“Hey
‘Rok. I got your messages.” Nick said into his cell phone as he waved back at
Chris as he swung higher, arms flailing, an impish grin on his face.
“I
wish you’d said what was going on. ‘Get your butt back here now’ isn’t terribly
informative.” He moved forward instinctively as Chris launched himself from the
swing, flying through the air and then landing in a laughing heap.
“Anyway,
it sounded urgent, so I’ll be there tomorrow. And I want to be filled in then,
‘k? I gotta go. I have lots to talk to you about too, but I’m not going to say
what it is. There; see how you like it. Ha ha. Toodles, Frick.” Nick signed off
and turned off the cell phone just as Chris came running over and flung himself
around Nick’s neck.
“Oof!
Hey, big guy.”
“Uncle
Nick? Did you see? I was flying! Not far, and not like a plane, but I was
flying! Did you see me?”
“I
saw you,” Nick chuckled as he pulled Chris up into his arms. “You were really
up there.”
“I
like flying. I wanna do it all the time.”
Gee,
where have I heard that before? Nick thought. “Really? Even more than
swimming?” He, Chris and Kat had spent a lot of time in the lake over the past
few days.
Chris
considered it thoughtfully. “Can’t I do both?”
“A
little hard to do both at the same time,” Nick pointed out.
Chris
frowned, then brightened. “Then I’ll swim all morning and fly all afternoon,”
he said decisively.
“And
at night?”
“That’s
easy. I’ll be with Momma, and eat her cooking and make her laugh. She needs to
laugh.”
Nick
tried not to gape at him. Damn, but kids were a lot smarter than anyone gave
them credit for. He was about to say something, but Chris beat him to it.
“She
has a lot on her mind, you know. I gotta make sure she laughs a lot otherwise
she gets sad.”
“She
gets sad a lot?”
“Yeah.
When she thinks I don’t know. But she does, so I make her laugh.” Then he
winked at him. “It’s a good thing I’m funny. It makes it easy.”
Nick
chuckled. “Yeah, you’re funny alright. A really funny monkey man.”
“Monkey?
I’m a monkey!” Chris crowed as they opened the door to the café. “Hi Paul,” he
greeted the head waiter. “I’m a monkey! Cool, hunh?”
Paul
grinned. “You don’t look like a monkey.”
Chris
and Nick exchanged mischievous grins, then started walking like gorillas and
hooting noisily as they headed back to the kitchen. Behind them, Paul was
holding onto the desk to stop from falling over laughing, and the few other
customers who were in the café were snickering into their napkins.
“What’s
all this then?” Kat asked, with a raised eyebrow when the two entered the room.
“We’re
monkeys!” Chris explained as he climbed into Kat’s arms.
“Yeah,
and I’m the monkey’s uncle,” Nick smirked as he walked over to Emma and wrapped
his arms around her.
“I’m
not even going to go there,” Kat chuckled. She turned to Chris, who was
rustling her hair. “Now what are you doing?”
“Looking
for fleas. I’m hungry.” He pretended to pull one out of Kat’s hair and offered
it to Nick who shook his head. He was busy finding lots in Emma’s hair.
“Get
out of there!” Em laughed. “I don’t have fleas!”
“Sure
you do… Look there’s one now: it went behind your ear,” Nick said as he started
to kiss her ear. “Oh look and another one’s on your neck.” He naturally had to
nibble it away.
Em
giggled and pushed him away. “Sorry, bub. No fleas, but now I have cooties.”
“Are
cooties good to eat?” Chris asked.
Both
Nick and Emma blushed a fiery red and Kat almost turned purple in an effort to
stop from laughing.
“If
you are that hungry, monkey boy, come over here and I’ll get you some soup.”
Kat set up Chris with some food, and hoped, as she was sure that Nick and Emma
did too, that it would keep him quiet for a little while.
Nick
and Emma were whispering in the corner, and then Em broke off with a stricken
look and walked out the side door. Nick looked after her sadly.
“Wassup?”
“Bri
called. I have to head back.”
Kat
paled. “You talked to Brian?”
“Nah.
He left a message on my machine. Something’s up down there and he wouldn’t say
what.” He snorted. “Typical Brian: thinks I have ESP or something. So I called
and left a message telling him I’d be flying out tomorrow. Emma doesn’t like
that much,” he finished unhappily.
“I’m
not too stoked about it either.”
He
grinned at her. “You gonna miss me?”
She
looked at him seriously. “Honestly? Yes. I missed you a lot over the past few
years. You were my bud, Nick. I miss that.”
“Am
I the only one you miss?” he pushed.
“I
miss AJ and Brian too. And Leigh. Is Bryleigh still a real minx?”
“That’s
not who I’m asking about, Kat, and you know it.”
She
turned away, going back to stirring the pot on the stove.
“You
always do that. I show up: you ignore me and stir some food or other. I ask you
about Kevin, and you start stirring again. Stop avoiding it, Kat.”
