Nick shrugged. “Yeah, I thought I’d drop by. I was invited, wasn’t I?”
“Of course, yeah! You found the house okay?” She wasn’t sure why she was so jittery, or maybe it was just the fact that her truce with Jack was running out of steam. They’d been arguing again, and she was trying to stave off the headache that was threatening to split her skull.
Nick frowned. Despite the smile, she seemed nervous, anxious. “Yeah, I did. It’s a quiet neighborhood. Do people realize the great Autumn Evans lives here?”
She smiled. “Some do, some don’t. The ones who do won’t say anything because they don’t want the neighborhood disturbed by the media hounds.” She held the door open wider. “You should come in. Everyone else is here already.” And Lily was asleep. Hopefully, she’d sleep until Nick was gone. As much as Autumn was beginning to like and trust him, she didn’t trust him enough to tell him about her daughter.
He stepped through the door and held out the bakery box he’d been holding. “I come bearing gifts.” When she gave him a puzzled smile, he shrugged. “I figured most women like chocolate, so I got you dessert.”
“Thanks.” She gestured towards the living room. “Everyone’s in there. I’ll go put this in the kitchen and be right in.” When she started to move past him to get to her kitchen, he reached out and took hold of her arm. “Nick?”
He cocked his head to the side and studied her curiously. “Something’s wrong,” he murmured and lifted a hand to rub his fingers at the center of her forehead. “You get these worry lines…right here.” He punctuated with his fingers. “Got a headache?”
Autumn had to stop herself from leaning into the press of his hand. He was alleviating her headache without even realizing it. She allowed herself to close her eyes for a moment before opening them and giving him a genuine smile this time. “Thanks. Thank you. That makes it better.”
“It’s Thanksgiving, Autumn. You shouldn’t have a headache or things causing you headaches. You should be relaxed.” He looked past her to the kitchen where all the smells that were making his stomach rumble were coming from. “Need help with anything?”
Besides a relationship counselor? she wondered but shook her head. “No, everything’s under control. You should go sit down. I’ll be in shortly.”
Before he could say anything, she’d slipped past him and into the kitchen. A moment later, he heard the sounds of dishes rattling faintly and shrugged to himself. Deciding he may as well acquaint himself with her guests, he walked into the living room, studying her home as he went.
It was much smaller than he’d expected it to be, and he’d been surprised when he’d realized the address he’d held in his hands had pointed to a townhouse set in one of LA’s more crowded sections. Her home was squished into a row of at least thirty others, and he didn’t know how she managed to breathe being as confined as she was to this house.
At least she’d managed to make it cozy and comfortable. The entryway, den, and the kitchen he’d caught sight of were full of warm colors, pretty paintings and framed postcards on the walls, and fresh flowers here and there. The living room, he noted as he stepped in, was full of the same along with comfortable-looking couches in muted green and blue tones.
The looks he was receiving from those gathered in the room, though, were not as warm, and he suddenly knew what an organism on a microscope slide felt like.
“Hello.” He opted to be friendly. “Happy Thanksgiving.”
“Is this supposed to be an indication of her place in society now?” The lone man seated with three women turned to them with a scowl on his rugged, tanned face. “Is she going to start bringing home celebrities to shove in my face?”
Nick’s brows shot up, but one of the women, a brunette, responded first. “Shut up and get off your high and mighty horse.” She turned to Nick now, a smile on her face that echoed the one he saw in her pretty gray eyes. “Hi, Nick. Happy Thanksgiving. Why don’t you sit?” She gestured to the space next to her. “I’m Liz, by the way. I was the one that spoke to you last week.”
“Oh.” Nick nodded, remembering, and shot her a smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Liz. You, too,” he added, facing the other three. He’d already figured out that the irritated man was the infamous Jack, and probably the cause of Autumn’s current headache.
“It’s good to meet you, too, Nick.” A woman with dark red curls and deep blue eyes smiled back as she leaned over and held out a hand. “I’m Sherrie, one of Autumn’s publicists. Leah’s the other one,” she added, gesturing to the pretty blonde that sat next to her.
Nick shook hands with both of them. “So, you’re all good friends with Autumn?”
Leah nodded. “The four of us have known each other since Liz met Autumn when Autumn first came to LA seven years ago. Trying to get Autumn’s career going helped get our careers started, too.”
“And during that time, we just clicked and became good friends,” Liz added from Nick’s side. “She tells us pretty much everything,” she added quietly.
Understanding dawned on him as he realized Autumn had told them of their meeting on the beach and after the awards show. He suddenly felt like they knew him more than he was comfortable with strangers knowing. “Uh, that’s good,” he answered finally and wondered where the hell his host was.
