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Chapter 17


AN: Thanks to Mary for her suggestions for this chapter! I totally got out of having to do much Nick “channeling,” cause she rocks at it!


If you’re not the one
Then why does my soul feel glad today?
If you’re not the one
Then why does my hand fit yours this way?
If you are not mine
Then why does your heart return my call?
If you are not mine
Would I have the strength to stand at all?

I never know what the future brings
But I know you’re here with me now
We’ll make it through, and I hope you are
The one I share my life with

- “If You’re Not the One” by Daniel Bedingfield


“So… we do need to talk, you know.”

Snuggled up with Claire on her sagging old couch, Nick smiled knowingly. He had expected that. “Yeah,” he replied. “I guess we do.”

Claire pulled herself out of his arms and straightened up, twisting her body around so that she was sitting sideways on the couch, facing Nick, one leg tucked under her. He turned so that he was facing her as well, and she reached out and took both of his hands. Playing with them absently in her lap, she said, “I think we need to continue the conversation we were trying to have on Monday… just get everything out, but calmly, no fighting. Okay?”

He nodded. “No fighting,” he promised. Smiling crookedly, he added, “I don’t wanna fight with you anymore.”

She smiled back, in a way that made his heart flutter with happiness. In the days since their argument, he had missed seeing that smile. “I don’t want to fight with you anymore either,” she said.

“Good. So…” He shrugged his shoulders. “Where do we start?” He was almost afraid to bring up the issue of her moving in with him again, but he knew it was going to have to be discussed at some point. They couldn’t fight about it and then never talk about it again. It had to be resolved, one way or the other.

“Well…” As if she’d been reading his mind, Claire replied, “We need to talk about what you asked me on Monday.”

He nodded solemnly, not saying anything. He’d let her talk first, see what she had to say. Maybe she’d agree to move in with him right then and there? Doubtful, but a guy could hope. Certainly what he’d done for her on the stairs had to carry some weight. He had put a lot of work into thinking up that scheme and then actually carrying it out, mustering up every ounce of romance he could. He’d spent all day cutting pieces of paper and lengths of ribbon, writing out the song lyrics, tying the notes to the long-stemmed roses he’d ordered from the florist. The actual set-up had been the worst – he didn’t know how many times he’d climbed up and down those stupid stairs, carefully placing the roses on each step, double-checking to make sure they were all perfectly lined up and in the right order. It was probably a miracle he hadn’t tripped or missed a step along the way and ended up in a heap at the bottom of the staircase with a broken neck or something. That could have worked to get her attention too, but it would have been a little extreme.

“Look, Nick, before I say anything else, I just want you to know this – I love you… and it’s not that I don’t want to move in with you. It’s just a big decision – at least to me it is – maybe bigger than you realize. And the way you asked me on Monday, it seemed like you were expecting an answer from me right then and there. And I couldn’t give you an answer then, not without thinking about it first. Do you understand that?”

Nick nodded again. He did understand that, now. He hadn’t as much on Monday, but he’d done some thinking of his own since then. He’d also talked to AJ on the phone, the day after the big fall-out.

“Did you have an easy time getting Mary to move in with you?” he’d asked, wondering what he was doing wrong.

“Yeah… I just kinda brought it up one night, and we both thought it would be fun to move in together,” replied AJ. “Why, are you thinking about finally asking Claire to move in?”

“Yeah… I already did, actually… only it didn’t go well at all. We kinda had a fight about it… a big fight.”

“Aw, sorry, Kaos. Well, give her some time; maybe she’s just not ready for that yet.”

“But we’ve been together five months, and you and Mary had only been together, what, like two weeks?”

AJ chuckled. “Well, you’re talking about two different people here, Nick. Claire’s not Mary. She’s just gonna need some more time, it sounds like. Claire’s a practical girl; she’s got a good head on her shoulders. Maybe she just needs to think on it for awhile. I say just give her some time, don’t push the issue, and wait for her to come around. And in the meantime, do something romantic for her. Chicks love that stuff.”

Looking back, AJ was so right. Bone had always been such a ladies man, and now Nick knew why. He wasn’t just some dog who used his charms and his wits to get chicks in his bed. He was a lot more sensitive and intuitive than most people gave him credit for. AJ seemed to actually understand women, more than Nick felt he ever would. Maybe that’s why AJ had always been better at finding the good ones. Not that he hadn’t ever been used in the past, but none of the women he’d ever dated were as bad as some of the girls Nick had been with.

I’m getting better though, Nick thought, a faint smile coming to his lips as he looked at Claire.

“What are you smiling at?” she asked, instead of what she had been planning to say next.

“Just thinking about how much I love you,” he replied. He was being sincere, but she rolled her eyes.

“You’re sweet, Nick, but before you go buttering me up to get me to move in with you, hear me out. There are several reasons why I’m not sure about moving in with you yet, and the possibility of us breaking up someday is just one of them.”

“What are the other ones?” Nick asked quickly, wanting to avoid the topic of them breaking up. He didn’t want to think about that.

“Well… one of them is just the idea of moving out of my home and into yours. I know that this apartment…” She looked around the small, cluttered room, “…. probably doesn’t even qualify as a ‘home’ to you, but I’ve lived here for three years, I pay my own rent… it’s mine.”

He nodded. “So… this is an independence thing? You like living on your own, taking care of yourself?” He already knew this about her. She was the exact opposite of Leah when it came to money, never wanting him to spend too much on her, always insisting on paying for things herself. He found it hard to get used to, but at the same time, admirable.

