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Chapter Two


Nick


Whispers were going around the room. I could feel the fellas getting anxious. Chris, AJ, and Howie were muttering to each other under their breath, stealing glances at me as I paced. I felt like my heart was doing somersaults inside me, bouncing off my ribcage, like maybe it was trying to play the bones in there like a xylophone. I pictured the plinky-plonky music it would produce. It was like one of those old Merry Melodies cartoons I used to watch on the Disney Channel back when I was a kid - that one with the skeletons dancing around in the cemetery.

“Mother of fuck I’m going to die. I’m going to die here on the floor of a church. I’m going to stop breathing and my body’s going to fall over and I’m gonna have a fucking stain on my fucking face from cheap oriental rug dye.”

I was being dramatic. I knew I was being dramatic because in the back of my head, I could hear Lauren’s voice telling me that I was being dramatic. And she’s always right.

But I couldn’t help it.

“This oriental rug is anything but cheap,” Brian commented. “And I’m pretty sure you aren’t going to die.”

“Pretty sure isn’t absolutely sure,” I argued. My hands were shaking. I paced the length of the room. I grabbed at my tie. It was too tight. “I’m being strangled by this fucking tie.” I struggled with it until it loosened enough for me to pull it over my head, but not without catching my nose. I threw it.

Kevin caught it as he came over from across the room.

“Breathe,” he commanded, voice low. He grabbed my shoulders, steadying me. He pushed me into a chair then bent so he was staring into my face. He looped my tie back around my neck and started re-tying it for me. “Breathe.”

“I don’t remember how to,” I choked.

“In and out, buddy,” Brian said from his perch on the desk in the corner of the room. He was playing with a stapler, opening it and sliding the spring mechanism back and forth.

AJ looked up. “That’s what she said.”

Brian glared at him, then turned back to me. “Like this.” He inhaled dramatically, then exhaled in an equally exaggerated way.

“He needs to breathe, not practice fuckin’ lamaze therapy,” AJ said.

Brian continued his breathing demonstration none the less.

“It’s easier for you,” I snapped, “With your big ass nose you can’t help but breathe.”

Kevin clicked his fingers in front of my face, keeping Brian from continuing the banter as AJ and Howie snickered. “Focus, Carter,” he demanded. “You can make fun of Brian’s nose later,” Kevin finished doing my tie and smoothed it against my chest.

“Hey!” Brian frowned.

Kevin ignored Brian’s protest. “You’re gonna be okay,” he said, staring me right in the eyes. “This is what you’ve been working so hard for, man, this day - this moment. You’re gonna be okay. It’s not as scary as you’ve got it built up to be in your head. It’s the same as you’ve had for the last five years, but with a piece of paper making it legal. That’s all it is. It’s a walk across the room with a make out session at the end.”

“And a marriage,” I reminded him.

“And a marriage,” he agreed. “But that’s not really all that different than you’ve had for the last five years, buddy. It’s really not.”

“It’s just for the rest of your life is all,” AJ injected.

“Mother of fuck,” I said, and I leaned back, popping the recliner on the chair with the force. I nearly toppled over. But I caught myself.

“You’re not helping AJ, thank you,” Kevin snapped.

I sat up again. “Kevin,” I said. “I can’t do this.”

Brian licked his lips and smoothed his tie. “Everyone gets nervous, Nick, it’s just a part of the package deal,” he said, smiling in a comforting manner.

I nodded. I nodded because on a brain-wave level what he said made perfect sense. Being nervous made perfect sense. Of course I would be nervous, it was a fucking wedding. My fucking wedding. A wedding that I’d spent the greater part of my life insisting wouldn’t ever happen. Ever. And now here it was. The day of. The hour of, even. Nervous was exactly what I should be.

Except this wasn’t just nervous. This was so the fuck much more.

“I was scared shitless on my wedding day,” Brian confessed. “You remember?”

I didn’t. I wasn’t a part of Brian’s wedding, so I never saw what went down behind the scenes. If Brian was scared on that day, the last person in the world he would’ve told was me. And probably for good reason. If he’d told me he was nervous I would’ve tried to talk him out of marrying Leighanne at all.

