Lis sat in her room, Bri was in Kentucky visiting his family and Michael was sound asleep in his crib. She set down her bridal magazine and saw the box on her dresser. She hadn't even glanced at it since she came home from the beach house. After sitting there eying the box for a good five minutes, Lis went over and brought it back to the bed, taking her walkman with her. The jewelry box gave her the most curiosity so she pulled it out of the box first. Lis held it in in her hand, tracing its shape with her thumb. "This is crazy, just open it." she said outloud as she flipped the box open. Inside was a diamond garnet ring. Their birthstone and now Michael's in the shape of a heart between two diamonds. She slid the ring slowly on her finger, wondering when Nick would have given her the ring. After a few minutes of daydreaming, she remembered the two small gift wrapped packages still inside the box. She picked them out of the box and stared at the one, it was gift wrapped in baby paper, rattles and teddy bears on a pale blue background. "Oh no..." she said softly, feeling tears sting her eyes. Her eyes drifted to the bottom of the box and she saw an envelope she'd never seen before. Lis pulled it out and looked it over, there in Nick's handwriting was her name but next to it was a small note from BJ: "Lis, I guess Nick thought you'd find these yourself...I never opened anything, so I have no clue what's in this envelope but I thought you'd want to have whatever it is, BJ"
She looked at the letter and carefully opened it up taking out the sheet of paper. Why did she feel so nervous? It wasn't as if Nick was going to walk through the bedroom door, she'd given up on that happening long ago. With a slightly trembling hand she unfolded the paper and read the letter
~Lisa,
Honey, I know you'll find this sooner rather than later. I just finished writing the first letter to everyone but there's still things I need to say to you, only you...I know everything you did that last few months you did for me and I know these past three months must have been the hardest of your life sweetheart. Whatever happened between you and Brian...baby I swear I don't begrudge you for it. Everytime I think back, all I keep seeing is how much I hurt you and it kills me inside. I only hope one day you'll forgive me for everything I've done.
At least one good thing came out of all this, you're going to be a mommy!! I'm so happy for you honey...my only wish is that the baby was mine...part of us like we always dreamed of. Listen baby girl, you have to take care of yourself. You know I'm going to worry about you, always have and I always will, but I don't want to worry more then I have to. There's something I need you to know, in the bottom drawer of my dresser there's two things that are yours. The first one is a jewelry box, I was planning on giving you that on the anniversary of our first date but I guess now's as good a time as any...second of all, with it is two tapes. All the baby talk made me do a foolish thing...the night we went to the baby store I couldn't sleep so I made a tape of lullabies. I was going to surprise you when you told me the news we were pregnant but I guess you were...you were always meant to have Brian's baby. I didn't know if you'll even want to listen to them but they're there. Lisa, honey, baby girl do what makes you happy okay? You deserve all the happiness in the world and if it's with Brian fine, but if not don't be afraid to tell Bri to take a hike. You know I'll always love you Lissy...
Lis sat there sobbing till she got enough courage to open the gift, she ripped the wrapping paper off and stared at the tape in her hand. Quickly she pulled her Cher tape out of her walkman and set Nick's tape inside, pressing play as she sunk back against the pillows.
"Lissy Lis, hi honey it's Nicky." Nick's voice said through her earphones and she laughed imagining him down in the studio in his pajama bottoms talking into the mic. "Well we're having a baby and I swear I've never felt happier. A little Carter, well Halliwell-Carter, you're going to want to hyphenate it aren't you?" he laughed, "It's okay by me I swear. You know if you get any weird cravings at 2 am just wake me up. I'll be happy to go get you anything. Look I'm rambling, but I guess all that practice finally paid off huh mommy? So uh right now actually you're asleep upstairs baby girl. And I'm down here doing this cuz I'm hoping you are pregnant and when you are I'll give you this tape. Does that make any sense? Probably not, it's after 3 and I can't sleep. I keep envisioning things...us and the baby...you...I don't know Lissy I've never felt like this before, it's hard to describe but its just a big feeling of love and happiness like something good is going to happen." Lis cried harder, pulling her knees to her chest. "Well you're probably sitting there looking at me like 'what were you on' and I'm probably looking sheepish because who knew I could ramble this long, I guess it's because I'm letting myself talk...Okay here we go, Nicky Carter sings lullabies...oh Lis, that other tape that's in your hand right now, it's just me talking to you okay?"
Lis hit stop on the tape as she heard his voice start to sing and took a deep breath. It was a good thing she hadn't found that when she was pregnant, she probably would have gone crazy. The sound of Michael whimpering caught her attention. "Mommy's coming!" she said, getting out of bed.
She walked across the hall and looked down at her son. "What is it?" she asked, rubbing his tummy. "You can't be hungry you just ate before you went to sleep." Lis picked him up. "Did Michael have a bad dream?" Lis sat down in the rocking chair and watched as he wiggled around in her arms. "Little man's a grumpy boy." she looked over at the small tape player in the corner and without thinking she leaned over and put in Nick's tape. As soon as Nick's voice filled the room Michael stopped fussing and she stared down at him in surprise. His blue eyes gazed up at hers. "That's your daddy's voice Michael." she explained softly, slowly starting to rock back and forth. Soon mother and son were sound asleep.
Nick laid on the couch, the baseball game was on television but he wasn't aying attention to it. He heard his phone ringing and he sighed, he wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone about anything. His art classes had ended two days before he was finally free for the next three months. He'd almost fallen asleep when there was a knocking at his door. "What is it?" he asked tiredly as he swung the door open. He looked at E standing there. "E, I'm really exhausted, can we talk tomorrow?"
E pushed by him inside his apartment. "No because I have plans for you tomorrow." she said firmly.
Nick shut the door and headed back to the couch. "What plans?" he asked wearily.
She cleared her throat and looked at her best friend. "You're going to Tampa."
He laughed. "No I'm not."
"Yes indeedy you are." she handed him an airline ticket in his name. "And to make sure you're going, I sent the RSVP and I called Aaron."
Nick stared up at E in shock. "E, just leave it be...we're all happy."
"This," she motioned to the dark apartment, "is happy? And how do you know she's happy? From talking to Aaron she's going through the motions Nick."
He shook his head. "Aaron's lying."
"Uh huh, well trust me it won't hurt you to find that out for yourself. Look I have time off in a week and I'll fly down all right? If it for some reason doesn't work out we can go down to the keys till the wedding and fly back. I don't think some Florida sun is going to kill either of us." she smiled, trying to lighten the mood.
His eyes searched her face and he knew she was telling the truth. "Be prepared to go to the keys." he said adamantly.
Brian let himself into his house and set his bags down. It had been an unusually long flight from Lexington to Orlando and he was beat. His eyes stopped on the pile of mail on the table, he decided to flip through it quickly in case something important was there. A couple RSVPs, and mostly junk mail, he took the RSVPs and headed upstairs to his bed. Half hour later, he was showered and dressed in his pajamas, he sat on the bed and started opening the mail. Two of Lis' cousins were coming and a friend of his from high school, he picked up the last envelope and felt a feeling of nervousness wash over him. He ignored it and opened the envelope, staring wide eyed at the card that faced him "Mr. Nickolas Carter and Guest". Brian set the card down and laid back on the pillows, Nick was coming back...
