The grocery store…

She recognized him right away. It had been a long time since she’d laid eyes on him in person, but he wasn’t exactly something that anyone could forget. Her eyes trailed slowly over the back of his head, his hair was shorter, slightly darker too, but she knew if she touched it that it would still be as silky soft as ever. His waist had narrowed slightly, and she smiled as he squatted to see the items on the lowest shelf in front of him and she caught sight of his denim-covered rump. Smirking to herself she thought, "At least he kept that weight…"

She wondered how to approach him. Then momentarily her thoughts turned toward whether or not she should approach him at all. Her heart suddenly felt heavy as she considered the possibility that after so long he wouldn’t want her to approach him.

Turning to walk away, a magazine in a nearby checkout caught her eye and she had to smile. There he was, smiling back at her from the glossy cover of some random teen magazine. Reaching for the magazine she looked lovingly at his picture, he was still as stunning as ever. Looking up from his smile she looked back to see if he was still perusing the shelves of the grocery store, and when she saw that he was, she took a deep breath and approached him.

He was still crouched looking at assorted colorful boxes on the shelf and she smirked as she carefully positioned the magazine with his photograph in front of his eyes, "Excuse me, but do you know this man?"

She heard him let out a soft laugh and then he stood up taking the magazine from her hand looking down at it, "He looks familiar…" When his blue eyes met her brown ones he smiled a smile that matched the one on the magazine in his hands, "I can’t say I’ve seen him lately though…"

"Me neither…" she smiled up at him, all nervousness about talking to him having flown out of the automatic doors of the fluorescent lit store.

His smile didn’t fade as he opened his arms and pulled her into a long hug. A soft sigh left his mouth and tangled its way through her hair as he held her close making up for the time they’d spent apart. "Jesus Kel… it’s been way too long."

"I know…" she told him quietly as they pulled apart from the embrace.

"Eight months…"

She nodded and looked down at the package of Oreo’s in her hand before looking back up into his eyes, "How are you Nicky?"

"I’m okay…" he nodded. "I got your card back when my single hit radio… thanks…"

She nodded again, "Welcome… I wanted to call but wasn’t sure that I should…" her voice trailed off and her eyes left his nervously. "I really do love the song though… and I saw the video yesterday…"

"I’ll send over a CD for you… then you can hear all of it and let me know what you think."

"That would be good…" she smiled.

"You still with him?"

She nodded and watched his face for a reaction. When he moved his focus from her to the magazine again she spoke up softly, "He misses you, you know?"

"No he doesn’t…" he said quickly and picked up the grocery basket that had been sitting at his feet.

"Nick…" she sighed. "He does…"

"You know what, Kel? Don’t okay? Don’t be the in-between anymore. If he misses me so much then he needs to tell me that. I don’t need to hear it from you." His voice was harsher than he’d wanted it to be and with a sigh he shook his head, "Damn it… I’m sorry…" Frustrated with himself he ran a hand through his short hair and tried to smile at her, "I didn’t mean to be so… pissy, with you."

"It’s okay…"

"No, it’s not…" he said and bent his head down trying to make eye contact with her until she smiled at him. He smiled too, "How about we stick to how you are?"

She chuckled and nodded, "Okay…"

"Is that an okay meaning you’re okay, or an okay meaning we can talk about you?"

"Both…" she chuckled.

"Cool…"

"So what’s a big star like you doing in a grocery store in the middle of the night?"

"Buying macaroni and cheese…" he chuckled as he showed her the inside of his basket.

"Holy shit…" she laughed as she saw for the first time that his basket was nearly full of Kraft boxes. "How much do you need?"

"I just got back into town and well… you know how I am…" he laughed.

She giggled and nodded, "Still haven’t learned to cook huh Carter?"

"Nah… my best friend kept promising to teach me the basics, but I haven’t seen her in a while so…"

Another somewhat awkward silence drifted between them and she nodded, "You know, I never meant to… well I, I just didn’t…"

"Kel…" he said putting his hand on her arm.

"It’s been so hard you know?" she said looking up to him, her eyes pleading him to understand. "I just didn’t know how to open the door back up with us… especially since you’re not even talking to AJ anymore… Nicky I never wanted this all to happen."

"I know…" he said with his hand still on her arm. "And I stayed away because as much as I miss you, I don’t want to cause any trouble between you and him. I just had to believe that you’d come back some day… and when I got your card congratulating me on the single, I knew that I was doing the right thing."

She nodded and bit her bottom lip, "I’m sorry Nicky… I should have been there with you…"

"He needed you more than I did…" he told her and used his fingers to tip her head up toward his. When her misty eyes met his he smiled, "How about we get out of here? We can go grab something to eat, that isn’t mac and cheese," he laughed. "And get caught up on each others lives."

"That," she said with a smile, "sounds wonderful…"

Minutes later after they’d both made their purchases and then crossed the parking lot by foot to the all night diner they’d frequented together many times before, they looked over menus and talked softly.

"You need to call home and tell him where you are? It’s pretty late…"

Kel shook her head as her eyes moved over the menu, "It’s very late… but I don’t need to call home. He’s in Los Angeles…" She looked up with a smile, "Some co-hosting thing and then he has a bunch of charity stuff to do."

"How come you didn’t go with him?"

"Just didn’t feel like it…" she shrugged. "We were in LA until about three weeks ago for two months. I don’t really like it out there very much. So when he told me that he had to go back for another two weeks, I decided to just stay home alone for a change."

Nick nodded and smiled, "Then you craved some Oreo’s in the middle of the night…"

"Exactly," she smiled back. "Lucky for me you happened to crave macaroni at the same time huh?"

"Very…" he chuckled. "So when does he get back?"

She looked at her watch to see exactly what time of day it was, "Well, counting today? Um… ten days…" Nick nodded again and looked back to his menu with a smile. She cocked her head smiling at him and shook her head, "What’s the smile for?"

He shrugged, his eyes staying on the menu, "Ten days I get to spend with you…"

They ate greasy food and drank shakes until the sun came up. Laughing and trading stories, old and new, with one another as if the time they’d spent apart never happened. When they finally left the diner and walked slowly to their cars he grabbed her hand and held it in his. She smiled at the simple action and drifted back to all of the times he’d done the same before.

Nick had been her friend, best friend, for years. So many years she almost lost track of how many. A mere six months apart in age, they were so much alike it often scared bystanders. It was that similarity that kept them so close over the years however. Only someone who knew you inside and out could hold the title of best friend, and for each other, Nick and Kel did that. He could read her verbal and non-verbal language like an old familiar book, and she knew every little thing that set him off, good and bad. Knowing each other so well was probably what kept each of them from losing their faith in one another when they’d spent eight months apart for the first time in their friendship, and had severed all ties between the two. Nick knew in his heart, or at least hoped, that their friendship was strong enough to see them through the unplanned hiatus that they’d taken. Kel, meanwhile, told herself the same, and hoped that the day that they did reunite he’d welcome her back into his life without any trouble.

He’d done just that, as they’d re-bonded over cheese fries and watched the sun rise through the window of that brightly-lit diner. When they reached their cars, most of the weight that eight months apart from one another had left on their shoulders had dissipated, and their smiles had returned.

"So…" he smiled down at her as she leaned up against her car feeling the morning dew slowly seeping through her shirt from the surface of her car.

"So…"

"Have dinner with me tonight… I promise not to cook…"

Kel smiled and shook her head, "I should hope not… I think I had enough cheese on those fries back there to keep me happy for a month…"

Nick chuckled and ran his hands over her arms as he noticed the goosebumps on her skin from the chill of the morning, "We’ll go out and just have fun… keep talking… I missed our long conversations about nothing…"

"So have I…" she smiled and loved the way that his hands were warming her skin. "Pick me up at seven?"

"Definitely…" he smiled and kissed her forehead gently. "Now go home and get some sleep young lady… staying up all night with some boy… I can’t believe you…" he chuckled doing a perfect imitation of her mother from when they were teenagers.

She giggled and reached out to hug him, "I swear mom, all we did was talk…" They laughed together over the memory and then shared a friendly kiss, "I’ll see you tonight then…"

"Yes you will…"

"Sleep sweet, Nicky…"

"You too, girlie… and Kel?"

"Yeah?" she smiled looking up at him.

"Welcome back… to my life…"

She smiled and nodded as she pressed the unlock button on her key fob, "Glad to be back…"

 Day one…

When the phone rang later that morning Kel rolled over with a groan and answered it in a whisper, "What?"

A giggle in her ear told her exactly who was on the other end of the phone before he’d even begun to speak, "Good morning to you too baby…"

"Sorry…" she said with a yawn and rolled onto her back squinting at the clock to see what time it was. "AJ?"

"Yeah?"

"Why are you calling so early in the morning? What’s wrong?"

"Nothing’s wrong…" he said less than convincingly.

"Honey," she sighed and pulled the covers over her shoulders up to her neck so that the only things exposed to the cool air-conditioned air of the room was part of her face and the phone. "It’s 9:00 here, which means that it’s like 6:00 there. Don’t lie to me, what’s wrong?"

AJ sighed and fiddled with the hotel blanket that he was laying underneath, "I just miss you…"

"Is that all?"

"Isn’t that enough?"

"I didn’t mean it that way…" Kel said softly. "I just meant, is there anything else going on?"

"No… I just miss you…"

"And?"

"And… I realized that the last time I’d been away from you for more than a night was… well… July… It just kind of weirded me out."

July… that was code word for rehab. Anyone living in America two July’s before knew that AJ, Kel’s longtime boyfriend who also happened to be a world-known pop star, had finally broken down and gone into rehab for alcohol abuse. Over the months since then somewhere along the way the word rehab had been replaced with "July." Everyone knew what it meant, especially Kel. July 2001 was a month she’d never forget, let alone the months that led up to it and those that followed.

"Talk to me about it…" Kel said with her eyes closed as she listened to AJ’s voice over the phone. She was no stranger to listening to him spill his thoughts to her. Ever since "July" he’d been working on learning how to manage his feelings rather than stuffing them, and one of the things he’d learned to do in the year and some odd months since then was to just talk. Many, many nights they’d lie in bed together with him telling her things that he’d never had the courage to tell her before. She was always there for him, always.

"I don’t know…" he told her with a soft voice. "I just… well I guess I was thinking about what I put you through… I don’t deserve you, Kellie…"

"AJ…" she sighed. "We’ve been through this… don’t…" They had been through it. Too many times to count. Sure, he’d been pretty horrible to her before July, just before he finally hit rock bottom. He’d been down right frightening at times. But she stayed because she loved him, and because he got the help he needed. "I love you… and you’re not the same person that you were a year ago. Who you were then isn’t who I fell in love with, and its not who I continue to love today. Baby please don’t beat yourself up again."

"I love you so much…" he told her, his voice cracking and the sound of it breaking her heart.

"I love you too, baby."

They stayed quiet for a few moments and then his voice kept her from drifting back to sleep, "So what are you up to?"

Kel laughed and shook her head, "I was sleeping…"

"I thought you said you were going to get up early and paint the spare bedroom?" he chuckled.

"I was…" she smiled and yawned. "But I was up really late, so I put a delay on the painting."

She could hear the smile back in his voice when he spoke, "And what were you doing that kept you up so late young lady?"

"I uh…" she said and stuttered over the choice to tell him the truth or not. "I ran into a friend at the store that I haven’t seen in a while and we went to have a late dinner and talk." It wasn’t a lie, she just didn’t say Nick’s name, that’s all.

"Oh yeah? That’s cool… I bet she was one of your college friends and you two spent the night giggling like fools all night huh?" he laughed.

"Yeah… something like that…" she said softly. That was the lie.

"Well that’s cool… I bet you had fun."

"I did…"

"And I can tell that you’re still half asleep so I think I’m going to let you go. I’ve got a few hours before I have to go be a pop star again, so I’m going to order room service or something… go back to sleep."

"Okay, honey… have a good day okay?"

"I’ll try… you too."

"Thanks… I will."

"I love you, Kel… thank you, again. You’re my sunshine…"

"Anytime, baby…" she smiled. "I love you too… now hang up so I can go to sleep," she giggled.

AJ laughed as well, "Yeah, yeah… I’m going… I’ll call you later."

"Later, baby…"

"Later, gator…"

She turned the phone off and slid it under the covers with her instead of returning it to the charger. With a sigh she snuggled back under the covers trying to get warm again, "Why the hell did I lie to him?" she asked herself softly, but she was asleep again before she could answer herself.

~~~~~

Nick couldn’t help but feel nervous as he walked up to the front door of the house that AJ and Kel shared. It wasn’t that he was nervous to see Kel again, and he knew that AJ wasn’t there… it was more that it had been so long since he’d been there. Before he and AJ had stopped talking Nick had practically lived in that house. Best friends with both AJ and Kel, it was only natural that he was a regular permanent fixture in the house. Permanent until eight months prior that is, when the shit hit the fan and Nick seemingly had lost AJ as a friend.

He rang the doorbell and heard the familiar song of AJ and Kel’s dogs barking his welcome followed by the door opening. "Hey, stranger…" Kel smiled as she pushed the screen door open and Nick walked into the house. "I’m so not ready to go…" she chuckled.

"I think I’m actually early…" he smiled and looked down at the two dogs running circles around his feet. "Oh my god, they’re huge!"

"I wouldn’t call them huge…" Kel chuckled and bent down to pick the two small dogs up, "But they’re just about full grown now, so they’re a lot bigger than they were last time you were here…"

Nick smiled and reached out to pet their heads, "Which is which?"

"Black collar is Fred, blue collar is Ginger…"

Nick chuckled and took Ginger into his own arms, "God, I remember trying to pick names for them… I swear it was worse than naming a kid…"

"Well they’re the closest things to kids that AJ and I have for now," Kel said with a smile. "So of course their names are important…"

"I suppose…" Nick smiled.

"Come on into the bedroom while I finish getting ready… You can get high off of the paint fumes wafting from the spare bedroom with me…"

"You’ve been painting?" Nick asked with a chuckle as he followed Kel and the dogs through the house and into the bedroom.

"Yeah, I’ve been wanting to paint, so I’m going to do a mural on the wall in there… But I had to paint the walls a new color first. So that was today’s job…" she put Fred on the bed next to Nick and pointed at the dog’s ears. "Dipshit here decided to help, see?"

Nick laughed as he noticed the paint on the dog’s fur for the first time, "Whoops…"

Kel rolled her eyes and stepped into the adjoining bathroom, "Yeah… Ginger walked through it though… the bedroom now has little paw prints on the carpet… I think I’m going to leave them… They're actually kind of cute."

"That’s cool…" Nick smiled and pet the dogs as they crawled into his lap and settled down loving the attention they got from him. He looked around the room and was somehow surprised to see that it was all the same. Why he thought it would look different he didn’t know, but eight months was a long time, and he just thought that being gone from the house for so long… something would have changed. But there he was, and everything was just as familiar as ever. It looked the same, even smelled the same.

"You’re quiet out there, Carter…" Kel said and peeked her head around the corner. "You okay?"

"Yeah…" he said looking toward her. "I was just noticing that the house still smells the same."

Kel stepped out of the bathroom and turned the light off in the process, "What does it smell like?" She smiled and picked up a pair of plain white Keds and then sat down on the bed to put them on.

"Mostly like you…" Nick said with a smile. He paused for a second and took in a breath. "Candles, your perfume… that stuff you spray around the house every now and then, and there’s a touch of AJ’s cologne too."

Kel smiled and nodded, "Yeah I guess it does smell like that… I never really stopped to figure out what the house smells like, but I do love it. I love coming home from being away for a while and getting hit with the smell of home."

"I’ve always loved the smell of this house after you moved in. Your apartment was the same way…"

"Aww…" Kel smiled and put her foot down on the floor after tying her shoe. "I actually like the way your house smells too… Always have."

Nick nodded and looked at the dogs in his lap and chuckled, "I don’t think they’re going to let me leave…"

"They better…" Kel giggled. "Cause after all of that painting, I’m hungry…" She stood up and moved toward the door of the bedroom. Both of the dogs perked their heads up and watched her and Nick chuckled. "Wanna… go outside?" she called out to them and in an instant they were barking and had jumped off of Nick’s lap and raced each other through the house to the back door. Kel smiled and winked at Nick, "See, no problem…"

