Oreos for Breakfast: Chapter 28

Oreos For Breakfast: Chapter 32
By the Paperbag Princess and Pumpkin Coach

Chapter added 2.8.06

"Dawg, I thought you said the house was nice," Vinnie muttered, unsuccessfully hiding his scorn as we pulled into the driveway that led to Rachel's house. She'd left the Porsche I'd given her last month in the city so I could get here after I was finished in the studio.

I didn't understand why Rachel didn't drive this car everywhere she went. It was sweet. I nearly giggled at myself… sweet. It was her "anniversary of first meeting" gift. And I'd specifically asked for the blue interior because it reminded me of the Oreos packaging. She thought that was really cute. Well, when she stopped being pissed at me that day.

I glanced over at him and rolled my eyes, "Vin, this is a great house. Remember, I told you about it. It's been in their family for like three or four generations. It was Rachel's father's house and he left it to her when he died."

"Right," Vinnie nodded, the story coming back to him, I guess. "Well, it's kind of small, isn't it?"

"I guess." I never really thought of it was small. It had four bedrooms. That was more than I had growing up.

I pulled up to the house and stopped the car, turning down the radio and closing my eyes for a second. When we'd pulled off the main road, I'd listened for the waves crashing in on the beach, just like Rachel did every time we came here. For the first time, bringing Vinnie to share this place, I felt like it was ours. Not just hers. Not just the amazing, safe space that I was allowed to crash ever once in a while, but something we could share together.

I felt Vinnie get out of the car and opened my eyes. The sun was already warm against my face, even though it was barely 10 o'clock. We'd made great time coming from the city. Man, I loved this car. I might have to get myself one next. Maybe I'd get a matching plate - a Florida "BNNY" to match her New York "BCUP". Or was that too dorky?

Rachel had left us driving music in the CD player and Vinnie hadn't even complained too much when he heard Duran Duran blaring out of the speakers.

I heard giggling from around the back of the house and I jumped out of the car, grabbing my backpack and motioning to Vinnie to follow me, but to be quiet.

"What?" He stage whispered as we crept up to the side of house. I shushed him and peered around the corner where Rachel and the girls were engaged in a very competitive game of basketball. Before they could see me, I dropped my backpack and ran up behind Rachel, grabbing the ball from her as she started to shoot and making her scream.

"Nickolas!" She pouted, "I was going to make that."

"You were not!" I protested, easily making the basket before I reached for her.

"I could have," she whined, sticking out her tongue at me for effect. I didn't need more coaxing than that, I pulled her into to me and kissed her hard. "No fair, I was in the middle of something."

"Uh-huh." I nuzzled her neck and she moved closer to me, her hips finally meeting mine. "I missed you, baby."

As if on cue, the girls and Vinnie all groaned, making Rachel laugh, "I think we're grossing out the kids, bunny."

"Bunny!" Colleen repeated as Katie giggled. No matter how many times they heard our sappy nicknames they still laughed. I guess this was proof that I'd lost all the Carter charm with them.

"Missed you, too," Rachel whispered in my ear before biting at my earlobe playfully. God, how I missed her this last month. I'd endure the girls' teasing for a bit more to keep her body next to mine. "I thought you had studio time today?"

"He couldn't wait to see his girl."

At the sound of Vinnie's voice, I felt Rachel's back stiffen under my hands. What the hell? After the whole Boston thing last month, she and Vinnie had called some sort of truce. I didn't care. I just knew that she didn't sneer at him every time she saw him. That was progress. What'd he do to get this reaction?

She looked up at me briefly before turning around and retrieving the ball from the side of the driveway. "Hey Vinnie. Didn't realize you were coming with Nick this weekend."

"That's a long drive alone."

Glancing at me, I could see the forced smile cross her lips, "He's done it before. How'd you like the car?"

"My boy knows how to pick them, doesn't he? Although the color is not my style."

"I like the yellow!" Nick proclaimed, walking over the Vinnie and striking his shoulder.

"I know, I know! Buttercups are yellow and all. I get it. It's just a little girly."

"Well, I'm a girl if you hadn't noticed, Vin." I said, trying to keep my tone even. What the hell was Nick doing bringing Vinnie up here? This weekend of all weekends? We'd barely seen each other all summer. The great radio tour experiment had been a miserable failure. Even though Nick had insisted he was doing it to be near me, he was constantly pulled in a million different directions - and mine was never very high on the priority list.

I knew I was acting like a spoiled brat. But lately that seemed to be the only thing Nick responded to. If I sat around and waited patiently I'd never see my boyfriend. Especially not if Ken and his publicist, Cynthia, had anything to say about it. They had this grand theory that Nick was more "marketable" if he wasn't seen as too attached.