“Yeah…” Claire said slowly, “I guess so. But there’s other things to think about too. My parents…”

He groaned inwardly, but tried not to let it show on the outside. “What about your parents?”

“Well…” She made a face, shifting awkwardly. “I don’t know how well they’d like the idea of me moving in with you.”

“Why??” he asked immediately, feeling slightly hurt. She’d told him her parents liked him.

“It’s not you,” Claire replied quickly. “It’s just the whole idea of me living with a man I’m not married to. My parents are pretty traditional when it comes to stuff like that, and I’m not sure they – my dad especially – would be too happy about it. My brother and his wife didn’t live together until they got married.”

Nick frowned. “Well, listen, Claire, I’m not telling you to go against your dad, but… well, you’re an adult. At this point, you can do what you want – you shouldn’t have to look for your parents’ approval on everything.”

“I don’t!” she insisted. “But I also don’t want to piss them off by doing something I know they’re not going to approve of.”

Nick sighed. “So that’s a no then.”

She shook her head slowly. “No… not necessarily. I just need to think about it… and maybe talk to my mom this weekend. You know, bring it up, see what she thinks. When it all comes down to it, if I really want to move in with you, Nick, I will.”

Well, what was that supposed to mean? Hadn’t she thought about it already? How long was it going to take for her to make up her mind? Confused as he was, he decided to just let these questions go unanswered for the time being, not wanting to start another argument by asking.

“So,” said Claire, “I guess that’s what I would have told you Monday, if you’d stuck around long enough.” She winked, and he blushed, hanging his head guiltily.

“I’m sor-“ he started to say, but she put her finger to his lips, shushing him.

“We already did the apology thing, remember? And I already said what was on my mind – now it’s your turn.”

My turn? Nick thought. Hm, well, now was his time to try to persuade her to go against everything she’d just said and move in with him anyway. How exactly he was going to do that, he didn’t know, but he figured he’d just start talking, tell her how he felt, and hope something convincing came out.

“Okay… well…” he began awkwardly, fumbling for words. Finally, he just went for it. “Listen, Claire, I love you… and you love me… and I know neither of us know what’s going to happen in the future, whether we’re always going to be together or not, but we are now, and I think now is the time to focus on us… not on what other people will think, or what’s happened in the past, or what’s going to happen in the future. We just need to concentrate on the here and now, and us.”

He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts and then continued, “Moving in together could be a risk, yeah, because we don’t know how it will be, or what’s going to happen. But so what? Life’s all about taking risks – you and I both know that. Look at your bone marrow transplant... that was a risk – 50/50, right? But you took it, and you’re alive and healthy now because of it. And my lung surgery… the odds were even less in my favor there, but I went for it, and if I hadn’t, who knows if I’d be sitting here with you right now. After all of the crap we’ve been through, living together should be a piece of cake!”

He let out a breath, searching her face for some kind of response, his eyes locked on the blue of hers. She gazed back at him for a moment, and he watched her slowly bite down on her bottom lip. Finally, she said, “You have a good point, Nick. You really do.”

“Yeah?” he asked faintly, pleased with himself.

Smiling, she nodded. “Maybe you’re right. We don’t know how this is all going to turn out… but since when have we ever? I mean, think back two years ago, before we really knew each other. Did you ever think-“

“No,” he answered, before she had finished. He wasn’t even sure exactly what she was going to say, but it probably would have been a “no” no matter what. Two years ago, he’d been living in his own private hell, enduring his very first round of chemotherapy in secret. Back then, he could only see as far ahead as the immediate future. He didn’t even know if he’d be alive in two years. And he certainly never thought he would be alive, but missing his leg, and head over heels (okay, heel) in love with a girl he’d never given a second thought back then, a girl he’d only seen as someone who was sick and happened to be going through almost the same thing as he was.

She snickered. “Me neither.”

“But everything turned out for the bes-“ He stopped, his eyes instinctively lowering to his left leg, and corrected himself, “… well, maybe not for the best, but… good, at any rate. Not everything in my life has gone exactly the way I wanted it to, but… I’m happy. You make me happy, Claire.”

She squeezed his hands within hers, smiling up at him. “You make me happy too.”

“So… let’s move in together. Then we can make each other happy all the time.” He grinned cheekily. She was never going to buy this… but he had to try, right?

She giggled. “Uh-huh…”

Okay, not sold yet. One last try: “I have a jacuzzi, you know. Upstairs, in the master bath.”

“Ahh, that’s right…” she said slowly. “We haven’t been in it together yet.”

“We could go in it together every night if you wanted to,” he haggled, raising his eyebrows suggestively. “After we play on the beach out back…”

She giggled. "You’re really reaching now, you know.”

“I know,” he admitted sheepishly. “But-“

“But it’s working.”

Nick stopped, astonished. “It is?”

“It is,” she smiled. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t care so much about what other people think, or about what’s going to happen to us later on. Maybe I’ve been thinking too much. Maybe I should just be spontaneous and say ‘screw it all - let’s move in together.’”

He cocked his head at her in surprise. “Yeah…” he said, a slow smile stretching across his face. “That would work for me…”

She grinned. “Fine. Screw it all - let’s move in together.”


How can I begin to
Tell you what you do to
Me every time I hear you
More willing to wanna see you
I know that there’s no use in
Trying to explain my confusion
But still I’m not complaining
‘Bout my situation…

Let’s not talk about a possible ending
Let’s not think about it every day
And I know I’m so in love with you
I’m finding it harder and harder to breathe
Every time with you
My beautiful woman

- “My Beautiful Woman” by the Backstreet Boys


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