~~~~~

"Oh my god that’s right! You fell off of the top bunk!" Kel laughed as she and Nick sat in a Mexican restaurant picking at the chips and salsa sitting between them on the table. "Then my mom yelled at us because we wouldn’t stop laughing and it was like three in the morning…"

"Thank god you had a messy room and a billion clothes on the floor… broke my damn fall…" Nick chuckled. "I can’t believe you forgot about that…"

"Seems like forever ago doesn’t it?" Kel smiled.

Nick nodded, "Yeah… can you believe it’s been twelve years that we’ve known each other?"

"That’s just frightening…" she laughed. "Twelve years? Jesus…"

"I know… it’s cool, but it’s really weird too."

"Aaron and Angel were in their terrible twos when we met…"

"Oh god…" Nick laughed. "I remember that…"

"They were so cute though… How are they?"

"They’re good… Angel’s just being a normal teenage girl as much as she can in our family, and Aaron’s still promoting the new CD and stuff…"

"It’s a great CD…" Kel said as she pulled a chip through the salsa. "I should call him…"

"He’d like that…"

When the waitress finally joined them she smiled and apologized for the wait. "It’s a little nuts around here tonight, we’re short three waiters…"

"It’s not a problem…" Kel smiled. "We’re not in any hurry…"

"Yeah, as long as you keep the chips and salsa coming, we’re cool…"

"You’re wonderful…" the waitress smiled. "I tell you what, your first margarita is on me. What can I get you?"

"I’ll take an original on the rocks, and she’ll have a frozen raspberry…"

"Actually I’ll just have a Coke…" Kel said with a smile to the waitress.

"No way…"Nick said with his own smile. "Raspberry…"

"Nick…"

"Kel…"

The waitress smiled, "I could bring a Coke and a Raspberry?"

"Just the Coke…" Kel smiled.

"Just the Raspberry…" Nick corrected with a smile at the waitress. "Now hurry, go before she tries to change it again, run!"

Kel tried to change the order, but the waitress was won over by the famous Carter Grin, and was gone in a flash leaving Nick with a pleased smile on his face. She shook her head at him, "You’re a pain in the ass…"

"I know…" he said simply and then laughed. "Come on though… when was the last time you had a really good margarita? You know they’re amazing here…"

"It was a long time ago…" she said softly and looked down at her menu.

Nick watched her for a moment and then spoke up, "You quit drinking when he did didn’t you?"

She nodded, "Yeah I guess… I never really said that’s what I was doing. But it’s what happened. Just sort of makes it easier on him."

"But did you want to do it?"

Shrugging she put her menu down on the table, "I don’t know… drinking isn’t all that important to me. I certainly don’t need to drink… I just did."

"Do you miss it?"

"Sometimes…" she nodded.

"It’s not very fair to you if you ask me…" Nick said and shook his head.

"No one made me do it, Nick."

"Yeah. But let’s say he had asked you to stop drinking. What would you have done?"

"I would have stopped, because I love him."

"And if he came home from LA and said that he was going to become a vegetarian? Would you stop eating meat too?"

"That’s not fair Nick…" Kel said shaking her head. "Alcoholism isn’t the same as choosing to stop eating meat."

Nick sighed and rubbed his face with his hand, "I know… shit. I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that… I didn’t mean it…" Kel nodded and he looked at her with a questioning look.

"What?" she asked him when he didn’t say anything.

"I don’t know…" he said and shook his head. "Are you… I mean, is everything okay? With him, and stuff…"

She nodded and reached out across the table to touch his hand, "Yeah… he’s sober, and much happier than he’s been in a long time. And we’re… we’re okay."

"Would you still tell me if you weren’t okay?" he asked softly and squeezed her hand.

"Nicky… of course I would. We fucked up by not talking to each other for the past eight months… but honey, you’re still my best friend. Of course I’d tell you."

He nodded and looked at their hands, "Okay…"

"And Nicky?" Kel said and waited for him to look at her again. "No, I wouldn’t give up meat…" She smirked and chuckled, "I like it too much…"

Nick laughed and shook his head, "Such a pervert…"

She laughed loudly and tossed her head back, "Love me…"

"Oh I do…" he laughed. The waitress brought their drinks and put them down on the table. Nick looked at her and made a face, "You’re going to kill me… but do you think you could bring her a Coke instead?"

The waitress laughed and looked at Kel, "You finally got him to listen to you huh?"

Kel smiled and shook her head, "Don’t worry about it… I changed my mind. The margarita is fine."

"You sure?" the waitress chuckled.

"Yeah I’m sure…" They gave the waitress their order and when she walked away Kel raised her glass to Nick. "To renewed friendships…"

Nick smiled and raised his glass to hers clinking them gently, "And to never giving up meat."

Day two…

"Oh god…" Kel groaned as she halfway sat up in bed and put her hand to her head squinting her eyes to see through the bright light of the morning. She heard a chuckle and jumped at the sound as she turned her head much too quickly to see where the sound came from. "Oh god…"

Nick laughed again and gently pushed her back down to a laying position on the bed, "Go back to sleep…"

"I’m never drinking again…" she groaned.

Nick chuckled and covered her up with the blankets, "We’ll see about that… but for now, go back to sleep. I’m going to go home and run some errands and crap. But I’ll be back here at seven. It’s 12:30 now…"

"Seven?" Kel croaked with one eye open looking up at Nick, who she thought frankly was too chipper for his own good. "What’s at seven?"

"We’re going out again…"

"No…" she sighed and rolled over twisting herself in the blankets.

Nick laughed and kissed her temple, which was about the only thing still peaking out of the blankets, "Yes… I’ll be back, and you’re going with me. I still have a key you know?" He laughed again as she groaned in response, "Sleep sweet, chickie, I’ll be back…"

~~~~~

"AJ’s going to come home and find me whimpering in pain from too much playing with you…" Kel laughed as she and Nick slow danced together at the club they’d decided to go to after they had dinner. They’d been dancing for a few hours and were covered in sweat, but loving it all.

Nick laughed and shook his head, "You’re too young to have so little energy, Kel… what happened to the girl who used to go clubbing every night on tour after our concerts and hardly ever slept?"

"She got sober with her boyfriend and traded all night clubbing with Al-Anon meetings and an early bedtime…" Kel chuckled. When Nick laughed with wide-eyes Kel shook her head, "I can’t believe I just said that…"

"Oh you said it…" Nick laughed.

"I’m horrible… you know I didn’t mean it that way…"

"I know…" Nick smiled. "But I have to say it was funny… and you know what?"

"What?"

"It’s time for another drink…" he grinned pulling her by the hand to the bar.

"Nick no… I can’t drink anymore. I’m already tipsy enough as it is…"

"It’s not going to hurt you… come on. One more drink and I swear we’ll stop for the night."

Looking up at his blue eyes Kel found herself weak. She couldn’t deny the fact that she was having a blast with Nick, hanging out with her best friend and just being wild again for a change. And she did love the buzz she had running through her body. "Fine… one more, then we’re done."

Nick smiled and looked at the bartender, "Two shots of tequila…"

"Nicky no… I said a drink, not a shot… I’ll puke if I start doing shots…"

"One shot, not shots, and you’ll be fine… come on, no one ever does tequila with me anymore. You were the only one who could tolerate it... well, aside from…"

Kel nodded, "Yeah… I know. He loved the stuff…"

The bartender put the two shots on the bar and Nick looked from them to Kel, "How about we do these shots to say goodbye then?"

"Goodbye to what?"

"Goodbye to the days of tequila shots…"

Kel chuckled, "You’re going to give up tequila shots just because I won’t do them with you anymore?"

Nick shrugged with a smile, "No fun without you, baby…"

She picked up the salt shaker and licked her hand before salting it, "One shot…"

"Cool…" he smiled and followed her lead salting his own hand.

She held her glass up to him and they toasted, "Goodbye tequila…"

"Goodbye licking my best friend’s hand…" he giggled and licked the salt from her hand as she laughed and did the same to him and they threw back their shots.

"Oh good… GOD!" Kel sputtered as the alcohol burned down her throat and she did a little dance to help it on its way. "Oh man…"

"I haven’t done that in a long time…" Nick laughed as he made a face at the taste of the shot and watched Kel dancing around.

"You’re telling me? Oh man… yuck!" she laughed and reached over the bar grabbing a cherry from the bartender’s stash while his back was turned. She put the cherry in her mouth and then smiled, "Much better…"

"I could totally make a bad joke about you popping a cherry right now…" Nick laughed.

"Don’t you dare…" she laughed back. "I just did a shot for you and now I’m going to be completely drunk…"

"Then you know what that means?" he smirked.

"Yeah…" she smirked back and took his hand. "It’s time to dance…"

Hours later when they drove up to Kel’s house she looked at Nick and yawned, "You’re staying the night…"

"But, Kel, you have a boyfriend…" Nick laughed.

She rolled her eyes, "Not funny… you’re staying. Come on…"

"Yes, ma’am…" he smiled and turned off the car. He followed her up to the front door and giggled as she handed her shoes to him so she could fumble with the keys and unlock the door. "You have little feet…"

"Compared to yours… sure I do…" she said as she pushed the door open and they stumbled into the dark house. She punched the security code in and turned on a lamp, "Why the hell he has to keep it like a fucking icebox in here is beyond me…" she groaned and ran her hands over her arms.

"You could turn the temperature up…" Nick laughed. Kel had always been an interesting drunk. Her usual, tell-it-like-it-is attitude was only magnified by alcohol and she always found something to complain about, but in a cute kind of way.

"I don’t know how…" she sighed. "We just got this new system put in while we were in LA and I can’t figure the damn thing out. He has it programmed so that at certain times of day it’s a specific temperature. At night, it’s set for Arctic."

Nick laughed again and kicked his shoes off, "Where is it?"

"Don’t bother… if you break it he’ll get pissed. We can just go find blankets or go outside…"

"Bullshit… where is it…" he persisted.

Kel pointed down the hall as she walked toward the backdoor to let the dogs in, "Down there… knock yourself out." As he set off to inspect the evil thermostat, Kel let the dogs in and poured two large glasses of orange juice. She looked at the clock and laughed, "Two nights in a row that boy has kept me up until dawn…" She opened the fridge again and smiled, "Oh yeah…"

"What are you oh yeah’ing about?" Nick laughed as he walked into the kitchen and found her looking in the fridge.

"Cold pizza from Demarco’s…" she said with a big grin.

"Oh yeah…" he laughed and took the box from her and took it to the kitchen table. "Got any orange juice?"

"Way ahead of ya, Blondie…" Kel smiled and moved the glasses to the table.

"Perfection…"

"Yeah… except that I can’t stay in this skirt any longer," she said and began unzipping the side of her skirt as she walked out of the kitchen. "Do NOT eat all of my pizza…"

"Yeah, yeah…" he chuckled as she disappeared. He took a bite of pizza and smiled at how perfect everything felt right then. He had his best friend back in his life, he’d spent all sorts of time with her in just two days, and he was eating their traditional cold pizza with orange juice after a long night of clubbing. The hole that had been left in his life eight months before suddenly was full again. Well, except for the part where AJ was still missing.

Thinking back on it, he couldn’t even remember exactly how it all happened. AJ’d been out of rehab for several months, and things seemed to be going well. But one night of the three of them hanging out as usual, minus the alcohol, ended up in a whole lot of yelling, hitting, and doors slamming. A few days later they hadn’t made up at all, and instead of putting Kel, whom he loved dearly, in the middle, he walked away. Telling himself he’d give it some time and space, he set off on his own for the first time in years. Then, with Backstreet on hiatus, Kel not in his life, and a whole lot of free time on his hands, he somehow ended up with a solo career.

Of course, putting his solo CD out just before he and the guys were supposed to work on the much anticipated Backstreet CD didn’t exactly make AJ come calling for a reunion. But as Nick saw it, he had the chance to follow a dream of his while AJ and the rest of the guys were busy with their own stuff… maybe the timing wasn’t right for them, but for him it was perfect. He had all intentions of continuing his career with Backstreet, but a solo CD was his dream, and he wasn’t about to turn down a dream just when it was staring him in the face.

"Someone is deep in thought…" Kel chuckled as she returned to the kitchen in her pajamas.

"I was pondering the secret of Demarco’s pizza…" Nick smiled as he handed her a piece and she sat down in the chair next to him.

"Liar…"

"Whatever…" he mumbled with a mouth full of pizza. "I fixed your thermostat by the way… I have the same kind at home. I’ll teach you how to override it when we’re not so tired…"

Kel smiled and kissed Nick’s cheek, "I knew I kept you around here for some reason…"

"I’m good… I know it…" Nick said with a nod and then chuckled.

"Tell me what you were really thinking about…" Kel said softly and rested her head on her hand while looking at him.

He shook his head, "It’s too late…"

"You’re telling me it’s too late? After keeping me up for two nights in a row drinking… I don’t think so. Spill it… what’s on your mind?"

She watched as he picked assorted items off of the pizza and popped them in his mouth before looking at her cautiously, "Has he heard it?"

Kel nodded, "Sure he has…"

"Has he… I mean, well… You know what? No. It’s not fair, that’s putting you in the middle again. I don’t want to do that…"

Reaching out, she put her hand on his arm and smiled, "He loves the song… I believe his words were, ‘You did it Nicky…’" Nick dropped his head into his hands and closed his eyes. If there was one person he wanted to like his solo work, it was AJ. AJ had always been the one to support the idea of Nick doing his own music when the time was right. But not being able to really know how AJ felt about his CD was torture, and when Kel told him that AJ actually did like his first single, it actually hurt. Kel’s own heart hurt watching Nick and she moved closer to him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders pulling him as close as she could. "I know how important his opinion is to you honey… even if you haven’t talked to him in a long time..." She felt him shudder and she squeezed him a little tighter as he put his arms around her waist and buried his head against her shoulder. "He loves you, Nicky… I know you want to hear it from him instead of from me, but I’m telling you not to give up, it’ll happen. He’s proud of you honey, so proud."

"I keep thinking that I’m never going to have him back in my life…" Nick whispered as he held tight to her. "Like I fucked it all up. Backstreet will be over, and everyone will blame me."

"Oh, honey… no…" Kel said shaking her head. "That’s not going to happen."

He looked up at her, his eyes red with unshed tears, "How do you know?"

"I don’t know, I just do…" she said taking his face in her hands. "They all love you too much for that to happen. I think you just need to see each other for starters… look what running into you at the grocery store has done for us. Eight months honey… we went for eight long months without talking, and now you’re back in my life. You haven’t seen AJ since that night that you two fought."

"Yeah I guess…" he said sadly and took her hands off of his face and held them in his own in his lap.

"We’ll make it happen together okay?"

"I don’t want you in the middle…" he said shaking his head.

"Maybe it’s time I get in the middle… Maybe that’ll make him understand how important both of you are to me."

"Does he even know that you’re spending time with me?" Nick asked with a sigh. Kel shook her head and Nick’s mouth fell open, "You’re kidding… Jesus. You’re sitting here telling me all about how you know this is all going to work out, but you haven’t even told him that you’ve been hanging out with me?" He pulled away from her and stood up.

"Nicky, I…"

"Don’t, Kellie…" he growled. "Just don’t… don’t lie, don’t sugar coat it, don’t fucking try to make it better! Because you can’t!"

"I was going to tell him today!"

"Yeah, sure you were!" he yelled back, his voice making Fred & Ginger scatter. "I can’t believe this…"

"Nick…" she sighed. "I want this to work out… I…"

"You just wanted to keep me a secret from him… that’s what you wanted to do. You’ll spend all your time with me while he’s gone, and when he comes back you’ll go right back to bending over backward for him and doing everything he wants you to do. I can’t believe I thought you were really ready to stop this shit. But you’re not… I can see it in your eyes. You’re just as scared about him coming home to find out that we’ve been together again as I am…" Nick shook his head and walked out of the kitchen heading for his shoes and his keys.

Kel followed him with tears in her eyes, "Please don’t go…"

"I can’t stay here…" he said as he slipped his shoes on. "I’m afraid of what I’d do or say if I stayed here." Kel’s breath caught in her throat at his statement and he looked up from tying his shoe to see the look on her face. It’s a look he’d seen on her face before, but one he’d never been responsible for. He shook his head as he stood up and looked at her, "I don’t want to hurt you…"

"Then stay…" she said quietly, her chin trembling.

"I can’t… I’m sorry." He kissed her forehead and then turned and walked out of the door never stopping to look back at her.

Day three…

Kel had cried herself to sleep after Nick left the house that morning, and when she woke up she knew that she needed to find him. After calling him without getting an answer even on his cell phone, she’d gotten into her car and begun driving around looking in every place he’d ever gone to hide out when he needed time to think. But this time, she wasn’t going to let him think on his own.

She’d had been driving all over looking for Nick later that afternoon and after trying three different spots she finally pulled up to a park and sighed with relief when she saw his truck. The park was along side the gulf, and many times in the past they’d spent hours there together in a secluded spot that was hidden by rocks that most people didn’t bother to go beyond. They’d discovered it one day as teenagers and often used it as a get away that no one else knew about. She’d spent a lot of time there during the time they’d spent apart that year, and although she didn’t know it for sure, so had he.

Climbing carefully over the rocks trying not to lose her footing she made her way onto the soft sand of "their beach" and saw him sitting alone staring out at the water. The wind blew her hair and she tucked it behind her ear as she approached him and sat down quietly next to him in the sand. For a long time they sat and watched the water together, neither saying anything. When he reached out and took her hand in his, she bit back her tears and whispered to him, "I told him… He called me this morning and knew something was wrong because he could hear in my voice how sad I was, so I told him…"

"What did he say?"

Kel shrugged and shook her head, "He wasn’t real thrilled that you and I fought…"

"Aside from that though…" he asked and turned his head to look at her. When she wouldn’t look at him he pushed her hair behind her ear trying to watch her eyes as best as he could.

A tear seeped out of her eye and she shook her head as she stared down at his hand holding hers, "I don’t know… he was… I don’t know how to explain it. It was like he wasn’t mad, but he was… disappointed maybe? I couldn’t read it… and then he got really quiet and said that he had to go." Nick’s sigh opened her floodgates and she began to cry softly.

He pulled her into a hug and kissed her forehead, "I’m sorry…"

"It’s not your fault… I needed to do this. He needs to understand, and…"

"It still sucks though…" he said quietly. "Loving him shouldn’t be so fucking hard all of the time."

"I know…" she said sadly as she took comfort in being in her best friend’s arms again and looked out at the water. Nick’s words were like a beacon in the fog. It was the simplest statement, but it made so much sense hearing it from him. Loving AJ shouldn’t have been so hard, and yet it was. It was one of the hardest things she did each day, and she hadn’t realized until just then exactly how hard it was.

