Oreos for Breakfast: Chapter 28

Oreos For Breakfast: Chapter 28
By the Paperbag Princess and Pumpkin Coach

After a huge breakfast, I felt better. Rachel played a lot of stupid country songs on the jukebox, and we talked about those while we ate. It was better than talking about anything else in our lives. For a few minutes, I tried not to think about anything else. It was like the last time we were here, when all we needed to do was buy her some new clothes because I'd forgotten to bring her suitcase. That was a nice day.

Here we were two months later, or whatever it was, and she still needed clothes for warm weather, but everything else was fucked up. It had not been a good New Year so far.

The waitress cleared away our plates, and we sat there with coffee and the last piece of raisin toast, when Rachel pulled my phone out of her pocket. "Where did that come from?" I asked.

"I brought it in. I thought it would be better if you called from here, instead of while you were driving. Or I could drive, but I'd be listening in, and get all distracted and crash that big ass car."

"So I should call from home."

She just raised an eyebrow at me, placing the phone on the table in between us. "Call your mom, Nick."

Not looking at her, I spun the phone around on the table, watching that instead. "I bet someone's already told her."

"I imagine she would have called you by now." She flipped the phone open and showed me the display. "No new messages. Call her and tell her it was nothing before she finds out from someone else. Then you should probably call Kevin. And then Ken."

I took the phone from her, hitting Mom's number before I could chicken out. "One at a time, Rache."

Oh, sweet. It went into voicemail. "Hey, Mom. It's me. I… um… something happened last night that you should know about. Call me back, okay?"

Rachel raised an eyebrow at me, and I sighed. "I, um, got arrested. It wasn't a big deal. The officer said I was resisting arrest, but I didn't resist, I swear. He wanted me to move, and I didn't really hear him. But by the time he actually arrested me, I didn't resist. Ken's got a lawyer for me to call, so it's gonna be fine, I'm sure. I just wanted you to hear it from me. Love you. Call me. Bye."

I hung up, and Rachel grinned at me. "You lucked out."

Smiling, I grabbed her wrist, looking at her watch. "It’s still early in L.A. Kevin is so still asleep." I held my breath until the phone went into voicemail, and then left the same sort of message for Kevin. He could tell the others, and I knew he would. That was fine.

I was feeling good now. Kevin and Mom were the worst. I hadn't spoken to them, but at least I'd tried. Maybe by the time either of them called back, Rachel and I would be back home, sound asleep. We could play phone tag for a day or two, and by then it would have all blown over, and it would be fine.

I wasn't so lucky with Ken. He picked up on the first ring, and immediately started talking. I just let him go for a minute, making faces at Rachel to make her giggle. "Wait. What?"

"You need to get to a lawyer today, Nicky. You know what this means? You can't leave the state. You're scheduled for the AMAs next week. The last thing we need is you not showing up because the cops down there are making you an example or something!"

"Oh, shit."

Rachel looked at me questioningly, and I moved the phone away to talk to her. "I can't leave the state."

"Good thing you didn't come to see me, then."

"Who's that?" Ken asked.

"Rachel," I told him. "I was a little freaked out last night."

"Shouldn't she be in New York? They're renegotiating! Ah, it's Saffron. She'll spin it. Does Saffie know she's not there?"

"I have no idea."

"I'll call her next, give her the heads up. Got a pen? Our guy in Miami gave me the name of a lawyer in Tampa for you to talk to. Can you get there now? You need to get this thing taken care of. We have got to file papers today so that you can travel."

"Yeah. We just finished breakfast. I can meet with this guy now."

Nick said an address to me, and I gave him a blank look. Like I knew anything about Tampa? "It's the address of the lawyer," he told me. "I need a pen."

"I have one in the car," I offered, but he just rolled his eyes. I waved our waitress over and asked for hers, scribbling down the address on a check. He told me he was going to the car to figure out where the office was, and I paid our bill, meeting him back at the car and its magic GPS screen. When I got there, he was punching something into the screen, trying to get it to recognize the address. "Is it not cooperating, sweetie?" I asked, opening my door and climbing in.

