Closing the cell phone, Kevin tossed it onto the bed in Howie’s hotel room. As he paced the floor, he shook his head in disbelief as he stood beside the large window.
“Who did you talk to?”
Kevin sighed, not turning around he answered his cousin. “Jane.”
“And?”
Drawing a deep breath in before speaking, Kevin ran his fingers through his hair. “She wants Pearlman to call her on this....it’s like she didn’t believe me or something.”
Brian’s mouth opened in disbelief. “You have got to be kidding me.”
Kevin finally turned around to find Brian’s hand poised over the abandoned cell phone. “Don’t touch it!”
“I was just gonna talk to Mrs. Carter myself.......”
“No......just leave it alone, I’ll go get Pearlman to call her.”
“One of us better be with that jerk.....I can almost bet he’s gonna play this off like it’s no big deal. He seems to think that medical problems aren’t good enough to cancel a show,” Brian snarled. “I trust him as far as I can throw him.”
Kevin shook his head. “That much, eh?”
Brian followed his cousin back to Nick’s room finding Howie and AJ standing out in the hall.
Kevin scowled at the two young men as he quickly knocked on the door. “What are you doing out here?”
“Pearlman kicked us out of the room,” AJ spat; jamming his hands into his front pockets.
“I thought we agreed not to leave Nick in there with that asshole,” Kevin growled.
“We tried......we were sorta shoved out of the room,” Howie explained.
Kevin pounded on harder on the door after a few moments had elapsed and there was no sign of the door being answered. ”Open this goddamn door! NOW!”
As the door was finally opened, Kevin pushed against it, pressing Johnny between the door and the wall. Kevin’s eyes quickly swept over the room.
“Where’s the doctor?” he demanded.
“I told him his services were no longer needed,” Pearlman replied calmly.
Kevin eyes lit from Nick’s curled up form to Johnny Wright’s face and then back to Lou. “No longer needed? He said that Nick needed to be taken to the hospital!”
“I told him we would take care of the boy and it was none of his concern anymore.”
“He needs to be taken care of Lou! We can’t take anymore chances.” Kevin looked at Johnny, hoping that he would take his side about Nick needed medical attention. Johnny could only stare back at Kevin.
“Nick can wait until we get back to the states. A foreign hospital isn’t the place for a young boy to be,” Pearlman stated with an authoritive voice.
Kevin glanced worriedly down at Nick as he slept. “You need to call Mrs. Carter, she wants to talk to you about Nick.”
“I’ll do that when I get back to my room......”
Kevin held out his cell phone. “You can call her now!”
“Yeah...with all of us here,” Brian added.
Pearlman looked at the four bandmembers. “Oh, you think I’m not going to call her?”
“No it’s more like we know you’ll call her but what will you be telling her is what I’m thinking,” AJ stated in a raspy voice.
Pearlman started walking toward the door.
Kevin stood between the manager and the door. “Where do you think you’re going? I told you to call Mrs. Carter in here with all of us present.”
Lou narrowed his eyes as he looked at the dark haired man. “Step aside Richardson.”
Kevin folded his arms across his chest, keeping his feet firmly planted. “I’m not budging.”
“I said step aside!”
“And I won’t until you call her.”
Pearlman’s shoulders sagged when he realized that Kevin Richardson wasn’t going to move for him. “Give me the damned phone then,” he growled.
As Lou stared Kevin’s face, thoughts were racing through his mind.....could their be someway to *fake* the phone call to Jane Carter? His hopes were dashed when Kevin took the phone out of his hand.
“Here.....let me dial the number for you,” Kevin offered firmly.
When Kevin didn’t hand the phone back after he dialed, Pearlman tried to snatch the device away from the tall man’s ear.
“Richardson......give it to me,” he growled.
Kevin’s face wrinkled into a scowl at the manager as he took a step backwards. Just as Pearlman attempted to grab the phone away again, a young woman’s voice answered at the Carter home.
“Sweetheart, this is Kevin, can I talk to your mother please?”
“Richardson, give me the goddamned phone NOW!”
“Jane, this is Kevin, sorry to bother you again...I thought you’d like to hear about Nick from Lou Pearlman; hold on a minute.” Without saying anything further, Kevin held out the phone to the manager. Lou snatched it from his hands with a dirty look etched on his face.
Pearlman noisily cleared his throat as he placed the phone to his mouth. “Hello, Mrs. Carter?”
AJ and Howie rolled their eyes when Pearlman’s syrup-sweet voice wafted through the room. Sitting on the edge of Nick’s bed, Brian stuck his fingers down his throat and pretended to gag. Kevin’s stern look caused the men to stop their actions.
“Yes ma’am........Kevin said he had spoken with you earlier.......yes, well I was told that you wanted to talk to me about your son.......well, the doctor that visited him this evening said that Nick needed to be admitted to a hospital......do I? Well, ma’am.....I’m not a physician......yes....yes ma’am.....I agree......well you know foreign doctors......yes ma’am....sure.....I’ll be sure he does that........I’m sorry to bother you.......thank you very much Mrs. Carter.”
The silence in the air was so heavy that you could cut it with a knife. Pearlman smiled a smug grin as he tossed the phone back to Kevin.
