When the poop hits the fan it hits really hard doesn’t it?
I’m so glad we decided on going to a diner instead of another club, because it turned out we had so much fun. Kevin and I sat and talked about the dumbest things. Nothing that required a brain, we made it a prerequisite since we spent so long looking for Nick. I think we spent about two hours there doing nothing but just talking about everything under the sun before we finally headed back to his place where we found the stupidest movie playing on TV. It was about a levitating piano that was possessed by a demon. It was something that could have easily came out of the mind of Nick Carter. It was that weird!
Kevin confessed to me over a late night beer how much he hated being away from his wife and that sometimes he wished he could just have a normal life and not always be apart from her. I feel for him and Brian, I’m not sure how they do it which is probably one of the reasons that I choose not to put myself through all that.
So he was more than happy that I ended up going back to his place with him, and there is where I ended up falling asleep on his couch. Of course, when I opened my eyes to find myself staring at a picture of Kristin I thought I was having a Freaky Friday moment. It must be nice to wake up to that every morning. Don’t tell Leigh I said that, she will hang me.
“Morning…” I sat up and yawned as Kevin walked into the living room with a cup of coffee in his hands.
“Did I fall asleep on you last night? I’m sorry.”
Kevin laughed, “its okay…I know I’m boring and my couch is really comfy.”
“It seriously is.” I mean I was sinking into the thing.
“Did you sleep well?”
“I suppose I did considering I didn’t even realize I was here until I saw the picture of your beautiful wife staring at me.”
“She is a beauty isn’t she?”
I nodded as he took the picture and stared at it. “She’s coming home the day after tomorrow….finally!”
“So, does that mean we’ll have a mysterious Richardson disappearing act happen?”
He smiled mischievously at me, “Why Howard, I have no clue what you mean.”
“Oh you know what I mean, whenever Kris is in town, we never see you for days.”
“I love my wife.”
I shook my head at him, “Yes I know.”
“You want some coffee?”
“Sure…thanks.” I tried my best to maneuver myself out of his plush couch without much success…in truth I could actually close my eyes and sleep for a few more hours. “What time is it anyway?” I decided to ask as thoughts of sleep just seemed to make the most sense to me.
“Almost 10:30!” He yelled from inside the kitchen. Dang, there goes going back to bed. We were due to meet at the studio at around noon time.
Well maybe if I just drop right here and sleep for about 30 minutes, which would give me enough time to run home and change and meet the guys on time. Oh please like we were ever on time for anything anyway. I mean I was, because let’s face facts folks…I’m really the most responsible out of all of us. Yeah, that’s right…I said it. Kevin thinks he’s the most dependable but we all know the truth, don’t we?
Kevin came back in with another coffee in his hands, “I’d offer you something to eat but all I have is spinach and some organic rice pudding.”
“Organic rice pudding?”
“Yup.”
I decided to skip the questions for fear that he would misinterpret that as me wanting more than anything else in the world to taste his ‘organic’ pudding.
“I’ll stop at Dunkin Donuts on the way to the studio.” I decided out loud. I live about ten seconds away from a Dunkin Donuts, but then again, doesn’t everybody?
“I wonder if Nick and Paris are back together.”
I looked over at Kevin as he flipped through the channels on the TV, “I have no idea…but my gut is telling me perhaps yes, they are.” Unfortunately, Paris had Nick wrapped around her little talons.
He grunted, it wasn’t one of those happy ‘pig in the mud’ type of grunts either, it was more like an ‘oh boy, I can tell it’s going to be fun in the studio’ type grunts.
“I’m so over this whole situation. I’m tired of him bringing all the drama and then us giving him advice which he doesn’t listen to. I’m over it!”
Of course which we know means the exact opposite. Kevin is not over it at all; in fact this is all he’s going to talk about today, another reason why I must kick the Carter when I see him. Kick the Carter, sounds like a great idea for a new sport. There are enough Carters to kick. I get the tall blonde!
“Maybe he didn’t get back with her at all…maybe Bean was wrong and it was some other skinny blonde he left with.”
“Yeah maybe…but doubtful.”
He stood up, “I’m gonna go jump in the shower.”
