“Anything else?” Nick looked around the kitchen for any stray dishes and seeing none, slammed the dishwasher closed.

“I think that’s it. No more room for anything anyway.” Lani turned the machine on and leaned up for a chicken flavored kiss.

“Come ON, Mamí! I wanna watch the movie!” Someone didn’t care about chicken flavored kisses.

“Rosalie, you’re being impolite. We’ll be there.” Lani sighed and wrapped her arms around Nick’s neck, trying to see past his mask of ‘everything’s okay’ into the truth of ‘I’m sick of all of this shit’ that she knew was hiding there. “Everything will get better.”

“Mmm…I’m thinking you ladies have it right. Men suck. All of us.”

“Aaron too?”

“Nah, he’s just…hurting. And that’s mostly a woman’s fault, so…yeah. I think I’m ready to get my boat and sail off into the sunset. You comin’ with?”

“Gotta take Miss Impatience in there with us.”

“Deal. You, me and Ro…sounds like the perfect family to me.”

Their eyes met at his casual words that both knew had much deeper implications. He took a breath to say something, but her finger pressed gently on his lips to quiet him. “Shh. Let’s leave it there for now, huh?”

He kissed her finger and brushed back a hair that had fallen out of its bun. “You’re done cooking. Can we take this down now?”

She smiled and nodded, waiting on him to do the honors, of which he did slowly and smoothly, pulling each pin out of her hair and running his fingers through the newly loosened waves. He pulled a bit of the length to the front of each shoulder and smoothed it down, watching his fingers as they ran gently over the chocolaty mane. “So beautiful.”

She closed her eyes at his gentle touch, leaning in to feel his body against hers.

“Mamí!!! You can kiss after I go to bed!” The voice that had called from the family room was now right next to them, making them both jump out of their skin and glare at the interruption.

Lani pulled away with a sigh and fell into Mamí role, albeit reluctantly. “What are we watching?”

“Aaron’s Concert. With Nicky there.”

“You’re going to see him in person in a few weeks!”

“Yup…and I see Nicky everyday now. But I’m ‘cited. He’s really gonna eat dinner at MY house???”

“Yep, he’s really gonna eat dinner at our house. He’ll be here about a week, so you’ll get lots of chances to see him.”

“Good. I wanna watch the concert now. Come on.” She took hold of Nick’s hand and pulled him into the room, yammering all the way about how cute his little brother was, about what she was going to show him in her bedroom, about what games he was going to play with her and about how many episodes of Dora he’d have to endure. Nick made a mental note to warn him. Or he’d be paying the kid back for life.

Rosalie hit ‘play’ on the remote and everyone was settled. She was all snuggled up to Nick on one side and Lani had her feet up in his lap from the other side. No one could have been more content.

And then the doorbell rang.

“Ah mi dios!” Lani got up to answer it, wondering if Nick or Ro had even heard the bell. They never budged. “It’s okay. Really. I’ll get it.”

When she came back in, however, she was insistent Nick knew. “Nick…I need you, por favor.”

Nick patted Rosalie’s behind for her to sit up. “Be back, Muñe.”

“Want me to pause?”

“No…I was there. I know what happened.” He casually waltzed into the room, figuring Lani wanted help making drinks or popcorn or something and almost fell over when he saw Ben sitting in the over stuffed chair with an ice pack on his face.

“Ben…”

“Promise you won’t preach. Just promise me that much.”

Nick walked around to the chair and squatted in front of his friend gingerly moving the pack to the side,

sucking in air in sympathetic pain as the purple, blue and black shades peeked out from underneath the washcloth covered ice. “I promise, bud…what happened?”

“I’m an asshole.”

“I could have told you that.”

“Don’t make me laugh either, dammit. It hurts.”

“Sorry…” Lani wordlessly grabbed his attention and motioned that she was going back in to be with the little one leaving the ‘men’ to sort out things. Black eye or no, this was ultimately a good thing…she hoped.

“I didn’t want to go home…cuz home sucks right now…”

“Seems like this is the only nice one lately, huh?”

Ben finally looked up to Nick, grimacing as he blinked. “Have you had one of these before?”

“Yep…2 -3 days it’ll quit hurting.”

“Great…just great.” He leaned back in the chair, trying to balance the ice pack on his face and swearing as it slid off. “Dammit.”

“You’re gonna have to hold it, dude. Keep it there for a bit then you can take it off for awhile.”

“I’m mad.”

“I know…so where did you go?” Nick finally stood and took a seat on the couch figuring this might be a long evening…without his girls.

“To the creek. I used to hang out there with Steve. The guys still do, I guess.”

“So did you just make nice with a rock or was someone there?”

“Oh, someone was there alright. I should have just gone home. I know what they do down there…why did I go?”

