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Chapter 153


AN: Thanks to my MBNCS for brainstorming with me on this chapter!! =D


“Where to?” asked the cab driver, twisting around in his seat to look at Nick as he climbed into the back.

“Just a sec,” said Nick, pulling a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket. He hurriedly unfolded the paper, a print-out of an email Claire had sent out to her family and friends the night before she had moved, listing her new address and home phone number, as well as Jamie’s work contact information. Nick had printed out the email before he left LA, using it to tell the driver of the taxi he’d hired last night where to pick up Claire. He read off a different address to this driver.

The cabbie gave a curt nod. “That’s not far from here,” he commented and started up the car.

Nick buckled his seatbelt and looked out the window as the taxi pulled out into traffic, winding its way through the streets of West Des Moines. It was only a five-minute ride to his chosen destination, and when the taxi lurched to a stop in front of a modest-sized office building, Nick paid the driver, leaving a generous tip, and climbed out quickly.

He paused in front of the building just long enough to glance up and read the sign high above the entryway. It matched the company name Claire had typed in her email, and he knew he was in the right place. He just hoped he wasn’t too late.

Upon entering the building, Nick found himself in a lobby, professionally decorated in muted shades of cornflower blue and taupe. He strode past a reception area off to one side and headed directly for the elevators he had spotted opposite the main doors. There were only two elevators, but, thankfully, both were headed down. When the first to arrive slid open, Nick stood back as a pack of men and women in business dress filed out, and then he climbed onboard. He was the only one in the elevator as the doors slid shut. Checking the piece of paper in his hand again, Nick punched the button for the sixth floor and waited as the elevator ascended slowly.

When the doors slid open again, Nick found himself facing a glass-walled office. He stepped out of the elevator, looking through the glass partition into another reception area, where a lone woman typed away on her computer behind a wrap-around desk. A sign on the glass door read, “Risk Management Office,” and as he opened it and stepped inside, the receptionist looked up from her workstation.

“Can I help you, sir?” she asked promptly, though she appeared slightly harassed. Nick could recognize the look of someone who had had a long day.

He was about to tell her he could find his way, but then he shrugged and waved the piece of paper he was still clutching. “I’m just looking for Jamie Turner’s office. Think you could point me in the right direction?” He offered his most charming smile.

The woman’s forehead creased, giving her a fleeting look of confusion, and then her eyes brightened. “Oh! James Turner, did you say? Sorry, he’s new to the company; I guess I’m still getting used to the name. But yes, of course; he’s down that way.” She pointed to her right. “Head down that hall and take a left. His office is the second or so on the right. The name’s on the door.”

Nick nodded. “Thanks.” He gave another polite smile and followed her directions. He quickly found himself in front of a polished wood door, mounted with a name plaque that was engraved, James Turner. The door was ajar, and when he cautiously peered around it, Nick could see Jamie moving around his office, tucking things into the briefcase that was open on his desk. His back was to Nick, and Nick took the few seconds’ opportunity to collect his thoughts before rapping brusquely on the doorframe.

Jamie started, turning quickly to see who was there. When he saw Nick, he stopped dead in his tracks, and Nick suppressed a smirk as he watched the range of emotions that flickered across the other man’s face. He first looked surprised and a little confused, as if he couldn’t quite believe it was possible that it was Nick standing at the door of his office. But a look of hostility quickly replaced the disbelief in his features.

“You. I knew it was you she was with. What the hell are you doing here?” he hissed in a low voice, storming towards Nick.

Nick didn’t flinch. “I came to have a little word with you,” he replied, raising his eyebrows significantly as he struggled to keep his voice calm and cool. “You think we can talk man to man here?”

Jamie narrowed his eyes. “I’ve got nothing to say to you, other than ‘Stay away from my wife.’ Claire’s going through enough right now; she doesn’t need you coming here and getting her all confused.”

“Confused?” Nick repeated. “Give her some credit; Claire’s a smart woman. She knows what she wants and what she doesn’t, and sooner or later, she’s gonna act on that. I think you’re the one who needs to get his head screwed on straight, if you wanna keep calling Claire your ‘wife’ in the future.”

Jamie arched his dark eyebrows. “Is that a threat? You coming to ‘straighten me out,’ are you?”

Nick held up his hands in defense. “I just wanna talk, man. That’s all,” he said. It wasn’t really all he wanted to do to Jamie, but he knew that beating him to a pulp wouldn’t accomplish anything, except piss Claire off, and she was the whole reason he was here. He wanted to make things better for her, less stressful, not more so. He would have to keep a tight control on his temper around Jamie.

Jamie still looked suspicious – not that Nick blamed him – but after a few seconds of surveying Nick, he nodded and wordlessly motioned for him to come into the office. Nick walked in, closing the door behind him, and sat down in a chair in front of Jamie’s desk. Jamie walked around behind the desk, a smug smile passing across his lips as he sat down in his high-backed, swiveling office chair. It probably made him feel important, to be sitting on the other side of the desk with Nick in front of him. Nick was not impressed.

