Every other Tuesday afternoon, Devyn volunteered her time at a local teen advisory board. Today she was talking to a Josh, a sixteen-year-old boy who’s mom had just kicked him out of the house and now he wasn’t sure exactly where to go. After two hours of talking with Josh, Devyn was cut short on advice by the leader of the board. She felt really bad for this kid but she really had no idea of how to help him other than to give him the addresses of teen shelters and a number of an extremely good counselor. After her session, she decided to make a stop at McDonald’s before heading home. She was just setting the bag on the counter of the dorm when it was stolen clean out from under her arm. “Nick Carter, drop the bag!” Devyn yelled, looking Nick square in the eyes.
“Oh honey…you brought me food. How sweet,” Nick cooed as he ran down the hall towards his room.
Devyn ran after him and was right behind him when he dove onto his bed. Devyn dove right after him and they continued fighting over the Quarter Pounder with Cheese and the large fry. Finally, Devyn had Nick pinned, his back on the bed, when Mike walked in. “Jeez, don’t hold back or anything…” he laughed, leaning his body weight against the doorframe.
“But…but…he stole my food!” Devyn protested.
“Oh Nick…” Mike winced. “You know that means death.”
“Shut up Mike,” Devyn said continuing to fight Nick for the McDonald’s bag.
“Is she always this feisty?” Nick asked, laughing.
“Fuck you Nick…you can have the damn food.” Devyn crawled off the bed and walked out of Nick’s room. “I hope you choke!”
“Maybe I just will,” Nick said, getting off the bed and passing Mike in the doorframe to follow Devyn to the kitchen.
“You have food,” Devyn said. “What the hell do you want now?”
“You Devyn,” Nick said sarcastically. “I want you…” He allowed Devyn to turn to face him astonished and threatened before he added, “to get me a glass of milk…”
“Anything else?” Devyn asked pleasantly before her expression changed. “That’ll be the day,” she laughed as she left the kitchen and went into the living room and flipped on the TV leaving Nick in the kitchen smiling to himself.
Nick rolled over in his bed to discover that it was 2:30 in the morning. He had found it impossible to sleep as his mind continued to race on and so decided to get a head start on his lab final for physics. He stumbled out in the living room to discover that the light was already on. He rounded to corner to see Devyn fast asleep on the couch. Nick walked over to her after making a brief pause at the computer, noting Devyn’s Spanish Lit term paper, which was only half-finished, and grabbed the blanket from behind the couch. Yawning a bit, Nick wrapped the blanket around Devyn’s sleeping body and sat down in the chair beside the couch, watching Devyn’s regular breathing move her chest up and down and listening the near silent sounds of sleep until sunlight peeked through the curtains.
“Holy God!” Devyn yelled to no one in particular. “I’m going to miss the damn lunch entirely. Where the hell is my white turtleneck sweater?” Devyn was almost in tears at the thought of missing Kacey.
“Talking to yourself again Dev? You know that’s a sign of insanity.”
“Nick Carter!” Devyn said sternly. “I’m going to go insane on your ass if you even say one more word.”
Nick paused for a second. Then he began laughing softly to himself.
“Okay, what’s so funny,” Devyn asked with a puzzled look on her face, still searching her closet for the sweater
Nick just shrugged his shoulders and smiled smugly.
“Oh God…you took me seriously on that whole no talking thing. You’re pathetic you know that?”
Nick nodded his head but still said nothing.
“Okay, talk Nick. I’m gonna be late anyway, I may as well here the amazing words that are about to flow from your lips.” Devyn’s sarcasm ran as thick as the pile of clothes on the floor.
“Nick is the greatest…” Nick began, asking Devyn to repeat the sentence without asking.
“Hell no,” Devyn laughed. “Nick is the dumbest son of a…”
“Oh, now that wasn’t the right answer was it?” Nick pretended to turn and walk down the hall when in reality he was only ducked along side the wall.
