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"Thanks!" Nick called. Dave just waved back at him as he backed out of the driveway to Nick’s Tampa home. After Nick gave Steph his phone number, he had returned to Dave’s house and talked him into giving him a ride home. It took a little convincing, but finally Dave drove him home. Now he stood on the porch, his luggage in a heap around him, as he unlocked the door to the house he hadn’t lived in for almost 6 months. "Honey, I’m home!" he yelled as he walked in. He dragged his suitcases in and left them in the foyer; he would bring them inside the next morning. In fact, he had a lot of things to do in the morning – unpack, get his dogs back from his friend Steve’s house, burn every picture of Kirsten, go food shopping . . .
But right now, all he wanted to do was sleep in his own bed. He walked upstairs without bothering to turn on a light, and stumbled into the master bedroom. It was decorated in Miami Vice style; Kirsten had helped him pick it out. But now he was starting to re-think the entire design concept. "Maybe I’ll redo it later," he mumbled to himself as he pealed off his shirt and stripped down to his boxers before crawling into bed. He was just about to fall asleep when the door to his room opened suddenly and someone ran in.
"Whoever the hell you are, I’ve got a gun and I know how to use it!" he heard a girl screech.
"What the fuck?" Nick yelled in a daze, reaching over to his bedside lamp and turning it on. The scene in front of him made him burst out laughing. His 17-year-old sister BJ stood in front of the door, wearing a huge T-shirt. Her long blonde hair was in pigtails and she clutched a baseball bat as if her life depended on it. "BJ! What the hell are you doing here?" he said, laughing.
BJ scowled at him. "Jesus, Nick, don’t do that!" she said, putting down the bat and walking over to him.
"What, don’t go to sleep in my own house? What are you doing here?" he asked again.
She sighed. "I had a fight with mom and dad. They said they wanted me to put off college for a year so that I could model, and I just want to go to school. So they got pissed at me and I came out here. Please, Nick? Can I stay with you for a while?" She gave him her best puppy eyes.
"Beej, how’d you get from California to here?"
"I took a plane."
"On whose money?"
"Mine, Nicky. You don’t really think I give Mom and Dad all of my paychecks, do you? I have my own savings account and ATM card for situations just like this." She grinned at him.
"How’d you get from the airport to here?" Nick was tired and the situation wasn’t making much sense to him.
"I took a cab. Anyway, please, Nick? I just want to hang out here until they cool down and come to their senses."
"I don’t know, Bobbie . . . wait, how’d you get into the house?"
She rolled her eyes at him. "You gave me a key, remember? You gave me, Angel, Les, and Aaron all keys to the house in case something happened. You said we could come out here any time we had to."
Nick groaned, putting his hand on his head. "I know I said that, but I didn’t think you’d actually take me up on the offer!"
"Too bad. So I can stay here?" she asked hopefully.
"Yeah, yeah, go back to bed and we can talk about it in the morning. And BJ, whatever you do, do not wake me up in the morning. I’ve had a damn long few months and I think I’m going to sleep for about three days, okay?"
"Sure, Nicky!" she said happily, giving him a kiss on the cheek. "Thanks! I’ll see ya in the morning." She left the room, leaving her baseball bat behind. Nick just groaned.
"Why is my life so complicated?" He picked up the phone on his bedside table and dialed the number to his parents’ home in LA. As the phone began to ring, he glanced at the clock. It was 2:00 AM his time, so it would be around 11:00 PM their time. With BJ missing, he was pretty sure someone would still be up.
"Hello?" someone said on the other end of the line.
"Lesley? Hey, it’s Nick," he said to his 14 year old sister.
"Nicky, hey!" she said happily. "What’s up?"
"Not much, I just got home from the tour. Listen, I’d love to talk to you, but is Mom or Dad around? I need to tell the something."
"Sure, lemme go get them." She put the phone down and he could hear her screaming, "Mom! Dad! Nick’s the phone!" He chuckled slightly. "Hold on, Dad’s coming," Lesley said, slightly out of breath from yelling.
"Okay, Les, thanks." Just then, Bob Carter picked up the phone.
"Hi, Nick, how are you?"
"Great Dad, how ‘bout you?"
"Been better . . . listen, you haven’t heard from Bobbie Jean lately, have you?" Nick could hear the worry in his father’s voice.
"Actually, that’s why I’m calling. I was going to bed and she came running into my room with a baseball bat, threatening to maim me. She thought I was an intruder."
"She’s at your house?"
"Yeah, she said you guys had a fight or something and she wanted to know if she could stay here for a while."
"Thank God! Can you hold on a sec, Nick?"
"Sure."
Seconds later, Nick’s mother picked up the phone in the other room. "Nick? Your sister’s at your house?"
