“Mm, this is just what I needed,” Claire sighed happily, plunging her spoon into her Reese’s Blizzard.
“Me too,” agreed Nick, taking a bite of his mint M&M one.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, enjoying their ice cream, when the door to the restaurant opened, and four teenage girls walked in. Nick glanced over his shoulder at them, then quickly looked away and sank low in his seat, hoping they would not notice or recognize him.
“I think you’re safe for now,” Claire said in a low voice, watching them over her shoulder. “They’re too busy talking to notice you.”
He grinned sheepishly, feeling like she could read his mind. Then again, he supposed his body language had given his fears away.
A few minutes later, the same posse of girls sat down in the booth directly across from where he and Claire were seated. Trying to watch them without looking like he was watching them, he observed them to be high school age, probably around sixteen or seventeen. They were good-looking girls and were dressed to impress, all wearing tight, low-cut clothes, their hair done stylishly, their faces caked with too much make-up. They were apparently deeply involved in a conversation, for they were all talking animatedly and not paying attention to anything around them as their voices carried to Nick and Claire’s table. As he played with his food, absently stirring his Blizzard and watching as the rainbow of colors from the M&M’s swirled with the green ice cream, turning it to a muddy brown, Nick couldn’t help but eavesdrop.
“Well, I think Ava should run for president,” one girl was saying, twirling a french fry in her French-manicured fingers as she spoke. “Then I’ll be vice president, and Taryn, you can be secretary, and Elle, you’ll be treasurer.”
“That sounds good,” said one of the girls sitting on the other side of the table, “but how are we going to assure that we all win the election in the fall? Someone told me before school got out that that bitch Susi and her friends were planning on running this year. I’m sorry, but if I won, and one of them got on student council too, I’d just die. It has to be all four of us; then we can have total control over the student council.” She attacked her little cup of ketchup, forcefully plunging a fry into it.
“Good point, Taryn,” said the girl sitting across from her, nodding her head. “We’re just going to have to make sure we have enough people to vote for us.”
“How are we going to do that?”
“We’ll do whatever it takes... bribe them, threaten them, let them sit with us at lunch for a day... whatever. We’ve got to win at all costs.”
“Ooh, Ava... that’s scandalicious all right,” giggled the fourth girl.
Scandalicious. That was the name of one of Nick’s songs. He sank lower in his seat, watching the girls out of the corner of his eye, still listening to their conversation. God, they’re shallow, he thought, as they went on listing people who would surely vote for them for student council. What he would give to only have to worry about such petty things as who would be elected as student council president.
“Oh yeah, Ashley totally would vote for us. And what about Laurie?”
“Yeah, there’s possibilities with her. Oh, and don’t forget Janelle; she’ll vote for us if I ask her to. I can probably even get her to make some campaign posters and stuff for us. She’s better at that than I am.”
“Oh yeah, speaking of the campaign, we should get somebody to be our PR person, sort of. You know, they could, like, recruit more people to vote for us and get the word out that we’re running and stuff.”
“Oh yeah, great idea, Taryn! What do you think about that, Elle?”
When the other girl did not answer, Nick glanced over and found her looking directly at him. His eyes widened as they met with hers, and he quickly looked away, turning his whole body to face the wall and hoping she did not recognize him.
“Elle? Hey, Elle, wake up!” Nick glanced back to see one of the girl’s waving her hand in front of Elle’s face.
“Sorry, Emily... what were you guys saying?”
Phew, Nick thought as the girls got back to their conversation. I guess she didn’t recognize me.
“Are you okay, Nick?” Claire asked, and he looked up to see a perplexed expression on her face. “You’re acting funny.”
“I’m fine,” he replied quickly, taking a bite of melting ice cream and trying to tune out the girls. But then the one called Elle said the thing he had been dreading.
“Hey, Emily... don’t look now, but you know the guy that’s sitting over there? Is that Nick Carter?” asked Elle in a whisper that still managed to carry over to Nick’s table.