"I'm supposed to sing the National Anthem at the Bucs game this weekend."

That was not the answer to my question. And since when? He was really bad with his schedule, wasn't he? What if we hadn't had that fight, and he'd stayed in New York with me? When would he have figured out that he needed to be in Tampa this weekend?

"Do you know how many times I've done that? The first time I did it, I was nine, and it was one of the best days of my life. My whole family came, and it was great. I sang before the Super Bowl in that stadium last year on my 21^st birthday. Now Ken has to call the NFL and assure them that I am not a criminal. They might not let me do it!"

"That would just be silly, if they didn't. You didn't…"

He punched the dashboard, startling me. "Stupid computer. I need a fucking map!" I held my breath for a second, as he whirled around, looking in the backseat for a map, cursing the whole time.

"Nick. Sweetie. Nick!" I finally yelled.

"What?" he snarled, but didn't stop what he was doing. I opened the glove compartment and found a map of Florida that had never even been opened. I wasn't sure if it had a city map of Tampa, but I whacked him with it anyway.

"Here. Map." He started to grab for it, but I pulled it away. "Stop. Get out and walk around for a second if you need to. I'll find this place."

"You don't know anything about Tampa!"

There was no reasoning with him. I could feel it. I grabbed the paper with the address and the map and slid out of the car, ignoring him as he said something to me.

My hands were shaking as I unfolded the map on the hood of the car. I didn't care that he was upset and angry. I'd expected that. But I didn't like being trapped there while he punched things. I knew he'd never hurt me, but he might miss the dashboard.

Besides, he needed a second to process this information. It was scary to realize that he could be prevented from leaving the state. His main residence might be in Florida, but he was never here. We both traveled so much that it was frightening to think suddenly he wouldn't be able to.

The lawyer would fix that, right? It was part of Nick's job to travel all over. He'd been talking about going to Sweden to record with Max. Could probation mean that he wouldn't be able to leave the country? Shit.

"I'm sorry," he said softly, standing next to me and touching my arm tentatively.

I looked up at him, "It's okay. You just needed to calm down a little."

"I didn't mean…"

I cut him off, turning back to the map. "I know. But we need to be calm and figure out where this lawyer is. Then you can freak out when we get to your place later."

"Promise?" he joked, and I smiled at him.

"We can go home and you can break things, if you want."

"I want this to be over."

"I know, bunny." I kissed him, letting my lips linger on his for a moment as I felt him relax a bit. He just needed to calm down. Looking down at the map, I frowned, "I hope it’s in downtown Tampa, because that's the only map we've got here."

With both of us leaning over the map, we managed to figure out where it should be. We got back in the car, and I kept the map with me in case we got turned around. Nick had never spent much time in downtown Tampa. But how hard could it be?

"Do you have an appointment with this lawyer?"

"Jake Huffman. Ken says he's expecting me."

"What else did Ken say?"

"He said he's going to see what he can do about the Bucs game. It'll be fine, right?"

"Probably." I didn't want to make promises, when I had absolutely no idea. "And he said the lawyer can get you out of the no travel thing?"

"Yeah, because its for my job. I guess. I don't have to be at the AMAs. It's supposed to be me and Kevin, but Howie could always go. Kevin might not be talking to me anyway."

"Oh, he'll be fine."

"Um, Rache, you know why AJ went into rehab, right? Because Kevin lost his mind on him."

I waved him away. "He's in LA, happy with Jana. By the time you get out there in a couple of days, he'll have cooled off."

"This is the bad thing about my mom being in the state."

I laughed. "She's doing something with Aaron, right? She won't come all the way up here just to yell at you, I'm sure."

"You don't know my mom very well."

"Tell her I'm here. She likes me, right?" I thought she did. She kept dragging me into conversations with all the women during the holidays. The Carters were big on the gender divide at family gatherings. The guys sat around and watched football, or went outside and played football, and the women cooked and cleaned up. That was fine, just weird for me. I just wanted to be with Nick, but he had to do boy things.

