His pager started vibrating and at first Brian decided he would check it later but something was gnawing in the pit of his stomach so he pulled the small dark blue device from his belt.
At first when he read the message on the pager, he couldn’t make it out.
‘allisokwemissyou.’
It took a few moments when he suddenly realized who it was from. His heart skipped a beat.
Nick.
“Bri, you okay?” Kevin asked as he noticed Brian was acting funny.
“Huh? Oh yeah, I’m okay,” Brian replied as he quickly erased the message Nick had sent him. Thinking for a moment, Brian keyed in a return message to Nick’s new pager number.
‘Thank God, I miss you too. I just got out.’
Brian smiled as he hit send. This was going to be his lifeline for the next few weeks and he was grateful that Lizz came up with this idea. To be apart from Nick and not knowing what was happening literally tore him up. Looking out over the scenery, he felt a mixture of happiness and sadness as the van pulled into the hotel entrance.
“Home sweet home,” AJ said in a monotoned voice.
“Vinnie, I’m glad you could help me out, man,” Marcus stated as he popped open the bottle of beer.
“Hey, no prob, anything for a friend of a friend,” the short, stocky man replied. He picked up the remote control and started surfing through the ten snowy channels his television set picked up. “I used ta have cable but they shut me down when I got behind on the payments.”
“Assholes. Ya know that’s the problem with the system, they pick on all the little people,” Marcus observed after taking a huge gulp from the brown bottle.
“I hear ya,” Vinnie replied, stopping on a soap channel. “So how’s your sister doing?”
Marcus’s gaze turned hard. “She’s alive but it ain’t much of a life. Carter did her over good.” He suddenly smiled. “But I ended up getting Carter in the end.”
“Ain’t he the one that just died?”
“Yeah.”
“So you got your revenge, so everything is done, right?
“Maybe it is, maybe it ain’t. I just don’t feel closure on this yet, ya know?” Marcus replied and then belched.
“I’m not gonna even consider living in a dump like that, you have got to be kidding me,” I sputtered as I bounded down the steps of the complex back to the safety and security of the rental jeep.
“Hey whoa, slow down Jack,” Lizz called out. “And I’m driving mister!”
Slamming the driver side door closed and I walked around the front of the vehicle and literally threw my body into the passenger seat. I set my focus towards the front, folding my arms across my chest.
“Are you having a bit of a temper tantrum?” Lizz teased.
“No I’m not having a TEMPER TANTRUM!” I defended.
“Okay, cause I could have sworn you were,” Lizz remarked as she turned the key in the ignition. “Okay let’s analyze this apartment situation here. Number one, we can’t afford to live in a high rent district, number two like it or not, we’re gonna have to live on a budget--”
I narrowed my eyes at Lizz. “A budget?!”
“Hey we’re supposed to be low key, low profile, how would you explain to someone that we can live on a small income but yet still have tons of side extravagances?”
“Well um, we could um.”
“My point exactly. Okay, so I’m guessing that this place is a dump, but I specifically wanted to start out here so you would appreciate the place I really think we should stay at. My plan was to work our way gradually up to it.”
“Let’s not dick around, just take me to the place you think would be good, I’m sure anything’s better than this rat infested apartment complex,” I snapped back.
Suddenly, my new pager played out a snippet of the beginning of Disney’s Little Mermaid theme, signaling a message had been received. Raising an eyebrow at the sound, I pulled the black pager from my belt.
“I couldn’t resist, I’m a sucker for Disney themes, and Brian contributed to the pager so I figured what the hell,” Lizz apologized.
“Ha ha,” I replied dryly. “Hey, Brian said he misses me too and that he just got out. Gimme your cell.”
“Nick you can’t call him!”
“I’m not that dumb, I’m just gonna reply to his reply and I will remember the spaces this time,” I replied as I punched out my message to him.
‘I know you did, I saw you leave.”
Happy with what I punched out, I hit send and closed the cellphone up and handed it back to Lizz.
Lizz could see the smirk on my face. “Okay, what did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“Bull, you can’t lie to me Carter.”
“Okay, okay, I just told him that I knew he was out of the hospital, that’s all.”
“Yeah, sure I believe you. Okay, here we are, Oakridge Apartments.”
I looked wearily at the narrow three story brown bricked building. In my opinion, it looked like a tennament from Chicago. “This looks like the projects or something!”
“Jack, this is pretty much our last choice, come on,” Lizz coaxed as she got out of the car.
“Coming dear Katie,” I teased as I opened my door.
Brian stared at his pager, jaw dropped. How could he have seen me? Surely I would have seen him then... He thought to himself. His next guess was that Nick had somehow messed up the page, but there were even the correct spaces in it.
“Brian?”
Brian looked up to see Kevin looking at him curiously. He hurriedly erased the page and stuck it back on his belt. The other guys had already gotten out of the van and were carrying the few things they had left up in Brian’s room and also all Brian’s stuff.
“Oh, sorry, I’m coming.” Thankfully they had managed to keep it a secret that Brian was being discharged today so their wasn’t a huge mob at the hotel. They ended up switching hotels just to be on the safe side, but to them it was six of one, half a dozen of another. They started to look alike after awhile.
Brian got out of the van slolwy, putting more attention into dialing a message back to Nick. ‘How.’