~~~~~

"You know what I was thinking of today?" Nick asked with a smile as he looked at Kel. They’d been sitting on the beach for a few hours talking and watching the water.

"Not a clue…" she smiled back.

"Something we haven’t done in a really long time…"

Kel chuckled and shook her head, "I’m not going skinny dipping with you. It’s October and way too cold to go in that water, especially nude."

Nick rolled his eyes and laughed, "I wasn’t talking about skinny dipping… but I wouldn’t mind seeing you naked…"

"Pervert…"

"Basically…" he said with a wink. "Anyway… I was thinking about how we used to camp out in the back yard at your house."

"Oh my god…" Kel said with a huge smile. "Wow… it’s been years!"

"I know… wanna camp out tonight?"

"Seriously?"

"Yup…"

Kel smiled and nodded, "I’d love to…"

An hour later they were in Nick’s backyard fighting with tent poles. "You’re doing it wrong…" Nick sighed.

"I am not doing it wrong."

"Yes you are… It has to go like this," he held up a picture of the tent from the packaging and pointed at it. "Not like that…" he then said as he pointed to the nylon mess in his yard.

"Oh for Christ’s sake, Nick, I know how to put together a fucking pop tent…"

"Uh… no you don’t."

"You’re the one who keeps folding the pole up in the tent… you can’t fold the pole Nick you have to keep it straight as it goes in, then you bend it… Slide it through the hole gently so it doesn’t get all caught up… not ram it in there like some dry fuck." Nick began to giggle and dropped the part of the tent he’d been holding. "Oh what now?"

"Do you even know what you just said?" Nick laughed.

Kel sighed and pushed Nick out of her way, "No I don’t… but get the hell out of my way and let me do this." He continued to laugh and moved out of the way, his hands up in surrender. Literally within a minute the tent was standing and Kel turned around to face Nick with her hands on her hips and a triumphant smile on her face, "I told you…"

Nick giggled and wrapped his arm around her shoulder as they looked at the tent, "I love you…"

"I know you do…" she smiled and tickled his stomach. "Stake it down and then come inside. I’m gunna raid your closet for warmer clothes and see if there’s anything we can eat for dinner…"

In Nick’s closet Kel looked through the clothes and smiled. There was a clear-cut line drawn between his professional clothes, and his normal clothes. The professional stuff consisted of suits, expensive designer threads that he never had to pay for, and stuff that looked good on him yet he’d never choose on his own to wear. The normal stuff was exactly what Kel loved to see him in. Tee shirts, sweat shirts, shorts, jeans, basically anything comfortable. It didn’t matter to him if it was Prada or Target, as long as it fit and was comfortable.

"I think you still have a pair of flannel pajama bottoms here…" Nick said as he stepped into the huge closet with her and opened a drawer. "Yup…"

Kel gasped and took the pants, "I wondered where the hell these were! God, I must have bitched for weeks about missing these…" She laughed and Nick smiled. "AJ got so sick of me complaining that he went out and bought me six new pair…"

"He would do that…" Nick laughed as he tossed a sweatshirt at her. "Another favorite of yours…"

"Oh I’ve missed this…" she chuckled and held the sweatshirt up to her face and felt the soft material. Technically it was Nick’s sweatshirt, but whenever she was with him and cold, she always wore it because it was her favorite. "Yeah, so he buys me all of these pants, and I hated them all…" she laughed.

"No way…"

"Yeah… something about them just wasn’t right. I’ve grown into them and I washed the hell out of them to wear them down a bit… but they’re still nothing like these."

"You’re a trip…"

"You know you love it…"

"Of course I do…" he smiled as he nudged her out of the closet and turned off the light. "But you’re still a trip."

"Well this trip is hungry…" she smiled as she threw on the big sweatshirt that reached her thighs, and then pulled off her shorts tossing them to the floor before pulling the pajama bottoms on.

"We’re going to have to order pizza or go to the store… all I have is Mac and Cheese…"

Kel sighed and made a face, "Okay, lets go to the store then. I’ll cook something for us, and we need to get stuff for S’mores anyway. No way can we camp out without S’mores."

"What the hell are we going to cook them on?" Nick laughed.

"Duh… you have that little mini grill… we’ll get charcoal and ooh!" Kel laughed and Nick watched her in amusement. "We’ll cook hot dogs on the grill, and corn on the cob, and then we’ll use the coals to make the S’mores."

"You are a genius…" Nick smiled and pulled at her hand yanking her out of the room.

"But I thought I was a trip…" Kel laughed.

