I'll Think of a Reason Later:

The Story

Casey looked at her sister, Cate, from across her kitchen table. It had been a long week and she'd been hoping to have a good time while her sister was over that day, but it didn't look like that was going to be happening any time soon. Cate had just showed her a magazine article that had tossed Casey's stomach from Tampa to Seattle. On the cover was a huge colored photo of Casey's ex-boyfriend and a young woman, both smiling broadly. Above their heads in large print the headline read: BACKSTREET BOY PROPOSES

Casey gasped and dropped the magazine onto the table. "He can't get married!"

"Why not? You guys broke up two years ago. Seems to me, you don't have much of a say in the matter."

"I don't care, Cate!" Casey stood up and slammed her hand down on the dining room table, tears forming in her eyes. "He can't marry her! I'll make sure of that!"

Cate watched as her younger sister stormed out of the room and a moment later the front door slammed. She sighed and slumped down in her chair, looking back over to the picture that had upset Casey so much. "Oh boy ..."

"Momma, why aren't you on my side??" Casey whined to her mother as she buried her fingers deep inside her blonde hair.

"Casey ... you and Nick had a terrible break up, you swore you hated his guts, he called you for a year to try and apologize to you and get you back, and you blew him off! Is this all just about winning? Because now Nick's moved on and he won't be at your beck and call?"

Casey jumped up from the recliner in her parents home, fury in her eyes. "How can you say that, Momma?! I... I love Nick," she stumbled over the words and quickly grabbed her jacket. "Forget I even mentioned it. Bye, Mom." She leaned down and kissed her mother's cheek before heading for the front door.

"Well, what are you gonna do?? Kill the girl??" her mother called after her, annoyed with her daughter's behavior. Nick had every right to be happy and get married, if that's what he wanted to do.

"Good idea."

"Casey!"

Casey closed the door behind her and took a deep breath. She couldn't let Nick get married. Especially to somebody as perfect looking as the girl that he'd proposed to. It just wasn't fair ... Nick had always been in love with HER and nobody else. Why this all of a sudden?

Casey grinned as she walked through her front door and tossed her shopping bags on the floor, except for one that held the outfit she was wearing that night. She'd run into Nick's friend, AJ, at the mall and he'd invited her to a party he was having that night. She'd, of course, agreed, especially once he'd told her that Nick would be there. If Nick was there, then his fiancee most likely would be too. She smiled again and ran up the stairs to get ready for a night she knew would be big.

Hours later, Casey pulled her red Acura RSX into AJ's huge driveway. His house looked like a beautiful castle and it was all lit up with little white lights. She got out of her car and straightened her dress before heading up the walkway and to the front door. AJ opened the door and smiled down at her.

"Hey, little lady. I was wondering when you were gonna get here."

Casey ended up dancing with AJ and then a few other guys for a couple of hours before she finally spotted Nick and his fiancee across the room. She broke away from the guy she was dancing with and leaned against a wall in the shadows, waiting until Nick left the girl's side. Finally he left her side, excusing himself to the bathroom, and Casey seized the moment and walked quickly over to the woman.

"Hi, would you like a drink?" Casey offered her a glass and the woman gladly accepted. She appeared to already be slightly intoxicated and Casey realized that this would be easier than she thought. Fifteen minutes later, Nick still hadn't returned and his fiancee, who'd introduced herself as Annabelle, was now completely drunk. Obviously she didn't have a very high alcohol tolerance. "So ... you're engaged to Nick, right?"

"Yeah ... You know him?" Annabelle's words slurred and she suddenly felt very light headed. A moment later there was a chair pushed up against her knees and she realized that this Casey girl had grabbed it for her. She flopped down on the chair gratefully and looked back to Casey for an answer.

"Yeah, you could say that. So how did you two meet?"

