Chapter 63
AN: Thanks to Susan, Bianca, Diana, and Kaz for their thoughts and
input – you’ve helped me out a lot! :)
As
promised, later that day Nick spoke to the Tampa police department and the home
security company, both of whom told him the same things Claire had – they
didn’t know who or what had set off the alarm, and at this rate, they probably
never would know. Nothing had been
stolen or damaged, and it seemed no crime had been committed, other than
trespassing. The police had found no
evidence that could be used to help them find out who had been on the property,
and the house had been perfectly secure ever since. The non-existent case was as good as closed.
Nick’s mind
was hardly put to rest though. He had
wanted definitive answers, and no one seemed to have any for him. He figured the police were probably right –
being Halloween, it probably was just some punk kids messing around after
trick-or-treating hours had ended – but he wanted some assurance before he took
off for California again and left Claire all alone in his house. To make sure that she would be protected and
to ease his own fears, he arranged for two security guards to come and patrol
the property at night, just to watch out for potential intruders.
“They won’t let anyone in,” he promised Claire that evening, the night
before he had to fly back, as they lounged upstairs in bed, hardly watching the
DVD they’d put in. He ran his hand
through her fine, silky hair, pausing to twirl a lock of it around his index
finger. “You have nothing to worry
about.”
She smiled, her nostrils flaring as she inhaled deeply. “I know,” she replied. “I’ll be fine.”
Returning her smile in relief, Nick rubbed her shoulder reassuringly as
he turned his attention back to the TV and the movie that was playing. They watched in silence for a few minutes,
until Claire sat up beside him. “I’ll be
right back,” she said as she rolled out of bed and padded into the bathroom,
turning on the light and closing the door behind her.
Not even a minute later, her cell phone started to ring. Pausing the movie, Nick listened to the
annoyingly high-pitched “Quit Playing Games” ringtone for a few seconds before
scooting across to her side of the bed and snatching the phone off of her
bedside table. He glanced at the screen
and scowled, his eyes narrowing as they saw the caller’s name. Jamie-cell.
Not again, he thought with a groan. His first instinct was, of course, to ignore
the call, but a split-second later, he changed his mind and, smirking, pressed
the button to answer and raised the phone to his ear. “Hello,” he said in a low voice.
There was a moment of silence, and then Jamie’s voice replied curtly,
“Hey. Nick?”
“Yep.”
“Oh. Hey. You had me confused for a second; I didn’t
know you were gonna be with Claire this weekend. She around?”
With a delightful rush of wickedness, Nick smirked and replied, “Well,
she’s writhing under me as we speak, but she don’t wanna talk to you right this
minute, man. Can I have her call you
back when she’s caught her breath?”
There was another pause, and then Jamie said, “Uh-huh… I see. Well, yeah, have her call me back when she
can.”
Nick could hear the amusement in his voice and knew that he didn’t
believe him. Not that he really expected
him to. Oh well. He still couldn’t help throwing in a loud,
throaty moan and a few heavy pants before answering breathlessly, “Sure
thing. Later.”
He was about to hang up when Jamie said, “Oh, by the way. Nick?”
“What?” Nick asked, annoyed.
“You’re welcome.”
“Huh?”
“For taking care of your girl while you were gone. You’re welcome,” Jamie repeated.
Nick’s heart skipped a beat.
“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked guardedly.
“You don’t know? Your burglar
alarm went off Monday night and scared the shit out of her, so I let her sleep
in my hotel room. Good thing she had
someone in town to take care of her, cause she was pretty freaked out,
man. She’s always had this paranoia about
people breaking in and attacking her, you know.”
Nick let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and tried in
vain to steady his racing heart and shaking hands. “Well I’m so glad you were there to watch out
for her,” he managed to say through gritted teeth, his voice absent of any
sincerity.
“Hey, anytime,” Jamie responded cheerfully. “You two kids have fun. Later.”
The line went dead before Nick had a chance to do anything. With a trembling finger, he shut off Claire’s
phone and stared at the blank screen for a few seconds as his heart slowly
sank. If Jamie was telling the truth, it
meant she had been with him that night… not Laureen, as she had told him. She lied to me, he realized, his
stunned disbelief turning to devastation.
She lied…
If I asked you a question
Would you look me in the eyes?
Has our love been built on lies?
