Oreos for Breakfast: Nick BSB Fiction

Oreos for Breakfast - Chapter 17
By The Paperbag Princess and The Pumpkin Coach

Corresponding Message Board Posts (Fictional!)

And that's exactly what Saffron was telling us 40 minutes later. I'd called her, and she'd been at our door in 20 minutes. I couldn't believe it. She was dressed all casual now, in jeans and a faded University of Chicago sweatshirt. Turns out her boyfriend was a professor there and she was visiting him for the week. We teased her that she was really just stalking us.

"Seriously, this is a good decision. Even if you were deciding not to go with us, I'd still advise you to do this now. I mean, you're right, James, you aren't in the right frame of mind… but when are you? You're all on tour time and exhausted. You just want this to be done, right?"

We all nodded.

"Someone told me once that all managers are the same, they all take too much of your money…"

"But you should go with someone you like and connect with?" I finished for her, and she smiled at me.

"Yeah, something like that. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like I get you guys. I think we can make this band huge. And not just here. Going to the UK next month is great. We don't want you to get over-exposed here. But I'm getting ahead of myself. No, wait," she smiled, looking over at Lola. "You have something to tell these guys?"

Lola grinned at her, and I exchanged a look with James. What the hell? Why did Saffron seem to know all of Lola's secrets?

"As of October 1st, I work for The Firm. Although EMI might be firing me in the next 24 hours."

"We can move up your hire date, don't worry," Saffron informed her, as the four of us just stared at Lola. We weren't going to lose her?

"How… what?" Darien stumbled, and Lola turned her grin to him.

"They made me an offer I couldn't refuse. Health insurance! And a two-year contract based out of L.A. with use of the company condo when I'm there. I didn't want to tell you guys and sway your decision."

"Does it sway our decision?" I asked, looking at Saffron.

"Well, I imagine we're putting her on the road with you until the end of the tour." I didn't even hear the rest of what she had to say, something about later they'd give Lola some accounts of her own, because she was sharp. I just screamed, running over to hug Lola. We got to keep her!

Lola laughed, buried under all four of us. Especially after all we'd been through today, she was one of us now. She'd be there when we were in Europe, and we wouldn't have to get used to some new guy. There was screaming and hugging for a few minutes, and it felt nice to be happy about something again.

Finally Saffron got us to settle down. "So, tell me what I'm telling Amber."

"We don't want to do the charity shows. Whatever they are, we don't want to be the sob story," Jeremy said.

"Don't worry, Backstreet's got that one covered…"

"No," I breathed, and she turned to me.

"Nick didn't tell you?"

I shook my head, covering my mouth and looking over at the phone. Oh, he was going to fall apart on me, wasn't he? He'd been so worried about Danny all day. I mean, we hadn't really talked about it, but it'd been there all day. "He was on his way into a management meeting when I talked to him last."

"Then he might have just found out. Danny was on the first flight that crashed. His wife is scheduled for a Cesarean section in the morning and… it's just so sad."

Everyone was quiet for a moment.

"Okay, I feel dumb for freaking out now," James whispered, and I leaned over and put an arm around his shoulders.

"Don't, James… you had every right to be worried. Don't compare tragedies."

"The media will be doing enough of that for us, I imagine," interjected Darien, and we all agreed.

"So you don't want to do the charity shows and have the story of James' heroic ex-lover broadcast everywhere?"

"Definitely not." Jeremy chimed in, leaning closer to Saffron.

"He'd fucking kill me," James added, and I had to share a smile with him. Michael was not exactly a publicity hound.

"I think that if the shows fit into our schedule, we'd certainly want to do something to assist," Jeremy went on, sounding all professional. "Help raise money for the relief funds or families or whatever… but we don't want to be seen as capitalizing on tragedy."

"What if we donate a portion of our next few concerts to the Red Cross," Darien offered, and Saffron smiled, jotting something in her notebook.

"Not a bad idea. Backstreet is starting a relief fund for Danny's wife and donating a dollar from every ticket to it."

"Wow. That's something." Surprisingly, Jeremy wasn't wigging out that Saffron was mentioning Backstreet. Was he still feeling guilty about earlier? Was I gonna get a few breaks now?

