Oreos for Breakfast: Nick BSB Fiction

Oreos for Breakfast - Chapter 18

By
The Paperbag Princess & The Pumpkin Coach

"Rachel!" I heard Nick's voice behind me, and I my heart stopped for a split second. What was that? Relief? He'd told me that he'd find me. Why did I doubt that? Was he like Darien, did he have perfect directional sense or something? How did I not know that about him?

Before I knew it, he was behind me, slipping is arms around my waist and pulling me back against him. I leaned back, letting him support my weight for a moment and he leaned down to see the earrings I was holding in my hand.

"Those are pretty, Rache. Blue like my eyes," he whispered before kissing my neck.

I laughed at him, "You are a freak, you know that? Is everything about you?"

Frank laughed, "Busted!"

But Nick ignored him as he let me go and took the earrings from me. He handed them back to the woman at the stall along with a bunch of cash. "Nick…" I started to protest but he ignored me, taking his change and handing them back to me with a smile. Whatever. They were sorta cheap, and I did like them. I kind of liked the amethyst ones better, but whatever. He was right, they were a soft blue, like his eyes.

This was cool, walking around the market and looking at things with my girl on my arm. We were all teasing one another and acting like normal people. No one even seemed to notice who we were. That almost never happened.

"Bookstore!" James exclaimed, pointing to a store over on the side of the market.

Rachel smiled and started to follow him, but then looked back at me, "Not into the bookstore, bunny?"

I shrugged. I liked being out in the sun. I didn't want to spend an hour in a dusty book shop. I shook my head, "It's such a pretty day. Let's stay outside."

She smiled and waved James and Frank on, making plans to meet up with them in an hour at a little café she'd noticed when we came in. Frank didn't even protest much, just telling me that he'd keep his phone on if we needed him. Cool.

"That never happens, Rache."

"What?" she asked, distracted again by something in a stall on our right. This time it was scarves. Scarves hanging everywhere… all different colors with glittery fringe. So Rachel. I took one down and draped it over her head.

"That Frank just let's me go like that. Think he likes James?"

"Sure he does." She giggled and wrestled the scarf away from me as I batted at her face with the fringy part, "Stoppit! Do you like the scarf, bunny?"

I wiggled my eyebrows, making her laugh again, "Can I tie you up with it?" I whispered in her ear, and her eyes fluttered shut.

"Maybe… we haven't… " Our eyes met, and the scarf was paid for an in a bag before either of us could finish the sentence. Oh, this would be fun. We were staying here tonight, and after the show we'd have all night just to ourselves. I'd made James promise this morning.

Rachel wandered ahead of me, looking at a map a few feet away that had the locations of the various stands marked on it. "Hmm… there's a produce section a block up. Are you hungry?"

I shrugged, "Sure." Actually, I'd been eating all day between interviews and rehearsals. And weren't we meeting Frank and James in an hour at a café? She turned back to the map, trying to figure out how to best get to the food stuff.

"Hey, Angel would love these!" Nick's excited voice tore me away from thoughts of food. He was looking at a stall filled with tiny, sparkling fairies. They swayed slightly in the breeze and caught the sunlight in their glitter. What were they made out of… some sort of metal? "Okay, she's got a ton of angels, because of the name and all, but these are way cool."

"That's okay, bunny. These are fairies, anyway. Thankfully not fairy princesses. Is that it? Do you get dazzled by the glitter?"

He wrinkled his nose at me. "Shut up. They're angels now."

"They're actually deva," the woman running the stall informed us, not even looking up from her careful application of glitter on yet another tiny figure. "But angel, fairy, deva, they all mean basically the same thing."

"Deva? Then you need one, diva princess," he teased me.

"Better than being a fairy princess," I retorted. Yeah. Way cooler. I was Princess Buttercup, not the stupid Little fucking Mermaid.

Okay, I needed to get over this. I was starting to freak myself out a little.

Nick wisely changed the subject. "They're cool, right? My sister would like one?"

I had to think for a minute. Angel was Aaron's twin, right? Yes, Angel and Aaron, all twins must have alliterative names. So she was… 13? 14? Didn't all teenage girls like sparkly things?

Fuck, I liked sparkly things, and I was old. "Yeah. I bet all your sisters would like one. I think I need to buy them for my nieces."

He grinned, obviously pleased with himself for finding a good gift. We spent the next ten minutes picking the perfect one for each girl, because of them was different… different wings, dancing, jumping, different hair color.

"Angel needs a dark haired one."

"Why? Is she sick of blond things?" I wondered, and he gave me an odd look.

"No, she has dark hair."

I just blinked at him. "Don't tell me Aaron dyes his."

Nick snickered. "No. They're twins, but they don't look a thing alike. Colleen has dark hair, too, why don't we get those two over there?"

I agreed with him, barely paying attention. I didn't even know what his sister looked like. I didn't know what any of his siblings looked like, except Aaron, but only because I'd seen Aaron's album covers and he looked like Nick. I hadn't ever seen family pictures. Fuck, I didn't even know what his mom looked like! Did he look like his mom or dad? Nick was the oldest, and Aaron and Angel the youngest, but who was next to Nick, BJ or Leslie? What the hell did BJ stand for, anyway?

"What does BJ mean?" He raised an eyebrow at me wickedly, and I smacked him. "Your sister, get your mind out of the gutter."

"Bobbie Jean. She's named after my dad." I filed that away and let him pick out the rest of our fairies. He paid for all of them, saying he wanted to get my girls a gift, and we finally moved on, with a bag full of carefully boxed fairies.

