~ Chapter Eleven ~

"Oh no.  Those were three for a dollar.  I saw it on the little sign."  The woman in front of Nick protested to the checker.

"Let me check."  The checker said in a bored tone. 

This fit the description of his day so far.  Nick would end up in the slowest moving checkout line, behind the lady in the mint green velour jumpsuit and the bright, unnaturally red hair.  If there was a God, He was laughing at Nick right now, he was sure of it.

They had been at Brian's apartment on Queen Anne hill for almost four minutes when Brian determined he had no food in the house and sent Nick off on a mission for junk food.  The team had been home for almost three days now, and Nick didn't even want to know why Brian didn't have food in his house, but knowing Brian, he had just forgot to go shopping.  Practicality wasn't very high on Brian's to-do list.

Nick stared at the magazines on the rack next to him while he waited.  That wasn't a very bright idea either.  There had to be something wrong with your life if you couldn't look at the front of People and see your ex girlfriend, smiling as she hung on the arm of her new boyfriend.  At least it wasn't the top story, it was one of the features at the top of the cover. 

"Can I get some help out with this?"  The red haired lady asked.

Nick bit his lip, trying very hard not to mouth off.  She had two bags.  That couldn't be that hard to take to your pink Cadillac.

~*~

Nick slipped his sunglasses on as he left the grocery store.  He wasn't a ‘connoisseur of sunglasses' as AJ was - those were AJ's words, not Nick's - but he had grown used to wearing them last year.  Brian called it his "Stealth Bomber" look.  So far in Seattle, Nick didn't have the problem with being recognized that he had in New York.  The baseball cap and sunglasses weren't necessary, but he still wore them.

He popped the trunk and dumped the paper bag in on top of his equipment bag, not especially caring if Brian's corn chips were crunched into dust or not.

He was opening his door when a shopping cart appeared out of no where and smacked into the side of his car, bouncing back once, then coming to a rest against the back end of the Mustang.

Nick's jaw literally unhinged.  This was getting out of hand.  His day couldn't turn out any more ludicrous he tried.

"Oh, I'm SO sorry!"  Nick assumed the woman who appeared was the alleged owner of the shopping cart.  She was fairly young, in her early twenties, with long red hair and a British accent.

Nick remained in a state of shock, standing, mouth still hanging open.  "That's my car!"  He snapped his mouth shut.  "Lady, what were you DOING?"

~*~

"Brian!"  Nick announced, slamming the unlocked door behind him.  "Your grocery store is seriously screwed up.  And why don't you lock your door?  This isn't a real great area, in case you hadn't noticed."  Nick was pretty sure he had seen a drug deal between two greasy looking guys in leather jackets as he walked up to Brian's apartment.

"Well..." Brian said absently, not alarmed in the slightest.  "I knew you were coming back, so I didn't bother.  And I know my grocery store is weird.  That's why I sent YOU."  Brian was kneeling in the middle of his living room floor, staring thoughtfully at the bookshelf in front of him.  "It's here somewhere."  He glared, before glancing up at Nick.  "Stealth Bomber again, huh?"

Nick pulled his sunglasses off.  "There's a lot of stuff here, Brian."  Brian had to have the messiest apartment Nick had ever seen.  The kitchen table was completely covered in stacks of newspapers and magazines.  There was a mound of laundry on what Nick assumed must be a couch, because it was too long to be a chair.  The actual piece of furniture itself was covered.  There were more stacks of papers and books at various places on the floor.  Some were in boxes, most were loose.

"The last time I watched it was... January, I think."  Brian continued to think out loud.

"The TV?"  Nick assumed that was what Brian was looking for, since he sure didn't see one anywhere.

Brian laughed.  "No!  I know where that is!  It's in the closet there."  He pointed down the short hallway.

"Why?"  Nick asked cautiously, then wondered why he bothered.  He was sure there was a reason, one which made perfect sense in Brian's mind.  Nick was beginning to wonder about Brian's mind.  The longer he knew him, the stranger he became.

"It was in the way."  Brian stood up and pawed through the mess on the table. 

"Brian?  What is all this stuff?"

"My life!"

"Yeah..."  Nick carefully stepped over a throw pillow on the floor, intending to head for the kitchen and stick the grocery bag - somewhere.  In the cabinet would probably be a good idea. Nick was sure the cabinets hadn't seen food since the Regan Administration. "Okay, if living rooms are going to represent lives... then yours is a heck of a lot more messed up than mine." 

Brian stopped rummaging, his head tipped to one side as he pondered that one.  "Well, then that should make you feel better, right?"

"Yep."  Either that or judging from Nick's living room, his life was pretty bare.  That was probably the more accurate analogy.

"Hey!  I know where it is!  It's in the bathroom!"  Brian vaulted a box of books and vanished down the hallway.

"Oh boy."  Nick perched himself gingerly on the laundry pile and waited.  "Hey, Brian!"

"What?"  Brian yelled back.

"Some girl ran her cart into my car!"

A  loud crash sounded and Brian came back down the hallway, holding the video in his hand.  "She what?  Did you get her number?"

"Um, yeah."  Nick affirmed.  She had given him her number, insisting she would pay for it, even though Nick didn't care about that.  It wasn't as if he was starved for cash.

"Was  she cute?"  Brian opened the hall closet and dragged the TV out.

"Huh?"  Nick was now confused.  He hadn't been talking about her.  He'd been talking about his car.  "Yeah, I guess she was.  Redhead."  If Nick's slightly shell-shocked mind served him correctly, she had actually been very cute. 

"Then the day wasn't a total loss."  Brian said happily.

"How do you mean?"

"Y'all got a cute redhead's phone number out of the deal!" 

"But... there's nothing wrong with the car.  The scratches rubbed off."  Nick said slowly.

"Who cares about the car!"  Brian swept a pile of papers off the TV table onto the floor, then stopped and stared at them thoughtfully.  "That right there, is why Kevin won't come over here anymore."  He assumed a Kevin tone to his voice.  "Brian, how can you live in this pigsty?  You could have rats and not even know it.  They might be sleeping in Mount Tide."

"What?"  Nick wrinkled his nose in confused.  Mount Tide?  What was that?

Brian shrugged.  "Kevin calls my couch Mount Tide.  Like the laundry detergent."

"Oh..."

 "So, you're not going to call her?"

"No!"  Nick exclaimed.  He didn't pick up girls in the parking lot of a grocery store. 

"Wow."  Brian said in awe.  "I guess those who are named to People's 50 most beautiful list don't have to resort to the same tactics as the rest of us, huh?"

Nick toppled over and smacked his head on Mount Tide.  "Do we have to bring that up?  I forgot about that one."   Nick had been one o f the featured 50 when the magazine had come out the year before.  At that point in his life, people outside the baseball world had been taking notice of him.  Now they weren't anymore.

"I'm Nick Carter, I'm the biggest thing since Cheese Whiz... girls fall all over me."  Brian grinned and ducked the wrinkled shirt Nick flung at him.