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Cary


Back to reality...

It was weird how, in the course of three months, the reality of my life had totally changed. When I got kicked off American Idol, “back to reality” meant back to being a single girl living alone with her pet pig in a small city in Illinois and working in an old folks’ home. Then, out of the blue, Nick Carter called, and “back to reality” became “back on the tour bus for back-to-back shows.”

After our show in Michigan on Friday, we had a weekend off. The whole weekend. It was the first and only free weekend of the tour, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. Because that was when reality really sank in.

I looked around at my current “reality” - a lavish hotel room, with floor to ceiling windows, a private balcony, a marble bathroom, and sleek furniture made of dark-stained wood. I felt like the coffee table in front of me should have been covered with a spread of fancy hors d’oeuvres brought up by room service, to complete the picture. Instead, it held supplies more suited to my other life - a box of latex gloves, a bottle of antiseptic, bags of pre-measured and mixed medications, a sharps container, and various syringes and needles. Nick lay on the colossal king-size bed, waiting for me to torture him with them.

In a way, it was lucky that our rare two days off in a row happened to coincide with the start of his fifth cycle of chemo. It also sucked, because it meant that instead of getting out and enjoying our weekend in Kansas City like the rest of the guys, Nick was going to spend it cooped up in this hotel room, feeling miserable. And I was going to spend it warding off the guys and making excuses for him. No matter what I said, they were only going to believe one of two things: one, that Nick was actually sick... again... or two, that he and I were in the middle of some wild, two-day sex marathon.

It was bad enough they had stopped booking me my own room at the hotels we stayed in. Since everyone assumed Nick and I were a package deal now, we got to share. Sometimes there were two beds, so it wasn’t a big deal, no different than sharing his tour bus. But in other rooms, like this one, there was only one big bed. I resigned myself to spending another night curled up on the loveseat.

“Man, there’s nothin’ on TV,” Nick griped, flipping channels from the bed. He stopped on an episode of Cops, which, around my house, was a sure sign there really was nothing else on.

“Maybe we could watch a movie or something later,” I suggested, as I double-checked the labels on everything and cross-referenced the doctor’s orders, making sure I had the right drugs and dosages for that night’s chemo infusion. It was identical to the one I’d given him on the bus that morning, which had been enough to sap him of all the strength and energy he’d built back up over the past week. His chemo regimen was cruel that way; it gave him just enough time off between courses to start feeling almost normal before it sucked the life out of him again.

“Yeah, sounds good,” he replied listlessly, like nothing about lying in this hotel room watching TV all night sounded good. I couldn’t blame him. He had lain around on the bus all day, as we finished the long drive into Missouri, and tomorrow would be even worse. It was hard to see him so down and depressed, especially after how lively he’d been the last few days.

“How about a comedy?” I added. “We could both use a laugh. Something to distract us.”

He managed a crooked smile that didn’t make it to his eyes. “Yeah... for sure.”

But instead, an unwanted distraction came knocking at the door.

When we heard the knock, we both stiffened and looked at each other in panic. My eyes darted from Nick - shirtless, the portacath visible beneath his collarbone - down to the coffee table in front of me, set up like a surgical tray.

“Pretend we’re not here,” muttered Nick, just loud enough for me to hear.

But the knocking continued, and after a few seconds, we heard AJ’s gruff voice saying, “It’s me, dude, open up. C’mon, Carter, I know you’re in there...”

“You can’t just ignore him,” I whispered. “Put your shirt on, and let’s drag this into the bathroom.”

Nick nodded, and together, we lifted the coffee table full of medical equipment and carried it into the bathroom. “He better not ask to take a shit while he’s here,” Nick grumbled.

I laughed. “Why would he do that?”

“Cause he’s a douche.”

“Well, then I’ll do this.” I walked over to the shower and turned it on. “Tell him I’m in the shower. I’ll lock the door.”

“You’re amazing,” Nick told me, then hurried to put on his shirt before he answered the door.

I thought AJ would have given up in the time it had taken us to hide everything, but no, he was still pounding away, persistent as ever. I guess he really did know we were in there. I wondered what excuse Nick would give for taking so long to let him in, so after I’d shut and locked the bathroom door, I stood just inside it, trying to listen over the sound of the shower.

“Sorry, dude, I was naked,” I heard Nick apologize as he opened the door. It was a good thing I wasn’t eating anything; as it was, I nearly choked on my own spit.