“Yeah, I should probably get home and do that too. I smell like smoke and fried cheese.” Yeah, I’m not sure why I smelled like fried cheese either.
“I’ll see you around noonish.” He said as I handed him my coffee cup.
“Noonish.” Which I know means about 2 or so…Backstreet time.
I was up pretty early considering I barely got any sleep last night. My ass is getting old, soon… no matter what time I go to bed, I’ll end up getting up before the sun. As it is, I have to get up at least three friggin times a night to piss. Am I sharing too much? Ah well…deal with it because I’m in a crabby ass mood!
One thing that will give me satisfaction is waking Nick’s ass up. Good Lord, part of the reason why I could barely sleep was because he was snoring so loud he was echoing down the hallway. I actually had to hold onto the bedposts at one point for fear that Nick’s honker was going to suck me in.
We have to be at the studio in fifteen minutes, so I guess I should go wake him up now.
“Hey J.” Damn! I can’t even get any satisfaction with jumping on him now.
“Morning sunshine.”
“Ugh, not really I barely slept last night.” What?
“Nick you were snoring like a bastard.”
“That made no sense, snoring like a bastard?”
“Eh, I come up with my own sayings. If you can randomly make up words, I can randomly make up sayings.”
“I don’t snore.”
“Oh yes buddy…you do.”
“Maybe it was Bernie.”
I shook my head at him as he came and sat right next to me. He had so many places to sit, why right next to me? “We have to be at the studio in about ten minutes.”
“Real time?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, I’m good then. That means I have about an hour or so.” I nodded at him.
“Thanks for bailing me out last night AJ.”
“No problem kiddo, and for the record, I’m proud of you for standing up to her and not melting away into a mess of goo.”
“A mess of goo?”
“You know what I mean. It was probably hard to give her the heave ho.”
“Actually, it wasn’t really as bad as I thought it would be. You know…she’s kind of a psycho.”
“Wow you think?” I rolled my eyes at him. If only he had realized that about 7 months ago, he could have saved us a whole lot of grief.
“Shut up, I know I made a mistake, okay? You have made your fair share of those too you know.”
I couldn’t argue with that because he had a point. We both were pretty shitty when it came to our choice in women sometimes. Mine were better overall though. “Whatever…so you gonna shower, you kind of smell like ass.”
“Maybe that’s the smell I’m going for.” He didn’t even hesitate in his response which cracked me up. Hahaha cracked me up….smells like ass…get it?
“Well if it is, I can tell you, you’ll be sitting all alone today.”
“I like my alone time.”
“Nick, go take a damn shower…God, I feel like your mother sometimes.”
“My mother never nagged at me to shower.”
“Which is probably why you always smell like ass!”
“Okay fine…I’ll go take a stupid shower…just because I lovesssss you.” He reached over and kissed my cheek.
“Ugh…get off me dude.” I pushed him away and laughed. That kid is SO not right in the head. Seriously…he’s a mental case.
Now that I had the couch to myself again, I placed my feet up on the coffee table and made the horrible mistake of opening up the newspaper.
“Honey, you are going to be late!” I came running out into the kitchen and kissed my wife as she handed me a plate of toast. I was hoping for bacon and eggs or something but like she said, I was going to be late, even though I knew I’d be the first person there.
“Relax babe…you know how it goes.”
She shook her head, “If you guys mean 2 then just say 2! It makes no sense…just like setting your clock ahead ten minutes. If you always count on that then what’s the point?”
I understood her reasoning but she unfortunately lacked Backstreet logic, which most people do. See, we have a thing called Backstreet Time whereby when we say something like, “We need to meet at the studio at noon.” What that really means is – At noon we will start to contemplate getting to the studio but first we have to make some calls and then…that game is on I wanted to watch and oh is that a moose? So on and so forth until eventually we end up at our location. Usually about two hours behind on normal time.
I am not a fool; I understand that Backstreet time only really applies to the Backstreet Boys. It’s not like when Baylee starts school I can bring him at 10 and say he was on time. My wife is under the impression that I will do just that. Have I not taught her anything yet?
“Eat!”
