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Chapter Ten: Cut a Demo


On the way back to the hotel, Kelsey was the one that reached for the radio knob for the first time since they'd left home. Desmond glanced back and forth between the road and her as she turned up the volume and her hair flowed, curling and twisting the way streamers do on the handles of bicycles. Ruby Tuesday echoed out of the speakers and into the night and he imagined it leaving a river of colorful notes throughout the dark behind them.

With Nick safely left behind them, Desmond could feel the shock of Nick's request for help in obtaining Kelsey all the more. It tingled the way being slapped across the face would.

When they left Massachusetts, Desmond had loaded up Kelsey's bags for her, the car idling on the curb in front of Luke's apartment, her mascara seeping across her face as she sat, shaking in the passenger seat. He'd stood on the threshold of Luke's apartment on the final trip out and spotted a photo on the mantle that he'd gone back for. It was a picture of them - of Desmond and Kelsey - when they were little kids, sitting on a park bench together, and he'd pulled it from the frame and slipped it into his pocket. That's where it still was.

It'd never occurred to him to wonder why she hadn't packed it.

Instead, he'd used it as his omen, his good luck charm, the physical representation of the promise that he'd muttered to himself all the way down the stairs to the waiting getaway car - and during every moment that he'd been alone since: he would get the girl this time.

But now he was wondering why she hadn't packed the photograph because now there was a new Prince Charming in town and she was not only apparently infatuated with him, but Nick's mere presence was making her sing to the radio again, making her dance with the lightning bugs. Nick's mere presence was breathing new life into Kelsey.

Desmond felt sick.

He parked the car in the usual place outback of the hotel and he sat with his hands on the wheel as the last notes of Ruby Tuesday floated away before he rolled the top up on the car and turned the engine off. Silence filled the cabin and Kelsey was picking at a stray sting on her top. Desmond took a deep breath and he turned to look at her, every intention of telling her everything that was on his mind, from Nick's request to how much he wanted her himself, but her eyes froze him when they met with his and he choked and instead of saying anything he just stared at her as a smile crawled across her face.

"Tomorrow, we should go apartment hunting again," she suggested, "I'll go along, too. Maybe since we haven't been finding anything near here we can check closer to Nick's? Since he's our friend and all, being close would be a good thing."

Desmond nodded.

"Maybe Nick can help us," she suggested.

"Probably," Desmond mumbled, "The boy wonder seems to do no wrong..."

"What?" Kelsey hadn't heard him, or at least not understood the smeared-together words and she tilted her head.

"Nothing," Desmond replied, shaking his head. "It's nothing." And really, he thought to himself, kind of it was. How was Nick supposed to know how long Desmond had been waiting for his chance with Kelsey? Nick was really just an innocent bystander in all this (or at least as far as Desmond knew he was), just someone who met Kelsey, saw how amazing she was, and was falling for her. That's all. And who could blame him? Certainly not Desmond, who'd met the girl when they were infants and had been smitten ever since. It wasn't Nick's fault was the point, and Nick was doing nothing but helping them.

He'd helped Desmond cut a demo for crying outloud.

Kelsey reached for the door handle and Desmond realized as the door creaked open that the moment to tell her everything had passed without him saying a word, and she climbed out of the car, stretching her arms as she went.

He got out, too, and followed her up the stairs to the room, his stomach doing flip-flops on each step like it was a slinky or something in there instead of a stomach.

In the room, Kelsey pulled her shirt off, revealing a tank top underneath, and announced she was going to take a bubble bath and she grabbed the box of bath salts from her open suitcase on the floor and slipped into the bathroom. Desmond sat on the bed and thought about the purple smell she'd have when she came back out and he fell asleep thinking and dreaming about having the words to say that would make her crawl, all purple and damp and beautiful, into his bed instead of her own. Wet hair on the pillow and all, that was all that he wanted.




Nick scraped the grill clean and shoved the plates and tongs and silverware into the dishwasher before he went down stairs to work on the demo cut of Desmond's song. He sat in his swivel chair and hit the layered playback and listened as the guitar and the vocals played together and he rocked side to side, staring up at the ceiling, listening to Desmond's lyrics.

"Too many tears we cry
Too many scars we hide
Wear your heart on your sleeve
Speak the truth to me
And I'll be there through thick and thin
What we have is something to believe in..."

He reached over and stopped the playback and sat up. A couple buttons later and the demo was burning onto a CD. Desmond was great, he thought. He was a natural talent and raw sound of his voice, even slightly off as it was, didn't need any touching up. Nick pulled the disc out of the burner and put it into a case and scribbled Desmond Truetree demo across the top of it with a marker, then left it there on the desk and went up to his bedroom.

He thought about Kelsey as he laid down on the bed, and about Desmond's desperately panicked eyes when he'd requested help with winning her. A bit of him felt bad for Desmond again. Mainly because he didn't stand a chance. There wasn't a thing in the world that Desmond could do that Nick felt he couldn't do better.

Well except maybe write a song.

As though he were on cue, Kevin's face appeared on Nick's phone, indicating he was missing a call from his eldest Backstreet brother. Nick let the call sail through to voicemail. All Kevin wanted to know was if the song Nick had been working on forever was ready yet or not, and it wasn't so he didn't really want to go through the whole process of explaining why to Kev yet, didn't wanna let him down.

But Kevin kept calling.

And kept calling.

And finally Nick answered it. "Man you do know I'm two hours ahead of y'all here, don't you?" he asked, "Time zones. Respect'em."

"Like you were sleeping," Kevin said and Nick could almost hear the eyeroll in his voice.

"I'm in bed," Nick argued. Not sleeping, but still in the bed. Well, on it, he wasn't really in it as he'd only laid across it. Nacho was sound asleep at his feet though. Nick moved carefully to keep from waking Nacho, an sat up, leaning against the backboard.

"You got anything yet for that song?" Kevin asked.

Nick meant to say no. Really. He meant to tell the truth.

"Yeah, actually," he said, "I just cut a demo today."

"Really?" Kevin sounded skeptical.

"Really," Nick answered.

Kevin was quiet a moment. "An actual, honest to god song?"

"Cross my heart," Nick answered. "It goes - uh - too many tears we cry, too many scars we try to hide, wear your heart on your sleeve, speak the truth to me, and I'll be there through thick and thin, what we have is something to believe in..." he paused because that's all he could remember of the song, and let the words sink between him and the phone.

Kevin was so dead silent for a couple beats that Nick was certain he'd figured it out somehow. He pictured Kevin with glowing red eyes shouting him for plagerism. Instead, Kevin let out a hum of approval and said, "Damn. Not bad. Keep up the good work, kid. Hey give me a call when you wanna share that demo with me."

"I'll email you the file in the morning if you want," Nick replied.

"Awesome," Kevin answered. "I look forward to it."

"Okay. Goodnight." Nick hung up the phone before Kevin could say anything more. He sat there staring at the ceiling, his mind wrapping around what he'd just done. Then he leaped out of the bed and ran down to the studio, Nacho scrambling behind him... He had to cut the demo singing it himself if he was gonna send it to Kevin.