Chapter 153
AN: Thanks to my MBNCS for brainstorming with me on this chapter!!
=D
“Where to?”
asked the cab driver, twisting around in his seat to look at Nick as he climbed
into the back.
“Just a
sec,” said Nick, pulling a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket. He hurriedly unfolded the paper, a print-out
of an email Claire had sent out to her family and friends the night before she
had moved, listing her new address and home phone number, as well as Jamie’s
work contact information. Nick had
printed out the email before he left LA, using it to tell the driver of the
taxi he’d hired last night where to pick up Claire. He read off a different address to this
driver.
The cabbie
gave a curt nod. “That’s not far from
here,” he commented and started up the car.
Nick
buckled his seatbelt and looked out the window as the taxi pulled out into
traffic, winding its way through the streets of West Des Moines. It was only a five-minute ride to his chosen
destination, and when the taxi lurched to a stop in front of a modest-sized
office building, Nick paid the driver, leaving a generous tip, and climbed out
quickly.
He paused
in front of the building just long enough to glance up and read the sign high
above the entryway. It matched the
company name Claire had typed in her email, and he knew he was in the right
place. He just hoped he wasn’t too late.
Upon
entering the building, Nick found himself in a lobby, professionally decorated
in muted shades of cornflower blue and taupe.
He strode past a reception area off to one side and headed directly for
the elevators he had spotted opposite the main doors. There were only two elevators, but,
thankfully, both were headed down. When
the first to arrive slid open, Nick stood back as a pack of men and women in
business dress filed out, and then he climbed onboard. He was the only one in the elevator as the
doors slid shut. Checking the piece of
paper in his hand again, Nick punched the button for the sixth floor and waited
as the elevator ascended slowly.
When the
doors slid open again, Nick found himself facing a glass-walled office. He stepped out of the elevator, looking
through the glass partition into another reception area, where a lone woman
typed away on her computer behind a wrap-around desk. A sign on the glass door read, “Risk
Management Office,” and as he opened it and stepped inside, the receptionist
looked up from her workstation.
“Can I help
you, sir?” she asked promptly, though she appeared slightly harassed. Nick could recognize the look of someone who
had had a long day.
He was
about to tell her he could find his way, but then he shrugged and waved the
piece of paper he was still clutching.
“I’m just looking for Jamie Turner’s office. Think you could point me in the right
direction?” He offered his most
charming smile.
The woman’s
forehead creased, giving her a fleeting look of confusion, and then her eyes
brightened. “Oh! James Turner, did you say? Sorry, he’s new to the company; I guess I’m
still getting used to the name. But yes,
of course; he’s down that way.” She
pointed to her right. “Head down that
hall and take a left. His office is the
second or so on the right. The name’s on
the door.”
Nick
nodded. “Thanks.” He gave another polite smile and followed her
directions. He quickly found himself in
front of a polished wood door, mounted with a name plaque that was engraved, James
Turner. The door was ajar, and when
he cautiously peered around it, Nick could see Jamie moving around his office,
tucking things into the briefcase that was open on his desk. His back was to Nick, and Nick took the few
seconds’ opportunity to collect his thoughts before rapping brusquely on the
doorframe.
Jamie
started, turning quickly to see who was there.
When he saw Nick, he stopped dead in his tracks, and Nick suppressed a
smirk as he watched the range of emotions that flickered across the other man’s
face. He first looked surprised and a
little confused, as if he couldn’t quite believe it was possible that it was
Nick standing at the door of his office.
But a look of hostility quickly replaced the disbelief in his features.
“You. I knew it was you she was with. What the hell are you doing here?” he hissed
in a low voice, storming towards Nick.
Nick didn’t
flinch. “I came to have a little word
with you,” he replied, raising his eyebrows significantly as he struggled to
keep his voice calm and cool. “You think
we can talk man to man here?”
Jamie narrowed
his eyes. “I’ve got nothing to say to
you, other than ‘Stay away from my wife.’
