A good chunk of Nick’s life was based on his outside appearance. It wasn’t unusual to have papparazzi walking in front of him snapping pictures as he shopped in the mall or for random strangers to be holding up cell phones snapping video while he ate at restaurants. It was impossible for him to not care about his appearance.
There was a time, back when he had struggled with drugs and alcohol that he had gone out of his way to look like an absolute mess every time he stepped off his tour bus or out of a nightclub but those days were behind him. He was always sure now to hide his bed head under a hat, throw a hoody on over the t-shirt he’d been wearing for three days, not wear the same shorts every day for a month and throw a pair of sunglasses on over bloodshot, hungover eyes.
Nothing could hide the fact that he was missing two teeth on the left side of his mouth though and that troubled him greatly. His only response was to become a recluse, only leaving the house to get to the dentist and back and never cracking a true smile to anyone who might recognize him along the way.
On Tuesday he had gone for his root canal which was even more painful than having the other two teeth pulled but Nick didn’t care. All he wanted was for the hole to be filled with shiny, porcelain replacement teeth so he would do what he needed to do to get to that point. He was still a little hazy on exactly what had happened on Sunday afternoon if only because he couldn’t get a straight answer out of Peggy.
Once he was back in his right mind he had demanded to know why her parents had a key to their home that he didn’t know about but she had dismissed him, explaining that if there were ever a time they couldn’t get in someone should have a key. He didn’t disagree with the principle, it was the fact that he didn’t know about it that irked him. It only made him wonder how many other people could just go traipsing through the house under the pretense of an emergency.
“You need to get out of the house,” Peggy said, feeling a bit like a broken record as she repeated the sentiment.
“Nope.”
Nick had spent the last two days sitting on the leather couch in his office in his underwear with the dogs, practicing his guitar skills, writing music and avoiding the outside world. Apart from going outside in the backyard to throw a ball around for George and Ringo later on he had no intentions of being out in public.
“Are you at least going to change your underwear?” she wondered, mentally noting that he had been wearing the same pair the previous day. “You’re starting to smell.”
Nick considered it for a moment, taking his right hand off the guitar strings to scratch his bearded chin in thought before giving his head a shake, “Nope!”
Peggy sighed heavily and leaned against the doorframe, watching him return to strumming the acoustic guitar. “This is really frustrating,” she said honestly. “There’s no reason for you to be a shut-in. Are you going to do this all week? No one is going to care that you’re missing a couple of teeth.”
Nick let out an equally frustrated groan, tossing his head back on the couch. “Maybe it has nothing to do with my teeth. Maybe I just want to sit here and play guitar and not get dressed. I have nowhere to be, there’s nowhere I want to go. I just want for you to leave me alone so I can continue to play Foo Fighters songs badly.”
She tossed her arms in the air, not knowing what else to do, “Do you at least want lunch?”
“Does it involve you going away?”
“Well, I would have to leave to go make it,” she said with a roll of her eyes.
“Then I would love lunch. Call me when it’s ready.”
“Asshole,” she muttered as she exited the room, not bothering to keep her voice low enough that he couldn’t hear her.
Nick chuckled to himself and called out after her, “Love you!”
He could hear Peggy stomping down the stairs and he shook his head at her dramatics. He knew that she was bored and actually was looking for him to entertain her but he liked his downtime too much to always be on the go. The only exception would be if he was doing something fun like going to the beach not wasting time walking around the mall only to end up signing autographs for hours.
For his birthday the previous year he’d been given a book of Foo Fighters sheet music to learn on guitar but between two sold-out tours he’d been unable to so much as look at it. Now that he had some downtime apart from appointments at the dentist he thought it was a perfect time to get back into student-mode and play more guitar.
Nick was fairly good at playing by ear after years of singing but sometimes the correct chord eluded him when he was trying to figure out a song on his own. Playing Foo Fighters tracks had lead him to trying to work out some Nirvana songs himself but he couldn’t quite figure out a transition section he’d been working on all morning.
Nick was careful not to disturb a sleeping Ringo as he put the guitar down on the couch and headed over to his computer, shaking the mouse to bring the screen to life. He plopped down in front of the Mac, slouching back in his chair as he quickly checked his email, Twitter and usual internet haunts before starting his search for guitar tabs. He had only typed in a capital N followed by a lone i before Google tried to guess what he wanted to search for.
Nick nearly threw up when the first suggestion on the search engine, labelled boldly under the title of recent searches, was his own name followed by the word marriage. He blinked hard a few times, wondering if it was just a mistake and it wasn’t something that had already been searched for on that browser but rather just a popular search done by crazy, stalker fans - the only type of person he could imagine would be interested in that kind of information.
Curiosity getting the best of him he clicked the link that would bring him back to the recent search, somehow not surprised to see most of the links on the page displayed in purple to show that someone had clicked on them.
All of the articles were things he’d seen through his publicist but some of the blog and forum posts from fans were things he’d never seen before. Typically he avoided that sort of thing because it usually made him feel bad about himself or it was just downright wrong. He had a feeling that whatever was said likely fell into the latter category.
Not wanting to read anymore he closed the browser completely and shut his eyes, trying to figure out why on earth Peggy would have been reading that crap about him. They’d never had a conversation about marriage but he would have hoped that she would talk to him about it before she hit the internet.
“You want soup?” Peggy asked, returning to the office with two large cappuccino mugs filled with soup and a box of crackers tucked under one arm.
Nick said nothing, merely bit his lip with the front tooth he had left and tried not to look like he was about to tear her apart. He quickly tried to come up with justifications as to why Peggy would be looking him up online, why she would betray him like that but nothing was really coming to him. He felt like it was his responsibility, as the elder in their relationship, to act appropriately and not go off the deep end but he couldn’t guarantee how long his maturity would last.