“Naked time... me likey,” replied AJ with a cackle, his voice growing louder as he came into the room. “So where’s Cary?”

Perv, I thought, smirking behind the bathroom door.

“In the shower,” said Nick.

“And you didn’t join her? What happened to naked time?”

“Well, I was gonna, but you wouldn’t quit knocking, dumbass.”

“Oh - heh, sorry, man. I was just hoping you’d come out with me tonight. I’m goin’ crazy here without Rochelle.”

You couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for AJ. Brian and Howie had both had their families with them the entire tour, and Nick at least had me for company - not that I was the sort of company everyone else seemed to think I was. AJ had no one. Rochelle was still stuck in California, working and taking classes, and wouldn’t be able to join the tour until the last few shows on the west coast, so he was the odd man out.

“Sorry, dude... not tonight,” Nick replied.

“Why not?” AJ demanded. I cringed at the way his voice rose sharply. This wasn’t going to be pretty. He must have been tired of getting blown off by Nick, and he wanted answers.

All Nick had to offer were excuses. “I just don’t feel like it tonight. Maybe another time.”

Maybe?” AJ repeated. “Why just ‘maybe’? What is with you, dude? You’ve been acting lame this whole tour. I mean, we hung out all the time overseas, even when Lauren was with you... I don’t see what’s so different now. Cary’s welcome to come out with us, if that’s what this is about.”

I felt my stomach clench when I heard my name. This wasn’t heading in a direction I liked, and I thought desperately, Please, Nick, just tell him the truth. Right here, right now. Get it over with.

But, of course, Nick didn’t. “It’s not about Cary. I just haven’t been feeling that great today,” was all he said. He was a master of the half-truth, of lying without telling an outright lie. Most of what he said to the guys was honest; it just wasn’t the whole truth.

The problem was, the guys weren’t buying the half-truths anymore. “Bullshit,” AJ spat. “Ya know, I can’t blame you for wanting to tap that hot little piece of ass all night, but it fucking sucks that you forgot how to have fun with your old friends. I have always defended you and Cary when Rok starts in with the gold-digger crap, ‘cause hell, you’re a grown-ass man, and she seems like a good girl. But now I’m starting to think he’s right.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Nick challenged, as I was still reeling from what AJ had said about Brian.

“He thinks she’s just another fame whore. I dunno about that, but I do know you’ve gotten progressively lamer ever since you met her. It’s like she’s turned you into a completely different person, like she’s trying to mold you into the man she wants you to be and keep you all to herself.”

That’s bullshit.”

“It’s not, though,” AJ insisted. “You just can’t see it right now cause you’re right in the middle of it; you’ve got blinders up. I hate to bring this up, man, but it’s like when you were dating Paris. Remember how she used to just show up at all our stuff without being invited, like you two were attached at the hip or something? Like on your birthday, when she came to the studio with the whole camera crew and the cake with her own fuckin’ face on it?”

“Fuck you, AJ; don’t even go there.”

“No, I’m goin’ there. My point is this: she had you fucking whipped, dude. She changed you; you were different with her. You dressed different, acted different, did shit you never would have done before, all that red carpet PDA kind of shit. We could all see it happening, and we knew she was bad for you, but you couldn’t see it until it got really bad.”

“Are you seriously comparing Cary to Paris Hilton? Like, seriously?” Nick’s voice rose angrily, and even though I was on the verge of tears, hearing AJ say those things about me, I felt a surge of gratitude towards him.

“I know it’s not the same situation, though I will point out that Paris seemed sweet at first too, before she showed her true colors. All I’m saying is-”

“Fuck you,” Nick interrupted him. “Don’t say one more fucking word. Just stop talking and get the hell out of my room.”

Hidden in the bathroom, I couldn’t tell if AJ left willingly, or if Nick forced him out, but I didn’t hear another word after that, just the sound of the door slamming shut. Then came Nick’s footsteps, stomping heavily across the carpeted floor. I turned off the shower, just as he knocked on the bathroom door.

“You okay in there? You can come out now; he’s gone.” His voice was light and hesitant; I could tell he wasn’t sure how much of his conversation I had been able to hear. I unlocked the door and opened it without a word. As I stared at him, the look on my face must have been enough to tell him I’d heard it all. His features sagged. “You overheard, huh?”