Apparently I have not. To appease my lovely wife I placed an entire half of a slice of toast in my mouth. Baylee got a kick out of that and so did she…I saw her crack a smile.
“Brian! Don’t teach your son bad habits!”
“Baylee don’t be like daddy…okay?” I said with my mouth full just to get another giggle out of my son. His laughter just melts my heart.
“Daddy is funny.” He said as he giggled.
“No, daddy is silly.” Leighanne corrected as she came and sat on my lap. “He just thinks he’s funny.”
“Well my charm worked on you didn’t it?”
She smiled at me and pat my head as if I was her pet dog, “A little.”
The phone rang just as she passed by, “It’s AJ.” She said as she handed it to me.
“You aren’t even going to pick it up and say hello to him? Make his whole day?”
“Maybe later when you’re not around.” She gave me a nasty little wink. My wife is not as angelic as everyone makes her out to be.
“Hey AJ…what’s up?”
“Have you looked at the paper yet this morning?” By his serious tone, my heart just kind of skipped a beat.
“No, why?” My eyes searched the kitchen for the unread paper. Why we even had one delivered everyday was a mystery to me, neither of us ever read the thing. The only time I opened it was when I wanted to check scores. I don’t think Leigh has ever opened a paper. We have no idea what’s going on in the world and that’s fine with us. Ignorance is bliss.
“Go to page 3… middle.” I really didn’t like his tone. He was making me nervous. Surely if the end of the world was happening I would know about it by now and since he didn’t start the conversation out with “Run for the hills there’s frogs falling from the sky!” I was pretty sure I was safe.
“Leigh, did we get the paper today?”
“Yeah, it’s in the living room.” I stood up and ran into the living room, sitting on the couch as I took the paper out of its plastic wrapping.
“How bad is it AJ? Just tell me what it says. Is it about a war or the end of the world or something?”
“Or something…just look. I don’t friggin believe her!”
“Uh oh…” I said as I flipped to page three and allowed my eyes to go to what AJ was talking about. It was then that I said a very unchristian like thing.
“Holy fuck!” yeah…that would be it.
I’m glad I listened to AJ, don’t tell him I said that because then I’d never hear the end of it, but it was true. A nice hot shower really hit the spot. I really do enjoy bathing even though sometimes I may give the impression that I do not. Nothing is better than a nice hot shower after a workout or a long day in the studio. It’s the only place where I can really be myself and be all by myself…well, sometimes.
I decided to lay on my bed again after getting out of the shower. Sometimes I just enjoy sitting there naked. Well not completely naked, I mean I have a towel around my ass but you know what I mean. At that moment I couldn’t help but smile, “My god…” I said out loud, “I’m in a really good mood for the first time in forever!”
And I was, it’s like the little fight Paris and I had last night was the closure I needed to move on. It felt great being the one to do the calling off instead of it being the other way around like it usually was. I was always the one left with a ton of unanswered questions. No explanations just a bunch of ‘see ya wouldn’t wanna be ya’s.’
Maybe I am finally growing out of my inferiority complex. It’s so funny because only the people that really know me and fans are EXCLUDED from that. God I hate the way the fans think they know me. It makes me sick sometimes. Anyway…the people who really know me, know how shy I am and how inadequate I tend to feel around women.
I know they’re better than me going into the relationship and that is what always gets me in trouble. At least according to the numerous conversations Kevin and I have had on the subject. Oh, did I say conversations? I really meant lectures.
I’m not sure why it is I feel like that and I know that I even kind of come off smug and a little conceited to girls. It’s not that I have confidence though; it’s just that I enjoy sex. No one wants to have sex with a shy guy who doesn’t make eye contact. No, when girls see Nick Carter, they expect to have a good time with a pop star. I try not to disappoint and if I do say so myself, I don’t disappoint that often.
“I am free!” I decided to proclaim to my empty room.
“Free….free as a bird…woohoo!” Maybe I’ll go out tonight and try to find someone else.
Someone better than Paris, someone who isn’t named after a city overpopulated by mimes…I should have known it wasn’t going to work out between us because I am freaking scared to death of mimes.