“It’s going to be okay,” Brian added.

I nodded again. I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t know how to describe to them what exactly I was feeling because I wasn’t exactly sure that I knew what I was feeling. Something akin to paralyzing fear. Something like I imagined cardiac arrest might be like.

“What’s it like to have a heart attack?” I asked.

Brian looked at Kevin.

“Nick, you are not having a heart attack,” Kevin said in a low voice.

“I feel like I might be,” I replied. “It’s all tight up in here.”

“Cold feet,” Brian said.

“Ain’t my feet that’s got the trouble,” I answered. I grabbed my arm for dramatic effect, in hopes that they’d take me more seriously.

“If you were having a heart attack, it’d be your left arm, not your right,” Kevin said.

I can’t even have a heart attack right.

Kevin looked over his shoulder as the door opened and the wedding coordinator stuck his head in the doorway, adjusting the little walkie-talkie mic he wore over his ear. “Ten minutes, guys,” he announced. My palms instantly produced about seven times as much sweat as they had been before. It was like god damn Niagara Falls in my hands. “Everything okay in here?” He’d spotted us in the corner, me in full-blown panic attack mode, mid-cardiac arrest, clutching my arm, and the other guys grouped around me.

“Everything’s perfect,” Kevin replied.

“Okay.” He looked doubtful, but thankfully he ducked back out and let us be.

I looked at Kevin. I could feel the panic in my eyes. My heart was trying to scrape it’s way out, like a guy in Alcatraz with a fucking spoon. “Get me out of here,” I said thickly, desperately.

Kevin stared into my eyes.

Brian’s voice was pleading. “Nick, it’s going to be okay, you gotta just calm down and --”

Kevin held up a hand to silence him. “Nick. If we go,” he said, his voice dropping even lower than before, “There won’t be any turning back. If you change your mind, you’re going to have one helluva time explaining to her. This is one of those point-of-no-return kinds of moments that most women don’t forgive.” He seemed to be searching my eyes for the answer, like he could see inside of me, “So be fucking damn sure of what you’re doing. You don’t get a do-over on this one. Trust me. I know.”

I thought about it. I might not ever get this chance to be loved this way again, I thought. I might not ever find a girl who can put up with me and my ways like Lauren did. But what if it didn’t work out? What if I married her and ten minutes later she decided she couldn’t put up with me and she wanted to get away? What if we grew older and bitter-er and more spiteful and hateful toward each other until we were only staying together for the dogs and they could feel the tension and it made their lives miserable and our lives miserabler and we spent every single day for the rest of our lives looking back on this day and wishing like fuck that we hadn’ta done it but it was too late, we done it, and we were stuck, stuck like flies on glue paper or roaches in a roach motel and there wasn’t nothin’ we could do about it except sleep in the same bed every single night until one day one of us died and the other was too god damn old to enjoy being free at last free at last, thank God almighty, free at last?

I could barely breathe.

Kevin stared at me through this whole thing, like he was reading my thoughts like my forehead was transparent. The longer he stared, the more my insides knotted up. I felt tears creep into my eyes. “Kevin. Get me out of here,” I repeated.

Kevin stood up and took a deep breath. He looked around the room. Brian was shaking his head, looking disappointed. I tried not to look at him, to remind myself that my choice wasn’t his choice, that I wasn’t letting Brian down, that the only people this choice effected in the end of it all was me and Lauren and one day she’d thank me.

“Kev,” I choked the words out, “I really can’t do this.”

His face twitched. “Okay.” He looked at Brian. “Go tell Lauren.”

Brian blinked in surprise. “What?”

“Go tell Lauren that he’s having a panic attack and it needs to be postponed,” Kevin said. “Then meet us out front.” He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. If this was a test, I was marvelously failing it by not shrieking no, no I’m okay.

Brian seemed to think the same thing. He glanced at me, too, then back at Kevin. “Seriously?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m goddamn serious,” Kevin answered. He looked at me as Brian got up slowly. “Hurry up, cuz,” he said, and Brian hustled out the door, pulling it closed behind him. “Chris,” Kev’s voice barked, “Go tell that advisor guy to call it off.”

