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Chapter 2

Claire Ryan staggered into her apartment and tossed her keys haphazardly toward her kitchen table. They hit the table, skidded straight across the smooth wood, and flew off the other end, landing with a jangling clatter on the linoleum floor. She made no move to pick them up. Instead, she breezed on by, dropping her purse onto one of the chairs, and turned the corner, ducking into the first room on her right.

She flipped on the light and shut the door behind her, turning to survey the tiny bathroom. She grimaced at the sight of it. She could hardly see the counter of her vanity for all the crap that was scattered across it. Toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, hair brush and comb, blow dryer, flat iron, various makeup products… all still left there from her rush to get ready for work the previous morning. And it would have to remain there for now; she had no desire to straighten up yet. She needed a shower.

She started to shed her clothes and realized she was still wearing Nick’s sweatshirt. “Whoops,” she said, pulling the huge thing up and over her head. She tossed it to the floor. Add that to the collection. It was not the first sweatshirt of Nick’s that had accidentally ended up in her place (and stayed there – she always seemed to “accidentally” forget to return them… not like he really noticed; the guy had more clothes than any girls she knew, even her friend Dianna), and it would probably not be the last. It wasn’t her fault; he always had the air conditioning cranked in his house, making it so she was always freezing.

She wasn’t freezing anymore though; she was actually quite warm, and it felt good to get the sweatshirt off. “Serves you right for wearing a sweatshirt when it’s the end of March and you live in Florida,” she muttered to herself, quickly stripping off the rest of her clothes and leaving them in an untidy heap on the floor. She went over to the shower, turned on the water full blast, and climbed in, expelling a sigh as the hot water washed over her aching body, which was stiff and sore from sleeping on Nick’s couch all night. Add that to the fact that her head was still pounding from the hangover she’d woken up with, and the result was that she felt like crap all-around. Hopefully a nice long shower would help.

She squirted some shampoo into the palm of her hand and worked it through her short red hair, closing her eyes as she massaged her scalp with sudsy fingers. She had always loved washing her hair, especially lately, now that it had grown to a decent length again. Twice in the past five years, all her hair had fallen out, the result of chemotherapy treatments for her leukemia. It was not the worst of the many side-effects she’d had to endure, but though she’d tried to look on the bright side (“Well, at least I won’t have to worry about doing my hair in the morning. And I can always get a wig and totally change hairstyles if I want to”), when it came down to it, the whole thing just sucked.

But that was behind her now. She’d finished up her last course of chemo after her bone marrow transplant a year and a half ago. All of the short-term side effects were gone, her wig (a shoulder-length, raven black piece) was hidden away in her closet somewhere, and just by looking at her, one would never know she’d had cancer. She was lucky. Lucky to be alive, lucky to have sailed through the transplant that saved her life, and lucky to have come out of the ordeal fairly unscathed, at least on the outside.

Nick had not been so lucky. He was slowly coming to accept what had happened to him, but at the same time, she knew he was still bothered by it. He was still horribly insecure, self-conscious whenever he was not wearing his prosthetic leg and a pair of long pants, even in front of her. He didn’t have to be though; she wasn’t bothered by it. She had been at first, though she’d tried her best to hide it from him. It had been hard seeing him those first few days after the amputation. But now, almost a year later, the sight of him with or without the prosthesis had become second nature to her. That was just Nick.

Her Nick.

The two of them been “dating” for almost four months now; they had made it official on New Year’s Eve. There had been few dates that first month though, while Nick was still recovering from lung surgery. But things had picked up in February, and now that it was nearing April, the initial awkwardness of the change in their relationship was gone, and they felt like a real couple. They were taking things slow though, savoring every moment they spent together, not wanting to go too fast and spoil the friendship they had.

But Claire liked it that way. Finally, she was happy. Happier than she had been in a long time. She had not been in a relationship that seemed this perfect since she’d been with Jamie, her high school sweetheart. She and Jamie were still friends, but to her, he represented her past, the tail end of her childhood, before college, before cancer, and before Nick. It was nice to look back on the past, but now that everything in her life seemed to be back in order, she was ready to look to the future.

Right then, though, she was taken to the present. With a start, she realized she had been spacing out and wondered how long she’d been standing there in the shower, wasting water. She smirked to herself and dipped her head under the spray, rinsing the foam from her hair. She finished washing herself quickly and got out, grabbing a towel to dry off.

