Nick leaned his back against the wall on the elevator and closed his eyes. It wasn’t enough that his stomach was bothering him, now sweat was coming out of every pore in his body and he could swear he was getting warm from a fever. Although his eyes were closed, he could feel Brian’s eyes on him.
“Nick? Are you gonna be able to make it?” Brian asked, concern evident in his voice.
When Nick opened his mouth to reply, a burp escaped. “Um, yeah I guess.” He opened his eyes and saw the disgusted look on Brian’s face, eyebrow raised in question.
“Sounds like it,” he grinned, trying to lighten up the mood.
Nick shrugged his shoulders. “I guess I don’t have a choice since management is hounding me again.”
The elevator jerked to a stop on the third floor. Nick put a hand on his belly and swallowed.
“You gonna get sick again?” Brian whispered.
Nick slowly shook his head.
An elderly couple slowly got on the elevator - a little too slow for Nick’s comfort. He mentally yelled for them to hurry up.
“Ground?” Brian asked, finger poised over the close door button.
“I don’t know Luther, is the garage on the ground floor? Or are we suppose to see Estelle and Floyd in the lobby? I’m not sure,” the older woman asked her husband in a tiny, sweet voice.
Nick reached around Brian and punched the button to the lobby and then the close door button. “Figure it out after we get off,” he hissed through gritted teeth.
Brian smiled sheepishly at the couple. “I’m sorry, my friend doesn’t feel well tonight.” As Brian finished his sentence, a high pitched squeak came from Nick’s side of the elevator. Thankfully, the couple didn’t notice the noise, but red faced, Brian grinned at the couple. He silently prayed the elevator would get to the floor before the smell would annouce what Nick had just done.
The rest of the short ride was uneventful and Nick practically knocked the couple into the wall to get past them off the elevator. The walls felt like they were closing in on him and he was feeling clausterphobic - usually it was Brian that was clausterphobic, but feeling so bloated and uncomfortable, Nick was having a hard time dealing with anything at the moment.
“Okay, follow me down the hall, it’s in a conference room,” Brian motioned.
“God, wouldja slow down?” Nick whined as he tried to keep up with Brian’s fast pace. “Come on Bri! I told you I didn’t feel good.”
When Brian finally stopped outside of the room, Nick balked as he looked at the double white doors. He shook his head.
Brian tugged at Nick’s arm. “Come on, you’re gonna make us late, what’s wrong now?”
Nick narrowed his eyes as he read the gold plated sign on the doors. “White Lakes Hall. Why are we meeting in a huge banquet hall?”
“Probably because they couldn’t find a room in a short amount of time I guess,” Brian lied.
Nick burped loudly once again, rubbing his stomach.
Brian winced. “Hey, could you try and not do that during the meeting? Management is always onto you about something, don’t give them the satisfaction of giving them more to go on!”
“Sorry, I can’t help it,” he moaned in reply.
Brian sighed. “I don’t know what to tell you, you did this to yourself, maybe you learned a lesson from it.”
Upon hearing the mini lecture from Brian, Nick could only roll his eyes. Catching Brian’s glare, he pushed past his brother and opened the door to the banquet room.
”Suprise!”
Nick slammed the door shut on the roomful of people and quickly leaned his body up against it. Brian reached around and tried to get to the door knob.
“Nick! Have you gone psycho? Open that door!”
Nick shook his head. “No.”
“Yes.”
“No!”
“Yes!”
”NO!”
“Oh, for the love of God, Nick, just open the damn door now!”
Upon hearing Brian use the adjective damn to describe the door, he realized that he had blown a fuse with his older brother and reluctantly opened the door to face the crowd of well wishers.
Nick wanted to crawl under a rock and die. He didn’t feel up to seeing a bunch of people in a room. He felt sick and he didn’t want to be gawked at which was what was happening. He tugged nervously at the black tee shirt he was wearing.
“Hey Nicky, got a seat right here for you,” AJ rasped as he clamped a hand down on Nick’s shoulder.
“Uh, um okay, thanks,” Nick mumbled in reply as he followed AJ towards a round table that was situated in the front of the room. He leaned in towards AJ. “Hey, how come there’s all these people here I don’t know?”
AJ started laughing. “Because it’s a promo party too fatass, you’d think we could get all these people here just for your birthday?”
Nick stared down at the empty white plate in front of him. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Hey Nickster, happy birthday!” Howie commented as he leaned down and hugged his Backstreet brother. He pulled back and saw that Nick’s face looked anything but pleased. “What’s wrong? Aren’t you surprised? Kevin worked hard on this ya know.”
