Lily took a deep breath as she stood on the front step of her house. She looked back at AJ and frowned for the millionth time. He wore a long sleeve shirt with sunglasses and a hat but he couldn't hide his swollen and bruised jaw. He tried to smile reassuringly at her but only managed to get halfway before he winced and quit trying.
"AJ, you shouldn't be here." she told him. She'd returned to her house to collect her belongings and AJ had insisted on accompanying her, to be sure Kevin kept his distance, he said.
"Nonsense." he said with difficulty and shook his head, "I'm not going anywhere except into that house with you."
Lily sighed and put her key into the lock and opened the door. She let out a gasp as she opened the door. AJ, from behind her, entered the house and looked around to see what had made her gasp. He inhaled a sharp breath as he realized what it was.
Every trace of Kevin was gone from the house. "He must have come straight from my house and packed up everything this morning." AJ muttered as he looked around the house.
Lily swallowed back the lump in her throat as she realized the finality of the situation. Kevin was gone. Soon he'd be out on tour and she and Jeremy would not hear from him again. She turned to AJ and said "AJ, thank you for everything you've done for me."
AJ looked at her confused and said "I'll be here anytime, Lily."
"I know, AJ, and I appreciate it but..." She paused, choosing her words carefully. "Now you need to make things right with Kevin."
"Make things right?!" AJ exploded. "That bastard--" he stopped when Lily put up a hand to stop his tirade.
"That bastard is one of your bestfriends, AJ. It doesn't matter what he did to me or how mad I am at him. You are the one who is in the band with him and has to spend almost every waking minute with him. He can't go on thinking that something happened when it didn't. You have to talk to him and tell him that nothing happened."
"It's not going to be easy, Lil. Kevin's a pretty stubborn man."
Lily smiled gently at AJ and said "Trust me, I know."
***************
Shortly afterward, Lily and Jeremy settled back into their house and lives as they were before Kevin had so unexpectedly re-entered them. Brian and AJ visited her and Jeremy every so often but she heard nothing from her husband.
AJ told her about when he'd first seen Kevin again after the altercation at AJ's house.
"He wasn't exactly receptive of me." he had said. It seemed that when AJ had first walked into the room they were starting rehearsals at, Kevin had once again gone for AJ's throat but was restrained by all three of the other Backstreet Boys as well as some of the dancers. AJ had taken advantage of the moment and explained to Kevin that nothing had happened and also took it apon himself to let Kevin know what he thought of Kevin cheating on Lily and breaking her heart. It took all the power of all the men holding Kevin back but finally he relented and believed AJ's story. "Every once in a while he'd look over and give me this evil look and I would just smile at him. It made him furious."
Hannah returned from her business trip and when she heard about what had happened in her absence, she too wanted to go after Kevin herself. "That stupid son of a bitch didn't even know what a good thing he had! The bastard!" Lily just shook her head and calmly remained silent throughout her friend's tirade.
The weeks went by and still Lily heard nothing from her husband. AJ and Brian, and sometimes Howie and Nick, still visited her but the visits got shorter and less frequent as the dates of the release of the new album and upcoming tour approached.
When all four of them showed up at her house one day, Lily knew that the tour was starting and she wouldn't see any of them again for a while. They spent as much time as they could at her house and then said their goodbyes to her and Jeremy.
As their tour stretched on, Lily kept in touch with them without Kevin's knowledge, they said.
Two months after she and Kevin separated, Lily recieved the first communication she'd had with her husband since he'd left AJ's house that morning. In her mailbox one day was a large envelope that contained something Lily had been dreading yet knew would come. Divorce papers and Kevin's request for complete custody of Jeremy Phillip Richardson.
