Chapter 29
Claire
awoke the next morning with butterflies in her stomach and couldn’t tell if
they were from nerves or excitement.
Probably a little of both. She
couldn’t wait until she was moved in and Nick was home to share the house with
her, but she had to admit, a part of her had her doubts. What if it didn’t work out? What if they tried their new living situation
for a week and discovered that they drove each other crazy, that they couldn’t
stand actually living together? It was a
depressing thought, but she had to look at it realistically – she knew it was
not going to be like some endless honeymoon.
Whether she was living on her own or in Nick’s luxurious home, they were
both still a part of the real world.
“Stop being
so cynical,” she scolded herself as she sat up in bed, running a hand through
her tangled hair and suddenly wishing for some of the innocence and naivety
she’d possessed as a teenager, before the realities of the world had jaded
her. She couldn’t go into this situation
with doubts in her mind; she had to believe it was going to work, or it
wouldn’t. And there was really no reason
why it shouldn’t. She loved Nick, he
loved her, and on top of that, they were best friends. Friends who had fun together, who understood
each other, and who were in love with one another.
As Nick
himself had said, living together should be a piece of cake.
Smiling
assuredly to herself, Claire climbed out of bed. A long day of moving loomed ahead of her, and
the sight of all the cardboard boxes stacked on the floor of her bare apartment
was overwhelming. Stepping around them,
she found the clothes she’d laid out for herself the night before – the only
clothes that she hadn’t crammed into a suitcase or box – and dressed quickly,
hoping the tank top and cotton workout shorts would keep her reasonably
cool. How dumb was she, deciding to move
during a Florida summer?
Thank God for air conditioning and
Nick’s pool, she
thought, pulling a pair of white ankle socks over her feet and padding into her
bathroom. The tiny room had been
stripped of all her belongings, except for the bare necessities for getting
ready that morning – hairbrush and hairtie, toothbrush and toothpaste, and a
half-empty bottle of face wash. She used
them all, then scooped them up and carried them out to deposit in one of the
boxes that was not yet full. Re-closing
the cardboard flaps, she looked around.
“That’s it,” she murmured out loud, her eyes searching every nook and
cranny of her small apartment, which suddenly seemed so much bigger now that it
was empty.
Now all she
had to do was wait for her dad and Kyle, who were both due to arrive
anytime. They would load all of her
belongings in the rented moving van, Kyle’s truck, and her car, and drive to
Nick’s, where Howie was supposed to meet them.
Howie was the only one with a key to Nick’s house; in the chaos of
Nick’s unexpected hospital stay, he had not had the chance to give her one, and
of course she hadn’t kept the one he’d offered her when he had first asked her
to move in with him.
A sudden
loud knock on her door startled her, but she quickly broke into a smile,
recognizing the booming knock as her father’s.
Right on time, she thought and hurried to open the door.
***
“So this is
the place, huh?”
Claire
looked over at her father, who had just climbed out of the big moving van and
come up to stand beside her, his eyes roaming over the large house that
stretched across merely a portion of Nick’s vast expanse of property. “Yep,” she answered, her own eyes traveling
up to the house. Nick’s house, and a
place she could now call home as well.
“It’s
nice,” Kris Ryan commented, nodding in approval, although Claire got the
impression it made him slightly uncomfortable.
She understood. Her family had
always been upper-middle class, well off enough to live comfortably and splurge
every now and then, but not “rich.” Nick
was rich, and it had taken her awhile to adjust to that and realize that
despite his money and fame, he was really just a normal guy. She hoped the rest of her family had seen
that about him too, but she knew it might take some getting used to. Her father in particular was not crazy about
the idea of her getting this serious with a celebrity, but she knew that had
nothing to do with Nick himself. He was
just doing what he’d always done best – trying to protect her, even now that
she was an adult and had been on her own for years. She couldn’t be too hard on him for that.
Kyle came
trundling up the long driveway in his pick-up truck as they stood looking at
the house, and at the same time, another car door opened and closed, and a
familiar voice called, “Good morning!”
Claire
grinned at Howie; she hadn’t even noticed him waiting in his car for them at
the other side of the driveway. He waved
and immediately trotted over to meet them.