"Yeah, she’s going to stay here for a while, if that’s okay?"
"That’s fine . . ." Jane Carter took in a deep breath, relieved.
"What did you fight about?" Nick held in a yawn. He was basically running on adrenaline right now.
"I mentioned that she might want to put off college for a year or two so that she could pursue modeling and acting more seriously, and she got all upset."
Nick felt his rage building up. "Why would you suggest that?" he asked, trying to stay calm.
"Because I thought it would be best for her!" Jane said defensively. "She’s a beautiful girl and she could do very well for herself."
"Mom," Nick said, exasperated, as he switched the phone to his other ear. "If she doesn’t want to, you can’t make her. Maybe she should go to college. It’d be good for her."
"You didn’t go to college and you’re doing just fine!"
"Yeah well, sometimes I wish that I was in college. Look, if BJ wants to delay modeling for a little while, why shouldn’t she? She’s got a good amount of money saved up from her modeling jobs in Europe and stuff. She does well in school. And maybe if she goes to college she can become a fashion designer or something – they make a helluva lot more money than the models do," he said, lying slightly. He had no idea how much designers made, but he thought it could be a lot.
"Are you sure?" Jane asked suspiciously.
"Yes. Just let her hang out here for a while so that you can both calm down. I’ll make her call you guys tomorrow, okay? I just wanted to let you know that she’s all right."
"Okay, Nick."
"I’m gonna go to bed now; this is my first time home in forever and I’m kind of tired . . ."
"All right. Good night, Nick."
"G’night, Mom." With that, he hung up the phone. He turned off the light and slumped back into the pillow, sighing. Within seconds, he was asleep.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The next morning, BJ was making herself some breakfast in the kitchen. Nick’s pantry was horribly understocked, but when she had arrived in Florida a few days ago, she bought herself a little food to live on until he got home. Obviously, on his first day home he was in no need to go shopping, so she was using up the dregs of her supply. She made herself 2 slices of toast with some peanut butter she found on it – she didn’t even want to think about how old it might be – and sat down in front of the television to watch MTV while she read the comics in the paper. She was on her second slice of toast when the phone rang. She put the TV on mute and picked up the phone - there seemed to be one in almost every room of Nick’s house.
"Hello?" she said, wedging the phone between her shoulder and ear as she took another bite of her breakfast and watched Sugar Ray’s "Every Morning" video.
"Hi, is Nick there?" a female voice replied.
"He’s asleep right now, can I take a message?"
"Yeah, can you tell him that Steph Chalifour called?"
"Sure, does he have your number?"
"I don’t think so, can I give it to you?"
"Sure." BJ grabbed a pen and said, "Go ahead." Stephanie gave her the number, which she wrote down on the napkin that she had been setting her toast on. "Okay, I’ll tell him you called."
"Thanks a lot, bye."
"Bye." BJ shoved the napkin into her pocket and went back to watching TV.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It was almost 5 in the afternoon when Nick stumbled out of bed. He was just wearing his boxers, but since his sister was the only person home, he didn’t really care. He walked downstairs and into the kitchen and began drinking some milk straight from the carton.
"Eww, Nick, that’s my milk!" BJ said as she watched her brother. She was sitting at the table, talking on the phone to her friend. Nick just turned and gave his little sister a sleep-encrusted stare.
"Sorry," he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he put the milk back into the refrigerator.
BJ rolled her eyes. "Doesn’t matter." She turned back to her phone conversation and Nick hauled himself back upstairs to get dressed. He took a hot shower, waking himself up, and planned out exactly what he had to do in the few hours he had left in the day. First, he had to get some food. Then he had to unpack, throw out every memento of Kirsten, talk to BJ about why she was staying with him, figure out what to do about that Steph girl, get his dogs back from the neighbor . . . After he was dressed, he went back downstairs to find BJ still on the phone.
"Hey Beej, can I talk to you?" he said. BJ gave him an exasperated look, but he just narrowed at his eyes at her.
She sighed and said into the phone, "Katie, can I call ya back later? Thanks, my brother’s being a pain in the ass. See ya." Then she turned back to Nick. "So what’s up?" Nick sat down next to her at the table.
"Okay, now that I’m coherent, we have to figure this whole thing out."
"What?" she asked innocently.
"Don’t give me that. You know you can’t live here."
"Why not?"
"Because."
"Great answer."
"You just can’t! I’m never home, you’re only 17, and you have to go to school. Come to think of it, it’s kind of dumb that you’re here because you want to go to school. Aren’t you missing it by just being here?"