“Because you were mad…because you’re just like me and you run instead of dealing with shit.” Seeing Ben’s face fall, Nick did the only thing he knew how. He avoided. “You want something to drink?”

“I’m sorry, Nick. I’m mad at my mom, not you.”

“Nope, you were mad at me too…we’ll get there. Drink?”

“Water.”

Nick kept the conversation going as he got up, able to deal better with this heart to heart stuff in motion rather than sitting still. While he and Ben could have some good talks, sometimes it just got to be too much. Ben needed a strong man in his life and Nick rarely felt capable of fitting that bill. But, no one else could either, so he did his best. And right now, his best was fetching a water. It worked. “So who did this to you?”

“José. He was stoned.”

“He’s got a helluva punch. My arms turn to noodles when I’m stoned.”

“What?”

“Oh Jesus, Ben…you couldn’t have figured it out?” Nick offered the cold bottle to Ben and sat back down on the couch. That hadn’t taken nearly long enough. “Yeah, I’ve been stoned before.”

“Yeah, I guess I figured, but…” Ben grew silent for a moment, mulling that full realization over in his head. He had to have been stupid not to think Nick hadn’t experimented or hell, totally indulged. It was just something he didn’t want to think about. “Have you recently?”

“No…I don’t like noodle arms.”

Ben snickered and struggled with getting the lid off his bottle while balancing the ice pack. Nick let him struggle, stifling a chuckle when he got the ‘duh’ look on his face, letting the pack slide off for the 30 seconds it took to open the bottle. “You’d think I was crippled.”

“No, we decided you were just an asshole.”

“I am. As soon as I saw him and smelled the weed, I should have booked.”

“Probably.”

“But I was mad. Had to prove what a man I am. God, what an idiot.” Nick’s eyes narrowed in accusation and Ben quickly caught it. “No, I didn’t smoke any. Haven’t had any in over a year. Not goin’ back.”

“Smart man…maybe you’re not an asshole.”

“Oh, I’m an asshole. I provoked José, told him to leave. I’d call the cops.”

“Smooth.”

“Shut up, dude. I know, I know!!”

“So he decked you?”

“Well, eventually. He had to be a smart ass first, tell me I was useless without Miss Romero and ‘her bodyguard’ around. Started using a whole bunch of Spanish words that I knew were nothing but nasty shit for her. I freaked and went after him.”

“He’s the asshole, Ben.”

“This is true…anyway, his cronies grabbed me and held me so he could have a clear shot.”

“He got a clear shot alright.” Nick got up and pulled the ice pack back again, trying to hide the grimace from his face. “Keep it off for a bit now…you need some Tylenol or something?”

“Miss Romero already gave me some. I just wanna go to sleep.”

“Nope. Not yet. Stay up for a few hours. We’re watching an Aaron vid there, wanna come?” Nick smiled cheesily knowing full well Ben would rather get socked in the other eye.

“Uh, no. Can uh…can we go…somewhere?”

“Yeah…I think…hang on.”

“Gotta ask the boss? Dude, what’s gotten in to you?”

“No…just…shit’s been goin’ on here too. Lani doesn’t like to be left alone much anymore.”

Ben questioned, but Nick ignored for now, wanting to get down to the Aaron situation. If he was jealous of Nick’s savior complex before, Lani’s situation would only make it worse. Thing was, Nick didn’t feel much like a savior.

He just felt like he was the rock in everybody’s world.

It was getting old.

They ended up staying in. Ben’s head hurt too much to go anywhere and rolling his eyes at the concert Rosalie was squealing over sounded just about as tolerable as a throbbing head, so there they stayed. He waited for them to get the girl into bed, letting Ro kiss his boo-boo and getting a fresh pack of ice from his surrogate Mama.

“Thanks, Miss Romero.”

“So José did this to you? I’d like to clock him one.”

“Oh that’d help.”

“No, but it’d make me feel better. What is his issue with me anyway?”

“He can’t get away with stuff with you. I hated you for that too.”

“Now you love me.” She bent down and kissed his boo-boo too, ruffling his hair and propping his pillow. Yeah, so it was just a black eye. She was fixing his bruised ego. He needed some mothering and he wasn’t open to let his mom do it. She might as well. “You boys want to be alone?”

Ben turned to Nick and slammed the ice pack down. He was sick of it. “You headed out soon? I guess I have to go home some time.”

“Uh, no. I’m staying here for awhile…”

“Oh. I guess I have been out of it…” he stood and rocked on wobbly knees, grabbing the arm of the chair for balance. “I’ll just go now.”

“You will not. Siddown and talk.” Nick pushed him back into the chair and sat across from him on the fireplace ledge. “You made some pretty shitty accusations of me earlier and I wanna know what the hell I’ve done.”