“Hey you,” she said when he got there, reaching out to give him a big
hug. “Good to see you.”
“You too,
Claire,” Howie replied, offering her one of his friendly smiles. “You look great.”
“Thanks,
you do too! I want you to meet my dad,
Kris Ryan. And my brother, Kyle,” she
added, as Kyle walked up to join them.
“Guys, this is Howie Dorough.”
The three
men shook hands, and then Claire said, “Well… should we get started? I’m anxious to get all this crap moved in and
start figuring out where to put it all.”
Howie
chuckled and started to nod, then stopped.
“Oh, wait!” he said, his eyes lighting up momentarily. “I’ve got something for you in my car,
Claire. Hang on while I get it.” He jogged back to his car and returned a few
seconds later with a large envelope, which he handed to her without a
word. Curious, she opened it.
Inside was
a single sheet of plain white paper, folded carefully into thirds. She unfolded it, expecting a letter, and
instead found a picture. A drawing, more
precisely, done simply in pencil and carefully filled in and shaded with
colored pencils. It was cartoony and
comic book-ish, but she quickly realized the two smiling people in the picture
were meant to be her and Nick. The man
was tall and flaxen-haired, with vivid blue eyes, extra-chiseled features, and
(Claire couldn’t help but smile) a body that was ripped with muscles, as shown
by the plain white wifebeater and black shorts he was drawn in. Yet, despite the obvious exaggerations, she
noticed that his left leg was metallic, drawn in a way that made it look cool,
giving him a Terminator/I, Robot sort of look.
And in the
illustrated Nick’s muscular arms, being held baby-style, was the illustrated
version of her. Her eyes poured over it
in wonder, entranced with the beauty with which she’d been drawn. Her red hair was long and flowing (ha, she
only wished it had that much body) and her blue eyes bright and sparkling. Her body looked like a Barbie doll’s, with a
tiny waist and huge boobs (those things had to be at least double D’s –
ha, as if!), right down to the pointed toes that extended from shapely,
dangling legs, and she was dressed in a top that showed off lots of cleavage
and midriff and what appeared to be a miniskirt. But even with the exaggerations and flat-out
falsities, Claire was downright flattered by the portrayal.
At the
bottom of the paper, below the drawing, was a short, hand-written note.
Claire,
It’s killing me to not be with you
today, but you know I’d be there to carry you across the threshold if I
could. Haha, could you picture
that? Well, just look above, and now you
can! J I just want you to know
that I love you, and it’s knowing that when I come home, I’ll be coming home to
you that’s keeping me from going crazy here.
This house is yours too now, and I want you to make yourself at home –
make it feel like your own. Here is the
key you wouldn’t keep the first time I tried to give it to you – but you better
keep it this time, woman! Good luck with
the move, and hopefully I’ll see you later today.
Love ya,
Nick
Reading the
note over again, her eyes shooting back up to the drawing between sentences,
Claire found herself overcome with sudden emotion. A cartoon and a note – such a simple gesture,
but she could think of nothing sweeter.
It was homemade and personal, and at that moment, she could think of no
other gift from a man that had touched her so much.
“What is
it?” Kyle asked finally, and she looked up to find him, her father, and Howie all
staring at her.
She smiled
and just shook her head, then reached back into the envelope and pulled out
something she had not noticed earlier – a small, silver key, identical to the
one Nick had given her weeks ago at Leonardi’s.
“Here’s a key to the house,” she said, her voice surprisingly
hoarse. She swallowed hard before
adding, “Let’s go inside; I can show you guys around a little bit before we
start bringing stuff in.”
She led the
way up to Nick’s doorstep and stuck the key into the lock on the front
door. She heard a soft click as the door
unlocked and turned the knob to let herself in.
It felt strange to open the door and not see Nick standing there, or at
least hear his voice calling to her as she walked in. It felt even stranger to realize that this
would soon become habit, that in letting herself into his house, she’d be
coming home.
“Home sweet
home, huh?” said Howie, smiling at her.
“It will
be,” she replied, smiling back. “It
feels like it’s missing something right now though.”
“Yeah? Would that something be about 6’2” and
blonde?”
“That would
be it,” Claire said wryly. Howie winked.
