Oreos for Breakfast: Chapter 38

Oreos For Breakfast: Chapter 38
By the Paperbag Princess and Pumpkin Coach

We were good. We’d been together for twelve hours, more, just us, talking and making love and laughing and it was all so familiar and right and true. We’d been together enough that we could be in public again. Sorta. Did his car count as public? I’d be sitting in his lap if I could figure out how to do that while he drove.

I held out an Oreo to him and he bent his head down to my hand, taking it from my fingers in one bite.

“Because two bites is too difficult,” I teased, and he grinned at me, his mouth full of cookie.

“Yes,” he said. “One bite. You can eat more that way.”

I untwisted my Oreo, licking out the cream as he watched me. “You’re driving, bunny. Pay attention to the road.”

“When you’re doing that?”

I settled back into my seat. “Pay attention to the road and tell me something.” We had hours of talks in front of us, so we might as well use this time for something useful. I could be perfectly content to just stare at him while he drove, but that wasn’t very productive, was it?

“What?” he asked, looking back at the road and taking my hand.

“Tell me about Anna.”

“Anna? What’s to tell about Anna?”

I laughed at him as he tried to be casual. “You are so shitting me. Something happened with Anna.”

“Why do you think that?” He was such a bad liar.

“Girls know these things.” He stole a glance at me as if to judge what I knew.

“And you can’t talk about her without looking guilty,” I continued. “And JC thought something was up.”

“JC?” He considered for a moment. “Did she say something to him?”

“No. Not that he told me. He just wondered. Because she’s like me.”

“Rachel Lite,” he said, smiling at some memory, and I shook my head.

“Did you say that to her?”

“I was high!” he defended and I laughed again.

“She didn’t like that, did she?” Boys were so dumb about women sometimes. No woman liked to be compared to your ex-girlfriend… whether she was into you or not. And Anna – as much as Nick may not want to admit it to himself or Anna to herself – had been into Nick since they met.

Well… they’d met when they were like, eight or something. But she’d liked him as more than a friend for a while, at least.

“No,” he admitted. “But I didn’t… I said that while I was trying to convince JC and Anna to hook up.”

“Sweetie,” I said, freeing my hand to pat his head. “JC is gay.”

“He was trying not to be that night we hung out. Okay, the lap dance made him sick, but he was trying.”

“He got a lap dance, after all.” Man, I wished I could have seen that. I’m surprised the stripper hadn’t come forward after he came out to sell her story to the tabloids. Even I would pay to see photos and read that stuff.

He grinned at me. “Exactly. It was a very weird night. But if JC wasn’t gay, wouldn’t he and Anna be good?”

I had to think about it. “No,” I finally concluded. “Even if he liked girls, Anna’s too much for him. She’s not the sweet and cuddly type.”

“Um, Rache? JC is dating James. He’s not exactly sweet and cuddly.”

I snorted. “With JC he can be. I’m not sure if sweet and cuddly is in Anna’s vocabulary.”

Nick didn’t answer for a minute, and I studied his profile. “Is it?” I finally asked.

“We didn’t have sex,” he said quickly, and I just nodded.

“I didn’t really think you did. But something happened.”

He sighed, putting both hands on the steering wheel. “It was that night. But after JC left, so I’m not sure what he saw.”

“I’m not sure if he saw anything,” I told him. “Just that you were close. We didn’t talk about it a lot.”

I obsessed about it a lot, but I didn’t want to distract Nick with that. I wanted to know the story first without him worrying that I was going to fly off the handle with jealousy.

Nick drummed his hands on the steering wheel for a second, and I let him gather his thoughts.

“It was this crazy night. We went to the strip club, and JC got sick and for some reason we thought going back to the hotel to get high was a really good idea. I don’t remember why.”

“Because you were at a strip club, and lots of dumb ideas seem good there?”

He smiled over at me. “Yeah. Anyway, Vinnie hooked up, so JC and Anna and I hung out in her room. I fell asleep and they talked for a while. I woke up when he left and I was going to go back to my room, but then we could hear Vinnie and his chick again…”

“How did Vinnie end up in your room?”

“Well, he wasn’t getting Anna’s.”

I laughed. “Point. Continue.”

“Do I have to?”

We must be getting to the good stuff. “Yes,” I told him, stroking his hair to let him know it was okay to continue and he sighed at my touch.