“Why didn’t you just ask me?” he asked quietly, both hands gripping the arms of his desk chair so tight that his knuckles had turned a ghostly shade of white.
Peggy slowly set the mugs down on the desk, eyeing Nick wearily. “Why do I get this feeling this isn’t about this soup?”
“It’s not about the soup,” Nick sighed. “It’s about the fact that you’re reading about me on the internet when I’m in the same goddamn house. How can I trust you-”
“Whoa,” Peggy interrupted. She didn’t need to know how Nick found out about her search, she was busted either way. What she didn’t like was him thinking she wasn’t able to trust her. She wasn’t the one that had omitted big chunks of information like the fact that he had no plans for their future going beyond what they had just then. Certainly she could have asked him but he didn’t volunteer the information much like he hadn’t told her that his grandparents lived a few hours away.
There were times when she found him very approachable. For instance, when she had questions about music or sports. He wasn’t approachable when it came to questions about his feelings or his relationship with his family though so Peggy had secretly been hoping he would be relieved she hadn’t asked.
“Can we talk about this? Can you promise you won’t get mad?” she asked calmly, carefully watching his face to see if he was about to blow so she could get out of the path of destruction.
“I am already mad,” he replied curtly, his eyes fixed on the desk in front of him.
“Okay,” she acquiesced, moving slowly around the desk as if she were approaching a dangerous animal. “Can you promise not to get shouty, yelly, throwing things mad?”
He opened his mouth as if to protest her comment but realized that shouting, yelling and throwing things were part of his typical temper tantrums so she wasn’t being dishonest in assuming he would react in that way. He gave a short nod in agreement and Peggy continued to move around the desk until she was standing in front of him. She didn’t even bother to move the paperwork that was on the vintage mahogany surface before she sat down on it, putting one foot on either side of his hips. He brought his chair a bit closer, leaning forward to kiss the inside of her knee as an unspoken reassurance that although he was mad he was prepared to have a mature discussion.
“I didn’t mean anything malicious by it,” Peggy started off by saying, “but I wanted to confirm a couple of things I heard without bothering you or bringing up a subject that you probably wouldn’t want to talk about.”
“Marriage.”
She nodded, “Yes, marriage. We’ve never had a conversation about the future... well, no, that’s not true. I’ve talked about marriage and my dreams of the future but you kept conveniently silent. I took that as you not disagreeing with me.”
“You want to talk about marriage?” he asked with a sarcastic laugh. “It’s a piece of paper and a bunch of words. People stand up in front of a minister and pledge themselves to be with this other person until death then a few years later they’re getting divorced. Then they’ve got kids that they’re putting through all this bullshit...”
“Not everyone gets divorced, Nick.”
“Eventually, everyone ends up fucking hating each other. If they don’t get divorced it’s only because they didn’t have the balls to get it over with so instead they just spend the whole time arguing until they barely speak. Great alternative.”
Peggy rolled her eyes, not knowing how to explain to him that he couldn’t generalize the entire population based on his experience with his own parents. “I’m glad to know that if we got married you would just automatically hate me.”
“You’re twisting my words,” he warned. “It won’t be an issue though because we’re not getting married.”
“Maybe not to each other,” Peggy announced and Nick couldn’t keep the surprise off his face. He questioned her intent with the statement and she continued, “I want to get married someday. I’ve been dreaming about it since I was a little kid. I don’t know why but it’s important to me...”
She paused and Nick nearly groaned when he saw her eyes welling up with tears. He hated when he made girls cry because he hadn’t quite been able to find the off switch to turn the waterworks down.
“In my dream I marry you and live happily ever after.”
“It’s a dream,” he shook his head sadly. “Why can’t we be happy without rings and ceremonies? Why can’t I just love you and be with you? Why is that not an option?”
“So I’m just supposed to have a boyfriend for the rest of my life, always go around looking single because I don’t have a ring on my finger, always having to explain to people who ask that you aren’t the marrying type? It’s just going to be the two of us? Forever?”
Nick had gone through this exact same conversation with every girlfriend he’d had that lasted longer than six months. It was always the same concerns and his response was never the right one but it was the only thing he believed. Brian had told him on multiple occasions that perhaps he should learn to compromise instead of just laying everything out as if his way was the only option but he wasn’t sure what he was willing to give up his list of demands.
“Yeah,” he finally spoke with a simple shrug of his shoulders. “Just the two of us - forever. I am more than happy to commit to forever to you every day but I’m not going to commit to forever in a church for a photo op.”
Tears were now slipping quickly down her face and Nick grabbed her hand, glad when she didn’t pull away. Her breath was ragged as she fought to compose herself and he gave her a moment to reply.
“I don’t want it to be just us,” she admitted and Nick knew immediately what the next statement would be because just like the marriage spiel he had heard this one before too. “I want to have babies someday. I want to have a family.”
He knew that he didn’t have anything to tell her that would give her any kind of reassurance so he simply held her hand tighter and pulled his chair in closer so that she would know he was there for her despite what his words might indicate.
“We are a family,” Nick told her, his eyes less angry and more full of concern as he watched Peggy sit on his desk in tears. “You and me, our brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, parents, pets, whatever. That’s our family.”
Peggy’s chin quivered and she felt Nick’s free hand reach up to wipe away a few tears that were creeping down her jaw. “But...” she whispered, “don’t you want our own family, a piece of you that you can raise?”
Without pause Nick regretfully shook his head, “I’m sorry baby but no, I don’t think I do.”