Maybe tomorrow we would have figured all of this out, and we could have a couple days to ourselves. We hadn't spent a lot of time in his Tampa apartment. We didn't need to do anything. We could just hang out and watch movies on his big TV, and make love in every room in the house… he had a hot tub we hadn't tried out yet. We'd talk about the Nsync tour, and it would be okay. He wouldn't be mad at me any more.

But we had to survive today first.

Lawyers made no sense. Jake was really nice, and he kept telling us that this was a minor offense, and I'd be on probation and do some community service, and it would be over. But I had no idea why I had to keep signing things. A couple things were for his kids, but the rest… I felt like I needed a lawyer to look over the stuff my lawyer was making me sign.

Rachel was great. Whenever I got overwhelmed, she would come up with just the right question to help me understand. Ken called in and said everything should be fine with the NFL, and then he asked a bunch of questions I hadn't even thought of. Two minutes of drunken stupidity, and now I had all this crap to deal with. I was never drinking again.

Finally we were free. I pulled her into my arms in the elevator, and she smiled up at me. "Are we done?"

"I guess." Ken was working on a statement for the media. He’d already been called by most of the entertainment shows and the Daily News or something. One of the tabloids probably already found someone who was there last night to sell their story, whatever that meant. Jake was going to call me after the papers I'd just signed were filed. But Rachel and I didn't have to do anything now.

"Good." She leaned her head against my chest and yawned. "Because I am beat."

"Me, too." I was awake right now, but I could tell I was going to crash soon. I hadn't slept since yesterday, when I woke up in New York with her and we…

Way too tired to think about that right now. I hadn't slept in a long time. "Can we go home and sleep now?" I asked her, and she stepped off the elevator as the doors opened, taking my hand.

"Let's stop by a grocery store real quick first. That way we can just stay in tonight."

I put my arm around her shoulders as we walked into the sunlight. Where the hell did we park? "That sounds great. Can we get junk food?"

"Whatever you want, baby. Macaroni and cheese, Tater Tots, you name it."

"Those little pizza rolls. I like those."

"Oh, let's get mozzarella sticks. Those are really bad for us."

"Excellent." I found the car and unlocked her door, helping her in. "I'm really glad you're here, buttercup."

Smiling, she kissed me. "I'm glad, too. Let's go. The sooner we're done shopping, the sooner we can sleep."

I went around the car and climbed in. "Once we sleep, we can do other things, right?" I asked, backing us out of our parking spot.

"Sure," she answered. "We can rent movies or something."

I gave her a look, and she giggled. "I meant sex, Rache."

"Oh! Sex? I guess. If the rental store doesn't have anything good."

"There's a place at the grocery store, but they never have anything good. We might have to entertain ourselves tonight."

"Maybe Anna can come over for dinner," Rachel suggested. "She was nice to you last night. We should thank her."

"That's sorta kinky, babe. If you want to do that, can we pick someone other than Anna?"

"What's wrong with Anna? I think she's great."

"Yeah, but… she's like my sister, Rache. Really. I can't do that with her."

Rachel smiled at me, raising her eyebrows. "Good to know."

I laughed at her smug expression. "What's good to know?"

"You spend a lot of time with Anna."

"Not really." I should spend more time with Anna. Anna never got me into trouble.

"Well… sometimes. When you're here in Tampa, you do."

I glanced away from the road to look at her. "Are you jealous of Anna?" I asked, incredulously. Anna? And me?

"No! Not really. Well, not any more. Before I met her… I sorta wondered."

"Wondered what?"

Shit. How did we end up discussing this? He obviously thought this was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard. Which was good, right? I didn't need to worry about Anna. Not that I did. Anymore.

"Before I met her, I wondered if maybe she was secretly in love with you."

"You did?" he asked, practically shrieking. His voice leveled as he considered it. "Is she?"

"No," I informed him. "I asked her once, and she had pretty much the same reaction you're having right now."

"Then why did you ever think that? And when did you ask her? What do you two talk about when I'm not around?"