Well, why I’m asking
You see, the time is now
To turn our backs forever
Or work this out somehow…
Claire emerged from the bathroom just as he was putting her phone back
on her nightstand and stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips. “Who were you talking to??” she asked,
arching an eyebrow curiously.
“Jamie,” he answered without hesitation, raising his own brow in a silent
challenge. He dared her to try to lie
her way out of this one. Normally he
wouldn’t trust Jamie farther than he could throw him, but something told him
Jamie wasn’t just lying to stir up trouble.
If he was, Claire would call him on it right away; she wouldn’t put up
with that shit, even from him. No, there
had to be more to it than that. And the
only way to know for sure was to confront Claire about it. “You know, he said something pretty
interesting…”
Claire’s face had already started to turn red, and he knew without even
asking that he’d caught her in a lie.
The realization made him feel sick to his stomach, but he had to get her
side of it. He wouldn’t accept it until
she’d told him it was true. “… He said
that you stayed with him the night the alarm went off,” he continued,
his voice surprisingly even and calm compared to the turbulence that rocked his
insides. “Which is funny, cause I could
have sworn you said you stayed with Laureen.”
Claire bit her lip, shifting her weight against the doorframe. “Not the night it happened,” she said
quietly. “I couldn’t get a hold of
Laureen or Dianna or anyone, so I called Jamie, and he let me stay with him.”
Nick inhaled and exhaled slowly, trying to keep his composure. “In his hotel room?” he asked, his voice
starting to rise.
“Yes,” she replied evenly. “In
his hotel room… with separate beds. I
got there at three in the morning, and I left before seven for work, and the
time in between, I was sleeping in my bed, and he was sleeping in his. Nothing happened.”
“Then why did you lie to me?” Nick fired back instantaneously.
She pressed her lips together, and he could tell she was starting to
lose her composure as well. “Because I
knew you would get suspicious and make something out of nothing… like you are
now.”
“Like I am now?” Nick repeated doubtfully. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? All I’m trying to find out is the truth.”
“‘In his hotel room?’ ” Claire mimicked his earlier words. “I know what you think, Nick, and it’s not
true. Not a damn thing happened, but I
knew you wouldn’t trust me if you knew, so I just didn’t tell you.”
“Well, here’s the thing, Claire,” Nick shot back. “You might as well have just kept right on
lying to me because if you had stood there and told me that Jamie was the one
lying to cause problems between us, I would have given you the benefit of the
doubt. I would have trusted you because
I thought that we could be honest with each other. God damn, maybe I should have lied to you
about that girl in the bar – then you wouldn’t have that to throw back into my
face every time we argue. But I
didn’t. I fucked up, but at least I was
honest about it. I don’t see why you’d
feel the need to lie to me if you weren’t trying to cover something up.”
Claire sighed. “You’re right; I
shouldn’t have lied about it. But I
swear to you, there was nothing to cover up because nothing happened. I knew that wouldn’t be enough for you though
– you would have freaked out at the mere mention of the words ‘Jamie’ and
‘hotel room’ in a sentence together.”
“Well, gee, maybe that’s because I don’t expect my fiancée to go
around sleeping in other guys’ hotel rooms!
And if you knew I’d feel that way, why did you do it??”
“Nick, I had nowhere else to go!” she insisted. “I tried my girl friends first, but it was
the middle of the night, and everyone was asleep. Jamie was my last resort.”
Nick rolled his eyes. “Well, how
convenient that your ex-boyfriend, who just happened to be in town that night,
was the only one to answer his phone.”
“Oh, right, this is all just part of a huge conspiracy against you,
Nick. Jamie flies down every weekend so
he and I can fuck each other behind your back,” Claire hissed, her voice packed
with biting sarcasm. “Do you see why I
didn’t tell you in the first place? Do
you hear yourself? You turn into
a jealous, suspicious asshole every time his name comes up, so I’d rather just
not mention him!”
“Maybe that’s because he used to be the goddamn love of your life! You told me so! And he basically told me that he still has
feelings for you. So what am I supposed
to think??”
“Does this ring you put on my finger mean anything to you??”
Claire asked, thrusting her left ring finger towards him. “Because to me, it means that we’re committed
to each other, and each other only. So I
would expect you to think – no, to know – that you’re the love of
my life and I would never be unfaithful to you, no matter how anyone else feels
about me. This isn’t about Jamie and his
feelings; it’s about you and me and our love for each other.