"Oh, um ... it was funny, I think." Annabelle looked down at her skirt and giggled at the swirling flowers. They were dancing together and had little faces on them. At least, they did in her drunken stupor. "Uhhh ... gosh, how did we meet?"

Casey was sitting across from Annabelle by now and had reached into her purse and clicked her handheld tape recorder on. This would be great. Maybe she could catch Annabelle saying something that would make Nick break the engagement off. Casey smiled at Annabelle expectantly and finally Annabelle began to bear all.

"We met through our parents. Mine really wanted me to date him, and I think his wanted us to get together too, so we did. See, my parents really love money, and Nick's rich..."

Casey's eyebrows rose. This could get interesting.

"...it's not like my family doesn't have enough money anyway," Annabelle was saying. "And I told my parents that. I told them that Nick and I had so much more than just his status ... and we did," her words were still slurring and she was completely rambling as she looked off into space. She looked like she was talking to no one, and people would have thought so if it weren't for Casey sitting there listening intently and every now and then looking around to make sure Nick wasn't coming back. "... but then I realized that all there really was was his status. I think I'm just marrying Nick for his money. He's an idiot."

Casey's eyes were now completely widened, practically bulging from their sockets. She had to admit that her first intent had just been to break Nick and Annabelle up due to the fact that she had to win and that Nick couldn't love anybody else but her, but now she just wanted to get Nick away from this bitch. How could somebody be so cruel? And then she realized that in her own way she was pretty cruel too for having wanted to take away Nick's happiness without even meeting the girl before. But Casey now had a reason to hate Annabelle, and she did.

"Excuse me, Annabelle, but I have to go," Casey apologized as she saw Nick pushing his way through the thick crowd. She stood up quickly and dashed off, the tape recorder stored deep in her purse.

Casey sighed and sat down at her desk in the corner of her bedroom. She was debating whether or not to stick the tape of Annabelle's confession into an envelope and mailing it off to Nick. She'd already edited all of the talking that she'd done in it, so Nick wouldn't know who had gotten Annabelle to confess. All Casey had to do was type Nick's address onto an envelope and he'd never know who had sent it to him. He would just know what Annabelle was really like, and the rest would be for him to decide.

But as soon as Casey was done slipping the tape into the envelope with Nick's address typed up on the front, she suddenly had second thoughts about going through with it. She remembered what had happened the night before when Nick had come back to Annabelle. He'd noticed how drunk she'd gotten and he'd gingerly helped her out of her chair and led her outside to take her home, his face showing nothing but complete concern and love. Casey had realized right then that Nick really was in love with this girl ... how could she be the one to break his heart?

Suddenly Casey's doorbell rang. She grabbed the package, along with some bills she had to send out, and ran down the stairs to answer the door. Her friend, Suzi, was at the door and Casey quickly let her in, setting the mail on the entryway table.

"Here, I got your mail for you," Suzi handed Casey some envelopes after they'd been talking for a few minutes, and Casey began to read one of the bills.

"What?? How can there be so many extra fees?! I think I'm gonna cancel my long distance and just use phone cards-"

Suzi was suddenly paged with a 911. She worked as a nurse in the emergency room and was constantly on call, "Case, I'm sorry, but I gotta go. Want me to take your mail to your mailbox while I'm leaving?"

"Yeah, okay," Casey nodded, distracted, as she continued to look at the long distance bill. "It's over there," she waved her hand in the general direction of the envelopes.

Suzi grabbed the mail, said good-bye, and left.

It was half of an hour later when Casey began to look for the envelope that held the tape of Annabelle's confession. "Where did I put that d*mn thing?" Suddenly she remembered.

Casey ran to the entryway and searched all over the small table, but there was nothing there besides the usual. "Oh no," she whispered, remembering that Suzi had taken her mail out for her. In a panic, she hurriedly ran out her front door and down her driveway to her mailbox. Immediate dread settled itself deep in her stomach as she realized the little red flag wasn't up. She opened the mailbox just to check nonetheless. It was empty. The tape had gone out with the rest of her mail.

