When he walked into the bar that night, Nick Carter’s heart was already broken.
What am I doing here? he wondered as he made his way through the crowd, looking around at all the happy couples in costume, college kids who’d come to party, groups of women having a girls’ night out. I don’t belong here anymore.
He hesitated and had almost turned to leave when he heard the bartender call out, “Hey, what can I get you?”
With a sigh, Nick slumped down onto an empty stool. No one else even seemed to notice him; they were all engrossed in conversation, guys cracking jokes and girls giggling without a care in the world. Nick envied them. He’d never felt more alone.
“We’ve got some spooky drink specials tonight,” the bartender added with a tight-lipped smile. Her face was made up like a Mexican sugar skull. Before he could order his usual beer, she slid a piece of bright orange paper across the polished wood bartop.
Nick scanned the menu briefly, almost smiling at some of the creative cocktail names. Halloween had always been his favorite holiday. He wasn’t in a very festive mood, but being here at the bar was better than spending another night at home by himself, drinking vodka straight from the bottle. “How ‘bout a Vampire Slayer?” he said, the combination of vodka and tequila catching his eye. “Make it strong.”
The bartender gave a nod. “You got it.” She poured equal parts of the two spirits into a shaker with a splash of lime juice and a scoop of ice. It was the kind of drink Lauren would have liked, Nick thought, feeling a pang in his chest as he watched the woman pour the cocktail into a martini glass and fill it to the rim with club soda. He fished a ten dollar bill out of his wallet as she handed him his drink. He took a sip. It wasn’t anything special, but not bad either - certainly better than the stuff he’d been drinking back at his vacation home. He couldn’t help but wonder why a bland, colorless cocktail would be called the Vampire Slayer, but it wasn’t a question worth asking. Besides, the bartender had already turned away to serve someone else.
Nick set the glass back down on the bar, absently sliding his fingers up and down the stem as he let his mind wander. He wondered what his wife and son were doing. He had texted Lauren that morning to wish her a happy Halloween - it was her favorite holiday, too. “Same to you,” was all she’d said back. He pulled his phone out of his pocket to see if she’d sent a photo of Odin in his costume, but there were no new messages. He checked the time. It was only seven o’clock on the West Coast; maybe they were still trick-or-treating. Or maybe she just didn’t care. Maybe she was punishing him for being here instead of there, even though she was the one who had pushed him away.
Frowning, he sent her a new text: “How was Odin’s Halloween?” Then he set his phone down on the bar and stared at it for almost a full minute, willing it to vibrate. But the phone remained silent and still. She’s just busy with Odin, Nick told himself. She’ll text back once she’s put him to bed. But he wasn’t so sure. Lauren hadn’t exchanged many words with him since he’d left, in spite of his efforts to reach out to her. She was still hurting too, he knew. She just had different ways of showing it. That was what had driven them apart in the first place - not just his drinking or her depression, but the way they’d dealt with the same grief so differently.
As he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, Nick suddenly got the feeling that someone was staring at him. He looked up and around, his eyes panning across the bar, but no one caught his attention. He was just being paranoid. Still, he pulled down the brim of his Buccaneers cap as he bent over his drink. He didn’t want to be recognized as “Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys,” though he doubted anyone here would know who he was anyway. It looked like a young crowd. Some of these kids weren’t even born when our first album came out, he thought with some amusement, as he took a long swig from his glass. He swallowed hard, welcoming the burn of the tequila as it went down his throat.
“You about ready for another?” asked the bartender, as she poured vodka into a glass of ice.
Nick nodded. “Yeah, in a few,” he said, his eyes dropping to his phone again. Still no word from Lauren. Stop obsessing, he scolded himself. He knew he needed to back off, just lay low and stay away long enough for her to start missing him. She’d be begging him to come home by Christmas - and maybe he’d be able to get his life back together by then. But he missed her so much already...
“Here you go,” said the bartender, setting a highball glass in front of him. It was filled with a bubbly, amber-colored cocktail and garnished with a slice of orange.