“We were talking about you. JC had told her about how you were right after we broke up, and how upset you were, and… I don’t know. Then we were kissing.”

I should be glad he was kissing her because they were talking about me. Sorta. Right?

“I don’t know how it happened. I really don’t. I’ve tried to figure it out.”

That made me smile. I could see Nick lying in bed trying to figure out how he ended up making out with his best friend.

“It doesn’t really matter,” I told him, and he looked over at me.

“Really?”

I smiled. “Really. We weren’t together, Nick. I’m not mad. I just want to know. Because Anna seemed really happy to see me last night. She wanted us back together.”

“I know,” he said, sighing.

“Did she tell you that a lot?” I asked.

“She… we had a fight yesterday when I told her I didn’t want you back.”

“You told her what?” My tone was sufficiently outraged that he laughed at me.

“Um, you didn’t exactly throw yourself at me, Rachel.”

“I didn’t?”

He raised an eyebrow at me, making me laugh. “This time yesterday, I don’t think either one of us thought we’d be in a car together.”

“True,” I admitted. “And we were talking about Anna.”

He scowled. “Sure you don’t want to pull over and have sex in the backseat?”

“Smooth, Nicky. Next time try a little more foreplay first,” I said, patting his knee. “So, you were making out in some random hotel room.”

“Sounds like foreplay to me,” he joked and that made laugh. He thought for a minute, concentrating too hard on the straight, dusty road in front of us. There wasn’t much traffic and we were basically on one road until Las Vegas appeared in front of us. Not that much concentration needed. “Florida. Miami. Yeah, it was the last night of the Christmas tour.”

“Does that matter to the story?”

“No,” he said.

“Then you were making out with Anna in Miami. Continue.”

He sighed. “We… she stopped me.”

I hadn’t really expected that he would have been the one to stop.

“Because…” He looked at the road, but I could tell he wasn’t seeing it. “Because she knew it would fuck things up if we had sex. And I knew she was right.”

“Anna’s a smart woman.”

“I know. And… she said she loved me.” He glanced over at me, checking my reaction.

I wasn’t sure what my reaction was. Besides that I’d always thought she was half in love with him. How could she not be?

“I asked her that once,” I told him. “And she said she wasn’t.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t ask. We didn’t go into details. She just said she was, but she knew we were better as friends, and she knew that I loved you.”

“That sucks for her.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I think it does. But we agreed to get married when we were thirty if we were both unattached.”

I laughed. “Are you in a Julia Roberts movie?”

“That’s what she said.”

“I love Anna.” In some ways, she was a lot like me. So I had to love her.

“So do I,” he said, glancing at me. “I mean… I do. Not like you, but… if you didn’t exist, if I’d never met you, it would be Anna.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

I did. From the moment I first met her, I knew that.

“Do I need to worry?” I asked him before our tone changed or I lost my nerve.

He slowed down a bit, looking over at me and waiting until I met his gaze. “No.”

I studied him for a moment. “Really?”

He glanced at the road and then back at me. Part of me wanted him to pull over so he could hold me. I hated that I could still be insecure about him after six months apart. But building up the trust might be more difficult than I’d let myself realize yet.

“Really,” his tone serious. “She’s not you, Rache. I love her, but… not like I love you. I kissed her last night, but…”

“What?”

He hesitated, aware that he might have said too much. “After the show. As I was leaving. I kissed her. It’s all over the boards.” He handed me his phone, which was charging in the dash. “She sent me some emails with links.”

“What kind of kiss was it?” I said, looking down at his phone.

“It was… it was more than a peck on the cheek, Rache.” He sounded nervous, and I looked up from staring at his phone. “But I don’t want us to have any secrets. Go ahead. Look at the pictures.”

He glanced over at me, trying to be brave and not scared, and I loved him for that. “I haven’t looked at them,” he admitted. “So maybe they’re all Photo-Shopped.”

I smiled, leaning over to kiss him quickly.

I probably shouldn’t look. But if I looked, then I’d know and I could judge for myself. I pulled up his email, finding the ones from Anna. “I think they’re just talking about me and you,” she’d written. “So that will buy you a little time before they figure out about Rachel. You should show these to her before someone else does.”

