~ Chapter Nine ~

Nick had been staring down at the bottle of pills for almost twenty minutes when someone rapped sharply on his door.  Nick jumped in surprise, his heart pounding.  That was when he knew he wasn't going to do it. 

"You don't even have enough nerve to kill yourself."   Nick mumbled in disgust, running his hand through his hair and opening the door.  "Brian?"  Brian was the last person he would have been expecting to be standing outside his door.  He would have expected Kevin to show up before Brian.  True, if Kevin had, it would be to finish what he had started in the clubhouse earlier... but you never knew - Kevin might decide to try something lik that.

"Y'all busy?"  Brian asked, leaning to look in the room.

"Uh, no."  Nick thought that was a rather dumb question.  Of course he wasn't busy.  He'd been staring at a little orange bottle for the last half an hour, one could hardly call that busy.

"I thought I heard voices."  Brian said in way of explanation.

"Oh.  I was talking to myself."  Nick shrugged.  "Come on in." 

"That's a sign of insanity, you know."  Brian stepped into the suite, his head craning in amazement.  "Wow!  This is cool."  He stuck his head in the bathroom door.  "I think that's about as big as my entire room.  Y'all want to trade?"  He added with an impish smile.

Nick shrugged.  "The life comes with it.  Package deal."

"No thanks."  Brian had vanished into the bedroom now. Nick could hear him opening and closing doors. 

"Yeah, that's how my day's going."  Nick flopped into one of the leather chairs in the main room. 

"Huh?"  Brian appeared again, stopping to look out the window. 

Nick winced.  Brian had exceptionally good hearing.  "I couldn't get rid of my life if I tried."

"I didn't mean I didn't want your life."  Brian shrugged.  "I just meant I kinda like mine."  He took a flying leap into one of the other chairs, sliding into it as if he was sliding into third base, one leg tucked under him, the other extended in front of him.  "What's so bad about your life?" 

Brian had an annoying tendency to ask as many questions as a six year old.  So far, he had quizzed Nick on why he was incapable of hitting a golf ball; why Nick didn't like getting up before ten in the morning; whether Nick liked BMW's or Mercedes better - not that it mattered, as Brian drove a rather weathered looking Civic; did Nick bother to separate his whites when he did his laundry - Brian was properly shocked when Nick said he did; and hundreds of other  stupid, pointless little questions that Nick had never even thought of before and never intended to think about again.  Half the time Brian didn't even bother to think up a question, he just followed a random statement up with "why?"

Nick scowled down at his hands.  What was wrong with his life?  "Name anything."

"Your multi-million dollar contract."  Brian said promptly.

Nick didn't answer.  Brian just didn't get it.

"Aw, c'mon, Nick."  Brian said quietly, shifting around until he was sitting in the chair as people were intended to sit in chairs.  "It was one game."

"It's not the game!"  Nick said in frustration.  He could care less about the game.  "It's not the stupid game... I don't care about that!  It's... "  He broke off and stared down at the chair arm, following the print of the leather, wishing Brian would stop staring at him like that.  This was the closest Nick had come to crying in at least three years.  He must be even more messed up than he realized.

"It's what?"  Brian was sitting on the edge of his chair, elbows propped on his knees, still gazing intently at Nick. 

"I don't know... everything else."  Nick mumbled, swallowing hard.  He had never lost it in front of anyone, and he wasn't going to start now, no matter how nice Brian was being to him.

"By that, you mean Kevin?"  Brian deduced.

"No.  I mean, he doesn't help matters any, but it goes... way, way beyond that."  Nick hoped to God that this wasn't the time Brian decided to ask why.  He had no idea why.  It was one ordeal to live your life, it was another to try and understand it. 

"If it makes you feel any better, he hated me for sixteen years."  Brian offered.

Nick stared blankly at Brian, confused by the rapid change of subject.  "What?"

"He'd try to beat the crap out of me every single time my mother wasn't looking."  Brian leaned back and laced his fingers together behind his head. 

"Kevin did?"  Nick was officially out of the loop.  He had no idea what Brian was talking about.

"Yeah!"  Brian stopped, holding one finger up in the air.  "Wait... did y'all know he's my cousin?"

"No."  Nick said slowly.  That would explain a few things. 

"Right."  Brian nodded.  "Must have forgot to mention that detail.  Anyway... he'd throw sticks in front of my Big Wheel when I wasn't paying attention... and you know those little Hot Wheel cars?  He'd pretend he was Godzilla and smash up the tracks."  Brian paused to think.  "You know... I think he might have tried to drown me once, but I could never get substantial proof on that one.  It might have really been an accident."

Nick couldn't help but laugh.  The idea of Kevin stomping on Hot Wheels was entirely too funny. 

"‘Course, I was no angel either."  Brian added.  "I caught his hair on fire once.  On purpose.  A week before the junior high Christmas dance.  He chased me with a bat.  No wait, that might have been something else... the fire might have been a crowbar.  I can't remember."  He shrugged, palms turned upwards.

"Did he catch you?"  Nick asked curiously.

Brian's eyes widened.  "No!  I had thirty seven stolen bases last year!  And I ask you, how many did Kevin have?"

"Um... I'da know."  What did Brian think he was - a statistician?  "I'm guessing like, three or something."

"My point exactly." 

"So..."  Nick thought about what he had just been told.  "The point of all this, is if Kevin ever decides to chase me with a bat, I can outrun him?  Because last year - I had seven stolen bases."

Brian snickered.  "Well, yeah, but that wasn't my point."  His face went blank for a minute.  "I don't remember having one.  I guess I was just talking to feel the breeze on my teeth."

Nick smiled.  That comment almost had a Casey Stengel-esque quality to it.

"On the other hand," Brian continued, as if there had never been a gap in his story.  "Kevin's very loyal to those that he harasses.  We were swimming one summer,  and this kid was threatening to throw me off the end of the dock - mind you, he was in fifth grade, and I was in seventh, so this was kind of embarrassing for me - but Kevin marched over and lit into him."

"With a crowbar?"

"No.  Left to the jaw, I believe."  Brian popped himself in the chin, demonstrating.  "Then HE turned around and pushed me into the water."  Brian checked his watch.  "Oh, look at that.  It's already 10:30, which allowing for the time difference is... 1:30 or something.  I'm going to bed."

"Did that part have a point to it?"  Nick wondered.  Brian's long, rambling stories eventually got around to what he had intended to say in the first place.  Sometimes you just had to hear the story of his first year in AA ball first.  Nick still wasn't seeing a point to this one.