Oreos for Breakfast: Nick BSB Fiction

Oreos for Breakfast
Chapter 7: On The Road

By The Paperbag Princess and The Pumpkin Coach

My phone rang, and I jumped, making Jeff laugh. "You got that thing set to vibrate?" he leered.

"No, just ring," I protested, checking the caller ID. Blocked.

Oh, please be Nick, please be Nick, I thought as I clicked it on. I had a voicemail from him when he landed, but now I wanted to hear his voice. Fuck playing hard to get, fuck pretending I didn't care. I missed him, fuck that it hadn't even been a day since I'd seen him.

"Rachel Connor!" I answered, and almost melted into the bar when I heard his little chuckle. Even over the noise of the crowded club, I knew that laugh.

So far gone, I was. And I was just drunk enough to not care.

"I love it when you answer like that."

"Do you?" I flirted. "Why?"

"Because you're all cute and cheery, I like that. Good day?"

"Good day. Very loud bar now, as you can hear." Jeff was leaning over, trying to listen in, and I stood up from my bar stool, sticking my tongue out at him. My boyfriend. Mine.

"Should I let you go?" He worried.

"No!" Ooh, was that too obvious. "I'm gonna go outside. They can spare me for a few minutes."

"But you're the star, Rache. All the groupies will miss you."

I grinned at the phone, making my way through the crowd to the door. A few people caught my eye, but I just smiled and kept walking. "No groupies, dear. The boys get those, not me."

"Told you, Rache. I'll be your groupie. And I have the money to do it right, too, I'll follow you from town to town and stay on your floor."

"Oooh, breaking the bank with a single room at the Marriott, are you?"

We both laughed and then were quiet for a moment. I wanted him here now, not in Florida, I didn't care if it meant his mother would hate me and Jeremy would have a fit. "So, how was Aaron's show?" I filled the silence before I begged him to get on the first plane to Minneapolis. "Did they convince you to sing?"

He sighed. "Yeah, they twisted my arm. That was rough."

I giggled. "Did the place go wild? What did you do?"

I could hear his smile. "It went a little wild, yeah…" He was so pleased by that that I had to giggle. "How about you?" He went on. "What did you do today?'

"You should see our bus, Nick, it kicks ass. And we have roadies! And Lola is just as cool as I thought she would be."

"Is she your new best friend?"

"Of course!" I stepped outside just as he laughed, and I leaned against the wall of the club, enjoying the sound. "Where are you?"

"On my bus. Aaron is still doing stuff inside, but he'll be here in a minute."

"You're gonna share the bus?" I squeaked, making him laugh again.

"I share the bus all the time, Rache. Depends on the night. But I barely saw Aaron today, we're gonna hang."

"So no time for phone sex?" I sighed, only half joking.

He whimpered, and I slid down the wall. Damn, I missed him. "Quick phone sex?" He asked.

"Oh, if that little boy walks in earlier than you expect, you will never live it down. So no. We will have to wait for in person sex."

"Yeah?" He asked hopefully. "When?"

Shit. I shouldn't have said that. "Dunno, bunny. I didn't get a chance to talk to Jeremy."

My heart sank. I wanted to be with her now. I knew she had to talk to Jeremy, and get the rest of the band's okay… we didn't start bringing girlfriends on the road until after we each got our own bus. I wasn't sure how this would work. But I didn't care. I wanted to be with her. "That's okay," I tried to cover.

"It's just that it's the first night, and it's his hometown, and all his friends are here…" Her friends, too. I knew that. "We're getting along, for the moment, I don't want to fuck it up this quickly."

"Do you ever get along?"

She laughed. "Jeremy and me? Well, we were a couple for a while…" she teased.

"Yeah…" I knew she was teasing, and happy and drunk, but I wanted to know. "Were you a good couple? Were you happy?" I didn't know anything about their relationship, just that they had one, then they didn't, and he got kicked out of the band, but now he was back.

"For a while we were, yeah. The first… year or so."

"But you were together for four years, weren't you?"

She sighed. "How long were you and Willa happy, Nick?"

I tossed the ball I was holding against the wall of the bus. Damnit. I was asking for that. We were quiet for a minute.

"I know we have to have this conversation, Nicky," she said quietly. "But does it have to be right now?"

"No. I'm sorry. I just… you and James and Darien kept picking on Jeremy today. Why is he in the band, if you don't like him?"

