Part 523
When Nick turned around, he found Howie smirking at the exchange with a raised eyebrow.
"Don’t," Nick warned. "Just don’t."
Howie knew if he just waited, Nick would spill the story, and sure enough. It took less than a minute.
"Becca wanted to make love last night and I turned her down," Nick mumbled.
Howie’s jaw dropped. "You what?"
"I turned her down. I said no."
"Wait, let me get this straight. You, Nick Carter, mister ‘Sex on Two Legs’, turned DOWN a chance to-"
"Do NOT be crude, D. It’s too soon and it was for all the wrong reasons." Nick busied himself getting the rest of his and Becca’s things together.
Howie watched him in silence, his grin turning to a thoughtful stare. Try as he might, he couldn’t seem to reconcile the man that stood before him with the gangly teen that had endured so much all those years ago.
Nick was finally ready to leave, but as he turned he caught sight of Howie, standing there just … watching him. "Hey, let’s roll, D. We got some heavy shit to go take care of." Then he snickered at his own pun. "Heavy shit. Get it? Lou? Heavy? And he IS a real-"
"How did you do it?" Howie asked him quietly.
Nick shrugged his shoulders and didn’t even bother to pretend to misunderstand. "I just did. I did what I had to do to keep us together and it worked. Here we are, bro, all these years later."
"But at what price, Nicky?" Howie said softly.
"No price, D. He never touched me. NEVER. I promise you that’s the truth. Man, you know Kevin would’ve killed him if he had."
"He would have had a lot of help, Nick, you know that."
"Yeah, man, I do." He watched Howie turn everything over in his mind, and as long as they’d been together he had a good idea of what Howie was thinking. "D, it wasn’t your fault." He kept going, interrupting Howie’s automatic protest. "And there was nothing that you missed, either. There weren’t any clues or anything like that. Just a scared, dumb blond kid who had to sleep with his best friend ‘cause of homesickness."
Howie nodded his head, knowing Nick was right. "You’re good actor, Nick. A damn good actor."
"Thanks," he acknowledged. "I fooled everyone for all those years, so don’t knock being a 'dumb blond’."
Howie smiled, a twinkle in his eye. "I dunno … you turned down sex with your wife last night, and that’s pretty dumb…"
"Hahahahahaha! You’re so fucking funny, Dorough." He smirked as Howie took off in the same direction as Sarah. "Fine. Run!" he called out. "You gotta sleep some time!"
Nick picked up the remaining bags, took one last look around, and headed for the bus.