Once Nick and Andrea had gotten settled on the bus, Andrea took a shower and changed into clean clothes.  She was starving, so Nick had prepared some food for the two of them while she was in the shower.  They decided to watch a movie while they ate, and carried the food into the bedroom, popped a movie into the DVD player, and ate picnic-style on the king sized bed in the back of the bus. 

“You know AJ really well, so what do you think he’ll do with Annie?” Andrea asked as the credits were rolling at the end of the movie.  “Is he the type of guy that will stick it out with her and try and make it work or does he flee at the first sign of turbulence?”

            “Well, if you would have asked me that a few years ago, I would have said they do not stand a chance, but now a days, I am not so sure,” Nick replied honestly as he got up to take the DVD out of player.  “AJ is a lot different with woman than he used to be, and it’s actually for the better, but I can’t read him like I used to be able to.”  He walked back over to the bed and plopped down on it, sitting adjacent to Andrea.

            I wonder how it is going, she thought to herself. It’s been over two hours and she hasn’t called me yet; I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. 

            “They are both adults, they can make their own decisions.  I don’t want to talk about them anymore, I want to talk about us,” Andrea said as she turned her body towards Nick and a cloud of seriousness formed over the two of them.  “We have a little less than two hours until we get to Cincinnati and then Annie and I each have a decision to make.  She is going to call me when her and Alex finish talking and let me know where they stand and what she wants to do, but what about me?  Where do we stand?”

            “Together, we stand together.”

            “It’s not that simple Nick and you know it.  Yes, theoretically I could tour around the country with you for the next two and a half weeks with no problems, but what happens after my vacation is done?  When you have to continue touring and I have to go back to my house and my company and my life before you came into it, what then?  I don’t want to spend the next two weeks falling even more in love with you and then have to rip myself away and go back to ‘normal’.”  Tears started to well in her eyes as she said this for so many reasons. 

            “We are not going to be touring forever Andrea.  There is going to be a time when things settle down and I return home and live a semi-normal life until the next time the job calls.  I guess you’re forgetting the five-year hiatus we just came off of.  I am not always just the Backstreet Boy you know and love, I do have a lot of time when I’m just Nick.”

            “I understand that, but like you said, you just came off quite a long break, and I highly doubt that you guys are going to just go on break again after this tour.  That wouldn’t make for a very good comeback, now would it?” she stated, sarcasm hanging off of her every syllable.  Her face was getting redder with every irritated breath she took in and blew out.  “And another thing, your home is nowhere near my home so even when you are just being ‘Nick’, you’re going to be doing it hundreds of miles away from me!”

            Nick in turn was getting more frustrated and angry at the situation with every moment that past and every word she uttered.  “So what are you saying?  Do you not want to be together?  Do you want to just continue on your little road trip with your cousin and forget about me and your feelings?”  The questions came snarling out of his mouth so rapidly and fiercely he had no time to control himself. 

“I don’t know Nick, okay!  I don’t know!  What do expect me to do?  Are you waiting for me to tell you that I will go with you anywhere and leave everything that’s left in my fucked up life and move to Florida with you?  Do you want me to tell you that I will follow around the world like a little puppy and be your beck and call girl, available and willing to carry out your every whim?”  She was practically yelling now, hurtful remarks flying freely from her lips to his ears.  Nick was so fired up at this point that he was ready to shoot right back at her, but he didn’t. 

            “You’re absolutely right,” he said quietly, looking down at his hands.  “I guess that is what I was expecting you to do, and it’s not fair of me.  I assumed that you would drop everything and leave your life, make a new life with me and not look back.”  His voice cracked as he spoke and he felt ashamed for thinking that she would just follow him everywhere without giving it a second thought.  “That’s what I was hoping you would do.  Wouldn’t the life that I will give you, a life with me, be better than what you would be leaving?”  To him, the question sounded very genuine and sincere, but when it hit her eardrums, it sounded pompous and supercilious.

            “You have some nerve, you know that?  Obviously that is what you are used to, and I’m not like that.  You are so used to always getting your way, to having girls throw themselves at you and tell you they would do anything for you and be so goddamn dependant and desperate for you, and if that is what you are looking for, then I am not the woman for you.”  She turned away from him, her face on fire and her body shaking.  She stood there for a minute, feeling his beautiful blue eyes watching her. 

What am I doing?  Only me, it would only happen to me.  Any other girl who lost the love of her life and tried to get back on the horse and ride again would find a guy at a bar, or a co-worker, or a friend of a friend, but no, not me, I have to jump onto the saddle of a Backstreet Boy.  What in the hell am I thinking?  Her reflection on the situation hurt her deeply.  My heart already hurts, and he’s still here.  I can’t do this.  She gasped aloud unintentionally as she came to her conclusion. 

God give me strength, she prayed.  She turned back around to face him, and her eyes fell onto his.  Those eyes, they see right through me.  Please God, put a shade over his eyes this one time, let me get away with this.  Don’t let him see how much I really love him, and don’t let him see that I’m lying to him. 

