“Uh,” Brian said quickly, swallowing a mouthful of pizza, “I dunno about y’all, but I’m bringing Leigh. She already bought a new dress for the awards.”
“Why?” Nick asked blankly. “We’re not doing the red carpet, right? I thought we were gonna hide out backstage so it would be a surprise.”
“Well, yeah, but we’re doing the performance in the first half of the show so that we can accept any awards we win later without ruining the surprise, so we’ll need people to sit with out in the house when we’re done,” AJ pointed out. “Not to mention, there’s all the after-show stuff.”
“So who’s your date gonna be then, J?” asked Kevin in interest.
AJ grinned. “Howie,” he said without hesitation, slinging an arm around Howie’s shoulders.
Howie quickly shrugged him off, making an expression of disgust. “Don’t say that; that’s how those gay rumors get started!” AJ just cackled.
“You takin’ anyone, D?” Brian wondered.
“Not that I know of,” Howie said with a shrug.
“Yeah, it’s kinda hard to meet fine women when we’ve been stuck here babysitting Carter for the past four months,” joked AJ. Nick knew he was only kidding, but his comment stung a little. Nick felt guilty; AJ and Howie really hadn’t had much of a life the past four months – they had spent most of their time hanging around the house with him. Neither of them had been dating anyone.
He forced himself to laugh though and played along. “Oh, excuses, excuses. You wouldn’t have gotten any anyway, McLean.”
Howie, Brian, and Kevin laughed, as AJ smirked at Nick, rubbing his nose with his middle finger.
“Well, how about you, Carter?” Brian turned the question upon Nick.
“What?”
“Are you gonna bring anyone?”
Nick shot Brian a look. “Riiiiight,” he muttered. “As if I have anyone to bring.”
AJ pounced on him quickly. “What are you talking about?? You’re taking Claire, aren’t you?” The room fell silent, as Nick’s face went red. “What?” asked AJ. “I was being serious! You should ask her, Nick, I’m sure she’d love to go! Unlike Leigh and Kris, she hasn’t been to any of this stuff before; it would be fun for her! Don’t you think?”
Truthfully, Nick hadn’t even considered it. He hadn’t thought of an escort to the VMAs at all until Kevin had brought it up. And as for Claire... well, maybe it would be exciting for her to go to an awards show, with all the celebrities... but there was just that small matter of her boyfriend. She and Tim the Dentist were still together, and although she and Nick talked often and hung out when they could, she was a lot busier now, and he didn’t see her as much, which made him resent Tim even more.
“She’s seeing somebody, AJ. You know that,” Nick muttered, annoyed.
“So? She’s still your friend. Why can’t you take her to an awards show? As ‘friends’,” he added, using his fingers to make quotations marks.
Nick rolled his eyes.
“He’s right, Nick,” Brian quickly jumped in. “You should ask her. If she doesn’t think it would be right to go with you, she’ll say so. What would it hurt to just ask?”
Nick shrugged and did not reply.
“Well, if you’re going to ask her, you better do it quick,” Kevin advised. “We’ve only got two weeks, and if she’s flying to New York with us, we’ll have to make arrangements for her. Not to mention, she’ll probably have to go get something to wear, and that could be an odyssey in itself – you know how girls are. You gotta give ‘em plenty of time to get ready for stuff like this.”
Nick hesitated. “You really think I should ask her?” he asked after a moment.
“Yeah!” they all chorused. He eyed them suspiciously, wondering if this was all some kind of conspiracy. Shrugging, he decided he didn’t really care.
“Okay,” he said. “I guess maybe I’ll give her a call later.” With that, he bent down and took a large bite of his pizza, not catching the grins his four bandmates were secretly exchanging.
***
“Are you serious? The VMAs?!”
Nick was delighted to hear the excitement in Claire’s voice when he asked her if she might like to come with him to the awards show - “you know, just as friends.”
“So you wanna go?” he asked hopefully, while trying not to sound hopeful.
“Sure I do! I may not be much of an MTV person, but wow... the VMAs! I know it’s probably nothing to you, but you know, we simple folk don’t get to fly to New York City and promenade down the red carpet every day,” she quipped.
Nick didn’t think “simple folk” used the word ‘promenade’ every day either, but he was surprised at how eager she sounded. AJ had been right.
He chuckled. “True,” he replied. “So, Tim won’t mind?”
“Don’t care if he does,” she said off-handedly. “He knows we’re friends, and, come on – the VMAs! New York! He’ll just have to understand.”
Nick grinned widely. “Good point,” he said cheerfully. “So, um, we’ll get ticket arrangements made, and I’ll let you know details when I know-“
“Plane tickets, that’s right! I hadn’t thought about that... and wow, I guess I’ll need a dress or something too... I don’t know- but it’s the VMAs! And New York! I’ll just have to tighten my budget and save up.”
