Oreos for Breakfast: Chapter 28

"And where will you be?"

I sighed. Hadn’t we been over this already? "I will be at the platform. I’ll take her bag, we’ll come back here, and then we’re meeting you and James at Serendipity at noon. Which is the name of a John Cusack movie, part of which was actually filmed there. And no, I still haven’t seen it." I didn’t remember the address of the place, but I did remember the John Cusack part. It was a famous restaurant, right? We’d get in a cab. The cab driver would know.

"I love that movie… Hey, you’d better leave soon!" Rachel worried. "It’s just a couple of stops, but sometimes you have to wait for the subway."

"The what?"

"The subway! Forget it. I’ll be there."

I could just see her with that worried look on her face as her eyes darted around the room, looking for James and her bag, ready to bolt from her meeting because she was convinced I was going to screw this up. But I wasn’t going to screw this up. Was I? "Rache! I’ll get a cab."

"But, traffic…"

I cut her off. "Rachel. Sweetie. Buttercup. It’s okay. You can trust me to pick up Katie at the train station. I promise. I’ll grab Aaron, and we’ll go right now, even though it is only a little after ten. We’ll be there. No scary people will grab her off the platform."

Right? We should leave now. Penn Station was a big place, wasn’t it? I’d only been there a couple of times. We’d have to get there and figure out what gate her train was coming into. Were we allowed to go down to the gates? Was it like the airports now?

If I wasn’t there and Katie got lost, I was toast. After Rachel was finished killing me, Jon would kill me. He might kill Aaron, too, just because we were related.

Rachel exhaled on the other end of the phone. "I know I’m being silly. You’re a grown-up. You can handle it."

Suddenly she had more faith in me than I did. "Don’t worry. We’ll go right now."

"Thanks, bunny. I told Saffron since this meeting was so last minute, I wasn’t staying a second past 11:45. We’ll be at Serendipity at noon."

"Whatever. We don’t have plans today, do we? Well, until your rehearsal."

They had rehearsal for the MTV New Year’s Eve thing tonight. I think they were trying to do a dress rehearsal in real time for some bizarre reason. That would be amusing. I never got to be in the audience for MTV things. Katie was going to love that. Aaron might be bored out of his mind. But it was his idea to come to NYC with Rachel and me instead of going back home with the rest of the family. So he’d just have to deal.

"Bloomie’s!" Rachel reminded me, and I shook my head.

"That’s all you and the niece and the gay best friend, babe. Aaron and I will find something else to do."

"They have a men’s department," she said, trying to tempt me. Did she think I was James?

"You and James did a great job of picking out clothes for me at Christmas. I don’t need anything else." An afternoon at Bloomingdale’s was not my idea of a good time. "Aaron and I will come back here and try to get our money’s worth out of this crazy hotel room."

Since Aaron and Katie were spending New Year’s with us, I’d gotten a three-bedroom suite. It was costing me a fortune, but it was amazing. The master suite had a tub that all four of us could probably fit into. Of course, since the kids were here, it wasn’t like Rachel and I were going to have a chance to enjoy it… damn kids.

We did enjoy the huge king-sized bed in the master suite last night, though. If Aaron heard anything, he wasn’t letting on. Yet. He’s probably saving that for ammunition later. But I couldn’t help it. Rachel just got me carried away. It’s not like I could be in the same bed with her and not want to make love to her. That was just stupid.

"Are you going to roller skate in the living room?" Rachel joked.

"We'll play pool," I answered seriously. There was a pool table in the game room. This was a hotel suite with a game room. These hotel guys would do anything for a buck. Last night, since we were tired from the drive down from Albany, we'd ordered room service and played pool and watched movies on the big screen TV.

"Also cool," Rachel agreed. "Yes, Saffron! One more second!" she yelled, her voice muffled as she moved away from the phone. I heard her hissing at someone, and then she came back to me. "Alright, I've got to go. I'm still not sure what this is all about. James and I will see you at noon, and we'll figure out the rest of the day."

"What time is rehearsal?"

"Eight, I think. Maybe… dunno, I’m starting to lose the plot, bunny. Coming!" she yelled again. "See you soon. Sorry this got all fucked up today."

"No biggie, Rache. Love you."

