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Chapter Eighteen


Jaymie

I was sitting up, biting my nails and hugging my knees to my chest, perched on the edge of the overstuffed chair by the picture window, looking out over the city. I wasn’t looking at the city though, I was looking at Nick, who was asleep, sprawled across the king-sized bed, still fully dressed, his mouth gaping open against the pillow, legs splayed like he’d fallen from the top of a six-story building and landed on the mattress. The sunlight was coming through a crack in the light-blocking curtains. Even though it was mid-morning local time, it felt like it was the middle of the night still because we weren’t adjusted to the change just yet. But even with the time zone difference and all that damn jet lag, I couldn’t sleep. So instead, I stared at the way his foot curved at the arch as it hung off the end of the bed, his toes spread. Everything about his body was fucking perfect and poetic. Even his god-damned foot.

In fact, the only thing about him that I would change was how damn stubborn he was. And, you know, the tumor.

If I was going to get Nick to get the treatment, I realized, then I needed a plan, a way to show him why it was so important and how crazy this idea that fighting it would make it worse. How much longer did he have to dick around before he’d lose the opportunity to heal?

Shuffling my feet a little to adjust my view of him, I wondered what kind of plan I could cook up that could actually get him to listen to me about the treatment. But I’d used the best argument I could possibly think of and he hadn’t caved even a little.

It occurred to me like lightening.

I bit my lip and slid out of the chair, sneaking past the bed, keeping my eye on Nick to make sure he didn’t roll over or wake up or anything, and inched toward the hotel room door. He’d get really pissed if he knew what I was about to do, but… whatever. Sometimes pissing people off to save them is worth it, I told myself. And this was worth it.

I slid out the door and into the hallway.

I walked slowly down the hallway, staring at the doors, trying to decide which one would contain the Littrells. Oh Nick was so going to kill me when he found out I did this, I thought. And I took a deep breath. I’d just have to knock on every door until one of them was opened by Brian, I thought. So I went over to the first door and was about to knock when the room across from Nick’s opened and AJ stepped out, carrying his daughter, Ava, on his hip. Ava was playing with AJ’s sunglasses, squealing with delight as she put them on her face and took them off, dimming and brightening the world with a flick of her wrist.

AJ looked surprised when he turned and saw me standing in the hall. “Hey,” he said. He paused, studying me, “You guys get in last night?” he asked.

I felt like I was being scanned, like he was trying to decide if I’d just finished doing Nick or not.

“Yes,” I answered.

Ava waved the glasses.

“I didn’t know you were coming with him,” AJ commented. “That’s cool. You like Germany so far?”

“So far all I’ve really seen is the airport,” I answered.

“You’ll have to make Nick bring ya sightseeing,” he suggested. He was uncomfortable. This was the first time I’d really seen much of AJ since he got married. It used to be that the main reason he and I got along is that AJ was great at flirting with anything with breasts - a criteria I certainly meet - and most of the dialogue we shared had been semi-flirtatious. Once, AJ had even propositioned me. Like, seriously. And now… now he was tamed and it was awkward.

“I guess I will,” I replied to his sightseeing suggestion. “Look, AJ, I need to talk to Brian. Do you know what room he’s in?”

AJ’s eyes flickered in surprise. “What do you have to talk to Brian about?” he asked. It sounded rude, but it wasn’t really, I guess. Just an honest question. One that honestly needed answering. Like I’ve said several times now, Brian and I weren’t exactly buds.

“I need to tell him something.”

AJ nodded. “Okay. Well.” He looked down the hallway and waved at a door two down from Nick’s. “Good luck.” AJ looked at Ava. “Say bye-bye,” he suggested.

Ava waved absently.

“Bye-bye Ava,” I said.

She looked traumatized, like she was wondering how the hell I knew her name. You’d think she’d be used to strangers knowing her name by now.

“See ya,” AJ said, and he turned and walked off down the hallway.

I turned to the room he’d said belonged to Brian and took a deep, shaky breath.

This was gonna be awkward.

I knocked.

I contemplated running away.

I looked around. I could hide in the vending machine room. I could run to the elevator or the stairwell.

Maybe he’d look out the peephole and see it was me and never open the door.

Maybe I could just go back to Nick’s room, pretend I’d never tried to talk to Brian at all. Maybe I could talk Nick into treatment on my own.

Maybe he hadn’t heard the knock at all.

And then the door opened and there was Brian, wearing basketball shorts and a t-shirt with a can of tomato soup on it. His mouth was full, he was chewing, one side of a pair of bright yellow headphones in his ear, the TV remote in his hand, and a confused look on his face. He stared at me and the confusion darkened slowly to a mixture of suspicion and concern.

