“I miss my house.” Nick muttered.
I sighed. “Don’t get me started.”
Nick looked at me in mild surprise. Okay so there was more of an edge in my voice than I had meant to come out. I was just nervous and I wanted Nick to be at least somewhat happy with this place.
“Sorry, it’s not that bad. I’m just getting used to this.” He said quietly.
“It’s all good.” I smiled reassuringly at him. He returned the smile and then his attention was drawn to the Little Mermaid again. I narrowed my eyes at the grin that appeared on his face. “You better not be messing around on there!”
He gave me that all too familiar innocent look that made most girls melt. “Nice try Carter. Doesn’t work on me.” Unfortunately my voice didn’t come out as mean sounding as I was aiming for though. I just shook my head in resigantion.
He gave me a look of mock horror. “Who’s Carter? My name is Jack Carpenter.”
My eyes widened at my mistake. “Whoops...”
“Yeah, whoops is right, gimme your cell phone. And by the way, why do you get one and I don’t?” He stuck his lower lip and and I snickered.
“Yours is coming, you brat. Amy didn’t have time to reconfigure two of them so they can’t be traced or picked up on. We have a PO box that it is going to be delivered to within the next couple days.” I explained handing him my cell. “What did he say?”
“’How?’” Nick grinned again as he typed out another message.
“’How’ what?” I countered, but he ignored me. Right before we went into the small office I stopped cold.
“What’s wrong?” Nick flipped the phone shut and stuck it in his pocket.
I chose to ignore that for now. “When I came in here the first time I filled out an application in our names just in case because they always do a credit check and they would check our rental history and stuff. What if it comes up blank? We are so screwed!” I fretted.
“Whoa, take it easy. We won’t know until we find out.” Nick rested a hand on my shoulder.
I groaned. “Go figure, you’ve never had to mess with this shit before.”
He laughed. “Thank God.”
I just shook my head and we walked inside. A middle-aged man sat at the desk and offered a pleasant greeting.
“Hi, my name is Katie Allen, I was in here the other day and filled out an application. This is uh...my uh...”
“I’m Jack Carpenter.” Nick stuck his hand out, giving me a look out of the corner of his eye.
“Oh, that’s right. Let me check.” The man turned around and rifled through a file cabinet.
“You’re going to have to do better than that, dumbass.” Nick whispered.
“Shuddup.” I hissed back kicking him.
“Ah, yes here it is. Well y’all have been approved. You both have excellent credit and your rental history has been spotless. Not one mark in the past three years you have been together. That’s pretty good. All I need you to do is fill this out and I need a $150 deposit and I can show you to y’alls place.” The man placed a piece of paper in front of us on the desk.
Three years of being together?! I looked at Nick and he looked like he was trying not to laugh. I just stood there like an idiot so he grabbed the pen out of my hand and started signing his new name in the various places.
Only a few minutes later the man escorted us around the side of the complex and up the stairs to apartment 237. He handed both of us or keys and told us to let him know if we needed anything or had any problems.
“Well here goes...” Nick stated as he unlocked the door and swung it open. I reached around him and flipped on the light.
It was moderately sized. It was actually about the same size as the apartment I had shared with Kyung. I felt a pang in my heart when I thought of that. I hadn’t talked to her since this all happened. Everything happened so fast that I didn’t even have time to call her. I wouldn’t be able to tell her anyway about what was really going on and I hated to lie. She had to be so devastated by now. I was going to have to page Brian to get ahold of her and let her know I was okay. I shook it off and put my attention back to the room.
“Well?” I looked at Nick anxiously.
“It’ll do. Ya know, that guy is gonna wonder why we have a two bedroom apartment if we are ‘together’.” His voice carried from the tiny kitchen he had wandered to.
I walked into the hallway that had both rooms. They were right across from each other which was sort of odd since most apartments had the rooms on opposite sides. Then it dawned on me. “He probably thinks that is gonna be the baby’s room!” Nick’s head whipped around so fast I thought it would snap.
“Baby?!” He choked.
I about died laughing. Literally doubled over, holding the side of the wall, uncontrollable laughing. The look on his face was priceless. Between breaths I explained my theory about the location of the room. His eyes grew even wider and he shook his head.
“Okay,” I said, composing myself. “We’ve got a lot to do. We need to get some cheap furniture, food, and we both need clothes. Where do you want to hit first? Mall or used furniture store?”
Nick’s eyes grew wide again. “How about I let you do that stuff and I will hide out here?” He asked hopefully.