“Huh?” She had been thinking aloud, it seemed, and Nick was totally confused. Then, he realized. “Oh! Are you talking about money? Don’t worry about any of that; I gotcha covered.”
“Covered for what, exactly?” Claire asked.
“Uh... well, everything. Plane tickets, hotel... your dress... and anything else you need.”
“Nick! You can’t pay for everything!”
“Uh, yeah I can.”
Claire sighed in exasperation. “Well, I know you can, Nick, but... well, you shouldn’t. I can save some money, maybe get a loan from my parents-“
“Oh, c’mon, Claire, don’t be ridiculous. You’d be doing me a favor by going with me so I don’t have to sit around with just Howie and AJ for company the whole time, so I owe you.”
“Nick-“
“And you paid for pizza that one time, remember? I owe you,” Nick repeated.
Claire burst out laughing. “Pizza? So, what, me buying you pizza warrants a trip to some huge live awards show? Hell, if that’s how it works, let’s head to Leonardi’s right now!”
Nick laughed too. “So it’s settled then?” he asked, not at all sure it was. “You’re coming with me? And I’m covering the costs?”
“If you insist.”
“I do.”
“Well, okay then. I guess it’s settled,” said Claire.
Nick smiled. “Awesome. When you find a dress you like, let me know how much it is, and I’ll buy it for you, okay?”
“Oh, wait wait wait. When I find a dress? I don’t have the slightest clue what kind of dress to get or what would be acceptable or anything... but you do! So you have to come shopping with me and help me find something!”
“Wait, huh?” When had the conversation suddenly turned from them attending the VMAs together to them going shopping together?
“Come shopping with me,” Claire repeated. “You know me – I never dress up. I don’t have the slightest clue what to get for something like this.”
“What, you think I do?”
“Well, duh, you’re the one who goes to these things!”
“Well, yeah, but I’m not a chick! I don’t know what chicks wear to these things!”
“How could you not? You’re there!”
“Yeah, but I don’t really pay attention to their clothes.” He paused and added, “I pay attention to how they look in their clothes.”
She snorted. “Spoken like a true guy, Nick.”
“You know it. Hey, I know what you could wear! What about something like what J. Lo wore to the Grammy’s that one year? I know this is the VMAs, not the Grammy’s, but I’m sure-“
“RIIIIIGHT,” Claire cut in sarcastically. “I would so slap you for that if you were here right now. But look, when are you free to go shopping? I’m serious; I need your opinion.”
Nick made a big show of sighing in annoyance, but really, he was quite pleased. “Well... what about Sunday? Can you do Sunday? I guess we could hit the mall or something early, and hopefully it wouldn’t be too busy on a Sunday morning...”
“I could do Sunday,” she replied.
“Okay. Um, sounds good. I’ll, uh... I’ll talk to you later then?”
“Yep, talk to you later. Thanks, Nick,” Claire said sincerely. “Bye.”
Nick smiled. “Bye.”
They hung up.
***
Come Sunday, it was not just Nick and Claire who strolled through the mall together, but Nick, Claire, Claire’s friend Dianna, AJ, and two bodyguards. Claire had called on Saturday to ask Nick if it was alright if one of her girlfriends came with them. “I gotta have a girl’s opinion too, you know,” she’d insisted.
Enter Dianna, a curvy brunette.
So Nick had asked the guys if one of them wanted to come too. He wasn’t about to get stuck shopping with two girls and no fellow man to share the torture. Enter AJ, always the avid shopper. He had jumped at the chance not only to hit the mall, but to tag around with Nick and Claire, probably to tease Nick the entire time. Nick didn’t care though; putting up with AJ was better than being totally engulfed by estrogen. Kevin had insisted that Nick have some sort of security with him, since they would be going to the mall; when he had found out AJ was going too, he called for double security.
Enter Rex and Mike, two of their bodyguards.
Nick and AJ had met Claire and Dianna at one of the entrances, and after a round of introductions, they had headed to the nearest department store. Claire alternated between talking to Dianna and talking to Nick, leaving Dianna to make small talk with AJ. AJ didn’t seem to mind a bit though; Dianna, although a little heavier than the women he usually went for, was quite pretty.
As soon as they reached the dress department, Claire and Dianna started sorting through the racks, while Nick hung back, not quite sure what he was supposed to be doing. AJ wandered around picking out either the sluttiest or most ghastly dresses Nick had ever seen and whistling at mannequins.
By the time the girls had circled through the entire department, Claire’s arms were heaped with dresses.
“Come on and try them on,” said Dianna, leading her into the dressing room. “You can model the best ones for Nick.”