"You’re a trippy genius…" Nick snorted and they set off for the grocery store in their camping/pajama clothes laughing the whole way.

~~~~~

"Kel?"

"Hmm?"

"I’m cold…" Nick chuckled as they lay in the dark in the tent later that night after cooking their dinner on the grill.

"You never could camp out without complaining that you were cold…" Kel laughed. "Come on…" With a smile she lifted her blanket up and moved over so that Nick could cuddle up to her and they could share the blankets and their body heat.

"Much better…" he sighed as he slid under her blankets and threw his own over them then wrapped his arms around her. He kissed her cheek, "Thank you…"

"Anytime, Nicky…" she smiled and leaned into him. "I’m really glad I ran into you at the store the other night," she told him quietly.

"Me too…"

"I missed you…"

"I missed you too. But you’re back now, so don’t worry about it," he said with another kiss to her cheek.

"Can I…" she said and then hesitated, wondering if she should go ahead with her statement or not.

"Can you what, girlie?"

"I just keep hearing something in my head that you said earlier today when we were on the beach. And I think I may have figured out why it’s been bugging me. But it has to do with AJ and I don’t know… I don’t want to bring him up to you if it’s going to…"

"Hey…" he interrupted gently. "You’re my best friend. If you need to talk about something, anything, it’s okay. Now spill it. What did I say, and what is it making you think?"

She sighed slightly and listened to the waves gently hitting the beach outside of their tent. "You said that it shouldn’t be so hard to love him…"

"Okay…" he said and she felt his hands begin rubbing her back.

"It’s true, Nicky… it shouldn’t be so hard. I love him so much, but I almost feel like everything I do now is for him. I travel with him, I live with him, I censor things for him, and I stayed away from you so that he wouldn’t be upset… I feel like I’ve lost myself in all of this. Don’t get me wrong, I love him. I love him so much and I’m so proud of how far he’s come in the last year and a half. But… I keep wondering when it’s going to stop just being about him all of the time you know?"

"Yeah I do… and I thought about that when you were talking about him the other night."

"Am I always going to have to walk on egg shells around him? Or will things be ‘normal’ again one day? Part of me feels so damn guilty for feeling that way, but sometimes I just want him to just be… Well, I just want us to be us again. Not AJ the Alcoholic and Kel the Supportive Girlfriend. I know he loves me… Sometimes I just wish he didn’t need me so much."

"Well sure, you barely get a break. I know you’ve wanted to be there for him in all of this, but who has been there for you?"

She shook her head, "No one…"

"How often has he stopped to think about how much your life has changed with his?"

"I don’t know if he ever has… but I also don’t think that it’s because he’s so blatantly self-centered, I just don’t think he’s thought about it. Every so often he‘ll get into this mode where he feels really guilty about what he put me through before rehab. He‘ll apologize over and over again about all of that stuff, and then tell me that he doesn‘t deserve me. And I tell him why I stayed after everything that happened, but it‘s always that part that he feels guilty about, not what we‘ve been through since then. Our lives have completely changed you know?"

"Yeah, I’m sure they have. It wasn’t like your lives revolved around partying, but it was certainly a part of who you were… and now it’s gone."

"Yeah…" Kel said and rolled over to face Nick in the moonlit tent. "I don’t even miss the act of partying or the drinking. I just miss being able to relax and have fun. To be spontaneous. I mean god, AJ and I used to be so spontaneous. And some of it I suppose had to do with his carefree lifestyle he had then… but it wasn’t all about the drinking. He was spontaneous when I met him and we were kids. Now, it’s like pulling teeth to get him to do anything without completely planning it out. We don’t go anywhere, we don’t do anything… hell, we barely even make love anymore. And you know how we were before…"

"How long has it been?" Nick asked, his eyes focusing on hers in the dark.

"You want it in hours, days, weeks, months, or minutes?" Kel teased half-heartedly.

"That long?" he said with concern on his face.

"Couple months…" she shrugged.

"Jesus… why?"

With a sigh she shook her head and rolled over onto her back looking up at the dome of the tent. "Well he’s been on an anti-depressant, and it’s sort of effected his… performance. And well he gets pretty frustrated, so instead of pushing him, I just don’t."

"So because you don’t want to upset him you’ve pulled back and ignored your own needs,"

"Yeah I guess…"

"Kel…" Nick sighed.

"I know…" she sighed back.

"What’s he on?"

"Same stuff you took when you and The Bitch were breaking up…"

"What’s his dose?"

"50 milligrams a day."

Nick sighed again and ran his hand through his hair before speaking, "Can I tell you something?"

"Of course…" she said softly.

"I was on nearly double that dose. And it’s true, it’s a little harder to perform, but it’s possible. It just takes a little longer. Which frankly, what the hell is so wrong in having to make love to you for longer?"

"I know… it’s just hard to explain."

"Try me…"

"I still get scared sometimes. That he’s going to fall off the wagon and turn back into the guy he was just before he hit rock bottom. I don’t want to ever see that man again… And so I guess that when I get scared I try even harder to protect him from anything that could upset him… Because if he’s upset, then maybe he’ll crave a drink. Even though I know he’s stronger than I’ve made him out to be in my head. It’s my fear taking over, not his weakness."

"Have you ever talked to him about how you feel?"

"No…" she said shaking her head. "It’s always been about him. What he’s feeling, what he’s thinking, what he’s going through…"

"But you’re going through it all as well."

"Did you ever see the movie When A Man Loves A Woman?" she asked and turned her head to look at him.

"Yeah…"

"Even before AJ started drinking heavily I related to this one quote in the movie. And since his rehab I’ve thought about it so much. Basically it’s like, you wait to see how they’re feeling each day to know how you’re going to feel. If he’s having a good day, then I have a good day. If he’s having a down day, then so do I. If it’s a bad day for him, then it’s a bad day for me. It’s like I don’t know how to decide for myself how I’m going to feel every day. These past few days with you have been so weird because I wake up in the morning and can just feel however I want to feel."

"I think it’s time that he realizes that he’s not the only one who has suffered this year. You can’t go on feeling like this, and he can’t go on being the center of your world like that."

"You want to know what’s fucked up though?" she asked softly and leaned her head against his shoulder.

"What’s that?"

"He’s been the center of my universe for so long, I don’t know if I’d know what to do with myself anymore if he wasn’t there anymore."

"Well then we’ll just have to work on that won’t we?"

Kel smiled slightly and closed her eyes, "Yeah, I guess we will…"

Day four…

"Tell me about the rock…" Nick said as he and Kel half-dozed in the sun aside his pool the next day.

She shielded her eyes from the sun with her hand and made a face, "The wrestler?"

Nick laughed and shook his head, "You are such a dork… no, not the wrestler. The rock… you know, that big heavy thing on your finger there?"

Kel laughed and looked at the ring on her hand, "Oh…" She snorted as Nick continued to laugh and then she reached out and smacked him in the arm, "Shut up… I was half asleep and you just blurt out ‘tell me about the rock…’ I didn’t know what you meant."

"The wrestler…" Nick laughed as he rubbed his arm from where she’d hit him. "You’re too cute."

"Yeah I know," she smiled. "Anyway, the rock… this one," she said holding up her hand.

"Exactly… is it what I think it is?"

"Nope…" she said shaking her head. "It’s more of a I love you but I can’t marry you right now kind of ring. Like, I want to marry you some day, so don’t leave me, and here’s a ring, but just not yet."

"I hope he didn’t phrase it that way when he gave it to you…" Nick said with a slight chuckle.

"No, it was much sweeter.." she said with a smile as she closed her eyes to the sun and kept talking. "But that’s the whole idea behind the ring really. Kind of like a promise ring like you’d give a girl when you’re in high school or something."

"So are you planning on marrying him then? Someday…"

"Maybe…" she said softly. "I dunno really. I love him, and would love to be married to him and have kids and stuff."

"But…"

"But I want things to be more stable with us before I marry him. Which is exactly why we’re waiting. He doesn’t want to get married the way things are now either. Plus technically he’s not supposed to make any serious life changes yet… some AA rule or something. It makes sense."

"Yeah…"

"What do you think?" she asked turning her head toward him and once again shielding her eyes with her hand.

"About what?" he asked squinting his eyes at her in the sun.

"About the idea of us one day getting married, about the ring, about anything… I feel like I’ve been doing all of the talking lately. It’s your turn."

He smiled at her and closed his eyes, "I think it’s too damn bright out here. We should have brought sunglasses out with us…"

"I know… I keep hoping for a cloud…" she chuckled.

"Me too…" he laughed. After a minute of them lying there he began to talk, "I don’t know what I think… I know that he’s loved you for a really long time. And I know you love him. That should be enough for me to say that yes you should get married one day. But then there’s that little voice inside of me. The one who has to protect you from harm. The voice that still beats me up because I let him hurt you…"

Kel felt her heart jump and she opened her eyes then sat up to look at Nick without having to squint in the sun. She turned throwing her feet to the ground and shook her head, "Nicky… you don’t blame yourself do you? Not for what happened that night on tour."

"Of course I do, Kel…" he said softly and opened up his eyes to look at her sadly. "I can’t help but blame myself. I should have been there that night, and instead I was off doing shit that I knew I shouldn’t have been doing."

She shook her head, "Honey, it’s not your fault. Even if you’d been there, he still would have done something to hurt me that night… He’d completely lost it."

"But if I’d been there, I could have stopped him. I could have done something… sooner."

"It’s been a long time since that night… and so much has changed since then. Honey, don’t… Don’t blame yourself anymore. You were there for me when I needed you the most and you’re here now. That’s what matters to me."

Nick sat up and faced Kel, their bare feet facing each other. He looked down at his hands and picked at a hangnail before looking up to her eyes as she watched him, "I just don’t know if I can ever let that night go. I want to believe that he’s changed, and that he loves you too much to ever hurt you like that again. But just like you were saying last night, I wonder if there’s ever going to be a moment where he just breaks again. And if he does, what will he do this time? And what if I’m not there? It‘s one thing if I‘m on tour with Backstreet, because we‘re all together… but with this solo thing it‘s all different. You‘re not there on tour with me, and if something happens I‘m not in the next room."

Kel took Nick’s hands in hers and squeezed them, "I promise you, that if things with him get remotely scary again… if I feel at all like we’re going back in time, I won’t stay with him. I won’t let it get to that point again and give him the chance to hurt me like he did. I promise."

"I still dream about that night…" he said in a near whisper, his eyes looking down at their hands holding.

"So do I…" she said just as quiet. "And if I didn’t see first hand how much he’s changed, and what rehab and therapy and stuff has done for him, there’s no way I’d still be with him. But I do love him. I love him so much that I have to understand that the person he was when he was drinking isn’t who he really is. I fell in love with AJ… not who he turned into when he was drinking every day."

"I miss the guy that he used to be… before the drinking," Nick nodded.

"He’s back… for the most part. There’s still a little of the old AJ who is hiding a little bit, but I can look at him now and see the man I fell in love with all of that time ago. That’s when I know that I stayed for the right reasons. When I look at him and I get that smile on my face that says, ‘god I love him…’ and he looks at me and catches me smiling at him. He’ll stop whatever he’s doing when he sees that smile and he’ll say to me, ‘I love you too, baby…’ Then he’ll go back to whatever he was doing and I go back to whatever I was doing."

Nick smiled and nodded before looking up into Kel’s eyes again, "I remember when you used to do that when you guys first got together. It was pretty neat to see…"

"It’s neat to have back too…"

He looked at the ring on her finger and played with it, "You think he’s going to call today?"

"Probably… He’s at some event all day today though, so I’m guessing if he calls that it’ll be later once he’s back at the hotel for the night."

"What do you think he’s going to say?"

Kel shrugged, "I don’t know. He knows that you’re a really important part of my life and that you’d be back eventually. He’s going to have to deal with it eventually, so why not now? But I have to wonder… are you ready?"

"Me?"

"Yeah… Are you ready to talk to him about what happened eight months ago? To finally see if you two can make up? Cause it‘s bound to happen you know? If he and I start talking about how you‘re back in my life, he‘s going to want to talk to you. He can‘t just ignore you, we live together. Are you ready for that?"

Nick sighed, "I think I am."

"It won’t be easy… It‘s going to bring up a lot of stuff."

"I know… but it’s worth it right?"

Nick smiled a small smile at her and she smiled back at him with a nod, "Yeah, it’s worth it… He’s worth it."

~~~~~

"So tell me again why we’re painting a mural in this room?" Nick asked as he worked on painting part of the room as Kel had instructed him to do.

Kel shrugged and dipped a brush in a paper plate of paint, "Just because…"

Nick smiled and nodded as he continued to paint, "It’s been a while since you’ve done anything like this huh?"

"Yeah… that’s probably why I wanted to do it so bad. I miss having paint all over my fingers and paintbrushes stuck in my hair…"

"And paint speckles all over your face…" Nick laughed.

"Exactly…" she smiled.

"If you hadn’t told me that you and AJ weren’t screwing each other I would have thought you were pregnant and decorating this because it would soon be a kids room… I have to admit that’s what I thought when you first told me you were doing a mural. Cause I remember when we were kids and you used to talk about decorating your kids bedrooms…"

Kel smiled at the memory, "Yeah… I still want to do that when I have kids. But this definitely isn’t that."

"Sorry about bringing that up…" Nick said softly as he re-loaded his brush with paint.

"It’s okay…" she said with a smile in his direction. "I wouldn’t have told you last night if I didn’t mind you talking about it."

"Okay…" he nodded.

"He’s going off the meds soon…" she added, her paint brush lingering in the air just before the wall. "His therapist thinks he’s ready to at least start weaning him off of them."

Nick smiled, "Then maybe you’ll get yourself some ass again soon…"

Kel began to laugh and before long they were in a full out giggle fit. When they’d finished giggling and were both gasping for air she walked up to him and opened her arms, "Hug your best friend…"

"Gladly…" he smiled and wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off the ground in a gut-squishing hug. "God I missed hugging you…"

"Me too…" she sighed as he set her back down on her bare feet. "Let’s make a promise. No more extended time apart from one another because of a fight… ever."

"I promise…" he said with a smile and held his paintbrush up along with his hand.

"As do I…" she said and raised her paintbrush as well. "So, you know what I’m thinking?"

"Not a clue…" he laughed.

"I’m thinking that this blue paint…" she said and showed him her paintbrush. "Will look really good with your eyes…"

"With my eyes?" he asked in confusion with a laugh.

"Uh huh…" she said with a smirk and then painted a big streak of blue paint down the side of his face.

"Oh no you didn’t…" he said, his mouth hanging open in shock.

She snorted and nodded, "Oh yes I did…"

"You are so dead…"