I just nodded. My throat felt swollen shut, like I could barely breathe, let alone speak. I didn’t want to cry in front of him, but I could feel the tears pressing in at the corners of my eyes again. I fought them, staring down at the floor, focusing on breathing slowly, in and out, as I tried to get my emotions in check.

“I’m sorry. You probably hate me now for putting you in the middle of this mess.”

That was an interesting thing to hear him say, because up until that point, it hadn’t even occurred to me to be mad at him. It was true, though; I had him to blame for the guys jumping to all the wrong conclusions about me, about us. If he had just told them the truth about what I was really doing there, they wouldn’t think I was just another gold-digging whore, out to use him for my own benefit. He’d had another opportunity right there and then with AJ, and he still hadn’t come clean. I should have been angry, but I wasn’t. I was just hurt.

“He had no business saying all of that,” Nick went on quickly, to make up for my silence. “He was just talking out of his ass. You’re about the furthest thing from Paris, and if he can’t see that...”

“But it’s not just him,” I finally said, quietly. “Brian apparently thinks so, too. Does Howie? Does everyone?”

His face reddened, and I realized this wasn’t the first time one of them had warned him about me. I didn’t even want to know what kinds of things they were saying behind his back. How could they read so much into our relationship, and yet, read it completely wrong? Maybe they were the ones with blinders on. Maybe they didn’t see what I saw when I looked at Nick, really looked at him closely: that he was thin to the point of looking gaunt, without the muscle tone he’d had in that lovely People photoshoot a year ago; instead of a six-pack, his belly was slightly bloated, this time from the steroids he took with his chemo, rather than too much booze. His ankles would swell from fluid retention, sometimes his fingers, too, and that night, even his face seemed puffy. His summer tan kept his complexion from looking too sickly, but there were bags under his eyes and lines around them that showed the stress his body was under. To the untrained eye, the signs were far less obvious than a bald head... but they were there. The cancer treatments were taking their toll, yet no one else seemed to notice. If they did, they were just as much in denial as Nick was.

That bothered me. Nick had done a good job keeping this a secret, but the guys were practically his family. They knew him better than anyone. Shouldn’t they have started to get suspicious by now? Shouldn’t they have noticed something wasn’t right? That he was acting different? Having mood swings? Seeming tired? Keeping to himself a lot?

Oh, that's right - they had noticed, but they blamed it all on me. I was the one keeping him away from them, changing him to suit my needs. It ticked me off, and I was half-tempted to go hunt AJ down and tell him the truth, so he could set the others straight. But I had made a promise to Nick, and Nick had defended me to AJ (not that it had made much difference), so I knew I wouldn’t. It wasn’t my secret to tell.

“I’m sorry, Cary,” Nick mumbled again. “This is a mess.”

I wanted to say, “I told you so,” but I didn’t. Instead, I just said, “All you have to do to get us out of it is tell them the truth.”

He gave me a look and shook his head. “No. That’ll make an even bigger mess. Do you know how pissed they’re gonna be at me when they find out? I’d rather wait till after the tour, when we can take some time apart.”

“You could stop the tour now,” I pointed out. “You don’t have to keep putting yourself through this.” I looked down at the coffee table we’d hidden in the bathroom, heaped with equipment that belonged in a hospital, not a hotel room.

“I don’t wanna stop the tour. We’re almost done. This is the last cycle I have to do on the road. I’ve made it this far; I just wanna finish this thing out. This leg, at least. After that, we’ll see.”

I’d almost forgotten there was supposed to be a second North American leg of the tour in August. I was just counting down to the Vegas show, the last one on this leg. Thirteen more days, ten shows to go. It still seemed a long way off, especially with five more chemo days to get through as well, not counting this one.

I sighed, knowing by now that it was pointless to keep arguing with him, and said, “Well... I guess we should get this over with, then.”

He helped me drag the coffee table out of the bathroom and over to the bed, which he climbed back on, taking off his shirt again, while I set up the supplies the way I wanted them again and re-washed my hands. I pulled on a pair of medical gloves and prepared his port, swabbing the skin with antiseptic and applying the anesthetic spray to numb it.

“And to think, I coulda been performing at a New Kids on the Block Show tonight,” mused Nick, not even flinching as I inserted the Huber needle.

I almost did flinch, though. “What??”

“We’ve been shopping around for a new record company, right? So we considered signing with Interscope, which is also the New Kids’ label. They had the idea to have us do a joint tour next summer, two boybands for the price of one. They wanted us to appear onstage at their show in Boston tonight as a publicity stunt, to sorta test the waters.”

