or something… go back to sleep."

"Okay, honey… have a good day okay?"

"I’ll try… you too."

"Thanks… I will."

"I love you, Kel… thank you, again. You’re my sunshine…"

"Anytime, baby…" she smiled. "I love you too… now hang up so I can go to sleep," she giggled.

AJ laughed as well, "Yeah, yeah… I’m going… I’ll call you later."

"Later, baby…"

"Later, gator…"

She turned the phone off and slid it under the covers with her instead of returning it to the charger. With a sigh she snuggled back under the covers trying to get warm again, "Why the hell did I lie to him?" she asked herself softly, but she was asleep again before she could answer herself.

~~~~~

Nick couldn’t help but feel nervous as he walked up to the front door of the house that AJ and Kel shared. It wasn’t that he was nervous to see Kel again, and he knew that AJ wasn’t there… it was more that it had been so long since he’d been there. Before he and AJ had stopped talking Nick had practically lived in that house. Best friends with both AJ and Kel, it was only natural that he was a regular permanent fixture in the house. Permanent until eight months prior that is, when the shit hit the fan and Nick seemingly had lost AJ as a friend.

He rang the doorbell and heard the familiar song of AJ and Kel’s dogs barking his welcome followed by the door opening. "Hey, stranger…" Kel smiled as she pushed the screen door open and Nick walked into the house. "I’m so not ready to go…" she chuckled.

"I think I’m actually early…" he smiled and looked down at the two dogs running circles around his feet. "Oh my god, they’re huge!"

"I wouldn’t call them huge…" Kel chuckled and bent down to pick the two small dogs up, "But they’re just about full grown now, so they’re a lot bigger than they were last time you were here…"

Nick smiled and reached out to pet their heads, "Which is which?"

"Black collar is Fred, blue collar is Ginger…"

Nick chuckled and took Ginger into his own arms, "God, I remember trying to pick names for them… I swear it was worse than naming a kid…"

"Well they’re the closest things to kids that AJ and I have for now," Kel said with a smile. "So of course their names are important…"

"I suppose…" Nick smiled.

"Come on into the bedroom while I finish getting ready… You can get high off of the paint fumes wafting from the spare bedroom with me…"

"You’ve been painting?" Nick asked with a chuckle as he followed Kel and the dogs through the house and into the bedroom.

"Yeah, I’ve been wanting to paint, so I’m going to do a mural on the wall in there… But I had to paint the walls a new color first. So that was today’s job…" she put Fred on the bed next to Nick and pointed at the dog’s ears. "Dipshit here decided to help, see?"

Nick laughed as he noticed the paint on the dog’s fur for the first time, "Whoops…"

Kel rolled her eyes and stepped into the adjoining bathroom, "Yeah… Ginger walked through it though… the bedroom now has little paw prints on the carpet… I think I’m going to leave them… They're actually kind of cute."

"That’s cool…" Nick smiled and pet the dogs as they crawled into his lap and settled down loving the attention they got from him. He looked around the room and was somehow surprised to see that it was all the same. Why he thought it would look different he didn’t know, but eight months was a long time, and he just thought that being gone from the house for so long… something would have changed. But there he was, and everything was just as familiar as ever. It looked the same, even smelled the same.

"You’re quiet out there, Carter…" Kel said and peeked her head around the corner. "You okay?"

"Yeah…" he said looking toward her. "I was just noticing that the house still smells the same."

Kel stepped out of the bathroom and turned the light off in the process, "What does it smell like?" She smiled and picked up a pair of plain white Keds and then sat down on the bed to put them on.

"Mostly like you…" Nick said with a smile. He paused for a second and took in a breath. "Candles, your perfume… that stuff you spray around the house every now and then, and there’s a touch of AJ’s cologne too."

Kel smiled and nodded, "Yeah I guess it does smell like that… I never really stopped to figure out what the house smells like, but I do love it. I love coming home from being away for a while and getting hit with the smell of home."

"I’ve always loved the smell of this house after you moved in. Your apartment was the same way…"

"Aww…" Kel smiled and put her foot down on the floor after tying her shoe. "I actually like the way your house smells too… Always have."

Nick nodded and looked at the dogs in his lap and chuckled, "I don’t think they’re going to let me leave…"

"They better…" Kel giggled. "Cause after all of that painting, I’m hungry…" She stood up and moved toward the door of the bedroom. Both of the dogs perked their heads up and watched her and Nick chuckled. "Wanna… go outside?" she called out to them and in an instant they were barking and had jumped off of Nick’s lap and raced each other through the house to the back door. Kel smiled and winked at Nick, "See, no problem…"

~~~~~

"Oh my god that’s right! You fell off of the top bunk!" Kel laughed as she and Nick sat in a Mexican restaurant picking at the chips and salsa sitting between them on the table. "Then my mom yelled at us because we wouldn’t stop laughing and it was like three in the morning…"

"Thank god you had a messy room and a billion clothes on the floor… broke my damn fall…" Nick chuckled. "I can’t believe you forgot about that…"

"Seems like forever ago doesn’t it?" Kel smiled.

