It was close to dinner time. Casey walked into the apartment that she’s sharing with Abby, carrying her books from her last class. She was shocked to find the owner of the building sitting on the couch. “Can I help you with something?”
“Yes. I needed to give you this.”
“What’s this?” Casey looked at the paper in her hand. “Sir?”
“They’re willing to pay a lot more than you are, so they’re gonna get your apartment.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Life’s not fair sweetheart.”
“Trust me. I know that. And don’t call me sweetheart.”
“Well, they want to move in really soon. So you don’t have much time.”
“Can you at least give us time to find some place else to live.”
“If you take too long, I can and will kick you out. And since everything’s pretty much booked right now, you’ll have an awful hard time finding a place. So I’ll probably end up kicking you out.”
Casey let him walk away a bit. “Well then I’m glad that I know someone who lives in this area.”
Casey groaned in frustration as her future ex-landlord made his way out of the apartment. She plopped down on the couch. She wanted to have this whole thing sorted out before Abby got home. She reached for the phone.
She dialed the numbers that were now very familiar to her. She held the phone up to her ear and listened to the ringing until the phone was picked up.
Nick groaned when the shrill ring of the phone woke him up. He reached blindly for the phone. He felt around the night stand with his eyes still closed until his hand came in contact with the obnoxious, ringing phone.
“Lo?”
“Hey Nick, its Casey.”
“Oh hi.”
“Nick, did I wake you up?”
“Yeah.”
Casey scrunched her forehead in confusion when she heard a baby crying on Nick’s side. Nick groaned. “Nick, is that a baby crying.”
“Yeah. I gotta go. I’ll call you back.” Nick didn’t give Casey a chance to respond. He hung up the phone and went to get his baby brother. After changing him, Nick carried him to his bed.
Casey starred at the phone in her hand in complete confusion. She wasn’t sure exactly how long she was starring at her hand, but soon the phone rang in her hand and startled her.
“Nick?”
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Oh, not much. You?”
“Same. You called me. What did you want?”
“Are you in a bad mood?”
“No, just getting down to the point.”
“Well, anyway, my landlord is kicking me and Abby out of our apartment…”
“And you want to know if you can come live with me and Brent?”
“Well, yeah. If that’s ok.”
“Yeah, it’s fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Casey, its fine.”
“Ok, thanks Nick.”
“It’s really no problem.”
They hung up and Abby entered the apartment. “Hey Casey.”
“Hey. We need to pack.”
“What? Why?”
“Someone’s willing to pay a higher rent for this apartment, so we are getting kicked out.”
“What? Where are we going to live?”
“With Nick and Brent.”
“Are you sure they’re ok with that?”
“Yeah, I just talked to Nick, he said it was no problem.”
“Oh great.” Abby started jumping around the living room.
“Abby?”
“Yeah?”
“Excited much?”
“I’m moving in with my boyfriend.” She stopped jumping around. “So when are you and Nick going to get together?”
“Probably never.”
“What? It’s so obvious that Nick likes you.”
“Nick and I are just friends and that’s all we’ll ever be.”
Abby let the subject drop. “Let’s go pack.”
The girls went in opposite directions and packed their stuff. An hour later, they were all packed and loaded their stuff into the back of the car and drove over to Nick’s house.
15 minutes later, they pulled into Nick’s driveway. They left their stuff in the car and went up to the front door and rang the bell.
Nick was trying to get his brother to fall asleep when the doorbell rang. He groaned. He went to call for Brent when he realized that Brent wasn’t home. He went to put his brother down, but that resulted in him crying and the doorbell ringing again.
He groaned again then went to the front door, carrying the baby. He opened the door and wasn’t surprised at the people on the other side. “Hi girls”
Casey gave Nick a surprised glance. Abby gave an excited gasp. “Oh Nick, is that Kanden?” Nick nodded. “Oh, he’s so cute.”
Nick rolled his eyes. “You’ll be singing a different tune come tomorrow morning.”
Casey starred at Abby. “You knew about this?”
“Well, duh Casey, everyone in Backstreet Land knew about this.” She ignored Casey and turned back to Nick. “Can I hold him?”
“Sure.” Nick handed Kanden to Abby. “You can put him to sleep too. I’ve been walking around in circles for an hour and a half trying to get him to sleep.”
“With pleasure. This will be so fun.”
Nick laughed in amusement at Abby’s excitement, then turned to Casey. His smile faded when he realized that Casey was glaring at him. “What?”
