Nick strolled up and down the aisle of the grocery store, meticulously checking off things from the list that Brian had given him before he’d left the house. 

Long ago he had developed an excuse, reasoning, for all of the abuse he took from his friends. It was a fairly reasonable explanation in his mind: he hadn’t had a job in a very long time. Even though they were making good money with their scam business, everyone held down part time jobs. It was less conspicuous that way and really you couldn’t be conning people all of the time or you’d draw attention to yourself. It was a seasonal gig, a six months out of the year type deal. Howie, AJ and Brian didn’t want to be sitting on their butts for six months doing nothing so they had jobs to do in the meantime. Part time jobs, or full time jobs, weren’t for Nick. He simply wasn’t good at them. He had his three friends and those were really the only people who he got along with and that understood him so he frequently argued with other employees and managers at what jobs he had managed to get. After a string of getting fired and quitting numerous jobs Nick had decided it was enough and for the time they weren’t scamming people he sat on his butt every day and did nothing. He watched soap operas, he watched talk shows, and just sat. 

It annoyed Brian to no end that Nick did nothing. The house that they all lived in belonged to Brian. His mother had died when he was a teenager and she had left him the house, so they didn’t pay very much rent. They did pay rent though, and Nick missed his payments a lot. He was sure that if Brian ever gave him a bill for all of the times he missed rent, or utilities, it would be at least a year’s worth of salary for a regular person. 

Because of that, the housework was left up to Nick including the grocery shopping. He didn’t completely agree with it, and wished that every now and then when AJ used the last piece of bread, he would just go buy another one on his way home from work. Instead they would ignore it and let Brian flip out, or just add it to the list of things posted on the fridge for Nick to get from the store. 

He threw four loaves of bread into the basket (they went through bread faster than the homeless guy outside the Publix went through booze) and continued down into the cookie aisle. Nick stopped in front of the cookies, looking over them. None of them were really big cookie eaters, but if he remembered anything from his past girlfriends it was that girls were. Comfort food they called it, he preferred to think of it as ass padding. None the less, he thought to himself that maybe Elena would like some. He knew that buying her something from the grocery store was probably completely wrong, and against some sort of kidnapper code of conduct, but he felt bad for her. He’d hated the idea from the beginning, and still hated it now. If she was right and her dad wasn’t going to pay then she was going to be with them for a while, so why not make her comfortable?

“Brian doesn’t have to know,” he said to himself as he threw some Oreos into the basket. 

He continued to shop, picking up a few more things before heading home to unpack it all. As he pulled into the driveway he realized that both Howie and Brian had gone out but there was another car by the garage, one that made him cringe. There wasn’t a person on Earth that Nick hated as much as Carrie Martinez. She and Nick were the same age and back in middle school she and her friends would torment him to no end for every reason imaginable. Now though, she had somehow managed to use her feminine wiles to blind AJ and convince him to date her. 

Date, he scoffed internally, they didn’t date. They stayed in and had sex while she got high, which was their routine. 

Nick picked up some of the groceries from the trunk of his car and brought them inside, listening for a moment to see if he knew how much time he had before Carrie would be downstairs. He didn’t hear any noise so he put down the bags and leaned further out the kitchen door into the hallway. 

Nick jumped as he suddenly felt a hand snake around his hip and reach down, squeezing his crotch. He yelled and spun around, surprised to see Carrie standing there in nothing but her underwear. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” he snapped and she giggled lightly. 

“I was wondering what it would take to break your concentration,” she shrugged. 

Nick growled, “Don’t ever touch me,”

“Awe, do you still think girls are icky?” Carrie asked condescendingly. 

Nick glared at her and shook his head, “No, just you.”

Carrie chuckled to herself then sat down on the kitchen table, eyeing him. Nick tried to look away but regardless of how much he loathed her, she was still a woman in her underwear and he was still male. Carrie grinned evilly and slowly opened her legs, watching Nick’s eyes graze downward.

“Gotcha,” she laughed, snapping her legs closed.

“Fuck you,” Nick defensively crossed his arms over his chest, “That’s not even funny.”

She continued to smile, looking Nick over, “You know what I think is funny? I’m the only person you can stand up to.”

“What are you talking about?” 

“Admit it, you can’t say ‘boo’ to Brian, and the other two use you like their personal man servant. So out of everyone in this house, it’s me who you can actually talk back to,”

Nick rolled his eyes, “And I suppose you’re going to tell me why you think that is.”

“Of course,” she grinned, “You don’t want Brian mad at you because that might ruin the fantasy that someday he’ll realize that he’s gay too, and want to give you the cock you’ve been craving all this time.”

“Get out!” Nick roared at her, having to resist the urge to pick her up and toss her out the door. He angrily left the kitchen and stalked down the hallway towards his room, forgetting that he wasn’t currently occupying the space. 

