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** BRIAN **

“Are they nice?”

“Who?” I tossed the ball towards the net, watching in satisfaction as it swished through the netting and bounced into Nick’s waiting hands.

“The police.” Nick passed me the ball and moved out of the way as I lined up another shot.

“The detectives?” I released another perfect three-point shot and grinned. “I suppose so.”

Nick frowned as he retrieved the ball. He began dribbling it absently around the driveway. “That means that they’re mean.”

I watched as Nick performed a perfectly executed lay-up and waited until he had bounce passed me the ball before I responded. “The last time that I spoke to them they told me that you had been murdered. I think it’s pretty safe to say that their news dampened my opinion of them.”

Nick appeared to consider my statement as he watched the ball ricochet off of the backboard and into the net. “What did you do when you found out?”

“What do you mean?” I watched as Nick began to dribble the ball in and around his legs; his signature show off movement.

“When you thought that I was dead.” Nick stopped dribbling the ball and looked me square in the face. “What did you do?”

“What do you think I did?” I stared back at him; the emotion threatening to overtake me once again. “I cried, I refused to believe it, I told Baylee that you were in heaven.”

Nick’s face paled at the mention of Baylee’s name. “That must have been hard. For you to tell Baylee, I mean.”

I nodded slowly. “I don’t really want to talk about it.” I walked over to the side of the driveway and took a seat on the low, decorative, all-brick wall that separated the ornate flower garden from the asphalt.

Nick tossed the ball through the net one final time, letting it roll away onto the lawn, before he joined me on the wall. He sat down as close to me as he could without it being awkward; our shoulders touching. “Does AJ know about Leighanne?”

“He knows that I’m upset with her at the moment.” I supplied. There was a look on Nick’s face that I couldn’t quite place.

Nick gave me a sideways glance. “Why are you upset with her?”

I dropped my eyes to my hands and began rubbing at the dirt that had collected on the tips of my fingers. How did I tell Nick that Leighanne hadn’t said a single word when she thought that he had been killed?

“She didn’t cry, did she?” Nick guessed; his voice painfully low. “You can say it.”

“She didn’t say anything.” I continued to rub frantically at my fingers. “I don’t think that I’ll ever be able to forgive her for it.”

“It’s nothing new.” Nick was doing a poor job of disguising the fact that he was upset. “She’s never liked me.”

“It doesn’t matter if she likes you or not.” I argued. “You’re my best friend. I needed her to comfort me and she didn’t. I needed her to hold me and to tell me that everything was going to be okay, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She didn’t even try!”

Nick sighed a long, drawn out, painful sounding sigh. “What are you going to do?”

“At the moment?” I pulled my eyes away from my hands and stared into Nick’s anxious face. “Nothing. I have more important things to do here.”

“What?” Nick’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “I figured that you guys would all be taking off, seeing as how you know that I’m still alive and all.”

I was pretty sure that my face mirrored Nick’s in surprise. “I’m not leaving! What if Detective Bell and Detective Eaton show up and announce that someone is really trying to – that someone might want to hurt you?”

A look of intense fear darted across Nick’s face. “Do you really think that someone is trying to hurt me?”

“Someone went out of their way to murder a guy who looks just like you.” I forced the words out of my mouth. “I don’t think that it was a coincidence.”

Nick hung his head and moved even closer to me on the wall. Despite the warmth of the spring sun, his skin felt cool and clammy as his arm pressed against mine. “I’m glad that you’re going to stay.”

“I thought that I had lost you.” The words caught in my throat. “I have to make sure that you’re safe.”

“Do you think that the other guys will stay too?”

“Of course.” I affirmed. “Why wouldn’t they?”

Nick pulled his eyes away from the ground and turned to stare down the driveway. The indistinguishable expression had returned to his face. “AJ will stay if you stay.”

“AJ’s worried about you.” I confirmed. “You should have seen him these last few days. He was a mess. He still is.”

Nick’s eyes darkened. “How come you seem to be able to talk to him so easily? It took you forever to tell me that you were unhappy and that you were looking to make some changes in your life.”

“We shut each other out, Nick.” I paused to consider my words. “When it was down to the four of us, you teamed up with Howie.”

“I didn’t team up with Howie.” Nick argued. “I just – I just needed someone – I really needed someone to talk to and Howie was there for me.”

“Exactly; Howie was there and I wasn’t! I treated you like shit, and it’s my fault that our friendship fell apart. I turned my back on you because you didn’t fit in with the perfect family-man image that I was trying so desperately to create. I didn’t want you to tarnish my reputation. I was selfish and I let myself be manipulated by the people closest to me, by the people who I thought wanted nothing but the best for me. I became a completely different person; a lonely, materialistic, self-righteous person who I’m not proud of.”

“I don’t blame you.” Nick conceded. “I thought that I hated you, and I knew that I missed you, but I never blamed you.”

“You should blame me!” I exploded. “It’s my fault! I’m the one who destroyed our friendship. I’m the one who pretended like I didn’t care!”

“It’s different now.” Nick insisted, his voice steady. “As much as I thought that I hated you, I always knew deep down that I didn’t. When you reached out to me before our twentieth anniversary, I knew that we would be able to work things out. As much as I’ve relied on Howie during these past few years, I never needed him as much as I’ve always needed, and still need, you.”

“I know.” I struggled to control the tremor in my voice. “It’s the same with me and AJ. The fact that AJ and I tend to stick together when the going gets tough is nothing new. We’ve been close since the beginning; you’ve always known that.”

Nick pressed his eyes shut. “I want so badly for us to be Frick and Frack again. I guess I just thought that we already were; that we were already best friends again. For the past year, everything has seemed like it’s the way that it’s supposed to be.”

“You are my best friend!” I knocked my shoulder against Nick’s in an effort to get him to open his eyes. “Like Kevin once said, if you were to jump off of a bridge I would follow you.” I paused for a second as I considered what I had just said. “Or maybe it was the other way around.”

Nick smiled, but when his eyes opened they were wet with unshed tears. “I would still follow you off the bridge, but I have a feeling that AJ would be right behind me.”

I returned the smile, finally aware that the unreadable look on Nick’s face had been jealously; completely unwarranted jealousy. “I need us to be Frick and Frack again more than you do, trust me.”

Nick’s smile grew. “You should have seen your face when I walked out onto the deck this afternoon.”

It was my turn to squeeze my eyes shut. Never in my life had I experienced such a pure feeling of relief. As soon as I had allowed myself to hug him, I had clung to him; desperately relying on his touch to reassure my distraught mind that he was real. Even now, I was grateful that Nick was sitting so close, grateful that I could feel him next to me.

“It’s no wonder that people get the wrong idea about us.” I made the comment before I realized that Nick was not privy to the thoughts that were running through my head.

Nick laughed; a strong, full laugh that pulled at his already deepened laugh lines. “Who cares about what people think?”

I opened my eyes, blinking quickly against the sun. Nick jokingly pushed me away from him and I shot my hand out into the flower bed to keep my balance, my fingers sinking into the dirt. “I used to care about what people thought.” I admitted.

“And now?” Nick continued to smile as he watched me pull my hand out of the soil.

“And now I don’t give a flying fuck what people say about me.” I wiped my hand on my jeans, the dirt leaving a series of faint, brown streaks on the denim. “I know what’s important in my life. I don’t need anyone else to decide that for me.”