Oreos for Breakfast: Nick BSB Fiction

Oreos for Breakfast - Chapter 23

By
The Paperbag Princess & The Pumpkin Coach

"Early press," Saffron said, putting a tabloid in front of me. It was open to the second page, and it took me a moment to process it.

"Oh, my god," I whispered, and James leaned over.

"Let me see!"

"Have a nice talk with Damo, Rachel?" Jeremy asked, dropping into the chair next to me. My delight getting to our breakfast meeting before the normally prompt Jeremy was ruined by the pictures in front of me.

An entire page of me and Damon. Talking. Touching. Kissing.

Fuck. Fuck!

"Hey!" James whined. "I was there, too! No one took my picture!"

My god, these were at Em's. She was going to have a fit. How did anyone get a photo of their back fucking garden?

"I doubt you were kissing Damon Albarn," Jeremy shot back.

"I was turning into a frog for his daughter!" James complained, and everyone laughed, except me. Were there pictures of the kids? The kids had been back there with us for a few minutes.

Shit, yes. The first one was of Damon and me talking to Missy, and there was another with Lexa, too. Em was going to lose her mind. And Alex. And Damon. Hell, so was Suzi. I didn't know her, but if she didn't want pictures of her kid in the paper, I didn't blame her.

Shit. Damon had made a joke about paparazzi following me. It wasn't a joke. This was my fault.

Lola finally noticed I was panicking, and she leaned across the table to me. "Rachel, it's okay. This happens to everyone here."

"Not Em," I told her, and everyone looked at me. "This is Em's house. She and Alex designed that garden so that Lexa could play outside and not be stalked by fucking paparazzi, and they are going to freak out. I don't care about me and Damon, we're grown-ups, we'll deal. But the kids are there!"

Saffron shook her head. "Em's people have already called me. They need you to sign something, but… is it Susan?" I nodded. Em's manager was named Susan. "Susan said specifically to tell you that Em's not angry with you. She's fucking furious, but not at you."

"Does this mean someone followed James and me to Em's house?"

Saffron nodded. "I'd make sure to close the curtains while you're getting changed, Rachel."

Groaning, I laid my head on the table. London sucked. What was that Blur song? "London loves… the way people just fall apart…" Fucking Damon.

"That's the way they are here," Lola explained. "Big story, you and the kings of Brit Pop and Boy Pop."

Even I had to snicker at that. Really, what the fuck? How did I stumble into these relationships? When did I become a tabloid girl?

"Rachel, we've got to do something about this." Darien's voice was above my head, and I looked up at him. What the hell was he doing last night that he was so late to our meeting? "You should have at least made the cover!"

James grabbed the paper as I smiled at Darien. I loved Darien. He was so good at putting things in perspective. "Dude, it's Prince fucking William! Isn't he old news yet? Well… he is pretty hot," James admitted, making us laugh.

"If Blur had a hit right now, I'm sure you'd be on the cover," Saffron said, almost like she was reassuring me. "Hell, next week, you'd be the cover, because we think you should go in the charts at number one."

"Shut up!" we all yelled, and she cowered in her chair in mock fright. She knew us well enough by now to not jinx things that way!

"Alright, alright," she laughed. "The tabloids are under control. You've got a show tomorrow, we'll get you in photo ops with everyone in the world except Damon, and this will be old news. Em's people are suing the socks of everyone they can, and I think Damon's are, too. So let's move on."

"I have to call Em," I told her. And Nick. I had to call Nick. He was going to freak out about this.

Okay, it was 2 a.m. where he was, and there was no way he'd seen the photos, but I had to get to him before he did.

Saffron and Lola both gave me the 'we know what you're up to' look. Fuck.

"You can call Nick later," Lola told me.

"Em!" I protested. "I have to call Em!"

"Whatever. Call them when we're done."

An hour later, in the limo, I finally got possession of my cell phone back. I wanted to call Nick, but Em would actually be awake.

Nick would be fine. This would be a total non-event in the States. He might never see the pictures. I'd tell him all about them, and then I'd scan them in and send them to him and he'd laugh about them. It was nothing. Nick would know that. He knew I had no interest in letting Damon back into my life.

What the hell? I blinked at my computer screen. That couldn't be… these were old pictures, from when Rachel was with Damon. Right?

No. That was that red sweater she wore the other day, when she'd picked me up at the airport. That was my sweater! She bought that sweater when she went shopping with my mother, and now she was making out with her ex in it! Fuck! She'd tied me to her bed with that sweater. Did she tie Damon up with it? Was that her S&M sweater now?