“It’s okay, Nick. We’re not going to crucify you or anything,” Liz told him with a little laugh when she noted his discomfort. “We’re fairly harmless.”
“Why would you crucify him?” Jack asked, finally breaking his silence and studying Nick with a mixture of curiosity, disdain, and irritation on his face.
Nick laughed nervously. “Uh, no reason. So, you, uh, you must be Jack, right? The archaeologist?”
“Yeah. How do you know?” Suspicion crept into Jack’s defensive tone.
Realizing he should probably tread carefully on what seemed to be boggy ground, Nick picked his words carefully. “She’s, uh, told me about you. That you were in Africa on a dig.”
“I’ll be back in Africa soon enough,” Jack replied, sending a hateful glare at the three women as if daring them to say anything.
“Jack.” Autumn entered, her forced smile so bright it hurt Nick’s eyes. “Let’s not discuss that right now, please. Dinner’s ready.”
Wanting to relieve the tension from her best friend’s shoulders, Liz sprang up. “Great! Autumn’s Thanksgiving dinners are the best,” she told Nick as he stood and followed everyone into the cozy dining room. “I don’t know when she found time to learn to cook, but she did. She’s a genius with turkey.”
Nick smiled at the warmth Autumn’s agent practically beamed, knowing she was trying to dissipate the anger in the room. “She’s a woman of many talents,” he agreed.
“I’ll say,” Leah replied as everyone settled at the table. “I still can’t believe that she actually finds time to do all of this.”
“She wouldn’t have had to if we’d gone to my sister’s house where we were invited,” Jack said, watching Autumn intently as if challenging her.
She ignored him and lifted the knives she held over the turkey. “You should get started, guys, on the other courses. I’m going to cut this.”
“Let me do that.”
Looking up from where the tip of the knife had pierced the turkey, her eyes met Nick’s. “What?”
“I’d like to carve the turkey,” he repeated.
“Why?”
He shrugged. “I’ve never really gotten a chance to do it. I’ve never actually had a Thanksgiving dinner in my own home before. So, please, I’d like a chance, and I really think you should sit and enjoy some of this dinner you spent time and effort making.”
“Okay.” Autumn handed the knife to him and studied him as he began to cut slices off of the turkey. In concentration, his brows were furrowed while the tip of his tongue rested between his lips. “Why haven’t you been at home for Thanksgiving before? Where did you go every year?” she asked after a few moments.
He didn’t look over at her when he answered as he wanted to carve the meat as perfectly as he could. “Sometimes, I’d go to one of the guys’ houses, and, other years, I didn’t really have a Thanksgiving.”
“Why aren’t you with your dysfunctional family?” Jack sneered. “Shouldn’t Thanksgiving be one of those sappy holidays when you could tape yourselves and sell it to the rest of the world?”
The retort that sprang to her lips stayed silent when Nick answered. “My sisters wanted to spend today with our mother, and my brother is with our dad. I was invited to my bandmate, Brian’s, home.”
“Oh! You should’ve gone there then,” Autumn said apologetically. “I didn’t mean to pull you away from spending time with your loved ones.”
“I wanted to come here,” Nick replied quietly. “Who wants white?” he added, gesturing to the small pile of turkey he’d cut.
Sherrie and Leah held their plates out to him. Liz smiled up at him, appreciative of the fact that his surprisingly good manners were making Jack look like an ass. “We’re glad you’re here, Nick.”
The look on his face was one of surprise and genuine pleasure as he looked over at her. “Thanks. I wanted to come because I wanted to spend time with someone I consider a friend. I don’t know her too well, but I’d like to,” he added.
The look that passed between Autumn and Nick was not lost on Jack. His irritation had turned to annoyance and disgust. “Well, I got to know her real well,” he began, “and, let me tell you, if you like being with a demanding bitch who doesn’t let you have a minute’s peace to do what you need to do, then you’ve picked the right woman. Oh, wait. I guess, after Paris Hilton, your type probably is the demanding bitch.”
All four women practically leapt to their feet at the raging insult in Jack’s words, but Nick managed to answer before either of them. His blood may have been boiling at being insulted by a man who constantly upset the woman he claimed to love, but he tried to keep his cool and spoke calmly with his eyes on Jack’s sneering face. “I have yet to see this demanding bitch that you mentioned, but Autumn is a great person. I’d like to be nothing more than her friend because she’d be a hell of a lot more fun to be around than you. You don’t deserve her, and I bet it burns your ass because you know it, too. I wonder how you sleep at night, knowing that you don’t have an ounce of respect for a woman who is obviously willing to lay it all on the line for you. So don’t fucking say anything to me about demanding bitches when you are acting like one yourself.” He paused for a second to spear a piece of turkey with the knife he still held. “Dark meat?”