"Let me run this by our accounting department first. I'm sure they've worked up your percentages from concert sales and promotion. Oh! What about a Sudden Silence tour shirt that is designed and sold so that a portion of those proceeds goes to the fund? That might be better. I expect Accounting is going to say you aren't making enough off ticket sales to do what Darien suggested."

"That could be cool." James agreed, looking over at me. I shrugged, trying to stifle a yawn. It was still early for tour time, but I felt like I'd run 2 marathons today. "Rache, are you fading on us?"

I leaned on James and nodded, "I think so. Saffron, can you come up with something by next week?"

"Next week? No. Tomorrow. Let's meet mid-morning and figure this out, okay?"

"We've got press tomorrow," Lola told her. "And a show."

I sagged against James. Press? A show? Would I ever be in the mood to do another show? I couldn't imagine that this time tomorrow I'd be happy enough to perform well.

Saffron looked around at all of us and then to Lola. "Well, I'm not your boss yet, but do this anyway. Clear an hour tomorrow morning, and I can be free whenever. Make it around 11, okay? I should be able to get a contract faxed over by then. Let's all get some sleep and decide then about the show. Sorry, but I think you need to go ahead and do the press stuff."

She sounded sincere, too. We were all so surprised we didn't answer her.

"I can see that you guys are strung out, but you've got most of the British music press camped out at this hotel waiting to talk to you. Granted, they're a captive audience at the moment because they're not going anywhere, but I think you should talk to them."

"Want to see the schedule and figure out who to juggle?" Lola asked, pulling out her binder, and Saffron shook her head with a smile.

"No, you get to deal with the details."

Lola blinked at her for a minute. "I get to make a decision?" she squealed, making all of us laugh.

"Lola, you make decisions all the time," Darien teased, and she shook her head.

"Not about interesting stuff!" she protested. "Hotels and meals and crap, but not press schedules."

"Now you do," Saffron informed her, smiling. "Well, not that you work for me yet, but screw Amber. This is now a management thing."

On that somewhat happy note, James and Jeremy walked Saffron out. I went to get ready for bed, but when I came out, the boys were in my room. "Off my bed, I'm going to sleep."

"Quick debrief, diva princess."

I had to smile at Jeremy and held up my hand to him, "Five minutes, and then I'm out. Oh, damn! I forgot to ask Lola where the bus is."

"What do you need, dear?" James asked.

I can't sleep without my bear and he's still on my bus. He smells like Nick, and I'll feel better if I can curl up around him and cry myself to sleep.

Okay, not saying that.

"Nothing. It's silly. I'll get it tomorrow. Okay, I think Saffron's proposal sounds cool, and I'm sure she'll have twelve more ideas by tomorrow morning. I love her, and I'm signing on the dotted line tomorrow."

Darien laughed at me, "You just want to go to bed."

I nodded, "Duh! Now shoo!"

They each hugged me and left, James promising he wouldn't wake me when he came in. I turned out the light and crawled under the covers, wishing I could just close my eyes and dream of Nick or my safe home at the Point. But I knew that wasn't going to happen.

Sighing, I sat up and picked up the phone, dialing Nick's number without another thought. I got voicemail immediately.

"Damn, your meeting is running late, bunny. It's me… I just wanted to say I'm sorry. We just met with Saffron - we hired The Firm tonight, by the way. I just… I couldn't deal with Amber for one more minute. She's so crass, and I knew she'd pit Jeremy against me again and bully us into coming back to New York and use James and Michael's story to get in the paper… I just couldn't have that happen. So we called Saffron… did you know her boyfriend teaches at the University of Chicago? Well, he does. So she was here anyway, and she came over. Man, if having a meeting at midnight at Roscoe's was cool, how fuckin' awesome is having your manager show up on your hotel doorstep within 20 minutes, before you've even signed a contract? On the day the world blew up, no less. Man. Anyway, I really like her, Nick. I thought a lot about what Kevin said… how your manager should be someone you like, not just someone who does what they are supposed to…"

She was still talking. I laughed out loud and glanced over at the clock. Damn. Why wasn't I there? She was tired and being cute and rambly. More like my Rachel, not the sad, depressed Rachel I'd talked to earlier. That Rachel scared me. She made me feel like I was a useless boy who didn't understand anything. But this Rachel… this Rachel I understood.