“You know, I see pictures of you with other women all the time,”
she continued. “Fans of yours who post
their photos online. I know that they
want in your pants, but you don’t see me getting all upset about it because I
trust in your love for me. Maybe I
shouldn’t because you cheated on me once, but I do.”
“Oh there you go, bringing up that night again,” Nick groaned, rolling
his eyes and cursing himself yet again for that kiss in the bar. “You can keep up the innocent act, but I know
you don’t fully trust me, not anymore.
If you did, you wouldn’t keep rubbing that in my face. And how am I supposed to trust you now that
you’ve lied to me?”
“I don’t
know, Nick; you’re gonna have to figure that one out on your own. I’m sorry for lying to you, I shouldn’t have
done it, and I don’t blame you for not trusting me, but it’s out of my hands
now. I can’t take it back, so you’re
just going to have to decide whether or not to forgive me for it and trust me
when I say that there’s nothing going on between me and Jamie or any other
guy. As far as I’m concerned, we’re even
now, and we can either forgive each other and move on or be constantly paranoid
that the other is off cheating on us while we’re stuck on opposite sides of the
country. And personally, I don’t think
the latter’s going to work. It’s hard
enough to keep a long distance relationship going as it is.”
“Don’t I
know it,” Nick sighed, raking a hand through his hair. “God, Claire, what are we doing? I’m leaving again in the morning; I don’t
wanna fight with you.” All he’d wanted
was another nice night with her, their last night together before they had to
be apart for a few more weeks. And now
it was ruined.
“Me
neither,” she said quietly, taking a step towards him. He scooted to the edge of the bed and patted
a spot next to him. Reluctantly, she
came over and perched beside him. He
cautiously put his arm around her and felt her body stiffen, then slowly relax
against him.
He released
a sigh. “I miss you,” he murmured,
rubbing her upper arm as he held her.
“It’s just so hard being that far away from you… It’s not that I don’t trust you, but it’s
easy to get jealous when I think of you alone here with other guys who might be
interested in you.”
“One could
say the same about you – you’re out in California with all kinds of hot young
women who would give anything to be with a celebrity,” she replied. Her tone was not accusatory, but simply
matter-of-fact. He was not as convinced
that any of those hot young women actually wanted to be with him, but he
kept that to himself.
“Well,
maybe that’s the problem,” he said.
“I’ve tried to have long distance relationships before, Claire, and
they’re really hard to maintain. They
take work… a lot of compromises and even sacrifices.”
He heard
Claire sigh against him. “If you’re
leading back to the ‘quit your job and come to California with me’ thing again,
don’t even go there. We’ve talked about
that before; I’m not ready to quit my job,” she said flatly.
“I know, I
know,” Nick replied quickly, trying to hide his disappointment. It wasn’t like he’d really expected her to
say that she would – like she’d said, they’d been over it before, and she’d
made herself very clear. Still, he sort
of wished she would. It would be so much
easier if they could just be together, and it wasn’t like he could turn
his back on his career. He had
four other guys counting on him, and besides, music was what he loved. Claire loved her job too, or so she said, but
it just wasn’t the same. She cleaned
teeth for a living – how could she possibly be as passionate about that as he
was about singing?
“Well… what
if you just took, like, a leave of absence?” he asked before he could stop
himself, not taking the time to think about what he was saying. “You said your boss is pretty understanding;
maybe he’d-“
He was cut
off when Claire suddenly pushed away from him and jumped to her feet again, her
hands instantly going back to her hips.
“Stop!” she cried. “You just
don’t get it, do you?! You’ve never had
to work a regular job; you don’t know how it is! People can’t just do that! Not without a good reason anyway – medical
leave, maternity leave, that’s all fine, but I can’t just ditch my job for a few
months to go gallivanting across the country with my boyfriend and expect to
find it waiting for me when I come back!”
“Let’s have
a baby then, so you can call it a maternity leave,” he replied with a
smile. He was only joking, in an attempt
to calm her down, but she just got even more riled up.
“Baby?!”
she repeated, her eyebrows shooting upwards.
“What baby, Nick? We can’t have
a baby, unless it’s genetically Jamie’s, and I got the impression you wouldn’t
want that.”
“Relax, I
was just kidding,” Nick said soothingly, reaching up to touch her arm, but she
shoved his hand away.
“Don’t,”
she snapped, and he looked up to see angry tears in her eyes.