“What?” Chris looked up from the whispered conversation he was holding with AJ and Howie in surprise.

“You heard me,” Kevin answered. Chris took off. Kevin looked at AJ and Howie, who were staring at us, gape-mouthed. “Stop staring and one of you go get your car ‘round front.” Kevin turned back to me as Howie and AJ jumped up and rushed out the door, too.

The knot in my throat was still tight. “You’re just… you’re cancelling it?” I asked, staring up at him. “You’re really cancelling the wedding? You didn’t give Brian some creepy voodoo Kentucky cousin sign not to really do it, did you?”

“Do you want me to stop him from cancelling it?” he asked, reaching for his cell phone.

I shook my head slowly.

“Alright. Then let’s get out of here.” He led the way to the door and down the hall. I felt like my knees were made of gelatin the whole way. We stepped out of the church, the sunlight was burning hot. I reached for my tie and pulled it off my neck again. I dropped it onto the sidewalk as I followed Kevin. It made me think of Cinderella leaving the ball and her shoe falling off, except the only reason anyone would be looking for me with that tie would be to use it like a noose.

There was a whole mess of paparazzi on the lawn that had been waiting for photos of the newlyweds. They jumped in surprise, knocking turkey sandwiches off their laps as they realized I was outside, being led down the stone walkway by Kevin, no Lauren in sight. “Where you going, Nick?” barked one that was particularly close, his flash blinding me from the side. Kevin stuck out his hand and covered the lens.

AJ pulled up as we got to the curb and Kevin opened the door and I slid into the backseat next to Howie. “Fucking photographer swine,” Kevin muttered as he swung into the passenger seat. They were at the window, pressing their lenses to the glass, shouting questions. I turned away. “Back the fuck down!” Kevin yelled.

Just then, a new flurry of energy from the photographers and they parted to turn to snap pictures as Brian came out the door and started sprinting down the sidewalk, closely followed by Lauren. There she was - all dressed in white, the veil covering her face, her nails painted turquoise to match all the flowers, standing on the stone stairway behind Brian as he threw himself into the back seat of AJ’s SUV with me and Howie. The door had no sooner closed behind Brian than AJ peeled out, his tires squealing on the pavement. He even took a curb as he turned the corner. As I looked back, Lauren stared after us as she was swarmed by paparazzi, standing in the middle of the street. She removed her veil, and even from a distance I could see that her eyes full of tears.

My stomach twisted.

I couldn’t help but feel like shit.




I went to the house only long enough to shove a couple t-shirts and a pair of jeans into my backpack and get the essentials like my phone charger and laptop. I didn’t want to be there when Lauren got home. I didn’t know what I’d say to her. I didn’t know if I could look her in the eye. So I went in and out like a ninja while Kevin stood out on the back deck while the dogs went to the bathroom on the beach below and the other fellas sat in the idling SUV in the driveway. Some of the paparazzi had followed us from the church and they stood along the edge of the property, staring across my front yard like spectators at a zoo, waiting anxiously to see what happened next, what the next steps the runaway Backstreet Boy would take.

My fingers ran over the sheets of the bed and the plane tickets to Bora Bora that we were supposed to be using that night, an adventure to an island paradise where we could be alone, just Lauren and I. I wondered if she’d use them. Maybe she could take Larry. I hoped she would, she didn’t deserve to lose the vacation just because I’d lost the nerve. I felt my throat constrict. I’d really been looking forward to Bora Bora and all the sexa-sexa that would occur there. I’d pictured holding her in my arms and whispering I love you in her ear and feeling her hair on my chest and stuff. But to have a honeymoon you must have a wedding.

When I’d collected a couple shirts and a brand new package of underwear from my closet, I grabbed my toothbrush from the bathroom and went downstairs. Kevin was standing in the foyer now, hands in his jacket pockets, waiting. Nacho and Igby were no where to be seen. “I put down a can of food and some fresh water,” he explained when he saw me looking for them.

“Thanks,” I said. I adjusted the strap on my duffel bag and took a couple steps toward the door, but Kevin blocked me.

“You okay?” he asked.

I nodded.