Maybe a nice school teacher from some small suburb somewhere, someone who has no clue I’m even famous. I can maybe even tell them I’m like a doctor or something. Doctor Carter…wait, why does that sound so familiar?
I stood up and ran a comb through my wet hair. Yes, a nice normal girl who doesn’t always need to have her face on the news or the tabloids. Did you know that Paris has a deal with the tabloids? She actually has her people leak where she is at any given minute so that those horrible places will send paparazzi to wherever she may be at the time. She gets a high off of it. Acting all surprised and annoyed that they ‘happen’ to be where she was.
Nope, my teacher girlfriend will not be like that at all, in fact she’ll be camera shy. And she’ll hate doing red carpets and going to night clubs…although I kind of enjoy doing that. Okay scratch the nightclub part. She’ll enjoy dancing til all hours of the night but not at the exclusive places.
“My girlfriend is the best! God I love her!” I looked into the mirror and smiled, “Will you marry me?” Okay, that seemed like I was proposing to myself so I quickly shook my head. “You’re right…it’s too soon and I barely know you.”
I whipped off my towel and decided to dance naked for a few minutes because, why not? I was a free man now with nothing hanging over my head. If I wanted to dance around naked, it was my right to do so.
After about five minutes of that, I stopped sooner than I had intended but I was getting chilly, I finally decided to put on some clothes and make my way out to the living room. It was only 1:15…still on time. I’m good!
Yup, I was in a grand mood and nothing was going to change that. The world was my oyster and I was the shell…ready to take on anything life had to hand me. It was just me and my teacher who lives in the suburbs girlfriend.
And then I saw AJ…
He was just sitting there on the coffee table, why on the table I have no idea but he looked like he wasn’t very happy about something. He had the phone next to him and when he saw me he bit his lip. That made me want to turn around and go back upstairs….take off my clothes and continue to dance naked again in my room. Yes my room was a good place to go.
“Nick.” Dammit! Why on earth do I not have the power to be invisible!
“Yeah?”
“We have a problem.” I finally made it all the way into the living room and was now standing right in front of him.
“You’re acting like somebody died. No one died right?”
“No, dude no one died but…you might want to sit down for this.”
Okay now I was scared. He was holding the newspaper in his hand and that’s when it hit me that whatever he was going to tell me, he was getting from the paper and that had to mean only one thing.
“What did she do?” I hesitated briefly before asking because truth was, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Memories of her vowing revenge came to my mind as he handed me the paper.
“I’m not sure how you’re going to want to handle this…”
That’s when I finally allowed myself to look down and see the huge headline
Paris Hilton shows up with Mysterious bruises and Nick Carter is allegedly to blame.
“You’ve gotta be friggin’ kidding me!” I was barely able to get that out, that’s how in shock I was. “Why would she do this to me?” And that’s when the water works started. I couldn’t help it, I felt so betrayed…so just my God, how in the world?
AJ pulled me down on the table next to him and wrapped an arm around me, “Nick, don’t even worry about this, it’s not going to go past this newspaper, okay?”
“But it’s already out there AJ, I mean this isn’t a tabloid, it’s a real paper!”
I couldn’t even read the article, in truth I didn’t want to. The very thought of her linking me to the bruises was sickening. “I didn’t do it AJ…I swear to God.”
“Nick, I know don’t even waste your breath.”
“She didn’t have those when she left me last night. I have no idea where they came from.”
AJ pat my back once more as he took the paper out of my hands, “Brian is calling Johnny about it to see what should be done.”
“Brian knows already?”
“Yeah, I called him.”
“Why? He doesn’t believe I did that does he?”
“Nick, of course not. We all know you didn’t do it…okay? Don’t even worry about that.”
“Because I would never do anything like that, I swear.”
“I know.”
“Does Kevin know too? And Howie?”
“I’m not sure Nicky…either way; let’s not worry about it right now, okay?”
But I was worried about it, in fact I was worrying so much I felt like I as going to be sick. So much for being in a good mood.
Just one more note, I realize Kevin doesn't have his own part in this chapter but no worries, it just kind of worked out that way. lol
We all know he had a lot to say about all of the Paris stuff and I intend for him to say it ;O)