“You don’t scare me,” Carrie shrugged then got off the table and followed him. When they reached Nick’s room she raised her eyebrows curiously, “Why is your bedroom locked from the outside?”

“I uh, I, got, uh, a dog! Yeah, I got a dog and it is mean, really mean,” he said. His bedroom was off to the side, just off the living room on the main floor so unless you went to it you wouldn’t have to walk past it. AJ must have anticipated that Carrie would be nowhere near Nick’s room because if she had been it would mean that one of them was dead. 

Carrie eyed him suspiciously, “Let me see it.”

“No,” Nick told her, keeping his eyes on the door in hopes that Elena wouldn’t make a sound. 

“Let me see it,” she repeated more sternly, knowing that Nick could only take so much before he would crack. 

“The dog is ugly anyway,” AJ’s voice interrupted and Nick let out a sigh of relief. 

“Oh, I didn’t hear you come down,” Carrie said, slinking over to him. 

“Let’s leave Nick alone so he can unpack his groceries,” AJ told her, pulling his girlfriend away from the area completely. 

Nick leaned his head against the wall, glad that he didn’t have to try to talk his way out of the situation. He wondered for a few moments if Carrie was the only one who thought he couldn’t stand up to Brian because he was gay. He would hate it if his friends thought that too because he wasn’t, but saying “boo” as Carrie put it just gave him too much stress and nervousness. He avoided confrontation all together. Which is why when they were doing their scams, Nick was never out in the field. The other guys would go door to door, they would call people, they were real con artists but Nick, with his inability to talk anyone into anything was the numbers guy. He crunched the numbers, told them what needed to be made, made sure they had convincing materials to get people to believe them, and he did it all without having to interact with anyone. He liked things better that way.

He finished unpacking the groceries and put the things he’d gotten for Elena off to the side. He was worried about giving them to her but knew that it was no time like the present. With Howie and Brian out of the house there would be no one to interrupt or tell him he shouldn’t have gotten her anything. 

Nick stared at the few small times before mustering the courage to bring them in to her. He unlocked the door then put on his ski mask before knocking lightly. Without waiting for a response he walked into the dark room, wondering what she was doing. 

The light from outside shone on the mattress and Nick realized he couldn’t see her anywhere. 

“Hello?” he asked curiously, stepping into the room. Out of nowhere movement caught the corner of his eye and he turned just in time to catch Elena’s arm before she hit him in the head with the coffee mug from earlier. He held onto her wrist tightly until she dropped it and it broke into two pieces as it hit the floor, “Did you honestly think you were going to knock me out with a mug?” he asked. 

“Well, yeah,” she replied, moving away from the door. 

Nick was about to give her the things he’d got at the store when he realized it had been all day since he’d brought her coffee, “Do you need to, you know, go?”

“I need to go home!” Elena sighed, “And yes, I need to go.”

Nick nodded then reached just outside the door for one of the blindfolds that Howie had pinned up on the wall (he was always prepared). He put it securely over Elena’s eyes then led her to the room just next door, otherwise known as “Nick’s bathroom” which consisted of a toilet, a sink and a little shelf for him to put things like his toothbrush on. 

“The door doesn’t lock,” Nick informed her, “so don’t bother trying. I’ll close the door but don’t take too long. Tell me when you’re done.”

She had been in there for a while before Nick decided to knock on the door. 

“Is everything alright?” he asked and he heard her say no, “What’s wrong?” 

“This is so embarrassing,” Elena muttered, “But uh, I sort of started my period.”

Nick winced at the sound of the word and its implications and wondered what the problem was, “So?”

“Well I don’t exactly have anything with me,” she said and a light went on above Nick’s head. 

“Oh,” he nodded and thought for a moment, “I’ll uh... I’ll see what I can do.”

Nick closed the door again, thinking to himself that he didn’t want to go back out to the store, especially not for tampons or whatever it was that she wanted. Nick secretly wanted to kill Brian for getting them into this. No, getting him into this. The rest of them didn’t have to deal with her being a smart ass, or trying to hit them with mugs, or making them go get her feminine hygiene products. 

Nick checked the door quickly then moved down the hall, all the while keeping his eye in that direction. He didn’t need her to realize he wasn’t standing next to the door anymore and try to bolt. Once he got to the front hall he spied Carrie’s purse sitting by the stairs. He did a quick check to see if anyone was around then picked it up, looking inside. 

“Bingo,” he grinned, pulling out a little clear makeup kit that had some tampons inside. He heard a noise from upstairs so rather than take them out he just took the whole kit and brought it back to the bathroom where Elena hadn’t tried to escape, “Can I open the door?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Elena said, feeling like this would put her at a disadvantage in her manipulation but after all, she did get him to do something for her. She had thought about making a run for it, but she didn’t know what was outside of the room and whether the guy had a gun.

Nick opened the door and tossed the bag inside. He heard quiet for a few moments before Elena finally whispered through the door, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he told her, leaning his head back against the doorframe.