"It's not… well… he's easy to pick on. And it's probably worse because we do pick on him. But he's good at what he does, and he's got the drive to keep kicking the three of us in the ass. Honestly, Nick, I would not be here on this tour if it wasn't for him. Our album never would have been made if he hadn't come back, I am positive of that." Her voice softened. "And if that album hadn't been made, I wouldn't have been in that hotel in North Carolina, and I wouldn't be talking to you right now. Isn't it funny how things work?"

I smiled, relaxing at the smile in her voice. "But I thought this tour was all because I talked you up in L.A."

She laughed. I loved that sound. If she was with me right now, I'd kiss her. Nuzzle her neck. Touch her somehow. When was I going to see her again? "Well, you never would have talked us up in L.A. if I hadn't given you our CD in North Carolina. So we might still have to thank Jeremy."

"Only if he thanks me for talking you up."

She snickered. "I'd hold my breath on that one, bunny."

"This bus smells!"

Aaron. I volunteered to share the bus with him tonight, didn't I? Rachel laughed, hearing him. "That must be your brother."

"It must be my stinky brother!" He announced, finding me in the back. Rachel was right about that phone sex thing, thank god we hadn't done that.

Yet. She would be great at phone sex, I was sure of it.

"Aaron! Stop teasing your brother!" Mom appeared behind him. Great. "Nick, who are you talking to at this hour?"

Half the world is still up, Mom. It's only midnight. "Rachel," I told her.

Aaron let out an 'oooohhhhh…' that universal sound that preceded "Nick's got a girlfriend…" which he did say, in his 13 year old way. Was I this annoying when I was 13?

"Rachel is just Nick's friend, Aaron, let him finish his conversation."

"Oh, I'm just your friend, am I, Nicky?" Rachel teased, and I froze, caught. I hadn't told Mom about us yet, I didn't want the questions. Mom pulled Aaron away as Rachel laughed, and I went into the farthest corner of the bus, listening to Mom and Aaron in the kitchen. No junk food, don't stay up too late, blah blah blah.

"Well, I-" I started to Rachel, and she laughed again.

"It's okay, Nick. Tell your mom whatever you want about us, whatever makes your life easier. My mom doesn't know about all my boyfriends."

"Yeah, what is it, 37? Hard to keep that many straight…" I teased, making her laugh again.

"Oh, not all of them got to be boyfriends. Most of them were just cheap sex."

"I'm elite, then?" I asked her, trying to sound cool, when inside I was ecstatic. She called me her 'boyfriend,' not everyone got that title.

"You are so elite, baby," she purred, and it was all I could do to not moan. "Go play with your brother, bunny. I'll talk to you tomorrow, maybe?"

"Definitely." Maybe? What the hell? I'd call her a million times, just to hear her voice on her voicemail. "You're still in Minneapolis tomorrow?"

"Yep. First show. Have fun with Aaron."

"Have fun at your noisy party, Rache."

Her side went dead and I flicked my phone shut with a sigh. She was drunk, and sweet, and flirty, I knew where that could lead. I wanted to be with her, not here with my stupid family. They didn't even know her. They had no idea how amazing she was.

I clicked off the cell phone and stared down at it. I should have talked to Jeremy today. I knew that. It was just so hard. He should hear about Nick from me and I'd made James and Darien swear on their royalty cuts that they'd let me tell him. But then Lola was with him when we got to the hotel and instantly we'd gone into tour mode, scribbling the set list on napkins at the bar over lunch. We were all nervous and before I knew it, I was giddy from the alcohol. Then Jeff and the rest of Tsar arrived and now we were here at this noisy party with all our friends.

I sighed and stood up, shoving my cell phone back in my pocket. Maybe I could pay Jeff to tell him for me. Jeff would like that, he liked to fuck with Jeremy. Between Jeff and James I didn't need brothers, they acted like my protectors.

Opening the door, I was met by a wall of sound. James found me, putting an arm around my shoulder and leaning down to shout into my ear, "How's the blond god? Did he ask about me?"

I smiled up at him, "Sharing his bus with his brother and getting teased for having a girlfriend, I think. And no. I'm the girlfriend! He only cares about me."

James leaned back, considering me. "Brother? The Backstreet Boy has a brother? Is he hot, too?"

I hit James on the chest, "You know he does! Aaron, he's all of 13, I think. Colleen and Katie love him."

"Damn. Still, does he look like Nick?"

"Actually…" James eyes grew bigger, "that's pedophilia, James! Eww!" I grabbed his beer, downing half of it with one gulp,

"Hey, yours is barely legal!"

"Who's barely legal? Where is she?" Jeremy pulled me into his arms as he passed, grabbing onto my hips as he moved in time to the music blaring around us. I stiffened slightly and he eased his hold on me.

"No one!" I shrugged and moved away so we weren't touching.