“Thanks,” said Nick in confusion, “but this isn’t what I was drinking.”
The bartender smiled. “Compliments of the couple down at the corner,” she said, tipping her head in their direction. “The lady requested this drink specifically, but if you don’t like it, I’ll make you another Slayer.”
Curiously, Nick leaned forward and looked down the L-shaped bar. The blonde woman on the corner caught his eye first. She was wearing a little, white “naughty nurse” costume that was covered with blood, and her face was in full zombie makeup. The dark-haired man sitting beside her had on a bloodstained hospital gown and similar makeup. They looked like a fun couple. Nick smiled and nodded their way, holding up his drink to show his appreciation. They both grinned back, and the girl gave him a little wave. He turned back to the bartender. “What’s in it?” he asked, wondering why the woman had chosen that particular drink.
“Vodka, bitters, and ginger ale. It’s called a Headless Horseman.”
“Ah.” Nick smiled knowingly as he sipped from the glass. So he had been recognized - and by a real fan, too. Not many other people knew he had once been in a movie set in the legendary Sleepy Hollow. Now he knew who had been watching him earlier.
“So? What do you think?” the bartender asked, waiting for his reaction.
“It’s good,” he replied. “I think I’ll stick with it. Thanks.” He glanced down at the couple and smiled again. The woman winked. Nick took another drink, then lowered his eyes to his phone. It had been two whole minutes since he’d last looked at it. Thanks for the distraction, he thought.
There were two definite downsides to being at the bar by himself: no one to talk to and too much time to think. He supposed he could have struck up a conversation with someone sitting nearby, but he felt awkward doing so. Nick had never had to actively seek out the company of strangers when he went out; they usually came up to him instead. He was used to being the center of attention, constantly surrounded by friends and fans. It had been a long time since he’d felt this lonely.
In fact, Nick couldn’t remember ever having been in Key West without some kind of entourage, whether it was his family or a group of friends who was with him. His estrangement from Lauren was making him realize how many old friends and family members he’d lost touch with over the years. That was mostly by choice and probably for the best, considering some of the bad influences he’d had in his life before Lauren had helped him turn it around… but still, it stung to realize that, outside of her relatives and his buddies in the music business, he basically had no one. It wasn’t like it had been back in the day; he couldn’t just randomly call Howie, AJ, Brian, or Kevin to come hang out with him. They were spread out across the country, and they all spent their breaks with their own families, the same way Nick had up until now. He’d come to the Keys because he hadn’t known what else to do with himself or where else to go. Over the years, he had sold his properties in Parkland, Franklin, and Los Angeles. All he had left was a vacation home he rented in Key West, which had always been his go-to getaway spot. It hadn’t always been the best place for him to be, but at least it was familiar. Besides, how much trouble could he get into by himself?
Too quickly, Nick finished his drink and ordered another - “plus a round for the zombie couple at the corner,” he told the bartender.
“Coming right up,” she replied with a smile.
As soon as she delivered the drinks to them, the zombie nurse and patient both grinned at him and raised their glasses. “Cheers!” they called down the bar, clinking them together.
Nick raised his own glass and nodded in acknowledgment. He thought that would be the end of their interaction, now that he’d returned the favor and bought them a round, but he was wrong. The next time he looked their way, they were both frantically beckoning him over. Nick hesitated for a second, then asked himself, What the hell do I have to lose?
Not a damn thing, he decided, taking his drink down to their end of the bar.
“Hey, man, thanks for coming over,” the guy said right away, reaching out his hand to shake Nick’s. “I’m Rob. My wife Dani here has been dying to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you both,” Nick replied, shifting automatically into “meet-and-greet” mode. Decades of practice had helped him perfect his stage persona. It didn’t matter what kind of mood he was in; he could always fake a smile and turn on the Nick Carter charm when he needed to. “Thanks for the drink.”
“Back at you, bro.” Rob seemed friendly, though he reminded Nick of an overgrown frat boy from the Jersey Shore. It was hard to tell how old he was with the zombie makeup on, but he looked closer to Nick’s age than the college crowd.
