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Nick and Troy came back on Sunday afternoon.  Troy figured Nick had unwound enough.  He was relaxed and seemed happy.  Nick talked about selling the house.  Troy thought that was a good idea.  He had never understood why Nick thought he needed that big house just for him.  Well, he knew why, he guessed.  Because that interfering witch of a mother of his had made Nick think he needed it for status.  Nick would have been happier with a small apartment overlooking the ocean, but he didn’t get his way on that.  As he had not gotten his way with so many things with his mother.  But it looked like that was changing.

Nick had not even told his mother about his new girlfriend, Abby.  Nick had finally told Troy her name when he was telling her how they met…at a lodge in Michigan.  Nick told him that he’d been planning to meet Ronni there, but Ronni had had other plans.  Nick said that Abby had been there to get over a relationship as well and they had gravitated to each other. 

Troy wondered about this relationship.  They were both on the rebound.  Did Nick think it would last?  Nick said that they had really gotten to know each other over email and talking on the phone and he had visited her in Chicago for a long weekend.  Nick hadn’t wanted to lie about that, but he figured he’d better.  He couldn’t ever see a circumstance where Troy and AJ would be in the same room, but you never knew.

Nick entered the house and dropped his bag on the floor.  Then he picked it up.  I’d better be a little neater, he thought, if people are going to be coming to look at the house.  He wondered if he could keep it a secret from the fans.  God knows what lengths they’d go to in order to convince a real estate agent that they were serious customers and needed to go through his house.

Nick put his bag in his room and then wandered through the house with an appraising eye.  Would I buy this house? he wondered.  God, you’re stupid, he told himself.  You did buy this house.  No, he corrected himself, my mother made me buy this house.  Would I have bought it on my own?  As he meandered from room to room, he decided that no, he wouldn’t have bought this house. 

Nick found his yellow pad on the kitchen counter when he went to get a bottle of water.  He picked up his lists from the previous Thursday.  He read them over and scratched a couple of things out.  He added more to the bottom. 

He punched the button on the answering machine idly.  Five new messages.  One from Troy from Thursday hoping to catch Nick before he left so he could tell him he’d be late.  One from a fan.  Shit!  They’d found the number.  He’d have to get it changed again.  Or maybe he could just tolerate it until he sold the house.  He wondered how long that would take.

The final three messages were from his mother. 

“I understand that you’re home.  Not that I would know this from you, of course, since you never call me.  Call me.”

“Your housekeeper tells me you are out on your boat.  That shouldn’t surprise me.  Call me when you get back.”

“Nick, call me, please.  I need your support.  Your father is being difficult.”

Aw, fuck! thought Nick.  He didn’t need this right now.  Why couldn’t his parents just agree to disagree and get on with their lives and let everyone else get on with his?  Why did they have to drag him into it.  He was grown up and gone.  Why couldn’t they just leave him out of it?  Money, you fool.  That’s why.  Money.  Your money.

Nick picked up the phone and called his father.

“Hi, Dad.  It’s me, Nick.”

“Hello, Son.  How are you doing?  I haven’t heard from you in awhile.”  It wasn’t just Nick’s mom who could play the guilt card.

“I’ve been in Atlanta, recording with the guys.”

“Yeah, that’s what Aaron said.”  My good son.  The one who loves me.  The one who calls me.

“So what’s up with you and Mom?”  Nick decided to cut to the chase.

Bob Carter began his tale of woe.  It was the ‘same old, same old’ as far as Nick could see. 

“You both seem to want to end it, Dad,” said Nick, when his father’s comments started to get nasty.  “So why don’t you both just do that?”

Bob started talking about custody and houses and money.  “She wants it all,” he said.  “She doesn’t just want to end it.  She wants me to end up with nothing.  She says…”  And then he went on to detail his wife’s diatribe about everything she had done to contribute to the family.

Nick listened for awhile and then he gave up.  Every time he tried to make a suggestion, his father shot it down.  He just kept saying that his wife was being unreasonable.  Nick told his father he had to go and that he’d talk to him later in the week.  He rang off, thinking that his parents were insane.  They seemed to enjoy torturing each other.

And speaking of torture, he thought, as he punched in his mother’s number.

“Hi, Mom.  It’s Nick.”

“Well, there you are.  Goodness, it’s only polite to return phone calls.”

“I was out on the boat.”  It was a statement of fact, but somehow it sounded to Nick like he was apologizing. 

“I figured as much.  By yourself?”

“No, with Troy.  Troy Johnson.  You’ve met him.”

“I suppose,” said Jane Carter.  “Listen, Nick, your father is being unreasonable.”

Nick laughed to himself.  “That’s what he says about you.”

