Don't need to be saved
-Regina Spektor 'Hero'
Nick put his headphones on and leaned against the plane window. He closed his eyes and I wondered if he was going to sleep.
I sighed to myself, leaning back in my seat. At least for the moment I could relax, because Nick was safe and he was right beside me and he wasn't wrapped around a tree.
I was probably worrying too much, but I couldn't help it. It was like he was a little kid again who needed to be watched to ensure he didn't do something stupid.
What I'd said (or, cried) to him the night before was true. The stress of the group was beginning to be too much for me to handle. Between worrying about AJ, worrying about Nick and worrying about everything else in between I was starting to get burnt out. It was ironic, because you'd think the break would have helped with that but it was almost making everything worse.
Except for the AJ part. But even that was stressful because even though he was doing well in rehab and transitional care, we didn't know what was going to happen once we went back on tour. Which was actually alarmingly soon.
I glanced over at Nick again. He was out like a light, snoring against the window. I could slightly hear the music from his headphones over the noise of the plane. He was usually better once we were on tour – it was when we were at home that he acted like an entitled douchebag.
I sighed, trying to lean back and relax as well. Easier said than done, but at least nothing was going to happen for the next four hours.
“Howie, sit down,” Leigh said, looking up at me.
I stood still for a moment and then I sighed and sat down. I'd been pacing around my living room mulling over if I should go over to Kevin's house or not. On one hand, I didn't want to start an inadvertent intervention for Nick. On the other hand, I really wanted to see for myself that he was okay and possibly talk a little sense into him.
Even though I was well aware Kevin already did that. He had to have done something since Nick was on his way back to LA – to stay with Kevin of all people.
“Don't go over to Kevin's house,” she soothed, touching my arm.
“I just,” I started to protest, but then I gave up and listened as she talked. She probably knew better than I did. It was weird to think we'd only just started dating a month ago. This who break was beginning to feel like another lifetime. If I was Nick, I'd probably say something about it being a parallel universe.
Unfortunately, it seemed like a lot of the things in this universe were the same.
“You can't do anything to help him,” she said wisely. “He's back here and he's staying with Kevin. He'll be okay. He's already okay.”
“He drove his car into a tree, Leigh.”
She nodded her head seriously. “I know. Maybe it'll be the scare he needs.”
I shrugged. I wished I could believe that, I really did. But the sad reality was that it probably wouldn't. Not enough to scare him for anything more than a couple of days.
“I think we should go to a fertility clinic,” Leighanne said to me, sighing as she held a negative pregnancy test in her hands. We were sitting on the edge of our bed.
I gave her a bit of a look. Even I thought that was sort of ridiculous. I didn't know why she was so insistent on taking a pregnancy test anyway. We'd only just started trying. Wasn't it too early for that kind of thing?
“It's only been a few weeks,” I said to her instead, because telling her how silly I really thought it was wasn't a good idea.
“I know,” she sighed, looking much more upset than I felt. Because truly, it wasn't that upsetting. “I just think that we should go see. Before you go back to work,” she added, giving me a look.
I couldn't help but narrow my eyes at her. She didn't seriously think that we were going to be able to conceive before I went back on tour, did she? I mean, I hadn't done great in biology but I was pretty sure the odds of that were slim. And even if it happened it would be too early for us to know.
“What?” she asked, pressing her lips together in a thin line.
“It's sort of early, isn't it?” I asked her gently, placing my hand on her thigh.
Evidently she didn't think so, because she glared at me and shoved my hand off of her. “No, I don't think it is. I think we need to figure this out before you go back on tour.”
I just gave her a look.
“Before you guys record another album and then go on another tour and then there's not another opportunity for us.”
I bit my lip because I knew what I said next was going to piss her off. “You do realise that even if you got pregnant right this second I'd still go back on tour and all of those things would still happen, right? Because I hear that takes nine months.”
She glared at me. Sometimes my wife didn't respond well to logic. Especially when that logic interfered with whatever ideas she had in her head.
“I know that, Brian,” she said through gritted teeth.
I shrugged.