"That was cool. Thanks for making me come shopping. My sisters will really like those, I think."

"Why?"

He stopped walking, giving me a puzzled look. "What?"

"Why will they like them? I don't know anything about your sisters. I don't even know who's older, BJ or Leslie."

"BJ," he said carefully, obviously realizing I might be a little panicked. "She's only like a year younger than me."

"What does she do?"

"She's in college. Sorta." He slipped his hand in mine as we started walking. Shit, what was I panicking about?

"A Carter went to college? You mean they aren't all singing and dancing?" I thought they all did something like him. Why did I think that?

"I said sorta."

That made me giggle, and he kissed me. "What's wrong, buttercup?"

"I don't know anything about your family, Nick. Isn't that important? Shouldn't I know these things? And Aaron acted like he didn't like me on the phone today…" He did, right? That wasn't my imagination. I mean teenage boys could be brats. I knew from bratty boys!

He interrupted me. "What did he say? Little brat."

"No, not like that. Just… suspicious. Did Willa ruin your family for all your future girlfriends? Are they going to hate me? Is that why you never talk about them?"

"No, I…" He considered me for a moment. "Let's go find that place where we're meeting Frank and James, okay? I think you need some food, buttercup. You're freaking out."

He put an arm around me and started steering me through the crowd as I protested. "I'm not freaked out!" I was so freaked out. I don't know why it was hitting me all of a sudden, maybe it was that call from Aaron, but I felt like there was this huge part of my boyfriend that I didn't know anything about. Why didn't I get to know about this part of him?

"You're freaked out because I don't talk about my family," he said calmly and then sighed. "You gotta understand, Rache… I was trained from an early age that some things are private and need to stay that way. Now I guess I don't even think about it, I just do it." He couldn't look at me, pretending to try and figure out where we were. Like he had any clue?

"Next block," I told him, glancing at the shops. I'd been to this place once before, if it was the one I was thinking of, with great brownies… and I think there might have been a really good grilled cheese, too… okay, I was just freaking out because I was starving. I hadn't really eaten since last night on the bus, and that was just junk food.

He nodded, and kept steering us through the crowd. "I don't mean it, Rache. I've told you some stuff, haven't I?"

"General stuff, yeah. I'd really like to meet them, Nick." Was that okay to say? I looked up at him, but couldn't read his expression. Did I just push too far?

"I could send you down to Florida, but I can't get away for a while. I don't think I want to let you in there without a guardian." He looked down at me with a smile, and I kissed him.

"I'm going to need one, aren't I?"

Sighing, he pulled me a little closer. "She fucked everything up. Just… fucking Mandy. I was so stupid."

"No, you were just young." Hell, he was still young. "And you had way too much money and independence for someone so young, and you made some mistakes. Yay, food!"

I pulled him into the café, and since it was three in the afternoon, it wasn't even crowded. We snagged a corner table and ordered food before getting back to our discussion. "So, Willa," I prompted, and he sighed, poking his straw into his soda angrily.

"Yeah. She… it got really stupid. My family started out liking her, and tried to like her, but she was always picking fights, and telling me my mom shouldn't be my manager… okay, she was right about that," he admitted, looking up at me with a sheepish smile.

"I get the impression that your mom is a bit of a control freak?" I asked, and he nodded.

"That's putting it lightly. But I… I chose Mandy over them. They moved to L.A., for Angel's modeling, and Leslie, and I stayed in Tampa with Mandy. I didn't even talk to them for like six months, until Mandy and I finally broke up."

I knew that bit. I'd read that tabloid article online somewhere. It still shocked me that it was true. I couldn't imagine not talking to my family for six days, let alone six months. "How was it when you talked to them?" I asked, taking his hands in mine because his fidgeting was driving me crazy.

"It was all Mandy's fault. She was 'evil and horrible' and led me astray, according to them. It was easier for me to just let them think that. I never really considered what would happen when I got another girlfriend."

I was gonna bitch slap that girl the next time I saw her, creating all this work for me. Families loved me. Jeremy's mom was a freak, but she loved me. "What about Tiffani?" Was that her name? Poor Tiffani, he'd been dating her when we first met, and I usually forgot she existed.

He shrugged. "She was fine. Hell, Mom set us up. Our parents are friends. Mom was all pissed when I broke up with her."

And now here I am. I might need to bitch slap Nick, too.

"Sorry," he said, seeing the look on my face. "I told Aaron today that he'd like you."

Aaron was the golden child, right? Maybe if I could get him on my side, I could get Jane to like me… suddenly two books appeared in front of me, with pictures of a very young Nick on the covers.

"You missed the secondhand bookshop, Rache," James informed me. "The best of Jane Carter, for the low, low price of two bucks. Canadian. That's like 12 cents at home!"

Nick groaned, reaching for them, but I snatched them out of his reach as Frank laughed at us. "I knew the look on his face would be priceless," he said to James, but I wasn't paying attention to them. 'The Heart and Soul of Nick Carter,' proclaimed one, and it took me a moment to realize the other one was about Aaron. Shit, he did look just like his brother.

"Rache, don't read those," Nick begged, but I was already flipping through them.

"Are you crazy? I'm going to memorize these fuckers and force your mother to like me! If I ask her to sign them, will she be impressed or does that look desperate?"

"Definitely desperate," James answered, before Nick could even draw breath.

"Totally agree, babe," he nodded.

Damn. Still, the answers might be somewhere in these books…

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