“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…