"You, too." I could hear her yelling at someone as she clicked off the phone. I wasn't sure she'd be free to meet us for lunch, but I'd be there anyway. She wasn't supposed to be doing anything today. Just the rehearsal sometime tonight, but that had changed quickly this morning. James had called, waking us up around nine, informing her that they’d been summoned to the Firm's offices in New York. And there went my plans for sex before Aaron woke up. Well, not that I'd had plans… but morning sex was always fun. Especially with Rachel. I’d tickle her awake, loving the way her warm body felt as she giggled in my arms, but before I knew it, she’d have me trapped underneath her… okay, I had to stop thinking about this. There would be more mornings. Just not this week.

I missed being with just Rachel. I'd surprised her on Christmas Eve, and we'd had a little time together that day. But then there was her family party, and it had been all family togetherness since then. Even though we'd stayed at a hotel while we were with my family, we'd only been there to sleep. I wanted a day or two of just the two of us. Not even for sex… well… some of that. But I wanted to be able to sit on the couch and snuggle with her while we watched TV without Aaron or one of my sisters or cousins telling us to get a room.

But that wasn't happening for a while. Aaron was leaving late on the 1^st, to meet Mom in Orlando. I wasn't sure when Katie was leaving. Maybe Rachel and I could go with Aaron to Florida and spend a couple of days in Miami or Key West. It had only been about a week, but I'd had enough of December in New York. I wanted to be back in sunny Florida.

I'd ask her about that when I saw her at lunch. Saffron was probably filling up her entire January right now. Bad enough she was going to be in Europe in February, and then they were starting this mysterious opening tour in March… I could see the entire year unfolding before us. She’d mentioned something about dropping another album this year, but that couldn’t be right, could it? If they opened for someone good in March, they'd probably be doing a summer tour on their own. It would be the fall before she got a break.

And by then, I had no idea where I'd be. Jive was telling me that my album could be a summer release, but… I wasn't even sure that I had an album. I was just screwing around, really. I was meeting up with Backstreet next month, and hopefully we'd make some plans then and I’d know what was going on in my life. I wasn’t good without a plan.

Maybe I'd just follow Rachel around. That could be okay. I'd stop worrying about my career and be her biggest groupie. That would be nice. If they were opening, they wouldn't be that busy, so we'd have lots of time together…

I started to lie back on the bed, thinking about Rachel, but then I looked at the clock. If I didn't stop daydreaming, we'd be late picking up Katie and then I wouldn't be alive to be following Rachel around like a lovestruck loser. Grabbing my shoes, I went on the search for Aaron. He was in the game room, playing video games on the big screen. "C'mon, turn that off. We've got to go."

"Where?" he asked, not even looking away from the screen.

"Rachel's stuck in a meeting, so we're picking Katie up at the train station. Hey, how'd you do that?" I'd never gotten to that level!

He snickered. "Why would I tell you all my secrets?"

Reaching over, I pulled the controller out of his hands. "You'll tell me later. But we've got to go now."

He managed to bitch at me the entire length of time it took us to get out of the hotel room and to the train station. It ranged from my lack of skills at video games to why the hell we had to pick up Katie. By the time her train got in, I was ready to strangle him. I should have made him go home with the rest of the family. At least it was warm in Florida and he wouldn't be complaining about how cold it was.

"She can't just catch a cab?" Aaron asked, standing next to me impatiently as I looked through the crowd for a little girl in a pink coat. She had a pink coat, right? Hadn't Rachel told me that?

"She's twelve!" I said, not even bothering to look at him.

"Then why is she on the train by herself? Shouldn't someone have brought her?"

"Two years ago, weren't you telling Mom that you could tour Europe without her help?" I remembered that fight. Even I'd thought he was full of shit.

"Yeah, but…"

"Katie!" I waved my arms above the crowd, hoping she would see me. She looked like she did this every day, calmly walking towards the stairs that led up to the main station. But then she looked around, and her face broke into a relieved smile when she saw me. I guess she wasn't as tough as she was trying to pretend.

"Nick!" she yelled, moving through the crowd towards me, and I ran over to her, bending down and pulling her into a hug.

"You made it! Was it okay?"

"It was fine," she nodded, straightening her coat as I let go of her. "I just wasn't sure what to do next."

"Aunt Rachel had a meeting, so we came to get you. She and James are meeting us for lunch, though, so we…"

I realized she wasn't listening to me any longer, and I turned around to see what she was staring at.