She bought that sweater with MY MOM!

I was so furious, I couldn't even see straight. I threw my breakfast off the table and flew out of my chair looking for something to punch. Running for the door, I stopped myself.

Just what was I going to do? Hit the first person I saw? My luck it would be Frank, and I'd fucking break my hand again on his chest!

Fuck fuck fuck fuck!

She'd said she wasn't going to see him. That she didn't want to see him… but there it was in full fucking technicolor! Her and Damon kissing. Looked like a cozy place, too. Nice garden… secluded and shit. I bet she just couldn't wait to get back there with him.

What the hell was I doing?

I tried to take a deep breath, but the pain in my chest was horrible. I felt like I was going to throw up or pass out or something. I walked back over to the computer and sat down on the bed, pulling the laptop over with me. I scrolled through the thread on her message board again. All the UK fans were going nuts that they'd made the papers. Hell, they'd barely been in the country for 24 hours, and Rachel was getting tabloid headlines.

Stop, Nick. Remember, this is the UK. They're like that there. How many times had we been in the papers with all sorts of crazy stories?

But even I had to admit that they always started with a grain of truth.

Okay… breathe.

I looked down at the computer screen and felt my blood start to boil again. She was definitely kissing him in that one picture. Definitely.

I glanced at the clock on my computer. If it was noon here it was… 8 p.m. there? Something like that. Today it was a lot of press, right? Where the hell was my schedule?

I found my schedule by the bed and grabbed it. Yeah. Party at the Good Mixer. There was something about that bar… It was in Camden. I remembered her telling me one of her friends really liked it.

Fuck. How dumb was I? The friend was probably Damon or one of the guys in his band! This party was in a bar that Blur liked, and she really thought she wouldn't be seeing him in London?

I bit my lip and shut down my computer. I couldn't look at those pictures again. I'd call her. Yeah, I'd call and see what she had to say. Maybe it was all a mistake. Maybe they really were old pictures and… fuck.

Her phone rang three times, and I knew she wasn't picking up. Fuck, that was my voice on her voicemail, wasn't it? I'd programmed her new phone when I was in the car on my way to see her the other day. Guess she hadn't fixed that yet.

"Hey, Rache. It's me, and I know you're busy, but I need to talk to you, okay? It's like noon here, and I know you're at that party thing, but call me whenever you get this, okay? I just…"

What? I'm jealous as fucking hell, and I need to hear your voice so I don't go off the deep end? That was great. Just fucking great!

My voice broke, and I slammed my fist against the mattress. "I just want to say hi and see how everything's going. I love you, Rachel. Please don't forget that. Okay… bye."

I threw the phone on the bed and lay down, staring up at the ceiling. Here I was missing her so bad already, and she was off kissing her ex and probably partying with him at this very moment.

What kind of fool was I?

Shit. He'd seen the pictures, hadn't he? I could just tell from the sound of his voice that he was pissed off. He was trying to be good, but…

Well, he was trying. Fuck, I'd promised to call him whenever I got a chance, and I hadn't called him all day. I sucked.

I hadn't had a chance, but… that was a lie. I could have called him. I just wasn't sure how to explain it all in the three minutes I'd have. All day long I'd been answering questions about those fucking pictures, but I hadn't explained them to the one person that really mattered.

What time did he say it was when he called? Noon? I looked at my watch and tried to do the math. It was 11 here, so that was three hours ago that he'd called. Lola had just given me my phone back when we'd gotten to this crowded party. Nick was right. The party had started at 8. We were just a couple of hours behind schedule. It had taken me an hour to get back here to the bathroom. I'd had to pee since dinner.

I could probably get five more minutes, right? I hit his number on speed dial and leaned against the wall. It was still fucking loud in here, but I was at least going to tell him I loved him. I'd call him for real when I got back to the hotel.

"Rache?"

"Hi, bunny!"

Maybe he'd cooled off in the three hours since he called.

"Hey."

Or maybe he'd been sitting around getting more pissed off.

"I'm at this party, so I've only got a couple of minutes. But I wanted to call and tell you I love you."

He hesitated a second. "I thought that started at eight."

"It did. We're a little behind schedule."

"Hanging out with Damon too much?"

I sighed. "No. I'm sorry. I thought I'd get to talk to you before you saw those. How did you get them?"

"They're all over your boards, Rache. It's a hot topic of conversation. No one can decide if you broke up with me for him or if you're just leading me on. Maybe you can tell me which one it is."