Oh God, he thought with a groan, as all four heads turned in his direction.
“Oh my God, you guys, that is him!” hissed one of the others. “He looks awful!”
“I know... that’s so sad... look at what’s happened to him...”
Nick could feel his face burning scarlet with humiliation. Meekly, he chanced a glance at Claire to see her face reddening too, but somehow, he sensed her flush was from anger, not embarrassment. He noticed her eyeing the girls’ table out of the corner of her eye, a frown distorting her features.
“You know, we can hear you over here,” Claire said loudly as the girls kept on whispering about him. At her words, all four of them stopped, their heads whipping in Nick and Claire’s directions, their cheeks turning pink as guilty expressions washed over their faces. They exchanged glances, but said nothing. “If you’re going to talk about someone behind their back,” Claire went on angrily, “at least do it where they can’t hear everything you’re saying!”
“S-sorry,” stammered the one called Ava. “We didn’t mean anything bad... we’re big fans of you, Nick. We were just wondering if that was really you.”
“It’s me,” Nick said flatly.
“Um... you think we could get your autograph?” Ava asked hopefully.
Claire’s mouth dropped open, and she stood up. “No, you can’t have his autograph! What the fuck is wrong with you little twits? First you insult him, then you ask him for his autograph? Leave him the hell alone!”
“And who the hell are you?” Ava asked, her eyes narrowing coldly. “His girlfriend or something?” She gave Claire the once over, her eyes traveling up and down her body, her lips contorting into a disdainful sneer.
“She’s my friend,” Nick spoke up, not about to let Claire fight his battles for him, “and it’s none of your business anyway. Come on, Claire, let’s get the hell out of here.” Standing up abruptly, he snatched his half-eaten Blizzard and stalked up to the front of the restaurant. Claire grabbed her ice cream as well, and as she started to follow him, she mysteriously stumbled, and the cup of ice cream flew out of her hand, managing to bounce right off Ava’s chest and fall into her lap. As Ava screamed in horror and knocked the cup off, Nick saw a trail of sticky, dripping ice cream running all down her shirt, leading to a puddle of it her lap.
“Oh my God!” she screamed. “This outfit was brand new! What the fuck is wrong with you?!”
“Whoops, sorry,” Claire replied with mock sincerity. “Clumsy me.” With that, she turned on her heel and marched to the front of the restaurant, where Nick was staring at her in utter shock.
“I can’t believe you did that!” he exclaimed as soon as they had burst out the door, Claire laughing hysterically.
“I know! I’m evil, aren’t I? I’ve never done anything like that before!”
“Jesus, we’re never going to be able to come back here! First you practically cuss out some teeny, and then you drop ice cream all over her? They’re gonna have Wanted posters with your face plastered all over this place!” Nick cried, trying to sound serious, but failing miserably as he began to laugh out loud, tears filling his eyes as he pictured the expression on that girl’s face. “God, Claire, that was so fucking awesome!”
She smiled, but as they got into the car, she said, “God, I feel kinda bad... I mean, that was really mean... I wasn’t really thinking, I just... did it.”
“Hey, don’t feel bad, that girl deserved it. Besides, it’s just ice cream, it’ll come out, won’t it? It wasn’t even chocolate,” Nick assured her as he stuck his key into the ignition.
“Hey, you better hurry up and drive,” Claire commented, glancing over her shoulder. “I keep waiting for her little posse to come out and chase us down.”
“Well, they ain’t gonna catch us in this baby,” Nick laughed, revving the engine of his sporty, black BMW and whipping out of his parking space, tires screeching as he put the car into drive and took off.
“We’re fugitives now, baby!” Claire shouted as they sped down the highway.
Adrenaline pumping through his body at the excitement of their “getaway,” Nick threw back his head and laughed, pressing his foot to the floor and feeling the car accelerate swiftly and smoothly. The yellow light at the intersection ahead put an abrupt stop to their adventure though. “Damn,” Nick muttered under his breath and dutifully put on the brakes as the light changed to red.
***
