AJ sat back in the booth, laughing uncontrollably. “Judas Nick, we’ve only been here for an hour and you’re already wasted. Dude, you make for a cheap evening.”
Nick smiled at AJ and clumsily grabbed his drink and finished it off. “I’s glad y’all wanted to do this.”
“Me too, it was a damn good ice breaker,” AJ replied with a grin as he watched Nick finish his own drink and then the one in front of him. “Whoa, maybe you should slow it down.”
“Slow down? I’m jus warming up,” Nick replied as he tagged down the waitress and signaled for two more drinks.
AJ was beginning to slowly realize that Nick was getting himself into trouble. “Seriously Nick, you need to back it off some.”
The waitress came to the table and set down two mixed drinks in front of Nick.
“Tanks honey,” Nick mumbled. He unsteadily grabbed a glass, the contents spilling over the sides. Half of the drink wound up on his shirt, a small portion in his mouth. Nick wobbily looked over towards AJ.
“Nick, you’re scaring me here,” AJ pleaded. His worst fears were suddenly realized when Nick’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, his hand falling down on the table, the glass shattered, cutting his hand.
“Oh shit!” AJ sputtered as he quickly grabbed a napkin and placed it on the wound. Blood soaked the napkin quickly, making AJ realize that the cut was worse than he could have hoped for. He quickly started slapping Nick’s face. “Buddy... Nick, buddy, come on! Dude, you gotta wake up so we can walk outta here!”
The despiration in AJ’s voice was evident to the people around them. He quickly cleared his throat and begged off that Nick was exhausted from the tour as he grabbed an arm and started to pull him from the booth. The challenge came for AJ when he attempted to stand Nick up and throw an arm around his shoulder. He urgently whispered into Nick’s ear. “Come on, help me, man, we gotta get you to a hospital or something for your hand.”
As if the desperate sound in his voice caused it, Nick somehow managed to half help AJ walk towards the door, all the while his head was bobbing up and down, the blood from his cut leaving droplets on the floor.
“AJ! WHAT THE HELL DID YOU AND NICK DO LAST NIGHT?” Kevin yelled from the other side of the hotel room door.
AJ barely lifted his head off the pillow. The clock read 7:22am, he and Nick had only been back since 5:45am. “Shit.”
Kevin started pounding on the door. “OPEN THIS DOOR NOW!”
AJ threw the covers off and reluctantly walked towards the door. He barely had the door open when Kevin pushed his way past AJ, nearly knocking him down. By the look that was on Kevin’s face, AJ knew that there wasn’t going to be an easy way around Kevin’s anger.
“So what the hell went on last night?”
AJ decided to play dumb. “What do you mean?”
Kevin raked a hand through his hair. “You know exactly what I mean. Good god AJ. Nick’s door wasn’t shut tight so naturally I went in to check and make sure he was okay. I found him laying ontop of the bed, in his clothes, his hand in a huge white bandage, blood stains on his pants and to top it all off he reeked of alcohol. I asked him what went on, but he couldn’t tell me or at least I couldn’t understand a word of what he told me.” Kevin paused for effect as he folded his arms across his chest. “So...... now, you want to tell me what exactly you two did last night?”
AJ leaned against the wall, suddenly feeling cornered. “Me and Nicky went for last call.”
“Last call my ass, tell me what you did!” Kevin demanded.
AJ put his hands up as if to deflect a punch that Kevin seemed to be wanting to deliver at any given moment. “I swear, it’s the truth. I took Nicky out for last call since you, Brian and Howie wanted us to get along.”
Kevin didn’t move from his place. “Keep going.”
AJ grabbed the pack of cigarettes off the nightstand and quickly lit up. Taking a deep drag from the cigarette, he waited a few moments before exhaling the smoke, feeling the icy stare of Kevin the whole time.
“Well, he was having a good time and the kid don’t know his limits---”
“Which is one reason not to take him to a nightclub,” Kevin interrupted.
“So after several mixed drinks, he kinda passed out and dropped a glass down on the table and he cut his hand.”
“Shit,” Kevin mumbled under his breath.
“Hey I covered it, I got Nick out of the booth and walked him out of the bar and took him to a walk in clinic, so there won’t be any press on this on, I handled it,” AJ replied, satisfied with himself in handling the situation.
“You got lucky this time then,” Kevin replied but stopped his sentence when Brian walked through the open door, looking down at a newspaper he was holding.
“Seems you and Nick had a little too much fun last night,” Brian stated softly as he turned the front page of the paper around to show Kevin and AJ.
Both Kevin and AJ stood there staring at the colored photo on the front page of the paper, mouths agape.
“Shit,” both men stated in unison.
The front page had a photo that had been taken of AJ and Nick while they were on their way out the front door of the bar. Nick appeared to be clearly drunk, the picture caught the full image of him leaning heavily against AJ, the blood on his shirt and pants and the cut still bleeding.
“Where’s Nick?” Brian asked as he glanced around the hotel room.
“He’s in his room sleeping it off,” came the short reply from AJ.
“Not the best idea AJ, he really shouldn’t be left alone,” Brian said as he quickly left the room.
“You are in a world of shit when Bruce gets ahold of this info,” Kevin spat angrily. “You know damn well not to pull this kind of crap ontour. God, I swear you’re so damn self centered it’s not even funny.”