Within a few minutes, she had changed into an old t-shirt and baggy pair of sweatpants, downed a couple of ibuprofen for her headache, quickly cleaned up her bathroom, and was sprawled across the sunken couch in her living room. She turned on the TV and immediately flipped to The Learning Channel, only to find a woman screaming in the delivery room on an episode of “A Baby Story.” Frowning, she switched to Comedy Central instead and was pleased to find the movie “Office Space” just starting. Setting down the remote, she lay back to watch. It felt so nice to have an afternoon to herself, with nowhere to be and nothing to do. She loved having days off. She usually ended up spending them with Nick, but after a whole night with him, she was ready to go back to her own place, veg on her own couch, and nurse her hangover in peace.

***

At the same time the following Friday, Claire was back at work in the dentist’s office where she was employed as a dental hygienist. Right then, though, she was seated at the front desk, filling in for the receptionist while she took a late lunch break. Although she liked working on patients better, she didn’t mind working the desk for an hour at a time and was usually the one to volunteer for the job. It was nothing new for her; for the first few months after she had come back to work following her bone marrow transplant, they had put her at the front desk. Her immune system had been virtually wiped out during the transplant, and because even a simple cold could be very serious, it had not been a good idea for her to handle patients at first. Instead, she’d become a pro at handling scheduling and phone calls.

She was on the phone right now, trying to calm down a hysterical-sounding mother who had picked up her eight-year-old son from school to find that the child’s teeth and gums were black.

“Ask him if one of the other kids gave him a piece of gum or something like that to eat,” Claire said calmly and waited, listening to the muffled voices on the other end of the line.

“He says another boy in his class gave him gum. Is that was caused this?” the woman asked.

“Probably. There’s trick gum that will change your mouth black like that; I’m sure that’s what it was. Just an April Fool’s prank,” Claire explained, wondering how many other calls like that would come in that day. She reassured the mother that the black mouth was only temporary and that her son would be fine and hung up, only to have the phone ring again instantly. Groaning, she picked it up and answered pleasantly, “The office of Dr. Somers and Dr. Pantero, how can I help you?”

***

For Nick, the day had been a strange one. He’d woken up fairly early and, unable to fall back to sleep, turned on the TV to find Katie Couric and Matt Lauer discussing the history of April Fool’s Day on the “Today” show. And that’s when he remembered. It was the first of April. Exactly one year ago, he had been on an operating table, under anesthesia, undergoing amputation surgery.

Waking up to that memory had left him fairly subdued, and as he puttered around the house, slowly getting ready for the day, he could not help but feel sorry for himself. He tried not to let himself wallow in self-pity too often these days, but he figured he was allowed to every once in awhile. Some days, it was hard not to.

But by noon, he had managed to pull himself out of that morning’s slump, and as he sat gnawing on a piece of cold fried chicken and watching TV, he again remembered the date. It was April Fool’s Day. And he had not yet fooled anyone.

He stopped chewing, a slow smile spreading over his face. In past years, April Fool’s Day had been a favorite holiday of his. He and Brian had always had a great time of it in their younger days – the general rule in the Backstreet camp was that when the two of them were together on April 1, watch out. He could think of countless pranks they’d pulled on people over the years.

Unfortunately, the reality was that things had changed. They both had grown up – Brian was thirty now! Thirty! (Nick had given him hell on his birthday in February.) Not to mention, Brian was also a husband, a father, and a resident of Atlanta, Georgia, eight hours away from Nick’s home in Tampa, Florida. The other guys were spread across the country as well. Kevin and AJ were all the way out in Los Angeles, and even if Howie was only in Orlando, they were all still too far away to prank that year.

But he could still get Claire.

His smile turned wicked as he pictured her in her bright-colored scrubs, working at the dentist’s office. She got off at two that day. He vowed he would have something planned for her.

***

Sitting in his green Durango outside a small gray building with a big sign that read Dr. Barry Somers, D.D.S. and Dr. Timothy Pantero, D.D.S., Nick put his plan into action. Reaching into a plastic bag that sat on the seat next to him, he pulled out two small packages and opened them up. Turning down his sun visor so that he could see his reflection in the mirror on the back of it, he quickly set to work, blackening out his front teeth with the black putty he’d been lucky enough to find at a local costume shop and sticking a small capsule in his mouth. He stored the capsule in one cheek and grinned widely into the mirror, examining his work. He had to laugh; it felt like Halloween all of a sudden. Halloween in April.

It felt even more like Halloween when he bit down on the capsule in his mouth and felt his mouth fill with thick, syrupy liquid. He let some of the dark red substance trickle out of the corners of his mouth, but clamped his lips together, keeping most of it in. Covering his mouth with his right hand, he hurriedly opened the car door with his left and climbed carefully out of the SUV. Steadying himself on the blacktop parking lot, he locked the door and shut it, dropping his keys into his pocket. Then he set off quickly for the entrance of the building, opening his mouth a little behind his hand to let some of the “blood” run out onto his palm.