 When she opened her mouth to say something, this time she dropped her voice to almost a whisper, hopelessness and desolation overriding her humiliation and resentment that had caused her to yell before.  “I think I may have made mistake,” she started, dedicating every ounce of being left in her to avoiding his eyes.  “When we get back to Cincinnati…” Her cell phone rang as she was talking, causing her to stop abruptly mid sentence and answer it. 

“What’s wrong?” the voice on the other end asked. 

“Nick and I are in the middle of something,” Andrea replied, emphasizing the last word.  “How’d it go with Alex?”

“What would you say if we continued our road trip, but instead of us driving, we let the bus driver take us around the country, if you know what I mean?”

Andrea went silent, completely in awe of what she was hearing.  How could the tables have turned so drastically?  How can I be the one who’s running away from love and Annie, queen of non- commitment, wants to toddle around the country with the Backstreet Boys?  Andrea was so caught off guard, so many different emotions and thoughts running through her mind that she didn’t even know where to begin. 

“Annie, if that’s what you want to do, then do it.  I’m out,” she said flatly as she snapped the flip shut on her phone.  She knew her cousin all to well, and decided to turn the power off on it to prevent a return call from her cousin.  She realized that during her conversation with Annie she had turned away from Nick again, a reflex she was becoming accustomed to in order to avoid his eyes. 

She turned back toward him, formulating the line of bullshit she was going to give him as her way out.  He’s going to see right through it; no matter what explanation I give him he’s going to see right through it..  Feeling there was absolutely no way to do this without hurting him, she decided to just say it.  “Nick, when we get back to Cincinnati I’m leaving,” was all she said.  She was focusing on her hands, never looking up at him. 

She doesn’t mean it, he thought to himself, almost amused that she was trying to so hard to successfully lie to him.  “Look me in the eyes and tell me that,” he challenged her.

Dammit dammit dammit, she cursed to herself.  He’s either so full of himself that he thinks this is just a game, or he’s so smooth and intuitive…. urgh, I just want to strangle him!   She decided the only way she was going to get through this was to be a bitch to him, something she didn’t have a lot of practice doing, but felt she could carry out convincingly. 

            “I don’t have to look you eyes to say it, no matter where I look when I say it, it means the same thing Nickolas.  I made a mistake, and I’m leaving before I make anymore.  So stop trying your little mind games and the ‘do this, do that’ crap, because it’s over.  This whole charade is over!”  She turned away from him yet again, and a feeling of not being able to breathe was coming over her.  I’m going to hyperventilate, and he’s going to have to give me mouth to mouth, and then I’m never going to get away from him.  Her thoughts were erratic, but she could not help it. 

            “Andrea, sit down, you’re swaying back and forth,” Nick instructed. 

            “I’m looking for my pain pills,” Andrea snapped back, trying to stay out of the “pit” she was now referring to as “Nick’s love”.  She was growing weary, and fighting her feelings and fighting him were exhausting her even more.  She knew she was getting close to falling into “the pit” again.  I’m sure this isn’t what Dr. Yesenia had meant when she said that I needed to rest and relax for a little while. 

            “They’re right here,” he said extending his hand to her.  “I guess you don’t remember that you gave them to me to hold on to because you said you would lose them otherwise, and since you were going to be with me for the next week or so, it would be okay.”  The icy tone he was using caused a chill to run down her spine. 

            “Yeah, I guess it did say that,” she admitted as she grabbed the bottle of pills from his hand.  Mother Fucker, it’s going to be mighty hard opening this with only one hand, she cursed again to herself.  She was going to try everything under the sun before getting help from Nick though.  That will just give him more fuel for the fire, she told herself as the pig-headed German side of her kicked in.  I am my mother’s daughter, she joked as she held the cap between her teeth and turned the bottle around with her good hand.  She still could not get the bottle open.

            “Here, let me help you,” Nick said, his voiced softened and warmed since his last statement to her.  He pulled the bottle out of her mouth and twisted open the cap, pouring two pills into the palm of his hand.  He grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and opened it for her.  “Open,” he instructed and once she did, he placed the two pills in her mouth and handed her the bottle of water.  She smiled at him as she swallowed the pills and handed the bottle of water back to him.

            “Thank you,” she said, not resisting the urge to look in his eyes anymore. 

            “Anytime.”

            “I’m still leaving when we get back to Cincinnati,” she told him, as her words began to slur and the effects of the pain medication were setting in.  She lay back on the bed and Nick put a pillow up her arm to give it support.  He brushed her curls off her forehead and then bent down and kissed it. 

            “Whatever you say, my love,” he whispered in her ear as she drifted off to sleep.  “But you and I both know you don’t mean it.”

            He got off the bed and grabbed her cell phone.  He turned he power back on and waited for it to load up.  He was beginning to know Annie the way Andrea already did, and he knew she had been trying to call back for the last fifteen minutes.  As soon as the power was full on the phone it began to ring. 

            “Annie, it’s Nick, we need to talk.”