“I’m trying real hard to play it cool here, but my inner teenybopper is seriously about ready to lose her shit right now,” said his wife, Dani, as she shook Nick’s hand, beaming up at him with stars in her brown eyes.
He laughed - partly because of what she’d said and partly because it was pretty funny seeing someone fangirl over him in full zombie makeup (though it wasn’t the first time that had happened). “I hear that a lot, for some reason. You don’t have to lose your shit around me; I’m just a regular guy,” he said.
“Yeah, a regular guy whose face may or may not have been taped to my bedroom wall back in the day,” Dani replied, grinning broadly.
“But dude, I promise, you’re not hanging on our bedroom wall now, so you don’t have to worry about a thing. We’re normal, I swear,” said Rob, slapping Nick on the shoulder. “You wanna sit down? There’s an empty stool on the other side of Dani.”
“Not that that’s why we called you over or anything,” Dani added with another flirtatious wink, and for a few seconds, Nick forgot all about his own wife. Rob’s wife was undeniably sexy, even covered in zombie makeup and fake blood. Or maybe it was the costume that made her sexy - she looked more like a zombie pinup model than a monster from The Walking Dead. Either way, Nick was attracted to her. But that didn’t worry him - she was married, and so was he, at least in the legal sense of the word. There was nothing wrong with making conversation.
“Sure,” he said and sat down next to Dani. At the end of the night, they would go their separate ways and never see each other again, but for now, why not enjoy each other’s company? Nick thought it had to be better than continuing to wallow alone, drowning his sorrows in alcohol. If that were really how he wanted to spend his Halloween night, he would have just stayed home. “I love your costumes, by the way,” he added. “You guys look awesome.”
“Thanks! We love the undead,” replied Dani with a ghoulish grin, waggling her eyebrows.
Nick laughed. “Yeah, I’m a big zombie fan too.”
“Oh, I know. I’ve seen Dead 7,” she said, still grinning. “So much fun!”
At first, the mention of Nick’s movie lifted his heavy heart a little, but the memory of filming it with his barely-pregnant wife brought his mood back down again. He missed both Lauren and Odin so much, it made his chest hurt.
Rob rolled his eyes. “Yeah, she even made me watch that one. I gotta say, though, it was actually pretty creative,” he admitted with a wry smile. “Hey, speaking of which, we think we’ve got some good ideas for your next horror movie.”
“Rob, shh!” hissed Dani, smacking her husband in the shoulder. “He doesn’t want to hear your dumb ideas.”
“Yeah, I do,” said Nick, eager for another distraction. He smirked as he set his drink down, his curiosity piqued. “Come on, let’s hear ‘em.”
“Well, okay, here’s one. You know how you guys did that documentary?” said Rob, and Nick nodded, secretly impressed by how much this meathead seemed to know about him. “Well, you get the whole group together to make another Backstreet Boys movie, and you market it as a Backstreet Boys movie, like a boy version of Spice World, only what the fans won’t know is that it’s gonna be a horror movie. It starts out like what you’d expect a Backstreet Boys movie to be - you know, the five guys goofing around on the tour bus, basic shit like that. But then, all of a sudden, the bus gets hit by an asteroid!” He punched his fist into his palm for emphasis, his voice escalating with excitement. “Everyone thinks the Boys must be dead, but then they emerge from the crater as undead monsters, hungering for human flesh. See, the asteroid was carrying an unknown pathogen from space, and they’ve all been infected with… dun dun dun... a zombie virus. They start feeding on their fans, triggering the zombie apocalypse. And you call it… Backstreet’s Back.”
“Oh my god, babe, that is so bad,” Dani groaned, facepalming, but Nick burst out laughing. It felt good to laugh like that again.
“That is awesome. I love it!” he exclaimed, thinking about how much fun it would be to play a zombie. Somehow, he’d missed out on that opportunity in his own zombie movie.