Kevin reached out and squeezed my shoulder. This was a strangely supportive version of Kevin, a version of him that I hadn’t seen in some time. This was the Kevin I remembered from when I was like fourteen; this was the Kevin that I’d run to the first time I’d had a wet dream and he’d patiently explained what hitting puberty would mean for me and how to deal with it in the atmosphere I was now growing up in. This was the acting-father Kevin.

I would’ve expected him to be disappointed in me, like the way I knew Brian was. I knew Brian had been hoping to see me finally settle down, and I thought Kevin would’ve felt the same way. But he seemed to understand what I was going through more than Brian did. And I appreciated the empathy.

We stepped outside to a wall of cameras and shouts, the photographers having gotten brave enough to cross the lawn to the door. They clustered around Kevin and I as we made our way back to the car, a slow procession now. I tried not to hear their sharp-edged questions, tried to ignore the flashing lights from their camera bulbs, but it was really hard.

“How do you think Lauren will react to this heartbreak?”

“Is there another woman?”

“Is this a publicity stunt?”

“Where are you going to go now?”

Kevin pushed me into the backseat of the SUV and slammed the door and I heard him shouting for everyone to please give me some time to process, then he climbed into the front seat and AJ began the tedious process of backing down the driveway. I hugged my duffel bag to my chest and watched the photographers clamber against the outside of the vehicle, anxious for something, anything, that they could send to print.

“What a mess,” Howie muttered as the SUV finally cleared the cluster of reporters and AJ sped down the street, away from the house.




They were everywhere. It was like an infestation. I’d been even moderately interesting to photographers before because of the wedding, so we’d started out with a couple tailing us to the church in the morning, and a couple more as the time for the ceremony had drawn closer, but it was nothing compared to the explosion of interest that occurred once the word got out that I’d left Lauren at the altar. It was like I’d suddenly obtained a level of interest that rivaled my life in 1999. I couldn’t move without a camera being shoved into my face.

They followed us from the house to a hotel where Kevin said he was staying. The paparazzi had completely filled the lobby before I’d even been able to call Mike to set up some security measures. Kevin stayed with me in the room, even after the other guys left, and he stared down at the street from the window, holding the curtain in one hand. “They’re out in the street even,” he muttered, shaking his head, and he pulled the curtain closed. “This is insane.”

I was laying on my back on the bed, staring up at the stucco ceiling and taking deep, but wobbly, breaths. Everything felt surreal, like I was looking in on somebody else’s life.

Kevin crossed the room and sat down on the second bed. His things had already been in the room when we got there. I looked around. “How come you’re stayin’ in a hotel?” I asked. His house wasn’t that far out of LA that he should’ve needed to stay at a hotel to come to the wedding. Besides that, I only saw Kevin’s bags, not Kristin’s.

“We were having the carpets cleaned this weekend,” Kevin responded. “Kris was going to fly out to see her mother after the wedding.”

“Oh,” I said. I gripped the pillow beneath my head. It seemed like the only solid thing in the room. I felt sick.

“We’ll have to order delivery food,” Kevin muttered. He stood up and picked up a binder of menus from the desk, flipping through them.

I couldn’t even think about food.

All I wanted in the entire world was a good strong hug and a long nap with Lauren wrapped around me. It sounded silly, even in my own mind, that what I wanted to get over running away from Lauren was Lauren herself. But she was always so good at making me feel better when I did stupid things and I had a building sense that maybe this was one of those stupid things. I pictured the feeling of her hands massaging my spine and I breathed a little gentler.

Kevin looked over. “Are you hungry?”

I shook my head.

“I’ll order you something,” he replied, and he dialed his phone and ordered food. I tuned him out. Even food words were going to turn my stomach.

I grabbed a pillow and pulled it against my chest, curling myself around it. It smelled like some sort of strange mixture of Other People and bleach.

Kevin was staring back out the window again by the time he hung up the phone, looking down at the mass of photographers outside. “We can’t stay here,” he muttered.

“Any where I go, they’re just gonna follow me,” I said into the pillow. I pictured myself running down an unending sidewalk being chased by these rabid dog reporters, all shouting my name and clicking their camera shutters.

Kevin was quiet a moment. “Well. Not any where,” he said.