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Chapter Twenty-Four: The Big Twist


Desi was still laying on the bed, waiting for Kelsey to come back, when there came a knock on the door. It'd been hours since she'd left. She must've gone back to the house, must've talked to Nick, must've had a real heart-to-heart with him. Desmond imagined her coming in and declaring everything was fixed between him and Nick and that he'd just won the lottery and was a millionaire and that she'd picked him and their lives together could finally begin...

He wondered what she'd done with her room key.

He stepped into his sweats and tugged on his t-shirt as he reached the door, and declared, "You took so damn long coming back that I --" but he stopped mid-sentence, dumbfounded.

Instead of Kelsey, he was surprised to find a guy in a crisp blue uniform just outside.

"Uhh...good evening," he said. It was more a question than a statement.

"Mr. Truetree?" the guy said, tucking a hat under his left elbow and extending his right hand.

Desi shook slowly, "Mr... sir..." he said, awkward, his mind trying to work out a reason for an officer to be standing at his door.

"Officer North." He took a deep breath, "I need to speak with you for a moment. It's very important. May I come in?" Desi quickly moved out of the way and opened the door, allowing the cop to come in. He took a couple steps into the hotel room and pulled the door closed behind himself.




Nick had had every intention as he'd climbed the stairs earlier after talking to Kelsey to come up and tell the guys the truth about the song. He really had. He'd coached himself on the words to say all the way up the steps and down the hallway to the studio. But the moment he'd walked in the guys had showered him with admiration and the words had melted out of his mouth like they'd never existed.

The five of them had spent the next however long arguing about things like who would sing which part and whether the chorus should be upbeat or low tempo. They argued about adlibs and discussed how they might make a vocal representation of a meteor by al joining in bit by bit by bit to create a full, streaming sort of sound on the last line of the chorus - I wanna light myself on fire so I can burn in your heart...

Nick played the guitar, accompanied by Howie and Brian while Kevin played his keyboard and AJ a bit of a percussion. The music filled the studio, and Nick could almost hear it on the radio already, even as they taped it, their voices all blending together.

But even as the song tumbled from their lips and filled the studio, Nick knew Kelsey was right and he needed to find a way to make everything right. He could feel the weight of the theft on his shoulders, knew Desmond's writing was worth more than the 25k he'd given him. He knew he had to tell the guys that he'd betrayed them and that he wasn't anymore sober than he'd been after finishing AA the first time.

It killed him to imagine letting them down again, though.

That's when the phone rang in the studio, interrupting the recording session.

Nick slid the head set off and looked at the clock. Somehow several hours had passed. He stepped over wires that went to microphones and amps and computers and all kinds of equipment, set his guitar down on it's stand, and stepped out of the recording booth to the desk. He picked up the phone.

"Carter here," he said.

He clutched the soundboard to steady himself.

After a moment, he hung up the phone, staring blankly at it laying on it's cradle. In the studio, the guys shared worried expressions, and Kevin slid his headset off and walked to the door, pulled it open. "Everything okay, Nick?" he asked.

Nick looked up, his face pale. "I gotta go," he said.