"Damn! Rache, you are out of alcohol, that just won't do! Tonight's all about the drinking." He smiled down at me and I looked up into his gray eyes and felt my chest tighten. He was beautiful, his dark hair a mess and falling in his eyes. Sometimes I remembered what it was about Jeremy that made me stay with him for all those years. His eyes were definitely a part of that.

"Oh, James is keeping me in Midori Sours, don't worry, J." I looked back at James and he nodded, disappearing through a crowd of people back to the bar.

An all too familiar song came on and Jeremy leaned down, his lips almost touching my ear, "Our song, Rache. Dance with me for old times?"

"Who the hell played this?" I questioned, narrowing my eyes at him.

He just smiled and pulled me onto the dance floor. We moved in time to the music as his arms encircled my waist and pulled me back into him. God, I loved this song, even if it did remind me of Jeremy. We were quiet and then I heard his voice low in my ear, "and still my heart has wings, these foolish things remind me of you."

My breath caught in my throat and I gave in, resting my head on his chest and breathing in his scent. Smoke and whiskey. I heard my own voice singing into his chest, "Oh, how the ghost of you clings, these foolish things remind me of you. Just you."

The music faded away and I felt Jeremy's fingers in my hair. His touch was so soft, so familiar. I looked back up at him and his eyes were closed as he hummed the last bars of the song. Without thinking, I reached up and brushed the hair out of his eyes, letting my finger trace a path down his cheek as he opened his eyes and looked down at me.

"Rache," he started.

I shook my head and pulled away from him, grabbing his hand in mine and pulling him to the door of the club. He followed me outside and quickly pushed me up against the wall, his body covering mine. Before I could protest, his lips were on mine, his tongue coaxing my mouth open. He moaned and moved his hips against me. Damnit.

"J," I breathed as his lips moved from mine. "We need to talk."

"No, Rache. Let's not talk, please?" His voice was barely a whisper against my ear. "I miss this. Being close to you. You never let me get close anymore."

I sighed as his tongue touched my earlobe briefly, before he moved lower to kiss my collarbone. Nick would have lingered there, his tongue tracing tiny circles behind my ear and making me moan and want him even more.

I pushed Jeremy back slightly, "J, I need to tell you something."

My tone stopped him and he moved away. I realized I was still holding his hand as he squeezed it and smiled down at me from underneath his fringe.

I met his gaze, "Saw him at the Jabberjaw, cutest boy I ever saw," I sang.

He wrinkled his nose at me, "I hate that line, Rache. Cringe worthy. Really."

"I know, that's why I kept it. You were, though." I sighed as he brushed my cheek with the back of his hand. "So cute."

"And I could barely catch my breath, you were so gorgeous. That wild hair everywhere and your short skirt riding up as you laid into your guitar."

I rolled my eyes, "You never thought I was gorgeous, J."

He looked at me, a shocked expression crossing his face, "What are you saying? You're beautiful, you know that."

"Stop, J. Revisionist history is really no fun." He never told me I was pretty. I was sexy, sure. I was occasionally stunning, but never 'beautiful,' never 'gorgeous', never all those things that women want to be called when they walk into the room. Nick called me those things. All the time. Even when I was a mess in the morning, he'd look down at me with that sweet expression on his face and tell me I was beautiful.

My stomach flip-flopped as I remembered waking up in Nick's arms this morning, his body nearly covering mine. I shivered.

"Cold?" Jeremy ran his hands down my bare arms and I shook my head. I had to tell him. Now or never. He was liking me right now, it was okay.

"Jeremy, I'm seeing someone." There, I said it. He didn't have to know who, right?

"What do you mean? You were home since Boston…" He put two and two together and he dropped my hand.

"Nick." I finished his thought, straightening my back against the wall, preparing myself for his reaction.

"The Backstreet Boy?" He spat at me, an incredulous tone in his voice. "The Backstreet Boy? Oh, Rache, you are fucking joking! I thought that was… that was…"

"Don't, Jeremy." I stopped him, "Please don't freak out and say something you're going to regret later. We've started dating…"

"Fucking, you mean!" He shouted. "You're bagging the Backstreet Boy!?"

"Will you stop staying that! He has a fucking name, it's Nick! He's not just a 'Backstreet Boy,' he's a person. And he likes me."

"Yeah, you go ahead and believe that. Right, he's more than a Backstreet Boy," Jeremy rolled his eyes as he continued yelling. Damn, this was not going well. "He's a fucking pop, teen fucking idol and you think you're dating him, Rache? How fucking gullible are you?"