“Oh. Yeah. That.”

“Yeah, that. Talk.”

They stared each other down for quite some time, Lani wondering if they had some secret mental language going or something. Finally Nick couldn’t take it anymore either.

“You heard me telling Lani about my brother coming…”

“Yeah. I don’t wanna meet him.”

“Because?...”

“Because he’s your brother. I’ll always be second. But as long as he’s not around…”

“There’s no competition, dude. He’s my brother. You’re my…my…you’re Ben. Aaron’s excited to meet you.”

“He is?” Ben’s eye lit up and he hissed at the pain when the black one tried to follow suit. “This sucks.”

“Ice again. And yes, he is. He needs to get away from Mom for awhile and I figured that’d be a good time. He pulled out of a gig Thanksgiving day and we’re gonna hang for a week or so. But he knows you’re part of my life. Lani, Ro, all of you.”

“But he IS your life.”

“Well, yeah, but so are you guys. You finally shared Jack with me…why can’t I share Aaron with you?”

“It’s not the same.”

“How?”

“I shared you with Jack…not the other way around.”

“Why are you doin’ this, Ben?” Ben shot a glare up, but looked down again immediately. He knew Nick was right. He was being ridiculous. “Don’t you know I’m not goin’ anywhere? I’m in this for the long haul. Recording, touring, success, failure, you guys are in my life no matter what.”

“I know you say that…and I wanna believe you, Nick, I do…” He was not going to cry. The salt would kill his eye and he was not going to…

…he sniffed and angrily wiped his nose with the back of his hand. Lani took the cue of boy turning to mush and quietly left them alone. No need to embarrass the kid further.

“I can’t make you believe in me, Ben. That’s totally up to you. But, dude. You need to realize I have other people in my life that matter a helluva lot to me. And right now, my brother needs me. That doesn’t mean I’m not here for you too.”

“Okay, so what happens when it gets to be too much, huh? Guys leave. No guy sticks around when it gets rough. You’re so busy fixing everyone else’s shit that…what happens to us when you get tired of it?”

Nick didn’t like how close to home Ben was hitting. The truth was, he was getting sick of the constant state of need everyone seemed to be in. He loved staying at Lani’s house and being with his girls, no doubt, but he knew full well that when she felt confident again or when Neron made his wishes known and disappeared, he’d be back in his house on the gulf. And lately, it seemed he only saw Ben if he was upset about something. Without the required weekly meetings, their time had faltered to ‘now and then’ instead of ‘when again?’ Thing was with Ben’s needs as of late, there was no cure. Patty wasn’t leaving Darren and he was just going to have to deal.

Which might explain his foul mood lately. Not a great thing to come to grips with. Aaron’s situation was more than similar and it was another reason he thought the two boys would hit it off. His mom was philandering with some other dude and his folks were separated fighting about money and custody. Whose money? Nick and Aaron’s. It made him sick. And grateful he was hours away from it. But, it also meant Aaron needed to get away. To feel like someone loved him for him and nothing else.

And really, that’s all Ben needed too. It’s all any of them needed.

Including Nick.

But now, he had to answer Ben’s loaded question. With an answer he really hadn’t thought through, but he by no means doubted.

“I raise my white flag, say I’m tired and hope I get a break. I dunno, Ben. I can only say I’m not walking. If I feel like someone’s taking advantage, then yeah…we’ll have a problem. But I’ve never felt that from any of you.”

“Why’d you step in on José today?”

“Because he called Lani a bitch. I don’t think straight when I hear that shit. Especially comin’ out of a kid.”

Ben nodded and played with a stray thread on the washcloth that held his ice pack.

“Why? Did it upset you?”

“A little, yeah. Miss Romero told me I was in charge of him at the center. I had it okay.”

Nick doubted, but it really wasn’t his place. “Then I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I get crazy with my girls is all.”

Ben smiled and laid his head back on the chair. “I have a dumb question.”

“Hit me.”

“You want a black eye too?”

“Ha. What?”

“Is it okay if I see them as my girls too? I mean, I know Lani is...yours and all, but…” he looked up at his friend with a wishful look about him. “You know what I mean?”

“I think they’d like that.”

“Okay, so if they’re my girls too…will you let me deal with José?”

“Yeah. I didn’t know…”

“I know. You can have Kitty and Liz. How’s that?”

“Oh no…no trading, dude. We share ‘em all…unless…” Nick got a conniving look about him and he scooted up on the ledge to get closer to Ben. “…unless we pawn ‘em all off on Aaron. Then we’ll be scott free.”

“Oohh…now you’re talkin’, dawg. Now you’re talkin’!”