As soon as AJ pulled into the parking space at Wal-mart, Nick didn’t wait for the engine to be shut off as he literally jumped out of the car.

“Christ, Nick! Get your ass back in here!” AJ shouted through his open window.

“We sound like a true dysfunctional family,” Brian muttered, shaking his head.

“What!?” AJ shot back with a glare.

“You were cursing at Nick from your car window.”

“C’mon lets go!” Nick whined, standing beside AJ’s door.

“First of all, you never get out of the car until I turn off the engine….”

“Spare the lecture gramps, let’s go!”

AJ glanced over at Brian, raising an eyebrow at the Kentuckian’s smirk.

”He called me gramps…I am only two years older than you Carter!”

Nick opened the driver’s side door. “Yeah, c’mon.”

“You act like you’ve never been to Wal-mart,” Brian said with a smile.

“Everybody has been to a Wal-mart at least once in their lives,” Nick corrected as he hurried his pace and started distancing himself from Brian and AJ.

”Nick!” AJ half shouted-half whispered, not wanting to draw attention to themselves. ”Get back here.”

Before they even made it to the front entrance, a few young girls were bold enough to approach Nick.

“Hey, can we have a picture taken with you?”

“Now’s not a good time girls,” AJ quickly apologized.

“Why not, we’re not in any hurry,” Nick said as he casually put an arm around one of the girls, taking the camera from the other one and handing it to AJ. The other girl quickly stood next to Nick.

Instead of arguing, AJ quickly snapped a picture.

“You want to take another one without your thumb in it?” Nick growled.

“My thumb was no where near the lens,” AJ argued.

“Just do it Bone,” Nick replied through gritted teeth.

“Christ, bitch often? There, satisfied?” AJ asked after he snapped the picture.

“Thank you so much!” the owner of the camera said.

Once the girls were out of ear shot, AJ put a hand on Nick’s forearm. “Didn’t you think that was weird?”

“What? That you don’t know how to take a picture…..no that’s not weird at all, you’ve always sucked at that,” Nick said, shrugging his shoulders.

“No dumb ass, that a complete stranger wanted a picture of you.”

Brian knew exactly where AJ was heading with the question and listened quietly for the reply.

“There’s nothing weird about that….”

As AJ opened his mouth to ask another question, Brian interrupted him. “What games do you think we should get to play?”

“I dunno….we’ll have to check and see what they have I guess,” Nick replied as they entered the store.

“I wonder how long this window of Nick being Nick will stay open?” Brian whispered to AJ.

“Hopefully forever.”

“Where do we go now?” Nick asked, stopping so quickly that Brian ran into his back.

“Electronics I suppose,” AJ replied with a nod toward the direction he decided it would be at.

As they approached the counter, Brian’s cell phone went off and he quickly pulled it out of his pocket, checking the caller ID before he flipped the device open.

“Hey…Kev, I’m at Wal-mart, can I call you back when I get out of here?”

“Why on earth are you at Wal-mart? I thought you were spending time with Nick in the hotel,” Kevin questioned.

“He decided he wanted to play games on the play station.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes…seriously Kev. Let me call you when I get back out to the car, okay?”

“I’ll call AJ then…”

“He’s with me.”

“He’s with you?? Where’s Nick? You didn’t leave him alone---“

“We’re not dumb,” Brian interrupted.

“Okay so how’s Nick doing?”

“He’s doing pretty good…..can I please call you back instead of standing in the store talking to you on the phone? It’s kinda rude…”

Kevin sighed loudly into the phone. “I guess I can wait then. Make sure you call me when you get back to the car, okay?”

“I promise, bye.”

Brian ended his conversation, quickly snapping the phone shut before he cousin had a chance to keep his side of the conversation going.

AJ looked back, “Leighanne?”

“Kevin wants me to call when we leave the store,” Brian replied, tucking the cell phone back into his front pants pocket.

“I swear that guy worries too much,” AJ said with a shake of his head.

“Did you get someone to help us yet?”

“Yeah….believe it or not, Carter actually got someone to help us and the guy is getting the keys to unlock the cabinet.”

“Nicky approached a complete stranger for help?”

“I know, pretty odd, eh? I’m keeping my fingers crossed this keeps up.”

“Hey guys, I saw a cool game to get,” Nick said as he came back from the game section.

“What did you find?” Brian asked.

Nick shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know what it’s called but it has some cool stuff on the front of the box.”

Brian raised an eyebrow as he looked at the blonde. “How about you show us what you’re looking at.”

Nick led them over to the selection of games that were behind a locked glass cabinet. “Right there,” he pointed to an NBA game.

“Which one? What is the name of it?” Brian asked.

Nick scowled. “I-I don’t know, it’s the one with basketball on the front of the box and it has the letters B and A on it.”

AJ’s heart sank. Although Nick was acting like the old Nick, he still couldn’t read. He had been hoping that maybe with Nick acting like himself again, he would be himself again.

“It’s okay Nick, I see which one you want. We’ll get that one and a few others too,” Brian said as he put an arm around his best friend.

The electronics department associate returned with the keys and unlocked the games and got the play station out. AJ and Brian were arguing about who was going to buy the item, unaware that Nick had left their side. It wasn’t until they grabbed the bags and turned to leave the department had they noticed that Nick wasn’t with them. They immediately turned back to the counter.

“Hey did you see where that guy that was with us went to?” Brian asked.

The associate looked at them with indifference. “Should I have?”

“I’ll go this way, you go that way,” Brian said quickly as he headed off to look, his heart racing with worry, call me if you find him and I’ll do the same.

After a few minutes of frantic searching, AJ found Nick standing in front of the fish tanks, sitting on the floor looking at the bottom row of gold fish.

“Nick!”

Nick looked up, his face a mask of complete innocence.

“There you are!”

Instead of standing up, Nick remained seated, looking back toward the fish tanks.

His heart filled with a mixture of happiness and sadness, AJ pulled his cell phone off the waistband of his jeans. He dialed Brian’s number.

“I found him. We’re in the pet department,” AJ stated, his voice thick with emotion.

Brian ran into the pet department and nearly skidded past the row where AJ and Nick were at. “There you are Nicky! You had me scared to death!” He waited a few moments for a reply from the young man and then when none came, Brian continued. “We got the stuff, c’mon lets go back to the hotel so I can kick your butt!”

Instead of a smart comeback from Brian’s ‘threat,’ Nick seemed content to remain on the floor. Brian squatted beside him. “Something wrong?”

Nick shook his head. “I like the fish.”

“Yes, I like the fish too,” Brian replied, a confused look on his face.

“Can I have a fish?”

“I thought you wanted to play station games back at the hotel.”

Nick looked at Brian. “Hotel?” he repeated.

It was then that it suddenly connected, but AJ had already felt…..Nick’s window was closed. He was back in his state of innocence – the new Nick. The one with the eight year old mentality.