“Rok….over here!”

“Way to draw attention to us,” Aaron quietly admonished as he slapped AJ on the arm.

“Had to….dumbass hillbilly was going to walk over to the wrong lobby.”

“The love just pours out of you, you know that?”

AJ flashed a cheeky grin. “Yes it does.”

Brian made his way over toward AJ and Aaron. He quickly wrapped his arms around the young teenager, eyeing AJ. “You look like you’re up to no good.”

Aaron snickered. “You know him all too well.”

“I hope it wasn’t anything off color,” Brian asked as he hugged his band brother.

“I’m saving that for later,” he replied and then gestured to the black carryon bag that was sitting on the floor beside Brian. “Do you have more stuff?”

“Nope just this carryon.”

“Alrighty then.”

Nothing further was said as they made their way through the airport terminal toward the parking lot. Once Brian’s carryon was stowed in the trunk, and they were all in the car, did the conversation pick up.

“So how’s the wife and Baylee?”

“Her name is Leighanne and she’s doing just fine. As for my son, he’s growing like a weed already.”

AJ glanced into the rearview mirror as he prepared to back out of the parking space. “He’s only what, a month old?”

“He’s seven weeks old.”

“Talking yet?”

“They don’t start talking at seven weeks, dumbass,” Aaron corrected from the backseat.

Brian shook his head. “I was hoping you’d brush up on your mouth while I was back home. I don’t want Bay’s first words to be dumbass.”

“Once he looks at you he couldn’t help but say that,” AJ snickered.

“Forget it….I can’t even try correcting you guys anymore, where’s Kevin when I need him?”

“Prolly home writing more lists,” Aaron replied.

AJ gritted his teeth. “Enough with the ficken lists, kid!”

“Am I missing something?”

“Kevin made sure to email me a to-do for things that we needed at Nick’s before he came home and of course before I picked you up from the airport, you were number thirty-eight on the list, by the way,” AJ stated with a sigh.

“Thirty-eight? Kevin had thirty-eight things listed? Please tell me he wrote things like 1. bread, 2. eggs…”

AJ scowled. “No it was more like 1. groceries, 2. clean the bathrooms, 3. make Nick’s bed up, gay shit like that.”

“Now I know why AJ wouldn’t let me see it,” Aaron giggled.

“Kevin takes being anal to a whole new level….I could go on for days on that subject.”

“Hey do you think we can stop by the hospital so I can see Nick?” Brian asked, anxious to change the subject about his cousin.

AJ glanced at the clock on the dash. “I doubt it, it’s after nine.”

“So its not like I’m going to wake him up, I just wanted to check in on him,” Brian said.

“You sure you can’t wait until we go up there tomorrow to bring him home?” AJ wondered out loud.

“Positive.”

Although it had been a little over three weeks since he had last been able to see Nick in person, Brian couldn’t help but feel that Nick looked worse instead of better. There was something that was gnawing at him that he couldn’t place a finger on. He quickly pushed his misgivings aside, feeling that maybe he was just tired and coupled with the dim lighting in the room made things look worse instead of better to him.

He decided that Nick would look better to him in the morning after a good nights rest.

Wordlessly, Brian left the room to join AJ and Aaron in the hall.

“Did you wake him up?” AJ asked as soon as Brian stepped out into the corridor.

”No I didn’t,” he whispered.

“Big surprise, you usually make enough noise for a small crowd.”

“I’m a daddy now…I know how to be quiet,” Brian reminded.

AJ held his hands up in front of his chest as if to fend off a possible hit from the Kentuckian. “Oh….big man forgot about that, dink boy.”

“Real mature Jay,” Brian said with a smirk and a shake of his head.

“Hey I thought we were each gonna go into Nick’s room,” Aaron asked when Brian started walking away from the entrance to the hospital room.

Brian sighed. “I thought we agreed that I could stop by as long as I didn’t wake your brother up.”

“Yeah but I’m just gonna go in to just check on him..” Before Brian or AJ had a chance to tell him no, the younger Carter took off back into the room.

“Oh for chrissake,” AJ breathed as he watched the blonde head into the sick room. “You are bad enough but that kid is far from quiet and he makes enough noise to excite a tit mouse.”

Brian smirked. “Excite a tit mouse, eh?”

“Pretty much….I might as well go into the room to get the kid out of there before Nick gets woke up. You know damn well he’s going to touch him.”

“I’m right behind you because I can’t trust you to be quiet either,” Brian said as he followed suit.

Upon entering the room, they found Nick rubbing a hand across his face.

