Chapter
139
With an impatient sigh, Nick squinted
up at the clock mounted high on the wall and frowned.
“That’s like the third time you’ve
looked at the clock in the last minute,” Howie commented, looking amused.
“Well, it’s 10:32. Where’s that flight?” Nick demanded, tapping
his foot restlessly.
“You and I both know all too well that
flights are always running late,” answered Howie, his voice calm and
patient. “Just chill out; it’ll get
here.”
Nick crossed his arms over his chest
and tried hard to keep his eyes from roaming up to clock yet again. Aaron’s flight had been due to arrive at
10:30, but he and Howie had been there for half an hour already, and he was
sick of waiting. He loathed airports,
especially lately, after spending the busy month of September flying every
which way with the guys for various appearances and interviews.
Luckily, after a few hectic weeks,
their schedules had cleared, and Nick’s life was settling back into normalcy…
or at least what had been normalcy before the VMA’s. It wasn’t quite the same though. For one thing, AJ had gone back to his Los
Angeles home. It had been six months
now, and they had all realized that Nick was fully capable of living on his own
again. Howie was going to stick around
for another few weeks, just as a precaution, but he drove back to Orlando often
to visit his family and take care of things at his own house. Nick was fine with the new arrangement, but a
part of him almost missed having Howie and AJ around all the time. He’d gotten used to the constant
companionship, and on days when Howie was home in Orlando, and he was left
alone, he found himself bored and lonely.
He and Claire hung out when she was not working or out with Tim, but he
never saw as much of her as he had over the summer, before he’d pushed her out
of his life.
This week, he would not see Claire at
all. She was in Hawaii for the week,
compliments of Tim. Nick had been too
busy seething with jealousy to get the whole story she’d told him over the
phone, but it was something about some dentist convention in Hawaii that Tim
was attending and had invited her to attend with him. And of course, she’d accepted.
“I’m so sorry I won’t get to meet your
brother,” she’d said, sounding disappointed.
“It’s okay,” Nick had muttered, “you
can meet him another time.” He was very
glad this was the week Aaron was coming; at least the kid’s presence would
hopefully keep his mind off of Claire and Tim and what they might be doing
together in the beautiful tropical paradise that was Hawaii…
“Hey, Nick-“
… Running down the beach, the waves
lapping at their ankles, sand spraying everywhere. He, tan and muscular, looking the epitome of
perfection in just his swim trunks. She,
dressed in a tiny bikini that accented all her curves, her peaches and cream
complexion tinged with raspberry pink.
They, holding hands, laughing, playing... Them… together…
“Nick, I think that’s the plane.”
… Him caressing her skin as he smoothed
sunscreen across her shoulders. Her
massaging his back with scented oils, her hands working his muscles, her
fingernails grazing lightly over his flesh.
Them, together in a darkened room, lost in each other’s embrace, as
candles flickered all around…
“Yeah, that’s it, it’s landing.”
… His fingers gently tugging on the
strings that held her bikini top up.
Hers slipping under the waistband of his shorts. Their lips brushing as they drifted closer
and closer together…
“Hey, Nicky, wake up!”
Nick jumped and found himself back in
the brightly-lit airport. His cheeks
reddened as he realized he’d been spacing out, getting carried away with
troubling ideas of what could be going on thousands of miles away in
Hawaii. He looked sheepishly over at
Howie. “Sorry, what’d you say?”
“Welcome back to the land of the
living,” Howie said with a wink.
“Aaron’s plane just landed.”
Nick’s eyes flew to the large window
overlooking part of one of the runways.
Indeed, a plane was slowly rolling up.
Relieved, he watched and waited as the plane came to a stop, and the jet
bridge extended to connect to the plane.
A few minutes later, passengers began to stream into the gate. Nick smiled when he spotted his lanky
brother’s blonde head bobbing along behind an elderly couple. Escorted by a large bodyguard, Aaron stepped
away from the herd of other disembarking passengers and looked around, craning
his neck as he turned his head every which way and that.
Nick fought the urge to shout his
brother’s name; he did not want to attract attention to them. Luckily, Bruce, Aaron’s bodyguard, whom Nick
had met on occasion, saw them. Nick
watched him nudge Aaron and then point them out; his brother’s eyes lit up as
he turned and saw Nick. He hurried over
at almost a jog, then stopped a few feet away, slowing to a snail’s pace. Nick saw the hesitation on Aaron’s face as he
gave him the once-over, his large brown eyes sweeping from head to… left
leg. Nick smiled anyway, determined to
not let it bother him. “Yo, AC, c’mere!”
he said and held his arms out just a little, offering a hug on the off chance
that Aaron would agree to one.
Aaron cracked a smile. “Hey,” he said and came forward, hugging Nick
very lightly, as if he were trying to hug a delicate flower that he did not
want to smash. Nick scoffed and pulled
his brother roughly into a bear hug.
Normally, he would have reached down to give the kid a noogie on top of
that, but he discovered that reaching down was out of the question…
reaching up was more like it.
Aaron was just as tall as he was.
“Damn, AC, when’d you get so tall?” he
asked, releasing his brother.
The teenager grinned, looking a bit
more at ease. “Why, you scared? You know I can take you now.”
“Ah, in your dreams. I can still whoop your ass any day, bro.”
