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Chapter Four

Bree's experience with planes was very limited. Other than two trips to Orlando to visit Baylee the year, she hadn't ever flown - and never alone before. People always found that fact weird, given how jet-set the Littrell family had once been, but after Brian died, they'd never really had much reason to travel. Consequently, everything on the flight - from the tiny windows, to the smelly seats, to the half-frozen orange juice boxes - was exciting to her. She looked around, wide-eyed and mesmerized, taking everything in. Which was good because it meant that while she was focused on that, she wasn't focused on the destination - which she'd slowly but surely become more and more nervous about.

When Leighanne had hung up with Nick, Bree had all but tripped over her own two feet trying to beeline into the kitchen so as not to have been caught eavesdropping - and only just made it. Her mother walked into the kitchen, as Bree ducked out from behind the fridge door, which she'd yanked open in a haste. "Nick wants you to go to his house for a couple weeks," she announced, putting the phone up on the cradle. "How do you feel about that?"

"That sounds cool," Bree's voice had come out shaky, trying to contain her excitement.

She'd spent the rest of the afternoon, barely contained in her own skin she was so excited, until she'd realized how actually little she knew about Nick. Then she'd gotten a little nervous, started to freak out a bit, and by the time Leighanne had dropped her off at the airport - reminding her to call Baylee if Nick so much as sniffed alcohol while she was there - Bree was downright terrified. So it was definitely a good thing that the airplane had managed to distract her during the seven hours of airtime.

It did not, however, continue to distract her when the thing landed in Los Angeles and the attendants were herding people out into LAX with their rigid hand gestures and dentist's-office-white smiles.

She grabbed her bag from the overhead compartment and hung it on her shoulder, clutching the notebook she'd been writing in during the flight to her chest as she walked through the tunnel. Outside the door, the airport was a bustling, noisey place. She stood at the edge of the chaos, looking around for Nick. She didn't see him anywhere. Her heart started to beat louder and faster in her chest and her mind started the what-if game.

What if he forgot?
What if he changed his mind?
What if he was already drunk?

Bree was just about to call Baylee and freak out when she heard her name yelled from across the airport. She turned and there was Nick. His hair was disheveled, his face covered in a thick five o'clock shadow. He looked like he'd come in the clothes he'd slept in for the past week. He was aging, but not the way he should've - considering all the crap he'd been through and the fact that he was 45. Rather, he was just starting to catch up to himself, and was actually looking like he might be over 30.

"Sorry I'm late," he said by way of apology as he jogged up beside her and took her bag from her shoulder, "I was at the wrong gate." It was kind of a lie. He'd slept in and done 80 on the 50 zone of the LA freeway and somehow managed to not get stopped by the cops. Which was good, considering his license had been revoked long ago. But he figured that was a story better left unshared.

"It's okay," Bree nodded, feeling awkward. Her palms were sweaty.

Nick stared at his feet for a long moment. Leighanne was right. The older Bree had gotten, the more she'd come to look like Brian. It was almost painful, the resemblance, and as horrible as it sounded, Nick understood Leighanne's aversion to Bree. He could've sworn it was like 1993 and Brian had just stepped off the plane - a country bumpkin - and he was looking into Brian's eyes, not Bree. He took a deep breath before looking back up at her.

"You got more luggage?"

Bree nodded.

"C'mon." Nick led the way to the luggage carousel, Bree following close behind, still hugging her notebook to her chest "So what do you do?" Nick asked as they walked.

"Do?"

"Yeah."

Bree hesitated, she wasn't sure what he meant. Finally she answered, "School, I guess."

"For fun, I mean?"

"Write."

Nick paused, looking at her, and his eyes seemed to alight on the notebook for the first time. "Like journalism?"

"Like stories," Bree shrugged. "I like writing stories. They're like an escape."

Nick nodded. "Amanda was a writer." As soon as the words had left his mouth, he regretted it, and he looked back to the floor again as they walked.

"She was?" Bree asked, "What kind of writing did she do?"

"She's a journalist," Nick answered, "She works at this magazine out of Boston. She used to do like music news and stuff. That's how we met."

"That's cool. You like feel in love with the paparazzi? Kinda cliche, kinda romantic..."

"I didn't know she was paparazzi," Nick answered as they approached the carousel. "What's your bag look like?"

"It was my dad's," she answered, "It's a blue duffle bag. How did you not know she was paparazzi?"

Nick knew the bag well. Brian had used it on the road trip, even. "She didn't tell us," he replied to her question about Amanda.