"Gotta catch me first Big Boy…" she laughed and promptly took off running.

~~~~~

Nick laughed as he stood behind Kel in her kitchen as they made dinner together that night. "You have paint on the back of your neck…"

"Oh gee, I wonder why…" she laughed. They’d had one serious paint fight that afternoon and even after scrubbing in the shower for fifteen minutes, she was still finding patches of skin with assorted paint coloring it.

"I can’t believe we didn’t get paint all over the house…" he chuckled and handed her a soda from the fridge after opening it for her.

"AJ would have disowned the both of us if we’d gotten paint everywhere…"

"Remember when we had that cookie dough fight last Christmas?"

"Oh god…" she laughed. "He thought we’d lost our minds when he came home and saw the kitchen."

"I think if we hadn’t accidentally dumped the flour all over he wouldn’t have been too mad, but that was a mess…"

Kel smiled and stirred their dinner, "True… but we cleaned it up. It’s all good. And it was fun…"

"It was a lot of fun…" Nick smiled. "Will you make me cookies this week before he gets home?"

Kel laughed, "Sure I will honey…"

"Cool… thanks. I miss your cookies."

"I’ll always have the power of my cookies over you… Even when you’re married, I’ll always be able to win you over with a fresh batch of cookies."

"You could teach my wife how to make the cookies you know? Or me…"

"Are you kidding? And lose my trump card? I think not… I like having that power over you."

"You’re really an evil bitch in Nice Girl clothing aren’t you?" he laughed.

She smirked and nodded, "Basically…" Just as she’d gotten her hands dirty with the ingredients she was throwing into the pot the phone rang and she batted her eyelashes at Nick, "Get that for me?"

He laughed and rolled his eyes, "You didn’t have to use the eyelashes on me… I would have gotten it if you said please…"

She giggled and began washing her hands as he went for the phone, "Please, Nicky?"

Laughing again he picked up the phone, "Kel & AJ’s… what’s your pleasure?" There was a pause on the other end of the line and Nick made a face, "Hello?"

"Nick?"

Nick’s heart immediately jumped into his throat at the sound of the voice he hadn’t heard in so long and he swallowed hard in order to clear it. "Uh yeah… hey."

"Hi… Is uh… Is Kel there?"

"Yeah… Yeah, she’s washing her hands, uh… hang on a second…" Nick pulled the phone away from his ear and Kel turned around as he pushed the phone toward her. "It’s AJ…"

"Oh…" she said softly. "I’m sorry, honey…" she whispered so that AJ couldn’t overhear.

Nick shook his head, "It’s okay… go ahead and talk to him. I’ll just go in the other room and set the table or something." He handed the phone to her and then kissed her cheek before walking out of the kitchen.

For a moment she watched the doorway where he’d left the room and then sighed. It was killing her to see how uncomfortable he was when it came to AJ considering how close they’d always been before their fight eight months earlier. Raising the phone to her ear she took a deep breath and forced a smile, "Hey, sweetheart…"

"Hey…" he said somewhat softly.

"You just get back to the hotel?"

"Yeah…"

"I figured you’d call once you got back and were settled."

"If I’m interrupting something I can call back later…"

"No, not at all. I’m just making dinner. I’d had my hands in tomatoes just as the phone rang, so I had Nicky get it for me."

"Oh…"

Kel bit her lip and hopped up on the counter next to the stove. She stirred the food and then looked around the kitchen, "How did today go?"

"It was okay… there were a lot of young kids there so that was cool. I got to play with toys and shit. That’s always fun."

"Aww…" she smiled. "Good… I bet they were happy to have you there to play with."

"Yeah… it was cool."

"You sound tired."

"I am…" he said with a yawn. "But I didn’t want to fall asleep without calling you."

"I’m glad you did…" she said softly and looked at the ring on her finger.

He was quiet and then she heard him clear his throat, "I’m sorry for closing up on you like that yesterday. I don’t know why I did. I’ve always known that eventually Nick was going to be back and I’d have to deal with it… I guess it just threw me a little."

She nodded despite the fact that he couldn’t see her, "Yeah…"

"Are you guys having fun together?"

She smiled, "Yeah… it’s been nice to see him again."

"I bet it has… I know you’ve missed him."

"I have, a lot…" she nodded.

"Yeah, so have I."

"He’s missed you too…"

AJ sighed and Kel could practically see the pained look on his face through the phone, "Let’s not deal with that part until I’m home okay?"

"Just a few more days…" she said with a smile. "I miss you, you know?"

"I miss you too, baby… so much."

"I love you, AJ…"

"I love you more…" he said with a smile that she heard through the phone and warmed her heart.

"Wouldn’t count on that…" she chuckled.

He yawned and looked at the clock, "I can’t believe I’m so tired and it’s not even 9:00 here…"

"You’ve had a long day… get some rest. Tomorrow’s an off day right?"

"Pretty much. I have some interview in the afternoon, but that’s it."

"Good… then get some sleep tonight, take a long bath tomorrow morning, and just relax."

"Mmm… only thing missing from that would be you in the bathtub with me."

A smile spread across her face, "We’ll do that the first night you’re home okay?"

"Promise?"

"Cross my heart…"

"Cool…" He yawned again, "Well I’m quickly losing the battle to sleep, baby… Why don’t you go finish making dinner and stuff. I’ll call you again tomorrow night?"

"I’ll be looking forward to it…" she smiled. "Sleep sweet, baby…"

"You too… Oh and, Kel?"

"Hmm?"

"Uh…" he said and paused. "Um… tell Nick I said hello okay?"

Tears welled up in her eyes despite the smile that was on her face as she nodded, "I sure will…"

 Day five…

"So tell me something…" Nick said to Kel as they drove along the highway in his truck together.

"What would you like me to tell you?" she joked and he rolled his eyes at her with a smile.

"Did you listen to my damn CD yet?"

Kel chuckled and nodded, "I did… But when I was going to tell you about it last night I looked over and you’d fallen asleep on me. I must have been talking to you for ten minutes before I realized you’d conked out."

"My bad…" Nick laughed as he focused on the road.

"It’s okay, you’ve always been adorable when you’re all cuddled up next to me sleeping on the couch. And I loved the CD, honey."

Nick couldn’t have held back his smile if he tried, "Really?"

"No, I’m lying to you…" Kel groaned and shook her head. "Yes, really. I laughed, I cried, I got all sentimental, and I had that goofy ‘I’m so proud of my Nicky’ grin on through the whole thing."

"You cried?" he said as he glanced at her for a moment before returning his eyes to the road.

"Yeah…" she said as she pulled her feet up into her seat and rested her head back against the headrest. "Some of the lyrics were… well, they hit a little close to home."

Nick nodded silently, he’d thought about Kel a lot when he was recording the music for his CD, and not only because he missed her, but because of the songs themselves. After he’d given her a copy of the CD to listen to he’d wondered how she would react to some of the songs, and quite frankly had figured she’d react strongly to one or two of them. "I bet I can guess which one made you cry," he smiled.

Kel smiled and tipped her head to the side watching him drive, "There were three actually…"

"Damn, three?" he chuckled. "Wow…"

"Still think you can guess?"

Nick chewed his bottom lip for a second and nodded, "Yeah…"

"Go for it… if you get all three then I’ll pay for lunch today."

"Cool…" Nick smiled and grabbed the case of his CD and glanced at the titles of the songs. Kel meanwhile watched him quietly and decided to change the CD in the stereo since they’d been through it twice already on their drive.

She smiled as she put in a new CD and looked at Nick, "You’ve got that Deep Thought look on…"

"I don’t want to fuck this up, a free lunch is a good thing…" he laughed and she giggled at him. "Okay, I guess I’ll go for the obvious first…"

Kel smiled knowing that he’d at least get one of the songs right, the others would be tough though. "Hit me…"

"Do I Have To Cry For You…" he said softly and glanced at her for her reaction.

She nodded, "Yup."

He thought about the other songs and glanced at the titles again before speaking again. "God, this is hard. I’m thinking maybe one was Heart Without A Home, but that’s sort of predictable and I dunno…"

Kel smiled and grabbed a Twizzler from the console sitting between them, "I’m not giving you any hints. You have to guess all three right to get a free lunch."

"Okay, I’m guessing… uh… Shit, I’m so going to lose this…" he laughed and she smiled. "Alright, I’m saying, I Got You…"

Kel smiled big and chewed her Twizzler, "One more…"

"I’m right?" Nick grinned with wide eyes. "Holy shit… I didn’t think I’d get that right, but something just told me to pick it."

"You should listen to that voice more often then…"

"Yeah really…" he nodded. "Okay, so one more…" Kel smiled and looked out of the window at the scenery passing them by quickly. She knew that Nick knew her well, but she seriously doubted if he’d be able to guess the last song. "Who Needs the World…"

Turning her head back to Nick, she smiled, "You’re buying lunch."

"Fuck!" he groaned and laughed. "So what was it?"

"Help Me…"

"Help Me? That made you cry? Why?"

She shrugged and looked out of the window again, "Just made me sad. Maybe because I attached too much of what’s been going on during the past eight months to it. The first time I heard it, I loved it. But then I really listened to the words it made me cry. I know I’ve definitely thought the things you sing about in the song… Wanting someone to point me in the right direction in trying to figure out if I was supposed to call you or not, and how to handle everything with AJ…"

Nick took a long glance at her and smiled as he reached out and put his hand on her knee, "It all worked out just fine… that’s all that matters now."

"Yeah…" Kel smiled as she looked at Nick again. "That, and the fact that you’re buying lunch."

~~~~~

"Whose house is this again?" Kel asked as she and Nick dropped their bags in the foyer of the house they were borrowing for a few days in the Keys.

"Friend of my dad’s… he’s never here, so he lets me borrow it since I use it more than he does."

"It’s adorable… not too horribly huge, but very… perfect."

Nick smiled and pushed Kel toward the living room of the house, "Check out the view from the couch…"

They sat down, more than happy to be out of the car after several long hours of driving south, and looked toward the ceiling-to-floor windows that made up one wall of the room. "Oh wow…"

"Fantastic huh?"

"Beautiful…" Kel smiled. "You don’t even have to get your ass up from the couch to look at the ocean… I love it."

Nick laughed and nodded, "I once spent like fifteen hours sitting here just staring out at the water from the couch. Every so often I’d get up to piss, but I’d come right back here."

Kel giggled, "I can totally see you doing that." She smiled and leaned her head on his shoulder, "Thanks for bringing me here."

"You’re welcome… I thought it would be a nice little get away for us. Heaven knows I needed to get away for a while before I start promoting this CD and they have me roaming all over the place."

"You know you’re going to love it…"

"I know…" he sighed. "It’s just going to be weird. All this time I’ve dreamt of doing this solo thing and now it’s here. I’m going to constantly be looking around expecting it to be like touring with Backstreet, and it will be so different."

"It’ll probably take some getting used to. I remember when AJ did his Johnny tour how odd he thought it was at first without the rest of you guys around. But you’ll be fine."

"Come with me…"

Kel picked her head up and looked at Nick, "What?"

"Come with me. I’ve got the usual press tour to do for the CD, but then I’m going to be going around doing club appearances for a while. Come with me and be my assistant or something."

Kel chuckled, "You wouldn’t want me as your assistant. You’d ask me to get you something and I’d tell you to get it your damn self…"

Nick smiled but didn’t laugh, "I’m serious… Come with me, Kel. It’s been so long since we’ve been on a tour together, and frankly… I don’t know what I’ll do if you’re not in the next room while I’m out on the road."

"You’ll call me long distance and keep me up all night talking on the phone just like you always did when I wasn’t on tour with Backstreet."

"But I don’t want to have to call you… come with me."

"Honey," Kel sighed. "I can’t commit to touring with you. Not right now at least. You know I’d love to be with you. But if I’m going to fix things with AJ, I need to be with him. Maybe once he’s home, and I start to talk to him about everything I’ve been feeling lately, then I’ll have a better idea about it all."

Nick nodded and his eyes stayed focused on the water outside of the house, "Okay…"

Kel frowned watching his face and cuddled up to him wrapping her arms around his waist as she rested her head on his chest, "I’ll at least give you a few weeks okay? No matter what is going on with me and Age, I’ll promise you two weeks of me on tour with you."

Nick’s arm tightened slightly around Kel and he nodded again, "I’m holding you to that."

Kel smiled and squeezed her arms around his body, "Good, cause I want you to."

~~~~~

"How come we’ve never had sex?"

Kel laughed and shook her head taking the beer bottle out of Nick’s hand, "You’ve definitely had too much to drink tonight."

"I’m not drunk…" he smiled taking his bottle back. They‘d been sitting in a high-backed two-person chair on the deck of the house watching the moon over the water talking, drinking and enjoying the calm of their surroundings. "I was just thinking about it. I mean, you’re so hot… and so am I," he snorted at himself and she laughed watching him. "How come we never slipped and just went at it like animals?"

"Because we love each other too much to risk it."

"Risk what? And aren’t people supposed to be in love when they have sex?"

"Risk our friendship…" she smiled. "You know… making it all weird with sex."

"I never understood the theory that having sex would make things weird between friends…" he said shaking his head. "We’re best friends, you love me, I love you. You know me better than anyone in the world, who better than to sleep with than someone I trust completely?"

"Sure, in theory it makes sense. But seriously, let’s say we’d had sex… You’d always have it in your memory bank. You’d always be able to think about me in the throws of passion, and not always in appropriate situations. Like you’d introduce me to your latest girlfriend and in your mind you’d be thinking that you’d fucked me. Or you’d be at my wedding and dancing with me in my wedding gown thinking, ‘Wow, I actually tapped this ass once…’"

They both laughed and Nick shook his head, "Okay, so maybe I’d do that… but what’s wrong with it? You’d do the same thing. You’d be getting married and I’d be your best man… cause you know I will…" he chuckled and she smiled with a nod. "And before you’d say ‘I do’ you’d think ‘I should have screwed Nick once more before today…’"

"You’re so crass…" Kel laughed.

"Oh and you’re not?" he laughed back. "My point is… so what if we have screwing each other in our memory bank? I’d much rather remember fucking you than fucking Heather…" he said rolling his eyes.

Kel laughed loudly and nodded, "You’ve got a point there. She couldn’t have been a good lay. She was so… picky."

"She was horrible in bed…" he said with a shudder that made Kel laugh.

"Yeah well, I had Steve…" Kel groaned. "He was so bad. I don’t think he ever got me off. I faked it every time."

Nick snorted again, "That’s bad… I’d get you off…"

Rolling her eyes she smiled, "I’m sure you would."

"I’m never going to get the chance am I?" Nick said as he rolled his head to the side and looked at her.

"Not while I’m with AJ…" she said with a smile as she reached out and touched his cheek with her hand. "I’m flattered, but I can’t…"

"That just makes me want you more…" he smiled and turned his head to kiss the inside of her hand gently.

She smiled shaking her head, "My poor Nicky…"

"It’s not even about my needs…" he said. "I just want to make you feel good…" She stared at him for a moment, not exactly sure how to take his comment. "I don’t get how he could stay away from you for so long. There’s no way I could keep my hands off of you if you were mine. Not even if I were highly medicated."

He reached out and ran the back of his fingers over her cheek, "Nicky…" she said softly, her voice spiked with sadness.

"I just don’t get him, Kel. How can he turn you away? How wrapped up in himself can he be to be so blind to you? God… there’s so much pain I your eyes. Can’t he see that?"

She closed her eyes when she felt them fill with tears and she shook her head, "Don’t…"

"You’re so beautiful…" he whispered to her and wiped her tears away gently. "You’re so amazing… He has no idea what he has." She continued to cry and couldn’t form any words, simply keeping her eyes closed she shook her head. Nick’s hands stopped her from shaking her head and then he pressed his forehead to hers still holding her face, "You deserve to be touched." He softly pressed his lips to hers, "…and to be kissed."

She let out a soft sob when his lips met hers a second time and he kissed her in a way he’d never done before. He nipped her bottom lip softly and then pressed his tongue into her mouth. His hands moved from her face down to her waist and pulled her body into his as he kissing her deeply. Their minds swam with emotion as they kissed and their bodies responded to each other. His hands moved once more and sought out her breasts as he moved his kisses to her neck. Her head fell back as she felt his breath on her skin and his hands kneading at her breasts. She let out a soft sigh as her body experienced feelings it hadn’t seen in so long, everything in her being wanted him to keep going. She wanted him to make her feel as good as she felt right then, and even better.

He on the other hand hadn’t planned on making any move on her that night, but when he did, it just felt right. He really did want to make her feel good, and he didn’t mean just by making her laugh either. He didn’t know where it had all come from, but it was there, and there was no denying the fact that he wanted her, and it felt like she wanted him as well.

"Let me make you feel the way you should feel…" he said softly against her neck as he slid a hand between her legs and slowly inched it up the inside of her thigh.

Her body responded to his touch and she felt her hips move toward his hand and felt his fingertips graze across the leg of her bathing suit which she’d only covered with a sloppy tee shirt as the sun had faded. "Oh god…" she sighed as his fingers pressed her suit to the side and found their way to her body. Her eyes fluttered shut as he slid two fingers deep inside of her and rubbed the pad of his thumb over her clit. "Nicky, I…" she said softly before he slid a third digit inside of her and nibbled on her neck cutting off any attempt at speech that she had.

"Just let it go…" he whispered in her ear as he sensed her fighting her body. He flicked his tongue over the pulse point on her neck then sucked on it and he finally felt her let go. She moved her hips along with his hand and he could hear soft moans trying to escape her throat. He was so turned on he thought he’d burst, but this was all about her. This was about his best friend who wasn’t getting the love she deserved, and helping her release at least a sliver of the built up frustration she had inside. He could feel that she was close, he’d pleased enough girlfriends to know just what a woman’s body did just before it lost control, and he relentlessly pushed her toward that beautiful release.

When her body finally reached it’s peak, she held a tight grip on his shoulder with one hand and his arm with the other as her hips rocked against his hand and she cried out. The mixed sounds of extreme pleasure mixed with sadness that flowed from her mouth made him want to weep for her, and he wasn’t exactly sure he’d be able to hold back his emotion. He pulled his fingers from her body feeling her shudder from his touch and then looked into her eyes. They were wet with tears and he could tell she wasn’t close to being done crying that evening. He kissed her gently and then pulled her into a tight hug wrapping as much of his body around her protectively as he could. She in turn balled up against him beginning to cry once again and he cried for her as well. It was there they spent the remainder of the evening and then slept in each others arms with the warm breeze of the ocean blowing over them never waking them until morning.

Day 6...

Kel showered for a long time that morning after she and Nick shared the evening in the chair on the deck. She wasn’t necessarily trying to wash Nick off of her skin, it was more like she was trying to wash away her guilt, and her pain. That wasn’t something that was going to flow down the drain though, and after using nearly all of the hot water in the house, she stepped out of the tub and resumed her routine of getting dressed for the day.

When she finally found the strength to leave the bedroom and find Nick she found him in the living room on the couch looking out at the water. He’d opened up the windows in the house letting fresh air in instead of the artificial air of air conditioning that nearly everyone in Florida lived with year round. It was still early enough in the day that having a natural breeze flow through the house was providing a perfect temperature as well as a calming effect on the whole house. They both knew from experience though that within a few hours the sticky heat would take over and they’d either have to endure sweating, or go back to the manufactured cool of centralized air.

She quietly sat down on the couch with him and turned sideways to look at him. Waiting until he turned to look at her, she wondered what was going through his mind and figured it was probably similar if not exactly the same as what was bouncing around in her own head. When he turned his head to look at her she smiled and rested her head on her arm which was lying on the back of the couch, "Morning…"

He smiled as well, "Morning."

They watched one another silently for a while before either of them spoke, and when they did speak they did it at the same time and laughed. "You go first…"

Nick shook his head, "Ladies first…"

Kel nodded and took a deep breath, "Um… so last night."

He nodded, "Yeah…"

"You know we… well, we just can’t go there again." Nick nodded as he listened to her go on, "I’m not ashamed of what happened. It was…" She shook her head as new tears threatened her eyes and her voice dipped to a near whisper, "It was beautiful. You made me feel wanted in a way I hadn’t felt since before AJ hit rock bottom." Those words made her cry and she pushed her tears off of her face with her fingertips. "I love you so much, Nicky… You’re my best friend, and the only person who I can be completely open and honest with. You always have been. And last night was just another thing that I’d never even fathom experiencing with anyone else. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve pushed other guys away who tried to get in my pants. Guys who were supposed to be AJ’s friends… But the way I look at last night, it wasn’t some dirty grope to be ashamed of. So I’m not ashamed of what happened. It still can’t happen again though. Not while I’m still with AJ."

Nick nodded and moved closer to her on the couch, "I’d never try to take advantage of you. You know that don’t you? I’d never hurt you like that. I just felt so strongly like you needed last night. You needed to know that you were worthy of feeling so much more than pain." He sighed as he saw another set of tears fall down her cheek, "I love you too… so much."

"I know you do honey…" she said with a sniff and a smile.

"I’ve been so worried that you were going to think I was some perverted freak who wanted to prove I could get in your pants or something…" he told her with a slight smile and she laughed.

"Sweetheart… You are a perverted freak," she smiled and ran her fingers through his hair with the hand that was resting on the back of the couch. "But I know you’d never hurt me or push me or try to take advantage of me."

"If I’m a perverted freak, then you’re one too…" Nick said with a bigger smile and leaned in to kiss her cheek.

"Then we’re the perfect pair…" she smiled as she kissed his cheek back and cuddled up to him for a healthy dose of lazy mid-morning cuddling.