Claire’s going through enough right now; she doesn’t need you coming
here and getting her all confused.”
“Confused?”
Nick repeated. “Give her some credit;
Claire’s a smart woman. She knows what
she wants and what she doesn’t, and sooner or later, she’s gonna act on
that. I think you’re the one who needs
to get his head screwed on straight, if you wanna keep calling Claire your
‘wife’ in the future.”
Jamie
arched his dark eyebrows. “Is that a
threat? You coming to ‘straighten me
out,’ are you?”
Nick held
up his hands in defense. “I just wanna
talk, man. That’s all,” he said. It wasn’t really all he wanted to do to
Jamie, but he knew that beating him to a pulp wouldn’t accomplish anything,
except piss Claire off, and she was the whole reason he was here. He wanted to make things better for her, less
stressful, not more so. He would have to
keep a tight control on his temper around Jamie.
Jamie still
looked suspicious – not that Nick blamed him – but after a few seconds of
surveying Nick, he nodded and wordlessly motioned for him to come into the
office. Nick walked in, closing the door
behind him, and sat down in a chair in front of Jamie’s desk. Jamie walked around behind the desk, a smug
smile passing across his lips as he sat down in his high-backed, swiveling
office chair. It probably made him feel
important, to be sitting on the other side of the desk with Nick in front of
him. Nick was not impressed.
Jamie shut
his briefcase and cleared it off the desk, then glared at Nick across the
polished wood surface. “So? Let’s hear it, Carter. But let me warn you, if you came to preach
about what’s been going on with Claire, save it. You haven’t been here; you don’t know.”
“What don’t
I know?” challenged Nick. “She told me
everything last night, when she was crying in my hotel room. You know how often I’ve seen Claire cry? Lemme tell you – not that often. She must be going through a lot to be
that upset, and half of it is ‘cause of you.”
Jamie
rolled his eyes and started shaking his head, looking defensive. “We lost our baby. Our baby. Of course she’s upset! So am I!” he shouted, though Nick found that
he could not seem to look him right in the eye.
Instead, Jamie seemed to stare at his chin as he spoke. “You don’t know what it’s like. You don’t know shit about what she’s
going through, so how dare you say it’s my fault?”
“I know
what it’s like to lose,” Nick countered, and he could feel his palms starting
to sweat as he went on. “Whether it’s a
pregnancy, or a person you care about, or a part of yourself… whatever, it
doesn’t matter; the grief isn’t all that different. And yeah, she’s grieving right now. You probably are too, if you’re not too
cold-hearted to feel that kind of pain.
But lemme tell you, shared grief is better than doing it alone. She needs people around her right now; she
needs people she can talk to and get her feelings out. She needs you; she needs your support. And you’re not there for her.”
Nick leaned
across the desk, glaring directly into Jamie’s eyes as his tone grew sharper,
his words more harsh. “Every time she
needs you, you fucking bail on her. How
can you even call yourself her husband?
What kind of man are you? Who
does that to his wife, the woman he supposedly loves??”
Jamie
looked so angry and assaulted, his nostrils actually flared. His face had grown ashen, making his eyes
even more piercing as they bored into Nick.
If looks could kill… “Who are you to judge?” Jamie fired back. “You sure as hell weren’t the perfect
boyfriend to her, cause she left you!
She dumped your ass, and you're still not over her, so now you're
stalking her, trying to turn her against me.
You're just jealous. Jealous and
pathetic.”
“Good one,”
said Nick, unfazed. “If caring makes me
pathetic, I guess I am a lot more pathetic than you.”
“You saying
I don’t care? Well, you can shove it,
Carter, cause it’s none of your damn business how I feel about my wife. She’s my wife to care for, not yours.”
“She’s
still my friend, and if you were doing your damn job as her husband, she
wouldn’t need me to come and ‘care for’ her.
But you dragged her up here, a million miles away from everyone she
knows, and then you abandoned her.
Someone had to be there for her.”
