Nick left the hallway after hearing Rochelle's comment and went to his "office" - a small room that he'd put all his sound editing equipment and a couch into and declared a "no floral zone" after Lauren had started decorating the house to her tastes. He laid down on the old beat up couch and grabbed a tennis ball off the floor which he started bouncing off the ceiling. He felt overwhelmed by the information he'd just encountered.
Lauren had said that Rochelle was staying with them to help her cope, to ease the transition back home. How the hell was it supposed to help her if every time she looked at Nick, she thought he shouldn't be there -- that he was there because AJ wasn't? Nick felt frustrated too because the words Rochelle had said had been a reinforcement of everything he'd been telling himself every time he'd looked in the mirror since he found out that it wasn't his heart keeping him alive anymore, it was AJ's. His heart was in a dumpster somewhere - dead and gone. By all rights he was dead because his heart was dead. So why was he laying here, alive and breathing and living, when AJ was ---
Nick threw the ball so hard he worried he'd break the ceiling if he kept it up, so he let the ball hit the floor and roll away lamely.
He rubbed his eyes, which were protesting tears, and sighed loudly. He wondered how many others felt the same way Rochelle did. Was that why he'd heard so little from Kevin, Howie, and Brian since everything happened? Did they secretly wish, too, that AJ was alive and Nick were dead instead? If given the choice, he wondered, in some cosmic trading game, how many of his friends would keep him?
He wasn't even sure he'd keep himself at this point.
Nick pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and dialed AJ's number.
"Hey this is AJ, leave one after the beep."
"Hey AJ... It's me, Nick, again.... I gotta talk to you..."
"Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick!" Lauren shouted up the stairs, leaning against the banister, "Are you hungry? I made food!" She listened until she heard him call back that he'd be right down, then she returned to the kitchen where she'd left Rochelle.
"He's slipping," Rochelle laughed, "There was a time that he could've been a world away and he would've been here at the mere smell of food."
Lauren laughed, "Yeah well, that was before the heart healthy diet started. These days getting him to eat is like pulling teeth."
Rochelle smiled, "Not into the good-for-you foods, huh?"
Lauren shook her head, "Not even a little. There are perks for me, though." Rochelle raised an eyebrow. "He offered to trade various sexual favors for a pork chop the other day." Lauren laughed.
Rochelle tossed her head back, laughing. "Shameless."
"What's shameless?" Nick swung into the kitchen and threw himself into the chair across the table from Rochelle. He drew a deep breath, "Dude it actually smells like food in here," he commented, craning his neck to look at the pan Lauren was weilding at the stove. "Burgers?" he gasped, seeing the meat patties sizzling.
"Turkey burgers," Lauren corrected him.
Nick looked like he wasn't sure if he was grossed out or not, but leaned back anyways. He looked at Rochelle. He didn't want either girl to know he'd been eavesdropping outside the bedroom door before retreating to his office, so he asked, "How was your nap? Did Lauren wake you up for this rubber food?"
Rochelle smiled and concentrated on the can of diet 7-UP she was nursing. "It was good. How was Diners, Drive-ins and Dives?"
"Hunger inducing," Nick replied.
Lauren dropped a plate of steamed veggies and a turkey burger in front of him and handed him a fork. Nick waited 'til she had her back turned, then poked the zucchini she'd served him with the utensil warily. He looked up at Rochelle, who had received an identical plate and raised an eyebrow. Rochelle laughed.
"I keep telling him he needs to stop watching Food Network," Lauren said, "It just makes him see red."
"It makes me see steak is what it makes me see," Nick said, shoving his turkey burger into his mouth. He chewed several times longer than he felt was appropriate for chewing a burger just because he wanted to make a point that he could taste the difference. Although he had to admit, the turkey burger was definitely one of the best things Lauren had made since the health food kick started.
"So I was thinking," Lauren said that night as she rubbed lotion on her elbows at the dresser, "You should bring Rochelle somewhere tomorrow." She put her engagement ring into her jewelry box and let her hair down. She was wearing really skimpy lingerie, which was the only reason Nick was looking at her and not at the Buccs game reply that was on the TV.
"Bring her somewhere?" Nick asked.
"Yeah," Lauren crawled across the bed and sat on his lap, taking the remote from his hand and turning the TV off. "Take her somewhere." She put her hands on his chest and he felt cool lotion between her palms and his flesh. "I think she needs to get some time out of the house, and you'll be around all day and --"
"Where will you be?" Nick asked.
"Doctor's appointment," she said, leaning close and kissing his mouth, "Remember?"
"Uhhhuh," Nick moaned, though she was pretty certain he would've agreed to anything, even if she'd said she was needed for a staff meeting on planet Zork. She kissed him again, her hands massaging in the lotion.
"So you'll go some place with her?"
"Mmhm."
"Thanks baby," Lauren whispered, and her hands worked their way lower.
Nick closed his eyes. "Anytime."
Rochelle lay in bed, thinking about everything that had happened. She thought about Lauren and Nick and AJ and everything, staring out at the moon reflecting on the ocean behind Nick's house. And for some reason, it suddenly occurred to her, what Lauren had said about Nick calling AJ's cell phone and leaving messages.
Rochelle pulled her suitcase out from under the bed and fished until she found the bag of his belongings from the hospital. She dug out the cell phone and found the battery was dead. Crawling onto the bed, she plugged it into her own A/C plug and booted it. The second it'd turned on, it declared that there were 22 new messages.
She opened up AJ's voicemail and typed in the 4 digit code -- their anniversary -- and held the receiver to her ear.