Claire flashed Nick a sheepish grin over her shoulder and followed Dianna into the dressing rooms. A few minutes later, she emerged wearing a bright red halter dress that came to about halfway down her shins. She shrugged at Nick. “What do you think?” she asked, twirling non-enthusiastically.
“I think it looks great,” he said automatically, without really thinking about it. He thought she looked fine, but she apparently was not convinced.
“I dunno,” she said, turning to inspect herself in the three way mirror. “I don’t look very good in red. It clashes with my hair.”
“The dress is cute though,” put in Dianna. “It fits you well.”
“Yeah, but the color’s all wrong. And they didn’t have any other colors in this one.”
“Oh well. Try the next one.”
And back they went, only to emerge a few minutes later with Claire in another dress, which Nick told her looked great, and she rejected. As she went back in a third time, he sighed. He had a feeling this was going to take a long time.
It did.
After going through all of the dresses she had taken back to the dressing rooms with her, Claire decided she didn’t like any of them well enough, and they went on to the next store, where the process was repeated. Nick wondered if she was going to see anything she liked – she had told him before that she hated dressing up.
But two stores and about a million ensembles later, Dianna found ‘the dress.’ It was a long, fitted, strapless gown made of black silk, and the bodice was bejeweled with silvery beads that fanned out to look like long rays of the sun.
“Oh, Claire, it’s beautiful,” Dianna breathed. “Isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is,” Claire agreed, eyeing the dress. “But I dunno... it looks like it would fit kind of tight... show every curve...”
“Oh, whatever! I’m the one that has to worry about that, not you! Try it on!”
“But it might be too formal. Nick? What do you think?”
Nick, who had kept quiet most of the day, looked from Claire, to the dress, to Dianna, and back to the dress. “Uh... I dunno...”
“Personally, I like it,” AJ stepped in, smiling at Claire in his charming sort of way. “At least try it on, babe.”
Claire rolled her eyes. “Okay,” she agreed. When they had gotten her size, she took the dress into the dressing room, Dianna tagging along eagerly.
“You think this will be the one?” AJ asked Nick.
“God, I hope so,” Nick replied.
“Are you holding up okay?” AJ asked, suddenly looking concerned. “We’ve been walking around a lot; I didn’t even really think about...”
“No, it’s not that, I’m fine. Just completely bored. I didn’t know it would be this hard for her to pick out a dress! I mean, jeez, what was wrong with the first fifty she tried on?”
AJ laughed. “She’s a chick, dude. That’s just how chicks are. They’re picky. Especially when they’re looking to impress.” He raised his eyebrows suggestively.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means she wants to look hot for you, so she has to find just the right dress,” AJ replied without hesitation, grinning.
Nick just shook his head and rolled his eyes. He was about to remind AJ yet again that Claire was dating a dentist when Dianna came hurrying out of the dressing rooms. “Oh, you just have to see her!” she gushed excitedly. “Claire, come on!” The dark-haired girl practically dragged Claire out into open, where she stood awkwardly before Nick and AJ in the dress.
Only she didn’t look awkward. She looked wonderful. The dress fit her perfectly, accenting the lines of her body without hugging it too tightly. The black contrasted nicely with her fair skin, and the sparkling beads were just the right touch to make her look radiant. She had tried on all kinds of dresses, short and long, fitted and full-skirted, casual and formal. To Nick, she had looked good in all of them, but Dianna was right... there was just something about this dress. She looked beautiful, and the dress had a simplicity that made it just right for her, not too flashy or fancy, but elegant and sophisticated just the same.
“I love it,” he said truthfully, nodding his approval. “You look... you look...” He couldn’t bring himself to say ‘beautiful,’ so he used the next thing that popped into his mind, “... real nice.”
Claire blushed. “Thanks,” she said shortly. “It’s not too formal though? I mean, it’s only the VMAs, it’s not like it’s the Oscars or something...”
“Nah, it’s perfect!” exclaimed AJ. “People show up to the VMAs in all sorts of things. Of course,” he added, “this does mean you’ll have to wear a suit this year, Kaos. You can’t go looking like shit if she’s gonna look all hot in that.”
“Oh, puh-lease, AJ,” Claire said, rolling her eyes and looking quite embarrassed.
“That’s the one, Claire,” Dianna spoke up. “You’ve gotta get it.”
Claire sighed and looked at Nick. “Do you agree? You’re the one taking me... and the one buying the dress, apparently.”
He nodded. “That’s the one,” he echoed with confidence, and finally she nodded.
“Okay,” she said, smiling. “Then this is the one.”
When she had headed back into the dressing room to change into her regular clothes, it was AJ’s turn to smile. Widely. “Finally,” he said through his teeth.
“Yeah,” Nick muttered in agreement, keeping his voice low so that Dianna would not hear. “Thank God that’s over with. Remind me never to let a girl drag me shopping again.”
AJ chuckled. “Amen to that.”
***
