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Chapter 38

Nick perched on the edge of the large hotel bed, waiting for Claire to get done exploring their suite and come back into the bedroom to talk to him. He had to admit, he was a little nervous. It’s nothing bad, she’d assured him, but she had sounded serious when she’d asked if they could talk.

“This place is amazing,” Claire said, coming into the bedroom with a look of awe on her face.

Nick patted an empty spot next to him on the bed. “C’mere. Let’s talk.”

Claire nodded and sat down beside him. “Okay. Look… when we were talking about Baylee in the car, and how lucky Brian and Leighanne are, it made me think. We’re getting married, Nick. We need to talk about the ‘having kids’ thing again. And we need to be perfectly honest with each other, lay everything out on the table.”

Nick almost laughed at the seriousness in her eyes. She looked so worried… as if he was suddenly going to tell her he just couldn’t marry her because she couldn’t give him children. The very notion of that was ridiculous. “Claire,” he started, “I already told you how I feel about that. Having kids is not the most important thing to me. You are.”

A hint of a smile appeared on her lips. “I know that’s what you told me before,” she said, “but in the car, you sounded… I don’t know… almost sad, I guess. Like you wished you could be like Brian and have a son of our own. And we both know I can’t give that to you…” She trailed off, her eyes shifting downward.

“Hey, hey,” he said, taking hold of her chin and gently lifting it towards him so that he could see her eyes again. “I know. And it doesn’t matter, okay? It doesn’t matter if you can’t get pregnant; we can always adopt if we want kids down the line. All I want right now is you.” He was still cupping her chin, so he leaned in and guided her face towards his for a kiss. He recoiled in surprise when she wrenched her face out of his grasp. Ouch. “What’s wrong?” he asked her, hurt.

Claire bit her lip, something she always did when she was nervous or upset. “I’m sorry… but there’s something else I need to tell you.”

Nick frowned. “Okay… what is it?”

“When I first told you I was sterile, there’s something I left out. I’m never going to be able to get pregnant naturally… but that doesn’t necessarily mean I can’t get pregnant.”

Nick raised his eyebrows, and it seemed like everything else inside him lifted with them. “You mean you could get pregnant?” he asked, his voice high with hope. “How? You mean with some kind of fertility drugs or that u-vitro fertilization thing or-“

“In-vitro fertilization, yeah,” she answered. “That’s when they implant fertilized eggs back into your body, and if it works, you get pregnant.”

“Right…” Nick nodded; that sounded simple enough. “So what’s the catch?” There had to be a catch; otherwise she would sound happy, right? After all, this was a good thing, wasn’t it?

Claire sighed. “Before my leukemia relapsed, I was still fertile. But when that happened, my oncologist told me that more chemo would probably make me sterile. She referred me to an OB/GYN, who explained all about the option of in-vitro fertilization, how they could harvest my eggs, freeze them, and store them so that I could use them to get pregnant later.”

Nick nodded his understanding. “So you have eggs frozen somewhere that you can use someday?”

“Yes,” said Claire, “but here’s the thing - they only like to freeze fertilized eggs because they’ve been shown to work a lot better, as far as getting pregnant goes, so…”

“So your frozen eggs are already fertilized?” finished Nick, thinking for a moment. “You mean with-?”

“Donor sperm.”

Nick didn’t even notice that they were finishing each other’s sentences. He was too busy staring at Claire, as the reality of her words sunk in. “So you’re telling me you can get pregnant… but not by me.”

Claire nodded slowly. “Basically.”

“Oh.” Nick wasn’t sure why he felt so disappointed… the fact that this option existed was a good thing, wasn’t it? It meant that there was a chance Claire could have children of her own after all. But not his children. Someone else’s children. “So do you know who the donor is?” he asked. “Just wondering.”

Claire got a funny look on her face. “Yeah… about that…” she started slowly, twisting her hands in her lap. Frowning, he waited for her to continue. “Most single women that have this done choose an anonymous sperm donor… which is what I was going to do, but… one of my guy friends offered to donate. And I let him.”

“One of your guy friends?” Nick repeated, narrowing his eyes as a sneaking suspicion came over him. “Anyone I know?”

Claire closed her eyes and took a breath. “Jamie.”

Nick’s shoulders slumped as he heard the worst possibility confirmed. Jamie. He began to grow angry as he heard the name echoing in his head; it was a name that never failed to invoke feelings of inferiority and resentment within him, though he wasn’t quite sure why. He was engaged to Claire, not Jamie, and yet…

How could she??

