Another Long Night
With a slow shake of his head and tears in his eyes, the day’s events replayed in the older man’s head. When he first arrived at the hotel, Nick was acting like the eight year old Nick – the one that had returned to them after the alcohol and drug overdose. That was the Nick he had grown to know and accept as best as he could. After an uneventful drive to the restaurant, Nick had transformed into the young man that Nick had grown to be; the Nick Carter prior to the ‘accident.’
Folding his hands, Kevin quietly sighed as he continued to think about the afternoon. He recalled that once they were seated in the restaurant, it was like a switch had been flipped on and he suddenly became ’Nick.’
”He never read the menu…” Kevin mumbled softly as he recalled. “I fucking blew it by making him read….”
The Kentuckian’s soft muttering woke youngest band member, immediately putting Kevin on edge.
“Sorry Nicky, did I wake you?”
The blonde slowly sat up in bed and yawned while he stretched. Instead of a verbal reply, he shook his head.
“Good....” Kevin replied to the nod. He watched as the young man crawled out of bed and padded into the bathroom, softly closing the door.
Drawing a hand over his face in a tired gesture, Kevin yawned as he tried to compose himself for when Nick would re-enter the room. It took only a few minutes before the blonde emerged from the bathroom, his face still flushed from sleep.
“I was thinking about grabbing some coffee from the restaurant downstairs, would you like some?”
“I dunno,” Nick quietly replied with a shrug of indifference as he laid back into the bed, pulling the covers up.
“I could bring you back something else if you want…” Kevin said, thinking of something to say to draw the young man into some type of a conversation to see how Nick exactly was this morning. Before Nick answered, a loud fart pierced the silence in the room.
”You sick pig!” Brian shouted as he quickly jumped from the bed and started smacking AJ with a pillow.
Kevin could only smirk as he watched the drama unfold from the other side of the hotel room. “Good morning Bri.”
“I’m sorry for being loud but that was just sick and wrong!” he apologized.
“Like you never farted before in your life,” AJ defended.
Kevin looked over at Nick hoping that this would draw him into a conversation he desperately wanted to have. Farts and AJ was usually a subject of interest coming from Nick. “Nick, aren’t you going to say anything about what AJ did?”
“Nope,” Nick softly replied.
“You’re awake Kaos?”
“Yeah.”
Kevin was starting to grow alarmed with Nick’s one-word responses. The young man’s face did not show any emotion, just a blank look. ’Maybe I’m reading too much into this,’the elder Kentuckian wondered.
“I thought I heard you mention coffee,” AJ rasped as he sat on the edge of Nick’s bed.
“I did.”
AJ looked around the room and then at Kevin. “So where is it?”
“I only talked about getting coffee; I haven’t done anything about it yet. Nick really didn’t seem to be too excited about it so I thought I would wait until everyone was up,” Kevin drawled.
“Well, we could all go down to the restaurant and have breakfast,” AJ suggested.
“I’m not sure if that would be such a good idea,” Kevin replied with a nod toward the bed.
‘Is he okay?’ AJ mouthed.
Kevin could only shrug his shoulders.
AJ squeezed Nick’s foot. “Nicky, do you want to go downstairs and have breakfast?”
The young man rubbed his eyes with the heels from the palm of his hand. “What time is it?”
Relief washed over Kevin. Nick said more than two words…. “Eight-fifteen.”
“We probably could have slept in longer if Bonehead hadn’t farted and woke the entire hotel up,” Brian answered as he emerged from the bathroom, toweling dry his hair.
“Did you save any water butthead?” AJ grumbled as he jumped up from the bed and walked toward the bathroom.
“I wasn’t in there that long,” Brian defended.
“Yeah…..yeah,” AJ muttered as he closed the door.
Brian turned his attention to Nick. “Did you sleep okay?”
“I suppose.”
Brian then looked over at his cousin. “Did you ever get some sleep last night Kev?”
“Probably on and off….not sure, I was too preoccupied with thinking.”
“Understandable…everything seems to be okay so I wouldn’t beat myself up over last night,” Brian assured.
Kevin sighed. “I’m not too sure yet if everything is alright.”
Standing beside the bed looking down at his best friend, Brian asked, “Nick, how are you feeling this morning?”
Nick furrowed his brows in confusion. “Why?”
“You had a rough time---“
“Brian!” Kevin warned as he tried to stop Brian.
“I-I mean you….you weren’t feeling well…” Brian’s stammering statement sounded more like a question. He knew he was a bad liar but he didn’t know how to dig himself out of the hole he felt that he had suddenly dug himself into.
Nick stared up at Brian, unsure where he was going with that question.
“Do you feel like having breakfast this morning Nick?” Kevin questioned, desperate to draw Brian’s question away.
"Yeah, we could either go out for breakfast or have it downstairs in the hotel restaurant,” Brian added.
Kevin scowled. “How about we just call room service this morning.”
“I thought you hated room service,” Nick mumbled.
“I do, but today is different,” Kevin stated.
