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Chapter Ten


Nick

Kevin and Kristin were fighting.

I laid in bed after they’d finished talking out in the hallway and stared up at the ceiling, hugging the blankets to my chest. I felt a little sick to my stomach. Okay, maybe a lot sick to my stomach, even.

If Kevin and Kris couldn’t make it as a couple, then who the hell could?

I moved my feet nervously between the sheets, feeling the cotton against the underside of them, anxiety running through my body like electricity. I could feel it burning on the insides of my skin.

When I’d decided I wanted to propose to Lauren, it’d been because of stuff AJ had said about how great the sex was once you got married. ‘Cos yes, I’m that shallow. At first, I’d been like well if the sex gets better what could go wrong? so that’s when I first started ring shopping. Then the more I thought about it over the course of the next couple months, while I was trying to find the right ring in every country we visited on a European tour run, the more I realized it’d be actually kinda cool being able to be like ‘my wife said this’ or ‘my wife said that’ the way the other guys did. They were forever talking to each other about their wives and it was like an exclusive club I wasn’t a part of. I was the odd man out, the youngest again, just like it’d been when I was thirteen and they would talk about sex or something and they’d hush the moment I walked in and smile at me like Cheshire cats because they were talking about something I didn’t know about. And somewhere between the point of being excited ‘cos I’d get to talk with the guys about the wives and be included in the conversation and the day I found the ring in a shop in Key West, I got excited about the realization that if I got married to Lauren I wouldn’t have to worry about her someday breaking up with me.

That was my biggest fear. Every time I did something totally stupid and Lauren said things like ”Nick, we need to talk”, my immediate reaction was ”Are you breaking up with me?” If she was, I wanted it ripped off like a bandaid. It would hurt less the faster it happened, I reasoned. If I had to lose Lauren then she had to go quick enough that my system went into shock so that I couldn’t feel the blow.

The reason marriage scared me was because it was a commitment, it was something that didn’t end. And I realized one day when I was sitting on a plane behind Kevin and Kristin that the fact that my two biggest fears were losing Lauren, and making a commitment to her didn’t make sense. How could I be afraid of losing her if I was afraid to make a commitment to her? And if I just got over the fear of making the commitment, then we’d have a commitment and I wouldn’t lose her.

So in short, AJ bragging about his and Rochelle’s sex life might’ve got the ball rolling on the whole engagement thing but it was Kevin and Kristin that made me believe in the marriage that I would be proposing. They’d been together forever, I had reasoned, and they were still lovey dovey, touchy feely. They’d just announced they were gonna be having another baby soon, in fact that was the last time Kris was gonna be able to fly with us because she’d be entering her third trimester the following week, and in June they’d have Richardson Baby Numero Dos. And they were so in love with each other… after all the years and they were still sneaking kisses every place they could get alone for even a second, and Kevin still put his hand on the small of her back when he introduced her to people, like touching her reminded them that she was his.

I promised myself I’d put my hand on Lauren’s back every time I introduced her ‘til the day I died out of gratitude for her presence in my life.

I dunno why I got so fucking scared the day of the wedding, in retrospect. I was in a pretty good place mentally for it and everything it’s just --- Well, no. No I do know what happened actually. The day before the wedding my mother had called. I’d been having issues with her posting stuff about me on the internet, so I’m not sure why I answered when she called, I just kinda thought maybe she’d changed her mind about coming and needed money for a plane or something, and I got excited and I answered. But it wasn’t that. She was trying to talk me out of getting married and in the process, she reminded me of all the horrible fights her and my dad used to have and she reminded me of nights when they’d come up to my room and set BJ down on my bed and told us to choose which one of them we loved more. “You’ll get to that point one day, too,” she’d warned, “It’s in your blood. You’re going to end up just like your father.”

I’d hung up, but the words had rooted themselves and the next day as I’d paced through the groom’s room, they’d echoed in my head.

Then Kevin… I’d told Kevin I was scared, expecting him to give me a pep talk. When he’d started into my eyes when I’d reached full blown panic attack, when I was feigning cardiac arrest and clutching the wrong arm and all that… I’d expected him to tell me how great marriage was and how I was going to be okay if I could just make it down the end of the aisle to see her come around the corner in her dress. He was supposed to tell me how magic and amazing his life with Kristin had always been because that would have helped.

Instead, he helped me run away.

And now I knew it was because him and Kristin were fighting.

They were my proof that real love existed and that there was hope for a marriage to last, and they were falling apart. How could anybody last if they couldn’t last? How long until Brian and Leighanne fell apart? Howie and Leigh? AJ and Rochelle? Me and Lauren didn’t stand a chance if these power couples I’d looked up to and respected couldn’t make it.

