Oreos for Breakfast: Nick BSB Fiction

Oreos for Breakfast - Chapter 5
By The Paperbag Princess and The Pumpkin Coach

Corresponding KTBPA Message Board Posts (Fictional!)

It took me a moment to realize the noise that woke me up was someone playing basketball outside my window. Badly. I could hear the ball bounce off the garage far more than I heard it swish through the net. It wasn't until I heard a loud 'dang it!' that I remembered that the cute Backstreet Boy was staying at my house.

Smiling, I rolled over, kneeling on the bed to look outside. He was shooting with his left hand, after all, I couldn't expect him to be very good. He was wearing shorts with socks pulled up over his calves like an old man. I had to have a talk with him about his lack of fashion sense. Was he purposely trying to counteract his cuteness by not caring what he wore? And his hair was hanging in his eyes, obviously he had not fussed with it this morning.

What time was it, anyway? I glanced over at the clock, clapping a hand over my mouth when I saw that it was 6:15 in the evening. Poor boy, I'd left him to his own devices all day, no wonder he was attempting to play basketball.

Throwing on some clothes, I joined him at the net, catching the ball as it rolled towards me. "Dude, you suck."

He just grinned at me. "You're awake!"

"How could I sleep with the noise of someone sucking at basketball outside my window?" I lobbed the ball at the net and sank the basket. Heh.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you up," he apologized, moving to catch the ball.

"You should have. I was being a terrible host, sleeping all day! How long have you been up?"

He shrugged. "I'm intruding on your vacation, Rache. Besides, I slept late. Two?"

Well, that wasn't so bad. "What did you do to amuse yourself?"

He started dribbling the ball, doing a passable job of that with his left hand. I could tell he didn't know what to do with his right one. "Made a sandwich. Called my mom. Watched TRL, we were at number one."

"Congrats."

He smiled up at me and the ball went out of his control, and I grabbed it. "Went for a walk on the point," he continued. "It's really pretty out there."

"I know," I said. "You thought I was lying when I said this was the best place on earth, didn't you?"

"No. I believed you." He was absolutely serious, and all I could do was smile stupidly at him. He was way too cute. How did I possibly manage to sleep when he was just down the hall from me all night?

"But you're bored, aren't you?"

"Yeah…" he admitted. "I'm glad you're up."

I bounced the ball for a moment, considering our options. I really did not have the energy to go out anywhere, I just wanted to lie around and veg out. The ball bounced away from me and he moved to catch it, using his right hand and missing. "Dang it!" He exclaimed.

I fucking loved that. 'Dang it.'

"Did you hurt yourself, hon?" I asked him, and he shook his head, gathering the ball in his left hand awkwardly.

"It doesn't hurt that much anymore. The cast is just a complete pain."

I took his hand in mine, considering it. "It's been, what? A week?"

"Not quite. Saturday's a week."

Our eyes met and we were both thinking the same thing. What a week it was. Last Saturday we were out dancing with AJ and now AJ was in rehab and we were here. We hadn't even talked about AJ much, just the occasional comment. Did he know what was going on? Had he talked to the other guys or their managers? I almost asked him but instead I let go of his hand, shaking such thoughts out of my head.

"My brother broke his hand a couple of years ago, and I don't think he was in a cast that long. Let me go call my mom, maybe she'll know."

I followed her as she went inside, tossing the basketball back into the garage where I'd found it. I knew the net was right outside her bedroom window, I was trying to see if I could wake her up. She was too gorgeous when she was asleep, curled up around her teddy bear like a little girl. I kept finding myself at the door to her room, staring at her.

Then that damn cat would start growling and I'd back away. I couldn't get near her if I tried, he was settled on the corner of her bed, keeping watch. I wished she'd left him at her mom's house, but when we came back here last night, he came with us.

He was under her feet now as she picked up the phone and hit a number on autodial, moving into the kitchen. "Mommy? When Patrick broke his hand a couple of years ago, how long was his cast on?" She stepped around the cat gracefully, barely noticing he was in her way.

The kitchen was a mess, and she rolled her eyes at me. I meant to clean that up before she woke up… I moved past her, clearing stuff off the counter.

"I didn't think so. Can you call Mister Dr. Robbins and get an appointment for Nick tomorrow?"