Biting my lip, I stared at myself in the mirror in front of me. There were a couple of girls next to me, trying to act like they weren't paying attention to the rock star on the phone. Right. Why had I called him again? I had no privacy here.

"Neither," I hissed. "It was…" I glanced over at the girls, who looked away quickly. "Look, I can't do this now."

"Of course not."

"Call Anna."

That shut him up for a second. "What?"

"Call Anna. You promised, if you got freaked out, that you'd call Anna. Remember?"

I didn't even know this Anna. She could be playing the 'I'll be your friend until you realize I'm your one true love' game for all I knew. But maybe she was cool. She was my best shot at the moment, because I was pretty sure that there would be tabloid reports of me fighting with my boyfriend tomorrow. Damnit.

"And you promised you'd call," he shot back.

"And I did!" Sorta. I'd tell him later that I could have called sooner.

"Fine," he grumbled. "I'll call Anna."

"This thing is over in another hour." Thank god for England and early closing times. "And we've got morning chat shows, so they're making us go back to the hotel. I'll call you then, okay? Will you be around?"

"Yeah… we're not leaving for the venue until five or something."

"Maybe I can beg off early. I'll try. I love you."

"Yeah. Love you, too."

Lola stuck her head in the door and called my name, and I sighed. "Talk to you soon, bunny." I clicked off the phone and tucked it in my pocket. "Can we leave yet?" I whined to her.

"You may have talked to everyone here, so yes."

I didn't need to call Anna. She was just going to laugh at me and tell me I was being stupid. But she didn't know! She hadn't seen these pictures!

I couldn't stop staring at them. Every time I turned off the computer, I ended up turning it on again to stare at the pictures and try and convince myself that they were old. I finally gave up and downloaded them to my hard drive, so I didn't have to keep hitting that website.

"Anna?"

"Superstar!"

"Are you busy? Can you do me a favor?"

"Right now? Um… sure. One second." I heard a muffled conversation in the background, something about a sandwich, and then she came back on the line. "Alright, I'm all yours."

"Are you busy? I'm sorry."

"I'm not busy! I was just getting ready to go to dinner. My roommate is bringing me back a sandwich. What do you need?"

Dinner? Right. She was in Florida. It was dinner time there. "Go to dinner. It's not important."

"I can tell it is. My friends already left. Don't worry about it. What?"

I stared at the pictures again, then sighed. Maybe Rachel was right. I was freaking out over nothing. Anna was good at convincing me of that. "Can you get online?"

"Can I get online?" she snickered. "I live online. Yes. Where am I going?"

"Shit. Um…" I pulled up my web browser and found the site again, then told her the address. It had a lot of slashes in it, so it took a minute.

"What did Rachel do?" Anna asked, teasing me, and I just shook my head.

"You tell me."

She was quiet for a second. "These are old, right? From when they were together?"

"No!" I yelled. "She bought that sweater with my mom! This is yesterday!"

I'd talked to Rachel yesterday and she hadn't even mentioned Damon. It must be a secret!

"Alright, Nicky, step away from the ledge. Let me look at them for a minute. She went shopping with Jane?" she suddenly clued in. Mom loved Anna, but Anna thought she was a little weird. She wasn't wrong about that.

"Yeah, last week. The week before? Whenever."

"Did they get along?"

"Yeah. That's not why I called!"

She laughed at me. "Alright. Let's dissect these pictures. Where are they?"

"I don't know." Some lovers' hideaway, I bet.

"Oh, shit," she whispered. "That's Missy."

I'd read the captions about a million times. In the first one, Rachel was smiling at Damon's daughter like they were old friends. Maybe they were. Kids loved Rachel.

"Isn't Missy why they broke up?" Anna continued.

"Yeah. So?"

"Ooh, is that really why they broke up? I had my suspicions," she said, sounding like this was very good gossip.

"Didn't I tell you that?"

"No! You never told me anything about Rachel and the fabulous Damon Albarn."

"Oh, great, you like him too." I fell back on the bed, biting back a scream.

"Oh, stop it. Didn't I tell you how I got into Sudden Silence? Because I saw them open for Blur. I fucking love Blur, Nick. Sorry to break it to you."

"Shut up." This was not helping.

"Are you really freaking out about these pictures?"

"She's kissing him!" I whined.

"He's kissing her," Anna whined back.

"Same fucking thing!"

"It is not!" Anna protested. "Look, I bet these are in order. Look at them again. First we've got Rachel with Missy, who is the reason she and Damon broke up. Then they're alone, talking about something. Have they seen each other since the break up?"

