Danny couldn’t help missing Nick and Jade. Whenever a Backstreet Boys’ song came on the radio or MTV, she would feel a sharp prick in the region of her heart, this feeling that she lost something infinitely precious- and she had. She was unlikely to ever see Nick or Jade again, although she desperately wanted to. What right has she to go back there and face Jade when she ran at the first scent of trouble? She was a coward; she doesn’t deserve their forgiveness.
Despite all that, Danny never once regretted her untimely leaving. She viewed her leaving as a blessing for all parties involve, at least the entanglements between Nick, Jade and herself had been solved by her disappearance. Nick wouldn’t be trapped between her and Jade and Jade need not know that Danny betrayed her so blatantly. She might never see them again, but she seek solace in the fact that she had done some good for them in the end.
< All the best to you two, I hope you’ll be happy- at least, happier than I will be. >
“What do you think you are doing?” Brian asked quietly, his voice fraud with anger, directed both at himself and his best friend.
Nick rubbed his gritty eyes and stretched lazily before focusing his gaze on his friend who was standing just inside his room and staring at him with barely concealed disappointment and vehemence. “What,” Nick asked deliberately, “are you talking about?”
Brian strode to Nick’s bedside, “Stop playing games, you know what I’m referring to. Yesterday, you had a oversexed redhead hanging all over you and the day before, a brunette with a chest that rivaled Pamela Anderson’s. What is wrong with you? You never used to be attracted to that sort of woman; they are more to AJ’s taste. Is this performance for Danny’s sake, wherever she might be?”
Nick’s blue eyes darkened at the mention at Danny’s name, a cynical twist to his mouth marred his angelic face and add a dangerous quality to his otherwise boyish features. It didn’t diminish his charms; rather, it made him more appealing. A combination of angel and devil, a combination that most females couldn’t resist if these few months were any proof of that.
“Never, ever mention her name in my presence again, Brian. This is the last time I’m going to bother to tell you. As far as I’m concerned, she doesn’t exist. She willingly gave me up; she didn’t even give me the chance to explain. I would give up anything for her, but obviously, she can’t. I won’t play the fool a second time.” Nick’s voice was quietly menacing, a disillusion in his voice that was never there before.
He had changed since Danny left. He had been desolate, then angry. After he got over the drinking and bawling, he clam up. He shut out the world and locked himself in his room, ignoring the pleadings of family and friends. Finally, a week later, he emerged a changed person.
The day he emerged from his self-imposed exile, everyone, including the rest of the boys, who were gathered there, were shocked.
He was unshaved and he stank. His eyes were bloodshot and strangely calm. Fine lines etched themselves into the corners of his eyes and bracketed his mouth, giving him an air of maturity and disenchantment. It was like he had gained ten years since they last saw him.
The first words he uttered was, “Danette Wilson doesn’t exist from this moment now. No one is allowed to mention her name in my presence,” he shot all of them a chilling look, “no one.” He maintained quietly. “She is dead to me now.”
That said, he went into the kitchen in search of food, leaving his family and the rest of guys to stare at each other uneasily.
“All right, if that isn’t about her, then what is all this about?” Brian was nothing if not persistent.
“A guy can have some fun, can’t he? It’s not as if I’m attached to some lucky girl and I have to be loyal to her; anyway, when I was attached to someone, I still played the field didn’t I?” Nick shrugged.
“This isn’t the same as the last time. You were in love with her then, and-“
“And that is in the past,” Nick said with finality in his voice. “Leave it alone, Brian, before I boot you out of my room.” He gave Brian a warning look, which he ignored.
“You were in love with her then and you’re in love with her now. You think that by carousing with those women you can forget her? Not bloody likely! She’s going to haunt you for the rest of your life if you just let her go like that.”
Nick got out of bed, cursing. He was wearing nothing at all, but that didn’t bother him at all. He had been working out since she left six months ago and he knew he was a pretty impressive sight, all hard planes and angles. “I don’t have the time to hang around all day, listening to you preach to me about true love and all it entails. You may be content with Leigh-Ann and Kevin with Kristin, but I’m not the romantic idiots the both of you are. I’m a mature adult now, I know what I want and what I need, I don’t need you to teach them to me.”
Nick shoved his legs into a pair of pants he negligently discarded last night and grabbed a pair of shirt before walking out the room, his eyes flashing like twin sapphires- hard, cold, impersonal but beautiful.
Brian watched Nick go, but made no move to stop him. He was still too angry to listen to him. One thing struck him at that moment.
Nick had really changed. He really wasn’t the same Nick who play Mario Cart with him a year ago. This was a new and improved Nick Carter. Brian wasn’t sure if he liked what Nick had become. He wasn’t sure Nick liked what Nick had become.
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