“You’ve talked to him?”  Jane’s voice rose.  “You called him before you called me?  I see.”

“No, you don’t see, Mom,” said Nick, losing what little patience he had left after his phone call with his father.  “Neither one of you see.  All the two of you think about is how you can hurt each other.  You’re fighting over custody of the kids, but you don’t give a shit about them.  You just want to keep them away from Dad, so it will hurt him.  And he’s doing the same thing with you.”

“Don’t swear at your mother,” she retorted.  “And that’s not true.  I don’t think the kids would thrive with him.”

“Thrive?  Where the hell did you get that word?  Ahhh, I get it, Mom.  Lawyer talk.” 

His mother went on about how hard done by she was, how she was trying to hold the family together all by herself, how Nick wasn’t being any help, gallivanting all over the country.

“I was in Atlanta, Mom, making a record.  Doing business.  Making money.  Isn’t that what you want me to do?  Make lots of money, so I can support the family.  Isn’t that why you put me on the road at thirteen?”

“Oh, Nick.  Get over it.  I’m sick of hearing about your lost childhood.  Like I was some kind of nasty stage mother like that Denise McLean.  You’ve had every success in the world.  And you never seem to notice my sacrifices.  Who was it that took you to all those auditions?  And practiced with you?  And made sure you were ready for success?”

“Yeah, Mom, I guess it’s all about you,” said Nick, sadly.  He looked at his watch.  He wanted to get off this phone.  He opened the fridge and took out a beer.  He twisted the top off quietly.  He didn’t want his mother starting in on him about that.

Jane Carter changed tactics and started talking about her husband’s unreasonable demands.  Nick listened for a few minutes and then he interrupted.  “You know, Mom, this conversation sounds exactly like the one I had with Dad.  Why can’t the two of you just sit down and hammer this out?”

“You don’t understand,” said Jane and she started all over again.

Nick cut her off.  “Well, understand this…I’m cutting the two of you off.  You aren’t getting one more penny from me until you settle this.  I’ve talked to my lawyer.  I have one of those too, you know.  And he told me that the money you think is yours, that you made out of managing me…he said that you took way too much and I should sue you to get it back.  And I know you’ve spent it.  So get this…you aren’t getting one more penny out of me, and I’m calling Aaron in the morning to get him to do the same.  Now settle it, Goddammit!”  And he punched the End button on the phone.

Nick paced up and down the kitchen for a few minutes.  He opened the fridge and then the cupboards.  Shit!  There was nothing there.  He opened the freezer.  Frozen lasagna.  Good.  He pulled it out and looked at the back.  Preheat oven…yeah…take off plastic wrap…no kidding!...cook for 70 minutes.  Seventy minutes!  That was more than an hour!  Nick tossed the offending pasta back into the freezer and picked up the phone again.  Fuck it, he thought, as he punched in the number for the pizza place.

Nick decided that he was going to eat pizza and drink beer and play video games.  Yeah, that was what he was going to do.  He deserved it.  He’d earned a little quality time with himself.  Quality time? his conscience asked him.  That’s quality time?  Well, I’ve already ordered the pizza and opened the beer, he argued with himself.

He spotted the yellow pad on the counter.  Fine!  You win!  He wasn’t sure who ‘you’ was, but he picked up the pen and the pad.  He started at the top of the house and went through it room by room taking inventory, stopping only to answer the door when the pizza arrived.  He carried the box into the kitchen.  He decided to play a little game with himself.  He left the pizza in the kitchen after peeling off one slice.  He carried it and a fresh bottle of beer back to the room he had left.  He worked away and only allowed himself to go back for a slice of pizza when he had finished the inventory in a room.  It took him a long time to eat the pizza.  He had a lot of rooms.

He’d managed to consume a few beers along with the pizza and he finally decided to leave the three main rooms for the next day…the kitchen, the living room and his bedroom.   He looked at his watch.  It was nearly midnight.  Aw shit!  He was meeting with his trainer at nine the next day.  Nick put his hands on his stomach.  He’d lost quite a bit of weight in the last three months, but he knew that a few days of indulgence like he’d had on the boat and here tonight would quickly undo all the hard work and sacrifice he’d put into getting back in shape.  And he didn’t have a choice.  He had to be fit to go on tour.  The Boys had decided that they were going to focus on singing more than dancing this time, but still…he needed to be in shape.

He looked at the empty pizza box with disgust.  Get your life together, Carter, he told himself, as he carried the offending carton out to the trash in the garage.  Stop feeling sorry for yourself, he berated himself, as he climbed the stairs to his bedroom.  Suck it up and go on, he muttered, as he peeled off his clothes and slid naked between the sheets.

Abby.  He should email Abby.  He was halfway through the thought when he fell asleep.