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Chapter 10
December 22nd 2005

That afternoon, the whole group got together for lunch. This included all the guys, Win, Tessa, Brianna, Rene, Jen, Latecia and baby Winnie. Everyone except AJ, Win, Nick and Jen were surprised to see Jen with them. Of course that had been because no one knew what had gone on, but Brian noticed that Win seemed a lot happier than she had before when Nick had been around. But now Jen was hanging around again, now it made sense.
Brian had known that Jen and Taylor were going to spend Thanksgiving dinner with Nick’s family since they had been family friends from way back. That meant Nick and Jen would be in the same house. Something must have happened because otherwise AJ and Win wouldn’t be back together, and Jen wouldn’t be sitting so close to Nick. Besides, where was Taylor anyway? He did know that he’d gone back home to work, but what happened?
Howie was thinking along the same lines and was ready for that talk they would have later.

The time for their talk came soon enough and though AJ was anxious to get the truth out about him and Win, the truth about what had happened between Nick and Jen had to come out with it. And though AJ had no hard feelings towards Nick, he was worried the rest of the guys would be angry at him and at Win for dragging them all through the drama rama that had been going on the last three months.
AJ left Win with the girls, though he wasn’t really ready to let her out of his sight. Plus he wasn’t looking forward to the guys questioning Win’s motives. He knew that the guys, though they loved Win, they’d only known her for a minute in comparison to AJ so they’d be worried about him.
“Okay, so what the hell has been going on?” Howie asked once they were all seated in Kevin’s room. Howie looked first at Nick and then at AJ.
“Does somebody want to talk?” He asked again. AJ looked over at Nick who was slowly shrinking in his chair, trying hard to evaporate in front of everyone’s scrutinizing gazes. He felt bad for Nick, he did. Even though Nick had hurt Win, he still felt bad for the guy.
“Okay, first up, why are you and Win not going out?” Howie asked the most obvious question first to get it out of the way and get things rolling. Nick’s eyes flashed across the room to AJ and he just shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, Jen and Taylor came over to my parent’s house for thanksgiving and well, Jen and I kind of ended up in bed together.” Nick picked at his nails as he spoke.
“You what!” Kevin asked loudly.
“Yeah, and Win, well, she kinda walked in on us,” Nick continued, feeling smaller by the minute.
“Aw man, Nick, what were you thinking?” Brian asked as he shook his head in disapproval.
“I wasn’t. I mean, Jen, she came to talk to me, and she told me that she thought marrying Taylor was a mistake, and well, we got a little carried away,” Nick replied shrugging one of his shoulders.
“So that’s why Jen is suddenly hanging around you again?” Howie asked.
“And why Win was pissed at you too,” Kevin added.
“Yeah,” Nick replied pathetically.
“Win and Nick made up already though,” AJ added.
“That’s just fine and dandy, but why the hell are you two together again?” Howie asked.
“Because we want to be, and don’t say that you think she’s doing this to get back at Nick, she wouldn’t do that.” AJ replied. He knew that would be the first thing the guys would come up with.
“So you’ve already thought of that then?” Kevin asked concerned.
“Look guys, Win and I already talked about this, she wouldn’t do that to AJ to get back at me, I know she wouldn’t.” Nick said as he sat up in his chair, taking on a higher stature to go with the seriousness he was talking about.
“We really don’t know anything about her. I mean, you have to be realistic about this AJ. She said she didn’t want to be with you,” Howie replied, almost completely ignoring Nick except for giving him a narrow glance as he turned to AJ.
“That is exactly right, YOU don’t know anything about her. Why don’t you just let me worry about it?” AJ snapped.
“All right guys, lets not do this,” Brian said putting up his hands as if to mediate the group.
“Howie does have a valid point,” Brian started to say but AJ went to open his mouth and Brian held up his hand for him to be quiet as he continued, “But so does AJ. They are close, we don’t know what happened, and we don’t know what they talked about. Quite frankly it is none of our business.”
“It is our business when our brother could be getting hurt by her. I mean, look at the way things are going. She breaks up with AJ, and then goes after Nick. What, when it goes on the rocks with AJ again she’s gonna go after me?” Howie asked. At this both AJ and Nick shot up out of their chairs.
“She is not that kind of person!” AJ shouted.
“And she did not go after me! I was the one who asked her out!” Nick added.
“Oh even better!” Howie snapped.
“Look man, don’t even go there. Win and I are together. Okay? End of story. I am going to stay with that girl for as long as she’ll have me and you can’t do anything about it. So just back off,” AJ said angrily, going towards the door.
“I thought she was your friend too Howie,” Nick asked, shaking his head.
“She is, but not when she’s taking advantage of my brothers,” Howie replied darkly. He looked over to Brian and Kevin.
“Well, aren’t you two going to add anything?” he asked irritated.
“I agree with Brian. We don’t know what Win and AJ have said to each other. And I also agree that it may be none of our business. I don’t remember AJ asking us for advice. I mean, he’s happy, so what’s the matter with that?” Kevin replied as he sat back in his chair.
“Thank you Kevin, someone finally gets it!” AJ shouted with some joy.
“It became our business when this love triangle exploded in Brian’s back yard!” Howie exclaimed, wondering why they were being so thick.
“This isn’t a love triangle anymore. Win is with AJ, where she belongs, I’m with Jen, I’m where I belong and,” Nick was cut off by Brian.
“And Taylor is at home where he doesn’t belong. Maybe Win is okay with what happened, but it was still a shitty thing to do Nick. Taylor has gone on tour with us for years, and then you go and do this. If you and Jen wanted to get back together you should have figured out a better way.” Nick took on his ashamed little kid stance again. Brian’s disapproval was the worst thing he could have gotten out of this. He felt sick to his stomach.