“Jaymie?” He looked around for Nick.

“Nick’s asleep.”

He swallowed what I’d identified as cheerios when he’d spoken and leaned against the door jam, tilting his head to one side, folding his muscular arms over one another as he continued to stare at me with that same blended expression.

“Okay.” He stared at me.I licked my lips, unsure how to start. “I’m not trying to be rude or anything,” he said finally, “But… what do you want, exactly?”

“We need to talk,” I said. “About Nick.”

Brian raised an eyebrow.




Nick

When I woke up, Jaymie was asleep in the second bed, her back to me, hugging her knees. I stared across the gap between the two beds, as wide as the parting of the continents, and wondered what she was thinking about, if she was mad at me or if she understood me. I wasn’t even positive anymore if I understood me, really. I hugged a pillow, pressing my face into it the way I wanted to be pressing my face into her neck and shoulder. My fingers tingled with desire to run them across her soft skin.

“Jaymie?” I asked quietly. If she was awake, she’d answer, if not, I hadn’t said it loud enough that it would wake her up. In the pause that followed, I didn’t know if I wanted her to answer or not. She didn’t. I stared for a couple long moments before letting out a low sigh and rolling over so I was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring out at the city on the other side of the glass. I ran my hands through my hair and grabbed the pillow and held it on my lap, covering my junk.

There was a knock at the door.

At first, I wondered who the fuck would be knocking in the middle of the night, then I realized it only felt like the middle of the night. Obviously, dumbass, I told myself, you’ve just been looking out at the sunlit city. I turned and looked at the clock on the nightstand and found it was almost noon. Grabbing my jeans from the chair and tugging them on as I walked by the foot of Jaymie’s bed, I made my way to the door and peered out the peekhole. It was Brian.

“Hey Frick,” I said, pulling open the door. He stared up at me, his eyes were a little red, like maybe he’d been crying or something. “You okay?” I said, surprised.

Brian took a deep breath, “You hungry?”

I shrugged, “I dunno?”

“C’mon, I’m taking you out for lunch.”

“‘Rok, Jaymie’s here, I can’t just leave her --”

“She knows I’m coming.”

“What? She’s asleep,” I laughed, “How the fuck would she know you’re --”

Brian’s eyes were stone-serious, and I stopped talking mid-sentence as they locked on my own eyes. “Nick,” he said, his voice level, “You and I need to talk.”

I looked back at Jaymie on the bed. She’d been looking at us, too, but when I turned back she dropped herself back onto her pillow quickly and closed her eyes, back to pretending to be asleep.

A pit formed in the depths of my stomach.

I looked at Brian.

“She told you,” I said.

Brian licked his lips, “So there is something to tell then?”

“It’s… it’s nothing,” I lied.

“Nick, whatever it is, whatever’s going on, it’s not nothing. Jaymie has never once come to me to tell me that you need my help,” Brian pointed out, “She’s never once seemed to know anything about you when there’s something going on at all. So whatever it is, it’s something, something big enough you couldn’t hide it from her anymore. So what is it? What? Is it your heart? Is there something wrong?”

I closed my eyes.

“You’re a stubborn bastard,” Brian said, “I know you hate accepting help from people, but sometimes you’ve just got to.” He stared at me, I could feel him staring at me, even with my eyes closed. “So c’mon,” he continued after a long pause, “At least come talk to me. We’ll get some food and - and maybe a beer or something. Like - like old times. Just you and me.”

I sighed and turned away, grabbing my shirt from the chair, too. Jaymie laid still, eyes screwed tightly shut. I tugged my shirt over my head, then walked over to the bed and leaned close, “We’ll talk when I get back,” I said thickly in her ear. She didn’t move or react in anyway. I stood up and followed Brian out the door into the hallway.

Brian punched the button for the elevator. “There’s a pub down the street,” he suggested.

I knew the place he meant. I’d been there a few times before. “Okay,” I replied.

We stepped into the elevator and the doors slid closed and we leaned against the walls of the little box. I stared at my feet. Brian cleared his throat. It was awkward between us. I tried to think when this awkwardness had started, but there wasn’t really a clear point in my mind where it went from Brian and I being Frick and Frack to us being estranged, uncomfortable once-were-best-friends co-workers. When it went from me telling him everything to him being the one person I’d hoped would never know half the shit there was to know about me.

“So what’d Jaymie tell you?” I asked.

“Only that I needed to talk to you,” he replied. He stared at me for a long moment. “So how bad is this going to be? On a scale of one to ten?”

“Twelve.”