I actually felt nervous sitting down in the hotel bar, nursing a margarita and wondering what was going on upstairs. I knew I had done the right thing in leaving Nick on his own to tell the guys, but I was still dying to know how it had gone. I just hoped he had actually gone through with it.
I knew he must have when AJ came barreling in and threw himself onto a stool at the end of the bar. “Gimme a shot of Jack,” he told the bartender. “Actually, make it a double.”
My stomach lurched as I watch the bartender fill a whiskey glass and slide it across the bar to AJ, who downed it quickly and shoved it back for a refill. Not good, I thought, wondering if I should intervene. I was down at the other end of the bar; he hadn’t noticed me yet, but I couldn’t just sit there and watch him drown his sorrows in whiskey. Taking a deep breath, I slid off my stool, picked up my margarita glass, and walked over to him. “Hey, AJ.”
AJ looked up. “Oh, hey, Cary.” He sounded amazingly composed, even though it was obvious he was falling apart inside. “You feelin’ better?”
“I… uh, yeah… thanks.” My mind was racing. He has to know, doesn’t he? Why else would he be down here drinking? Maybe he just hasn’t heard the whole story yet. Even if that was the case, I was astonished that he hadn’t pieced it together and realized that I wasn’t sick, that it had been Nick all along. He wasn’t thinking clearly. “Did you talk to Nick?” I asked hesitantly.
He threw down the rest of his second glass of Jack Daniels and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before answering. “Yeah.” He looked at me, his eyes dark and accusing. “You already knew, didn’t you?” I nodded. “How long have you known?”
So he hadn’t heard the whole story. I really didn’t want to be the one to have to tell him, but now that he had asked, I didn’t have much of a choice. “Awhile,” I admitted. “I’ve been taking care of him.”
AJ looked at me in disgust. “So you knew about this all along, and you didn’t think you should tell us?”
As his voice rose, I felt my face heat up. “It wasn’t my place,” I said in a small voice. “I tried to get Nick to tell you, but he had his reasons for wanting to keep it a secret.”
“Bullshit,” AJ spat. He was practically shouting now, and I looked around nervously, expecting to find fans lurking nearby, hanging on to our every word. There were a few other people in the bar, but I couldn’t tell if they were fans or not. “We’re like his brothers,” AJ was ranting on. “We’ve known him over half his life. He’s only known you, what, a month? Two? I can’t believe he’d tell his girlfriend before he told us. That is fucked up, man…”
He really didn’t get it. And his F-bomb had attracted a lot of attention. The other bar patrons – who may or may not have been fans – were starting to stare at us. I leaned down closer to him and said in a low voice, “Can we not discuss this right in front of everyone? Come here…” I dragged him off to a small table in the far, back corner, away from listening ears. I sat down across from him, set my glass down in front of me, and said, “Listen… I’m not his girlfriend. He let you guys think that because it was convenient. We haven’t been sleeping together. I’m his nurse.”
That stopped AJ in his tracks. “You… what?”
“He’s doing chemotherapy. I’ve been giving him his treatments on the road, so he could keep touring with you,” I explained patiently, once AJ had backed off enough to hear me out. “That’s all he wanted; it’s the whole reason he hid it. He thought you guys would cancel the tour if you knew he was sick.”
AJ frowned, blinking, while he let everything I’d said soak in. “We probably would have postponed it, yeah…” he said slowly, “but we could have toured later, once he got better. I mean, he is gonna get better, right? He’s not, like, dying, is he?” He looked up at me, and I saw the sheer terror in his eyes. The anger couldn’t fully mask his fear.
I swallowed hard. “I don’t know. It’s not good. His disease is in stage IV. That’s… that’s the last stage. It’s an aggressive kind of cancer. But,” I added quickly, maybe even a little desperately, “it’s responding to treatment. The chemo has helped. So he could get better…” I trailed off, adding silently in my head, “… but he might not.” The thought made me feel sick to my stomach.
