Oreos for Breakfast: Nick BSB Fiction

Oreos for Breakfast - Chapter 21

By
The Paperbag Princess & The Pumpkin Coach

Page 5 | Page 6 | Page 7 | Page 8

The service door clanged shut behind me and I had a brief moment of panic. What if it locked? What if there were fans lurking around, waiting for me?

It locked, but there were no fans, and I walked away from the hotel quickly, waiting until I'd made it a block with no shrieked 'NIIIIIICCCCCKKKK!' behind me to relax.

Free. I couldn't remember the last time I'd walked through the streets of an unfamiliar city without Frank or one of the other bodyguards next to me. I settled the baseball cap lower on my head and stuck out my arm to hail a cab. Please be quick, please. The longer I was near the hotel, the greater my chance of getting discovered. One stopped on cue, and I slid inside, telling the driver I was going to the airport.

We turned the corner, and I smiled to myself. Look what I just did. In a minute, I'd be at the airport and on my way to Rachel, and right now, I was the only person in the world who knew that. I knew I couldn't tell Frank or the fellas, they'd talk me out of it or make it harder than it was.

But it was easy. A cab and an American Express platinum card could get me anywhere in the world. The only place I wanted to be was next to Rachel. The only face I wanted to see was hers. I didn't care that Frank had told me she didn't want to see me. I had to see her, make her listen. I couldn't go on like this. She was everything I thought about, everything I did, everything I needed.

I had walked into my hotel room an hour ago and started my little routine. Porn on the TV, a drink, and then I'd called Rachel. She wouldn't talk to me, of course. She never did. I just left messages and hoped that one day she'd take pity on me and call me back, I guess. Pathetic. But I'd been flipping through the channels, and I'd caught a commercial for an airline. We had two days off, and I'd suddenly realized I couldn't spend them sitting in a fucking hotel room getting drunk and watching porn. So, I'd thrown some clothes in my backpack and left.

Calling wasn't working. Anna had even agreed with me last night when we were on the phone during yet another long-ass bus ride. Damn, I hated touring Canada, every city was like 30 hours away. Why couldn't we fly again? Oh yeah, because the tour was losing money. I could just hear Howie whining about money in my ear. Fuck money. I had no idea how much it would cost me to fly to LA today, and I didn't care. Rachel would laugh at that, that I didn't know how much my plane ticket would cost…

Anna thought the whole thing was pretty funny, I think. Sad, but funny. She'd been laughing at me last night anyway, when I finally confessed that I'd been calling Rachel's voicemail a million times a day. Sometimes I'd just call to hear her voice on the message and hang up. But then other times, I'd leave a long, rambling message, trying to explain how much I was sorry and missed her. When I was really desperate, I'd sing. Yeah… sing. I was such a dork. I think I'd sung the chorus to every sappy boy band ballad we had to her voicemail. If that didn't scream lovesick fool, I don't know what would.

Well, her name tattooed across my forehead would probably work, too. But AJ had talked me out of that one. Instead I now had the Chinese character for "love" over my heart. Hurt like a son of a bitch, but AJ'd just told me that anything worth doing was worth suffering for. He was so fucking right, too. Even if Rachel never took me back, I could just look down and see how much I'd loved her once. I didn't want this to turn into the bitterness that I'd been left with when Mandy and I had finally finished it. I knew it was a fucked up relationship, but - as Rachel always reminded me - I'd been with her for a long time. And in the end, all I ever remembered was the bad things… the constant fighting and breaking up to get back together.

If Rachel ever took me back, we wouldn't be like that. I'd be the perfect boyfriend from now on. Cross my heart. Ow! Fuck, that tattoo still hurt! Like someone had rubbed the skin over my heart raw…

Okay, that was apt, wasn't it?

Fuck, this was annoying. We'd had to be here at 9 fucking o' clock, just to sit around and be fussed over. I'd already endured an hour of wardrobe. All three of the damn boys were done in half the time. All that for all of us to end up in jeans and t-shirts, looking like… ourselves. Funny, that.

Hair and makeup was supposed to be now, but there was something wrong with the electric for the makeup trailer. I wasn't really sure why makeup needed its own trailer, but I wasn't in charge of this stuff. So now we were sitting around waiting for that to get fixed. At least my trailer was nice. And I had one all to myself.

I think the boys were afraid I might collapse on them or something. Not that I blamed them. I'd done that a few times this week. I'd thought I'd been holding it together okay, but then James pulled me aside and told me differently.