Scrambling to catch the phone before it fell to the ground, Kevin grunted. “Should I be calling the hospital now?”
“Absolutely not. Mrs. Carter said that Nick can wait until he gets to Tampa. She doesn’t feel comfortable with her son in a foreign hospital. She was busy hurrying off to the airport to take young Aaron for a show.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” AJ rasped. “Is that all that fuckin’ woman cares about is Aaron?”
“Well that poor woman was rushed, she had to leave the rest of the family for a week she was telling me. I guess Aaron is going to be out in LA for at least a week,” Lou defended.
“Are you fuckin’ psycho? That kid needs to go to the hospital and I’m not gonna sit by here and watch this...” AJ grumbled as he made his way over to Nick. He stopped for a moment as he stared down at his sleeping brother.
“J...what are you doing?” Brian questioned.
“Well.... I was thinking about picking up Nick myself and carrying his butt out to a cab, but I just realized he’s too heavy for me to carry him.”
“I can’t believe you’d say something that mean,” Howie admonished.
“It’s true,” AJ defended.
”But still....”
“Why don’t you just let the young boy sleep....I’m sure this doctor was jumping the gun and I bet tomorrow morning will look entirely different. Besides, Mrs. Carter thinks it’s best to take Nick to a doctor in the states.....”
“That woman would wait and take a dog with a severed limb to a vet...” AJ hissed.
“Lou, he’s got a fever.....it has to be something serious,” Brian pleaded.
“You should know by now that Nick is prone to getting high fevers.”
“We’re not only talking about the fever, look at how dehydrated he’s been lately,” Kevin added.
“The kid likes to drink water.... in fact I bet if I went out to a newstand I could find tons of pictures with Nick and a bottle of water in his hands,” Lou argued.
Kevin balled his fists as he glared at the older man; the others in the rooming seeing the mannerisms on their brother had the rest of the men holding their breaths, waiting for something to happen. A small whimper from Nick interrupted the stare-down.
Brian was quick to be by the young man’s bedside as Nick attempted to sit up in bed. “Nick.....you need to rest.”
Nick looked around the room with glassy eyes. “W-why is everyone in here?”
“Do you need something Kaos?” AJ questioned quietly.
“Thirsty,” Nick mumbled.
Kevin shot a look back at Pearlman. “See......this isn’t normal!”
“The kid is running a fever, most people get thristy when they have a fever,” Pearlman growled.
“Can we give him water?” Howie wondered.
Making his way to the mini fridge, Brian retrieved a small bottle of cold mineral water. “Sure we can.......we can’t let him get dehydrated from the fever.”
With shaking hands, Nick took the water that was offered. Drinking the water in large gulps sent some of it spilling down his chin and onto the gray t-shirt.
“Whoa....slow down Nick,” AJ advised.
“Carter will be fine in the morning, you worry too much,” Pearlman advised. “Now, if you don’t mind....I have a business to run. Only one can spend the night with the boy, the rest of you go back to your rooms.” Pearlman looked at the bandmembers before pointing toward Howie. “You can stay with Carter, the rest of you OUT.”
“I’ll stay with Nick,” Kevin replied firmly.
“I don’t trust you Richardson.”
“I don’t need a babysitter, I’m fine,” Nick squeaked in protest.
Brian placed a hand on Nick’s shoulder. “Lay back down and go to sleep.”
After a few minutes of arguing, Lou reluctantly agreed to let Kevin stay with Nick contingent on the rest of the group went back to their rooms. As soon as his younger brother was sound asleep, Kevin dialed the number to Johnny Wright’s hotel room, requesting that he come down to talk to him.
When the manager finally arrived, Kevin quickly pulled him into the room, softly closing the door behind him.
“We need to talk.......does Pearlman know you’re here?”
Johnny looked past Kevin; Kevin followed the older man’s gaze.
“How’s Nick doing?”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about......he needs to go to the hospital a doctor told us that he needs to be taken to a hospital immediately.”
“What did Lou say about this?”
“He said that Nick can wait, but can’t you see how sick he is? The doctor was suspecting something was wrong with his kidneys because of the symptoms and he threw Pearlman’s bribe money back at him.”
“I’m sorry Kevin but I can’t do anything, my hands are tied on this. We’ll just have to wait until Nick gets home.”
“Didn’t you hear what I just said?” Kevin asked incredilously. “I said that Lou bribed the doctor to say anything but Nick being seriously sick!”
“I heard and I’m sorry I can’t help you,” Johnny apologized sadly. “I need the money and I can’t afford to lose my job. I’m sure Nick will be fine.”
With a tired gesture, Kevin ran a hand through his hair as he slumped onto the bed opposite of Nick's. He prayed that the morning would find his brother okay, but somehow he couldn't convince himself that this really could happen.
Looking over at Nick, Kevin took in his features as he slept. His complexion seemed pale; his face puffy, especially around his eyes.
As he looked at the young man, Kevin no longer felt like a brother to Nick - he felt more like a father with all the "fatherly" feelings attached:
Worry.
Concern.
Dispair.
Most of all fear......that something was horribly wrong and he needed to act.
Soon.
