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Chapter 21


He tried, he really tried hard to fold his clothes, but he had never been good at packing and repacking his suitcases on tour or on trips or whatever. Now was no exception. It was the night before he left for home and he was restless. While part of him was glad to be going home, part of him wasn’t. Nick liked hiding out, and it’s exactly what he’d been doing now with all this shit with his family going down. It wasn’t something he’d admit to out loud to anyone, but inside he knew that’s what it was.

Grabbing the various shopping bags he’d accumulated over the last month, he shook the contents out on the bed, ripping the tags off and stuffing the bags into the garbage can. Most of the clothes he had he’d wear once and that’s it, it was kind of a waste, but he couldn’t go out in public in the same thing twice, it just wasn’t done in his line of work. After trying to fold the clothes, he set them in his case and headed into the bathroom to gather up the rest of his things, tossing them haphazardly into his other case, he hoped nothing spilled out during the flight and the transfers. It most certainly wouldn’t be the first time it’d happened though.

Walking over to the large table where the TV sat, he grabbed the various contents of his pockets he’d tossed there over the last few weeks, amongst this were countless phone numbers from the different girls he’d been with. Gathering up the slips of paper, he tore them up and tossed them into the garbage as well, like he had time to call them all back.

Heading back over, he closed one of his cases, setting it by the door for the bellhop in the morning. Moving to his other case, he stared down at it, was he forgetting something? Nick couldn’t help but feel like something was missing. He made one last check of the room; it appeared he had everything with the exception of the clothes he’d change into when he went to bed and what he’d wear in the morning. Sighing, he closed his last case and set it by the door.

Yawning, he walked over to his bed and slumped down. God he was exhausted, it’d been a long and tiring week. He’d forgotten how grueling it all could be, the time difference, the different culture, the different everything. Not that he was complaining or anything, but it was rough on the system. Nick had been doing it for most of his life and he’d still never gotten used to it. Some people could travel and have minimal jet lag and just adapt and adjust easily; he wasn’t one of those people. Staying on his old routine was virtually impossible in foreign lands with foreign everything. When away from home, he missed his bed terribly; nothing was ever the same, ever right.

The guys always used to tease him about whining so much, but he’d always been a homebody, kept to himself while the rest of the guys would go out to clubs or bars. Nick had always been content with just sitting in his hotel room watching TV or playing his Nintendo. That had all changed as he got older though, temptations grew stronger and he was weak to the cries of the women around him, their hands sliding over his body and into his pockets. In the end he’d figured, why fight it? Why indeed, and so he did, stop fighting that is and from there everything changed.

Oh the women…A different woman every night, the numbers weren’t uncommon to him after awhile. At first though, it’d come as a major shock when he’d empty his pockets at night, a small pile of papers scattered over the bed. Some of the guys had told him to expect it, but it’d been a shock nonetheless. Nick wasn’t supposed to say, but he’d used a few of those numbers in a night, two or three to be honest. He was, in the very least, private about it. If there was one thing Nick had to have when it came to his personal affairs it was privacy. Generally he wasn’t the type to kiss and tell, interviews however, made that hard.

From the beginning, interviews had been described to them as to always appear to their fans as single and accessible, and for a long time they did. It can only last so long before girlfriends want recognition and they wanted to be able to go out in public and not have to dodge paparazzi. He didn’t want to have to make excuses for being seen with a girl. When finally they broke away, and all was bared, everything was elevated to a whole new level. Fans knew who they were dating, how long and where they lived. At first Nick brushed it off, but it quickly grew to scary heights when hate sites started arising, not just for his girlfriends, but for the girlfriends of the others too. It was in that moment that Nick decided it was imperative for him to keep his personal relationships just that…personal. That’s not to say it wasn’t hard, it was damn hard.

Looked down at his watch, it was still early yet, maybe he should go out and enjoy his last night in London, get some more phone numbers. This would mean going to different clubs though, couldn’t risk running into someone he’d already seen. Making up his mind, he grabbed his wallet, his card and headed out. For this last night at least, he was Nick Carter, out to have fun by any means possible.

Chapter 22
Veronica stared down at the envelope and groaned. She’d done it. She couldn’t believe it. Over and over she promised herself she wouldn’t write him back and yet here was the letter in her hands, stamp and all. There was no PO box, it had to be fake, she was sure of it now. How dumb she was going to feel when the letter came back with the address unknown. Then again no one would know and no one would care really. It was just like Carla had said: she’d be no better off than she was now. So then why was she so hesitant and worried about being hurt when it didn’t work out? Was it that small chance that it could be real and if she bailed out now and missed her opportunity, she’d be wondering “what if” forever?

He couldn’t have been serious, he just couldn’t have. Since when do pop stars have time to keep in touch with their scads of fans? They didn’t, she knew that, they’d said so on more than one occasion. They had people who went through the fan mail and answered back for them, it was out there in black and white and in interviews, so why was she sitting there with a letter ready to be mailed out? Pure stupidity, that’s why.

Groaning, Veronica flopped back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. She didn’t…HAVE to send the letter out naturally, but it’d sit there, beckoning her to send it, to put it in the mail. Weak, Veronica was just plain weak where he was concerned, she’d make a fool of herself and not care in the least if it meant getting that much closer to him.

Wait, what in the hell was she saying?

She wasn’t going to get close to him. It still was not certain that it was even him for sure. If she thought about it logically, it made sense. Veronica had broken it all down within the course of the last two hours, that’s how long it’d taken her to go through with writing the letter even though she’d said at work earlier that she was, nerves had taken over and the doubts came back. It boiled down to this, Veronica could be in all actuality writing to Nick. It would last a few weeks at the most, and then he’d stop writing and then it’d be as if it had never happened. So, until that happened, she could write him and enjoy it while it lasted.

Simple enough.

It was all so complicated, and there were tons of things that could go wrong and things to be taken into consideration. That didn’t matter, it should have been that simple.

It wasn’t.

What if he didn’t stop writing? What if he kept writing and got all…freaky and started proposition her to do nasty deplorable things? Ok, she was getting ahead of herself, she needed to calm down and just take it easy. These were all the things that had gone through her head within a course of two hours, her head hurt from thinking about it so much.

Tapping on her leg anxiously, she was literally bursting at the seams to tell someone. Carla knew, but she wasn’t going to call her up just to ramble on and on about how she’d finally broken down and written Nick Carter another letter, Carla had a life. Then again there was Lynne, but Veronica was hesitant on saying anything, she knew how excited Lynne got over things and she hated to get her all worked up when she herself didn’t really know what was going on or what was going to happen. For now, she’d keep it to herself, if she could.

Slowly she sat up, the letter clutched in her hand as she slipped off the bed and headed out her room and over to the door, throwing it open carelessly and making her way out. If she stopped to think about it, she’d chicken out. Quickly she made her way down the hall and opened the security door, reaching out and slipping the letter in the outgoing mail box and turned abruptly, making her way back down the hall and into her apartment, shutting and turning the deadbolt.

No turning back, she wouldn’t allow it.