Chapter
6
“What the hell….” Nick Carter opened the door
to see his four Backstreet brothers standing on his front porch. “What
happened?” He scratched his blond head sleepily and looked from member to
member. All at once they charged forward enveloping Nick in the tightest
hug he had ever experienced. One by one they let go, Brian lingering the
longest. They stepped back all looking rather nervous to see how he would
take the new attitude of the group. He stared at them stiffly, “What’s
this?” He gestured to them.
“This is us coming back together Nick.
We have finally come to grip with just what we were doing to ourselves,
and the group. We’ve come as a whole, to apologize, and beg for your
forgiveness, Nick,” Howie spoke for everyone, “You have been the only thing
holding this group together for a long time now. We’ve been stretching
you in everyway possible, and now we’ve come to let you know that we’ve finally
seen it. And we want to thank you.”
Nick stared at them all blankly with a
frown, then he closed his front door on them. They waited for a few
moments for him to open the door again, but then they heard the clicking of a
lock being turned. He had closed the door on them!
“Why that little…” AJ surged forward
to bang on the door, but Kevin held him back.
“Give him time Bone, he has a right to
be upset with us, but we don’t have a right to be upset with him.”
“Who says? That was bad
manners!” AJ said lamely. He took a seat on Nick’s porch, “Well, I’m not
leavin’ till he opens up and we talk to him, so I guess I better get
comfortable.” He looked to the other guys, who nodded and sat down
beside him.
They sat together and watched the sun
rise and set. “That’s it!” AJ jumped up, Kevin was ready to hold him back from
rushing at the door, but he instead pulled out a cell phone.
“What are you doing?” Brian asked him
looking incredulous, “He’s not going to answer the phone when he looks on the
caller ID and sees your number.”
“I know that,” AJ snapped putting the
phone to his ear, “That’s why I’m not calling Nick.”
“Then who are you calling?” asked
Howie.
“Hello? Pizza Hut? Yeah,
I’d like 3 large pizzas all with extra cheese and…”
“Oh my God,” Howie stared at AJ in
disbelief as Brian chuckled, “Hey, we gotta eat.”
Within 30 minutes the pizza van pulled
up in Nick’s driveway. He looked rather surprised to find four guys
sitting outside waiting on him.
“Thanks dude,” AJ kindly took the
pizzas from the pizza boy and offered him a rather generous tip.
The boy eyed what was put into his
hands with a large metal- toothed smile, “Thank you!” He jogged happily
back to the van and peeled out of the driveway. AJ stared after him, and
checked his wallet, “Aw dammit! No wonder he was so happy, I thought I
slipped him a ten, not a hundred!”
Brian, Howie, and Kevin laughed
whole-heartedly at AJ.
They sat down on the porch once again
to eat their meal, and Brian just happened to glance up to see the blinds
opening and two blue eyes peering out at them. “I think we got Nick’s
attention,” Brian said pretending that he was not looking at the window, so
Nick wouldn’t get angry again and slam it closed.
“What?” Kevin frowned, as Brian
gestured subtly to the window, where Nick was still peeking.
Kevin took a swift look, careful not
to let Nick notice. There was a clicking sound at the front door.
Slowly the door opened and Nick poked his head outside, “You’re going to
draw attention to me living here, you know?”
They all nodded, mouths stained
with tomato sauce.
Nick stared at them and shook his
head. He lowered it to his chest, then looked up again with a puzzled
frown on his face. He shut the door again.
“He is really mad at us,” Brian
observed, his face clouding over. He felt a hand on his shoulder, “Cheer
up cuz, he’ll come around, especially when he realizes that we’re not leaving.”
The door opened again, and Nick walked
out holding one of his dogs in his arms. He casually sat down on the
porch steps turned away from them, “What do I gotta do to make you guys go
away?”
AJ raised his eyebrows, finally some
progress.
“You have to accept our apology
Nicky,” Howie said trying to touch his shoulder. Nick shrunk away
from his hand. “No one calls me Nicky anymore. I’m 20 now, if you didn’t
know.”
All of them grimaced, “Yeah, we know.
Sorry for missing your birthday Nicky…er… Nick. We’re sorry for
missing your birthday too AJ,” Kevin said catching AJ’s eye. Nick’s back
was still to them. “Listen Nick, we all got together and just talked,
about each other, about the group…”
Nick was silent, he sat absently
stroking his pug and staring off into the yard, “And what conclusions did you
come to? Is the group over, or what? Did it become too hard?”
Howie blinked at the sudden burst of
words from Nick, “No. No never, Nick, never. We talked about how much we
loved and still wanted the group… We talked about all we had done to
sabotage it… And mostly, we talked about you.”
“What about me?” Nick asked, still
never turning.
“We talked about how mature you’ve
become, and how strong you are. We worried together that you would hate
us…” Howie’s voice broke off suddenly. He took a breath, “Do you hate us,
Nick?”
After Nick was quiet for what seemed
like an eternity, he turned around, to face them. A single tear had formed
itself and was sliding down his cheek, “No,” he said simply. He stood up
again, lifting his dog with him and walked to his door. The others
watched as he went inside his house and shut the door behind him again.
They heard the click of the door locking, and then silence.
They sat and stared at each other for
a while. They had not quite expected this, and didn’t know how to deal
with it.
“You guys wanna come back tomorrow?”
Brian broke the silence.
Three heads nodded in unison.
Brian smiled lightly, and took one last longing look at the door his
friend had disappeared inside, “See ya tomorrow Frack.”
The four gathered together their
garbage and headed for AJ’s car. They decided to get a hotel room.
It was too far to drive all the way back to Orlando, only to return to
Ruskin the next day.
“Think he’ll be in a better mood
tomorrow?” questioned Kevin.
His question was answered with blank
expressions and shrugs. He sighed and gazed out the window.
Maybe tomorrow…
***