AJ nodded, blissfully naive. “He will,” he said, staring down at the table in front of him. “You don’t know Nick like I do; he’s a stubborn son of a bitch. He does everything the hard way. He won’t go down without a fight.”
I laughed, in spite of myself. “Oh, trust me; I’ve figured that out about him.”
He smirked at me briefly, before the smile dropped off his face. Looking down at the tabletop again, he said, “So… you said he’s doing chemo?”
“Uh-huh. He’s halfway through his fifth cycle of it. He’ll do at least six cycles, maybe eight. Either way, he’s on the final stretch.”
It made me feel better to hear myself say that. When I’d met Nick, he was just starting his third cycle, and now he was nearing his sixth and maybe last. Next week, he’d have another appointment with his oncologist in LA and another round of testing to see how he’d responded to the last two rounds of chemo, and if the results looked good, maybe she’d declare him in remission and move him into the maintenance phase of treatment. After all of the complications he’d had lately from the chemo, he could use the good news – and a break from the toxic, high doses of drugs.
“How come he still has his hair?” AJ wanted to know. “I thought chemo made you bald.”
I wondered if he was just a little bit jealous. Smiling as I remembered Nick icing his head, I replied, “’Cause he’s a lucky bastard.”
AJ let out a humorless chuckle. “Some luck… catching cancer.” He glanced back up at me with a look of desperate hope in his eyes. “You sure this isn’t just some fucked-up, elaborate prank he paid you to play along with?”
Denial. I felt sorry for him. Sadly, I shook my head. “No… sorry… messed up as that would be, I wish it was.”
AJ sighed heavily, lowering his eyes again. “Man… this is some heavy shit. He should’ve told us sooner. Or you should have.” He raised his chin, piercing me with that same accusatory stare. I felt my face get red again.
“I wanted to,” I insisted. “But I couldn’t. It’s a confidentiality thing. He trusted me, as a nurse and as a friend, and I couldn’t betray his confidence. I hope you understand.”
He shook his head. “I don’t,” he muttered, “but whatever. It’s done. The secret’s out. What are we s’posed to do now?” He eyed my margarita glass, still half full. “You got the right idea. I need another drink.”
“I think we should go back upstairs,” I suggested quickly, knowing that having another drink was not the right idea, at least not for him. “It sounds like you didn’t hear the whole story from Nick before you came down. You should talk to him.”
“Forget talking to him. If he didn’t have fucking cancer, I’d kick his ass.”
I couldn’t help but giggle, though I wasn’t sure if he was actually joking. Picturing Nick the way he’d looked with his nose gushing blood the other day, I said, “Yeah… probably not such a good idea.”
“He deserves an ass-whooping for pulling this shit over on us,” AJ growled, shaking his head in disbelief. “Jesus, how could he have hidden something like this from us that long?”
I shrugged. “He’s a better actor than people give him credit for. He knew what he was doing. He’d thought it through. He just kept up his stage persona offstage and acted like he was okay, even when he didn’t feel well. And when it was too much, he hid out on his bus or in his hotel room and kept to himself. Brian and Howie have been so busy with their families, I don’t think they noticed. You did, but you thought he was on drugs.”
AJ grimaced. “He reminded me of me, back when I was messed up. Sneaky… moody… withdrawn. I knew he was hiding something. I just never guessed it was something like this.”
I swallowed hard. “I helped him hide it. I made excuses for him, too. I’m sorry. I felt terrible doing it… I hate lying. I’m just glad he finally told the truth.”
AJ nodded, studying me closely. After a minute, he said, “You don’t really have diabetes, do you?”
I blushed and ducked my head. “No.”
“That needle I saw you with…”
“It was a hormone injection to get Nick’s bone marrow to make more white blood cells. The chemo kills off healthy cells along with the cancer cells, and when his blood cell counts get too low, he’s more vulnerable to infection,” I explained. “The real reason we went to the hospital today was for a blood transfusion, to bring his counts back up. I don’t think he would have made it through the show tonight without it. He was feeling pretty bad.” I shook my head, imagining much worse it could have been. “Being out on the road like this, around so many people, I’m amazed he hasn’t gotten really sick. He’s lucky.”