"At the VMAs last month. He was a total ass."

"Maybe that's what the kiss is. He's apologizing."

"Some fucking apology," I muttered, looking at that picture again.

"Nick, it's a kiss on the cheek! And she looks upset. I think he made her cry."

I looked at the pictures again. In one of them, Rachel's head was down. She did that sometimes when she was crying, sort of hiding behind her hair…

"He probably said he didn't want her back."

"Oh, stop it! Has anything happened to make you think that she wants him back? The guy got another woman pregnant while they were together. I doubt Rachel is the 'forgive and forget' type of girl. Not for something that big."

"Seems like she likes the kid in the one picture."

"Whatever. Its probably the first time she ever saw the kid. She was being nice. You've told me how much Rachel likes kids."

"Now she can be a stepmom."

"Do you really think that Rachel wants to be a mom right now?"

I started to say something, then reconsidered. No. Rachel barely had time for me, why would she want Damon and a kid? She could have had Damon's baby, if she'd really wanted that. But she hadn't then. Why would she want it now?

"What are you doing this weekend, Anna?"

"I am not bearing your child, Nickolas Gene."

I laughed. "Damn. Come out here for a couple of days anyway."

"What?"

"I'll get you a plane ticket. We'll be in… Phoenix tomorrow. I think. Anyway. We'll meet there."

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah. I need someone to keep me sane. Can you do that?"

"I… yeah. I guess. I don't have Friday classes. I could… don't you want to call Tony? I know you're sorta pissed off at Vinnie, but…"

I'd never had Anna on the road with me, had I? Yeah. The guys and I played video games or picked up chicks or … what the hell would I do with Anna out here? I didn't know what to do with a girl! Rachel was different. There was sex with Rachel!

But… sometimes Rachel and I went out and did stuff. Sight seeing, and shopping, stuff like that. Hell, sometimes we just laid around and watched bad movies on TV. Anna and I could do that, right?

It was a fuck of a lot better than sitting here obsessing about Rachel and Damon.

"No, I want you. It'll be fun. When was the last time you saw one of my shows?"

"Have you changed anything from the winter leg of the tour?"

I shrugged. "Some stuff. It's still fun. Stuff blows up!"

She laughed. "Well, how can I resist? Are you sure, Nick?"

"Yes. It'll be cool. Come."

"Anna's coming. I'm calmer now."

I'd barely said 'hello,' and he was throwing information at me. I leaned back against the pillows with a yawn. "What?"

"I talked to Anna, because I need to remember that girls are always right."

I interrupted him. "Damn straight."

He laughed. "Whatever. She calmed me down, and I ended up asking her to come for a couple of days. I can't just sit here and obsess about you, Rache. That's what makes me crazy."

She was playing the best friend game, wasn't she? Damnit, I played right into her hands.

Who was getting crazy and obsessive now?

"Cool," I said, hoping I sounded like I meant it. "I'm glad you'll have someone to play with."

"I don't know what to do with girls, though."

"Oh, really?" I flirted, glad that he was calmer now.

"That's what I mean! The guys and I go out drinking or play video games and stuff. And when you're here… well… "

That's what I was afraid of. Nick wouldn't sleep with this Anna person, would he?

"Actually… Anna's a gamer."

Oh, thank god. "See? Not all girls are bad at the video games like I am. You'll find lots to do."

"Yeah," he said, convincing himself. "It'll be cool. Better than having Vinnie with me, right?"

"Definitely," I agreed. Unless Anna was playing the best friend game, and this was the plan to get Nick to figure out that he loved her and not me…

I needed some sleep. Anna and Nick were just friends. Yeah.

"But… yeah. She's coming here, because I called her, like you said, and she told me what she thought the pictures were about."

That was interesting. Almost like reading my boards. It was sorta fun to see how other people read my life from the stuff that got published in the papers. "What did she think?"

"She thought that you were upset about seeing Missy, and Damon was apologizing. Did he make you cry? Because then I'll have to kill him."

Laughing, I got up from the bed to find the teakettle. I needed some caffeine. I really wanted to sleep, but I had to talk to Nick. Yeah, I'd be in fine form for the chat shows tomorrow.

"He did make me cry, but not in a bad way. You don't have to kill him."

"How can crying not be bad?"

I considered for a moment, plugging in the kettle. "He wasn't being mean. Actually, he was talking about my dad. Because I just left that day, and Damon never really got to say anything about it. He told me that now that he's a dad, he understands the other side of it now."