“So you remember that Kevin is cheap…” Brian grinned. His grin was cut short by his cousin’s gesturing with a finger to his mouth to stop talking.
Standing up, Kevin grabbed the room card. “Brian, come out in the hall for a sec…I need to talk to you about something.”
Wordlessly, Brian followed his cousin out of the room. Once the door was close, Kevin leaned in to speak.
“ You need to stop reminding Nick about how he was,” Kevin started in a hushed tone. “I don’t actually know how Nick would take the comments and I don’t want to have a replay of what happened in the parking lot last night. So far, to me he seems pretty fragile this morning..”
“Fragile? How?”
Kevin sighed, “I don’t know for sure, but he seems really quiet almost like he’s depressed…I can’t put a finger on it but something seems off to me.”
“Maybe you’re wrong about that. Nick’s never been a morning person. He doesn’t seem to remember what happened last night when I asked him how he felt. I think he’ll be fine.”
“I’m just scared to push him. I think we should wait until we can get him back to talk to his doctor,” Kevin argued. “He’s supposed to be back today at SunValley, right?”
“Do you honestly think that’s a good idea taking him back there today? I can call them and ask for an extension or something…explain that we need more time with Nick, it would be an honest request.”
Kevin shook his head. “I know for a fact that they’re pretty strict with their rules and regulations in that place…”
“But if I call one of Nick’s parents and tell them what is happening with Nick, they could get that place to bend their rules,” Brian suggested.
“Let me think about it,” Kevin replied as he unlocked the door to their room. Once inside the room, he discovered that Nick wasn’t laying in bed anymore. “Where’s Nick?”
AJ pointed toward the bathroom. “Taking a shower. I told him we’re going to go downstairs to get something to eat.”
Kevin glared at AJ. “Did I not fucking tell you that going downstairs was out of the question?!”
“Actually, no you didn’t…the only thing you said was you weren’t sure if it was a good idea. Hell, I even asked the kid when he was in the room…he never answered me, he just wanted to know what time it was,” AJ growled.
Kevin blinked his eyes a few times, digesting the statement AJ made. He immediately regretted snapping at him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bite your head off….I’m just tired.”
AJ patted the older man on the shoulder. “It’s okay, we’re all pretty tired I suppose.”
“So do you think going downstairs is okay then?” Brian asked, “or do the room service thing?”
“Room service? That stuff is nasty, if anything I could go to Micky D’s and bring shit back,” AJ suggested.
“How about we ask Nick and see what he wants to do,” Brian suggested as Nick stepped out of the bathroom.
The blonde looked at the guys, with a puzzled expression. “Ask me what?”
“Room service, downstairs restaurant or me going to get some McDonald’s,” AJ asked. “I vote restaurant.”
Nick shrugged his shoulders. “I personally don’t care either way.”
AJ clapped his hands together. “Then it’s decided, we’ll go out.”
Kevin folded his arms across his chest. “No, lets just order food to the room.”
Nick sat on the edge of the bed. “I don’t know why we’re arguing about food and me. I honestly don’t care what we do or if we even eat.”
Ignoring Nick’s out-of-character disinterest in eating, Kevin plucked the hotel menu out of a desk drawer. “Just order room service, alright? It’s pointless to go out right now. I’m getting wheat toast, black coffee and orange juice,” he said, tossing the menu over to Brian.
Brian opened the menu. “I guess we can just do that then. I’ll have two eggs over easy, hash browns and black coffee…you’re writing this down aren’t you?”
Kevin looked over at Brian. “Huh?”
“It was your idea for room service, so I figured you’d be taking the orders and calling down.”
Pulling the note pad and pen from the dresser drawer, Kevin quickly wrote down Brian’s order. “Yeah, I suppose I could.”
AJ grumbled as he studied the menu. “God, this stuff looks like shit.”
Brian swatted the tattooed rebel in the back of the head. “There are no pictures so how do you know what it looks like?”
“Just the descriptions,” he hissed as he rubbed the back of the offended area. “I guess gimme a Hammy Sammy…boy that really sounds gay right there—“
“Shut up,” Kevin warned.
“A Hammy Sammy and black coffee,” AJ muttered, tossing the menu over to Nick.
Kevin held his breath as he watched Nick open the room service menu afraid he could have having another relapse when confronted with reading. His fears were quickly realized when Nick sat there for a few moments, a perplexed look on his face. Wordlessly, Nick closed the menu and lay back on the bed.
As the others exchanged worried looks, the elder man quickly made his way over the bed. “Nick?”
Ashamed, Nick rolled away from Kevin’s view, burying his face into the pillow. Kevin started rubbing the boy’s back in small, comforting circles. “Nicky?”
Nick didn’t have to speak, the muffled sounds of his cries told Kevin exactly what was going on.
Once again, Kevin felt he had fucked things up for Nick.
“Baby, it’s gonna be okay, I’m sorry….it’s my fault….I’m sorry,” Kevin whispered softly as he knelt beside the bed and wrapped his arm around the young man’s shoulders as best as he could manage.