Luckily for them, he seemed to be getting less and less attached every time we were together. Was Vinnie just the nail in the coffin? Did he bring him up here on our anniversary weekend to… to what? I couldn't even imagine what the reason could be for Vinnie crashing our special weekend.

Unless Nick forgot.

Nick and Vinnie were still trading insults and I threw the ball at them, "Why don't you finish the game with the girls. Girlies, this is Vinnie, Nick's friend."

Katie's eyes shot up as I said Vinnie's name and I narrowed my eyes at her, hoping she understood my nonverbal sign that she should not say anything. She might have been listening in once or twice as I was complaining about Vinnie to her mother. I felt like I was doing that a lot lately, and I'd stopped caring who was listening in on my conversations.

"So, you're Vinnie," Katie said. Damn, she didn't understand the girl cue! Maybe she'd understand when I wrung her little neck later. "You used to date Anna, didn't you? We like Anna."

Had Katie ever met Anna? How the hell did she know that Vinnie used to date Anna, who she had never met?

I needed to start making sure that my conversations with Vanessa were far away from the kids.

Vinnie half-smiled at that and nodded, stealing the ball from Nick. "Yeah. High maintenance, but cool."

What was that tone in Vinnie's voice? When we'd all been in Marathon at the beginning of the summer, he'd been a little star struck by her when she'd joined Nick on stage, but Anna had summarily rejected him. She was a smart girl.

Vinnie could not seriously want her back now, could he? Maybe all those stupid dating rules books were right. Diss a boy and he'll just want you more? Maybe I should take their advice and start being mean to Nick.

Nick came over as Vinnie played with the girls, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me into him again. I leaned my head against his chest and listened to the sound of his breathing for a moment. I could never be mean to him. Annoyed certainly. But never mean.

"I should have told you about Vin, huh?" I nodded against his chest, not trusting myself to look up and not give away how pissed off I was. "I just thought… he'd be all alone in the city and he's done so much for me this summer, Rache. He's really been great keeping my schedule and working with Ken on the travel arrangements. He's like my assistant or something now."

"Does that mean he has to come here, Nick? This weekend?"

"We'll have other weekends, buttercup."

I raised my head to look at him and as soon as our eyes met, something changed. "Not like this one, Nick. Don't you remember?"

"Oh fuck! Shit! I'm sorry… I… totally forgot. I mean, I remembered the other one…"

He tried to apologize and make excuses all at the same time. I wasn't sure which train of thought to follow. So I didn't follow any of them, just closing my eyes and leaning back against his chest. But I still couldn't manage to take a deep breath, so I settled for holding it while he continued with his excuses.

I got it. I'd fucked up. I should have remembered this weekend was our anniversary, but I was really busy. All she'd been doing was writing and recording. But over the last month I'd been everywhere, between finishing the album, planning its release and being there for all the boat races. Those turned out to be the most fun I'd had all summer.

I was tired of sitting in meetings and hearing Jive people talk about solidifying my base and helping me to break back into radio. Backstreet fans were insane. How did they miss that? They were going to buy the album and come to the shows. Well, if Jive let me tour. That was still up in the air.

Well, fuck them. I'd do it on my own if they didn't want to finance a tour! Vinnie and I had been planning it out for weeks now. Small clubs where the fans had to be legal to get in… just a small band, the crowd and me. It would be off the hook. Anna agreed she'd tour with me and I think Ken had set that up for the promo stuff we were going to do next month.

I couldn't believe we were finally going to let people hear my stuff!

Why couldn't Rachel understand how difficult this all was? She was just mad that I didn't spend enough time with her. Didn't she understand that I spent all my free time with her - talking to her or making plans to meet her? Besides, it didn't help when we did see each other, she was usually pissed off about something.

"What do you want to do for dinner?"

I looked up from our video game and she was standing in the doorway, dressed in a shorts and a t-shirt. "Hey, where'd the bikini go, buttercup?"

"Look outside, Nick. The sun's going down."

"Shit! I'm sorry." I was going to go lay out on the deck with her while she worked on her songs or read or something. But Vinnie was bored just sitting around. He wasn't good at just chillin' all the time. Unless he had a girl with him, that was. Maybe we could go find him someone to hang with and we could go out tonight?

This was Rachel's town. Chances are any honey we'd find for Vinnie would be her second cousin or her brother's best friend's daughter. Not happening.

"Well, there's always tomorrow. Sun comes up every day. What do you want for dinner?"

"Beer?" Vinnie laughed, finishing his and adding it to the pile of empty bottles on the table in front of us. How'd we drink that much in one afternoon?

"I think you had enough beer for one afternoon, don't you?"

"God, you sound like the step-monster!" Vinnie groaned, as he sank back into the couch.

I got to Rachel before she lunged over the couch and stained it with his blood. Turning back, I whacked Vinnie on the head, "Apologize!"