“Claire,”
he started softly, stricken, but she interrupted him.
“Maybe
we’ve got this all wrong, Nick,” she murmured, looking away as she fumbled with
her engagement ring, twisting it around and around her finger.
“What?!”
Nick cried, his heart beginning to race with panic. “What do you mean, wrong? What does that mean??”
She looked
back up at him, her eyes still shining with moisture. “We’re so different, Nick…”
“No we’re
not!” he argued. “This sounds cheesy,
but you’re like my other half, Claire!
You understand me better than anyone!
We understand each other! We’ve
been through the same goddamn shit together – how can you say we’re too
different??”
“That’s
just it… We went through hell together,
and when it was all over, we threw ourselves into this relationship and thought
we’d live happily after… But honestly,
having cancer is what brought us together - it was the basis for our
friendship, and it was something we could both relate to. But now that we’re hopefully past all of
that… what else is left? As people,
we’re just different. Our lives
are different. You’re a superstar, and I
don’t want anything to do with that kind of fame. I’m just an average person with an average
life and an average job that I happen to love, while you’re never going to be
Mr. 9 to 5. It seems like one of us is
going to have to give up everything we know to make this work… but I won’t let
you give up everything you’ve worked for just for me, and I’m not ready to give
up my life yet either. I’m only
twenty-five… I don’t know if I’m ready to settle down and make this kind of a
commitment yet.”
“What are you
saying??” he cried again, apprehension rising within him like bile in his
throat. “You mean you don’t want to get
married??”
“I don’t
know,” she confessed quietly, and a tear finally spilled from her eye. He watched its path down her cheek as she took
a shaky breath and continued, “I just feel like maybe we rushed into this and
had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.”
“I did!”
Nick insisted, jumping up from the bed so that he was standing as well. Balancing on his one leg, he took her by the
shoulders and looked down into her tearful eyes. “I love you, and I want to marry you! I’m the same goddamn age as you are, and I’m
ready to settle down and get on with the rest of my life. I don’t want to wait, Claire… you never know
what could happen, to either of us.
Life’s too short to wait.”
Unexpectedly,
she wrapped her arms around him, pulling him into a tight hug and burying her
face in his chest. “I love you too,
Nick,” she murmured, her voice muffled by his t-shirt. “I do.
I’m just not sure if I’m ready yet.
There’s so many things we haven’t thought about, so many things we need
to work out before we commit to a marriage.”
“Well, come
on, let’s talk then, let’s get this stuff worked out,” urged Nick, hugging her
close to him, almost afraid to let her go.
She was terrifying him.
“I need
some time to think,” she said, pulling away from him. She took his hand and gave it a squeeze. “I’m gonna go take a drive or something… I
just need to get away and clear my head.
I’ll be back.”
She dropped
his hand and turned to walk away.
“Wait!” he cried as she headed for their bedroom door. “Claire, don’t leave, please. Let’s talk about it together.”
“I want to
be alone,” she insisted, kindly, yet firmly.
“Don’t follow me. I promise I’ll
be back later. And Jamie’s back in Iowa,
so you don’t have to worry about me sneaking off to him.”
A flicker
of anger ignited within him, but he quickly extinguished it before he could
explode at her. “I wasn’t worried about
that,” he said, clenching his jaw. “Just
please, don’t walk away. Let’s talk.”
She glanced
over her shoulder at him. “We’ve said
enough as it is, Nick. I need to think
about all of that… and I don’t want us to fight anymore tonight.” She reached for the doorknob.
In
desperation, he started to hop after her on one leg.
“Don’t,”
she warned as she pulled the door open.
“I don’t want to have to run you to the ER when you fall down the stairs
and crack your head open.”
“Then get
back here!” he demanded.
“We’ll just
fight, Nick – look, we’re already starting again! We both need to cool down. I’ll be back later.”
She strode
quickly out the door and shut it behind her, cutting him off from her. He kept hopping to the door, breathing hard
with the exertion, but instead of trying to go after her, he slammed his hands
against the door with a loud thud and a strangled cry. Turning around, he bent his knee and slid
slowly to the floor, his back pressed against the door. Hugging his good leg to his chest, he lowered
his forehead to his knee and closed his eyes to soothe the burning of the tears
that had risen in them.
He was so
confused and, more than anything, afraid.