When everyone, minus Jack, who’d claimed he had something to do and had left the house, was seated in the living room with coffee and homemade apple pie, Nick excused himself and slipped out of the house to stand on the porch. He needed a breath of fresh air from the tension that had hovered over the table for the rest of dinner. Everyone had been practically silent after Nick had efficiently reamed Jack out. From what Autumn had told him about the man, Nick had expected Jack to be a decent guy. Obviously, he was mistaken, and he wondered what Autumn saw in him. How could she put up with a guy who was basically abusing her emotionally?
“It’s a pretty night, isn’t it?”
He glanced over to see Liz stepping onto the porch. “Yeah,” he replied, turning so he could try to make out the stars that looked faded beyond the light pollution of the city. “Wish we could see the stars better, though.”
“Well, we live in a city of smog, so we’d better be used to it,” she told him. “Besides, I’ve seen my fair share of stars. Haven’t you?”
He studied her now. “Human stars are nuts. I think I wouldn’t mind if I could spend a week without having to deal with their shit.”
“I want to thank you,” she said after a moment. “You didn’t need to spend Thanksgiving dinner dealing with Autumn’s ‘shit,’ as you said.”
“Wait.” He stopped her. “I didn’t mean that I minded what just happened in there.” He jerked a finger towards the house behind him. “I meant everyone else out there in entertainment land.”
“Oh.” Liz sighed. “Still. I really appreciated the fact that you stood up for her. Jack insulted you, hit below the freaking belt with the Paris comment, and you still dealt with him. God, I just wanted to beat the crap out of him.” She laid her hands over the porch railing, and Nick could see her knuckles whiten on it. “He’s the biggest asshole I’ve ever met, and I still don’t know why the hell Autumn fell for him. What is it about men that makes the best of women such idiots?”
Nick grinned. “We’re so awesome, it’s hard to resist us. You shouldn’t even try to resist us because you’d be a lost cause.”
She chuckled. “You’re cute. Real cute. Which is something I never envisioned saying to or about you,” she added.
“Why? What’s wrong with me?”
“At the moment, I can’t really think of anything, but that’s probably because you were really great tonight. It makes me see you as more than just that idiot whose face is plastered on E! and billboards all over the place.” Liz laid a hand over his as she looked up into his face, her eyes dark. “You’re a good guy, Nick. You helped my best friend in what was definitely a sticky situation, and I don’t think we’ll forget it.”
He looked from her hand to the slight smile on her appealing face. “If you have dinner with me sometime, we’ll call ourselves even.”
She let out a surprised laugh. “Is that the best line you’ve got?”
“I’ve got more. If I try again, will that convince you?”
She was quiet as she studied his face. “I think you’re actually serious, which makes this very surreal situation even more surreal.”
“It’d be real if you just said yes,” he told her, hoping that she’d just agree to even one date. All through the rest of dinner, she’d talked to him and made him feel comfortable despite the tension, and he’d liked watching her smoky eyes light up when she smiled. He’d found himself charmed by her straightforward, unpretentious personality and realized he was tempted to break the promise he’d made to not date until he’d figured out what was going on in his life and his goals. She was temptation with an innocent face but temptation nonetheless.
Her hand fell away from his as she leaned against the railing. “I don’t know what to say, Nick. We just met. I don’t know you, and you don’t know me.”
“Isn’t that the point of dating?” he wondered. “It’s that time where I get to know you, and you get to know me. It’s just a date, Liz. I’m not asking you to get into some string-filled relationship with me. It’s not supposed to be complicated.”
“You’re Nick Carter. It’s bound to be complicated.” But she let out a long sigh before facing him again. “One date. To start, anyway. I’ll see what happens after that.”
He grinned. “Great! How about next Friday at seven? We can do dinner, a movie, maybe hit a club?”
“Whoa. Slow down, Carter.” She shook her head. “We can do dinner next Friday, but that’s it. Let’s start slow.”
“As long as it’s a start,” he replied. “Dinner it is. I know the best place. I think you’ll like it.”
Liz patted his hand before she turned to head back in. “I better not regret this. Oh, and don’t bring me roses. They’re such a cliché,” she added over her shoulder before the screen door shut behind her.
Nick stood on the porch staring after her and grinning like a fool. He was going on a date with someone normal for the first time in…longer than he could remember.