"Oh," Nick said softly. Most conversations about my dad freaked Nick out.

"So I cried a bit, and that's when he kissed me. It was very sweet. It was good that I talked to him, really. Weird, but good."

"Is that all you talked about? Just your dad?"

"No," I told him, finding a mug and placing a tea bag in it. This hotel had the good tea, not some boring generic brand. Five different types of Twinings, all for me. "We talked about how the timing of our relationship was all wrong, and maybe we should stop bashing each other. Can you believe that he actually thought I'd be mean to Missy?"

She sounded completely insulted by that, and I had to agree with her. Rachel would never be mean to a kid. Never. She loved kids. "What did he think you were gonna do?"

"I don't know," she said. "Ignore her, maybe? But she ran out into the garden and asked who we were, and-"

I cut her off. "Start at the beginning, Rache."

She laughed. "Okay. James and I went over to Em's for lunch, and we'd been there for a couple hours and went out into the garden, just James and I. And then Missy came running out. She and Damon stopped by for something and I guess she likes the garden. Damon followed her out, and it was… it was like one of those movie moments when the world just stops."

What? Did the heavens open and the angels sing?

Rachel went on before I could say anything. "I knew who she was immediately, because she looks just like him, and then there he was and… I was really fucking jet lagged at that point, Nick. I was not ready for that."

She sounded freaked out, and I tried not to laugh. It was a freaked out movie moment, not a madly in love movie moment. I could handle that.

"So I talked to Missy for a moment, and Lexa came running out, and they took James inside- you know that wand I got for Lexa?"

She'd shown it to me when she was packing. It made noises and stuff, what little girl wouldn't like that? "Yeah. Did she like it?"

"Loved it. And she turned James into a frog, and he did the whole thing, hopping around, and now James is her best friend. So Lexa and Missy took James inside for more frog stuff, and then Damon and I were alone."

"James left you?" Didn't James hate Damon?

"Yeah… I sorta had to force him, but Damon and I needed to talk. It was fate or something that he was there, right?"

Fate? Was that good or bad?

"Maybe we just needed to talk it out and put it behind us," she went on, and I relaxed. I was overreacting again. "So, um… Damon and I were quiet for a minute, then Damon thanked me for being nice to Missy, and that just freaked me out. He actually thought I'd be mean to her! He should know me better than that, shouldn't he?"

"Definitely." I wouldn't do that. Not ever. Did that make me the better boyfriend?

"Yeah. So, I got a little defensive, and he apologized, and we… looked at each other."

Looked at each other? What did that mean?

"Maybe I needed to remember that not everything with Damon sucked, ya know?"

No. Everything with Damon should suck!

"We both admitted that it was easier to believe that the other one was evil."

"Damon's been saying mean things about you?"

She laughed. "Of course. I suppose I've said worse. And then… I don't remember. Somewhere in there he said he was really sorry about my dad, and I cried, and he kissed my cheek, and then I got myself together and we went back inside, because he said Em was spying on us."

"She wasn't the only one."

"I know!" Rachel yelled. "Em is just fit to be tied. They built that garden so that Lex could play outside and they didn't have to worry about fucking paparazzi, but somebody was fucking stalking me. Em said they figured out the photographers were on the roof of this vacant house on the other side of the block, so they can get him on breaking and entering. I am so fucking pissed. Like it wasn't bad enough that I had to see him...now it's in all the papers?"

"That sucks, Rache."

"I'm so sorry you saw it before I had a chance to talk to you, bunny. Really. I never dreamed you'd see it, because I'm sure no one in America cares."

"Your boards are all talking about it, Rache. I'm not the only one that cares."

"Fuck," she muttered, and I smiled at her.

"So, this all happened yesterday?"

"Yeah."

"Why didn't you tell me then?"

I knew I was going to get that question. "I'm sorry. But we didn't really talk yesterday."

"You left me a bunch of messages. I talked to you when you were with Kate."

"I was so not going to mention it in front of Kate. She scares the shit outa me."

He laughed. "Yeah, she's scary. But, Rache…"

I cut him off. "I didn't want to tell you in a voicemail. Maybe I should have, but I was afraid you'd freak out when you heard his name. Obviously, you freaked out more when you saw the pictures. I'm sorry."

"Tell me next time."

"Promise."

"And I'll call Anna if I can't get you on the phone," he offered, and I laughed.

"It's a deal. If any of my ex's pop up, I'll let you know."

"Do you have more than Jeremy and Damon?"

I chuckled. "Hey, a girl's gotta have her secrets…"

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