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“So, when’s the big day?” Kevin asked as the group took a break from recording to have lunch.


Nick smiled despite the little argument he’d just lost to his “big brothers” in the studio just moments before, his demeanor completely changing. “We’re thinking December-- maybe around Christmas,” he said excitedly before taking a swig out of his water bottle.


“That soon?” Brian asked, his eyes wide. “That doesn’t give you a lot of time to plan.” He chomped into his sandwich.


Nick shrugged. “We don’t need a lot of time to plan. This isn’t Leighanne I’m marrying.”


Brian coughed and sputtered around the ball of chewed up bread he’d been trying to swallow as he started to laugh. “What’s that supposed to mean?”


“All I’m saying is that there aren’t going to be any synchronized swimmers.”


AJ burst out laughing. “Do I get to help?”


“No!” Nick insisted. “We’re planning on simple.” AJ pouted dramatically. “Nothing fancy--just the two of us and Drew, you guys and family, and a minister. We’ll be finished promoting ‘It’s Christmas Time Again’ a few days before Christmas, so we should have time for a little honeymoon before those couple shows we have scheduled at the end of the year.”


“Aha!” Howie interjected, looking up from texting Leigh on his cell phone. “A little excited to get to the honeymoon are we, Nicky?”


Nick could feel the heat starting to rise in his cheeks. “You two still haven’t sealed the deal yet?” Kevin asked playfully.


“We’ve sealed the deal!” Nick argued. “Once,” he added quietly.


“That doesn’t count!” Kevin argued back. “You two weren’t even together then.”


“Why are you so concerned about my sex life, anyway, Mr. Preacher’s Brother?” Relief washed over him as the sound of this cell phone ringing cut the conversation short. “Hey, baby! I just fought Kevin to sing a verse about Kentucky girls and lost. I’m the one who’s actually marrying one, but apparently, I don’t have the authentic ‘twang’ required to sing such a verse. But it’s all good. As a consolation prize, I get to sing about Bangkok,” he said with an eye roll as the rest of the guys snickered.


Annie wasn’t amused. “There’s something wrong with the alarm system, Nick.”


“The alarm system?” He asked, sitting up straighter and giving her his full attention. Brian whipped his head in Nick’s direction and scooted his chair closer to listen in on his end of the conversation. Nick’s phone beeped in his ear, alerting him to an incoming call, but he ignored it.


“The control pad says ‘fault zone 18.’ I don’t even know where zone 18 is.”


“I don’t either,” Nick admitted with a sigh. Suddenly he realized that his fiancee was calling him to tell him something was wrong with the alarm system in the house that she was staying in-- alone-- literally thousands of miles away, and there was a very real possibility that maybe someone was in the house. “Where are you?”


“Standing in front of the downstairs control panel. That’s why I know what it says,” she answered nonchalantly.


Nick gulped and took in a deep breath in an attempt to control his now erratic heartbeat. “Where’s Drew?”


“He’s right here with me.”


“Annie, get out of the house,” he said frantically. Now he had the full attention of all of his bandmates. After being together for so long, it had become customary for the other guys to “check out” while one of them was talking to his wife or girlfriend in the same room, so as not to listen in on the conversation. Hearing the panic in their little brother’s voice, though, they had all officially checked back in.


“What’s going on?” AJ whispered to Brian, who was now nervously biting his fingernails.


“Something’s going on with the alarm system at Nick’s house in Tennessee and Annie and Drew are there.” Brian sent up a quick prayer for the woman he’d met and forged a quick friendship with just over a year ago.


“Shit,” AJ muttered under his breath. Then, he sent up a quick prayer of his own.


Kevin put a reassuring hand on Nick’s shoulder and gave it a little squeeze. “Tell her to get in the car and call the 800 number on the control panel.”


“Annie?”


“I heard him,” Annie told Nick quickly. “We’re on our way out the door.” She stooped down to pick up her two year old with her free arm while she grasped her cell phone tightly in her other hand. It hadn’t even occurred to her that they might be in danger when she walked into the house and saw the message on the control panel when she started to punch in the passcode. She called Nick hoping for some guidance on a little inconvenience, but when she heard the panic in his voice, she looked down at Drew and realized she had to get out of there. She held the phone between her ear and her shoulder and balanced Drew on her hip while she fumbled to unlock her car door.


