- Text Size +
Chapter Twenty-Seven: You're Comin' Home With Me


"You can't go back to that hotel all alone," Nick insisted as he, Howie, and Desi reached the lobby of the hospital.

Desi could barely believe he was willingly walking out of the place without Kelsey by his side. He felt shaky. "I don't have anywhere else to go," he replied, shrugging. "And all my stuff is there."

"You're comin' home with me," Nick answered. "We'll get your stuff." Desi nodded numbly, too exhausted and empty to argue, and erased the already-dialed number of the local cab company from the screen of his cell phone. "I think we need to stick together," Nick said as Desi shoved the phone into his pocket. "That's what she wouldda wanted."

Desi followed Howie and Nick across the parking lot, and a strange feeling came over him as they stepped through the hospital's doors. To the casual observer, they were just three guys leaving the building. Had it been any other building on any other night in the world, the walking would have been no special event, would've carried no weight to it. But tonight it was something so terrifyingly ordinary in the wake of a monumental destruction. Every step carried them further and further away from Kelsey, or at least from what remained of her.

They all climbed into the Escalade, Howie behind the driver's seat and Desi in the back, and a thick pressing silence fell over the three of them. Howie sent a text to the other guys back at the house, preparing them for what had happened. After a few moments, he glanced between Desi and Nick. "You guys ready?" he asked.

"Yeah," Nick replied. Desi thought he'd never be ready, but he nodded anyway, mechanically, staring out the window at the hospital's glowing lights. He watched them as Howie pulled away, turned in his seat to keep them in his vision until, like every light, they faded with distance and obstruction. He buried his face in his hands.

"We gotta get Desi's stuff," Nick intoned a little ways down the highway, just before the exit they needed to take to get to the hotel. Howie followed Nick's instructions and before long they were pulling into the lot where earlier that evening Desi's car had been parked and a knot formed in his gut. He'd loved that car, too. He'd called it Molly, put together the engine from spare parts, reupholstered it, installed a stereo...

He couldn't believe he was even thinking about the car. What a terrible person he was.

Desi stumbled out and climbed the stairs to the room, Nick and Howie stayed in the Escalade.

The room looked the same as it had earlier. The lamp was still glowing on the nightstand next to the alarm clock, the sheets and blankets were still a tangled web, twisted and turned with their bodies as they'd moved together among them just hours before. Desi stood staring from the doorway, willing her to appear in the room somehow, to come out of the bathroom suddenly, her hair wrapped up in a towel on her head like a turban, her mascara only on one eye.

Slowly, he moved into the room, collecting all his stuff in a daze, shoving crumpled papers and clothes and cellphone chargers into his suitcase in a terrible ratnest. He put the bath soap she used into a plastic bag, along with the hair brush she'd left behind when she'd gone to Nick's the week before, and he put them into his suitcase, too. He was about to leave when he remembered the tank top, buried among the sheets on the extra bed that had been hers. He pulled it from between the blankets and held it to his face, pressing it right against his nose, breathing deeply, and closing his eyes. The abstract colors, shapes, sounds, and smells of the evening flooded him, and he took a few moments to just breathe them in and relish them. Then he shoved the tank top into a plastic bag, too, and sealed it tight, in hopes that the smell might be preserved.

After checking out of the hotel, he got back into the Escalade, his suitcase at his side, hands shaking.

The ride back to Nick's place in Cool Springs was long, blurry and silent. None of them knew what to say to each other. Nick was glad that Howie was there to drive - he didn't think he could've driven himself safely, really, and he licked his lips as he stared at his hands, thinking how helpful Howie was, like a real brother. He hoped he could be like a real brother to someone one day, but it was something that had always eluded him - even with his own, actual real brother. Nick kinda felt like he was dreaming, like everything was going just a little bit slower than it really should've been going. He wanted to ask Desi if Kelsey had said anything about him, but he was both excited for, and terrified of, the answer. After all, she'd left angry, and he didn't think he could bear to hear that she'd run to Desmond and spoke poorly of him that last time she'd ever thought of him.

But she was coming back to you, Nick reminded himself. She couldn't have hated you. She was coming back to you.

The headlights cut the dark as Howie pulled up to the gates that led into Nick's community and through the neighborhood. Nick stared out the window at the houses with their warm windows and realized that he hardly knew any of the people in the houses around his.

The Escalade came to a stop in the driveway in front of Nick's house and Howie cut the engine and they sat there once again in silence, the same silence that had filled the car back at the hospital parking lot. The sound of their breathing filled the cabin. Desi was still covering his eyes with his hands.