Yeah. I loved Anna. She didn’t want any secrets, either, and I admired her for that. I’d missed her, too, the last few months, since she definitely got Nick in the break-up. Which was fine, but if Nick and I were back together, Anna and I needed to be okay. The last thing I wanted was for Nick to lose Anna. She was one of the best people in his life.

Taking a quiet breath, I clicked on the link in her email. I waited for the photo to load, ignoring the exclamation points and caps and other nonsense around it. I couldn’t deal with what his obsessive fans thought about me or him or Anna. This wasn’t anyone ‘s business but ours. Hell, once they realized that Nick and I were back together, they’d probably have Anna and I in a cat fight over him or something.

He looked over at me as I gasped as the photo came into view. It was a tender kiss. Not a consuming, passionate kiss… but a tender, “I wish this could be different but it’s not” kiss. Eyes closed and lingering.

Nick slowed down and pulled off onto the shoulder as the car behind us whizzed by. Maybe we shouldn’t be having this conversation while driving?

He leaned over, taking the phone out of my hands and looking at it for a second.

“It was the last kiss,” he said. “I even said that to her.”

So not Photo-Shoppped, then.

“Were there other kisses between Miami and last night?”

He disengaged his seatbelt and turned to me, dropping the phone on the dash again before cupping my face in his hands. He kissed me… tenderly and slowly just like I imagined in the photo. But as I pulled back, he moved with me, the passion making my cheeks flush. Finally we moved apart to breathe.

“A couple. But I don’t love Anna like this, Rachel. You are the love of my life, as corny as it sounds. Being away from you tore me apart, and Anna knew that probably even more than I did.”

My heart melted. I know I should laugh at his lovesick tone, but the sixteen-year-old girl who took up residence in my heart when Nick was around and looking down at me with those bright blue eyes… she told me to shut up and let him talk.

“We had to go through it. I get that now,” he went on. “I will never treat you like that again, Rache. Never. I will never take you for granted again and if I do, you have my permission to kick my ass out. But this…” he stopped talking and kissed me, his tongue invading my mouth and his arms pulling closer to him before he broke the kiss, leaving me wanting more. Always wanting more of him. “This is forever. I believe that and I will wait for you to get it.”

I wanted to tell him I did believe. But my head knew it was too soon for these promises. It was twenty-four hours in and I wanted to believe it all. I wanted to wipe away the last six months in one day and start back before the ‘Nsync tour and his solo album recording… when things were still good and we couldn’t get enough of each other.

Instead of saying any of that, I just let him kiss me again and clung to him, loving the feel of our bodies together. After a few minutes, I moved away and ran my hand across his face. “I love you, Nick, but…”

He held a finger over my lips to stop me. “Don’t say it, Rachel. Let’s just leave it at ‘maybe,’ okay?”

I nodded, “But we have to get to Vegas sometime today.”

He laughed, letting me go. The quicker we got to Vegas, the quicker we could hold each other properly and I could fuck all those memories of Anna and the last six months out of his head.

Yeah, that’d be fun.

“Now tell me something,” I said after a few minutes of silence as we watched the scenery on the long road from Los Angeles to Las Vegas pass by us.

“What?” she asked, turning to me from studying the view out the window.

She owed me, right? We were good about the Anna thing. So I got to ask her something important.

“This whole ‘no sex’ thing….”

I could feel her smile at my tone. Because two months without sex was crazy in our world. In our world every night on tour was another conquest. At least it could be. Used to be… whatever.

“You said you were going to wait until sex would mean something. What does that mean?”

She sighed, turning in her seat so she could see me. I probably shouldn’t be driving when we had this conversation, but ever since she mentioned it last night it had been bugging me. The Rachel I knew wasn’t one to get off on self-denial… even if she did have her toys and those amazing hands I remembered so vividly in my dreams.

“Until I was sure I wouldn’t end up hurting the guy, really. Because I was sort of a shit to Ben.”

That was new. I glanced away from the road ahead of us to her and I saw an expression I couldn’t quite place. Regret?

“Because it did mean something with Ben,” she continued. “Or it could have… I don’t want to make it sound like I didn’t like him. But I should have known I wasn’t ready for a relationship.”

“So no sex until you were ready for a relationship again?”

She stroked my knee. “Yeah. I guess that’s it.”

“If it wasn’t me, did you have someone in mind?”

“Oh,” she said, taking her hand back.