Nick nodded, "Yeah… can you believe it’s been twelve years that we’ve known each other?"

"That’s just frightening…" she laughed. "Twelve years? Jesus…"

"I know… it’s cool, but it’s really weird too."

"Aaron and Angel were in their terrible twos when we met…"

"Oh god…" Nick laughed. "I remember that…"

"They were so cute though… How are they?"

"They’re good… Angel’s just being a normal teenage girl as much as she can in our family, and Aaron’s still promoting the new CD and stuff…"

"It’s a great CD…" Kel said as she pulled a chip through the salsa. "I should call him…"

"He’d like that…"

When the waitress finally joined them she smiled and apologized for the wait. "It’s a little nuts around here tonight, we’re short three waiters…"

"It’s not a problem…" Kel smiled. "We’re not in any hurry…"

"Yeah, as long as you keep the chips and salsa coming, we’re cool…"

"You’re wonderful…" the waitress smiled. "I tell you what, your first margarita is on me. What can I get you?"

"I’ll take an original on the rocks, and she’ll have a frozen raspberry…"

"Actually I’ll just have a Coke…" Kel said with a smile to the waitress.

"No way…"Nick said with his own smile. "Raspberry…"

"Nick…"

"Kel…"

The waitress smiled, "I could bring a Coke and a Raspberry?"

"Just the Coke…" Kel smiled.

"Just the Raspberry…" Nick corrected with a smile at the waitress. "Now hurry, go before she tries to change it again, run!"

Kel tried to change the order, but the waitress was won over by the famous Carter Grin, and was gone in a flash leaving Nick with a pleased smile on his face. She shook her head at him, "You’re a pain in the ass…"

"I know…" he said simply and then laughed. "Come on though… when was the last time you had a really good margarita? You know they’re amazing here…"

"It was a long time ago…" she said softly and looked down at her menu.

Nick watched her for a moment and then spoke up, "You quit drinking when he did didn’t you?"

She nodded, "Yeah I guess… I never really said that’s what I was doing. But it’s what happened. Just sort of makes it easier on him."

"But did you want to do it?"

Shrugging she put her menu down on the table, "I don’t know… drinking isn’t all that important to me. I certainly don’t need to drink… I just did."

"Do you miss it?"

"Sometimes…" she nodded.

"It’s not very fair to you if you ask me…" Nick said and shook his head.

"No one made me do it, Nick."

"Yeah. But let’s say he had asked you to stop drinking. What would you have done?"

"I would have stopped, because I love him."

"And if he came home from LA and said that he was going to become a vegetarian? Would you stop eating meat too?"

"That’s not fair Nick…" Kel said shaking her head. "Alcoholism isn’t the same as choosing to stop eating meat."

Nick sighed and rubbed his face with his hand, "I know… shit. I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that… I didn’t mean it…" Kel nodded and he looked at her with a questioning look.

"What?" she asked him when he didn’t say anything.

"I don’t know…" he said and shook his head. "Are you… I mean, is everything okay? With him, and stuff…"

She nodded and reached out across the table to touch his hand, "Yeah… he’s sober, and much happier than he’s been in a long time. And we’re… we’re okay."

"Would you still tell me if you weren’t okay?" he asked softly and squeezed her hand.

"Nicky… of course I would. We fucked up by not talking to each other for the past eight months… but honey, you’re still my best friend. Of course I’d tell you."

He nodded and looked at their hands, "Okay…"

"And Nicky?" Kel said and waited for him to look at her again. "No, I wouldn’t give up meat…" She smirked and chuckled, "I like it too much…"

Nick laughed and shook his head, "Such a pervert…"

She laughed loudly and tossed her head back, "Love me…"

"Oh I do…" he laughed. The waitress brought their drinks and put them down on the table. Nick looked at her and made a face, "You’re going to kill me… but do you think you could bring her a Coke instead?"

The waitress laughed and looked at Kel, "You finally got him to listen to you huh?"

Kel smiled and shook her head, "Don’t worry about it… I changed my mind. The margarita is fine."

"You sure?" the waitress chuckled.

"Yeah I’m sure…" They gave the waitress their order and when she walked away Kel raised her glass to Nick. "To renewed friendships…"

Nick smiled and raised his glass to hers clinking them gently, "And to never giving up meat."