Nick walked down his driveway slowly. The heat was making him tired and he hadn't gotten much sleep the previous night anyway. He'd taken Annabelle back to her house because she'd gotten so incredibly drunk at AJ's party, and had to stay with her until she was a little more sobered up. He wondered why she'd drank so much when he'd left for a little bit. He'd mingled for half of an hour, but normally when he did that she was only bored when he returned, not drunk off her ass. He'd shrugged it off earlier but now it was bothering him a little more than it had before.

"It's nothing, Nick," he muttered to himself. "What's the big deal?"

With a sigh he reached the bottom of his driveway and opened his mailbox. The mailman had come a while before, but he'd been too lazy to go out and get the mail. It was completely full, as it always was, and it took Nick a little while to get all of it out and into his arms. He didn't look at any of it until he'd thrown it all onto the coffee table and perched himself on the couch, ready to read the pounds of fan mail that he received every day.

"Fan ... fan ... bill ... fan ..." Nick began to sort through it all, making individual piles on the coffee table and the couch. "... management ... fan ... bill ... bill ... bill ... management ..." Suddenly a large manilla envelope caught Nick's attention. He left the rest of the unsorted mail on the coffee table and immediately ripped into the large envelope. It was a tape. Sometimes Nick would receive tapes and CDs of fans either talking to him or singing to him, so Nick didn't really think anything of it. He'd listen to it later.

Hours had passed before Nick finished all the mail and finally he grabbed the tape and slipped it into his stereo. He listened to the muffled sounds of an apparently drunk woman talking. It was hard for him to hear everything she was saying, but he got the gist and suddenly he realized who it was and who she was talking about. Nick gasped and ran back to the envelope to see who had sent it, but there was no return address and his own had been typed, so handwriting wouldn't be of any help. He sighed and flopped down the couch, listening as the tape went blank, its eerie silence hissing quietly through his speakers.

"Momma, I did a terrible, terrible thing," Casey spoke into her phone, her eyes filling with tears. She couldn't believe she'd made such a huge mistake. She shouldn't have bothered Annabelle the night before in the first place and she definitely shouldn't have recorded her. How much more terrible could she get? "I need to talk to you. Can you call Cate and have her come over too?"

Annabelle hummed quietly to herself as she walked up Nick's front walkway. She didn't remember seeing him since the night before when he left her to go say "hi" to some people at AJ's party ... but she was sure that he must have taken her home and she was very confused as to why she couldn't remember anything after he'd left her for a bit at the party. She rang the doorbell and stood patiently waiting for the door to open. But no such thing happened. With a sigh, Annabelle reached into her purse and began to dig around for her key. Sliding it into the lock, she popped the door open and stepped in cautiously.

"Nick??" she called out as she made her way through his house. She found him down in his den staring off into space, the room completely dark and not even the TV on. "Nick, what are you doing?" Annabelle stood in front of his legs, looking down at him.

Nick didn't bother moving his head; he just raised his sullen eyes up to her and finally tossed the tape at her. "Why don't you have a listen? Sound familiar, Annabelle?"

Annabelle sighed in confusion and took the tape. She walked over to the stereo system and turned the tape on. Her confusion grew as she heard what appeared to be herself rambling on and on. "Nick, what is this?"

"That's you ... telling somebody, Lord only knows who, how you're just marrying me for my money, because we have NOTHING else between us! Is that true, Annabelle?! You just want my money?!"

Annabelle gasped. Sure, it was true. But when had she told anybody that except for her mother and father? "Nick, I don't know what you're talking about! I never said such a thing!"

"But is it true?!" By now Nick was standing in front of her, his eyes piercing hers deeply.

"No," Annabelle whispered, her voice catching in her throat. "But if that's what you think of me, then we're over, Nick Carter!"

Nick watched her storm out of the room. He sighed, falling back onto the couch.