I couldn't remember where the bread went. She saw my confused expression and took it from me, putting it away in the box marked 'bread' on the counter. Duh.

"Because Mister Dr. Robbins has been trying to get you to date him since Daddy died! No, you are so the favorite." She smiled at the phone for a moment and giggled. "Thanks, Mommy. Whenever, we're not doing anything." She hung up the phone and tossed it on the counter, narrowly missing Bates, who glared at her. She smiled at him, opening a cabinet and finding his food.

"Mister Dr. Robbins?" I asked her, and she laughed, setting food down for the cat.

"There used to be a Mrs. Dr. Robbins, but she died about three years ago of cancer. She was my doctor, I went to school with their kids. Mister Dr. Robbins has a crush on my mom, ever since Dad died he's been flirting with her."

I loved that Rachel knew everyone in this town. I didn't know anyone in Marathon. I barely knew people in Tampa and we'd lived there for like 10 years or something. "Has she flirted back?"

She scowled at me. "She'd better not. It's been barely a year!"

Oops, touchy subject?

"Besides, you'll see him tomorrow. Very nice guy. But Dad was way hotter."

I laughed as she opened the refrigerator, gazing inside. "I'm hungry, are you?"

"Yeah," I answered. I just wanted to watch her cook, she was good at it. I wondered what she'd come up with tonight. She was talking to herself 'tomatoes… cheese… fish… hot dogs?' After a moment, she slammed the door shut and looked at me. "Can we just order a pizza?" She whined, and I laughed.

"What?" She pouted. "I'm tired, and I don't think I trust you to cook."

I shook my head. "Nothing. Of course we can order a pizza. Do they deliver out here?"

"No, we'll need to go and get it. We can eat out, if you want…" but she didn't sound very into that idea.

"Doesn't sound like you want to do that."

She leaned against the counter with a sigh. "Sorry. I know I'm being a terrible host, but I just want to lie around tonight, is that okay?"

"That's fine." If it's with you, it's great. Then again, if we're alone, it's even more of a struggle for me to keep my hands off you…

"Cool. We'll get pizza and junk food and lie around and watch TV. Tomorrow we'll do something… I need to go shopping, wanna hit the mall?"

I was running out of underwear. "Sure."

The phone rang and she picked it up. "Hello? Hi, mom!" She sounded so happy to talk to her, and they'd been on the phone just a couple of minutes ago. "You rock… 8 in the morning?" She whined, scowling at me. I scowled back, I never got up that early if I could help it. "Alright, yes, he's being nice, I know." She listened for another minute. "Mo-om! You don't have to come, Nick's a big boy."

I am? I hated going to the doctor. Our tour manager handled everything when I broke my hand.

Rachel sighed into the phone. "Alright, 7:30, see you then." She hung up the phone and turned to me. "Mom's picking us up at 7:30, it's the only time he had free. Mom's coming, is that okay?'

He sat in the nearest kitchen chair, nodding. "That would be okay." Suddenly he looked lost and homesick and young, and I went over to him, brushing the hair out of his eyes.

"Or you could go home and let your mom take care of it," I offered, but he shook his head.

"She's on the road with Aaron. I'm fine."

"You sure?"

He sighed up at me. "Yeah."

I didn't believe him, but I could tell he wasn't going to tell me anything else. "Do you have insurance?" I asked.

"Well, something paid for my hand, right?"

I shrugged. "Probably. Where's you wallet, maybe you have the card there?" He considered me for a moment, then got up, heading towards his bedroom. I followed. Frank would know, right? If Nick couldn't find his insurance card, Frank would know, we could call him.

He had a wallet full of too many things. Driver's license, credit cards, slips of paper with girl's numbers on them, he pulled everything out of his wallet, laying it on the dresser. I wanted to gather up all the phone numbers and hide them, but I attempted to ignore them instead, poking through his various pieces of plastic. They were all platinum: American Express, Visa, MasterCard, two of each. "Why do you have all these credit cards? Can't you just have one with no limit?"

"One's for travel, one's Jive, one's BSB business. I forget. My accountant is always yelling at me for mixing them up."

I could not even imagine. What kind of credit line did he have? He had more money than I could imagine, didn't he?

