Chapter 45

It was late when AJ left the studio that evening. His conversation with Brian was weighing on his mind. He hated to get involved in other people’s business, but he couldn’t help but to wonder how Brian would have reacted if he had mentioned that Noelle had never moved on after everything that had gone down between them. Beyond that, he wondered how Noelle would react if he told her that Brian was in the physical process of getting divorced, that this time, it was really happening.

He knew that, at first, Noelle would pretend like she didn’t care. She would pretend that the news had rolled off of her like it was no big deal and she was completely over it, but eventually she would start making excuses for needing to meet him at places where she knew the other Boys would be. Randomly, she’d show up completely over-dressed, but looking beautiful. Noelle would have herself convinced that she wasn’t purposely trying to run into Brian, but he would be in the back of her mind and she’d want to know if he still cared about her too.

Eventually, AJ decided to abide by Brian’s wishes and not say anything. He needed to mind his own business. Meddling would just disrupt the natural order of things. AJ had his own love life to deal with anyway. He and Emily had obviously hit it off. He only had a couple of weeks left to hang out with her before she was going to be going back to Florida. They both needed to decide whether they were relationship material or if they just liked hanging out with each other.

On Emily’s last night in Los Angeles, they all decided to cook dinner at AJ’s house where Emily had ended up staying while she was in California. Later, Noelle would leave them alone for the night and then come back in the morning to go with AJ to bring Emily to the airport.

Emily looked over at AJ who was across the kitchen carefully reading over a recipe. His brow was furrowed in confusion; his lips were moving as he read the instructions. They’d decided to try to roast their own chicken. It turned out that a chicken was a complicated beast to clean.

“Are you sure that you don’t need any help over there?” Emily asked from her seat at the island counter. She swirled her red wine around in her glass and took a small sip, trying to hide her smile.

AJ glanced up and smiled back at her, and then looked back down. “I said I was going to cook you ladies dinner and I’m going to… as soon as I figure out what a giblet is and how to remove it without actually touching it.”

Emily laughed heartily and jumped up off of her stool. She’d helped her mother make roast chicken plenty of times in the past and had tried to tell AJ that cleaning a chicken was no joke. Most grocery stores will do it for you for free now, but AJ wasn’t having it.

She wrapped her arms around his waist from behind and kissed his shoulder. “Maybe we should wait for Noelle to get here. She’s the medical major. There are probably a lot of gross things she’ll have to touch before she’s finished with school.”

AJ laughed. He turned his head and kissed her over his shoulder lightly. “Have I told you how much I really don’t want you to go back to Florida?”

“Only about a hundred times,” Emily said softly, “but I don’t mind hearing it again.”

AJ turned around and wrapped his arms around her waist. “I really don’t want you to go.”

“I really don’t want to go,” Emily replied honestly. Besides the fact that she and Noelle hadn’t lived more than a few miles apart since they’d met at freshman orientation, her heart ached over the fact that she’d be living so far from AJ. Never in a million years had she thought that she’d actually end up dating one of the men from her favorite singing group as a teenager. Now that she was, the reality far outweighed any possibility that her 15-year-old mind could have dreamed—especially about a different Backstreet Boy.

“But,” AJ said when Emily didn’t continue. “We’ve got a plan. We’re going to see where this goes, right? I’m going to come down to Florida between recording and promotion. You’re going to visit in between all the time you have to spend researching for that thesis paper you’re writing. Then, after you graduate, we’ll see where we are.”

Emily nodded. “I like that plan. It just sounds so much easier than I know that it’s going to be.”

AJ smiled and leaned down to kiss her again. “It’ll be hard, but I have a feeling it’ll work out just fine.”

Emily smiled back at him and then pulled away from him. She reached around and grabbed the chicken and took it over to the sink. AJ started to open his mouth to protest, but Emily shot him a look and he never said a word.

“So, have you spoken to Brian anymore?” Emily asked after she’d gotten the chicken completely clean. AJ had told her about his and Brian’s first conversation and the dilemma he’d have afterwards.

“I’ve seen him a couple times. He’s doing okay. I guess that he got the final mediation date this week. It’s for sometime at the end of next month, I think.”

“I’m glad that he’s doing okay,” Emily said with a sigh. “He’s had a really rough year.

“Yeah, he ha—“ AJ started, but was cut off when Noelle swung through the kitchen door carrying a couple of bags of groceries that AJ had asked her to pick up for dinner.

“Who’s had a really rough year?” she greeted as she threw the brown paper grocery bags down onto the counter.

“We were just talking about Brian,” AJ said casually, peeking into the bags that Noelle had brought in and pulling out the items that he needed. He’d mentioned Brian to Noelle in casual conversation before. She was getting better about not visually flinching whenever his name came up.

“What’s going on now?” Noelle probed lightly, as if she couldn’t care less when, in fact, the opposite was true. Goosebumps rose across her arms when she thought about Brian, making the hair there practically stand on end. At least the tears had gone away; that was something.

AJ and Emily exchanged a glance. If he was going to tell her about Brian, now was the time. He thought better of the idea and shook his head. “He’s fine. He’s just having some issues with his house.”

That wasn’t a complete lie. When AJ had seen Brian the other day, Brian had mentioned that he noticed that his roof had a small leak. It wasn’t really a big deal at all. In fact, for a second, Brian and AJ had thought about trying to patch the hole themselves. That idea was quickly vetoed by rationale.