“Thanks,” said Rob, shooting his wife a big, gloating grin. “Or - here’s another one for ya - if you’d rather explore different genres of horror, or just can’t get Brian and Kevin to commit...”
Nick laughed again, remembering how he’d tried and failed to convince the Kentucky cousins to be in Dead 7. Brian had filmed a cameo for every bad movie his wife had been in, yet wanted nothing to do with Nick’s, while Kevin, who had legitimately acted in other films and even been on Broadway, seemed to think a SyFy movie full of nineties boy band members was somehow beneath him.
“...then what about a nod to the fifties creature features - you know, like Godzilla or Tarantula? You could make it about some kind of giant monster attacking a city, and you could call it… Larger Than Life.”
Nick snorted, as Dani shook her head. “Sorry about him,” she told Nick, looking sympathetic. “For the record, my idea was much better.”
“Yeah? So what’s yours?” he asked, smiling at her.
Dani crossed her legs, hitching the hem of her tiny dress down over her thighs as she leaned toward him. “Well,” she began, smiling back, “it’s about this homicide detective who’s been unlucky in love and is desperate to find someone, anyone, to be with. So, in the midst of this series of murders he’s been investigating, he falls for this girl who seems to reciprocate his feelings. But just when he thinks he’s found the one, he finds out she’s been hiding a secret from him: she’s the serial killer he’s been looking for. So then he has to decide whether to arrest her or protect her. You could call it As Long As You Love Me.’”
Nick chuckled. “I don’t care who you are... where you’re from.... what you did, as long as you love me,” he sang softly. “It’s perfect. I love it.”
“It sounds like a Lifetime movie,” said Rob, wrinkling his nose.
“Yeah, well, your ideas sound like SyFy movies,” Dani shot back.
“So? His first movie was made for SyFy!”
Nick downed the rest of his drink in one, long swallow. “Hey, I think they’re all great,” he said, trying to stop them from bickering back and forth. He set his empty glass down on the bar. “Who’s ready for another round?”
The bartender brought them fresh drinks, and Nick changed the subject. “So, are you guys here on vacation or what?”
Rob laughed. “Ohh, no - actually, we live here.”
“All year round,” Dani added proudly.
Nick smiled. “Locals, huh?”
Dani looked at Rob and shrugged. “Not originally, but I guess we’ve been here long enough to be considered locals by now. I didn’t grow up all that far away - Fort Myers - but Rob’s actually from New Jersey.”
Called it, thought Nick, suppressing a smirk. “Wow. What brought you down here?” he asked Rob.
“The weather,” Rob replied without missing a beat. Nick and Dani both laughed. “But no, actually, I did my residency in Miami. That’s where me and Dani met.”
“Residency?” Nick repeated blankly.
Rob grinned. “Don’t let my costume fool you,” he said, looking down at his hospital gown. “I’m actually a doctor, not a patient… or a zombie, for that matter.”
Nick raised his eyebrows. “For real?” He definitely hadn’t called that one. Rob looked more like a personal trainer than someone with any real medical training.
“Yeah.” Rob sat up a little straighter, puffing his chest. “I’m a critical care specialist. I work in the ICU - plenty of zombies in there, lemme tell you.”
Nick laughed. “Wow, that’s awesome. Sounds like a tough job though.”
Rob nodded as he took a swig from his beer. “It’s not easy, but I love it.”
“So what about you?” Nick asked, turning to Dani. “Are you really a nurse?”
“I am,” she replied, smiling. “I don’t usually dress like this, though, don’t worry.”
Nick snickered. “Yeah, I could see some of your patients having heart attacks if you showed up looking like that.”
“You mean ‘cause she’s scary-looking or ‘cause she’s so freakin’ sexy?” Rob asked, resting his hand on Dani’s thigh.
Nick nearly choked on his drink. “Uhh, I’m gonna have to plead the fifth on that one,” he said with a grin, holding up his hands in defense. He could feel his face flushing and hoped they wouldn’t notice. Rob laughed, while Dani just rolled her eyes.
“So what about you, man? You don’t live down here, do you?” Rob asked Nick.