I rolled over onto my stomach and hugged my pillow close to my chest, leaning my head against it and closing my eyes. I held onto it tight as I fell asleep.




I woke up hours and hours later in a horrible position that made my back tight and my neck ache like hell. I tore myself from the mattress, my brain melting out of a strange dream in which I screamed at Kevin and Kristin that unless they got it together I was gonna quit the band and run away to train an autistic horse.

I blinked at the bright sunlight reflecting off the trees and I knew I’d slept in. I looked over at the clock on the nightstand and realized it was after nine in the morning. I stretched and shuffled off to the bathroom, my mind still mulling over everything I’d heard and the weirdass dream I’d had. I needed to talk with Kevin about this, I realized, because it was really bothering me a lot. Maybe more than it should have. But I needed to know if he was gonna get a divorce or something, I needed to prepare myself.

So when I’d finished in the bathroom, I went to his bedroom door and knocked. When my fist hit the wood, though, it swung open by itself. It hadn’t been shut all the way. Kevin wasn’t in there.

He must be downstairs, I thought and I trotted down the steps to the living room, then out to the kitchen. No Kevin anywhere. “Kev?” I called out. Then, for good measure, “Caroline?” But no reply came.

I pushed the front door of the house open and stepped on to the porch. Looking out toward the field, I expected to see at least the three horses running around, maybe Caroline putting food in their troft or something, but there was no signs of life. When I turned back around to go inside, I realized the rental car was gone.

I stared at the place in the driveway where Kev had parked every time since we’d come.

They hadn’t come back yet from their drive?

I wandered back into the house and pulled my phone from my pocket.

Hey where are you? I typed in a text to Kevin, and then I sat awkwardly in the kitchen on the bar stool, unsure what exactly one does when one is left alone on a camp in Kentucky. I rubbed my chin and looked around the kitchen. I wondered if I should let the horses out, since they probably had to pee and stuff but then I remembered they just went to the bathroom in that nasty ass hay and also that I didn’t trust ‘em as far as I could throw’em anyways. So they could wait ‘til Caroline came back.

I got up and rummaged around the kitchen ‘til I found some food and I got it cooked and ate, all the time eyeballing my phone, waiting for Kevin to answer me. But he wasn’t answering.

Sometime around eleven I started to think crazy.

What if they’d been in a car wreck?

What if they’d run away together and weren’t ever coming back?

What if they’d gone to a hotel and Kevin had cheated on Kristin and I was gonna be the only person that knew what happened besides them and I was gonna be burdened with knowing and not being able to tell?

I rubbed my hands through my hair, squeezing my head, wishing there was a way to relieve the horrible throbbing up in there. I laid my head on the counter, the cool tile felt good on my face.

The front door opened and I sat up. I heard hurried footsteps on the stairs and a door slam above me. Then Kevin came in the room, his hair and clothes a little disheveled. He took a look at me and cleared his throat, turning to the fridge. “Morning,” he mumbled, turning to face me a moment later, a bottle of water in his hands.

Anger was rising up in my guts. I couldn’t believe he’d do this to Kristin - to Mason - to Max - to me. I glowered at him.

“You okay?” he asked.

“You’re so stupid,” I hissed, and I slid off my stool and started for the stairs.

“Nick?” Kevin put the bottle of water down and grabbed my arm before I could leave the kitchen. I lashed out, pushing him off me with a strength I don’t think he’d expected. It’d been a long time since our physical strengths had been compared and I’d done a lot of working out by then, so he looked surprised when I easily threw him off and he stumbled back a couple feet. “Nick what’s the matter?” he asked.

“What’s the matter? What’s the matter?” I asked. I shook my head, “What’s the matter is you are cheating on your wife, and you’re gonna end up with a divorce and just ruin everything. You’re gonna wreck it all! Love doesn’t even exist really, it’s just a stupid game everybody plays and nobody actually wins. Everybody ends up hurt, especially the good people, and -- and I didn’t think that you were a player but I guess everyone is.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,” Kevin said, waving his hands in a stopping motion, “Slow down there, boy! I did not cheat on Kristin.”

I was too kerfluffled now to just calm down, though, and my mind was moving way too fast in way too many directions forward. I couldn’t believe Kevin was expecting me to just ignore the fact that he was doing this to Kristin, of all people, and also it shocked me that Kevin, the always morally just and right Kevin, would not own up to a transgression when specifically confronted. I was pissed. He seemed like a complete hypocrite in my eyes suddenly and I felt the rage swell up in my guts.