"Girl stuff. Nail polish, and makeup, and secret crushes."

"Dude. I thought you were talking about guitars and rock bands. You girls, always talking about boys…"

I whacked him for teasing me, and he laughed. "Shut up. Just because girls aren't afraid to discuss their emotions doesn't make us boy crazy. I asked her about Vinnie once, and then I asked about you. Because if she could date him, why not you? You are so much cooler."

"Vinnie's never been arrested," Nick muttered.

"Vinnie's just never gotten caught. I'm pretty sure he's done plenty of stuff he shouldn't have. Anyhow, she told me she'd known you too long to think of you that way."

"Why did you ever think we were?"

I sighed. "You know. It's the classic wake up one day and realize you're in love with your best friend of the opposite sex. A million bad movies have been made about it. And you're the big superstar, and she's the girl that's known you forever… the movie just writes itself."

"Are you secretly in love with James?"

"James is gay, and I'm pretty sure that Anna isn't. Unless Vinnie has turned her off guys forever."

Nick pulled into the parking lot of a grocery store and turned around to smile at me. "Do you want her to be gay? Are we inviting her over for dinner and a threesome?"

I rolled my eyes at him. "We're not inviting anyone over for a threesome."

"Damn." He pouted at me.

"That's probably illegal in this state. You don't want to be taking any chances."

Now he scowled, and I laughed, leaning over to kiss him. "Aren't I enough for you, honey?"

He wrapped his arms around me, kissing me again. "You're all I need, Rache. Besides, Anna wouldn't like our dinner for tonight."

"Who doesn't like pizza rolls?"

"She's a vegetarian, and I want the pepperoni ones."

"She's a vegetarian?"

"She is," he assured me before letting me go and getting out of the car. I got out, following him to the grocery store. "Hey, why don’t I get movies, while you grocery shop?"

"That's cool. I'll meet you in the grocery store or back here at the car."

Great. That was a few minutes closer to bed. I could feel the crash looming ahead of us. Breakfast and coffee had helped, but I was still operating on just a couple of hours of sleep. I doubted Nick had had any. We were definitely getting silly, and that was the last stage before exhaustion.

Whenever I was this tired, all I wanted to do was eat. I suppose that was my body's way of getting energy when it didn't have rest to draw on. Therefore, I had a cart full of junk food before I realized. Backtracking a little, I got stuff to make chili and lasagna. I'd make some healthy things, and he could freeze the leftovers for the next time he was in Tampa.

When would he be in Tampa again? It was a fluke that he was here now. He was supposed to be in New York, and then we were going to LA for the AMAs, then back to New York until I went to Europe. I wasn't entirely sure what was happening in his life after that. Maybe in February, he'd be in Tampa again to see his friends, and then he'd have some frozen dinners that would make him think of me. That was good.

Hell, I didn't need to make anything to have leftovers to store in the freezer. I'd gotten just about every unhealthy thing in the frozen food section. We needed soda. Shit. Ten minutes later, I was waiting to checkout, and Nick hadn't joined me. Had he gotten that distracted picking out movies? Probably. I'd put this stuff in the car and then find him.

I didn't have keys to the car. Damn. Maybe he was at the car? Pushing a ridiculous amount of groceries ahead of me, I saw him in the driver's seat, leaning his forehead against the steering wheel. Did exhaustion catch up with him in the movie place? I wheeled up to his window and tapped on it.

He jumped, turning a tear-streaked face to me, and my heart dropped. A few minutes ago, he'd been silly and joking. What happened?

I pushed the cart out of the way, reaching for the door handle as he opened the door and slid out. "Nick, what happened?"

He shook his head, brushing away his tears roughly. "I hate my mother."

"Nick…"

She didn't know. She couldn't tell me not to hate my mother right now. "You don't…" I stopped myself. "Let's put these in the car and go."

"Nick!" Rachel demanded, not moving. "What happened?"

I pushed past her, popping the trunk and grabbing the grocery cart as I moved towards the back of the truck. "I told you she was going to take it badly."

"She's probably just worried, baby."