“So let me get this straight,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “You had your ex-boyfriend donate his sperm to you.”

“I told you, he offered,” Claire replied immediately. “What was I supposed to do? Say, ‘No thanks, Jamie, your sperm’s not good enough, I’d rather get it from some random guy I don’t know’?”

“How about ‘no thanks, Jamie, it would be too weird because you’re my ex-boyfriend’? Did you think of that one??”

Claire sighed. “I know, Nick. I did think of that… but… I dunno, I guess I thought it would be okay… ex-boyfriend or not, he’s still my friend.”

“Yeah, and someday he might be the father of your children, even when you’re married to someone else – me! You don’t think that’s a little weird?”

“He won’t be though… We talked about it, Nick; we had to sign an agreement. He did this for me with no strings attached. We weren’t together when it happened; we hadn’t been for five years. He wanted to do this for me because he’s my friend, and he felt bad. He understands just as well as I do that if I ever use the eggs to get pregnant, he won’t have any responsibility toward the children.”

Nick shook his head. “And you expect him to be able to look at a child of yours, knowing full well that he’s its father, and not feel anything?” he asked, his voice laden with skepticism.

“Ours, Nick… it would be ours. Yours and mine. Not Jamie’s.”

“But-“

“The biology of it doesn’t matter,” Claire interrupted. “If we adopted a child, it wouldn’t be biologically yours either, Nick. Would that bother you too?”

Nick sighed. This wasn’t fair. She was tiptoeing around the point here. “No,” he answered firmly, “but that’s different. I probably wouldn’t know the father. And even if I did, he sure as hell wouldn’t be one of your ex-boyfriends.”

“Could you stop calling him my ex-boyfriend? That was in high school, alright? We were friends before we dated, and we’ve been friends since we broke up seven years ago. He’s not just my ex-boyfriend. He’s one of my best friends, and it bothers me that you don’t like him.”

“I hardly know him, Claire,” Nick replied irritably, annoyed at the fact that she could tell he didn’t like Jamie. “And this isn’t about him personally. It’s about you letting your old boyfriend give you his sperm.”

“Yeah, I get it, okay? It was probably a stupid thing to do, but I had my reasons,” Claire muttered, looking away from him. “Somehow I knew you weren’t going to take this well, and that’s why I didn’t tell you this before. But it doesn’t matter now… it’s just an option, and we definitely don’t have to use it. I just wanted you to know.”

Nick shook his head; what was he supposed to say? Thanks? “Well, I guess I’m glad you told me,” he said flatly and sighed again, unable to hide his annoyance with her.

She didn’t say anything else, and neither did he. For what seemed like a long time, they just sat in silence, side by side, yet isolated by the distance between them. They stared into space in opposite directions, each lost in their own tumultuous thoughts.

Finally, she spoke. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, her voice small and meek.

He only gave a short nod in reply, his worries not yet put to rest by her hushed words. The bed jostled beneath him as she stood up, and he watched as she walked into the bathroom and shut the door with a click. He heard the sounds of her rustling around inside the room and water running and figured she was getting ready for bed. He stood as well and walked out of the bedroom, letting the door shut softly behind him. Wandering into the main room of the suite, he sank down onto the couch and picked up the remote. No use trying to go to bed now. He knew he wouldn’t sleep.

It was going to be a long night.

***

As she lay flat on her back in bed, staring up at the ceiling above her, Claire let out a long sigh. It’s going to be a long night, she thought.

She’d been lying there for half an hour already, but sleep seemed hours away. There was no way she could sleep now, upset as she was by the conversation she’d just had with Nick. Truthfully, she wasn’t surprised by his reaction – in a way, she had expected it. But that didn’t stop it from hurting.

She rolled onto her side and clutched a fistful of pillow, squeezing hard.

Sure, she had hoped he would take the news well, that he would see things from her perspective and be glad that she still had the option to carry a child someday. But she wasn’t naïve. She knew that Nick wasn’t a big fan of Jamie, and she figured he wouldn’t exactly celebrate when he found out Jamie had volunteered to be her sperm donor. That was why she had waited so long to tell him.

And really, who could blame him? As much as she hated having him upset with her, she certainly understood why he was. But there was nothing she could do to fix it now. There was no going back… although if she could, maybe she would.

I get it, okay? It was probably a stupid thing to do, but I had my reasons, she heard herself saying.