Jamie shut his briefcase and cleared it off the desk, then glared at Nick across the polished wood surface. “So? Let’s hear it, Carter. But let me warn you, if you came to preach about what’s been going on with Claire, save it. You haven’t been here; you don’t know.”

“What don’t I know?” challenged Nick. “She told me everything last night, when she was crying in my hotel room. You know how often I’ve seen Claire cry? Lemme tell you – not that often. She must be going through a lot to be that upset, and half of it is ‘cause of you.”

Jamie rolled his eyes and started shaking his head, looking defensive. “We lost our baby. Our baby. Of course she’s upset! So am I!” he shouted, though Nick found that he could not seem to look him right in the eye. Instead, Jamie seemed to stare at his chin as he spoke. “You don’t know what it’s like. You don’t know shit about what she’s going through, so how dare you say it’s my fault?”

“I know what it’s like to lose,” Nick countered, and he could feel his palms starting to sweat as he went on. “Whether it’s a pregnancy, or a person you care about, or a part of yourself… whatever, it doesn’t matter; the grief isn’t all that different. And yeah, she’s grieving right now. You probably are too, if you’re not too cold-hearted to feel that kind of pain. But lemme tell you, shared grief is better than doing it alone. She needs people around her right now; she needs people she can talk to and get her feelings out. She needs you; she needs your support. And you’re not there for her.”

Nick leaned across the desk, glaring directly into Jamie’s eyes as his tone grew sharper, his words more harsh. “Every time she needs you, you fucking bail on her. How can you even call yourself her husband? What kind of man are you? Who does that to his wife, the woman he supposedly loves??”

Jamie looked so angry and assaulted, his nostrils actually flared. His face had grown ashen, making his eyes even more piercing as they bored into Nick. If looks could kill… “Who are you to judge?” Jamie fired back. “You sure as hell weren’t the perfect boyfriend to her, cause she left you! She dumped your ass, and you're still not over her, so now you're stalking her, trying to turn her against me. You're just jealous. Jealous and pathetic.”

“Good one,” said Nick, unfazed. “If caring makes me pathetic, I guess I am a lot more pathetic than you.”

“You saying I don’t care? Well, you can shove it, Carter, cause it’s none of your damn business how I feel about my wife. She’s my wife to care for, not yours.”

“She’s still my friend, and if you were doing your damn job as her husband, she wouldn’t need me to come and ‘care for’ her. But you dragged her up here, a million miles away from everyone she knows, and then you abandoned her. Someone had to be there for her.”

“And that someone had to be you, huh? Of course it did.” Jamie rolled his eyes, glaring away from Nick. “Nick Carter, Backstreet Boy Wonder, here to save the day again. I know you think you’re pretty damn special, and you’ve got her brainwashed into thinking it too, but I don’t. Why don’t you get a real job and stop interfering in our private problems?”

“I wouldn’t be ‘interfering’ at all if she hadn’t called me. And why did she call me, Jamie? Huh? Why did she?” asked Nick, refusing to even acknowledge the jabs at his career. He was too used to being made fun of for being in a boyband to let it bother him now.

Jamie didn’t seem to have an answer for that one, but after a few seconds, he snarled, “You’re a fucking hypocrite, you know that? You sit here in my office and attack the way I treat my wife, but you know something? I seem to remember a time when Claire called Dianna and me, all freaked out because she thought her bone marrow was rejecting, and you had gone off and disappeared on her! And where the hell were you? Shit-faced in a bar with some chick, as I recall. So where do you get off accusing me of bailing on her? Who was there for her that night, huh? It was me! Me and Di. Her real friends.”

Nick felt his face getting hot with shame; finally, Jamie had struck a nerve. There wasn’t much he could say back in defense of that, because he knew it was true. He and Jamie both knew it. But he couldn’t stand Jamie turning it all around on him, like Jamie was the saint. That was bullshit.

“Oh yeah, you’re a real good friend to her,” he muttered to Jamie, voice full of sarcasm. “I saw what a real friend you were to her when she was sick, when she was going through her transplant and almost died of an infection. And I heard all about what a real friend you were to her before that, when she got sick in the first place, and you avoided her like the plague. What a pal.”

Jamie rolled his eyes. “How far back are we gonna go with this, huh? You gonna bring up the time I accidentally beamed her in the head with a soccer ball in our freshman year of high school? Ancient history, man; this is ridiculous. Why am I still even listening to this shit?” He started to get up, his swivel chair sliding backwards, and Nick rose too, grateful for the few inches of height he had over Jamie.

“So let’s talk about the present then,” he said, glaring at the other man in a way that said, You’re gonna have to get past me to get to the door. I’m not as easy to push over as you might think. As the thought passed through his head, he tried to steel himself, planting his feet firmly against the floor. He could feel the knee of his prosthesis lock into place, and he knew he wasn’t going to allow himself to go down without a fight, if that’s how Jamie wanted to handle things. “That’s what I came to talk about in the first place. You’re the one who started bringing up the past.”