"Yeah, she's worried, alright. She's worried about what this is going to do to my career. She might not be able to buy that Mercedes she wants," I snarled, throwing bags of groceries into the car.

Rachel stopped me, putting her hand on my arm. "You're going to crush something. Just get back in the car and I'll do this."

"Fine." I didn't get into the car, though. I couldn’t sit still right now. I wanted to call Mom back and yell at her like she'd yelled at me. I wanted to go down to Marathon and ask her how she could say those things to me. I wanted to hit something.

Punching the hood of my stupid truck set off the alarm. Stupid truck! When I finally got it to shut up, Rachel was next to me. I took one look at her and slumped against the car, exhausted. "I just want to go home," I admitted, and she hugged me.

"Me, too. Should I drive? Are you okay?"

"I can drive. But I… I don't want to talk about it right now. Okay?"

She nodded. "One question. Did she call you back? I'm assuming that's what happened."

"Yeah. My phone rang when I was in the movie store, and I thought it might be you, so I answered…"

"Did you at least get the movies?" Rachel asked, smiling a little, and I shook my head.

"Sorry." Mom was freaking me out, so I left the store and came out here.

"Don't be. I think we might sleep all day. Now, do you want me to drive?"

I considered it for a minute, but Rachel didn't know where she was going, and she hated driving this big car. It was easier if I drove. "No, I can drive. We're only a few minutes from home."

"Good." We drove home in silence, and I tried not to think about my conversation with my mother. She'd told me I was… not thinking about that now. Later. After I got some sleep. I'd told her I didn't want to talk to her when I was exhausted and she was freaking out. That just made her go off about my partying habits, and how I never got enough sleep, and I should have…

I did the right things today. I knew I did. Okay, maybe Rachel didn't need to be here. I should have done this on my own. But Rachel had wanted to come, and that was okay. She'd been there when I talked to the lawyer and my management. Those were grown-up, responsible things, right? If I was being irresponsible, I would be asleep right now.

Mom seemed surprised that I'd been able to figure out what I needed to do about this on my own. She'd started throwing advice at me, and I'd told her what I'd already done. That had pissed her off even more. Maybe she would have preferred that I needed her help. But I was almost 22, and I'd been living like an adult for a long time now. I could take care of myself. It's not like she'd been around when I was a kid, on the road. She'd been there for part of it, but not all. Even when she had been there, she was more concerned about the business than what I needed.

She hadn't even asked if I was okay. She just told me I was being irresponsible, and I had to get my act together, and between this arrest and AJ's drinking, Backstreet was over.

Maybe I wanted Backstreet to be over. Maybe I was sick of being the kid that no one ever listened to. I was doing my own music now, and Mom had never asked about it, besides wondering how it was going to get pitched. Then again, the music had never been important to her. The music was just part of the product. Insipid ballads, and the right clothes, and the right dance moves, and the right hair. We had all the right pieces, and we'd made a lot of money. Wasn't that enough? Did I get to do what I cared about now?

Rachel got to… well, she used to do what she cared about. Now they were opening for Nsync, and renegotiating their contract. When was the last time she'd written a new song? She used to write songs all the time when we first got together. Now she didn't have time. Success really sucked the life out of you in this business.

"Let's just quit."

"What?" she asked, turning from her study of the road outside the window.

"Let's quit. I have plenty of money. Fuck your new contract, and fuck touring with Nsync, and fuck my solo album and caring about the fact that I got arrested. We'll buy a house in Key West and open a karaoke bar."

She smiled. "Is it really always warm there?"

"Pretty much. Key West is crowded. We'll buy a private island. Closer than Marathon. There will be palm trees and blue skies every day. No managers, no press wanting statements, no worrying about record contracts."

"Can we throw away our cell phones?"

I pulled into my garage and turned to smile at her. "I don't need to call anyone but you. And you'll be there every day."

Yawning, she unbuckled her seat belt. "Is it okay if we sleep for a couple of hours before reading the real estate ads to find this private island?"

"That sounds like the perfect plan."

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