Then I guess we are, he thought to himself as he dug his fingers into his hair. I guess we are.

But the problem was Annabelle had never admitted to saying such a thing, and Nick was still in love with her nonetheless.

Casey let a few weeks go by, at the advising of her mother and sister, from the time that she read in the newspaper that Nick and Annabelle had ended their relationship to the time she decided to go and see him at his house. She stood at his front door on shaking legs and her trembling hand reached out to ring the doorbell.

It took Nick a few minutes to get to the door from the other side of the house and when he opened it his eyes widened, "Casey?"

Casey smiled hesitantly and began to scuff her feet against the ground beneath her, "Hi, Nick. I needed to talk to you ... do you mind?"

"No, not at all. Come in."

Nick had always treated her like a princess and Casey felt her eyes water as she realized how terrible she'd always been to him. "Thanks," she replied as she stepped inside his house, which had been her second home while they'd been together. Now she felt like a stranger. Once they were seated on his couch, Casey took a deep breath and began, "Nick, I need to tell you something--"

"I need to talk to someone, too." Suddenly Nick was crying and leaning against her and all Casey could do was wrap her arms around him, her eyes wide. In an instant he began to unload everything that had happened with Annabelle, and Casey found herself feeling so completely guilty--sure, Annabelle ended up being a complete money grubber--but Nick was in love with her, and unintentionally Casey had been the one to break his heart. She was once again the bad-guy. She'd come there to confess what she had done ... and there she was, listening as he told her about the anonymous tape and how terrible Annabelle had ended up being for living a lie. Casey sighed. A lie. She was living one too.

A year later found Nick and Casey back together. They spent every waking moment with each other--and every sleeping moment--and were practically inseparable. But Casey had begun to doubt Nick's feelings for her a few months into their relationship. She was beginning to feel as though they were more like best friends with benefits than anything else. Nick appeared to still be in love with Annabelle, which was a strange thought for Casey. Annabelle had screwed him over so incredibly badly, and Nick still loved her? It didn't occur to her that Nick always wondered if the tape had been fake, since Annabelle had never owned up to her mistake. Maybe that mistake had never happened. Maybe Annabelle had been innocent all along and had been set up. The thought was always in the back of his mind and it was making it hard for him to move on with Casey. He loved her, but he was in love with Annabelle. And he hated himself for that, but he didn't know what to do about it.

Casey did. It was a year and half since the breakup of Nick and Annabelle when Casey spotted the perfect blonde herself in a restaurant in the local mall. With a deep breath Casey made a decision that she knew was big and headed in Annabelle's direction.

"Annabelle? My name's Casey." Casey held out her hand to the woman and Annabelle shook it lightly, her eyes showing confusion. "Don't worry, you don't know me. It's just ... well, I need to talk to you about something. Do you mind if I sit down?"

Annabelle said it was fine and Casey took the seat across from her. She sat in silence for a few moments, trying to think of what she was going to say. Finally she knew what had to be done. "Annabelle ... I'm dating Nick. Nick Carter, your ex-fiancee."

Annabelle's eyebrows rose. What did Nick have to do with her anymore?

"I know what happened between the two of you. And I have a confession to make. I was the one that you confessed everything to at AJ's party that night. I waited until I saw Nick walk away from you and then I went up to you and I offered you drinks and you got drunk. I then asked about your relationship with Nick and you confessed it all, and I was recording it. My intention was to break you and Nick up, I admit that," Casey gulped as tears grew in her eyes, "but then I realized how much Nick loved you, and I didn't want to be the one to break his heart. It was by a complete accident that the tape even got mailed to Nick in the first place. When I found out that you two were engaged, I decided to split you up, because I couldn't stand the thought of not being the one to win. Nick had loved ME for years, Nick had pursued ME for years, and suddenly I wasn't the one he wanted. I couldn't stand the thought, so I did the one thing that I thought I could do, get the two of you to break up. Annabelle, the reason that I'm coming to you now to talk to you about this is that once I realized how much Nick really loved you and I decided not to send the tape, I realized how much I really do love him. And then the tape got sent on accident and I freaked out. I ended up going to Nick's house a few weeks later to confess everything but he started crying and telling me all about what had happened between you two, and I just couldn't do it. We ended up becoming good friends again and then we got together, but I have a dilemma ... two, actually. One is that I still haven't told Nick that I was the one that broke you guys up."