“And that
someone had to be you, huh? Of course it
did.” Jamie rolled his eyes, glaring
away from Nick. “Nick Carter, Backstreet
Boy Wonder, here to save the day again.
I know you think you’re pretty damn special, and you’ve got her
brainwashed into thinking it too, but I don’t.
Why don’t you get a real job and stop interfering in our private
problems?”
“I wouldn’t
be ‘interfering’ at all if she hadn’t called me. And why did she call me, Jamie? Huh? Why
did she?” asked Nick, refusing to even acknowledge the jabs at his career. He was too used to being made fun of for
being in a boyband to let it bother him now.
Jamie
didn’t seem to have an answer for that one, but after a few seconds, he
snarled, “You’re a fucking hypocrite, you know that? You sit here in my office and attack the way
I treat my wife, but you know something?
I seem to remember a time when Claire called Dianna and me, all freaked
out because she thought her bone marrow was rejecting, and you had gone off and
disappeared on her! And where the hell
were you? Shit-faced in a bar with some
chick, as I recall. So where do you get
off accusing me of bailing on her?
Who was there for her that night, huh?
It was me! Me and Di. Her real friends.”
Nick felt
his face getting hot with shame; finally, Jamie had struck a nerve. There wasn’t much he could say back in
defense of that, because he knew it was true.
He and Jamie both knew it. But he
couldn’t stand Jamie turning it all around on him, like Jamie was the
saint. That was bullshit.
“Oh yeah,
you’re a real good friend to her,” he muttered to Jamie, voice full of
sarcasm. “I saw what a real friend you
were to her when she was sick, when she was going through her transplant and
almost died of an infection. And I heard
all about what a real friend you were to her before that, when she got sick in
the first place, and you avoided her like the plague. What a pal.”
Jamie
rolled his eyes. “How far back are we
gonna go with this, huh? You gonna bring
up the time I accidentally beamed her in the head with a soccer ball in our
freshman year of high school? Ancient
history, man; this is ridiculous. Why am
I still even listening to this shit?”
He started to get up, his swivel chair sliding backwards, and Nick rose
too, grateful for the few inches of height he had over Jamie.
“So let’s
talk about the present then,” he said, glaring at the other man in a way that
said, You’re gonna have to get past me to get to the door. I’m not as easy to push over as you might
think. As the thought passed
through his head, he tried to steel himself, planting his feet firmly against
the floor. He could feel the knee of his
prosthesis lock into place, and he knew he wasn’t going to allow himself to go
down without a fight, if that’s how Jamie wanted to handle things. “That’s what I came to talk about in the
first place. You’re the one who started
bringing up the past.”
Jamie
matched his glare, but behind his intensely cold blue eyes, Nick could detect a
hint of insecurity. Nick may have been
the one with only one leg, but Jamie knew that he didn’t have a leg to
stand on in this argument – pardon the pun.
It was hard for Nick to keep a straight face as he watched the internal
battle start to play out on Jamie’s. The
guy knew he was wrong, but he was too damn arrogant to admit it. He seemed to be struggling with the decision
of whether to knock Nick aside and run, or sit back down and face the music.
In the end,
Jamie chose the music. He sank back down
into his chair, still glaring hatefully at Nick, who sat down too. For a moment, they just stared at each other,
their eyes locked in a silent battle.
Then, Nick spoke.
“I was
wrong to leave her that night, when she thought she was rejecting. I’m not gonna sit here and pretend that
wasn’t a shitty thing to do. It was, and
I know it hurt her, and I felt terrible about it afterwards. But I apologized. And she forgave me. And I’ve never turned my back on her
since. I never would. But you… you’ve pulled this shit on her again
and again, and every time she gives you another chance, you blow it. And all I’m saying is, if you keep this shit
up, you’re never gonna get another chance to treat her right, cause next time, she’ll
walk out on you.”
“She’s done
it before,” he added, before Jamie could even try to protest. “She did it to me. I came home from LA and found a fucking note
on my stairs. She moved all of her stuff
out of my house and didn’t even warn me.