“I can’t believe you.”
“What?”
“You have a kid.” Abby was heading towards the stairs but stopped when she heard what Casey said.
“What?”
“Oh, don’t play dumb with me Nick. I saw you holding him.”
Casey bit her bottom lip when she saw a look of hurt wash over his face. “I see you don’t think very highly of me. I can’t believe I misread you like that.”
“Nick, I…”
“No Casey. Yesterday I told Brent that you were becoming one of my best friends. This was after I realized that I was beginning to fall in love with you and I was almost positive your feelings were mutual, even if your feelings weren’t as strong. I see I was wrong about you.” Nick turned and started to walk away. When he passed Abby he said, “I changed my mind. I’ll put him to sleep.”
Abby nodded then handed Kanden back to Nick. Nick walked away. Abby watched as Nick disappeared into his bedroom. Abby marched over to Casey and smacked her on the shoulder. “You idiot.”
“What.”
“Kanden is Nick’s brother.”
“Brother?”
“Yes, brother.”
“But Nick is like 26 years old.”
“Nick is 25.”
“Still, he’s old enough to be that kid’s father, and his parents had another baby NOW?”
“His father had another baby. Nick and Kanden have different mothers.”
“But still, his father shouldn’t be getting another woman in her forties pregnant.”
“Ginger is 30.”
“Who’s Ginger?”
“Nick’s step mother.”
Casey shuddered. “She’s young enough to be Nick’s sister, or worse, Nick’s girlfriend.”
“Casey, there’s no point in being disgusted by this. No amount of disgust will change the fact that Nick has a brother that’s 3 months old, and a step mother young enough to be his lover. Now, I think you really hurt his feelings by those accusations. I hope you’re happy.” Abby walked away, leaving Casey dumbfounded.
About an hour later, Nick finally got Kanden to sleep. He grabbed his car keys off of his dresser and the baby monitor. He knocked on Abby’s door.
She opened the door moments later. “Hey Nick, what’s up?”
“I’m gonna go out.”
“Nick you aren’t drinking again, are you?”
“No, no. I just have something I need to do, for myself. I was hoping you’d listen for Kanden?”
“Sure Nick.”
“Great, thanks.” He handed her the baby monitor. “I’ll see you later.”
Nick turned to walk away. “Nick.”
He turned back to Abby. “Yeah?” She walked up to him and hugged him. “What was that for?”
“You just looked like you needed a hug.” She pulled back.
He smiled at her. “Thanks, you’re right, I did need that.”
Nick left the house and headed to his destination.
Without Nick knowing, Casey left the house and followed Nick.
Nick arrived at Katie’s grave without knowing that Casey was following him. He starred down at her grave. As usual when he visits her grave, tears escaped his eyes. “Hi Katie. My life seems to have become one giant mess. Something horrible happened to me, I just don’t want to say it out loud. I’ll never be the same because of it. Also, it seems that my people judgment has left me when you died. I read someone completely wrong. I love you Katie, and I REALLY miss you. I wish I can move on, but I can’t. I feel like I’d be betraying you and our love. Please Katie, tell me that it’s ok to move on. Give me some sort of sign.” He touched her headstone. His legs gave out from under him as he started crying.
Casey stayed a good distance behind Nick so she couldn’t hear what he was saying. She stayed there watching him. When he collapsed she approached him. She sat down beside him and rubbed his back.
He was shocked and jumped at the contact. He looked up. He was shocked to see Casey beside him. “What are you doing here?”
“I followed you.”
“Why?”
“To make sure you were ok. And to apologize for what I said to you before. I’m really sorry. I really don’t know what came over me.” Nick looked down. He looked her in the eye and nodded his acceptance.
He looked away from her when the tears that were in his eyes started to spill over again. She saw his tears and turned his face towards hers. She gently wiped his tears away.
Their eyes locked and their faces inched closer. Soon their lips met in a soft kiss. Their eyes drifted shut.
They pulled apart, breathless. Nick was about to say something when Casey gasped. Her hand flew up to her mouth. “Oh my god. Nick, I…”
Nick had a feeling he knew what was going to come out of her mouth. “Casey.”
“That was a mistake Nick. It shouldn’t have happened.”
A tear escaped Nick’s eye as Casey got up abruptly and ran away. “It wasn’t a mistake.” He took a deep breath. “I love you Casey.”
