Birds In Your Garden: Chapter 3
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Kevin sat in a conference room off the lobby, sitting at the piano stored inside with half of the lights off. He had draped his wet jacket over a stack of chairs and sat on the bench with his eyes closed, fingering the keys softly and slowly, not really paying attention to anything around him. There was security in the lobby and he trusted they would keep the fans at bay. He didn't even want to consider going up to his room at the moment. He had heard AJ when he went over towards the elevator, and AJ wasn't even close to settling down for the night yet. He just didn't need to be around the rambunctiousness.

"I'm looking back on things I've done…" Brian sang from the doorway, peering through the semi darkness. "Little slow, isn't it?"

Kevin dropped his hands to his thighs and ran his palms over his trousers, looking down to the keys. "Yeah, I guess," he answered quietly as Brian came over to the piano and leaned his arms on top. "Just screwin' around."

"You okay?" Brian asked.

"Yeah," Kevin nodded, "no…yeah…"

"No," Brian said, looking at Kevin seriously. "Where's Jana?"

"How should I know?" Kevin asked, looking up to him quickly.

"Because the rest left her with you," Brian said. "And you're here." He looked around the room. "I don't see Jana."

"She went upstairs," Kevin answered, fingering a few keys lightly.

"Kev, wanna talk?" Brian asked quietly.

Kevin looked back up to him, studying Brian's concerned expression for a moment. "I don't know."

"Everything okay with Kristin?" he asked. Kevin furrowed his eyebrows and shrugged. "There's talk," Brian informed him.

"What kind of talk?"

"About you and Jana," he said, pulling a chair from the stack and sitting down. Kevin straddled the piano bench and put his hands on his knees. "I don't think they're making up stories, are they?"

Kevin shook his head, looking down to the darkened wood of the bench. "Not really," he replied, "but not…Well, not what they think, anyway."

"So, there is a problem with Kristin?"

Kevin looked up to him. "What do you think?"

"Still?" he asked in surprise. "Really?"

"I'm trying, Bri," Kevin shook his head, "but I'm having a problem getting over it and I'm not really getting anywhere with her."

"You're still talking about it?"

"Trying," Kevin sighed, "but the topic always seems to get changed or we end up not talking at all."

"She dogged you, man," Brian said with conviction.

"Yeah, I know," Kevin replied. "And part of me understands what she wanted to do. But, you know, if I wanted to marry her, I would have asked her. She lied. She just…" he reached his hand out, "she just outright faked the whole thing in order to get me to marry her. And now that we are married she keeps telling me now's not the time. She's happy the way things are. But, really, Brian? If I was happy with the way things were, I would have married her. I didn't want what we had. I love her. I know she's a great girl…and she loves me, but I didn't want... That's why we were always…"

"Always on again, off again," Brian finished for him.

"She was persistent," Kevin said. "And I always knew no matter how much I screwed around on her, she was going to take me back. And I know it's a really shitty thing to do, but sometimes, I really didn't want her to take me back. Sometimes I'd screw around to see if she would."

"She would," Brian added. "She always would."

"I know," Kevin said. "But that's just it! And she didn't like it. I know she didn't like it, so instead of leaving, she pretends she's pregnant so I'd marry her and not screw around on her anymore," he grumbled. "And I fell for it."

"Kev, you did the right thing," Brian assured him. "And you're still trying to do the right thing even if you were tricked into it."

"I don't want to keep doing the right thing, Brian," Kevin said, looking up to him through the damp strands of his hair. "I've been fighting with her to come on the road with us, but there's always some kind of excuse why she can't, or doesn't want to. I've been doing everything I know how to make this work, but, man, when I walked into that studio a few days ago and saw that girl standing at the mirror?"

"You recognized her right away then?"

Kevin kept his eyes on Brian and shook his head. "No. I mean, how fucked up is that, Bri? I didn't recognize her until we were half way through that first run through and even then, I wasn't sure. It wasn't until she came to the bar that night that I was sure. But, man…I can't tell you what happened when I saw her. I just knew that I wasn't in love with Kristin the way I should be. And then have that person be my Jana? And she doesn't, or didn't, hate me? Dude," he shook his head, "something's just fucked up."

