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Chapter Nine
Point of View: Kevin


I'd been trying to call Nick all day and I'd gotten no response from Camp Carter. I wanted to check in, find out how his psychiatry appointment had gone. I knew he'd been reluctant to keep going to see the doctor, but it really was important, I felt, to keep him from following AJ's footsteps. Nick was such a gentle guy, and he was very sensitive. I was worried about him. But he wasn't answering.

I hung up the phone yet again, frustrated as all hell.

Kristen looked up. "Why don't you drive over there and check on him?" she suggested, "It's obviously bothering you."

I folded my hands together and rested my face against the balled fist they made. I sighed. "I don't wanna seem like I'm nagging him," I said quietly.

"You're the closest thing that boy has to a real father," Kristen responded, shrugging, "You're supposed to nag him at least a little bit."

"I guess," Kevin relented hesitantly. "I just don't want him to end up hating me."

"He's not going to hate you. I don't think Nick's capable of hating," she laughed.

"Oh you just don't know the power of Nick's temper," I replied.

But all the same I found myself in my car several hours later, driving to Tampa from Orlando. I was almost at Nick's house when I decided to call Brian. "Hey Brian, have you heard from Nicky today?" I asked when he picked up.

"Nope," Brian replied, "But, honestly, my phone hasn't exactly been on the hook," he laughed.

"Too much information," I grumbled.

Brian snickered, then turned serious. "Why? What's up that you wanna know if I heard from Frack?" he asked. "Everything okay on the home front?"

"Yeah, I guess. It's just it's Thursday - Nick's psych day, I wanted to know how it went and I tried calling him and he hasn't been answering..."

"Ruh-roh," Brian replied in his best Astro Jetson impression.

"My thoughts exactly," I replied, "Well, maybe not exactly, but close enough," I laughed.

Brian giggled, "Yeah I doubt you did the Astro voice."

"I doubt I could even if I wanted to."

"So 'fess up," Brian said, "You're on your way there aren't you?"

"No... not exactly," I answered as I pushed the car's gear into park. "I already am here."

Brian laughed, "Kev, you're such an anal bastard."

"I know..." I hunkered down and peered out my windshield, "I think he might be in bed."

"Why?" Brian asked, "It's only... Shit, when did it get to be eleven o'clock?"

"Probably while you were boning your wife," I responded, "But yeah, all his lights are out."

"The lights are out, no ones home," Brian said in a goofy voice. He paused. "IS he home?"

"Yeah I'm parked behind his car now."

"So go knock on the door," Brian suggested.

"Yeah, good idea." I opened my car door and made my way across the lawn to the door and knocked. Nothing. "I'm gonna hang up, Bri, I wanna make sure everything's okay here. I'll give ya a call in a bit."

"Okay, please do, I'll wait up 'til I hear from ya."

"Okay." We hung up and I slid the phone into my pocket. "Nick?" I called, knocking on the door again, "Nick? Are you home?"

I heard a door across the street open and bang close, and laughter - a familiar laughter - echoed through the night air. I turned around and saw Nick stumbling across the lawn across the street, wearing only boxers, carrying his clothes, which were all balled up, and stumbling like crazy, giggling like a hyena.

Fuck.

I ran across the street to him and caught him as he tripped over the curb and, had I not been there, would've face-planted on the cement. He looked up at me, unfocused, and laughed. "Oh my God, it's Kevin," he sang in a really lame attempt of Everybody (Backstreet's Back). His full weight hung in my arms, and I realized he was covered in crusty, dried paint.

"Nick, Christ, what the --" then a huge wiff of tequila floated up to my face. "Are you kidding me?" I demanded. I had half a mind to let him go and let him eat tar.

"Nope I'm not kidding," he giggled, "It's really you. In the FLESH," he added.

I hoisted him up and dragged him across the street, glancing back at the house he'd come out of, hating whatever was inside it - imagining medusa or some other hideous Greek goddess of death. Nick laughed the entire way into his house and up the stairs to his room.

"Kevin guess what?" he asked as I dropped him into a chair in his room. "I had sex," he said.

"That's great for you." I ripped opened his closet and started rummaging around for something for him to put on. I found his sweats and an old T-shirt. "C'mon, you gotta shower," I told him.

"I don't wanna shower," he grumbled.

"Nick, you gotta sh--"

"I HAD SEX KEVIN!" he crowed.

"Jesus." I grabbed his wrists and dragged him to the bathroom and he dropped onto the toilet, weak kneed and grinning up at me stupidly. I turned on the faucet as he babbled aimlessly about sex and paint and crystals. I had no idea what he was talking about, but it sounded like some kind of jacked up sex cult.

"I had tequila too," he whispered, like that was a secret. "Lots and lots of tequila. Before and after the sex. Did I mention the sex?" I pulled him up and shoved him, boxers and all, into the shower stall. He shrieked as the cold water hit his back and ran into the door that I was holding shut. "It's cold!" he cried.

"It'll wake you up," I answered, heartlessly.

His foggy figure relented and started scraping paint off his back and out of his hair. After a few moments had passed, I opened the shower door and leaned in to help him get the paint off him. The colors pooled around his feet in the water and he groaned as the buzz started to wear off.

"I hope you have Advil or something here," I commented as he crouched down under the spray of water, holding his head, "By the sounds you're about to have a doozy of a hang over."