Leaving the
foyer, they both led her father and brother through the rest of the house. It felt weird to be giving them a guided tour
when Nick was not even there, but Nick had made it clear that she was to start
thinking of this house as her home too, so she tried to get used to it. They kept the tour brief, merely popping
their heads into various rooms in the house, and then went back outside, where
all of Claire’s possessions were waiting to be brought in.
“Well,”
said her father, resting a hand on his daughter’s shoulder, “You ready to start
hauling stuff in?”
“Yes,”
replied Claire eagerly. “The sooner we
can get all of this inside, the better.”
With that,
the four of them set to work.
***
The work
went as smoothly as Claire could have hoped for, and by noon, everything had
been brought into the house. Claire had
directed the men on where to put the heavy things, and they all had sorted
through her labeled boxes, taking each box to the room in which Claire thought
its contents should belong. She had
already decided she would leave most of her stuff, everything but the
necessities, boxed up until Nick got home – that way, they could go through
everything together and decide where it all should go.
With the
move itself out of the way, they ordered take-out for lunch and sent Kyle to
pick it up. When he returned, they
spread the food out across the island in Nick’s kitchen and perched on tall
stools around it to eat. Conversation
flowed easily throughout lunch. Although
Howie didn’t have much in common with Kris and Kyle, the three of them got
along well. Claire was not surprised; Howie,
she had decided, was the kind of person you just couldn’t help but like, and of
course she thought the same of her father and brother.
Kris and
Kyle left an hour later, after making sure Claire didn’t need them for anything
else. She assured them she was plenty
capable of unpacking everything herself and sent them on their way, which left
just her and Howie at the house. They
stood together on the porch, watching as her father drove the moving van up the
driveway after Kyle’s truck, and once both vehicles had disappeared from view,
they turned to each other.
“So…” Howie
started, offering a casual shrug.
“What’s on your agenda for the rest of the day? Are you going to start with the unpacking
yet, or go see Nick, or what?”
“Unpacking,
no, probably not. I’ll just unpack what
I need for now and save the rest for when Nick’s home – hopefully tomorrow,”
Claire answered. “And speaking of
Blondie, yeah, I’m definitely gonna go to the hospital at some point. How about you? Got any plans for the rest of the day?”
“I’ve got
some stuff to do later this evening… just, uh, dinner… with a friend, and stuff
like that. But I thought maybe I’d head
up to the hospital to see Nicky beforehand.”
Claire
nodded. “We could go visit him together,
if you want. Or if you’d rather be
alone-“
“No, uh…
that would be good,” Howie said, then paused and added after a few beats, “or
maybe it’d work out better if you went up around dinnertime. Then he wouldn’t get stuck eating alone.”
“Good
point,” Claire nodded. “I guess I’ll
hang around here for the afternoon then and go see Nick tonight. Hm, maybe I could try to bake something for
him… you know, cookies or something like that.
To make up for the crappy hospital food.”
Howie
smiled. “That’s a good idea; he’d love
that. Plus, then you could get used to
his kitchen.”
She
snorted, “Not like I’ll be in it much… I’m not much of a cook.” She offered a shrug and a sheepish grin to go
along with it. “Maybe I should work on
that though… do you think he’ll expect me to be June Cleaver and cook and clean
for him now that he’s sharing his house with me?” She snickered at the mere idea of it. Her – June Cleaver? Ha.
Howie
chuckled too. “I dunno about that,
but it wouldn’t hurt to learn how to cook something. What will you two do, live off of TV dinners
and Kraft macaroni and cheese?”
“Pretty
much,” she smiled. “Anything frozen and
microwaveable is right up my speed.”
Howie simply shook his head at her, grinning in amusement. “What?” she challenged, “Don’t even tell me
you’re some master chef.”
“Hey, I
know my way around a kitchen,” Howie defended himself. “I’m a lot better than Nick anyway – that kid
would starve without fast food and frozen dinners.”
“But not
you, huh?” Claire asked, a faint smile playing on her lips as she watched with
intrigue as he shook his head. A man… a celebrity,
in fact… who knew how to cook. Imagine
that. Maybe she was a fool to be moving
in with Nick – Howie was the one she should be living with. She chuckled to herself, then said, “Well,
maybe you could give me a few pointers.”