"I’m tutored and you know it. Mom and Dad wanted me to focus on working so they hired me a brain-dead tutor to teach me everything. But he’s a moron and we don’t get along, we what we do is this. He gives me an assignment sheet and I do everything on my own for two weeks. If I have problems, I call him. Otherwise, all he does for me is grade the stuff. I have my sheet and if I need more work I can call him. Plus, my Christmas break is coming up," she said triumphantly.
Nick sighed. "Damnit. That was my best argument. Well . . . aren’t you going to miss your friends?"
BJ rolled her eyes. "We’ve lived in LA for what, a year? Most of my friends still live here in Ruskin. And I can call everyone else. Nick, it’s not like I want to live here forever. Just ‘til Mom and Dad come to their senses."
"And what if they don’t? What if they want you to skip school altogether?"
"Then screw them, I can go in on my own. I have my applications in to UC-Berkeley, Georgetown, University of Florida, and a couple other schools. I’m bound to get in somewhere, and I can pay for most of it with the money I earned modeling and stuff."
"And if you can’t pay for it?"
"There’s student loans. And I always have my very rich 19 year old brother with too much money on his hands . . ." She looked at him hopefully, and he sighed yet again.
"Damnit, Beej, fine. You can stay here for a while. And if you really need the money, I can lend it to you or give it to you or something. But try to fix things up with Mom and Dad, okay? I talked to them last night-"
"Nick!"
"I had to! And they sounded pretty upset! So just call them, tell them you’re fine and weren’t raped or anything. And try to talk some sense into them. I know and you know that you should go to school, but they haven’t quite figured that one out yet. Just give them time."
"When did you get so smart," she grumbled.
"I’m your big brother, I’ll always be smarter than you."
"Bull shit." BJ gave him a fond smile. "Oh, before I forget, some chick named Steph called for you." She retrieved the napkin out of her pocket.
Nick took it gingerly, noting the peanut butter stains on it. "Couldn’t you just be normal and use a pad of paper like anyone else?"
"I try to be different."
"Funny." Nick shoved the napkin into his own pocket. "Okay, here’s the deal. I haven’t been here in months. It’s clean ‘cause I have a maid service come by now and then, but I do need to get things back in order. So do me a favor, okay? I’m gonna go get some food. While I’m doing that, can you go to Steve’s house and get my dogs for me?" BJ knew Steve well; he was a good friend of Nick’s. He lived about a mile away.
"Do I have to?" BJ whined. "You’ve got too many goddamn dogs. And Steve gives me the creeps."
"Give me a break. I’m letting you stay at my house. The least you can do is get my dogs for me and pay Steve." He handed her five $20 bills.
"You’re paying him a hundred bucks just to watch your dogs?"
"He watched 6 dogs for 4 months! The leashes are in the cleaning cabinet, okay? I’ll see you in about an hour." Nick stood up, picked up his car keys, and headed to his garage before BJ could protest again.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"BJ?" he called an hour later. He had two grocery bags in his arms and several more in the trunk of his car. "Can you help me?"
"Sure," BJ said, running down the stairs and taking the two bags from him. Seconds later, he heard the sound of 6 dogs running towards him.
"Guys!" Nick said happily, crouching down to play with his dogs. "Nikki! Wiley! Mikey! Rocky! Houston! Squirt!" The dogs all jumped on him, but Rocky, being the largest, had a distinct size advantage.
"Nick, you need to get more creative with your dog names," BJ said as she began to put the food away. Nick ignored her and kept playing with his dogs, scratching them behind the ears and pretending to bark at them. "Oh, and Steve said that next time you can find someone else to dog-sit – your pugs kept peeing on the rugs."
"Screw him, I’ll find someone to watch these guys," Nick said affectionately as he gave Squirt one last kiss on the nose and then stood up to help his sister. After they finished, he headed upstairs.
"Hey, where are you going?"
"I have to make a phone call," he replied.
"To Kirsten?" BJ began making kissy noises.
"No!" Nick snapped. BJ stopped and looked at him, startled by his animosity.
"Sor-ry!" she said, unsure of why he was so mad. She turned back to the kitchen, confused.
"Beej, I’m sorry, it’s just that she broke up with me a few days ago and I’m still not used to it," he said, trying to explain as he stood on the stairs. She walked back out to the hallway to talk to him.
"Kirsten broke up with you?" She tried to look concerned, but inside, she was happy. She couldn’t stand that little bitch.
"Yeah," Nick sighed, suddenly feeling depressed again. "I’m gonna go call that Steph girl and then I’m going to throw out all my pictures and shit of Kirsten, okay?"
"Okay, what do you want for dinner?"
"Why don’t’ we just have a Lord of the Flies night, okay? Just make whatever you feel like, I don’t care." With that, he headed upstairs to call Steph so that he could set everything up.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
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