“No? What do you call it then? You’re in the middle of the morning walk of shame and you’re gonna try to act like this ain’t happened? Kev, I ain’t stupid! I’ve seen the walk of shame before - dawg, I’ve taken the walk of shame before. I fuckin’ know what it looks like, man. I just never thought you would be someone I’d catch doin’ this! I never thought you’d do this shit to Kristin no matter how shitty it’s been lately between y’all! I believed in you guys, and you just wrecked it, wrecked it all. It’s your fault, it’s all your fault. I should be married to the most beautifulest woman in alla the world right now, happy and gettin’ my brains fucked out in Bora Bora, but nooooooo! You hadda be like all helping me run away alls so we could come here to Kenfucky where you could like hook up with your high school girlfriend or fiance or whatever the fuck she was… is… was… I dunno! How long y’all been plannin’ this huh? Do you have like a secret Facebook event group or something? Did you get like a reminder on my weddin’ day that was like don’t forget you’re getting fucked in Kentucky this weekend?”

I was panting, breathless, by the time I got it all out.

Kevin stared at me.

“I’m not gonna just stay here and be your excuse anymore,” I said, “So fuck you.”

Kevin licked his lips as the metaphorical dust settled between us.

“Are you finished?” he asked, his voice shook, just barely staying level.

I nodded.

“I didn’t cheat on Kristin,” Kevin said firmly. His voice broke though as he continued, “I’m not going to pretend the thought didn’t cross my mind, but I didn’t do it. I didn’t.”

I pursed my lips and looked at the floor because I could see sadness in his eyes and it seemed like it was almost disrespectful to look directly at him when he was sad looking.

“You heard us last night,” he said, and it was a statement more than a question, but I nodded anyways. “I didn’t mean for you to hear any of that,” he said, “And I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

I frowned and looked up, “Y’know what upsets me, Kev? I’ve seen you almost every single day for the last year and a half and you ain’t talked to me about it. I’m supposed to be your friend, and you had all this shit going on in your life and you never said anything to me, you just suffered in silence like you didn’t have nobody to talk to, even though I was right there.”

Kevin shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I knew you held Kris and I and our relationship in a high regard that way, that we were one of the only examples of a good marriage that you had, and I knew it would bug you. Especially since you’d just proposed, and you were still teetering on the edge of being nervous about it… I didn’t want to pop your bubble and ruin everything by telling you my problems, which I didn’t really want to admit I was having anyway because I’m so fuckin’ proud and stupid and… Nick, I just didn’t want you to have to deal with it.”

“I just feel like a little kid again when you don’t tell me stuff, like you think I’m too little to understand or help,” I said. “I hate that Kevin, I hate that ‘cos I ain’t a lil kid no more and I can help and understand and maybe I ain’t the best at fixin’ stuff like that ‘cos I ain’t been through it but at least you couldda told me and I couldda been there for you.”

Kevin nodded. “You’re right.”

“I mean what’s the point in havin’ a friend if you can’t talk to ‘em about shit that’s buggin’ you?” I added.

“You’re right,” Kevin repeated. “Nick. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, dawg,” I said and I stepped over and threw my arm around Kevin’s shoulders, “Just let me be there for you in the future, a’ight? You’re always, always there for me and I just wanna return the favor sometime.”

Kevin nodded, “I will. Thank you, Nick.”

“Yeah no problem, man,” I answered. Then, with my arm still flung around his shoulder, I asked, “So… if y’all weren’t bow-chicka-wow-wow....then… what the fuck were you doin’ all night?” I asked.

Kevin suddenly looked uncomfortable again. He hesitated. “Well… we went for a drive.”

“Yeah, I gathered that part when I saw the car was missing,” I answered. I let my arm slide off Kev’s shoulders and I went to the cupboard and pulled out a box of Cheerios and started making myself some food. I waved the box at Kev, offering him some too but he shook his head. “Where’d y’all go?”

Kevin blinked at the wall for a couple minutes, gathering thoughts. I started searching for a spoon. Kevin came around and opened the drawer with the silverware and handed one to me. “Just… around the town, mostly… Listening to the radio and stuff.”

I eyeballed him. “Dude, there’s obviously more to this story then you’re sayin’. What happened?”

“Well there’s this spot we used to go to up this hill, there’s this clearing, you can see all the town lights for miles and miles and all these stars because you’re up away from all the city glow and stuff,” he said.

“Like a make-out point,” I said.

Kevin twitched. “Yeah.”

“And?”

“And… we turned the radio up and threw a blanket down and were looking at the stars and talking and stuff and… I guess at some point we… fell asleep.”

I chomped on a mouthful of cereal, waiting for him to continue, when he didn’t, I said, “And?”

Kevin shifted his weight, “And… Okay, Nick, don’t freak out, okay?”

“....okay…” I said slowly.

“A cop drove up and found us and it’s private property and it got sold since we were younger and now it’s got these no trespassing signs up all over and we didn’t see’m ‘cos it’s dark and the officer -- well -- arrested us.”

I spit Cheerios everywhere.