I had my reasons…

In her mind, she traveled back to that time, almost three years ago. She could still recall vividly sitting in the kitchen of Dianna’s apartment, sipping cocoa and tugging at her hair, hair that she knew would probably be gone in a matter of months, as she mulled over the decision she had to make.

“I think you should just go with it, Claire,” she remembered Dianna saying. “Jamie wants to do this for you. Why not let him? He’s been one of your best friends since we were in high school.”

“I know… but I don’t want him to do this because he feels sorry for me. And I don’t want things to get weird between us… weirder than they already have been since we broke up.”

“It’s not that he feels sorry for you. Personally, I think he’s mad at himself, for not being there for you the first time. But that’s only part of it. He cares about you, Claire; he wouldn’t have offered to do this if he didn’t.”

“Well, I care about him too. You know I still love him… but not the way I used to. That’s why I’m so unsure about this.”

“What’s love got to do with it? It’s not like you two are going to have a baby together, Claire. He would just be giving you the means to have a baby someday, when you’re ready. By then you’ll have some guy you do love to be that baby’s daddy. It won’t be Jamie. Using him would be just like using any other sperm donor… only with him, you know what you’re getting. And that’s a good thing, if you ask me. Jamie’s smart, he’s athletic, he’s a nice guy… and he’s attractive too, if you don’t mind me saying so. The curly hair… those blue eyes… Good genes, Claire. Think about it. You’d be doing your baby a favor.”

They’d both laughed. And Claire had thought about it, long and hard. And in the end, she’d taken Dianna’s advice and used Jamie’s sperm. It had seemed like a good decision at the time. It made her happy, to have been given a “Plan B,” something to fall back on, a way to bear a child later on if the upcoming cancer treatments made her infertile, as her oncologist said they probably would. It had made Jamie happy too, to be able to give her that option.

But now she was not so sure. Because it certainly hadn’t made Nick very happy, and he was the one who mattered most to her now. Maybe she should have just gone with a random donor. Then there would be no argument. She would have done what she had to do, given the circumstances. It wouldn’t change the fact that she and Nick could never conceive a child together. But it would change the possibility of having a child that was biologically Jamie’s.

She supposed she could have just kept the whole thing from Nick. Or lied and said she had used an anonymous donor. But neither would have felt right. She was glad she had told him… he had a right to know. Even if he was mad at her for what she had done, she didn’t regret telling him. She just hoped that when morning came and he’d had a chance to think, he would come around. They had been through too much to let this come between them.

***

Nick woke up with a horrible crick in his neck and found himself stretched out in an awkward position on the couch, where he’d evidently fallen asleep the night before. No pillow, no blanket, but at least he’d taken his leg off and plugged it into its charger for the night. As he sat up, massaging the side of his neck, he heard the bedroom door open. A moment later, Claire appeared. She had clearly just woken up too – she was still bleary-eyed, and her hair was sticking up and out in funny angles.

“Morning,” she greeted him in a low voice, wrapping her arms around herself and looking uncomfortable.

“Morning,” he echoed, his voice deep and gravelly from sleep. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Sleep okay?”

She shrugged. “I guess. How about you? Did you sleep there?”

He nodded. “Wasn’t too comfortable,” he confessed, rubbing his neck again.

“Doesn’t look like it,” she said, shaking her head. “Weren’t you cold? The air is cranked in here. I’m freezing.” She hugged herself tighter and shifted her weight, crossing one leg behind the other.

Nick just shrugged.

“Well, I’m getting back into bed, where it’s warm,” she said after a moment. “Are you coming?”

He met her eyes and realized she wanted him too. She wanted to make up. Though he was still not thrilled about the bombshell she’d dropped on him the night before, he had to admit, so did he. He hated fighting with her. Nodding, he twisted his body around and got up from the couch. He caught his balance on one leg and hopped after her as she led the way back into the bedroom of the hotel suite. They collapsed into bed together, burrowing beneath the warm layer of covers.

“This is so much more comfortable,” he sighed as his head landed on a soft pillow. “That damn couch did a number on my neck.”

“I’m really sorry, Nick.” Nick wasn’t really sure what she was sorry for – that he had slept on the couch? Or that she had let Jamie donate sperm to her? The way she sounded, maybe she was apologizing for it all.

He sighed. “You don’t have to be sorry, Claire. What’s done is done.”

“You’re not mad at me?” There was a note of uncertainty in her voice that matched the uncertainty inside him. Was he mad at her? No. He still wasn’t happy about what he had found out… but he wasn’t mad at her.