Annabelle finally cut in, "Why would Nick care anymore? I would think that he'd be happy that you got him out of marrying me, when I didn't really love him."

"Well, that brings me to my second dilemma ... I think Nick's still in love with you."

Annabelle took a deep breath as she stood at Nick's front door. She and Casey had made a plan that Casey would go somewhere else for a while and Annabelle would go to Nick and Casey's house to talk to Nick. Casey wasn't worried in the slightest of Annabelle trying to get Nick back--it was completely obvious that Annabelle had no romantic feelings for him. A few minutes past and finally Nick opened the door, his face falling when he saw who was standing there.

"Annabelle?" Nick managed to choke out and then suddenly he opened the door wider, letting her in. "What are you doing here?"

"Nick, we need to talk."

"So you're saying that you really were the one on that tape?" Nick clarified as he looked straight ahead. He knew the truth now ... it had been her. "And you're saying that Casey was the one that recorded it all? She was trying to break us up and she never told me any of this? She just sent you to do it for her?"

Annabelle sighed, "Yes, Nick ... but let me explain a bit more than I did before. Casey admits that at first she was only fighting for you just to win ... but when the tape was sent and everything went down she realized how much she really loves you. She was too petrified to tell you all of this for fear that you'd leave her. Nick, I know where she's coming from--I've been there before--and I really don't think that you should break things off with her. You two seem perfect for each other from what I've seen."

Nick sighed, "Well, at least one good thing came from all of this: I don't love you anymore." He looked up at her and couldn't help but smile at her. "Do you mind leaving? I kinda' just wanna be alone right now."

"Sure. I'll see you later, Nick."

Casey closed the door quietly behind her as she stepped inside the house. She could hear the TV on upstairs in the bedroom. She slowly made her way up the staircase, turning lights off as she went. Reaching the bedroom, Casey stood in the doorway looking at the bed where Nick lay fast asleep, the TV remote nestled safely in his hand.

She sighed and changed quickly into one of Nick's T-shirts, before crawling into her side of the bed and snuggling deep in the comforter, turning the bedside light off and sneaking the remote out of Nick's grasp carefully. Casey turned the TV off and moved to face him, watching him sleep. If Annabelle stuck to their plan, he knew everything now--what was he going to do when he awoke?

Casey woke up the next morning to the washer and dryer running downstairs. She groaned and sat up slowly, noticing instantly that the bed beside her was empty. She hauled herself from the comforters and slipped a sweatshirt over her head to block the early morning chill. Her feet padded gently down the staircase and when she reached the utility room she realized that Nick was actually doing laundry for a change.

"Nick?" Casey asked tentatively from the doorway. She watched him turn slowly to look at her and in an instant she was wrapped in his arms. "I love you so much," she whispered. "Please, don't ever think that I didn't. Because I do and I always have. I know that I made a lot of huge mistakes but--"

"No ... No, I was mad at first, but now I'm kind of glad that you did it. I guess I'd just hoped that the tape had been fake ... but it wasn't. Annabelle really meant everything that she said on there--she told me so yesterday."

"Please, just don't ever doubt my love because of this. I know that this must make you so completely wary of women ... but Nick, I love you ... so much." Casey laid her head on his shoulder and smiled contentedly when he surrendered himself and placed his own head on top of hers.

"I love you too, Case. I'll never doubt your feelings again."

Casey sighed against him and merely tightened her hold.