~~~~~

"That little old lady over there wants you to know that my wife is beautiful…" Nick chuckled as he sat down next to Kel on a bench and handed her the soft serve ice cream cone that he’d stood in line for five minutes for along with his own.

Kel giggled and smiled at the ‘little old lady,’ "Are you hiding a wife from me Nicky? I’m hurt. I mean, I know we’ve spent some time apart, but I’d at least think you’d tell me if you were married."

Nick rolled his eyes and licked his ice cream, "She thinks you’re my wife, dumbass…"

"Ohh!" Kel chuckled and winked. She leaned forward and kissed his lips then smiled, "Chocolate… yum."

"Mixes pretty well with your raspberry…" he smiled and noticed the older woman watching them with a smile. "She said that it’s obvious to her how much you love me and how much I love you. She also said that we’re going to be together for a very long time. I couldn’t break her heart and tell her that we weren’t married."

Kel smiled, "It’s okay, I think it’s sweet. And aside from the married part she’s right. We do love each other horribly, and we are going to be together for a very long time. So it’s all good…"

"That’s true…" he nodded.

"Plus, if I were your wife I’d have to give AJ his ring back…" Kel laughed. "And well, it’s too pretty to give up."

"Is it all about the ring? Isn’t my love enough for you?" he teased.

"Honey, your love is not all you have to give… don’t even try pulling that shit with me. You can afford a nice ring, and yes, it’s all about the ring," Kel laughed.

"I’m shocked…" Nick said with a mocked look of disgust on his face. "I don’t know, what he does to make you cry… "

"He buys me pretty rings to make up for making me cry…" Kel teased.

"But I’ll be there to make you smile… I don’t have a fancy car…"

"Yeah you do…"

"To get to you I’d walk a thousand miles…" he sang and batted his eyelashes before laughing and resuming the eating of his ice cream.

"You’re nuts…" Kel giggled. "And you know… it’s pretty sucky that with all of the sappy romance songs that you guys have put out, you’ll never really be able to use them on a girl without it being tacky. You guys have some great songs, but you have to resort to using someone one else’s songs to woo your women."

Nick laughed, "I guess…"

"Random thought…" Kel smiled with a shrug.

"I like your random thoughts, although sometimes they frighten me," he smiled back. Kel smiled knowing exactly where he was going and she decided not to even try to stop him because she knew he wouldn’t shut up until he’d teased her. Before long he was giggling quietly until he couldn’t hold it in anymore, "You were so cute when you were young and innocent."

"Oh bite me…" she laughed.

He raised his voice imitating her at a much younger age and giggled, "Nick, I don’t understand it… how does a blow job work? It just doesn’t seem like it would do anything… where does the air go?"

Kel giggled and shook her head, "So I didn’t know what a blow job was! Sue me, Carter, I was a kid. And you know just as well as I do that the term is misleading. I still think they should call it a suck job instead."

Nick cracked up and wiped tears from his eyes, "Well I know that all of the Backstreet fellas call them suck jobs now thanks to you…"

Rolling her eyes she sighed, "Yeah, and I so appreciate you telling them the story and embarrassing the hell out of me so long ago…"

"Oh, baby, you know it just made them love you more…"

"Whatever…" she smiled. "Not like you ever say anything stupid."

"Never…" he smiled and grabbed her hand pulling her to her feet as they finished their ice cream and threw their napkins away.

She waved to the woman who thought they were married, and then looked up at Nick as they walked down the beach, "Tell me something, Mr. I Never Say Stupid Things?"

"Sure…" he smiled as he swung their linked hands like a little kid obnoxiously.

She smirked up at him, "Do you still resign in Florida?"

After their ice cream they’d shopped in the little artsy shops close to the house they’d invaded in the Keys, and had spent their money like rock stars. Nick alone had at least six different bags in his hands, and by the time they took a break, Kel was sporting quite a few of her own as well.

"Ooh!" Kel exclaimed excitedly and then giggled at the pained look on Nick’s face.

"What now?"

Kel laughed again, "Just one more store, I promise. You don’t even have to come with me. Here, sit and watch the bags…" she smiled as she led Nick to a bench and dumped her purchases at his feet.

"I’m hot…" Nick whined.

"Yes you are," Kel teased with a wink. "But I’ll be quick. I just want to see if they have something in that store over there. Then we can go back to the house and cook dinner."

Nick shook his head at the grin on Kel’s face and then smiled, "Go fast…" Kel kissed him on the cheek and literally bounced off toward the store she wanted to go to so badly. Nick chuckled and looked at the bags sitting around his feet. "Jesus… we shopped like AJ today…"

Marathon shopping or not, he had to admit that the afternoon had been a blast. He and Kel had somehow been able to overcome the awkward feeling of the morning, and snapped right back into the comfortable roles of best friends again. They’d shopped together for pure joy and wants instead of anything that they actually needed, and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

While waiting for Kel’s return, Nick made himself comfortable on the bench and looked around his surroundings. Occasionally someone would pass him by and smile, not having a clue who he was, which he loved. Other times he’d get a second glance by someone who was pretty sure they knew him, but didn’t want to take the risk of being wrong. When someone finally found the nerve to approach him he was flipping through a comic book that Kel had bought him several stores earlier.

"Excuse me, Nick?"

"Yeah?" he said looking up quickly from the multi-colored page.

"Hi…" the young woman said with a smile. "You’re Nick Carter…"

"You’re right…" he chuckled.

The girl smiled and then groaned at herself, "God, that was a stupid thing to say. I’m sure you know who you are… Sorry."

"It’s okay…" Nick smiled. "Who are you?"

"Oh, I’m Tracie…" she said with a grin. "And this is my cousin Kat…" she said pointing to the girl next to her.

"Nice to meet you both…"

"You too… see, Kat didn’t think you were you, so I told her I’d come over and prove her wrong."

Nick grinned, "Did you at least make a bet?"

The girls laughed shaking their heads, "No…"

"Dude! You should have made a bet if you really thought for sure you were going to win…"

"Yeah… well next time I decide to prove her wrong, I’ll make a bet," Tracie giggled.

"Sounds like a plan…" Nick said flashing a classic smile that made both of the girls melt.

"So… been doing a little shopping huh?" Tracie asked with a smile.

Nick laughed and looked at the abundance of bags at his feet, "Yeah, just a little. They’re not all mine though…" He looked at one of the girlish bags and shook his head, "My friend is in a store over there somewhere and she’s promised me that it’s the last store."

"Cool. So you’re here with a girlfriend?"

Nick laughed, "Nah… I mean, only in the innocent sense of the term. She’s my best friend, and a girl."

"Aww…" both of the girls said and then laughed at themselves as Nick chuckled.

Just then Kel bounced back to the bench and sat down next to Nick with a smile, "Hi…"

"Hey," he smiled. "Find what you wanted?"

"Yup… sure did," she smiled and held up a small bag. She then looked at the girls and smiled, "Hello ladies."

"You’re Kel…" Tracie said and then smacked her own head as Nick laughed. "Sweet Jesus I did it again…"

Nick laughed a little harder and looked at Kel who was slightly confused but smiling, "Tracie here has a little trouble with the need to tell people who they are…" he chuckled and smiled at Tracie. "This is Tracie and her cousin Kat. They were admiring my shopping bags."

Kel nodded with a smile, "Gotcha… and yeah, I’m Kel."

"How is AJ?" Kat said finally using her voice.

Kel smiled sincerely and nodded, "He’s really good."

"I’m so glad he finally decided to get help. I saw him on TV not too long ago and he looked so happy again…"

"Yeah, he’s very happy. It’s nice to see him smile again."

"Our aunt is actually the person who got us into loving Backstreet, and she’s had trouble with alcohol for years. But when AJ came out about his addiction and went into rehab, she did too. So in a way, he saved her life. She’s been clean for a year now and she’s so much happier. I can only imagine what being sober has done for AJ."

"Oh, honey…" Kel sighed with a smile and reached out to touch Kat’s hand. "I’m so glad your aunt got herself some help. That’s wonderful."

"Can you just thank AJ for us? For being so honest about it all and for being such an inspiration? We’re so proud of him."

Kel smiled and nodded, "I sure will sweetheart. Thank you, he’ll love to hear that."

Nick smiled as he watched Kel talk to the girls for a few more minutes, their conversation growing lighter as they strayed away from alcoholism and turned to shopping. He’d always loved the way that she treated the fans of Backstreet. She knew just as well as he did that fan encounters could be very intrusive and horribly annoying depending on the day, but she always seemed to handle them with a great flair, even when she was blowing them off with a nice smile and an "Sorry, we don’t have time…" To see her talking about AJ helped him see once again just how much she loved him. It was one thing for her to tell Nick one on one how much she loved AJ, but he couldn’t deny the twinkle that showed up in her eyes when she spoke to complete strangers about him. Love like that simply wasn’t something she could fake.

When the two girls finally left, Kel looked at Nick and smiled, "They were sweet…"

"Yeah… three cheers for non psycho fans," he laughed.

Kel laughed and pulled out the small bag she’d gotten in the last store, "I gotta show you what I found."

"What the heck is that?" Nick laughed as he looked at the package she’d held up.

"Okay, you know how when we were like twelve, we used to make suntan tattoos by cutting up band-aids into shapes then staying out in the sun all day?"

Nick laughed at the memory and nodded, "Our mothers would probably say that our sun tattoos were the pre-cursors to all of the real ones we have now."

"Probably…" Kel nodded. "But these…" she said and opened up the package, "they’re like sun tattoos for the new millennium. They’re already made into shapes and all we have to do is stick them on. Cool huh?"

"Honey…" Nick smiled as he took the bag of self sticking shapes and looked at them. "We both have real tattoos… we don’t need sun tats anymore."

Kel groaned and took the bag from him, "Oh bite me… they’re fun and you know it. Tomorrow we’re doing them, and no amount of whining is going to get you out of it."

"Whatever… can we go eat now if I agree to let you stick one of these on me tomorrow?"

"Yeah… and I decided I don’t want to cook, so we’re going out and you get to eat even sooner."

Nick smiled at Kel as they picked up their bags, "I love you…"

She smiled and nodded, "I know you do… but you’re still paying for dinner no matter how much you kiss up."

"But I paid for lunch…" Nick whined with a smile.

"Yeah, and you gave me shit about my sun tattoos too… so you get to pay. Plus, you’re a big pop star and I’m just a pop star’s girlfriend. Your income is much better than mine," Kel said with a grin.

"Hmmph…" Nick huffed as they walked toward his truck lugging all of their bags. "We need to do something about that."

Kel laughed and shook her head, "Baby, being a Backstreet Girlfriend is a full time job. I’m a therapist, a mother, a confidant, a cook, a sex slave, a wardrobe consultant, a talent advisor, a beta tester for new songs, a photojournalist, and most of that isn‘t just for AJ, it‘s for all five of you. Until y’all retire, I’m not even going to attempt to hold down a real job."

Nick laughed, "God… you work harder than we do!"

"I’ve been trying to tell you that for years…"

"Yeah well, I’m a pop star, I don’t listen."

Kel rolled her eyes, "You’re such a pain in my ass."

"But you love me…" Nick cooed and batted his eyelashes at her while giving her his best smile.

She tried to ignore him but couldn’t and nodded with her own smile, "Yeah honey, I do."

Day 7...

"Where do you want it?"

"I don’t care…"

"Bullshit, you do too. You’re the big pop star about to go on tour and promote a CD. You do not want a sun tat in the middle of your chest," Kel said with a smirk as she held the sticker up to Nick’s chest.