He shook his head as he swallowed another sip. “Not full time. I’ve been coming to the Keys for years, though. Used to have a house in Marathon, and now I’m renting a place here in Key West. I’ve got a boat down here, too.”
“I bet that’s nice,” said Rob. “I’d like to buy us a boat one of these days. Gotta pay off some more of my med school loans first, though.” He grinned. “See, that’s what they don’t tell you about being a doctor. You think you’re gonna make good money, but the truth is, you don’t make a damn thing until you're already hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.”
“That sucks,” Nick replied, not knowing what else to say. He’d never had to worry about money the way most adults did. He was grateful for that, but it did make him feel awkward whenever he heard fans talking about how long they’d had to save just to be able to afford to go to one of his shows.
“Oh come on, babe, don’t start talking about money. You’re stressing me out,” said Dani, swatting playfully at her husband. Then she turned back to Nick and smiled. “So, is your family here with you?”
Nick felt another pang of sorrow in his chest, and for the first time since he’d sat down with them, he fought the urge to check his phone. “Nah. Not this time,” he said, and left it at that. He wondered how closely Dani kept up with him these days. He held his breath, waiting to see if she would bring up the baby, but she didn’t.
Instead, she stood up and said, “Excuse me, but I’ve gotta use the bathroom. Will you watch my drink?”
“Sure,” said Nick, smiling with relief as she walked away.
Once it was just him and Rob, the conversation quickly stalled. He heard Rob’s phone ding and saw him reach under his hospital gown to retrieve it - Nick was relieved to see he had shorts on underneath. Rob took his phone out of his pocket and frowned as he read the text he’d received. Taking advantage of the pause in their conversation, Nick pulled his own phone out and looked at the screen. Still nothing from Lauren. With a sigh, he set it down on the bar and took another swig of his drink.
On the other side of Dani’s empty stool, Rob was texting up a storm, his phone dinging every few seconds. He didn’t even look up until Dani came back from the bathroom a few minutes later. “Did you fall in or what?” he asked his wife, without his usual smile.
She frowned. “What’s the matter?”
Rob sighed. “Dimitri wants me to come in to work.”
Dani’s mouth dropped open. “What, now? Tonight?” He nodded. “But you’re not on call tonight!” she protested.
“I know, but there was a bad accident on the bridge. A lot of critical cases coming in. You know the hospital’s not equipped for big traumas like that; they need all the help they can get.”
Dani shook her head. “You can’t work when you’ve been drinking!”
Rob shrugged. “I tried to tell him that, babe, but he said even if I don’t do any procedures, I can still help supervise the residents.” He heaved a sigh and shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I’ve gotta go. You okay with taking an Uber home tonight?”
Dani hesitated. “Don’t you think I should go with you?”
“No, I think you should stay here and enjoy yourself,” her husband said firmly. “It’s Halloween. At least one of us should get to have some fun.” Then he looked at Nick. “Will you make sure she gets a ride home?”
“Yeah, of course,” Nick replied automatically, though he felt awkward about it. It was one thing to be the third wheel with a couple he hardly knew; it was quite another to be alone at a bar with an attractive, married woman.
But Rob didn’t seem to be too concerned. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he said, as he kissed his wife goodbye.
Dani gave him a stern look. “Drive safely. And don’t forget to wash all that shit off your face before you walk into the hospital.”
He laughed. “Don’t worry; I’m gonna stop home and change first. Nice meeting you again, man,” he added, turning to shake Nick’s hand one more time.
“You too,” Nick replied. Watching Rob walk away, he was filled with a sudden sense of regret. It was an ominous feeling that made his heart stutter and his stomach churn. This was a bad idea, he thought for the second time that night. I shouldn’t be here. It felt like a betrayal to Lauren, somehow, even though she still hadn’t bothered to text him back. He wished he hadn’t agreed to watch out for Rob’s wife. But he wasn’t about to leave Dani there by herself, so he took another sip of his drink and made the fateful decision to stay.
***