"Is that why you guys broke up?"

"We broke up over it," Nick said, "But we got back together after, before -" Again, he couldn't bring himself to say before what and he left the sentence hanging.

Bree got it. She wrapped her arms around herself. "So... why'd you guys break up in the end?"

Nick gnawed on his lip. The blue duffle bag came out of the chute and he took the opportunity to prolong his answer, stepping up to the carousel to retreive the bag. Bree waited. Nick returned, holding the bag under his arm. He had the almost irresistable urge to plunge his face into it, to see if it still smelled like Brian's dirty t-shirts, but he didn't because he knew that would just look weird. "Any others?"

"I'm only here two weeks..." Bree answered.

"Well you didn't inherit your momma's packing skills is all I'm sayin'," Nick replied.

"I know, she packed her entire wardrobe when we went to go see Baylee last summer."

"How is Baylee?" Nick asked, relieved he now had a topic to distract her from Amanda. He didn't want to talk about Amanda. He didn't want to think about it - about the mistakes he'd made and the loss he'd suffered.

Bree shrugged, "Baylee's busy," she answered.

"He's in advertising isn't he?"

"Yeah," Bree nodded. "He just did this one for an orange juice company in Florida," she assumed her 'talking like Baylee' voice, "'Orange juice in Florida is orange juice indeed.'"

Nick laughed, "How the hell much money is he making doing this?"

"He's just a junior so like twenty bucks an hour, but when he finishes this year he might be promoted because all the interns will be juinors so he'll be a senior assistant and they make thirty-two."

"Jesus," Nick shook his head.

"He's okay, the orange juice one was a little lame, but he was behind the owl on the life insurance ads," Bree felt a little defensive. Baylee was the closest to a father figure she had in her life and he meant the world to her, even if he had become too busy really to be there for her. She couldn't ignore the fact that he'd always defended her to bullies... and their mother.

"I like that owl," Nick announced.

They'd reached the doors to the airport and Nick held them open for her and two little old ladies that were gossipping about which movie stars had slept with which other movie stars, clutching throw-away cameras, sun lotion, and a map of the Hollywood hills celebrity mansions. Bree watched them shuffle by and Nick pointed in the direction of the parking lot, "I'm over here."

They walked what felt like forever through a parking garage until Nick's car chimed and flashed its lights in greeting when he clicked his key. The trunk flipped open and Nick dropped Bree's bags into it while she climbed into the passanger seat and started buckling herself in. Nick took an extra minute, leaning into the trunk, to press his nose into the bag. The smell of some light floral perfume and fabric softener sheets was masking it on the initial sniff, but when he pressed really hard and breathed really gently - but deep - he could almost smell it.

It was a smell like boy hugs and sweat and basket ball. It was a little bit of Safari by Ralph Lauren and a lot of Axe body wash - in one of those sci-fi sounding names like Kilo or something, but which one Nick couldn't recall exactly. It was a little bit dirt, too, and a little bit musty hotel room, bus underbelly, and water. But mostly it was Brian.

His head was spinning from all the deep breathing by the time he got into the car. He reached for the driver's side safety belt and slid the key in the ignition. Bree pressed her hands against the cover of her notebook, which lay across her lap, and stared at the dashboard. "You were my dad's best friend," she said quietly.

Nick wondered if she'd heard him snorting her bag. He stared at the gauge panel.

Bree looked at him. "I never even met him and I miss him."

Nick took a deep breath. "When I was a kid, like thirteen to sixteen, you know, after the band was together but before I really got old enough to get involved in the bad stuff... Brian was my hero." He licked his lips, then chuckled ever so slightly, his eyes shifting from the gauges to some unknown spot out the windshield. "I looked up to him like crazy. I wanted to be just like him. I wanted to grow up to be Brian." He looked at Bree. "He never changed from that person that I loved and respected so much. I mean, I changed from the person who looked up to him. I went through hell and back, but he was there the whole time, being so good to me." Nick smiled, but his eyes looked haunted and far away, "Your dad was the only person in the entire world that never gave up on me. Never.."

The intensity in the air of the car was thick, and Bree felt the air pressing against her chest, crushing her heart for Nick. It was exactly the emotion she'd expected from Nick, exactly the memory of her father that she'd always prayed someone had because it was how she wanted to think she would have remembered him, had she ever met him.

Nick looked away from her and reached for the key, turning the ignition, and backed out of the parking space, headed home.