I stared at him, holding a syringe in midair. He had told me none of this before. “Are you gonna do it? The tour?”

He shook his head. “Howie and AJ wanted to, and I think Brian would have gone along with it if the rest of us were on board, but I said no. I said joint tours are only for groups who can’t sell solo tours anymore, and we’re not that washed-up and ancient yet.”

But I could tell by the way he said it that that wasn’t the only reason. “Would you have done it if you weren’t sick?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. If the rest of the guys wanted to, I wouldn’t have been the one to stop them. But I don’t think it’s smart to plan that far ahead right now. Who knows where I’ll be next summer?”

That was smart of him to say, but it made me sad. It was true... the future was not certain for any of us, but especially not for him. For once, though, I decided to be the stubbornly optimistic one. “You’ll be making music,” I said, with a confidence I didn’t feel. “It’ll just be new BSB music, instead of, like, ‘Hangin’ Tough.’” I giggled, and he snickered.

“Yeah,” he said, with a crooked grin, “either that, or I’ll be hangin’ tough on some cloud, playing ‘Hangin’ Tough’ on a harp...”

Even though I knew he was joking, the smile fell off my face. I feigned a look of deep concentration as I bent over him to inject the Zofran into his port. Then I thought of a reply, and as I pulled the syringe carefully back out, I said, “Or maybe a little Bryan Adams. You know... ‘Heaven.’”

He laughed out loud. “Good one.”

“Thanks.” I managed a quick smile before I went back to hooking up his chemo. “There,” I said, once the IV drip was running from the pump into his port. “You’re all set.”

“Awesome,” he replied, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “Three hours to lie here, and nothin’ on TV to watch.”

“How about that movie?”

“Yeah, okay. What do you wanna watch?”

We browsed Netflix on his laptop and decided on Zombieland. “I’ve been wanting to watch that again ever since we went to that theme park,” Nick said, “and you really do need to see it.”

I don’t really like zombie movies, but Nick promised this one was more funny than scary. I sat on the bed next to him to watch it on his laptop, the chemo pump set between us as a grim reminder that even though we were lying on a bed together in a hotel room, this was not a date, and I was not to wait or even hope for him to make a move.

When the movie was over, I got up from the bed. “You were right; that was pretty epic,” I said, dragging a couple of pillows over to the loveseat. “Bill Murray’s awesome.”

“Wasn’t that the best?” he laughed. “Hey, you’re not getting ready for bed, are you?”

“As soon as your drip’s done, I am.” It was almost midnight, and I was tired.

“Well, you’re not gonna sleep on that little sofa. You can sleep up here with me,” he said, patting the spot I had just occupied on the bed.

I raised my eyebrows. “Are you sure?” In any other situation, I would have expected a guy to be chivalrous, to offer me the bed and take the couch or a cot or the floor for himself. But there was no way I was taking Nick’s bed when he was sick and needed the sleep. Besides, I could fit on the loveseat a lot easier than he could. I hadn’t really even considered sharing the bed.

“Why not? There’s plenty of room. I’ll try not to kick you or steal your covers.” He grinned in a way that made me envy the lucky girls who had shared his bed for real. “And I promise, I don’t wet the bed.”

I giggled and thought, No, but you’re Nick Carter. I didn’t know how I was going to get any sleep lying so close to him, but in the end, I agreed. It made a lot more sense for both of us to be comfortable on the huge bed than for me to scrunch myself up on the tiny loveseat.

Once his chemo infusion had finished, and I’d disconnected the IV, I turned down the covers on “my” side of the bed and climbed in. Nick was already curled up on his side, still shirtless beneath the covers. “’Night,” he muttered, when I turned off the light on my side of the bed.

“’Night,” I said back, rolling onto my side so that I was turned away from him. There was no way I could sleep facing him; I’d be staring at his bare back all night. It was hard enough just knowing he was lying right behind me, listening to the sound of his breathing and feeling the mattress sag and the covers shift every time he moved. I lay perfectly still, trying not to toss and turn or let my pajama bottoms twist. I wished they were long pants instead of just capris; I hadn’t shaved my legs since we were at my dad’s house, and I shuddered to think of him accidentally brushing my bare calf in the night and feeling the stubble.

Those were the neurotic sort of thoughts that kept me awake for hours, long after Nick’s breathing had gotten steady and deep. Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep that night or the next.

***