“It’ll
burn if I don’t stir it,” she replied softly.
“Then,
shit…” he elbowed her out of the way and turned off the stove and moved the pot
off the element. “There. No burn. Now talk to me. Please!”
“I
don’t know what to say, Nick,” she whispered.
He
took her shaking hands in his and squeezed then supportively. “Come back to
Orlando with me.”
There
was a little sniffle behind him and he turned around. Emma had come back into
the room, then swallowed convulsively as she heard his words and turned and ran
back outside, tears streaming down her face.
“Stupid,
stupid,” she berated herself as she ran. “What on earth possessed you to think
that maybe he’d want you?”
It
had hurt so much: hearing him say the words she’s wanted him to say to her to
Kat. Damn it, why couldn’t he have said them to her? She’d really thought he’d
cared…
“Emma!”
Nick’s hand grabbed her arm, whipped her around to face him. “Jesus, didn’t you
hear me? I was calling you.”
She
wiped away her tears angrily. “Oh? You were saying something?”
“Come
on, Em. You know I was. Please, I can’t take two women I care about not talking
to me.”
“You….
You care about me?” she asked timidly.
“Of
course I do! I wouldn’t be spending as much time with you as I do if I didn’t.”
She
sniffled once, then wiped her eyes quickly. “I just figured maybe you needed a
distraction while you were here or something.”
He
cursed and pulled her into his arms. “Hell, no. I thought you knew that. I told
you all about how I’d done that before and…”
“Yeah,
so I thought that was just warning me…”
“I
said I hated that. That I didn’t like myself for doing it. And that I was tired
of all the damn people who are nice to me just ‘cos of that who I am shit. I
was being honest. I thought you were being honest with me too. Or weren’t you?”
“Of
course!”
“You
sure you weren’t stringing me along? Just to say you got to fool around with
Nick Carter?” he asked nastily.
“Hell,
no! What are you? New? I don’t do that! I really thought we were…”
He
pulled her into a deep hug, then kissed her gently on the lips. “That’s what I
was hoping you’d say,” he whispered huskily.
She
sighed and leaned into him. “I just don’t want you to go. I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll
miss you too.”
“And
especially if you take Kat and Chris with you.”
He
shook his head. “I don’t think that’s going to happen. Damn that woman! Why is
she so stubborn? Doesn’t she know how much we need her?”
“But
I heard you… You asked her to….”
He
raised his eyebrow quizzically. “We’re talking about Kat here. You know, the
same woman who stood in that kitchen and said ‘call me Rina’ until I wanted to
take her over my knee and spank her.”
“You
can spank me,” Emma murmured, then blushed.
He
laughed and hugged her again. “I can, can I? What if I want you to spank me?”
“Maybe.
If you beg,” she grinned cheekily through her rosy hue.
“I’d
be begging for a lot more than that.” He started to nibble on her neck, then
stopped as he felt her tense. “What?”
“I
just… I thought you didn’t…”
He
looked at her mock sternly. “Now you listen, you dumbass. I have to put up with
morons like Brian and AJ all the time, and I don’t expect it from you. I want
you. I want you very much. I just want to be more than some fast fling. And I
want to be more to you than that. So, I’m taking it slow, and you’ll just have
to bear with me. Okay?”
She
nodded, but the look in her eyes was all the answer he needed. “Good. And
another thing. I know when I asked Kat to come with me it hurt you. I really
need you to understand this: the reason I am here is to convince her to come
home. That is my priority. And its gotta stay that way. So, if I can’t get her
to come when I go tomorrow, I’m going to need you here to try and talk her into
it. Once she’s there and things are squared away, then we can figure out some
way for you and I to be together. Okay? I’m asking you to wait for me, Emma.
Can you do that?”
Memo
to self: when in doubt of how to answer questions like that, let your lips do
the talking.
Kat
held a sleeping Chris tightly. He’d been miserable all day. Ever since Nick had
left. He’d pouted and moaned, and then flopped in front of the television and
watched the Disney video that Nick had bought him. Twice. He’d finally fallen
asleep, and Kat had scooped him up and carried him up the stairs.
Why
was she so scared?
She
thought she’d come to terms with it all. Kevin didn’t love her. Okay. But he
did love Chris, so she’d just have to live with that. Howie… well, Howie was a
jerk. And fortunately she didn’t have to live with that anymore.
For
the last two years the only man in her life, other than the one who haunted her
dreams, was Chris. She’d devoted her life to him. But it didn’t take a rocket
scientist to realize that Chris was at an age where he needed a father. He
needed a male role model. The way he’d clung to Nick and done “guy stuff” as he
called it, made it clear.
The
question was: could she let him have the father he needed? Could she handle
seeing Kevin on a regular basis and knowing that he didn’t care about her?
Could she handle him seeing other people and being around to see it?
Could
she give Chris back his father without losing herself?