“Or stupid,” AJ said, deadpan.
I laughed. “Definitely stupid.”
After all that stuff he’d said about me to Nick, I was relieved he wasn’t giving me a hard time for lying about having diabetes, too. Really, that made me no better than Nick. He’d been hiding an illness, and I’d been faking one. We made a terribly good team.
AJ sighed. “I guess I can’t hide down here all night, huh? Even though I’d like to.” He eyed the bar longingly.
“No,” I said, taking the cue to stand up, leaving my margarita unfinished on the table. “Let’s go back up.”
AJ hesitated, looking like he was tempted to stay and finish my drink for me, but finally, he got up, too. We settled our tabs at the bar and took the elevator back up to our floor. “I don’t even know what to say to him,” AJ mumbled, as the elevator doors slid open.
“You don’t have to say anything profound. Let him apologize for lying to you, and then just treat him like you normally would. I think that’s what he wants. He doesn’t want you guys getting all weird around him,” I replied.
“Weirder than usual, you mean.”
I smiled. “Exactly.”
We ran into Howie in the hall. “I was just coming to look for you,” he told AJ. “You okay?”
AJ shrugged. “Not really.”
Howie caught my eye. “We were just down in the bar, talking,” I said, but a look of understanding passed between us that told him AJ had also been drinking. He could probably smell the whiskey on his breath, anyway. “We were on our way back to talk to Nick.”
Howie nodded. “He’ll be glad you’re back,” he said to AJ. “He feels bad, you know. He said to tell you he’s sorry.”
“Well, he can say it to my face then,” AJ snapped. “He should feel bad. He’s a fucking douche.”
Howie smiled. “Brian used the word ‘prick.’”
“He’s that, too,” growled AJ. But I knew he didn’t mean it. Deep down, he loved Nick like a brother, and even if he wouldn’t admit it, it showed in his face, in his whole demeanor. Angry or not, he cared about Nick, and the idea of Nick being sick was tearing him apart inside.
Of course, Howie knew this, too. He didn’t say anything else, just let AJ vent, as he walked with us back to Nick’s door. I had a key to the room, but I knocked instead of using it. “Nick?” I called softly. “It’s just us.”
Nick opened the door, looking sheepish when he saw AJ standing there behind Howie and me. He stood back to let us in. AJ shoved past him roughly, then rounded on him. “You’re a stupid son of a bitch, you know that?” he hissed.
Nick’s face reddened, but he nodded quite calmly. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“You should be!”
“I am.”
“I mean, how could you tell her-” AJ jerked his thumb over his shoulder at me. “- and not us? I thought we were a family.”
Nick swallowed, his adam’s apple bobbing visibly. “We are. I guess sometimes it’s just easier to tell a stranger than someone you love. I didn’t wanna upset you or make you worry or anything.”
“Gee, how considerate of you,” AJ said sarcastically. “It’s not like I was worried when I just thought you were snorting cocaine again. And it’s not like I’m upset now.”
“I’m sorry,” Nick said again, shifting his weight uncomfortably.
“You’re also an asshole. Tell me something…”
“What?”
AJ got right up in Nick’s face, and even though Nick was taller, AJ looked a lot more intimidating. “How is it that you can go through chemotherapy… and still have way more fucking hair on your big fat fucking head than I do? Huh? How is that fair?”
The corners of Nick’s lips twitched as he cracked a smile. “Good genes, baby,” he replied, the hesitant smile turning into his trademark smirk. “And ice,” he added, winking at me.
I smiled. Even AJ was smirking, unable to keep a straight face. “You suck, dude,” he told Nick. Then he pulled him into a hug. Watching them together, I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.
Boys.
***