Shit. I’d been hoping she’d just laugh this one off, but I wasn’t going to be that lucky. We’d promised each other no secrets, and I’d just spilled my heart about Anna, so there was a lot of truth hanging around our heads. She couldn’t lie to me now.

I glanced at her again, “You did, didn’t you?”

“How do you know that? Because no one knows that!” she said, in a tone of amazement.

AJ did. Does. Whatever. Did Howie tell him that Rachel and I were back together? Wonder if he was upset about it?

Fuck him! Rachel was mine. He knew about the six month agreement and he went after her, I know he did. Just to spite me! He never thought I was good enough for her.

“Who, Rachel?” I pressed and she shook her head.

“It’s not important.”

“Your rules. No secrets,” I reminded her.

“AJ,” she admitted quietly.

I was expecting that answer and I was still surprised at my reaction. I gripped the steering wheel too tight and I couldn’t see the road in front of me anymore. I felt the car swerve until we were on the side of the road, dust kicking up around us, as gravel was thrown by the tires screeching to a halt.

“Nick!” Rachel yelled, her voice scared. “What are you doing?”

I couldn’t even answer her, opening the door and stumbling out of the car into the bright sunshine.

AJ? AJ! She was going to leave me forever for AJ? I wasn’t sure who I was more furious at… Rachel for wanting my best friend or AJ for stealing my girl!

AJ. Definitely AJ.

I stalked around the car, seething and finally punching the bumper. It didn’t help. Niether did kicking it.

“Nick!” she yelled again, suddenly next to me. “Calm down. Nothing happened. We kissed and that’s it!”

“But you wanted more!”

“You and Anna are getting married when you’re thirty!” she countered.

“No, we’re not! Because I’m with you!”

“And I’m not meeting up with AJ in three months because I’m with you!”

“Three months? I have seven years until I marry Anna, but you’re going to start shacking up with AJ in three months?”

Was she laughing at me? She saw the look on my face and sobered quickly.

Sober. Wasn’t that the name of her song for him? I’d never use that word again. Never even think it.

“Nick, you need to calm down,” she said calmly, but not trying to touch me. She knew better than that.

“AJ?” I demanded, turning toward her, but she shook her head.

“I’m going back into the car. I’m not having this fight out here by the side of the road. You’ve got five minutes or I’m leaving you here.”

I jingled the keys in my hand, “I have the keys.” I wasn’t sure how I had the keys, since I didn’t remember turning the car off, but I did.

“Don’t be an ass,” she said, turning away and I hit the button to lock the doors. She tried one and looked back at me. “Seriously, Nick?”

“What? You’re going to lock yourself in a car away from me? Run away from the fact that you fucked my best friend?”

She whirled around, stalking closer to me, “I didn’t fuck him! And Anna’s your best friend, and you almost fucked her!”

“I did not! But AJ’s in my band. He’s more than a brother. We grew up together and he knows!”

That stopped her, “Knows what?”

She didn’t seem that angry anymore, but I was. My head was full of all the times AJ had told me Rachel was the best thing that ever happened to me. Every time he had ever listened to me talk about a girl. He knew everything I’d ever done. Every stupid, idiotic thing.

“He knows how amazing you are and how much I need you… and he tried to take you from me!” My voice broke and I kicked the bumper again. I didn’t want to feel this. Not now and not ever.

“Bunny,” Rachel said, her voice soft, and I could feel something click off inside my head as she spoke. “AJ didn’t try to take me at all. It was just this moment after a long day that I’ll tell you all about. And he stopped it from happening. He knew you’d hate him if we hooked up and he stopped it.”

“I know he hates me. I know they all hate me. But he tried to take you.”

“He didn’t,” she insisted. “And they don’t hate you.”

“I wanted something that was mine, not Backstreet’s. Mine. I thought it was you, but I fucked that up. So I thought it was my stupid solo album and I fucked that up, too!”

“Bunny…” she said again, and now I could feel the tears welling in my eyes.

Why did she always make me cry? I turned to her and let everything go. “Justin got the solo career, and then he got you, too.”

Weren’t we talking about AJ?

“Maybe you don’t love Justin, so I could handle that, but AJ? You can’t love AJ.”

“I don’t, Nick.”

Maybe. A little. But not even as much as Nick loved Anna, I was sure of that.

“I love you. That’s why I’m standing here on the side of some dusty road in the middle of nowhere.” I my hands on his shoulders, making him look at me. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea I would hurt you like this.”