Brian slouched down in his chair and shook his head slightly. "She's kept her distance from me," he said. "But I wonder if that has anything to do with…"

"With what?"

"Me telling her in 11th grade to give up on you," he said.

"What?" Kevin sat up.

"She asked!" Brian defended. "She asked if she should hold out some kind of hope or if she should give up, and she wanted the honest answer. So, I was honest."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You weren't supposed to come back and I figured if you left without saying something to her that there was a reason for it. Besides, she needed someone to tell her to get over it. She was a wreck, dude."

Kevin stared at him for a moment. "How come this is the first I'm hearing it?"

"Kev," Brian answered with a smile of disbelief, "how did you think she was going to feel? I didn't tell you because you were in Florida, homesick, trying to figure out what you were going to do, trying to start fresh and you're the one that left without saying anything. What did I know? The last thing I thought you'd want to know about was that your ex was a mess without you to make you feel worse about going."

"She was a mess?"

"Kevin," Brian blinked at him, "think about it. Think about the fans out there, okay? You see them screaming 'I love you' and you see them trembling and crying… Jana was the same age as them. They're emotional, especially when they think they're in love with someone."

"But she wasn't screaming 'I love you' or trembling or crying."

"She was when you left, dude," Brian said. "Not screaming, but she wasn't holding it together very well when I talked to her the following September."

"I wish I knew," Kevin said.

"What would you have done?" Brian asked. "Come back? You didn't want to come back…not until your dad got sick. And then you needed to go after…because you couldn't stay there. You could have seen her then, but didn't."

"I didn't think she'd see me then," he sighed, "and I didn't need something else on my plate to stress over."

"No, you didn't," Brian said. "You also don't need something more now either." Kevin nodded, pulling his hair back with his hands and sighed. "So, what're you going to do?"

"Sleep," Kevin said. "Right now, I'm going to get some sleep."

"Shannon said you were drinking," Brian said. "Have a bit too much?"

"Why do you say that?"

"Because you're sitting down here at the piano in the dark at three in the morning thinking about your life," Brian commented.

"I wouldn't need to be buzzed to think of these things tonight," Kevin said, standing up from the bench. "Kristin doesn't want to come to New York now. She wants to switch it and come down tomorrow…today instead. I was going to tell Jana that tonight, but we had a fight instead."

"About what?"

Kevin sat back down and leaned on his palms on the piano bench. "How she doesn't want to be the other woman and how she thinks I'm going to leave her again."

"Well, she's got a point," Brian agreed.

"Yeah, she does." He sighed tiredly and reached out to slap Brian's leg lightly. "Thanks for checkin' up on me," he said appreciatively. "I'm gonna go crash." As Kevin stood up, Brian did too and wrapped his arms around Kevin quickly. "Thanks."

"Anytime, man," Brian said. "We're family, right?"

~

Kevin heard laughter and Madonna's latest CD coming from down the hall as he stepped off the elevator with Brian. As usual, everyone congregated in AJ's room. Brian headed down the hallway to ask that they tone the noise down and walked in to find Jana playing AJ on a video game. Sarah was kneeling on the couch behind AJ, cheering him on and Howie was sitting next to Jana passing demands as to what she needed to do. Seconds later Howie and Jana groaned loudly as AJ and Sarah cheered.

"Dead! Dead!" AJ teased, pointing his finger in Jana's face. "You be dead." He waved his arms in a victory dance and snickered.

"Guys, can we tone it down some?" Brian asked.

"Sure, man," Howie said. "It's late anyway. I should turn in."

"Yeah," Jana agreed, stretching her arms and letting Howie pull her up. "Thanks for hanging out, boys."

"Come back anytime," AJ called. "I kick yo' ass!"

"Well, now I'm just going to have to practice," she teased, leaning over to kiss his cheek goodnight. "Get some sleep."

Brian was standing at his door as Jana made her way to the elevator. "Got a second?" he asked her.

She looked down the hallway, listening to a few doors close over followed by silence and emptiness. "Can it wait?"

"I guess," he said quietly, but the look on his face continued to ask.