“No,” he told her honestly. “I’m not mad at you, Claire. I’m just…” He sighed in frustration, searching for the right words to express what he was feeling. “I don’t know… disappointed, I guess. Not in you though… I just hate this whole situation.”

“I know. I hate it too. I wish we could be like other couples – get married, have kids, simple as that. But it’s not gonna be that easy for us.”

Nick snorted. “Since when has anything been easy for us?”

Claire didn’t answer, and at least a minute passed without either of them speaking. Finally, Claire said, “Listen, I didn’t mean for us to start the day off with some deep, serious conversation. We don’t need to talk about this now – the children thing, I mean. We can bring it up again later, when the time’s right. I just want you to know though – if we ever do decide we want to become parents, we’ll choose whatever option will work best for both of us. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or to have you resent me for the choices I’ve made. I just wanted to tell you about that. It seemed wrong not to.”

Nick nodded. “I understand. And Claire… I don’t resent you for any choices you’ve made. You did what felt right to you at the time, and I can’t blame you for that. I was just upset last night, but I shouldn’t have gone off on you like that.”

Claire shook her head. “No… I understand. Believe me, I understand. I can’t blame you for being upset either. Like we said before, this whole situation just sucks.”

Nodding again, Nick let out another sigh. There was really only one culprit they could blame for all this grief, and that was the disease they had been battling together for over two years. Even though the cancer had been driven out of their bodies, remnants of it would always remain - in the scars on their skin… the stump of Nick’s missing leg… and their inability to conceive a child. They were like veterans of a war now, and try as they might to escape it, their battle wounds would never fully heal.

Nick had realized this before, and as his hand drifted down to touch the taut skin of his stump beneath the covers, it became clear to him once again. He was going to have to accept this, just like he had come to accept the amputation… just like Claire had accepted it. They both had suffered at the hand of cancer; the disease had taken things from both of them that they could never get back. But through it all, they had found each other. And as far as Nick was concerned, there was nothing that could separate them now.

Not even Jamie Turner.

***

There were other things on Nick’s mind by the time lunch rolled around. He’d left Claire at the hotel for the afternoon with the promise to take her sight-seeing later while he’d gone to join his bandmates, their manager, and several big-wigs from their record label for a lunch meeting. Sitting around a large table in one of the VIP rooms of an upscale LA restaurant, Nick had found his thoughts shifting from his future with Claire to his future with the Backstreet Boys. The group was unanimous on wanting to record another album. Now they were discussing the specifics – mainly when they would start recording and what they would record.

“There have been some major changes since your last album was released,” one of the label execs was saying. “Music has changed, for one thing. The ‘boy band’ era has been over for years. Your 2004 release put up some good numbers, but it didn’t do nearly as well as Black and Blue or Millennium. If you want this new album to succeed on the charts, you’re going to have to continue to reinvent yourselves and try to incorporate some of the new sounds and styles that are out there right now.”

They’d heard this speech time and time again. Nick knew it made some of the others nervous, but he personally didn’t care. Boybands were out – rock on. He’d be glad to leave behind the poppy love ballads they’d become famous for and explore other genres of music, like rock. Standing behind a mic stand with his guitar or beating the hell out of his drums sounded a lot more feasible now than busting a move from the “Everybody” dance anyway.

“And of course, you all have grown and changed since the last album as well,” the exec continued, and Nick noticed the flickering of eyes as everyone glanced at him. Self-conscious, he felt a warm blush began to creep up his neck just as he heard his name. “Nick – you might consider using this album as a chance to reflect on what you’ve been through in the past couple of years and express your feelings on that by writing some songs. I’m sure the fans will expect your ordeal to manifest itself in the music on this new album.”

Nick nodded in agreement, wondering how on earth he was going to be expected to write songs about having cancer and losing his leg that people would actually enjoy listening to.

“So let’s try to plan out a tentative time frame. When would you like to start work on the album?”

Nick listened as months and dates were thrown around. After some discussion, they decided to get together again in October, two months from then, to start working on material for the album. They’d do some writing, individually and as a group, and meet with other songwriters. Once they had something to go off of, they would get back into the studio. If all went well, the album could be out as early as the following summer.

It seemed a long way off, but Nick knew he’d have plenty to keep him busy. He and Claire hadn’t even discussed wedding dates yet, but he had a feeling he was in for a year of wedding planning, in addition to working on the album. He had no complaints though. He’d be surrounded by his two greatest loves – music and Claire. If all went as planned, the next year would be a good one.

It was funny, though, how things rarely worked out the way he’d planned.

***