He rolled his eyes and looked down at his body, "I don’t know… my arm?"

Kel studied him and looked at the shape in her hands. It was a sun, almost like the sun shaped ink tattoo that he had, and the less girlie of the shapes that had come in the package she’d bought the day before. "I could actually put it right under your other sun, that could be kind of a neat effect if you leave it on long enough for it to show up good."

"Works for me…" he said offering her his arm so she could apply the sticker. "Isn’t it going to come off in the pool though? Or the shower?"

"According to the package they’re waterproof, but I suppose we’ll see…"

As she focused on positioning the small sun on his right shoulder just under the other sun Nick watched her and smiled, "You’re way too into this…"

She shrugged and tried to apply the sticker without messing up the design, "Simple things make me happy."

"One of the many things I love about you…"

She smiled as she crumpled the paper backing from the sticker in her hand and threw it in the trash, "I know, I’m such a cheap date. Always have been…"

"That’s true…" Nick chuckled as he cocked his arm to look at the sticker now attached to his arm. "You are the only girl I know who actually accepts a Happy Meal from McDonalds as a suitable dinner."

"How can you beat fast food and a free toy? I mean, really…" she smiled and pulled another sticker out of the pile on the kitchen table. She chose a butterfly and handed it to Nick, "You can do the honors…"

Nick looked at the sticker and made a face, "A butterfly?"

"I know… it’s so girlie. But it’s either the butterfly or the heart. They’re both kind of lame, but I figured the heart was kinda dull."

He shook his head and exchanged the heart for the butterfly, "Nope, I like the heart. And I know where it’s going too. Actually, you have more non tattooed skin to do this on, we’re doing both stickers…"

Kel laughed and shrugged as she held her arms out, "Whatever you want…"

Nick smirked at her and circled her body slowly, "You so shouldn’t say that to me… I might take it the wrong way you know?"

"Uh huh…" she chuckled. "Pervert…"

"Basically…" he said softly with a smile as he searched her body for the two perfect spots for the stickers. She wore a black bikini top and a pair of washed out and well worn denim shorts. "Jesus Kel, how long have you had these shorts?"

Kel laughed, "A long time… but they still fit, they’re not completely falling apart yet, and they make my ass look damn good. So I’m not throwing them out yet."

Nick sighed as he looked down at her ass, "Well you’re right about the ass thing…" he giggled. "I remember when you bought these."

"Get your eyes off of my ass young man," she smiled over her shoulder at him. "Focus on the stickers, and no, we’re not putting them on my ass."

"Damn…" he laughed and traced his finger over the small of her back. "Okay, the heart is going here since you still won’t appease my fantasy by putting a real tattoo here."

Kel smiled, Nick had been begging her for years to get a tattoo on the small of her back, but for one reason or another she hadn’t yet done it. "Maybe if you beg me a little harder I’ll get one there soon…"

"Before AJ gets home…" Nick smiled as he knelt on the kitchen floor so he could place the sticker on her back without it being in a weird position. He purposely turned it slightly to the side but placed it directly in the center of the small of her back with a smile.

"You expect me to get a new tattoo within the next three days?"

"Yup…" he said as he removed the backing on the butterfly after standing back up.

"We’ll see…" she chuckled as he stood in front of her again and looked down at her.

"Hold still…" he said as he reached out and put the second sticker on the top of her left shoulder. After positioning the sticker he smiled and kissed it, "Looks like a butterfly landed on your shoulder." She smiled and he smoothed the sticker once more before his eyes traveled lower on her arm to a scar. His fingertip traced the scar slowly and he raised his eyes to hers again, "Is this what I think it is?"

She nodded and pulled away pretending to be interested in throwing away the sticker papers, "Yup. I barely notice it anymore."

"Kel…" he said carefully as he watched her moving around the kitchen. She paused and her head dropped as she looked at the floor. She shook her head as he stepped closer to her but didn’t fight it when he put his arms around her in a hug.

"I don’t talk about it…" she whispered against his chest. "It’s just too hard. If I talk about it I get angry and I can’t do that anymore."

He pulled back enough to look into her eyes and sighed at her, "You have every right to be angry."

"I didn’t mean…" she sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. "I just mean that…" She sighed once again and ran her fingers through her hair, "You and I both know why the things that happened that night took place. That’s what I’m angry about… about staying in such a shitty situation when I knew it wasn’t safe, I’m angry about what the alcohol turned him into. But I’m not angry with him anymore. I don’t know if I’ll ever fully get over the whole thing…" she shrugged as she looked up into his blue eyes hoping he’d understand. "But I can’t be angry about it anymore Nicky. He’s himself again, and he loves me, and I love him. I love him too much to hate him for that night."

"I know you do…" he said softly and looked at the scar on her arm again, visions from the past flashing in his head like old worn photographs.

She watched his expression as he looked at the scar and touched it gently, "Tell me the truth Nick. Do you think that I should?"

"Should what?" he asked, his eyes never leaving her scar.

"Hate him…"

He sighed and shook his head, "No. But I don’t know what I feel about it all either. I trust that you wouldn’t still be with him if he hadn’t changed and proven his love to you all over again. And I give you credit for being strong enough to go through all of this with him, cause I probably would have walked out on him by now if I were you…" His eyes met hers finally and were bathed in sadness, "I guess I just… well, I remember it all so vividly and god, it was so bad then."

She nodded and took his hands in hers, "Yeah it was…"

"He’s been one of my best friends for half of my life, but I’d kill him before I ever let him hurt you again, Kellie."

She found herself shivering at Nick’s words, not because they shocked her, but because she knew they were absolutely the truth. She knew that had AJ not gone into rehab after what had happened that night on tour, Nick would have seriously hurt AJ. "You won’t have to. I promise you honey, you’ll never have to worry about that again."

He looked into her eyes for any shred of uncertainty in her statement, but there was none. With another sigh he put his hands on either side of her face, kissed her forehead and then pulled her into another long hug, "I guess it’s time for me to start working on letting it go huh?"

She smiled up at him and tiptoed to kiss his cheek, "In your own time sweetheart…"

"It’s going to take a while…"

She nodded, "I know…"

"Be patient with me?" he smiled.

"But of course… Would cookies help?" she asked with a smile.

He let out a happy groan and tipped his head back with a smile, "Oh yes… please make me cookies. You promised you would before the week was over."

"God, you’re easy…" she giggled and hugged him once more.

"Only when it comes to your goodies…" he smirked and wiggled his eyebrows.

They both laughed and she shook her head, "Pervert…"

"Yeah yeah… call me when they’re done," Nick laughed as he headed toward the door that led to the deck on the back of the house.

"Where the hell are you going? You’re not going to help?"

Nick smiled his best smile and pointed to the sticker on his arm as he backed out of the door with his sunglasses in hand, "Gotta work on my sun tat baby… It‘s all about the sun tat…"

Day 8...

"Oh you’re going to get it now…" Nick laughed as Kel sprinted through her house from him after having made some smart ass remark to him on their way inside after returning from the Keys.

Kel screamed and dodged a side table then leaped over her two small dogs that were running around barking at her. "Leave me alone you bully!"

"No way…" Nick said with a laugh and dove over the couch and grabbed Kel’s waist.

"Ugh! No!" she laughed and tried to get away from him but was too slow. Just then, the cell phone in her pocket began to ring. Nick immediately went for her phone and she squealed. "Nicky!"

He laughed and pulled the phone from her shorts and held it high above her head, "Take it from me shorty…"

She glared at him then giggled and tickled his armpits making him laugh and drop the phone, "Sucker…" she said with a giggle and answered the phone out of breath. "Hello?"

"Hey…" AJ said in her ear.

She smiled and made goofy faces at Nick as he muttered to her that tickling wasn’t fair, "Hi baby! How’s my sexy boyfriend?" Nick rolled his eyes at her and pulled her down onto the couch with him and she let out a grunt, "Ouch Nick, shit…" She laughed as he refused to let her off of his lap and she instead made herself comfortable, "Sorry honey, hi…"

"It’s okay…" AJ said softly. "You want me to call you later?"

"No…" Kel said with a smile. "You’re fine… Nick and I just got in and were running off our pent up energy from the drive."

"Well I don’t want to interrupt…"

"Honey…" Kel sighed as her giggled and smile faded. "What’s wrong?" Nick stopped poking at her when he heard her sigh and she looked at him with a shrug, "AJ?"

"Nothing… I’m fine…" AJ replied with a sigh of his own.

"Talk to me…"

"It’s just that I’m sick of being here… I don’t want to be away from you anymore, and I’m sick as hell of California…"

"Less than two days honey…" she said softly, the pain in AJ’s voice hurting her as well. "Before you know it, you’ll be back home…"

"Yeah…" AJ agreed.

Nick’s fingers absentmindedly ran up and down Kel’s back as he watched her talk to AJ. She barely noticed as she’d been automatically thrown into AJ Mode at the sound of his voice on the phone though. "What else is going on?"

"I just hate it here…" Kel waited, knowing instinctively that there was more going on. Afraid to ask just what that more was, she stayed quiet. "Groupies all over who don’t even care that they know I’m practically engaged to you… The record company keeps popping up with extra appearances for me to do, and everyone wants to buy me a drink. Like they had no fucking clue… It's everywhere I turn."

Kel nodded and pushed herself off of Nick’s lap, "Did you…"

"Oh god Kel, no… I haven’t had a drop, I swear. I’m just saying that it’s all around me. Even the chick they sent over as my so-called stand-in PR person offered me a drink at lunch today. I rolled my eyes at her and couldn’t believe it. I asked her if she’d even read the press packet they’d given her about me. She smiled this fake smile at me and I flipped it open for her and found all of the shit they’d written in it about my rehab and pointed it out for her. Then of course I felt bad because I’d embarrassed her… but jesus."

Nick kept watching as Kel stood in the middle of the living room and ran her fingers through her hair. Every ounce of joy she’d had just moments before as they ran around the living room taunting one another had drained from her body and to see the metamorphosis right before his eyes almost scared him. She glanced at him long enough to make contact and shake her head in a silent attempt to communicate to him that AJ wasn’t drinking, then looked away again. "Age, have you been to a meeting while you’ve been there these past two weeks?"

"No…"

Holding the phone away from her mouth to keep him from hearing her sigh she sat back down on the couch next to Nick. "You think maybe that might help? You don’t sound real good, honey…" Nick heard the tears in her voice before he saw them well up in her eyes and as he reached his hand out to hold hers he wondered if AJ had heard what he had just then.

"Probably…" AJ said with a sigh after a moment of silence. "I just didn’t want to have to… I was doing okay, hadn’t needed it." Kel blinked out tears and nodded despite the fact that AJ couldn’t see her. "I know where one is tonight… it’s the one I went to while I was here a few months ago. I could go…"

"If you think it’ll help, maybe you should…" she said softly as Nick squeezed her hand.

"I’m gunna go…" AJ said, the strength in his voice building back up. "It’ll be good for me. Then maybe I’ll call up Kevin and Kristen to have dinner or something."

"I bet they’d like to see you…" she nodded and wiped her eyes. "Been a while since we’ve seen them…"

"Yeah…" AJ replied and smiled, "Picking on Kevin can always make me feel better…"

She chuckled slightly with a sniff, "Yeah I know it can."

"Baby? I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to scare you or upset you. Sometimes I just need someone to tell me that I’m not losing my mind you know?"

"I know… it’s okay…"

"You know, Baby, I keep waiting for all of this to get easier. To not be so god damn hard all of the time. Even a little easier… And some days I feel like I can handle it, then other times like today, I can barely function without you telling me that I need to go to a meeting. I knew I needed to go to a meeting… But for some reason I just couldn’t get there without you. I’m not always going to be like this you know? I promise… it’s going to get easier. For both of us…"

New tears flooded Kel’s eyes and she nodded again, "I know it will honey… I know…"

"I love you Sunshine…"

"I love you too, Age," she said trying to hold back an audible sob.

"Did you at least have fun in the Keys with Nick?" AJ chuckled. "You know, before I called and freaked you out just now…"

"Yeah, we um… we had a lot of fun. The house was really pretty, right on the beach. We sat around a lot, and shopped."

"Very cool…"

Nick looked at Kel in confusion but kept holding her hand while she stared down at her lap. Why the hell AJ had asked Kel about the Keys, Nick didn’t understand, but he could feel Kel brightening back up a bit, and that was all he cared about.

"Why don’t I let you go?" AJ said gently. "You and Nick can get back to running around the house, and I’m going to go do my thing… then call Kevin."

"You’re sure you’re okay?"

"Yeah…" AJ nodded. "Just a little temporary freak out." Kel was quiet and AJ felt his heart in his throat, "I promise baby… I’m not going to do anything bad. I’m going to go to the meeting, and see Kev. Then, I’ll be home in a day and a half."

"Okay…" she said softly and chewed on her fingernail.

"I promise to call you if I freak out again?"

"Okay…" she said again and closed her eyes.

"I love you…"

"I know honey, I love you too. Just… be careful, and um…"

When her voice trailed off, he sighed into the phone and rubbed his temples with his fingers, "I’m not going to drink baby… I wouldn’t do that to us again. Trust me okay?"

Kel nodded and wiped her face again, "Okay…"

"Have Nick stay with you tonight…" AJ said gently. "I’ll call you guys when I get to Kevin’s and check in with you."

"Okay…"

"I know I keep saying it, but I love you… I’ll call you later tonight. Go do something fun with Nick, and love on the puppies for me."

"I will…"

"Okay… Later gator…"

"Later…" Kel whispered and hung up the phone before her tears finally began to flow steadily. After a few minutes she wiped her face again and forced a smile, "Welcome to the roller coaster I call my life…"

Nick frowned and shook his head, "Kel…"

"It’s okay…" she said, still forcing herself to smile. "I’m almost used to it you know? He freaks out, I fix it, he goes on, and I cry… But he said… just now he promised that things were… things, they’d get better you know?" She nodded and then dissolved into tears again hunching over covering her face with her hands.

"Come here…" Nick sighed and scooted close to her and wrapped his arms around her body holding her close as she trembled. "Let it out, baby…"

"I’m so scared…" she said as she clung to him. "Every time he does this… I get so scared that he’s not going to make it this time around. And I don’t want to see that… God, I don’t want him to…" her voice gave out before she could finish the sentence and she made no attempt to go any further.