I’m honestly surprised she hasn’t pulled the same thing with you
already, cause I treated her a helluva lot better than you have been. But then, you’re married. She’s pregnant with your kids. Of course, she’s gonna want to make things
work. Personally, I don’t think you
deserve another chance. But you better
damn well take advantage of it if she’s gonna give you one, cause if you don’t,
I guarantee, at some point, Claire’s gonna leave you. She doesn’t take a whole lot of crap from
people, and you’ve given her more shit than anyone.”
Jamie eyed
Nick skeptically, the resentment still radiating from his eyes. “Did she tell you that?” he asked, his voice
suddenly subdued.
“She didn’t
have to. I know her pretty well, you
know. And I’ve been through this with
her before. If she’s not happy, it’s
only a matter of time. So you better
take your foot out of your ass and start making her happy. Doesn’t she deserve to be happy?”
“Of course
she does,” Jamie muttered, looking away.
“You know, it’s not like I tried to make her un-happy. It’s just… it’s a lot to handle, all of this
crap we’ve been going through. And yeah,
I said ‘we’ve.’ That baby was as
much mine as it was hers. You think it
was easy for me to have to choose between my wife and my child?”
“Hell no,
man. No way. But that’s the thing – it should have been
the two of you making that choice and getting through it together. And instead, you left her alone to handle it
all by herself. That’s not something
anyone should have to go through alone.”
Very
slightly, Jamie nodded, and very quietly, Nick heard him say, “I know.” He looked down at his desk for a long time,
and when he finally looked up again, his eyes looked unusually bright.
Nick was
caught off-guard by the sight of tears there; all of a sudden, he felt incredibly
uncomfortable. He had expected Jamie to
rage at him… but not to cry. Nick hadn’t
even been sure his words would have any effect on Jamie; he had only gone to
talk to him because he felt like he should try, for Claire’s sake.
“I know I
hurt her,” Jamie muttered, jerking a hand through his curly hair. “I didn’t want to… I didn’t mean to run out
on her that day. It was just… instinct,
or something. It was like a knee-jerk
reaction, and I was out of there. I felt
fucking awful about it, but what can I do?
How can I possibly make that up to her?”
“Look, just
apologize to her, for starters. Let her
know you’re sorry; show her you care,” Nick suggested, frowning at Jamie, who,
in his mind, had reached a new low of patheticness himself. “All you have to do is just be there for her
and listen to her and talk to her, for crying out loud. It ain’t that hard to do. If you love her, you should be able to do
that.”
“I do love
her. I’ve always loved her,” Jamie
murmured, bowing his head as he swiped at his eyes. Nick felt a stabbing sensation in his heart;
that was one, if not the only, thing he and Jamie had in common. They both loved the same woman. But in life’s usual unfairness, she had
chosen the one who didn’t show it, rather than the one who would do anything to
take away her pain. But apparently love
hadn’t been enough for Claire and Nick.
“Then maybe
you should start showing her that,” Nick said in disgust and stood abruptly.
Jamie
looked up, the anger gone from his eyes.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m
leaving,” replied Nick, who didn’t think he could sit across the desk from
Claire’s sniveling husband for much longer.
“I said what I came to say; I just hope, for Claire’s sake, that you’ll
think about it and start acting like a real husband to her. ‘Cause if you don’t, I guarantee, those
babies of yours are gonna be raised by a single mother. And I know Claire would do a damn good job of
it on her own.”
Jamie
snorted, indignation returning to his features.
“Don’t get your hopes up, Carter.
I don’t believe in divorce, and neither does she. She’s not gonna leave me. Once I show her how much I love her, she and
I will be just fine, the way we always were.”
The way we always were.
With Jamie’s smug words echoing in his mind, Nick shook his head and
walked out of the office without another word.
He’d thought it would give him a sense of triumph to confront Jamie and
give him hell for treating Claire the way had been… but the triumph had already
come and gone, leaving Nick feeling, instead, strangely defeated.
***