"For what?" He argued, not looking up at me. I walked over and turned off the television.

"For calling Rachel 'step-monster'. That was mean."

"Well, if the…"

"Don't" He stopped at the tone in my voice. Just shaking his head and giving me that 'you're pussy whipped' look. I'd grown really accustomed to that look and I was getting a little sick of it. "Just apologize and don't be an asshole, Vin."

But Rachel was out the door and I heard the gravel in the driveway as she peeled out. Great. Now she was really pissed off.

"Do you have to be such a stupid prick all the time, Vin?"

"What? I just said… she did sound like the step-monster, Nick. You gotta admit."

I had to smile at that, "Okay, but don't say it, you jerk! I mean… she was right. We drank a lot this afternoon."

"So? You drivin' anywhere? Got somewhere to be but this boring place tomorrow morning?"

"I like it here!"

"Oh, come on, Nick. This place is boring. I mean, how many books can one chick have? There are like hundreds here. What is this, a freakin' library? The beach even sucks. It's all rocks. I thought it would be cool. Like your place in the Keys."

"It's Long Island, Vinnie. You grew up in New York… you know it's not like Florida. And I do like it here. I love this place. It's special. So just… I don't know why I thought you'd understand it. I shouldn't have even brought you here. Not this weekend."

"Why not this weekend?"

"Because it's our anniversary," I groaned, dropping back down onto the couch and staring at my sorry reflection in the dark screen of the television.

"Shit! No wonder she needs an extra dose of Midol, dude. You really fucked up, Nicky!"

"Don't sound so happy about it, Vin. Okay? I just… slipped my mind. I'd gotten her the car last month and then we were going to have a nice weekend here. We got together here last summer and I know she probably had all sorts of things planned."

He started to tease me about it, but then stopped himself. "Dude, I can leave."

I shook my head. "No, I'll make it up to her later. How pissed can she be?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?"

The phone rang as I finished paying for my groceries and I took a deep breath, smiling as the bag boy offered to take them to my car and called me ma'am. Great. Did everyone in this town think I was 40 years old today? What happened to the wanton sex goddess Nick couldn't keep his hands off of last summer and wrote sappy songs about?

She was old and boring now, apparently. Not even laying out in the sun in a bikini could entice my so-called boyfriend to leave the lure of video games and beer to be with me.

"Yes? Do you need more beer? Or should I just get a keg?"

"We do need more beer," Nick said and I just about screamed. He was not seriously calling to tell me we were out of beer, was he?

"Fine, I'll be another twenty minutes or so. Can you start the grill out back?"

"What are we having for dinner? You left before…"

"Before I killed that asshole friend of yours, Nick. Why the hell did you bring him up here?"

"I forgot! I'm sorry. I just…" He took a deep breath and I held mine for the millionth time today, handing the boy who helped with my groceries the first bill I found in my wallet. Ten bucks for 2 bags of groceries. I just made his day.

"I don't want to fight, Nick. I'm sorry." Why the hell was I the one apologizing? He and Vinnie were the assholes! Because I was the only adult currently staying in my house? "I'll get you and your friend beer. I bought some steaks and salmon. Figured Vinnie was probably more of a steaks kind of guy."

"Did you get strawberries to make the great salad we had last year, buttercup?" His voice was softer now and I rolled up my window, turning on the air conditioning in my car. I didn't want the whole town to hear me fighting with my boyfriend. "I'll make ice cream. I remember how."

"It's not hard, baby."

"I know. I remember everything about that weekend, Rache. I really do."

"Just not the date?"

"I'm sorry. I got confused. I sort of shot my wad with the cool car last month. I suck."

"You don't suck. Much." He even laughed at my lame joke. "I just wanted this weekend to be special, Nick. And Vinnie…"

"He offered to go back to New York so we could be alone, Rache. Do you want me to send him back?"

I thought about that for a moment. I wish I could see Nick's face to tell whether that's what he wanted or not. I suspected that it really wasn't. He brought Vinnie up here because he wanted to share my house with him and now I was just being a bitch.

"No. That's silly. I'm being a brat. No. I'll be home and we'll make a good dinner and then maybe watch movies or something. Does Vinnie like movies?"

"Anything but chick flicks."

I laughed, "I could have figured that one out. All right. I'll get beer and movies, you start making ice cream. I've got everything in the cupboard. I'll see you in a bit, bunny."

"Rachel?"

"Yes?"

"Happy anniversary. This was the best thing that happened to me last year… meeting you. I love you."

I nodded and a tear ran down my cheek as I blinked. Fuck. "I know, Nick. I just… I love you, too."

We could talk about the rest later. We'd have a nice dinner and watch some movies with his friend and then get some time alone in bed. It would be fine. Not the anniversary I had planned, but still okay.

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