His act began the moment he burst into the dentist’s office and staggered through the waiting room, fake blood oozing between his fingers. He was relieved to see Claire sitting behind the window at the receptionist’s desk. Her eyes were fixed on the computer screen in front of her, but when he banged loudly into the room, she looked up. He saw the look of horror cross her face as he took his hand away from his mouth and choked, “Claire!”

Some of the blood from the capsule accidentally spattered onto the floor in front of him. Whoops. He quickly covered his mouth again, trying to hold it in.

“Nick!” Claire gasped, leaping up from her seat so fast she sent the wheelie office chair flying. She darted out from behind her cubicle and hurried across the waiting room to him. “What happened?” she cried, reaching up to pry his hand away from his face. “Let me see!”

He kept his hand clamped tightly over his mouth, twisting out of her reach. “My teeth!” he moaned, his voice muffled.

“Come on, come with me.” She put her arm around him and hurried him across the waiting room, through a door, and into a short hallway lined with rooms. “Tim!” she cried, as she led him into the first room on the left. “I mean, Dr. Pantero!” Glancing over his shoulder, Nick saw Tim’s head pop out of one of the rooms on the right.

“What’s wrong?” he called down the hall.

“I need you in here! Now, please?” Claire helped Nick into the dental chair that sat in the middle of the room. He tried his best not to smile; this was too funny. “Nick, what happened? Did you fall?” she asked, as she bustled around the room. “What did you hit?” She threw a drape over his chest and tucked it quickly under his chin. “Did you knock them all the way out?”

He nodded wordlessly, still clutching his mouth and trying to look pained, as she expertly tugged on a pair of hygienic gloves, the latex snapping at her wrists. Plopping down in a chair, she wheeled over to his side and lowered the chair so that he was lying flat, just within her reach. “Okay, put your hand down,” she said, gently pulling his hand away and using the drape to wipe the blood from his mouth. “Open up and let me see.”

It was all he could do not to break down laughing right then and there, as he slowly opened his mouth for her. He studied her face carefully as she leaned over to look in… and waited. She used a tiny sponge to dab at the blood on the inside of his mouth so that she could see… and he watched the realization dawn. Her eyes narrowed, her brow creasing in confusion.

“Nick!” she cried. “What is-“ She reached into his mouth, and he could feel her gloved fingers against the black gunk he’d smeared over his teeth. He lost it right then and there, breaking down into giggles. She yanked her fingers out of his mouth, and then it was her mouth that dropped open. “Nick, you ass!” she shrieked, pummeling his shoulder. “I can’t believe you!”

“April Fool!” He grinned up at her with a mouthful of black and red. “I gotcha!”

“I can’t believe you!” she said again. “God, I thought you-“

“Claire? What’s going on in here?”

Their heads both flew to the door to see the infamous Tim standing there, a look of confusion etched on his face. “Is there an emergency?” he asked, bewildered, looking from Claire down to Nick. “Oh,” he said when his eyes rested on Nick, “it’s you. What happened, you got a tooth knocked out?”

“He’s fine,” Claire said through gritted teeth. “He’s just a little kid, playing April Fool’s pranks.” She glared at Nick over her shoulder, but he could tell by the way the corners of her mouth were twitching that she was trying hard not to smile. He just kept grinning, totally pleased that his practical joke had come off so well.

“Oh,” Tim said humorlessly, straightening his white lab coat and looking superior. “Well then, I’ll get back to my real patients.”

“Yeah,” Claire said hollowly. “Sorry for calling you in here.”

“Not a problem.” He turned swiftly and strode back down the hall.

“Wow, he looked pissed,” Nick said with a smirk.

She rolled her eyes. “Well, yeah, Nick, his work was interrupted. By you, no less.”

“You’re not mad, are you?” he asked, as she yanked off her gloves and tossed them into the trash, her back to him. She stood there for a moment, not saying anything, and for a moment he was afraid he’d gone too far; maybe she was mad. But then her shoulders started to shake, and by the time she turned back, she was giggling.

“You are really something, Nick, you know that?” she said, shaking her head and grinning.

He grinned back. “I know. I’m your something.”

She rolled her eyes again. “Yeah,” she said, smirking down at him. “You’re my something all right. Look, I’m off in like ten minutes, so you sit here and get yourself cleaned up, and then we’ll go.”

“Can I have some water or something to rinse my mouth?”

She handed him a tiny plastic cup. “There ya go.”

He looked down at the empty cup. “Water?”

Heaving a sigh, she snatched the cup back from him and slammed it down on the water dispenser/sink unit on the other side of the chair. “Push. The. Button.”

He smiled sheepishly and hit the button on the side of the sink, watching as a thin stream of water slowly filled the cup. “They do that for me at the dentist I go to!” he called, as Claire stalked out of the room.

***