He feared he was losing her, and he felt so helpless. He’d been powerless to stop her from leaving
tonight… what if she decided to walk out of his life forever? He didn’t know what to do, and it was killing
him. The thought of being alone again
scared him – if Claire couldn’t handle a relationship with him, who could?
Please come back, he begged her. Please don’t leave me. I don’t think I could handle it…
And I want to see you
I want to feel you again
Hey you
Do not walk away
Let’s choose love, come on
What do you say?
Hey you
Know that I would spend
My whole life all over again
To find you…
***
Eventually,
Nick got up and put his prosthetic leg on solely for the purpose of pacing
around the house. He went downstairs and
discovered that Claire’s car was gone, so for hours, he meandered around the
front half of the house, waiting and hoping to see the headlights of her car
pulling back into the driveway. But they
never came.
It was well
past midnight when he finally crawled back upstairs to bed. His stomach was in knots from all the waiting
and worrying he had done, so he took a sleeping pill to keep him from lying
awake for another few hours and hoped that when he woke up, she would be
back. The effects of the pill took hold
of him quickly, and he let his eyes shut, giving into his emotional exhaustion
and the drug-induced sleep.
And just as
he had hoped, when he opened his eyes the next morning, she was there, sleeping
soundly on her side of the bed as if nothing had happened. He exhaled a slow sigh of relief, instantly
feeling much better than he’d felt the night before. She was back and in bed with him. Surely that was a good sign. At least it meant that their relationship
wasn’t over.
He wanted
to wake her up, but he held back, telling himself that she’d had a long night
too. It was still early, and he didn’t
have to be at the airport to catch his flight back to Los Angeles for a few
more hours. He could let her sleep for a
little longer.
Careful not
to jostle the mattress too much, he scooted closer to her and smoothed her hair
off of her face. She sighed in her
sleep, but didn’t wake up. Knowing what
a deep sleeper she was, he lowered his lips to her warm cheek and kissed her
tenderly. He’d never been so glad to see
her face.
“I love
you,” he whispered ever so softly into her ear before lowering his head back to
his pillow, content to lie there and watch her sleep for as long as he
could. Yet he was glad when she opened
her eyes not half an hour later. “Hey,”
he said cautiously as she sat up and looked around, bleary-eyed.
“Hey,” she
replied through a yawn and offered him a tiny smile. “Told you I’d be back. I’m really sorry about last night… I just
really needed to clear my head. Are you
alright?”
“Yeah. Are we alright?” That was the only thing he wanted to
know. He didn’t care where she’d been
last night, as long as she’d done her thinking and decided that she still
wanted to marry him. He didn’t think he
could take hearing anything other than that.
She nodded
and smiled again. “I love you, Nick.”
“I love you
too,” he sighed, pulling her in for a hug.
“I was so afraid I was going to lose you.”
“You’ll
never lose me, Nick,” Claire said softly, playing with the hair at the nape of
his neck. “No matter what happens, I’ll
always be there for you.”
For some
reason, her words sent chills down his spine, but he played them off,
concentrating on the warmth of her body against his as he held her. “Same here, baby. I know you have your doubts, but we’re gonna
make this work. We love each other, and
that’s the most important thing, right?”
“Mm-hm,”
she murmured in his ear, leaving a soft kiss on the side of his neck as she
slowly pulled away. He let her out of
his embrace, but kept his hands on her upper arms as he looked at her face. Something still didn’t seem quite right to
him, but it must just have been awkwardness because of their fight the night
before. Determined to wash away the
awkwardness, he pulled her back to him and kissed her soundly on the lips. Their kiss felt no different; it sent tingles
through his limbs like every kiss before it, reassuring him that nothing had
really changed between them.
“I love
you,” he whispered again as he gently released her, gazing into her large blue
eyes, the eyes that had watched him go through the worst moments of his life
and still loved him anyway.
He knew
that they would make it. They’d already
been through too much together not to.
We’ve layered on hurt on hurt
I’ve seen pain cloud your eyes
But we are bruised, not broken
Like a phoenix, love will rise
Do you see me?
Do you feel new again?
Hey you
Do not walk away
Let’s choose love, come on
What do you say?
Hey you
Know that I would spend
My whole life all over again
To find you
Look in my eyes, kiss my mouth hard
Let your conviction reassure my heart
Promise me now; I’ll promise you too
I love you
- “2 Find U” by Jewel
***