Right. She was the one with the crush on Aaron, wasn't she? She was over me. I was just Aunt Rachel's boyfriend most of the time now. But evidently she could still get star struck by my stupid brother. He was smiling at her, and she couldn't move.

Hey! I knew that smile! I invented that smile! That was the sexy, yet non-threatening smile that sold a million records to little girls just Katie's age.

I whacked his arm, and he dropped the smile to scowl up at me. Good. I had been worried that Aaron and Katie wouldn't get along and we would have to keep them apart. Now I wanted to keep them apart. Katie was way too young for my brother. Two years was a really long time when he was a pop star and she was a nice girl from Long Island.

Man, no wonder Rachel's brothers barely liked me. I wouldn't want my kid sister dating a pop star, either. We were bad news.

"Katie, this is Aaron, my stupid brother. Aaron, this is Katie, Rachel's niece."

"Nice to meet you," Aaron said, holding out his hand. Katie didn't move, just blinking at him.

This might be a very long New Year's Eve.

"I told you we were going to be late. But no, you had to stop and call JC."

"Shut up." James dismissed my annoyed tone and smiled down at the binder on his lap, stroking it happily. My stomach dropped as he flipped through it. The binder was our itinerary for the winter opening tour… with 'Nsync.

"I don’t think the dates have changed, dear."

"You’re just jealous because I get to be with my boy every day. Every day, Rache! Isn’t that great?"

James had such a smile on his face, and I had to smile back. He’d been so happy all day as we talked about just the possibility of doing the tour, but then we’d had the conference call with Nsync’s management, and it'd looked like it was going to go through, and… he was just over the moon. Not that I blamed him. I hadn’t seen James this happy in ages. Not over a boy. Not since Michael.

That’s not why we were doing it. But if we were, that wouldn’t be a bad reason, would it? I mean, it’s not like JC and James could be "out" about their relationship. Besides, it was a good opportunity for us. The timing was great. No way could we finance a large tour over the winter, especially if we might be without a record company. EMI still hadn’t come back to us with an offer. Their lawyers were arguing with The Firm’s lawyers. Saffron kept reassuring us all day that this was normal. By next week or maybe even the end of this week, we’d have a firm offer from them. She already had fielded calls from Virgin and Capitol and Jive, of all places.

Did we really want to move labels? This album still had at least one more single. If we switched labels, it’d mean going back to the studio, and there’d be a lag before we had something to promote. It’s not like we could take ‘Pretend To Be Nice’ with us and another company was going to promote it when they weren’t making money off it.

"Earth to Rachel." James tugged on my sleeve, and I sighed, leaning back against my seat as the cab inched its way through Manhattan traffic. "It's okay. Nick is responsible…" My look must have stopped him mid-thought, because we both laughed at that. "Okay, maybe responsible is an overstatement. But I’m sure he found her. Or she found him. Something."

"That’s not actually what I was obsessing about."

"No? What then?"

I tapped the binder on his lap, and he sighed. "It’ll be fine, Rachel. You’ll see. Even if we break up, it will be okay. It’s not like we have to see them all the time if we don’t want to."

"That’s not what I’m worried about. It’s Nick… I mean, we said no to opening for Backstreet. He’s not going to see how this is different."

"It is different, though. Completely."

"Not completely. But yeah… I know that and you know that. Hell, Jeremy even knows that… but Nick won’t. It’s not like he’s going to feel like he can just come to any show he wants. It’s going to be weird."

"Yeah. But it’s the best offer we have. If we change labels, then we’re not going to have any money to tour and we have to tour."

"I know. I understand the pro/con list, believe me. I’ve got it scribbled all over my notebook. But… he’s going to hate it."

James sat up and moved away from me, so he could see my face better, "Do you not want to do it? Like Jeremy said, one no vote and we turn it down."

I bit my lip, staring into James’ eyes for a long moment. I couldn’t do that to him. Or to the rest of them. "No, we should do it. In some bizarre world, it makes sense. But James… please don’t say anything. I don’t want to ruin Katie’s visit."

"My lips are sealed." Suddenly the cab stopped at the corner, and I looked up, seeing the familiar fairy lights decorating the entrance at Serendipity. James smiled over at me. "Frozen hot chocolate makes everything better!"

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