Fall From Grace

Chapter 47

By Danielle

Kevin woke up to the feeling of a tiny hand patting his cheek, "Daddy seepin?"

A smile crossed his face before he was even fully coherent, "Yeah, Jellybean," He opened his eyes to see the same green ones looking back at him, "Lazy Daddy was sleeping. What have you, Aaron and Nick been doing?"

"Moooovieeeee and corn pop!"

Kevin laid his hands out flat and braced his elbows on the bed for Dylan to steady himself as he sat on Kevin's stomach. You mean popcorn? Corn Pops are the cereal. Remember?"

Nodding, Dylan played with the ring on his Dad's finger, watching the light bounce off of it, "Popcorn. Not cereal."

Yawning, Kevin stretched out and lifted his hips off the bed and back down again quickly, sending Dylan jumping slightly before he landed back on Kevin's stomach. "POPcorn?" Nick let you have…" He did it again, sending Dylan almost toppling over in giggles, "POPcorn? Lucky boy!"

When he stopped giggling, Dylan slapped his hands on Kevin's as he evaded the fingers curling down to capture his fingers there. "Nick gone. Aaron make corn…popcorn."

Kevin raised his eyebrows. "Nick is out?"

Dylan nodded and giggled as Kevin held him in the air like superman before "landing" him on the floor and getting out of bed himself. "Well, let's go see Uncle Aaron and find out where Daddy Nick is."

Dylan reached up and grasped on to two of Kevin's fingers, leading him out of the room, chattering away about the movie they'd watched while Kevin was sleeping.

Kevin grinned as Dylan stomped around his legs, pretending to be the dinosaur in the movie he'd seen. "Get the heck outta town! A dinosaur on the subway?!" Well, Kevin thought, that explains Nick's cryptic comment earlier.

"Ya-huh! And the train man trying to make him pay!"

Nodding at Dylan, Kevin loved how his little boy got every inch of his body into telling anyone anything. "I bet he wanted to charge the dinosaur a lot to ride on his train huh? He's pretty big and he'd take up a lot of room."

Dylan shook his head, "The train man was scared! He ran away! Is good that the dinosaur not have to pay."

Ruffling Dylan's hair, Kevin looked down at him, "Why is that, Jellybean?"

Giggling, Dylan hopped over to the couch, "Because Dinosaurs don't have pockets like Kangaboos. He'd lose his money." Dylan told him like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Kevin bit his lip to keep from laughing, wanting to just bottle this moment to take with him, "Good point, Jellybean. A dinosaur would look really silly with a kangaroo pouch. Maybe they could all wear overalls like you?" He stuck his hand in the front pocket of Dylan's overalls and shook it, making Dylan wobble and screech in laughter.

"Okay, who gave Squirt the giggle juice?"

Looking over his shoulder, Kevin smiled at Aaron, "My fault. Where is my other half at?"

Aaron shrugged, "Didn't really say, he just cleaned up the balcony stuff for room service to pick up and then asked me to keep an eye on Squirt and left."

Closing his eyes, Kevin sank onto the couch, hoping Nick wasn't doing what Kevin was hoping he wasn't. Holding his hands out to steady Dylan as he climbed up on his lap, Kevin smirked at Aaron, "So, you two tell me about the zoo. I've heard about the 'kangaboos', what else did you see?"

*

Brian stared at Nick, his eyes widened in shock, as he was held against the wall by the hand gripping his neck.

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't make you feel pain right now." Nick's eyes bored down into Brian's and each word was back-beat by the sound of the back of his head hitting the wall, "One. Fucking. Reason."

Opening his mouth, Brian saw Nick's eyes narrow and the words died in his throat.

"You said you had no problem with us, Brian. Yet every time there is an opportunity to b ack up those words you become an asshole.

You need to decide if you're with us, Littrell, or against us. We're not a group anymore, so there is nothing tying you to pretending everything is fine. And there's nothing stopping me from telling you to fuck off and never having to deal with your bullshit ever again.

Kevin needs his cousin and I need my friend. So, if you could get your head out of your ass long enough to be here for both of us; it would be a nice fucking surprise.

Ball is in your court, man. You decide. Fuck the group. Now it's brother to brother. Act like a fucking human being or just stay the hell away."

Nick gave him one last shove against the wall and gave Jackie and Leigh an abrupt nod of acknowledgement before walking out of the kitchen.

Brian stood against the wall, his eyes wide and rounded in his ashen face.

Leigh took his arm, leading him to a chair and letting him fall into it. "Bri? Honey, are you okay?"

Nodding slowly, Brian raised his eyes to meet hers. "I really fucked things up. Again. I have to stop doing that."

Leigh leaned over and kissed his forehead, "Yeah, Darlin', you do."

"Nickolas"

Stopping with his hand on the doorknob, Nick slowly turned around to face Jackie Littrell.

Raising an eyebrow, Jackie cocked her head at Nick. "That's quite the potty mouth you have on you." She walked over to him and raised his head with a finger under his chin, "Be honest, it was Howie's influence, wasn't it?"

Nick cracked a small smile against his will, "Nah, Mama L. Howie usually swears at me in Spanish. I was my own bad influence."

Laughing softly, Jackie pulled Nick into her arms and hugged him. She felt Nick stiffen in her arms and then relax as he just let her hug him. "All I'm going to say about what just happened is this. I love my son. But, he had that coming." She gave him a squeeze and rubbed her hand over Nick's stubbled head. "You'll give my love to Kevin and Dylan?"

Nick nodded and closed his eyes, resting his head on Jackie's shoulder. "I will. Aaron's here too. Kevin flew him in as a surprise for me."

Feeling Nick lean into her, she gave him another squeeze. "Well give him my love too. We'll see you tomorrow. All of us."

Nick pulled away and gave Jackie a half smile, "You have a lot more faith in him than I do right now."

With that, Nick opened the door and walked out to his car.

TBC….