“Oh,” Noelle replied with a slight shake of her head, glad that it wasn’t something serious. Either way, she didn’t mind hearing about Brian on occasion—it was good to know that someone like him was out there somewhere in the world, that there time together hadn’t been some sick, long-lasting dream—but she certainly didn’t want to spend time talking about him. She walked over to where Emily was putting the final spices on the chicken. “How are things going with dinner? What do you need me to do?”

“The chicken is going to take a couple hours. So, we have plenty of time before anything else needs to get started,” Emily joined the conversation. “Want a glass of wine?”

“Sure,” Noelle replied.

AJ grabbed Noelle a wine glass and she poured for herself. She watched as AJ planted a soft kiss on the side of Emily’s head as he passed by on his way to the refrigerator.  

Noelle smiled as she took a sip of her wine. “I’ve made a decision.”

“Another one?” AJ joked as he reached into the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water, opting to be healthy, though the alcohol cravings still snuck up on him sometimes. “I don’t know how many more of your decisions that I can handle.”

Noelle rolled her eyes and ignored him. “I’ve decided that I like you two together. A lot.”

“Um, thanks?” Emily said, laughingly. “I’m glad that we have your approval?”

“I’m just saying,” Noelle laughed. “You’re ridiculously cute and I think that you should fall in love and give me lots of nieces and nephews.”

“Talk about pressure,” AJ muttered, playfully.

Emily shot him a smiling look and then shook her head at Noelle. “Let’s just take this one day at a time, okay?”

Noelle laughed and wrapped her arm around her friend. “Know what I like most about this combination?”

“I’m afraid to ask,” Emily replied, leaning her head against Noelle’s.

“It means that you’ll come and visit me a lot more often,” Noelle sighed without missing a beat. “I won’t have to deal with that whole separation thing for too long.”

“Do I have to remind you that we spent months of time away from each other while you toured the world with him?” Emily laughed.

Noelle pulled away and waved her off. “That was a million years ago.”

“It does feel that way, doesn’t it?” AJ piped in wistfully. “Either way, I’m glad I could be of service to you, Noah.”

AJ sloppily kissed the side of Noelle’s head and then walked around the island to where Emily had been sitting while he had tried to take on the chicken. He watched on as the two girls laughed with each other. One of those women was already one of the most important people in his life. He was starting to realize that the other was going to be added to that list quickly. He obviously liked Emily a lot and was quickly gather how easy it would be to fall head over heels, completely in love with her.

***

Across the country, Leighanne was trying to ignore the feeling of regret that was boiling in the pit of her stomach as she and her sister finished packing up the rest of Brian’s things. Leighanne knew that this was right. She knew that she and Brian were doing the right thing for each other, but it was so hard. The house felt so empty.

Suzanne didn’t really understand why Brian couldn’t do this himself. He was working, fine, but she hated the feeling that Leighanne was still taking care of him in some way. Leighanne had tried to explain that Brian had already packed all of his things once only to have the crazy version of herself unpack them.

Suzanne glanced at her sister from across the room as she taped up the final box and set it with the others. Someone was supposed to be coming to take Brian’s things to a storage facility the next day.

“So,” Suzanne spoke as she wiped the dust from her hands onto her jeans. “I ran into Michael Musso the other day.”

Leighanne rolled her eyes and smirked to herself. Her back was turned to Suzanne and she was grateful that her sister couldn’t see her expression. Michael Musso was her boyfriend before she’d met Brian.

“Oh yeah?” Leighanne replied. She could hear the laughter in her own voice.

“Yeah,” Suzanne continued. “He was asking about you.”

Leighanne rolled her eyes again. “Of course he was asking about me. What else do you two have to talk about?”

“Don’t be like that,” Suzanne said. “He’s going through a divorce too—“

“Suzanne!” Leighanne exclaimed. “You shouldn’t just be going around telling people about my personal life. You should know better than that by now.”

“Come on!” Suzanne yelled back. “It was Michael not TMZ and anyway, he told me to give you his number. He thought you could get coffee or something.”

Leighanne sat down on the floor and shook her head. “It’s too soon, Suz. I’m not ready to date. Not yet.”

“Brian doesn’t think it’s too soon,” Suzanne mumbled. She didn’t want to hurt Leighanne’s feelings, but she didn’t want her sister to be upset forever either.

“I’m not Brian,” Leighanne said strongly. “Brian checked out and he met someone. I’m just now at the point that he was at when he and Noelle met, Suzanne.”

“Now you’re on a first name basis with Brian’s girlfriend?” Suzanne inquired, confused. “What’s going on?”

“She’s not Brian’s girlfriend, I don’t think. And either way, none of this was her fault. I mean, even without Noelle in the picture look where we ended up. Here. Getting divorced. Right where Brian knew that we were going to be.” Leighanne sighed and shook her head. “I was really awful to her. I feel like I should reach out to her or something. I don’t know.”

“What?” Suzanne exclaimed. “That’s crazy. Look, even if you were awful to her, it was understandable at the time. Calling her and telling her that and trying to set her back up with your husband… that’s nuts. If it’s meant to happen, it’ll happen without your interference.”

“I just don’t want that on my conscience, especially when I’m setting foot out into the dating world again too,” Leighanne replied softly.

“Your conscience will be fine. Brian will move on and so will you… when you call Mike,” Suzanne said with a smile.

“I’m not calling Mike, Suzanne,” Leighanne reiterated with a grin. She was lucky that she still had family to rely on.

Suzanne shrugged. “Well, maybe he’ll call you.”

“Suzanne!” Leighanne screeched, amused by the situation. She threw the packing tape at her sister, but Suzanne ducked past it laughingly.

Leighanne had to admit that it was good to really smile again. Maybe things will finally start to feel good again, after all.