“I knew that kid was gonna wake you up,” AJ muttered.

Nick lifted his hand away from his face. “Huh?”

“I didn’t wake him up, he was awake when I came in rubbing his face,” Aaron defended.

“Sorry Nick,” Brian apologized.

Nick looked up at the guys gathered around his bedside, confusion etched on his face. “Can someone tell me what’s going on?” His eyes rested on Brian. “Is it morning already?”

“Relax…It’s a little bit after 9:30, we just picked Brian up from the airport and he wanted to stop in to check up on you before we headed to your house. We would have made it back there without you knowing about it but your brother decided to wake you up for some reason,” AJ explained.

“I didn’t wake Nick up!” Aaron whined.

“He didn’t wake me up…honest,” Nick assured.

“You sure look like you were sleeping to me,” Brian said.

“I was sleeping but my stomach sort of woke me up.”

“Do you want me to go get the nurse?” Brian offered.

Nick waved him off. “Nah I’m going to see if I can ride this out, thanks.”

AJ started toward the door. “I honestly don’t think that’s a good idea Nick. Of all the things the nurses have told me while you’ve been sick is not to let your pain get out of hand.”

Brian nodded in agreement. “Sad to say, but for once I have to agree with him.”

Aaron took a few steps back from the bed. “Are you gonna get sick?”

Nick looked over at his younger brother with an amused face despite the nausea that had crept up on him. “Doubt it. I just feel nauseated but I know I won’t throw up on you if I do puke.”

Too preoccupied with Aaron’s reaction over his upset stomach, Nick didn’t notice that AJ had left the room and by the time he noticed it, his band brother was returning with a nurse a petite young nurse.

“Hey hon, what’s the problem?” she asked in a thick Southern accent.

“My stomach hurts,” Nick admitted quietly.

“Do you feel like you’re going to get sick or what kind of hurt is it?”

“A little bit of both but not that I’m going to get sick just the nausea like with chemo and it just feels like someone is ripping my stomach out.”

The nurse rubbed her patient on the shoulder. “It’s probably from the ACTH, I’ll see if the doc has ordered something for the nausea.” She stopped for a moment when she observed Nick scratching his chest. “Is your skin itchy too?”

“Great is he having an allergic reaction?” AJ rasped.

“I just have an itch for crying out loud Jay, don’t make a big deal out of it,” Nick growled.

“Whoa! Where the heck did that come from?” Aaron asked, taking a dramatic step back.

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean to bite your head off,” Nick apologized. “I just feel like I don’t have control over any situation lately.”

“It’s okay hon, I’ve been yelled at worse than what you’ve just done. I’ll be right back…I’ll check and see what your doctor has on your chart.”

“What time do you think you’ll get discharged tomorrow?” AJ asked as he watched Nick continue to scratch his chest…then his arm…then his face.

“I don’t know I guess after Dr. Andersen or Dr. Griffin or whoever is watching my ass sees me.”

Brian noticed that Nick definitely was feeling uncomfortable by the sound of irritability in his voice and the fact that he had been continuing to scratch long after he claimed it was just a simple itch. “You look like you’re getting hives.”

A different nurse appeared in the room, carrying a small white cup. “Doctor has orders for this to settle your stomach.”

Brian gestured toward Nick. “Check his skin, I think he has a rash.”

The nurse turned on the table lamp. “That is a side effect of one of the medications that we talked about at our shift change. I’ll be right back with something for that too.”

“Well at least we know you’re not having an allergic reaction,” Brian stated as he looked on helplessly.

“Here we go Nick, I’m going to push this into your IV and you should start feeling relief in a minute or so. He has had two days on this particular medication and they felt it would have taken this long for that nasty side effect to show up. It will settle down to looking like a skin rash once his system adjusts to the medication.”

Not only did Nick stop itching, his eyes slowly closed as soon as the drug started to course through his veins.

“Well I guess we don’t have to worry about leaving him wide awake,” AJ said with a shake of his head.

“It just appears worse than what it really is,” the nurse said as placed the used syringe into the sharps box on the wall.

“Would you have any idea when Nick will be discharged tomorrow?” Brian asked.

The woman stopped at the door. “It will depend on how this rash turns out and when doctor makes rounds. I would plan on after lunch time tomorrow.”

Brian thanked the nurse and then turned his attention back to Nick. “Well I guess we may as well head on out. I guess at least Nick will hopefully be getting a better nights rest.”

“Yeah and remind me when we get back that I have to call Kev to let him know the approximate time Nick should be out of here tomorrow,” AJ added.