Jamie matched his glare, but behind his intensely cold blue eyes, Nick could detect a hint of insecurity. Nick may have been the one with only one leg, but Jamie knew that he didn’t have a leg to stand on in this argument – pardon the pun. It was hard for Nick to keep a straight face as he watched the internal battle start to play out on Jamie’s. The guy knew he was wrong, but he was too damn arrogant to admit it. He seemed to be struggling with the decision of whether to knock Nick aside and run, or sit back down and face the music.

In the end, Jamie chose the music. He sank back down into his chair, still glaring hatefully at Nick, who sat down too. For a moment, they just stared at each other, their eyes locked in a silent battle. Then, Nick spoke.

“I was wrong to leave her that night, when she thought she was rejecting. I’m not gonna sit here and pretend that wasn’t a shitty thing to do. It was, and I know it hurt her, and I felt terrible about it afterwards. But I apologized. And she forgave me. And I’ve never turned my back on her since. I never would. But you… you’ve pulled this shit on her again and again, and every time she gives you another chance, you blow it. And all I’m saying is, if you keep this shit up, you’re never gonna get another chance to treat her right, cause next time, she’ll walk out on you.”

“She’s done it before,” he added, before Jamie could even try to protest. “She did it to me. I came home from LA and found a fucking note on my stairs. She moved all of her stuff out of my house and didn’t even warn me. I’m honestly surprised she hasn’t pulled the same thing with you already, cause I treated her a helluva lot better than you have been. But then, you’re married. She’s pregnant with your kids. Of course, she’s gonna want to make things work. Personally, I don’t think you deserve another chance. But you better damn well take advantage of it if she’s gonna give you one, cause if you don’t, I guarantee, at some point, Claire’s gonna leave you. She doesn’t take a whole lot of crap from people, and you’ve given her more shit than anyone.”

Jamie eyed Nick skeptically, the resentment still radiating from his eyes. “Did she tell you that?” he asked, his voice suddenly subdued.

“She didn’t have to. I know her pretty well, you know. And I’ve been through this with her before. If she’s not happy, it’s only a matter of time. So you better take your foot out of your ass and start making her happy. Doesn’t she deserve to be happy?”

“Of course she does,” Jamie muttered, looking away. “You know, it’s not like I tried to make her un-happy. It’s just… it’s a lot to handle, all of this crap we’ve been going through. And yeah, I said ‘we’ve.’ That baby was as much mine as it was hers. You think it was easy for me to have to choose between my wife and my child?”

“Hell no, man. No way. But that’s the thing – it should have been the two of you making that choice and getting through it together. And instead, you left her alone to handle it all by herself. That’s not something anyone should have to go through alone.”

Very slightly, Jamie nodded, and very quietly, Nick heard him say, “I know.” He looked down at his desk for a long time, and when he finally looked up again, his eyes looked unusually bright.

Nick was caught off-guard by the sight of tears there; all of a sudden, he felt incredibly uncomfortable. He had expected Jamie to rage at him… but not to cry. Nick hadn’t even been sure his words would have any effect on Jamie; he had only gone to talk to him because he felt like he should try, for Claire’s sake.

“I know I hurt her,” Jamie muttered, jerking a hand through his curly hair. “I didn’t want to… I didn’t mean to run out on her that day. It was just… instinct, or something. It was like a knee-jerk reaction, and I was out of there. I felt fucking awful about it, but what can I do? How can I possibly make that up to her?”

“Look, just apologize to her, for starters. Let her know you’re sorry; show her you care,” Nick suggested, frowning at Jamie, who, in his mind, had reached a new low of patheticness himself. “All you have to do is just be there for her and listen to her and talk to her, for crying out loud. It ain’t that hard to do. If you love her, you should be able to do that.”

“I do love her. I’ve always loved her,” Jamie murmured, bowing his head as he swiped at his eyes. Nick felt a stabbing sensation in his heart; that was one, if not the only, thing he and Jamie had in common. They both loved the same woman. But in life’s usual unfairness, she had chosen the one who didn’t show it, rather than the one who would do anything to take away her pain. But apparently love hadn’t been enough for Claire and Nick.

“Then maybe you should start showing her that,” Nick said in disgust and stood abruptly.

Jamie looked up, the anger gone from his eyes. “Where are you going?”

“I’m leaving,” replied Nick, who didn’t think he could sit across the desk from Claire’s sniveling husband for much longer. “I said what I came to say; I just hope, for Claire’s sake, that you’ll think about it and start acting like a real husband to her. ‘Cause if you don’t, I guarantee, those babies of yours are gonna be raised by a single mother. And I know Claire would do a damn good job of it on her own.”

Jamie snorted, indignation returning to his features. “Don’t get your hopes up, Carter. I don’t believe in divorce, and neither does she. She’s not gonna leave me. Once I show her how much I love her, she and I will be just fine, the way we always were.”

The way we always were. With Jamie’s smug words echoing in his mind, Nick shook his head and walked out of the office without another word. He’d thought it would give him a sense of triumph to confront Jamie and give him hell for treating Claire the way had been… but the triumph had already come and gone, leaving Nick feeling, instead, strangely defeated.

***