“Hey,
anytime,” he offered with a friendly smile.
“In fact, if you want any help baking today, I’d be glad to stick
around. I really do know my way around
Nicky’s kitchen, after living here for nine months.”
“That could
be fun… if you don’t mind,” she said cautiously, not wanting to keep him from
anything. “The kitchen here is freaking
huge compared to the one in my apartment, if you could even call that a
kitchen. It’s no wonder I rarely
cooked.”
Howie
laughed and said, “Well, come on, let’s go play chef, and you’ll know where
everything is in no time.”
They went
into the house, and Howie led the way back to Nick’s spacious, modern
kitchen. “So, what do you wanna bake?”
he asked.
“Cookies
would be good,” she said. Those always
seemed simple enough, although hers usually came out slightly burnt on the
bottom. She blamed her oven, but that
excuse would probably not fly here – Nick’s oven had to be state of the art.
“Okay,”
Howie nodded. “What kind?”
She liked
sugar cookies, but knew that those took a long time – they had to be chilled
before they could be baked. Precisely
the reason she rarely made them herself.
“Well, you’re the head cook here… what do you think?”
“Hm… what
about oatmeal raisin?”
Claire
couldn’t help but wrinkle her nose.
“Oatmeal raisin? I was thinking
something a little more… chocolaty.”
Howie
chuckled. “Nick would probably say the
same thing himself, but I was just thinking that since he’s in the hospital and
all, maybe we should go for something healthier.”
She
smiled. “This from the guy who was
trying to get him to eat McDonald’s two days after surgery.” She remembered that day quite vividly – it
was the first time she’d met Howie, AJ, and Kevin, although that was not why
she remembered it.
“Hey, that
was AJ’s idea, not mine,” Howie replied, holding up his hands as if to ward off
any responsibility for sneaking Nick what had to be just about the worst food
for him.
She laughed. “Well, at any rate, a little chocolate won’t
kill him. I say we go for chocolate chip
or something like that. Not too
rich, but… better than oatmeal raisin.”
She grinned, her tongue poking between her teeth.
“Hey,” said
Howie, “I happen to like oatmeal raisin.
But okay, we’ll go chocolate chip.”
With that
decision finally made, they set to work, searching the large kitchen for
ingredients, which they lined up on one of the counters. Following the Tollhouse recipe off the back
of a bag of chocolate chips, they mixed up the dough and glopped it onto a
cookie sheet in small mounds. The
cookies-to-be didn’t look much different than they did when Claire made them
herself, but when Howie took them out of the oven later, she saw that they were
soft and thick and browned to perfection, unlike the thin and crispy,
stick-to-the-sheet, burnt ones she usually ended up with. Maybe it was the oven after all. (Or Howie’s careful supervision.)
After
putting another pan into the oven to bake, they lined up the fresh cookies on a
sheet of wax paper to cool. While the
second pan baked, they grabbed sodas from the fridge and sat down at the
kitchen table to visit as they waited. When
the cookies were done, Howie took them out of the oven and shut it off. Turning to Claire, he said, “Well, now that
that’s done… mind if I head up to the hospital?
Then I can keep Nick company for a couple of hours before I… before my
dinner date tonight.”
“Ooh, a
date, is it?” Claire teased. “Thought
you said it was just a friend.”
Howie just
shrugged and chuckled nervously, avoiding her eyes. He never did give her an answer, but she let
it go. She’d save the teasing for Nick.
***
Nick was
half-watching an episode of “While You Were Out” on The Learning Channel when
he heard Claire’s now-familiar knock at the door of his hospital room. The door opened a crack, and a lock of her
red hair fell into the room before her face appeared.
“Come on
in,” he called, glad to see her. Howie
had been there earlier in the afternoon, so he hadn’t been totally bored, but
he had been hoping Claire could come to visit at some point too, once she was
done moving in. He had heard from Howie
that the move had gone fine, but he was anxious to hear how she was settling
into his house.
Claire
walked in with a Tupperware under her arm, and he looked at it with
curiosity. “Whatcha got there?” he
asked.
“I’ve been
busy in my new pad,” she replied, beaming, and as she bent to kiss his lips,
she set the plastic container in his lap.