Devyn sighed as she pulled her hands through her hair and looked exasperatedly in the mirror. It was then that she realized what Nick had seen the entire time: The turtleneck that she had been searching for was the one she had been wearing the entire time. Devyn closed her eyes in disgusted disbelief and walked out of her room. She screamed and jumped as Nick grabbed her by her waist and yelled “Boo!” She couldn’t help but laugh a bit, although she tried to cover it up, and thank Nick for following her demands before walking out the door.
The lunch with Kacey hadn’t gone as well as Devyn had planed. Kacey had be sent to inform Devyn that in two weeks, the search for Devyn’s birth mom would be forced into closure, due to lack of funds on the agency’s behalf, until a two year waiting period was over.
“I’m sorry sweetie,” Kacey had explained. “We’ll find her someday. I promise.”
Devyn had wanted to just start crying right then which made it all the more harder to walk back into the dorm room and run smack into Nick.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
Nick paused. “What…no ‘watch where you are going asshole?’ no ‘get the hell out of my way stupid kid?’”
“Nah,” Devyn said passing by Nick and turning around to face him. “Sorry.”
“All right…” Nick said. “I’ll be back soon, I’m gonna run to the store. You want anything?”
“Chocolate chips…don’t come back without them,” Devyn dug through her bag for a couple dollar bills to give to Nick. “Hey, there’s an idea…On second thought, forget the chocolate chips.”
Nick snatched the money from Devyn’s hand. “I’ll be back soon,” he said, ignoring her comment.
“Take your time…for the love of God take your time…”
Devyn made her way up to the dorm room and just stared out the window for a while wondering what life was like with a family. Snowflakes were just beginning to fall when Devyn sat down in the comfortable computer chair with a cup of hot cocoa and signed onto AOL to check her e-mail. After erasing several messages urging her to go to porn sites, a message titled, Are You Devyn McPherson? caught her eye. She quickly clicked on it and became more and more confused until she got to the sincerely at the bottom the page:
Sorry to e-mail you but I was just wondering if you were Devyn McPherson, the unfortunate girl that is being forced to room with Nick Carter for 18 more days. If you are, I wanted to apologize for everything her manages to do to you and your roommate Mike. I can only say that I understand…I live with him too. Anyway, good luck to you and thanks for keeping our little bro until the time’s up.
Sincerely,
AJ McLean (fellow groupmate)
PS-If you get the chance, mess up Nick’s hair for me. I owe him one. Thanks
Devyn smiled a bit, replied to the letter, and then signed off. Moments later, when Nick walked through the door carrying a couple bags of groceries, Devyn just laughed at his attempt to not drop anything before she got up to help him. “Thanks,” he said, a little out of breath. “What took you so long?”
“Ah, I was just catching up with my reading. You know AJ McLean really writes some funny stuff. You should really check it out sometime.”
“What are you talking about?” Nick said, his full attention now on what Devyn was saying.
“Nothing, nevermind.”
“What Devyn,” Nick said, holding up the chocolate chips that Devyn had wanted. “Tell me or they are all going down the drain. All of them…I swear.” Nick smiled viscously.
“God you’re pathetic,” Devyn laughed. “Your friend wrote me an e-mail…that’s all.”
“About what?” Nick asked, putting his attention back on the groceries and casually asking Devyn even though he really wanted to know.
“Just about how annoying you are and apologizing for you,” Devyn smiled at Nick. “He’s dead on you know.”
“Oh, you are so kind.”
“I know, it’s my job.”
Nick finished putting all of the food in the refrigerator and left Devyn in the kitchen for his room to take a quality nap before his 4:00 music theory class.
Devyn grabbed the bag of chocolate chips off of the counter. Nick had gotten her the big bag; the one that cost more than she had given him originally. She then noticed another bag on the counter that hadn’t been unpacked and as she peered inside, she was dumbfounded at what she saw. There in the bag were two more bags of chocolate chips and the note on top of them said: Devyn—A wise man once said that chocolate chips are the friends of the cookies of life. With that in mind, maybe you and I could be chocolate chips. I’m sorry for all the fighting. –Nick..
Chapter Twelve
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