“No dice Carpenter. Mall then?” I smirked at the look on his face. This was going to be so weird for him, going out and blending in with the rest of the world.
“How did I let you talk me into this?” He muttered as we headed back out the door.
“Could be worse. You could be all on your own about this.” I giggled at the look of horror on his face.
“Okay okay, but at least I would be free of your ass keeping me in line.” He grinned to show he was just playing around.
“Ha ha ha.” I retorted dryly as I locked the door behind us. “Before we go anywhere we are stopping for food. I’m starving.”
“Sounds good, but I am driving!” Before I could react, he grabbed the keys out of my hand and darted away as I lunged at him.
“You punk!” I hollered, tearing after him. Okay, between the two of us there was never going to be a dull moment.
“Boy, I’d forgotten how tired a trip home from the hospital can make a guy,” Brian sighed as he laid back on the queen sized bed in the hotel room.
“You’re feeling okay other than that though, right?” Kevin asked anxiously.
Brian half heartidly waved his hand at his cousin. “Yeah, I’m feeling okay, just tired.”
“Okay, well, you go ahead and get comfortable and crawl into bed and rest. I don’t want to see you getting a setback from overdoing it today,” Kevin instructed in his usual ‘fatherly-like tone of voice.’ “I wrote down my room number just in case you need anything.”
The vibrating of the pager snatched Brian’s concentration from Kevin for a moment.
“Thanks Kev, see you in a few then.”
As soon as Kevin closed the door, Brian took the pager off his belt and smiled slightly. It was another page from Nick. He was answering Brian’s question about how he knew that he had been discharged from the hospital.
‘staff elevator i was the guy in the wheelchair and i told you my sister likes the band.’
Brian narrowed his eyes as he tried to recall what happened only a few hours ago. He remembered getting onto the elevator and there was hospital staff and as hard as he tried, he couldn’t recall the face of the man in the wheelchair. There was no way that could have been Nick. He would have known him instantly.
“Dammit,” Brian softly mumbled as he re-read the message and then erased it. After a few moments he started to feel calmer. If he didn’t recognize Nick then surely Marcus wouldn’t be able to either. Then he remembered the voice - it very gravely, like when you have a good case of larangytis. Brian hadn’t talked to Nick since he underwent the throat surgery so he definately didn’t have any clue as to what type of a voice he had been left with.
“So where’s a BK or a Micky D’s at around here?” I asked as I guided the jeep down a two lane road.
“Oh, sure, you drive and you have no idea where you’re going,” Lizz replied in mock protest.
“Hey, don’t give me that, I just happened to have taken an unexpected stop in this city when the bus was going through here. Ohmygod, a Wendy’s!”
Lizz shook her head as I took the corner into the parking lot on two wheels.
“Hungry much?”
“Shuddup. Are we dining in or drive thru?”
“I doubt you’d be able to handle actually going into the place let alone staying in there,” she challenged.
I pulled the car into the parking space and killed the engine. “Oh yeah, I accept your challenge.”
Old habits die hard, I decided. I was feeling pretty cautious as we walked across the parking lot towards the building. I was waiting for an ambush of teenyboppers or something screaming and yelling and flashing cameras in my face. All I saw were some highschool girls walking out of the restaurant and it sounded like they were talking about feminine hygiene products.
“Refreshing change, eh Jack?” Lizz winked at me.
“They could have spared me the douche topic,” I mumbled as I held the door open for her.
Slipping into a booth with our trays, I was still waiting for someone to recognize me and bug us while we ate. Nothing happened. It was nice in a way but really weird in another. I guess I was liking the idea of having a normal lunch out in public but in a way I missed the fan interaction.
“Something wrong, Jack?”
“Huh?” I straightened up in the booth. Lizz must have detected my daydreaming. “Sorry, I’m fine.”
“No deal, I know you too well and you know that. Besides, I can feel your stomach is in knots. Come clean and tell me what’s bugging you.”
I repeatidly stabbed a fry into the pile of catsup on the burger wrapper.
“It’s okay, I’m fine,” I lied.
“Bull, you’re playing in your food. You of all people don’t play with food. Come on Ni..Jack, just talk to me,” Lizz asked as she placed a soft hand on my forearm.
“I um, I miss the guys,” I looked down at the table.
“And?”
“Andimissthefans,” I rushed the sentence.
“Ah, once a celeb, always a celeb,” Lizz teased.