He pried open the lid to find it filled to the brim with chocolate chip
cookies, arranged in neat stacks.
Sighing
blissfully as their heavenly aroma wafted to his nose, he exclaimed, “I love
you! You have no idea how good
these look right now.” He hadn’t felt
hungry all day, but as soon as he smelled those cookies, he was suddenly
ravenous.
“Oh, I
think I do,” she smiled knowingly. “Try
one.”
He plucked
a cookie from the top – it was soft, the chocolate chips still gooey on the
bottom – and lifted it to his lips. Then
he stopped, holding the cookie in mid-air.
“Wait,” he said, his eyes narrowing suspiciously, “did you bake
these?”
“Yes, I
did, and they’re excellent,” she boasted with confidence. “Go ahead, try it; I promise you won’t be poisoned.”
“Are you
sure?” he asked uncertainly, making a big show of turning the cookie over,
inspecting it carefully from all angles.
He loved giving her a hard time about stuff like this.
“Positive,”
she said, then admitted after a pause, “Howie helped, if it makes a
difference.”
“It does,”
he replied quickly and bit into the cookie without further hesitation,
snickering with his mouth full at the feigned look of offense on her face. She was right though – the cookie was
excellent, and after two days of bland hospital food, he didn’t think he’d ever
tasted anything so delicious. It made
him long to get out of the hospital even more, so that he could go home and eat
“real food.” “Hey!” he said suddenly,
that last thought reminding him of something.
“Guess what?”
“Chicken
butt,” she replied automatically, in typical ten-year-old kid fashion.
He stopped
to roll his eyes briefly before continuing, a smile on his face, “My doc was in
here earlier, and he said I can be discharged before lunch tomorrow.”
“Awesome! Well, you let me know the time for sure, and
I’ll be here to pick you up and bring you home.” She paused, a mischievous smile coming onto
her face, and then added, “And then I can carry you across the
threshold.”
He burst
out laughing at the mental image of her trying to pick him up, and then he
remembered his drawing, the one he’d given to Howie to pass onto her that
morning. “So you got my drawing and
note, I assume?” he asked.
“Yes! I loved it!” she gushed
sincerely. “The picture was priceless,
and your note… you are such a sweetheart!”
She leaned forward and planted another kiss on him, leaving a smile
where her lips had been.
“I’m glad
you liked it,” he said, feeling himself blush slightly. He was so not good at the romantic stuff, but
he’d wanted a semi-creative way to at least let her know he was thinking about
her that morning. He’d started doodling
the day before to kill time and ended up with the drawing he’d had Howie give
her – a sort of comic-ized version of the two of them together. The note had actually been harder because he
always had a difficult time putting his thoughts and feelings into words on
paper like that. But he’d tried to write
from the heart, and apparently it had worked.
He was relieved.
“I loved
it,” she said again, smiling. “I’m gonna
miss you tonight, you know that? It’ll
be weird sleeping at your house without you there. Speaking of which… where am I supposed to
sleep? Your room downstairs, or are we
still going to move into the master bedroom upstairs, or not until you’re-“
“Master
bedroom,” he answered her quickly. “I
figure I can handle the stairs on crutches for a few days till I can wear my
leg again. It’ll be worth it to be back
in my old room upstairs; it’s better than the one downstairs. So you sleep there tonight, and when I get
home, we can get my crap moved back up there too.”
“Okay,”
Claire said with a nod.
As their
conversation came to a pause, Nick helped himself to another cookie, and
another after that. By the time the
orderly brought his dinner tray, he was too full to even bother with attempting
to eat the dinner, so he simply shifted the food around a little to look like
he’d at least touched it and then pushed the tray aside.
Claire
stayed for a few hours and left just as it was starting to get dark. “I’m tired,” she confessed.
“I’ll bet,”
he nodded understandingly. “Go home and
relax; go to bed early. You deserve it.”
She smiled
and nodded. “I probably will.” Standing up, she bent over to kiss him and
whispered, “’Night, Nick. I love you.”
“I love you
too, baby,” he replied. “Goodnight.”
She slung
her purse over her shoulder and walked out of the room, stopping in the doorway
to wave and blow him a kiss.
As soon as
she was gone, he picked up the phone.
***