I think Jeremy was going for a record for the number of times you could use the word fuck in an argument. I had to stifle a smile. That would really piss him off.

"I am dating him, J." Is that what we were doing? That sounded wrong. Obsessively fucking did sound more accurate. "I needed you to know because…"

"Because what? What, Rache?"

I took a deep breath as I felt my courage wavering, "I want him to join us this weekend." There, I said it.

"No fucking way!" He bellowed before turning away from me and charging back into the club.

I just stared at the door as it closed. That went well, didn't it?

The little bastard had erased all my high scores on my Ninetendo, and my hand still hurt, so I couldn't even beat him. He cackled as he won another game, and I gave up, shaking my head with a yawn. "Dude, you know this is only because of my stupid hand."

"Uh-huh. You've been saying that all night." He looked at me closely. "Why are you so tired? You didn't do anything all day."

I whacked him, then got up to get another Coke. It didn't matter that I was tired, I knew Aaron wouldn't let me sleep. "I was up early. And I went to bed late." Because Rachel and I stayed up most of the night making love, but I didn't tell him that. I hadn't thought about her for maybe an hour, caught up in the game. What was she doing right now? It was two in the morning, was she still at her party, flirting with the guys in the opening band?

"Where were you, anyway? Who is this Rachel chick, you never talked about her before." I turned around from the fridge, and he was staring at me, suspicious. He hated my girlfriends. Fucking Mandy. She was never anything but mean to my family, why would Aaron like one of my girlfriends?

Of course, Aaron doesn't know that Rachel is my girlfriend.

"I just met her. Six weeks ago or something." I fell onto the couch, pointing the remote at the TV and turning down the noises from our forgotten games.

He was surprised at that. I guess it was sorta weird. "You just met her and you spent two weeks with her? Sure she's not your girlfriend?"

I looked away from him. "Well… she wasn't my girlfriend when she invited me to stay with her."

"I knew it!" He moaned, sitting down next to me. "Now you're gonna get all weird, and move away again, and…"

I reached over, punching him lightly. "Dude. Stop it. I'm not. I'm here now. Rachel's not like Mandy, I swear. You'd like her, she plays basketball, and she's really funny, and she's a great cook."

He glared at me. "She's blond and stupid, like the others."

I had to laugh at his pout. It was that, or whack him for not liking her without even knowing her. "She's not blond. And she's definitely not stupid."

"How old is she?"

"26."

His mouth dropped open, and I laughed again. "Does Mom know? 26? That's old! That's almost as old as… as Kevin!"

"It's as old as Brian, smartass."

"He's old and boring and married. Why isn't she old and boring and married?" Our eyes met and I could see the horror in his. Married! Ew!

He was cracking me up. I couldn't stop laughing. I know when I was 13, I thought this love stuff was stupid, too. "Relax, A. I'm not married yet. I've only been with her for like a week."

He glared at me for laughing. "Do I get to meet her?"

I shrugged. God, Rachel and my family… I knew it wasn't fair, I'd met her whole family. But that was different, I met them because we were just friends. Introducing a girl as my girlfriend made everything weird. Especially after Mandy. Mandy just made everyone in my life think that I had terrible taste in women. I did, until Rachel. "I dunno. She's on tour, it might be hard."

"She's on tour?" He squeaked, and I got up from the couch, hitting play on the stereo. Sudden Silence was in here two weeks ago, and I smiled at the familiar guitar. I hadn't listened to the CD in a while, I didn't need to when she was next to me.

"This is her," I told Aaron, looking for the CD case. I knew I hadn't thrown it away, it had pictures of her. There. I pulled out the booklet and handed it to him. "She's the pretty one."

He took it, staring at her picture for a moment. I let him study it, nodding my head to the beat. I'd almost forgotten how much I loved this CD. If Rachel couldn't be with me, I'd have to settle for this. Would she buy all our CD's and listen for me on each song? She barely knew our music, and I knew that her band wouldn't let her play it on the tour bus. I should send her our CDs. Hell, I should send them to her entire band, just to drive them crazy.

Maybe not Jeremy. But James and Darien would laugh at that.

If I wanted to send her something, where the hell would I send it? I found my cell phone and dialed her number. Voicemail. She's either drunk or asleep. "Hey, baby. Hope you're sleeping. I just realized I don't know your itinerary, can you fax it to me?" I rattled off my fax number, laughing as Aaron made gagging noises, falling back on the couch. "Man, Rache, I miss you. I miss everything about you, your pretty eyes and your hair, the way you kiss me-"

"Shut up! You are such a dork!" Aaron screamed, and I laughed as he tackled me, shutting off the phone as he grabbed for it.

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