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“Excuse me, Sir? Could I see some identification?”

Nick chuckled at his poor impersonation of a police officer and watched as the man in front of him whipped around in surprise.

“Nicky? What the fuck?”

“Hi,” Nick smiled and pulled the smaller man into a tight hug, still feeling as though it were all a little surreal. He was a lot bigger than Nick remembered him but he looked exactly the same. His blonde hair was slicked back showing off strong cheekbones and a pair of dark brown eyes. He was built like a runner with lean arms and legs and strong muscle tone. When Nick had last seen him he was just a teenager. “What are you doing here, man?”

“I could ask you the same thing...”

A small, but clear voice interrupted the pair with a clearing of her throat and Nick looked over to see a blonde woman eyeing them expectantly.

“Oh,” the other man excused, “sorry, but this is the craziest thing ever. This is my cousin, Nick.”

“Come on Pete, aren’t we more than cousins? We were practically brothers when we were kids!”

“You used to torture me.”

Nick couldn’t deny the truth of the statement so he simply smiled and shrugged his shoulders. Turning to the woman he reached out his hand and shook hers, giving a brief introduction.

She introduced herself as Trish, sending a look between the two in front of her. Sensing that the men had a lot more to talk about she turned towards another group who were chatting nearby.

“What are you doing here?” Nick repeated, finding it so unusual to see his cousin randomly in a club in New York City. Further to that he was in the VIP section that they had reserved which meant there was some kind of connection.

Pete pointed to the woman whom he had introduced Nick to earlier. “My girlfriend and I went to college with this girl, Peggy. We sort of lost touch but she randomly invited us to this party, said a lot of our college friends would be here and there would be free alcohol so we decided to drop by on our way home from a movie. Are you performing here or something?”

“No,” Nick laughed, “my girlfriend apparently invited all of her old college buddies out to party on my dime.”

“Peggy is your girlfriend!?” Pete asked in surprise and Nick was a little put off my the tone in his voice. He seemed genuinely alarmed by the information.

“Yeah,” he chuckled nervously, “we’ve been dating for a little over a year. We live together now here in New York. Listen, I just left the guy I was sitting with. Do you want to come over and have a drink? I haven’t seen you in forever.”

The pair made their way back to the chairs Nick had left and he was pleasantly surprised to discover that Tommy and Pete already knew each other from school. He did feel a little left out knowing all of these people were friends from college but he was pretty used to exclusion of that variety. The three chatted for a while before Pete started inquiring about Nick and Peggy’s relationship including how and where they met.

“You’re keeping an eye on her right now, aren’t you?” Pete asked with a chuckle.

Nick knew he was joking but didn’t quite get the punchline. “Um, no? She’s down there somewhere dancing.”

Pete and Tommy shared a knowing look. “Did you tell him?” Pete asked the other man while Nick looked on curiously.

“I figured he already knew,” Tommy shrugged. “He’s been dating her for a year.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Nick cut in.

“Maybe she’s changed,” Pete started off by saying, “but in college Peggy had a tendency, especially when she was out drinking, to get a little flirty with other guys.”

Nick shrugged, not sure how that information was earth shattering. “So? I flirt with other women all the time. She’s not sleeping with them.”

Tommy and Pete shared another look before his cousin continued. “That’s the thing, though. She had a reputation in school for being a... well... a... how do I put this....”

“A slut.”

“Thanks, Tom,” Pete rolled his eyes. “He’s right though. I don’t know if she actually had sex with anyone...”

“There was that one guy, but I don’t know if that counts?” Tommy piped up and Nick raised his eyebrow.

“How do you not know if it counts? You either have sex with someone or you don’t.”

“From what I heard,” Tommy explained, “from pretty much everyone, mind you. She would tell people that the sex didn’t count as cheating if it was oral or in-the-out.”

“In-the-out?” Nick questioned curiously.

“The backdoor,” Tommy explained and the three men all looked around uncomfortably, avoiding each other’s eyes.

Nick took a deep breath, fighting the urge to look over the side of the balcony to see what his girlfriend was doing. She had been able to trust him the whole time he was on tour and it wasn’t as if he was an innocent. He also had a reputation that preceded him for not being the most faithful partner. He had cheated on most of his girlfriends while Peggy had really only had the one boyfriend. Not to mention the one she did have was a huge asshole so he couldn’t really fault her for letting her eyes wander.

“That was college,” he finally spoke, dismissing the information that had been presented to him. “People do crazy shit when they’re young. You guys are still kids, you grow out of that kind of stuff.”

“Dude, Peggy is younger than me,” Pete pointed out and Nick’s eyes went wide. He always knew she was young but he had never really put it in perspective before. Both Pete and his brother Aaron were the same age and he still thought of them as kids.

“She’s a girl though. Girls are way more mature.”

“Yeah, well, she might be more mature but she’s still getting hit on at the bar by guys who aren’t.”