Nick nodded as he smoothed Kel’s hair with his hand, "I know… None of us do… It’ll be okay…" He’d said it on auto-pilot without even realizing he was saying it. They both knew that it was more of a wish than a statement though, and it suited them just fine right then. Nick held Kel closer and kissed the top of her head with a sigh, "He’ll be okay…"

~~~~~

Kel woke up from a rather disturbing dream with a jump and sat up straight with her hand over her heart. Looking around the living room she tried catching her breath while forcing the images of her dream out of her mind. "Nicky?" she called out, the tremble in her voice much more noticeable than she hoped.

"Right here…" Nick said as he walked into the living room holding two mugs of fresh coffee and sat them down on the coffee table. "You okay?"

Kel nodded and looked around the room noticing light coming into the room through the window, "Tell me that’s not the sun…"

"It is…" Nick said carefully and reached for the coffee mugs. "I figured you’d need this when you woke up."

She took the mug and held it in her lap, the heat from the coffee burning her hands through the glass, "What time is it?"

"Almost five…"

"Jesus Nick…" she sighed and put the mug back on the table. "Why did you let me sleep?"

"Because you needed it…"

She shook her head and ran her fingers through her hair noticing that her hands were trembling as much as her voice was. "I take it you haven’t heard anything…"

"No…" he said softly and shook his head. "Nothing."

"It’s been almost twelve hours since he called… It’s two o’clock there…"

"Yeah… You know Kel, maybe he just forgot. Why don’t we get some rest, and then call later?"

She shook her head and picked up the phone beginning to dial, "No, I’m calling now."

Nick took a sip of his coffee out of the need to do something with his hands, and then put the mug down as he watched Kel stand up and pace around the living room with the phone held to her ear. When the phone was answered she stopped in her tracks and held her hand over her heart again as she looked at the floor, "Kevin?"

"Yeah… who is this?" Kevin replied groggily. Kel knew right away she’d woken him.

"It’s Kellie…"

"Oh hey Kel, what’s wrong? Are you guys okay?"

"Um…" she fumbled over her words not actually wanting to ask them, and tears once again filled her eyes. "Kevin…"

"Honey, what’s wrong?" Kevin asked, now fully awake and full of concern.

"Is… Did you…"

"Kellie?" Kevin sighed. "Is it AJ?"

When Kel looked up from the floor she found that Nick was next to her and he took the phone as her eyes flashed with fright and she looked like she was going to fall over. "Kevin, it’s Nick…" he said into the phone as he wrapped his arm around Kel to support her.

"What’s going on Nick? I didn’t think you and Kel were even speaking, and now you’re calling me in the middle of the night… Oh man, did AJ…"

"Kev, have you heard from AJ at all? Like last night, did he call you guys to have dinner?"

"No… I didn’t even know he was in California. He’s here?"

"Yeah…" Nick said and looked at Kel. He directed her to the couch where she sat and he stood next to the couch holding her hand. "He told Kel that he was going to go to an AA meeting last night then call you and Kristen to have dinner."

"We were here all night, Nick," Kevin said with a sigh. "We didn’t hear a thing… Do you think he…"

"I don’t know…" Nick said cutting Kevin off. "He was supposed to call us when he hooked up with you guys, but he never called."

"Have you tried calling him?"

"About thirty times…" Nick said as he tried to stop his brain from thinking so negatively. He looked at Kel who was basically sitting there holding his hand and staring straight ahead, her worst fears seemingly coming true right before her face.

"Jesus… okay, what do you want me to do?"

Nick ran his fingers through his hair and sat down with Kel, "I don’t know… Can you go over to the hotel maybe? He’s at the same one we always stay at when we’re in town. See if they’ve seen him around. It’s not like we can call there and start asking a bunch of questions, but if you’re there in person… flash your name around a bit and see what you can find out."

"Okay…" Kevin said, and Nick could tell that Kevin was already up and moving around the room. He could faintly hear Kristen, Kevin’s wife, awake in the background asking questions. "I’ll go over there and see what I can find out. How is Kel doing? I mean, do we have any reason to think that we should be worried?"

Nick squeezed Kel’s hand and she kept staring straight ahead. "She’s… hanging in there. And yeah, I think we do…"

"Okay…" Kevin said again. "Where are you guys? Where should I call when I get to the hotel and find anything out?"

"We’re at Kel’s… Just call here or either of our cell phones."

"Alright… I’ll call you as soon as I can."

"Thanks Kevin… Be careful."

"I will… you just take care of Kellie…"

"I will…" Nick said softly and then hung up the phone. He looked at Kel and bit his lip before taking a deep breath, "Kevin is going to go over to the hotel and see what he can find out." When she didn’t respond at all Nick touched her back, "He’s going to call us back once he gets there and finds out anything at all."

Slowly Kel nodded and then turned to look at Nick, "I’ve never had to do this with someone else…"

"Do what?" Nick asked in confusion.

"Sit and wait for the call… I’m usually by myself. I’ve never…" she shook her head and bit her bottom lip. "I’ve never had anyone take care of me while I was waiting to take care of him."

"I’m not going anywhere…" Nick told her softly. "He’ll call… maybe he went to the meeting tonight and just decided to go back to the hotel and sleep. He probably turned the hotel phone off and then just forgot to put the ringer on his cell phone on after the meeting…"

"Yeah…" she said without a hint of emotion in her voice and shook her head. "Or maybe he finally fell off of the wagon like I’ve been worried about for the past year and a half, and neither of us are going to be able to save him this time."

"Kel…"

"Nick, let’s just not play the pretending game anymore okay? He was having a bad day… I could hear it in his voice. Hell, for all I know he’d already been drinking when I spoke to him. He has never told me that he was going to call me without actually doing it since he went through rehab. Never… If I tell myself that he’s okay, it’s just going to hurt more when I find out that he’s not okay."

"Okay…" Nick said with a nod. "But I’m not going to give up hoping that he’s okay. I know that it’s very possible that he’s gotten himself into trouble… but I also have to believe that he’s going to be okay. If for anything, I have to believe it for you…"

Kel closed her eyes and dropped her head to her hands with a sigh. "You’re my best friend Nicky…" She paused and Nick noticed her tremble slightly, "Thank you… for being here with me. For not making me do this alone…"

Day 9...

"I think that if I start crying again I’m going to throw something…"

"At least give me a warning so I can duck my head then…" Nick said with a smile as he picked up a bag and began carrying it toward his truck.

"Okay…" she said with a slight smile before turning back to the task at hand. She was packing, or rather, finishing packing. She and Nick had been at it for a while and she was surprised to see how quickly they were able to pack her things and how little she really needed to take with her on this trip. After zipping her last suitcase she lugged it to the living room and looked around the room with a sigh.

Nick walked back into the house and threw his arm casually around her shoulder trying to keep things light, "Throw anything yet?" Kel shook her head and bit her bottom lip not trusting herself to say anything and still not wanting to cry again. The past 24 hours or so had been one hell of a roller coaster for her and although she was ready for the whole thing to come to an end, every time she stopped to think about what had happened, she began to cry all over again. Nick, meanwhile, did what he could to support his best friend in the ups and down of the day, and as often as possible tried to make her smile in between her crying jags. He knew as well as she did that in time the pain and confusion would all go away, but at this time his job wasn’t to "make it better" but rather to just be there. He kissed her temple and smiled gently, "Is that the last one?" Kel nodded her answer and he nodded as well. "I’ll take it out…" he told her. She grabbed his hand before he could get too far and shook her head as again she began to cry. Looking down at her he sighed and pulled her into a tight hug. His hugs were his only tool that seemed to work every time for her, and if he had to stop in the middle of doing something, anything, to help her, then that’s what he did. "You’re going to get through this you know…" he said softly. "I know it feels kind of hopeless right now, but you’re the strongest person I know and you will get through this."

"I don’t think I can…" she told him, her voice as weak as she felt. "How am I going to do this?"

"With me by your side…" he told her confidently. "I’m going to be here the whole time. No way are you going through this alone again…"

Kel pulled back from the hug and ran her hands over her face and through her hair with a frustrated sigh, "I didn’t get to throw anything…"

Nick chuckled and looked around the living room then picked up a book, "Will this do?"

She let out a chuckle and sniffed back the tears that were in her eyes, "I don’t want to throw it…"

"Yeah… I suppose we could save the throwing things stage until later…" Nick said with a smile. He put the book down and then used his thumbs to wipe her cheeks of tears before kissing her forehead. "We should go… It’s getting late."

Kel nodded and looked around the living room, "I think I packed everything that I need… Anything I’ve forgotten I can always buy right?"

"Yeah… Did you call Kevin?"

She nodded and rubbed her face again, the skin felt clammy from all of the crying she’d been doing. "Yeah. I called and told him that we’d be leaving soon. We’re supposed to call his cell phone once we get there…"

"Good…" Nick said with a nod and grabbed her hand squeezing it while he pulled on the handle of her suitcase with his other hand. "Come on, let’s get out of here."

They walked together to the front door and both took deep breaths as they stepped through the threshold. The journey ahead of them promising to be one that they’d both never forget, and that they’d only get through with the support of each other.

~~~~

"You know what is weird?" Nick said as Kel climbed onto the bed with him after putting her pajamas on.

"Hmm?"

"It’s only been nine days since we’ve been talking again…"

Kel smiled and shook her head, "That is weird. It almost doesn’t feel like we ever spent time apart."

"But it also feels like the last nine days have been a lifetime…"

Kel laid down and looked at Nick, "Have I said thank you lately?"

"About seventy times in the last two hours, yeah…" he said with a giggle.

She smiled and nodded, "Just checking…"

"You ready for tomorrow?"

Falling quiet for a minute she then let out a sigh and shrugged, "Part of me is. Part of me isn’t. I think I’m scared more than anything…"

Nick nodded and watched her closely, "Scared of what exactly?"

"Losing him for good… Making the wrong decision… Not being strong enough to do what I need to do to make this better for all of us."

"What can I do to make you not as scared?"

She smiled reaching out to hold his hand, "Just keep being you. My wonderful Nicky."

"How about you call me, Wonder Boy?" Nick teased making them both laugh.

"Wonder Boy? Will that make you happy?"

"Sure…" he said with a shrug and a big grin.

"Okay, Wonder Boy…" she smiled. "Just keep being wonderful…"

"I think I can do that… What else?"

"Don’t let me drop my guard."

"Done. Anything else?"

Moving closer to him she put her head on his shoulder and cuddled up to him, "Lots of cuddling…"

He smiled and kissed the top of her head as he wrapped his arm around her and got comfortable, "No problem…"

"Thank you, Nicky…" she told him quietly after they’d cuddled for a while.

"You’re welcome…" he said with a squeeze. "Now try and get some sleep… tomorrow is going to be a long day."

"The tenth day…" she said with a wry chuckle. "Who would have thought when I ran into you at the grocery store that so much would happen in such a short amount of time? Everything has changed, my whole world…"

"Everything but one thing…" he said and kissed her head again. "I’m still here…"

Day 10...

Kel sat on the couch looking through the picture windows out at the ocean. Her fingers lazily running over the fur of her dogs, Fred and Ginger, as they snoozed in her lap and at her side. The sun was close to setting and she knew that by the time it settled below the horizon, he would have read her letter. He would know that she wasn’t there in the house to greet him that night, and that she wouldn’t be.

She’d played the scene over in her head so many times that day that it felt as if she’d actually lived through it. Howie would pick AJ up from the airport, never mentioning that he was in on the whole calculated plan. They’d drive to the house and lug all of AJ’s bags into the foyer, and before long AJ would notice that the dogs weren’t there to greet him, nor was Kel.

When AJ finally found the letter and read it, Howie would be there for support, and any needed damage control. He’d be there to tell AJ that he wouldn’t be able to find Kel for a while, and not to try. He’d then call Kel and Nick at the house in the Keys to let them know how it all went.

Tipping her head back on the couch she sighed and closed her eyes imagining AJ’s face as he read the letter. The confusion, the hurt, the possible anger… The last thing she wanted to do was hurt him or send him down some road that she knew he didn’t need to be on. But time and time again that day she reminded herself that she was doing the right thing. And when she doubted herself, Nick stepped in and told her she was doing the right thing.

Random lines of her letter drifted in and out of her mind. I love you, but somewhere along the road of your recovery I’ve lost myself. I can’t be what you need me to be unless I know who I am. It seems that the only thing I know how to do anymore is love you, but it’s not enough AJ… I need to love myself too. She knew that if AJ read the letter with a clear mind and without anger that he’d understand. She also knew he had a temper, and if he was angry at all when he read the letter, it would take him much longer to understand just what she’d said to him. I will always love you, you’re forever in my heart. Please understand that this is what I need to do. Please don’t hate me.

"Hey…" Nick said softly as he joined Kel on the couch and smiled.

"Hey…"

He held up his phone and nodded, "Just talked to Howie…" All she could do was nod and keep running her fingers through the soft fur of her dogs as she waited for Nick to go on. "He’s going to stay with AJ tonight at the house, just because. He read the letter, and Howie thinks that he took it pretty well… He didn’t freak out or anything, just sat there on the couch and read it."

"Did he say anything?" Kel asked in a whisper, her chin trembling as she spoke.

"Howie said he was real quiet as he read the letter and then he just sat there for a long time, didn’t say anything. But after a while he got up, got a Coke out of the fridge and started talking to Howie about how he should have seen this coming."

Kel closed her eyes, more lines of the letter whizzing through her head. I probably needed to do this a long time ago, but I put you before me. I needed to know you were okay before I could be okay.

"AJ wanted to know if you were okay, and Howie said that you were with me. I guess AJ was happy to hear you were with me because he knew I’d take care of you." Nick moved closer to Kel and brushed away a tear that had fallen slowly down her cheek. "He agreed not to try and get in touch with you until you were ready…"

Yesterday fucked me up, AJ. I haven’t been that scared for you, or for us since you went into rehab.

"He did ask Howie to get a message to you though. I wrote it down word for word so that when you’re ready, you can read it."

"I can’t read it…" she said quietly shaking her head. She took a shaky breath and bit her bottom lip, "You do it…"

"It can wait if you’re…"

"No…"

"Okay…" he said with a nod and pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. He glanced at her before looking down at the paper and his square print in blue ink on it. "He wants you to know that um… ‘I love you and as much as it hurts to know you’re not here, I understand. And I’ll be waiting for you.’"

If you wait for me, I think maybe we can still make something beautiful out of this.

Nick pulled her into a hug that they shared for quite a while as she continued to shed tears cathartically. When her sobs subsided, he tucked her hair behind her ears and gave her a smile as she looked at him with wet eyes. "How you doing?"

"I think…" She sniffed and took a deep cleansing breath, "…that I’m… that we’re finally going to be okay."

The End

Read the follow up Ficlet to this story: Something That I Already Know.