“I just didn't want our plan to be forgotten about in favour of... everything else,” she finished with a sigh.
“In favour of the group?” I asked, starting to get annoyed. Because she was acting really ridiculous. Because she was acting like the group and my job wasn't even important. And of course my family was important to me, but the group was too.
She shrugged, but didn't say anything. Which usually meant she knew that she'd gone over the line.
But I wasn't ready to let it go. “In favour of the group which I have worked my ass off to be a part of?” I asked her. “In favour of the group that is the entire reason we met?”
“Brian-” she started, but I just shook my head.
“I'm still going on tour, Leighanne. Did you think that you were just going to announce that you were pregnant and then I'd suddenly decide to stay here in Atlanta and extend the break forever?”
“I never said that,” she said almost pleadingly. Now I was the one who was being ridiculous, but I didn't really care. I knew part of the reason she felt that way was because I hadn't exactly shown a lot of love towards the group lately. It was probably reasonable for her to think that all I wanted to do was stay in Atlanta.
Of course now that I was faced with the prospect of that, I really didn't want to. Not quite yet, anyway. Not when we were in the middle of a tour and we were going back on the road the next week.
“There is never going to be a right time for this,” I told her. “And you have to understand that us trying doesn't mean that I automatically stop caring about the group or the rest of those guys.”
“Well you could have fooled me,” she huffed, putting her hands on her hips.
She was right. “I'm going to LA this weekend,” I said before I had a chance to think about it.
She widened her eyes like I'd told her I was leaving her in favour of running off with Nick. Which to be fair, is probably what this felt like to her.
“I need to spend some time with the fellas before we go back on tour. We're going to be in rehearsals starting mid-next week anyway.”
Her arms were crossed over her chest and she still looked pissed off.
“We can still go to a fertility clinic if you want,” I said, standing up and kissing her on the cheek.
She shrugged but seemed to accept that as a compromise. “Fine,” she said. Then she gave me a bit of an annoyed look and left the room.
I didn't follow her. She always needed some time to cool down after an argument. Besides, it wasn't going to solve anything. Going to LA early and spending a bit of downtime with the boys before it was back to work was probably a good choice. And I didn't want to go back on that.
The perk to staying at Kevin's house was that he's got a really hot wife. She also made really fucking amazing food. I didn't ever see myself getting married, but I understood why Kevin did. If I found a chick like that I'd want to hang onto her too!
Man, she was even better at grilling than he was. When we got back to LA she already had this spread of food on the table. There were burgers and salad (which I didn't eat, but it was there) and potato salad that she probably made herself and fucking iced tea sitting in this fancy-ass pitcher.
Also, the burgers had grated cheese right in them. Not melted on top.
I'm not stupid. I knew that the reason for that was because they wanted to make me feel at home and so that I wouldn't take off again. But whatever, I'd take it. Good food is good food.
“How is it?” she asked me from across the table, taking a sip of her iced tea.
“'S good,” I nodded, my mouth full of burger.
She laughed. Kevin rolled his eyes. Good to see he was back to normal. Like I said, Kristin was the perk to staying with him.
I finished my burger and grabbed another one off of the plate in the centre of the table, piling toppings onto my bun. At least the more we sat here and ate like everything was normal, the less awkward it'd be. Because I'd never let Kevin know it, but it was awkward. The whole reason I was there was so that he could watch me. And maybe the day before I'd wanted to come back to LA, but I hadn't thought about how much of a pain it was going to be to stay in his house. I should have stayed with Howie instead.
Howie might have actually been worse though. Because he worried in a guilty kind of way that made me feel sorry for him. It was more effective than Kevin's dickbag angry kind of way.
I looked over at him as I chewed on my burger and instantly felt bad. Even if he pissed me off, I knew Kevin meant well. Sort of. I guess. He probably just didn't want me to do something stupid and kill myself.
I understood. I mean, I really didn't want that either. Because if nothing else, we were going back on tour in a week. Then we'd make another album and everything would go back to normal. I only had to deal with another week of this break bullshit, and then everything would be fixed.