Nick couldn’t stop himself from looking at that point and was disappointed to see that Pete was telling the truth. A bunch of the girls who had gone down to dance were now stationed at the bar but the only one with a large gaggle of guys around her was his girlfriend.

“I’ll be right back,” he told the other two men before casually getting up out of his seat to head downstairs. It was everything he could do not to take the stairs two at a time but he didn’t want to seem like he was getting riled up about the situation.

He made his way through the crowded club, ducking and weaving around bar patrons and dancers before he caught up with the group of girls that were with his girlfriend standing by the bar. Peggy was leaning up against the bar laughing at something the man next to her had said. The guy was pretty average looking. Likely a college student he had a bit of a baby face and spiked brown hair. He was somewhat muscular but average in height.

She didn’t appear to be flirting all that aggressively, she was leaning towards the bar tender rather than towards the man and her hands were clasped in front of her on the bar. He didn’t miss when the guy not-so-subtly checked her out though, scanning his eyes from the top of her head to the point where her short dress ended and her smooth legs began. He watched as the bartender brought over a couple of drinks and the guy handed him a few bills, taking that as his queue to approach.

“Hey,” he said casually, sliding up close to Peggy next to the bar on the opposite side of the guy she was talking to.

She turned around and her face lit up with a smile, letting him know deep down that he didn’t have a whole lot to worry about. “Hi!” she grinned. “Are you having fun?”

“For sure,” he nodded. “You know my cousin. He’s upstairs, you invited him.”

“Small world!” she chuckled and he smiled down at her. “Who is it?”

The guy who Peggy had been talking to was clearly put off by Nick’s sudden appearance and he rolled his eyes before interrupting their conversation.

“So anyway,” the stranger spoke loudly. “I was about to tell you about...”

“Actually,” Nick returned the interruption, “you were about to fuck off.”

“Nick!” Peggy exclaimed, wide-eyed.

“No,” he told her sternly, “your new friend was just leaving.”

“He was just being nice,” she defended. “He bought me a drink.”

Nick rolled his eyes dramatically, somewhat unsure of whether or not she was legitimately that clueless when it came to the rules of flirting at a club.

“Who is this?” the guy (who Nick had mentally named Douchey McGee) asked with a scoff. “Your brother or something?”

“Look,” Nick said with a warning tone, “just walk away, find another girl, it’s fine. Don’t start something over a girl that you’re not going to fuck tonight.”

“Are you kidding me?” Peggy asked, unable to hold back a peal of sarcastic laughter. “What makes you think he was trying to fuck me?”

Nick pointed to the drink in her hand before removing it from her grasp and downing it in one shot. “Guys don’t buy drinks for girls they don’t want to bone,” he clarified. “Why waste your time or money on a girl you have no chance with?”

“What makes you think I had no chance?” Douchey asked in all seriousness.

The blonde couldn’t believe the naivety of the two in front of him. “The only person who fucks this girl is me. I’m not her brother, I’m her boyfriend, and I would appreciate it if you would just get the fuck away from my girl.”

“Why are you so jealous?” Peggy demanded to know, putting her hands on her hips as she glared up at him. She turned to the other man, trying to compose herself through her intoxication. “That’s not why you bought me a drink right? You didn’t buy me a drink just because you thought you could sleep with me. Right?”

The guy took the opportunity to take a sip of his beer, clearly not wanting to answer the question. Nick felt a bit of pity for the poor fellow, he was just going after a girl that had clearly sent him signals although they were the wrong kind.

“I’ll level with you,” he told him, reaching out to pat his shoulder quickly. “Guy to guy. Do you buy drinks for chicks you don’t want to bang?”

It was a long pause and the younger man opened and closed his mouth several times as if trying to come up with a politically correct answer to the question. Finally, he shook his head. “No way,” he answered. “I don’t have that kind of cash.”

“Thanks for your honesty,” Nick told him and Peggy was staring between the two of them in complete shock. She watched as Nick got the bartender’s attention and ordered a beer and two shots, paid for them, then slid the tall brown bottle and one shot glass towards the guy she had been talking to.

“Thanks,” the guy said with surprise in his voice.

“No worries, dude,” Nick replied and the two of them shook hands over Peggy’s shoulder. “Just look out for this one, she’s trouble.”

The two of them downed their shots and the younger man walked away, no doubt to find some other woman to try and woo for the evening. Peggy’s cheeks were red with embarrassment and she tried not to look at Nick for as long as she could before she heard him ordering another shot from the bartender.

“You’re driving.”

He laughed and threw back the drink, enjoying the feel of the alcohol burning down his throat. “Not now,” he dismissed. “Now I’m drinking.”

“Why? Because I was talking to another guy? You totally embarrassed me.”

“No,” he shook his head, “because I was just totally embarrassed upstairs when everyone started telling me I needed to keep an eye on you because apparently you’re a great big slut.”