Nick shrugged his shoulders. “I’m happy.”
Howie continued studying Nick’s face. “I don’t buy that.” He sat down in the chair next to his young friend and positioned it to face him. “Tell me what’s wrong.” Nick didn’t reply, just shook his head. “Spill it little dude.”
Nick glanced around the room full of guests nervously. He shrugged his shoulders again.
“Nick, please, you gotta talk about what’s buggin you, you can’t keep it bottled up, it’s not healthy,” Howie begged.
As Nick finally opened his mouth to speak, a cluster of young female fans stood next to Howie at the table, cameras, pens and papers in hand. Feeling sick to his stomach and now feeling totally worthless, Nick knew he had a job that he had to do and pasted a phoney smile on his face and stood up.
“Ohmygosh, you’re tall,” a red haired girl gushed as she looked up into Nick’s eyes.
Another girl threw her arms around Nick, almost knocking him onto the floor. His stomach still so full and tender, he winced when her body pushed against his stomach. “Ooof.”
After roughly thirty minutes of being cordial to fans and guests, Nick sank back down in his chair. He couldn’t do it anymore, he felt drained. Thoughts of the hotel bed kept creeping into his head. Momentairly forgetting where he was, he burped loudly.
“God, check your shirt Nicky,” AJ laughed, spilling his drink on himself.
“I think it’s time for dinner to be served,” Kevin hissed as he looked at both AJ and Nick. “You two need to be separated.”
“I can handle myself fine, it’s dumbass there you’d have to worry about for the big bad PR,” AJ rasped.
Instead of feeling good about himself and the fact that he turned eighteen and was having a party thrown for him, Nick was feeling more and more worthless. He was practically beating himself up mentally and letting all of the remarks AJ normally threw at him, to heart.
“Good let’s eat, I’m starving,” Nick announced. Brian’s mouth dropped open. He didn’t say a word as Nick ate everything from the salad to the main course. Knowing how full Nick was, he couldn’t believe that the kid had any room left for a cracker let alone a three course meal.
To Nick, the eating was his way of dealing with the millions of emotions he was feeling at the moment. Feelings of lonliness, rejection, self esteem hitting rock bottom. Food had always been a source of comfort and he had decided that since he would be busy eating, no one would force him into a conversation and there was no way he would be required to say anything therefore he wouldn’t be able to make another stupid comment that would be thrown in his face for the next several months. At this very moment, he hated himself and he hated being involved in the so-called birthday party that had been thrown for him by management.
“Judas Nick, you look like you’re pregnant!” AJ joked as he rubbed Nick’s slightly swollen stomach.
Nick swatted AJ’s hand’s away and flashed an angry look. “Don’t do that!”
“God, touchy?”
“I just said don’t do that, okay?” Nick stated with a clenched jaw.
Suddenly, the crowd erupted into a chorus of “Happy Birthday” and all attention was on Nick sitting at the round table with his band brothers. Cameras were flashing and people were applauding.
Four men walked out of the kitchen area pushing a five tiered chocolate cake with eighteen candles on a stainless steel cart.
“Oh god,” Nick breathed. He had forgotten about the birthday cake. He really needed to escape this, he felt so sick to his stomach and now here was this cake that they would expect him to eat a piece of. He leaned forward as best as he could and reached underneath the table to undo the to button on his jeans. Once that task was accomplished, he felt a little better. He barely listened to Kevin’s speech, but was thoughtful to keep a stupid grin on his face the whole time that Kevin spoke.
“Nick?....yo, dude!” AJ rasped, waving his hand in front of Nick’s face. “You’re spacing out!”
Nick quickly jerked back into reality, his face immediately turned bright red. He looked at AJ. “Huh?”
“Wanna blow out the candles so you can cut this mutha?” AJ whispered.
Nick shifted nervously in his chair. Taking a deep breath, he nodded and stood up, ignoring AJ’s snickering. The crowd chanted in anticipation for Nick to blow the candles out: ”one.......two........three!”
Along with air being expelled as Nick tried to blow out the candles came a huge burp. Clamping a hand over his mouth, Nick bolted from the room, nearly knocking a surprised Johnny and Lou down in the process.
Nick ran down the hall towards the elevators, tears now streaming down his flushed cheeks. He could hear the footsteps behind him and tried his best to outrun whoever was following him.
“Nicky! Wait up!”
The only lucky thing that Nick had happen to him tonight was that an elevator car was waiting. He quickly slipped on and punched the number to the floor he needed. The doors closed as Howie stood on the opposite side.
Nick wanted to be alone. He didn’t want anyone near him.
He did nothing but fuck up for the group.