"So, we hired her, and she had a million good ideas. What was I saying? Oh, we meet with her tomorrow, and then we'll decide what to do about the show tomorrow. Anyway… she told me about Danny, and I'm so sorry, Nick."

Her voice was low and sad now. I leaned back on my pillows and closed my eyes. I hadn't cried yet. They'd told us in the meeting, and everyone had been quiet for a long time. I'd looked up at AJ, and I could just see the guilt on his face. That was so unfair. I mean… it could have been any of us, right? What if we'd had to postpone because I couldn't perform with the broken hand? That would have put us back at least a week.

But not long enough that we'd still be on tour. Not here. We'd be in Europe or Asia or somewhere. The chances are good that we wouldn't have been in Boston and Danny wouldn't have had to be on that flight.

I felt tears behind my eyes, and I bit my lip, listening to Rachel again.

"It just… it's so awful, bunny. I know you must feel horrible, and I wish I was there for you. Everyone else has someone, and here I am in fuckin' Chicago. I think I hate Chicago now, Nick. It was so much fun last time, remember? Remember standing up on the car and getting our picture taken in front of the Duran billboard and hanging with Em? That was our perfect day. Chicago. And now it's this. It's the world fuckin' blowing up… I'm so angry, Nick. I don't know why, but I am. I don't want them to take that away from us! I mean, don't we have enough problems?"

She was sobbing now, and it broke my heart. I almost deleted the message right then. I didn't want to hear her crying and know there was nothing I could do to comfort her. But she composed herself, and I could hear her wiping away her tears.

"Sorry, bunny. I think I'm back to feeling sorry for myself. I don't want to do that. That's so stupid… I didn't lose anyone today. I just… I need to sleep, I think. I need to sleep and try not to think about all of this for a little bit. Promise I'll call you when I wake up, bunny. I love you. So much."

And that was it.

I just stared at my phone, and then I deleted the message. I never wanted to hear her that sad again. Ever.

I called the room, and James answered on the first ring, nearly whispering into the receiver, "Yes?"

"James, it's Nick. I know she's asleep."

"Yeah, man, and I can't wake her. I think she cried herself to sleep, and there's nothing we could do. We just let her fall asleep. We're all wrecked, but I think it's just catching up with her."

"Yeah, she left me a pretty pathetic message earlier. About Danny and all."

"Oh, shit, Nick. I'm sorry. Really, that just…"

"Fuckin' sucks. I know. There's nothing we can do."

"You're giving a shit load of money to his wife!" James exclaimed. How the hell… oh, right… Saffron must have talked to someone.

"Well, it's what we can do. We all feel… well, we feel sorta responsible."

"Why? That's silly. You didn't make the plane crash."

"No, but…never mind." I didn't want to talk about it. It was bad enough that we knew. I probably shouldn't be reminding everyone in the world that if we hadn't postponed the tour, Danny might not have been with us, right? "I actually wanted you to do me a favor, James."

"Oh? What can I do for you, Nicky?"

"Well, it's gonna sound really silly, and she might hate me in the morning… there's this stuffed bear in the bus…"

"That's what she wanted on the bus!"

"What?"

"Earlier. Before she kicked us out to got to bed… she said she'd wanted to go to the bus, but wouldn't say why. She wants Thor."

"She calls it Thor!?" In front of people? Did they know what that meant? It was bad enough she teased me about it in private, but… James laughed, and I couldn't help but blush. Of course James knew what 'Thor' meant. That was so Rachel.

"Yeah. And I even know why. I'll get it for her, Nick."

"Thanks, James. I… I'm glad you are all there for her."

I could just feel him smiling, "Well, we kind of wish you were here. I think it might be easier. You, or one of her family."

"Remember, James, you're both family and band. You're the best she's got!"

"Thanks, Nicky. I'll make sure she calls you in the morning."

"Great. Goodnight."

I hung up the phone and smiled. She'd like this, right? James would get the bear and make sure she had it, so if she woke up in the middle of the night, it would kind of be like I was there with her.

I was confident that this was a good present.

Now if I could just find something to help me sleep…

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