Nick was sitting on the front porch, staring into the dark yard. His cell phone weighed heavy on his lap. He stared at the empty space in the driveway where Brian's truck belonged and sighed. The door creaked open and Lauren came out onto the porch and lowered herself down beside Nick. "Are you coming inside?" she asked, wrapping her arms around herself to protct from the chill.
Nick glanced at her and shrugged, "I dunno," he confessed. He pressed the unlock button on his phone and saw it was after one o'clock. Lauren leaned into him and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and rubbed her far arm, then pressed his face against the side of her head and pulled her tight into his chest. He closed his eyes.
They both jumped when his phone started singing Lights by Journey. Nick looked at the caller ID, didn't recognize it, and a sinking feeling swelled in his gut. He pulled back from Lauren and she looked up at him, nervous.
"Hello?" Nick answered it.
The voice on the other end of the line was a bit panicked. "Is this Nick Carter?" she asked.
Nick hesitated. "Erm..."
"Is Emma there?"
"Who's this?"
"Molly, Emma's friend?" Nick was about to ask how the hell she got his number when she blurted out, "Its after one o'clock - they said they'd be back by ten."
Nick glanced at Lauren nervously.
"Did they show up there?" Molly asked.
"No," Nick answered. "They ain't here."
Brian's headlights sliced the darkness of the highway. He was laughing loudly, as was Emma, about a memory from high school they'd brought up. "What about the time," she said, "When Jake made the winning goal on the wrong damn net?"
Brian was practically wheezing, "Wrong way Gretzky," he choked out, "I forgot we used to call him that in school."
"The announcer? Jacob Evans breaks away from the hustle by the net...he's taking the puck to center ice... to enemy ice... what in the world is this boy doing!" She was dissolving into giggles. She looked at Brian, "Poor Jake, he still won't talk about this."
"It was his most embarassing moment," Brian laughed, "He did a speech on it in Public Speaking."
"He got hounded for weeks in the caf," Emma said.
"The hockey players are always brutal to each other," Brian answered.
Emma sobered up. Are? She turned and looked at the window, as street lamps flashed by and the more pernament scenery of the towns loomed, glowing in amber beyond a thin line of trees that blockaded the highway. She turned back to Brian. "I keep forgetting how crazy this is," she whispered.
Brian glanced at her, then turned back to the road. He gripped the wheel tighter. For a split second...he'd forgotten twenty years had passed.
"Are you sure this is what you want to do, Brian?" Emma asked, her voice nervous.
It had all developed so quickly. One moment they'd been eating pasta, the next they'd agreed if they were going to do it, then they should do it like they'd been going to do in high school. Emma had even kept the old, faded license to marry from Tennessee curled into the 'contract' that she and Brian had written up, lodged deep in her purse. Brian wasn't completely convinced they'd accept it, though, but honestly, the idea of getting it done and over with -like pulling a bandaid- was more appealing than waiting to find out, and they'd jumped into the vehicle and started off.
Now, Emma was forcing him to slow down, to think about the fact he was about to sign a paper marrying himself to her. It wasn't like a band aid if he had to think. He gnawed his lip and kept his eyes trained to the road ahead of them. "I don't want you to die," he answered after a long pause.
Emma looked at her fingertips, entwined around each other on her lap, and whispered, "I'm sorry if you feel forced into this."
Brian shook his head, "I don't."
Emma licked her lips. "Did you ever dream," she laughed, "That we'd be here now, going to do what we planned, twenty years after?"
"I did once," Brian confessed.
Silence fell between them, and he could feel her eyes on his silhouetted face in the darkness. She felt a bubble of air caught in her throat, her heart pounding in her chest. She swallowed back thick nervousness and asked, "You - you did?"
"In 1998," he said slowly, "I had an operation... on my heart..."
"I prayed for you every moment," she whispered. "I saw it on the news, and I was so scared of what might happen..."
Brian took a deep breath, "And while I was under the anesthesia, I was having all these whacky dreams and one of them..." he laughed, "One of them was that I was with you, driving to Tennessee, just like we'd planned, like I'd never left. I wasn't a part of the Backstreet Boys anymore, I was just driving along with you in the dark, laughing and talking and singing like old times." His eyes watered up. "I woke up and I remembered the dream and I - I guess I talk in my sleep a bit because - apparently..." he felt a lump grow in his throat, "Apparently I proposed to Leighanne." He laughed again, nervously. "Trying to propose to you in my dream, I proposed to Leighanne."
Emma blinked in surprise. She'd always envisioned some romantic candlelit dinner and Brian swooping to his knee with a rock the size of a small planet. She'd always pictured them being one of those super couples, the type that could check every box off on a list of perfect couple things. But he hadn't even meant to propose?
"She told me I had to ask again, of course, because I'd been under anesthesia, but I took it as a sign and I got the gut up and asked her within six months."
Emma could barely believe what she was hearing. Basically, she was the reason why Brian had married Leighanne Wallace.
"But yes," he said quietly, "I have dreamt it before."
"Me, too," Emma confessed. But it had never required anesthesia for her... but in day dreams, fully controlled.
From the ash tray, Brian's cell phone rang. He picked it up and handed it to Emma, "Who is it?" he asked.
"It says Frack," Emma answered.
"Oh Lordy," Brian murmured.