He just blinked at me, tears spilling out of his eyes. Then he crumpled, falling into my arms and crying on my shoulder.

I reached around me, taking the keys from his hand and unlocking the doors. I somehow managed to get us both inside the car. Sprawled across the backseat, he curled up with his head on my lap and I stoked his hair and let him cry for a while, just telling him over and over how sorry I was.

“I know it doesn’t make it better, but I didn’t mean to hurt you with Justin or AJ.”

Didn’t I? That first date with Justin was designed to hurt him like he’d hurt me with Paris.

And after that… I made Justin swear to secrecy because I knew it would hurt Nick. If I really didn’t want to hurt him, I wouldn’t have done it at all.

“Baby, I’m here with you now,” I whispered, leaning down as I stroked his back. “That has to be good enough, because I can’t make the past any different. Either we can get through this…”

Or we can’t? Was that even an option? I couldn’t even bring myself to say the words.

“I love you, Nick. You. No one else.”

He grabbed my hand, pulling me down closer to him.

“Don’t leave,” he choked out, and I wrapped myself around him.

“I’m not going anywhere, bunny.”

He took a deep breath. “I know I’m not good enough. I know everyone you were with is better for you than I am. But please don’t leave me again, Rachel.”

I tried to hold him tighter, but I was trapped with his head on my lap. I kissed his cheek instead.

“None of them were half as wonderful as you. I tried to find someone, thinking that would make me stop loving you, but I couldn’t. Not another pop star. Not a normal guy or even a Backstreet Boy. I still love you, Nick. This crying, insecure mess in my lap.”

He was quiet for a second, catching his breath. “Only you make me cry, Rachel.”

“Sorry.”

“I know you’ll catch me,” he admitted as much to himself as to me.

“Who caught you while I was gone?”

He didn’t answer me. Instead he scrambled to sit up, and then pulled me into his arms, resting his head on my shoulder. “You’re so little, but you hold me tighter than anyone else.”

I squeezed him tighter. “It’s the power of my love,” I tried to joke.

I could feel him relax a little, smiling. “I love you, Rachel.”

“I know. I’m so sorry for hurting you.”

“I deserved it.”

“You didn’t, Nick.”

“I was a shit, Rache. I know that.”

“I still shouldn’t have fucked Justin.”

“True,” he hurriedly agreed with me.

I whacked his back, since my arms were around him, and he chuckled.

“You really shouldn’t have, buttercup.”

“I know,” I admitted. “He wasn’t even that good. Not worth all the effort.”

That made him laugh. “Paris was terrible,” he offered. “It’s like she was doing things from a script.”

“She probably watched porn for pointers.”

“I think she did. It was all about the best camera angles.”

I pulled away to look at him and he smiled. “All erased immediately!”

“Even after the sex tape scandal?” Was she dumber than I imagined?

He rolled his eyes. “She was really not that upset by it, since it made her famous. But we’re not talking about my stupid choices!”

“You brought it up,” I reminded him.

He pulled me back into his arms, holding me against his chest. “Tell me about AJ and don’t leave anything out or I’ll freak out and worry.”

“Okay, but we really need to get back on the road, baby.”

He held me tighter. “When do we get to just be alone?”

“Soon,” I promised, feeling the longing that he did to just lock ourselves away for a while and get through all these horrible feelings. “Next week we’ll spend a few days in Mexico together after your show.”

“But you’ll be gone before that…”

“We will talk a million times a day.”

He loosened his hold on me, and I looked up, not surprised when he devoured me in a kiss. I scrambled up, straddling his lap, feeling his erection pressing against me. “Nick… we can’t…” I protested.

“I think we have to or I’ll die,” he responded as his lips traveled my neck, nipping at the soft skin and making my stomach jump. Hell, we could spare a few more minutes, right?

Or not.

I heard sirens in the distance and Nick groaned as I jumped off him. “Shit!” I exclaimed.

“What?” He stared at me, confused until he looked in the rearview mirror and saw the lights behind us. “Awwww…. Fuck!”

A stern warning from a cop about not stopping on the side of the road unless it was an emergency later, we were on the road to Las Vegas again.

Disclaimer | Sudden Silence Website
Feedback to Authors | Tragical Fiction (home)

Subscribe to receive an email when this site is updated!

Powered by groups.yahoo.com