"The fellas are gonna be askin' questions," Nick said in a dazed mumbling voice.

"I texted them," Howie said, "They know."

"Who?" Desi asked, lifting his face from his hands.

"The other Backstreet Boys," Howie clarified. "We're all here. We were -- er, taping a song."

Nick moaned and closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the headrest of the seat.

Desi didn't have the energy to even feel annoyed at Nick for stealing the song. He felt so drained of every emotion - even anger - that he didn't think he'd ever feel again. "Oh," he said. And somewhere deep in him he knew that under normal circumstances it would've been unreal to meet all five of the Backstreet Boys like this, but tonight it just felt like more faces that didn't belong to Kelsey.

They stepped into the house and Nick's dog, Nacho, rushed into the hallway to greet them. He was excited, of course. Dogs don't understand things like people dying. Nacho leaped against Nick's knees and Nick struggled to lift him up and Nacho licked his face until Nick lowered him to carry him at the hip. Desi hung back, holding his suitcase, feeling like he didn't belong. Howie moved into the house, calling out names Desi knew he should know but having never been a huge Backstreet fan, he didn't really.

Kevin came out of the kitchen holding an empty plate and a dish cloth. "Come in here, I made food. You need to eat."

Nick shook his head, "I ain't hungry, Kev..."

"I don't care. You need to eat. At least a little. Get in there." Kev waved Nick by and then he turned to Desi. "I'm Kevin. Kevin Richardson. You must be Desmond?" he asked. When Desi nodded, Kevin pulled him into a hug and said, in a deeply sincere tone, "I'm so very sorry for your loss, brother." He patted Desi's back, then released him. "Come eat something." He led the way through Nick's house and into the kitchen.

The kitchen smelled strong of beef stew and Nick was already sitting at the table, absently scratching Nacho's head, although Nacho now seemed to want to get down, his legs flailing. Nick was staring straight at the table before him. As Desi entered the room, the guy sitting next to him at the table looked up. "Hallo Desi," he said. "Brian." He jumped up and offered Desi his chair.

Desi fell into it dazedly. "Thanks," he muttered.

Kevin poured soup into two bowls and dropped them in front of Nick and Desi. Nick stared at it as though willing it to disappear without him having to put in the effort of actually lifting a spoon... Desi thought to himself how good it smelled, but how certain he was he couldn't keep anything down in his stomach just yet. Still, Kevin gave them each a spoon and stood, hovering, waiting to see that they ate. Brian sat down across from them.

Brian stared at Nick with such caring, concerned eyes... Desi turned away because it felt almost sacred, the worry that was happening between the two of them. He picked at the soup, mostly just sipping the broth. Nick did the same, he noticed. Despite how little he was eating, Desi appreciated the fact that the soup was really good.

AJ and Howie joined them in the kitchen a few minutes later and they pulled up some chairs from other rooms and soon the six of them were all gathered around the table as Nick and Desi ate. "Sucks man, it sucks," AJ muttered, shaking his head. "I only just met her, y'know, but I really liked her."

"I liked her too," Howie intoned. "She seemed nice."

Brian nodded. "I think I freaked her out though when I flipped over the far back of your Escalade," he chuckled.

Nick couldn't help but laugh. He'd seen the surprised, raised-eyebrows expression that had been on Kelsey's face that afternoon at the airport, the expression that had led him to warn her that the guys were batshit crazy. These four insane, wonderfully loving guys that had changed from exuberant-bandmates to caring-best-friends in a matter of a simple text message. Nick couldn't imagine life without these guys in it, and he wondered how it was that he'd ever allowed himself to think he could live without them, that they weren't worth stopping the drinking. He wondered how he possibly could've believed that alcohol was better than these guys around a table.

Nick felt himself tearing up just thinking about the things he'd wagered in his life, and the chances he'd took that had landed him here.

"It's gonna be okay, buddy," Brian said, seeing the mistiness of Nick's eyes. He reached over and put his arm around Nick's shoulder and he turned and flung an arm over Kevin's shoulders on the other side of him. AJ did the same to Howie and Nick and Howie flung his arm over Desi and Desi looked up, confused as Kevin reached across the table and included him in this strange, make-shift round-the-table group hug... He realized, looking around the fellas at the table, that this wasn't a band that he was sitting with, this was a family, fused together by hard times and the experiences of moving on together.

And they were including him.

"It's gonna be okay," Brian repeated.