I didn't even want to know. I looked back at the cards spread out on the dresser, finding the one with the Blue Cross. "Here! The doctor's office will know what to do with this."

"Good. I have the number of the doctor in Boston somewhere, I might need that, huh?"

"Maybe," I teased, and he scowled at me, looking through the scraps of paper. I think he realized what most of them were, because he started tossing them in the trashcan next to the dresser, and I had to stop myself from giggling. "I'm going to jump in the shower, ten minutes, then we can order the pizza and get junk food on the way, okay?"

"Cool," he smiled at me, and I left him alone with his phone numbers.

Dang it. What an idiot, all these phone numbers. She must think I'm a playboy or something.

I didn't even know these girls. Phone numbers just appeared in my life, scraps of paper shoved into my pockets or into my hand, I didn't even know where they came from. I picked one up. "Call me, I'm Charlotte," it said. Like that helped. I couldn't remember meeting any Charlottes, ever.

I crumpled them all up and tossed them in the trashcan. A night of pizza and TV with Rachel was going to be better than any evening of sex with a groupie, no matter how willing.

I found the business card with Rachel's number as I cleaned out my wallet, and I smiled at the now familiar numbers, rubbing my fingers over the raised lettering. Rachel Connor: Rock Star. It had only been a couple of weeks ago that I called her for the first time, and now here I was standing in her house. She'd brought me here and given up her vacation to take care of me. My mom had wondered about that on the phone, almost coming out and asking if I was sleeping with her.

I wish. I'd finally convinced Mom that Rachel was just a friend, and a sincerely kind person. I didn't meet a lot of them on the road.

Then Mom had to ask what I was going to do to thank Rachel.

Like I knew that? What could I do? She didn't want my money, it was a struggle to get her to let me pay for a drink. Flowers? Lame. This went beyond a mere thank-you gift.

I heard the shower stop and started putting everything back into my wallet. I'd start by paying for the pizza tonight, no matter how much she protested.

What the hell was I going to do with him all night? I wrapped my wet hair into a towel, considering. Maybe I should have suggested the movies. Could we be alone together and just hang out? We'd never done that… hell, I'd only known the guy for about a month.

We were going to get bored and he'd look at me all sweetly and I'd jump him. Why did I ever let Frank leave?

I pulled on my jeans, shaking my head at myself. Don't be stupid, Rachel. You are a grown woman, you can control yourself. We'll have some pizza, we'll watch TV and everything will be fine. If I don't bore the poor man to death.

Jesus. I caught myself rejecting all my t-shirts as not interesting enough. Plain black was fine. I'm sure the last couple of days had un-crushed his crush, as he discovered within the body of the wanton sex goddess beat the heart of a good girl from Long Island.

I towel-dried my hair, shaking my curls into my face. It was a nice night, we'd drive with the top down, no reason to do a thing to it. I looked at myself in the mirror and stuck out my tongue at myself. I really needed to get over this.

He was just tucking his wallet into his pocket when I found him. "What do you like on your pizza?"

"Cheese," he answered, flicking off the light in his room and joining me in the hall.

"Cheese? Just cheese?" I exclaimed, running down the stairs.

"Yeah," he answered a tad defensively, hearing the ridicule in my voice.

"Dude! Cheese is not a topping! Cheese is merely the basis of the pizza experience." I looked around for the menu to my favorite pizza place, opening drawers in the kitchen.

"I like just cheese."

Finding the menu, I started reading the list of toppings. "Pepperoni, sausage, onions, mushrooms, anchovies, ham, pineapple… none of these appeal to you?"

He shrugged, leaning against the counter. "Whatever you want. Only not the little fishies."

I giggled, finding the phone. "The fishies are gross. Anything else? Onion rings? Mozzarella sticks? Cheese on your cheese?"

He rolled his eyes at my teasing. "Why do you need a million toppings? Pizza is good just as pizza. It doesn't need anything else."

"Ah, the simple tastes of a pop star," I mused, punching in the phone number. I ordered half plain and half with mushrooms and onions, then grabbed my keys off the counter and led the way out to the car. We bickered over the music on the stereo and pizza toppings on the drive, and I couldn't remember why I was so nervous about spending the entire evening with him alone any longer. Nick was cool. We talked for hours on the phone, about absolutely nothing, why should this be different?

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