It was later at home, right? I should call Mom. Okay, so I'd been calling her a couple of times a day lately, but talking to her made me feel so much better when I got depressed about… things. Whenever I felt ugly and unlovable, Mom made me feel better. An hour of 'I'm not sure those jeans are good on you' was fucking with my self-esteem a little.

Where the hell was my phone? Fuck, did James have it again? Yeah… shooting yesterday had been so funny that I'd actually dialed Nick's number to share it with him, and James had taken the phone before it even got into voicemail. He could just tell by the expression on my face that I was calling Nick.

It was freaky, the way James knew what I was thinking. He knew how much I wanted to share this week with Nick. It was amazing, gold records and money and real videos, stuff that Nick did all the time. I didn't know what to think about any of it, and I knew that Nick would keep me calm and grounded and explain to me how much 25% of a gold record really meant in my bank account.

I need to call Mom before I thought too much about how much I missed Nick. If I got my phone back, I could listen to my voicemail. Nick called my voicemail a lot. I had James screen it, because it just made me cry to hear his desperate, sad little voice. But I had a couple of his messages saved, just to remind myself that he did love me. Sorta. Not that I could take him back, but…

Guess I liked my boys to be a little desperate, huh? Looking back on it, that's how Jeremy would usually get me back - some grand act of desperation. Like showing up with plane tickets to Vegas and a whirlwind almost-marriage. I bit my bottom lip and stared at the wall of my trailer. It was too fucking quiet in here alone. I had to go find my boys.

I opened the door to my trailer, and James was about to knock, a plate of donuts in his hand. "Did you smell them?" he asked with a grin, and I grabbed one, eating half of it in one bite.

"Krispy Kremes! And hot! Where did these come from?"

"They feel bad about the holdup and got us donuts."

"Being famous rocks!" I giggled, finishing my donut. "But I really wanted my phone."

James arched an eyebrow at me. "Why?"

"To call Mom," I sighed. I was getting tired of explaining myself to him. I appreciated his concern, but it was beginning to get old.

"Really?" he quizzed, clearly not believing me.

"God, James, release the fucking phone. She's a grown-up." Jeremy scowled as he walked past to his trailer.

I hated it when I agreed with Jeremy. So did James, and he turned to him with a glare. "Fuck off, Nolan."

"Jesus, Packard, you always act like you have to protect her from everything, including herself. Give the woman her fucking phone. If she calls him, that's her decision to make."

"The only reason I didn't kill you years ago, Nolan, is because you're in the band. I have no such problem with Carter."

"Dudes. Can we quit with the macho posturing and last name-calling? J, go away. James, come in. We need to discuss."

They glared at one another, but obeyed. James sputtered something as he came in, complaining about Jeremy, but I ignored him.

"Sit down and listen to me for a second. Jeremy was right. I am a grown up. And the more you badmouth Nick, the more I want to defend him."

James sulked into a chair. "He's a punkass. He doesn't deserve you defending him. Either one of them!"

"Possibly correct. But… stop anyway. Please."

"Alright," he conceded after a moment. "I am the big gay poppa bear."

I grinned, leaning over to kiss him. "And I adore you for it. But I need to stop being angry. I'm still not ready to talk about it, but it's taking too much energy to be pissed off constantly."

"Yeah, I-" He stopped as Lola stuck her head in the door.

"They've got the set ready, and makeup in a minute. Come look."

We grabbed the last donuts and followed her onto the set. Darien was already behind the drums, grinning madly. "Dudes! Look at this!"

It was a bar. A dingy dive bar with a tiny stage, just like every bar we'd ever played. Only this one cost millions to reproduce. Em had taken us to a real bar for crowd shots, but this one was constructed for good camera angles. In a couple of hours, a hundred or so of our biggest fans would be here to act like a crowd.

"Ok, this has got be a surreal as it gets," James asserted, echoing my thoughts.

"Just a few months ago, that was our life," I agreed.

"What, they couldn't find a real bar?" Jeremy asked, standing next to me.

"This is easier somehow," Lola shrugged. "Wait until you see the bathroom."

The concept for 'Pretend to be Nice' was each of us going on horrible dates and ending up at this bar, ditching our dates and going to Roscoe's. In a postmodern video twist, we were also playing the bar band. Yesterday we'd done the dates and Roscoe's, a million camera angles and what had seemed like dozens of location shots all over the city.

Today was just here. Band stuff, crowd stuff, and my bathroom scene. I was listening to some other girl talk about my guy. Or something. There was no dialogue. How did that work again?

"Does it have graffiti?" Darien asked, jumping up from the drums. "Can I decorate?"

"Of course, darling," Lola told him. "It's over here somewhere. I already put your cell number on the wall; that's okay, right?"

Chapter added 9.8.03

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