March 04, 2002 Tampa Florida
Nick hadn’t been wrong when he’d guessed that he would walk away unscathed from his court battle. The judge actually agreed with Nick’s defence lawyer that the officer had clearly been biased when he decided to arrest a pop star and no one else that night. The judge told the court room that anyone else probably would have been cuffed and released, but definitely not charged. Unfortunately, he was still required to follow the letter of the law though and after a stern warning about his behaviour Nick was given a $1400 fine and would have to spend 100 hours doing work in the community. To Nick that was essentially a slap on the wrist; he had the fine paid before he’d even left the courthouse and once he found out he could claim charity work as his community service he knew he had it in the bag.
The fallout from the paparazzi photos had turned out to be more dramatic than the arrest. The photographer had been quiet for the first few days after the night at the club but a few weeks later Tina’s picture had turned up in a few magazines. He’d sold the photos and also the story that Nick was abusive. One magazine had gone so far as to include quotes, as if Tina had spoken to them, saying the words she’d said to Wes and Nick that night. Pictures of her defensively holding her left hand up in front of her face were used as evidence that not only was she hiding bruises but proof that they were engaged. The large diamond adorning her ring finger grabbed the light of the flash, creating a reflection of light.
The fans had immediately come to their idol’s defence, finding it impossible to believe that he could hurt anyone. Both Nick and Tina had found their steadfast loyalty to be somewhat amusing since; after all, they didn’t really know him. These girls didn’t know that Nick was a self proclaimed asshole, that he had a temper, and there had been enough serious fights between him and Tina that he could have hit her. He never had, but he could have and how would they know? He could be a wife beater and they would be none the wiser, but they still defended the image they knew of him. He was definitely thankful for it, but found the discussions on some of the message boards to be ridiculous in the way they claimed to know him so intimately. They thought they knew him better than Tina, and it simply was not the case.
While Nick’s publicist and management had pushed for him and Tina to appear on television, and in magazines, defending themselves against those people who chose to believe their bad press they both pushed in the opposite direction. Tina didn’t want any more exposure and Nick just wanted to forget the whole thing had ever happened. As long as they didn’t keep talking about it people would eventually forget, and those that did remember he didn’t want to associate himself with anyway.
Once things had started to die down they had both made an agreement that it would never be a topic of discussion ever again. Nick would do his community service and they would move on. Neither one of them wanted to focus on the negative when they were just starting to get some positivity out of their whole relationship. So Nick started plucking away at some music and Tina started planning the wedding of the year and for the most part, they were content.
“Where’s Zoey?” Nick teased in a high pitched giggling voice. A gasp was followed by squeals of baby laughter and splashes of water.
He held up a wash cloth between the two of them, her in the bathtub and him sitting on the bathroom floor, seeing her expression suddenly change from happy to shocked just over the top of the cloth, “Where did she go?” he baby talked, not knowing why he always felt compelled to pitch his voice up an octave in order to talk to her although Zoey seemed to love it.
He dropped the cloth, laughing at the joy that suddenly spread across her face once she saw her father, “There she is!”
Nick truly felt that Zoey had the best laugh he’d ever heard. His mother had told him that she laughed exactly like Nick when he was a baby, which had turned into his signature giggle. Nick told people that she sounded a bit like a mad scientist who had just discovered something especially evil.
Parker and Zoey couldn’t be more different as far as development went. For his entire three years Parker had always be ahead of the curve, he developed quickly, was walking and talking before he was even a year old and at three could talk anyone’s ear off in complete sentences. Zoey on the other hand was taking her time. At seven months Parker had been crawling, standing, and starting the processing of learning to walk. Zoey was sitting up but still struggling to roll over and couldn’t quite figure out how to push up into a crawling position. They had been assured though, by the paediatrician that it would come with time.
Nick had missed a lot of Parker’s milestones and had found solace in being able to experience them for the first time with Zoey. So every chance he got to give her a bath or play with her on the floor he took it because he wanted to remember every little thing she did as a baby.
One of Zoey’s new obsessions was water. She wanted it wherever she could get it and she wanted it in her mouth. She had just started drinking water and acted as if it were the greatest thing she’d ever tasted – even though it was flavourless. Unfortunately for Nick it also meant he was constantly keeping her from scooping water from the tub straight into her mouth.
“No, no,” he chided her, pushing her chubby little hand away from her lips, “That’s dirty,” he told her but as soon as her hand was free she was right back at it.
Nick glanced around the immediate area for her pacifier, knowing that there had been one in her mouth when they’d come into the bathroom. He checked under towels and in the bathtub while Zoey continued to splash and play by herself.
“Where’s your binky?” he questioned rhetorically. He stood up and with an eye constantly checking back on Zoey in the tub he started looking around the bathroom. He knew there was usually extras stowed in random places - it was important to have emergency binkies handy – so he started popping open cupboards. Throwing open the medicine cabinet he rummaged around bottles of baby cough syrup, and children’s Tylenol, finally finding a soother on the shelf next to an orange pill bottle.
“Have you drunk all the water in the tub yet?” he asked Zoey, turning back to the tub. Her first was firmly in her mouth and he quickly replaced her fingers with the pacifier, watching her suck it happily. With a smile Nick kissed the top of her head which was covered with soft wisps of freshly washed blonde hair.
He turned back around to close the medicine cabinet and the orange bottle seemed to be calling out to him. It looked terribly out of place on the shelf and he pulled it out, closing the mirrored door at the same time. He rolled the bottle around in his hand looking for a label of some kind but there was none. It was about three quarters of the way full of pills and he popped the top off, pouring a couple out into his hand. They were small, white, and round with no significant markings except for “CIBA” written on one side, and the number “3” written on the other. He’d been in entertainment long enough to know that pill bottles with no labels usually contained the types of pills that weren’t very legal and it worried him.
“Nick?” he heard Tina call out from the other room and he quickly returned the pills to the bottle.
“Yeah?” he replied, sticking the bottle into the pocket of his baggy jeans.
“Is Zoey in her jammies yet? The movie is about to start!” she announced and he looked down to Zoey who was starting to look a little tired, and very wrinkly sitting in the tub with her toys.
He grabbed a towel and got her out of the water, heading into her bedroom to get her into a new diaper and a fresh pair of pyjamas.
“Just putting her down now,” he answered, knowing that he would have to spend a little time on the computer later on to hopefully find a logical, reasonable, answer to the questions that were burning a hole in his pocket.