Things felt like normal as they walked
through the airport, picking on each other back and forth like that. But Nick knew it wouldn’t last; sooner or
later, they would have to talk about what had happened in the seven months
since they’d last seen each other.
The topic came up when they got outside
to Nick’s car. He popped the trunk for
Aaron to put his luggage in and slid into the driver’s seat. He heard Aaron call “Shotgun!” and moments
later, the kid was scrambling into the front passenger seat, while Howie
dutifully climbed into the back.
“So you can still drive?” Aaron asked,
flipping through the radio stations as soon as Nick had started the engine.
“An automatic, I can,” replied
Nick. “Don’t need your left foot for
that, do you?”
Aaron didn’t respond, instead turning
the radio up. Nick supposed the music
made for a good diversion, a filler for those awkward silences. And there were many of them, in between
meager attempts at small talk. Nick was
glad when they were finally home.
“Take your stuff upstairs,” he told
Aaron when they got inside the house.
“You can stay in the master bedroom – D even changed the sheets for ya.”
“The master bedroom? But isn’t that-“
“Nick’s got the downstairs room now,”
Howie answered before he could even finish his question.
A sudden look of dawning came over
Aaron’s face. “Ohh… right. Okay. Uh,
I’ll be right back.” He hauled his
luggage up the staircase and disappeared, leaving Nick and Howie standing in
the foyer.
“Does he seem okay to you?” Nick asked
Howie, keeping his voice low.
“Yeah, I think so,” Howie replied
slowly. “It’s probably just going to
take some time for him to get used to… well, you know.” He paused, then added, “You should show him
your leg.”
Nick raised his eyebrows. “You think?
I don’t wanna freak him out right away…”
“You won’t freak him out. He’s probably curious; you know how kids
are. Probably best to just get things
out in the open right away, you know?”
“Yeah… yeah, I guess so,” agreed
Nick. They heard footsteps from up
above, and seconds later, Aaron appeared on the stairs. He walked down them slowly and stopped in the
middle of the foyer, looking as if he weren’t quite sure what to say or
do. Nick decided to go ahead with what
Howie had suggested. “So,” he said,
looking at Aaron, “you wanna see it?”
“It?” Aaron repeated uncertainly.
“My leg.”
“Oh. Um, sure…”
Chuckling at the look on his brother’s
face, Nick sank down into a chair. With
the air of a little kid trying to gross out his friends by showing them a
particularly nasty-looking, pus-encrusted scab, he rolled up his pant leg to
expose his prosthetic leg. He watched as
Aaron’s eyes flitted over the silver and blue metal leg.
“Is it… is it hard to walk on?” Aaron
asked.
“Not really, not anymore,” replied
Nick. “It takes a lot of work, but I’m
used to it by now. This one is better
than the old one I had.” Aaron
nodded. “Claire says I’m like a
Transformer now; whatcha think about that?”
Aaron laughed lightly, then asked,
“Who’s Claire?”
Nick had forgotten that Aaron hadn’t
met or even heard about Claire. “She’s a
friend of mine,” he answered.
“A ‘friend’?” Aaron repeated, arching
his eyebrows, a mischievous little smile crossing his face.
“Yes, a friend,” Nick repeated
firmly, winking at the same time.
“So how’d you meet her?”
Nick swallowed a laugh. Aaron probably didn’t know what he was
getting himself into with that question.
“Uh, long story,” he answered quickly.
“So, um… whatcha wanna do?”
Aaron’s only response was a limp-shouldered shrug. “You wanna… um… shoot some hoops?” Nick
offered.
Aaron looked surprised, but nodded. “Okay.”
“D?”
“You two go ahead,” Howie declined with
a wave of his hand.
Nick and Aaron went out through the
garage, grabbing a basketball on the way.
They dribbled it around the driveway, passing it back and forth and
taking shots. Nick was not quite
coordinated enough to manage a game of real basketball yet, but Aaron seemed
impressed by what he could do anyway.
“Hey, bro, think fast!”
Nick looked up just in time to see the
basketball hurtling right at him. He
managed to catch it right before it went straight into his gut, expelling a
winded “oomph,” which then led into a coughing fit.
“You okay?” Aaron asked guiltily. “Sorry for that pass, dude, it was kinda
wild…”
“I’m fine,” Nick said through a steady
stream of coughs. The ball hadn’t made
enough contact to knock the wind out of him, but he felt as if it had. He felt like sitting down to catch his
breath, but Aaron looked stricken, and he didn’t want to make the teen feel
bad. So, through a cough, he
bounce-passed the ball back and took a few deep breaths, stifling back the few
remaining coughs.
“You good to go?” Aaron asked, watching
him warily.
“’Course,” Nick grinned. “Go ahead, shoot it.”
Aaron’s shot bounced off the rim, and
Nick hurried to get the rebound. He
backed up and took a shot, which sailed smoothly toward the hoop. At first, it seemed a perfect shot, but as it
went into the hoop, it swiveled around the rim, and, at the last minute,
bounced out again. “Damn,” Nick swore,
making a face.
Aaron laughed. “You suck, dude.”
“Huh-uh,” Nick countered, as Aaron
chased after the rolling ball. “That
thing was in, dawg, and then it bounced out again. I just have bad luck.”
Sometimes, Nick thought,
watching Aaron run effortlessly down the driveway to intercept the ball, that
seems like a huge understatement.
***