Nick’s phone beeped, signaling yet another incoming call, and he gripped it in frustration, his knuckles turning white. “Are you in the car yet? You need to call them now.”


“No, Nick. I’m not in the car yet. I have a wiggly child to put in a car seat,” Annie answered, her voice on edge. “Lean back, Drew. I need to make the seatbelt click, okay?”


“Seatbelt click!” Drew squealed happily. The toddler’s unknowing happiness only served to multiply the tension growing in her neck and shoulders. Once she was satisfied with the tightness of the harness, she rushed to the driver’s side door and got in, locking the doors with one hand and buckling her seatbelt with the other, all the while still balancing her cell phone between her shoulder and her ear.


“I have to hang up now, Nick,” she lamented as she put the key in the ignition and turned it.


“What? Why?”


“Because I need to call the security company.”


“Oh,” he responded, his heart sinking at the thought of having to let her go. “I’ll hold. Just put me on hold, okay?”


Annie sighed. “Do you think maybe we’re overreacting a little?” She backed out of the driveway slowly and headed down the street.


“Maybe...” Nick said cautiously. “But you know, this is my house, and we do have some pretty crazy fans. You can’t be too careful.” While he was talking, the phone beeped in his ear yet again, indicating a third incoming call. Again, he ignored it. “I’m staying on the line while you call them, Annie. Don’t keep me waiting too long, okay?”


“I’ll do my best.”


“Oh....and Annie?”


“Yes, Nick?”


“I love you.”


She smiled. “I love you, too, Nick.”


Nick drummed his fingers nervously on the table in front of him and bounced one of his legs up and down on the ball of his foot while he waited impatiently for Annie to make the phone call. Brian placed his hand firmly one of Nick’s shoulders while Kevin did the same on the other. “She’s been gone a long time, hasn’t she?” he asked aloud.


Howie glanced down at his watch. “About a minute and a half, Nick.” Nick nodded slowly. “Just chill out, buddy. I’m sure it’s fine.”


“I just wish she’d let me know what’s going on,” Nick admitted with a sigh.


“A minute and a half, Nick. Give her time.”


As if on cue, Annie came back on the line, sounding much more relaxed than she did earlier. “They’ve called your cell phone three times, Nick. From their end, it looks like a dead battery in one of the window sensors. They gave me a model number, and I’m on my way to buy one at the hardware store, now.”


Nick let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “Dead sensor battery,” he said to his bandmates to fill them in, then he turned his attention back to Annie. Immediately, the tension in the room started to let up. “Aren’t they going to come out any change the battery for you? I mean, isn’t that the kind of stuff I pay them a monthly maintenance fee for?”


“Well, yeah,” Annie replied lackadaisically. “But since this isn’t technically an emergent situation, they can’t make it out until the end of the week, so I figure I might as well do it myself now.”


“Do you know how to do that?”


“It’s not rocket science, Nick. All I need is a battery and a screwdriver.”


Nick bit his nails as he pondered his fiancee’s situation. “Can you leave the alarm on while you do that? I mean, what if somebody tries to break in while you’re working on the system?”


“Relax, Nick. I’m sure it would be fine to leave it off for a few minutes, but I’m going to call Jason back after I buy the battery. He’s going to walk me through setting that zone on bypass while I fix the sensor so that I can leave the alarm on for the rest of the house, then test the sensor to make sure changing the battery fixes it.”


“Jason?” Nick asked with a raised eyebrow.


“Customer service guy at the security company,” Annie filled him in.


“Oh, okay. Sounds good.” He watched as Howie, Kevin, Brian, and AJ filed back into the studio. “Looks like we’re getting back to work, but I’ll call to check up on you later, okay?”


“I’ll look forward to it.” Nick breathed a sigh of relief as he hung up his phone and put it in his pocket. As he sauntered back into the studio, he made a mental note to call the security company later and set up an appointment to have someone come out and inspect everything, just to be on the safe side.