"Sure," she said, heading into his room. He closed the door behind her and led her further into his room. It wasn't as much of a mess as Nick's, but still a scale down from Kevin's in neatness. He motioned to a chair for her and she sat down, much too curious about what he could want to tell her. "If this is about Kevin…" she started.

"Well, yes and no," he said, sitting on the corner of the couch across from her. "I was just downstairs talking with him." She turned her head away and sighed. "I just wanted to let you know that plans have changed on his end and Kristin's flying in tomorrow." Her eyebrows furrowed and she looked at Brian in confusion. "He wanted to tell you that tonight…warn you, I guess, but didn't get a chance and I thought you might want to know."

"Why?" she asked defensively.

"Because I thought you might want to know," he repeated.

"There's nothing happening, Brian," she said, swiftly shaking her head and blushing rapidly. "I mean…there might have been…I mean…"

"I know what's happening," he confessed quietly. "That's why I wanted to let you know." She covered her mouth with her hands with tears coming to her eyes, too tired and too emotional to be dealing with any of this. "What if I had told you to hang on to hope back in 11th grade?" he asked.

"Oh, please, Brian," she said, her voice on the verge of breaking. "I would have held on for awhile longer, until he came back and didn't want to see me. Nothing would have been any different than it is now."

"What if I told you to hang on to some hope now?"

This time a tear slipped down her cheek and she wiped it away quickly. "I'd tell you it's just as futile now as it was then. I have to go, Brian." She stood up and started towards the door.

"Jana?" he called quietly, looking after her. "Hang on to it this time."

"I don't want to this time," she said turning back to him sadly with a shake of her head and left.

~

One, two, three and… He was directly in front of her, his gaze scanning into the audience, assessing the night's crowd as his entire body flowed with movement and snappy steps. A lean forward, break to the side, she danced to the other side as the ensemble snapped into another move. He looked so fucking hot in this opening outfit, that long black coat accentuating every dark, sinister feature he had. Innocent boys manufactured for the teen market? Every step he took, every movement he made screamed sultry sexuality to her. She couldn't be the only one by the sounds of the screams. All she had to do was keep her body moving, and the adrenaline was doing that for her with ease. She could almost feel the floor shake with the vibration of their steps and the band…keeping it all in time. Two, three, four… turn and strut, baby, strut…'Work it, girl!' as Fatima encouraged during rehearsals.

She'd get through anything as long as she was able to keep her mind occupied with timing and steps. They had to be professionals after all. It was the whole reason they were where they were, and it was time they started acting like professionals, wasn't it? She moved in for another dance step, this time with AJ, and with just as much professionalism, she pulled it off. See? She could do this. Treat him just like any of the other boys… It wouldn't be that difficult now that she had some sense of priority, right? They were adults now. They were professionals. 'Work it, girl!'

~

'Work it! Attitude!' Kevin could see both on Jana as she stepped away from him, sauntering off to the side of the stage to move into position for the next sequence. Her skin was already shimmering with sweat, her hair sticking to her face as she strode in step, snapping into step again and putting her full body into motion seamlessly. He had less than a second to glance at her as they finished one swift move and did his best to catch her eye, but it was here and gone, and she never looked him in the eye. She had kept her eyes focused out somewhere in the crowd and was gone. He turned, striding behind her a moment, noticing how the stage costume hugged her curves and he had to turn again. The screams, heat, movement, adrenaline and Jana whisking past him was enough to show the entire audience how wound up he was. They could chat about it on the internet and snap photos of it, but the real reason Hercules was making his appearance just flew past him in a dance step, avoiding eye contact and full of attitude.

'Knock it off, Kev' he chastised himself. 'Look out there. That's what's important right now. Do your job. See that perky little blonde screaming? The one bouncing and waving, her lips mouthing the words, dancing along to the beat…that's your priority, dude. Focus. Jana's not going anywhere at least for the next ninety minutes and neither are you. Two, three, four…slam it!'

Birds In Your Garden: Chapter 3
Page 9 | Page 10 | Page 11 | Page 12

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Read the companion story:
Oreos for Breakfast (Nick Fanfic)
by The Pumpkin Coach & Paperbag Princess

c. 2001, 2002 by Coriander
Some content not suitable for children. You have been warned.